Month: February 2009

  • A Tale of Three Concerts

    In the last seven days I seem to have seen a lot of music, although I did pay the price just a little. Last Sunday I went to The Junction in Cambridge to watch Bellowhead. Just to be clear, I don’t live in Cambridge, so it was a bit of a trip to see them.…

  • When TV (or Radio) Uses Your Workplace

    This Wednesday, ITV2 launches that rarest of things, a new sitcom. Actually, that’s a bit unfair, as ITV has been commissioning a reasonable amount of programming for ITV2. It’s just that most of it really doesn’t interest me. But this week there’s something that I am looking forward to – FM. Indeed, if you head…

  • Radio 4’s Science Fiction Season

    Radio 4 has a new Science Fiction season, and the TV trailer is wonderfully creepy: (Actually, I think it’s already been edited a little since this version was launched. Or maybe they have a pre-watershed version.)

  • I Still Hate The Brits

    Have I mentioned before that I hate the Brits? Well – yes I have. Having studiously avoided them for several years now (despite working for a music radio station), I decided to watch this year simply because the Pet Shop Boys are getting the award for Outstanding Contribution to Music. But this is dire. I…

  • Juvenile Behaviour on the Radio

    If you’ve never taken part in a phone-in on the radio, you might be surprised how easy it is to get through if you’ve got something interesting to say. Listen to “Tony” speaking to Five Live’s Victoria Derbyshire on Monday: And on Sunday night, “Pavinder” called Eddie Nestor on BBC London: If you happened to…

  • At The Top of the BT Tower

    This evening I was invited to a presentation at the BT Tower, followed by a dinner at the top of the tower in their famous revolving restaurant. This is closed to the public, and it was exciting to get a chance to go up there. Sadly, today probably wasn’t the best day to go up.…

  • BAFTA Technical Foul-Up

    And it was all going so well. Last year the BAFTA awards had the sound messed up for the BBC1 broadcast. There were apologies all around, and we were told that this wasn’t because the OB was put together by an independent. We were told that the production team had years of experience. This year,…

  • Sky Player

    In today’s Observer there’s a Sky ad that reads: “Want to watch Sky Sports live on your PC?” Then there’s a picture of a laptop showing some Premier League football. “Now you can with Sky Player.” Hmm. I’ve heard that claim before. Yes you can, as long as you subscribe to Sky Multiroom (i.e. pay…

  • Ben Goldacre and LBC

    This is interesting to watch, and perhaps shows how if you’re not careful, things will run away from you. Ben Goldacre, the writer of The Guardian’s Bad Science column and author of the very excellent Bad Science book, wrote about a programme broadcast by LBC presented by Jenni Barnett. I’ll say up front that I…

  • Photography Is Not A Crime

    Following on from Stephen Colbert’s humourous take on public photography in the, there’s slightly more distrurbing news in the British Journal of Photography (via Boing Boing). There are far too many cases of law enforcement officials wrongly stopping members of the public from taking photographs. We don’t yet live in a police state.

  • Colbert Report on the Evil that is Photography

    The Colbert ReportMon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c Nailed ‘Em – Amtrak Photographer Colbert Report Full EpisodesPaul McCartney Appearance Funny Political VideosMore Funny Videos Via Thomas Hawk / Jack Schofield on the Twitters / and, er, watching The Colbert Report on FX in the UK.

  • Radio On The TV

    The new issue of Private Eye’s Ad Nauseum column highlights the recent BBC 6 Music TV ad which you may have seen, featuring Vampire Weekend on the soundtrack. (Also available here) It points out, as the person who uploaded the above version of the ad, that ad agency Rainey Kelly Campbell Roalfe/Y&R were probably, um,…