My Television Debut

As I recorded in September, I was visited by the roving cameraman Doros Partisides from CyBc based in London for Cyprus television, to do a short profile of me and the book and yesterday evening it was televised. I was naturally very apprehensive and didn’t watch it until I had a couple of messages from relatives congratulating me. I was relieved that in fact I seemed quite coherent and the editing was very well done. So a big sigh all round and a big thank you to Doros for asking me the questions and putting me at my ease. Here is a link to the programme, I am in the last third:-

http://www.cybc-media.com/video/index.php/video-on-demand?task=play&id=7229&sl=cats

The Cameraman came to Call

Last week I had the novel experience of going on camera which makes a change from being behind the camera. I wasn’t looking forward to it and I concentrated more on what I was going to feed the cameraman than what I was going to say in front of the camera. A mistake I think in hindsight but as a friend of mine likes to say ” it is what it is”. I worried about what I was going to wear , naturally and did my hair look alright? Thank goodness I’d finally got my front tooth fixed…and so on.

When he arrived he was full of wonderment at the countryside through which he’d just travelled to get here from London and from his words you’d be forgiven for thinking that I lived tucked away in a secret paradise. It was a lovely day and our local landscape is to be much admired for its beauty so I suppose he is to be forgiven his enthusiasm. We chatted over coffee and he asked me questions about the book and my dad and mum and where I came from etc. So when the camera came out and I actually had to speak to it I had already given my spontaneous replies to his questions and was left with repeating what I’d already iterated only in a shorter version with probably the relevant bits left out. On reflection to be honest I can’t even remember what I did say while the camera was rolling as it’s now confused with what I said off camera. The only bits I do remember are when I talked about my job which he hadn’t asked me about before and why I had written ‘Androula’s Kitchen” which I vaguely remember presenting in a different way to what I had in the past. Good or bad I have no way of knowing what the camera will present after it has been edited????

Now the good thing is I won’t have to see it or my friends in the UK as it’s being transmitted on Cyprus television on a programme that goes out on a Sunday early evening and is about Cypriots around the world. The bad news is it gets transmitted several times to enable all the Cypriots across the globe ( hide under my duvet and fetch me a whisky) to view it on satelite. I don’t know whether to laugh hysterically or cry. I feel like you do after an exam when you feel you’ve done really badly and think if only I’d studied more, if only I’d read up more on the subject. Ah well it is what it is.