Month: November 2012

  • Radio Festival 2012 – Some Thoughts

    During the Radio Festival, I was busily writing some contemporaneous notes about what was happening at the sessions I attended. But these weren’t really a considered view – more, what struck me as interesting or worth repeating at the time I was writing them. Having had a couple of night’s sleep since then, these are…

  • Radio Festival Day Two

    Apologies for any typos in these notes. I’ll tidy things up later… The excellent Margherita Taylor – due to be inducted into the Radio Academy Hall of Fame this evening – is once again hosting room 2 at the Lowry in Salford. But the first session in the room was on speech radio. Colin Pattinson…

  • Radio Festival/Techcon 2012

    I’m writing this as we go, and will tidy up the text later. But these are my notes “live”… As David Lloyd, MCing Techcon at the Radio Festival again this year mentions, it’s been a quiet weekend in the media. The first session was about studio design, and Tim Lowther from Global talked us through…

  • Radio Books

    In the back flap of Danny Baker’s new autobiography, Going to Sea in a Sieve, the simple text beneath Baker’s photo says: Danny Baker is a comedy writer, journalist and radio DJ. He currently presents six shows a week for the BBC and is a regular face on TV. He still lives in south-east London.…

  • A Radio Future

    On Monday, the great and the good of the UK radio industry, and visitors from beyond, will gather in Salford for the annual Radio Festival. If you’re going, say hi to me! But there are potentially some dark clouds on the horizon. It might be a somewhat distant horizon, but the radio industry – as…

  • Bellowhead at the Roundhouse

    I think Bellowhead is probably my favourite live band. They’ve just started a new tour, and last night it reached the wonderful Roundhouse in Camden. Cue lots of dancing, jigging, and a bit of polka on the floor of the Roundhouse. Watching Bellowhead makes you think that them going on tour is probably like throwing…

  • Beasts of the Southern Wild and The Master

    Beasts of the Southern Wild is a truly remarkable piece of cinema. We get a mix of magical realism alongside an almost conceivable life in the southern tip of Louisiana – “the Bathtub.” The young Hushpuppy (a truly amazing performance from a five or six year old Quvenzhané Wallis) lives with her dad (Dwight Henry)…