Month: July 2011

  • F1 on Television

    The news that the BBC is sharing Formula 1 rights with Sky leaves me personally unperturbed. While some of the rule changes introduced in recent years do seem to have led to some actual over-taking, other forms of motorsport seem more interesting, and seem less like engineering competitions. However, my own ambivalence towards the “sport”…

  • Satire and Parliament

    Over the last few days, there’s been a bit of a Twitter-ruckus (is that a word?) about the lack of More 4’s Global Edition of The Daily Show this week. Graham Linehan has full details (and this New Statesman piece essentially regurgitates Linehan), but essentially the episode had to be pulled because the main item…

  • Following Le Tour

    No. Sadly, I don’t mean spending large parts of July in a camper van driving between the Pyrenees and the Alps, joining the multi-national throngs clinging to the mountainsides. I mean following the Tour, on-air and online. Assuming that you’re not “available to view” during the daytime on weekdays, your first decision is whether to…

  • eBook Readers – Reappraised to an Extent

    I love books. Real, physical books. Two arrived in the post just today! And I have 30 pages left to read in the thriller in my bag. In fact, why am I typing this in my lunch break and not reading it? As such, I’ve not bothered buying something like a Kindle. They seem vastly…

  • Phone-Hacking Media Talk

    Last night I spent a fascinating hour at a “live” recording of The Guardian’s Media Talk podcast, presented by Matt Wells, in a packed room with somewhere around 100 Guardian readers in attendance. It was devoted completely to the hacking scandal, and featured some of the key players in the case including Nick Davies, the…

  • London to Brighton 2010

    I’ve got a few videos saved up that I’ve not edited or posted. So I thought I’d work through the backlog! This was taken last August (so it’s been a while) when a few of us cycled from London to Brighton as part of a vaguely radio-themed outing. As you might be able to tell…

  • Photowrap

    The London Street Photography Festival will shortly be coming to an end, and I’ve enjoyed having a look at the work of some of the photographers exhibiting. In particular, I can heartily recommend the Vivian Maier exhibition at the German Gymnasium between King’s Cross and St Pancras Stations. Try to get to see it this…

  • A Summer Storm

    Summer Storm Montage (mp3) A little recording I made going to the shops yesterday while a storm passed over. This is obviously an edit of a twenty minute walk removing as much wind noise as possible. Recorded with Roland CS-EM10 binaural microphone/earphones on a Zoom H2. Be sure to listen with your headphones to capture…

  • Lies, Damned Lies…

    A YouGov/Sunday Times poll reveals that 6 Music would be the station most people would choose to close down to help the BBC achieve spending cuts. There are one or two problems with this: – In the survey, the station was named “BBC Radio 6” rather than “BBC 6 Music”. A small but important detail,…

  • The News of the World

    I’ve been following this week’s events with dropped jaw horror, as finally, after two years of solid reporting from Nick Davies and The Guardian, it all came home to roost for News International and the News of the World. I hate to see people lose their jobs. We keep hearing about how 200 fine men…