A la radio
The internet has brought us many things, social networking, anti-social behaviour organisation platforms, blogs, porn and a seemingly endless succession of pictures of pets dressed up.
It’s also brought us nostalgia. It provides a global platform for the heritage crisp enthusiast who wants to discuss childhood treats with others until the warm rosy glow of nostalgia almost covers the aching desperation of howling emptiness that his once promising life has become (also known as adulthood)…or maybe he just really likes snacks, who can tell?
The internet is becoming a museum of the everyday, with the mundane analysed and discussed with a refreshing curiosity. It’s fun to see a forum brimming with the same sort of enthusiasm for some plastic toy from the seventies that one normally sees exhibited by a professor turning up a roman vomiting pot or something.
It’s also provided a window on the world, as we can now see and hear instantly what others half a planet away are seeing and hearing. A part of this is internet radio, which allows you to listen to stations in far flung countries. And this cutting edge technology is somewhat nostalgic also.
Clicking your way through the international stations is a little like being a radio ham decades ago, sitting hunched over a machine, slowly turning the dial and occasionally through the static hearing a haunting song sung in a strange language as the signal bounces off of the ionosphere – only later do you discover you are listening to Radio Cardiff (you thought it was Viking).
Now you can wander the world one click at a time. My favourite station remains Allouette, the French radio station. They play a lot of pop and, even when they break for the news its not too bad, as I don’t understand French and so don’t know what they are talking about. Initially I thought from the way they were talking that there was a riot in Paris every night, then I worked out that it’s just that they are very excitable, then I worked out that there is a riot in Paris every night.
Other stations worth a visit are the Japanese and Caribbean ones. The benefit of visiting something in a very different time zone is that while all the domestic stations are trying to keep everyone calm and sane at drive time, it”s night time or even the wee small hours elsewhere in the world, and you can kick back to the soothing sounds of Caribbean Breeze – as soothing as a nice big cup of rum.
It’s also brought us nostalgia. It provides a global platform for the heritage crisp enthusiast who wants to discuss childhood treats with others until the warm rosy glow of nostalgia almost covers the aching desperation of howling emptiness that his once promising life has become (also known as adulthood)…or maybe he just really likes snacks, who can tell?
The internet is becoming a museum of the everyday, with the mundane analysed and discussed with a refreshing curiosity. It’s fun to see a forum brimming with the same sort of enthusiasm for some plastic toy from the seventies that one normally sees exhibited by a professor turning up a roman vomiting pot or something.
It’s also provided a window on the world, as we can now see and hear instantly what others half a planet away are seeing and hearing. A part of this is internet radio, which allows you to listen to stations in far flung countries. And this cutting edge technology is somewhat nostalgic also.
Clicking your way through the international stations is a little like being a radio ham decades ago, sitting hunched over a machine, slowly turning the dial and occasionally through the static hearing a haunting song sung in a strange language as the signal bounces off of the ionosphere – only later do you discover you are listening to Radio Cardiff (you thought it was Viking).
Now you can wander the world one click at a time. My favourite station remains Allouette, the French radio station. They play a lot of pop and, even when they break for the news its not too bad, as I don’t understand French and so don’t know what they are talking about. Initially I thought from the way they were talking that there was a riot in Paris every night, then I worked out that it’s just that they are very excitable, then I worked out that there is a riot in Paris every night.
Other stations worth a visit are the Japanese and Caribbean ones. The benefit of visiting something in a very different time zone is that while all the domestic stations are trying to keep everyone calm and sane at drive time, it”s night time or even the wee small hours elsewhere in the world, and you can kick back to the soothing sounds of Caribbean Breeze – as soothing as a nice big cup of rum.
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