Matthew Revell

I’m coming to the end of a three year stint of 120 mile daily commutes.

Three to four hours in the car, each day, has made me something of a breakfast and drive-time radio dependent. Although I have great respect for the role that Radio 4‘s Today plays in UK society, I quickly grow bored of its almost exclusive devotion to events in Westminster and Washington.

Radio 5 is a good alternative, with Nicky Campbell’s insistent reminders to guests that there is a world outside London. However, Radio 5 is obsessed with sport and sport is neither news nor interesting.

A couple of years back, I discovered that Ireland’s state broadcaster, RTE, uses 252 long wave for RTE 1. Morning Ireland is great; I’m not sure if it’s thanks to the slight exoticism of stories of traffic jams in places I’ve barely heard of, or that the Irish government seems far more interested in domestic affairs and so RTE has something to report other than the Middle East.

Also on AM is Virgin Radio, the station that has always thought of itself as having the stature of a national broadcaster but, despite having a national licence, has never broken free of local radio cheese. When Christian O’Connell and his team joined earlier this year, Virgin’s breakfast show became worth listening to. However, the frequency with which Virgin repeats the same dreary songs means I’m soon reaching for the scan button.

That was when I found a Slavic-sounding chap reading business news stories, on 1323 MHz. Each news story was structured a little like a joke: the newsreader set the scene (this or that Russian company had done something or other), then told us that someone had said something negative about the activity, and then at the very end we found out that someone else had said it was all okay. There were no interviews, no audio clips and each story was topped and tailed with ten seconds of what sounded like Emmerson, Lake and Palmer.

Turns out it was the Voice of Russia World Service. I found that out when the business news finished and a bloke with an odd of mix of Russian and “cool cat” accent introduced a jazz show.

On the way home, I tried to find it again but it was in German. The next day the signal too weak to listen to. Still, it was great to hear some people sitting in Moscow as I trundled through the Gloucestershire countryside.

Fantastic news from last night’s Linux User and Developer Awards.

LugRadio Live 2006 won the Best Open Source Marketing Campaign award. We beat off some stiff competition from Ubuntu’s ShipIt scheme, which I’d assumed would definitely win!
Our marketing for LRL 2006 went well thanks largely to the help of three groups of people:

• OpenAdvantage whose design work gave our promotion a consistent, contemporary presentation
• Bytemark for their sponsorship of our programme, banners, etc
• and the awesome LugRadio community for their word of mouth!

I am slightly frustrated, though, that despite being nominated for and winning an award, not all of us could attend the ceremony. At over ?120 a ticket, the award ceremony was priced some way above our budgets and, I imagine, of most ordinary Linux users.

Now we LugRadio boys have to argue over who gets to have the award on their mantlepiece!

On the Ubuntu front, we won the Best Distribution award! Congrats to everyone in the community!
* By the way, my use of “FTW” is purely ironic

BBC Radio 3 has reputation of being all about “classical” music. Y’know, orchestral stuff, primarily written by dead blokes.

Of course, there’s quite a bit of that on the station but it’s shows such as Mixing It that attract me. Each Friday night it features the weird and the wonderful, doing a far better job of showcasing new music than Radio 1 could ever hope to.

I can imagine being 15 and listening to it in the dark, on headphones, and filling with wonder as the strange, yet very listenable, music hinted at different ways of thinking.

Instead, I tend to fit it in when I can, using whilst working at a PC, during daylight and over the internet.

A couple of years ago, Mixing It dedicated a show to experimental music from Leeds. The outstanding act, for me, was Slate Pipe Banjo Draggers. Rich, evocative and melodic soundscapes are drawn from found sound and simple instruments – a Bontempi organ makes an appearance.

There’s a subtlety and inventiveness to Slate Pipe’s music that is, needless to say, rare. While commercial radio weighs heavy under yet another lank-haired guitar band strumming the same minor chords, Slate Pipe and co are feeding the imaginations of those lucky enough to find them.

Recently, I’ve had something of a secret. It’s been hard to keep quiet but now I can let everyone know.

In a few weeks, I shall be joining Canonical to work on the marketing for Launchpad.

I’ve felt an affinity with Canonical – also the people behind Ubuntu – since we first interviewed Mark Shuttleworth, the company’s founder, on LugRadio. Their pragmatic, yet principled, human-focused approach matches my own passion for widening the acceptability of open source software.

I look forward to sharing some of my plans for the role, over the coming weeks, and to joining one of the most exciting tech companies in the world!