How many Radios do you have?

I was trying to find out if Alistair Cooke's voice was the sample on "In Yer Face" by 808 State when I stumbled across this article about radio. If you have not yet gone digital as regards your television (and even if you have in my experience) you will know the feeling of despair you get when you flip through the channels and there is NOTHING ON (thank you Bruce). You find yourself either watching dross or flipping and not getting connected to anything. Try it with the radio. I find it is very likely that you will start listening to something interesting within seconds of starting to sweep the dial. If you have shortwave, then even the foreign language stuff can be quite drawing. My wife and I used to listen to the Scottish language broadcasts when we were on the Isle of Lewis and even the extended talky bits were fun. Of course it does help if the language is nice and soft anyway. Gaelic (Irish and Scottish) seems to have all the rough bits taken off. I once listened to a broadcast in Bali which seemed to be of a comedy double act (as all my co-listeners were falling about at the dialogue). I think it was probably the Denpasar answer to Morecambe and Wise. Eventually I was laughing along with them even though I couldn't understand a word. The inflections were just funny in themselves and of course the laughter around me was infectious. It was a bit like Vic Reeves Big Night Out; you laughed but didn;t know why.

What about Visual Ambience? There has just been a flash of light in this Office. I don't know what is actually was; probably something reflected from outside. It is actually quite sunny outside but with the present angle of the sun, it is rather gloomy in here even with all the lights on. I am listening to Excel by 808 State which doesn't actually seem to fit with the light here. It's pleasant enough though and of course it has Bjork on it. It was this album which mad me buy Debut and of course all the other since.

This is turning into something akin to the very boring bits in the middle of The Journals of Sylvia Plath where she writes long descriptions of such things as the pipes around the sink in the hotel room she happens to be in. I don't know why the paperback version of her journals have a picture of her smiling while the Hardback has that inscruitable portrait of her at University. She seems to be so many different people; each photograph has a completely different feel. I suppose it is because of the fact that we are only seeing her at widely separated intervals and in the gaps, she changes (Quantum Theory anyone). It is still more marked in her case bearing in mind she was young when she died. Laurie Lee looked the same right through the biography about him which I read. The end of this was a bit embarrassing as I finished it early one morning at work before start time and just as he died, my boss came up behind me to ask a question and caught me trying to brush tears away. I said I had a headache. It didn't get me any sympathy. I read Sylvia Plath for my head but Laurie Lee for my heart. I grew up in countryside quite close to where he lived as a child and though I may have hated the isolation at times, I do miss the laid back atmosphere. I didn;t have the hardship which he had of course but the countryside is nice.

I have found a message board about 808 State where someone says that they think that the "In Yer Face" intro sounds like Alistair Cooke. Here it is.

"There are new forces in the world. A conflict between the generations. A powerful feeling that the American system is failing to deal with the real threats to life: the bomb, the pollution of air and water, the population explosion, the mountains of slums, and crime."

I have also found this text here but it doesn't mention 808 State and doesn't mention any source.

Anyway - here is something from Alistair Cooke which does deserve quoting -

America's Day Of Terror