Back home in less than a week

Well there we have it, time flys by when you're having fun doesn't it. I now have less than 5 days before I land in the cold wet and rainy place once more. I must say I'm really looking forward to working outdoors in April, in Ireland. I'd better pack my sowester.
This week has been one utterly preposterous week indeed. In fact I'd rate it right up there in the marvellous land of the utterly insane and ridiculou. Where oh where do I begin??
So, we've shot another TV movie - this time I was the sound recordist for the whole thing, instead of dubbing mixer (something that, sadly I'm unable to do because of coming home). I've never been a sound recordist for a TV shoot before ok, I've recorded sound but not for a long time and mostly in studios before now, and I've always had help to hand. Not this time.
Basically I was given a mixer, a sennheiser gun mic on a stick, 3 broken radio mics and one that worked - yes, you heard me, just one mic, for an hour long TV movie with a cast of several - a few cables (but not enough in case any broke) and no help.
I asked for the job because the company have produced such poor quality audio in the last lot of stuff they've done, I tried to push the point that audio is paramount - equally as important as picture, sometimes more so. I tried to make the point that you can't ignore audio and sideline it and I wanted to show how it should be done. All I ever asked them for was an assistant. Did I get one? Did I 'ek.
So there was me, having to run around like a blue arsed fly, for 6 days, changing the mic (singular), all cabling all checks, headphones on with mixer on my shoulder holding the boom and mixing at the same time as having to check that I wasn't getting into the shot and ruining everything. The equipment was so poorly serviced that I was constantly battling hiss and crackles, as well as battling the schedule and peoples lack of knowledge about the importance of good quality audio. Most TV companies over here are quite happy to settle for abominable audio (and picture, story, acting and everthing else for that matter) for the sake of getting the job done by the deadline.
We tried our best to push the bar a little on the production quality, to show that it really can be done if you only try, but were forever being hampered by budget (i.e none) and time (same) constraints. All the same we managed to produce enough footage for an hour or more TV movie for less than £8000 all told (or less than the catering budget for a very low budget, half hour long BBC pile of poo plops) and with less than a month from pre-production to broadcast. Mental.