Things I Have Learned II

Things I've learned today:
1) if you want to go to a radio recording, go early
2) the radio theater is really quite big
3) John Finnemore has shoes that make his feet look long. Or long feet. Not sure which.
4) the Jubilee Line has travelators!
5) even in the age of ipads, radio scripts are still paper
6) when I tipsily said back in April that you should listen to John Finnemore's Souvenir Programme because it'd be funny, I was right. You should and it is.

Punctuality

As I type this on my irritatingly small phone keyboard, I'm looking out over a massive pit of BBC workstations at Broadcasting House. The canteen area in which audiences wait before radio recordings has a wall with glass windows and, no matter how often I've seen this sort of thing on TV, it's still weird to see it in real life. It's like the secret lair of a bond villain, complete with odd tracks just outside the window for equipment to go back and forth.

Why am I here? Because I was lucky enough to get tickets for the recording of John Finnemore's Souvenir Programme. Happy as I was to get that confirmation e-mail, it's got nothing on the relief I felt when I got a little sticker on my e-ticket 20 minutes ago.

The advice that the ticket unit gives you is: "admission on site 6.15, studio doors open from 7:15". What they don't tell you is that, of you turn up at 6.20, the queue will already be right the way round the corner of the building and the people all around you will already be joking about getting turned away in an "I'm not going to admit just how bothered I'll be if I'm turned away" sort of tone.

Fifteen nerve-racking minutes later and I was in.

I'm now in a very informal queue that seems to have formed just because a couple of people went to stand by the doors. I'm not sure that we even know that they're the right doors but no one is going to miss out on a good seat for the sake of a little extra queueing.

I don't know if things have just changed a lot since the last time I went to a recording or if this is the John Finnemore effect. I've seen one girl in a pilots jacket so I suspect the latter.

Soapbox

In January, many popular areas of the internet took part in a blackout to protest against internet-related bills. Yes, these were American bills but this is the internet, there's not really any such thing as 'American' here. 

Broadly speaking, anyone who understood the internet was against these measures. With an extremely loud voice, the internet stood up and said "Um, actually... no" and the bills were shelved.

As in normal life, the internet has a very large silent majority and an activist core. The January blackouts raised awareness far beyond that core, reaching out to a lot of people who'd never really thought about what the internet meant to them.

A little like the Occupy protests, the blackout consisted of a lot of people saying, "No, that's not what we want for the world." The obvious next question is: "Well, what do you want?"

Far less like Occupy, the internet has an answer. Okay, so it has a few million answers. That's what freedom of expression gives you. But it has a rallying call:

 Please sign the Declaration of Internet Freedom

We stand for a free and open Internet.
We support transparent and participatory processes for making Internet policy and the establishment of five basic principles:
Expression: Don't censor the Internet.
Access: Promote universal access to fast and affordable networks.
Openness: Keep the Internet an open network where everyone is free to connect, communicate, write, read, watch, speak, listen, learn, create and innovate.
Innovation: Protect the freedom to innovate and create without permission. Don't block new technologies, and don't punish innovators for their users’ actions.
Privacy: Protect privacy and defend everyone's ability to control how their data and devices are used.

The internet isn't the newspaper of our generation. It's not the radio station or the town hall. It's the soap box and the park bench and the kitchen table of our generation. It's where we speak our minds, meet our friends and share our creativity. 

Oh, and if I've not swayed you with my argument, try this one from a fellow signatory

Patrick from Webster, TX
Our collective creative expression and potential for innovation has never been more transparent. The idea of actively cutting ourselves off from this pool of wealth and knowledge is beyond ridiculous. The Internet is not something you can control, only maintain. To attempt control would be to invite chaos. Please don't take away my porn.

The internet: Land of eloquence, creativity and pornography. Keep it free.

I Get It

Dear Messers Powell (GCSE English teacher) and Shakespeare (deceased),

I would like to publicly apologise for my 16 year old self and her inability to enjoy Henry V. I revoke any negative comments I may have made, specifically any statement that suggested that the play was "boring", "rubbish" or "not as fun as physics".

I realise that Henry V was rather wasted on Teenage Rebecca as, to a large extent, was the whole experience of going to the theatre.

Even in recent years I thought I got it, I really did. I've spent the last couple of months listening to Vivat Rex and I enjoyed the epic scope of it all and the intricate inter-weaving of agendas. I like going to the theatre and I like seeing or hearing Shakespeare plays.

But last night I saw Henry V at the Globe and I really do get it now: it's not about understanding the play, you're actually allowed to enjoy it. And, once you really enjoy it, you can get completely lost in it.

I realise this is something I probably should have understood by now but this is the first time I've come out of a Shakespeare play feeling, not only entertained, but moved, involved, caught up and transported.

I have never described a play as awesome before but that's about the only word I can think to use at this point. Even Teenage Rebecca might be able to relate to that.

Yours sincerely,

Rebecca (ex narrow-minded teenager)

+1 Fanbase

Like all people who are a little too interested in something, I have an irresistable urge to try to convert others.

This applies equally to knitting and to radio. I can't count the number of conversations I've had on the bus or in the office that include: "Have you been on Ravelry? Oh you must! It's like Facebook but for knitting." And, regardless of whether they're looking intregued or bewildered, I generally go on at length about how inspiring it it and how wonderful the free patterns are.

I'm taking an evening class at the moment and a few weeks ago the conversation turned to radio drama. I'm not sure why I felt personally offended when someone described it as "very much aimed at its audience", especially as that's a particularly irrational critisism, but I felt the need to passionately defend radio drama. And comedy. And radio in general. Until people started giving me the "Okay, shut up now," look that I'm quite familiar with.

Over the last few months I've been trying to convert a couple of people at work to the joys of radio listening. Oh, they already listen to Radio 4, but in the sort of hap-hazard way that I feel can only the result of insufficient dedication rather than a very sensible choice to just do more interesting things with their time. 

Also, as I mentioned some time ago, my brother-in-law told me that he'd quite like to listen to more radio comedy. Although I've had mixed success with my colleagues (leading to some random conversations on the subject of Yes Minister), I was thrilled when one of the first things my brother-in-law said to me this week was "I've been listening to Cabin Pressure". We then did a bit too much quoting and laughing about lemons and Birling Day. 

It turns out that the only thing better than enjoying a programme is talking to someone else who also enjoys it. Especially when that person can do a rather good impression of Douglas's tone of voice when delivering put-downs.

So that's +1 to the "Radio Appreciators" list. Okay, it took a couple of months and I'm still working on my colleagues but, eventually, a time may come when everyone I know has been converted to a radio listener. Or to knitting. I'm not bothered which.

Highlights

Possibly my new favourite station announcement (because we've all got one, right): "the train now arriving into the very centre of platform nine is the..."

Now, tell me I'm not the only one picturing trains with vertical take-off.

At lunch time today, two people asked me for directions. Not only was one of them not even foreign but I actually knew how to direct them! Somehow my new hair seems to have disguised me as a Londoner.

Improvisation

It's been a while since I tried to work out something completely new in my knitting. Oh, there have been scarves, but I know a lot of different techniques for scarves and its fairly hard to go too far wrong. Hard, but yet somehow I manage it.

Since I finished the latest Twirly Skirt, I've been at a bit of a loss for bus projects. My criteria for bus projects is: short/circular needles; yarn in balls; and rows I can stop at any point. Generally, I've also looked for simple things, either stuff I've made before or basic patterns. For some reason, it had never occurred to me to use bus time for the sort of knitting experimentation that I never seem to get round to at home.

Months ago, I bought several balls of 4 ply with crazy, ambitious but vague plans of working out how to knit a person. It's something I've had in mind for a while but never quite started. Yes, I know there are countless doll/amiguri/person patterns out there but I want one that's mine. Something that's flexible enough to use for any number of different things.

Not a headless zombie. Really.

Turns out, feet are hard. Really hard. It took me three days of bus journeys to be happy with what I had for the feet but, since then, it's gone rather well. The hands have come out a lot better than I'd expected, thanks to my car share partner who suggested mitten hands. They look rubbish in the picture but will be better when finished off. And even better when I make a second copy of this thing and actually get them to the same size!

I'm trying to minimise the sewing up (the worst part of making toys) and it's been worked in one piece so far. I'm particularly happy with the joins on the ankles and wrists because, not only does it remove the need for sewing up, but it also looks like cuffs. I have used a seam up the backs of the legs and undersides of arms but that may change in draft two.

On Sunday I started on the head and I think that's going to take even more attempts than the feet. What shape are heads, anyway? But the fact that it's come this far in a couple of weeks is really reassuring. It's even got pipe cleaners in it so the figure can be posed a bit and the soles of the feet are felt rather than knitted so there's a chance it might be able to stand - something else I'd really hoped to work out.

I guess the true reason why I'm making this pattern up, rather than using an existing one, is simple: Where else am I going to find something that is customisable; 4 ply; small; one-piece; poseable; and has a chance of standing up?

Me? Demanding? Never.