Anyone listening g to Radio 3 this morning?

[1000umbrellas]

Between the Met's 1000 rape investigations and Damien Bendall the newsreader was overcome and announced he couldn't continue. Correct reaction imho.

I didn't hear, but please describe this some more, what was the story about?

When was that? Following your prompt I’ve just listened to the 7.30 and 8.00 am news bulletins on R3 and nothing untoward occurred. (Though the news is very grim.)

I've just listened on BBC sounds. It sounded like an auto cue problem, if radio announcers have auto cues. He managed perfectly fine at 8.00.

I think he sounded more like he was unwell - going to throw up or something?

It was the 7.00 bulletin.

It was the headlines, but a stream of such awful stories the presenter was stumbling over them and finally packed it in. It was just such a stark contrast to the normal impassive reporting of atrocities. Maybe he was unwell but to me it sounded like he was too appalled at the content to continue.

Ah, thanks! Just listened. Goodness. At first I thought he was trying to cope with suppressing a cough - he was slightly struggling for breath. Then it sounded like a technical glitch. Then he sounded like he’d Just Had Enough.

Curiouser and curiouser …

But still (and I say this after half a century of listening and an occupation adjacent to R3 concerns) I really don’t need violins at this time of the morning. Swiftly back to R4!

Relistened now I'm awake and I think you.may be right, he struggled with the figures so may be trying to recall the stories without having them in front of him?

It was 7 am

Gosh just listened. This is my literal nightmare. I used to have to read the news as part of my job and I really do get recurring nightmares just like this. I thought right from the start he sounded like his breath wasn't quite right - like perhaps he'd rushed to the studio. It's hard to steady breath under pressure and often it gets worse before it gets better. Or maybe he was ill. It didn't sound like a script problem. I hope he's ok

That's interesting @faffadoodledo, did you ever struggle to keep your composure if the news was really awful?

@MetaDaughter it's the screechy violins that get me out of bed!

@1000umbrellas In real life i'm quite emotionally charged. I get cross and upset at news stories (I was this morning!). But reading it didn't affect me at all. Running in with a late script did though, and I can recall the feeling trying to control my breath.

🙂