hello! i am not exactly sure what to write about today, even though i have written blog entries before, but i wanted to make at least one post, as i made my account today so, i guess, i will talk a bit about what i did today and ramble on about my interests!
i am currently listening to the radio, as i mostly always am: there is nothing particularly interesting on, but i decided to listen to france bleu today! i am very interested in the public radio and television broadcasters of different countries the french public broadcaster is, in general, quite perculiar to me, as i adore listening to shortwave radio (i have, so far, listened to fm, am, shortwave and internet radio! there are still some formats i have not explored, such as dab, but that is mainly because i have never visited places where they are used, as i do not like travelling). i have received their radio france internationale station on at least ten different frequencies and am generally quite annoyed by it, but i enjoy some of their other stations, though some of the programming is very much something: some of the most specific facts i have learnt about different songs comes from the hosts there (them, therefore, being the only reason i know that the song “lemon tree” by fool’s garden and “nougayork” by claude nougaro were written in ten and twenty minutes respectively (both of those songs are also great!)), there is some very strange programming (i once listened to a program about beach football and an interview with a man who makes a living by dressing as a troubadour and singing songs in old french) and i quite love all that. they are definitely among the more interesting public broadcasters i have listened to: i have quite a few stories about what i have heard on the irish public broadcaster too!
when i did my homework this morning, i also listened to the second radio station of the cypriot broadcasting corporation, which broadcasts programmes in minority languages: they mainly play turkish music, though there is also a news programme in armenian, some occasional music in english, some music in hebrew and i also once heard them play an entire hour of portuguese fado music (one of the songs they played was the first song that was performed during the introduction to the grand final of the eurovision 2018, which i have watched about ten times in my entire life, so i was quite unsurprised that i could recognise it 🥲) and one song in japanese. today, an entire hour of baris manço’s music was played along with facts about baris manço in turkish. after having listened to it, i cannot say i like his music, though there is some other turkish music i like that has played on the same station (i particularly like sertab erener (who also won eurovision 2003 with a really good song called “every way that i can”), zerrin özer and mfö (who actually participated in eurovision 1988, which i never knew!)
also, today, my family had guests and i found the fact that they decided to have guests today really confusing as these guests were a co-worker my mum has not seen in eight years, who recently moved to the town where i live and her husband. i did not talk to either of them because my stepfather was talking to them and i have been called an “embarrassment to the entire family” by him multiple times and what they were talking about was mainly business and real estate, in which i am not interested at all.
also, yesterday, i re-watched the grand final of eurovision 2018 with my grandma. her favourite was the austrian entry, which i found really unusual as i never remembered her liking that entry. my favourite song from that contest, italy, was her fifth and that was really pleasing to me! we got into a bit of an argument about the danish entry: i do not like that entry at all due to the way it presents pacifism: it is very clearly a “let us drop all of our weapons and we will have peace” song, the message of it is plainly impractical and harmful as, when fighting against any oppression, one should never surrender (and one can fight back non-violently too!) and the massive white flag being waved in the background of the performance just amplifies that! my grandma disagreed with me, saying that, if everyone was to drop their weapons and surrender, there would be no oppressors and no victims and war would end and that that is a fundamentally good idea and i disagree with that as not many people would voluntarily surrender and doing that, in many cases, just allows for oppression and more violence to happen in most cases. we eventually came to an agreement and i am glad we did, as i hate arguing with family members.
this was most definitely a lot and i do not expect anyone to read all this. to end, as i was listening to the radio, here are some songs i heard on france bleu while writing this that i really liked:
“la robe et l’échelle” by francis cabrel
“retiens les rêves” by grand corps malade
“vip” by françoise hardy
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june
This is really fascinating to me. I understand the radio as a dead form of communication/entertainment that has largely been overshadowed by tvs and the internet. Not sure if it’s because I’m American (the way you make it sound, Europe has more radio activity) or maybe I’m not looking into it. The only thing I can liken it to is college radio stations, which I have heard can get pretty weird.
this is also really interesting! i would definitely say it is more widespread here than in the us, but i would still not say it is popular: i listen to the radio a lot because radio broadcasting has been a near-lifelong interest for me, i am easily overwhelmed by looking for new music and it is easier for me to digest it through radio programmes (the same goes, occasionally, for other information, even though i mainly prefer consuming that through reading: i really enjoy rté radio 1’s history show sometimes, even though some of the topics they discuss (like, a few months ago, i remember there being an episode about irish foreign policy in the 1960s, which i found really mundane) not very interesting!), i like a lot of the music i like plays on the radio and there is quite a variety of radio stations in my area (expect for on the am band, which is not really widely used here. there is only bbc world service and a random reading of the quran!) and i can explore a wider variety of different stations online if i want to, like i spoke of doing here! this is most definitely not the case for everybody and definitely not for a lot of younger people (i know that the bbc’s local radio stations, on which most other public broadcasters’ local services are based on since most take the structure of the bbc, have a clear target audience of people between the ages of thirty and fifty who are interested in music and sport. even though i am interested in music and like the older music the bbc expects these people to listen to, i do not exactly fall into that demographic and a considerable fraction of most people definitely does not! plus, shortwave radio definitely does not have much of an audience outside of amateur radio enthusiasts, boy and girl scouts who were taught about it and people curious about what there is on the shortwave band).
i am surprised television is considered more popular than radio, as radio seems like the more accessible means of entertainment, at least for me, as it does not involve continuously paying for a subscription.
i used to listen to college radio a lot, though i do not do that much right now. i have heard some lovely things on there: i found the song “violet” by the band hole, which i still quite like, on wzbt, gettysburg university’s radio station, and cam fm, cambridge university’s radio station, did a really interesting show on queer music scenes for pride month last year! though, it most definitely is most widespread in the us: outside of the us, even though i think the university of nicosia here has a radio station, though i do not find it particularly interesting, i have only heard of college radio stations in england and canada!
by allt; ; Report
That’s actually a really cool point about the radio being accessible. I guess people just prefer to look at a shit ton of ads rather than listen to them.
by june; ; Report