It’s three o’clock in the morning.
Apart from the fact that it’s too hot to sleep, I’m awake and at the computer because I’ve just had a phone interview. Hard work trying to impress a panel over a long distance conference call when usually you’ve been asleep for at least the past couple of hours. 1300 GMT was the only time they could arrange the conference call with all parties. So that’s 2am our time, factoring in daylight saving.
The interview was… well, not a job as such, this is a PhD scholarship – one I’m particularly keen on.
A few days ago I mentioned I was reading up on the history of the BBC. Well, the reason for this sudden interest in the historical writings of Asa Briggs was that Jean Seaton of the University of Westminster has taken over the series. Book 6 will cover the late 1970s to the mid-1980s. Jean is, among other things, the co-author of a very famous book, ‘Power Without Responsibility: The Press and Broadcasting in Britain‘, with James Curran.
So anyway, the PhD Scholarship is to join the team researching and writing the book, get full access to the BBC archives and write a chapter on Thatcherism and Broadcasting in the Regions. Not a great deal of money, but there’s teaching involved, which would help.
Fascinating period – we’re talking everything from Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy to Boys from the Black Stuff and Auf Wiedersehn, Pet – not to mention the birth of alternative comedy, the rise and fall of punk, the Falklands War, the IRA bombings and so on. Thatcher’s Press Secretary Bernard Ingham deserves a book of his own. He’s been kindly described as a rottweiler.
I think the interview went reasonably well. I’d spoken to two of the four interviewers on the phone before, and I met Paddy Scannell at a conference in Wisconsin last year. He seemed to remember who I was, which I guess is a good sign – especially from such a heavyweight in the field. He wrote ‘Radio, TV and Modern Life‘ and was the founding editor of the prestigious journal ‘Media, Culture and Society‘.
If I get the scholarship, it’s off to the UK for a few years. I may be 15 years past the usual age for the big OE, but at least I’ll be a student…
At any rate, I was shortlisted – they’re down to 6 people – so I guess those are my odds. I don’t think I did anything majorly wrong during the interview, but then chances are the other candidates won’t either.
Lap of the gods stuff at this point. Cross your fingers for me…
The reason I’m still awake and likely to remain so? I popped out to the service station to pick up a bottle of diet coke to drink while I wound down (there’s a bottle of champagne in the fridge, thanks to Caitlin Smith, but I’ll save that till I hear the word either way on the Westminster scholarship). I also bought a can of V to perk me up in the morning. I have a busy day ahead.
Trouble is… my mind was elsewhere and I put the coke in the fridge and skulled the can of V before I realised what I was doing. It’s the heat, you know…
An energy drink was not really what I required at this point.
