Sheikh, rattle and roll

Czeszcz! As you may be aware Tomasz has been away from our screens, to indulge in some globetrotting: Last time I posted, our hero was in Poland, being stalked by bears. This week sees him in Dubai. The other day he was sharing this candelit sunset with us...



On Wednesday he visited Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world 2717feet, 828m at 160 floors. It would be very puerile of me to make an erection comment, so I won't.



Update:
Tomasz informed us he was "riding a camel" yesterday. Wonder what Ken & Kenneth would make of that? Lucky camel I say-- no wonder the camel looks pleased...



Meanwhile one of my regular readers Matt Smith did a BBC Tour of Television Centre (Murphy's Law meant Tomasz wasn't there), but Liam Dutton kindly chatted with Mr Smith. Some interesting factoids our Matt reports:

The weather centre corridor has pictures off all the weather presenters along both sides of the wall. Tomasz is the first you come to. Rightly so! He's an award-winner, dontchakno.

There are 2 weather studios-- one with a blue screen, the other green. Blue and Green are used as the colours for the screen because they are the colours furthest away from skin colour...that's why red and yellow aren't used.

A presenter can have up to five people talking in his/hers earpiece-- no wonder Tomasz gets distracted!

The weather presenter will only be told seconds before going on air for a live broadcast whether they will be doing a 30 sec or 2:30 long forecast.

Between half hourly forecasts, the presenters pre-record, edit, do the graphics for BBC World weather (a camera in weather studio showed Susan Powell not just presenting but going back to computers to re-edit).

There are no camera personnel in weather studio. Because of this, the camera automatically adjusts to the correct height to correspond with the height of the presenter.

BBC do not like to call them presenters but broadcast meteorologists.

Viewer figures can go above 3 million for BBC World forecasts.


Some News Channel Info:

News readers are now all called journalists.

The scene behind the newsdesk on the wall is a animation. The looped recording of a
newsroom that featured behind the news desk was removed when Moira Stewart was reading the news and she also appeared behind on the wall!

News readers/journalists on news channel write 80% of their own material themselves (ahhh there is use for that pen)

BBC unlike other news organisations, wait until they get clarification that a breaking story is accurate. Sky News' claim that they are 'first for breaking news' does not necessarily mean they are the most valid.

There are usually no camera crew behind cameras in newsroom

Some misc tidbits for you...

TVC will move to Broadcasting House before 2012 olympics.

The TVC is shaped like a question mark to get maximujm office space in the segment of land provided (like a pizza-slice shape)

The fountain in the middle of TVC was turned off because it sprayed water everywhere and sounded like Niagara Falls.

Jennifer Lopez is only celebrity banned from TVC after her diva-like behaviour (asking to have dressing room completely redecorated and asking BBC staff to fill a bag full of kittens). If BBC want to work with her, they fly to US. BBC asked her to pay for redecorating, not us!

BBC have to make sure Elton John has sugar-free biscuits in dressing room, which can only be purchased from Harrods. Paul McCartney will not stay in a room with animal products in. There was also some upset with Mariah Carey, because she brought over 10 people with her: PA, 4 make up people, 2 life coaches and a few others!