The Times, quite modestly I thought, last week only made mention of their new digital-only radio station in the regular radio preview slot. I don't know if it was heralded elsewhere in a place where I wouldn't have seen it but I consider myself lucky to have found out and only wonder why they didn't make more effort to make sure I knew.
It seems fine, pitched halfway between the better bits of R4 and R5, which means the current affairs chat without the do-gooding, middle-class self-improving agenda of R4 that gets us nowhere and the football on R5 which is designed to last forever and doesn't intend to get anywhere. It does have Michael Portillo on it. I haven't heard Giles Coren yet. Ben McIntyre is good.
There are times when none of Rs 3, 4, 5, 4Extra or World Service are are providing quite the aural background that is acceptable to try to drift off to or is interesting enough to stay awake for.
I can't imagine why The Times thought they needed to do that, or why there isn't a phone-in about the crossword.
I wish I could have a radio station, not just a website. You simply wouldn't know whether to expect an hour of Northern Soul, a poetry reading, a Bach cantata, somebody talking about Mott the Hoople or Pliny the Elder, the moons of Jupiter or tomorrow's horse racing. As it is, this is all we have. But, when all else fails, it looks like Times Radio might help. I don't suspect it of being any more sinister than The Times itself.
David Green
- David Green (Books) is the imprint under which I published booklets of my own poems. The original allocation of ISBN numbers is used up now, though. The 'Collected Poems' are now available as a pdf. The website is now what it has become, often more about music than books and not so often about poems. It will be about whatever suggests itself.
