PodVlogumentary

This is a documentary in vlog form explaining how we construct the podcasts.  Hilarity ensues.

In at the 13th Hour (or Day)

A belated Happy New Year, and an even more belated happy new blog.

I suppose I am drawn to leave this update for that very reason, it’s been lazily long since I last posted something here.  I suppose it’s justified however, as I have waited until I actually had something to post here.  So here it is.

The ACRE’s Annual General Meeting 2010, held late due to an inclement weather event.  Finally, everyone can get filled in as to where the ACRE find themselves professionally at the dawning of 2011.

Also, we've left the radio in order to focus on video projects, rather than being fired as we rather disingenuously suggested here.  We have another 2 sketches already filmed, and another waiting to be made.

As ever, the proof will be in the posting.

The Guff of Vapidity

Today, I was almost killed by Richard Herring.

I was at the wheel of a moving automobile when through the mesh of my speakers came an unexpected reference to Quantum Leap. I can’t really explain why I found this quite as funny as I did, but the force and depth of the laugh this joke drew from me turned my arms to lead and blurred my vision. Luckily the route I take in to work is so familiar unto me that I am able to take it masterfully even in my comedy-weakened state.

AIOTM is a strange beast, and I am particularly drawn to the occasional awkward pause. A notable pause in the most recent release, number 7 I believe, came after a joke where AIOTM was described as “the longest suicide note ever”, lending the comment a, hopefully accidental, feel of hopelessness and desperation. Which amused me greatly.

I’m dragging this out as I have nothing in particular to discuss, as my creative attention is still very much taken up by the radio. A cycle of preparing-performing-editing has begun, and as of today I have finished editing last weekend’s shows, meaning it is already time to be looking toward next weekend. I figure this cycle of single-minded creativity probably isn’t wholly healthy, but there we are. I am still pleased with the state of affairs, satisfied with a consistent goal of my own choosing. And also there are much laugh to be had, which is always a good thing, no?

I am purposefully attempting to be needlessly flowery and purple in order to flesh out this entry, which is essentially vapid guff, which I feel I should probably apologise for, but at the same time I am simply gushing this out stream of consciousness in order to pass some time, and distract myself from everything banal and mundane that pesters and whinges for my attention. Ironically, an attempt to escape from banality has merely produced this piece of extended banal bumph. What I have discovered is that, in the wrong hands, irony is unamusing.

I have spent this week so far editing the radio show, branching out musically and listening to mellow Malian Salif Keita, as well as reading The Importance of Being Earnest. Pro-active creativity, world music and Oscar Wilde, I am incredibly cultured now and I would like a badge to prove it please.

The Observer music countdown where I first heard of Salif Keita, whose album Moffou was judged to be the 8th greatest album of the decade, has since let me down, as I have now discovered they believe the 7th greatest album to be The White Stripes’ Elephant. This, coincidentally, is the only White Stripes album I own, having bought it using gift vouchers I won for something or other, probably attendance (good), while still in school. It is one of my least favourite albums, one of the few that I own that I genuinely dislike. It has a place alongside Eminem’s The Marshall Mathers EP (a gift from a friend) and Good Charlotte’s The Young and The Hopeless (to my embarrassment, I must admit that I purchased that of my own free will, with quite a lot of excitement if I remember correctly) in my ‘Albums I am embarrassed to own’ category. I also have Madonna’s Beautiful Stranger and the New Radicals’ You Only Get What You Give, but they are singles and don’t count (and they are also good).

I know this as I recently trawled my album collection in order to harvest tracks to play on the radio. The only track that made it onto my playlists from an embarrassing album was an Avril Lavigne track titled Naked, which is only on there so that I can follow it with the weak one-liner “That was Avril Lavigne naked”.

I am such a genius, I despair of myself.

Radio Killed the Video Star

I’d start this blog with an apology, if that wouldn’t be a hubristic approach to take. It assumes that there are people who have bemoaned the lack of updates here, which there aren’t. This entry is going to be chocked full of self-interest and hubris so I will attempt to keep it to a minimum.

My blogular inactivity stems from the radio shows which, to paraphrase Shang Tsung, have begun. The preparatory work for these shows varied greatly, but strangely, being excited about the shows seemed to be an activity in and of itself, and despite having made outlines and plans for various features, the actual scripting of the scripted sections happened at 2am Saturday morning, as I blearily attempted to force whimsy through my weary brain.

The two shows ended up fairly different in the end, and we have come to embrace that, where we view Saturday as the heavily scripted pseudo-AIOTM style show, and Sunday as a more freeform pseudo-Collings and Herrin number. I warned you there was hubris. Obviously any comparisons to these works are about format rather than quality of output, although if they ask then you must vehemently insist that the work of three Welsh buffoons is as funny as the output of a 20+ year veteran.

We were surprised to find that none of the scripted sections we had planned for the Saturday failed, and so we will be sticking with regular sections the Journal of Cannonby, which takes the form of a play, Footballer or Religious Figure, in which I offer up a name of a real person and two potential histories, and of course, Dafydd’s longwinded joke. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it seems everyone’s favourite section was the interview with actual ghost Kadoogan Aboogan, whose name was originally spelt Cadwgan Y Bwgan, which we decided to change after an e-mail came in with the frankly amazing spelling. We will be bringing in a new guest every week, and though it may prove difficult to top Kadoogan, we are going to bust a gut with this weeks' guest.

Sunday’s show was a far less structured show, to the point where we were expecting to have to blag extensively in order to fill the 3 hours, but we received an unexpectedly abundant amount of correspondence, exclusively filled with positive feedback and funny ideas which provided an interesting platform to launch some silly chat. We expected it to be a 2 man outfit on the Sunday, but apparently our modifying of the playlist, specifically to play ELO’s Twilight and The Beatles’ Octopus’ Garden was interpreted as a secret signal by Mr Luke Sampson, whose wonderful blog can be found here, for him to come and join us. He was always intended to be a part of the Sunday show, but had originally opted out due to illness, however our subliminal music summons helped him overcome his maladies, and a good thing too, as some of the biggest laughs of the show came due to him.

We began to put more of our own music in the playlist due to the feedback we received on the Saturday, which was almost exclusively positive (I've said that twice now haven't I? Well it's the truth dawg), the only criticisms were of the music, which we were led to believe we had little control over. However as a few requests came in straight away on the Sunday we let loose a bit more, opening the show with the huge Kansas hit Carry on My Wayward Son, which really geed us up for the show. We substituted a few tracks, getting a specific excited response for Lostprophets’ Last Summer, buoyed by this, we started making more changes, and hence playlist mistakes were made. No ones seems to have noticed, but it amuses me and so I will go into it. Our radio station, Rhondda Radio thanks for asking, runs a ‘gem’ system, where in every hour a song considered a ‘hidden gem’ will play, though more often than not the track would have been better off staying hidden, IN MY OPINION. I am tempted to begin the next sentence with ‘our’ but since I am really to blame for the first one I will take responsibility. My first blunder was to accidentally replace a ‘gem’ with The Jam’s Town Called Malice, which is less hidden than the track which was actually scheduled to play, which was so hidden I’d never heard of it. Perhaps more of a blunder was towards the end of the hour where my capable co-presenter Dafydd Evans, who’s wonderful blog can be found here, replaced a ‘gem’ with Cornershop’s Brimful of Asha, the juxtaposition of which made me laugh, although my mother claims that this is a verifiable ‘hidden gem’. Expect more playlist modification this weekend, but be sure to e-mail in praising the songs, as that way we will be able to justify our choices.

The way I’ve written about the shows here has been a little bit dry, but it is perhaps necessary as I’ve had to be quite systematic in order to get in everything I wanted to say about the shows, which really excited and enthused me. There’s a link to being a fan of the show on the right hand side of the page, we will attempt to be judicious with our updates there, we know it can be really annoying when events/groups/fan pages on facebook send a million updates a day. Join up even if you can’t listen on the weekend, we are going to record the shows from now on, with an eye to editing them into a podcast, although we’ll have to work it out with whoever runs the station’s website about whether they’ll host it or not. If not, we’ll find another way to do it, but it might take time. We always planned on releasing it as a podcast, as all three of us, though the show goes under Adam & Dafydd, Luke is a key player as well, are huge podcast fans, to the point where we listen to far more podcasts than we watch television shows. With the amount of messages we’ve had from people asking for podcasts or mp3s it would definitely be worth doing, though this could be hubris again.

With the amount of people who were interested, but unable to listen when it was live, I came to realise that the last time I actually listened or watched something when it was originally broadcast was Stewart Lee’s Comedy Vehicle, and that was a lot earlier in the year, back when I was still a student. Everything else has been podcasts, iPlayer, 4oD, YouTube, definitely not illegal downloads though, and DVDs. It really is an On Demand Era, and podcasts are an integral part of a radio station, at least if it wants to keep the tech-savvy but incredibly busy ‘youth’ listening. BBC, XFM, Absolute; all the big hitters of the radio station world put out podcasts, and if Rhondda Radio wants to thrive as a station, I think it’s key that it follows in their footsteps.

As well as being what I think, it's also the stirring diatribe I am planning to give if the station aren’t keen on the idea of podcasts, though I am hoping that won’t be necessary. The station have been incredibly supportive of our show, which surprised us a bit as we were expecting to be slightly odd and inaccessible, but everyone seems to be getting on board, which is good news for us, though we definitely lose “hipster cool dude” points. Though we never really intended, or had hopes of scoring very highly in the hipster cool dude sweepstakes.

I am going to turn this blog into something which Peter Serafinowicz would likely describe as “biznure”. Having dealt with the business side of the show, I will now describe my pleasure. There was a lot of it.

The show, especially Sunday’s, was essentially a focused and condensed version of the sort of silly conversations we usually have. Focused inasmuch as we were actively trying to be funny in this situation, whereas obviously when we are talking in real it is more casual. But the rush of being in a room with 2 of my best mates and knowing that I’m likely to burst out laughing any second because they are actively searching for the funny thing to say is incredible. Getting messages from people who were listening was often surprising, as we had to remember that people actually were listening. I was pleased, more than anything though, of what we put out, I knew that we were guaranteed to amuse ourselves, but I am genuinely happy with how funny it was, thinking that even though the first 2 shows weren’t recorded, I would gladly record and put the subsequent shows online if they are as funny, knowing that what we put out won't be an embarrassment.

This one is a busy week for me, but I promise to prepare sufficiently for the shows and give them my all. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who listened and/or e-mailed in last week, and encourage everyone to do so again. We will be stockpiling messages throughout the week as well as during the actual shows, so even if you won’t be able to listen on the day, do get involved. If there's anything you want us to discuss, from hard-hitting topics to why your cat pees in the washing machine, to just telling us to grow up, feel free to message in.

Direct these midweek messages to acrecomedy@googlemail.com.

If we are currently on when you're reading this though, send them in to mail@rhonddaradio.com, if you send stuff there during the week, it'll get through to the presenters currently there rather than us, though I'm sure they'd thank you for messages aswell.

My internet doings have been very radio show centric for a number of days now, for which I apologise, but at the same time they have been the focus of my energies and so I am stubbornly going to force them onto people.

Hopefully something interesting and non-radio centric will occur to me this week for me to blog about. But even if it does, I’ll probably talk about it on the radio aswell.

The shows can be streamed from www.rhonddaradio.com, we are on at midday until 3pm on Saturday and Sunday. Listen to it! Love it! Or don’t. S'up to you really.

If you like it, spread it around you juggerknuckles! I do.

Thank you very much for indulging me. Bye for now.

Oh Can I, Can I Cameo?

When I was really young, I used to laugh at expulsions of air.

Pfft.

This is a real joke what I have written and is the only ‘funny’ thing I have managed lately. I have been trying to funnel all of my creative energies in preparation for the radio shows which are starting next week, specifically the 31st of October and the 1st of November 12pm until 3pm. 87.8fm and at http://www.rhonddaradio.com/. Plug!

The problem with this is that while I am still enjoying myself and feel I am being flexed creatively, I am unable to recycle the material for this blog, at least not until after I’ve used it on air. So while my amazing plans for the Tales of Isembard Cannonby and my new game whose title I am unable to type for reasons of secrecy fill me with joy, I am unable to go into them in any detail. Is this what they call a tease?

The creative team of Adfydd (Adam & Dafydd) have been busy ploughing away on pre-records, with 5 episodes of The Cultural Exchange Program recorded, though they all need varying levels of editing. The recording of the fourth, Comedy/Instrumental, and the fifth, Folk/Guitarists, took place outside the studio environment, thanks to the audio equipment I acquired upon the anniversary of the day of my birth. We’ve discovered that even whilst recording in a more casual environment, we are still capable of the faux-professional apparent-shambles we put out in an actual studio. There is some incidental ambient noise provided by traffic, postmen and the dongings of clocks that isn’t present in the studio, but I feel this adds to the diy ethic of our output. Oh yes, our output. Indeed. When outside the studio however, we are, in the course of the two hour recording, tempted by mischief.

In the first of the two recordings a discussion about a black bassist who opted out of a family band in order to further his solo career sparked an irreverent discussion about Michael Jackson, which peaked with Dafydd uttering, in tones of heavy gravitas: “RIP Michael Jackson”, which led to roughly 5 minutes of painful belly-laughter and tears. I replicate that information here as the belly laughter has not made the edit, as we felt it would make us seem unduly nasty. It’s a pity that we have had to sand the spiky edges off our recording in order to make it fit to what we imagine is the ‘serving the community’ ethos of our radio station, but we have kept a copy of the original version, if only for our own amusement.
A similar burst of laughter came in today’s recording when, after our discussion petered out under the weight of a strange tangent, I bellowed Michael Legge’s beloved catchphrase “WHAT’S WRONG?!” into the mic, provoking an unexpectedly gleeful reaction from Dafydd, which subsequently sent me into fits of laughter. Sadly, this too may not make the final edit, as the randomness of the humour may not translate. You never know though, I may drop it haphazardly in the timeline, and say it was an accident. And if people complain, I will merely reiterate the question.

This has been a good week for podcasts, and not only because I have appeared, to varying degrees, in two.

At the very beginning of the week, the unintelligible ramblings of the Welsh Peacock and Gamble (me and Dafydd again) were transmitted via a live satellite link, or as they call them in lieville: an mp3 file, into the real Peacock and Gamble podcast. I felt our input was dealt with masterfully, with Ray and Ed joking that they were unable to understand our accents, or implying that we were speaking in Welsh, which not only provided a platform for their silliness, but also meant that they didn’t have to directly comment on what we were actually saying, meaning our egos were unhurt.

Then, later in the week, my contribution to the whip-round on twitter for questions for the Interview James segment of the Precious Little podcast was used, and therefore in some small way I was involved in that also. This brings my ‘appearances’ in podcasts up to 3, as I have also had some idiotic ramblings read out on the wonderful Trap Sodcasts. As sad as it is that I am genuinely excited to have had my idiocy recorded and internetted in this way, there are only a small number of podcasts to which I subscribe, and I began to genuinely machinate on how I could get my name on all of them.

Atop my list of favourites is the Collings and Herrin podcast, which I could conceivably buy my way into, as they have a history of podcast-sponsorship by fans. Whether or not this desire to have my name in the podcasts I listen to is worth the money it would take to sponsor the podcast is, at this point, uncertain.

Richard Herring’s new Tuesday wonderfest AIOTM would also be possible to get into, as the content is drawn from notable things which have occurred to Mr Herring. It would take a carefully planned undertaking to get onto that one, but I am sure if I ambushed him somewhere on his travels and branded my name onto his forehead with something boiling that was shaped like my name, it would almost certainly make the show, especially as he would have to explain the wound to a bewildered audience. Knowing how sneaky the Herring man can be however, it’s possible he would reverse my name in a sly joke about reading it in the mirror. Damn you Herring.

All past potential contributions to Adam & Joe or Jon Richardson’s shows have failed, but maybe if I raise my game and put real effort into the e-mails I can break through the 6music barrier.

I have recently taken to listening to iszi Lawrence and Simon Dunn’s Sundays Supplement podcast, which is the perfect size for car trips to and from work. It is also funny, which perhaps my length-based criterion failed to suggest. In order to get into that I would need to be mentioned in a national newspaper, or more specifically, in the supplement of a Sunday edition of a national newspaper. Or more specifically, in the supplement of the specific Sunday edition of a national newspaper that one of them had brought that particular week. Or more specifically, in an article of particular interest to one of them that was in the supplement of a Sunday edition of the national newspaper that one of them had brought. Alternatively, I could e-mail them I suppose.

All this planning and I haven’t even reached Rhod Gilbert’s Best Bits (possible), Daniel Kitson’s podcast (fairly impossible) or Robin Cooper’s Timewaster podcasts (hugely unlikely). I’m not convinced that I have the necessary oomph to see this through.

I have also been told that I was on television earlier, though I had anticipated this using my Sherlock Holmes/Sad Git powers and sky plussed it.

I imagine my contribution is limited to a split second appearance in a montage, hopefully alongside iszi Lawrence and Ben Partridge. After all, isn’t being in a montage with more talented people everyone’s real goal?

I think this appearance would be in accordance with the British Montage Act 1947, which states that people who unwittingly appear in a montage alongside each other on a UK terrestrial channel are legally required to enter a legally binding polygamous marriage. In the event of this marriage, I imagine I would be the only pleased party.

If I go home and discover there is no montage, I will be heartily displeased.

There’s ever a chance I will end up in a montage with Andrea Benfield, which would please me less, but would still be a positive outcome for me.

Remember, whenever we want to go, from just a beginner to a pro, you need a montage.

And lost of practice.

I Hate Hiatus

I have been shanghaied into a routine that sees me outside and active, which means that my agreed upon schedule for blogging has been vaporised. Any move away from the plan in terms of writing, in my case, means nothing gets done. Hence I am late in breaking out a September blog.

I have decided to stop criticising the top ten every Sunday, as this allows me to not listen to music I know I won’t enjoy. There is also enough bile on the internet without me needlessly, and feebly, adding to it for no reason. Should an appropriately evil song appear, I will mercilessly spear it.

My unplanned hiatus from blogging occurred because I have been busy starting a new job. Despite having been offered the job in the spring, administrative bumph has ensured that it is only now I can begin, to be fair I am just glad to be starting. Most everyone there seems glad to have my post filled, as various people had to multitask and take on the responsibilities of my job on top of their own. I am glad to be of use, and needless to say, but I will regardless: the money is also welcome.

My role is, largely, to make sure children playing on computers behave themselves. For the most part this is an easy enough task, though I was forced to be stern/firm with a group of potential miscreants who were attempting to act out a moribund “Outside, then” scenario, with another young sir who clearly wasn’t interested. Children should just grow up.

It is odd how little changes from generation to generation, the same kids wanting to fight, the same other kids getting dragged into it. Cyclical, repetitive and pointless, though sometimes amusing. However, I mostly find the behaviour of the children distracting and abrasive. I’m sure you are thinking that it was necessary to apply a significant amount of tongue-biting in the interview for this job, there wasn't I promise, I’m not actually as distant and disjointed as this blog perhaps suggests.

What is particularly weird about this job is that I get to see the sort of activities the computer-friendly youth of today partake in. The biggest surprise for me whilst observing was that very little has changed since I was their age (roughly 10 years ago). The appearance of YouTube is the only huge change, allowing cackling kiddos to huddle together suspiciously to electronically watch people falling over ad infinitum. Aside from that, it is flash and browser-based games that still rule the internet-use sweepstakes when it comes to children. The only major changes in those fields are graphics and connection speed.

Direction-button games involving BMX tricks and just rag-dolling a hapless, faceless blob around the screen abound, as well as an extremely basic and ugly first person shooter involving what looks like Lego men that have been pimped with steroids and a neon trim. Amazingly, though, Runescape is still being played. It has undergone huge graphical changes since I used to play it, but it is very much the same grind-happy rubbish MMORPG. I am mostly annoyed that most of the kids have characters of a higher level than any of mine ever achieved, though that only proves they are dorks. Take that lame-Os! Shaaaa~

Since I now have to travel to daily, I am driving again. I am very glad to be back behind the wheel of a car, I feel like Hercules at the end of Hercules (the Disney one, yeah) where he has got his immortality and power all back up on it. Podcasts are best enjoyed behind the wheel of a car leisurely doing 30, with the easy banter summoning Jon Richardson into the passenger seat, and Tim Key and Fordey in the back. This doesn’t mean that I am not paying attention to the road though, so calm down, anyway you are not my mother, unless of course you are.

I have a meeting for a community radio station tomorrow, as do you Dafydd, which I am looking forward to as I am itching to receive training and get some radio done. It’s an early one though, which will make the driving experience unpredictable, I am a much bigger fan of late night driving, when the roads are empty and dark. Tranquillity is hard to achieve when other human beings are out and about. Similarly, my job would be so much easier were there less humans to bother about. Human beings are so inconsiderate.

I have been broadening my musical horizons this weekend, with a foray into jazz (Duke Ellington) and ambient indie (The Mercury Program) resulting in enjoyment. I have also taken a stroll down movie soundtrack avenue, listening to the works of Ryuichi Sakamoto and also of Joe Hisaishi. Hisaishi’s live orchestra concert showcasing his Ghibli tracks is breathtaking, I’ll probably be partaking of more orchestral scores in the near future. The Cribs new album is out, I believe as of today, and I have been enjoying that, though their track referencing ‘Hari Kari’ annoys me, partly because I’m not sure the mistake is purposeful (it should be hara-kiri). The opening track ‘We Were Aborted’ is a particular personal highlight.

I will bring this entry to an abrupt end, as I must away to enjoy Andrew Collins and Robin Ince on the iPlayer, eat and following these two activities I will bathe and read more of ‘Kafka by the Shore’. I can only undertake activities in twos. Whilst writing this I have been listening to the music described above. Who says its only women that can multitask? Eh? Whoever they are, find them and tell them to stop lazily conforming to stereotypical trains of thought.

Bumming Herring: Nyum Nyum Nyum

The seemingly all-encompassing nature of the internet has had an unquestionably huge effect on the world of comedy. Anecdotes and retrospectives of the comedy of yesteryear suggest that acts would often keep the same material for many years, refining it maybe, but continuing to perform what was essentially the same set. The prodigious popularity of video streaming sites now goes a long way to ensure, or perhaps force, comedians to have a far greater turnover of material. Though the vast majority of viewers understand that a comedian's set is a pre-prepared batch of material, and will be performed many times, it is perhaps a bad thing for a comedian to have multiple 3-8 minute clips of them on the internet performing the same material. This is something that is not always possible for comedians to monitor, as a deft mobile recording from the audience is out of the comedians hands.

The comedian Rhod Gilbert discussed one effect of video streaming websites whilst on his radio show, explaining how, when appearing on Michael McIntyre's Comedy Roadshow he had to decide whether to include certain material, luggage-based, in his set. The reason behind this decision was that the material already existed on YouTube, and has received a colossal number of views (it eventually went in, as a BBC1 audience was felt to be different enough from a YouTube audience).

Although the internet's effect can be seen to be troublesome, it has also offered many new avenues and opportunities for comedy to explore. I will take as my case study one Richard Herring, as he is an act who has a huge presence on the internet, amassing quite a splendid array of electronic notches to his internet-based bow. My familiarity with his works are, without doubt, down to this vast internet presence. I first became aware of Mr Herring several years ago, after being linked to one of his videos from a clip of a Stewart Lee appearance on Edinburgh and Beyond. My lack of awareness was soon quashed as a huge back-catalogue of his work is available online (and importantly - for free). The ready availability of a blog, scripts (both commissioned and not), plays, TV and radio shows ensured, and ensures, that for anyone who has an interest in his work, there is much there for the taking. The helpfulness of this possibility might only extend to more established acts however, as regardless of how much material you are able to link to, a newer act simply will not have the depth of material to offer.

The internet also offers more real-time comedy opportunities which, again, are able to be highlighted using Richard Herring as an example. Utilizing the sites and services of facebook, twitter and whichever new incarnations begin doing the rounds all help 'maintain a presence', and for the most part continued visibility is likely a good thing. The interactivity of these sites also help harbor closer relationships between acts and fans, which is, again, a good thing (but could lead to stalkerish behaviour but that's unlikely to happen ever I love you Richard). The appearance of the podcast as a format is another effect of further internet developments, and the efforts of Mr Herrin (and Mr Collings of course) still stand out in the bountiful podcast field as they are strictly 'for podcast' creations. (Audio) Podcasts are, by and large, excerpts from existing radio shows, and while these are still enjoyable, there is an added joy to be had from hearing a podcast recorded for podcast's sake. The most exemplary of these, in my opinion, include Collings and Herrin (surprise!), The Perfect Ten and Peacock and Gamble. The huge added effort put in by Adam & Joe to add new material to their podcast goes a long way to making it a splendid creature.

With the advent of iPlayer, alongside the monster that is YouTube, so much TV footage is now readily available legitimately, or at least without complaint, for free on the internet. As someone who often experiences the wonders of the BBC almost purely through the medium of the internet, I began wondering whether or not television and radio as we know them are on their way to becoming obsolete. There is certainly no need for a separate TV or radio systems when my computer could provide the exact same services (though I did once enter a strange place where I was using the internet browser of a PS3 to load up the iPlayer in order to listen to the radio - THIS IS THE FUTURE). One of the factors which suggest that the current radio and TV systems may prevail is the amount of money it takes to fund a show, which isn't there for people wanting to create things for the internet (though 'webisodes' are perhaps attempting to buck this trend), hence how the aforementioned formats are generally available for free. It is, yet again, Richard Herring who is leading the charge in this arena, with plans to create a sketch show in the autumn, which will be available for free on the internet, where the costs will be managed by having a live, paying, audience. Previous comments made by the man himself suggest that the monetary side of this would be in the same area as having a radio show commissioned by an organisation, with the added bonus of having full control over the content. No need for, perhaps, over-sensitive censorship, also the initial need for a commission is leap-frogged, though a sort of commissioning process would occur democratically, in terms of the need for a paying audience. Whether or not this system would work for other formats is even more uncertain.

I personally wouldn't be hugely upset to see TV and radio succomb to the same fate as VHS and his pals, as I am attached by the soul to the internet regardless. The internet has made it possible to see, hear and read the work of comedians with utmost ease (I am uncertain about forays into scratch-and-sniff internet) and also enabled cottage industries to safeguard and provide shows that would have been lost (the destined-to-be-legendary gofasterstripe).

Hopefully the advances of the internet will ensure that it becomes more and more the case that comedians will not have to be mainstream and bland/safe in order to see their ideas become a reality. And when that point is reached I hope caps will be doffed and heads will be dipped to the internet-content pioneer Richard Herring. Only time will decide whether he is the most groundbreaking comedian of this internet age, or a fucking idiot.