Fabulous Absolute

About ten years ago I shunned music radio. It no longer reflected my musical tastes, so I turned to speech radio stations instead — all on the BBC. After a while, I began to get into BBC 6 Music. I was still interested in the speech elements of the station more than the music. Adam […]

Frank Sidebottom should be at number 1

I was sad to read that Frank Sidebottom — or Chris Sievey, his real name — died today. I have vague memories of him being on television when I was very young, and it was a joy to rediscover him when he made his comeback four or five years ago. He never returned to the […]

Prioritising podcasts

I have realised that I’m easily entertained. I have a pile of CDs that I bought back in October but still haven’t got round to listening to. There are a couple of DVDs that I bought before Christmas that I still haven’t watched. And I’m struggling to play all the games I’ve bought in the […]

BBC 6 Music should be enhanced, not killed

If the reports that the BBC will close down 6 Music are true, it is a great shame. Of course, this could be seen coming. The BBC has been utterly weak in almost every respect for the past few years, and it is difficult to escape the notion that it is too big, with too […]

Going radio gaga

The country lurches back into its usual routine this week. But with the new year comes changes, and a vital part of everyone’s daily life — the radio — will seem very different. My parents are concerned about what will happen to Radio 2 after the departure of Terry Wogan from breakfast. They were not […]

My top ten ChannelĀ 4 programmes

Last week Channel 4 celebrated its 25th birthday. John asked in the comments about people’s top ten Channel 4 programmes. I would have written this at the time anyway, but I didn’t have the time and figured I’d just let it slip under the radar. However, since the question was asked, I will answer it […]