Geoff Rogers <(Address removed)> said:
and Hospital radio. In my day the only option was to pirate!
Is there still a lot of hospital radio around? If so, why? Back in the day when people occupied a bed for a long period whilst recovering from whatever, it had a purpose. These days most people are only occupying a bed whilst they are sleeping off the anaesthetic, or unconscious about to die. As soon as they are able they are turfed out. So, who's there to actually listen?
Heh heh. Talking of hospital radio, I recall the international incident I caused when I was on SBES-FM at the Sound Broadcast Equipment show. Since everybody attending the 2 day SBES was a radio person, they were all tuned in. Obviously part of my whole point in doing it was to wind up as many as possible. Apart from winding up people who were just 'next button' monkeys (as I was calling them) by constantly going on about how I had free choice to talk up or talk down records or pick any record I wanted to play, I decided to pick on hospital radio, saying it was pointless, nobody listened, and was full of ego-trippers. As usual I said that if they were really there for the patients why didn't they get a bunch of CDs and a CD player on a trolley and go bed to bed playing people songs, rather than having thousands of pounds worth of studio complex feeding into uncomfortable stethofone headsets (that they are never any of to be found anywhere on a ward) at bed heads.
That caused an official complaint to the SEBS organisers from some scary hospital radio types (especially one massively large woman who later wagged her finger at me lots and lots) demanding the right of reply. So I had to sit there for nearly 30 minutes of an interview trying to prise out of them the wonderfulness and point of hospital radio so that their right of reply was met!
Anyway, the phrase 'hospital radio' always reminds me of Ivan Brackenbury's Disease Hour.
