Blog: Into The Apple

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As you may be aware, perhaps through me banging on about it, the theme tune for The Funny Comics Fan Club was shortlisted for the 'Best Jingle' award in this year's Independent Podcast Awards. This is, of course, meaningless to high-minded types like John and I, who care little for such baubles and only entered and paid an entrance fee to demonstrate how much such things don't matter at all to us - indeed, the fact that (SPOILERS) we didn't win in the end barely crossed our minds, with our only emotions being pleasure for the people who did win because they, unlike us, are probably bothered about such tawdry awards that we didn't win. CURSES!

As part of our shortlisting (see above) we got invited to a MIXER event at the HQ of Apple over in Battersea, as Apple Podcasts were one of the event sponsors. For one reason and another we couldn't GO to the Actual Awards Night (where we, as I say, would mostly be applauding everyone else and barely even thinking about the fact we didn't win) so thought it might be good to go to this instead, and so it was that I arrived at the Apple Shop in the super-futurisic Battersea Power Station in the morning ready to NETWORK. This networking was slightly impeded by the fact that it was NOT happening in the Apple Shop as I thought but instead in the main Apple offices, which it took me AGES to find.

However, once I DID find them I embarked on an amazing experience in CORPORATE WONDER, for LO! the offices of Apple are AMAZING. We weren't allowed to take pictures inside the building, so all I can do is a) describe it and b) suggest you have a look at this article about it which does have pictures in. It was like a cross between a 1960s University campus with big red brick pillars everywhere, and THE CITY OF THE FUTURE with glass lifts whizzing around, but also with lots of WOOD and SPACE and EXPENSIVE GLASSES. Actually, now I think about it, it was a lot like Queensgate in Peterborough - The Capital City Of Shopping!

The funniest thing was actually getting into the event space, as they couldn't just let you wander you off into the building in case, I assume, you went ROGUE and ending up stumbling upon APPLE SECRETS. Thus when I got my name ticked off on the list I was pointed towards a member of staff who introduced themselves, shook our hands, then took us 3 seconds away to the lifts. When the lift arrived at our floor another member of staff greeted us, introduced themselves, shook our hands and said "If you go over to my colleague there, about 8 feet away, they will direct you" and so on and so on. The last time I had an experience like this was YEARS ago when I went to TOKYO and there were people EVERYWHERE opening doors and calling lifts etc, it was WEIRD.

Once in the actual area we were being sent to I pursued my cunning plan of NETWORKING i.e. I looked for John and then stood next to him and talked to whoever HE was talking to. This worked really well, especially when they said "OK now for some more networking" and I cleverly went to the LOO, returning to find John had gone and found someone new that I could go and stand next to him with.

As part of the MIXING I gave people copies of the Doctor Doom Zine as it has a whole BIT about the podcast in it. This went down nicely with most people, except at the end when I offered one to a fellow podcaster who turned his nose up like I had offered him a dehydrated kipper in a hankie. "I don't think I will actually" he said. Charming!

The main part of the occassion was a TALK by some people from Apple, which was ALSO a bit weird. To be clear, it was really nice of them to HAVE the event - I guess it was because some people would be coming to London especially for the awards ceremony that evening, so they thought it'd be good to give them something to do during the day - but it felt ODD to sit down for a session where they told us how great Apple Podcasts were and, basically, how well they were doing off the back of our work. This was the INDEPENDENT podcast awards so maybe it was me being UNNECESSARILY INDIE, but I did get the strong impression that everyone was making money out of podcasts EXCEPT us poor mugs who were actually MAKING them. I don't know - perhaps I was also a bit thrown by how much they talked about monetising audiences and expanding reach when John and I were there with our MASSIVELY NICHE podcast for a few hundred British people who remember some old comics, but it did remind me of some of the more CORPORATE things I've staggered into accidentally over the years in The Krazy World Of Rock And Roll.

I guess that is just the way of the world, and if you ARE a massive corporation then you are going to BEHAVE like one. I did get a free can of diet coke out of it, and also got to chat to some nice people who were in the same Indie Podcaster boat as what we were, and it was definitely worth it to get to see the inside of the ENORMOUS Apple Offices too. I always thought that the bits I could SEE of the Battersea Power Station shopping centre were VAST, so it was a bit of a shock to learn there was this whole OTHER, also VAST, bit inside!

Or perhaps I was just retrospectively miffed that we didn't win? NO, that can't be right at all, it was definitely the corporate-ness, CLEARLY!

posted 17/10/2025 by MJ Hibbett

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