05 May 2003

All our yesterdays I spent the past weekend in north west England attending a reunion at the student radio station where I began my involvement in the media 30 years ago.  On Sunday my friends took me to Wigan Pier - where the council have turned an old cotton mill and warehouses into a thematic museum called The Way We Were. There are hundreds - indeed thousands - of everyday items ranging from packets of custard powder to model Daleks (if you don't know what a Dalek is, I wouldn't worry about it). There are displays for every decade from the 1940's to the 1990's, and they include old radios and gramophones/record players. I didn't notice a Sony Betamax VCR, but there's probably one there somewhere. It's hard to believe people actually wore some of the clothes that were on display - then someone showed me some old photos of myself :-) I flew in and out of the recently re-named John Lennon International Airport in Liverpool, which features a statue of the great man himself on the route between check-in and departures. The slogan of the airport is "above us only sky", a line taken from his classic song Imagine. Finally, my good friend Andy Chapman alerted me to a great radio station called The Arrow, available on DAB in the north west of the UK. They play really good classic rock, and sound like the sort of station I'd listen to often if I lived in the area. They also stream on the Internet, apparently, so I'm going to check that out. 7:06:27 PM     comment on this entry []

(c) Information from BBC Monitoring: Iraq: Attack by gunmen obstructs TV, radio transmission Text of announcer-read report over video, from the "Al-Jazeera at midday" programme, broadcast by Qatari Al-Jazeera satellite TV on 5 May The temporary building from which the temporary Iraqi television transmits has come under an attack by unidentified gunmen. The studio was damaged, thus obstructing the launching of the experimental transmission, which was scheduled to last six hours daily. Differences persist between Abdallah al-Shaykh, who was appointed by the Americans and Mustafa al-Rubay'i, who was selected by the television workers to supervise the transmission. [Fa'izah al-Azzi, Al-Jazeera Television correspondent in Baghdad - recording] The engineering team supervising the restart of Iraqi television transmission was frustrated as soon as it arrived at the television offices. It found that the studio was destroyed and many pieces of equipment were stolen. The television was supposed to start an experimental transmission of six hours a day. [Imad Abd-al-Aziz, Radio and Television engineering affairs director] We met with Mr Mikes [name as transliterated], ORHA [Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance] official for media affairs. We gave him an integrated plan for television and radio transmission, not covering Baghdad alone but all of Iraq. We gave him a full inventory of the transmitters and studios and their locations, both the damaged and safe ones. We requested only protection. Anyone who saw the report should have been happy. However, the man was not happy, for he does not want us to start transmission. [Al-Azzi] Iraqis have been awaiting the return of the media facility since the end of the war. The party behind the targeting of the facility is still unknown. As for the radio and television employees, who are looking forward to returning to their jobs, the destruction inflicted on the main studio has doubled their concern about the possibility of returning to their jobs. [Muhammad al-Qadi, from the US-appointed committee for running Iraqi television] I personally believe that the transmission will be limited to guiding the citizens about what to do and how to temporarily run their lives until stability is restored. Transmission will be full and require all the technical staff. [Al-Azzi] Many believe that resuming transmission hinges on providing protection for the place, after many institutions were looted and burnt. [Unidentified man] A group of gunmen came yesterday. They wanted to attack the satellite channel and radio buildings and loot what remained. However, some employees and managers collected some equipment so that they could operate the radio. [Unidentified man] We want only an approval by the US forces to arm some young men who have expressed their readiness to volunteer for free to protect this institution, which is ours. This is a voluntary matter. We can now provide you with 100 men now. [Al-Azzi] Between providing protection and securing the electricity required for transmission, the Iraqis are suffering media vacuum and widespread rumours. People here are in a race with time. They are wondering in whose interest is this delay in providing protection, and whether it will actually be an Iraqi transmission. Source: Al-Jazeera TV, Doha, in Arabic 1350 gmt 5 May 03 (via BBC Monitoring) 6:45:38 PM     comment on this entry []

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