The Gorilla Wins (From Times Series)

The Gorilla Wins

3:21pm Sunday 16th September 2007

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Well interesting how the media appearances can become addictive and build delusions! Having spent the past week or so speaking to the national media about the infrastructure problems facing suburbs like Barnet (Daily Telegraph, Guardian, Daily Mail, Saturday Telegraph, Financial Times and BBC London) I was excited to be asked to go onto the breakfast programme for BBC London (Radio). The spot coincided with our launch, in conjunction with PriceWaterhouseCoopers, of the Barnet Financing Plan to various interested parties – so having received the invite I thought I’d better bone-up on the intricacies of local government infrastructure funding.

So far so good – then the technology failed and the high-tech phone link failed (so up went the blood pressure) and we reverted to a good old-fashioned BT line. So I was told the presenters names and when I would be on. Apparently the BBC had a reporter out in Barnet speaking to the good people of our successful suburb about how they felt about money leaving Barnet to bail out less well off areas. Sounded good. Then I was patched into the program so I could listen in to the segments on before my bit.

Then my heart sank as I realised I was not the lead story but was following the Cadbury’s Gorilla. Apparently Cadbury’s have a new TV ad that features a drum playing Gorilla advertising Dairy Milk and there is a big debate about what it means (there is no dialogue). So I realised that the depth of questioning wasn’t likely to be up to Paxman standards. Still the piece was well received and the residents interviewed were supportive of our attempts to persuade Government to let us keep some of the proceeds of the Borough’s growth. Less surprising I suppose was that I received more phone calls from people who heard the spot on the radio (and that was a surprise – who would have thought so many people listened) than I did about the coverage in the Daily Mail. I guess I should be luck they remembered me at all and not just the Gorilla. So now I’m suffering from withdrawal symptoms and looking forward to my next media ‘fix’.