Reflections - An interview with SPVR

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101 Primer for being video-online: Part 2 - Presentation

Yesterday I wrote about preparing to go "on-air". Today, it's Lights, Camera, Action. In a professional TV studio, an illuminated sign "On-Air" will switch on above the door to warn people to keep quiet and be aware that cameras are broadcasting. Many things happen behind the camera that the public does not see. I have sat in the corner of the BBC's Reporting Scotland studio playing pontoon with some of the stage-hands while Sally Magnusson read the news. And rescued a cameraman who, in his enthusiasm to obey the producer's instruction to reposition his camera, got his leg tangled in the cables, tripped and fell forward with the camera a mere six feet in front of Kirsty Wark who was speaking to an adjacent camera. I saw it coming and had dashed forward and caught him, and his camera, just before he hit the floor. Risks in a home studio are less extensive and more banal. For example, The First Minister's daily press briefing yester...

Re-calibrating life

As a measure of our creeping away from most restrictive aspects of this pandemic lockdown, we had our first proper fish supper at the end of this week. Rockfish in Whitehills has adapted its layout to create a one-way system which allows 2-metre social distancing. They used to have 38 seats for eating-in customers. For the time being they're gone. They have always taken telephone orders and that now enables them to book you in for a specific time; in our case 1830. And on arrival, the order of two portions of lemon sole and one portion of chips awaited collection; fresh and hot. Herself who had placed the order had not specified the enclosure for the fish. So they were battered rather than breaded as I might have specified. But it's a lovely light batter. Looking at the kitchen orders behind the staff, it was clear that they were in for a fairly busy evening. This fine establishment says on their web site ( http://rockfishwhitehills.co.uk/ ) that: "Our family has ove...

Watch my back

Every family is different, and every child will be a distinct character formed by their DNA and by their experience of life. If many of the contacts I have had over the years are anything to go by, grandparents are a vital part of most families. Yesterday's announcement that young children can hug their non-shielding grandparents will be widely welcomed. It's not something my personal experience has exposed me to. My siblings and I grew up in a family without grandparents. When my parents married at the ages of 32 and 37 all but one of their parents had already died. As the eldest in the family, I overlapped my maternal grandmother's life by a mere fourteen months and have no recollection of her. Indeed I have no photographs of my mother's parents apart from one which may be of me on my grannie's lap. There's no one left to check with. My family seem to have bred very late in their lives. My youngest grandparent, Alexander Campbell MacGregor, a Gaelic speake...

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