In Praise of Radio Four Journalism

Yesterday, on Thursday, I had to make changes to my plans as I needed to go shopping. The previous Evening I had to get a take away from the Chinese, as I had run out of stuff to make a proper meal.

Therefore, I got the opportunity to listen to the radio in the morning. As my regular reader will know, I love to listen to the intelligent speech radio we have here in the UK, particularly Radio Four.

There are time though when some of the programmes and the news reports make for uncomfortable listening. A year ago there was such a report about a woman in Eastern Congo, who had been brutalised by an armed rebel group the Interahamwe. That original report made me feel physically bilious. So yesterday morning when they introduced that the reporter had returned to DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo) to reinterview the woman in that report, I knew that it was not going to be a pleasant or light hearted experience.

I will not go in to the details here, but here is a link where you can listen to both the original report and the one from yesterday.

The Today Web Page

One of the aspects of organisations like the BBC that I appreciate is the willingness to tell the difficult story and to tell it well. Further, this quality only really happens in the considered thoughtful reports rather than the instant reaction pieces of live television news.

The story stuck in my head as I went round the supermarket, and I was going to write this posting yesterday when I got back. However, when I returned, I put the radio on and there was another programme that I never miss, Crossing Continents. As this is available as a podcast, I now never miss hearing the broadcast.

Yesterdays programme was about the illegal logging of Russian timber for export to China. Not only that but, the impact of our buying of goods from China is fuelling this.

The Crossing Continents Web Page

While the two stories are very different, they actually carry a common thread, that of the way we in the West ignore what happens in the rest of the world.

Am I glad that here we have the BBC to prick our consciousness and remind us that we share a common humanity.

Sounds of the Wood coming soon

As my reader may remember I was offered a job, of sorts, acting as caretaker and providing environmental support for a consortium of people that had bought some land. On Wednesday I had a meeting with these people, and the upshot of that meeting is that I will not be taking on that role.

The problem is that they, the owners, are not interested in preserving anything. Nor are they prepared to make the investments needed to generate a steady long term income. All they are interested in is making a quick profit. They had wanted to build houses on the land, but as I know from talking to the local planing authority myself, this will not be allowed in the short or medium term.

Further, this consortium keep on rejecting any or all ideas that could work on the land. This could have included building a limited number of holiday chalets and providing Eco Holidays.
I would have been happy to help and even the local authority were willing to back that sort of idea, but that would not have made the millions they dreamt of when they bought the land, at an inflated price I should add. So while it would have provided a great opportunity for wildlife viewing and all that goes with it, I very much doubted that they were willing to even invest in the accommodation I was being promised.

Therefore, I am now able to progress on my other plans. It was fortuitous that on the same day as this meeting the software I ordered (and had paid for), arrived. As I have mentioned previously, I plan to do a pod cast. I have been busy recording material for this, and now I have the long task of getting this onto the computer. Also I will be getting my own website, I still have to build it, but while I have the domain name chosen, you will have to wait to find that out until its registered.

I will be keeping the blog here going too, and I may have a mirror blog on the website. However, it will enable me to share more pictures, videos and other stuff without services like flicker hijacking my material to boost their own sales.
If anyone has any bright ideas of what I should have on the website, I welcome any bright ideas, dim ones please keep to yourselves.

While I now have to learn how to use some of this software, I am excited by the range of possibilities.