Parties, Posts, and Productions....

So, it came to pass... but that's enough of the Beard's digestive-related problems.. I'm sure none of you are really all that interested... but I digress... it definitely came to pass though, which I'm told was a good thing... but anyway...

Now those of you who know the Beard, and some of you who don't, and possiby a number of you who both do and don't or don't and do, or any possible combination of the three, will of course realise that on top of falling, felling and Mrs Alice Jones of 38 Winzle Crescent Brighton, there are several things that the Beard is not fond of... (and for those of you wondering about the unfortunate Alice, it's a long story, but one which I will tell anyway...simply put, the Beard once read in some half garbled self help book that irrational fears can actually be beneficial, and so decided that he would develop one of the said Brightonian...I have never actually met her, and know absolutely nothing of her, but the thought of her ills me with terror, and, let us be hones, what could be more irrational, and therefore beneficial than that... but again I digress....)

As the Hirsute one was attempting to say ("Get on with it!" I hear you cry... "Our cornflakes are getting soggy, and there is literally nothing, not even war, that is worse than that...") among the things that I dislike are noise, crowds, football, drunken people, erratic use of the "Oxford comma," and staying up after midnight... so it may surprise you that the Beard was actually at a party the other night... football was fortunately absent, but in the speech patterns of those present I detected much misuse of my third favourite punctuation device... (for those of you who are not in the slightest interested, my favourites are of course "..." and ";".... with """ falling into fourth place... oh gods, what a life the Beard leads, ranking punctuation marks.. I must go and weep....)

Sorry for the delay... took me a while to find the tissues... which is an awful predicament for a man of my staure... or even a man of my statues...

But back to the gist of the tale... I hesitate to say "point," as I am, to be honest, struggling to find one... If you can help, answers on a postcard please... please!!

Regardless of all this, the party was not the most unpleasant one I have ever attended..no, that one was unspeakable and involved.. well, you can guess... but regardless, football was not on the guest list, but all the others were...

The occasion was the end of post production at the BBC in Birmingham... now the Beard, in his naivety, assumed this meant that no one at the aforementioned tv company was now allowed to send letters or parcels, or do anything that could create them... which would have been a sad day indeed for not just the beeb, but also the Post office, itself in hard times...

But no... post production, as all of you have almost certainly either figured out or not, is all the editting, tweaking and so on that finishes off a programme so that it is actually watchble... and any directors, cameramen, etc out there, please don't take that the wrong way... but I've seen progs being made, and if they were broadcast exactly as they were filmed, then "Homes under the Hammer" would be a three day epic of execrable quality, rather than just half an hour of tosh.... but I'm sure you know that already...

Pedantically of course, this means that post-prodution should actually be labelled "the last stage of production..." for surely post means after, and editing et al obviously occurs before there is a finished product... but none of that is important... which is the way of most television... as I'm sure they will agree...

But regardless, the Beard found himself in a room of tv types now faced with the option of moving to the strange fastnesses of wales, Manchester and Bristol, or even worse, the move to a world outside of television that they really cannot understand, and do not have the skills to live in... if a zoo were to do this with its chimpanzees, there would be outcry from conservation groups and babnana growers alike... but humans are, increasingly, less valued than their other simian cousins, and the BBC's cruelty is going unremarked... the Director General (the last of whom apparently was recruited from a temp agency) makes no mention of the end of the Birmingham operation... the news is empty... no one cares... it's as if the whole of the BBC wants to forget that Birmingham ever existed... which apparently is not an uncommon feeling... that this all connects with London's jealousy of Birmingham's growth and position is self evident, and has been explored somewhere else...if I remember correctly...

So, at the noisy party, gruntled people were not much in evidence... and the Beard, with his innate dislike of people in general, found that this added to what enjoyment he could glean from the affair... the attendees fell into one of three camps... those who were otherwise normal folks who had, through no fault of their own, been sucked into a career in visual media, those who were so shallow that they saw their positions as important, and those from the cardboards tents outside who had gatecrashed... including a rather disturbing looking man who stood by the door to the toilet all night, causing many crossed legs..

The Beard unfortunately slightly upset one of the first camp by not recognising any of the progs he had worked on, and admitting that the Beard is far more of a radio man...had it been a shallow man, the Beard would have taken pleasure... however, it was rather a poignant episode...

The shallow ones were the most fun, as you can imagine... One young lady was walking around apparently talking only to those who could possibly further her career... after eavesdropping (a very difficult thing to do in those volumes) the Beard thought her shallowness worthy of note, and was gratified when she approached him... now, parties bring out the worst of the Beard... and when she inquired as to my role, I declared myself to be the UK Commisioning Agent for AmritsarGold TV, a (hopefully) fictitious Indian production and broadcasting firm... her interest waned, until I claimed that we were only a small company, with average viewing figures of around 23 million, not counting syndication to Africa and the USA... her face lit up as she inquired further, and it was revealed that the Beard apparently has the job of buying foreign programmes for the broadcast side, and is in charge of a new venture involving producing programmes in the UK using UK professionals... for which pay would not be high... funded as it is by advertising revenue alone, AGTV would be unable to pay directors, series producers, etc, much more than 150 grand per programme... programmes of course taking three months from beginning to end... the poor girls eyes were lit up with hope when the Beard unfortunately saw someone he really had to talk to... the long suffering Mrs Beard.... and maybe I shouldn't have done it, but hey, apparently one is supposed to enjoy oneself at parties..

But time draws on, and the floor beckons my feet... so little room now to mention the charming software bod who I think will be a top children's writer, and the clumsy drunken attempt at chatting up the Beard... and it remains only to say that, until Birmingham is remembered, and shallow people end up in the deeps, and production really is post, Wisebeard Salutes You!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!