For many months this year I’ve been podcasting.
You know that of course because you are an avid listener aren't you? Do you know I have subscribers in the States, Australia, UK and the Ukraine. Admittedly just the one subscriber in the Ukraine and that might just be a mistake. Or are the Russkies interested in me?
GCHQ if you are reading this I am a loyal British subject and voted Remain.
My equipment comprises one decent microphone, my Mac + Garageband for recording and editing. BBC it ain’t. I have to re-record every time an emergency vehicle shoots past. Or there’s a knock at the door, or my phone rings, or an email arrives etc etc. Bloody noisy places houses even when you are the only person at home.
I don’t get any feedback from my podcasts but then I'm not doing it for applause, acclamation, compliments from peer groups, gasps of admiration, pats on the back or a stunning income (which is just as well otherwise I'd have failed in my mission on all accounts). I'm doing it because I want to and I'm trying to share the challenges of finding a job when you are older. Actually I have had some feed back. I'm not being entirely truthful as there have been a number of likes (huzzah). Other than that I am broadcasting into the ether like one of those apocalyptic type movies where the protagonist broadcasts on a shortwave radio to a devastated world and hears only static in reply.
However I have had hundreds of listens around the world so that's good enough for me - unless someone wants to pay me and then that would make my day. Now I want thousands of listens and an income would still be very welcome. Very.
When I was in Uni, so many many years ago now, I’d decided I’d like to be on radio, a Welsh Noel Edmunds, look you. So I volunteered to work on Bronglais Hospital radio in Aberystwyth. This involved asking the sick and poorly, wholly uninterested patients what music they’d like to listen to on the hospital radio (a concept usually a complete surprise to them ’There is one?’ and 'How do I listen to it anyway?') making a note of who they wanted it dedicated to, the ward and carefully writing down their name, Sioned Powysland Caersws from Llangatwg Feibion Afel or anglicised to Llangattock Vibon Avel Crucorny. And they were, to a patient, highly suspicious of a non Welsh speaking Welsh person (that’s me) with quite long hair prowling the wards (still me) asking questions about something they'd never heard of. I'd stand intimidatingly near to their drip, suggesting with my body language that an entirely accidental fall as I walked away from their bedside would result in the catheter being yanked out. No I didn't, I just looked pathetic and used puppy eyes.
Naturally the hospital record collection contained 95% Welsh folk material on shellac, 4% pop records at least 10 years out of date and three recent pop releases on 45s scratched and sorely misused and donated by the local record shop. So nobody ever got what they wanted. Which I believe was a song by the Rolling Stones. So I’d sit there in the ’studio’ with my list trying to read out the names of the patients, the name of the village (Llanfihangel-yng-ngwynfa was always good for a laugh) and coming up with less than plausible reasons why I couldn’t play the tune they wanted but would play 'Combine Harvester’ by the Wurzels instead. That disc mysteriously broke soon afterwards when it even more mysteriously fell under the castors of my chair. The point of this is that I would be in the studio alone and would be playing the music for several hours and not have a clue whether anyone listened. I think I knew the answer.
Anyway what my listeners make of my podcasts I dunno. They may use them to help them sleep, have a laugh or can’t find a way to turn them off.
But keep listening anyway - and if you like them then a postcard would be splendid.
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