You know things have changed when you start coveting other people’s strollers as you walk down the street!
As luck would have it, just yesterday NPR broadcast Poems for Daughters, in which reporter Caitlin Shetterly talks to poets about the poems they’ve written for their daughters. It’s already become one of the “top e-mailed stories” on the NPR web site.
The words of others can be incredibly compelling when they help you to express feelings you would otherwise struggle to convey.
It’s amazing how some things change and some things remain the same. On the 5th of February 1826 my great, great, great grandfather, the Rev. William Fidler, wrote the following entry in his diary:
“During my absence a kind and bountiful Providence had blest me with a sweet little daughter; Of course, I think her the prettiest creature I have ever beheld. My dear Wife & her infant are both doing well. Praise the Lord for his goodness to us all.”
One hundred seventy-eight years, five months and six days after he wrote those words, I discovered exactly how he felt.
Apparently there are new lyrics to the hit song People:
Barbra Streisand … has rewritten her hit People to include the lines: “We must get rid of Rumsfeld/He’s the spookiest person in the world”.
See BBC NEWS – ‘I’m a celebrity, get me on the campaign’ for the full story.
Solenostemon scutellarioides (aka Coleus)
I’ve decided to experiment with colours for this web page, starting with some naturally occurring schemes. This one consists of brown, pink and light green, and I’m calling it Coleus.
Just in case you don’t believe that it occurs naturally, I’ve included a photograph of its namesake.
My wife and I are awaiting the imminent arrival of our first child, and in an attempt to be well prepared we’ve purchased a car seat. It was delivered unexpectedly today and immediately bemused both of us.
The Maxi-Cosi Cabrio car seat as shown on its CD-Rom
It’s more complicated than any VCR I’ve ever come across. In fact, the instruction manual is a multimedia affair supplied on a CR-Rom! Luckily there’s a traditional, multi-lingual, paper-based version as well, but it’s still so complicated that I can’t help feeling there must be a course somewhere we can take to learn how to use the thing properly.
I only hope the maternity hospital takes a leaf out of the manufacturer’s book and sends us home with an instruction manual and CD-Rom for the next little bundle that arrives at short notice.
In honour of Canada Day, here’s a link to a 15-minute discussion on that staple of Canadian food, the butter tart (courtesy of the CBC):
What makes a great butter tart?
Who’d have thought there’d be so much spirituality involved?
BBC Radio 3 has a new web site, although the casual viewer might not notice much of a difference. However, the most important changes are behind the scenes, and both the visible and invisible changes will apparently make finding information about Radio 3’s programmes easier — especially if you can’t remember what you heard several days ago, but now desparately want to find out.
The BBC has excelled at distributing its traditional content digitally, and if you like even a fraction of its output and spend time sitting in front of a computer, then you’re bound to approve of the Beeb’s online initiatives.
A recent page from CBC Radio 3
However, if you want to see what “new media” can really do, you need to tune in to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s Radio 3. But be warned — the only similarlity is the name. CBC Radio 3 is not classical in any sense. It’s not even really radio as we know it. It’s an online, new-media magazine, featuring contemporary photography, photojournalism, interviews, poetry, videos and lots of recordings from Canada’s independent popular music scene, including live concert recordings. [Note – You need a broadband connection to the Internet to really appreciate CBC Radio 3.]
During the current 36-day general election campaign, for example, Radio 3 has been publishing the personal agendas of 36 ordinary (i.e. unknown) Canadians on video. Given that politics is a subject about which few “ordinary” people feel passionate these days (excluding, of course, the notable issue of the Iraq war), it was interesting to see and hear this selection of personal opinions on Canada’s priorities as a nation.
In January The Globe and Mail published an interesting article (see Indie music and beyond) on CBC Radio 3 that included the following quote from its Executive Director, Robert Ouimet:
“The question I get a lot is: ‘Surely you want them to go to the website and then get them to radio. Isn’t that the goal?’ Well, yeah, if they do that, that’s great. But that’s not the imperative. The goal is to introduce them to the stuff that the CBC makes and if they get it on-line and never go to the radio, that’s totally okay.”
The CBC used the web to attract a new, youthful audience that had long ago abandoned the network, and it believes that new media can be an end in itself. It’s not simply a case of using the web to support the rest of the network’s programming. Apart from the music, CBC Radio 3’s output is unavailable anywhere else.
The BBC on the other hand seems to view the web firstly as a temporary archive and then secondly as a source of complementary information in support of its broadcasts. BBC Online is not really intended to be your final destination. Everything it produces is either rooted in a conventional BBC broadcast of some kind, or intended to inform you of one.
To be fair, I don’t think the Internet presented the BBC with as much of an opportunity as it did the CBC. Young people in Britain never abandoned the BBC the way a generation of Canadian kids fled from the CBC. The CBC never had the equivalent of BBC Radios 1, 2, 5 or television programmes such as Top of the Pops, so the Internet provided it with a far greater opportunity to expand the range of its output and the demographics of its audience.
Nevertheless, it would be nice to see both organisations borrowing from each other’s online strategy. Canadians could make good use of an archive, such as that provided by the BBC’s Listen Again service, and the BBC should really commit to the web as an end in itself if wants to continue playing a leading role in the creative life of the UK.
…for the last time unfortunately.
It’s truly the end of an era. The last episodes of Frasier will be broadcast in the UK this evening. Of course, the good news is that repeats have already started. Channel 4 is showing old episodes every weekday morning this week, and long may it continue.
Watching this show throughout the last decade has been an awful lot of fun, and the idea of writing for it was once one of my dream jobs. Why has it been so good? I’ll let the writers speak for themselves:
Frasier to Eddie (the dog), who won’t stop staring at him:
“What is so fascinating about me? What is it? In your eyes, does my head look like a large piece of kibble? Am I some kind of doggy enigma? What is it?”
Eddie continues to stare.
“Think about it. Get back to me.”
In April 1960 Alistair Cooke told the Chattanooga Times:
Television is a gorgeous girl led astray early in life by a travelling salesman. She is taken round the country as a come-on for his detergent.
I’ve been thinking about reviewing the design of this site, but a new colour scheme will have to do for the moment. So, it’s green and purple to herald tomorrow’s arrival of summer and Wimbledon.
By continuing to use the site, you agree to the use of cookies. more information
The cookie settings on this website are set to "allow cookies" to give you the best browsing experience possible. If you continue to use this website without changing your cookie settings or you click "Accept" below then you are consenting to this.