A Juice Bar...is that a real thing?

I’ve been keeping busy since the Wimbledon trip on Sunday.  Monday, we went to the BBC as part of my COMM & POLS courses. 

The BBC blocks right outside the side / employee entrance to the BBC TELEVISION CENTRE

We had a great tour and saw behind the scenes the history of British television.  It’s interesting the way the BBC operates though.  Every Briton with an operable television pays a fee (over 100 pounds a year) to the BBC to fund its programming.  Although it looks like a public company with the Britons as the share-holders, the debate now is that the people don’t agree with the pop-culture programming that’s starting to take-over the prime time slots.  The BBC has a reputation as a news organization, not a medium for entertainment shows and imports from America.  I really don’t have an opinion yet on this, I need to chat with people who are actually the fees and see what they think.  It doesn’t take away though from the awesomeness of the Television Centre in Western London.  Parts of the building date back to the early 50’s right after WWII.  Some parts have been updated with the last part of the building being completed in 1997.  The Television Centre rests on a triangular-shaped plot of land, so the complex was designed – naturally of course – as a question mark.  After looking at it from a bird’s eye view in the BBC commissary, it looked like an ingenious way to fit all the studios and offices and support staff.  I’m not a big Doctor Who fan, but the “police booth” he uses to travel – I think the one from season 4 if I read the plaque right – was sitting right outside the side door:

It must be soo hard in London to anonymously tip off the police with these boxes, which is why they were only used by a time and space traveling doctor to "save civilizations and right known wrongs (i've found all British superhero's are like this)." 

We were restricted from taking pictures in a lot of the building because of copyright issues, but we did get to see a children’s “talk show,” as they call it, being filmed.  At the end a couple of people in our group got to read the news in a mock television set and participate in a short game show.  It was fascinating the infrastructure they have, to support up to three tours at a time and employ around 5,000 people.  I enjoyed it; I was hoping to get to do a tour like that and was glad the opportunity arose.   

I’ve got 2 days of London Citizens as well this week.  We had our weekly meeting at noon today and a I met with Alvin Carpio, the Communications Director afterwards at some sort of Juice Bar place.   We met to go over how we’re going to approach this part of the Living Wage Campaign.  I got a juice smoothie with like passion, strawberry, grape and grapefruit in it (this is me being healthy, so you can’t say I’m not trying) and a tuna sandwich on a baguette.  It was a great meeting (food was good too; he asked me if I liked it, and I look down at my completely clean plate and empty cup and thought, ‘cleaned plate = awesome food,’ but I told him it was pretty darn good just in case he can’t read minds lol).  I’m starting to get a strong sense that what we’re all doing here is really going to have an impact.  It’s a weird feeling; dealing with hypothetical’s while knowing they’re going to have to be tangible by the time you go back to the U.S.  We’re in the very early planning stages right now, and I’m being asked for serious input which I am flattered by.  It was great, while I was doing some research for one of Alvin’s projects (that I came up with), I took a look at twitter (which if you know me you know I never ever do) and saw a shout out from him:

“Good catching up with my media intern Andrew Wine. He's a UConn student who worked in US tv stations and with a Congressman. about 1 hour ago from TweetDeck.”

We’ve got a pretty good working relationship.  It’s easy to transmit my ideas to him and Matthew Bolton (the guy in charge overall) and get constructive, practical feedback.  These guys have a lot of experience and a great educational background.  I’m excited, I don’t know if another word can really describe it.  I’ll post a link to what I’m working on when it’s all said and done.  I’m sorry I don’t have pictures to post about London Citizens, I’d really like to get some, but you really can’t just start snapping pictures in a lot of the meetings I’m in (it would be so un-cool).  When I get a chance, I will (I promise).  Anyway, all in all, I’m having a great time here.  It’s still awesome with the potential to be even more awesomer (move over Miriam Webster, that’s a word now).

Until next time people,

Stay Tuned…