Clive and Mike! And Thirteens Abound!
October 13th, 2006 at 12:00am
Well in about five minutes it will be the start of Clive Robertson’s four morning stint on 2UE filling in for John Kerr and Stuart Bocking. I’m looking forward to this, Clive is great talent and it should be fun having him on during the wee hours, and I would imagine that 2CC will be pleased with nine hours of sharp-witted, quick-thinking, highly-entertaining presenters with Mike Jeffreys following Clive with the breakfast show.
But it is Friday the 13th, and whilst I don’t usually subscribe to such superstitions, this is a rather unusual Friday the 13th as the digits in today’s date add up to thirteen (1 + 3 + 1 + 0 + 2 + 0 + 0 + 6 = 13). I haven’t verified it, but apparently it is the first time since the days of Genghis Khan that such an anomaly has occurred. This does lead a pesimistic back-of-mind thought that on this particular day it might be wise to be wary of Murphy’s Law…whatever can go wrong, will go wrong.
So what could go wrong? Let’s see…2UE decide that Clive doesn’t need a producer and, just like Stuart and John, can answer the phones himself whilst running a radio show…a power surge causes various systems including the phone and the station audio computer to freeze, with the newsroom vacant Clive is the only person left in the building and so he sings to us for hours until one of the breakfast show staff turn up.
John Kerr, taking a flight out of the country today, suddenly finds that the airline have a pilot strike and he is now required to fly the plane…reluctantly John agrees and, due to a navigational error, lands at the North Pole where he is voted in as the new Santa Claus, and is not permitted to return to Australia except for present runs at Christmas.
2UE’s 11am fire drill sees everyone evacuated, including John Laws and the newsroom…a pre-recorded news bulletin is played, and a song scheduled to play after it, followed by an ad break…the chief fire warden accidentally locks the door to 2UE and leaves the key inside, providing 2UE and network stations with dead air for a couple hours while the locksmiths try to open a door which, due to extreme heat, has warped and has to be knocked down by the fire brigade.
When 2UE are finally back on-air, John Stanley proceeds with his “break mirrors and walk under ladders segment”, whilst trying to smash a mirror with a hammer he loses control of the hammer, which flies through the window and knocks out the station manager, who then falls down the stairs where all the staff who are due to be on air in the next 24 hours are standing. John Stanley is required to fill-in until 6PM Saturday, but due to a ladder falling on his head, a producer arranges a new “talking clock” network by dialling the talking clock and putting it to air, which is subsequently picked up by all network stations, but only for a few minutes as Optus D1 melts due to defective protective material, and takes out all Southern Cross network feeds with it.
Mike Frame and Kris McKenzie fill in on 2CC for the next three days whilst Southern Cross arrange a new satellite feed, taking six hours on/six hours off shifts.
At the very least, this proves that my imagination is still active!
Samuel
Entry Filed under: Bizarreness,General News,Samuel's Editorials,TV/Radio/Media
