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And What Is Andy Duncan On About?
Channel 4’s Chief Executive, Andy Duncan, has been appearing in front the House of Commons culture, media and sport select committee. He’s been complaining about the BBC buying acquired – that is to say, American – programming. C4 was outbid for the 13 episode Harper’s Island, which is still to air here. That may be…
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What’s Sky One Up To?
Broadcast magazine has a story about Sky One (or should that be Sky 1?) trying to lure Harry Hill from ITV1 to its channel with his BAFTA winning TV Burp. ITV has the series signed up for the autumn and winter, but beyond that I guess that negotiations remain open with indepedent producer Avalon. The…
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Star Trek
I must admit that although the enormous build up for this film had left others frantic with excitement, I’d not really been one of them. But by the time it arrived in cinemas at the weekend, I was certainly intrigued enough to want to go and see this “reboot” of the Star Trek franchise. I’ve…
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The Book of Murder
Back in 2005 I read a book called The Oxford Murders which was a perfectly enjoyable thriller set in Oxford around mathematics and murders by Argentinian author Guillermo Martinez. In the meantime, it’s been made into a film which I’ve not seen, and wasn’t exactly well reviewed. Now comes The Book of Murder, which is…
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The Housekeeper and the Professor
I picked this interesting little title up after reading a review of it in The Guardian a week or so ago. The story involves an unnamed housekeeper who is assigned by her agency to look after the professor. He had an accident years earlier, and now his memory only lasts 80 minutes. That means he…
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Sony’s…
…or rather the Sony Radio Academy Awards as they should be known, but aren’t really. The radio “Oscars” were held last night in London. Quite why every award ceremony has to be compared to the awfulness of the Oscars is a good question. And they were held at the Grosvenor House Hotel ballroom, a room…
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Danny Baker and Christian O’Connell Return to Five Live
Interesting news from Five Live. Danny Baker’s going to be doing the Saturday morning show, replacing Eamonn Holmes. Meanwhile Absolute Radio’s own Christian O’Connell is returning to Five Live to present an as yet un-named topical news comedy programme. I’m glad that Danny Baker’s 606 has been acknowledged for the triumph that it is, and…
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Child 44 and The Secret Speech
If you just went by this blog, you might think that I’ve stopped reading books. Well that’s not true. I just stopped writing about them here. Quite why, I couldn’t really say, but I intend to right that wrong. So let’s start with a book I read a few months ago, and its sequel that…
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Coraline 3D
Last night the NFT BFI Southbank had a showing of Coraline, the new stop motion film from Henry Selick (the director of “Tim Burton’s” The Nightmare Before Christmas) and based on the book by Neil Gaiman. Now I’ve not read the book, although I believe many have – and some of them were in the…
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RAJAR Q1 2009
7am this morning saw the first RAJAR release of 2009, and with it came a pleasant surprise: overall radio listening is up. Indeed, since the current methodology was introduced, radio listening is at an all time high reaching 45.8m listeners a week with 251,000 additional listeners this quarter. And even better news is that listening…
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Newspapers and the Internet
There are two interesting developments in the world of newspapers and digital today. First up is Rupert Murdoch who’s reported to be introducing a charge for reading currently free newspapers on the internet. He’s looked at the model operated by the Wall Street Journal and wants to roll out some kind of system to his…
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The Oxygen of Publicity
The Home Office has been having a hard time recently – and the Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, especially so. Yesterday, they came out all guns a blazing, with a list of people “named and shamed” who are to be excluded from entering Britain. Obviously this is by no means a list of the only people…
Podcasts, Radio, TV, Books, Cycling, Photography and More
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Yellowface/All The Lovers In The Night
Yellowface by R F Kuang I first came across R F Kuang with last year’s very enjoyable Babel, an alternate history of the British Empire told in a world where magic exists and is controlled by an elite group of individuals. Yellowface is very different, but no less enjoyable. It’s a book about books, and…
Hadrian’s Wall
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