Chapter 21

Not knowing whether the traffic there would be good or bad, the CJDL team, complete with Paula, had arrived at the airport to greet the Northern Girls quite a bit early, to then discover that the flight was running about 45 minutes late.

"Seems to me that we could this extra time we have to let Linda have a word with the press out there," suggested Paige. "I'm sure they'd like to know a bit more... although I did count at least 3 crews."

"Sounds fine by me" replied Linda. Whilst she had done the stream last night, she knew that the press would want to actually speak to her. "... although having to repeat myself 3 or more times isn't so appealing."

"Hmm, I have an idea," suggested Carol, "kinda like what we did in Korea: I'll offer to interview you for all of them. And if they have extra questions, I can put them to you. One good interview, rather than many bored ones. And it's not like I've never interviewed anyone." Carol was referring to the fact that she had not only joined Tom on his show on many occasions now, and effectively interviewed a LOT of callers, she had even sat in for Tom for a couple of days when he had been ill... and taken the opportunities to speak to (or 'interview') several other well known pop stars.

So, Paige, Brian, Carol and Linda walked over to the now 4 waiting camera crews, persuading them to join them in a slightly quieter area. Paula held slightly back, to get more general shots. She had put small audio recorders onto Linda and Brian, to capture extra audio: her own camera would also be recording the audio.

Paige introduced herself. "So, you are all aware of Linda's news last night, and we know you all want to get an interview with her. And whilst those of you who get the first interviews will be happy, the latter ones will be less good, as Linda starts to get a bit bored with it all. So we have an idea. One interview for you all... but that gives you the problem of who would carry out the interview.... Carol, over to you!"

"Hi everyone, always nice to meet you guys, especially when you are good to us! So here's my suggestion: I'll interview Linda for you. I know her story, and will ask the questions in a way that Linda might be much more willing to answer. At the end, if I've missed anything, then you can give me the questions, and I can ask them, and you can edit them in how you like. That way you all get a good fresh interview, and I'm sure your viewers will be happy to see me doing the interviewing. So, what do you think?"

There was a bit of discussion, but in the end the consensus was to go with her suggestion. Carol spent a few minutes with the presenters explaining what she'd be asking Linda about, and a couple of them came up with a couple more good questions. Once again, Paula stood back from the group so that she could film what was happening more generally: they would be able to get the actual news footage form the relevant companies later on.

"Hi everyone," started Carol, "I'm Carol from CJDL, and I'm here with Linda, and we thought that, while we wait for Northern Girls to arrive, I could ask her a few questions about the announcement she made online last night. So, hello there, Linda! Now, let's start at the start: what was your big news last night?"

The cameras were now panning over and zooming in to Linda, who smiled pleasantly for the cameras, shwing off her lovely metallic smile. "Well, I have a new boyfriend. His name is Zac, and he is a graphic designer."

"So, tell us the story about how you met him..."

Linda summarised the story that we all know well now, with Carol asking a couple of questions to get a few more details. Effectively Linda repeated what she and Zac had said the previous evening on the stream.

"So, where's he from? And does he have any brothers or sisters?" One advantage with Carol asking the questions was that she knew that Linda would be ok answering them, so would give good positive answers, rather than trying to evade the question, which never looked good on TV.

"His parents live in Carshalton, and before you ask, no I've not met them yet... and for that matter, he's not met my parents either!" she said with a slight giggle. "And yes, he has a sister, she's about 4 years older than him, and apparently works as a 'retail manager' somewhere in South London, and lives in the wider Croydon area, kinda like us."

"So, last night he met all of us, everyone in the band, plus a few others: how did he feel about that?" Linda explained how, initially he had said he wasn't into girl bands, and how she had jokingly called him her 'anti-fan' on their first meeting... but how, having heard the band's new album, he was a lot more accepting of their music style. "But I think he quite enjoyed meeting everyone last night, by the end of the evening he seemed quite relaxed."

"Oooh, you mentioned the new album there: are we allowed to say anything about that, do you think?" asked Carol. She was definitely into territory where, had this been a normal interview, the response would have been a 'sorry, not something I can really talk about'. But they had decided to talk a bit about it, without really giving too much away.

"Well, in the same way that the last album was a bit of a change from what you guys had been doing before, I think our fans should expect another change, although maybe not QUITE as big a change. I've had a lot of input into this new album, I fully wrote or partly wrote quite a few of the songs, and I think you're seeing my musical tastes come through. But I think they are all still recognisable as being CJDL songs."

"Any idea when it's going to be released? And what news of a new single?" These, again, were a couple of questions that they knew the press would like, and had decided to give them a bit of a teaser.

"I believe the album will be out a few weeks before we go on tour. As for the single, I can't say a lot right now, but it is a song that I wrote, and it's going to be a bit different in terms of the 'pacing' of the song, but everyone who has heard it so far seems to like it. And I guess it will also get released before we go on tour, because I don't know about you Carol, but I want to be able to sing it when we're on tour as our single! So, when it's out, remember to buy it and stream it!"

"Ok, here's an interesting question, it came from one of the TV interviewers over there: as the 'new girl' in the band, do you still feel like you're the new girl?"

Linda smiled. "Yeah, nice question. And the answer is actually very easy: no, I really feel like I'm one of the band now. You guys were always good to me, but while we've been writing and recording the new album, there's never been any feeling that I'm anything but part of CJDL. So, I guess you guys are stuck with me for now!"

"Linda, thank you so much for answering my questions so candidly!"

"My pleasure, Carol, it's been fun." She paused a moment, then turned to the reporters. "Look, Tom and Ben - that's Jenny and Carol's boyfriends - are really appreciative of the privacy you afford them when they aren't with us. Please can I ask you to extend the same courtesy to Zac? I know you'd all have liked to have met Zac today, but he has to work, kinda like the rest of us. But I promise I'll organise a way for you guys to meet him sometime soon! Thanks!". Everyone seemed to be ok with that.

"Can I ask one more simple question?" asked one of the reporters.

"Sure, fire away! replied Carol.

"Well, it's more to do with the tour than with Linda: any ideas yet what the shape of the performances will be like?"

Carol, Linda and Brian had a very quick chat. "I'm afraid it's going to be a bit of a non-answer, but let's do it." Carol and Linda got themselves back into position.

"Linda, a quick question about our tour: do we know yet what's going to happen in the performances?"

"I'm afraid not, that's one of the first things we'll be working on with Northern Girls in the next week or two. However, there's no way it's going to be two separate performances: we've already decided that we want to all perform together, as well as alone, but beyond that we just haven't decided." Linda paused and turned to the reporter who had asked the question. "That a good enough answer for you?"

"Yup, that's fine. I must admit, I'm really looking forward to seeing what you girls all do, I think it's going to be quite interesting!"

The TV crews all went away happy: whilst they had all just recorded the same interview, their questions had all be answered, and in a few cases, in more depth than they might have otherwise been answered.

Carol felt quite chuffed that she had clearly done an acceptable interview: maybe it was something she could do a bit more for the band. In fact, it was something that she repeated less than an hour later... In the meantime, Carol and Linda joined Jenny and Dianne, who were chatting with a small group of fans. After giving some of them their autographs, they too had a chat with them... and yes, Linda got loads of questions about Zac. But Linda didn't mind: unlike the press, these were the people that directly supported the band, by buy concert tickets and merchandise, and paying for their records. People a bit like she had been up until a year ago.


Finally, after a couple of cups of coffee and, and after a 45 minute delay (something to do with the jet-stream winds not being as strong as normal) Northern Girls arrived, and came into the arrivals area. Whilst everyone else was kept back, our four girls went over to Taylor, Kate, Meg and Erin, and hugged them. Paula was nearby, and filmed it all.

"It's great to see you all again!" said Linda.

"And you too... so, we're finally here! The roller-coaster is about to depart!" replied Kate.

"Yeah, but I think it's going to be a lot of fun!"


Having got pictures of the 4 Canadian girls actually arriving, as a result of Carol's earlier help, the TV crews quickly went to a quieter area where our 4 CJDL members brought the 4 Northern Girls. Brian had spoken with their entourage, including their manager, Andre, and they were all keeping themselves slightly out of the way of the cameras: they knew how important this publicity was.

Three of the camera crews had a sound guy, with a boom mic, so Carol just had to hold two radio mics in her hand.

"Hi everyone, I'm Carol, from CJDL, and I'm here with the other three members of my band to welcome the 4 ladies from Northern Girls to England! Hi ladies!" There was a big cheer, not just from the 8 ladies themselves, but also the crowd that had gathered. "I guess the first thing I should do is to get these ladies to introduce themselves...". As the four Canadian ladies introduced themselves, they all smiled, letting everyone see the shiny metalwork on their teeth. Clearly, at some point, they would need to address 'the elephant in the room': why did 8 pop stars all have braces? But Carol had decided that this would NOT be mentioned today: Northern Girls (and CJDL for that matter) needed to have a good, simple, and easily acceptable story. Without a certain level of planning, awkward questions might get asked, and embarrassment caused.

"So you're in England now to prepare for our European tour" Carol asked Taylor, the leader of the 4 ladies.

"That's right. We just finished recording our new album, but I think we've all got a lot of work ahead of us to get ready for this tour!"

"How was the recording?"

"Yeah, a few issues, if only because our producer wanted it to be 'just right', but otherwise it all went ok."

"Any plans to 'pop back home' before the actual tour?"

"I suspect we might, but that would just be for a few days. There's a lot to do, and we're used to being away from home." replied Taylor,.

"Any time for a bit of sightseeing maybe?"

"I hope so! Doing what we do is actually not a lot different from what most people do, we work hard during the days while preparing for a tour, so we need a few days off every so often. And I know there's so much to see here in London and nearby..."

Carol chatted to the other band members for several minutes, then turned to the TV crews: "Any other questions?". There were a couple, and Linda asked them. Again, the TV crews were appreciative of what Carol had done.

"I'm impressed, Carol." commented Andre. "That worked really well, and got it all over with quite quickly!"

"Yeah, I did one with Linda earlier too. But I suspect we'll have a few more interviews to do between now and the start of the tour!"




[30/5580]

one missed out...
https://dereferer.me/?https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RA9Ppt7pKss   adult + late teen

Sorry, but I had to come back and put this video here
https://dereferer.me/?https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUfLnShPIZ4

https://dereferer.me/?https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OeEilHySzg  got hawleys
https://dereferer.me/?https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=naAbKfODrEM   ortho haul
https://dereferer.me/?https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVk8a1XT6-4   morning routine

Are we also talking appearances and such? I'd say she'd be tall, with raven black hair in pigtails, though i wouldn't mind if she had full bands, too.~ 

And her hobby would be roller skating???