Archive for the 'Podcasts' Category

For all you poets and poetry lovers out there, Poetcasting.co.uk is an enterprising project by a young poet to record and podcast poets in the UK.

The website says:

“The PoetCasting project was created by Alex Pryce, an 19 year old student and poet. She was concerned that performance and academic poets were becoming increasingly isolated from each other, and felt that the poetry community wasn’t aware of the potential the internet holds for the future of all media, including poetry.

The aim of PoetCasting is to work with poets throughout the UK to podcast their work. The project will work with performance poets, published poets, new poets, established poets and everything in between.”

If you’re a poet looking to widen your audience, this project could be a great opportunity to reach out across the internet. There’s a contact page for Alex on the site.

If like me, you like poetry read out loud, you can go and listen to their podcasts - no more trundling out on cold, rainy nights to poetry readings in smokey cafes or pubs , just pure poetry in the comfort of your own iPod…

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UPDATE: I heard from Alex Pryce this morning (that was quick!) with the following:

“Hey!

Just a quick note to thank you for the heads up on FusionView for
PoetCasting.

If you know any poets you’d reccomend for PoetCasting, I’d be more than happy to follow up any suggestions!

Yours,
Alex”

I hope you’ll contact Poetcasting with your recommendations - please mention Fusion View if you do.

Fusion View is being featured on the BBC Radio 5 programme Pods & Blogs on Monday 25 June night (actually 02am on Tuesday 26 June) when it will go out over the airwaves to around half a million AM listeners and half a million FM listeners. The programme will also be available online for ONE WEEK on their website but unfortunately not as a podcast so if you’d like to catch it, you need to go to the site and listen during this coming week. (The Fusion View piece is at around 30 mins into the show, after the news and sport.)

I met Chris Vallance, the presenter, for lunch a few weeks ago at Hayes Galleria by London Bridge and we had a wide-ranging discussion about blogs, podcasts, the Chinese in the UK, cross-cultural issues, globalisation, Malaysian bloggers and much more. It was great to get his perspective as a blogs and pods watcher as well as sharing mine with him as a blogger and podcaster.

He only pulled out his recording equipment after lunch and we wandered around trying to find a quiet corner for him to record the interview. We ended up standing in an alleyway, not far from a white van where a couple of builders were having their sarnies and thermos of tea. Having had a good old chat over lunch, the moment Chris thrust his fancy microphone towards me, I went completely blank and started stammering and dithering - we had to start again several times before I hit my stride and could even say anything sensible about who I was and what Fusion View is all about! I’ve interviewed a number of people on my podcasts and I have to say, it’s utterly different being on the other end of the mike - I have even greater respect now for my Fusion View interviewees in that they never had to do any re-takes and just started chatting with confidence and panache.

The interview was only 10 minutes and we ended up focusing on my novels rather more than on Fusion View. After we finished, I realised I hadn’t had a chance to talk about the various themes of my blog such as:

# Fusion Stories - personal stories of people who live cross-cultural lives eg a Welsh-Iranian student, a South African living in Germany, a Caucasian-American who writes fiction in Mandarin.
# How switching between my “two voices“, speaking “proper” English and heavily accented Malaysian-English, affects my personality and identity
# Podcast interviews with Lucy Luck, a literary agent and Terry Bailey, a lecturer in screenwriting
# Curious Legacies - Recipes and other legacies from people who have influenced my life eg my first boyfriend’s recipe for Hairdryer Duck and my grandmother’s recipe for Soy Sauce Chicken.
# Legacy Blogging: stories from my family eg a recording from 1976 of my late grandfather telling the story of the “first ancestor” from China and my father’s Memories of Malaya during the Japanese occupation.

Chris also wanted me to explain to the world the equipment I use to do my podcasts. I had described it to him over lunch and he thought it was worthwhile for other potential podcasters to know that the equipment didn’t have to be too fancy or expensive - although I have to say, I was rather impressed by his equipment: the professional big flash drive; the robust noise-cancelling microphone and all those buttons. In the end, they didn’t use that bit of the interview in the piece they broadcast but anyway, here’s a picture of my home-made podcasting gear.

That’s a wooden kitchen roll holder and slotted into it is an old leather mobile phone case. The digital recorder sits snugly in the leather case. Ideally, I sit at a table with my interviewee with the equipment sort of in the middle on the table between us. I point the recorder at them when they speak. When it’s my turn to speak, I swivel it towards me by turning the base gently, ask my question and then swivel it back to them. The advantage is that my arm doesn’t get tired holding the recorder up and it also sits a sufficient distance away from our mouths to avoid explosive “PPPs” and “TTTs”. I’m tickled that Chris, the professional BBC journalist, has given it his seal of approval!

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The variety and fun of this blog would not have been possible without all the people who contributed to it through writing guest pieces, agreeing to be interviewed, adding comments or emailing me in response to posts - and also all those offline who sparked ideas for posts through our conversations over coffee and dinner. So thanks to everyone who has been part of the Fusion View community is some way or other!

I’ve added a new gadget so you can download Fusion View posts as audio files onto your iPod or MP3 and listen to them wherever you are.

So no more being glued to the computer screen - you can enjoy my posts and guestblogger posts on the move.

All you have to do is drag and drop the Talkr badge below into your podcast tuner.

The easiest way is to minimise this screen in front of your iTunes (or other podcast catcher/ tuner screen) and drap and drop the badge into iTunes (or other podcast tuner).

The posts are read by a clever automated text reader that sounds like an American woman. It’s actually pretty realistic and natural sounding, considering she’s a bunch of bytes and digital data. Try it out and let me know what you think.

You can try it out by listening to my post on the non-stinky durian. (3 mins 02 secs)

(For Film Mondays or photographs, you’ll still have to come back to the screen to watch the movie and/ or see the photos, I’m afraid. The gadget doesn’t offer a facility where they narrate or describe the video or photo for you….)

Photo: thanks to dtechnews.com

Xavier Salomon, the curator of the Dulwich Picture Gallery, talks to me about his own pan-European roots and about the fusion art of Canaletto, the great Venetian painter who came to London in 1746. Canaletto painted famous London scenes with his Italian eye, staying in this vibrant city for 10 years. Xavier talks about what London might have been like at that time and why Canaletto came here for his painting. He also talks about his personal experiences of European art and what it takes to become the curator of one of the most respected art galleries in the UK.

You can listen to the podcast of our convesation (about 31 mins 50 sec) using the grey player below.

To find out more about the Canaletto exhibition, which is on until 15 April, go to www.dulwichpicturegallery.org.uk.

Above: Canaletto’s painting of Westminster Bridge, London.
Top: Photo of Xavier, thanks to Ingrid Beazley

Listen Now:

 Standard Podcast: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (1197)

While I am in Malaysia in the next 10 days or so, I will be having a go at Phone Blogging. The player below will be updated with a new episode every time I report by phone on my Malaysian trip. This page will headline Fusion View until Monday 05 March 07.00 am GMT.

Why Phone Blogging? Because I will be staying with my parents and the most up to date technology they have is an electric typewriter… So, I will not be able to update this blog using text.

I won’t be able to do any editing to the phone blog so it will essentially be like a live podcast from my phone

Also, I won’t be able to add any written notes to my phone report so the player will show only Episode 4*, Episode 5* etc. You can listen to each episode by clicking on the relevant episode in the player below. I will aim to record a report every other day so check back from time to time to hear the latest episode.

I hope you enjoy this experiment!

Alternatively, to launch a standalone version of the player, click on the button below.

* It starts with Episode 4 - I used up the previous episodes with “testing, testing”!

Photo: thanks to makinasu from flickr.com

Poet James Wood has donated three signed copies of his new poetry collection “The Theory of Everything” for the Fusion View prize draw.

Click here, to find out more about James Wood and listen to my podcast interview with him.

Three winners will be picked at random from the list of email subscribers to Fusion View. To get a chance to win a copy of James’s book, subscribe to this blog. Subscribe now.

Subscription is free and you will receive free email notifications once a week with the latest updates on this blog. You will automatically be entered into the prize draw to win a copy of “The Theory of Everything” and also all future prize draws (unless otherwise stated). For more about how to subscribe/ unsubscribe and my subscription policy,click here.

The closing date for this prize draw is Friday 16 February 2007. You can still subscribe after that date and you will automatically be entered into the next prize draw.

Please read the Rules of the prize draw below.

Yes, please enter me into the prize draw - I want to subscribe now. Click here to subscribe now.

The Rules for the prize draw
1. The closing date for this draw is 16 February 2007. Within two weeks of that date, 3 winners will be picked at random from the list of subscribers.
2. I will notify the winners by separate emails and ask for your name and land address to which to send the prize. I will be entitled to assume that the name and address given is the name and address of the winning subscriber and I will not knowingly post the prize to any other person.
3. When I receive a winner’s land address, I will post the prize to them and delete their land address from my records.
4. I will post the name of the winners on this blog (but not the land address or email address) .
5. I will not enter into any other correspondence or discussion regarding the winners or regarding this or any prize draw and my decision on the winners and prizes is final. You may not substitute the prize offered for anything else.
6. I will post the prizes by the public postal system. I am not liable for any acts or omissions of the postal services in the UK or any other country.
7. Where the address is not in the UK, I am not liable for any taxes, duties, or customs or excise or import requirements that may be applicable in the country of receipt nor for ensuring compliance with any other laws, including but not limited to laws relating to copyright, censorship or any other matters that may arise regarding or in connection with the prize. These remain the liability of the recipient and it is the responsibility of the recipient to ensure compliance with the laws of their country.
8. By subscribing / entering this prize draw, you are confirming to me that you are over 18 or that you are over 13 and have the permission of your parent or guardian to subscribe/ enter this draw.
9. Your email address will remain on the subscription list (unless you unsubscribe) and will be entered into all future prize draws (unless otherwise stated). For my subscription policy, click here.

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The 1950s was a golden age of repertory theatre in the UK. That was a time when an actor might be playing Shakespeare one week while rehearsing for a Noel Coward play the next week and audiences might see Laurence Olivier in the lead role one night and as the second spear carrier the next night. It was also a key transition point as John Osbourne’s kitchen sink drama Look Back in Anger burst onto the scene to the challenge the established expectation of what theatre should be about. What was it like working as an actor at that important time in English theatre?

This is a special Fusion View podcast for the London Theatre Blog. To hear first hand about life in the theatre in the 1950s, I’ve coaxed actor Walter Plinge out of retirement to tell us about his experiences in repertory theatre during that golden age.

You can listen to the podcast interview by clicking on the grey player at the end of this post.

Or, you can listen to this and other Fusion View podcasts by clicking here.

You can also receive this and future Fusion View Podcasts free via iTunes.

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The London Theatre Blog was created by Andrew Eglinton and is full of information, reviews and opinions about all aspects of theatre, with a special focus on the London theatre scene. To find out more, go to www.londontheatreblog.co.uk.

Photo: scene from Look Back in Anger, thanks to www.gre enspot.info

Listen Now:

 Standard Podcast: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (1464)

A while back, I wrote about the First Ancestor, the story that my family tells of where we came from. I found a tape recording of an interview that I did with my grandfather on my mother’s side 30 years ago, asking him to tell us the story of our family. I was thirteen at the time - and I guess in a way I was doing a podcast even before podcasts were invented!

The family gathered round one evening just before Christmas 1976 and I taped the story that my grandfather told. This is the last and only recording we have of his voice as he died a year later so it is a recording that is treasured in our family.

I have transferred it to digital format without any expert or fancy technology so the sound quality is not perfect. However, I hope that you can still enjoy the story he tells…

Listen Now:

 A Voice from the Past (Family Story): Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (1017)

The prize draw to win a signed copy of Winnie Loo’s motivational book “A Cut Above: Built on Hard Work, True Grit and a Pair of Scissors” has now closed.

Winners

The winners, picked at random from the Fusion View email subscribers list, are (for privacy reasons, using their first names from their email addresses only):

# jade

# monika

# miffy

I have sent emails to them direct to notify them.

My Thanks to Everyone

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I would like to take this chance to say thank you to all my email subscribers and also to everyone who checks back from time to time to read Fusion View. It’s been a really fun few months getting this blog off the ground and very rewarding to receive your comments and feedback.

I will aim to continue posting relevant and interesting material. If you have any suggestions or thoughts about what topics you would like to see more of on Fusion View, please drop me a line using the form below - or add a comment. (I may not be able to help in all cases but it would be great to chat through your ideas.)

It takes an extraordinary person to transform a personal tragedy into a vision of hope for hundreds of children.

Dana Roskey is one such extraordinary man. Out of his personal grief, he gave hope to children in Ethiopia by founding the Tesfa Foundation to provide schooling for young kids. I spoke to him when he passed through London recently. He told me about culture shock arriving in Ethiopia for the first time, coffee and the path that led him to fulfill the dreams of the woman he loved.

Listen using the embedded player below.

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Or, you can listen to this and other Fusion View podcasts by clicking here.

You can also receive this and future Fusion View Podcasts free via iTunes.

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“Tesfa” means hope in Amharic.

To find out how you can help in this extraordinary project for the schoolchildren of Ethiopia, go to www.tesfa.org or www.tesfa-uk.org.