The show was consistently pro-remain. Even when our Farage stunt went global, Bogachihin just smirked and said: I would occasionally deliver fairly impassioned monologues on things I felt strongly about.
It was a heartfelt rant that reached a big audience. Interestingly, the RT social media team would seem particularly supportive of this sort of output, heavily retweeting the show — perhaps because these speeches were critical of the government and scornful of the state of British society. They paid far less attention when we were just being silly, or more mainstream in our views.
The article portrayed a sinister propaganda machine, with rows of journalists hunched over computers producing fake news. The truth, as far as I could see, was rather more mundane. They were mostly young journalists, many in their first jobs, gaining what looked like valuable experience in news reporting and television production.
Most of them seemed bemused by the perception that they were employed as propagandists. I remember the day Theresa May got up in the Commons to give her statement following the novichok poisoning of Sergei and Julia Skripal in Salisbury in March. I was told that, at Millbank, young RT journalists gathered around the TV nervously waiting to see if she would as some MPs proposed shut the channel down.
They all had rent to pay and were scared about the fallout of being caught up in a geopolitical scandal. The scene was very similar in our production offices. We knew the writing was on the wall. The show and everyone who worked on it was at risk of being stigmatised by association. Our contract would come to an end in June, and we decided we would not renew.
It was becoming harder and harder to book guests. In the end, the channel got there first. They told us that they expected to be shut down by Ofcom sooner or later, and had been ordered by Moscow to cut their independently made shows. I got the sense that, if it had been down to him, Bogachihin would have kept the show going: But my overriding feeling was one of relief. I had enjoyed making News Thing, but the association with RT had become toxic, however sure I was of our own independence. Perhaps they were deemed more reliably anti-establishment. Hiring an extremely high-profile politician such as Salmond had been a real coup for RT, and certainly his chatshow was a better fit than my weekly output of profanity and pranks.
In that sense, I was more of a useless idiot. Were we naive in going to work for RT? In , it was not particularly controversial. We were also attracted by their risk-taking mentality. We had more creative freedom than any of us had had elsewhere, from the BBC, ITV, Sky, the Guardian and pretty much every other mainstream media outlet you might care to mention. And despite this, we were slightly disappointingly never once sanctioned by Ofcom ourselves.
The truth is, RT was the only channel that wanted us in Had the BBC or Channel 4 or anyone even a bit less controversial wanted to broadcast the show, we would have bitten their arm off. I was sitting in the corner fighting off sleep. We were smoking grass all night. The guests only left toward daybreak. And then, without undressing, I cuddled up to Julie on the sofa - with no wicked thoughts on my mind. In the morning I left my platonic love without saying goodbye.
I realised I had no money when the time had come to pay for my morning coffee in a small pub. I cleaned my pockets of all the small change to the last pence.
Oh, naive Russian lad! You had such faith in love selfless and pure! I need to borrow some money, I'll pay you back as soon as I earn some. This is not Russia. So, fend for yourself. We have nothing to discuss. Barking is a mostly Indian-inhabited outlying part of London. You feel as if you are in Bombay or Madras. The Hindus wear their national dress, the place is full of Indian and Pakistani restaurants and cafes. I walked into just about every one of them and simply asked if they had any job for me: But the Hindus shrugged guiltily.
Hunger and illness made me bold and desperate.
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By noon I reached the Broadway theatre located on North Street Broadway and I walked straight into the manager's office and declared brashly that I was a virtuoso guitar player from Russia and I needed a job real bad. The manager, who gave the impression that he met virtuoso guitar players from Russia every day, explained to me that they hired new musicians only when they staged new productions. At the moment they had their repertoire full and they had nothing to offer me.
The men seemed to be very pleased to hear that I was from Moscow.
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One was called Gary and the other Ronnie. Their purple noses spoke of interesting histories and rich spiritual life. Ronnie was an old man wearing a ginger-coloured raincoat, crumpled trousers, a snazzy vest that must have come from Oscar de Lorento collection. Gary was the proud owner of a bicycle and knitted gloves with holes instead of fingers.
They were sunny, mischievous and prankish tramps. We chatted about this and that for about 15 minutes.
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Learning how desperate I was, the hobos showered me with advice on how to survive in an advanced capitalist country. One of the easiest ways was to ask for a night's lodging in a church.
All you had to do was to knock on the door of any church and utter the magic words: I need a night shelter," and you would be allowed in and even fed. Inspired by hope I rushed to the Gypsy man to collect my backpack and say farewell to him. In 10 minutes Gary, riding his bike, caught up with me. Fumbling in his shabby clothes he fished out a purse.
He lifted it and shook out a pile of small change and gave it to me. My nerves gave out and, rather awkwardly, I burst into tears. Not a manly way to behave. But I was really touched. At that moment Gary appeared to me to be a beautiful, somewhat weary angel who had made a not very safe landing. After the string of mishaps this was the first stroke of luck that came my way on the ancient land. You were wrong, Yuris, there are good people in England, after all. From that point on, my life suddenly began to change for the better.
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I realised that I was not alone in the world, and that good people were to be found as well. Fired up with new confidence, I resolutely started off in search of work and adventure. A sense that I should leave London was growing on me. I longed for the wide spaces and the clean air of the countryside.
I stood by the roadside trying to stop a car by flailing my arms like a wounded bird. Motorists swerved to avoid me as if they did not notice my desperate gestures. The sun was sliding toward the horizon. It started raining and I was soaked in no time. I faced the sad prospect of spending a night outdoors. But the 26th car to which I waved suddenly stopped. The driver was a big Englishman of about 50 with a manly, weather-beaten face. He looked into my honest eyes and, not noticing a shadow of slyness, offered me work.
I did not ask any questions. We drove outside the city. I feasted my eyes on the English countryside: Everything was exactly like in my country, only somehow neater. We drove for about two hours. We left country houses behind us. I let my imagination run wild, smiling dreamily and picturing myself, well-fed, rosy-cheeked and smelling of sweat, bread and ploughing some kind of field.
I peered into the twilight trying to make out what he was showing me. The whole space as far as the eye could see was full of merry-go-rounds, roller coasters, shooting ranges and other attractions. My new job was to deliver and install children's attractions in parks in small towns and villages. And we dismantled the ones that we found there, put them in the vans and took them further to other villages so as to make the life of English kids more cheerful. Our mechanisms were huge and unwieldy.
As soon as we arrived in a new town the whole team jumped out of the bus and started working as efficiently as an artillery crew. Everyone knew what he was to do and I was the only one who dashed from one place to another pretending to be very busy.
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The owner's son, a chubby year-old, threw his mantle of protection over me. The boy was named Scott. Scott would shout to me: Apparently, he was thrilled that a grown-up man was obeying his orders and sometimes he went a little too far, as when he told me to take paper cups and empty plastic bags to the dustbin. I was on the verge of hating him, but I suppressed that destructive emotion.
I even managed to talk with him while carrying a bar of iron. And you see, I am all right. One fine day in the town of Gravesend on the bank of Father Thames I was given to another boss. He had a huge rink with toy cars. The task given to me and my workmate called Andrew was to lay a flat basis and cover it with metal sheets of two-by-two metres.
I did a passable job laying the foundation, but when it came to lugging heavy metal sheets I realised that I was in for yet another test: Labourers from all over the amusement park came to look at the Russian at work.
The funny part was that Andrew was young, two metres tall and full of energy, and I was a skinny Russian enfeebled by undernourishment and a sore throat. Andrew easily snatched the sheet out of the pack, grabbed it and carried it across the field with a lilt. I barely managed to grab the sheet from the other side and, stumbling and swaying from side to side, I tagged along ever in danger of falling and dropping the heavy sheet on my feet.
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