Day: 13 February 2022

Elsewhere: World Radio Day

When I was growing up, I thought radio was the most exciting medium in the world. I wrote something to celebrate World Radio Day,

The ‘elsewhere’ category on this site seems to be home for things I have posted on Facebook; and this is no exception. In 2012 the United Nations General Assembly agreed that World Radio Day was a real International Day and, thus, February 13 became WRD. My little contribution to the spirit of the days was posted on Facebook (and a version on Instagram because, if you don’t do all the social media channels, what’s the point?)

Apparently, we are almost at the end of #worldradioday.

When I was younger all I ever cared about was the magic of radio. It was my private world: in my childhood bedroom there was a whole universe created by the Piccadilly presenters and it was all in my head. When I was ten years old, visiting the original Piccadilly studios in central in Manchester was so important in my life I called it ‘my happiest memory’.

Although many people thought it was, it was never about being on the radio, but it was all about the world radio created for those who listened and how that world was put together.

For a small part of my life I was lucky enough to be part of the magic: in the late 80s if you called The BBC in Shropshire you may have spoken to me or in the early 90s, if you listened to the Network Chart Show, I often pressed some buttons to make sure it got to your local radio station (or at least I was there in case the satellite that sent it to you ever fell out of the sky: it never did). If you ever heard a Shoe Express ad, chances are I spent all night getting that 30s of audio to your local station (and if, like me, you heard a version, or two, for every town in Britain you’ll guess why shoes are not my thing).

But, most importantly for me, the people who made that magic pointed my career in the direction it’s taken and, although there are too many to mention, I will forever be grateful to them all.

So, thank you radio: we may be listening to audio in ways we never imagined, but there’s still some magic in the voices that come out of the ether. Tomorrow morning, why not ‘turn up the feel good’ with ‘more of the songs you love’ that are probably ‘the biggest hits and the biggest throwbacks’ on the ‘UK’s No.1 Hit Music Station’ or, my current choice, ‘The UK’s Country Station’.

Tune in and rip the knob off!

Originally posted on Facebook

M6 Toll Speeds My Day

The M6 Toll Road really did save me a lot of time today.

You may recall that I’ve written a great deal about transport in the UK (from congestion charges to grid lock via snow disruption) and I am in favour of a properly integrated transportation infrastructure in the United Kingdom. I am also in favour of public transport and really against the continual building of new roads around the country. However, if we are to build new roads in the UK lets make them all like the M6 Toll road. Returning to London from Shrewsbury today, we took the M6 Toll to speed our journey and it really was much quicker. The time and stress saved is worth the money invested. I know it won’t be a popular opinion but if you don’t want to pay the toll a viable alternative exists.

Still, I just wish they’d make the trains more reliable and integrate them with buses and make them nice and comfortable.

Dawn Traders

At 5am, London was already busy: bus queues, street cleaners, a fruit stall and a man pasting up a billboard.

Yesterday, I rose at 4am and took a taxi to London’s Heathrow Airport. This is not an uncommon thing for me to have to do. However, I imagine that I must have been a little more awake than usual as I started to pay attention to a great deal more than normal as I was driven out to the airport.

At 5am London’s streets are far from deserted. In Shrewsbury, one of the places where I grew up, I am pretty certain it would have passed for a busy morning but for London it was quiet. People were walking all around the place. At 5am there were queues at bus stops that must have had ten or more people in some of them. There were many more twenty-four hour shops than I had imagined (why isn’t there one near me?) and plenty of road sweepers and street cleaners – people generally keeping the city going for the rest of us that usually awake later in the morning.

I worked a milk round when I was younger. I am used to people being up and around in the still hours before most people awake. This, however, was different. It was busy and, in places, bustling. It was not remarkable to see a few people in the streets, but it was very startling to see so many people around.

When you walk home late at night, and the buildings remain lit, you imagine that, just like you are about to do, they will soon be settled in a dark sleep. Yet, as we sped through West London, I was struck by the number of buildings that contained offices or shops with all their lights blazing. Many of these were shut but were fully lit as though some invisible nocturnal customers were going about their shopping. Offices were lit as though an army of nighttime workers were sat, invisibly, at terminals turning the wheels of trade. When you walk home late at night this seems normal yet, in the early hours of the morning before dawn, it seems eerie.

Most unusually there was a market stall selling, I think, fruit and vegetables. It was open and lit on one of the main roads heading westwards. I can not imagine there was sufficient trade, but the stall was stocked, well-lit and ready for the odd customer that would pass. Who is the strange stall-holder who works the dark hours sat by the street waiting for customers to buy his fruits? Shouldn’t he have been at New Covent Garden collecting his goods at that time, not sat on a cold A-road with no passing trade?

Then there was the man who pastes the new advertising billboards. At 5.15am, he was on top of his ladder with a bucket of sticky stuff, glueing a new poster for the morning commuters to see on their way into the City. I had always imagined these were changed in the mid-afternoon, not in the middle of the night. It must have been far too cold to be doing that job.

There is a whole world that I am not familiar with. It’s really quite strange to come face-to-face with a city you do not recognise.