Tag Archive for 'john clarke'

An Anniversary

Published
by
dano
3 months, 2 weeks ago
in Newtown, Personal and Wine
. 0 Comments

According to TreeHugger, wine in 3 litre cardboard casks is significantly more environmentally friendly than the equivalent volume in glass. I was pleased to read this as, in my final year of drinking, when I was giving it a bit of a nudge, pretty much all my consumption was from those cheap casks of Country Medium you get at the front of the New World in Newtown. So, I’m glad to confirm that, even then, I was doing my bit for the planet.

Yesterday, Friday, marked two years sober, two years which have easily been the most productive of my life. To celebrate (and while we are on the subject of the environment) here’s John Clarke and Bryan Dawe discussing an environmental catastrophe: “The Front Fell Off”.

John Clarke & Bryan Dawe - The Front Fell Off (Bob Collins)

Cheers.

“On this auspiciouness … this auspicacious … this bloody great big occasion …”

Published
by
dano
2 years, 8 months ago
in Culture and meta
. 0 Comments

In the absence of a post of any substance in the last fortnight, or so, I thought I would point you towards something free-of-charge (actually, you already paid via the method we use to keep NZ On Air alive): the John Clarke/Sam Neill interview on Kim Hill’s Saturday morning programme from Saturday 8 April. Apparently, due to the influence of temporary producer Mark Cubey, SatMng is now available for podcast.

Describing it as a Podcast is a stretch, however, as when you download the mp3 files (or subscribe via the rss) feed the files turn up with titles like “sat-4436F0EE-032″ which is not helpful if you want to play these pieces in the order in which they were transmitted.

But, in total, I have to applaud this entire project. In my life (I have no lifestyle) time-shifting is essential or all your good work is for nought. The only piece of media (apart from All Blacks and West Ham games) that I insist on watching live is Top Gear (on Prime at 7.30pm on Sundays) which entertains me better than any television since The Magic Roundabout when I was a youngster. Don’t start me on Sunday’s Bugatti episode…

So, the concept that great radio (or television when they get around to it) is available for me to listen to at any time of the day or night makes me very happy.

A couple of years ago I went to a great deal of trouble to try and record Charlie Gillett’s weekly “Sound of the City” programme off BBC Radio London’s realMedia feed so that I could listen to it at work (with all the interruptions it might take a whole day). But I had to cheat on the BBC deal and pay for some software that would let me record the show. I’ve been meaning to try and automate the process so I could wake up with Charlie Gillett’s Saturday night programme in iTunes on my Sunday but I have been a bit distracted.

But, if anyone thought for a moment that listening to radio (virtually or real) hampered music sales I can point to Charlie Gillett and this file: the first track off Rufus Wainwright’s album Want One, of which I would not have heard unless I had been chanelling Charlie. And it cost me NZ$34.99 and I regret not a cent of it.