Even after my massive clear out of electronic equipment from a couple of months ago I have still managed to find some redundant gadgets in my kitchen. A decade old blender and a juicer that got stuffed in a cupboard and never used again and now either don't work or have been replaced or have bits missing. I had heard that the local library has a facility (well a wheelie bin) for recycling small electric items and I had been to scope it out earlier in the week to ensure that was the case. So I felt very clever for multi-tasking this morning as I headed to the BBC to do three hours of local radio interviews for the tour, carrying these items in Tesco carrier bags. I would just dump them on the way and thus my house and my life would become a little less cluttered.
Though small enough to fit in the wheelie bin the items were still quite heavy and as I approached the library was suddenly struck with the thought, "It's only 9.30am. What if the library isn't open yet?" All my clever planning and I had failed to check this one important detail. Would I be stuck lumbering 20th century electronics all the way up Wood Lane and into the BBC. How would I look turning up with these bags, like some kind of gadget carrying tramp who had not considered the lack of plugs in the outside world, or the redundancy of having a juicer when the chances of acquiring fruit and vegetables were small? Or would people think that I had done my Christmas shopping and that my family were going to be the lucky recipients of second hand kitchen equipment? Would security even let me in the building? "Why do you want to bring a blender and juicer into the BBC, sir? Let's test these devices for explosives."
And it turned out that yes, indeed, the library would not be open for half an hour. At the very least I was going to be carrying these bulky items up and down the road in plastic carriers that were fine for the short trip to the library, but might not last this extra mile. I considered hiding the bags behind the bit container outside the library where you can return books. I would have returned at lunchtime to pop them in the wheelie bin inside, but in the meantime they might get thrown away or cause a bomb scare. A street cleaner had left his cart nearby and a voice in my head said, "Ah, go on, dump them in there - fuck recycling."
But in the end good won out. I acknowledged this was my error and I was going to have to do the right thing. At least it was exercise. Perhaps we should all be forced to walk around laden down with any household item that we haven't used in five years. It would probably quickly convince us to clear our houses of waste or use the soup makers and sandwich toasters that we were once convinced would change our lives.
When I got to the BBC a little late, the person I was meant to be meeting was not there yet and I had a horrible moment of panic where I thought that perhaps I had come to the wrong part of the Beeb. Maybe I was meant to be at Broadcasting House in town. I would have to get on the tube with my heavy gadgets. Maybe events would conspire to mean I would never get back to the library and the blender and the juicer might become like an albatross around my neck. I would forever walk the earth, carrying them, failing to blend or juice anything. But then the person turned up so I was all right.
I felt the need to explain my bags of equipment in case they thought I was strange. I think this probably made me look stranger. The man on security was very keen to check my paper (and easily forgible) pass. He didn't check my bags. Just a little tip for Al Qaeda there. The bags nearly got trapped in the tiny revolving door you have to go through, but apart from that I was into the heart of the British Broadcasting Corporation with my payload. If Jeremy Paxman had walked past I could have put his hand in the blender before anyone could have done anything and caused him serious damage providing a) he was within 36 inches of a plug and b) I could find some replacement blades for the toothless blender in the vicinity and c) if a repairman was on hand to fix the motor.
That is how close the host of Newsnight came today to (probably temporarily) losing the use of one of his hands. It's a chilling thought. I hope the Daily Mail does an expose on this. I think this incident might lead to the closure of TV Centre. If it's not here in a couple of years time, you will know why.
The interviews went well. I enjoyed listening in to the Christmas music being played by the various BBC stations. It was nice to hear "Walking in the Air" again. The three hours of asking basically the same questions in ten minute chunks passed reasonably fast.
I walked back down Wood Lane and put the gadgets in the library wheelie bin. No one around me knew how close Jeremy Paxman had come to damaging and possibly losing a finger. And then having the severed finger turned into a delicious juice. Or stolen and served up in a fake Chinese restaurant by someone claiming it was a chicken foot.
