You’re sitting in the middle row, a group of Voiceoverists are looking captivated by top expert Zebedee Florence from Magic Roundabout Studios. Let’s be clear about this, Zebedee is one of the greats, it says so on his website.

“By marking in bold the focus points on the copy you will easily see where the client needs lifts and calls to action.” There are nods of approval, a ripple of applause and lots of note taking. Be honest, you have no idea. To be honest nobody else attending has a clue either.

STOP – ENOUGH

What you do next takes courage. You raise your hand. Zeb looks at you.

“Zeb, I believe I’ve just missed a valuable point. If it’s ok with everyone else would you please explain in detail what you mean and give a few examples?” You look around the room, waiting for groans and accusing stares but rather than an attack of the negs you see smiles and people with pens poised waiting to expand their, so far, meaningless notes. At this point there is more danger of the speaker looking dumb than you.

How do you determine whether your question or the answer is dumb? Simple! Listen. Apologies, that’s unfair because for the majority of Voiceoverists listening to anything other than something they want to hear is extremely difficult; you need to move beyond that trait and move on quickly. Listen. In the example I’ve used you’re listening for a clear explanation of what the concept means and how to apply it. Think of your most recent job or audition and when your host has stopped talking ask yourself how you could have applied the technique. If you can then Zeb is on to something, if you can’t then there is a chance he is talking garbage. Good or bad, you need to know as it’s your money, your time and your career.

One word of caution; check with friends who will be honest enough to tell you if you really are dumb.

I’m uncertain as to when it happened but at some point over the last 18 months to 2 years I got lost in the noise. Were there consequences? Yes.

People at best took second place.

Customer service like with most businesses became a department not a way to behave towards people who kindly chose to pay my bills.

My time was so valuable I would not waste it doing anything just for the joy of doing it.

The agenda was mine YOU had to fit in I certainly did not.

Acts of love, kindness, generosity and self sacrifice were for members of the local Saints and Clergy Guild 451.

If I phoned it was because I wanted something and if you called you were interrupting.

Your opinion if at odds with mine was simply wrong and you needed to change your mind not try to convince me.

Were you SO stupid that you didn’t realise how important I was, indeed am then I’d set you straight or cut you loose.

The interesting thing about the above list is that it’s only a partial list. Believe it or not bad things happened too!

People can’t change or so they say. Luckily for me and most of you that isn’t true. Change seldom comes as a result of gentle evolution it usually arrives in a flash. The flash is a neon sign “PILLOCK ALERT!” and there is a noise, an audible warning like a bus reversing. I needed to take notice because the next sound was going to be a sequence of doors slamming in my face.

“Oh Philip! This is terrible! Who is to blame?”

Me.

“No! Be serious!”

Me

“One last chance, who?”

Me. Believe me now?

“Actually I believed you the first time. I just needed to get you to say it 3 times so I knew that YOU believed it.”

On Friday I left home at 3.30am. I would arrive in Ireland later that day, settle into a hotel, get changed and take a team of producers out for dinner.

Flight from Aberdeen to London delayed – Arrived late.

1005am flight from London to Ireland eventually arrived at 6.40pm

Traffic to hotel was awful due to a major event taking place in the city.

I arrived at 7.30pm for the 6.30pm meet with the producers.

Going home. Flight from Ireland to London was delayed and was kept in a holding pattern over Heathrow due to congestion. I missed my connection to Aberdeen.

My late flight home had to turn back when it got to the take off point due to radio failure (couldn’t talk to air traffic control). We eventually took off 1 hour 10 minutes late.

Here’s the thing. I spent from 7.30pm until 1.15am with the producers (my clients) and it was a pleasure, every single moment. It was worth all the nuisance because of nearly 6 hours of fun and laughter…..oh and Malbec…..oh, nearly forgot and Guinness!

While stuck at Heathrow waiting to fly to Ireland I found myself in a very long queue. My problem would take 30 seconds to solve. No one “managing” the queue was interested in finding a solution, the Senor Managers were the worst offenders for not listening to what I said and then shrugging. Deepka to the rescue! She was Heathrow Staff.

“Would do me a big favour?” I asked “Go to where there’s a flight info board and see if my flight is still around.”

“Why?” she laughed.  I explained my problem, it was an error on my boarding card which caused security to refuse me entry.

“Come with me” she took me out of the queue straight to one of the Check-in staff.

“Shelly, can I use your terminal for a mo?” Shelly moved aside “Thanks Hun”. Deepka turned to me and pressed a new Boarding Card into my hand. “Sorry to have kept you waiting Mr. Banks, have a good flight.”

I’ve told you about missing my connection home. My Aer Lingus flight was late so I didn’t make my BA flight to Aberdeen. Solution? Go to BA Customer Service and ask for a seat on the next available flight.  Let’s be clear, I missed my connection and BA was not to blame. I needed to buy a ticket home.

“It’s not our fault that you missed you connection” said Kim “the ticket should cost about £200.”

“I know” I smiled “I’m not asking you for a free lift home, it’s fine, really.”  She stabbed a key on her computer terminal. Whirr, click and out popped a Boarding Pass.

“No, it’s ok! Gate 7A, 5.15 flight”

No charge because Kim decided that there would be no charge.

People, life, clients and work. I got lost.  Perhaps I should re-brand myself Deepka Kim as they both helped me find my way back.  I’m certain that from now I’ll be helping people to the front of the queue then solving their problems promptly with a smile and I’ll be using my discretion in YOUR favour as often as possible.

Look, it may take me a while but I get there in the end.

It’s said that one doesn’t have to look too far in the world to find proof that evil exists, that is true. For the doubters there is even aromatic evidence. Imagine you are in a conservatory, large and Victorian in design flowers from all over the world grow in abundance. For light and added mood this large structure is filled with candles of the scented variety designed to arouse your senses and lift your sprits. Conversation is soft and among the visitors to this paradise on earth elegant ladies with deportment worthy of the models who grace the cat walks of Paris, Milan and New York waft by teasing you with scent from Belmain, Chanel and Yves Saint Laurent. 

The hour is early and less than a mile away an 8 year old boy is deposited by his mother at the gates of his preparatory school. Well breakfasted, before he starts his day of education he feels the need for inner cleanliness.  Leg slightly apart and pulling a face worthy of second prize in a gurning contest he breaks wind.  The noise is like that of a Mercedes taxi blowing a gasket, sharp and distressing. But it is that which follows the noise that resonates with all and sundry.

Babies cry, cats are seen scuttling into laundry baskets, dog faint and the bottles of fizzy drinks in nearby shops change colour.  A few short seconds pass and suddenly all the beauty which surrounds you is piecered like a knife into a balloon. John Milton wrote Paradise Lost and you have experienced it in all its evil, acrid pungency.

What on earth is a “Voice Stalker”? I got this idea from an online horoscope I read today. “If a plan is working, make the most of it. If it’s not working, change it. And if you’re not sure whether it’s working or not? Well, that largely depends on how long you have already been giving it the benefit of the doubt. A lot of people spend a lot of time living in a make-believe world where ‘hopeful signs and signals’ are frequently seen, yet no real change ever comes. You’re not obliged to put up with an unsatisfactory situation for a moment longer than you want to.”  Interesting isn’t it? 

If I discovered a girl who I wanted REALLY WANTED and contrived to be where she was, kept in contact with her, did everything within my power to attract her attention, showered her with gifts and attention, phoned, sent texts, visited her at work, at home all to no avail what would that make me? The advocates of positive mental attitude, the marketing experts, those who say things like “winners never quit and quitters never win” would say that some day she will be mine. What think you m’lords, m’ladies? Mmmmmmmmm CREEPY STALKER!  Exactly.

Review your wants, your desires and your dreams, get real. Am I saying you should give up on your dreams? No. I am saying that you should stop stalking something that has told you many times already that it will never be yours. Don’t give up on your dreams, give up your obsession and find a real dream, your dream and that dream will come true

To make a new friend you can’t simply “click here” and nor should you use this option to keep in touch with old friends.  If you Twitter, no one really wants to know that you’ve changed your brand of sanitary wear, watch you promote your flagging career or ailing business. You have a blog? THEN WRITE SOMETHING! Don’t link to a link within a link.

“In my life I have great SEO, 9700 Twit followers, 8 million facebook friends and my blog links to 4billion other blog which in turn link back to me” so sayeth Mr Cyber-Saddo.

What you have me old matey………………is nothing and no one.

YOU! Yes, you. Get the point. Open your world and let the world in, the world of quality not quantity, the world of real people with real names and not the cyberworld of screen names.

Forget how you make your living for a moment. If your real business is not about touching the lives of real people then you need to take a long hard look at how you are living and now is as good a time as any. 

It’s well worth the effort. Good luck.

No? Well I’ll tell you now as you asked so nicely.

In British TV we have Continuity Announcers and their job is to guide you through your TV viewing.

You see the staion ID, hear the music and then a voice says “Now on ITV1 Was minor singing celebrity Elvis Presley killed by the Fish People of Crawly? Duncan Warrilow-Jackson investigates for our new series WTF”.

For around 7 or 8 years on a freelance or contract basis I earned part of my living doing the Continuity for a few TV companies here in the UK.  Am I qualified to watch TV and talk shite for a few seconds every so often? PAH! How hard can it be? More to the point, how do you make it easy? I can tell you that! When you say anything you must know in your heart of hearts that no one is listening.

Apparently someone was listening and that someone was a syndicated newspaper columnist. 

“Philip, you’re in the paper” said Polly as I walked passed her desk. Seeing my slightly bemused expression she thrust a newspaper into my hand “LOOK!” It was 15th January 2000 and what follows is the “column de jour”

I HAVE a crush. Yes, I’ve decided to treat myself to a new fantasy for the new year. I am truly, madly, deeply, utterly besotted with the man who does the voice links between programmes on ITV.

Of course I’ve never seen him, and I wouldn’t know his name, but he has a really lovely voice, the sort of voice you wouldn’t mind at all waking you up with a cup of tea in the morning, even if it was a freezing cold, wet, January Monday morning.

Also, he has a great sense of humour and I feel that he knows me.

This is not just my imagination, I have proof. The other evening, we were watching Police, Camera, Action (not that it’s my sort of thing of course, but Jamie will insist) and at the end there was a loose dog on the motorway and Voice Link Man said: “And I bet you’re out there watching this and saying: ‘Oh, bless!’” And that was EXACTLY what I had just said. So he and I must have some sort of psychic connection.

I was telling Judy about my theory at work the other day. We were discounting all the millennium stuff that hasn’t sold, though who would want to buy a Chuckle 2000 Snowman which giggles when its tummy is pressed, says: “Happy New Millennium” and then vibrates like a washing machine on full spin is beyond me. Especially when they still cost £7.99.

It’s not like they can sell them next year or anything, is it? They’d have to put them into storage for the next 1,000 years before they’d be any use at all. And by that time I bet the batteries would have gone flat.

Anyway, Judy was rather dismissive of my fantasy of Voice Link Man, saying: “And here’s Coronation Street. But just before it starts, I’d like to ask my psychic soulmate Ashleigh Down of Bristol if she’d like to …”

“For God’s sake Ashleigh, don’t be so juvenile. You only like the sound of him because you can’t see him and don’t know him,” she said. “How much is the Millennium Glitter Make-up?”

“Three ninety-nine,” I said. She was probably right. But that’s the whole point of fantasies, isn’t it? Not to have the disappointments of real life. If our dreams came true, then there would be no need to invent fantasies. I said as much.

“It still sounds like a schoolgirl crush on someone unattainable, like Robbie Williams,” she said.

I wondered idly if Voice Link Man looked anything like Robbie Williams. I wouldn’t mind an older, more mature version of Robbie Williams. Personally, I’m not keen on younger men. They tend to smell of cheap aftershave and hormones.

“You’re only doing this,” said Judy, “as a means of escapism. What’s going wrong in your life that you have to start imagining romantic liaisons with a voice off the telly? I mean, how sad is that?”

At this point I went into a sulk. There really was no need for her to be quite so rude.

To make Judy feel sorry for having been so mean to me, I declined her offer of going to Mountstevens for a pastie at lunch time, opting instead to go to the estate agents to get somebody round to value our house as a first step towards selling it. I have to sell it so that we can move so that Mrs Andrews next door won’t press charges about me breaking and entering her house. A somewhat drastic measure, but a necessary one.

I felt a bit embarrassed going into the estate agents, never having done this sort of thing before, but barely was my foot over the threshhold than a perfumed gentleman in a blue suit was upon me, asking what he could do me for, ho ho ho. I told him I wanted a valuation and he said: “No problemo. What time would suit madam?”

“Oh you can’t do it today,” I said. Blimey, I’d been planning on painting the lounge, giving the garden a good going over and moving the furniture to hide the stains on the carpets before the house was valued.

“Tomorrow then?” I shook my head.

Maybe sometime next week? Maybe. I’d have to let him know. He pencilled me into his diary for Monday. I made a mental pencil note to remember to cancel the appointment on Saturday. He really was very keen. I hoped he wouldn’t be disappointed when he saw my house. Its reality doubtless wouldn’t live up to his fantasy.

Phones rings - “Hello, Philip Banks”.

“Philip, how are you? It’s David, did you get my email?”

“Fine. Hi David and no, in that order”

“The President is giving his first F***! The Nation’s in a State address at 3am UK time and we’ve made a promo for it, need you to voice it as it’s on-air asap.”

“Why is he waiting until we’re all in bed before he makes this address? What’s he planning?” ….

The Whitehouse, some hours earlier. Adie paces nervously.

“Will you sit down, Adie!” barks Mr President. He sits.

“Excuse me Sir Mr President Sir. My name is Howard at this time. Pardon me Mr President Sir”.  The President looks puzzled.

“Why do they call you Adie? I figured it was short for Adrian, you know the British gay name.”

“Sir Mr President Sir. My name is called Howard at this time and I am YOUR AIDE”.

“So you can get a dog for my yougest daughter? He’s called Jazz, lives in Portgordon near Scotlandshire.” Aide looks puzzled. “Kidnap, I mean dognap it at 3am British time coz I’ll have an alibi for then. Gonna tell the American people I’m solving all our economic problems by printing more money, cool huh!”

“Is that all you’re gonna say Sir Mr President Sir?” The Aide looks slightly worried.

“You think it needs padding?” ……………………..”You do, don’t you? I can tell by the look in your eyes. Forget the dog, it’s time to write some fiscal bulls ..”  The Aide coughs loudly.

_______________________

How was the speech? The TV promo went well and Jazz is still here. That reminds me, time for a walk.

Anyone who underestimates the Chinese nation has obviously never tried Kung Po chicken or seen the size of it (the country not the aforementioned dish). HUGE! What’s more I would guess that the human population is in excess of 25 million!! Yes, really! I am not joking.

What did you think of the above? Bollocks wasn’t it? Welcome to the world of blogging! It’s a license for people like me to parade their ignorance to the world or for so-called entrepreneurs (business-speak describing someone between bankruptcies) to get their lame product/service related websites “top o’ the search engine”.  The latter in particular is a waste of time. All you need to do is include the phrase “heavily lubricated teenager” and you’ll get so much traffic to your web site the server will turn into an onion, pickle itself and then leap onto the plate of a passing Ploughman to supplement his lunch.  Having posted a photo of the newly oiled 17 year old camshaft of my Lotus Cortina I know this to be true.

Should anyone read this, be warned - I’m going to try and blog every day.

Eventually, the net will collapse with the centripetal force of links linked the links.

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