My Exciting Life In ROCK (part 1): 6/11/2000 - The Charlotte, Leicester

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More TRAIN FUN, for a gig only 15 minutes from my front door!

Around this time I was going through one of my periods of Being Fed Up At Work so had applied, and got an interview for, a new job. It was in THE LONDON and, even more excitingly, it was at The BBC, where the TELLY is made!

The job was to work on their website, which way back then was probably like ALL websites i.e. two pages on Geocities, one of which had a little animated gif of someone digging a hole saying "Under Construction!" Well, maybe it was a little bit more sophisticated than that, but not much - the fact that I thought I had sufficient experience for the job, when my ENTIRE experience of web based design at that point was making our University Department's webpage using the design suite of NOTEPAD and PAINTBRUSH, is testament to the FACT that back then The Interweb was just being MADE UP as it went along by people in basements. Often with BEARDS.

Actually, I STILL do all of our webpages in Notepad, for I have never bothered to learn anything else. OLD SKOOL!

Anyway, GETTING to the interview was a nightmare beyond belief. What would usually be a 90 minute journey door to door took FIVE HOURS, with me arriving at Broadcasting House SWEATY from RUNNING there, also BLEARY EYED from having to get up extra early - I have always worked for Universities, so getting up early is NOT on my CV.

Annoyingly I would usually have taken the trip South as an excuse for a BOOZY TIME in London, but what with the time it was taking to get there and back, and the FACT that I had to be in Leicester for a gig, all I actually had time for was the interview. Now, you might think "Surely that was the point of the trip? Mr Hibbett, this is Unprofessional Behaviour!" Well, yes, it is, except for two points that made the whole exercise pretty pointless. First off, I got the distinct impression that it was one of those occasions where they've already got an internal candidate but have to drag UNKNOWING SAPS cross-country to make it look above board, as the entire interview was them asking me what I'd do to make their site better, and then looking bored as I answered. Secondly, my entire SCHTICK was telling them they had to identify exactly who their audience was and then target the site directly at THEM. When I used my pre-prepared "Do You Have Any Questions?" QUESTION I asked what THEY thought should be done. "Well, the BBC is aimed at EVERYBODY so we have to make sure EVERYTHING is accessible to EVERYBODY. EVERYWHERE." Oops.

It was another lengthy journey home, giving me time only to RUN to my office nearby, pick up my guitar, and SPRINT to The Charlotte. This was one of those gigs where I asked to play was so that I could get in for free, this time to see Martin Carr in his first bit of touring after The Boo Radleys had split up. Following on from our Cover Version Success at the recent Half Man Half Biscuit gig I'd diligently worked up a version of "Lazarus" and had spent WEEKS in a PANIC about how Mr Carr would react. Would he be flattered? Disgusted? Annoyed that I'd already done the song he was planning to finish with?

It was none of the above, as he spent the entire time sat on his tour bus parked out the back, not even in the BUILDING - NOT a disciple of Otway. I felt a bit deflated by the almost complete lack of point to the entire gig, though did cheer up a bit when I got to spend the money I might have spent getting in on BEER. As predicted, he finished the set with a version of "Lazarus" which, though very different to the recorded version, was eerily similar to the way I'd played it an hour or so earlier.

I would have claimed that he'd COPIED me, but it would never stand up in court - it was one of my gigs, there had been NO WITNESSES!

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