...because if you look down all the time the tops of the buildings will start to dissolve and disappear. Good journalists – and academic researchers – always ask 'why?' To do any less is to commit sacrilege to both professions. When I was about ten years old my parents gave me one particular book that … Continue reading Just look up…
Category: Uncategorized
Mic it up…
…I've established that it's the microphone which defines exactly what radio is. That's because notions of 'broadcast', transmitters', 'wireless' and 'transistor radio' have, I think – over the past three decades – become either confused, redundant, or both. Pic: (c) Martin Cooper The microphone is the instrument which captures the human voice. Through the mixing … Continue reading Mic it up…
This is not radio…
...it's a blog. Even this recording of me reading this blog - I reckon - isn't radio: (Audio Credit: Martin Cooper (c)) But out in the far reaches of the Internet (I'm not convinced it needs a capital letter) there's a forum where the meaning of the word 'radio' is still being thrashed out. The … Continue reading This is not radio…
On the button…
...yet another explanation of 'PFL'...
“I never make predictions…
...and I never will” is a quote attributed to the English footballer Paul Gascoigne, who clearly knew the philosophy behind our natural desire as human beings to have a go at guessing what things will be like in the future. Most of the time we fail, which is why now is a good moment to … Continue reading “I never make predictions…
“…Ha, but my life is but a box of wormgears.”
The musings of Marvin the Paranoid Android seem to sum up neatly some of the trickier bits of the lives we ourselves lead. (The quote is from Life, the Universe and Everything (1982), London:Pan Books, p. 45). Douglas Adams, the author of The Hitchhiker's Guide, created a genre-busting cross-platform cultural epic in the late 1970s … Continue reading “…Ha, but my life is but a box of wormgears.”
Tech determines it…
I love technology. I love the way it shapes my life. I love valves, diodes, transistors, microprocessors, plastic casings, rotary tone controls and sliding faders. Does all this stuff determine the culture around me? My answer (in a rather shy retiring way when talking about this amongst some academics) is yes: I'm a technological determinist. … Continue reading Tech determines it…
Some of my favourite presenters…
Then, when I became a professional broadcaster in 1982 there were colleagues who I enjoyed both listening to and making programmes with. Still do, in fact. At the BBC World Service in the late 1980s there was the Geoffrey Stern, working as a presenter alongside his London School of Economics lecturing job, who made my … Continue reading Some of my favourite presenters…
The soundtrack of your life…
Radio is a personal medium. It's my medium. It's also been the medium of the baby boomer generation, of which I am one. Radio, by the end of the 20th century, had become for many who were born in the two decades after the end of WW2 part of the soundtrack of their lives. Tanja … Continue reading The soundtrack of your life…
Killing cats…
What's the connection between a dead cat and a radio show? In a previous post I'd talked about Clifford Geertz, and how I'd enjoyed the writings of this anthropologist. Now I'd like to mention a colleague of his from Princeton University in the 1970s, Robert Darnton. Robert Darnton is a historian by trade, and I … Continue reading Killing cats…
Pre-fade Listen 