Anyone who thinks teaching is easy should definitely watch Tough Young Teachers, BBC Three’s new fly-on-the-wall series. The six-part show follows six young trainee teachers at the start of their careers in secondary schools. They are all part of Teach First, the fast-track programme that after six weeks of intensive training sends high achieving young graduates to teach in schools in disadvantaged areas. The teachers are filmed over the course of ...keep reading
Watching BBC One’s brilliant The Field of Blood last week was like stepping back in time for me. Stepping back to the Eighties when just like the characters in this gritty TV drama, I worked as a hard news reporter. Adapted from Denise Mina’s The Dead Hour, The Field of Blood was set in Glasgow. But even so, the scruffy, paper-strewn newsroom, whisky drinking hacks and clattering typewriters were uncannily similar ...keep reading
BBC political editor Nick Robinson is a brilliant reporter. He always looks cool, calm and unflustered – even when he’s got scary deadlines to meet and major political stories to cover. He’s also got that rare journalistic knack of making the most complicated issues clear and intelligible. He’s particularly good on Radio Four’s Today programme, where he often pops up to detangle the political complexities of the day. Yesterday Robinson ...keep reading
It’s 20 years since I threw caution to the wind and swapped a steady (ish) job and salary for the precarious life of a freelance. But right at the start, I made a solemn promise – and it’s one I’ve never broken. I would not, I told myself, ever sneak out of my office to watch daytime TV. If I did it once, I knew I’d be doomed. But daytime ...keep reading
Friday evenings are my favourite time of the week. I switch off my computer, pour myself a glass of Pinot Grigio and settle down to listen to Any Questions on the radio. But this week was completely different. I jumped in the car with my son and hared down the motorway in the rush-hour traffic. We were in London by six, hopped on the number 94 bus to Oxford Circus ...keep reading
Interviewing is an awful lot harder than it looks. When I hear someone doing it brilliantly – like John Humphrys or Olivia O’Leary – I’m so gripped by what the interviewee is saying that I barely even notice how skilful the interviewer is. When I hear someone doing it badly – sorry to say this, Christine Bleakley, when you’ve just announced your engagement – it is excruciating. But the newly ...keep reading