Empathy Player

From Facebook archives

15 January 2012 at 18:27 ·

Have managed to set up my Xmas mp3player (gift from Fester) and downloaded the Danny Baker Show.  Now I shall be able to take Ferretfingers out on a Saturday morning without missing my two favourite radio programmes (that and Fighting Talk)
Feeling unreasonably smug😏

Mrs Jeremy  I love Fighting Talk too! However, I'm something of a technophobe and wouldn't know where to begin with an mp3 player or an iPod!

Bentonbag   Me too that's why I'm feeling smug!

Couldn't you get your other (?better?) half to walk you through it? Or would that be like getting him to teach you to drive?

Mrs Jeremy  'Other' half is definitely the term I would choose! Yeah he would probably be able to teach me without us coming to blows - the issue is more whether he would be willing to shell out for an mp3 player or iPod for me in the first place! Not sure on that one! He's definitely not in favour of me getting an iPhone!

Bentonbag  I have to drive Fester to the Farm and sometimes it's more economical to just stay there rather than come home and go back - so I need something to keep me amused when knitting.  Although I could just read a book I suppose!

 

Ten years on and the Sony Walkmanmp3 is still going strong. Thanks to headphones and earbuds I can listen to what I want, when and where I want and keep myself informed.  It has kept me company and entertained through many dark nights and times.  Before Fester finally got his cpap machine it helped drown out the noise of his sleep apnoea snoring.

 

Fester originally got the mp3 because I complained that I never got to hear the end of the Kermode & Mayo Film Review programme on BBC Radio 5 Live as the boys got home from school half way through.

“You can download the podcast” he said, not really knowing what a podcast was or how to do it.

(When we married in 2013 I put the mp3 player on the Registrar’s desk, pressed record and emailed our wedding as an mpg to surprised/astonished/horrified family and friends.)

 

Kermode & Mayo's witterings helped keep me sane, even before the present unpleasantness or “what with one thing and another” as they put it.  When Ferretfingers was in hospital with his broken ankle I spent the best part of a fortnight in there with him.  Trying to sleep on the floor of a hospital cubicle was more bearable with their familiar voices for comfort and company. 

 

They were the gateway drug to a whole host of BBC Radio podcasts.

Every Friday evening (or more frequently) I delete the listened-to podcasts and download a new batch.  At this moment the mp3 holds: Kermode & Mayo Film Review (this week’s, New Year and Christmas Eve), Sound of Cinema, More Or Less, The Inquiry, The Forum, The Coming Storm, The Briefing Room, LastWord, In Our Time, Health Check, Composer of the Week, BBC Inside Science, Inside Health, FromOur Own Correspondent, Great Lives, Americast and an ancient Tweet of The Day on Eider ducks which is too cute to get rid of.  Also an interview I did about raising an autistic young man with EddieMair when he was with the BBC doing iPM (being woken up by your own voice is surreal).

 

To be honest I don't listen to every episode of every programme all the way through.  Sometimes I think the subject is not for me, or "Oh for goodness sake, life's too short", and skip to the next track.  But I think Lord Reith would approve of how his brainchild Informs, Educates and Entertains this listener.

 

 

PS  My apologies if some of these links no longer work.