The Great CiN Adventure (Part 4)

I sat on the phone for about 45 minutes and got in the swing of things.

The phone rang and I answered it to a gent who had been listening to Jeremy Vine who came off the air at 2pm-ish. Apparently a comment had been made comparing Susan Boyle to The Beatles and that infuriated this guy. (I read the news and found out that the comparison was made because Susan Boyle reached number 1 in the UK and the US at the same time and the last time that happened was 40 years ago with The Beatles).

Anyhoo so I did my most polite-est understanding bit and discussed how The Beatles rock. I was chatting to the guy and one of the supervisors came and tapped me on the shoulder.

I finished up the call and then went to chat to the supervisor. I was a little worried because I thought I had done something wrong or that I should have waved my red card earlier.

I went to chat to him and he said “Come with me”, we popped to an office upstairs from the call room to drop off some paperwork. we then went up to Floor 6 and we had a little guided tour. We were joined by two of the other bloggers – I’d later find out that one is KandKsmummy.

We were shown the studio that Chris Evans normally does his breakfast show and the room where Moira reads the news. We also were shown the office where Sally sorts out the traffic reports.

Up the other end of the corridor we were shown the other studio, where Richard Allinson was presenting Steve Wright’s show (Steve was on holiday).

There’s a big glass window so that you can see what’s happening in the studio. There was a song playing and Richard waved at us and invited us in. The conversation went something like

Supervisor – “I’ve got to be back downstairs in 2 minutes”
Us 3 Bloggers – “Please? We promise to be on our best behaviour and not get into trouble”.
Supervisor – “As long as some one escorts you back downstairs”
Us 3 Bloggers – “Thank you!”

And this was the surreal bit. We go and stand in the studio and listen to Richard reading out some pledge bits and he reads out the number and then talks to us about what our names are and how it’s going on the phones.

I was so excited – all I could think of was how stupidly excited my Dad would be if he heard me on the radio – I think he missed it the first time round but when I texted him as soon as the show went on listen again he was there on iPlayer.

I headed back downstairs and throughout the rest of the afternoon between calls I met various other people including: Simon Mayo (presents Drivetime), Rebecca Pike (she does the business news), Brother Matt (He’s Simon’s sidekick on Drivetime), Sally Traffic (okay so her surname isn’t Traffic but I don’t know her as anything else!).

Kate Silverton who reads the news for the BBC also popped in but I don’t think anyone really recognised her – I did but was in the middle of a call and she’d gone by the time I was off that call.

I have lots of photos to share (on Mum’s camera at her house) and also going to scan my autographs into the computer. I very nearly lost them as one of the sheet collectors knocked over my cola while I was on the phone. It went everywhere. My two brand new and signed copies of Chris Evan’s first and second book got splashed and my autograph sheet ended up sat in a puddle thankfully somehow the cola landed on the back rather than the front and didn’t ended up too damaged.

By the end of the afternoon the Music Marathon had raised just over £200k for Children in Need and the total from Radio 2 at 7pm was just past £1.6 million pounds.

Following the afternoon, we headed for dinner at a restaurant called Ozer. It was a Turkish restaurant and the food was actually really nice (Even though my first choice would have been Pizza Express which was next door.)

We had a lovely time and lots of laughs. Scoobs, Pip, KandKsmummy and I all headed back to the station together – we grabbed a Starbucks and I cut up the cake so that we could each take a bit home – especially as Scoobs wouldn’t get home till nearly 3am. (Apparently it went down really well!)

I had the most amazing time and would definitely sign up again for next year – I think I might stay over the night after rather than travel back as I was exhausted and nearly dozed off on the train lol.