Presenters Meeting: Not being silly

[Neil Rigby]

Yesterday, after reading Thursday's blog, one of the producers asked me if there was any way I could make the producers and presenters not look quite so silly. I agreed, of course. The producers and presenters are very talented people who do an amazing job, and I have no interest in doing them down unjustly. But then the meeting starts...

For the first few minutes everybody is well-behaved and focuses on how to get at any kestrel pellets there might be without disturbing the chicks. Luckily, as the camera needs adjusting anyhow, Nigel the birdman will try snatch a few pellets while he is up there so that Chris can examine them for a lapwing's leg rings...

So far so good. But then, despite my best intentions, it all begins to fall apart. The fact that Simon is going to be doing a piece in a waterfall gets everyone wondering how dressed or undressed he will be, with talk of old ads for Herbal Essence and Timotei... and Simon stripped to the waist.

One of the men in the room suggests we move onto the dippers but Kate vetoes it, insisting that one skinny dipper is enough. Gold star to Kate, but I am now struggling to maintain my serious and po-faced facade as we move on to the kestrels' varied diet.

The cameras, it turns out, have caught the mother kestrel feeding her chicks a frog. As this comes hot on the heels of the adult blackbird trying to shove a snail in her chick's mouth, those present wonder if one of the cameramen is perhaps French...

Then it's back to Simon who will be 'kick sampling' in a Welsh river. Confused, The Mole asks what kick sampling is and is told that it is scrabbling around in a river bed to get a sample of the fauna. "The secret," says Chris, "is to imagine that you're looking for your car keys under water."

At last everyone is serious again. There is a great story for tonight. In fact it is so exciting that I am not allowed to tell you about it right now. This is a serious exclusive. All I can tell you is that it revolves around two very rare birds and everyone is very serious. Then someone revealsthat the the two birds have been named Roobarb and Custard... which means that Kate immediately starts singing the theme tune, the executive producer starts doing a strange dance in homage to the jerky animation, and Chris starts quoting Custard's lines: "Yes, I know, Roobarb," he says in a drowsy voice

"I'm not sure Roobarb was a poodle," says Roger, one of the producers.

Not wanting to get Chris too fired up about his poodles, everyone moves quickly on to some of the animals that will be appearing in the show: water voles, otters, skylarks, our assortment of live birds, and - of course - more of tonight's great reveal.

For the rest of the meeting everyone is relatively serious. Then, one minute from the end, Kate reads out a text she has just received. It is her neighbour telling her that despite Chris' complaints about Angel Delight on last night's show, Angel Delight with Cadbury Milk Chocolate fingers is actually the best pudding in the universe. At which point Chris reveals a text he has just received saying that the best pudding in the universe is actually Angel Delight impregnated with chunks of Mars bar...

Oh well, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Talking of Roobarb and Custard, here's a series of animated short films inspired by Springwatch and made by student at Norwich University College of the Arts. They are seriously good.

And here's a picture of today's star chart:

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