Highlights
I hate this
But does it matter? — I don’t usually say that sort of thing here. I try to be more measured, less personal. I’m talking about the police face recognition vans obviously. This might not surprise you: I mean that I don’t like them. I’m an old git after all, a man who’s written here before […]
Nearly half a bicycle
The atomic theory in Kilburn — This place (on Kilburn High Road) has been morphing steadily from dry cleaner’s to bike shop over the last few years. I remember being surprised one morning to see a few kids’ bikes lined up for sale outside but I’d say the shop is now approaching 50% bike shop. […]
Where is my patriotism?
Come, love of country, fill my heart… — I do love Britain. I guess I love England more. London most of all. I hope that in my life I’ve honoured the place I live and not disgraced it or undermined it (I support England and GB in sporting events – I fly a little flag […]
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Hacks hack
Extraordinary movement in the phone hacking case today – and presumably only the beginning of a torrent of admissions and concessions. This is good. But there’s something about the indignation…
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The curatorial twitch
My dad was book mad. He owned a couple of thousand books, mostly non-fiction. He was an old-school, working class, self-taught polymath, a bus conductor-know-all (I’ve written about his dictionaries…
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Tweetdeck – cyberspace dashboard thingie
The Tweetdeck crew, led by doughty leader Iain Dodsworth, came to BBC Audio & Music yesterday to grill us about our use of the app and to fill us in…
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Amazing Radio – an interview with Trevor Dann
[You might want to know: when I wrote this I worked at BBC Radio (and still do!) but these are the opinions of a civilian radio nut and not those…
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The XX on working together
6 Music ran a lovely series of programmes about this year’s Mercury nominees. They did a simple thing and recorded the artists introducing the tracks, describing the inspiration and the…
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Twitter as service monitor
How do you monitor broadcast output on FM, LW (MW in some areas), two DAB frequencies, LW and FM channels for digital TV on Virgin cable, Sky satellite, Freeview and…
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Autotuning Seasick Steve
My twelve year-old remixed a Seasick Steve tune, complete with autotune. It’s awesome.
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Adam Savage from Mythbusters
What I love about Adam Savage is his laugh. On Mythbusters, which I watch a lot (I have children under 12), he’s the riotous, uninhibited, self-actualiser – and he laughs…
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The fifth emergency service
19 June 2017 UPDATE: I’ve just taken down the picture of my staff pass that sat at the top of this post – I’ve been advised that these days it’s…
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Three reasons #PromsXHQ is important
April 2022 UPDATE: the super-high-quality PromsXHQ stream went on to replace the standard Radio 3 online stream for all output and, if you listen on BBC Sounds these days you’re…
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Make My Pano now
Pano is an iPhone app. It stitches together the photos you take to make fantastically compelling panoramas. I’ve developed an unhealthy obsession with Pano and a lot of the pics…
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Really suffering for your art
Everyone says music is getting more physical again. We continue to get our daily sounds from ever more insubstantial sources, floating above us like those glittering landscapes in Neuromancer, but…