paul capewell’s blog

Radio and TV. Brilliant eh?

I just stuck on 95bFM to catch the end of what sounds like a documentary about The Clean, who are having a bit of a fresh revival after doing a quick tour of their native New Zealand. And rightly so. New material is a distinct possibility later in the year and that makes me pretty happy. David Kilgour mentioned that the proliferation of musicians being able to record themselves at home in high quality which is breeding more and more do it yourself music, which brings it all full-circle to the early days of Flying Nun Records, and numerous other independent artists and labels. What a wonderful selection of vox-pops and tracks to hear. Thanks, bFM. “To be able to just make music and play it live and not have to go and do a day job is a great privilege and I thank my lucky stars for it”. Too right, David. It sounds like it was an Inside Track doco, so hopefully it will be stuck online shortly like last week’s was, here.

Earlier in the evening, Biffy Clyro did a 90-minute show for BBC Radio 1 Scotland, standing in for Vic Galloway. They played tracks they love and just had a great time chatting away. Its lovely to hear them in conversation and high spirits. They spun some tracks by Malcolm Middleton, Fleetwood Mac and Aereogramme amongst others. You can hear their show for another 6 days online here.

Today I also managed to catch up on some TV shows I had taped (well, DVDd, but it doesn’t sound so good) recently. One was Channel 4’s excellent Time Team. Last year they visited Chesham Bois to do some work on the history of the manor house there. Because of the age they were talking about, the 16th century, they took a quick trip to Martyr’s Memorial in Amersham and spoke about it a little. I did the same at the end of my video walking around some of my favourite spots in town, which you can watch here. Its always intriguing to find out more about the history of your local area, and I’m a big fan of Time Team so it was nice to see.

Also on Sunday night, BBC Four had a night of programs about London Underground. A really neat Arena documentary about the tube from start to present, from the eyes of the staff and passengers formed the centre piece. There were also some fascinating archive documentaries about workers on the tube in the 50s, the history of the tube map, and a repeat airing of John Betjeman’s wonderful Metro-Land, which I’ve still not seen, but I recorded it and will finally see it soon. Metro-Land was a great film made in the 1970s about the area the tube extended out into, creating new jobs and new town developments. It talks about Amersham and various other areas nearby.

And, as I mentioned earlier, I stuck up the latest Biffy Board Radio podcast today. I’m really enjoying this project, and with the help of other boarders, it is coming along nicely. I have a few more episodes lined up so far, and a few ideas for the future. One of the best things is that I’m learning a lot about audio production and radio and I’m loving every minute of it.

Obviously the best thing about it – and the reason I started it – is the personal side of it. People introducing the music they love, perhaps explaining why they love it, what it means to them, or simply being passionate about it and wanting to play it to as many people as possible. Thats what it was all about and its great.

And thats what I love about TV and radio in some ways. The personal stories, and being able to actually hear or see a person explaining a love, or an interest, or whatever. Its such a simple, human thing, but it is so wonderful. The internet is wonderful, but it is all too easy to miss that human touch in simple text, so whenever I can hear or see somebody in person, I really enjoy it.

Next steps? Well, looking at how to make Biffy Board Radio even better and more well-produced, and also looking into community radio, and any way I can get more experience with audio equipment and the more technical side of it all, whilst immersing myself in the aspects of it I love. Oh and more dabbling into the world of video too. Its been a while, but I’m ready for some more after my early attempts at the end of last year, which gave me such a thirst for the medium.

Nothing much new to report, but episode six of Biffy Board Radio is online. You can download it here.

I’m sitting tight, waiting for things to happen now.

Having dinner with your family when you don’t see them very often is pretty ace. Its lovely having a young nephew (who turns 2 on Wednesday!) around to babble and play and throw tantrums and stuff. My gran is ill, but she is in good spirits, and seeing my brother-in-law’s parents was nice. There was gammon and chicken and all sorts of vegetables, and gorgeous cheese sauce. My brother-in-law is a great cook.

I’m home now watching the catch-up episode of Castaway. Had a nice few beers. I would rather like a cigarette.

It snowed tonight, but only for ten minutes. I think its raining now.

This has a very LiveJournal-esque feel to it, but I feel bad not making an entry, and never putting anything personal here.

Today I had an hour in the Study Centre and I was trying to look up something a borrower had asked about why a road in Chesham Bois has one spelling on the sign at one end, and a slightly different one at the other. Couldn’t find why, but did find that one was far more prevalent than the other in maps and publications through the ages.

I then got lost in old photographs and found it amusing that, whilst I am relatively good at researching and such, I still end up looking at photos of Chesham from the turn of the century, and wonder why the war memorial isn’t in any of the photos of the Broadway. Haha.

After that I looked up something I’d been looking into for ages, the source of the River Chess. After finishing work at 2pm, I set out to find the source. I found it in a lake that belongs to Chesham’s only remaining mansion, The Bury. It rises invisibly into the lake, and the lake flows out through a culvert into a meadow and then winds through the houses of the old town, and on into the countryside. I had a lovely afternoon exploring and enjoyed the familiar feeling of knowing vaguely where I was, but feeling utterly lost. I really am lucky to live somewhere so pretty, and so close to open country. I can walk for about 20 minutes and find myself surrounded by trees and fields and hear nothing but trees and I love it.

I even found the remains of a watermill which was demolished in the 1960s, but had stood in one form or another since the 10th century. I could look at it and picture the building on the lonely road into the market town, and could close my eyes and hear the water rushing over the weir combined with creaking wood and the horses tied up nearby ready to haul carts loaded with sacks of freshly-ground flour into town to sell.

I attempted to upload the photo set onto Flickr, but the program crashed mid-upload, losing the tags and annotations. Annoying, but whatever. I’ll upload them tomorrow.

Oh and is it Holloway or Hollow Way? Well it is far more often than not Holloway, and that is the name for many roads, and surnames too, so I can assume that Hollow Way is an error. But why was it printed on a road sign?

Well I rather enjoyed Castaway last night. There are some right characters, but then there would be. Jonathan looks set to annoy the shit out of everyone, but could redeem himself with his cooking skills and general zany nature. My mum was in stitches at his dry sense of humour, which is always nice.

Its on again on Sunday night, when they will have to elect someone they feel has done the least for the group, but they don’t know what will happen to that person.

Danny Wallace, as predicted, brings a lot of humour to the show with his silly little intros. I particularly enjoy the inclusion of words like ‘kia ora’ (though it did flash a message onscreen saying “Other drinks are available!” sadly) and ‘powhiri‘, and not without explanation either. On a 5-minute press-red show after the main one, we get Danny’s Diary, and last night’s featured footage of the castaways packing, which provided an amusing insight to their organisational skills and their priorities. It also showed the building of the settlement at Harataonga Bay, and the welcome performed by local Maori.

On a similar note, I enjoyed a brief mention of the series on NZ channel One’s ‘Close Up’ current affairs show, which talked about the impact of the production on Great Barrier Island, and gestured towards the fee which may have been paid to use the location. It also mentioned a lady who was not particularly happy about being told to stay away from one of the bays of the island she lives on for the duration of the series.

Clearly a bunch of kiwis turning up en mass with chilly bins full of Tui would ruin the remote castaway aspect of the show.

Anyway, I enjoyed day 1 and I look forward to it continuing. I just hope the manufactured aspects of it don’t turn it into too much of a Big-Brother-esque reality tv pile of dross.