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Today was the first day BBC New Media Central (a.k.a Highfield’s Heros) moved to the Media Village, the BBC’s swanky ultra modern development adjacent to White City. And it’s very nice, it’s just the commute that isn’t.
8:25, leave house, walk to Gipsy Hill train station, 8:32 delayed till around 8:40ish, get to Clapham Junction at 9ish, cross over to platform 17, train to Olympia cancelled, race to platform 2, 9:05 to Olympia rama-dama-ding-dong, train leaves stuffed with people, run back to platform 17, 9:25 also cancelled, walk back to platform 2 and wait for the 9:35, get to Olympia, wait for shuttle bus, get in work at 9:55
So, what’s it like working along side the ‘other bits’ of the BBC? Well, it’s all very different. All the girls are young and attractive, the guys well dressed and handsome, all much more meejah and glam than the World Service with whom we last shared an office with at Aldwych. There’s a nice buzz about the place, though we’re the only people on our floor at the mo, so it’s a bit sparse.
Then there’s a small induction where we learn where the fire alarm/bogs/parking/paper clips are, and the fact that the building’s the most modern in the BBC estate; fully air-conned and totally bomb proof, etc. then a welcome pack and a free mini bottle of Champagne… oooooh.
By then it’s lunchtime. After the gulag that was the Bush House/World Service Canteen us noobs fell upon White city’s refectory like Eastern Europeans in a Berlin Mac Donalds circa ’89. Proper food, cooked to order, decent salad bar, proper knives and forks… It was all too much. One of the team had swordfish, just because it was there. Another had a 10″ pizza, that came in a proper warm soggy box! Ah it’s a long way from the Brussels Sprout and Cous Cous salad that I once saw at Bush, or the Goat Cheese cake, (not Goat’s cheesecake but a savoury quiche that had goat in it).
So, not a bad first day, topped of by a 1 hour 20 minute commute home. see above, sort of in reverse.
