Thursday 31 December 2020

Who'd have thought it?

Twelve months ago I was busy scribbling hopeful thoughts about how good I felt about 2020 and how things were going to change whilst nature stayed constant and calming. Well things didn't quite turn out as I or pretty well anyone else could have imagined.


New words, and new concepts - furlough, bubble, social distance - are now not even regarded, and pretty well all the economic rules that determine how society operates have been thrown out of the window. But quite remarkably we have accepted all this and are, by and large, living our lives accordingly.

I was, and remain, a devotee of Radio 3, the dulcet tones of Petroc Trelawny and colleagues bringing a sense of calm and continuity to the start of my day. As well as the reassuringly familiar they manage to introduce me to and occasionally seduce me with new sounds, with the huge bonus that reporting of the ever-changing alarms and excursions of the wider world are corralled into an acceptably short precis of the news in under 5 minutes. And only once or twice in the two and half hours of the breakfast slot - and all too occasionally - read to perfection by Susan Rae, surely the model for all current news presenters in my humble opinion.

Connecting my opening thoughts with this appreciation, I hadn't quite understood until an hour or so ago how remarkable the achievement of maintaining these live broadcasts was. I realised that programmes were being presented from home but fondly assumed it was using serious technology. Well not quite. At the start it seems in more than one instance programmes were reaching us employing the might of an iPad and the presenter's home wifi. Quite remarkable. 

I love rural Norfolk with all its quirks and idiosyncracies but can only quietly give thanks that Petroc and his chums don't live here and depend as we do on what passes for broadband, as I fear they might just have decided to give up on live broadcasts.

A Happy and Hopeful New Year to both my readers!