Televisual Reading

I've returned from the library where I've brought quite a lot of television related books that I hope will come in useful when writing my dissertation.

One of them being "Presenting On TV And Radio: An Insiders Guide" by Janet Trewin, which isn't necessarily connected with what I want to look at but a very interesting book nonetheless having used it before in my first year.
Janet used to be one of the presenters on Top Gear in the early 90s, as well as presenting BBC Radio 4's travel magazine "Going Places" around the same time and too a lesser extent, as a newsreader on BBC Radio 1 in the 80s.
You only have to listen to this example featuring Robbie Vincent linking into the news on his show with that jingle which rather bizarrely enough I never heard on air, but it's the ideal example of how not to do news on the radio.

How Radio 1 got away with using it for 15 years is beyond me, and despite being a fan of jingles, you have to draw the line somewhere as in my opinion, sung jingles into the news don't work, with Radio 1's being a key example. An opinion somewhat different to our old friend Len Groat. They even had one done for whenever a newsflash would happen, which I seem to remember being used on Christmas Day 1989 when Nicolae Ceauşescu and his wife were executed.

Or to be more specific, I don't like jingles that have the word "news" sung in them, as there have been brilliant sung news IDs in the past, such as Power FM's in the mid 90s and the one used by Essex FM later on in the decade, as they just have the station name being sung followed by a voiceover identifying the station.
I guess those running the stations at the time realised that the top of the hour was the most important time to identify the station and they wanted to do it in the best way possible.

Whereas Radio 1 have always done their bulletins on the half-hour (apart from at breakfast of course) and most of their news jingles from 1990 onwards have managed to work well providing a slick transition from the main programme into the bulletin.

One of the other books I got was one looking at the history of Top Of The Pops which will probably be the first one I actually read from cover to cover, although there's also been one published recently to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Blue Peter which may come in useful for the actual dissertation with regards to their contributions to the phone in scandal.

The planning for the feature is continuing to go well as Concha mentioned that as well as Yoga she enjoys sitting in her chair in a particular corner of the room and listening to the same music whenever she goes there. That could be another interesting angle to take with regards to otherwise normal solitary activities.

I'm planning to come back in the first week of December for a short while as I need to have a blood test although on the first Thursday of that month I'm going to see Russell Howard at Wembley Arena which I only managed to get tickets for yesterday at a very good price.

I've heard good things about him from those who have seen him perform, and I'm sure he has even more to offer than what he does on Mock The Week.

With no more actual lectures I'll need to take every opportunity to enjoy myself before University finishes.