Radio Last year, in 2012, as though you need a reminder, The Guardian's Martin Wainwright wrote a piece decrying Radio 4's commitment to listeners outside London and especially in the North. In the comments I noted (and reposted on this blog) that one of the reasons I listen to Radio 4 is because it has nothing to do with where I live, for the escapism and wistful reminder that there is a life elsewhere. That's something which has become increasingly important this year with everything which has been going on, especially as I said back then, the atmospheric pause at the end of PM (usually with Eddie Mair) just before the bongs of Big Ben heralding the Six O'Clock News. Listen closely enough, pay attention, and you can hear the noise of the traffic in Parliament Square. For me, there are few things as transportative and suffused with memories, especially of a happy time spent there a couple of years ago with a good friend eating lunch. At the time of originally posting I remember receiving a sarcastic comment on Twitter suggesting that if that really was the case, that I should just move there which I ignored because I was being nice and loyal but which I should have answered by noting that I would love to move there if I could afford to and if I knew that the job was secure and satisfying. But in the meantime, there's nothing wrong, I think, in trying to imagine what that impossible existence would be like, even though I know the version I watch unfolding online on blogs and in Twitter streams is idealised and not real either. That there's nothing wrong in aspiring to have that impossible existence myself. Maybe next year.
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