Month: February 2008

  • Bagless Mail

    So the Daily Mail has suddenly become devoted to going bagless – that is, seeing the end of the free plastic bag. Earlier this week it launched a massive campaign, and by a complete fluke, and in no way pre-planned, the next day Marks & Spencer announced that it’d no longer be supplying free plastic…

  • Ed Reardon on New Grub Street

    Thanks to Chris for noting that Open Book on Radio 4 recently covered nineteenth century novelist George Gissing and his novel New Grub Street. The main character is one Edwin Reardon, and there’s also a Jasper Milvain. Familiar names to fans of Ed Reardon’s Week like myself. Listen to the extract here: powered by ODEO…

  • Earth Tremor

    Utterly bizarre. I was just sitting here in my flat at 12.55am, when the sofa started shaking. I live on a top floor flat, and the light hanging above me was moving while the rather precarious stack of CDs against one wall started to move. It all went on for about ten seconds. Turning on…

  • Taxi To The Dark Side

    The winner of this year’s Oscar for Documentary Feature was Taxi To The Dark Side. This film was shown on BBC2 as part of the Storyville strand. Having just won an Oscar, the BBC are obviously rushing to repeat the film for those of us (including me) who missed it. So when and where is…

  • Is 6 Music Too Male?

    Well, the short answer is that I don’t know. But that seems to be what Lesley Douglas has been suggesting recently following a backlash against George Lamb. Now I’ve not heard him, so I’ve no idea how good or bad his show is, or what kind of audience it might be attracting. Douglas is quoted…

  • I Have Magnetic Legs

    Well that can be the only explanation. Unless the system is just flaky of course. Let me explain. I live in London, where the public transport system is divided into circular zones. The further out of the centre you live, the more you pay for your all zone ticket – or travelcard. A couple of…

  • Oh the irony

    (Yes, I really am on the subscription lists of both these organisations).

  • Privatising Radio 1 and Radio 2

    In today’s FT, the former chairman of Endemol UK, Peter Bazalgette argues for the BBC selling off Radio 1 and Radio 2. As part of an argument to solve the BBC’s problem of facing losing a “top-slice” of the licence fee, Bazalgette has noted that the BBC still has a 55% share of radio. His…

  • Digital Radio – What Now?

    (First off, it’s worth me reiterating that these are my personal views and don’t necessarily reflect those of my employer) The following is a revision of a comment I made to a blog posting by The Guardian’s Matt Wells last week. I think it largely addresses the issues of where radio – and commercial radio…

  • Radio News

    GCap’s announcement on Monday about its plans for the future were big news this week in the radio world (I’ll get around to some of my thoughts in due course), and the media sales trade magazine Media Week gave its cover lead to the story. GCap’s withdrawal from Digital One and the knock on effect…

  • BBC Three – Designed For Two Year Olds

    We all know that bright and shiny things attract children (and magpies). You only have to look at CBeebies to see examples of that: Teletubbies, The Tweenies, Bob the Builder etc. I can only assume somebody over at BBC Three is aged about two and a half. Otherwise they wouldn’t have decided that a bright…

  • And Now On Radio 4

    This is one of two books published towards the end of last year to tie in, unofficially, with Radio 4’s 40th anniversary. And Now On Radio 4 takes a fairly brisk look at the history of the channel, with very little background about what radio had been broadcast in the UK prior to the big…