My new toy is an Internet radio. As long as you have Wifi access, all you need to do is plug it in, turn it on, enter the encryption key, and hey presto! more than 5,000 radio broadcasts from all over the world are available to you - or rather, in this case, to me!
I love listening to the radio, but I am hampered by only having AM, FM and DAB portables in the house. As I use a PC and not a laptop, I could until this afternoon, only access Internet radio stations from the back room, where the computer lives. Now I can listen to them from anywhere in the house.
There is a Swiss radio station which plays classical music: a man tells you in German what you are going to hear; you hear it, and then a woman tells you in French what you have just heard: there are no other interruptions. You can listen to Tango from Buenos Aires. The travel news on Classic FM South Africa tells me that the temperature this afternoon in Joburg was 28 degrees and there were queues on the M2 eastbound. (There are more than 200 classical music stations!)
I could now become more antisocial than ever, but my daughter has realised that there are more pop music stations in the world than anything else ...
5 comments:
GADGETS !! Gadgets are just soooo much fun, aren't they?
;-)
I used to pick up the Tango station from The Sarabite, but the link's not working any more. Baaah.
"I could now become more antisocial than ever, but my daughter has realised that there are more pop music stations in the world than anything else ..."
Not sure what the "but" relationship is here...
Surely listening to classical and other "real" music doesn't translate into being "antisocial", nor does, for that matter, listening to pop translate into being "pro-social".
Or are you saying that this new acquisition has facilitated more interactions (conflictual or otherwise) with your daughter, thereby making you more pro-social?
My own daughters, have grown up listening to real music, whether they wanted to or not. Now grown, to this day they have a love-hate relationship with NPR, the closest thing to the BBC here in the States, and, in most markets, the only reliable purveyor of real music (aside from the Internet of course: speaking of which, the PC upon which I write this is currently playing Ancient Faith radio).
Ben
I found two Argentine stations: "Cubictango Popular" (24 hour a day tango) and "Tango Estereo", both which you can hear live from the portal at www.reciva.com. (The latter's site is at www.tangoestereo.com) It was finding the portal and realising what I could have avilable that decided me on buying the radio.
Fr Greg
I didn't explain myself properly - sorry. I meant that I could have been a curmudgeon and escaped the music my children try to inflict on me by playing their music at a level audible to me by secreting myself away in a corner with headphones on, but now my daughter has found my new toy, she has decided that it is cool, and she wants it too.
I have Ancient Faith Radio on as I type - I find Orthodox liturgical music with words in English strangely hypnotic.
Ttony writes:
"I have Ancient Faith Radio on as I type - I find Orthodox liturgical music with words in English strangely hypnotic."
Many years ago, I attended a Byzantine Rite Vespers Service, one of my first exposures to such liturgy. It was a small mission, meeting in a converted building, a structure that had once been an auto repair shop. The little choir, consisting of the priest's son, his daughter, his wife, and maybe one or two others, was singing either "O Gladsome Light" or the Canticle of Simeon, I don't remember which; the sun was in fact setting, and the light, streaming in through the (frosted) windows, along with the singing, the ikons, and the incense, created an effect which was absolutely riveting. Suddenly, on some very deep level, I felt myself in the presence of, and one with, Orthodox and Catholic Christians of all places and ages, from First Century Jerusalem, to Byzantine Contantinople, to the Russian Steppes, to the monks of Western Europe, and worshippers in Rome. It was absolutely amazing and I will remain forever grateful to our Lord for having been allowed to experience Him - in the Communion of Saints - in this way.
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