Sidepodcast

Live: Giggles Radio - G

Glorious Giggles guaranteed! Gorge yourself on gargantuan geraniums* while Giggles gives 2 hours of great music.

Welcome to Giggles Radio Episode G. Our host Alex Andronov gets you going by playing around two hours of songs themed around a letter. This week the letter is G.

*they are genuinely great (generally)

Playlist

• Tina Turner - Goldeneye
• The Divine Comedy - Generation Sex
• T-Rex - Get It On
• ZZ Top - Gimme All Your Lovin'
• Blur - Good Song
• Beck - Girl Dreams
• Beck - Girl
• Bellatrix - The Girl With The Sparkling Eyes
• Vampire Weekend - Giving Up the Gun
• Jive Bunny And The Mastermixers - Glenn Miller Midley
• Frank Black & The Catholics - Goodbye Lorraine
• The Wallflowers - God Don't Make Lonely Girls
• Mercury Rev - Goddess On A Hiway
• Just Jack - Glory Days
• Bruce Springsteen - Glory Days
• Harrison, George - Got My Mind Set On You
• Duran Duran - Girls On Film
• Shirley Bassey - Goldfinger

Live: Giggles Radio - F

Frantically finding fault with financially funded radio? Fortunately the famously fearful figure Alex Andronov is, from four, broadcasting Giggles Radio.

Welcome to Giggles Radio Episode F. For each episode our host Alex Andronov faces 2 hours of songs themed around a letter. This week the letter is F.

Part 1

Part 2

Playlist

• Michael, George - Faith
• Muse - Filip
• Warren Zevon - The Factory
• Lady GaGa - The Fame
• Radiohead - Fake Plastic Trees
• Keys, Alicia - Fallin'
• Alphabeat - Fascination
• La Roux - Fascination
• Queen - Fat Bottomed Girls
• Lily Allen - The Fear
• Robbie Williams - Feel
• Ben Kweller - Falling
• Gorillaz - Feel Good Inc.
• White Stripes - Fell In Love With A Girl
• The Flaming Lips - Fight Test
• Suede - Filmstar
• Little Angels - First Cut Is The Deepest
• Morrissey - First Of The Gang To Die
• Fine Young Cannibals - The Flame
• Eels - Flyswatter
• The Beatles - For No One
• The Yardbirds - For Your Love
• The Magic Numbers - Forever Lost
• The Lemonheads - Frank Mills
• Sugar Babes - Freak Like Me
• Wham! - Freedom
• Cure - Friday I'm In Love
• Beach Boys, The - Fun, Fun, Fun
• Queen - Flash
• Skynyrd, Lynyrd - Freebird

Daily: 27th January 2010

Tuesday has been and gone and we are moving on to the middle of the week. We are rapidly heading straight towards another launch tomorrow, but before then, there's some kind of technology announcement due today. Relax, all those who hate the word Apple, we will have our first ever non-F1 breakout thread to separate those that care from those that don't. Hopefully that might make things a bit easier. Meanwhile, here are some actual F1 things to discuss:

• Mr C is very impressed with the goings on in Enstone, and it's fair to say that Renault are his favourite team once more. For now, at least. Joe has written a great post about the team and what they've been up to, and there's some yellow and black livery in the post for those who prefer that sort of look.
• Dan has started up a new page on the wiki entitled Sidepodcast Radio Theatre. The idea is to take a theatre style look at some Formula 1 events, and at the moment, there's a take on Star Wars known as Car Wars. Have a look at the page, and get your creative thinking caps on!
• I wrote a post yesterday that although it was based on a pretty tenuous rumour, has the potential for some great stories. Have you ever had to miss a Grand Prix because someone scheduled an event at the same time? We're talking weddings, but you can share any important moments. Which race did you miss? Did you catch up later? Have your say.

That should do it for now. Let us know what you're up to today, particularly if you're not watching Steve Jobs do his thing, and I'll see you in the comments.

Vast Amounts of Duct Tape

Regular commenter turned commentator Jon Waldock told us about his preparation for the 2CV 24 Hour race at Snetterton, and after a successful stint on the airwaves, he's back to tell us how the weekend went down.

The 2009 Professional Motorsport World Expo 24 hour 2CV Enduro (which rolls off the tongue), would  more appropriately be called the 18.5 hour Enduro. It may not have been hidden away in a forest covered area of France, but this year’s race gave all who attended an amazing 24 hours.

I arrived at Snetterton Circuit in Norfolk on Friday and once I’d found my feet I spent 5 hours pounding up and down the pit lane collecting information on the teams and their various drivers. As I did my work, I noticed that in garage 22 was car #60, the Crossways Academy car, with a few guys around it working feverishly and thought that it must be a car that another team were using for spares. However the closer we got to qualifying that evening it slowly dawned on me that these guys were serious, they were building a race car in a day and as we got to and then passed qualifying that evening it was clear that the car wasn’t going to make the race. I spoke to the guys that evening and they had been told that they could qualify in the warm up session the following morning.

Awaking at 5.30am on Saturday morning I opened my tent to find thick fog and as I went for a walk down by the Russell Chicane it dawned on me that if Sunday morning was going to be anywhere near as foggy then we may have some problems. However the fog cleared and the day's racing schedule got underway and as I wouldn’t be meeting my fellow commentators till later in the day I had some time to burn. I enjoyed a nice cooked breakfast in the restaurant (which was a lot nicer than the baked beans and rice concoction I’d had for dinner the previous evening) and then sat by the Revett Straight watching the cars go by.

Just before the 2CV warm up session at 9:50am I met up with Alan Hyde and Mat James who were the pair of commentators who were going to be on the other shift during the race, I then shadowed Mat for the warm up session to just get a feel for the pit lane commentary. Warm up sorted and it was back to watching the racing with regular clock watching, having over 12 hours to fill from when I woke up to when I was on was probably the hardest bit, especially since I didn’t know anyone.

However the race soon started and once I’d met up with Lewis my co-commentator I was thrown in at the deep end. Boy, was it deep! Having never done any sort of public speaking, to go from talking to myself all day to talking to the few thousand people that were at the circuit, was quite a jump and it’s not the kind of situation you want to discover that you freeze up when public speaking. Luckily for me, I loved every minute of it, even the last hour of my first stint when I’d realised I hadn’t taken the advice to ‘pace yourself’ but even once I’d finished I still wanted to carry on. My love for the race was down to the fact that in most races you don’t get stories developing because they just aren’t long enough, but even after the first hour stories emerged of teams who could change an engine in 5 minutes and other teams who were on their second or third engine even before the race had began.

The trouble began, as I had suspected, just after I’d got on shift at 3am. When I’d woken up I could see the fog was bad, but racing continued as visibility was still okay. However, within 10 minutes of my shift starting, the fog had got so much worse the safety car was thrown and the race red flagged until the fog lifted. The fog did start to lift around 6 and we all had our fingers crossed that we could get racing again but it wasn’t to be. The racing was delayed until 8.55am, almost five and a half hours after it had stopped. The 4 hour stint that I did during these hours consisted of much debating, music playing and general rambling. Luckily the lack of racing meant I was able to get some well needed sleep once my stint had finished at 7am. My third and final four hour stint took place from 11am on Sunday and it added to the great spectacle the weekend had been. With only a matter of hours left, the cars were just being willed on to get to the finish with vast amounts of duct tape and cable ties.

Somehow, after qualifying behind the safety car during Saturday's lunch break, #60 was still lapping although no-one knew how. Once my shift finished at 3pm, I made my way back to the campsite and upon realising that I wouldn’t sleep, I packed my tent away and returned to the pit lane for the end of the race. During that last 60 minutes emotions were running high, teams were still making their way up and down the standings and just praying that the cars didn’t break down on track (there is no recovery service during the last hour).

As we got within 15 minutes we were counting down the laps, everyone clapping as the broken sounding #60 went past each time. Then with 2 minutes to go we realised there would be one more lap, for some teams it was the longest lap of the weekend and as each and every car passed us on the pit wall for the last time it didn’t matter where the teams had finished, but every car had and that was what mattered. As the cars entered into the pit lane we lined up clapping them as they went past. It really was the most emotionally and physically draining 72 hours of my life, but also some of the best. As a closing comment to show the spirit of the club and how everyone is welcomed in, this picture does tell a thousand words.

Thank you to Martin Harrold and Alan Hyde for giving me the opportunity, Chris Yates (who impressively drove his car up to second whilst the hand brake was still on) and the rest of the club as a whole for welcoming me. I have the date pencilled into my diary to come back next year.

_{Photograph by Martin Pettitt.}

The Giggles Effect

We have already enjoyed one half hour music and chatter segment from Alex, and now it's time for another one. As mentioned in the previous post, these were originally created for the mammoth Sidepodradio event that has now been postponed. They were too good to just sit on our servers until we sort everything out, so here is Giggles Part Deux.

I am loving the mix of music and funny skits that Alex has come up with. The amount of effort gone in to this is remarkable!

Stand In Sidepodradio

Although we have had to postpone Sidepodradio, Alex still sent us the files he had made for his four half hour music segments. They are so amazing that it seemed a shame to waste them, so we decided that to lighten the mood, we'd share them anyway. Giggles can always make more, right?

As mentioned above, there are four of these, so expect a few more posts along later today. Our heartfelt thanks to Giggles for the amount of effort he put into these. It's brilliant!

Hungary 2009 - Schedule

For reasons best known to himself, Bernie decided that Hungary was the best track to keep us wanting more during the long weeks of the summer break. A race that Martin Brundle would still be happy to miss if the BBC weren't putting their foot down.

Talking of which, here is their schedule for the upcoming weekend. The live commenting threads will be published about half an our before their coverage starts.

TV Schedule

As ever, it's the BBC online streaming and radio 5live for us, let us know how you are tuning in.

Podcast Schedule

Here are rough estimates of when the shows will be released over the coming few days:

Join us for live commenting each and every session if you can, and above all else, have a great weekend.

Ever Dream of Being a Radio DJ?

A few weeks ago, RG came up with the idea of Sidepodradio in the comments. It was mentioned in jest, and some of the Sidepodcommunity came up with shows they'd like to do, tailored to their interests. Fast forward to now, and Sidepodradio is real, it's happening and we want you to be a part of it.

Not Another Sidepod... Show

Yes, sorry about that. Not content with providing more content than it is feasible to listen to, we are now going to go for an entire 12 hours on Sunday 2nd August. From 12pm UK time to midnight, we will be broadcasting various shows in half hour slots, and there will be plenty to listen to. The exact mechanics of the process are yet to be decided, but as a listener, all you have to do is show up to the Live Comments on Sunday and get listening.

Put That Hairbrush Away

Now, for the more adventurous out there, we need you. No longer do you have to stand in front of the mirror with a hairbrush, there are 24 half hour slots to fill and we want you to host them. The wiki is already filling up with great content, but there is still plenty of space for more. Have an idea for a radio show that you've always wanted to broadcast? Now is your chance. It doesn't even have to be specifically about F1. We're going for a Parade Lap feel, where F1 is always there, but doesn't have to be on the tip of our tongue.

The options are limitless as well. You can broadcast live with us on the day, or you can submit a pre-recorded show. You can take callers, play music, discuss whatever topics are on your mind. You can be on air with Mr C and myself, or you can fly solo. If you want technical help or advice, ask away.

A Whole Half Hour

Say you don't want to commit to an entire show (and I'll be disappointed if you don't), there's space for you as well. Why not leave us a voicemail with a smooth transition that we can play between shows? Ever wanted to be like the callers on radio that say: "Every time I'm on the interwebs, I listen to Sidepodradio." Now you can. Call us on 0121 28 87225, and leave a quick thought for us to play.

Sidepodcast - Hobby Turned Radio Station

Calling it radio is perhaps a little misleading because we  aren't suddenly going to be hitting the FM airwaves or anything like that. Radio is expensive, the internet is less so. However, broadcasting for 12 hours will cost us a little more, something in the region of £120. We are therefore asking for donations, however big or small, to put towards the cause. There's a paypal donate button on the right hand side of the homepage. If we go over our total, the rest of the money will go to an as yet undecided charity.

So, there you have it. That's what we know so far, and in our usual chaotic and spontaneous fashion, it will all come together at the last minute. However, if you have any questions or thoughts, leave them in the comments or email me: christine at sidepodcast dot com.

Germany 2009 - Schedule

It's been a while but Sidepodcast swings back into action as the racing turns up to Nurburgring for the first time since 2007.

Despite the fact that Formula 1 is slowly imploding, we'll be keeping it together by attempting to stick to these two schedules. The first is the BBC coverage, which will dictate when the live threads will start. The second is an estimate of when each podcast will come out throughout the weekend.

TV Schedule

As ever, it's the BBC online streaming and radio 5live for us, let us know how you are tuning in.

Podcast Schedule

Here are rough estimates of when the shows will be released over the coming few days:

Join us for live commenting each and every session if you can, and above all else, have a great weekend.

Radio Free Europe

In addition to providing the two of us admission to free practice at Silverstone yesterday, the lovely people from Shell supplied a pair of Kangaroo TV handsets for use during the day. If we hadn't been given a set though, we'd surely have paid for one, because as we said way back in 2007 these things rock our world.

Watching a single corner of a race track, and squinting at the nearest jumbotron, doesn't hold much appeal for us. We're clearly the kind of people who need to know exactly what's going on at a Grand Prix to really enjoy the experience. No doubt we would've hated turning up to pre-2006 races.

This year the handset features have improved (including bespoke Shell branded data on ours), especially now all teams are required to make radio transmissions available. By the end of Free Practice 2 I'd become somewhat addicted to following the in-garage audio, which includes considerably more detailed conversation than we're used to hearing on television.

One particular chat, that was only partly covered by 5Live's broadcast, was Jenson's continual struggle to set his car up properly on a Friday. We know from previous outings this year, that our current championship leader has had to borrow a number of set-ups from team-mate Barrichello, when changes he's tried haven't worked out so well. Things didn't appear to improve during Friday at Silverstone either.

During FP1, there was much strained conversation between Button and radio man Andrew Shovlin, and then during FP2 matters appeared to deteriorate further. Whatever changes had been discussed and implemented during the break between sessions weren't working for Jenson and he requested they completely roll back to the mornings configuration. The response was surprising:

Yeah, we've heard this kind of thing from you before Jenson.

After a further debate, the number 22 car returned to the pits and twenty minutes worth of work was carried out. Finally out on the circuit again, and the next radio message went something like:

Changes rolled back. Track time is there. Up to you if you want to use it.

I may be reading too much into things but the inference appeared to be - you've now wasted this whole session, we're back to where we started, hope you're having fun.

Clearly the team rate the man for his driving ability but I do wonder if they're getting more useful information from the other side of the garage? Rubens radio, incidentally, contained shorter bursts of direct information. He wants a softer front, or more stability at the rear.

I fully expected that data would be shared during the evenings debrief, Jenson would be more comfortable come FP3 and usual programming would resume by the end of qualifying. 6th place (his worst of the year) for the British GP wasn't where anyone expected the man from Frome to finish up.

It's difficult to say if there really are problems at Brawn GP. You would imagine that given their current dominant position all would be sweetness and light. Is Rubens that much better at setting up a chassis?

Additionally, it is quite hard to hear exactly what was said on the radio, with cars screaming past every couple of seconds. So the above should at least be considered a rough interpretation at best. Thankfully, live commenting trackside is a fantastic experience, and at least allowed most of the conversation to be transcribed as it happened.

Without a doubt, viewers at home should have more access to this new era of radio transparency. Teams are clearly going to great efforts to improve the show but to the majority of fans watching from their sofa, this work is going to waste.