Finding Findo
In Aberdeen today, having driven up last night through the kind of rainstorm where you begin to imagine that someone is actually throwing buckets of water on your windscreen. Well, don't look at me like that, it could happen. Deranged circus clowns perhaps.
In the office bright and early, but not as early as Robbie Shepherd who was already hard at work preparing his next programme. We got to talking about the repeat pattern for Take The Floor. No one could quite remember why we started repeating so many programmes during the summer. It's been happening since the nineteen eighties, apparently, and this season's archive had to be sourced from the University of Aberdeen where they had been placed in storage. Robbie tells me these repeats are very popular with listeners because they often feature dance bands that are no longer in existence.
At the staff meeting we talk about some of the recent programmes from Aberdeen, including Magnetic Memories and the late-night music shows. Then I join our Senior Producer Fiona Aitken and her team as we brainstorm the new Bryan Burnett show which will be introduced when Summer of Song comes to and end. Bryan makes a strong case for calling the new show Get It On, which certainly sounds a little more upbeat than Autumn of Song.
Frieda Morrison then chats to me about her idea for a new food programme. She makes a good case but I remain to be convinced and suggest we produce a pilot edition.
Then I meet Nancy Nicholson and producer Sam Thom to talk about the current series of Countryside Conversations.
Driving back to Glasgow tonight I resist the tempatation to pull in at a drive-thru fast-food place in Dundee. I plough on past Perth and then, as I pass the junction for Findo Gask, I do something a little crazy. I double-back and decide to investigate this oddly-named little village.
You see, I must have passed the sign for Findo Gask a thousand times and I've always been curious about it. So tonight I find myself driving up a narrow country road which snakes into a forest. I realise I've gone too far, but I still can't find Findo Gask. Then, on the return journey, I comes across a Church and, a few hundred yards down the hill, a delapidated building which looks like a village school.
Is that all there is to Findo Gask. Surely not, but it's too late to investigate further. Another time, perhaps.
