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| Tomasz Schafernaker: the forecast is good | Tomasz Schafernaker: the forecast is good |
| (about 1 month later) | |
| Tomasz Schafernaker is not what I predicted. The polar opposite of Michael Fish, he was voted the country’s most popular weather forecaster, and is famous for his gaffe-prone presenting style. In his first job at the BBC, he stuck his middle finger up at news anchor Simon McCoy, not realising he was live. The clip went viral. He often collapses in giggles, notably after reporting on the “muddy shite” at Glastonbury (he meant to say “site”) and had to apologise after referring to the Outer Hebrides and the Western Isles as “Nowheresville.” | Tomasz Schafernaker is not what I predicted. The polar opposite of Michael Fish, he was voted the country’s most popular weather forecaster, and is famous for his gaffe-prone presenting style. In his first job at the BBC, he stuck his middle finger up at news anchor Simon McCoy, not realising he was live. The clip went viral. He often collapses in giggles, notably after reporting on the “muddy shite” at Glastonbury (he meant to say “site”) and had to apologise after referring to the Outer Hebrides and the Western Isles as “Nowheresville.” |
| In the middle of reading Radio 4’s shipping forecast, he had to abandon the microphone to be sick; the first time the iconic broadcast had been interrupted in 91 years. When he posed in trunks for the cover of Attitude magazine, his sculpted physique and washboard abs suggested radio may not be his natural home anyway. The weathervane only points one way: he’s a bad boy. | In the middle of reading Radio 4’s shipping forecast, he had to abandon the microphone to be sick; the first time the iconic broadcast had been interrupted in 91 years. When he posed in trunks for the cover of Attitude magazine, his sculpted physique and washboard abs suggested radio may not be his natural home anyway. The weathervane only points one way: he’s a bad boy. |
| And yet, the Schafernaker opposite me is a man of many modes. “Weather presenting is the only area of science – it’s physics – open to public scrutiny every second,” he protests. He claims he was genuinely ill during the Radio 4 incident, that the Christmas party he was reported to have stumbled out of hours earlier actually occurred a week later – but people are invariably disappointed by the truth. He’s thoughtful, too. We ruminate on the shipping forecast’s strange function, as national comfort blanket. “In what other performance can you be proud of sending your audience to sleep?” he puzzles. “It’s intimate. But it’s also a legal document, and an institution. There’s no room for personality. Come hell or Armageddon, the shipping forecast will go out, and sound the same.” Unless you’re doing it. “Unless I’m doing it, yes!” he laughs. | And yet, the Schafernaker opposite me is a man of many modes. “Weather presenting is the only area of science – it’s physics – open to public scrutiny every second,” he protests. He claims he was genuinely ill during the Radio 4 incident, that the Christmas party he was reported to have stumbled out of hours earlier actually occurred a week later – but people are invariably disappointed by the truth. He’s thoughtful, too. We ruminate on the shipping forecast’s strange function, as national comfort blanket. “In what other performance can you be proud of sending your audience to sleep?” he puzzles. “It’s intimate. But it’s also a legal document, and an institution. There’s no room for personality. Come hell or Armageddon, the shipping forecast will go out, and sound the same.” Unless you’re doing it. “Unless I’m doing it, yes!” he laughs. |
| Shipping forecast aside, he’s less confident about the future of his industry. “I doubt I’ll be a weather presenter in 20 years. TV already doesn’t exist for teenagers. Home AI [artificial intelligence] will be the basis for most people’s information. If there are weather presenters, it will be personal, stylised, someone popping up to explain something.” Unlike stalwarts of other legacy media, he’s not fazed by possible obsolescence. “I never really watched terrestrial TV, threw away my CDs in 2003. I adopt new technology quickly.” | Shipping forecast aside, he’s less confident about the future of his industry. “I doubt I’ll be a weather presenter in 20 years. TV already doesn’t exist for teenagers. Home AI [artificial intelligence] will be the basis for most people’s information. If there are weather presenters, it will be personal, stylised, someone popping up to explain something.” Unlike stalwarts of other legacy media, he’s not fazed by possible obsolescence. “I never really watched terrestrial TV, threw away my CDs in 2003. I adopt new technology quickly.” |
| His ease with uncertainty makes him flexible, charming – and a liability. Weather centres are daunting environments, even within live TV. Information is constantly updating, graphics are unreliable, there is no autocue. All weather presenters are ad-libbing, but it’s probable Schafernaker is the only one who doesn’t rehearse at all. Do producers trust him not to say something awful? “The BBC are more relaxed than people think, they know I know what’s serious and what isn’t. And sometimes you take a risk.” | His ease with uncertainty makes him flexible, charming – and a liability. Weather centres are daunting environments, even within live TV. Information is constantly updating, graphics are unreliable, there is no autocue. All weather presenters are ad-libbing, but it’s probable Schafernaker is the only one who doesn’t rehearse at all. Do producers trust him not to say something awful? “The BBC are more relaxed than people think, they know I know what’s serious and what isn’t. And sometimes you take a risk.” |
| I find myself wondering if he learned this sense of perspective during an improbable leg of his career: as a high-ranking military advisor. As part of his training, the Met Office sent him to an RAF base for a year, briefing pilots who were flying to Afghanistan and Iraq. “I was 25, and went from being coffee boy, sticking cloud symbols on a map, to holding equivalent rank with a squadron leader. It was daunting, coming from a light media background, to knowing that if I issue a code red, an airport gets shut down. But you adapt.” | I find myself wondering if he learned this sense of perspective during an improbable leg of his career: as a high-ranking military advisor. As part of his training, the Met Office sent him to an RAF base for a year, briefing pilots who were flying to Afghanistan and Iraq. “I was 25, and went from being coffee boy, sticking cloud symbols on a map, to holding equivalent rank with a squadron leader. It was daunting, coming from a light media background, to knowing that if I issue a code red, an airport gets shut down. But you adapt.” |
| Adaptability is, of course, an immigrant trait. Schafernaker was born in Gdańsk, Poland, and was educated in both countries, coming here at an early age, going back before his teens, then returning once again. His Polish friends laugh at the British national obsession. “In Europe, people don’t talk about the weather. What’s to talk about?” Belonging to both cultures, he understands it. “It’s a reflection of our reserve. It’s an emotionally safe topic, and it’s something to complain about.” | Adaptability is, of course, an immigrant trait. Schafernaker was born in Gdańsk, Poland, and was educated in both countries, coming here at an early age, going back before his teens, then returning once again. His Polish friends laugh at the British national obsession. “In Europe, people don’t talk about the weather. What’s to talk about?” Belonging to both cultures, he understands it. “It’s a reflection of our reserve. It’s an emotionally safe topic, and it’s something to complain about.” |
| He turns a black tea with lemon around its saucer, as he thinks. We’re in a hotel bar, surrounded by the rich and beautiful. My eyes flick over to Russell Brand, holding an animated conversation in the corner, but Schafernaker is indifferent. “Celebrity spotting never appealed to me. That world isn’t one I’m drawn to, and never craved.” It was his aunt who applied for the position as a BBC broadcast assistant for him, while he was on holiday in Thailand. On return, he agreed to a screen test, and was selected as a natural right away, out of 700 applicants. “I’m probably talking myself out of a job, but if I had to step away from the media tomorrow, I’m 100% sure I’d find something else that made me equally happy.” | He turns a black tea with lemon around its saucer, as he thinks. We’re in a hotel bar, surrounded by the rich and beautiful. My eyes flick over to Russell Brand, holding an animated conversation in the corner, but Schafernaker is indifferent. “Celebrity spotting never appealed to me. That world isn’t one I’m drawn to, and never craved.” It was his aunt who applied for the position as a BBC broadcast assistant for him, while he was on holiday in Thailand. On return, he agreed to a screen test, and was selected as a natural right away, out of 700 applicants. “I’m probably talking myself out of a job, but if I had to step away from the media tomorrow, I’m 100% sure I’d find something else that made me equally happy.” |
| His Twitter is usually given over to cracker jokes (“Reading a book about anti-gravity, hard to put down”) or clips of him singing Bonnie Tyler during the summer’s total eclipse. But it was here he unveiled another side of himself, in addition to cheeky Schafernaker and sexy Schafernaker: hyperreal artist Schafernaker. A few months ago, he began posting pencil portraits of celebrities, Harrison Ford, Judi Dench, Will Smith. Rendered in exquisite, photo-like detail, they’re extraordinary. The unexpected talent won him a legion of new fans, but is actually his oldest love. As a little boy in Harlow, Essex, he remembers picking his grandmother’s brains for details of the Great Storm of 1987, and drawing the bending trees, rushing clouds, falling roofs. “Anything dramatic. I love drama.” In need of creative stimulation, he picked up his pencils again this year. He started with sharks. When a friend implored him to quit that, he chose new subjects, thinking they might make an impact. It was an accurate prediction. | His Twitter is usually given over to cracker jokes (“Reading a book about anti-gravity, hard to put down”) or clips of him singing Bonnie Tyler during the summer’s total eclipse. But it was here he unveiled another side of himself, in addition to cheeky Schafernaker and sexy Schafernaker: hyperreal artist Schafernaker. A few months ago, he began posting pencil portraits of celebrities, Harrison Ford, Judi Dench, Will Smith. Rendered in exquisite, photo-like detail, they’re extraordinary. The unexpected talent won him a legion of new fans, but is actually his oldest love. As a little boy in Harlow, Essex, he remembers picking his grandmother’s brains for details of the Great Storm of 1987, and drawing the bending trees, rushing clouds, falling roofs. “Anything dramatic. I love drama.” In need of creative stimulation, he picked up his pencils again this year. He started with sharks. When a friend implored him to quit that, he chose new subjects, thinking they might make an impact. It was an accurate prediction. |
| Challenging himself to invent techniques that could replicate high-res internet images on paper, he describes texturing paper with needles, to create skin pores. He’s sweetly earnest when describing the Dench pose, taken from the movie Skyfall. “She’s M, she’s been told she’s going on retirement, and she had no idea. She’s devastated, disappointed, angry,” he explains, as if she’s a friend of his. “Or there’s Will Smith in I Am Legend. He’s doing a double take: has he just seen a zombie?” | Challenging himself to invent techniques that could replicate high-res internet images on paper, he describes texturing paper with needles, to create skin pores. He’s sweetly earnest when describing the Dench pose, taken from the movie Skyfall. “She’s M, she’s been told she’s going on retirement, and she had no idea. She’s devastated, disappointed, angry,” he explains, as if she’s a friend of his. “Or there’s Will Smith in I Am Legend. He’s doing a double take: has he just seen a zombie?” |
| Capturing a moment of drama is what compels the born-again artist. “They’re not portraits, which I think of as someone in front and you, and – (he holds his thumb up, squinting at it). If it was someone sitting or smiling with really long hair, I wouldn’t be interested.” I like this definition of portraiture – someone sitting or smiling, with really long hair – though I’m not sure what Lucian Freud would have made of it. | Capturing a moment of drama is what compels the born-again artist. “They’re not portraits, which I think of as someone in front and you, and – (he holds his thumb up, squinting at it). If it was someone sitting or smiling with really long hair, I wouldn’t be interested.” I like this definition of portraiture – someone sitting or smiling, with really long hair – though I’m not sure what Lucian Freud would have made of it. |
| I’m single, I’m probably difficult to date. But I’m quite happy being by myself | I’m single, I’m probably difficult to date. But I’m quite happy being by myself |
| I sense bad boy Schafernaker is holding the reins. I ask what kind of art he likes, and he tells me what he doesn’t like: modernist, abstract expression that might result in “a line of red, and that’s it. When I think of the 60 hours I put into a drawing of Will Smith, sorry, but I find mine more valuable.” Then his conscience kicks in. “Please be kind when you write this. That red blob could be a sun setting in Tibet. It could mean something, and I don’t want to insult it,” he says, of the imaginary artwork. | I sense bad boy Schafernaker is holding the reins. I ask what kind of art he likes, and he tells me what he doesn’t like: modernist, abstract expression that might result in “a line of red, and that’s it. When I think of the 60 hours I put into a drawing of Will Smith, sorry, but I find mine more valuable.” Then his conscience kicks in. “Please be kind when you write this. That red blob could be a sun setting in Tibet. It could mean something, and I don’t want to insult it,” he says, of the imaginary artwork. |
| Has his thirst for drama ever taken him close to death? “In dreams, I come close to death all the time, flying in the sky and then dropping from it. But we all do that, don’t we?” No, I say. But I was thinking more about his line of work. “I was in my first hurricane this summer, in Florida. There was glass smashing, metal dragged around, sky lit up in blue. But I never felt in danger.” | Has his thirst for drama ever taken him close to death? “In dreams, I come close to death all the time, flying in the sky and then dropping from it. But we all do that, don’t we?” No, I say. But I was thinking more about his line of work. “I was in my first hurricane this summer, in Florida. There was glass smashing, metal dragged around, sky lit up in blue. But I never felt in danger.” |
| What about a Michael Fish gaffe – when the veteran presenter pooh-poohed public tip-offs that a hurricane was headed to the UK, followed inevitably by the great storm that entranced young Tomasz? Could that happen again? “The computer models are too advanced now. The element of drama and surprise has gone,” he says, disappointed. So, he’s not scared of anything? “Presenting the weather, the way I am now, in 25 years’ time!” he laughs. | What about a Michael Fish gaffe – when the veteran presenter pooh-poohed public tip-offs that a hurricane was headed to the UK, followed inevitably by the great storm that entranced young Tomasz? Could that happen again? “The computer models are too advanced now. The element of drama and surprise has gone,” he says, disappointed. So, he’s not scared of anything? “Presenting the weather, the way I am now, in 25 years’ time!” he laughs. |
| There’s something incredibly boyish about the man in the blue hoodie opposite me. There’s the preoccupation with sharks, movies and sci-fi, the fact that he looks a decade younger than his 38 years, his lack of interest in relationships. “I’m single. I’m probably difficult to date, because I’m stubborn, with a million and one interests, and work unsociable hours.” He’s not sure he can even commit to buying the pug he has his eye on. Then he shrugs off his British reserve, and speaks with European frankness. “You know what – all that’s an excuse. I’m quite happy being by myself.” | There’s something incredibly boyish about the man in the blue hoodie opposite me. There’s the preoccupation with sharks, movies and sci-fi, the fact that he looks a decade younger than his 38 years, his lack of interest in relationships. “I’m single. I’m probably difficult to date, because I’m stubborn, with a million and one interests, and work unsociable hours.” He’s not sure he can even commit to buying the pug he has his eye on. Then he shrugs off his British reserve, and speaks with European frankness. “You know what – all that’s an excuse. I’m quite happy being by myself.” |
| He travels alone as often as with friends. He tells me a story of coming off a night shift at 3am, a few days off before him, thinking it would be nice to start them with a run. “Then I thought – why not run around Central Park? I booked a cheap, last-minute ticket, had an hour’s nap and caught the plane, then spent the next few days running around New York.” He’s done the same on trips to Florida, swum with turtles in Mexico. The key to happiness, he says, “is not to stay in one place”. | He travels alone as often as with friends. He tells me a story of coming off a night shift at 3am, a few days off before him, thinking it would be nice to start them with a run. “Then I thought – why not run around Central Park? I booked a cheap, last-minute ticket, had an hour’s nap and caught the plane, then spent the next few days running around New York.” He’s done the same on trips to Florida, swum with turtles in Mexico. The key to happiness, he says, “is not to stay in one place”. |
| It’s a lifestyle he’s committed to. His need to keep moving reminds me of a certain oceanic predator. His next project is a departure again: a children’s book, which he’ll be writing and drawing himself. He can’t say much about it; but anyway, he’s already excited about one that may follow. “I’m drawn to dark things, like the children’s book from the Babadook, or the eeriness of the Moomins. I’d love to do a book entirely in black pen, full of shadows.” | It’s a lifestyle he’s committed to. His need to keep moving reminds me of a certain oceanic predator. His next project is a departure again: a children’s book, which he’ll be writing and drawing himself. He can’t say much about it; but anyway, he’s already excited about one that may follow. “I’m drawn to dark things, like the children’s book from the Babadook, or the eeriness of the Moomins. I’d love to do a book entirely in black pen, full of shadows.” |
| He’s looking forward to the festive season – long winter evenings are good for letting your imagination run wild, he tells me, while powerful jet streams provide necessary drama at work. Plus, there’s an exception to the infallibility of advanced computer modelling. Snow. “It’s the one area where prediction is impossible.” How far in advance can a white Christmas be called, I ask. “A few hours? You know if it’ll be cold enough for snow, but there are so many other factors, and we’re on a cusp, where half a degree can make all the difference.” | He’s looking forward to the festive season – long winter evenings are good for letting your imagination run wild, he tells me, while powerful jet streams provide necessary drama at work. Plus, there’s an exception to the infallibility of advanced computer modelling. Snow. “It’s the one area where prediction is impossible.” How far in advance can a white Christmas be called, I ask. “A few hours? You know if it’ll be cold enough for snow, but there are so many other factors, and we’re on a cusp, where half a degree can make all the difference.” |
| He’ll not be getting much of a holiday himself, as he’ll be onscreen for all the red-letter dates, warming up the crowd for the Queen’s Speech, tracking Santa’s polar expedition the night before. What route does the fat man usually take? Suddenly, I’m sitting opposite yet another Schafernaker, well-rehearsed and tight-lipped. “Sorry, that’s a secret. Us meteorologists are the only ones with access to that information.” I guess he does know what’s serious, and what isn’t. | He’ll not be getting much of a holiday himself, as he’ll be onscreen for all the red-letter dates, warming up the crowd for the Queen’s Speech, tracking Santa’s polar expedition the night before. What route does the fat man usually take? Suddenly, I’m sitting opposite yet another Schafernaker, well-rehearsed and tight-lipped. “Sorry, that’s a secret. Us meteorologists are the only ones with access to that information.” I guess he does know what’s serious, and what isn’t. |
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