Well, that was a week.
I spent the previous week teasing my social media about a couple of high-profile jobs in the offing, and TBH I’m still restricted in the info I can give.
So, being careful what I say: Friday I spent working on the AGM of one of the major high street banks as the ‘Voice Of The Questions’ which is very much a thing in the days of the hybrid event. The words appear on my laptop, I read them out – simples!
Except of course it isn’t quite that easy. Long complicated sentences with jargon and technical terms, appearing at the last second so having to be sight-read clearly enough for the audience, the board and the webcast to understand and – crucially – not confusing the meaning with muddled reading.
In this situation every questioner has an agenda, lots of them are closer to being party political broadcasts and one of them extended to a page and a half…
Train from there straight to the next job, which I won’t name but there was a rather big event in London on the Saturday… I’m sure you were aware of it even if you didn’t watch it.
If you were one of the 150,000 or so on the processional route, that was me on the PA. Most of it was carefully pre-scripted, with a list of ‘contingencies’, most of which we thankfully didn’t need. But it’s not often you get to say into a microphone “Their Majesties have arrived at Westminster Abbey…”
I wasn’t in the Abbey or on the TV feeds so you won’t have heard me unless you were there… but even so, what an event to have a small part in.
I’ve invented a very exclusive club to mark the occasion, the ‘Coronation Announcers Society’. Membership – one!
This week I’m back on more familiar ground, with one live awards show at the Grosvenor House and a pre-recorded me in Wembley the same night.