TVC

What a surreal day I've had today! Heaven knows how we've managed this particular feather in our collective cap, but we've been given permission to film views of the White City Estate from the roof of one of the condemned buildings in BBC's erstwhile Television Centre. 

This afternoon I went up there to check you could actually see the sights we needed to film and I have to say the view is perfect! You can see for miles and miles: East as far as the city and beyond and West all the way out of London. The White City estate looked like a series of doll's houses and the tube trains snaking through the buildings were like Tonka toys.

I felt extremely privileged to be there. A lone security man with a slight fear of heights took me up, and as we ambled through the building, we saw scores of closed offices, all once buzzing with the daily grind of C-Beebies, or so I'm told. The building is now entirely vacant. It felt like a ghost town. 

As we walked out, the security guard, whom I liked enormously, gave me a mini-tour of the deserted TVC site. We wondered through the dock door area, peering through windows and opening whichever doors took our fancy. It felt wrong to be the only two people in a place which had once vibrated with such extraordinary energy. I have yet to find someone who thinks the BBC's decision to sell  TVC was anything other than a travesty. My impromptu tour became both heartbreaking and nostalgic.

Everything had been left just as it was. We stumbled upon a room where the Blue Peter sets were still up. The totalizer was falling apart; some of the Perspex numbers had been taken away, no doubt when the building was looted by revellers towards the end of its existence. The flats were covered in dust. It was all so peculiar. 

I asked the security guard if the Blue Peter garden still existed. A cheeky grin flashed across his face and he said "follow me..."

...And suddenly I was standing in an iconic childhood location. They're still mowing the lawns but everything else is sort of crumbling. The pond is now bricks. The infamous Italian Sunken Garden is now just a few broken paving slabs. The place is confusingly tiny, but I suspect it always was. They obviously used every inch of space when filming.

On my way back to the car, I walked past the astro-turf football pitches on South Africa Road. Two young Somalian lads were standing side-by-side with their backs to the entrance. Initially I assumed they were peeing and was about to go all middle class and appalled on them until I realised they were actually praying. Their heads were bowed. They were facing the East. They knelt and then stood up again in unison. It was like an intricate dance. 

It was a curios sight, but part of me was hugely impressed. You don't expect to see teenaged lads praying and part of me thinks that if they're this dedicated to the cause, they're more likely to work harder at school and less likely to find themselves getting involved in gang culture. But then again, any form of religion powerful enough to have a hold over two kids playing football, needs to be examined very carefully so that it isn't at loggerheads with people who opt for different or less religious lifestyles. Do these lads respect women and gay men? Do they respect the arts? Is it terrible of me to even ask this question? We have a lot to learn about one another. 

This evening we went to the Southbank to Giraffe to celebrate Ian's birthday. I had key lime pie for the first time. I always knew I'd love it!