Listening List 01: An introduction

In order to inspire me to write more on here, i've decided to try a new format which may evolve in the future.

Listening List is (as the title suggests) stuff i've been listening to recently. At the moment, i'm spending far more time with speech radio and podcasts than i am listening to music radio, so this is a logical direction for me to take.

Podcast: Toby Foster at Breakfast (BBC Radio Sheffield, weekdays)
Link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/toby
Toby Foster's Breakfast podcast draws together all the lighter parts of the show. The team have recently started putting more effort in to the production value of the podcast and it is paying dividends. Supported by Amy Nagy and Andy Giddings, Toby presides over a broad church of topics with a steady and even hand. My favourite recent topic was "Are you called Gary?"....

Radio: Archive on 4: Malled, 60 Years of Undercover Shopping (BBC Radio 4)
Link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0532chv
Will Self has developed a superb radio style. Calm, positive, authoritative and often quietly anarchistic. This programme from the former Archive Hour features British and American material regarding out of town shopping and the Malls which have pebbledashed the suburbs either side of the Atlantic. We hear from a wide range of people; customers, workers, merchandisers and retail psychologists all offer a view of the rise (and in some cases fall) of the consumerist ideal.  The variety of voices is brilliantly balanced, ranging from those who despite the Malls which to those who are obsessed with them. These excerpts are all brought together with Self's wry commentary and journey from Bluewater in Kent to Lakeside in Essex. As a fan of commentaries on modern consumerist society, this is an excellent listen.

Radio: Tales from the Ring Road (BBC Radio 4)
Link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/ringroad 
Note: Although this review refers to the broadcast version, i believe the podcast version linked above is the same.
I'm sure this was supposed to be an atmospheric, ethereal collection of stories linked around the ring roads which encircle Coventry, Wolverhampton and Bedford. The production of the programmes is excellent, sounding like a slower paced version of Josie Long's Short Cuts. The content is more variable. The stories found almost entirely revolve around loss - accidents, fire, demolition and a murder stick particularly in the mind, but  those stories which are supposed to represent the new hopes rising from the ashes sometimes miss the target. The story of hope from the Coventry episode revolves around the "regeneration" of a part of the city, which involves razing the whole area to the ground and building something more fashionable, which will probably be demolished itself within 30 years. I find it difficult to see that as progress. But i digress, the programme is an interesting collection of stories which would otherwise have remained untold and for that reason deserves a listen.