Rereading my previous two posts I feel as if I have been a little unfair to NHK Radio Japan’s new show, “Friends Around The World”. In my attempt to pay tribute to its immediate predecessor “World Interactive” and its host Sumi Zushi, I think I have not given the new show a fair review. So this post is an attempt to right that inadvertent mistake.

“Friends Around The World” is a weekly twenty minute program in English from NHK Radio Japan available any time via its main website and also live once a week around the world on shortwave radio. It’s also heard live Sunday afternoons within Japan on their domestic NHK 2 radio network station, presumably to help Japanese listeners learn English. The show’s mandate would appear to be to showcase aspects of contemporary Japanese life to its international audience in a friendly, informal manner and also to allow that audience to ask questions, give comments and generally help direct the content of the show whenever appropriate.

The show was scheduled to begin at the start of April 2011 as a replacement for “World Interactive” with Sumi Zushi. Changing shows and changing hosts are always tricky matters. Radio listeners get very attached to their hosts in a way I don’t believe TV viewers feel about TV hosts. It is part of the “magic” of radio. Radio is a much more intimate medium – it literally happens inside your head – and because spoken word radio actually requires your attention listeners tend to feel much more actively engaged.

“Friends Around The World” couldn’t've had a rockier start. The devastating tsunami and ongoing nuclear crisis in Japan beginning mid-March ended “World Interactive” prematurely. Programming on NHK Radio Japan went to all-news for a few weeks as Japan attempted to come to grips with its national tragedy and to share its news with the rest of the world. When NHK Radio Japan finally did feel it would be reasonable to resume regular programming (a daily mix of ten minutes news followed by a twenty minute feature) “Friends” had the twin dilemma of replacing a popular show as well as dealing with the disaster within the new show’s informal listener-driven format.

After a slightly shaky start The Audio Addict believes the show has settled down and is now an enjoyable weekly audio snapshot of life in Japan. The show has two co-hosts: Japanese writer-actor-director Kay Fujimoto (the previous host of “World Interactive” before Sumi Zushi took it over in 2008) and an American journalist Mick Corliss, who is also a writer and performer living in Japan. Kay Fujimoto was born in Japan but spent some time at school in the USA and so speaks “American” sounding English. Mick Corliss was born and raised in the USA but has spent a great deal of his life in Japan where he now has his immediate family. Kay and Mick have a very good rapport together although there is very occasionally a minor awkward moment when you sense they are still working out their on air relationship. Presumably they work from a script outline and ad lib whenever they feel comfortable. It gives the show a very upbeat, freewheeling, informal feeling. And they still manage to pack a lot of content in the short time available.

Choosing a Western co-host must have been a controversial move. Clearly NHK management wanted to try something new. The advantage of one host is the illusion of intimacy with the listener. The host is talking to you. With two hosts, they are talking to each other and you are only sharing that conversation, like you would at a friendly lunch or party. The success of a co-hosting team is their ability to “work off” each other and create a positive vibe for the show. Introducing a Western co-host could not have been an easy decision. It would be so easy to back-fire. I can imagine some listeners thinking “Who is this Yank and why does he claim to speak for the Japanese”? First good step – rehiring the delightful Kay Fujimoto. Her previous success and popularity as a WI host make her feel like a beloved friend returning home. Mick, on the other hand, is like a new friend and so listeners are still getting to know him. However, his wide knowledge of things Japanese as well as his humour and willingness to occasionally be teased by Kay make him a good team member. My only advice to him is to be extremely careful not to over-power Kay because of his greater fluency with the language.

The show has slowly moved away from talking entirely about the tsunami aftermath. It is now introducing various topics about life in Japan aside from the disaster. This is a good thing for keeping the listeners’ attention. Still, the tragedy is never far from the surface. Of course they must continuously reference it when appropriate. It is a matter of fine-tuning the balance. Aside from reading and responding to listeners’ letters and music requests, the show has also begun a new feature. Kay and Mick have had a number of phone interviews with international listeners who have had some unusual contact with Japan. The most recent interview was with a London UK police constable who did a Buddhist pilgrim’s walking tour of temples in Japan. It was very illuminating. And Kay and Mick are constantly improving their phone interviewing skills as the weeks go by.

The other recurring “players” on the show are the listeners themselves. Of course, there are always new listeners from exotic far away lands with questions and comments via e mail. But it is the recurring subset of “regular” listeners who write in week after week with new and interesting observations that help give the show a sense of familiarity and continuity. I’d liken these regular listeners to the cast of characters down at your favourite pub or cafe. Kay and Mick are the hosts but it’s also fun sometimes to hear what the “regulars” are thinking this week. It helps give the show its special interactive flavour.

The major criticism that a show like this can get is that it is generic “fluff”. My immediate response? Lighten up! If you want more serious, in-depth reporting on the Japanese situation check out their “Focus” feature any other day of the week following the NHK Radio Japan news. The pleasure of “Friends” or WI before it is their attempt to humanize or “let their hair down” and relax a bit with their worldwide audience. It is so nice to hear a more human side of NHK personalities on the show. Mick, for example, has another life at NHK Radio Japan as an English language news-reader as did Sumi Zushi in her earlier career at NHK. Kay – although not a NHK “personality” on any other show – comes across as a caring, very genuine person of depth who is also great fun to be around. “Friends” (and WI before it) does more for fostering international relations between Japan and the rest of the world than all the NHK newscasts put together. Yes, the news tells us intellectually what is happening over there but “Friends” puts us right there emotionally with people we would seemingly like to spend time with and get to know better.

So the energy is considerably different on the new show. Not better – and certainly not worse – just different than on WI. I think it is still finding its way. The new hosts are still learning to relax and react with each other. Editorially the show is striving for a balance between disaster aftermath news and broader non-disaster related topics. Favourite Japanese films, for example, was an excellent recent ongoing topic that could easily be revisited again in the future. The integration of interviews with foreigners who have visited Japan and can offer a personal perspective of their experience is also helping to carve out an intriguing new identity for the show.

The Audio Addict will continue to listen to and enjoy the new “Friends Around The World” with Kay Fujimoto and Mick Corliss. If you have any interest in life in Japan today, I think you will enjoy it too.

Check it out here…

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/english/radio/program/index.html

You will also find radio shows about learning to speak Japanese, their daily “Focus” documentaries, shows on Japanese cooking, features on life in Japan as well as the NHK Radio Japan news available in both print and in audio formats.

Your comments as always welcome to theaudioaddict (at) hotmail (dot) com

……………………………………………………………

Hi

UK

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The Audio Addict replies…. Thanks Mark! Great to hear from you. Your comments are very much appreciated. The new show “Friends Around The World” started amidst the tragedy of the tsunami aftermath and so is doing pretty well IMHO under very trying circumstances. Kay is thoroughly delightful, agreed. But I started listening to WI around the time that Sumi Zushi took over in 2008 and so will always fondly associate it with her. I suspect she usually read from a script she’d written and so might have sounded a bit more reserved than Kay and Mick’s seeming ad libs (although I’m sure they work from some form of a script too.) I think whenever she interacted with live guests Sumi sounded a lot more informal and less “BBC”. Whatever – to my jaded North American ears her voice was always warm and friendly and classy. Sumi remains one of my all time favourites of the English-speaking announce staff on NHK Radio Japan. Thanks again for your comments and very kind words, Mark. Nice to know that somebody is actually out there. And re Kay’s blog… it’s also nice to know that there’s someone worse than me at updating!

Yes, The Audio Addict is still alive and well. It’s just that it takes something really special to motivate me to post these days… I’m sure you understand.

One of my favourite contemporary on line radio shows from far away, NHK Radio Japan’s “World Interactive”, came to a premature end in early March 2011 due to the tragic aftermath following the March 11th earthquake and tsunami disasters in Japan.

Our hopes, best wishes and prayers go to the people of Japan during this dark corner of their modern history. I am sure that they will eventually fully recover and will have learned many invaluable lessons from this nightmare that will benefit the rest of the world too.

About a decade ago English language programming on NHK Radio Japan ran for an hour every day on live shortwave radio and presumably on their website on demand as well. Several years ago that output was reduced to a daily half hour. Proof that Japan is a strong and resilient nation is their return to regular programming during these trying times.

Check out…

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/english/radio/program/index.html

Perhaps as a result of its national crisis and the worldwide response I hope that NHK will now more fully appreciate the value of its foreign language programming on Radio Japan and consider returning to its daily hour long output in English.

“World Interactive”, a weekly show based on listeners’ questions and feedback, was due to come to the end of its run by April and be replaced by a new show with new hosts, “Friends Around the World”. That series is now finally on the air and thriving.

Unfortunately, as I said, the last WI shows were never heard in full and so listeners were deprived of the final few weeks of this fun and lively series. Without a doubt, the key to its success for as long as I’ve been listening was its host, Sumiko Zushi. Sumi (as she is more informally known) possesses a dry wit and keen intelligence as well as an incredibly warm British-style accent and an engaging personality. She presented the weekly must-hear Japanese audio postcard for three years from 2008 to 2011. Sumi still works for NHK (Japan’s national public broadcaster) as a TV weather host. By all reports she does it extremely well although IMHO it would seem to be rather under-utilizing her proven talents as a broadcaster.

Sumi Zushi frequently provided fascinating and thought-provoking personalized glimpses into the arts and culture as well as everyday life of Japanese society. Many listeners will recall Sumi expertly guiding us through her selection of architectural wonders in Japan or painting vivid, precise word pictures of various unusual aspects of its colourful history, customs and traditions. A marvellous recurring segment featured haiku. I don’t suppose my first (and only) haiku is any good but, nevertheless, I humbly dedicate it to Sumi and her regular guests (as well as her anonymous producers) with sincere thanks for all the listening enjoyment they provided…

Sumi-san’s smile
on the radio no more -
One less rainbow.

The Audio Addict wishes Sumi Zushi the very best on all her future endeavours and hopes that she will return again one day to NHK Radio Japan.

The world will be listening.

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UPDATE re my previous post, THE DEATH OF BBC RADIO ON DIAL UP?… reader Fessenden reports that “the BBC never bothered to respond to quite a number of disappointed dial up listeners who posted on the only BBC blog that gave them a voice. In fact the BBC has actually killed that blog as well. The old threads are still on line but it no longer accepts new posts nor will anyone ever be able to reply to posts already there. Conclusion: The BBC (World Service radio aside) just doesn’t seem to care about any of its former millions of dial up listeners either in the UK or abroad. It can’t be that much of a cost issue so it must be calculated indifference. So much for the BBC’s stated commitment to universal accessibility”.

Check out…

http://wwwsearch.bbc.co.uk/blogs/radiolabs/2010/03/realmedia_follow_up.shtml

And here…

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/radiolabs/

Finally, Fessenden notes a new BBC blog – apparently designed to replace the old one – has “not addressed any dial up related issues as of this date. Will it ever?”

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/bbcinternet/

Many thanks to Fessenden for sharing his thoughts again.

Stay tuned…

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Your comments as always welcome – theaudioaddict at hotmail dot com

The ol’ Audio Addict has been happily listening rather than blogging of late but something has been drawn to my attention to stir me up out of my complacency and back into blogging again. A reader of this blog and a fellow fan of BBC Radio on line, Fessenden, has written and tells the sad story better than I. Over to guest blogger Fessenden…

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BBC Radio has killed its dial up-accessible audio links!

An Open Letter to the BBC…

The cessation of Real Audio links for those of us around the world who still use dial up has been devastating. One day we were enjoying BBC Radio as usual and the next day we were cut off, without recourse to any alternatives or listening options. I know that this may astonish the majority of broadband users – including those who make the relevant decisions at the BBC – but dial up is still alive and well and in wide usage! It is not yet the arcane relic of the technological past that some would have you believe.

For the record, Real Audio worked perfectly well on dial up right until almost the end of May 2010 when it was arbitrarily terminated. Yes, it occasionally stuttered and stopped but more often than not it played uninterrupted and in totally acceptable sound quality.

The UK appears to be blessed with low cost, readily accessible broadband. Unfortunately, for the majority of us in the rest of the world, broadband is not always so easily accessible. And when or where it is available it is *vastly* more expensive than dial up. Therefore dial up remains the only viable method by which we can access the internet and – until recently – listen to the BBC.

Making your WMA low speed links 48 kbps makes absolutely no sense at all. Sure, change from Real Audio to the highly-overrated (IMHO) WMA if you must (although there was no reason to do so in my personal listening experience). But why kick your low speed audio links up to 48 kbps? That is way too fast to access via dial up and – I suspect – way too slow to satisfy the quality demands of those on broadband.

I would greatly appreciate an explanation of why the BBC has chosen to willfully abandon dial up listeners both in the UK and around the world. What has happened to your commitment to accessibility? The BBC’s current policy seems best exemplified by its complete failure (so far) to provide any kind of workaround or solution for a problem that it has itself created – aside from the often implied but incredibly unhelpful advice to “get broadband”.

If my understanding of an earlier post on the BBC Radio Lab blog is correct, the BBC World Service alone plans to continue to offer a Real Audio dial up-friendly low speed connection. If this is true it proves that at least a significant part of the BBC thankfully understands that dial up is still in daily use around the world by a substantial number of dedicated listeners.

I strongly urge the BBC to seriously consider the immediate reintroduction of basic dial up speed connections, whether in Real Audio or WMA format, for all of its terrestrial radio networks. If it is a cost issue let me be first in line to sign up for a subscription.

Fessenden

(Originally posted on the BBC Radio Lab blog – June 5th, 2010.)

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Thank you Fessenden for your thoughts (which apparently have also been posted elsewhere on line for maximum exposure). The Audio Addict can only agree 100% and hopes that the BBC will see the merits of your argument and respond accordingly. In the meantime, if you agree, write to the BBC and let them know. CC the ol’ Audio Addict too if you like. And if anyone from the BBC is reading this… on behalf of dial up audio addicts around the world…

PLEASE BRING BACK YOUR DIAL UP CONNECTIONS!

(But why am I not holding my breath?)

Your comments as always are very welcome. E mail theaudioaddict [at] h o t m a i l [d o t] c o m

Until the next time I awaken from blog-coma… I wish you endless hours of happy listening!

(And to my dial up brothers and sisters… keep the faith!)

I looked around at the rest of the OSC a bit too. Lots more for younger kids than in my day but I got the feeling, perhaps erroneously, that it has been significantly dumbed down. Less emphasis on learning, making connections, asking questions and more on just “having fun” without needing to pursue the reasons why. It was a truly magical cerebral experience when I was a kid. Today it seems more like a fancy baby-sitting service.

For example, I looked at their “space” exploration displays. Where was the moon landing? The Apollo years? Gemini? Mercury? It was like history didn’t matter to them at all. Fortunately VE3OSC was still there and thriving and still attracting visitors of all ages, young and old alike.

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Later, I found an interesting related site at NASA which helps you plot in real time the various satellites overhead. Or at least the ones they are allowed to tell us about! If you click AMATEUR you’ll see the ones that ham operators can bounce their signals off as they fly by for a brief window. Makes you kind of nervous in a way when you really stop to think how much electronic junk is up there, listening, watching, snooping… Hi guys! Here’s the link:

http://science.nasa.gov/realtime/jtrack/Spacecraft.html

My thanks to the Ontario Science Centre’s Saturday “ham shack” volunteer Mopa Dean for generously sharing his time and experiences “on the air”. His genuine ability to educate and inspire should guarantee another generation of shortwave radio enthusiasts for sure!

Your comments as always welcome to theaudioaddict [AT] hotmail [DOT] com

I’m back this month to bring to you another great story about an unusual audio-based website. This time it’s www.songstowearpantsto.com – the brainchild of a talented young Canadian musician named Andrew, who just likes to go by his first name. His website’s memorable name is based on a random song title he came up with years ago. And that site provides a unique musical service for people who want to outsource their ideas to him.

Andrew gets requests like this: “I really like this girl, but I don’t know how to express it. If you could write a song about her with her beautiful light blue eyes, long brown hair, and great athletic body, that would be awesome.”

So people are outsourcing their love songs to Andrew and much much more. He can take somebody’s raw ideas (or even more developed ideas) and turn them into a song. But such terrific, fun, imaginative songs! He told me he’s been providing this specialized service for over four years now, and that it all started off almost by accident. Needing some cash, he offered his songwriting services on ebay. That was really successful. So he got his website going and today he’s got over 400 of his specially commissioned songs on the site. Some you can hear for free and some you can download for a small fee. They all have a wicked sense of humour and wonderfully twisted energy.

Now, Audio Addict, does Andrew ever worry he’ll become hooked, nay, dependent upon his paying customers to come up with ideas for songs instead of coming up with his own?

The short answer is no. He told me he keeps his commissioned songs and his personal songs totally separate in his head. (His personal songs can be found on another site, Andrewismusic, which can be reached from the main site.) And because he can be totally inspired by almost everything around him – including even inanimate objects – there’s literally no end of ideas for him.

OK, Audio Addict, this is all a lot of fun but what does it say about our culture? Are people no longer going to be bothered to write their own songs anymore?

I think if you’re good at something you’ll always want to do it yourself because you love doing it. You only outsource the things you’re not so good at or don’t have the time or the drive to do. Music has always been Andrew’s passion in life – and thanks to his website it’s also become his job. So he’s very happy others want to outsource their ideas to him.

If you want to get a song from Andrew or just listen to the already commissioned songs, his website is www.songstowearpantsto.com and everything you need to know is there. Everybody I talked to loved outsourcing their ideas to Andrew because he gives them back so much more than they expected. He’s obviously a very talented songwriter, musician and producer. I have no doubt we will be hearing a whole lot more about him and his music in the future.

Many thanks to Andrew for his help in preparing this item and to his satisfied customers – Amy, Azure, Brent, Emmy, Mike, Randy and Simon – for kindly providing me with their insights into how Andrew’s unique musical abilities are truly appreciated.

Your comments – ready to turn into a hit Broadway musical or otherwise – are always welcome at theaudioaddict[at]hotmail.com

Many years ago I had the unique opportunity to talk with one of the most modest, unassuming heroes I have ever met. His name was Ted Allbeury, a most remarkable man on so many levels. In World War Two – and during the Cold War that followed – he was a British intelligence officer, that’s a spy to you and me. Many years later he became world famous as the author of over 40 spy novels… gritty, compelling stories often set in the war or cold war era that he knew so well. It was in his not so secret life as an author that I met him and found out about the secret life of a spy, which as he told me, isn’t anything at all like the James Bond movies. Bond was pure fantasy. The character was too flashy, too memorable. The best intell operators, Allbeury told me, would be able to completely blend in, were easily forgetable and utterly unmemorable.

Furthermore, the true intell officer’s innate ability to really understand what makes people tick was also one of the reasons why Allbeury was such an accomplished author. His novels aren’t just reliant on tricky plots but really involve you with complex and often conflicted characters facing difficult moral dilemmas that you feel are drawn from real life. Exactly how much of his stories were fiction and how much were real life? Even decades after the war he refused to tell me, citing his signing of the Official Secrets Act as the reason. He could fictionalize his experiences, however, and that was “allowed”.

Throughout his years as an author Allbeury kept in touch with the intell community. I think a lot of them respected and admired his writing and the way he portrayed their secret lives with dignity, insight and understanding. Not an easy job given the often complex secret lives spies must necessarily lead. In some cases not only are you fooling your enemy, you’re also fooling your own side. Allbeury told me about George Blake who was a real life double agent. He even managed to fool himself at times in order to work both sides of the infamous Iron Curtain. Allbeury believed that Blake could compartmentalize his mind in such a way that when he was working for the British he truly believed he was loyal to them and when (say later that same afternoon) he was working for the KGB, he felt totally loyal to them instead. Blake did much more damage to the West than Philby and the rest combined in Allbeury’s expert opinion.

Imagine living a life like that – a secret life within your secret life. It hurts my head just thinking about it. But then, I haven’t had the necessary training. And according to Allbeury, the very training that keeps you alive as a spy also forces you into a life totally apart from those you are sworn to protect. Which has to make the intell profession one of the loneliest jobs in the world. After all, you know more about your opposite number (enemy) than anyone else and they know all about you too. No wonder Allbeury used to receive more Xmas cards from former enemies than he did from friends for years after his active service!

So – at the end of the day – what do spies get out of it all? Few get paid all that much and as I learned, all the glamour and excitement of 007 is a complete fantasy. I guess the most spies can get out of their secret lives is a kind of quiet satisfaction. I mean, Allbeury’s characters rarely had happy endings. And when they did it was a notable exception. I presume that was all based on his own real life experience.

I doubt Allbeury ever exactly found happiness himself because he’d seen too much of life’s darkest side. But I think he was still very much a Romantic. Despite the mindnumbing horrors that he’s witnessed and later fictionalized as a repeated act of catharsis, I think at heart he still wanted to believe in good and in the possibilities for good in mankind. I don’t know if that’s true of all spies still living out their secret lives in unrelenting isolation – but for their sake, and ours, I hope so.

If you’d like to know more about this truly remarkable man and his incredible life, just plug his name into your favourite search engine. (He had a whole other exciting life as a UK radio pirate back in the 1960s!)

Ted Allbeury passed away at the end of 2005 but fortunately lives on in his many excellent books. If you are drawn to spy novels with believable characters facing incredible challenges while engaged in the loneliest secret profession in the world, I think like me, you’ll become a big big fan of his work. You can still find his books on line, or at your local book store or public library.

Ironically, for a man who told me that the best spies are totally forgetable, Allbeury remains vividly in my mind as one of the most truly memorable, inspiring individuals I have ever met. And yet I have no doubt he was one of the best at his job. Go figure, huh?

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If you’d like to hear more about the world of spying and espionage, why not check out the podcast of the International Spy Museum. You can find it here:

http://www.spymuseum.org/programs/spycast.php

Your comments, as always, are welcome to theaudioaddict [at] hotmail [dot] com

GLS writes:

I remember encountering numbers stations back when I was into listening to shortwave radio (which was before I got my Ham Radio license in the mid-70′s). In my opinion, they are certainly not CIA of MI5, but are more probably communications and instructions amongst certain anti-government groups and insurgencies around the world. Interesting stuff (http://www.archive.org/details/ird059).

And PJM writes:

Those “Number Stations” very well could be coded military messages, possibly originating from military ships at sea. Five number word codes were common for WWII encoding. Although with computerized systems today, the data could be encoded digitally and linked with digital networks.

Interestingly, after WWII, Camp X (located by Lake Ontario in Whitby) operated a listening post for some time after the war. They would likely have listened to these number stations quite attentively. Most of Camp X’s post WWII operations information is still classified, even though the camp was shut down decades ago.

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Many thanks to GLS and PJM for their thoughts. And ahhhh, the mystery continues!

Your comments, mysterious or otherwise, as always welcome to theaudioaddict [at] hotmail.com. Your privacy will be respected but your correspondence (when relevant) may be published.

But what if the things that most need fixing are the very skills that make up your life? I think it’s our actual life skills that some of us actually need fixing up. I know how to do lots of stuff – but some of it real badly. What I really want fixing up are some of my basic life skills, and… oh yeah, in keeping with my culture’s paradox, I’ve only got a minute or so to do it! Lucky for me I discovered the fun website OneMinuteHowTo.com.

OneMinuteHowTo.com is the brainchild of American webmaster, podcaster and photographer George L. Smyth. George told me his girlfriend was the inspiration for the site a couple years ago. She’d ask him how something was done and he’d reply at considerable length. Usually sometime after the one minute mark he noted her eyes started glazing over. That’s when he got the idea for a podcast site to which anybody can contribute. The challenge is to tell the rest of us how to do something in about a minute.

Which are my favourite podcasts on his site? Well, first, I thought I’d start with the basics. Most of us think we are pretty good cooks but I realised my culinary skills might need fixing up after I had friends over who accused me of trying to poison them. Who knew you could wreck Kraft Dinner? (True story.) In his podcast HOW TO MAKE THE PERFECT EGG, Chef Cary Wolfson tells us the secret of making the perfect hard boiled egg. I often make hard boiled eggs, but half the time the shell won’t come off easily. It’s so basic a skill you may think it’s unnecessary to relearn but it’s a skill that I guess I needed fixing up. And I really did learn how to do it in under a minute. So, kudos to Chef Wolfson!

OK, Audio Addict, do you think this site promotes the idea that the only life skills worth fixing are those which can be fixed up in a minute?

No, not really. Well, no more so than the rest of society today which does seem obsessed with the quick fix – in part because experts make stuff look so easy and in part because it caters to our multi-task-driven short attention spans. But I think most of us (including the contributors to this site) know that most worthwhile life skills actually take a little longer to perfect than just a minute! I suspect that the ratio is probably something like this – the more it means to you the longer it will take to perfect.

And so to raise the ante, my next life skill that I wanted fixing up had to really mean something to me. OK. I’ve been working on my novel for a few years now – like everybody else I know. And it’s a lot harder than it looks. Or is it? Author Paula Paul’s podcast HOW TO WRITE A NOVEL on oneminutehowto.com purports to tell us exactly how to do just that. But can such a life skill be learned in a minute? Well, IMHO, this podcast is very good for someone just starting out but you could argue there are many novels that break her overly simplified formula. Or even if you do accept it, once you get going, I’d have to say this is obviously another life skill that takes a little longer than just a minute to learn! To be fair, I’m sure Paula knows that too and did very well to try to condense a lifetime’s work into less than a minute. And that’s what the site is really all about, of course – it is an engaging, entertaining way to introduce you to various life skills without causing your eyes to glaze over. Its self-imposed minute limit is really only a challenge for its contributors – not necessarily an expectation of achievement for its listeners. (Hey, if you do really learn something to perfection in a minute then that’s a pure bonus!)

The funniest podcast I found on the site (and I must admit to date I have sampled only a fraction of all those available) is HOW TO TALK LIKE A PIRATE with Capt’n Slappy and Ol’ Chumbucket – co-founders of the now famous annual Talk Like A Pirate Day (September 19th). Definitely a unique life skill worth fixing up, and one I could absolutely learn to perfection in under a minute, ahoy avast arrr!

When I asked the site’s creator if he’d ever turned down any potential contributors, he told me just one. Seems it was all about tying down your partner. (I presume this refers to techniques other than tying them to you with binding promises!) George had no personal objections to it but “politely declined” the pending podcast as it might’ve got the entire site unfairly labeled as not so family-friendly.

OneMinuteHowTo.com has lots more fascinating life skills presented by guest contributors that you can listen to in about a minute, all expertly introduced by George (who turns his hand to a few How To podcasts himself). Details on how to contribute your own expertise are also listed on the site. Just recently it passed its one millionth download! Congratulations to George and to all of his fellow podcasters. It’s definitely my favourite on line audio resource of the month and one I know I will return to again, whenever the urge to “fix up” more basic life skills takes hold!

Your comments, in need of fixing up or otherwise, as always welcome to theaudioaddict[at]hotmail.com

One of the strangest audio mysteries ever since World War two or even earlier when they probably started is what shortwave radio listeners (or “DXers”) call numbers stations. These are often powerful secret radio stations all around the world, broadcasting in many different languages, that still pop up from time to time, often on a regular basis, on the shortwave dial. They broadcast nothing more than a series of groups of numbers in oddly disembodied and sometimes synthesized voices.

Why numbers?

One of the most easy to understand types of code are number codes, such as 1 equals A, 2 equals B and so on. Of course you can make your code a lot more complicated than that! Or – if we both have the same book, we could send numbers to each other that reference certain pages and certain words in that book. Nobody could ever tell what we were saying unless of course they too had a copy of the book. In short you can make numbers equal any letters or words or actually anything at all if you agree to it ahead of time and know how to decode the message.

So why use shortwave radio?

Shortwave radio frequencies are mostly used by international broadcasters as well as amateur radio operators for transmitting to far away distant listeners. The physical characteristics of shortwave make it ideal for bouncing signals around the planet although the signal quality is sometimes rather poor. These days with the internet you might think there would be no interest in it but the shortwave dial is still full of fascinating radio from around the world including these mysterious numbers stations.

So why would anybody want to broadcast blocks of numbers?

Clearly, these are most probably coded messages only intended for certain listeners. Whoever is sending them certainly doesn’t want the rest of us to understand what they’re saying.

Does that sound even slightly sinister? Well, check under your bed and lock your door because the general consensus of opinion of those who have studied these stations for years is that they are indeed sending coded messages from various world governments to their secret agents out in the field around the world. Can you say CIA? MI5? CSIS?

But why would such rich, powerful secret agencies around the world use such a low tech way to communicate?

Think about it… anybody can listen to these broadcasts using a shortwave radio. A cheap little portable all-band radio that can fit in your pocket would do. There’s nothing suspicious about that if you were were a foreign agent captured in a foreign country. And as far as more sophisticated and contemporary digital methods of communications – such as cell phones, e mails and satellite phones – they all leave an electronic trail that can be traced. With numbers stations, no one can trace who is listening or even prove who’s behind them.

Of course, they could all be part of an elaborate hoax or some kind of performance art. And they could also be part of some form of disinformation designed by some governments to make other less-friendly governments think that there are foreign agents secretly operating in their countries when there aren’t. If it’s a hoax it sure is an elaborate one, repeated over and over again around the world almost since radio began. No one has ever taken credit for them, and no one has ever figured out exactly what they mean. (But speaking of performance art, they have recently inspired a number of artists to incorporate them in their own work. The Wilco CD “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot” for example is purportedly named after some of these mysterious transmissions).

Interested in learning more? Just use your favourite search engine on line and look for “numbers stations” although I strongly recommend you begin with Simon Mason’s brilliant site, http://www.simonmason.karoo.net – just click the link “Shortwave Espionage” on his home page. Kudos to Simon! It’s a really excellent site with lots of links to further information and tons of audio clips so you don’t even need a shortwave radio.

But… trust me – it IS so much more fun to get a shortwave radio and to try to catch them live yourself. Maybe someone out there some day will be able to decode them and tell us what they really mean. But somehow, I doubt it.

73′s until next time!

Your comments, in numerical code or plain written English, are always welcome at theaudioaddict [AT] hotmail.com