Wednesday 19 December 2007

But I don’t want to go to bed yet! 7 – 9pm

You know they’ve been going on about there not being enough homegrown kids stuff on TV? Well I’m home grown. I am. And I’m free range and almost organic except for some antibiotics a vet gave me once for an ear infection. But they didn’t ask for organic children’s television programmes just home grown ones so I think I still fit the bill except The Bill isn’t a children’s programme. But if it were a children’s programme then I’d really fit it.

In fact there are so few homegrown children’s programmes on, that even the children that aren’t home grown have to watch grown up telly. I thought that maybe the grown up telly programmes would like to accommodate their younger viewers and put me in their shows. After all, my ears are gorgeous and don’t need straightening to look fashionable like a beautiful actress’s hair which would have to be a bonus.

Now we’re talking about prime time telly and that should be treated with respect. So I nipped down to the fancy dress shop to see if I could get a decent police uniform to wear. Unfortunately they had a run of office Christmas parties so all the police uniforms had gone. Strangely so had the bunny suits. I was left with the choice of Yasmin from Disney’s Aladdin or a bar of Toblerone. Who goes to a party as a bar of Toblerone? Anyway, not getting the police uniform was an obstacle but I was encouraged to think that if the bunny suits had gone too, then police bunnies was definitely the way to go.

So where else to find a police uniform? How about borrowing one? Now Auntie Jayne warned me that there are laws about impersonating a police officer so I should be very careful. But I’m always careful. After all, children don’t have a second chance on growing up so I don’t want to mess it up for them.




So I skidaddled down to our local nick (see, how I used Bill-like lingo there?) to see if there were any spare ones. Uniforms, not children. The nice man on the desk -I called him Sarge. He didn’t seem to mind although he refused to say


“‘ello, ‘ello, ‘ello”


so I could get his accent right and not break any impersonating officer laws. Told you this was going to be difficult.




Anyway the nice man on the desk, ‘Sarge’, said they don’t lend out their uniforms to anyone. Firstly because it confuses the general public and secondly because it confuses them and thirdly because in the past the uniforms have been returned with boiled egg encrusted on the buttons and it’s a devil of a dry-cleaning job. His words not mine.

So if I couldn’t rent one or borrow one, how about making one? I quite like sewing cos I get to make the machine go really fast but once I got excited and it took ages to unpick my ears. What’s that phrase, ‘beg steal or borrow’? It never occurred to me. Instead, I had a brain wave – why not be a plain-clothes officer? All I would have to do is wear what I normally do and I’d just blend in. Perfect.







I was sad not to get to wear the helmet though. So to make up for this disappointment, I decided to be a super sleuthy type of detective and do a lot of sneaking and tiptoeing. It’s a good job I did because the security on the set was far heavier than that at the police station.


But of course what they’re looking out for in prime time telly are gossip-mongering reporters, crazed fans and even more crazed telly executives...

trying to out do each other in their schedules. I saw at least three executives kicked off the set. They scuttled behind the grundon bins but the reporters were already there sifting through the celebrity rubbish. Still it distracted the security people so I was able to sign myself in quite easily as a rising star on the programme’s time sheet at the entrance gate. I filled it in like this Name? KC.
Character? Yes I am quite.
Position? Rising Star.
Time In? Now.
Time out? No thanks; its too early for chocolate.

I presented myself to the director who took one look at my plain clothes officerness and sent me off to wardrobe to get a hoody. I tried to tell him that not every young person wears a hoody but he was too busy filming Stunt-Reg running up the side of a building. That’s the sort of character I want to be: quietly heroic and with my own stunt double, but I’d still do my own stunts because I’d be so heroic.

Anyway, when I got my hoody, I went back to the director and said I was ready for my quietly heroic stunt but he shoved me over with a herd of teenagers who all looked spotty and cold to me but I was told they’d been cast because they had ‘attitude’. They were great fun people but we were treated like a herd. I said I couldn’t remember seeing lots of quietly heroic teenage police detectives in Prime Time telly before and was quite excited at the prospect. Then Ramjam- real name Umar but he apparently gets more work with that stage name, but here called Thug 1 – told me that any action we got to do was smashing things and running away from the police. Thug 3 got paid a bit extra – he had to push an old lady as he ran away from the police.

I was horrified. Firstly young people don’t always push old ladies. In fact I’ve known lots of young people and lots of old ladies and I can’t remember any of them ever doing any pushing or being pushed. Although there is always a certain amount of jostling if a buffet is involved. So I went back to the director and asked why the young people had to always be doing the running away and the pushing and he said it was in the script so I went to the script writers and asked them why the young people had to always be doing the running away and the pushing and she said it was in the story line and I went to the story liners and they said it was in the story and then I ran out of people to go to because all the executives were scuttling behind the bins over on the Eastenders and Coronation Street sets.

Why couldn’t the old ladies do the running away and pushing? Why couldn’t the kids be the detectives? Why do children always have to see themselves as being sulky or criminal and stealing things (like I said, it never occurred to me to nick a police uniform) or just looking like they shop at JD Sports? What about all the other kids who are skateboard champions, practice their recorder and do their granny’s shopping, and don’t wear their trousers round their knees? I have tried and tried and tried to be a proper kids character for proper kids and this was the last straw. I had a bit of a rant at the director. “

No one cares about us kids, not on telly not nowhere. If they did, we’d have places to play and we’d have telly that not only talked to us in our way but showed what we’re really like to the rest of the world too.”

I guess a hopping mad purple bunny was easy to spot because it didn’t take long for the security guys to come out from under the bins (a BBC executive had tucked himself right at the back and they couldn’t reach him) and eject me from the set. Still I’d made my point. I don’t want to be in primetime telly if I have to be an ill-tempered, drug encrusted, teenagely pregnant, loser of a kid. And I got a policeman’s helmet from the stunt-Reg as a souvenir. I shall sell it on ebay and finance my own children’s detective show in which old ladies get to have stunt sequences and television executives do all the running.

Tuesday 18 December 2007

The Afternoon Slot

When I stay with my Grandad, we always put the telly on in the afternoons.


(I know my grandad doesn't look much like me but that's because I wear recessive jeans)


We love the cricket and the racing. Grandad knows what all the funny men are doing, especially the one in the lab coat who experiments by piling pullovers on himself and sticking his finger in the air. And the racing is pretty cool as well. But the best thing about the racing and the cricket in the afternoons is that they are perfect for falling asleep in front of.


3.30 Newmarket: Afternoon Nap. Odds on Favourite.

And then it’s the best time of the day. Because that’s when the kids programmes start and me and Grandad wake up and watch cartoons, and learn songs and maybe get a bit scared and definitely laugh at jokes and pranks and then watch some sensible drama and stuff.
At least it used to be like that.
Grandad said to me that it’s different now but I thought that was because he is getting older and needs to sleep for longer. So while he was still asleep I decided to go down to ITV Land and see if they needed an extra pair of paws to do the kids’ afternoon slot.

I was really looking forward to seeing all the stars down there: Sooty, Pocoyo and the Cramp Twins. But when I got there, it was all quiet. Not a single kids’ character in sight. Walking round the studios, it was a bit spooky really. My bunny hops echoed eerily and the hair on the back of my bobtail began to rise. I sniffed the air: there was something fetid, pungent, dangerous. I looked round and saw my paw prints tracking back down the corridor. Very odd; I hadn’t trodden in any dog poo. And then there was some scuttling, like a lot of grandads heading for the pavilion at tea.

I turned the corner and bumped straight a whole load of ancient detectives. There was one bloke in a wheelchair but frankly they all looked like they had mobility issues they were so old: Morse, Wexford, Rockford and Jessica Fletcher I recognised but there were loads of others and they all pounced on me, pontificating how I did it and how stupid they were not to have realised it after the first murder but congratulating themselves that now, after five murders and a jolly exciting plot, they had been brilliant enough to work out that the serial killer was in fact a big purple bunny hoping to work in children’s television.


Murder?
This was weekday afternoon telly with lots of children watching. I pleaded that I’d been asleep with Grandad all afternoon and couldn’t have done any murdering. But then they pointed to my footprints. No I hadn’t trodden in any dog poo. It was blood! Blood! My paws were dripping in blood! Kids’ characters don’t have paws dripping in blood! They told me I was like Lady Macbeth and someone (I expect it was Inspector Dalgliesh because he’s literary) shouted “Out damned spot” which was really unfair because Spot the Dog is a sweet little kids’ character and he certainly didn’t need to be shouted at as he hadn’t pooed in the corridor and besides he wasn’t here anyway.

And that gave me the leverage I needed and I turned the tables on these so-called afternoon detectives: where was Spot eh?
Where were all the other kids’ characters for that matter?
What had these fiendish private and public dicks done with them? Hmm? They didn’t like my questions, I could tell: Morse took out his Crossword and Jessica Fletcher tried to fob me off with a bit of the Bobbing Along song. It’s a catchy tune; Grandad and I always like singing along and I couldn’t help joining in so I didn’t notice some bloke in a Hawaiian shirt who suddenly cuffed me and said “Book ‘em Danno.”

I started to cry but they weren’t interested. They just wanted to show everyone how clever they were by solving the mystery. They realised of course that big purple bunnies are not the murderous type but they didn’t want me spoiling things so they left me alone with all these dead bodies while they went off to round up all the usual suspects for the big reveal scene. It was horrible.

Before they left though, they couldn’t resist having the final word. “You want to know what your crime was, kid?” I was too distraught to speak and simply nodded.
“Being in the Wrong Place at the Wrong Time,”
they said
But this was three-thirty in the afternoon: how could that be the wrong time for a kids’ telly character? They wouldn’t listen though. They just said that kids weren’t wanted here any more and I should shove off.

Monday 17 December 2007

Ladies wot Lunch

Kids’ programmes at lunchtime are really important. I mean really really important. I mean, I bet we wouldn't have such brilliant fire fighters if kids hadn't been inspired by Fireman Sam’s rescue missions or stirred by Cuthbert, Dibble and Grub sliding down their pole.

That would be so cool to inspire children to take up important jobs like that. And children still have to eat lunch so what a brilliant time of the day to do it? I reckon a twenty first century Watch With Carer is such a great idea, I thought they must be doing it already in TV Land so I went down to see if I could help out.

I was a bit nervous to go into the studio because I now know that audiences can be very scary but these ladies weren’t baying for blood like the morning talk show people. They had no voices left to bay for anything because they’d been singing along at last night’s performance of Mama Mia. They were still very excited though. I overheard the floor manager say there was a definite whiff of HRT in the air. I think that’s like CK1. I think they may have had free squirts on patches in the ladies toilet because several of the ladies had their pants in their hands so I guess they’d forgotten to pull them up in their excitement to have a free squirt.

Anyway before they had a chance to put their pants back on, a very pretty plastic lady walked out with two mugs of coffee and sat behind the presenters’ desk. The ladies in the audience applauded in a very friendly fashion– like my auntie who always sends me a birthday card but never sends a present. I thought if I were round my auntie’s house, I would enjoy watching this show with her.

Then the pretty plastic lady put her two mugs of coffee on the presenters’ desk. As she put down the second one, the audience of aunties seemed to go mad. It was a happy mad though and they all looked like the girl in the Mama Mia poster, except she isn’t throwing her pants in the air. The Aunties were throwing their pants. Not straight away, but when this orange man suddenly ran down the audience stairs. He stopped and kissed a couple of the aunties before energetically joining the pretty plastic lady behind the presenter’s desk.

It was hard to hear what the presenters were called but I think she called him Dead and he called her Melt. They were quite good names because it was hot under those lights and she was pretty plastic and he was ancient enough to be dead, except that he was orange. Anyway Dead and Melt said they had a great show lined up and pointing to an empty stool, said they were looking forward to a surprise guest. I thought it only fair to put them out of their misery so I ran over and climbed on the stool and shouted ‘surprise!’

They weren’t so much surprised as stunned, especially when I said something about the place thronging with aunties’ panties and that not really being the sort of thing to inspire the next generation of fire fighters. The audience went quiet and put their pants back in their handbags. I kind of figured I’d said something wrong but then Dead made everyone laugh by saying the place was not so much thronging as ‘thonging’ and said that must be because of all the ‘thinging’ at the Mama Mia concert and then Melt said there would be a chance to really thing a thong later when the real surprise guest, some Latin bloke called Hooleyegg Glazing-Arse arrived. The aunties cooed and took their pants back out their handbags at that and we settled down to the rest of the show.

The rest of the show was weird. Melt confided that now she is getting older (she’s been twenty six for the past seven years I think) she has realised that many women need to think about their body parts ‘going south’. The aunties looked worried so I reassured them that it would only be for the winter and like the swallows whatever body parts Melt was talking about would fly back next summer. But Melt ignored me and produced her brand new book from under the table. It was called “Under The Bread Knife: how to combine cosmetic surgery with home baking and get more dumpling for less dough.”

Melt had cleverly seen a DIY niche in the beauty market. My favourite picture was the woman who wanted a ‘fuller mouth’ so had inserted the squirty cream nozzle into her lip. Melt said no one would be able to tell that viewers hadn’t had this done in an expensive Harley Street Clinic. But I said the next person who got the squirty cream out the fridge would see the tell tale lip marks and told the children watching at home always to wash the nozzle before having a sneaky squirt. I wondered what children watching at home would think if their aunties or mummys did this with the squirty cream and thought I’d better point out that a) kids might not recognise their aunties or mummys; b) the squirty cream nozzle would be quite disgusting; and c) there might not be any squirty cream left anyway unless their aunties or mummys accidentally bit their lip and that would really be disgusting.

Melt’s leg suddenly slipped off her stool and accidentally kicked mine from underneath me. I don’t think she liked me much because she didn’t say sorry. But that might have been because the producer told her to announce that Hooleyegg Glazing-Arse was ready to sing. The aunties cheered and the place erupted with pants flying out of handbags. I must say he was very handsome. Dead was looking quite jealous so I told him, I bet he looked that handsome when he was young too. I don’t think Dead liked that at all because I’d only just climbed back on my stool when his leg slipped off his and kicked me off again. It was ok though, I told him my great Grandad also suffered from gout so I knew how painful it was. Hooleyegg Glazing-Arse started singing and the aunties started rubbing their HRT patches and it must have been the HRT in the air that really set off Dead’s gout because his leg flew out again and I was kicked right out of the studio.

It was a funny sort of Watch With Carer programme. I guess it might have inspired children but to what? To be pretty plastic or ancient orange? There were no fire-fighting poles, no tractors, no get along gang. Lunchtime telly for kids and their carers? It’s just pants.

Saturday 8 December 2007

Kyle or Cure: Morning Chats

It is horribly horrible weather today. Not like yesterday. Yesterday the sun was up bright and early and I thought I'd tell the early morning news people but as they're only interested in things 'coming in' and the weather was already there, I didn't.

Instead, I went to find a morning slot on TV where I could show kids some cool stuff that they can do to enjoy the winter sunshine, like making snow goggles or keeping warm on frosty days by doing keepy ups with an old sock (young socks don't know enough to be any good at keepy ups)

Well there were some kids' characters already there on Morning TV. It was brilliant! But only if you're under seven. It was a bit crowded so when a giant bee dusted me in flowertot pollen and made me sneeze, I decided to find somewhere else with a bit more room.

I found a huge room on the other side. It was so big, there were hundreds of people all sitting in the audience and several cameras but still plenty of room. The cameras were all trained on some chairs and a man in a sharp suit and very shiny teeth. The audience clapped too loudly for me to hear his name but it was something like a Scottish island, like Kyle or Arran or Mull. I told him it was too sunny to sit indoors but he said he had some guests.

Well kids like meeting new people and they deserve the best TV so I sat in one of the chairs and waited for Mull's guests. The first one was a burly woman with very bad teeth. She waddled in and Stornoway or whatever he was called asked her loads of boring questions. Well I was bored. It's not very interesting hearing about problems you don't really understand when you want to be playing outside. Her tattoos were quite interesting though. I think her name was Millwall.

Then it all kicked off. South Uist introduced his next guest and the Millwall woman went mad as a thin woman in fat jeans, thundered in. They were arguing about who had stolen whose man and who had the most babies by someone else and who had the best tattoo. To settle the argument Scapa Flow wheeled in a hundred blinged up babies. Most of them were crying which wasn't surprising, their designer nappies looked most uncomfortable: the boys' were low slung 'gangsta' Pampers and the girls' were all sporting Huggies 'thongs'.

Anyway the mums started at each other, yelling and shouting and the audience loved it. The Old Man of Hoy loved it too. I didn't love it and neither did the babies. We all cried because of all the noise and hate and anger in the room. And it was such a lovely sunny day. All I wanted was to make the most of the sunshine before it rains again but no one was listening. No one was interested in the babies or me. We were just accessories. Coffee time fight telly is no place for children.