Taking advantage of the fine weather, I hit the nearby countryside this afternoon (sadly, in a moment of poor planning, sans camera) and found myself following a section of the London Loop. I must say that I think I may attempt the full walk over the course of the next few months - it's always dangerous to set self-imposed deadlines.

Anyway more of that anon, if and when I start doing full sections. But the walk did afford me the opportunity to catch up with a lot of listening. There is, of course, a certain school of thought that says that it's terribly anti-social to go walking whilst listening to an mp3 player, but there's such a lot of great radio out there, that my commute doesn't afford me enough time to get through it all.

A lot of these were recommended by one of my new favourite sites - Speechification - which describes itself as "A blog of Radio 4. Not about Radio 4 but of it." Every week, they highlight a few hidden gems that you may have missed.

So today I was listening to Robbie Williams and Jon Ronson Journey to the Other Side (Still available to listen again until this Tuesday on the BBC Player, or the Speechification link is here). Robbie Williams comes out as likeable, but a bit gullible. And of course, if you haven't read it, you really need to read Jon Ronson's book Them.

Speechification also recommend Stephen Fry's recent speech on the future of public service broadcasting. I watched this on BBC Parliament on Saturday night (albeit with a sound issue part-way through, where Fry seemed to start all over again). I find it generally quite hard to disagree with Fry, and in this case, he's pretty much on the money all the way through. It's also worth watching, listening to or reading David Attenborough's contribution last week.

Then there's The Reunion featuring cast and crew from Withnail and I. Speechification wasn't the only place I'd heard this recommended - I think it was Mark Ellen on the very fine Word Magazine podcast who also mentioned it. It's a great piece of radio, and I don't know how it is that I haven't previously listened to The Reunion before. Now I must admit that this film would be one of mine if we were playing a variant on that appears in one of David Lodge's university-set novels where characters in an English department name famous novels they've never read. Yes, I've never seen Withnail and I, even though it's regularly showing in HMV sales for about two quid. I may well chase it down this week and make good on the hole in my cultural knowledge.

And there's plenty more to listen to over there...

PS Has someone at Deutsche Grammophon, the massive classical music label, really forgotten to renew their website registration? It seems so.