Month: October 2015

  • Google and Podcasts

    This week we heard the first news that Google is starting to get into the podcast game. Recode had the first decent report on the move. Currently, Apple dominates podcasts. Indeed, the word “podcast” might seem to imply to casual listener, that listening to a podcast means having an actual “iPod” to listen to them…

  • RAJAR Q3 2015

    This post is brought to you in association with RALF from DP Software and Services. I’ve used RALF for the past 8 years, and it’s my favourite RAJAR analysis tool. So I’m delighted to be able to bring you this analysis in association with it. For more details on RALF, contact Deryck Pritchard via this…

  • The Stone Tape

    Nigel Kneale is perhaps not as recognised a name as he should be. He was one of the UK’s major screenwriters for 50 years writing popular fare including in particular the Quatermass series. He adapted George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, in perhaps the definitive 1954 Rudolph Cartier screen adaptation (still unreleased on DVD despite at least…

  • Cycling Lights

    The clocks have gone back, and so, while it was getting dark before when I returned home, we’re now in guaranteed darkness – at least if you finish work after 5.30pm or so. And as ever, it appears a lot of fellow cyclists really haven’t thought about their lights for a long time. Yesterday, as…

  • MC Escher and Lee Miller

    Last weekend saw me visiting a couple of exhibitions that don’t really have a great deal in common – although both artists will have been vaguely contemporaries – but are both of interest. The Amazing World of MC Escher is said to be the first every exhibition of Escher’s work in the UK. The exhibition…

  • The Program

    Right at the beginning of The Program, the BBFC certificate popped up. The film is rated 15 for “strong language, use of performing-enhancing drugs.” Quite. (And I realise, I’m not the first person to note this.) The Program is Stephen Frears’ new film about Lance Armstrong, the seven-times winner of the Tour de France, before…

  • The Joys of Online Streaming Sports

    Picture the scene. You’re travelling and Twitter tells you that the final rugby World Cup quarter final is a tight affair. There are just minutes left, and a single score could send the match either way. The final “northern hemisphere” side are fighting to stay in the competition. You fire up ITV Player on your…

  • The Martian and Sicario

    There seems to be a spate of pretty decent films coming all of a sudden at the moment, so after a bit of a barren period when endless super-hero films haven’t inspired me to go to the cinema, I’m suddenly going a little more. The Martian is Ridley Scott’s new film, based on the book…

  • Not Predicting the Mercury Music Prize

    Here’s an oddity. Music Week has published a list of albums that Google Play Music says represent the volume of streams that albums eligible for the Mercury Music Prize have achieved. So they’ve looked at acts that released albums between September, 9 2014 and September 25, 2015. The official shortlist is published in a couple…

  • From Darkness and Unforgotten

    In the last week or so, two new dramas have started on BBC One and ITV with on the face of it similar themes. Both are essentially crime dramas, and both deal with dead bodies from years earlier being dug up. Who are the bodies, and how did they get there. We get brief flashbacks…

  • Come on News TV – Use a Satellite!

    A couple of years ago, I moaned on this blog about the growth of streaming video in place of satellite links in news programmes. In short, as services like Skype have grown, news desks are getting their correspondents to utilise broadband or 4G and smartphones instead of sending camera crews and satellite trucks. Now this…

  • Chromecast Audio – Initial Thoughts

    At Google’s recent devices launch, they announced a new version of the Google Chromecast – a £30/$35 device that plugs into an HDMI socket and lets you stream video via WiFi, using a phone/tablet/laptop as controller. It’s a neat device. They also announced Chromecast Audio – essentially doing the same for audio for your existing…