Shownotes delayed

I'm feeling ruddy awful at the moment - I have some sort of ear nose and throat infection which has knocked me sideways for a few days. Shownotes for TWiL#6 will follow shortly.

There will now be a short intermission.

Bum Rush The Charts

Not sure our American friends really know the meaning of a bum rush but the concept is good. Glad they've chosen a Black Lab track - Neil Bearse, BL's podcast marketing manager (yeah, yeah, Neil I know it's a made up title - but it's a great one donchafink?) is a good guy and I WILL get that interview one day!

More information here...

The best Marmite ever?! !?

For those of you who are haters look away! For those of us who are lovers of its creamy, sticky texture and throat searing strength, the World that is Marmite just took an unexpected, but very welcome turn.That's right. Marmite Guinness. Guinness flavoured Marmite. It is just screaming "BUY ME". I can't wait. But then I don't have to. All I need to do is get myself down to a supermarket and buy it. It's a 300,000 jar limited edition available in the UK for £2.49 (about $5) and I will be buying a few, one of which will be winging its way to the US for Dave to try out.

OMG. Guinness flavoured Marmite. Yay. Needless to say this delicacy will be appearing in the next This Week In London - if I can find it....

Competition entries

Hi there from Grenoble in South Eastern France - the land of the AZERTY keyboqrd; it takes for ever to type qs every A comes out qs q A! The keyboard layout reverses the letter Q qnd the letter A... Arghhh...

I an delighted to say there have been many entries to the Where Am I competition! Plenty of time to enter the competition though as I'll be drqwing the winner in time for the podcqst I aim to do over next weekend.

James, as featured in the competition, has been skiing and snowboarding for the lasr couple of days and is now exhausted!

See you all later

Paul

This Week In London #5 - First Competition

==>Sorry about the faux pas on the files front. The links here are correct. More haste less speed is the old saying. So true. So very very true....
==============

Welcome and here is This Week In London #5. In this episode I launch the first TWiL competition - all you need are keen ears and and encyclopaedic knowledge of London. Or Google. Whatever.

I'll give USD20 (twennybucks) as an Amazon voucher or equivalent to the lucky winner. If there's more than one I'll have a draw. Just tell me where I am in London. S'easy!

On tonight's show I play London by The Tragedy Kings from the Podsafe Music Network. You can find their MySpace account here.

Borough Market threatened....

The following was sent to me by a listener and by someone who works near the market.

"Borough Market is London's oldest market. It was established on the south bank of the Thames when the Romans build the first London Bridge and people have been trading on this site for over 2000 years.

Some bright spark has decided to expand the railway line running through the roof of the market, which will also involve knocking down 23 of the beautiful listed and unlisted buildings in the closely surrounding area.

They already have planning permission, but are waiting funding and there is a strong local campaign to put a stop to it.

If you know and love the market in its present state, please sign the petition to prevent this from happening. The plans, photographs and the petition are HERE.

Unfortunately not a lot of people are aware of it so please sign it and pass it on to anyone else you know who loves this great bit of London heritage."

Now for my (Parky's) twopenn'rth:-

As well as being an amazing place in its own right, the streets round the market have been in many films. One, Park Street, which will be devastated by these developments was featured in Snatch and key buildings near the market featured in the Knight Bus sequence from Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Finally, Bridget Jones' Diary 2 was filmed in the Market. All those great films were made in Borough Market because of its unique location. Why ruin it?

Do not pass go. Do not collect £200. Go straight to the petition site and do your best to protect the market!

Steady progress in iTunes....

Just noticed TWiL is #22 in the Arts page / chart thingy in iTunes. I'm so happy... thanks.

Updated Posting for Show #2

31/01/2007: Edit - I have now included some pictures to give you more of a flavour of Borough Market (sorry about the pun!)

Permalink here

Watch this space!

I'm working on a competition for the show...

"Where Am I in London?"

I'll go somewhere in London and describe it - you email in and tell me where I am.

I'm aiming to get it kicked off in time for the next show.

Not exactly going to be "Win Valuable Prizes" but I might be able to throw an Amazon voucher in for the lucky winner!

This Week in London - Episode 4

Here are the show notes for TWiL #4.

First off I'm very pleased to be on the Staff Picks section of iTunes. Thanks to whoever did that. I'm delighted to have found a format that works for me and that more people are getting in on the act - i.e. getting the podcast. Thanks to the new listeners for trying me out.

Don't be scared to leave a comment (I don't bite) or send me an email - there's a link to the left.

You can listen to the show by clicking HERE or on the PUPU player on the left, below the show picture.

I play a couple of corking tracks in this episode -

London Girl by Lato who have their own web page here
and
londontown by the divineMAGgees who have their own web page here

If you are a band recording in London, based in London or have a song about London please do point me towards it or send me an MP3. I'll take a listen and slot it into the show. I'm not scared of different types of music - so don't be shy.

In this show I finish off the Airport transfer round up (well nearly I forgot Stanstead but that's easy - just take the Stanstead Express to Liverpool Street Station) and talk about black cabs, measuring distance to London and I have a bit of a rant about The O2... I enjoyed doing this show a lot and I think the format is developing nicely.

If you have any ideas of what I can talk about, sections I can include or anything that would make the show better please do get in touch.

I'll tell a few more stories about Hammersmith Odeon next time. As I recall all of them seem to involve alcohol, loud (very loud) heavy metal and Underground trains.

Thanks for looking, thanks for listening.

Have a great time until next time.

Parky

What is it with the trains?

I love London. Everything about it - to quote The Diamond Geezer (a blogger I respect) "Life, nightlife, the sense of history, the Underground, the view from Greenwich Park, the fact there's always somewhere new to discover, Oxford Street, the sound of Big Ben, nightbuses, sunlight on the Thames, buying your Sunday paper on Saturday evening, the museums in South Kensington, the wobbly Millennium bridge, being able to choose from more than two local radio stations, Tate Modern, not needing a car, the view from Hampstead Heath, Arsenal shirts, Trafalgar Square, the top pod on the London Eye, St Pancras station, decent mobile phone reception, Routemasters, the East End, 24 hour bagel shops, culture on your doorstep, Hungerford Bridge, Old Compton Street, deckchairs in Green Park, the DLR, 0° longitude, the City, Covent Garden, decent record shops, St Paul's Cathedral, walking faster than the traffic, crossing Westminster Bridge at night on the back of a bike, the sheer variety of Theatreland, the British Museum, just living here."

Now - one thing that actually bugs me is the trains. Here is a rant which I have toned down on reflection and added the above words:


I live in North West Kent in a 'burb called Sidcup. It's around 25-30 minutes from London by train. The above (and sorry for the shakey picture - I was a little cold!) was taken at my local railway station after the South East had its first snow of the Winter this morning.

Why is it then that when it snows even just a little bit like today (an inch for goodness sakes) that the railways crumple in a messy heap? My journey from home to the office (just over an hour normally) took nigh on three hours today. The picture was taken at 08h16 - I had been at the station for half an hour by then...

Arghhhh. If the fat cat railway management (Fat Controller anyone?) took less out of their company's in bonusses, salaries, jollies and benefits perhaps they would be able to maintain their trains and keep them running when the weather decides we deserve a little snow....

Of course, the snow will be gone this evening but the trains will be up the shoot because of this mornings debacle. Ho hum.

PS I'm aiming to do a show tonight. Lots of goodies to look forward to.

iTunes - Staff Picks

Great news! Looks like one those nice people at the Apple iTunes store have picked up the show and it is featured on the iTunes Staff Picks page.


From iTunes got to Podcasts>Staff Favourites>Page 4 and Roberts your father brother.


Lumping great spike in the downloads so thanks to everyone coming over. Feel free to let me know what you think. Use the comments here or send me an email. All the details are in the side bar to the left hand side of the page

Ta!

This Week In London #3 - Airpots, Dumps and Cardboard

This is This Week In London Number 3. I spend some time helping folk to get into London from the two key airports and also give a London Underground 101 for those who haven't really used it before.

Dumps and Cardboard are special. You'll have to listen in to hear about them!

Music is provided by New London Fire which you can find at music.podshow.com.

Feedback is welcome at thisweekinlondon ==aT== gmail :::d_o_t::: com or you can leave feedback here. Just click comments below!

Direct Link to Show

Podshow

Feedback

Next Time

Have a good time till next time when I'll talk about some of the other airports in London, Eurostar and the darker side of London with Derilict London.

I'll also be doing the monthly whats on and what coming up

Parky

TWIL Episode 2 - Christmas Eve

31/01/2007: Edit - I have now included some pictures to give you more of a flavour of Borough Market (sorry about the pun!)

First of a big thanks to everyone who is tuning in to This Week in London. I'm having a lot of fun doing this and I hope you're enjoying it - please do contact me at thisweekinlondon@gmail.com if you have any stories of Life or Travel in London.

This time we're exploring Borough Market, the foodies heaven and associated pubs, restaurants and foody shops. Well worth a visit if you have time.

As we move into the Christmas Holiday itself I give a little history on the Christmas Tree in Traflagar Sqaure, where it came from and why. Also be on the look out for the New Year Fireworks display after the midnight bongs from the main bell in St. Stephens Tower at the Houses of Parliament aka Big Ben. FWIW - Big Ben ONLY refers to the bell, not the clock, not the tower....

I also talk about the Flickr stream I have on Flat Stan (just Google Flat Stan if you have no idea what this means) and his travels in London. You can find the stream here

Music this week sourced at the Podshow Music Network and provided courtesy of the Bands:

Satelite Dub with London has more Lights

and

The Bridge Gang with "London Sky Tonigh" demo0

Special thanks to Ed at Ed's Mixed Bag for playing the promo - cheers Ed. If you haven't already please do check out Ed's show at www.edsmixedbag.com

So, a Happy Christmas to everyone out there and Happy New Year too

[PS I forgot to post this here.... sorry]

This Week In London Episode 1

Hi there.

I am working on a new podcast and I thought I'd try it out on my long suffering Flashing12 audience. The new show is called This Week In London and is all about my favourite city, my home city, London...

I will be focussing on the place, the people, the events, the history and the odd stuff which make my favourite city what it is today.

Please do let me know what you think of this, I want to engage better (more) with my audience and try to give more back to the folks who have supported my Podcasting efforts, which, frankly, haven't been terribly frequent!

Send me an email to thisweekinlondon ----at----- gmail ----dot---- com..... and I will take your advice / ideas / offers of help and start a continuous improvement process with this show.

Direct Link to the Show

Music in this show is provided by:


Null Device with a track called "Walk In London - Acoustic Mix" - the have their own home page too

and

SingLadies with a track called "London Love" - they have a MySpace Account as well which is worth checking out.

I've got a temporary home at London.podshow.com which is where you'll find the RSS feed for it...