23 November 2006

Nick Clarke -- Host of WATO -- Dies


I used to work, for 25 months, as a media monitor.

That's fancy language for being poorly paid and getting up at 5am to go to work for 630am to listen to radio and watch TV and type up live news summaries.

Every third week, the rota called for me to listen to Radio 4 (630am to 9am, 12pm to 130pm) and bits and bobs of other Radio 4 programmes (including Farming Today, probably the most underrated news programme in the country).

It was great listening to The World At One. The pips would go off, and Nick Clarke would just jump in, give a perfect 20 second synopsis of the next half-hour, there'd be a news summary for a few minutes, and then it would be the tightest 27 minutes in radio.

He passed away yesterday, cancer. The link is a 45 minute audio diary he kept, beginning with the news that he would have to have his leg amputated.

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