The BBC is employing child labour. Only kidding. But looking at those attending the reception desk at Television Centre I was hard put to wondering if any of them were past school leaving age.
The girls who wandered into the recording suite at various times, either out of curiosity or to find out if all was going well, seemed hardly to be that much older, as where the personnel I noticed as I peeked into various offices walking by in this maze of a building. Mind you, there was ample proof of the existence of yoof elsewhere. They do say you know you are growing old when all policemen look as though they’re sixteen. Leaving the underground at Northfields Station I noticed two policemen standing in the concourse, the taller of the two looking as though he was about to celebrate his fifteenth birthday and as rosy cheeked pretty as one of Cardinal Pirelli’s choirboys. ‘Hello,’ he said, quite chummily, which rather set me aback, although I think I did manage a smile in return. Out of earshot I asked Douglas why he thought the child had greeted me in so friendly a fashion. ‘Because you were staring at him,’ was the answer. Twice whilst trying to manoeuvre a suitcase on a station escalator a young girl smilingly offered assistance and this again I find quite remarkable because up till now it is only in Athens that young girls have offered to give up their seat for me in train or bus. So what has changed in London since I was last there? Well, apart from the preponderance of youth – Ian Dean took us to a very fine dinner at his club, ‘Blacks’ in Soho, and again I noticed that, our table apart, not just the staff but the clubbers were all young – where previously London seemed all grouch and growl, now it is courteous, helpful and smiling from staff in the underground to people on the street, so what has brought about this change? I can’t remember exactly how long it is since I was last in the big smoke, maybe eleven, twelve years? I think it must have been when acting in my very last telly, playing a murderous paedophile in a ‘Crimewatch File’ for the Beeb. That was when you gave your name at the gate and walked or drove up to telly centre set a fair distance back from the road. The whole complex is now so enormous you walk into a large reception area straight from the road and the old building I once knew so well is completely hidden. Well, the tv centre might have been built up but I also noticed large sections of central London have been razed. I was told this was to make room for new shops etc., for the Olympics. Whoops! We’re in a recession and the games have evidently already cost a fortune so who needs this? Who is going to pay for all this is more to the point? London, England, must surely be the most expensive city/country in the world. It is just as well we have good friends who are prepared to put us up so we are saved the necessity of looking at inflated hotel bills but the price of transport even for the shortest journey is simply horrendous and as for snacks etc., do folk not baulk at having to pay just under £3 for a croissant or a slice of very ordinary cake? £3 an hour for parking? £8 congestion charge? Taxi fares in the stratosphere? £7 entry fee to visit a cathedral? Money disappears like water down a drain.
So, although the company put £500 towards travel expenses, I reckon the jaunt set us back three to four hundred pounds which, when you come to look at it and thanks to lovely friends, was not much to spend on what was really considered a holiday albeit a wet and freezing cold one that left us both with colds, flu, chest infections or whatever I don’t even want to talk about. Back in Athens I never left the flat for six days and hardly had the energy to read more than a couple of pages of a book before putting it down. I wonder if we passed on our germs to fellow passengers or to all those customs men busily searching our baggage. God, I really do hate flying!