Will Knott

Patrick Moore wasn’t just a man, but an institution. For a few generations in the UK an Ireland, if you was “astronomer” its his face and voice that come to mind.

Odd, eccentric, passionate about science and extremely fun to listen to. He quite simply made science interesting. Being an amateur might have helped. All his doctorates were honorary, but deserved.

Sir Patrick Alfred Caldwell-Moore, CBE, FRS, FRAS died on the December 9 2012.

Thanks to the RTÉ documentary on One podcast, I heard the music he wrote for the first time. And its a great insight in to the man. RTÉ have a habit of removing their podcasts after two weeks, so results will vary.

Embedded Link

DocArchive: Stargazers
Patrick Moore boasted to friends that he was the only man to interview Orville Wright, Neil Armstrong and Yuri Gagarin but to his fans he was much more than a broadcaster. (Broadcast 2001)

Coder Dojo celebrated its first birthday by going to Dublin. In act it went to Leinster House for DáilDojo (The Irish Houses of Parliment and its "lower" house) and have a Dojo between Leinster House itself and Buswells.

A few TDs (Irish Member of Parliament) and Senators showed up, some with their kids, to learn coding. We also had Minister Ciarán Cannon and an Taoiseach (Irish Prime Minister) Enda Kenny. I doubt either of them learned even Scratch, but its a start.

I still want to force a Minister to solve the Blockly Maze demo (no I wasn't let).

I took two minutes. Have you?

To: complaints@rte.ie, Joe@RTE.ie
From: Will Knott

Dear Sir or Madam,

Recently things have changed in RTÉ, in particular, afternoons on RTÉ 2FM.
I used to listen to the “wittertainment” (wit combined with entertainment) of interesting conversation about music, musicians, movies and anything interesting from the news on your afternoon shows.

Since the new year, Nikki Hayes and Rick O’Shea seem to have been gagged. Gone are the insightful riffs on air and conversations with their audiences to be replaced with “that was a song off the play list, here is another song off the playlist“. If I want pure music I have an extensive collection of CDs on my shelves and online music streaming services at my fingertips. (The less said about mp3 files at this moment, the better).

In one stroke (probably of a pen) you have removed the added value of the presenters. At times I wonder if the show has been prerecorded. These are presenters who would appear on Radio One’s playback on a regular basis. If the editors in RTE thought they were worthy of a special mention, why shut them up?

Was Jerry Ryan complaining about the upstarts of talk in the afternoon? Did Joe Duffy fret about being upstaged by rivals on the “youth” channel? Did other presenters resent their repeated appearances in the highlighted clip show? Did the fact the aiding the public in ways over multiple channels of communication hinder a target number of plays somewhere (the kind of thing usually reserved for a payola scheme, I assume you can confirm that this is not the case). Is this a preparation routine to move them off to other projects?

So, could you answer why the afternoons have been turned in to a “all music, no talk (except for the adverts)” festival, exactly like your rivals and so eliminating the sole distinguishing feature between most of the commercial stations and your own 2FM?

Instead of “more music”, any chance of “more entertainment”?
take care,
Will Knott

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Why does this spoof on the Onion remind me so much of David McWilliams “Generation Game“. I’m not as financially comfortable as I’d like to be (I’d like a Euromillions win this weekend if it can be arranged, thanks) but I don’t think that Mr McWilliams quite thought out all of his argument.

RTE seems to be hell-bent on making us nervous as opposed to shaking us from our complacency. How about going through possible fixes so the public can lobby for them (without the need to post nappies please).

Its a guy geek thing, you’ve given us the problem, now how about helping us find the solution?

In The Know: Are America’s Rich Falling Behind The Super-Rich?

tags : Onion, David McWilliams, Generation Game, RTE, solution

She verbed his adjective adjective noun
He verbed adverbially
She verbed back
Then they verbed adverbially like simile

I remember a brilliant clip like this on the first Comic Relief. Please let me know that there is a clip of this somewhere…

What brings it to mind is this Romantic Writing competition on RTE radio (yeah, its Pat Kenny, that’s why you didn’t hear about it) in conjunction with Harlequin Mills and Boon (when did they combine?).

Given Twenty’s entry in to the book world I think I might be able to squeeze a short story out of me.
Sometimes I can’t resist a good verb.

Will

tags : verb, Comic Relief, today with pat kenny, Romantic Writing, competition, RTE, Harlequin, Mills and Boon, twenty major