BBC - China Production Stories

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Hello.

Everything seems to have calmed down now, so finally I am able to update you on what's been happening at this end! Well when the team headed off to China I was all set to put my feet up and have some nice long lunches...no chance!

After a frantic phone call from Gerald at Amsterdam airport, it all kicked off again! After a few phone calls to George and the Passport Office we realised that there was no way we could get Doneil back out to China in time, so our only other option was to send another member of the Gaelic team.

Alasdair has done a lot of foreign filming before and is up to date with all his vaccinations so he seemed ideal. To our surprise, George managed to rush his working visa through and Alasdair was able to pick it up at the Consulate in Edinburgh and head off 2 days later. Alasdair didn't seem phased by any of this which was great as he was able to hit the ground running, pack up his belongings and head out to Beijing to meet the rest of the team, all in a very short space of time.

I've been in daily contact with the team and as you can see from their diary entries they are getting on really well. The crew seem to be great which is fantastic news. One thing that I have been doing at this end since they have left, is liaising with our Health and Safety advisor - Nick Roxburgh.

The plan was always for Gerald and Maria to move from Beijing to Henan then on to Chongqing but we were slightly concerned about moving around China because of the awful earthquake. Nick has been liaising with several sources on the ground who have local knowledge - the head of the Chinese World Service, news teams based out there etc. He was able to give us some good advice which I have passed on.

We were told that there is no structural damage and the roads are fine and that the team would have to travel considerably further west before they experienced problems with affected areas. They were planning to do quite a bit of driving to reach locations. We were told that these journeys may take quite a bit longer than they might have planned for. There can be torrential rain at this time of the year - monsoon like (flash flooding), which leads to accidents on the roads so the advice from this end is to check the weather forecast before travelling each day.

George and the crew are obviously across all this too but it's good to get safety advice from a few sources. I am due to speak them in an hour, so I'll update you with what's happening with them in Henan.

Talk to you soon!

I've just spoken to Maria on the phone.

All is going fine in Henan, except Gerald got a bit of food poisoning last night so he wasn't able to go filming at the Martial Arts school. It sounds like he will be fit enough to fly tomorrow though.

Maria's had a good but very long day filming and after I spoke to her she was heading back out to film. They also have an early start tomorrow. They need to fit in some filming before they catch their flight. Their/our main concern at the moment is that another 80,000 people or so are being evacuated from the area affected by the earthquake. It's been reported that a build-up of water at a swollen lake could burst its banks, flooding the surrounding land. Apparently the majority of these people are heading to Chongqing. I am just checking with Nick to see if he has any further advice I could give them. Recent events may have an impact on which way they drive to locations.

They are also having lots of trouble sending in video entries. Alasdair has been trying to sort this out today. I'll update you once I hear more...

I didn't go out filming today.

We (the Scottish half of our team) went out to a restaurant last night and it was really difficult to communicate with the waitress. We ended up eating pretty much what we were given - prawn heads, prawn bodies, lamb soup, some cold sweet jelly like soup, rice and some vegetables. Not great. We had even gone to a large hotel as we thought that would be our best bet of eating a meal that would be gentle on our weak western tums.

Not so.

I was up all night being, how do I put this politely, very ill indeed. I think it is food poisoning.

I have spent the day in bed trying to sleep it off and drinking a disgusting salt/ sugar/ water mix in the hope of replacing my lost body fluids. Sorry, too much information. I can't believe I am telling the world this!

I feel dehydrated and tired. I think I'll go back to sleep now.

Bleugh.

Gerald's next entry

I woke up this morning feeling great. For the first time since we arrived in China I managed 8 hours sleep. I thought this is going to be a good day.

And that's when it all started to go Pete Tong.

First up Gerald phones - he's been sick all night and can't risk being more than a couple of metres from the toilet so we're a man down.

Next our Kung fu girl, Tian Tian, informs us that she will be spending the whole afternoon in a gym hall rather than our preferred outdoor location. The gym was full of mirrors - you may remember a recent blog regarding reflections.

Next we recce a location in the old part of the school for a sit down interview, we find a nice quiet spot with a lovely background. We break for lunch. When we come back several buses have arrived depositing hundreds of noisy tourists and there is a very loud PA system blaring out music in the background. Despite persistent efforts to get it turned off we have to up sticks and move to another location which is still noisy and doesn't look as good.

Everyone is grumpy.

We return to the kung fu training to discover the class are back in the gym - we decide to ask permission to move one class outside. By this time there are thousands of other pupils vying for space so we have to make do with a narrow passage outside the gym hall. Tian Tian is leaping about with a sharp stick to great effect and the shots look good. But we're only half way through the day. We try to film big wide shots of the training grounds to show the scale of the school, but some the coaches don't want us to film. We do our best with the shots and move to the next location - a trophy room - you've guessed it - full of mirrors and glass cabinets.

Everyone is grumpy.

I decide to break the crew for a few hours before returning for some more training shots and filming in the girls dorms. This is much more fun. Tian Tian and her room mates have a food fight and the mood is lifted.

We drive back to the hotel and get stopped by traffic police for half an hour while a VIP cavalcade glides slowly by.

Everyone is grumpy.

Maria's next entry