Podcasts, Radio, TV, Books, Cycling, Photography and More
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RAJAR Q3 2026
This post is brought to you in association with RALF from DP Software and Services. I’ve used RALF for the many years, and it’s my favourite RAJAR analysis tool. So I am delighted that I continue to be able to bring you this RAJAR analysis in association with RALF. For more details on the product, contact Deryck Pritchard via…
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Monday Lottery Cash Strapped
It seems that the Monday Lottery is struggling. I’m not surprised. A dreadful television advertising campaign lead to server meltdown on their first draw night, and then… nothing. The ad money had been spent and consumers quickly forgot about it.
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Ed Reardon on BBC 7
With just 10 months to go until it gets an audiobook release (!!!) those who’ve so far missed out have an opportunity to hear the first series on BBC Radio 7 from next Thursday – at 2.00pm, and again at 6.00am on Friday mornings. Yes I know that’s slightly strange scheduling, but BBC Radio 7…
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jPod
One of my favourite books, and possibly my first Douglas Coupland novel, was Microserfs published back in 1995. jPod is essentially a sequel. Not in the sense that it has the same characters. But in everything else it is. Except that we’re all older and wiser. Well not the characters. They’re still mid-twenties to, maybe,…
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TV Listings
Once upon a time, if you wanted to know what was going to be on television, you had two choices. For that day, you could look in a daily paper. But if you wanted to know what was on in the forthcoming week, you had to buy two magazines: Radio Times for BBC1 and BBC2,…
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Random Thoughts
…someone got off the train today carrying a copy of The Secret History by Donna Tartt and with a pre-recorded video in her bag. I thought that maybe I’d gone through some kind of time warp… …I got in and turned on the radio to hear the Hungarian national anthem being roundly booed by the…
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Drama on 3 This Week
So, the question is, what’s being broadcast in the Drama on 3 slot next weekend on Radio 3? After this week’s play, the announcer trailed something that made me very happy indeed – an adaptation of Death and the Penguin by Andrey Kurkov. I’m a big Kurkov fan. But all the listings, including the BBC’s…
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Al Gore at Hay
I’ve just been watching The Guardian’s webcast of Al Gore’s speech at the Hay-on-Wye literary festival (he’s got a book coming out later this year, so there is some reason for him to speak). He’s quite a speaker isn’t he? I think sometimes we forget that politicians, whatever we may think of them, have to…
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Death in Iraq
Tragically, on the day that John Simpson put up a sterling defence for journalists doing real work out in Iraq, and not just being holed up in the Green Zone in Bagdhad, two British journalists working for CBS television have been killed by a roadside bomb. Simpson was responding to complaints from Rageh Omaar, quoted…
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Death on Everest
This being the end of May, it also marks the end of the so-called Everest season. It’s that brief window when the weather allows climbers to attempt to ascend the world’s highest mountain. But this year an awful lot of climbers have died on the mountain. Every year, the number of parties attempting to summit…
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Yes Man
Now a general rule of thumb I’ll always make when deciding if I’m going to read a book is this: if Davina McCall gives the book a ringing endorsement, then it’s probably not for me. (As an aside, I learn with shock that some publishers are actually embossing the Richard & Judy Bookclub logo on…
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Genius
I went to see a recording for the new series of Genius this week. It was at the Cochrane Theatre and it was raining outside. Very soon, it was raining inside too. I’m reliably informed that producing such an effect on demand would have been very expensive. The Cochrane Theatre’s roof made it very cheap…
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A Glass Half Empty?
Well worth a read or a listen.
Hadrian’s Wall
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