Monthly Archives: April 2003

Libby Purves – Radio: A True Love Story


Radio: A True Love Story book coverLibby Purves loves radio and anybody who loves the medium will enjoy this book. It’s autobiographical but not an autobiography. It focuses solely on Libby’s life with radio: from building her own transistor set to hosting flagship Radio Four programmes Today and Midweek. Libby’s delight with sound, and particularly voices – is unmistakable.

This book is not a history of radio nor is it a manual or how-to guide. It is, however, filled with delightful personal anecdotes about speech radio spanning the corridors of the BBC World Service in Bush House, through the early years of BBC Local Radio (she worked at Radio Oxford) to the heart of BBC Radio at Broadcasting House. Libby’s joy in talk radio is clearly with the Radio Four style and her attitudes hark back to Lord Reith and the BBC’s founding fathers. This is not a criticism for it makes an interesting backdrop to today’s radio services. Not for Libby the shock-jock approach to the ‘phone-in nor the music driven disc-jockey speak but the (apparently) slower-paced world of radio documentaries and features and the fast-moving news and current affairs departments are her chosen arenas. The book is filled with personal stories and she paints superb pictures of the characters that inhabit the world of the wireless (management, production staff and presenters). The book is also an appeal for speech radio which, she feels, is too easily overlooked in a BBC obsessed with television ratings in the digital era. Yet the book has hopes that this unique brand of public service radio will survive.


Radio: A True Love Story is an engaging read. It doesn’t overpower the reader with names and places but peppers the tales with personalities who add colour to the tale. Libby’s love of the medium comes through loud and clear and that is what makes this a joy to read and recommend.

On this day…

2006: Some People Are Helpful

Football

I went to the football yesterday – AFC Wimbledon vs Frimley Green (AFC Wimbledon won). It’s a fascinating place for the club is, more-or-less, run by the fans for the fans. There is a real family and community atmosphere around the place and everybody (manager, squad and fans) seem to end up in the bar afterwards. It is also very far removed from the world of large corporate football clubs and demonstrates that if clubs were about communities then those communities put a lot back – which I guess is why the fans founded the club in the first place.

On this day…

2006: Truth? I Can’t Proof!

Blitzed! The Autobiography of Steve Strange

I’ve just finished Blitzed! The autobiography of Steve Strange and posted my review to Amazon:

Blitzed: Steve Strange Bokoer CoverSteve Strange was an icon of the Eighties music scene, a visionary and a leader. I suspect he’s often over-looked but his contribution was vital. His clubs kick-started a movement and the band he fronted, Visage, were pioneers of – what became – the New Romantics: make-up, big hair, big hats and even bigger shirt lapels and cuffs. From the beginning of the decade, and out of the punk movement, came the classic Fade To Gray. Visage and Steve Strange were combining fashion and music in a radical new way.

Blitzed has an informal style which makes it quite readable. Strange name-drops his way through a decade and apologises quite a lot for his behaviour. It’s a cautionary tale of a rise to fame, money mis-management and drug addiction. It’s the story of London squats and club-land rivalry and of a community who knew they were changing nightclubs, the fashion scene and music – and doing it all in a few short years. It is a struggle to stop a man falling over the edge and trying to make sense of a life where once his name was in lights but the money is long gone.

In some respects it’s a fascinating tale of fame and hedonism. If, however, you’ve read biographies of other Eighties pop stars then you’ve heard a lot of it before. The story seems to have been repeated: humble beginnings drive creativity which lead to fame and then there is a some-kind of fall (usually, drink or drug induced). Blitzed is an enjoyable read but Boy George will give you more and Marc Almond will take you further. If you knew the club scene of the time there’s an insight into the door policies of the new breed of Eighties clubs and how they worked. If you are looking for the story of Visage then, obviously, it’s covered here and this will be a valuable reference – but it’s more about the man than the band.

If you remember the decade then you’ll read this book regardless but, sadly, I felt there could have been a little more. Nonetheless, Blitzed reinforces Steve Strange’s rightful place as a leader of a movement who’s certainly not about to fade away.

You can buy Blitzed!: The Autobiography of Steve Strange at Amazon now.

On this day…

2006: There Was A Time

Summer Lunch

Mobile phone shot of Green Park in 2003It’s been glorious weather for a Friday: bright, warm, sunny and very pleasant indeed. After visiting Fortnum and Mason we ate lunch in Green Park. Sadly this picture, from the mobile camera, doesn’t do the scene justice. The spring daffodils were in full bloom and and people sat soaking up the sunshine on the peppermint striped deckchairs and being forced to pay the attendant some small amount of money. It’s strange because I do consider London to be noisy and polluted but sometimes, especially on a day like this, it is quite easy to forget that you are in the middle of a busy city and there’s a war raging somewhere across the world. It’s certainly very relaxing and the lunch hour is all too swiftly over.

On this day…

2006: A New Man Of The Moment
2004: Dinner On The Lightship
2003: The Store for Ladies Who Lunch
2003: Leaving Metropolis

The Store for Ladies Who Lunch

Fortnum and Mason, 2003

Fortnum and Mason, 2003

I went to Fortnum and Mason on Piccadilly earlier. I met a friend there as we had decided to buy a birthday present for somebody in the store. It’s a strange mix of the old and the new. The world-famous food-hall sells some of the finest foods around – the chocolate and cheese counters are a world of their own and I could spend all day there – and yet it also stocks some of today’s staples (corn flakes seems quite prominent). There is a wide variety of people shopping in the store. You can see the tourists and those who, like me, felt slightly out of place mixing with the kind of ladies who lunch at The Ritz (just along Piccadilly). Service is, as you would expect, excellent and the delightful lady on the chocolate counter was very helpful indeed (unfortunately at those prices I imagine you would have to be buying a lot to be allowed to try them). Sometimes I would really like to be transported back to the days when William Fortnum and Hugh Mason founded the store in 1707. William used to work at Buckingham Palace and for generations there were connections with The Palace. There are echoes back to those times in the store. It really is an interesting place.

On this day…

2006: A New Man Of The Moment
2004: Dinner On The Lightship
2003: Summer Lunch
2003: Leaving Metropolis

Leaving Metropolis

Leaving Metropolis film image

Leaving Metropolis

Sometimes I get a block when trying to write about the films I have seen. Usually, that just means I end up with quite a short entry. However, with Leaving Metropolis I am going to sum up the film in the world of a reviewer at the IMDB:

This film is basically a gay love triangle. David is a famous painter with “painter’s block.” He has a live-in, HIV-positive, pre-op transsexual black live-in friend, Shannon. He has a famous-newspaper-columnist fag-hag friend, Kryla. To get his muse back, David decides to become a waiter again. He ends up waiting tables at a small diner owned by Matt and Violet, a married couple (recently married? it’s not clear). David is immediately attracted to Matt. Soon, as David encourages Matt’s secret talent for drawing comic-book characters and boosting Matt’s self-esteem, Matt begins to fall for David. David then paints a series of erotic images of Matt. The film ends predictably enough: Lots of tragedy (divorce, death, friends falling out, etc.) but also a “hopeful ending” (everyone starts over anew).[Source]

It’s an enjoyable fantasy ride of a film, well made with interesting characters, Matt (Vince Corazza) holds the screen well and is certainly worth seeing.

On this day…

2006: A New Man Of The Moment
2004: Dinner On The Lightship
2003: Summer Lunch
2003: The Store for Ladies Who Lunch

There is other news

Day 15 of the conflict in Iraq and some of the television coverage has been quite impressive – both journalistically and technically. However, you could be forgiven for thinking there is nothing else happening in the world. Well, these may have been some of the stories that would have been covered today if we were not fighting in Iraq:

  1. Google says it will license its popular Web search technology and advertising services to Internet retailer Amazon.com
  2. It is estimated that millions of common farmland and woodland species have been lost in Wales since the 1970s
  3. Police have arrested five people in connection with the murder of a postman on his round
  4. A race riot was sparked when a white gang attacked Asian people at random after a minor disagreement, a court heard
  5. A bomb scare on board a United Airlines flight from London to New York caused the plane to make an unscheduled landing in Ireland on Thursday
  6. A small ferry boat hijacked in Havana Bay and forced to sail toward Florida returned to Cuba on Thursday in search of fuel after island authorities chased it some 30 miles into international waters
  7. Israeli forces have killed seven Palestinians in a fresh surge of violence in the West Bank and Gaza Strip
  8. World Creating Food Bubble Economy Based On Unsustainable Use Of Water
  9. MP’s relief as Samurai sword attacker convicted
  10. Swiss researchers have gleaned new insights into how rogue proteins can trigger brain-wasting diseases like BSE or Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease

On this day…

2006: But What Was The Year?
2004: Million Pound Pair Move

Trackback away

Last week, in a post about Trackback I said that I wanted to challenge a number of items in the original post on the topic over at plasticbag. The I decided not to write anymore about it because blogging about blogging can get incestuous and dull.

Then, today I read Erik’s piece – and the associated comments – about how he did not believe Trackbacks were difficult to understand. So I reconsidered some of what I was going to write and concluded that there were valid things in my mind originally that I wanted to say.

Today, then, I want to disagree with the following two – more-or-less- related assertions that:

Enabling Trackback just to get a link from a more popular site is not what is was designed for

Well yes, that’s partly true but it’s inevitable. The more popular sites are more likely to be the ones to spark conversations (or bring a conversation to the attention of more people). Therefore people will link to them. Seamless linking is exactly the point of Trackback and it let’s you know who is interested in the conversation. Following on,,

Using Trackback without contributing to the conversation is wrong

The assertion follows that if you Trackback without contributing then this is wrong (or somehow not fair). Plasticbag itself seems to be a site that proves this is not happening. Look at the Trackbacks – a range of varied authors and sites some with more to say than others. None of them seem to be swamping Plasticbag and making it unreadable and many of them are good contributions to the discussion.

It’s unrealistic to believe everybody will have something new to say but it doesn’t mean they are any less valuable in the debate. Somebody who simply points to a debate (via a link list or some such device) is opening that conversation to an audience (and the link that makes Trackback work means a blog is pointing to a conversation). A higher number of links suggests a conversation has stirred interest and imagination. Hey it functions as a Google-style page rank system. If Trackback were implemented everywhere you’d easily be able to see the most popular conversations around – even if not everybody had something new to say. This is good – it doesn’t need a Google to allow me to find other, related, writings because I do it from where I started.

I’d rather you accepted Trackbacks if you Trackback to my site because it helps the conversation grow. But if you don’t, so what? It doesn’t mean your part in the discussion is invalid and suggesting that it has to be a two-way street seems, somehow, against the spirit

And I still have to get round to editing the trackback system on my site. I admit I am more mouth than action on this topic at the moment, but when time allows I’ll sort it out.

On this day…

2005: Your Search For Philip Olivier Returned Results
2004: Simplify The Site
2004: Britain’s Railways
2003: It was fun – no need to search my site anymore

It was fun – no need to search my site anymore

Let’s be honest, it made a good story and made me laugh. It’s certainly an urban legend that I will be telling again and again, but it’s an urban legend (i.e. somebody made it up and it’s started spreading like wildfire).

It’s the story of Andrew Carlssin, the so-called time traveller who made a mint on the stock market (I laughed about it last Friday for Friday Fun – didn’t that say something to you?). But it was quoted on Yahoo with the origins being given as The Weekly World News. Weekly World News – that’s important. It’s not true.

The urban legends site has more information so you’ve no need to search here search anymore. Given that the clocks changed last weekend, maybe I should enter the contest to see who can save the most daylight. Now that’s true – honest!

And the irony that I am having to post this on 1st April is not lost on me.

On this day…

2005: Your Search For Philip Olivier Returned Results
2004: Simplify The Site
2004: Britain’s Railways
2003: Trackback away