I've watch chunks of the three-hour TV documentary series Black Coffee on TVO over the last few weeks and it makes me want to campaign for coffee snobbery. The show explains how the international coffee trade is the second largest commodity market after oil but how it is driven by movement of the …

The excellent thing about modernity is all the storage space. Things can sit around for decades and still be brought out brushed off and considered again. In Gray's poem "Elegy Written in a Country Church-Yard" he writes:  •  “Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid  •  Some heart once pregnant …

I am having an inordinately early Yule. And its not just the Andy Williams special reruns on PBS - though, bouy the Jaysus, them Osmonds can sing. I've got most of the shopping done. I've been to a Christmas concert already. I have worn a brighter sort of tie to work. Madness of the northern …

I knew the world was a really cool place when one evening in undergrad I first heard The Beat aka The English Beat's cover of "Can't Get Used to Losing You". Applying the goodness of ska to Andy Williams' hit was masterful, slamming and respect.  •  Andy William's growing up from 2 to 12 from 1965 …

I rigged up an antenna the other day and thought I would try to old 49 metre band and there it was booming in - the Voice of Vietnam from 10 pm to 11 pm at 6175 Khz. Who knew?  •  And there are not a lot of not quite post-Communist stations left out there with their bland mix of the elevator music …

As you all know all too well, I am a radio nerd. I was a member of the Radio Prague Listeners Club, have received reception report confirmation cards from many nations, held a trans-Atlantic reception record for a while when I heard local East German radio in my old Nova Scotian home, listen …

On my travels to the Big Smoke, I got to listen to a CBC Toronto interview with Chris and Jay of my rock acquaintances (and web servers mates) Sloan. My bits pass their bytes all the time. And it turns out that they are going to revive the late 80's CKDU radio thing on the new digital satellite …

From the BBC comes another really interesting broadcast I will probably never get around to listening to on the race in the mid-1800s to wire the globe for that great pre-radio revolution of communication by cable. As with good ale, it was monks who made an early important break through:  •  “The …

The BBC is reporting on a study that has become a BBC TV program...or maybe a BBC TV program that became a study...they seem to specialize in that which came first thing:  •  “In an unusual three-month experiment, six specialists from a variety of disciplines worked to improve the happiness levels …