Arr… It be Talk Like A Pirate Day
Avast ye landlubbers… er… pieces of eight and all that. September the 19th is officially Talk Like A Pirate Day. I was reminded of this by the following Boo Joey this morning:
What is TLAPD? It’s exactly what it sounds like. And why do it? Well… I’ve no idea why they started it but it’s a fun idea. So why not Boo your best pirate impression? And we’ll feature the best on the Audioboo website.
Personally I’m a little jealous of it’s success. I really want to start “Talk like it’s 2007 day” where we can go around saying things like “That new Apple phone won’t be successful – I like having physical buttons to press” and “The Olympics are going to be a disaster” – but no one else seems to want to join in.
Help Shape The People’s Songs
In the new year, BBC Radio 2 are planning an intriguing new series on some of the songs that have played a huge role in British popular culture. Here’s what it’s all about:
The People’s Songs is a weekly series starting in January 2013 on BBC Radio 2.
Across 50 episodes, Stuart Maconie will present the epic story of how modern Britain was fashioned and shaped, as told by the music, stories and memories of this nation’s people.From “We’ll Meet Again” to “Ghost Town”, from “Rehab” to “God Save The Queen”, we’ll tell the story of modern Britain via the records that sound-tracked this dramatic and kaleidoscopic period, a period of conflict, social change, parties, prosperity, plenty, poverty, peace and war.
We want to hear from YOU! Your Boos, memories, photos, comments, and song suggestions will shape each programme.
If you’d like to get involved head over to The People’s Song Channel to find out more.
The Week In Re-Boo: 24th-31st August
I’m going to attempt to inaugurate a new feature here on the Audioboo blog – every Friday I’m going to try and post a “week in re-boo”, featuring some of the most interesting and newsworthy Boos from the past week. If I get enough complaints, I might think about changing the name of this feature to a marginally less awful pun.
So we start this look back at the week with Prince Harry and his right royal knees up in Las Vegas. Whilst this generated an awful lot of comment and analysis in the press, the best by a wide margin was undoubtedly the critique of art critic Brian Sewell – a man who is so posh he makes The Queen sound as though she need elocution lessons. Radio 4′s PM programme recruited Sewell to talk about the photos of a nude Prince Harry from an artistic point of view. You can hear what he thought in the player below:
From photos of questionable artistic merit now though and to some of the most important and beautiful photos ever taken. And these photos weren’t taken by a professional – just someone who took photos for a hobby. I am, of course, referring to Neil Armstrong, who’s main job was to be the first man on the Moon. As we know Armstrong sadly died last weekend – and a few days ago BBC Newshour posted this moving tribute from his friend and colleague (who just happened to be the second man out of the hatch) Buzz Aldrin:
Back to earth now and Gem 106fm’s Sam and Amy have been speaking to one of Britain’s Olympic heroes on their programme. Double bronze medalist Rebecca Addlington popped in for a chat. Now that the Olympics are over she told them about how she’s planning a charity bike ride across Zambia – sounds challenging, but I’m sure Sir Chris Hoy can give her some tips.
Over on the James Whale show on LBC, James has been speaking to one of London’s most controversial figures: Bob Crow, who’s head of the RMT Union. It turns out that despite commanding a hefty salary, Crow is still living in a council flat. When asked if he thinks this is okay (after all, couldn’t the flat go to someone earning less?) he… well, squirms quite considerably. Have a listen:
Staying with politics and today is the last day of the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida – and the Guardian’s Adam Gabbatt has been there for the duration. He has recorded a number of Boos speaking to some of the delegates on the ground – including this man who does nothing to dispell any stereotypes about Texas:
And finally this week the grammy award winning musician Imogen Heap played a concert at the Royal Albert Hall in London. She got there a little bit early – so what better way is there to pass the time than record some Boos of rehearsals for her followers?
So that’s the week in Re-Boo. Do let me know in the comments if you’ve spotted anything great that I’ve missed – or if you have any suggestions for next week!
Introducing the Audioboo iPad listening app!
If you head over to the Apple App Store today – you might find a nice surprise. We’ve just launched our brand new iPad listening app – specifically designed for tuning into the amazing content that can be found on Audioboo Channels.
So as you can see – when you launch the app you’ll see some highlights from some of the best channel content we have to offer – as well as a category listing. If you tap a clip it’ll play right there in the app – and you can continue to browse through the app whilst listening to something, as it’ll continue to play at the bottom of the screen.
I’m really liking it so far, especially because it gives me a super-easy way to catch up with the excellent new Bletchley Park podcast.
So go check it out – it’s available now!
Introducing… the Activity Stream
If you checked your Audioboo profile over the weekend you may have noticed that we’ve just rolled out some enhancements. Your profile now contains an activity stream – that along with your latest Boos will also display comments you post, people you follow and much more – giving you at-a-glance access to all of your latest activities across Audioboo.
It also makes things a whole lot prettier. I went to see Expendables 2 over the weekend (don’t judge me!) – and after recorded a Boo reviewing the film. This was posted to my activity stream with a nice big image above the play button.
Similarly when I commented on a Boo by my friend Simon who’s up at the Edinburgh fringe festival, this was posted to my activity stream.
So head over to your Audioboo profile and check it out!
Import your Cinch recordings to Audioboo – save them from deletion!
As you may have heard over the last few days, our fellow audio sharing service Cinch is going to be shutting down. They’ve already stopped accepting new users and recordings, and the service will be shutting down entirely on October 20th.
If you’re a Cinch user though and would like to save your recordings – don’t despair. To help you keep everything intact, we’ve put together a Cinch Import Tool, that will enable you to copy across your recordings, complete with titles and associated pictures. Simply sign up or login to your Audioboo account, go over to our Cinch Import page and enter your Cinch username. Then all of the recordings from your account will be copied over – nice and easy!
And then when you’ve done that, don’t forget to check out the rest of Audioboo. You can browse are huge archive of brilliant audio content, download our iPhone app (or even our new iPad app – more about that later!), or even upload audio through our website.
Heck, you can even follow me!
Win tickets to Outlook Festival!
Audioboo have partnered with the Outlook Festival to offer one of our users tickets to one of the largest bass festivals this summer. Taking place in Croatia, the line-up includes everyone from Lee Scratch Perry to Skream – so if you’re into your bass music, you won’t want to miss this.
To be in with a chance of winning, head over to the Outlook Festival Channel and click on Jeffluv’s face to hear him explain exactly what you have to do.
Go on, give it a go!
Some great Olympic Boos so far!
We’re now over a week into the Olympics and even if you’re not particularly sporty – it really is rather addictive. Since the Opening Ceremony we’ve had tonnes of brilliant Boos from inside the Olympic Park. For example, here’s a great Boo of the crowd roaring during Mo Farrah’s medal ceremony.
There’s so many though I thought the best way to display them would be on the map below – pretty neat, eh?
If you go to the Olympics – don’t forget to do a Boo, and geotag it – then it will appear on our map!
Some Opening Ceremony Reactions
Given the gigantic viewing figures, chances are that you’re one of the millions of people on Friday who watched Danny Boyle’s Olympic Opening Ceremony. As you might expect – we’ve had a lot of reaction to the ceremony on Audioboo, so here’s some of our most interesting Boos – including Venessa Feltz interviewing the woman at the centre of the love story during the pop music segment, and BBC Berkshire speaking to The Queen… or rather, the stuntman who played The Queen when she jumped out of the helicopter with James Bond.
Have you Boo’d about the opening ceremony? Send us a link in the comments below!
Twitter Joke Trial – Reaction from the key players
There was big legal news in London today as Paul Chambers won his appeal against his conviction in the so-called ‘Twitter Joke Trial’. This is brilliant news as it means that Paul no longer has a criminal record for sending a jokey tweet – and it has set a precedent in law that should do more to protect the freedom of speech of users of social media. Which as you might imagine – is of interest to us here at Audioboo!
If you can’t remember the case – Paul Chambers was the guy who tweeted the following a few days before visiting his girlfriend Sarah:
“Crap! Robin Hood airport is closed. You’ve got a week and a bit to get your shit together otherwise I’m blowing the airport sky high!!”
Days later after someone who worked at the airport reported his tweet, he was arrested by anti-terrorism officers and later convicted of sending a ‘menacing’ communication – even though what he tweeted was obviously a joke.
So good news all round – and I was down at the High Court today to hear the judgement – and after I spoke to many of the key players, including Paul himself.
First off though, here’s David Allen Green – who is Paul’s lawyer:
I also managed to get a brief word with Paul and Sarah’s MP Louise Mensch, who is also a keen user of Twitter and social media.
One of Paul’s long term supporters is comedian Al Murray – who also came along to hear the judgement.
John Cooper QC was Paul’s leading counsel throughout the appeal – and whilst I don’t really know what this means, I do know that it means he played a key role in putting together the case for the appeal. I spoke to him about the implications.
And finally, here’s the man himself – Paul Chambers and Sarah gave me their reaction.
So there we go – a good day for freedom of speech!