My Day In A Soho Strip Club
Annie McGuire came in to see me today. She's lately built a cult following as Jim Traynor's sidekick on Your Call, but I first met Annie at the end of 2001 when she was a student. She took part in a project called Old Firm Day in which we recruited student journalists from colleges and universities around Scotland and asked them to record different aspects of life on the day of a Celtic v Rangers game in Glasgow. Annie - who is second from the left in the top row in the photo - had the job of following a Celtic fan from when he woke-up to a CD alarm clock (playing Celtic songs) to a night of celebration in a city pub. In the final programme we mixed this with stories of police helicopters, ambulance crews, the referee, newspaper reporters etc. and told the story of the day.
Since then, Annie's career has taken a few exciting twists and turns. She's worked for newspapers, radio and television and told me that she once had the job of writing Gary Lineker's script for Match of the Day. So she was responsible for putting words into his mouth.
I was telling Annie that the idea for Old Firm Day came from my own experience as a student journalist when Capital Radio did something similar to tell a "Day In the Life of London".
I was sent to the Paul Raymond Revue Bar in Soho armed with microphone and tape recorder, I spent the morning behind the box office as various Japanese businessmen came in to book tickets. The afternoon was spent behind the stage, watching the carpenter repair a backdrop that involved an American football stadium. By the time the actual performances started in the evening I was so fed up with the assignment that it didn't bother me that I was watching topless 'cheerleaders'. Believe it or not, I was more concerned with monitoring the meters on my tape recorder and making sure I was getting something that could actually be broadcast.
It is, however, a good conversation-stopper when I tell people that one of my first paid jobs was in a Soho strip joint. It's what you need if you want a career in the media: naked ambition.
