Things that go *!?/ in the night

Last night I dozed off to the sound of Stephen Tompkinson, in the slot I've nicknamed a "A Book Past Bedtime"- the 00.30 repeat of Radio 4's Book of the Week, which falls between the midnight news and the shipping forecast. A couple of hours later though, I was roused from my slumbers by some very unfamiliar noises on the overnight feed from World Service.

No, I am not referring to the new WS programme schedule, which begins with the clock change this weekend. Although that does contain some controversial new output, and other programmes just wrapped up in new packaging. For instance, the excellent Mark Coles, with whom I once worked at Radio Sussex, will now be presenting a 'new' rock and culture programme which seems very similar to the old one but has a new title. You're not fooling anyone, BBC.

However, it was not a programme but rather the sudden interruption of one by what sounded like radio telemetry, or other data transmission, on the FM frequency of Radio 4 which caused me to fumble for the off switch after a while. Goodness knows what these sounds were, which even my brother could hear in the other room. Was it some engineers in one of the transmission providers carrying out some tests of a new digital system- maybe the much mooted FM answer to AM's DRM- Digital Radio Mondiale?
This would make sense, given that the BBC is heavily committed to the expansion of digital audio broadcasting, and they are one of the big cheese partners in the DRM consortium currently conducting tests on a number of AM frequencies.

Or was it just possibly an embarrasing transmission failure? If anybody has any information or explanation, I'd be most interested to hear it- just hit the comments button at the bottom of the screen.

The Bells, The Bells

One of the many joys of listening to radio from around the world is the insight it gives into the sounds, culture and psyche of the nations- and perhaps even more so how these are constantly changing. Three very contrasting but equally delightful programmes using the airspace of BBC Radio can serve as examples today.

Tired after a busy week of rather cerebral but enjoyable activity, I had a relatively early night on Saturday and had my usual choice when it came to what I left my radio tuned to overnight. Did I want the relatively restful sounds of Classic FM, or was some intelligent speech the order of the night through Radio 4?

Four won, hands down, but I dozed off during the latter stages of The Moral Maze- an interesting choice of scheduling for a Saturday night. A pity, as it would have been interesting to hear the worthy and erudite panel's conclusions on the tricky topic of Forgiveness, which seems to have been much in the news of late. The Moral Maze has become something of a 4 insitution, no doubt in much the same way as onceThe Brains Turst did, though before my time.

"MM" is an example of radio's potential to stimulate and inform intelligent thought and decision-making, too little exploited by other stations in the present day in the UK although I suppose it could be argued that the ubiquitous phone-in does try. Mind you, that depends on who's taking the calls, of course. The Moral Maze owes much of its success to the stewardship of chairman Michael Buerk, the former BBC TV news "anchor" who brought the story of the 1984 Ethiopian famine to Britain's eyes, which was the catalyst for the launch of the phenomenon that was and is Band Aid.
Meanwhile on TalkSport, so far the only national commercial speech station on AM, Mr Buerk is up against George Galloway,MP, revered or reviled representative of the people (depending on your perspective) more likely to be found in the Big Brother house than the Commons, House of and certainly not Broadcasting House.
Mr Galloway is the choice to host TalkSport's late-night weekend phone-in, and notoriety alone surely means the listening figures will soon be on the up for the national chat n'ad shop- though I rarely listen to it myself. Somehow, I can't see TalkSport, or any other "mainstream" commercial station for that matter, ever offering The Seagull as a Play of the Week. That however was the choice of Radio 4's nightwatchman of the airwaves, World Service this week.
This play proved to be a compelling listen in a modern adaptation; I'm not normally much of a one for high art and culture, I have to admit, but anything written by an Anton (my middle name) always attracts my ears, much as an earlier play did on Radio 4 some years ago, Anton in Eastbourne, being about the imagined life of the brilliant Russian dramatist if he'd moved to the South Coast town in which I lived most of my life at the time. Definitely worth hearing again, if you have the chance during the next seven days.
Then, taking us away from the far-off sounds of St Basil's, Moscow, in the mind's ear, come the bells of St Lawrence, Hungerford in Berkshire, the featured church for today of Radio 4's Bells on Sunday, one of the quaint features of the traditional sabbath which it's re-assuring to find surviving in a too secular age. The sound of church bells is in fact one much used by short wave radio stations around the world as their audio calling card, but to the best of my knowledge Radio 4 is still the only place you will hear them in the UK. Unless of course some Lunchpack of Portland Place has it in mind to axe them as well. Heaven forbid!
Now, back to a Sunday snooze and no alarm bells...

Humour Hideaway

BBC7 is a treasure trove of great radio comedy and drama which is one of the few positive benefits of Digital Audio Broadcasting, it seems to me. Although I've been getting more into rock music a bit of late, I'd sacrifice the plethora of alternative music stations any day to listen to some of the great laughter lines of yore that emanate 24 hours a day from this station on DAB, Freeview and on-line (www.bbc.co.uk/bbc7).

BBC7 also provides a dignified resting place for voices now lost to new programming by the grim reaper. There have been two sad losses to radio humour this last week,both of whom knew how to make best use of flights of fancy and the inexhaustible comedic value of the English language. Linda Smith and John Junkin could always be guaranteed to entertain the ear and gladden the soul.

Ms Smith, who has died from cancer aged just 48, was best known as one of the panelists on Radio 4's The News Quiz. In tribute to her much-loved contributions to the long-running topical comedy contest, the network broadcast a tribute edition last weekend, which can be found on-line until 9th March (www.bbc.co.uk/radio4).

"Meanwhile, at a [radio station] not a thousand miles from". John Junkin could be heard coining this and many other catchphrases during the seventies on Radio 2's "Hello Cheeky", one of the old light programme's wittier sketch shows. I used to love listening to it in my teens; the other performers and writers were former Goodie Tim Brooke-Taylor, and Barry Cryer- both of whom became enmeshed in the timeless silliness of I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue during "Cheeky's" first run.

Unlike ISIHAC, as it's become known to afficianados, or it's fore-runner I'm Sorry I'll Read that Again (under the bedclothes listening for me in my childhood!), "Hello Cheeky" for some reason gets few airings on BBC7, which is a shame. I wonder why this is: rights issues, or is the humour deemed too twee for noughties ears? Surely not, else why would BBC7's audio diet also include many a repeat of topical comedies alongside the classics such as Hancock's Half Hour and the Goons?

Whatever the reason, I hope we get a tribute soon to John Junkin too, and meanwhile -though with slight pangs of "I shouldn't like this" as a Christian- I'll enjoy waking at 4.30 a.m from time to time with "Old Harry's Game", a clever comedy set in Hell! Written by and starring Andy Hamilton, Linda Smith's diminutive co-panelist on The News Quiz, it has to be heard to be believed. Never mind, 7 is Heaven!

Object of Insane Desire

On BBC progs I'm full of flattery
Perhaps it's time I change my battery
Those bad news shows in t'middle of night
Why sometimes, they give such a fright
The play's the thing, Oor Willie said
Enough to keep me from my bed
A Play of the Week, entirely in rhyme
Quite word perfect, how sublime!
It's really quite fun, this comedy made play, doh!
I thought I was listening to English by Radio
From Bush House controllers, you still can depend
At least for such drama, throughout the weekend
A laptop dilemma, an object of trauma
And heated debate, in the shop getting warmer
This object you see, lest you hadn't guessed
A micro computer, can cause such distress
But some of us know, even PM's like Tony
That in radio terms, there's no-one like Sony
And Short Wave listeners could be quite bereft
Without for their toy, a new ICF
So now must be time, to the wireless to go
And start listening to another show!

(c) Mark A Savage March 2006

[ If you haven't the foggiest what I'm on about, you'll probably haven't heard the hilarious verse play my own doggerel is referring to, so you'll need to contact the BBC World Service and ask them if they have any intention to repeat "Objects of Insane Desire", which was broadcast in March 2006. I don't know if a commercial recording is available, but it's worth a try. Follow links from this page for the BBC World Service home page, where you can send an e-mail
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/ ]

Megawhoops!

Just woken up after a light night's sleep to hear World Service give the same time check and edition of World Business Report that I'd heard four hours earlier. So even without looking bleary-eyed at my bedroom clock, I knew jolly well it was 5.20 GMT, not 1.20 as the continuity announcer said! Could it be that all that listens is not live and World Service is not so reliable for up to date reports as it once ws?
In fact, the future of this "slot" is numbered anyway, as BBC Radio 4 controller Mark Damazarr plans to start his station up at 05.20 rather than 05.30 from next month. This means the likely end to the thirty-year old Radio 4 UK Theme which I am listening to as I type.
Damazarr seems to have been wrong-footed on this one however and to have been totally unprepared for the hornet's nest he stirred up when he first mooted his plans to ditch this particular broadcasting tradition. While clearly it's not to everyone's taste- as I discovered at last Saturday's meeting of the Reading International Radio Group after eulogising this clever mix of British folk tunes in the British DX Club journal Communication last month, I shall miss it when it's gone- like thousands of other somnolent listeners.
It's a musical punctuation mark in the Radio day in the age of 24/7 broadcasting, and helps many to wake and start their day. I usually can't resist singing along to Rule Britannia, its rousing finale, either.
Do we really need another dose of pacey news to replace the UK theme - and can we rely on that news being up to the minute anyway? Like the "complex low" described in the shipping forecast which is another traditional highlight of this time of the morning, Radio 4 is slowly "losing it's identity".

You and the Night and No Music

"It's three o'clock in Accra..." said the voice preceeding the news on BBC World Service. With Ghana also being on the Greenwich Meridian, it's one of the few occasions when they're actually giving the right GMT time as well as what always seem to me like the rather pointless local times in other randomly picked cities around the world.

As pointless as the weather forecasts on so many local stations in the UK which insist on picking on arbitrary towns and villages in their bulletins: "It's currently three degrees in Pratt's Bottom". Are we really to believe these announcements are giving accurate and useful information for the benefit of resident listeners in the area concerned? Rather cynically, perhaps, I've always thought them more a somewhat contrived pretence at being a truly local station with a reporter and weather measuring equipment in the locale concerned.

At least Ofcom, the British regulator of broadcast services, are now giving out new "community" radio licences to a new tranche of areas, including several of the communities in East and West London. I'm looking forward to seeing how many of these I can pin down on FM once they get to air.

This is potentially an exciting new development in UK radio. At a time when local newspaper sales are shrinking, Community Radio Licences offer a unique opportunity to reach people: from where they're listening, to where they're listening. Truly local news, information, features, chat, even maybe educational programmes.

Surely this is where local times should come from, not some huge powerhouse of a broadcasting studio in the centre of the world's most cosmopolitan city: This is London.

Which brings me back to my music-free overnight listening choice. How ironic that nearly every time I tune into World Service, I hear the voices I was working with in local radio in Brighton in the early nineties: David Legge, today's newsreader, who used to do the light and easy "milkman's shift" on Radio Sussex, prior to the flagship breakfast programme "Good Morning Sussex" with Stewart Macintosh (who I was later to work with at the other end of the day).

Both of these Englishmen are now very accomplished and respected World Service presenters- but how very different is their style in the all-speech world.