TWiL #32 - Buckingham Palace

Greetings one and all and welcome to This Week in London #32 - Buckingham Palace.

You can play the podcast by clicking the PuPu PLayer (no, really) up there at the top of the page. Alternatively you can listen to the show here:

This time I'm putting Buckingham Palace under the viewing glass. Interesting place and a builders dream. It's been built and rebuilt since the early part of the 18th Century with some humungous heavy lifting jobs done to it.

The picture at the very top is a great panoramic by Meichimite from FLickr under Creative Commons. The rather wet one is one I took when Flat Stan went on his trip round London in 2002. The lower one is of a Garden Party, courtesy of the CC-licensed image from Flickr by Mark Hillary. Thanks to them both for making it available under Creative Commons.

Music this time out is:

Black Lab with Ghost in your Mind - where you can buy the album Passion Leaves a Trace and See The Sun (strong recommendation for both these albums - awesome stuff )

Beyond7 with Smoke. You can buy the album at iTunes - click here
Thanks to Steven for the CD and a strong recommendation to go listen to the music.

and

DJ Earworm with Funky goes to Hollywood
Which I thought was just terrific and worth playing on the show even if it is "just" a mashup.

As always, your feedback is appreciated and all emails ARE read AND replied to by yours truly.
I hope you enjoy the show and look out for another show PDQ!

This Week In London #31 - Three Very Important People

Hi everyone. Here's Episode 31 where I talk about three very important people. The three are the Chelsea Pensioners, the Pearly Kings and Queens and the Yeoman Warders of the Tower of London.

You can listen to the show here:

Music is by Sender with Sleepwalker
Wes Brookes with Autumn Sun and
We The Living with Atlantic. Also at the Podsafe Music Network and at iTunes.

Update: I just had a lovely email from Wes Brookes:
"Thanks for the request! My name is Wes Brookes and the band was called the Wes Brookes Band simply because we couldnt think of a suitable name. We are called Resination (for now) but I think that will change it to Resonation in the next week or so (we are currently debating the spelling - we were Rezination last week).....just advertise us as the reggae band from West Yorkshire (I think we are the only reggae band up here) called Resonation featuring Wes Brookes ! Cheers for interest."

I got a phenomenal response to the the Sender track last time out so I was delighted to receive an email from the band's manager with a link so you can go download the tracks. There are 8 tracks for download here (updated with correct link)

I wanted to play Beyond 7 tonight but the track kept bombing out my Acid Pro set up. If I can ask Steven to send the tracks again that would be v. cool.

Anyways, enough prattling on from me. Thanks to Paul Nicholls for the idea and heartfelt commiserations on your bad luck mate. I hope they catch the *^$£%$ thugs and kick some sense into them. Chances are though they'll get away with it in this country. You need to be... Nope - not for this site. Please send messages of support to Paul Nicholls at www.podcastpaul.com

Take care.

TWIL #30 - The Crown Jewels

Greetings all!

Tonight's show is all about the Crown Jewels of the royals of Britain. I changed my format with this show - rather than having general bullet points I have actually written out a script of sorts (I still deviate a little ;-) so it flows better. It's a bit more work upfront but better in the recording stage. I'm *really* interested in what you think about it - please do email me with your thoughts!

You can listen to the show here:


Music on the show is provided by

Sender - Alive and Kicking (demo)

Penda's Fen - Walking on the Edge

Ehren Starks - The Tale of Room 620

Please do support the bands who give their music to be played on podcasts - we get to play it to you for free - they make nothing from the podcast plays on shows like this. They hope you will like the music enough to go buy it!

So there you have it - a tad longer than usual but not as much as I thought at the beginning of the show. I hope you enjoy it and if you feel the need to send me a mail, call me on Skype or leave comment then please do! Thanks.

TWIL #29 - London Heathrow Terminal 5

Hi all. This show is all about London Heathrow Terminal 5. I spent a very enjoyable couple of hours earlier this week being given a guided (chaperoned) tour of LHR T5.

For the record, the building is amazing - deisgned by the Richard Rogers Partnership and opening on 27th March 2008 it's going to take London Heathrow into the 21st Century in a big way. Everything about LHR T5 is huge - from the 96 check in desks to the 18km of baggage belts... mind blowing.

You can listen to the show here:

I'm sure I've left stuff out so I suggest you go visit www.BA.com for the most up to date information. In fact it's essential you do so as the various terminals that BA uses at the moment are gradually transitioning over to T5 but some are NOT. Be aware of that and double check before you go to the wrong one!

Plenty of pictures from Terminal 5 are available here.
Thanks for link to the pictures at the BBC (see comments in previous post) but I have permission to post these ones.

Other bits of news are the new "enhanced" security checks for internal flights in the UK. I think Civil Liberties people should dig a little deeper here. Taking Liberty? You betcha. Listen for the low down.

Music is by

Esteban with Santiago

Lato with London Girl

Finniston with Another Love Song from the Organised for Hi Fi album

So, to wrap up. An awesome building, great logistical feat to get it built. Not sure about the domestic flight civil liberties issue but elsewise - fab.

Next Show: London Heathrow Terminal 5

Very nice, very interesting, visit to London Heathrow Terminal 5 yesterday afternoon. Fascinating place and wonderful looking. I'll be doing a show about it over the next couple of days but watch out for the Civil Liberties issue I've uncovered. They've been keeping this very quiet and no wonder...