Tuesday, December 27, 2005

p3 on the BBC

Barely has this little blog taken its first, faltering steps into the world – it still needs to be burped regularly – and already worldwide fame has been thrust upon it. Well, kind of…

I was sitting at work on Friday, picking my nose - I’d finished writing my remarkably average and slightly underwhelming Business Week program early, and idle hands make the devil’s work – when an email came in from Peter van Dyke at the BBC World Service.

He had been wondering what to do in the final 15 minutes of his program, World Have Your Say, on Friday night. He came across our blog, saw my carp post and got the idea of doing something about different Christmas traditions around the world. He asked me if I wanted to be a guest on the program and talk about our mud-eating, slightly evil looking, fishy Christmas companions.

I stopped picking my nose. Great! A good way to get a mention for our blogs! And it means that I am now officially the BBC’s Correspondant for Polish Mud-Eating, Slightly Evil Looking, Fishy Christmas Companions. They said I could have my own desk! And a secretary!

Come 7.40 in the evening the phone rings and it’s the most silky smooth, BBC-like voice that you have ever had on the other end of the line - ever. They put you on ‘hold’ as you listen to the programme until your time comes.

Millions and millions are listening to the BBC WS – in all sorts of countries. They make the listening figures of Radio Polonia look like a local community radio station.

Finally it was my turn, and I did the bit about the carp in the bath, etc. They seemed to like the idea of a carp swimming moodily around the bathtub, as a poor, slightly inebriated Polish guy hovers outside in the hall with a hammer.

Then Anna, a Pole living in London, came on the line and we had a little chat. Then a Muslim living in Hungary turns up and starts on about the main dish on Christmas Day in Budapest – fish soup. And then there was someone from Nigeria…and so on.

Near the end of the programme the guy asked me if I wrote about food often. I didn’t know how to answer that, so I launched into a plug about p3, how it’s a collective blog and how we are going to take over the world just as soon as we can be bothered to get around it.

It just goes to show that producers don’t only get their ideas from mainstream media anymore – they go fishing for blogs as well. It also goes to show that when we post something on blogs, someone, somewhere reads them. Just occasionally it might be the BBC.

4 Comments:

At 12/28/2005 09:51:00 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Congratulations, beatroot, and let off-stream rule the world!
Only, I have to note that carp is something I just can't stand. The mud tasting fatty part on the bottom of the bread covered fried slices. Bruh-haa...
I used to call the carps 'Pond Pigs' or 'Tavi Diszno' in Hungarian. Yeah, the bath tub thing really rocks in deed.
Final notes: I did not mean to offend any pro-carp activists - also known as kharpists - with my comment.
Chew on,

 
At 12/28/2005 11:51:00 PM, Blogger beatroot said...

I am completly in solidarity with your anti-carpism. Pond Pigs! What's the fish soup like?

 
At 12/29/2005 08:48:00 AM, Blogger michael farris said...

I had Hungarian fish soup in its spiritual homeland, Szeged, once, under the bridge even. It was carp and tasted muddy .... a bunch of homeless people were hanging out there waiting on unsuspecting tourists like me to not be able to finish the brimming bowls so they could scarf the remains down. Out of spite I finished mine, but the friend I was travelling with was happy to donate his to a local bum.

 
At 1/23/2006 10:02:00 PM, Blogger Bialynia said...

I'm getting in a little late on the carp discussion, but if you haven't had carp from Milicz, you just haven't had real carp. Next time you're in the vicinity of Wroclaw, take a drive out to Milicz and stop in one of the local restaurants, they'll have the best carp, possibly best fish, you've ever tasted. Carp has been farmed around the ponds of Milicz since the 13th century, and they know what they're doing!

 

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