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[ The challenge and teams | Result | Irn Cru's diary | Maximus' diary | Science | Related links ]
Build day
0645 Grey dawn. Climb into minibus and off to heap at about 90mph.
0700 Into boiler suits. Get wired for sound. Eat gigantic breakfast. Hundreds of people milling around. This thing must cost a fortune. Weather is rather damp and drizzly.
0830 Do 'Are you ready?' shot. Opposition give hearty cheer. We manage feeble whimper and have to do it again. Various other fake shots of us running off eagerly to start building. Announcement of our challenge is for real. Bouncing bomb, eh? Intriguing.
0900 Listen to expert Mike's plan. It's quite fancy but in the 10 minutes available, we can't think of a better one. Discussions constantly interrupted as TV crews take Drew away to drive quadbike in and out of build area about a hundred times while we have to wave inanely at him. Unreality television.
1000 Start building. Clear from the off that Mike will be a bit of a handful. Drew and Robin head for the heap while Mike and I refine the plan. It's mainly OK but there are things I'm worried about. I start chipping away at Mike about them. We need 2CV for our plan. Out on the heap, Robin and Drew strike lucky. Good grief! It's just what we're looking for! Can't imagine how that happened.
Mike and self start denuding 2CV –we only want the chassis. Meanwhile, Robin and Drew seek out a powerful car to use as a winch. Find a Cherokee Jeep. It works. 'Sorry lads, that Jeep is a non-runner'.
'But it works fine.'
'No, you might think it works fine but actually it doesn't work at all. You'll need to find something else'.
Robin and Drew are guided to clapped out Jaguar with advanced dry rot and subsidence. They try towing it with a quadbike but fail on muddy slope. Mike and I are called upon to help. Still can't get the bugger to move. Evil film crew let us grunt and sweat for about 30 minutes until they've got enough for the viewers to laugh at, then it's 'OK, you can stop now lads, we'll tow it up for you'. Ha ha!
Back to build area. Lots of assorted banging, welding, cutting and grinding. Even more being ordered about by Iron Mike. Bite tongues while internally fantasising: Scrapheap Expert Found Welded To Set: Police Suspect Foul Play.
1200 Robert and Lisa pitch up and have a chat with us. Then the noddies (lots of swearing) and the wide shot (even more swearing). Quite interesting first time round but the novelty will pall.
1300 Lunch. In principle very good food but no appetite.
1330-1630 Keep going …
1700 Spend about an hour cutting the flanges off two beer barrels and grinding smooth. Entire operation filmed. Wonder if someone is really going to watch the whole hour merely to extract the 'sparkiest' two seconds of grinding.
1830 Power goes off for a while.
1900 Robert and Lisa interrupt us for the 40th time. 'Just GO AWAY will you?', but it doesn't work. Smile sweetly and try to sound enthusiastic.
1930 Power goes off again. Grrr.
2000 Night falls and a mountain of work still has to be done. Alas, Generalissimo Mike is still going at it full throttle.
2130 Knackered. Want to go home to Mum. Still tons to do. But what do they do? Drag me off to talk to a camera about how it's all gone. Semi-comatose performance. Try to be diplomatic about Mike. No idea if I succeed. Hope the editor is kind to me.
2200 Assorted Scrapheap engineering types sneak onto build area and start doing odd jobs for us. Sigh of relief.
2230 'Teams – stop building NOW'. Collapse. Thank God that's over. The bloody thing'll never work but I don't care. Science Centre Flops Crash Out Of Scrapheap.
2235 Handed can of beer and life starts to look up.
2300 Back into minibus for white-knuckle ride back to hotel.
2315 Bar officially closed but nice lady takes special orders just for us. Heroine.
2315-0200 Everyone in bar. All knackered. All laughing. All worth it.
Test day
0645 Leave hotel in hire car for test site. Weather wet and windy.
0700 Arrive at test site. Even damper and windier here. Hundreds of people milling around looking cold.
0800 Into boiler suit again. Wander round, instantly freeze to death in wind. Dash back into costume tent and add layers of long johns, jumpers and waterproofs. Now completely immobile but nice and cosy. Wired for sound etc.
1100-1400 The Jag doesn't work! Not much of a show if we can't even compete. Scrapheap techy folk cluster round, removing bits, replacing bits. Eventually they succeed.
First run
Excitement, cameras, hooter, rev Jag. Trolley goes! And fast! Barrel spinning merrily on front. Halfway, barrel jerks out of holder, but acceleration of trolley stops it falling off altogether. Trolley reaches lake, stops, barrel flies off. IT BOUNCES! More than once! Yippee! Dash round to inspect damage.
Aftermath
Trolley in lake. Extract trolley from same and inspect. Severely mangled front end. TROLLEY – Much-loved son of Scrapheap. 29th April, after an accident. Family flowers only please.
1600 Scrapheap techy guys take a look and announce that the damage is fixable. You must be kidding. They aren't, and prove themselves right.
1630 They use a Hiab (crane on a lorry) to pin down chassis of 2CV. Then use a digger to pull the bent front section back into shape. Clever people.
1700 Make various adjustments to try to stop the barrel coming off so easily.
Meanwhile …
The opposition have a go with their gigantic clay pigeon launcher. Half of me wants them to succeed, the other half wants their machine to break. They get lots of bounces. Find I am actually delighted at their success. Direction not so good, and the target barrels remain almost undisturbed. One does get hit but by a full toss, so it doesn't count.
Second run
Pontoon, excitement. Barrel stays on and then releases as planned. BOUNCES. Yippee! Doesn't reach target though.
Third run
We're within reach of their total number of bounces. Jag has appalling rattle –sounds like there's something important loose inside the engine. Pontoon etc. A good run. A good release. BOUNCES!
Race to lake to find trolley arse-first in the water, and badly bent. Possibly repairable, but as we're shown the back wheel of Jag (our winch), it's at an unnatural angle. It'll never reel a cable in again. Never mind.
The result
Another run and we might have caught up, but we are just beaten. Champagne. Smiles. Handshakes etc. End of filming and everyone starts clearing up. Wander round shaking hands, hugging, thanking people. Ring home. Realise I'm high as a kite after an amazing day. So we lost, but our crazy machine worked!
… and a wee comment from Ben on his Glaswegian team-mates:
What would I do without Robin and Drew?
I learn from their wisdom each day
But my poor little brain would be under less strain
If I could just understand what they say
These sons of the Clyde speak their language with pride
Each syllable's ethnically pure
They replace every vowel with a guttural growl
That leaves meaning completely obscure
So here's my advice: say 'How lovely! That's nice!'
And smile sweetly whatever they say
Though your face'll go red if it turns out they said
That their Auntie has just passed away