Marconi Would Be Impressed: The Internet is a marvellous piece of kit, but until a night-shift job in a local factory in 2004; I didn't appreciate this.
Night-shift is odd, and being awake when we should be asleep plays hell with the emotions; so much so that I found myself getting all tearful and silly over Barry White and Tracey Chapman records; but fortunately, it soon passed.
But there we were, working through the night and listening to a local radio station, and around 2 a.m; the female DJ, whose name I don't remember, started talking about getting emails from Australia.
Australia?
A Bournemouth radio station being picked up in Australia?
But of course, on the Internet, it can be, and in 2004 it wasn't quite as obvious and common place as it is today.
The daft thing was, though, these people had emigrated out there to live and work, but listened in to their old 'local station' to keep in touch with what was going on at home.
And it's so annoying when you talk to someone who isn't a local native, and they refer, usually with some degree of affection, to where they came from as "back home." If they're so affectionate about "back home," why did they move here in the first place; and if they're that fond of it; sod off back there!
But seriously, to be able to listen to any radio station in the world on the Internet is a marvellous thing. When I was invited onto Portsmouth's Express FM's 'Write On' programme, not only could I listen to it here at home when it was broadcast a week later, but so could MHB friends like Brian Key, in Kentucky, Jimmy McCarthy in Caithness, and Jonas Hogberg in Sweden. But our grandparent's would not be able to comprehend this innovation any easier than why, with so many contraceptives on the market today, the birth rate is so high? And this, which has completely changed the subject of the day, leaves me to ask: If we have safe sex to make sure we don't catch anything; why, when masturbating, do we try and make sure we don't get caught?
(My thanks to Julie Burchill for that marvellous observation).
Night-shift is odd, and being awake when we should be asleep plays hell with the emotions; so much so that I found myself getting all tearful and silly over Barry White and Tracey Chapman records; but fortunately, it soon passed.
But there we were, working through the night and listening to a local radio station, and around 2 a.m; the female DJ, whose name I don't remember, started talking about getting emails from Australia.
Australia?
A Bournemouth radio station being picked up in Australia?
But of course, on the Internet, it can be, and in 2004 it wasn't quite as obvious and common place as it is today.
The daft thing was, though, these people had emigrated out there to live and work, but listened in to their old 'local station' to keep in touch with what was going on at home.
And it's so annoying when you talk to someone who isn't a local native, and they refer, usually with some degree of affection, to where they came from as "back home." If they're so affectionate about "back home," why did they move here in the first place; and if they're that fond of it; sod off back there!
But seriously, to be able to listen to any radio station in the world on the Internet is a marvellous thing. When I was invited onto Portsmouth's Express FM's 'Write On' programme, not only could I listen to it here at home when it was broadcast a week later, but so could MHB friends like Brian Key, in Kentucky, Jimmy McCarthy in Caithness, and Jonas Hogberg in Sweden. But our grandparent's would not be able to comprehend this innovation any easier than why, with so many contraceptives on the market today, the birth rate is so high? And this, which has completely changed the subject of the day, leaves me to ask: If we have safe sex to make sure we don't catch anything; why, when masturbating, do we try and make sure we don't get caught?
(My thanks to Julie Burchill for that marvellous observation).
posted by Alan Burridge at 12:04 AM
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