Shooting Live

It's a dogs life before heading to Mozambique

2012-01-26T08:22:00.004Z

Thursday 26th

The Channel 4 political news guys were in the lounge at Edinburgh airport. I was good to have a brief catch up with Ken the cameraman. We used to be office neighbours in the days when all the TV news organisations had bureaux in Scotland. Now, full time there is only me left out of the four teams that used to be based in Scotland.

The BBC of course have their squad and Sky News still maintains a presence although that has been drastically scaled back over the last years.

It had been the story on the referendum for Scottish independence that had brought, not only Ch4 north but, a whole host of international broadcasters and press.

Whilst they were all busy interviewing Alex Salmond and pouring over what the whole thing might mean to Scotland and the rest of the UK I was preparing for a trip out to Mozambique.

I had though that I would have had lots of time to sort out the paperwork that needed to be printed, get the few bits and pieces of supplies that I might need and get my malaria tablets.

Of course that plan was doomed before it started.

I had a little job to do first down in the Lake District.

So on a slightly wet miserable and dark Tuesday morning Gregg, Mike the sound recordist and Lawrence with his satellite truck congregated at the Dog Section of Cumbria Police’s Penrith HQ.

It was a nice little story about three pedigree German Shepherd puppies that would be, if they succeeded in training, fully fledged police dogs.

There was only one main broadcast to do and a couple of live shots.

The good news was that there was a dry and warm indoor location. The bad news was that it was a bit cramped, dog kennels are nor renowned for being spacious pads and the noise from the neighbours was deafening.

The very helpful police dog handlers reorganised the accommodation taking the loudest barkers outside where they were quiet.

They must have sensed something dodgy out us to have make such a racket.

I got the lights and camera set up and we had a go at doing a bit of a rehearsal. It is often true, the thing that is said about working with kids and animals.

Two of the dog handlers with the three puppies.

I was looking like being a bit of a nightmare because the little cute fluffy things were about as lively and curious as you can imagine.

Cute and a bit lively.

Gregg and Mark, the police dog handler sergeant quite literally had their hands full as we tried to have a go at practising the simple broadcast.

One of dogs squirmed and squeezed it’s way out of Gregg’s arms. We got it back. By that time one of the others had made a break for it from Mark’s hands. We just about got that one back when the first one got away again and was keen on making friends with the furry mic cover on the camera.

This little bit of mayhem continued until Gregg knew what he was saying and Mark was prepared with the answers to the questions that Gregg would ask him.

There was a little while to go before the broadcasts so we let the puppies have a wander about to satisfy their curiosity.

I was prepared for a bit of shambolic camerawork if the dogs behaved as they had during the run through.

With just a few minutes to go and having had a standby from Erron in the Daybreak gallery the mini beasts were rounded up.

Almost as soon as they had been picked up one by one they settled down in Gregg and Mark’s arms and fell sound asleep.

The broadcasts came and went with hardly a movement from any of the three puppies save for one or two dreamy twitches.

Gregg, Mark and the puppies as they start to fall asleep.

The viewers would have had no idea of the running around, grabbing and trying to stop any of them squeezing past us that had gone on only a moment or so ago.

Fast asleep, but they did not stay like this for long!

Things got back to normal about five minutes after we came off air. The three were once again all over the place playing with anything that there noses took a fancy to.

Channel 4 guys were off on their flight to London City a few short moments before my flight to London’s Heathrow.

The flight was not full and arrived ahead of schedule after battling against a strong headwind.

There was a bit of a delay getting off because the air bridge had broken down a tantalising two meters from the door of the aircraft.

There was now a race to see if a repaired air bridge would get us off via the front or a set of steps coming from the other side of Terminal 5 would arrive first and see us disembarking into the chill bright morning.

The engineers won and after a little bit of a wait we were off and in the terminal using the air bridge.

There was supposed to be a car waiting to pick me up. When I emerged through the UK Arrivals door there was no sign of a sign with my name on it or any text from the car company.

A quick call sorted it all out and I met up a small taciturn burly eastern european who had been waiting at the International Arrivals area.

Guys the referendum has not been held yet!

At Daybreak I picked up a few bits and pieces of kit and my anti-malaria tablets. It is prime malaria season in Mozambique at the moment.

There was just time to join Simon the departing director, Clare Nazir, about to head for the excitement of Media City in Salford and a few other much loved colleagues for a lunch that was all to short before producer Michelle and I had to dash to Heathrow as fast as traffic would allow to catch our BA flight to Johannesburg.

There we will meet up with our presenter for the trip Natasha Kaplinsky and the team from Save the Children. We will then all get a flight back up north a bit to Nampula in the northern part of Mozambique.

We had just gone through all the formalities of customs carnets, paying the not too excessive excess baggage and arrived in the departure lounge when we saw the departure board flash up that the flight was going to be delayed by an hour and a half.

Bugger. If we had known we could have spent more time enjoying Clare and Simon's company.

Next stop Jo'burg then. We should still make the connection.

More fun at Dubai Customs

2012-01-20T18:14:00.009Z

Friday 20th

It was kind of pleasing to see that at 4:15 am when we started to get the gear loaded up to go the airport there was another crew also up and getting things organised at that ungodly hour.

It was the Chinese crew shooting the action movie setting up their camera.

The Chinese crew set up their camera...

..in the Atlantis' lobby.

Thanks to someone from Dubai’s Visitor Information Bureau stumbling across this blog and reading about the hassle we had at the airport when we arrived. One of the bosses had come to see John the producer.

He apologised profusely about the problems and gave us a couple of phone numbers to call at the airport to help make things run more smoothly and quickly when we were departing.

He also said that as a token of their regret for the inconvenience we would each have a small present delivered to our rooms.

So, it wasn’t going to be a Range Rover then, a nice expensive watch perhaps. I know crews that have been given Rolexes worth £3 000 just for shooting a couple of interviews.

It would more realistically be a souvenir model of the Burj Khalifa or maybe just a small box of chocolates.

It must have been very small indeed because none of us could see that anything had been delivered.

The main thing was that should we need it there was a number of a man who could short circuit the customs process that we could imagine taking a long time.

After being given directions to customs we pushed our three laden trollies from where we were dropped off at departures out of the terminal along the road, in through another door, down a lift and along to arrivals.

We attempted to take the trollies through the automatic doors behind which we knew the customs office to be.

A stern but polite security officer told us that we could not go through the door unless we had a copy of our passports signed and stamped by the police.

Nigel and I followed the mans instructions back up and along to the police office,clutching our passports, leaving Simon looking after the trollies.

“Why you have three passports? You are only two.” asked the policeman sporting two broad red chevrons on the sleeve of his sharply ironed green shirt after he had interrogated us about why we needed to go to customs and looking rather disapprovingly at the forms we showed him, shaking his head as he mimed walkie talkies, cupped hand against his cheek, thumb pressing an imaginary press to talk switch.

“He is looking after the equipment.”, I answered.

“I must see him. He must come here!”

I went off to swap places with Simon as the policeman started dealing with Nigel’s and my passports.

As I walked towards Simon and the trollies at the end of the arrivals hall another security officer stopped me and asked where I was going and could I show him my passport.

After a brief but slightly terse conversation with him in which Simon joined in on and him forceful pointing out the we had passed a security check point he let me and Simon swap positions.

As I stood at the trollies waiting for the copying, stamping and signing to finish upstairs I thought that I would try one of the numbers on the sheet of paper from the Visitor’s Information Bureau.

I was not too surprised when it just rang out. It was only around 5:30 am.

Nigel and Simon appeared. We waved our photocopies at the security guard. He did not even look at them simply gesturing us to go through the door.

There was only one of the customs officers in the large office when we went in at a few minutes to 6. He was one of the guys that had dealt with us when we arrived.

That should help speed things up we though. Anyway, we still had four hours before the flight at 10 am.

We smiled and handed him our official bits of paper. He took them showing no recognition and not returning our slightly forced smiles.

The same ritual was re-enacted as when we arrived on Sunday.

He stared at the forms. He read them intently. He shuffled them over. He read them again. He laid them on the desk and silently walked away.

A little later he reappeared and shortly after him another more pleasant looking officer joined him.

This boy in blue gave us a smile and said hello. He picked up the form that related to the equipment that they had not let NIgel take into the country.

Turning to us he said, “NIggel?”

Nigel went over to him.

“Where is letter?”

“What letter?”

“You leave walkie talkie. Where is your letter?”

“What letter?”

“You need letter.”

“I don’t have a letter. You kept my equipment. I just want to get it back to take back to the UK.”

“You leave today?”

“Yes.”

“OK. You will need to pay storage for the equipment then you can get it”

“Can we pay with the deposit for the other equipment when we get it back?”

“Of course. No problem.”

He then turned to a computer and began to look at what appeared to be an e-mail inbox.

He looked at that for a while clicked a few times with the mouse and then wandered off, coming back a little while later with a form which he started to fill out.

I thought that it might be an idea to try the other number that we had been given.

This time the phone was answered quickly. I explained who we were and why I was calling.

The voice on the other end asked to speak to the customs officer.

I handed him my iPhone. He took it with a confused look.

After a brief, quiet conversation he handed the phone back to me.

“It is all fine he is just going through the procedure.”

I thanked the nameless voice and cut the call. It was now nearing 7 am.

The rest of the guys would be just about to leave the hotel to come and join us at the airport.

A little while later the officer looked up from his from writing and asked us if we would like a tea or coffee.

He then said something to a man in light blue overalls who was tidying up the already pristine office.

He wandered off returning a little while later with a tray of small paper cups.

The three of us now bored and resigned to the long wait accepted the sweet tea. It was our first drink of the day.

A succession of other customs officers began trooping nonchalantly through the office door shaking hands with the each other, saying “Salaam Alekum”, then pressing their thumbs against a small panel on the wall which emitted a loud beep with each touch.

Our guy, who had been chatting quietly with Nigel as nothing much appeared to be getting done with our other three forms that would hopefully give us back most of the £1500 we had given as the deposit when we arrived got up with the small pouch containing Nigel's radios and sauntered into one of the offices next door.

He came back to tell us that he was going home and we should wait a bit longer.

There was now a lady customs officer behind the counter her long shapeless black dress was topped with shoulder epaulettes that had three gold stripes.

She busied herself at one of the computers and made a few calls on the her IPhone.

Suddenly after quite a long time of her tapping and talking she looked over as if seeing us for the first time.

“What you want?”

“We are here to get our cash deposit and equipment back so that we can go home.”

“Where is letter?”

We looked at each other, shrugged our shoulders. We had not seen any of our blue forms for quite some time.

“Where is document?”

“We cave them to your colleague ages ago. We don’t know where they are. The equipment is next door.”

She got up and went next door. When she came back we were pleased to see that she had the pouch with Nigel’s kit and the other forms.

At last we thought we are getting somewhere.

Time was ticking on. It was close to 8 am. The rest of the guys had arrived and checked in for the flight and Christina had checked in with us to see how things were progressing.

The lady started writing on the forms and asked us for our mobile numbers and e-mail addresses. She then told us to go to the “gold office” two doors away to collect our money.

A small sharp featured woman with four gold bars on the shoulders of her black dress asked what we wanted.

We told her.

“You won’t get that here. You must go back to the other office.”

Feeling more that a little confused we turned to go back to the office from which we had just arrived.

The small lady followed us and had a conversation with the other lady.

Indeed we had to go back to the gold office where another officer arrived not only with our forms but also the envelopes that had our cash in them.

Individually we had to take the envelope, count the cash and then sign a form which took him a while to fill in.

One of the forms..

..with a vital stamp.

Back in the original office the lady was given the now think sheaf of forms.

She looked at each form, shuffled them about, changed the order, shuffled them about again, picked up a stapler, looked at the forms, put the stapler down, changed the order of the forms, patted them so that they were neat, picked up the stapler again and closed it over the papers with a definite click.

She did this three times for each of our sets of forms.

This was of course after we had paid three sets of administration costs and three sets of costs for something we could not quite understand.

Then another officer appeared, took the forms, had a look at them, had a conversation with the lady pointing to things and then handed them back.

During this the short lady reappeared and asked if anyone had looked at the serial numbers on the equipment. In perfect unison Simon and I nodded our heads and said, “yes. When we arrived”.

I then took a call from Christina to say that there were two airport officials on the way across to try and help.

Another man came through the back door to the office, He was dressed in the traditional white dish dash, head dress secured with the contrasting black band.

The lady handed him the pouch telling us to follow him to check in.

It was 8:45 am. The flight was on time for a10 am departure. We still had to retrieve our passports from the police office, get to the departures part of the terminal and get our twenty two pieces of baggage through the security scanner before checking in.

When we were being given our passports back the two airport officials arrived in their white dish dashes and shades, as Christina said, looking rather like the Dubai Blues Brothers.

Our caravan of trollies now each with a pusher and minder went out of the airport, back in to the airport and along to departures.

It was now nearing 8:55 am. Christina called to say that the Virgin Atlantic check in would close at 9 am.

We were still trekking through the terminal nowhere near security.

A moment later she called back to say that they would keep check in open until we got there.

Things then really sped up.

The check in desk was right next to a quiet security. We got the baggage through as quickly as we could.

Nigel was given his pouch of bits to put in one of his boxes.

The kit was put on the large scales, tagged and we were given our boarding cards.

The kit going on the belt.

Simon paid the excess baggage bill.

Jake and Elwood guided us to an immigration office where our passports were stamped.

Our three helpers at the check-in desk.

They then took us through duty free and the shopping area to the gate where we met up with the rest of the guys a few moments before the gate closed.

It had only taken four and half hours from the time we arrived at the airport until we reached the gate in time for the final final call for the flight.

In a way I was glad that we did not have time to have a look around the shops. I was a bit too skint to be tempted to flash the cash on my credit card.

A live Leap of Faith

2012-01-19T12:22:00.011Z

Thursday 19th

The five of us, Elise, Mark, John, Maria and I had real sympathy with the four downsizers when we met on the hotel’s 12th floor at around 5:45.

It had taken a lot of willpower and more than one alarm call to get us up out of our beds. So we had a bit of sympathy with the downsizers for what we were about to do.

We were off to get Richard, Aimee, Jordanna and Laura up out of their beds and down to the beach area for a pre dawn workout.

Mark and Elise rang and knocked on their doors and gave them the order to get downstairs in five minutes all kited up.

When they came down I filmed Elise putting them through a workout and giving her fitness tips.

We needed to work as quickly as possible because the soft predawn glow and rising sun would not last long.

The silhouette shot of them doing their warm up stretches looked great. I wished that I had time to get a few stills of it as well as the video for the programme.

As soon as that was done it was time to get ready for the main live broadcasts.

Another Dubai dawn.

There were three to do, one down at the beach area, one on an area around half way up the Ziggurat that houses the Leap of Faith and the grand finale when the guys would actually come down the slide.

Bit of early morning cleaning..

Inside the tank...

...and on the outside as well.

Faith prepares her scripts.

There were three cameras being used on most of the broadcasts and some of the short live shots and teases

Sarah get her talkback....

...as Mark goes over the script with Ali and Simon.

Emma gets her talkback.

Richard sets up the satellite truck.

The final broadcast of the day would be the one where three of the downsizers and Emma zip sown the slide and splash into the pool at the bottom.

This would also be the most complex of the three technically and had the highest potential to go wrong.

So, we concentrated on rehearsing that one first to make sure that we had it all covered.

Andy would be at the start of the slide with Emma and the downsizers.

Dameon would cover the guys as they slid down at breakneck speed from the middle floor.

I would be at the bottom to see them fire out of the tube into the water.

Going through the scrips at the bottom of the Leap of Faith.

Once we were all reasonably happy that we all knew what we were doing it was time to turn to the rest of the morning’s broadcasts.

Setting up the food segment.

The first broadcast would be at an area near the pool. An area had been roped off for us. The producers had asked for a little gazebo, table and chairs to be in that area for the food item that we would do.

The hotel’s efficient organisational machine swung into action and exactly what was asked for was inside the toped off area.

They say that it is a woman’s prerogative to change her mind. That saying should be more relevantly applied to producers and editors of television programmes.

The gazebo, table etc was no longer required in this area.

Suddenly with no hassle the things were taken away.

It was like watching an army of ants at work as lots of guys descended on the stuff and carried it away.

The things are moved.

Nigel and Simon in "the gallery".

Simon the director.

Technically things all went off well.

Jordanna gets texts from friends after the broadcasts.

Aimee after we were off air.

Emma, Ali and John.

The end of a period of broadcasts is normally a cause for celebration. When we came off air this morning it was with mixed feelings for various reasons.

It was Simon’s last set of foreign live broadcasts as Daybreak’s senior staff director. Those of us who had worked with him for many years, recently with Daybreak and in the past with GMTV were trying to keep our emotions in check.

The Daybreak "Downsize in Dubai" team.

The live aspects might have been over but there was still more shooting to be done in the evening.

Andy pitches in with helping putting the sound kit away.

Dameon tidies the cables.

After we had derigged the kit had to be taken back to the hotel to be stored for the short time it would be until we checked out.

The room that we had been using as a store/office was going to be used for something else some we were allocated a room at the other end of the vast hotel.

Buggies and bodies were organised to take the kit to the huge room that had been allocated.

The only problem was that once we had had lugged all the kit form one end of the hotel to the other we found that the room was being prepared for a rather large event.

Setting up the room.

The kit outside the room.

There was a bit of internal discussion between various departments in the hotel. The result of which was that we would need to take the kit back to the original room.

By the time this had all been sorted out it was time to head over to the trendy Nasimi beach bar to film Mark asking Aimee, Jordanna, Richard and Laura about their experience and show them some messages from folk back home.

Mark does a quick autograph for Aimee before we start shooting.

There were also some pieces to camera to do with Sarah and Mark for a couple of things that would be transmitted on Friday morning when we were heading home.

The final thing to do was record the voice overs.

Recording the voice over.

Simon, Nigel and I then packed away our kit. We might have finished our long day, starting at 5:50 and now ending at around 8 pm but, Wurzzle, Christina and Ali still had some editing to do.

Desert camp live broadcasts.

2012-01-18T17:56:00.009Z

Wednesday 18th

It was very quiet when Nigel and I got in the Landcruiser that would take us to the camp, complete with bedouin tent, camels and falcon that had been set up for us in the desert.

The desert morning.

This morning’s live broadcasts only involved one camera so from a vision point of view it was an easy rig.

However, Nigel still needed all his sound toys so that each of the experts, Downsizers and presenters could have a personal mic.

The only thing that reduced his work load was that it was just simple talkback from Daybreak in London that was needed and not local director’s talkback as well.

The start of our little technical camp.

The presenters, experts and downsizers arriving.

John and Elise talk workouts as the camp grows.

Is there no escape from the iPod?

Sheltering from the heat in between broadcasts.

There was one hairy moment two minutes before the first of our three main broadcasts of the morning.

We had done the first short live shot and were all set up and ready to go.

Director Erron had given us a two minute standby when Richard with the satellite dish keyed over the talkback. “Your picture is flashing.”

I wiggled the camera cable to see if it was a connection fault.

“It’s still flashing.... Now its gone.”, he said.

I wiggled and pushed the cable again to see if the picture would come back.

Two things then happened at the same time.

Simon started to rush down the steep sand dune that we were on top of and Doug, the technical director spoke calmly over the talkback, “Dubai, we have lost your picture but still have your sound.”

I heard the PA count, “one minute to Dubai.”

Nigel had spoken to Doug and I heard his short response, “understood.”

“Thirty seconds to Dubai.”

At which point I could hear Simon’s panting breath as he came running as fast as he could through the soft sand.

He handed me a cable end and I shoved it into the camera.

A second or two later I could hear the guys in the studio begin to start to read the link into us.

Sarah and Mark started to talk right on cue and off we went.

Oh! That looks painful Mark.

John, the lone producer on the phone in the desert.

At the end of the morning’s live broadcasts, the rest of which had gone off without a technical problem there was some news that we greeted with mixed feelings.

As soon as we came off air the plan was that we would head off straight away to do some filming on a dhow, a traditional arab boat.

This had been cancelled because the weather was apparently too bad to sail.

We were mildly surprised given that there were only a few clouds scattered around the bright blue sky and the wind seemed little more than a gentle breeze.

On the one hand we were disappointed that a nice filming opportunity had been taken away from us.

On the other hand we were pleased because we would have time to eat the very nice traditional lunch that was going to be prepared for us.

There's no way to keep the sand out of your boots!

Some of the guys went straight back to the hotel but those of us that has to put the equipment away and a few others stayed and had a great meal which for once was not gobbled at breakneck speed and digested as we got back on with work.

Delicious traditional lunch in a tent in the desert.

John and Elise off for quick trek across the desert.

Tomorrow would be our the most technically demanding of the week.

There would be three cameras, nine radio mic’s, a mixture of programme sound, directors talkback and presenters keyed talkback, four locations and a limited amount of time to broadcast at least three guys who may or may not go down a steep and scary water slide.

So when we got back to the hotel we went straight to the water park, Aquaventure to help Nigel set up the sound equipment and the little vision mixer kit that Simon would use to cut the cameras. We were not be able to do it until the park was closed.

Time to rig the Leap of Faith.

The very efficient guys at the hotel had laid in a lot of the cables that were going to various points around the Leap of Faith and the beach area of Aquaventure.

When that was underway Simon and I had to break off to go and shoot a sequence of the Downsizers burning an object that they had brought with them that represented what they thought of themselves.

This burning was to signify that their old selves was now gone and that they were now new people with new strategies to deal with life.

It was a bit of a frustrating day because for various reasons there were lots of changes, most impracticable at best that Daybreak in London wanted to make to the way that tomorrow’s programme would be put together.

A bit before the sun started it’s very quick descent to below the horizon on the hotel’s slightly windy beach we set up for the little shoot.

Setting up on the beach in front of the "Atlantis the Palm Dubai".

Get the fire started..

..it's going now.

The evenings are still slightly chilly for Emma, Faith and Elise.

The light from the flickering flames dancing across the guys faces

as the light faded from the sky and the hotel’s lights came on looked very atmospheric.

After that Simon and I hot footed it back to a very dark and slightly eerie water park to check that the camera cables that the hotel guys had put in were working correctly.

The upper part of the Leap of Faith.

The rigging continues well after dark.

The hotel from the top of the Leap of Faith.

When that was done there was time to have a late dinner.

Maria the hotel PR lady had arranged for us to eat in another one of the hotel’s very good restaurants, called the shore.

Needless to say really it specialised in seafood. It was getting to the stage in the week when after getting a maximum of four to five hours sleep food somehow becomes a substitute for sleep.

This was quite a substitute, but nothing beats the real thing and none of us were going to get that tonight because as has become the pattern for the week I would have to be up early to shoot Mark and Elise waking up the Downsizers to take them on a bit of a dawn workout.

Lobster Thermidor. Very nice.

The phone's too hot to handle and Camel Polo.

2012-01-17T19:07:00.009Z

Tuesday 17th

Dubai as the sun rises.

Another rise too early for breakfast and left the room without taking a shower.

My wake up dousing was courtesy of The Leap of Faith which is the Atlantis the Palm Dubai’s white knuckle high, steep water slide.

In the post dawn chill I took our little GoPro camera and launched myself down the slide a few times to get a point of view shot for something that we would be doing later in the week.

The Leap of Faith water slide.

After drying off it was time to help the guys get rigged for the first set of live broadcasts from the beach in front of the hotel.

This was a two camera shoot needing eight radio mics. So, as well as Richard with his satellite dish we had extra help from two local guys, Andy, an Aussie cameraman who had worked in London for eighteen years and Jax the sound recrodist a native of Goa in India but brought up in Northern Queensland.

Simon and Nigel rigging "the gallery".

The satellite truck on the beach.

Once all the technical set up and tests were done there was time to catch our breath and grab a quick coffee from the hotel’s Starbucks coffee shop.

It was not long before our merry band of presenters, producers, experts and the most important people of the week, the Downsizers came to join us.

Don't worry Maria Jax is not doing a tracheotomy it's just the t-shirt he's cutting.

Karl, ITV Daybreak’s executive producer got on with getting Sarah and Mark Wright sorted out with what they were to say and the energy with which they should deliver it.

Mark had arrived last night.

Sarah Heaney and Mark Wright raring to go...

...time for a quick pic though.

Sarah and Mark rehearse with Karl.

It was a hectic morning with lots of main broadcasts interspersed with a liberal number of live shots and short teases.

Executive producer Karl talks to Simon about the broadcasts.

We were busy rehearsing for one of the broadcasts when Erron the director in London’s voice cut through the sound of the programme to say that it was three minutes to a little ten second tease.

We quickly rejigged what we were doing to set up for it.

As expected Daybreak went to a commercial break and the talkback went eerily quiet. It is normal but, you never get used to it.

The short rehearsals carried on.

The silence lasted for what felt like much longer than the duration of even the longest break and had surely lasted longer than the three minutes standby we had been given.

The next thing that I heard was the ringing of a phone and then the programme burst back into our ears.

Standby, “coming to you in thirty seconds”, said Erron.

We were slightly confused now because of the length of time things had been quiet.

Surely we had missed the tease and it was, we though too early for the broadcast that we had just been rehearsing.

Simon quickly spoke to Erron to check.

It was the broadcast we needed to be on standby for.

There then followed a frantic scramble to get into position.

I could hear Kate and Dan in the studio start to talk about Dubai as my camera wobbled around and Sarah with her co-presenter got to their first positions.

Things settled down a fraction of a second before Erron said, “on you Dubai”.

Sarah picked up and we were off.

It didn’t go quite as we had rehearsed it but, the viewers would not have been aware of the madness that had just gone on halfway around the world from where they were watching.

What had caused the problem was that due to the heat the phone that was being used to get the talkback from London had shut down flashing a warning “Too Hot to Operate!”.

Nigel and Simon had quickly swapped to another phone.

The rest of the morning’s broadcasts were still as hectic but, went off without any more technical hitches.

Once we had partially derigged the equipment it was time to unpack another packed lunch to eat on the way to the next thing on the agenda.

Simon, Jax and I left Nigel and Andy to put the rest of the kit away. We were off with John, Mark, Elise, Emma and the four Downsizers, Amy, Richard, Laura and Jordanna to spring another surprise.

John talks to Elise about the words for the piece to camera.

Mark and Elise were kited up with the appropriate gear for the afternoon’s fun, Camel Polo.

Soundie Jax looking cool and ready for camel action sound.

Elise posing in her polo kit.

I think that it would be fair to say that Mark was not the keenest person in the world to get on the back of one of the beasts.

He was not the only one. No surprise really when the camels showed off why they have a reputation for being a bit grumpy.

They growled and bared their teeth at us and the handlers, who were proper camel polo players.

The camels and their handlers.

Simon gets the sack and the camera.

Camel Polo can be dangerous, disclaimers need to be signed.

There was some great stuff that Simon and I got of the guys getting on and trying to have a go at playing a game.

"I'm behind you Mark!" Getting the POV shot.

There were a couple of moments of drama. The first was when Richard had to be told that he would not be able to stay on his camel because it was struggling with his weight.

He took it very well when Emma told him that he had to get off.

Then when Elise was hurtling towards the goal about to score Laura’s camel decided she’s spent long enough in the saddle. He got her to dismount much quicker than she had mounted up.

Carol-anne the nurse who is travelling with us dashed to her aid. Thankfully Laura was fine.

It might have been the end of the day with the sun setting fast as we were driven back to the hotel but, it certainly wasn’t the end of our working day.

Nigel and I had time to squeeze in a hurried meal from one of the buffet style restaurants. It would have been great to have been able to take our time and enjoy the excellent seafood and sample the other delicious looking exotic dishes on offer. Sadly we had to just grab eat and run.

We went to the Neptune Suite to shot a session with Emma exposing and starting to deal with the mental side of the guy’s over eating.

The suite is pretty spectacular opulent with the main attraction being that the bedroom window has a fairly unique view. It looks out into the huge aquarium.

We did the sessions in front of that window.

Nigel and I had filmed in this very suite before with Ben Shephard when the hotel first opened.

We did an interview with Micha Barton in exactly the same place. It was during that interview that I was slightly shocked when I saw a part of Micha that I would think not that many other people see.

I could tell that she was not planning to wear a bikini.

Earlier in the day the front part of the hotel had been closed off and during various times of the day other parts of the hotel were off limits.

This was because there was a Chinese action movie being filmed in and around the hotel.

It was reportedly the biggest budget Chinese action movie ever made starring a couple of their megastars.

There was lots of signs of impressive bits of kit like, Technocranes, tracks and huge lights.

Our budget didn’t quite stretch to bringing a lighting kit so that we could keep the crazy excess baggage costs down.

The hotel’s PR department came up with a little working light that might help because the lighting in the room is quite muted and not ideal for lighting an interview.

The only thing was that there was no stand to get the light to the correct height.

Another little problem that had to be overcome was the need to have a two shot of Emma and the person that she was speaking to in order to edit into the single shot that I would have. There would be no second take on capturing the raw emotions that would inevitably come out during the session.

There was a little Z5 camera that we could use, but like the light there was no tripod for it.

It was time to improvise. I had a look around the the bedroom and bathroom to see what could be used to do the job.

Two laundry baskets were the answer.

Lighting on a budget, well no budget really.

Who needs a tripod when there's laundry basket to hand?

Nigel getting ready to put the microphone on Emma.

Amy's turn to get mic'd up

The sessions went very well both from television point of view. We got the kind of emotional shots that were needed.

It was also a success for the guys because Emma was able to get them off the starting blocks running on the tough road to losing some of their extra weight.

At around ten thirty Nigel and I switched off our kit and put the room back to the way it should be and retired to get a short sleep.

It would be another breakfastless early start to head out to the desert.

Dolphins, spice and seaplanes

2012-01-16T18:23:00.010Z

Monday 16th

Up and out of bed too early for breakfast as none of the breakfast areas were open yet I headed down to Atlantis’ Dolphin Bay to get ready to record the “Downsizers” exercising and playing with dolphins.

Early morning view of Dubai from the hotel beach.

I might not have had any breakfast but at least I had had some sleep.

Paul the editor, “Wurzle” to his friends had been up all night with still a few hours of editing to go before he would be able to get to bed.

Wurzle nearing the end of a marathon shift.

In the halcyon days of golden time and penalty payments he would have been reaping huge financial rewards of doing a 36 hour shift. These days his reward would simply be the satisfaction of knowing he had done a good job and the pieces had made air.

Producer John and I were taken by Maria the PR lady from the Atlantis to meet dolphin trainer Yuri to be shown what the dolphins could do and sort out how that would fit in with what we could get the guys to do in the water with the fantastic animals.

Trainer Yuri. Maria and John on the way to see the dolphins.

When the “Downsizers” arrived they were brought in through the back gate so that they could not see the dolphin branding and the sleek grey animals were out of sight.

Daybreak’s fitness guru Elise then sprang the surprise that Richard, Jordana, Laura and Amy would be working with dolphins.

Dolphin Bay in the morning light and dolphins in hiding.

Thanks to Yuri and his fellow trainer’s skills four of the dolphins then appeared and did huge leaps out of the water.

John and Elise.

The trainers show us what the dolphins can do.

It had taken a fair bit of trying to work out how we could make their appearance a surprise. We were really chuffed because it worked a treat. The surprise and excitement was genuine.

Simon and I then shot the guys in the water with the dolphins doing their spinning, splashing and dancing from dry land.

Along with the guys I had changed into a wet suit and put it to use by joining them with a little GoPro camera to get some shots from in the water of the antics.

He must be a producer Maria, he's on the phone a lot.

Simon and Nigel record Richard's reaction to the experience as he speaks to Emma.

Once we had finished at the dolphins there was time for us to get a late breakfast and also almost time for a very knackered Wurzle to hit the hay.

Next on the agenda was a trip to the very small old part of Dubai with the “Downsizers” and dietician Faith Toogood.

In the Spice Souk Faith spoke to the guys about the benefits of spices and herbs.

They are a tasty substitute for salt and fat.

Christina and Faith check out the spices.

Faith explaining a spice fact to Christina.

Set up ready to go for a bit of spicy chat with the Downsizers.

When that was done we had another surprise up our sleeves for the guys.

They were intrigued when Christina demanded that they give her their passports.

We had to do that because the seaplane company needed them as identification for the booking.

We did not let them know that until we drove up to the seaplane dock on our mini convoy of golf buggies.

Transport to the seaplane.

The seaplane.

Nigel and I went up with them. Simon was grounded to get shots of the plane taking off and landing.

The guys taking in the views...

..and what views they were. The Palm.

Our hotel, The Atlantis.

Some of the massive buildings.

Heading for Downtown Dubai.

When the bright blue of the day had faded into the inky arabian black of night we arrived back at the hotel to get things prepared for the live broadcasts in the morning from beach by the hotel.

In the function room doubling as our production office there were lots of discussions about what would be the structure and content of the mornings broadcast and composing of scripts.

During this process Sarah was leaning her lines and rehearsing with energy and excitement.

John and a rejuvenated Wurzle had embarked on the editing process.

You're not bringing that into Dubai!!

2012-01-15T19:27:00.007Z

Sunday 16th

There had been a few jobs before I had to get my case packed again and head to the airport to do “Downsize in Dubai”, a fitness, mind and diet programme for four of Daybreak’s larger viewers who were lucky enough to be selected to head to the sun.

The most notable was a story about Mutley the 14 year old Ridgeback cross that had survived an operation to remove twenty horse shoe nail tips after he had eaten them.

Gregg with Mutley and his family the Weymouths .

The old nail eater himself.

A very hospitable family plying us their with delicious home made jams on toast.

On Saturday afternoon there was a mixture of pleasure, sadness and dismay after my flight from Edinburgh as I waited in Heathrow for the rest of the crew to arrive.

The pleasure was that I would be working with the lovely Sarah Heaney. It had been almost ten years since I had worked with her and it had always been a hoot. I was hoping that the passing of the years had not dimmed the flame of fun she emitted.

The dismay was that Simon the director with whom I have worked for over 16 years at Daybreak and GMTV was leaving as the ITV breakfast programme entered another era. This would be his last set of live broadcasts from foreign shores as a staff member.

Fingers crossed that we will hear his voice over talkback again as a freelancer.

The sadness was hearing that a much loved member of the GMTV staff, Billy Pond had died suddenly. The larger than life ex-production manager had passed away peacefully in his sleep.

During the meal that we had when the guys arrived we drank a toast to the memory of one of the nicest men in television.

I think we were expected..

..with our Trollies of kit to check-in.

Simon checks his camera.

The Virgin flight was not full. That was good news for most of us. Some, like Simon were upgraded to Upper Class. Some, like Nigel the sound mixer were upgraded to Premium Economy and others like me were not upgraded, but we did get three normal economy seats to stretch out on for the flight.

I’m not sure if anyone actually got much sleep though. A six hour flight really only gives you about three or four hours at best to try and sleep and with an aircraft carrying it’s fair share of babies and toddlers that is not that easy.

We exited Dubai’s passport control with the stamps in our passports and a pleasant “have a good day” from the immigration official dressed in his white dish dash.

Just before the Customs area were two x-ray scanners. We put our bags and the cameras that we were carrying on the belt.

The two customs officers manning the scanners immediately jumped into action when they saw the cameras. Simon and I were asked what we were doing, where were going and did we have a letter for the cameras.

A lady in an official black hijab then appeared, asked for our passports and guided us to as smart clean office where a blue suited Customs Officer told us to get all our equipment and then come back.

He kept our passports on the vast desk.

When we went back we had Nigel with his two trollies of sound kit in tow.

We presented our equipment lists.

He looked at them, looked at our passports, looked at us and shuffled the lists around.

After a few, “What are you doing? How many boxes?", type questions he said that we would need to pay a deposit that we would get back when we leave Dubai.

Whilst we were doing this all the rest of the guys were out on a coach waiting for us to pop out and join them on the bus to the hotel.

Several other Customs Officers similarly clad in crisp clean blue had a look at the lists and passports and shuffled them about.

It was clear pretty quickly that this process which many Customs departments around the world pretty much regard as a formality requiring a few lines in a ledger and a stamp on the list was going to be far from that today.

The rest of the group headed for the hotel after it became plain that this would be no five minute job.

Almost three hours later, £1500 poorer and minus some vital talkback equipment we heaved the remaining kit into a taxi and set off for the hotel.

Eventually the kit, well most of it, going into a Dubai taxi.

First sight on this trip of the Dubai skyline on the way to the hotel.

If things had been running to schedule we should have been well into the first shoot of the day at the Burj Khalifa, instead we were bouncing over the huge speed bumps on Dubai’s Palm at last on the way to our hotel, the very nice Atlantis.

Simon signing in at the exclusive reception area tucked away from the main lobby.

Not a bad view that way from my room..

...the views not so bad the other way either.

We checked in, dumped the kit, Simon shot a quick welcome sequence, grabbed some packed lunch boxes and then went to the Burj Khalifa to do a bit of shooting up at the top.

Director Simon quickly morphs into Cameraman Simon..

..shooting Sarah and the gang being greeted in the hotel lobby.

Emma Kenny and the girls clutching healthy lunch boxes head for the bus...

..senior producer Ali, presenter Sarah and executive producer Karl are not far behind.

First meal on the road this trip for producer Christina.

Heading to Downtown Dubai.

Spectacular buildings all the way..

...few as awe inspiring as the Burj Khalifa.

Walking to the tower (Burj is arabic for tower)

Emma Kenny, the mind expert used being up at the top of the world's largest free standing structure to talk to the “Downsizers” about achieving the heights if their ambitions that they have for their body shapes and sizes. There had been talk of getting them to climb up the one hundred and sixty stories but, that would have been too cruel on day one. later perhaps? Hmm.

We all took the very fast ear popping lift to the viewing area.

The dizzying view from the top.

When that was done there was a bit if a discussion about a piece to camera with Sarah and were it could be done in time to let us shoot the next thing which was a jeep safari out in the desert.

Time was now very much our enemy. It would be dark by 6 pm. Compromises had to be made. I shot the piece to camera with the bright sun, deep blue sky and the spectacular tall building as the backdrop. This was instead of a longish drive to have the sea and a bit of beach in the background.

Then after a bit of a logistical nightmare when the jeep safari people went to the wrong hotel to pick us up we were on our way to the desert with not much daylight left to work with.

After the tyres on the four wheel drive cars were slightly deflated to run better on the soft wind blown dunes we quickly did a piece to camera done to introduce what the “Downsizers” were going to experience and then we were off into the desert.

The endless dunes of the Arabian desert.

The tyres need to be a bit softer on sand than asphalt...

..that's why the tyres are let down a bit.

There was no time to rig our little GoPro camera or do anything fancy. The reaction shots of the guys being thrown around in the car were down to me as Abdul the driver skilfully sped the thing along gravity defying inclines, skidded it down steep slopes and threw it over blind sandy summits.

There was also no time for art or indeed anything other than trying to hold some kind of steady frame as a fought to keep the camera framed as like the “Downsizers” I tried to keep the contents of my stomach in.

Sadiq, one of the drivers throws the car around on the slithering sand.

At the end of that little bit if fun there was a bit of a surprise. Up until then it had been a fun filled day, albeit after having had hardly any sleep on the 6 hour flight and eating on the run.

That was about to change as our fitness expert Elise Lindsay had the guys running up and down a fairly steep sand dune.

It was not an easy task. For the first time this week and certainly not the last sweat was flowing and breaths came in gasps.

The sun setting over the sands.

We came back to the hotel and had a little bit of time to take in the splendour of our rooms and have some good buffet food. Simon, Nigel and I had a quick look at one of the locations that we would be using for one of our days of live broadcasting.

Producers Ali, John and by Karl the executive producer joined editor "Wurzle" in the room set aside as our production office to edit the material that we had shot. Through the night the edited pieces will be sent to Daybreak in London in time to Monday's programme.

RIP BILLY

Murder brings a sudden end to the holiday.

2012-01-03T07:40:00.011Z

Tuesday 3rd

My break for the festive season ended with a call from Susanna on the newsdesk calling with the news that I’d need to cut it short to travel to county Durham for live broadcasts on the story about the taxi driver Michael Atherton with a license for six guns had shot and killed three members of his family and then as the cliché goes, “turned the gun on himself”.

The back end of 2011 had been a mix of animals and weather. The arrival of the pandas at Edinburgh zoo was a little highlight when a few days after doing live broadcasts when we were unable to see the new arrivals Gregg and I were asked back to see how the pair had settled in to their pricey panda pad.

Bad weather in Workington.

Bad weather broadcasts on the internet with Gregg....

...right opposite Scotland's two main broadcast centres, the BBC and STV.....

...but, this was the background to the shot.

Tian Tian (Sweetie) checks out her new home in Edinburgh..

.. whilst next door Yang Guan (Sunshine) tucks into some of the 17 kgs of bamboo he'll eat in a day.

This morning up a dark wet and windy back lane in the old mining town of Horden Mark the engineer on the Tyne Tees TV satellite truck and I set up for the live broadcasts.

The Tyne Tees truck.

The only shot we could get was of a police cordon and a police van because access to the street where the killings had happened had been blocked off. It was not a great shot. The BBC were setting up at the other end of the street with a similarly uninspiring shot.

The background of our shot for the live broadcasts.

Conditions for the live broadcasts from around the country were not ideal because of the wind and rain.

For the earlier broadcasts this prevented Jonathan Swain and the crew in Norfolk getting on air with the story about human remains being found on the grounds of the Queens estate at Sandringham.

It was a little bit touch and go for Richard Gaisford and co doing the story about the increase in rail fares. Luckily the satellite dish on that broadcast was not blown too badly and his broadcasts went off with no problems.

We managed to get our earlier broadcasts with Gregg telling the gruesome story at 6 and 7 along with the 6:30 down the line broadcast with local councillor Paul Stradling out with no major problems but, just before our 8 am broadcast the wind wiped the signal out completely.

The rain swirling around the lights of the truck.

However, the conditions within ITV Daybreak were much better having improved after a year of things not going well and morale being at a very low ebb. Apart from one exception, a few much needed and vital changes had been made and at last things felt better.

Panda Pad at Edinburgh Zoo.

2011-12-05T10:09:00.004Z

Monday 5th

It was the big news of the weekend, the pandas arriving at Edinburgh Zoo from China.

I was got quite excited when I found out that Daybreak would be live from the Tian Tian (Sweetie) and Yang Guang’s (Sunshine) new home this morning.

That excitement rather diminished when we found out that we would not however be seeing the animals.

In fact when we arrived there was a possibility that we would not even get to see their expensive enclosure. After some delicate negotiation we were allowed part of the way along the viewing walkway to set up.

We had to be as quiet as possible for fear of disturbing the cuddly creatures. They were settling in separately in their respective areas and the experts did not want anything to upset them.

The £250 000 Panda Pad.

Setting up on the walkway.

Gary, one of the Panda Team chats to Gregg before we go live.

Technically it was an easy job, no tricky camera moves, no complex sound issues to deal with and no long cable runs.

It goes without saying that the course of live broadcasting rarely goes smoothly.

For fear of being upstaged by a pair of the world’s rarest and cutest beasts the far from rare and certainly not cute beasts the TV gremlins decided to make their presence felt by making the radio mic go off just after Gregg’s first words into a, thankfully short tease.

At least all the main broadcasts went off without a major hitch.

Time to relax and unwind. Not now though, idiot!

2011-11-13T06:39:00.002Z

Saturday 12th

I was in a relaxed mood when I got up and started to get my packing done.

Chantal and Greg had already gone, taking flights to other parts of Australia to have holidays now that the work was done.

Nick was doing the same.

Christina was going to stay around the Perth area with a friend for a few days.

Michelle’s husband had flown in to join her. They also had a tour of the vast country planned.

Sarah was going to meet a backpacking pal she had not seen for a few years and visit places they had missed out on.

It was only Kate, Simon and I that were heading back home.

Kate had gone out and done her present shopping for her kids Darcy and Billy.

Simon had packed his kit.

At just before twelve we gathered to say good bye to Kate and Simon who were catching their Qantas flight at around 15:30.

I was wondering what I could do for the rest of the day as my flight was not leaving until after eleven at night. Would I just stroll around Fremantle? Did I need to do any shopping? How about a trip back to Cottesloe and spend a few hours soaking up the sun on the beach? What about having some fun with my new hobby and have a look for some Geocaches?

We were saying our good byes. Simon and Kate’s taxi had arrived.

My iPhone was in my hand. Something prompted me to check my flight time again. I opened up e-mail with the itinerary containing the details of most of my 14 flights and 10 hotels over the month I’d been criss-crossing Australia.

I scrolled down to the last set of three flights. There was the time of departure as I knew it would be, 23:20.

At first I could not quite believe what I was looking at as my eyes fell on the the details a couple of lines below the time. It said departing Singapore.

Flicking my thumb over the screen I revealed another time and another departure. My blood ran cold.

Coincidentally at that moment Simon asked the most innocent of questions, “What time do you fly?”

I looked at him with a face drained of colour and said, “In twenty minutes.”

I had been looking at the wrong flight. It was the leg from Singapore to London that would leave at 23:20. I was due to leave Perth International airport, a forty minute drive away at 12:20. It was now almost dead on midday.

I received the reaction I expected from those in our little group.

Visions of an extra expensive night in Fremantle, an even more expensive flight home and a lot of trying to explain away my stupidity flashed before me.

I composed myself and got on phone to Qantas who for once over the recent days actually answered the phone without me being on hold for literally hours and gave me a bit of good news. There was a flight that I could get which would still get me in to Singapore to be on time to connect with the flight to London.

The only thing was that they could not do anything about getting me booked on the flight because it was a British Airways booking. I would need to contact BA.

All at once I ordered my hire car to be brought round, my eleven bags and boxes to be brought out of the porter’s store and the phone number of BA.

“You’ll be lucky if you can get an answer from them though”, said the Head Concierge as he handed me the number, “they never answer when I call them,” he continued, half laughing.

Ian, Michelle’s husband helped me throw my baggage into the car.

I waved a rushed farewell and drove away setting the sat nav as a was pulling out of the car parking area.

I shoved the hands free kit in my ear and called the BA number. The advice was correct, well partially.

There was a reply, very quickly, by a recorded asian accented voice telling me that the British Airways office was only open from Monday to Friday.

I thought that I might get on better with the UK. So I checked the numbers on the website.

That was no good either because it was getting on for half past four in the morning back home and all the numbers were pretty much nine to five on weekdays. I could not and still can’t quite believe that there is not a twenty four hour help line for twits like me that need to get something sorted out in a time zone other than gmt or bst.

I did have better luck with American Express. A slightly sleepy voice answered their emergency number. He got straight on to the case and had my booking up on his screen instantly.

There was, as the Qantas guy had said availability on the flight that I was hoping to catch but, he could not change the booking, It had been closed out for booking and opened up for check in.

I would only be able to see if I could get on at the airport.

The rental car return, I was relieved to see was not too far from the terminal building and more importantly there were trollies nearby.

As fast as I could I loaded up my two trollies and pushed them piled with my eleven bags and boxes in a relay towards the check in desk.

There were a few amused faces looking at me as weaved my bulky towers through the waiting crowd in the arrivals area of the terminal.

Sweating I got there and saw Kate and Simon checking in for their flight which I discovered would now be my flight all going well.

I had made it in enough time for Rod at the ticket desk to get over a few problems that would not let him transfer my booking to the new flight even though thankfully the class of ticket would allow it and there was a seat available.

There was also enough time for the Australian customs officer to complete my carnets in slow time because not only had he not done one for a while he was training a young officer.

At last all I needed to do was to run to the rental car desk and chuck the keys and sat nav at them. It was even easier than that because there was no one at the desk, just a couple of slots marked “key return” and “GPS return”.

I met Simon and Kate in the lounge and even had time to throw down a cup of coffee. There was also enough time for a very distinguished gent and his wife to come up to Kate, confirm that she was who they thought she was, get their photograph taken with her and then go on to tell us how much they disliked Daybreak compared to GMTV, which was slightly embarrassing.

This leg of the flight was a five hour hop to Singapore with the long thirteen hour slog after that.

When we got to Singapore I had a couple of hours to wait for my BA flight to the UK. Kate and Simon should have had a similar wait for their Qantas flight but, as soon as we arrived Qantas staff at the top of the air pier were handing out meal vouchers to passengers who would be getting on that flight.

The flight was delayed by three hours.

I said my last good bye to the pair as they settled in for a long wait after organising the change in time to the cars that would meet them at the airport in the morning.

Just another twelve hours to London and another short hour's flight for me then I'd be home too in a slightly chilly Edinburgh.

Kids and cute kangaroos on 11-11-11.

2011-11-11T09:24:00.009Z

Friday 11th

Christina the producer and I joined the Western Australia and Margaret River group on a walk around the beautiful King’s Park in Perth.

The shots would be used in today’s programme when we would be doing our live broadcasts from Perth’s most famous beach a little way up the coast from our base in Fremantle.

We would need to work quite quickly to both get the shots done and get back to get them fed to London and be ready to do the broadcasts.

We arrived at the park as lots of people were coming to gather at the War Memorial in the park for a service of remembrance and observe a minutes silence at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day eleventh month on this eleventh year of the twenty first century.

The lives that had been given in conflicts throughout the years was in even more sharp relief this time because over the last couple of weeks Australia has been hit hard by a number of deaths in Afghanistan.

Our group and we, all wearing little red Australian poppies, were taken on a tour of the gardens by a very knowledgeable and engaging guide called Greig.

Great views over to the city form the King's Park.

Greig doing his chat to the guys.

He showed us leaves from a tree that when rubbed and crushed between hands would produce an aroma and oil that could serve the same purpose as Vicks in easing a cold if rubbed on the chest.

He demonstrated how to quickly produce fire by rubbing sticks together.

I filmed the group listening and watching in the green surroundings of the park, A few of he men had a go at making fire, with of course mixed results.

Before the remembrance service started it was time for us to head back to the hotel in the hire car.

Then with no time to spare we were back in the car for the short journey up the cost from “Freo” to Cottesloe.

On the way to Cottesloe.

Greg's turn to edit on the move in the car.

Graham had already had the satellite truck parked up. He and Trevor were busy munching on a couple of very tasty looking pies.

Gathered at the truck.

There was no repeat of the multiple problems of yesterday when we came to send the material to Daybreak in London.

One of the problems had been narrowed down by Graham when he got home. it was a switch that had been stuck on which was causing the signal not to be sent to the correct part of the satellite equipment in his truck.

Cottesloe Surf Life Saving Club.

Chantal, the producer of this morning’s segments had organised all the elements for a good series of broadcasts. Nature played it’s part by providing the clear deep blue sky and bright sun. It also allowed Trevor to exercise his skills as a sound recordist by whipping up a bit of wind, enough to make it more difficult to capture clean audio.

There were kids, crowds, hunks in trunks and cute little kangaroos.

The beautiful Cottesloe beach.

Time for some fish and chips between broadcasts.

Producer Christina with her new pal Joey.

The Joey in his pouch for travelling.

They really are just so cute.

Simon gathering the winners together for the live broadcast.

About to go in air.

More press coverage. Kate being interviewed by a local journalist.

It all went pretty much according to plan. Kate was even able to get in some banter with Dan in the studio and a surprise reunion with two cousins who had not seen each other for forty years in a short space of time.

At the end we got two of he life guards to throw Kate into the sea. It was a fun way to end.

Kate gets carried away.

All smiles after her dip in the sea.

Then it was officially a “wrap”.

We went back to the hotel, had a quick shower and once more went over to the the Little Creatures Brewery only this time it was not water in the bottles.

The nights winding down did not go on too late because we were all pretty tired. However, it was late enough for some dancing to be done and for Kate and Sarah to witness a streaker doing his thing with his thing!