It is with deep and profound regret that I post the following.
Dear Froggers,
Mr Knibbs is tired of London life so we're moving to the country which means that with great sadness I have to hand in my notice as PM's Blog Editor. I'd be grateful if you could suggest a suitable alias for me to blog/frog under from my country cottage in Derbyshire.
Thanks for making the PM blog launch such a success.
Lissa, PM Blog Editor
Eddie writes: an announcement about who will take over Lissa's job will appear soon. Thank you Lissa for YOUR role in making the PM blog launch such a success.
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Lissa, we'll missya.
Thank you for doing such a briliant job in very difficult circumstances, especially with the avalanche of WOYW pictures. I/we look forward to hearing from you in George Brown country.
Best wishes,
Vyle.
Lissa. You have been brilliant with the frog and the WOYW, and I hope that you have a happy time in Derbyshire. I recently moved to a (relatively) rural location myself from London and have never regretted it for a moment.
As for a nice alias for you: Not to cast aspersions on your character, but Bakewell Tart* would be rather fitting given your new location.
*Blame ISIHAC for that one who used it to describe Nigella Lawson "Bake Well! Tart!".
Dear Lissa and Mr Knibbs
All the very best for the future. I hope you enjoy the fresh air of country life.
We will miss you greatly.
Otter
Dear Lissa,
You have been - and will always remain (for me and other froggers, I'm sure) - a true ***STAR***! Mr. Knibbs and his Privileged Household will, we're sure, be very happy in Derbyshire, and he'll soon be out there huntin' shootin' and fishin' along with all the other Knibbs.
When are you going? Sounds like one of those departures from The Bill (from disgruntlement to crisis to notice handed in to gone in one day? Though I'm sure the first bits didn't happen - Well, I hope not!).
As to frog-de-plume - Well, why not Mr. Knibb's Friend? Or Lovely Lissa? Or Honorary Frogmistress?
I'm sure today's frog business will be providing lots of possibles for you.
If we don't hear from you again, may I wish you, Mr. Knibbs, and all who sail with you, the very best for the future, and in particular for this New Year, replete with excitement and potential for you all.
And thanks, again, for ALL the help over the months.
Big Sis X
Or you could use Mr Knibbs (or Mrs,Ms,Miss).
Lissa, Derbyshire is lovely and now my adopted home. Don't know if you know many people here already, but if not and you'd like to make contact drop Fifi a line and she can put us in touch. I'm in a village outside Derby itself so handy for the southern part of the county.
As I said on the beach last night, we will all miss you, and if you can see your way to a farewell photo....
Thanks again for everything.
Dear Lissa, you will indeed be sadly missed - you have done a brilliant job on the blog and with the WOYW, so take a bow. Can't say I blame you though, escaping the stresses and strains of London life and I wish you all the very best of luck with your new life.
Take care, Fiona x
you'll be sadly missed, Lissa. But I did the same thing a little over 9 years ago and have never looked back. Derbyshire is a big county of many and varied towns and villages all next door to splendid scenery and close enough to several major cities to make everything obtainable without the compromises needed to cope with living in one.
A naive thought - could you not maintain your role by remote control. We even have Broadband.
Enjoy it, but be sure to post a view from your new surroundings when you settle into them.
Was it something I said??
Little Weed
Lissa - I can only echo all the thanks that others will offer but I'm a bit concerned to learn that you think you need an additional alias.
From Day One: "At 05:38 PM on 13 Nov 2006, Lissa, PM Blog Beach Babe wrote: Yikes, this is my 3rd effort to get down to the beach...I've crashed the computer twice. This is a big party.
No idea what Eddie's talking about but I'll find out."
Well, Blog Beach Babe, we'll look forward to many more postings.
Lissa,
What can I say, except to repeat and magnify all the praise and appreciation above and down the long months. If you think you've not been appreciated, you must be deaf and blind.
I'm glad you've listened to Mr Knibbs, and made the sensible move to leave all that tarmac and concrete behind. The city's no place for real living things!
We'll miss you, but we're really not losing you, after all. Perhaps you can write some sort of occasional 'clog' from the country?
xxxxxx
ed
P.S. I know some in Derbyshire, perhaps you know them too.......;-)
Sorry you're going Lissa, but glad Edward Sturton ISN'T taking over.(Always think the worst, then you won't be surprised)
You're right to move out, don't know how anyone remains sane trying to live in London... it's so FULL.
Isn't the ±«Óătv moving - are they coming up to Derby with you? in your spare room? or will that be full of bikes?
Thanks for all the good editing
xx
P.S. Will you take an interest in ±«Óătv Radio Derby?
And may I add my good wishes to those expressed above! (Thanks Mrs Trellis for alerting me via the flipside.)
Lissa, you and Eddie have been great at interacting with us froggers; just enough to make us feel like a genuine community, and not too much to make us feel manipulated or tempted to demand more-more-more of you.
Your deft touch will be much missed, so I do hope you'll carry out your threat to stick with us as a frogger, once you've moved to your rural idyll.
I agree that Mr Knibbs would be a good start for finding your new nom de frog ... how about Mrs Knibbs (ie his mum) or Knibbs Catering Service?
Or just Lissa With An A?
Anne P is quite right -- you can use me as a secure route to getting in touch locally, as I'm paranoid about guarding people's privacy and will look after yours.
I wish you and the rest of the Knibbs household the very best in your new home. And trust you won't be leaving us straight away......?
Fifi xxx
Thank you for your kind remarks. I'm off to make radio documentaries for a lovely independent production company in Manchester. For Derbyshire residents (Anne P), we're hopefully exchanging today on a house in Chinley near Chapel en le Frith. Very exciting. (Though rather nerve-wracking for Mr Knibbs as he's a rescue cat and we're not sure how he'll cope).
Belinda, I rather like the Bakewell Tart soubriquet though am a fan of the traditional pudding.
L
Lissa, all the froggers here will miss you and Mr Knibbs co-editing the blog (I'm sure he had a lot of input into it!). I hope you will stay here. I'd agree with Big Sis in that you still remain Honourary Blogmistress. After all, without all your work, the Blog wouldn't be half the place it is today...
FFred
"Eddie writes: an announcement about who will take over Lissa's job will appear soon."
Mightn't it be a good idea to preserve the poor soul's anonymity? At least for a wee while. We frogs can become a bit restive at times of slow flow or rising (or falling) water...kneedeep, kneedeep, kneedeep, kneedeep, kneedeep,
xx
ed
I promise all the froggers that I'll look after Lissa and Mr Knibbs (although expect big cat sightings to proliferate in the High Peak). I'll make sure she keeps posting to let you all know how we're getting on. Moving the pair of them could be fun.. Mr Knibbs is being organised with a dog crate (he is that large!) and sedatives but I don't know how ethical it is to tranquillise your wife.
How about just posting the face of Cameron Diaz?
Good luck and thanks, Lissa.
Do the ±«Óătv not operate from the regions?
Is this the end of our quest to get Lissa captured on camera?
An alias? How about "The Invisible Woman"?
Fair thee well, Lissa, we'll miss you.
I think you already have a unique nom-de-Frog: "Lissa"
Dear Lissa and Mr Knibbs,
We will all miss you here dreadfully as you have done so much to get us organised and to sort out all the techie problems which keep sneaking in. And we've all got your name right now, too. So please join us again soon either here or on the beach - having said that, we don't yet know when you're moving. But we will keep looking out for you. And thank you, thank you. (I don't know how you have had time to edit the prog as well as looking after us on the blog!)
But, as we know from Pride & Prejudice, Derbyshire is the best of all counties (and from my point of view, second only to Shropshire!). Several froggers seem to have done the switch from the big smoke to the beautiful countryside of England and are very happy indeed to have done so, so we do hope you will be happy too.
...whoops, that should read
"Fare thee well, Lissa....."
Lissa,
On arrival, butter his paws(mr knibbs' that is, but you could try it on SO). By the time he's licked it all off, he'll reckon it's an OK place to hang out.
xx
ed
Lissa - thank you for what must've been so much hard work to make the blog the big friendly place that it is and also with the WOYW. Good luck with the move!
Whatever Nom-de-Frog you choose I shall always imagine Cameron Diaz!
Maybe Mr Knibbs will even get to meet a water vole.......
GMx
Blimey, Lissa - I am very few miles North of you in Furness Vale and got married in Chinley.
You've picked a lovely place with a decent train ride to Manchester and a prettier one to Sheffield through the heart of the Dark peak area - do try it one day.
Fingers crossed for the exchange.
Oh Lissa, no wonder Eddie is depressed. How will they cope without you??
But on the plus side,for Mr Knibbs - Derbyshire is full of rabbits (if you're going to the countryside - not sure about Derby itself!). Friends who used to live just outside Bakewell at Alport, had a cat who daily brought home a rabbit, & usually butchered it in the corridor outside the kitchen if they didn't manage to rescue it first. Are you sure you're ready for this "nature red in tooth & claw " business?
I often come to Derbyshire to play for concerts & shows - it's a great part of the world (& not just because Jason & Anne P live there, though obviously that helps). We are a little more in the big smoke here, (in the city with a big ±«Óătv, if you get my drift) but only just over an hour away from Derby. If you ever want to make contact (even just to meet a cat that's bigger than Mr Knibbs) then please email me.
Good luck with the move, & thanks for being such a fun person to have working on the blog.
My sympathies to the rest of the team who will no doubt be feeling bereft (or possibly just very jealous ) now.
Anna x
Lissa, sounds as if you'll mainly be facing towards Sheffield and Manchester then. But do visit Derby sometime and be sure to take in the Playhouse, though you may find it challenging to get there as in the 1960's someone had the bright idea of hiding it in the middle of a shopping centre, now being rebuilt and massively extended. There are also a lot of roadworks as they refurbish the horrid 1960's road scheme. A lot of damage and lack of imagination in the 1960's, but some effort now to recover and it's quite a lively place with a big student population and great live music scene.
Lissa, ah new adventures, & Derbyshire is beautiful. I like BakewellTart myself, not that you are, of course.
Unlike some, I did have regrets leaving London for the rural Midlands, perhaps because I did it for a job rather than personal reasons. Making friends was harder than anticipated, but joining the local (v.friendly) tennis club was a complete life saver & all is very lovely now!
I wish you well & lots of luck, I hope you will be very happy & I echo everyone who has thanked your for your sterling efforts. We do so appreciate you helping us out with all we wanted to do, as well as the many hours you put in ... oo er, is that what prompted Mr Knibbs to say enough?!
Now then, Lissa, as you're obviously around. Eddie must be even more devastated than us. He'll be lost without you.
I hope you will find ways of making him come to terms with his loss. I gather he likes biscuits. I've always fondly imagined him drinking Jose Cuervo (if I'm wrong, he's only himself to blame). Is it too early for JC and biscuits?
Alternatively, he may like a tasty latte. Don't know why, but I can see him supping on one with a yummy Italian biscotti. And one for you, too.
Ed (16): Pick me, me, me, I'll do it, ooh, me.
Extract from my blog today (wish I could do flash indentations and italics and the like):
Something Lissa will encounter when she moves up here is the strange concept of mealtimes. Assuming Lissa is originally a Southerner (big assumption - sorry) she'll be used to having Lunch and Dinner. Up here they have Dinner and Tea. So, when I got my car fixed shortly after moving, I rang the garage around half eleven to find out how they were getting on with it.
"We'll look at it after dinner," said the mechanic.
"Oh, okay - shall I collect it tomorrow morning, then?"
"No, it'll be ready by four."
It all makes sense now.
Youngest still gets confused when I tell her she's having a "baarth" and her mum tells her she's having a "bath", I cut the "graarss" and her mum cuts the "gras". My accent is slowly fading away to me, but people I meet think I sound like a Cockney (which would amuse any real Londoner who heard me).
Anyway, enjoy the High Peak, Lissa.
Lissa, clogger to be,
I've just googleearthed and find you are less than five miles from my Mates, though it looks as if you'll need sturdy footwear for the direct route. They are certainly potential material for radio documentary work.
. They are very friendly and good value.
xx
ed
Lissa -
All best wishes to you for your future life. Derbyshire is a lovely county and I'm sure you, Mr Lissa and Mr Knibbs will be v happy there. Just keep Mr K indoors for a few days (and supply him with somewhere to hide, pref. with a familiar jumper or something that smells of you to keep him company) and he'll be fine.
xx
LadyPen
Nik,
If one wishes to tranquillise one's wife, that's up to one's own conscience, but be careful if you try it on mine, ethical or not!
Salaam, etc.
ed
Chapel en le Frith, eh? Posh, expensive Peak District! The ±«Óătv must pay very well to afford that.
So jealous.
(Derbyshire council-house expat in the south east)
Not sure if it'll work on a rescue cat but. When cat arrives at new destination you rub butter on its paws before you send it into the big wide new world outside its new back door. (or cat flap)
Cat spends so long cleaning said butter off paws by the time its finished its forgotten its moved house!
Worked with my cats.
It's very sad news, but in this day of broadband and homeworking I'm surprised it can't be done from Derbyshire ?
Oh well, it won't be the same without you Lissa :-(
Nik: How nice to meet you! though under sad circumstances. But - a word of caution - don't tease dear Lissa today, there's too much at stake!
Lissa,
Just a thought - How about Her Knibbs?
Lissa - Blog on Grrl, Blog on!! "May your heart always be joyful, may your song always be sung. And may you stay forever young"
Cheers,
Lissa,
I'm still in denial. We're a diminshed blog without you. Please do stay in touch!
To Lissa:
Wishing you all the best as you move on to Derbyshire.
Nik Cook (18) : The plan for Mr Knibbs sounds practical. Just make sure you keep him indoors for a whole month after the move. I let my two out in less than a week because they begged; the Spooki nervous one thrived, and Ringo the big rufty-tufty one ran away.
Rescue animals, in my experience, once they have relaxed and learned to trust you, remain adaptable to new surroundings all their lives. (Except Ringo, who on reflection had never really settled with us, and it was our 2nd move in 2 years.)
I think agreeing rather than sedation is probably a more useful tactic for your other co-traveller though.
Are you changing jobs too? Do tell!!!
Fifi
Nik (18)
LOL
May I recommend a suitable alcoholic beverage for any tranquillising that needs to be done.
I just want to add my thanks Lissa for everything you've done and my amazement at how you have kept an almost totally cool head when things all around have been going pear shaped. Very much appreciated.
As you know we did a huge relocation with three cats and it was fine. They loved the country and having loads more space to wander round, and fence posts to sit on, and Orkney voles to massacre, and long grass to hide in etc etc The only thing it took them some time to get used to were cows...
By the way I know someone who moved and tried Ed I's tip, which is a useful one, but not the way Luisa did it. She couldn't understand our laughter when she complained about greasy paw marks on her new wooden floors....
Oh dear, RJD, it seems to be happening to me too now!
Grrrrrrrr.
Posted a reply to Nik including some advice on persuading cats to move house with you. Where's the harm in that???
Fifi
awwww, hell,
Thought so. Can't add much to what I said last night but you really have done a lot of work (most of it unseen by us) and have had no doubt to cajole others in the team/ office, learn stuff, argue and get others (who don't necessarily post here) to work on things they hadn't 'signed up for'.
thankyou.
We won't miss you though.
no sirree..... cos you and nik will no doubt be posting from time to time.... dabbling on the beach and stuff!
take care and good luck with the move and the new job!
News from the land of the Free and ±«Óătv of the Brave:
President Bush has quietly claimed sweeping new powers to open Americans' mail without a judge's warrant. The president asserted his new authority when he signed a postal reform bill into law on December 20, followed by a "signing statement."
Watch out Toady and Reid, they're getting ahead of you!
ed
Lissa;
I moved from Cornwall to the Frozen North in May 2005, thanks to SO living here.
Bring a raincoat and your long johns!
There's bags of culture to be had here near Manchester, although parts of South and West Manchester have the wrong kind of culture.....
Chapel is only a short way from here, so looking forward to having you as a near neighbour.
Keep blogging, it wouldn't be the same without you.
Si.
Walter may not have anything to comment on but I have. The high strangled note in my voice is RAGE. The Daily Telegraph have announced cuts to the Royal Navy.
Before my blood pressure goes off the scale could someone explain the logic to me of being involved in two serious wars at considerable distances from home bases whilst cutting defence expenditure.
Either we are a country with a defence force that can make a stab at defending us or we give up and adopt the neutral position which leaves us as an island open to any form of hegemony that floats.
EdI, I know this will start you off but I am exRN and it bl**dy hurts.
Fifi: I'd been wondering what had happened to Ringo lately ....
If you would like some insight into the person taking over from Lissa - he's editing tonight's PM...
Well, I don't know. I posted best wishes and useful advice re Mr Knibbs to Lissa AGES ago and it STILL hasn't appeared.
Is it becouse I have changed my name back from LadySnorkPenMaiden in the interests of not using up so many letters? Or that I put it all on another thread?
Am losing will to live. I shall now go and look for an industrial unit in the next-door village. Having just written a stiff email to my local town council.
Then I will come back and do a bit of knitting.
xx
LadyPen
Well, Aunt Dahlia, perhaps it's because Iraq has only a negligible coastline, and Afghanistan none at all. I would also query the "defence" element of attacks on Iraq and Afghanistan. It looks more offensive than defensive to me. Perhaps if we didn't maintain such a vast array of military options then successive governments wouldn't see the need to use them for global bullying just to avoid them sitting around in barracks or harbours all the time.
Oh, and for the record, my employer doesn't provide me with any kind of accommodation, substandard or not. I have to pay for it myself.
Hello All,
First of all, Lissa, Nik and Mr Knibbs, much love and very best wishes for your move. I can't imagine how Eric will cope without you, let alone the rest of us.
Second, one or two fellow froggers have very kindly noticed my absence and contacted me elsewhere to express their concern. On the advice of one of these I am here to let you know that I have hardly touched my PC all week as I have spend most of it in bed/on the sofa. (I have a chest infection, rather than a visit from Johnny Depp). When I have, urgent work has prevailed. Thanks for your concern to all who have expressed it -- you are a lovely bunch.
I'll post this on the beach too.
A, x.
Dahlia dear,
If you want logic from this (or any) govmint, you're looking in the wrong place! Of course, ships ain't much use in Afghanistan....
xx
ed
Aunt Dahlia (37)
I saw that also. Did you know that since TB came to power the strength of our escort ships has fallen from 61 to only 38. In addition to this there a rumours that Pompey Naval Base is to close. Apparently one of the three remaining bases has to go and TB and most of his cronies are Scottish so it wont be Faslane, TB is due to visit Guzz soon (hint hint, it will not be them then) and that leaves poor old Pompey.
Sorry if this is news to you and enrages you further but I thought you should know. Have a tot of Nelson's blood in memory of the RN.
RIP.
I'll get this poste dthis time, Keep getting sidetracked! The butter thing worked with my cat. SO not too enamoured though :-o.
As for cutting spending on defence Aunt D. I fail to understand the governments funding policy on anything!
Hospital trusts for example get fined for taking too long to see patients then also get fined for seeing them too quickly/ or seeing too many.
Dear Aunt Dahlia (37) - Any reporting from the Daily Telegraph is highly suspect, so I checked with The Times on line where it says:
Each of the services is drawing up proposals for cutting back on expenditure to present to ministers for this year’s comprehensive spending review, to be carried out by Gordon Brown, the Chancellor.
The Ministry of Defence emphasised that no decisions had been taken on any of the proposals being drawn up by the services. But with the Army unlikely to be in the running for any severe cutbacks because of its substantial commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan, it is expected that the two other services will have to make savings.
An internal document outlining the cuts says that six destroyers and frigates will be mothballed. Two other ships might be put into “reduced readiness” to achieve a total saving of £250 million. If this were agreed to, it would effectively halve the Royal Navy’s available warships. HMS Invincible, one of the Royal Navy’s three aircraft carriers, has been in reduced readiness for some time and it would take up to 18 months for it to be back put into operation.
So the time to take a stand and shout about it (i.e. to MPs etc) is now.
Whilst I'm sympathetic about your viewpoint and how you feel about it, I'm not very knowledgeable and not sure I have a view myself.
Eddie: Could this be the PR man? Or is the man Jolly, or Bear-ly there?
Aunt Dahlia (37) I can understand your frustrations given your background. You probably know from previous postings that I would prefer us to forget our delusions of imperial grandeur and cut back on all military activity to a minimal defensive/policing role.
However, having said that, this country does have defence forces currently committed to action in numerous places, and people consequently expected to risk their lives and subject their families to disruption at best and grief at worst. So I think it is scandalous that the government is not prepared to equip them adequately or house them properly.
I think we should take out Walkerton and not so quietly scupper her with all hands.
O gloom
Thanks for the tip about tonight's programme Eddie - I will try to get away sharp and listen for a change!
Actually, I must admit I am missing the newsletter because it is interesting to know what is likely to be discussed and to enable some of us to make a bit of a contribution beforehand. That might even be of interest to the team, too, possibly. Is there any news as to whether or not it will ever be back?
Big Sister (43) : Alas, MY Ringo survived brilliantly away from us from Jan till April ... then something with wheels on the A43 got him. He was, other than being dead of course, in fabulous condition. *sniff*
Aunt Dahlia et al : I am constantly bamboozled by this lot's ability to spin 180 degrees, in an instant. Torville and Dean in suits! For example:
- NHS must cut waiting lists and improve productivity, recruit more nurses but at the same time turn financial deficit into surplus
- schools must personalise learning, be more socially inclusive and community-facing, deliver childcare services and better food, on dwindling budgets and by the way the local authority's ability to charge more Council Tax is capped
- my village has identified a potential extension to an existing cycle route which would reduce the number of local car journeys but there's no money to pay for it ...unless from Europe as part of a ÂŁ50m or more ROADS scheme
I could go on but my blood pressure would rather I didn't.
GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!
Fifi
- local authorities in the Milton Keynes/South Midlands must allocate land for humungous amounts of new housing, despite no infrastructure in place, roads bursting at seams, water supply in doubt, flood plains already developed, and preferably without building on greenfield land because then the NIMBYs will get 'em
- despite climate change suddenly making it to the top of everyone's agenda ... the expansion of Luton, Stansted, Heathrow and East Midlands Airports must be encouraged because of all the 'economic benefits' that we'll all enjoy
Hi Lissa
I think that our loss is Mr Knibbs' gain (the lucky puss!). I would like to add my thanks for all the work that you have done to get this blog started and running so well. All the best with the move and new job.
H.
Anne P
I'm not ignoring your earlier post on the beach. The answer is basically yes, but the beach seems frozen at the moment.
Oh Appy!
So sorry to hear you're suffering. Please have a strong restorative of your choice and know I'm sending healing thoughts through the empathic ether. And do wrap up.
xoxoxox
ed
Dear Lissa, I hope you don't think I don't care about your departure. Twice this morning I tried to say a fond farewell, give you some well deserved praise and finally wish you good luck, and twice I was advised I was posting maliciously. It made me a bit late for court.
So here I am being very late instead of being amongst the first to wish you all of these.
There's no need to have a special blog name, there is no-one else like you and nobody else who is called Lissa!
Oh and just watch out for that husband of yours. If you see him stalking you with a large needle duck!
Mary x
Oh that's new. See my (51) ... my closing remarks and sign-off have migrated to halfway up my message!
Now, it certainly didn't look like that when I sent it off!
Pixies with scissors, perhaps?
Fifi ;O)
Fifi,
I sympathise with your Grrrrrrrrs. Here in South Oxon, the village/town I live in is going to have to have 1000 extra houses built around it, with no extra local services provided.Add onto that the fact that Thames Water (if they had any...) want to create a massive cutting off one of the major routes from here to the largest close source of employment (with no plans for public transport to be upgraded (see my earlier rants about how useless it is now)...
Gaaaahhhhh!!! I think I'll slope off to find a glass of shiraz on the beach to try and calm down...
Eddie @ 44 would that be Mark Settle then?
Mary
More insight into an interesting "New strategy for Iraq" from the Shrubbery:
Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Delaware), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said yesterday that he believes top officials in the Bush administration have privately concluded they have lost Iraq and are simply trying to postpone disaster so the next president will "be the guy landing helicopters inside the Green Zone, taking people off the roof," in a chaotic withdrawal reminiscent of Vietnam.
A cunning plan, methinks, but can he hold off disaster for almost two years?
ed
My pedantic post above (28), only took five and a half hour to appear! Should we start a sweep for longest delayed?
ed
My lovely message to Lissa went astray, but it was lovely Lissa, & Derbyshire is beautiful. I look at it from Leicestershire with countryside envy!
Sara (63) I agree - it was good to hear in advance (even infrequently!) about what was going to be in the show.
Just a thought. ...... Could we have what would have been in the newsletter as a new thread, during its absence? Newsnight's newsletters keep arriving but they're just not the same.....
This isn't moderation! It's sheer incompetence, and if our license fees are paying (a foreign firm, I hear) for it, thst's simply scandalous.
It only adds to the unique value of this particular blog that the participants can put up with four and five hour (and longer) delays, and the unpredictable total disappearance of their (often carefully considered and crafted) contributions.
We sometimes get malicious malicious posting warnings on posting first thing in the morning, and on other occasions I have been able to post twice quite quickly in succession.
Consistent, it is not.
Satisfactory, it is not.
Scandalous, it is.
Fixed, it must be.
ed
It only took 90 minutes for (72) above to appear.
BTW, what's a needle duck?
xx
ed
(whoops! Malicious malicious posting notice)
Ed (73) - but the trouble is you never know when things actually appear unless you sit in front of the screen constantly hitting 'refresh'.
Perhaps we ought to request that there are 2 time stamps on each entry - time submitted and time appearing - a bit like the delay between presenting a cheque to the bank and having it cleared, even though it's all electronic really. Come to think of it that's not a bad comparison, both are equally irritating :-)
Jason,
I would have thought you'd have better orientation skills. I make it 2.3 miles almost due East from Chinley to Furness Vale via Google Earth. You're also about six miles due East of my mates at the .
Say hello if you visit them, willya.
ed
Time Warps Strike Blog - The Newsletter Strikes Back...
"Only" 40 minutes! (76 posted 0800PM; arrived 0840PM)
wow!
Ed (76) the crows may fly that way but the cars have to use a bypass ;-)
Ed (72), An interesting article.
It now seems certain that eventually the US will withdraw (flee?) from Iraq, echoing the scenes in Saigon during 1975.
Soon after, the Iraqi Government that the Americans created and have propped up ever since, will probably fall.
One shudders at the thought of what will replace it. A regime backed by a resurgent Iran? Or victorious Islamists, gloating at having (in their eyes) expelled another superpower from a Muslim state. Most probably we will see the civil war intensify with Kurdish and Shia communities attempting to carve out (balkan style) their own independent states and fighting over the oil fields.
In a sense Mr Bush got what he wanted, a Middle East that has been realigned by American power - but not quite in the way that he had hoped!
Lissa,
Everybody else has said it, a big big thankyou.
I don't blame you for getting out of London, I did thirty years ago and I'd never go back.
Use any name you wan't just don't forget us, and one last thing. Be happy.
Brian xx
Sparkly Helen (74 for the moment)
We can see Charnwood Forest in Leicestershire from the back of our house on a clear day.
I'll wave to you!
I hope this won't offend anybody, that's if it gets past the moderators.
What choices have we got? A Poodle or Prudence, and we know how bad they are. The choice of a Chameleon or a Grandad, can you really take those two seriously.
Numbers 10 and 11 are doing such a good job of screwing the Armed Forces, that the natural progression is going to be a coup, I can see some benefits there.
Please don't stop talking to me, I'm not a right wing fascist, just somebody who's fed with the way the country is going.
Brian
Anne P (78)
Wonderful suggestion - Time In & Time Up. The ±«Óătv could check what value they are getting from the moderation service - brilliant!
Anne P (and anyone else interested)
I've just rigged my salutations to put a datestamp at the bottom using .
Of course, it's totally a waste of time since the blog shows the time sent, but not the time it actually clears 'customs'.
It was fun, anyway.
ed
05/01/2007 at 22:34:30 GMT
Brian,
Have a Liffey. I've become resigned to the bleak thought that our best hope lies in total collapse of The Global Economy, The Government, and all such false modern dieties, and eventually, when the dust clears, we may re-discover the value of neighbourhood.
ed
05/01/2007 at 22:43:04 GMT
All,
On the Today message boards, one's message goes up instantaneously, but sometimes gets replaced by
to possibly reappear much later or be replaced by
and then you get an email:
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URL of content (now removed):
/dna/mbtoday/F5963509?Thread=3770821&post=44406785
Subject:
Hidden
Posting:
Fri, 05 Jan 2007 13:00 GMT, in reply to Hidden in message 259
Spoilsport moderators!
xx
ed
awwwww, how sweet!
ed
05/01/2007 at 22:54:36 GMT
good luck with new experience.you are leaving brilliant work .don't laugh but where does froggers come from?
Derbyshire is great Lissa we welcome you with open arms. Just one point don't make the mistake of many newcomers - it's Bakewell Pudding!! (not that I am suggesting you fit that description any more than "Tart")
steve
Bread Finn:
This Blog, it was early decided (by the bloggers) was behaving like a forum, which led to the name 'Frog' being coined amongst regular posters. So:
Frog = PM Blog
Froggers = Those who post on the PM Blog.
Then you get lilypads, etc., etc.
And don't let's get started on the Beach .....
Welcome. Hope you'll frolick on the lilypads, too.
breda finn - welcome
This is nearly a forum because we post responses to each other. Hence our term for ourselves 'Froggers', a combination of forum and blogger. (this is really Simon W's explanation).
Please join in and comment.
Dear all
I'm terribly touched. Nik's quite baffled.
re 90 Ed & all the delay complaints - we may take hours to post your comments but we'd never call you "community members". I try to fathom the reasoning of the moderators but it makes no sense to me.
re Jason - I'm from CHESTERFIELD...born and bred. My husband is a southerner but you can't have everything.
re 71 Madmary - good spot but it's Marc with a C replacing Lissa with a double 's' and an 'a'. You'll love him.
But most importantly we EXCHANGED just before 6pm.
And if you're not busy on Sunday I'm editing The World this Weekend - with the lovely Stephen Sackur. Do tune in. 1pm.
Lx
Yay Lissa with an a and Nik with a k.
Exchanging is such a relief.
All best to both. And Mr Knibbs.
Am now off on a hunt to find RJD. He's probably in bed.
xx
LadyPen
You should be so lucky, you unladylike lady! He's on the Liffey. (as i am, with my amazing self-emptying glass)
xx
ed
P.S. Where's my answer and welcome to Breda? i gave him a signpost to the beach, and I hope (s)he's not lost in the less well-lit regions of bloggville...
Thanks again for all your good work, Lissa, but was today's chaos partially down to your leaving festivities? Forgiven anyway, but I'd dismiss the external contractors.... You (or I) could do better from a remote cottage
ed
06/01/2007 at 00:58:53 GMT
Bringing up the coo's tail as per usual (thanks for the heads-up Anne P) I'd like to add to everything that's already been written to you Lissa-with-an-a, but d'you know, I don't think I can add a thing! Thanks and welcome as a lay-frogger?
PC has been playing up all day, and I was away all of yesterday, so it looks like there's much to catch up on.
Aperitif - I wish you better.
RJD - where have you been?
Belinda - nice strapline!
Better late than never - Sorry to hear you're going Lissa. Thanks so much for all the work you've done on this. Everybody else has said it all already .......... (*quietly* er, is Marc any good do you think? Will you come back if he isn't? Will you train him before you go? We need to know please)
Aunt Dahlia - if Allawi's very impressive article in the Indy on Friday gets the backing one might hope for, then maybe after all the Middle East might sort itself out a bit - enough that we can get the hell out of there and Afghanistan. We still have to get rid of the nuclear weapons future though - HOW much is that due to cost?
Confused,
I do love you, and belated appreciation of your recent contributions, but I have to ask: Do you mean preventing Iran from obtaining the weapons she insists she isn't seeking, while leaving Israel holding the ones she remains intentionally vague about, but we all know she has?
ed
06/01/2007 at 01:22:03 GMT
(Don't mention the pachyderm)
Ah, thank you Ed. Good grief, I'd momentarily forgotten that lot. No, I meant the Trident renewal.
And, there's this:
The British government is trying to stall an investigation into the theft of more than $1.3bn (ÂŁ740m) from the Iraqi Ministry of Defence, senior Iraqi officials say.
The government wants to postpone the investigation to help its favoured candidate Iyad Allawi, the former prime minister, in the election on 15 December. The money disappeared during his administration.
Diogenes certainly had his work cut out, eh?
ed
06/01/2007 at 01:54:44 GMT
Re: BillnBen, Ed, and Lissa,
It's so much better than telly just musing over the posts.
Lissa, Glad you still have some input as regards to editing progs. Please can you do us all a favour before you depart and give us a glimpse of your face. I'm gay anyway so you don't need to worry about anything on my behalf!
And thanks for all the interesting links Ed.
Peter who is a Senior Producer from ±«Óătv7 (an old friend) is with me tonight. He used to work on ±«Óătv 5 Live alongside Eddie a few years back. I showed him the pmblog site and he critisised me for not using apostrophes .. as in Eddies or Eddie's blog
I was always told off for using apostrophies in names?
Can someome explain ?
I need Fifi -- plus I was never any good with using the English language :-(
PS: He told me that Eddie is now looking super trim and slim (Big Sis) ??
You couldn't make it up, could you? Look at the rivals he's got, though .... The Bush administration don't look out of place amongst that lot. And Blair's annual freebies pale into insignificance. (Sigh) Enough, I'm off to bed. Goodnight.
So is it Eddies blog or Eddie's blog. I get confused ? esp with names.
Have Peter staying with us from ±«Óătv7 who has just seen the PM Blog and is a Senior Producer. I think he used to work with Eddie on 5Live.
Which is right then?
Eddies or Eddie's
I'm useless at English -- Fifi can you explain it all?
Oh and ED I
We still have a vote about Trident running on the PM blog site ?
I'm happy to leave it running. I guess the longer it stays there the more accurate the result .
Ed I As much as I love you, clicking on that link reminded me of someone I just donated a leftover sandwich to at Bournemouth Railway Station tonight! We MUST get some new photo's done Ed :-)
x
Jonnie (105) it's Eddie's - or more accurately PM's (!)
By the way, amid all the talk of Lissa's departure and Marc's arrival...froggers will give her an amazing gift just by frogging. I think this is the week we will pass twenty thousand comments on the blog - the first ±«Óătv blog to do so! It will happen on her watch, before Marc takes over on Friday.
Ed (90) Just about all my posts are "otherwise objectionable". Usually on grounds of apaullling speelling or grammer.
Jonnie, perhaps the reason people get confused by apostrophes is that they are used for two different things - but never for plurals as so often seen on shop signs!
1. They can be used to show that something is missing as in isn't for is not or can't for cannot.
2. They are also used for belonging, sometimes called the possessive, as in the blog belonging to Eddie, which is Eddie's. Sometimes this is difficult if the person's name ends in an s so then you get James' rather than James's (but I think both can be used). Also if you are talking about belonging to one or many then you could have either one person's or, belonging to several = persons'.
For more on any grammar stuff best read the wonderful Lynn Truss "Eats Shoots and Leaves" who makes it more entertaining than I ever could.
Hope this helps.
A random selection of comments:
Breda - I'm sure I spelt your name correctly when I posted. Somehow you became 'bread' in the 'bread machine' that is moderation (Does that mean they leaven our inputs - :-)
Lee Vitout - I've only just discovered that we're standing side by side up there, and I've come over all goosebumps!
Jonnie and Eddie: Super slim , eh? Well, I've never been 'sizeist', so it's never been an issue for me (cuddly men are nice, anyway ...) but from a health angle, I'm sure it's good. Does this mean you're now a gym fanatic, Eddie? Or lots of walks (presumably between the hours of 5 a.m. and 9 a.m., which would account for your early blogs .....)
Lissa/Nik: Congratulations on the house! All houseowners know the nailbiting frustrations of completions and exchanges, so great news for you both. And you're around for a week (and, I'd imagine, thereafter) which is great news for us.
Lissa (95) I now realise that if you are from Chesterfield, then as an incomer to Derbyshire I was attempting to teach my grandmother (not that you're old or anything:-) ).
I'm sure the move is a great idea on many grounds, but one which we discovered after getting here was when a programme on climate change talking about where it would be best to live in future said "half way up a hill in Derbyshire" !
Mind you, when everyone else attempts to join us it might not be so great.
Anne P(110): I may have mentioned before, so sorry if this is a repeat. Lynn Truss and I were at the same school (with a slight overlap). When I read a comment from her, fairly recently, that she wasn't taught grammar at her school, I nearly choked on my porridge. Unless her teacher was wildly different from mine (unlikely as this was a girls grammar school and standards were pretty consistent), we were inculcated with the various rules, etc., to an extent that I've found myself throughout my lifetime getting very - and rather pettily - annoyed at grammatical inaccuracies.
As a language teacher myself, however, I have come to realise over the years that, provided an inaccuracy doesn't lead to a misunderstanding (Lynn's book title does illustrate just how that CAN arise!), there is in fact very little harm in such mistakes. Language is about communication, and I'm very much against pedantry (Sorry ValP! - You, m'dear, are an exception!)
Not, Anne, that I'm suggesting that your explanation of the grammar rule was anything other than helpful, just that there are times when some people (nobody on the Frog, I hasten to add!) bleat on about the grammar stuff to a degree which suggests that the world will come to an end if we don't get our apostrophes in the right place.
Lissa ... ...
Commas used to be used in plurals of such things as "the 1970's" or "BBQ's" but this is now mostly seen as choice - which doesn't help matters, does it?
It also used to be the rule when making a plural of things, like names, starting with a capital letter, but this is rarely seen now as well. (eg All the Fifi's got together on the beach)
I'm not too bothered either, but having had it slammed into me at a grammar school I do still notice it, just as with pronunciations - shedules never skedules, etc.
Speaking of English - can someone translate the message I just got on sending this? No ObjectDriver defined at /home/system/cgi-perl/mt/lib/MT/Object.pm line 144. which followed several lines of complete gobbledegook.
Sis,
On the matter of leavening, it seems the moderators are on the side of matzo, and feel obliged to puncture any sign of levity. As you can see, though (90), there are worse ones about.
Jonnie,
Is any better? I thought not. More , but that's cheating by using time travel. BTW, Trident can run, but I'd rather sink the whole programme (or should we use the 'merican spelling, considering) program, and I'd be pleased to see any other poll anyone might suggest, like should we give the Ugandans a right to create a state in Yorkshire? (wink emoticon)
Anne P, Best is partway up a hill in SW Scotland, but there're a lot fewer shop's. If the Gulf Stream stops, we may get ice for our drinks delivered to the bottom of the garden.
It was in a postgraduate seminar in English that I was finally told that the best English (or any other language) is that which is understood by the hearer - after twenty years of having rules and exceptions (i before e except after c or when sounding like a as in reindeer ir sleigh - but what about Scotland and Leith, Reid, ....?) weird!
Now who's the pedant? So their!
ed
06/01/2007 at 12:03:36 GMT
Big Sis - thanks for the exception, and I realise that I've never properly explained that the original gift of my name was made in an ironic fashion. Last year I started working for a business consultant "doing the pedantry" on(as he describes tidying up) business plans, so he christened me Madame Pedant. My first posting on Eddie's Blog was to tick off our dear leader for a mistake - so when I was choosing a nom-de-frog, it seemed appropriate!
I know I expressed my attitude a few weeks ago on a thread, when we were discussing this same subject; I, too, had the rules of grammar, parsing etc laid down at an early age in school, so when my hackles go up, it's a conditioned reflex! However, I have been softened by the wisdom of age, and I consider language itself to be organic. How could we ever have our rich tapestry of expression if we had never subsumed choice items from other sources? LadyPen, would your tapestries be as pleasing and attractive if they all turned out looking the same because of a list of proscribed items??
Ho-hum, time for a cuppa methinks!
Ed - "so their" ? Please tell me this is just your famous American irony?????
Sorry! Should've been "So they're!"
xx
ed
Weep, wail, gnash teeth. Rend hair. Sackcloth and ashes.
We'll miss you, but less so if you frogalonga-us. nom-de-frog? How about Her Knibbs?
And thanks. For everything.
Let us know if your docs are broadcast on R4, won't you?
btw, gossipm (25), I, for one, hope Mr K *doesn't* meet a water vole as we are an endangered species and I fear it would end tragically.
Interesting - my 117 (short) has appeared before the the comment I made earlier (much longer, not like me). Plus ca change? So glad I missed yesterday's mess. Perhaps I'll not let myself get involved any further today...not good for a pedant's blood pressure to have these little things going wrong time after time without being able to do something about it!
Val P shouldn't that be 'without being able to do anything about it'.
(ducks)
Oooh, Big Sis (39) you got there first.
Memo to slef: even if there are a lot of posts, read them before posting yourself.
Further memo to self: Apply stamp before posting yourself.
Val,
Isn't "American irony" an oxymoron, like "ecotourism", "sustainable development", "Wise leaders", "Defense budget", "Microsoft Works", etc.?
I dunno, you Brits do confuse me sometimes.
ed
06/01/2007 at 13:03:56 GMT
Admin Annie, I'm even ore concerned about this thread now. Your cats massacring my Orkney cousins? Shame, I say. Shame!
And, mixed in with all the other pedantry, the latest from my favourite Wall Street Cynic:
ed
06/01/2007 at 13:29:43 GMT
Hi everyone. It's good news about Lissa's house, isn't it? (and please note the use of apostrophes!!) And I'm sure we will all love having Marc as our new Blogmaster. Whether he will love us is another matter - there are still lots of techie problems here, I see, and we are not reticent about mentioning them. Quite a lot.
Anne P, Big Sister and Valerie P - I too am very torn between the shudders of horror I feel when I see apostrophes in the wrong place or other grammatical atrocities, but nor do I want to think of myself as a pedant, because there are so many other more important things to get distressed about.
However, Big Sister - I was a language teacher too many years ago. I taught German mainly and can still remember my heart sink as I told my new class brightly that there were lots of helpful clues in German to make things easier for them, such as nouns beginning with a capital letter. The boys stared back at me utterly blankly. Trouble was, they had no idea what a noun was. When I then mentioned verbs and subordinate clauses .....
I spent the first term teaching them English which didn't go down too well with the English Department. And after two years I gave up altogether. I just hope things are better now.
Hey! It's my first strapline!
I feel famous. I shall now book myself into rehab and apply to go on a reality TV show!
Confused (115),
Some scripts (which I think is being related to here), object to certain characters that appear on the keyboard. For example, ", or @, or ÂŁ. Usually there are "traps" that read the text first and alter the " to another code which then re-translates as " when it prints out, but does not cause the script to have a nervous brakedown as it processes the text. Maybe you found a character that was not caught.
Is it possible that you had used one of these characters initially? The other option of a hidden character, accidentally holding the ctrl or alt key down when hitting another one.
Well, that's my ha'p'orth worth, based on my wrestles with perl scripts.
And for Val P et al, E&OE for all punctuation errors etc.; I know my English is terrible.
admin annie - aw shucks!
Ed - rofl.
Sara - my point exactly, I don't think that what I do is pedantry, it's merely expressing things correctly! An apostrophe's there for a reason and it's just as easy to do a thing the right way as it is to do it the wrong way, no? Y'all will have noticed that I have no argument about splitting infinitives and dangling participles............
..whoops, sorry for the tautology &c in my penultimate paragraph:
Well, that's my ha'p'orth [worth], based on my wrestling with perl scripts.
Don't y'all just love it when a professional, such as an accountant paid good money to be accurate, appends E&OE - "Errors band Omissions Excepted"?
IOW (in other words), "Everything I have just said/written is true and accurate (unless it isn't)"
BTW (by the way), the little tool, can set it up so that when one types these lovely little abbreviations, (btw, lol, roflol, imo, imho, iow, asamof, ...) are automaticly expanded into their full-length cliché form. Just think of the time one might save (after the time spent setting up all the possibilities, of course)!
xx
ed
Saturday January 06, 2007 at 14:51:19 GMT
(that last line was effortlessly rendered by pressing "f2" key)
Ain't technology wonnerfu'?
Can anyone explain why so many of the women reporters on R4 these days have the squeaky voices of pert petulant 12 year old girls?; as a result i often find it difficult to pay proper attention and respect to their comments. Mind you, alternatives who at least have adult voices, like corrie whatnot, often sound just too spooky for comfort.
i'm delighted to see so many intelligent women in high places, but puzzled when their voices don't match their abilities - female interviewees don't seem to have that problem, and usually speak quite normally for whatever age they are.
So LadyPen does tapestries and has changed her name from the long form and now Lissa is leaving. I'm so out of touch!
Thankyou Lissa for your fine works on this blog, it wouldn't/won't be the same without you!
Glad to see you've invegled (sp, Val?) Nik with a k to frog, independantly and together - has this ever happened before? Couples frogging independantly and together - could be fun :)
Good luck in the Wilds of the North!
jaff, are you not making a rather sexist point? That male voices are more convincing than female?
And the word "pert" is unfortunate in the context of your comment is it not?
Mary
Lissa:
Good luck in your new job
LadyPen:.
Nice to see your postings-I do enjoy them!
Probably just me,but seems ages since I read one.
Mollyxx
Andycroakemployee - Happy New Year - how's it going? (inveigled, but who cares?)
Gosh it's been quiet whilst I've been away today? Where is everyone?
Ed - I hadn't heard of Deepjohn's E&OE, but should that be Errors andomissions whatnot? otherwise I can't make any sense out of it.
jaff (133) welcome to the blog.
I seem to recall hearing at various times that the sensitivity of both microphones and the male ear (and I not being sexist here) to higher frequencies means that both often have difficulty picking up female voices.
For example for my very deaf father-in-law I have to drop my voice as low as I can so that he can hear me.
I think that in the past this resulted in female radio voices being picked for their deeper tones. It may be that with better microphones and digital technology this bias is disappearing.
This must be justified as long as the women chosen are the right ones for the job. I'm sure there are male voices that grate on the ear also.
Trouble is it's a quite personal thing and a voice you find 'squeaky' and difficult to listen to may be no problem to another listener.
If you really want to take it further, why not email the programme and see if they could do a piece on it, perhaps relating it to the digital switchover.
Ed (132), Val (137),
Errors and Omissions Excepted. Surprised you've not come across it before, Val.
I'm not a professional computer coder, nor am I being paid for this (quite the reverse) so I've nothing to fear from Ed's comments about accountants and other professionals using it. Even though I was using it to refer to my English and punctuation. Val was perfectly right to have questioned my posting referring to "Aperitif's at the ready" a while back, although that was a real example (illustrated in my blog), it could have been a typical error of mine.
Come to think of it, I'm surely of the "professional class", by [eventual] education, training and the like, but I wonder which one...
I missed the moment when LadyPen took her long nom-de-Frog, could never work out what it was about - anyone care to elucidate?
jaff (133), welcome. I like Corrie Corfield's and Seagreen's lower tones, but as I am deaf to high tones perhaps I'm missing something with some of the other announcers. But I find some male voices grate, while others are so much easier to listen to. The weather forecasters seem a pretty representative bunch of m and f voices in both categories.
Ann (138), digital switch over(*) may actually reduce the quality of sound for programs such as PM when compared to FM reception. Remember the fuss when R3 had it's bandwidth reduced, thinking no-one would notice (they did!). More stations = less (average) bandwidth per station, and voice radio needs less than music radio, so it tends to get robbed to give more to the music stations.
(*) Comments not applicable to Freeview.
Val,
Right you are! I'm all thumbs around the 'spacebar',,,
Jaff, it's always nice to have another stirrer to take the heat. Welcome, and I hope you're sufficiently pachydermal, 'cause we've got some tough broads 'round here, but they're lovely and do their share of the catering on the beach as well.
I'm off to stirr up a fire there for the pizza oven. I've got plenty of dough, sauce, fresh oregano, garlic, cheese, pepperoni and olives, but could use a bunch of anchovies and capers and whatever anyone else wants.
Oh, and I could use some more black Liffey water if anyone's passing an appropriate source.
See y'all there, y'hear?
xx
Saturday January 06, 2007 at 20:40:46 GMT
I'm Jonnie's ±«Óătv 7 pal - and I'm down at the Cransley. Have urged him to listen to ±«Óătv 7 all this week at 11.30 am, Monday to Friday - as, very spookily we're broadcasting CUTTING A DASH. The Endangered Apostrophe: The series that inspired "Eats Shoots and Leaves". I'll make sure he's glued, to discover whether a misplaced apostrophe is a catastrophe.
More worryingly Jonnie hasn't taken the christmas lights down yet - will the Cransley be cursed with a year's bad luck?
jonnie - you've got till midnight to get those lights down, but if you had a real tree do be careful.
We had a big one this year and I had the job of undressing it and getting the lights off - ended up as full of pine needles as a porcupine has quills. Best Beloved even tried the hoover on me! I think I've got them out of my hair, but the real mistake was to be wearing a woolly jumper. Still I do love the smell of a real tree even if you never get rid of the needles - ever.
Thank you Anne, Simon has already attended to the tree, it's just the garden lights.
Thank you everyone for explaining the apostrophe, I'm going to print it all out and have a good read through.
As Peter is looking over my shoulder I'll of course have to listen ±«Óătv7 next week.
Hi pete (jonnie's friend). What would jonnie do without you.
I love apostrophes, I wouldn't be without one.
Mary
Spooky - I'm just taking a break from packing Christmas away until the next time :o(. SO has gone out to get the loppers, as we have found, over the years, that the most expeditious way of getting the tree out of the sitting room is to dismember it in situ - blackbagging as we go. Other composting arrangements are available I believe, but we have no kerbside collections etc out here, so we do our own composting and recycling as necessary!
Ed - I wasn't criticising, merely asking, because I didn't know that one.
DeepJohn - it matters not what your profession is/was, but it always sounds like you are working like the proverbial blue blazes, hats off to you!
Back to the packing....I hate this bit
Out if interest, is this the same Marc Settle who was/is a producer for BH?
Pete,
Hello matey, and welcome to the frog. I read with interest about your programmes on ±«Óătv7, unfortunately, as a service engineer I'm on the road all day so I won't be able to listen. Will they be on "Listen Again" I wonder so I can catch them in the evening?
I think I got all of the apostrophe's in the right places.
Got to dash, I think Ed's got a Liffey problem on the beach. To paraphrase, who was it? I'll be back.
Brian
On the subject of women's voices, most of us don't have a problem hearing voices whether we find pleasure in their tones or not. I do think though there is a tendency for people to "credit" the male voice with more gravitas simply because we are still more used to hearing men than women. And hearing men pontificate on more weighty subjects. Count the number of male presenters on the Today programme and the number of women on that programme.
Mary
What an absolutely lovely picture of you and Mr Knibbs, Lissa! It is great to finally put a face to the name and Cameron Diaz has nothing on you!
Nice photo, Lissa!
Was the smile for us? If it was, thanks.
Sorry, Big Sister, but shouldn't it be girls' grammar school? Just asking. I'm sure my English teacher would have wanted the apostrophe...
marymary (147) but as against that look at the huge number of female sports reporters and commentators now. That would have been unheard of a few years ago.
The Today programme apart, I'd guess that on the whole broadcasting and the ±«Óătv have the gender balance a lot nearer to 50:50 than most employers.
Sadly in IT when I started in the late 80's the gender balance was definitely evening up but by the time I left 3 years ago I think it had declined to about 2:1 male/female.
I have no doubt that in part it's due to people employing people who are like themselves, which means if a company is run by men in suits it will tend to continue to be run by men in suits.
And to come back to where we started, if people are used to hearing certain types of voice on radio they may be uncomfortable when that changes - look at the furore when someone with a regional accent pops up, such as when Huw Edwards began reading the 6 o'clock news.
Mary, and all the other Sisters,
When I became a 'mature student', seeking an MSc in , I found myself in a class composed 2/3 or more of women.
Y'all can't have failed to notice my tendency to quote, and neither did they, but they also noted that I only quoted MEN - wise, honoured, erudite men perhaps, but only men. They even once set me a task to find some quotations from women, and, believe me, it wasn't easy. I did find a few from Rachel Carson, Eleanor Roosevelt, etc., but it seems men are far more often quoted, and I suspect they are sometimes quoting women, but get the credit. This has been going on for millennia.
I learned a lot on that programme, and perhaps someday I'll be able to call myself a feminist, but it's still a fact that men are taken seriously far more easily than women. Just check out my informal , for example, and that's after I started trying to do better!
I also looked at my library, and noted there were far more books as yet unread with female authors, even though there were damned few females represented anyway, and a number of them were there because they were on the course list.
(hangs head in shame)
ed
Saturday January 06, 2007 at 22:52:41 GMT
"The more clearly we can focus our attention
on the wonders and realities of the universe about us,
the less taste we shall have for destruction."
-- Rachel Carson © 1954
The deep roots of modern ?
Brilliant picture of Mr Knibbs, but who is the woman with him? Does Lissa know?
Only kidding. At last we know what you look like and oddly you look a bit like I'd imagined.
Mary
Sara (127): I had similar experiences when I was teaching languages, namely, the discovery that knowing the names of the different parts of speech had been a great help to me when I learnt languages, and that not knowing these was a tremendous hindrance to my pupils because it took them so much longer to latch onto grammatical concepts. But, as I've already mooted, I do feel that the overriding function of language should never be forgotten, namely, that of communication. When I drive my car, I want it to work for me and I leave the mechanics to others. Of course, I know that my rudimentary knowledge of mechanics can be useful, but just as long as others can do the necessary when necessary ...... It's not the perfect analogy, but it does give the drift, don't you think?
In a perfect world, I'd love everybody, including myself, to understand grammar, etc., fully, but there's so much else that is more necessary to the human race that I cannot get too excited about it these days.
Gill T (151): Re the girls'/girls point, I personally think the school didn't belong to the pupils, which is why I omit the apostrophe.
Welcome Pete, Welcome Jaff - nice to meet you!
And welcome back AndyC. Hope your roof is keeping you as warm and dry as mine!
But I haven't seen this photo yet .... Is it on the Beach?
Just spotted Lissa and Mr. K. Both lovely, both our friends (well, Mr. K might be a bit stand-offish with us, in a feline kind of a way. But he might purr if we stroke him nicely)
Lovely to see you, Lissa. Thanks for relenting!
I don't know who started the discussion on female voices on the radio or why they did, but welcome or not I'm going to put my tuppenceworth in.
I don't think there is a weak newsreader on ±«Óătv, male or female. But I would pick two out of bunch that I admire for different reasons
Susan Rae - reasonably new to ±«Óătv News but a narrator of many programmes in recent years. Perfect diction, clear as a bell and delivers the news with feeling but dispassionately. I don't expect that makes sense to most people but is perfectly clear to me.
Harriet Cass - without doubt the best voice on the ±«Óătv. Reads the news as though she has written it, which she may well have. Knocks spots off the rest of the cast.
Having written the above I can't believe I've forgotten to mention Sea Green. Ah well.
really must go to bed - but a (very) early posting on this blog was about the Royal Navy and 'us' being in Afghanistan and the Navy not being of much use against a landlocked country.
Didn't stop us firing a raft of missiles from ships at them did it?
don't take this as me 'for' or 'against' the armed forces its just I remember thinking that the bells must've been ringing loudly in Kabul when the missiles were detected and someone would've said "we're being fired on by the Navy!!"
Hi Brian, Yes you'll be able to catch CUTTING A DASH on ±«Óătv 7's Listen again facility. So all will be revealed on apostrophes.
The outside xmas lights are still up at the Cransley - so I just hope Jonnie is not in for a year of bad luck.....
Gill T (151)
Oh I do admire your courage in challenging Big Sis with the "girls' grammar school" apostrophe. Having said that, I always thought that I went to an all boys grammar school.
Can we 'ave an adjudication please? Valery P and Anne P can I name you as official adjudicators?
Thanks for the fotie Lissa.
Decorations all down, tree chopped up (sniff), time for a nightcap and then, oh damn I was supposed to be going to bed early wasn't I Carol?
Re: RJD,
Well Harriot is a Senior announcer so we would expect that :-)
I have to say I also like some of the Radio 2 newsreaders voices.
PS: Lights will be removed first thing in the morning.
The big tree will have to be chopped up but the little one in the guest lounge is a ±«Óătvbase pot grown one so hopefully will be okay next year.
Re the Newsreaders, Charlotte Green & Harriet Cass not only have great voices but you do feel the News is safe in their hands!
Having said that, I like most of the R4 announcers' voices, especially Chris Aldridge amongst the chaps.
(Jonnie did you include Fran Godfrey in your favourite R2 newsreaders? I have to turn off when she comes on!!)
All the best for TW2, Lissa!
Lissa - I've just had a thought about Mr Knibbs' impending move. The one thing you should do, if you haven't already, is get him microchipped. (The chip goes into the ear skin, & think it's a fairly minor procedure). That way, should he somehow go missing, you stand a chance of getting him back.
Might also be a good idea to accustom him to a collar, if he hasn't already got one. After the requisite 2 (preferably 3 )weeks inside at the new house, you can take him out for a few minutes into the garden, with a string attached to the collar, just in case he tries to make a bolt for freedom.
We've always had rescue cats, & that's what I've done, & none of them ever ran off. I used to show them the garden through the window for a few days first, as well, then carry them outside the door for a few minutes on freedom day, before letting them go off on their own.
Lovely photo Lissa - is Enos short for ENORMOUS(E)?
xx
RJD/GillT: I know my posting last night may have appeared frivolous, so I'll elaborate a bit more. I don't think that the apostrophe can ever be used to denote 'for', which in the case in question might be what was intended. And I have indeed seen the apostrophe used in school names in this way. As it happens, I've checked out the website for my old alma mater and they do use the apostrophe! I would dispute its use, however, since I think that the word Girls (or Boys, in the relevant cases) is in fact performing an adjectival function in the case of Girls Grammar School, Boys Grammar School.
It's an interesting case and will no doubt inspire further debate, perhaps even on this thread. However, as I've already said, I don't like to be a grammar pedant, so shan't say any more on the matter.
RJD (157),
I have a funny feeling that when she started "Sue Rae" had a broader Scots accent. Suddenly one "Susan Rae" had a more toned down accent. But both were well pronounced etc.
I was trying to think of a male voice that grated with me (to show balance). Harder than it sounded; for example John Cushnie (GQT) grates, but that's because of his character, not his accent.
By the wayB'n'B (147) wrote:
I think I got all of the apostrophe's in the right places.
....I hope that was meant ironically...
Smashing photo, Lissa - and Mr K looks very impressive too!
Can we have a photo of our new blogmaster before he leaves, do you think? Like now would be a good time.
Both SO and I are great fans of Susan Rae for exactly the same reasons as those already given.
And she's from Dundee, like our Eddie!
Lovely piccy of Cameron with her cat, and what a
very handsome boy, that Mr Knibbs is! The girly cats of Derbyshire will be lined up at your door....
Annasee (165) - Microchip usually goes in between the shoulder blades - the ears are a bit close to the sharp bits!
So you were on shift today, Lissa? At least Stephen pronounces your name right!
Big Sis (167)
I agree with you on the "for" reasoning
Big Sis (167), RJD (173): Thanks for your reasoning. I think I can see both sides and was only being pedantic. I doubt whether many people would use an apostrophe, whether or not it's actually correct.
Deepthought - what is wrong with John Cushnie? He really makes me laugh. I remember a recent commetn on wasps 'good grief, you couldn't love them even if you gave birth to them' which I thought was very funny. And I have sued it since, although not about wasps.
A very pronounced northern irish accent my ear finds fairly unpalatable, and that's to do with accents, not voices. I also loathe a broad Liverpudlian accent.
I went to an establishment known as 'Pate's Grammar School for Girls' which made the apostophe question easy!
Ed (148):
we've got some tough broads 'round here
Thought you were in Scotland, not Norfolk.
btw, when I did a short stint as a radio presenter, long, long ago, I consciously dropped my voice (but the studio manager picked it up and stuck it back on). As I do if I have to talk in public, or read aloud. Seems to work.
jonnie (143) -
re the Cransley website -
guests' pets
(I couldn't resist)
Thank you for kind photo comments...I will take a photo of Marc with a C and post it for you.
Lx
PS Annasee. Thanks for the traffic advice. Luckily I'll be getting the train. Do digital radios work in Chinley? I have 5 and the ±«Óătv website says it's still analogue.
The Knibbs is micro-chipped but last time we put a collar on him (when he had been sedated by the vets), when we woke up in the morning it had been shredded in the hall.
Gossipmistress - sorry for my ignorance on micro chipping - you can tell we haven't had our cat done!
Maybe I was thinking of cows!? But as Mr Knibbs is up with the technology already, I think they've done their best.
Lissa - I can't swear to Chinley's digital reception - I think its a bit hilly in places isn't it? Probably depends exactly where your house is. We use freeview for the digital radio here & it works fine, and friends in Hyde have a real one which works perfectly. Maybe Jason can advise further?
The train is definitely the sensible choice for getting into Manchester! We're lucky enough to have a station at the end of our street, which is great for all those occasions when I don't have to take a harp anywhere (ie about 4% of the time...)
re girls' schools:
when I were a lass, we were taught very precisely to write:
St X's Girls' School
and if we got the apostrophes wrong, there was b-i-g trouble
DeepthinkingJohnW (139): we were talking (not you and me, obviously, but some others) about the Finn Family Moomintroll and I thought I might change my name to Snork Maiden. Snork Maiden is one of the characters in said Finn Family series of books, which Philip Pullman (esteemed author of children's books, but NOT Finn Family Moomintroll) had mentioned on Desert Island Discs or Book Club or something equally wordy.
AndyDisappearingCra picked up on the reference, and suggested LadySnorkPenMaiden as a compromise. Which I adopted.
Partly because someone else calling her/itself LadyP had recently appeared on the blog, and the similarity between the two names was causing a certain amount of confusion. Especially to me :-)
Does that help??
xx
LadyPen
PS I've now reverted.
PPS Am tempted to revert even further and call self L. In the interests of taking up even less room. On the basis that EdIgle won't then have any grounds to complain about the size of my carbon footprint :-)
PPPS EdIgle - that's a joke, BTW.
PPPPS Am now off to the beach to spread silliness there.
(Submitted 6.25pm, 07.01.07)
Lissa (178) re digital reception in Chinley - it very much depends where you are relative to the lovely countryside.
I get pretty good reception from my bedroom using a Pure Tempus and it's telescopic aerial. I get all ±«Óătv national output no problem and can pull in some Manchester local radio (but with lots of burbles). We have clear site of Kinder Scout, though, and the tv aerials point that way. It will depend on which way you are facing and if there is a cliff above your roof.
You won't get Freeview to work though afaik. Come 2008 and the switchover...
Your Ladyship,
So I've been reduced to the resident eco-grump, eh? Mutter mutter mutter...Weltschmertz the size of a solar system, and all I get is grief.....Weed, Ohhh, Weeeed! Where've you got to now? You wanna watch that Brian fellow, but you can trust me.
xx
Sunday January 07, 2007 at 20:11:41 GMT
Thanks Jason...we'll be between Eccles Pike and Cracken Edge so it might be a case of sitting in the top of my house with my 3 Pure Evokes and some coat hangers. Cross fingers or an old-fashioned analogue radio will be on my birthday wish list! My poor husband has bankrupted himself buying the Evokes. Lx
Thanks Jason...we'll be between Eccles Pike and Cracken Edge so it might be a case of sitting in the top of my house with my 3 Pure Evokes and some coat hangers. Cross fingers or an old-fashioned analogue radio will be on my birthday wish list! My poor husband has bankrupted himself buying the Evokes. Lx
FROM LISSA using Nik's name - has anyone else had this message? I'll check with Richard the blog wizard but seems rather inconvenient. It let me post after a few minutes. Let me know.
L
"In an effort to curb malicious comment posting by abusive users, I've enabled a feature that requires a weblog commenter to wait a short amount of time before being able to post again. Please try to post your comment again in a short while. Thanks for your patience."
Oh Lissa (and Nik), we all have that message from time to time, usually when enthusiasm has the best of us!
Lissa,
Welcome to the malicious malicious posting notice!
It's particularily nasty in that, as well as getting irritated, if you press the indicated link you lose your carefully crafted post forever, and have to retype it all while your bile boils....
if you're clever and just press your browser's 'back' button instead, your post remians intact to try again....
It has been known to receive the malicious malicios message first thing in the morning when one hasn't posted in hours, or days.
Grrrrr!
xx
ed
Sunday January 07, 2007 at 21:11:17 GMT
Jason - its telescopic aerial!!! So sorry, but that one is a pet hate.
Frances O, my school got around the issue by insisting that on every occasion we should refer to it as The Blah Blah School for Girls, and if any of the words were omitted or capitals incorrectly used, then woe betide us. Never enough room for it when filling in application forms etc.....
Not only that, but we all had to use the same make and model of fountain pen - oh lord, is it any wonder I turned out to be a pedant? There were so many other rules you wouldn't believe it!
Yes Lissa (disguised as Nik) I get it all the time. When your resignation was posted I got that message three times trying to post a fond farewell, and as that made me late for court I had to give up.
It also happens if you post fairly quickly after already posting.
It's really annoying as sometimes you make a mistake in a post and you want to rectify it but you have to wait so long that your correction comes out hours later, or sometimes oddly before the original post.
Mary
Lissa (184/5),
You seem to have found one of the traps us Froggers have to put up with...
Admin annie (175), sorry, but his anti-green-veg comments get to me, I much prefer the advice of Pippa, Anne and Bob.
LadyPen (181), I completely missed this, (work, no doubt), so thanx for the infilling.
As for radio coverage, I drove by Clivedon this evening, on country roads. Either my car radio has thown a wobbly, or else R4 FM coverage is useless just north of Slough. What does that say about digital coverage N of Watford?
I'm wildly against radio analogue switch off; how can I listen to PM on my 1947 valve radio?
Lissa with an a and Nik with a k - I've tried really really hard to get a malicious posting notice, but can't. I think Mac people are probably immune . . . :-)
xx
LadyPen
PS EdIgle . . . you do make me smile :-)
Oh dear. Now you know what we were whinging about, Lissa. That message pops up sometimes for no obvious reason & I think we've all had it several times. I don't understand why, doesn't seem to be related to the content in any way. It's just annoying if you've created a cleverly-crafted missive & it's lost after that message. At least I think it's lost - I could never find it again - has anyone else? Same as the "Too frequent posting" warning, which I don't understand because I've often had it when it's my first post of the day. I mean, if things are just too busy, why doesn't it say something like "Look, can't you see I'm busy? Go away & do some work & come back later when I've got time to deal with you. If you must." That should keep people happy.
Re the digital radios,, if they don't work in Chinley, we'll buy one of them off you. I'd love a proper digital radio in the kitchen (PM always coincides with cooking - does Eddie sound better on a digital radio? Not that he could be improved in any way, of course, what am I saying?) I'll even give you my little sony radio - its only mono but works a treat, & I'm sure especially well in Chinley.
Oh Annasee, Ed will be so proud of you doing swaps so that neither of you have to buy anything new!
I get the maliciously fast message more often than I would like, and like others, discovered the hard way, that you must use the back button to return to where you were, as the link they suggest takes you down a blind alley, beats you up and removes your posting, never to be seen again......
As I said elsewhere, it's a good thing our Natinal Health Service or National Security didn't depend upon the same level of software incompetence the world's greatest communications organisation does.
xx
ed
Sunday January 07, 2007 at 21:52:33 GMT
(Your ladyship, it's mutual ;-P)
If one of those Evokes is an Evoke 3 and if it doesn't work when you get there... (I am just hoping SO never reads this!)
Fancy getting my apostrophe's wrong - its just the sort of thing I'd do in a thread like this one ;-)
I got the message last night, went back by the link, lost the original message so retyped and sent it a little later - only to find that the first one had appeared anyway.
And digital is OK if you don't listen to music much, but if you do then you miss the stereo. At some times of day - like 5-6pm - it's got to be Radio 4, but from 7pm at the latest I've got the joys of living on the south coast - analogue and FIP Radio from France. Lovely combination.
Annasee
So you would like a digital radio?
Bought my first one last week. ÂŁ29 would you believe and works a dream. Discontinued model but so what? Sharp FV-DB1 if you are interested. Works so well that I went back and bought two more - one for the kitchen and one for the office,
Have since found out that it is available on *bay at the same price. ÂŁ87 for three digital radios! I'm sure recent models have more features - but I only listen to 2/3 stations so why pay more?
btw still playing Appassionata constantly. Is there a second CD in the offing?
LadyPen (192)
You can try all you like to get a malicious posting message but it will never happen!
It is not down to your Mac but the charm, eloquence and pure grace of your submissions!
Gosh, RJD. What a lovely thing to say.
Am off to the beach now to hide my blushes under a palm tree.
(Other bushels to hide my light under are available, of course. And isn't it odd that 'bushels' is an anagram of 'blushes'?)
How weird.
Or wierd.
Or possibly wired.
:-)
xx
LadyPen
So do I understand correctly that a digital radio isn't stereo? Never? What's the point of that then? How can that be better? (You can see I'm not really into all this techie stuff, if this fact comes as a surprise)
I mean, I don't listen to a lot of music -"Turn off that racket can't you" being my usual reponse after a day at the cliff face, making more racket- but if I do, I like it to be stereo.
I'd like a digital radio so I could hear ±«Óătv 7 which seems to have all my old favourites.
Anyway, Lissa, if your radios don't work, looks like you've shifted 2 of them already, if I interpret Jason right. We could have a dodgy-looking rendezvous in a car park somewhere at midnight, involving brown envelopes with cash, digital radios & car boots. Give the CCTV operators something to think about. Maybe even a chance to meet some of our friendly local police if they were bored & curious. Oh you're going to love it up here!
I've not had the malicious posting message yet, too new.
I'll try very hard to get the message today so I don't feel left out.
Ha Ha!
Did it with the next post!
Now, does anyone know how short the gap has to be in order to get the malicious post message?
Thank you to who ever it was that said you should use the back button on the task bar. It saved me losing my message.
Great!
Lil Weed
The message before my last one (202) didn't appear. I suppose that is normal?
Am I being unrealistic to expect all my pearls will be posted?
Weed
Little Weed:
Why not try threading your pearls? Then you could sell them. They're very fashionable these day, y'know!
Just a thought ..... :¬)
Goodness me, what a lot upon which to catch! (I can do pedantry too, remember. Of which, more later...)
Jonnie (103) : I don't believe there is a rule about not using apostrophes with names. According to Mrs Barnfather, my legendary and infallible primary school teacher, anyway. (And thank you Anne P et al for answering the query while I was selfishly not here!)
Anne P (110) : The only thing I would add to your excellent explanation is that Mrs B was very firm that words ending in S also get the 's treatment, when it's possessive. So you get St James's and even princess's. But if the word ending in S is already plural... then you do the s' thing instead.
This leads to the bonkers-looking word meaning 'belonging to the royal young ladies'.........
Princesses'
Confused (115) : Where there are quantities of me to be found, on the Beach or anywhere else, Mrs Barnfather would have you refer to us as Fifis.
And it's the same whether we are there in the noughties or the 1970s.
It gets more complicated if, as I often do whilst editing books, one is faced with a list of Dos and Don'ts. But Mrs B knows best, and I know better than to give her an excuse to rebuke me from beyond the grave!
(Other accents are available...)
Sara (127) & Big Sister (155) : Same thing happened to me when I went to university to study, among other things, French. One of my tutors embarked upon a (to me) not-bad explanation of the Subjunctive. I'd covered that at school in Latin, and with some difficulty had eventually 'got' it.
The class stared blankly.
Tutor went back a step, and tried building a pattern of reasoning based on Tenses. Had, had had, might have had, would have had...
The class stared blankly.
In the end we spent three weeks teaching the class what nouns, verbs and adjectives were, so they had a vocabulary ("a what?") with which to understand the building blocks of what we were learning.
No wonder I gave up French after 1 year and took more business subjects instead!
Anne P (152) : My first job after uni was at Scotland's first commercial radio station. One of the production assistants (both of them female graduates) was desperate to get on-air for more challenging stuff than reading out the scores for phone-in quizzes.
The Programme Controller, forced to explain why he kept bringing in male presenters from outside without even interviewing her, eventually declared that 'no way will there EVER be a female jock on this station'.
Shortly afterwards, the plucky lass left to do maternity cover on Scotsport on Scottish Television.
Who was she? A total failure called Hazel Irvine.
Fifi xx
A few sexist points?
1. While a a teenager with no father about, I was subjected to a certain amount of feminist propaganda, e.g. that women are more sensible than men. I thought this explained their lack of interest in sport and absence from sports commentaries, but it seems that women are now becoming no more sensible than men.
2. Gender of voice is becoming irrelevant. TV documentaries, sometimes even news programmes (I use 'program' for computers only) now have so much music played over the commentary that soon we won't be able to hear what anyone is saying.
Wait, what? Radio analogue is being turned off as well? I just thought it was TV. Now I am depressed. When is this meant to be happening? Why can't we have the choice of both?
and for those who are currently thinking "she didn't know about this?" Yes, I have just crawled from under a rock. I am due to crawl back there any day now...
Belinda,
I share your horror at the thought of analogue radio being turned off. I heard it mentioned in connection with the Govt. selling-off the bandwidth, or something.
Apart from the fact that digital is not a suitable substitute, I think the perpetrators should be made to buy us all replacement radios. That would make them think again. I guess I should say, that'd make them think.
Yes I fear this is true, and lamentable. I understand that DAB is not all it is cracked up to be, especially for e.g. Radio 3. Certainly my experience of "listening live" via the PC (and yes, I do have broadband) is very unsatisfactory. Living in rural Derbyshire (welcome, Lissa!) we do not get DAB, so one day in the not too distant future, all our radios (10 in the house and 2 in the cars) will become useless. On that day we will have no radio except via the telly and the aforementioned unsatisfactory computer version. Listening on the telly does not work, because I am rarely where my telly (and FreeSat point) is during the day (and when I am, in the evenings, there is invariably someone else there who would rather watch some telly.) So I will have to replace all of my 12 radios on one (very expensive) day. With no guarantee that the signal will be any good. But since my alarm clock is also a clock radio I probably won't wake up either!
Belinda - I didn't know that either, welcome to my rock!
My only other digital radio source is, like Rachel's, one tv or the pc (in same room as tv), so the same restricitons apply.
Will obviously have to do some investigation into reception, receivers etc. Something else for the 2do list.