Podcasts, Radio, TV, Books, Cycling, Photography and More
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HBO Max and Paramount+: What It Might Mean For Sports
Today the deal was done, and Paramount took over Warner Bros. Discovery in a massive deal that has much of Hollywood quaking. There were some last minute wrinkles with a deal being struck a couple of weeks ago with a group of US Attorneys General, with the general view being that they folded and didn’t…
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Setting Radio Alarms with Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant
First a note of caution. This piece was published in November 2018, and it’s entirely possible – indeed probable – that things will have changed if you’re reading this at any point after that date. It’s also worth noting that I’m in the UK, and these solutions may not work in your region. Also, I’m…
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Dark Sacred Night by Michael Connelly
Possibly my favourite show on Amazon Prime Video is Bosch, based on the Michael Connelly series of novels. The fifth season isn’t due until next year, but the good news is that Amazon has already renewed it for a sixth season! Harry Bosch has now appeared in something like 21 novels now, and Dark Sacred Night…
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Greatest Hits Radio
Interesting news from Bauer Media this morning. They’re launching Greatest Hits Radio nationally from January 7th, to sit alongside Hits Radio. Together they will form the Hits Radio Network. It sounds like this new mostly networked service is being positioned as a slightly older version of Absolute Radio Network. It will target 40-59 “Reclaimers,” playing…
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Trends in Podcasting: Cults and Cult Leaders
This is a sort-of follow up to yesterday’s piece on daily news podcasts. It may become an occasional series. In March this year, Netflix launched a documentary series called Wild Wild Country. It’s a six part series exploring an Indian guru and his followers in a county in deepest Oregon. There’s no obvious way to…
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Trends in Podcasting: News Podcasts
In January last year, The New York Times launched a new podcast called The Daily. Spinning off to an extent from what the paper had been doing during the 2016 Presidential election, The Daily quickly developed a following. With a strong voice – both authorial and audible – in Michael Barbaro, it grew quickly. For…
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Things I Hate on News Sites
I’m something of a news junkie, and I spend a lot of time reading stories on a reasonably wide range of news sites. I pay for a number of those sites, but appreciate that advertising revenues alone aren’t enough to support any sites – with the possible exception of the very largest. But there are…
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Surface Go – Review
In 2015 Microsoft released the Surface 3 and I bought one. It wasn’t the most powerful Windows PC ever. Indeed, it was very much under-powered. But it was light, portable and ran full Windows applications. I bought it to allow me to run full Windows applications when I was travelling. Although it had limited on-board…
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For the Missing by Lina Bengtsdotter
The search for a missing girl in rural Sweden forms the backdrop to this intelligent crime story from Lina Bengtsdotter. A teenager, Anabelle, has not returned home from a wild party in a down-at-heel town in deepest Sweden. DI Charline “Charlie” Lager and her colleague Anders have been sent to investigate. Nearly everyone involved in…
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Where the Truth Lies by M J Lee
Ten years ago, a junior detective accidentally captures “The Beast of Manchester.” In the present day a series of dead prostitutes in turning up on the streets of Manchester. Is there a relation between the two in this pacey police thriller? Now a Detective Inspector, Ridpath is recovering from treatment to cancer and has been…
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The Dark Ages of Film History?
I was recently talking to a some colleagues at work about one of my favourite films of all time, the classic Howard Hawks screwball comedy, Bringing Up Baby. Made in 1938, it stars two of Hollywood’s biggest ever stars, Kathryn Hepburn and Cary Grant, both giving terrific performances in a classic of the genre. How…
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Localness
Ofcom has published an update today on what it considers localness in commercial radio. The tl;dr is that it’s not very local any more. Your mileage may vary on whether this is a good thing or not. But for now, stations that provide local news regularly throughout the day, must only broadcast three hours between 6am and…
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She Lies in Wait by Gytha Lodge
In 1983, seven teenagers go into the wood and only six come out. Thirty years later, a body is found and DCI Sheens instantly realises it must be Aurora, the teenager who disappeared all those years ago, but who was never found. Aided by his small team, including the novice DC Hanson, we revisit the…
Hadrian’s Wall
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