Of Mice and Men: The Price of Media Stardom

[purplecat]

You may recall that the plan was that we would both take this week off and lay the kitchen floor. I have just spent most of today, alone, trying increasingly desperate measures to remove the last vestiges of vinyl tiles from the kitchen floor - paint stripper appears to be doing the trick.

If you are interested in finding out why Louise will not have a kitchen floor by Summerfest then you may consult the following places:

• BBC Worldwide and Radio 5 Live: Running the story from midnight apparently.


• The Today Programme (approx 6.50am): B. is quite worried about this one, in addition to an entirely understandable fear of John Humphries, he's been told that the Dean listens to the Today Programme.


• Probably any BBC Television News apart from the 10 O'Clock (i.e., Breakfast News, 1pm or 6pm)


• The Times, The Telegraph, The Guardian and The Independent

That's not counting miscellaneous local radio shows. The New Scientist, "somewhere in Germany" and "some paper in Sydney Australia" are also "thinking about it".

The story itself is under media embargo until midnight (which makes it sound terribly exciting) but I'm probably not giving too much away if I hint that its to do with dinosaurs.

Comments

[bunn.livejournal.com]

** is on edge of seat **

[purplecat]

It would appear to be something of a slow news week. The Manchester press officer is a little taken aback by the level of interest although he was expecting someone to bite (but I think he imagined it would be Mancester Evening News not every branch of the BBC going). That said, Pallab Ghosh apparently told Bill he thought they would have picked it up even in a busier week.

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

A six year old boy found a bit of dinosaur on a beach on the Isle of Wight some weeks ago, and in our staff magazine today, the Council communications team was gloating about how dozens of newspapers, radio shows and TV programmes ran the story (e.g. here (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/hampshire/6288970.stm)) Dinosaurs sell, it seems.

[purplecat]

Bill's co-author has wangled some sort of TV series to be filmed next year including an episode on dinosaurs, on the Isle of Wight, involving Bill in some capacity. I'm working on having this extended to a family holiday...

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

Ooh, this sounds desperately exciting! (Plus it sparks interesting images of various dinosaur-related reasons for the lack of a kitchen floor)

[purplecat]

Hopefully the actuality won't be too disappointing. The embargo is related to the date of publication of the scientific paper that has sparked the whole thing.

What I can't get over is a) Why every BBC programme seems to feel the need to interview him individually - he has a schedule which includes a phone call at 9.30pm tonight, not to mention getting to a Studio in time for the Today programme tomorrow morning and b) why it takes them 3 hours to film an interview which, presumably, will get cut to a 10 second soundbite.

[parrot-knight.livejournal.com]

They all think they need to interview him individually because they have different editorial policies and different news agendas, at least in theory.

Congratulations, though; I will be glued to whatever news output is closest!

[purplecat]

According to the press officer whenever one bit of the BBC gets hold of a story they all do. There is presumably some internal noticeboard where they post "Hey this looks interesting" and then completely fail to co-ordinate thereafter.

Bill's co-author is driving back from Aberdeen to help cope with the level of interest but the BBC are not, apparently, prepared to pay for said co-author to get driven to London and "sit on a couch" with someone. Bill is little a vague about the couch in question...

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

You've found a dinosaur under your kitchen floor???!!!

[purplecat]

This should be an icon.

[parrot-knight.livejournal.com]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article2303159.ece

[parrot-knight.livejournal.com]

The point being that this was the first version of the story which I came across; it's not the only one, but I've seen it on the front page of The Times on BBC News 24's paper review. But, of course, you know all this.

[purplecat]

I'm impressed you were monitoring the outlets at midnight! We considered it but since Bill had to be up at 5.30am it seemed best to get an early night.

[purplecat]

Actually we didn't know it was going to be on the front of the Times, much excitement (and no doubt newspaper buying to follow). Bill is booked up until midday with interviews of one sort or another, mostly for local radio, its then a question of if there is a second wave of interest as further outlets pick up the story from the ones who are currently running it (which includes Reuters apparently).

At some point today he hopes to upload the simulation, and New Scientist are planning to post it to You Tube in the not too distant future.

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

Like the new icon parrot_knight.

CONFIRMED...

[skordh.livejournal.com]

No dinosaurs on Radio 4 midnight news but I've seen it on BBC News website. Very interesting!

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Heard on Today. Good for Bill!

[purplecat]

Bill disappointed with Today interview, he phoned straight afterwards. He says his interview with BBC Scotland was better, but the Today interview was the one he was most excited/scared about so under the circumstances I think he did pretty well.

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

Quite possibly the coolest thing that the husband of someone I know has ever done!