This perspective is from one nearby building, not the same as either the above, but it certainly brought them to mind. The full recording runs to 12 minutes, this is about seven. Read a write-up of the symposium by La Cosa Preziosa here.

1 August, 2012, and we’re walking from Folkestone about halfway to Dover.

Then also me turning around and stuff – this is a more or less straight field recording, without my handling noise and movement edited out.

It made sense to use some of the pre-made scenes that were sitting on my hard drive, with some stories that were never meant to be in that original doc, and make a travelogue more about me… The main interviewee chose not to participate in the Doc on One after recording, and losing that means there’s essentially no ‘clean’ audio. I’m calling that “playing for the second listen”.

Goethe, Cervantes… Confucius… Adorno…

Having said all that, I have Pick of the Week on in the background as I write this, and it’s all about deep stuff. Radio, all on Radio 4, that starts comforting and pushes past that.

2 + 2 = 5, the Dialogue Project. A man actively listens to people. So you hear more of him than you would on a radio interview. And it’s online (with tie-ins to live events), so could never for instance get reviewed in The Times (they’ll only review stuff that goes out over-the-air, in their dead-tree newspaper and paywalled website. Hmm). 2 + 2 = 5 is its own style, and quite amazing. Karl James talks to, for instance, Jane, who was raped when she was 14. Before her story, James advises you to listen only if you are in a good place. Good advice. And if you follow it, and can listen, you’ll wonder why anybody watches TV dramas. Certainly they are well written, performed, lit, filmed, edited… this story however has everything in common with the TV dramas except that is recounted from real life.

Radio 4′s Documentary of the Week podcast struggles because, as you can imagine with such a product, it has a lot of people to please. Some weeks listening to it is dispiriting, and I find a backlog, that I will often start then skim, simply to kill the blue dot. This week however, was a look back at 70 years of Desert Island Discs. Who knew Michael Parkinson was a short-lived and almost controversial presenter? Some lovely snippets in there, stemming from the seemingly simple observation early on, that finding an enduring format is a radio holy grail. An interesting jumping-off point for Jad Abumrad as he looks to making Radiolab continue being made forever.

And thirdly, Hearing Voices. A reliable listen, this can almost be too good, asking you to dedicate a lot of attention to an hour-long programme, even though you know it’s often segmented (this is good people, this is good!). Today I’ve been listening to their Voices from Tahrir, made together with Human Rights Watch. This is a fine example of audio from the NGO/International Relations field. 99% of organisations feel they must maintain a serious tone, to respect their intellectual staff and governmental user base. HRW have seen the light, and are teaming up with Hearing Voices, Barrett Golding, and whatever other great radio producer they can get their paws on. The result is NGO audio that’s appealing to listen to. That way, people listen, and pay attention, and your message gets out there. No mistake, I’m aware of this because I keep repeating the same failing myself. Big respect to HRW and Hearing Voices for getting together something that works so well it now seems like a no-brainer.

Still looking forward to spreading the In The Dark way, meeting friends, and stocking up on chocolate.

Thirty one years after perfecting – or so they thought – the illusion of reliving the joys of the 70s, breakfast jock Rick Omaha was left chastened and scared while doing the hoovering. It turns out, taking a Dyson to his carpet revealed the tones, colours and patterns of the decade that, in his words, “compares to no other”. “It was like the room was screaming ’1970s’” he whispered.

“I love radio, and to think I’ve been harbouring this piece of technology that could destroy it, sat there under the hot water tank”, he said during a break in X-Factor. “I’ve left it on the footpath, but down a bit to the left so I can just turn right out the gate and never see this revolting technology again”.

Commercial radio’s leading lights were quick to feel Rick’s terror, and tired fearfully to comfort each other on Twitter. The  conversation took a dark turn until a listener chimed in how proud he was of the Union Jack in his profile picture, leading to a swelling of mutual sentiments from across the community.

The same 1 episode = 90% of episodes rule applies to other programmes of course – Too Much Information from WFMU, Broadcasting House from BBC Radio 4 for instance. Radio programmes, which you’ll tune into every Sunday morning because of the predictability. There’s a known quality.
Yet that predictability, comfortable on the radio box in the bedroom, can dip into turn-off territory when a little blue dot on-screen says “take another hour out of your life for something you already know”. Sure it helped me click
“subscribe” in iTunes, but it can push you away.
Either the stories need to be strong enough, or the format soft enough, to keep people committed.

And when I say “people”, I mean vaguely grumpy radio theorists like me. Because as it happens, tonnes of cool kids still listen to This American Life, even outside the US.

I wonder though do many podcast listeners over here listen at a fixed point every week? The Tuesday commute, or last thing Sunday, etc.

Are we using these big-name shows as beautiful wallpaper? And if so, why not try something with more auditory craft, such as the ABC’s offerings? The use of sound rather than structure can be a more invigorating wallpaper, with less effort from you as the listener.

So, the personal opinionated part: don’t particularly like TAL (I find it sneery) or the ABC features (I find them pretentious). But the ABC stuff riles me as a cynical exercise less. I generally avoid both but am perhaps trying to make my peace with both by writing this!

The walk back through the woodland then was gorgeous – a dusk chorus, the grass remarkably green, the Scots Pines elegant, the reeds, the brown bracken… an otherworldly way to spend nearly  the shortest day of the year.

That does it for me!

Hearing Voices, supported by NPR.
Triyoga, where I… try yoga.

The market is off a side-street in central Changsha, Hunan Province. For all it’s a market walk-through, it’s quite different from one in, say, East Street market. Yeah, I know.