Fifteen minutes to go and the fire alarm at Bush House started going.
When it becomes a continuous tone we have to leave, and so we did, leaving Ros and the team in Cornwall to keep going, with no guests and no phone calls. They did, but with five minutes left an emergency CD kicks in and that’s why you got soothing music at the end of the show, instead of informed debate, while we shivered on the Strand waiting for the all-clear.
No body was hurt, but your podcast was late – so sorry.
Here’s the official news from our internal e-mail :
“The fire was caused by power cables overheating a basement switch room. The underlying cause of this is currently under investigation.”
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BBC World Have Your Say 
Sorry about that bit of bad luck. Glad no one was injured.
The show must go on, eh? I’d like WHYS to consider the Sarkozy-Dalai Lama-China debacle. I think it’s a very important indication of how China continues to play the dirty game and how the IOC and it’s incompetent leader , Rogge, were duped.
Should Sarkozy back down? Of course not. France and the EU should live up to the Czech example. My admiration for the Czech govt is endless. They’ve stood up against China on the Tibet issue like no one else in the world. I was present at the Prague Tibet Conference in 2002, and was amazed ( and gratified) at the scorn with which the Czech leadership treated Chinese threats. I’d love to hear Vaclav Havel (who has just again met with the Dalai Lama) give his take on the Sarkozy situation.
Sarkozy should meet with the Dalai Lama no matter what…Airbus included..or else the Tibet issue is dead in the water.
Sorry to hear that Mark…
Thank God no one was hurt.
‘Cables overheating…’ It happens all the time after all we are slaves to the technology we invented.
For some reason the World Service feed we get in Australia no longer includes WHYS…we get “Europe Today” instead…highly relevant to us in the South Pacific!
However, when the feed cut to the emergency CD we got that. It almost gives me a sense of togetherness to know that, even if it was classical music, it was WHYS classical music!
Hi Bob, that’s odd that you get Europe Today as they are on an hour before us. Perhaps wherever you are hearing us, they delay – drop ET, which i suppose isn’t a great vote of confidence for us !
I’m also glad no one was hurt.
Like roebert, I’d very much like to see Tibet re-visited (in fact, it ought to be a recurring feature, as should the DR of the Congo, Darfur, Somalia, and Chechnya, just like Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan are). We were told that giving the Olympics to the Beijing dictatorship would lead to greater openness, the liberalisiation of China, and a better prospect for Tibet as a result. Well, the games have come and gone and, apart from massively boosting Chinese chauvinism, what difference have they made?
I hadn’t realised the Czechs had been taking such a principled stand on Tibet. All praise to them. What a contrast there is between a man like Havel and a hypocrite like Mandela, who actually refused to condemn his despotic chums in Libya and Cuba, or to press for the release of political prisoners who’d been held in both countries for almost as long as he had in South Africa.
I had thought it is only Nepal where we have such problems.
Hope the problem there has been fixed.
In Singapore the soothing music that interupted the show was itself interupted by an irritating repeated announcment.. “we are having technical difficulties…. ”
I recommend the theme song from the film “Towering Inferno” as a more appropriate mood music to play at times like these.
RE “” Fifteen minutes to go and the fire alarm at Bush House started going. “”
——————————————————————————————————————————
—————— Tasty little political metaphor in the countdown to January 20, 2009, so run with it.
Who knew the House of Bush and House of Saud would be circling the drain coming so early into the 3rd millennium?
Before I knew what was going on there was classical music playing and it was 10 till lol….
Victor, if Sarkozy is able to hold out against the pusillanimous EU bureaucracy and meet the Dalai Lama in Poland on Saturday, I for one will consider him a man of greater moral integrity than the Pope, who crudely cancelled an invitation to the Dalai Lama when China objected that their ‘feelings would be hurt’ (!)
Most people have no idea what the Tibet issue means to the sanity of the world, and how, by throwing the Tibetan people overboard for the sake of money and rubbishy (not to mention, poisonous) Chinese goods, they are crippling the ethical future of the world order. This is a struggle for freedom like no other in the world because, besides its cause being just, its methodology is singularly moral.
It’s very important what Sarkozy decides.
@ Mark
Sorry…me having a case of late evening brain fade. Europe Today is indeed the hour before you should be there….if awake enough I often hear Ros or whoever is filling in do a live trail towards the end of the show. However, instead of WHYS after the 1800 GMT news we get “World Briefing”.
FYI, I receive the World Service off the Optus satellite…I believe it’s a direct feed from you guys not filtered through anyone else. Certainly we got the emergency announcement last night, except it interrupted World Briefing not WHYS!
Dunno if the link will work, but the regionalised programme listing for my area is at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/cgi-bin/worldservice/psims/ScheduleSDT.cgi?Pg=Cp&Ce=310898%3a59NE%3aToowoomba&Co=AU%3aAustralia%3a8-45&Tz=AU04
I won’t promise to always be awake at 4AM but if you can get the powers to be to put WHYS back on in this area, you could help spoil my sleep again. I just hope that we get you again come daylight saving next year.
Hi WHYSers!
Sorry to hear about that. Apparently, I missed all the excitement yesterday!…Hopefully, there won’t be a repeat.
A) Bob, i’ll do what i can- and thank you, but at least you’ll sleep better without WHYS (i could say the same !)
B)and nice try Roberto- you worked hard at that one…
C) does anyone think we should have a bit of classical music every night ? (no, don’t answer that one)
I’ve heard, btw, from the Head of Presentation here at Bush House that the classical music you heard was the OLD music and we should have played something else (hip hop ?)
Im American, so right away I thought it was terrorists!
Anthony, LA, CA
Hi Mark,
Maybe you will have a pole soon.
Give WHYS’ top 10faves and we will choose which song is the best to hear in tech difficulties.
(smile)
I can only imagine the suggestions!
why are the car manufacturers being denied the help they need? Why were the banks bailed out. Did the US government scrutinize the Banks the way they are doing to the car manufacturers before handing over to them the $billions? Why were the banks not told to go and first clean up their houses before they were helped? We are watching.
Let the music play on.
I am sorry for the problems over at Bush House….I hope that everyone is safe and sound….
Well, you should have played “Rule Britannia”, you know, with that bit about “Britannia rules the w-a-a-ves”…
Hi gang ! :-)… Oh my God my Precious Mark Sandell, I am really terribly sorry to hear about what’s happened on the Wednesday’s eddition of WHYS, unfortunately like Agostinho, I’ve missed all the action ! But you know what Mark, I guess that what’s happened on Wednesday gives all of us a flavour of what the show is going to be like if you guys were airing from Baghdad ! :-)… Anyway, I am really so glad that everyone is safe… With my love… Yours forever, Lubna in Baghdad…
Thanks Lubna and Dennis but i hope i didn’t over write this. It was a small basement fire and everyone got out, no-one was hurt and nothing was destroyed. yes, it was a bit cold standing outside waiting for the all-clear, but that was it. I was only writing to let everyone know what happened at the end of the programme, now i feel a bit daft….
Oh no my Precious Mark, please don’t you feel weird (I actually had to go to the dictionary inorder to know what the word ‘daft’ means ! 🙂 for explaining to us what’s happened on Wednesday… To me, you guys-the WHYS team- are more like a family of mine which I haven’t met face to face yet, and I’d love to hear of everything that happens to any of my family members-no mattar how minor or trivial it may seem… I worry about my family, I care for my family, and I pray for my family, and you guys at WHYS are my global family… May Allah always keep all of you guys safe and sound, Amen… With my love… Yours forever, Lubna in Baghdad…
Thanks God there were no accidents after the fire alarm. I hope no such incidences will happen again.
This incident reminds of a daily email by Ros about a fire at a Greek radio station. The bulletin continues regardless.
WHYS is a show that on many occasions set issues on fire. There have been many hot debates, especially when opposite views are hotly exposed.
Bush House is now cool. But its glamour depends on broadcasting hot issues. The building should remain safe from fire. But without fiery issues, viewers and listeners will shudder with rage.
WHYS, keep cool and safe keep the hot and the stimulating debates.
I wouldn’t worry worry about feeling draft. Reminded me of a couple of months ago another company in our building decided to run an evacuation drill. The story was the building was structurally unsafe and about to collapse. Unfortunately they didn’t tell us about it. The news quickly got down to our floors that the building was about to collapse and we needed to get out ASAP. Quite a few phone calls were left hanging with some rather bemused people on the other end of the line and our end simply saying “the buildings falling down”
@ Mark
I have an idea get some decent cables which arent likely to turn into flames
Having once slept through a fire alarm at the Regent Palce Hotel and not been wakened by my then boyfriend who evacuated himself, I now know why we are exes!
When you are younger, you think that you are invincible and know better. Age and experience teach you (hopefully) that there is a reason to respect fire alarms and red lights and “watch your parking meters”.
Cheers, all!
@Bob in Queensland
The BEEB have a programme, where they deal with problems like yours – ask why they are streaming the wrong thing at the wrong time…sometimes they do correct it and they will call you. “Over to you”. Get in touch!
I feel for you, since I am a radiohead, too.
We just had a TV change where Prime fell out and “Entertainment” came in. It was “Entertainment Gold” for one day but got shortened, there is no text tv and the local cable provider didn’t know about the change beforehand…Prime had promised some great new TV show about a post office and now we are back scrabbling around to find the schedule on a different channel with zillions of re-runs of Dalziel and Pascoe.
Mark:
You did not overwrite this…Because, you are writing the truth of this
incident…Such, as writing a news script….