More than twenty years ago, I wrote a short piece in which I described being hunched among shimmerings. Looking back, it occurs to me that I didn’t really know what I was talking about. I was just blathering. I often blathered in those days, both vocally and when doing my scribblings. I think I was simply unclear about what I wanted to say. Much has changed, for now I have a clear, eagle-eyed vision, and am somewhat better able to communicate it. Oh, I still fall prey to blather, more often than I ought to, but I have learned to nip it, if not in the bud, then before too many tendrils have swarmed across the sun-dappled pathway that leads to truth and beauty and insight. You see, there really is a bright magnificent upland upon which we can prance, if we can but reach it. I know that now.
The Bike Show: Looking back at Le Tour 2008
Looking back at this year’s Tour De France, with Guy Andrews, editor of Rouleur magazine and author and broadcaster Graeme Fife. As well as discussing the racing, we go into what it means for a small towns when it plays host to a stage of Le Tour de France. You can listen to an hour-long Tour De France themed edition of Ruby’s Chicky Boil Ups on Radio Nowhere, featuring Jack Thurston and a pile of cycling tunes over here.
Play on links below. Other file formats (Ogg Vorbis etc) over here.
Wavelength 2005 October 10th – Perpetual Motion Machine
Alan Bridges (alias Hugh de la Cruz) attempts to describe his perpetual motion machine. Hugh is an inventor of unfinished projects including a motorcycle that doesn’t fall over and a trousercoat illustrated in “What did you eat today? Number One; Hugh de la Cruz†16mm film by William English and Sandra Cross.
Hooting Yard : Peanuts And Hazelnuts
One has only to consider the records broken by Bobnit Tivol to recognise him for the superb sprinter he was. Leafing through old athletics almanacks, his name appears again and again and again, invariably in capital letters, annotated by one, two, or even three stars, at the top of every list. They say he had to rent a warehouse to store all his cups and shields and trophies. To think that he had won all the major Tyrolean sprinting events before he was twenty years old is to gasp in wonder.
The Bike Show: Sublime Nights: Dunwich Dynamo 16 and S24O with Grant Peterson
This year’s Dunwich Dynamo was perfect: a dry, moonlit night, a tail wind and a hot sunny morning on the beach. Around 500 people enjoyed the sixteenth edition of the classic British night ride that covers some 120 miles (190 kilometres) through north east London, Essex and Suffolk. But you don’t have to wait until the next Dunwich Dynamo on 4 July 2009 for a sublime overnight bicycle experience, as Grant Peterson of Rivendell Bicycle Works explains.
Play on links below. Other file formats (e.g. Ogg Vorbis) here. Some photos from the DD 16 are on the flickr.
21 July 2008: Sublime overnights: Dunwich Dynamo 16 and S24O with Grant Peterson [ 0:01 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | DownloadMarvin Suicide : 157 – The Adventures Of Cameron And The 5 Mega Pixies
Panel Borders: The art of Tom Humberstone
Panel Borders: The art of Tom Humberstone
Originally broadcast 17/06/08 as part of Strip! on Resonance 104.4 FM
Alex Fitch talks to Tom Humberstone about the various illustrated endeavours he’s been involved with such as comics which range from Art school scum to Everything you never wanted to know about Crohn’s disease and the Eagle award winning How to date a girl in ten days. Tom also runs a pen club in South East London which allows amateurs and professionals to meet in a friendly pub and draw together and most recently he illustrated the blog / sold out graphic novella My Fellow Americans about the democratic nomination process earlier this year.
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Panel Borders: Best Crime Comics
Panel Borders: Best Crime Comics
Originally broadcast 17/06/08 as part of Strip! on Resonance 104.4 FM
Alex Fitch talks to comics historian and critic Paul Gravett about the new book he’s edited and collated, The Mammoth book of best Crime Comics. Alex and Paul talk about the crime genre in sequential art from the 1930s to the modern day, about Paul’s choices for inclusion in the book and the relationship between crime on film and in graphic novels.
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Reality Check: Terrance Dicks’ 40 years of Doctor Who part 2
Reality Check: Terrance Dicks’ 40 years of Doctor Who part 2
The second half of a two part ‘feature length’ podcast in which former Doctor Who producer and script editor Terrance Dicks talks about his career in conversation with Tim Phipps (Strange Horizons) at a meeting of The British Science Fiction Association. The podcast picks up with Tim and Terrance talking about the latter’s Doctor Who books in the 1990s and includes questions asked by Paul Cornell, Graham Sleight and Alex Fitch.
Edited by Alex Fitch.
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Hooting Yard : Danny Blanchfowler, A Life In Football – Part Two
Part Two of a reading from Danny Blanchfowler, A Life In Football – a pamphlet (out of print) published in 1991 by the Malice Aforethought Press.