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Photowrap
The London Street Photography Festival will shortly be coming to an end, and I’ve enjoyed having a look at the work of some of the photographers exhibiting. In particular, I can heartily recommend the Vivian Maier exhibition at the German Gymnasium between King’s Cross and St Pancras Stations. Try to get to see it this…
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A Summer Storm
Summer Storm Montage (mp3) A little recording I made going to the shops yesterday while a storm passed over. This is obviously an edit of a twenty minute walk removing as much wind noise as possible. Recorded with Roland CS-EM10 binaural microphone/earphones on a Zoom H2. Be sure to listen with your headphones to capture…
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Lies, Damned Lies…
A YouGov/Sunday Times poll reveals that 6 Music would be the station most people would choose to close down to help the BBC achieve spending cuts. There are one or two problems with this: – In the survey, the station was named “BBC Radio 6” rather than “BBC 6 Music”. A small but important detail,…
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The News of the World
I’ve been following this week’s events with dropped jaw horror, as finally, after two years of solid reporting from Nick Davies and The Guardian, it all came home to roost for News International and the News of the World. I hate to see people lose their jobs. We keep hearing about how 200 fine men…
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Byliner
Byliner is a worthwhile new website. It’s purpose is twofold: to link to and promote long form non-fiction to sell original ebooks in that genre under the Byliner Originals imprint The site came to prominance when it released Three Cups of Deceit by Jon Krakauer a couple of months ago. Krakauer wrote Into Thin Air…
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Where’s Current TV’s Big New Show?
In January this year, liberal-leaning TV pundit, Keith Olbermann announced that he was leaving his MSNBC show in the US. He was appearing on a news network that, in some way tries to “balance” the otherwise “fair and balanced” Fox News. Both networks – as they appear from this side of the Atlantic – appear…
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Taking Your Twitter Followers With You
A few weeks ago, Matt Deegan wrote an excellent piece about radio and usage of, and infatuation with Twitter. He argued cogently on many aspects of stations’ use of Twitter. But towards the end of his piece he raised a question that I’m sure many stations think about depending on how their presenters are using…
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TV Scheduling and Piracy
If there’s one thing that UK TV broadcasters have largely worked out in the last few years, it’s that the ease of accessing television shows through nefarious internet-related means makes it smarter if you try to minimise the risk. Sky has learnt this lesson the hard way in the past, and now regularly schedules its…
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The Apprentice
This week’s episode of that most upmarket of reality shows was decidedly downmarket. OK. It’s probably not that upmarket a show. The two teams were set the task of creating a new premium free magazine (or “freemium” as Lord Sugar miscalled it) to give away. They also had to pre-sell advertising for their first issue…
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Sky’s Acquisition Strategy
Yesterday came news that Sky has acquired the Showtime series, Nurse Jackie, starring Edie Falco and Eve Best (recently seen giving a terrific performance in The Shadow Line). This is the latest in a long line of Sky acquisitions that have come after the show has performed strongly on what we used to call “terrestrial…
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Myers Report
Yesterday, Tim Davie presented the Myers Report into Radio 1, 1Xtra, Radio 2 and 6 Music. John Myers, CEO of the Radio Academy and someone who’s for a longtime been involved in commercial radio, had been asked to look at ways for the services to reduce costs while maintaining quality. Responses have largely been as…
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Keep An Eye on the FT
Anyone with any sense in publishing will be watching very carefully what the FT is doing. They’ve decided to forgo platform-specific apps, sold through app-stores, and instead produce a compelling, HTML5 compliant mobile-oriented website. OK – they’re not actually dumping their apps. But they are actively trying to persuade their readers to go direct. And…
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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