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Greece OB:
Rhodes, Athens & Athos To lose
weight and get a sun tan; more specifically, to cover half a dozen stories in three locations,
providing live doughnuts into The World Today using the Inmarsat-B gear; and, if possible, to
do the first live OB from the monastic (and male-only) republic of Mt Athos.
Michael told me to 'pack light' so I spent a long while agonising
over exactly what to pack - the fact that we didn't have a Glensound in the cupboard made one
decision for me, and I ended up with 4 bags - Arthur, an inverter, and two of the black plastic
suitcases stuffed full of wires, string and plugs. No laptop - I might have to lug all the gear
around Mt Athos, so it stayed at home.
I got to Heathrow with plenty of time to spare, which was just as well - it took ages for them to
process the Micellaneous Charges Order for the excess baggage, leaving me only just enough time to
grab the last copy of The Rough Guide to Greece in WHSmith.
Spent 2 hours waiting at Athens airport (very grim) for my connecting flight to Rhodes - and
discovered in the lengthy chapter on Athos that you have to remain fully clothed at all times there -
and shorts are not allowed. I have packed 5 pairs of shorts... mmm...
At Rhodes airport I rescued Arthur from someone who decided it looked excactly like his
Samsonite... taxi to the rather fine Rodos Palace Hotel (where there's a conference on Greek-Turkish
relations), but no sign of Voss. It was now 9.30pm local time and I started doing a recce - turns out
no only the room but the whole hotel is on the wrong axis - there are no rooms that face south, just
east and west. I paced around the hotel and it seemed the only solution might be to occupy the
roof near the 'pleasure dome' pool... I began to think AOR-W might be my only hope of getting a
signal out of my room - but I'm having trouble with the crosshairs on the ITU. I deicde to look up
Rhodes in my Psion World database; it's not listed, but Athens is and here's the really nerdy bit.
The Psion world map is very like the one on the ITU - and it gives you lat & long figures for major
cities
So I moved the crosshairs not by looking at the map but by looking at the lat & long numbers --
transpires what I thought was Italy was CORSICA, meaning that my initial bearings were way off, and
my geography teacher spent too much time talking about scree slopes. I'm further East than I'd
thougth so AOR-W is actually over the horizon, POR over the other side of the planet, IOR behind a
hill and behind the hotel... and AOR-E at a just-might-work angle. I put the OTU on a table on the balcony, but
there was a problem - the OTU had to be at the far right of the balcony pointing as far left as
possible - and the door is in the middle... I tried to find a trade-off between signal strength and
safety - the nearer middle of the balcony I put the OTU the weaker the signal, but the larger the
"safe" area in my room.
With the OTU about two-thirds of the way across the balcony, I played out a length of stripy tape
in a diagonal line across my room and powered up - i could get the bar graph just over half the way
into the green... so I went inside and dialled. The bargraph plummetted into the orange and I was
about to hang-up and give up when I heard that familiar 'blip', the CODEC sprang to life and I heard
Jancis welcome me to the NIA. Happy happy joy joy.
At 1am I sat on the balcony listening to 2300 BST desk on 49m SW. I could now build a studio in my
room, fall out of bed and get anyone live into The World Today - and my Psion saved me hours
faffing around trying to get access (and power) to the roof - not to mention sunstroke.
Filing package material was hell on toast - after dinner I thoroughly tested everything and it
transpired there was no output at all from the presenter headphone socket on the Minx. Next time I'll
take a Glensound or nothing.
Alarm call at 0615... set up satphone again, and made my own bodged pair
of cans out of two pairs so I can hear cue in one ear and our mixer output in the other... Michael
will had to make do with just cue. Made a quick call to the NIA where Mike Campbell helped me test
this set-up, and I put a shotgun mic on the balcony to pick up some ambient skyline noise to make it
sound like we really were on location. Then Michael was doughnutted in The World Today at 0715
our time, 0515 in London. Guest in next room not too happy with the noise but thankfully he only
banged on the partition door when we were off the air - adjoining rooms would have been a smart
idea... Then at 0845 our time, another doughnut for TWT and Michael interviewed a live guest from
the Institute for Strategic Studies. I know I packed light, but I'm still surprised to find that I
have used almost every lead, plug and adaptor that I brought. Midnight flight to Athens, o hellish
airport, where it's hard to find taxis, the hotel has no record of our reservation, and I have a
crummy room (Soviet-style). Finally to bed at 0230 on Tuesday.
Then recce tomb of unknown soldier, in front of parliament, went to
the British Embassy for letter of introduction and foreign ministry for permit to visit Athos. I'm
now a 'journalist' according to my papers. We recorded the changing of the guard, but I couldn't get
into parliament as I'm in shorts. Mmm... The breaking story on the Elgin Marbles (apparently the
Bristih Museum poured Domestos over them to clean them up) throws all asunder - back to room, re-rig
satphone for Michael to file generic minute as soon as he walks in...
Then off to Melina Mercouri's former husband's house for live
doughnuts... it's a beautfully decorated house on 4 floors with many balconies. Our fixer gets us on
the highest level, the compass looks promising... but NO SIGNAL. Not a flicker. As an initial
alternative to panicking (we are on air in 15 mins) I move the OTU to the other (less promising) end
of the patio. I could swear that there was a building in the way but I managed to get the bar graph
two thirds of the way into the green and a quick call to Matt Silver (who wasn't remotely sarcastic
about what a tough assignment I was on, really he wasn't) confirmed it was strong enough to get a
steady HSD call through.
Called NOC, got put through to Ruscoe on 5 Live for a doughnut, which went very well. Jules Dassin
was eloquent, passionate and moving. Then some trouble getting through to S38 for Newshour -
it dawned on me that we were no longer with Traffic, but probably being passed from NOC to S38 via
Bush despatch - which wasn't the way I'd planned it, hoping if we came up through Traffic
Newshour would hear us and be able to come across the line if need be. Michael forgot his
stopwatch but luckily I have a stopwatch shareware program on my Psion. (That's the Psion Psmug 3a.)
Anyway we donutted into NH and then Michael pre-recorded at 2-way with Radio 4 PM and PM interviewed
Jules... not a patch on the Voss interviews as the presenter wasn't sitting in his house and didn't
have the rapport Michael had built up. It was very hot and humid for the time of year and even our
fixer was melting after an hour on the roof. We derigged and you could have fried an egg on the
satphone PSU which I had to leave outside on account of its whirry fan. I think some Greek ants may
have climbed inside one of the flight cases...
Popped into a cafe for salad and a foaming beaker of Coke, and let me tell you Coca-Cola has never
tasted so sweet, so cold, so refreshing. It is now 6pm and no food or liquid has passed my lips since
8.30am.
Back to the hotel and re-rig the whole kit & kaboodle for Michael to file an illustrated XN. Took
about 5 attempts to get through to NOC ("call incomplete" caused I think by busy ISDN units in NOC).
Of course my bodged up split-feed cans have now gone wrong so I'm gettng no cue.
XN filed, de-rigged and spent an hour vegging infront of EuroSport watching the surreal pre-World
Cup ceremony.
Up at 0545, off at 0635 after snatching coffee & orange juice. We were
torn between the need to get papers for Michael's press review and the need for me to get rigged and
the satphone fired up. We got to the tomb of the unknown soldier infront of parliament at about 7 and
we're on air at 7.15 - rapid rigging and as we have hired a taxi for two days with a helpful female
driver, power is no problem. I befriended a stray dog who sat and snoozed by the ITU throughout the
morning.
All OK for press review on basic cans and mic
straight into CODEC, and then we have an hour to wait before our next live - so I rig the dreaded
Minx to give me some control over levels. I try using the Minx bodge box, one lead plugged into the
Eng HP socket on the Minx (the only one that works), the other into a PO splitter box being fed
directly from the CODEC output. I can't control the level of cue, but at least I can hear cue and our
output on one pair of cans. Michael doughnutted founder of Greek women's movement and former PM's
wife - we neededed to clip this for his NH package, so I phoned Jancis in the NIA to put the live
donut into Planning Prep. Psion to the rescue again as a stopwatch. Military band threatened to
strike up, but held off just until the doughnut is over, giving me chance to capture the Greek
national anthem on minidisc with the shotgun mic. Back to the hotel for more coffee & OJ before a
failed attempt to get some lightweight long trousers for hiking on Athos and a quick shufti at the
Acropolis from the bottom. Then fed package material into Frank & Katie in the NIA for lunchtime NH
using Minx bodge box in the unorthodox manner so Michael & I can hear both cue and the clips we're
playing down.
Lie in! Up at 0830, painful wasted morning in Olympic Airways (slogan:
"system down"), changing our flights back a day later. Successful trouser hunt - Marks & Spencer
to the rescue! Lunch in Greek restaurant by hotel (lamb kebab!) and although I wanted to sleep
Michael insisted I went to the Acropolis, did so - fantastic. Got back to find note under my door
from Michael: "Rig sat-phone, 2-way at 1905". I'm half way through setting up when he calls from his
mobile to say forget it. 8.15pm tore myself away from Italy vs Chile to go recording Ionic Bank
demo with Dee - riot police have been occupying it for 30 days, draped with black flags and there is
a beautifully noisy march once the boring speeches are over. Back at hotel at 2100, shower, tracked
up 30 mins of demo actuality into usable clips.
Up at 6 to get sat-gear up on roof of hotel so Michael can do a live 2-way into TWT at 7.45 and
interview a Greek minister live in TWT at 0820 local time, with the Acropolis as a backdrop. All ok,
except Minx died completely - PPM giving negative reading and no output. Then Michael had to dash off
to record another interview, leaving me to file some acts. It is now v. hot on the roof, and the LCD
display on the ITU is black and unreadable. Quick call to Peter Noy and Matt Hardiman suggested
getting it somewhere cooler, and doing as it says in the manual - press 7 to improve contrast. Got it
all indoors, let it cool off, re-rigged and re-powered. Display FINE when it was switched on at first
and going through its initialization bar-graph routine, then it went black again, leaving me to think
it's a software rather than hardware problem. I wasted over an hour on this problem. Peter called me
so I could at least file some stuff, when I discovered that it's 9 you press to reduce contrast, 7
increases it (and only the 7 key is mentioned in the manual!). Dee and I took a long long taxi
ride to a training centre where they gave me the noise Michael wanted of a lathe and teaching in
progress... back to hotel, Minx now seemed happy to work off mains power, we filed Michael's package
and finally pack and get out of the room at about 2pm. Got the 1835 flight to Thessaloniki, met
Costas our (male) fixer for Athos, and our driver who had a tiny car. Two of the plastic flight cases
had to go on the roof rack. The drive to Ouranopoli, where you get the boat to Athos, was
spectacular, passing over a range of hills and a vast expanse of plains spread out before us. Finally
to bed around 1.30am after more re-packing - we don't want to take all our bags on the boat to Athos,
and I had to decide which leads I really need and which I can do without... given the problems I'd
had with the Minx and the fact that Michael needed to file stuff off Minidisc from Athos, this isn't
terribly easy...
Got boat from Ouraniou at 9.45am, having left some bags at hotel - the boat that
took us to the theocratic monastic republic of Athos, where Orthodox monasteries have clung to
hillsides for a thousand years and where no women are allowed, nor female animals (except cats and
chickens - they need the eggs, apparently). Michael met not only an English-speaking monk, but a
Bristolian one as well. His brother was in the year above me at school - small world... I got told
off by a Greek monk for being so stupid as to try and lug the satphone onto the top deck, so I had to
leave it half way, visions of it falling off and sinking to the bottom of the turquoise waters of the
Thracian Sea. We'd had to leave the inverter and my other box of tricks on the bottom deck, so all
our stuff was scattered. Our Bristolian monk chatted and kept us entertained - he'd spotted the
BBC World Service stickers on my bags, so labelling them paid off. Turns out Omnibus have been
here before, but bet they didn't go LIVE! The journey from the port of Dafne to the small town of
Karies was - interesting. Four of us crammed into a pick-up truck, all our bags in the bag. The
journey gave us spectacular views the sea, the mountain, precipices, none of which I could enjoy as I
could see the satphone along with all our bags being tossed around in the back as our driver took
hairpin bends on the rocky dirt track that clung to the hillside at top speed. Our bags were covered
with dust, as were my lungs, teeth and sunglasses. The inn at Karies was pretty grim - but the
thing that really worried me was the gas lighting... they didn't normally have electricity. Costas
enquired at the police station, and they said they had a generator and could let us have some if we
needed it. Got the compass out - AOR-E almost certainly behind a hill, IOR a possibility, but without
power who can say for sure... Quick lunch - veal and potatoes. I don't eat veal but the choice was
that or veal with spaghetti. Then a siesta, from 2 to 3. I awoke facing a sun-drenched whitewashed
wall and ceiling. All I could see is brilliant white. Have I died and gone to heaven? No I'm on Athos
and it's time to repack an even lighter bag for the monastery... no satphone, just a minidisc and
shotgun mic without its outer windshield. The jouney to the Vatapediou monastery was if
anything faster, but I could take in the view better with no satphone to keep an eye on. There is a
whole big monk thing going on at the monastery, hundreds have gathered from all over Athos. It was
All Saints Day and also the glorification of a former monk. Just one snag - they wouldn't let us
record ANYTHING and still photography inside the walls of the monastery is forbidden - which is like
a locking a child inside a sweet shop and telling him he can't touch.
It was so beautiful, a whole town around a courtyard, a church painted burgendy red with an eye in
a pyramid over the door. It is the largest monstery in Greece. The only thing I can liken it to is
Portmeirion in Wales (where The Prisoner was filmed), and indeed the fact that you can ony
reach the peninsula of Athos by boat adds to the feeling that this could be the true location of
Patrick McGoohan's village. Like Portmeirion there is a mixture of architectural styles dating back
1000 years, including a Georgian building which our English monk pointed out looks as if it could be
in Bath. Our room was infinately nicer than the one at the inn, and infinately cheaper - i.e.
free. We even had a proper flush toilet... we were greeted with delicious Turkish (woops, Greek!)
delight), a Greek coffee and a glass of raki. We stood at the back of the Othodox mass, all sung,
very beautiful. The church was dark, covered in frescoes, two 11th Century mosaics, and ornate gold
and silver hanging from the ceiling. Wonderful supper in a room with a vaulted ceilng of red and
white bricks. The meal was cuttlefish and peas - it melted in the mouth along with the excellent home
made red wine. This monastic life didn't seem to be so tough... After sunset we watched part of
another mass - the church transformed now as candles flickered among the dangling metalwork. Very
frustrating that we had asked permission to record the Mass and were denied, but loads of people were
standing at the back holding up miniature tape recorders. Obviously there's a big market in bootleg
Orthodox mass cassettes. Coffee on a veranda, overlooking the sea, Thrace and possibly Turkey.
Utterly breathtaking, the sea being powder blue to the left, pale pink to the right, an almost
straight line dividing the two. Michael finally got permission to record the bells - I'd managed
to get a snatch of them, and then sat in the courtyard for over an hour continuously recording - but
no bells. We were told the next bells would be at 1am so we waited up, sitting on the verandah
talking and watching distant lightning over the hills until 01.30 but then gave up and went to sleep.
In fact there weren't any bells until 7am, so it would have been a long wait indeed... probably a
monkish joke.
Fell back to sleep after the 7am bells and got up just after 8. Finally got bells at about 10.30 (28.8 RealAudio clip), and breakfast at 11 of
some pre-historic-looking but tasty fish in slightly curried sauce.
We saw the end of the glorification - the monks had been up all night and singing all night,
finishing only after 10am. We were hearded back into the church for the end of the ceremony and our
Bristolian monk friend chided us for not staying up all night (though I nearly did thanks to the joke
about the bells). On the way out we were all given a copy of an icon of the new saint, and a book
about his life. The monks are so up with new technology I was slightly surprised not to be given a
CD-ROM. They wouldn't give us permission to go live from the monastery on Monday morning ("Maybe
next time, if you come back as pilgrims...") and so we took a siesta while waiting for our driver to
pick us up.
Back to the 'inn' in Karies where getting electricity proved a major problem. The police station
next door were having problems starting their generator, and we had to wait for the doctor next door
the other way to show up. Tempers frayed while we wait for the doc to show, and I did my best to
smooth things over. Finally the doc turned up and our fixer Costas persuaded him to let us have some
power at around 8pm, as long as we don't say anything bad about Athos - he is afraid the monks would
find out he let us have power. In fact the piece we were filing was about unemployment in Athens, so
it's not a problem.
I plonked the OTU at the back of the yard, facing just to the left of Mt Athos, praying that the
IOR satellite isn't behind it. Costas managed to get electricity out of thin air, but could he (or
the monks) move a mountain for us? Powered up, and the signal was well into the green without any
adjustment. Bingo! Called the NIA via IOR and Eik in Norway (quite a romantic notion, well as
romantic as using a satphone gets) and got through straight away, and filed Michael's package
inserts off minidisc. The Minx PPM wasn't working so I used my ears and guessed levels - some of the
inserts were at very low level as the 'mic sens' switch on Michael's minidisc had been on 'low' for a
day. Filing his links was tricker - his script was on his laptop and the battery had just died.
To get away from the noise of the (supposedly 'silent') generator I set up his mic and cans down
an alleyway, and Costas had to beg an extention lead to run mains into the alleyway so Michael could
read his script off the screen. I may have made a comment about Psions running off 2 AA batteries at
this point... Supper was - fish. In fact it seemed like cuts of exactly the same fish we had for
breakfast. We washed it down with Raki and slept soundly...
Woken at 6.30 by passing tractor, saw a large beetle crawling past my
head. I have died and woken up in a Franz Kafka novel. Got up at 7, stuck my head under the tap (cold
water, natch), set up sat-phone gear in the back yard and waited for the doctor to give us power at
8am. Made the ISDN call to Bush Control Room - I couldn't call S36 direct as the programme was being
triple presented from London, Cardiff and a cafe in Cardiff and both S36's ISDN units were in
constant use - which makes our problems seem rather small by comparison. I got a line via Eik,
heard the CODEC blip as it framed, but got no response. A quick call to the NIA confirmed that my
equipment was working, so I asked them to warn CR and called them again on an agreed number - worked
ok, and we were through to mission control in S36 with 4 minutes to go. Turned out they've lopped
the front half off Michael's package so his cue didn't fit anymore... but it all worked out OK.
De-rigged and re-packed - everything is now rather dusty...
Went in the pick-up truck to Dafne where we loaded all our stuff onto a tiny boat that would take
us to the monastery of St Pauls. It was just about to depart when it turned out it wasn't going to St
Pauls at all. We got ourselves and our equipment off the boat in the nick of time and waited an hour
or so for the boat to return.
St Paul's monastery was much bleaker than Vatopediou - not a party monastery at all. No alcohol,
the unOrthodox visitors had to sit at the back of the refectory at dinner and we got told off for
talking. But they would let us record stuff and even let us use the sat-phone to interview a
monk live on The World Today - Athos is known for the contradictory ways it treats visitors.
Up early and stripped gear down to bear essentails so we could make a
quick get away. Our slot was 0820 Greek time, 0620 in London, and the boat leaves for Dafne at 0915 -
and we were a mile away from the port up a steep windy path. Breakfast was a stale corner of
leftover bread. I stuck my head under the cold tap and Brother Kosmos duly showed up in plenty of
time for his live interview. I was slightly surprised that TWT was still being co-hosted from London
and Cardiff, and we joined the programme in time to hear Alex Brodie lose the news. We know he's lost
it, because he announces to the world "Nah, I've lost it!". During the cue to us I could hear Alex
muttering to someone, and all through Michael's interview we could hear ourselves coming back down
the line with an annoying delay - the clean feed matrix in S36 must have gone bonkers...
So we'd done what we believe was the first ever live broadcast from the Holy Mountain of Mount
Athos - but no time to celebrate; I de-rigged in record time, only to find no-one really willing to
give us a lift to the port. We eventually got there in the nick of time - to discover our boat was
running an hour late... and we made it off Athos and back to civilization. No bath, no shower and no
women for four days made the swift celbratory drink by the hotel pool a very surreal experience...
Ice Cold in Ouranopoli...
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