I wake at 5.30am and begin work on the Gil Scott heron
script at 6am.  It’s been a challenging
documentary process  beset by problems. Not
Gil, he was fine throughout.  But
problems are there to overcome, to work through.  

Through some key interventions and good team work problems
get sorted.  I have learned allot from
making this particular documentary. It is not when things go well that your
professionalism is tested but when things go wrong.   At
9.30am  I press send and the script
whisks through cyberspace  to the
producer and senior producer who will now spend time editing it down for our 2pm
recording meet and 3pm recording session 
at Something Else Studios in East London.  

I find myself with a two hour window before setting off. And
I want to open it and breath in the fresh air.   So I get on my bike and go to the cafe on the
corner for a coffee where I see  Kari.  Kari is a retailer and wife of Graham, a good
man. They are good people who live near by.    In the cafe Kari  asked  for a deep black  cappuccino so I reiterated the
drink list to Abdullah the Turkish cafe owner “one soya latte and a deep black
cappuccino”. A deep black cappuccino! He looked at me with  playful suspicion.    Deep black  cappuccino?  It was De-caf cappuccino!!  We laugh and take our coffee into the sunshine
at Clapton Pond.   I cycle back home,
print out the script and the directions on multimap. I slip them into my back
pocket and cycle from hackney towards Old St. It is cycling weather.  It’s gorgeous.

I arrive at Old Street 
and reach to  get the script and
map  out of my back pocket. But it isn’t
there. It it was sticking out.  Ofcourse  it’s gone. The entire script and the freakin
map.  Inshalla:  I buy a London A to Z  get  to
something else studios and meet the producer. 
This studio  owned and run by Sonita
Alleyne alongside Jez Nelson. I knew Sonita years ago when she left Kiss FM…
now she owns the biggest independent radio production company outside of BBC.
Elizabeth and I are getting on with the script when Sonita arrives with a smile.
It must be ten years since we met and she hasn’t changed.   I rush
out and give her a big hug. We chat like kids, swap details, and will  resume where we left off. The documentary is
recorded in the studio by 6pm and life is good.

It was some time ago that Something Else bought All About
Productions who are the people I am contracted to.  At 3.45pm today my new series was on Radio 4.
Into The Gap.  I arrive home and on the
kitchen table is The Radio Times.  They’ve
previewed the radio series and called it “enchantingly beautiful”.    I am shattered. The Gil Scott heron  documentary took it all out of me. “I would
fight to the death for radio four to make programmes like this” said jane
Anderson in the Radio Times.  I sleep like a baby should sleep.

“It's a wrap” is the phrase often used when filming ends. But it is not applicable certainly  to radio nor film.  “It's a wrap”  is an  acronym  Wind  Reel And Print.