The Letter Home

Experiments With Audio: 1. Sounds in an open air environment (Schafer method).

This is a narrative which takes the form of a letter home  being mentally written by a new arrival to Dunedin while on a soundwalk of the city centre.

The keynote sound here can be identified as the traffic which is continuously moving.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               The The soundmark is the town hall clock that reminds people not only of the time but of their location while

The figure sounds come from the start of a parade, a pipe band and a busker which interrupts the narrator’s walk  and evokes some memories.

To follow the soundwalk go to; http://unitube.otago.ac.nz/view?m=d6b8_FIa6a

Pub Talk

Photo: Sue Odlin

Experiments With Audio: 2. A Bar Room Discussion

At the end of the day a newcomer to Dunedin has come across a student pub and decided to pop in to try the local brews. He will come across a couple of characters and become engrossed in a discussion about RTDs (aka Alcopops) and whats in them. The theme will touch on pub behaviour, the contents of RTDs and the motives of those who drink them. A lot of what comes out of this is opinion only.

To hear this conversation evesdrop at;  http://unitube.otago.ac.nz/view?m=DzsT_EjYtP

Voices From The 19th Century

  

Experiments With Audio:

3. Old Audio Clips

Entertainment in England in the 1800s consisted of hands on song and dance, verse and pantomine, and drawing room concerts. There were larger venues as well including shelters for the poor and infirm known as Workhouses. These establishments were reputed to be dark and damp places in which to lie alone and wait for death. One of the few highlights afforded these inmates in Berwick-upon-Tweed were the concerts put on by Bill Skelly and his elder sister.

Bill made up most of his patter and verse when he was in his twenties, that’d be in the 1890s, and he could still remember a lot of it in the early 1950s when he was persuaded to make a recording. The recorder used was apparently a borrowed one and manufactured before the time of sound insulation. The operator may not have had any experience using the machine and that, coupled with a lot of motor noise, has lent a  certain ‘ambience’ to these clips. Keeping these artifacts in their exsisiting condition is a joy akin to keeping old sepia stained photographs. Bill’s accent is Scottish Borders and if you want to listen to these  old audio clips, go to;

 http://unitube.otago.ac.nz/view?m=AGpb_Gz4BF 

Tom and Taringi

"Where am I?"

A little boy on holiday in the country encounters a baby bird which has fallen from somewhere and has caused a commotion amongst a murmuration of Starlings. His grandmother explains what the little bird is and where it came from. You can see these events on my podcast at  YouTube and may take a little while to load.

Enjoy.

See It – Buy it – Drink it

Accessible Alcopops

Alcopops are referred to as RTDs (Ready to drinks) in Australasia. This liquor store in the suburbs, like many others,  provides easy access to these drinks. There is an age restriction on customers but sadly some underage drinkers  may be able to rely on older friends and family to make their purchases for them.                                                                                                                                                     Alcohol content is low but so is the cost.  

Come Cruising

These prices make alcopops look an attractive buy.  In fact a few cans can cost less than a trip to downtown McDonalds. So how many kids  spend that lazy five or ten dollar note mum gave them for for their lunch on alcops instead?  

So far, there is no restriction on point of sale advertising for these drinks. It is rumoured that the colourful labels and attractive bottles and cans have been designed especially to attract the attention of younger people - a sort of subliminal message to have a good time.  

So if you’re curious and next time you are planning a party or night out think about trying out some of these products and passing on a comment about them. But a word of caution. Make sure you check the labels to see what chemicals are included with the other stuff, like colourants, preservatives, ethanol and sugar. 

CHECK OUT THIS NEWS ITEM FROM ‘CAMPBELL LIVE’ ON CHANNEL THREE  

And let me know what you think about John’s story

 

‘Poppin The Tops’

RTDs

What is that mess of cans and broken glass on the sides of the road, on the sidewalks and even in peoples’ front yards?

Uh-Oh! These are not beer or soft drink containers; they are the fallout from last night’s Alcopop binge drinking sessions. They were most likely bought from the Pub or Bottle Store ‘off-licence’ for partygoers who have since disposed of the empties via their car windows.

So what are Alcopops, you might ask? They are the flavoured alcoholic beverages Australians and New Zealanders refer to as RTDs or ‘Ready To Drink’ products. Most have a Vodka base (ethanol about 5% to 9% by volume) with distilled water and tricked up with a selection of flavours like fruit essences and cola as well as colourants, sugars, stabilizers and preservatives.

RTDs come in colourful packaging with bright labels and fancy names on coloured glass bottles or decorated cans – reds, blacks, greens, silver, gold, purple and other eye catching images. Bottles hold only 270 to 330 millilitres while aluminium cans may be smaller at 250 millilitres.

So how could younger people resist these products? They are cleverly small enough to fit in your pocket, they are probably cheaper to buy than a Big Mac and they are the perfect missiles to hurl at letterboxes on the way home.

Skelly Celebrations

A correspondent has referred me to an article published in his local paper headlined ‘Skelly’s butchers celebrate 250 years of business in Berwick’. He says he’s not sure whether it is a feature story or a piece of clever advertising. The piece includes a picture of the proprietors standing in front of their shop at 114 High Street, W.R.Skelly & Son, and goes on to suggest that this business has been operating since 1760 and has been handed down through the family ever since.    SEE THE STORY HERE

Our information is in fact that William Robert Skelly started his enterprise in 1898 after he had completed his apprenticeship with Messrs Ross Bros, butchers of Hyde Hill. Bill did not take the business over from any member of his family but started from scratch.

We do not know which Skelly was in the butchery business in 1760 although it may have been the father of George Skelly of Wreighill. George was an entrepreneur who started a different family line all together and whose descendants opened a butchery business in Tweedmouth and then in the early 1800’s, at Backway, Ravensdowne.

Border Bottle Battles

Nothing changes much it seems. The problems with alcohol abuse and disorder that exsist in this day and age are not confined to our neck of the woods alone but are universal – and have been for some time. The following articles appeared (fifty years apart) in the Berwick Advertiser, Berwick upon Tweed, Northumberland, England recently. [Popscigh]

‘Demanding the immediate appointment of two able-bodied and tough wardens to keep order in Northumberland’s National Park, Lt-Col J W Sale, of Wooler, declared at the county council meeting on Thursday that shepherds in the Ingram Valley often had to take cover from flying bullets.
In summer weekends, the valley became something resembling a Wild West miners’ camp, said Colonel Sale. Motorcyclists sped up hillsides and stampeded the sheep. Children and dogs joined in the chase, bottles and tins were thrown into the shallow River Breamish which flows through the beautiful valley, and fence posts were pulled down and carried away for firewood.
Rifles were used quite indiscriminately and the young men did not appear to consider the fact that other people were using the park. Hardly a week went by without children cutting their feet on broken bottles. [With thanks to, 'The Berwick Advertiser, 50 yrs ago']

And last month;

SIR,-I would like to express my concern through this page on the problem there is with the young people who drink alcohol up on the Elizabethan walls, where the football pitch is on the Stanks, when the Charities Cup football matches are on.
It is an unsociable act, and it is also illegal to drink alcohol in public anywhere in the town and the penalty is a £500 fine if caught.
As this happens on a regular basis, it is time the police knew and they should be visible on the evenings when the games are on.
Either police officers or the community support officers should be on patrol on the walls at this time to get rid of this drink culture using their powers through enforcing the bylaw.
I hope the authorities clamp down on this problem as it is disgusting to see bottles and cans scattered in many places,
Now there are visitors it is a very bad example for the town.

M. SCOTT
Berwick
Northumberland [ With thanks to the Berwick Advertiser, 2 June 2010]

Postcards from Port Said

Tomb of the Caliphs

Around about 1930 the world experienced the ‘Great Depression’ and it may come as no surprise to learn that this phenomenon was caused by failures in the American banking system. Sound familiar?  In Britain it wasn’t just the established population that was damaged by hardship and unemployment it also ensnared those who were just starting out. Apprentices who had just come out of their time  or graduating uni students now found themselves queuing for welfare.

There were some, however, who managed to look outside the Western World and seek employment in ‘foreign parts’. They found careers in the rubber plantations of Malaya as overseers, or in India as petty bureaucrats while others ended up teaching school in places like Egypt.

Some traces of these events can be found by following the links “Postcards from Port Said’ under  ‘Other Links’ on the sidebar of this post. Alternatively you can find a visual presentation and a sound file using these hyperlinks.

Are cell phones needed?

 When ‘cell phones’ first came out people tended to use them on a ‘need to use’ basis. They remembered to switch them off in church, at the movies and in other public places and heaven help the person who kept his phone on ‘just in case’ during times of recreation – like at the pub. I mean you wouldn’t want the boss to ring you after working hours and spoil your darts or pool game, would you? No, you’d probably want to stay invisible. Nowadays it’s commonplace to see people with a mobile glued to their ear while they drive through city traffic. It’s supposed to be illegal but the urge to talk all the time must be overwhelming. Do they take their phone to bed at night as well? 

And then there are the nifty fingered experts who are continuously texting their friends. They are really fast and can stab out those messages even with their eyes shut. And when nobody contacts them for even a short space of time they’re near panic and are constantly checking in case they’ve missed a call. Even in the movies the phones glow with their little lights trying to attract messages.   

So, are all these people merely socialising or are they simply addicted? Either way, it seems that not all mobile phones are really a necessity. What do you think?