Pocket Planet Radio

Podcast: Philosopher John Stewart Mill's 200th

In this podcast I become for 30 minutes a genuine pub philosopher, as philosopher and blogger Jonathan Derbyshire and myself discuss the life and times of the British philosophers John Stewart Mill who celebrates his 200th anniversary this year. Our venue appropriately enough was the Jeremy Bentham pub in London just across the road from UCL. I believe it's the only pub in the city named after a philosopher and it's an appropriate venue as Bentham was in many ways the godfather to Mill's own theories. Although he lived 200 years ago, Mill's theories still have great currency in modern political debates. In our conversation we covered everything from The World Cup, to the Danish Cartoon Controversy and, of course, nude rambling.

Podcast: At The Media Forum

I'm at the Podcast Day of The Media Forum conference Cologne and pleased to be meeting with podcasters Nicole Simon, Thomas Wanhoff, CC Chapman and Ewan Spence. I'm wearing my "radio" hat and it will be interesting to see how German broadcasters view the revolution that is sweeping over us. But I'm even more keen to find out about the German podcasting scene.

UPDATE: I've cut together some interviews with podcasters recorded at the forum. Shorter versions will run on "pods and blogs"  The music was written in Cologne airport, where the fire in Turkey necessitated a long delay..

Going Underground Podcast

Back in California I was propelled from LA to B (via OC) by the miracle of engineering that is a 10-year old beige Honda Accord and everywhere was either 20 minutes or 2 hours away from everywhere else depending on the traffic.

Now I'm back in a city with a functioning, and an historic public transportation system, The London Underground. As well as taking me to and from work, the Underground has, briefly, been the focus of my work the past couple of weeks. First there was an interview with Geoff Marshall about variant Tube Maps (listen here), recorded for the Big Belly Crew (see below). Now exclusively, and only on Pocket Planet Radio..Annie Mole,the blogger behind one of the world's best City Blogs, Going Underground, talks about The Tube, the Wapping shaft, and Bumper Harris. (and yes it was IKB's dad Marc who designed the Rotherhithe tunnel.. I know..I know..)

Grease over easy: an interview with Russell Davies

I think the world divides into two types: those who like their eggs sunny side up, and those who prefer them over easy. As a member of the "over easy" camp, my breakfasts are long and lounge like. Loafing, lingering, lizarding and loitering, indeed, all the good l words, are stacked up like toast over the course of a good hour. I am, as you may have guessed, very much a B-type, an idler and a ne'er-do-well. My friends who like their eggs sunny side up, in contrast, rise with the day. They burst with nearly as much energy as the great ball of fusing hydrogen that has just bounced over the horizon. They are orange juice and sweet-and-low to my ham and hash-browns.

So it was good therefore, on a morning when an alcohol induced migraine lurked round the corner like a mugger with an ice-axe, that the first task of the day was to do an interview all about Eggs Bacon Chips and Beans (link here). Russell Davies - my interlocutor - is an expert blogger and a man who clearly takes pause over his morning repast. He's great company too. I've since listened to more bits of his blook/blog; it's great stuff, the essay on sausages was seminal and important, and worked on at least 3 levels - perhaps 4.  I encourage, all you breakfast lovers to throw away the can of chocolate slimfast and visit his site. It's almost as good as the real thing.

Guides to Anonymous Blogging

The Spirit of America blog has released guides to anonymous blogging. This from the press release:

"A repressive regime trying to still free speech first goes after and shuts down independent print and broadcast media,” said Curt Hopkins, project director of Spirit of America’s Anonymous Blogging Campaign. “Once that is done, it turns its attentions to online news sites. As these outlets disappear, dissent migrates to blogs, which are increasing geometrically in number and are simple to set up and operate.” In past several years at least 30 people have been arrested, many of whom have been tortured, for criticizing their governments. This trend is likely to increase in the coming year.

That's 30 too many. But as they say on the website whatever you do a government who really wants to know who you are can find out.

2005 In Blogs

I've put up an mp3 of the interview with Tim Worstall, Neil McIntosh, Suw Charman and Kevin Anderson. You can download the mp3 here. Neil and Tim Skyped into the programme. Neil was actually routed through my computer in Los Angeles then back down to London via my ISDN line. He doesn't sound half bad considering.

UPDATE: As well as looking back you may well want to look forward to next year and Alex Bellinger has an interesting list of predictions about the world of podcasting.

My War: Colby Buzzell

It was veterans day this weekend, an appropriate time to spare a thought for those serving in Iraq, some of them, as has nearly always been the case in conflict, barely more than children. The war has been extraordinary in producing numerous blogs. Colby Buzzell's was perhaps the best known. His post entitled Men in Black highlights the difference between the kind of Green Zone reporting we get from Iraq and the first person accounts of soldiers. It's Buzzell's contention, and there is surely some truth to this, that the public needs to have this sort of information to make informed choices about the conflict. In that respect I think blogging helps the military - ensuring that their work isn't forgotten as news networks lose interest in long running conflicts. But that doesn't seem to be the way the top brass see it, yet. This podcast is an extended version of an interview first aired on the pods and blogs segment I do on Five Live.

Attack of the Blogs

Is blog power an example of mob rule or democracy? That's essentially the question raised in this Forbes article Attack of the Blogs by Daniel Lyons (via mediachannel.org). Reading it I wonder if the blog revolution isn't in danger discovering it's own version of "the terror"

We Don't Own the News

On the pods and blogs segment on BBC Radio Five we interviewed Richard Sambrook, blogger (internally within the BBC only at the moment) and international news supremo, his official title being Director of the BBC's World Service and Global News division. His remarks at the We Media conference that "we don't own the news" have attracted significant attention. particularly from advocates of citizen journalism. His view as expressed in one interview is that journalists will increasingly become news "facilitators" i.e. filtering and evaluating content primarily provided by the public. I'm sure what he has to say on this will be of interest to bloggers and podcasters alike. An archive of the interview can be found here.

This is just the best

Woke up this morning and clapped my hands and bounced up and down like a little girl who's just found a pony in the cornflakes packet. I made Fark with an "obvious" tag too,  a fair reflection of my abilities to uncover the news that matters I feel . Yay!