Brave New World - In Our Time podcast

Thanks to BBC's In Our Time I could learn a bit about that book that everybody else has read and refers to: Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. It is interesting to read in host Melvyn Bragg's newsletter, that although he has read the book, he needed the program also to be informed (again) about it.

"[...] if challenged, I would have nodded and said yes, I know that book. Well, I know the author’s name. I also knew that it involved a state a few hundred years after the death of Henry Ford. I remembered the alphas, betas, gamma, deltas and epsilons. I could call up the incubators and words like ‘feelies’ and ‘soma’ would drift around somewhere. But when taxed [...] to get a grip on it for In Our Time, I discovered how little you retain, even in areas where you have been programmed (now that would have fitted in with Brave New World) to remember."

I hope you have all downloaded the podcast, otherwise you will have to go and listen to the on-line stream, as this issue of In Our Time was broadcast more than a week ago. Last week's isseu was about Suffragism and I still have to listen. If I come round reviewing it, it will by then be no longer available. So the recommendation is as always: download In Our Time as soon as possible.

More In Our Time:
Rafael's School of Athens and the depiction of Plato and Aristotle,
The Boxer Rebellion,
The library of Alexandria,
The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot,
The destruction of Carthage.

Hoor Geschiedenis op iTunes

De podcast Hoor! Geschiedenis, van Feico Houweling, is sinds enkele dagen uit de lucht. Er zou elke werkdag een nieuwe episode moeten zijn, maar sinds 13 april, aflevering 141 over de Dordtse Synode, is het stil.

Dit ligt niet aan Feico Houweling, maar aan iTunes. De hele feed is leegeraakt op iTunes en dit is een storing die nog wel enige tijd kan aanhouden. Via elke andere feedreader en via de website is Hoor! Geschiedenis normaal verder te volgen.

Meer Hoor! Geschiedenis:
Plakkaat van Verlating,
Willem van Oranje als Bijbelfiguur,
Dagelijks genoegen: hoor! geschiedenis,
Hoor! Geschiedenis - historische podcast recensie.

Coffee - Rear Vision

ABC's Rear Vision delved into the history of coffee in one of the last podcasts (18 March).

In the early globalizing world the Dutch planted coffee in their green houses first and on Java afterwards. Other colonialists took coffee to Brazil. The drinking habits of ordinary people shifted from alcoholic beverages, to the caffeinated ones. (Apart from coffee, also tea). The place to drink coffee became the coffee house, which was also the spot to read newspapers and discuss politics.

It is supposed on the program, coffee thus caused the major revolutions that make up the modern world. The misty effect of alcohol made place for the vigors of caffeine, causing enlightenment, increased productivity and industrial revolution. The heated discussions on the coffee houses made for the American and French revolutions. Today, modern economy couldn't function without the speedy kick of coffee, tea and caffeinated energy drinks. Nice thought and it demands the entailing question: what is the next drug? And the next turn of history that it will cause?

More Rear Vision:
Fiji.

Two methods to support your favorite blog

At the end of last month I asked you all to click campaign if you liked the blog and wanted to tell me you do. I registered 39 people from all over the world who did so. Supposing Statcounter registers most, but not all clicks and some people may have clicked the post link when they actually intended to show support, I feel there are at least 40 readers that want to actively support the blog.

So, please continue and here is the next campaign. The second method to show you appreciation: leave a comment. This is very easy and can be done anonymously. Click on the comments link below (see the line 'Posted by The Man called Anne at 12:00 0 comments' and click 'comments'). This should fire up a new window (watch pop-up blockers!) in which you can write anything you like under any name you like. If you do not know what to write just type "Please continue" and we'll know you support us.

Of course you will all be able to see over time how many comments piled up, but by the end of the month I will report back to you and hand you a third method to support the blog.

Can't wait until then? Here are some ideas ahead: send a link to the blog to a friend, mark the blog on your bookmarking site, point to it from your own site, take an RSS subscription (What is RSS? - Help on getting subscription), connect with Anne is a Man on Facebook, Twitter and The Podcast Parlor. Or anything else you can think of.

Thank you all. I am happy and grateful with every sign of life.

Anne

Anne is a Man's stable following

I have been reporting every quarter about the growth of Anne is a Man's readership. Last January, I was still hoping I could show more growth, but already then I saw a trend that continued in the past three months: the readership has stabilized. I have around 200 readers hitting the blog every day. That is not bad, but we need more. The kind of material I am offering should interest way more people than actually succeed in finding it. This is why I have started campaigning, trying to get you, the readers, involved in spreading the word. More about this later. (statistics by Statcounter)



Even though the attention for the blog seems stable, there may be an indicator that actually we have more readers than we did before. Many people take an RSS subscription and then read the blog from their feedreader. This readership is not counted as visitors on the site, but they do read. And their number has been continuing to grow ever since we stabilized from around 50 to over 120.

Previously:
Hoping for more growth,
Rss following at the beginning of 2009,
October 2008: continued growth,
July 2008: small but growing.

Anne is a Man podcast reviews in the coming days

I will be on a short vacation with my wife and kids and I do not expect to be around to write podcast reviews as regularly as you are used. So, as a teaser, here are a couple of my reviewing plans for the coming days, without knowing exactly when they will eventually appear.

-BBC's In Our Time about Aldous Huxley's Brave New World will be in the feed for two more days. It is warmly recommended, also for those (like me) who have not read the book. By the time the review will come around, the podcast will be gone. So download now, read about it later.

-VPRO's Marathon Interview has an extensive archive in which, apparently, the best material can nearly go missing. The 1986 series have been released to podcast already a long time ago. Except for Martin van Amerongen's talk with Karel van het Reve which was discovered only now. Five hours of intellectual challenge with alrady in the first hour 'that Idi Amin' (God) and the 'Charlatan from Vienna' (Freud).

-ABC's Rear Vision had a charming and informative item about the history of coffee and coffee's impact on history.

-UChannel Podcast spoke about disasters and the unexpected effect on peacemaking processes. This is applied to Sri Lanka and Aceh, but Israel and Palestine are on my mind as usual.

- After a hiatus of six months, the Hebrew Podacast קטעים בהיסטוריה (pieces of history) is back with a double feature about the American War of Independence.

Furthermore, I will report about the readership of the blog (which I try to do every quarter) and report the results of the Anne is a Man campaign. There will be a new campaign in which the blog's readers can participate to stimulate Anne is a Man. Standby.


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