Say Cheezers
It was round two of the job swap today, when Andy Simpson arrived from Elgin High School to take charge of Radio Scotland. So, after all these years, I finally get the chance to tell a headmaster to come to my office!
Except, of course, Andy was actually in the office before I arrived and he would have been justified in asking me to sign the Late Book and then sending a note home to my parents.
As I expected, Andy saw a lot of similarities between our two jobs. Whereas he is under pressure to achieve exam results, I only have to worry about the Rajar listening figures which were due out at half past five.
So we toured a few radio studios, went to a meeting with the Controller of ´óÏó´«Ã½ Scotland, Ken MacQuarrie and Andy sat in on our monthly creative meeting. Top of the agenda was the future of our SoundTown project. As the headmaster of our current SoundTown school, it was heartening to hear Andy talk about how the ´óÏó´«Ã½'s work within the school had built the skills and confidence of many of his pupils. He also said there was a growing awareness of SoundTown in the local community and that many local people were still talking about the day that 90 Minutes staged an outside broadcast from the school.
Only low point of the day was when Steve Gibson arrived to take photographs for the ´óÏó´«Ã½ in-house newspaper, Ariel. He led us out into the street so he could use the ´óÏó´«Ã½ building as a backdrop. Just then a crowd of, (how shall I put it?) local ruffians (not allowed to say 'neds') arrived on the scene to shout abuse at us.
"Look at the cheezers on those guys!" was among the less colourful banter we heard being bandied in our direction.
I'm assuming they were remarking upon the charming smiles we were wearing for the camera.
