Fab podcast

Facebook is funny. I waste my non-working life on it. So sometimes, just to spite Facebook, I waste my non-working like on the Public Radio Exchange, which is far less of a waste.

So doing I've just stumbled on a fab podcast. The I Hate Poetry Hour Half Hour, and related funny stuff.

I've only heard a little bit, and with my unlistened podcasts up around 150, I really shouldn't add more. But this is great – it's a nice change to return to the "early days" of podcasts, when I can hear podcasts that aren't regular radio or corporate programmes.

Okay I'm possibly being a bit harsh on Nature Stories, Nature, and Open Source. I like them all (that's why I subscribe to them, duh), but they are more or less branded, I guess, in contrast to the "it's just me" early days.

This was supposed to be saying "hey listen to this podcast" but instead it's become a piece about how to me, podcasting and YouTube etc is more a way of accessing content from established providers, rather than a way of seeing the great creativity of all those "users" on the web.

And this only two days after I told myself to stop using the internet when half asleep, as it just causes trouble… sigh.

Back to Spent Cattle and the I Hate Poetry Hour Half Hour (I like saying that).

He puts music in it, which switches me out. Not being musical, I never got Flight of the Conchords or the Mighty Boosh when they went all musical. Went over my head. Missed out on being ahead of the curve there it seems. Who knows, maybe the World Service's Next Big Thing really has become the next big thing, and I haven't noticed. I can see it's a good idea though.

If you like brain-pushing stuff and tongue in cheek, check out The I Hate Poetry Hour Half Hour.

The wreck of the SS Penguin

I've had a busy couple of weeks – finishing a feature, and starting in Radio New Zealand International. RNZI is so fab – I'll perhaps write about it later. For now thought, I want to talk about the feature.

It'll be broadcast today, on Afternoons with Jim Moira (though it may be presented by Noelle again today).

In the middle of January, Diedre Wogan brought me on a tour of the graves of people who died in the SS Penguin, in 1909.

Anyway. It's the best piece I've done yet – and Jack Perkins even made me beam by describing it as "very good"!

It was edited by Gareth Watkins, of Access Radio as well as RNZ. A ridiculously nice man. And being a studio operator working on a feature in a big ol' Sadie suit, he is, needless to say, a magician. Gosh I love Sadie! I think Jack Perkins even has a poem of adoration to Sadie on his office wall.

As we were editing it, Diedre Wogan phoned me to ask when it would go out – what a coincidence! As she said herself, we were on the same wavelength.

It was the start of 12 days work for me, including a few news shifts in Radio New Zealand International – that was fab! Great to be back on shortwave. Shortwave + features = Connor in the groove. Incidentally since I replaced our wired router with a Wi-Fi one, I can't access the RNZI website. Very odd.

Anyway. HUGE thanks to Diedre, the Karori Historical Society, Gareth, and Phil who was watching as we edited (he's the fourth Phil I've met in RNZ. Like Steves in the World Service I reckon).

###
OK OK! So I'm over a week late! I'm not good at self-promotion. I apologise! Here it is, with my mistake in the cue – it should be the worst civilian shipwreck. I think I did write ninety-nine there though, not ninety.

More unfounded BBC-Bashing

I admit to being particularly interested in the work Mark Mardell does. He has a difficult role which he seems to relish, and that's a wee bit inspirational. I'm a fan.

And in this post he posts what I think is an uncommonly cogent response to criticism, by a BBC staffer.

I'm all with Mark Mardell on this one.

When an idiot acts like an idiot, and attacks you in the process, then reply. So well done Mark.

Some of his colleagues perhaps need to note though, that if they aren't able to reply as fairly to criticism as Mark Mardell does in this, then maybe the criticism is valid. Shock horror!

Radio Lab Blog

The best show on the radio has a blog, yay!

The things people complain about!

I'm not up to finding a polite way of framing this, from a group I am apart of:

BBC reporters going undercover as birders!

Today the BBC made no bones about using reporters disguised as
birders to get into Zimbabwe, illegally gaining access to areas off
limits to reporters. This behavior clearly raises the suspicion of
some government leaders against valid birders and other nature
enthusiasts. The BBC has endangered us all with their illegal behavior.

I have sent them the following letter:

"I was shocked and angered that you would have one of your reporters
masquerade as a birder to enter the country of Zimbabwe. Then, worst
of all, you published this openly on the radio. This clearly puts
all valid birders, nature photographers and recorders, and other
valid tourists at a new risk of suspicion and harm. As a nature
recordist and birder myself, I already fall under unwarranted
suspicion when I use my binoculars and recording equipment in out-of-
the-way places. Now you have validated the suspicions that should
have remained unfounded.

"You clearly owe a major apology to all the nature enthusiasts and
scientists you have now endangered. You also should make a public
statement that such behavior will never again be tolerated by your
reporters.


As you, as a nature recordists group, have now been affected, I
wanted to let you know.

Thanks,

Wow! Cool!

Very cool.

CBC Radio's Spark is making an episode on a wiki – not about a wiki, but by means of a wiki.

Exciting!

The Onion does Radio too!

Woo-hoo!

Dan & Nick are back!

Yay! Still repeats of course, but some funny French stuff in this first episode :-)

CBC Wiretap

I can't believe I never knew about this before now… it's a hoot!
Wiretap, on the CBC.

FOOC, Gao Yaojie

I'm listening to FOOC, for the first time in ages. Allan Little -- ah that voice, that writing.

And Dan Griffiths, talking about Gao Yaojie. I've never spoken to Gao Yaojie, indeed I can't understand much of what she says. But I've studio-produced when BBC Chinese interviewed her, and gone all through the Reuters and APTN feeds to find audio of her in the US.

From just that, I feel like I know her. She deserves all the recognition she gets, and well done to Dan Griffiths for writing and reading so well.

And right now they're in Bhutan, with some names that make me giggle -- go easy on me, I've had a lot of sunshine and some chocolate today.

Mike Figgis lecture

Mike Figgis is a movie director, but he talks about much more than that in this lecture. I enjoyed every word of it – that's how wide he spread his net! It's well worth a listen.

It was also the Radio 3 Arts and Ideas podcast, so you might be able to find an mp3 if it leaves the the Radio Player after seven days.

On The Wireless

I've just been to see a great show. It's called On The Wireless. It was on in the San Francisco Bathhouse on Cuba Street (Wellington, New Zealand).

It's fab! Three young men in dinner jackets perform an evening radio show, which plays three dramas. Many many parts are played over the course of the show, entirely by the three guys – according to the Facebook event, their names are Gareth Williams, Brad McCormick and Leon Wadham.
They do a terrific job on the accents – plus they do their own spot effects, and one even plays the keyboard! They are helped by a sound operator who hits his cues – everybit as good as any I've seen at the BBC Radio 4 recordings in the Drill Hall.

The stories are diverse, entertaining pastiches. Then there are the ad breaks…

If I have to criticise, maybe it's just that the final play could have gone in the middle, as there was an element of "I'm not supposed to be laughing here" which confused things a wee bit. But audiences like to think too so hey :-)

It doesn't really detract from an excellent show – I want more!

So yeah, if you get a chance, go see this show, and keep an ear out for the three performers.

SW Radio Africa concerned about Al Jazeera’s reports from Zimbabwe

From RNW's MediaNetwork, with an understated headline :SW Radio Africa concerned about Al Jazeera’s reports from Zimbabwe. Read it.

Manila Peninsula

Watching the army entering the hotel live on Al Jazeera. Bloody amazing.

NZ TV TX Pics

I wish I'd known about this website earlier: looks like a work of passion, and I love it!
Radio en Televisie zendmasten buitenland

Edirol R09 Mic Minijack

The mic input minijack on my Edirol R09 has broken. It's still in there, but lose.

It happened while I was recording very loud waves and wind on Makara Beach. So I was able to keep recording using the line in socket.

Now though my R09 is back to it's original, intended use: a pocket recorder that'll I'll always have with me.

And in the next few days, I'll be upgrading to a big-boy's recorder, a Fostex FR-2LE. Excited!

Got to use the Sound Devices 702 at the weekend. It spoils us it really does. Using Shure SM63s, with the gain up full, the limiter takes care of all the rest. No distortion… amazing.

Ronnie Barker sings Leonad Cohen pastiche Goon style

In the Lines from My Grandfather's Forehead on this week on BBC 7. I say.

Pakistan coverage

So Nawaz Sharif's return to Pakistan – second time round – was well covered, thanks to the magic of the mobile phone.

It was mildly electrifying (you know what I mean!) when CNN cut in just before the top of the hour to talk to him on the phone, not long before he left Saudi Arabia (or Saudi and Arabia as the Radio Live newsreader called it the day before). They asked some really good questions too – so working in a CNN affiliate at the time I was able to get straight in there and cut out a tape… cut… clip… actuality… Whatever.

BBC WS and I think World both had him on arrival – and he hadn't been shoved back onto the 'plane by anyone, so that seemed maybe more relevant. But you can't beat CNN to sell a story!

And then t turned out France24 got him too!

I've only just discovered Onion Network News

How Can We Raise Awareness In Darfur Of How Much We're Doing For Them?

London Huayu EXCLUSIVE on illegal immigration raids

A big story in London this week was official raids on illegal immigrants in Chinatown.

Who got the scoop? London Huayu Chinese Radio.

Two of their volunteers were on the ground, in the community, with a Zoom H4 and a camera.

Check out their coverage.

I am really proud of the guys!!!!

It's there on the Community Media Organisation website too.