Oxfam Alpaca

It's not related, but I've quite fallen in love with this ad since I saw it yesterday :-)

Radios for Christmas in Ireland

A few weeks back, a friend asked about getting a DAB radio as a gift for someone in Ireland. Here's more or less what I wrote:

There's isn't a full DAB service in Ireland, just a trial of the national stations, around Dublin and Louth. Some border areas can get DAB from the north, but I doubt anyone on the south-east, where Welsh TV is widely received, would be able to get DAB. Maybe, on a hill, with a big aerial on a big pole. But not all that convenient, especially when you have satellite.

There's only one set that'll be much use in Ireland, and it's from an Irish-owned company. This Morphy Richards, only available from one place in the UK.

Comparatively future proof DAB, and DRM, the international equivalent (only a handful of stations there -- including both my current and previous employers), plus a good old AM FM radio and SD card slot.

I should recommend a Web radio to be honest -- not those useless MP3 only jobs of yore, but the ones you see advertised on www.reciva.com – some available in Currys as well as online. You need to have a wi-fi router at home, but once you have that, you have a fab choice of stations -- though I'm not sure about battery life, if they even run off batteries.

Maaayybeeee a Sky Gnome, which basially relays the output of whatever you have ont he Sky box to about 50m away. Ideally though, you'll need a second Sky box, hidden away somewhere to let the Gnome user listen to whatever they like without disturbing whoever wants to watch TV!

+=+
Since then: More people say Santa is bringing RTÉ a DRM transmitter tuned to 252kHz – yay!

Handy quote about the BBC

Online I'm reading an article from yesterday's Media Guardian. I haven't finished it yet, but so far there is this dandy quote (which you may interpret as you like!) about the BBC:

"If the BBC has a persistent bias, it's less political than, so to speak, attitudinal - a set of shared secular, liberal, urban, European values and prejudices so deep under the skin that many don't even notice they are there."


The article is by Timothy Garton Ash.

France 24

France24 has launched online, 24 hours before going launching on TV.

Overall I'm impressed! The presentation is nice. The anchors are standing, with a gooseneck mic to the left and right.
Standing improves your voice on-air, and every little helps in a glass walled studio!

I started watching a few minutes after it launched, but the stream was very jittery and I gave up, just a moment before Andrea Sanke's little outburst.
Later on in the night the stream has been a lot smoother.

I like the way the camera switches to a wider shot between the cue and a new package. But in one package I saw, an English speaker (Nancy Pelosi) was voiced over into French, and it wasn't corrected for at least 2 hours. And they have been repeating the same packages, not reversioning.

The news agenda really doesn't look like anything new, I have to say. Lots of agency footage, with, so far, the same perspective as we would expect from the two market leaders.

There's isn't much incentive to chose it over CNN, BBC World, or EuroNews. It hasn't struck me as a different European offering. I think I'll stay with Al Jazeera International for a different perspective. A couple of CCTV 9 style promotional pieces haven't done too much to endear! But I must say again, it is very slick, I''ve only seen & heard it over online streaming, and I enjoy looking out for voices familiar from RFI!

After less than ten hours on-air, the "Frenchness" seems to be in the features more than the bulletins. But I'm not going to judge them this early, of course!

Quote from Jon Snow

I spent a pleasant afternoon in the SOAS library on Friday. Amongst the reading, was Jon Snow's autobiography. I didn't get much past the opening chapters,(time constraints, nothing to do with his writing style!) Anyway, he modestly introduces:
"my wider tale, one from which this reporter emerges at least as blemished as anyone he reports on".

To us all!

Outlook – Ramallah & Jerusalem

I'm listening to Outlook's Schoolday 24, bringing 16 year olds in Ramallah and Jerusalem together. Gripping stuff. Like the similar programme on World Have Your Say in September. Awesome.

Children on the radio, and China

One of the first feature programmes I made was in China Radio International, on Children's Day. Incidentally, in China June 1st is referred to as International Children's Day – while most non-communist countries use that to refer to the UN Children's day, on November 20th.

I went off to one of the international schools outside Beijing – what a school! It was only my second or third interview, and I wasn't to great – I didn't write down their names, and so kept forgetting them. Oops. And it was a little bit difficult to mic me and three children – one with a very quiet voice.

Anyway. They managers in CRI weren't terribly impressed with the content of the interview. I'm deeply ashamed of the utterly awful studio intro and closing I added – gaaaa! I'm not a presenter, no way!

Being a good new producer, I asked one of the bosses what I should have done to make a better show for Children's Day. "I would have interviewed one of their teachers".
So who would I interview on Teacher's Day, I thought. Frankly, I wasn't too impressed. I knew as much then as I do now, that Children need to be heard, and need to be listened to. We can learn a huge amount from children, about growing up, about living, about how adult prejudices are carried on down to younger people.

Later, on the webite of Glenn Hauser's World OF Radio, I saw a report that that week, the CRI engineers had been testing a new DRM capable transmitter, relaying that day's news & feature hour something like 8 times. That resulted in co-channel interference of a regular transmission from another country. But that report finished with something like "a good journalistic job on the interview with foreign kids". I was unsure it wasn't tongue in cheek, but my was it rewarding!

Incidentally, after a few weeks of DRM test transmissions, that transmitter out in Kashi (Kashgar), was more than likely used for jamming, of Chinese language shortwave transmissions from abroad, such as my current employer!

But that'll not change anytime soon. We can hope to get more young people on the radio though

We simply have to get children and teenagers on the radio more!

Maybe if teens and younger are on the radio more, there would be less acceptance of doing something as "far out there" as having a 12 year old host of BBC World Service's The Interview. Not sure on that…
And teenagers may seem to have the digital technology and society to simply go and "Broadcast themselves" (to paraphrase YouTube). Not everywhere they don't.And compare the people who listen to the World Service with those who use MySpace…

Finally, Auckland's 95bFM has children's programmes: I've only listened once though, so I'll have to tune in again this weekend and publish on that later.

Generation Next

BBC Global News Division is doing a week of programmes about children and teenagers, and it's quite simply fab! Mostly on the BBC World Service, along with BBC World and BBCnews.com.

Yesterday was Schoolday 24, and I can't praise it enough. If you can't get to listen again online, at least grab what you can during the rest of the week on the radio.

This morning, heading into work, I was listening to young teens in Dar es Salaam, Delhi, and London discussing how they view the US presence in Iraq. Later, the Chinese Service did a live hour-long programme with Radio Guangdong, with a phone follow-up later on in World Report. Heading out of work I caught a global debate on science with young people.

And last weekend walking to Sainburys I heard Michael Palin interviewed by a 12 year old boy.

Sure, I work in the World Service: but I had nothing to do with any of the Generation Next output (other than putting one phone call through) – and I wish I had! It's awesome stuff, and I'll be listening back online.

London Chinese Radio

Just a quick catch-up. London Chinese Radio has continued doing live shows via Sound Radio in Hackney every Sunday (16:00 - 17:00). We've only missed a couple of live outings so far.

We're looking forward to the second round of community licences being advertised in London and the Southeast next year, and expanding our media literacy angle.

Excuses excuses…

Just an excuse me for the current silence: I've had my eyes lasered (by the lovely people at Optical Express Shaftesbury Avenue), and that means a bit less computer work for a while.
I'll be on Sound Radio on Sunday, with Zhang Rui and Daniel, so I'll hopefully be more or less up to speed by then :-)

I've been listening to loads of radio in my recuperating days, more on terrestrial than the usual online and freeview-via-iMac stuff. I came across CRI a few times on shortwave. I'm not even sure it's an improvement on Realtime Beijing… But anyway, it made me realise, aside from all the moral considerations, I don't want to be associated with rubbish Chinese radio anymore!

Now to apply some more artificial tears!

Community radio – how do you guide volunteers?

How to guide volunteers in making programmes is a difficult part of community radio, when you yourself are not quite part of that community.
Ok I'll stop saying "you", and use "I" instead!

There are two issues up front: first, language. My Chinese simply isn't good enough to clearly express sentiments like: engage the listener, draw in the listener, surprise.

And secondly, maybe it's wrong to impose our radio values on Chinese people. Maybe Chinese people aren't going to be engaged by an intriguing introduction.

True, I don't ever remember hearing anything engaging like that on domestic radio in China (and certainly not on CRI!). It did engage, but by personality. There are some top-notch people at that on air in Beijing!

But being from Europe, I know I could say the same thing about most of what's to be heard over here.

But maybe that's just an excuse!



Let's look at some of the jobs foreigners do in CRI, as an example. Oh yes, I should have said: CRI is China Radio International, where I am ashamed to say I used to work. Well, not so ashamed that I don't actually say it.
You get a government news release, of a minister or his (very occasionally her) spokesperson, translated in English. It says even less than the government news releases here, just in more words. Basically, it says how great the minister is.

And then our job was to polish it – make it sound good. So, you can either turn it round totally, and say: There have, as feared by some, been problems with such-and-such, and the government has been forced to react: or you can just correct the grammar.

They experienced broadcasters who had to read the stuff would change the stuff around. Then their editor would change it again to sound less negative.

I vacillated in how I re-wrote these things. Sometimes I would write and editor-friendly version, and sometimes I'd just leave the rubbish as it was. Basically, because I was happy to show up Chinese politicians as empty wind-bags – better yet, I wasn't doing a thing, I was letting them show themselves up.

Now let's move the radio station, from a government propaganda unit, to an independent, community station in Europe. This is a hypothetical move, by the way: London Chinese Radio is not in that situation, and our content is utterly different.

So. The cue makes clear what we are going to be talking about. Then how do you open the package? The two choices on the table are:

1. Set a scene relating to the geographical community, without naming where you're going, then lead to an actuality that paints a picture of the package's topic,

or

2. Say that if you want to get to this place, here's where it is; and now the sound that paints a picture of the package's topic.


Maybe the choice is easy for a European (or maybe that's just me!). But how can I come along and say which should be used in a Chinese radio piece? I have met plenty of Chinese radio producers who would make the same choice as I would, but they are all here, in London. Maybe recent immigrants don't want that, and would simply switch off.

How much can I steer people making packages? Why, if only my Chinese was better… :-P

Back!

Woohoo! Back after a long time away… all thanks to nothing more than shoddy ISP services. In the true tradition of blogs, I'll tell the whole story in a post soon.
And f course a load of radio catching up to do! Like, for example, London Chinese Radio live shows, package making with more traditionally-minded volunteers, concepts of community media, and whatever else comes to mind :-)

Podmore!

Not podcasting, but Dave Podmore, the fab cricket comedy from Radio 4 – the first series has just finished on BBC7, and starting next Wednesday, the follow-up series. Check it out!

LCR: Chen Li & Kingsley

What a show! Really innovative stuff from Chen Li and Kingsley (who you can see in the training photos down near the beginning of the blog) – using the TV quiz type format to simply inform foreigners about Chinese culture.

Then we had a package from Yizhou – we first met her on Tuesday evening, and already she had a piece on the radio! That's part of what community radio is about.
It just a shame that the files on the playout system (I believe it's Myriad) went wonky while on air :( Chen Li, ex BBC Conti, coped fabulously of course! But we do have to move on now, to make sure we have backups. The studio has CD players, which we should have lined up with all our main actuality.

This coming Sunday it'll be Zhang Rui and I, and hopefully we can have all our audio on my iPod and plugged into the desk just in case :-)

LCR on Sunday 8 October 2006

I don't know who the host is this weekend! I think it's Chen Li and Luke. Tune in at the usual times (as below) to find out!

Black History Month

It's Black History Month here in the UK. For now, I don't think I'll be producing any radio relating to it though: I haven't come up with any leads for London Chinese Radio (well, there is one, short fun piece, but it needs someone who speaks both Swahili and Cantonese or Mandarin, and I haven't found one yet!).

As for whatever stuff I might do myself (on occasion!), I don't have quite enough really!

The most promising – and disturbing – lead comes from my surname. Am I descended from Anthony/Antoine Walsh, this guy, a man who made his fortune and was honoured, for dealing in slaves, out of Nantes.

The little investigations I've made say I'm unlikely to find out without a lot of work – maybe as much as working out 300 years worth of family tree. I'll not get that done this month then!

What I do know is that Antoine Walsh is a "Kilkenny Walsh", as am I.

The way that man made his money was deeply immoral. For some reason, I feel the need to tell people about it. But I still haven't found something terribly interesting to say about it on the radio.


My other ideas for this month are a whole lot lighter… but I'll type them up some other time.

Grace & Barry LCR Music special

Grace and Barry did the LCR on Sound Radio show yesterday, and gave us a new format for the hour: a music special, with a large number of songs and expert analysis of them by Barry. I think I prefer the format of the previous week, but we simply must celebrate the diversity and experimentation. Very well done! I think we should seriously getting a specialist music show for Barry.

Unfortunately I was stuck outside the reception area for the first 25 minutes or so, meaning I missed the opening. So now I can tell, that with a Degen 1105, you won't get Sound Radio 1503 in Shepherd's Bush, Bayswater, or Paddington!

Newstalk goes “quasi-national”

Newstalk 106 has gone "quasi-national" today – kinda like a radio version of Shaws, almost nationwide. Not being in Ireland, I can't hear it, and when I have the chance to listen to online streaming at this hour, Ray Darcy on Today FM is still my choice!
I listened to Sean Moncreif on Newstalk yesterday, and on the one hand, I think, "oh my god how do they hope to make this nationally relevant", but on the other hand, it is so phone-in based, it might just work. Good luck to them either way!

LCR on Sound Radio – Grace & Barry

This weekend, London Chinese Radio will be on Sound Radio again: this time it's Grace and Barry, our first all-Chinese on-air team. As usual, 4 -5 pm Sunday evening, 15:00 – 16:00 UTC, on Sound Radio 1503 MW in London, and streaming online.

Li Xu & Peter – congrats

Well done LiXu & Peter on last weekend's show – a couple of songs, a live studio interview, and a couple of good informative packages. And it was 100% in Chinese – our first hour with no English, well done everybody!  We're still finding our feet: we need more experience on the technical side, but we are clearly on the way to getting a format together. Cool!

London Chinese Radio on Sound Tomorrow!

Reminder for tomorrow! London Chinese Radio is giving us another hour or live radio tomorrow, Sunday 24 September 2006.
Sound Radio, East London, 1503 MW, from 4 - 5 pm, that's 15:00 - 16:00 UTC.
Further afield you can listen online, on the Sound Radio stream.

This time it's old hand Li Xu and greenhorn Peter.

Infinity?

A rather challenging thought there from the official website of pop-rockers Silbermond (in the videos section).


Enough to set me up for a listen to A Brief History of Infinity on the BBC World Service – I haven't heard part two yet though. Thankfully, they acknowledged the Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy reference :-)

It was comparatively close to the contemporary in narration and musical style, by BBC standards at least. Rather scientifically correct, huzzah! It's a good couple of shows.


They haven't given it an archive page yet, but the audio is available, on the website and via your favourite podcast software.

Lonely Planet on Camden

Lonley Planet has done one of its Travelcasts (podcast to you and me) on Camden, the area of London I'm about to leave.
The podcast captures Cadem excellently – at least to me, someone who lives here (and loves it). How does it sound to people who've never been here?
Let me know in the comments!

The only reason I'm leaving Camden, to be honest, is the high noise level at night. My flat is particularly bad, over the main road with pretty much no sound insulation! But Camden is itself a fab place, check it out, or if you're not in London, listen to the podcast!

On T-enterhooks for Morphy Richards

Oh dear…
DRM anoraks have been regular visitors of late to this page in the T-Online store. It's where the Morphy Richards DRM radio is for sale, at €100 less than the Sangean offering.
At first, it was advertised as available in one week… after a bout a week, that changed to three days, then reportedly 2 days, and then…
Well, on the DRMRX forums one person say it as unavailable, while now it's out for 4 weeks.
Oh dear.

My upcoming travel plans mean I probably won't get a DRM radio until the second generation of consumer sets anyway. I fixed my father up with a Sky Gnome and dedicated (second hand) digibox, for about the same price as the Morphy Richards, so no excuse to get one there either!

If only Peter Senger could get DRM chips into all those cars made in Germany, we could really get excited about it.

London Chinese Radio

Big congrats to Zhang Rui and Gao "don't call me Daniel" Han, on bringing London Chinese Radio to East London – LIVE! – on Sound Radio just now.

Isn't Zhang Rui 100% pro? She really could work on any top-flight Chinese radio station – but she's ours! Daniel brings his energy, youth and English creativity to the show like none other can.

I set out to listen in the Regents Park, and left Audio Hijack Pro to record the show for me – but I set it to the Real Audio bookmark, and it turns out Sound Radio have moved to MP3 streaming since I last listened online. So I only have about 30 minutes or so ROT, that I made manually.

ZR and GH dealt very well with technical problems! Thankfully Michael the funky Sound Radio SM was on hand to save the day.

I haven't heard from our hosts yet, but I hope they're as thrilled as the rest of us, and can brief and guide our other volunteer presenters.

The vanishing room

So it took me rather a few weeks to come up with those two very short reviews… Oops!

Ah well, they're done now.

AKG K27i folding headphones

White headphones in the same segment as Sennheiser's PX200s.

In short, the AKG K27i don't sound as good as the Sennheiser PX200s. I'm referring here to sound gathering for radio, on the cheap, with consumer MiniDiscs or my new baby, the Edirol R09.

The AKGs have more bass then the Sennheisers, unnaturally so. They "enhance" the sound, which may be fab for music, I don't know! But generally, I'd opt for the PX200 when it comes to sound quality. The same has to be said for comfort. The K27is are a bit tight on the ears. After about a month of daily use, that has improved slightly, but the 2 year old PX200s feel better for now.

However, there are some very attractive plus points to the AKGs. They block out a lot of extraneous noise, more so than the PX200s, and wind noise is much less of a problem. In a windy location, the sound of the wind blowing around and hitting the AKG's is lower, less boomy and less flappy than the Sennheisers. This is a huge advantage in our line.

The other big advantage is the inline volume control – it's tiny, and saves a lot of battery for people like me who have a compulsion to constantly adjust the volume on anything, especially headphones!

They are pure white, with dark grey trimmings, so a whole lot more visible than the PX200s. It's an iPod thing, I guess. I'm quite neutral about the look of the things, but one BBC studio Manager I showed them to was well impressed with the look, so that's a good sign!

Pure PocketDAB 2000

The PocketDAB 2000 is a bulky pocket DAB radio with pause & record features, an MP3 player and recorder, and an FM radio.

The plus points: The ReVu facility, which allows you press pause and time-shift a DAB programme.
Having the other option of FM is handy.
A useful dock is included.
DAB reception is both Band III and L Band.

The negatives:
Pig ugly.
Bulky.
Average battery life – maybe 4 hours.
EQ only works on DAB.
FM tuner is awful.
Windows-only software.

Way too expensive!!!!!!!!

That's basically it really.

Busy busy busy

All busy in London Huayu land, for or first scheduled live transmissions, coming up in a couple of weeks! The magic words are: Sound Radio 1503.

http://www.soundradio.org.uk/index.php

and as ever

http://www.londonhuayu.co.uk/

Reviews coming up

Next week I hope to do some reviews:

AKG K27i Headphones (mostly comparing with Sennheiser PX200)
and

Pure PocketDAB 2000 receiver.

Which I bought two days ago in a fit of retail therapy, having long since accepted my BlueNote was lost somewhere in the street, never to return.

And now, as my flat cleaning continues, I've just found the BlueNote, in the bottom of a paper bag, in the middle of a plastic bag full of plastic bags.

Grrr.

Degen DE 1105

I picked up a Degen DE 1105 in Beijing. It cost 270 RMB in the Jinwuxing market, the same place I'd bought my DE 1102, and advised two other people to get a 1102 and 1103.

The DE1105 looks quite nice, with a nice brushed aluminium (I think) finish.

The reception is a little bit disappointing. That said, I was able to walk along the street in Beijing, Taipei and Okinawa listening to the BBC World Service on 21660. That felt pretty good I have to say. So in that respect, the DE 1105 does what it says on the tin, a pocket or handheld shortwave radio.

The problems:
The rotary tuning control can slip back a channel all by itself.
The set is very sensitive to ignition noise, and electrical noise in general.
There's no gain control or attenuator, which would help quite a bit – it's quite susceptible to overload.
There's no wide/narrow filter switch, which makes a big difference on the DE 1102. Likewise no Synchronous AM.
The rod antenna is fixed into the radio's body, so that to adjust it's elevation or any other angle, you have to move the whole radio.
Some of the keys on the keypad are a bit sticky, needing a few presses to work.


I think it's a bit expensive even at the price I paid for it. That said, I am mean and stingy.
As the 1105 is still a little bit too bulky for a pocket, you might be as well off going for the slightly 1101 or 1102, for the improved reception.

London Huayu Training in National Theatre

On London's South Bank

illitrate

I meant homophobic in the post below, not xenophobic. Duh me.

Butch boys of London

Funny day. Big build-up to England v Portugal footie in the World Cup.
And Gay Pride parade in Central London.

And hot sunshine.

The result? Xenophobic macho English blokes walking around without their shirts. And gay butch English men walking around without their shits.

So whose shirts are these people wearing? No-ones, duh, they're not wearing any shirts at all.

So two groups of English men who generally don't really like each other, and like to shout about who they are, are walking about London looking very much like each other.

It goes to show how much I judge a book by its cover I guess.

Dunphy again

Clearly in need of throwing a grump, I've tuned into NewsTalk 106 online again, during Dunphy's show.

I hope they don't let too many of those coarse Dublin accents on the near-national version. Really off-putting.

Yes I know that probably is bigoted, but it grates so much…

I don't know how much this applies to other people from outside Dublin. A lot of people do listen to Joe Duffy after all.

But that is a rant for another time, on the image of people power excusing democracy.

Anyway, Dunphy on newstalk is sounding ok right now.

Grump!

Silence!

I'm back home in Ireland for the weekend.
I was tired after the early start, so had a kip in the mid afternoon. And I woke to up a mysterious sound…
A soft thud, repeating every second or so, but then a whirring, spherical sound…

Another case of that time between waking and sleep – which we awkwardly also call waking – like the time I saw a golden sphere floating in the middle of the ski-hotel room. Turned out to be the little red standby LED on the telly surprising my sleepy eyes.

But back to yesterday's sound: it was roadworks. Not much else. And once it stopped, there was SILENCE!!! Even with the windows open! How thoroughly glorious! So much more difficult to find in London :(

Ah well, there are a million things in London that are more difficult to find over here too!

BBC WS Live from a Baloon!!

Right now on the World Today, a reporter is doing a LIVE two-way from a hot air balloon over Stratford on Avon. They've just had to put on the burner, and there's relaxing music in the background.

And maybe it's the gate that made it sound like the reporter vanished for a bit.

Root around www.bbcworldservice.com for the Listen Again

Really cool!!

ChineseVote.Org.Uk

Last night I came across this organisation: VoteChinese.Org.Uk. It's funded by the Electoral Commission, and encourages British Chinese to vote.
It's a very worthy cause, and it's good to see a project like this funded by the state. Cool!

Dunphy out of NewsTalk?

There are reports in the Irish papers and on Radiowaves forums that Eamonn Dunphy is leaving NewsTalk 106 before it's quasi-national launch.

I only listened a few times, but it seemed so terribly indulgent to him by the producer. Let him talk to his mates about something or other, so very unfocused. Talk of not getting to the point. Worse than me! And gifting listeners to the opposition – which in terms of morning news, is Morning Ireland. But it may be different in terms of the Dunphy demographic.

But NewsTalk are leaping to cancel out that gain, it seems, by maybe wanting Joe Duffy. So to hell with news, lets give teh country a phone, specific to one class in one city.

But he is a name, and names help commercial radio…

The papers report it thus:
http://archives.tcm.ie/irishexaminer/2006/06/21/story6478.asp
http://www.unison.ie/irish_independent/stories.php3?ca=9&si=1637707&issue_id=14237
http://breakingnews.iol.ie/entertainment/story.asp?j=186529436&p=y8653xy4z

News point of view

How balanced is this? Probably very balanced, I suppose. But how would you or I found out if the assumptions of this story were well founded?

And how would we know how different it is from the official police telling of events? And should it be?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/wiltshire/5098706.stm


"Peaceful start to summer solstice

Celebrations to mark the summer solstice at Stonehenge in Wiltshire have passed off peacefully with only four arrests.
Police estimate around 17,000 people watched the sun rise at 0458 BST on Wednesday despite cloudy conditions."

Exhibition coming up at Brunei Gallery

There's a new exhibition coming up SOAS's Brunei Gallery:
Face_WSLOT (Women See Lot Of Things)

From the official website: http://www.soas.ac.uk/gallery/Face_WSLOT/home.html

Face_WSLOT is the first part of Face - the interdisciplinary societal art project by Meira Asher, bodylab art foundation.
Face_WSLOT consists of an art installation, CD-book publication, documentary film, and a Tertiary Education Support Initiative for Women in Sierra Leone (TESI-WSL).

The art installation explores and portrays the lives of three female ex-child combatants in post-war Sierra Leone and the psychophysical adjustments they undertake in order to come to terms with their experience are confronted.


The exhibition starts on July 13 and runs through the Summer.

I've never found the Gallery terribly welcoming for exhibitions, though there have been times I've really wanted to go.

However I'll try and make it to this one, when I'm back from my travels.

DRM Radios…

Just reading what I wrote over a year ago…

DRM radios still aren't out! But I believe them now when they say Autumn.

Time to start ramping up services.

I had a blog. Who knew?

So it turns out I set up a blog in my idle days.

I'll just make this entry to have something newish looking (ish) should anyone wish to investigate my comments on the all new London Huayu blog. http://londonhuayu.blogspot.com/

Don't bother with this age here, keep an eye on London Huayu!