Remembering Carol- Part 3

I got to meet Carol's two sons, Daniel and Sam. I met Daniel when we first went to London together. He had a job working in a hotel in St Albans, where his dad lived. I'm not so sure about Sam. They both lived with us in the house in Crownhill. Some weekends Daniel went to live with his dad and would come home, bearing in mind he was coming to his education. I think he was doing his A Levels at the time I first met Carol. Because Sam was younger, he must have been doing his G.C.S.E.'s, but, looking back, I don't remember exactly.

When I came to live with Carol, after we were married, I got  job as a home carer for people with a range of disabilities or needs, for company called Guardian Homeware. I have discussed this in an earlier blog post, so I don't want to repeat it in this post.

We went to see several television and radio productions being recording. I was able to go on line and sign up to several websites which provided free ticket for such shows. We went to see a couple of radio shows being recorded, something which really interested me, because if you have an interest as I do in media, how either television or radio shows are made, then going to see a show as a member of the audience. The first was a  BBC Radio Four panel show called 'The Write Stuff,' and was recorded in a venue which I had never heard of near the British Museum. interesting to see how a show such as a panel show is recorded and we saw that what would at first appear to be spontaneous wasn't in the slightest, because some of it was rerecorded when some hitches took place. They record two shows back-to-back, probably because  a half-hour show isn't going to make an evening's entertainment for  live audience as well as being far more cost effective. The second show we went to see was a sitcom called 'Clement Doesn't Live Here Anymore.' That was interesting to see because I had always wanted to know how they managed the sound effects and music. What ruined it for us was when the producer came on and made some rather unnecessary rather rude comments which we didn't think amusing, particularly as there were children in the audience, so we left after the recording of the first episode and didn't return for he second episode. A great pity. I didn't think it was a particularly brilliant show, but never mind. When the tickets are free, who's complaining.

Then we went to Television Centre to see the television version of 'Dead Ringers' being recoded. It has to be one of my favourite radio shows, so it was interesting to see how it worked as a television series. As we waited outside in a queue before we went into the waiting area (a great deal of waiting a some time or other when visiting a television studio either as a participant, for example as a walk-on or supporting artiste or member of an audience, who should walk past but Gary Lineker. Carol shrieked and said 'Oh, it's Gary Lineker!!" He just walked on past, no doubt used to such ruction from  a member of the public. I turned to her and said 'We shouldn't be surprised to see someone well-known when we visit Television Centre."

Another free television audience episode was when I managed to get tickets to the very first of a revival by ITV of the iconic series 'Sunday Night At The Palladium.' We went to the recording on I believe a Sunday, and got into London earlier than necessary and spent some time wandering around London, something we often used to do. We knew exactly where the Palladium was and visited Liberty's store, which is virtually opposite the Palladium and then wandered down to explore the recently-opened Broadcasting House, which had been extended and revamped. We looked through the window of the studio where the BBC 1 early evening 'The One Show' is made (if you watch this show you can clearly see this window and passing people do look in, and you can clearly see people queuing opposite as they go into recording sessions in he main Broadcasting House building.) Then we returned to the Palladium as it was by then approaching time for the recording of the show to begin. There was a quite sizeable queue forms, members of the public, like us, who had tickets for the show. We thought it would be a long time before we got inside to take our seats, but we shouldn't have worried. There were several officials walking along the line checking tickets. When they got to us, one of them looked at ours, and said that we need not queue. We were lead off, past the other queuing people, taken inside the Palladium and right into the stalls of the auditorium and shown to probably some of the best seats in the house! Quite an overwhelming feeling, of being taken out of the queue. It was probably because I had managed to get the tickets early and hence being able to get better seats and probably a better view of the stage than the rest of the people queuing up outside in the street. To top it all, who should be on the bill of the show we were about to see, but Carol's favourite, Bryan Adams, which really made her day! We hadn't known this fact, it was a sheer coincidence that he happened to be in the show!

There is so much more I could say about Carol, but at the moment I don't want to. I've written the last of three blog posts, and at the moment that's enough for now, but I may continue with more in blog posts in the future.

Trip to London for recording of "Palladium" TV show

As I've already mentioned in an earlier post, we'd got free tickets for a recording of "Sunday Night At The Palladium." We weren't due to pick up the tickets from the theatre until 4.30 so we really didn't need to be in London too early, but knowing our propensity to get to places far too early, we caught a train at around 10.00 a.m. We decided to drive to the station and park. Being a Sunday, it seemed the easier option. When we last went into London, around a month ago (see earlier blog post.) we went in by  bus, and then found, on returning to Milton Keynes, that the busses back towards Eaglestone were somewhat erratic and we'd have to wait far too long, so we got a taxi. When we got to the carpark near the station we were shocked at how much it was going to park all day, around £8, and looked around and managed to park further into the city centre. You pay up until 6 p.m, which is during the week, but it seems Sunday parking is no longer free. We then had to walk a fair distance to the station. We'd  booked tickets on-line, which means we had to go to the machine at Milton Keynes Central station to get them printed out. Not too difficult. You get a password which you get when you register on-line and use the Debit or Credit card you made the payment with and the machine produces the tickets, printed out and they appear out of the machine. No real problem.

The train we eventual caught was virtually empty, which means we were able to sit down for the entire journey. Unlike the previous trip into London, when we had to stand for the entire journey. On arrival in London we went straight down to Oxford Circus Underground station which is only a two-minute walk from the Palladium. We just needed to know where we had to go later, even tough we had hours to fill before we could actually collect the tickets. As with any of these free tickets for television shows, you don't actually have the tickets until you turn up, as I think so many people order them and don't show up, so they have to over-extimate how many will be needed and you have to get to the studio in good time in order to get in for the recording. We decided to go off and find something to fill in the time. We went into Liberty's, which is within a stone's throw of the Palladium. Carol has never been in this iconic store before and we were really amazed by how amazing most of their products on sale are, particularly the Christmas store at the top of the building. Seemed to be far too early for Christmas, as it's only the beginning of September, but the range of items to decorate your home was incredible. If you've never visited this store, I can recommend it highly.

We went to a McDonald's and had a burger each. Not being a complete fan of Mcdonald's, I have to say it was passable, and it did mean we could use the toilets. The place was absolutely heaving, as their restaurants are generally in the centre of London. Just great to be able to sit down for a brief time before going off somewhere else.

As I say, we didn't have much idea where to go to fill in the time, but eventually decided to go to Regent's Park and laze in the sun there for a couple of hours. Totally amazed how beautiful it was, with long walks lined with flowers and the paths dotted with fountains. For an early-September afternoon it was amazingly warm and pleasant. Only a single stop on the Underground. Also amazed how busy the traffic was for a Sunday.  By now it was past 3 o'clock and we got back on the Underground and went back to Oxford Circus. We walked down towards Langham Place,  where Broadcasting House is located. We went into a Starbucks and had a couple of their cold frappe drinks and then went towards the iconic B.B.C. headquarters. I was interested in seeing how they'd redeveloped Broadcasting House and we looked into the windows of the studio where the television programme "The One Show" is made. If you ever see this early evening show you will know that you can see members of the public passing by the windows, which is exactly what we did and were surprised at how small it was. I think the cameras and lenses seem to make things look wider and a good deal bigger which was the case here. We then looked in another window and saw a mock-up of a news studio and some people being taken on a tour of the place and two you men were doing their own news bulletin complete with weather forecast, using auto cues and all the additional equipment.

By now time was moving on. It was near enough time to head back to The Palladium and queue up to get inside and, hopefully, take our seats in the Stalls. Just as well we did queue when we did and get our tickets, because when we walked past the queue stretched round the block and into the next street! We decided walk on as we didn't actually need to be back until gone 6 o'clock when we were supposed to be allowed in. The doors were opened at 6 and there was a huge crush to get in. As we were in the Stalls we had to go in through another door from the rest of the audience. But when we got inside the theatre we couldn't get into the auditorium and had to wait in the rooms leading into the main body of the theatre. For whatever reason we were never told. It was extremely crowded, a great crush of people, moving forward very slowly. It was getting very hot and sticky so we found somewhere to sit and wait until the Stalls doors were opened up. We fortunately didn't have to wait long. By now we were both feeling very exhausted, which was a pity as we had been looking forward to this for quite some time.

On arriving in the Stalls and finding our seats in row '0' we then found that there were already people sitting there. We carefully checked that we had the numbers and rows correct. Yes, clearly printed on our tickets. But the people were adamant that was where they were sitting. We had to go and check with a member of the theatre staff and he came down to the seats and looked at the people who were sitting in our seats and discovered that their tickets were for row 'Q'. I suppose it was quite easy to see that a 'Q' was very like an 'O' on the tickets. So the problem was resolved and they went to sit in the correct row and seats.

We had to sit and wait for a considerable length of time before the recording started. You  have to remember when you go to a television recording as a member of the audience that it's not like live theatre where it's all run straight through, apart from intervals, scene changes and so on.  They do tend to stop and stet the recording, due to technical issues or someone forgetting lines etc etc. There was a warm-up comedian (I don't know his name. He wasn't familiar from television or elsewhere. A warm-up man is there to get the audience in the mood, to make sure everyone is enjoying themselves. The the host for the evening came on, Stephen Mangan. The opening of the show was done, then they did a second version, which had a slight variation. Then the recording stopped. When it began again the first act came on. Bryan Adams, who is one of Carol's favourite musicians. A surprise. And the evening went on like that, stopping and starting. When edited it will appear to be 'live.' The other acts were a music act called Little Mix, which I've never heard of, Alan Davies, Alfie Boe and two novelty acts, a 'towel' act, called Les Beaux Freres which I won't describe on here, but I'm surprised as it was quite 'adult.' I have a feeling that this won't make the edit, as there are too many people 'out there' who are only too willing to complain at the least provocation. Then a somewhat naff 'magic' or illusion act. The 'game' element is called 'Top Of The Bill.' I do recall the original gameshow element which was in the original 'Palladium' shows when it was hosted by Bruce Forsyte, but to be quite honest this part of the show was a bit lame, but never mind. Bryan Adams came on for the final number and there was another disappointment when they didn't have the famous finale with all the cast members going round on the famous Palladium revolve. A really iconic part of the original show. Never mind. It's just great that there's going to be proper variety back on television as opposed to talent and reality shows.

The recording ended at around 9.30. We managed to get out of the theatre in the crush and walk the short way to Oxford Circus Underground station. It was only two stops on the train to Euston and we managed to get a train from platform 8 fairly rapidly without having to wait. By now we were both flagging and almost fell asleep on the journey home. The train was very slow and stopped at virtually every station on the line and we got into Milton Keynes Central at around 11.45. We're now looking forward to next Sunday and watching the complete show all over again on I.T.V.

Alfie Loves Smarties

Our little Yorkie, Alfie, absolutely adores Smarties (alright, for those living outside the United Kingdom, I'm referring to the chocolate-centered sweets which come in a range of different colours and similar to M and M's.) Just bring out the packet and he'll do anything to get one. Or two . . . or three. Or more. Even after you've closed up the packet and told him 'no more' he will get as close as he can and touch it with his nose. He'd open it if he could. He's very artful. He's learnt quite a lot from our other dog, Poppy, who can be a complete control freak. She knows exactly when both dogs get fed, usually at 7.30 p.m. and knows the music that ends the 'One Show' on BBC1 and will sit directly in front of me and if I don't get up at once and move to the kitchen to prepare the food she will either sneeze, bark or come and prod me with her paw. Alfie has got into the habit of doing this, and whenever your eating he expects to get a bit of whatever it is you happen to be eating, such as a biscuit, piece of toast or your dinner, and does this so you give him a morsel. Poppy can do a trick or two, such as dancing around on her back legs. This is instead of begging, ie, sitting up with her body upright. She can do a twirl easily and will continue to do so everytime she is offered a treat. She knows that if she can get into your eye-line and you can see her clearly, her tricks will get noticed and you'll do whatever she wants ie, give her a treat or go and get her dinner ready.

Alfie, our Yorkie

Both dogs have a habit of going into the garden, and when you want them to come back in the house, they totally ignore you for as long as possible. To avoid this, we bought some doggy treats, which we keep in a small plastic box, which is usually kept either on the shelf behind the chair where I sit, or on the larger bookshelf. They will generally come in if you shake the box and make the treats inside it rattle. They get one for being good and doing as they're told. Alfie now has the trick of climbing onto the back of my chair and poking the box of treats with his nose and getting my attention so I will open the box to give him a treat. Or, if the box is the other side of the room, on the bookshelf, for example, he will stand and stare at it until he gets your attention or barks at it until you pick up the box and open it. He will even stand up on his back legs if he can see the box. How artful are our dogs?