»4th March 2009

T&A III: Cobbles & Gophers



Day three at the T&A. Today seemed more structured than previous days. Today I was to go out with one of the photographers to shadow them for the day. This of course didn't entirely materialise, though in a more beneficial way than I'd usually expect. Thankfully, periods of idly sitting around looking on Slashdot (it's the only website I can think of looking at that looks fairly news related without being as instantly recognisable as say the BBC or Guardian websites) were kept to a minimum and I felt like I was probably pulling more of my weight.

First off I was given a Fire Service Magazine to look through for potential stories. I wondered if this was because I had mentioned playing in the Fire Service Band in my CV though it seems unlikely. The only story vaguely related to Bradford related to West Yorkshire Fire Service having failed to meet a target for minimising accidental deaths by fire. The magazine was blaming missing the targets on a focus on cutting down spending, (the article was entitled something to the effect of 'Cutting Costs Costs Lives.') I told Martin about this story but it mustn't have been particularly suitable as I didn't hear anything more about it after that.


'Heckmondwike Hooligan Vandalises Haworth Cobbles'

Some time around half ten I was sent out with Will--one of the reporters, and apparently Employee of the Month, December 2008--to cover a hard-hitting story about how Haworth were set to receive some funding to re-surface/repair the cobbles on the main street through the town, the one lined with boutique shops aimed at tourists and thus a big draw for the town in terms of tourism. This was good as firstly I was able once more to talk to an actual journalist and pick things up and secondly because it was a fairly lightweight story in a picturesque village. Besides reporting, Will also does the videos for the T&A website, and so he had a camera with him and was recording some shots, mostly of cobble stones and cars driving over the cobble stones for use in a video for the T&A website. It sounded pretty good how he basically did all this video himself, recording, editing and dubbing sound over it. After we had plenty of shots of picturesque Haworth, worn and loose cobble stones, and after my broadcast journalism debut poking a cobble to show how wobbly it was we walked up to the Brontė Parsonage to meet up with another T&A reporter and find the guy who was going to appear in an interview on the video. The reporter we met was called Clive and he was based in Keighley and told me about how shit Keighley was and how it was basically like a combination of the Bronx and Compton in terms of crime. Once the guy we were interviewing--who had something to do with the running of the parsonage--had appeared we went back to the main street to do the interview.

The guy we were interviewing bore a striking resemblance to a thinner Rob Brydon and the interview basically had him stood a few inches away from the camera talking about, yep you guessed it, cobble stones again, all the time looking off camera as though it was a proper interview. During the interview, the photographer had appeared and without telling me why asked me to kneel down whilst he took a really low angle shot to get those all important cobbles in. I suddenly became concerned that a photo of me staring confusedly off-camera squatting over some cobbles was going make it's way onto the T&A computers however it later turned out he was just setting up a shot for Rob Brydon to assume later. So I had also inadvertently started my modeling career as well.


Perhaps the photo would make a good cover for my forthcoming Pennine-themed gangster rap album

Once the interview was done, Will was talking to Clive about a nearby shop and remarked that the owner was some sort of ex-policeman or sheriff from Chicago. This seemed to get Clive interested and they started laughing about headlines for a possible story, 'Sheriff swaps the mean streets of Chicago for Haworth'.

Once back at the office I had to re-write my awful diamond wedding piece from monday that had fortunately disappeared into oblivion on the computer system. This gave me the opportunity to overwrite my earlier mistake in stating that a couple were to celebrate their Diamond Wedding Anniversary having been married for fifty years. I had to ring up the daughter of the couple to grab a quote from her for the piece which gave me an opportunity to use the phones with the authority of being able to say 'Hi, it's Carl from the Telegraph and Argus...' Too bad she seemed to be out to lunch. With the piece only needing the quote to finish it, I set about once more eating my sandwiches very slowly and surreptitiously moping around on Slashdot pretending to be doing something pro-active. This went on until about half two when I had to go out with one of the photographers for a while.


Gordon the Gopher

This was the most hard-hitting story yet, and easily trumped yesterday's murder case which I largely slept through. Ponderosa Rare Breeds Farm has got some new animals! These animals needed photographing immediately! Martin told me to get some details on the new animals and I was sent off with the photographer, Lucy, to get my scoop. Again, I was wondering if I was deliberately been sent to the Ponderosa due to it being in Heckmondwike, giving me a certain amount of local knowledge. Again, this was probably unlikely and it's not as if I had that much local knowledge about a rare breeds farm that I had not visited prior.

Once at Ponderosa we were assaulted by the rank stench of a sewage works. I didn't know Heckmondwike had a sewage works. This tough assignment required Lucy to take photos of the Ponderosa staff holding the new animals. The girl from Ponderosa seemed pretty good humoured though Gordon the Gopher (I'm not making this up) was pretty camera shy. We went over to the pen where the white reindeer was being kept with the other reindeers. The pen was basically a steep, muddy slope. Thankfully I was able to stay at the bottom of the slope and talk to one of the guys who worked at Ponderosa--who had previously been photographed cuddling a lamb--about the new breeds whilst Lucy had to clamber up the slippery, muddy slope and hopefully get some photos of the Ponderosa girl with the White Reindeer. To get the reindeer interested, the feed was brought out, but this also got the other reindeer interested. What followed for about five minutes was the unsuccessful wrangling of five regular reindeer and one white reindeer--which were unnervingly sure-footed on the muddy slope--whilst I had a surreal conversation with the guy at the bottom of the slope about how I had seen Reindeer once on a christmas parade in Bradford when I was with the Fire Service Band and how the reindeer that time were a lot smaller than these ones.

After this muddy escapade, some more photos involving rare lizards, iguanas and the slightly disappointing ('their ears aren't that big when they're young') Dumbo Rats. Seriously, this is what the staff were calling them, I presume they hadn't simply made the names up when the animals had arrived. Additional bizarre happenings at the farm not involving photos were the huge pack of rather angry looking llamas or alpacas, the slightly perturbed looking Sika Deer, and the creepy sounds made by the Pygmie Goat.


Boobook Owl

We left Ponderosa and had to go to take some more photos, this time of the New Beehive pub in Bradford. This pub seemed fantastic, I've never seen so many good beers on tap (they even had Staropramen) and the place actually had working gas lighting, which I don't think I've ever seen outside of a museum. The landlord seemed a little uncomfortable having all the photos taken though he did seem to strike some rather good poses. There was a rather loud drunk in the main bar area with a dog, who seemed not to like journalists and young people in general and remarked that my hair was too long (this is the drunk and not the dog, of course.) Additionally, at one point there was a man hobbling around on crutches who had the most teriffied, piercing expression I've ever seen. An additional drunk who was initially stood outside the pub asked me if he could ring his parents on my phone, and then asked the bar-man the same question, which seemed a rather odd request from a man who looked like he was in his fifties and was clearly very drunk at only half four in the afternoon. After this rather strange pub visit we returned to the T&A office whereupon I had to call back the woman about her parent's Diamond Wedding Anniversary to finish off the piece, which involved me not taking down a quote from her fast enough over the phone.

I managed to escape the office at about twenty past five and despite leaving the office over half an hour later than yesterday, got back home at exactly the same time. Tomorrow I'm supposed to be doing something on features and was told to think about something that 'vexes' me to write about in some kind of comment piece. Presumably that will have to be something legitimate and not along the lines of 'The Download '09 Line-Up' or simply 'Buses'.


Extar, over, out.

TCP/IP, it's fucking me off. Other protocols doing little more. Definitely got worse. Now making me curse. Removing IPX. Will it ever work? Never!