Monday, 8 March 2010


Save BBC Radio 6 Music

This is a radio station with no demographic. That is, unless that demographic includes everyone who loves music.

For some reason the BBC believes that all tastes, other than classical music (Radio 3 is untouchable regardless of cost per listener), are covered by Radios 1 & 2. Hmm, teenie-boppers and carpet slippers.

No, BBC, keep Radio 6 Music!!!

Listen here.

And for another station under threat, the Asian Network, listen here.

Lots more about BBC Radio 6 Music here.

BTW: Simon Mayo ... what a waste ... get back to 5Live you silly man...

Tuesday, 2 March 2010


Plymouth Sound Webcam



This is a view from the BBC Spotlight Southwest cam overlooking Plymouth Sound from Staddon Heights. The image should refresh every 5 minutes.

© BBC : 2010

Monday, 1 March 2010


Shiny Discs


Part of the pleasure of 12" BVDs - Black Vinyl Discs - is the scale of the artwork. CDs never really could compete in this aspect of the pleasure of owning a minor work of art in a gatefold. I mean, have you ever tried to read some of the tiny print in a CD booklet?

I suspect that single attribute is a significant element in the resurgence of the LP as a music source.

However, now even the CD is becoming obsolete, hobbled by being tied to a bitrate which seemed adequate 30 years ago but is showing its age.

Part of the advantage of moving over to a network music server and the falling cost of HDD space is that music file sizes can now be huge, much larger and of much greater definition than a CD.

More and more, this type of music delivery is being made available online although too many virtual music stores will only deliver .mp3 instead of uncompressed .wav and .flac files.

But some stores are starting to make these truly hifi files available. It also means it's possible to find music which rarely, or never, finds its way over the pond in either direction

The only thing is, I just wish they'd include the album art with the download. And it would be nice to have some sort of saving over the hard copy/artifact version. Oh well ...



© 2010 Alan E Hill