AMP: Artists' Meeting Place and Resource Collective

For earlier Chapters and an explanation of this dreadful story, see blog: The Cardiff Grandma. WARNING: This novel contains fake Welsh.
In the previous episode, we learn of Ddwwchllyff’s early encounter with a distinguished member of Caerdyff’s Indian population. We return now to the possible ‘incident’ at Cardiff International…

The Cardiff Grandma Chapter 13

“Once again, our main story this hour is the news that an incident may have happened at Cardiff International. We are getting reports in from our reporters as I speak… and I t..h..i..n..k(?)”, he paused as the director urged instructions into his earpiece, “…we can now go over LIVE to our ‘on the spot’ reporter, Samantha Panther… Samantha, can you hear me?” The sharply dressed and smooth news anchor, Richard Reese, placed two fingers to his right ear and frowned slightly into the camera.

The satellite link had just been put in place. The signal, and Richard Reese’s query, had been dispatched through the maze of cables in the studio and routed up to the large dish on the roof of the three storey building. From there the signal dashed up through the atmosphere and into space. There it was received by one of the myriad of orbiting satellites, processed and boosted before being powered back down through space and the atmosphere and being picked up by the 6 foot round dish on the roof of the Channel 12 news van in the short stay car park of Cardiff International airport – some eight miles west of the TV station. It was then routed to the earpiece of the waiting reporter. All of this happened in considerably less time than it took to read the above account of how all of this had happened.

The camera cut from the pseudo bustle of the Newsroom to a serious looking, well dressed, young woman in what appeared to be the departures lounge of an airport.

“Hello Richard, yes, I can hear you.” She pushed the earpiece further into her right ear and smiled into the camera. “I’m here live at Cardiff International. Police are refusing to comment on the suggestion that earlier tonight an incident took place in the airport.”

Back in the pseudo bustling Newsroom Richard Reese was hollering abuse back at the director and drawing hard on a cigar. Threats of violent insertions into various body cavities were being made on account of how he, Richard Reese, had just been made to look “totally unpro-fucking-fessional”. A check on identity was also mentioned at one point as the irate Reese asked - “Do you fucking well know who you are fucking dealing well with!?”

The director winched and assured the star anchorman that he did know who he was and then lied that the problem was due to ‘technical fault’ and, while beyond his control, he was sure it’d never happen again. He wasn’t prepared for this kind of abuse, the woman at the employment agency never mentioned being subjected to this amount of invective when she interviewed him.

Samantha had been with Channel 12 for six months now. She’d started her career as a sports reporter for a student paper. While studying she spent two years learning her trade by reporting on endless inter-university cheerleading contests for The Infinite Split trade magazine and writing reviews of the Postgraduate Chess society’s latest ‘stunning victory’ for the Check, Matey! column. All along she had wanted to get into broadcast news, but it was so boring, so fact-y. Through sheer force of will she finally attained the desired enthusiasm. After completing her journalism diploma, having a brief stint as a travel reporter on a local radio breakfast show and a short while out of work, she got her big break into TV when she was offered a position at the Cymru Broadcast Company … doing the travel reports on the breakfast show.

She had drive and determination, grit and gumption, spirit and heart, a crystal clear complexion and movie–star teeth. They hadn’t been cheap but she picked up a set of dentures formerly belonging to Burt Lancaster on one of the ever popular internet auction website sites. She was a damned smart girl, generally laid back and calm. In fact one of the few things that was guaranteed to make her lose it was being called a ‘smart girl’. She had a lot of self belief in herself and was sure that she could make a successful career for herself on TV if people would just stop drawing attention to her smarts and be more observant of her teeth.

One of the unwritten rules of working in the media was that all new recruits to the broadcast news industry have to start at the bottom. (That particular rule isn’t written on page ten of the unwritten rule book). When you plan to sleep your way to the top you have to be sure that starting at the bottom is something you are prepared to do. But sleeping her way to the top was not for Miss Panther. No, she had to be wide awake the whole time. It wasn’t that she had any moral objections to such a course of action – she just hadn’t ever met a producer, director or executive remotely attracted to her. Those ugly smarts again! While career advancement via sexual favours was out, everything else was firmly and squarely ruled in as far as she was concerned.

Samantha Panther wasn’t the reporter’s real name. Obviously, if she had any hopes of making it in the world of TV news she had to change it. How could she be taken seriously with a name like Agnes-Marie Wrinkler? In fact her name was nothing like Agnes-Marie Wrinkler but she decided to change it anyway. The old name had to go, an, in as long as it takes to legally change your name, and with just as much fuss, the budding broadcast journalist ‘Samantha Panther’ was unleashed on the unsuspecting media world.