AudioGO

When Red & Blue returned to the Afternoon Drama slot in August, I googled the series to find out more. I'd heard and loved the first episode of the first series via Play of the Week but I'd thought it was a one-off rather than the first of a series. I was determined to track down more information. What I found was much more than that, I found:

http://www.audiogo.com/uk/

 I've no idea how it took me so long to stumble upon a website dedicated to selling BBC dramas, comedies, audiobooks and just about every other variety of download that you can imagine. I'm surprised and a little ashamed of my own ignorance of such a fantastic site.

I quickly lost hours in searching for interesting dramas and comedies and working out exactly which episodes of McLevy and Pilgrim I'd missed. The range is fantastic and I can't imagine that any radio fan would be stuck for choice. Downloading is straight forward and it was easy to get copies onto both my laptop and PC. There's some sort of points system going on but it's not very well explained and that really is the most negative thing I can say about AudioGO.

In case you're interested, my purchases so far have been:

• Giles Wemmbley-Hogg Glastonbury Special
  Genius, can't think that I've ever heard it repeated on 4Extra
• Giles Wemmbley-Hogg Geht Zum Fussballweltmeisterschaft Weg!
  I'll confess to copying that title, as above
• Red & Blue Series 1
  Very good, though the first episode remains the best in my opinion
• Avoid London, Area Closed, Turn On Radio
  An Mike Walker Afternoon Drama set around the 7/7 bombings.
• Coalition
  Interesting premise of a politian under pressure of blackmail
• Brief Lives Series 3
  Very welcome background listening ahead of the recent series, if only they had some of the earlier series
• Pilgrim Series 2
  And suddenly series three made much more sense
• And miscellaneous McLevy
  Excellent, as always

That said, there are some disappointing gaps in the catalogue. I'd love to see more early series of some things (Party Series 1!) but it's hard to complain in the face of such a fantastic range. Do yourself a favour and take a look, there will be something there that you'd like to hear again or missed the first time round. 

Oh, and did I mention? It's all at affordable price. What's not to love!

Do You Know Who Wrote This?

Well, of course you do. I have an entire page explaining who I am.

Even if Do You Know Who Wrote This? hadn't been trailed in every spare minute of Radio 4's broadcasting last week, I think I'd have made an effort to catch it. The play looks at online identities and the anonymity that people hide behind when they use forums, chat sites and social networking. Ten years ago I think that would have been a fairly niche audience but the explosion of social networking in the last decade has brought to the fore a lot of issues that were previously the territory of small, cliquey groups of geeks. I mean, I've even heard the word "trolling" used on Today. Not used correctly but it's a start.

I know a little about this subject because, for several years, I worked as an online moderator for a reasonably large American company. I spent my evenings patrolling discussion forums in search of the sorts of comments that no one wants their children exposed to. I've seen my share of spam attacks, "inappropriate content", flame wars and trolling. More trolling than you could possibly imagine.

The number of people who used their real names on the forum was probably close to a dozen, out of many thousands. It just wasn't done. Not by the members and not by the moderators either. Even when I left I didn't reveal my real name, all the users ever knew about me was that I was female and European. Anonymity was an essential tool to how we worked and an essential component to the discussions that went on, not so much because people wanted to hide their personality but because those real life names had no relevance to the world we were in.

It may sound like a lot of people hiding behind aliases but it was anything but. When people post under a name that has no gender, age, race or nationality attached to it then the responses are based on the content of that post, not the preconceptions that might go along with that name.

Using an alias to shield bad behaviour is a short term thing. If you're in a true community, with active members and an expectation of reasonable discussion then the reputation of your username is as important as the reputation of your real name. Strong communities are self-policing because they have a social code that's equivalent to those we have in real life. If you flame others then people won't take you seriously. It's irrelevant whether that name can be connected back to a real identity because your online presence will be discredited among your peers.

We should aspire to communicate in communities where content is key. A person's opinions, self-expression and online behaviour is what matters. The actual identity of the person typing the keys should be the least relevant of all things. If what you're saying is worth saying then people will respect you for it, regardless of the name that you use.

The play did a good (and funny) job of exploring the reach of our online interactions and the chaos that absolute truth might bring about. But I think it's worth pointing out that, in a strong community with clearly defined ground rules, flaming and trolling isn't an inevitable consequence of anonymity.

Which brings me back to my original point: do you know who wrote this?

Yes, because I made a concerted decision to write this blog under my own name and not an alias. I believe that if I'm going to post my opinions about things, especially if those things are creative works by people who might not agree with my opinions, that I should do that under my own name. I realise it may sound hypocritical when I've just defended anonymity but, for as long as the patterns and programmes I post about have a real name behind them, I think they deserve a real name in return.

Sea Change (Or: You Learn Something New Every Day)

I spent six hours on the train today, plus an hour and a half in the car and half an hour walking. I had a two hour meeting. I can't wait to get to bed.

However, this did mean that I got a fair amount of knitting done and I listened to all of A Tale of Two Cities, as planned. Once that was finished, I turned to the Play of the Week podcast.

I love Play of the Week because you never know what you're going to hear.
I hate Play of the Week because you never know what you're going to hear.

It's a great way to discover new things but it's difficult to feel in the mood for something that could be in pretty much any genre. That sort of diversity is great in many ways but, when my brain is a bit full of work at the end of the day, there's a very good reason that I listen to comedies.

So when I finished A Tale of Two Cities while wandering the streets of Birmingham in search of sushi,  I looked at the latest PTW podcast on my ipod. Sea Change. Well that could be anything. Absolutely anything. Especially as it was from Radio 3 (which feels a bit like treason). But it was an hour and a half which is a very good length if you need something to occupy you between Birmingham New Street and Bristol Parkway.

Sea Change is a drama set in the years before the second world war. It focuses on several key figures in and around government and their fight against appeasement.
My first thought was: This could be interesting.
Second: This could be interesting and Carl Prekopp.
Third: Is it appropriate to be listening to steamy almost-sex scenes on the train?
Fourth: Bridgwater?!

Although the play starts and ends in London, a large section of the central part of the drama takes place in the Westcountry. Burnham gets a mention, as does Higbridge (I'll brush over the fact that this is in connection with typhoid). A key political speech take place in Athelney. Why? Because the key turning point of the story centres on the Bridgwater by-election of 1938.

As far as I knew, Bridgwater's significance to history ended with the Battle of Sedgemoor in 1685. Idiot.

Thanks to Radio 3 and their interesting, absorbing and surprising drama, I now know that the people of Bridgwater took a stand against appeasement. They elected a sort of coalition candidate, supported by all the major parties, on an anti-appeasement platform. He held his seat for 12 years.

I'm stunned. Partly because, well, it's Bridgwater! And also because it's rather sad that I didn't know this. I'm not particularly stupid, I have a fair-to-middling interest in both politics and my local area. I shouldn't have needed to learn this from a random podcast. I feel like the people of Bridgwater should be reminded of the important part that their town has played. A by-election in a piddling little Somerset town was fought on a national issue. Just about the most important national issue imaginable. 

So thank you, Radio 3, for the much-needed lesson in how local history played a part on the national stage. And for teaching me that stations don't need a 4 in their name to have good drama.