Hurricanes

I'm off ill today - full of cold, sore throat etc, which is relaxing but boring...

And no, I refuse to watch daytime TV and Jeremy Kyle....

Instead, I'm passing time learning about hurricanes and hurricane season - my little obsession - I wish I could be a storm chaser....

Here is a picture of Hurricane Earl at the moment....
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/view.php?id=45597

Here is a good tracker site that makes a deadly hurricane look like a cute swivelly thing...
http://www.wbt.com/weather/hurricane.aspx
Clicking on Forecast Models show where people think it might go. Ultimately, it's up to Earl himself though.

The Internet offers us a great opportunity now - listening to foreign radio stations.
I LOVE listening to American radio stations - it's taught me so much about American culture, values and the people... and American radio stations do so many things right, that we don't (in my opinion)

Everything is more natural instead of polished - to me this is always what radio should be about. Fluent speech and rehearsed content is important but always natural is better - cos you get that wonderful feeling of you don't know what's coming next, in the same way as when you're sat with someone in a pub....
Over here, it tends to be so polished that we know what's coming next is a well-planned, well-packaged article which is going to be careful not to deviate too far from the norm.

Here is one of the coolest things about many American radio stations... You know over here, when we have radio adverts, they've all got music to them and dramatic voice-overs and announcers and quirky sayings etc etc etc ...... Well this actually makes people here in the UK mentally switch off, because we hear the adverts and because of their style, we automatically associate them with being adverts and being rubbish.

In America, they often have adverts that are just someone talking to you, - so for instance, they'll put themselves in your position - For instance a guy's voice just comes on, talking about how he wasn't sure about getting cellphone insurance and he didn't want the hassle of going on-line, but then he found out it only took 5 minutes on-line so he did it.

Sounds familiar maybe, but the way they do it is just having a guy talk about it as if he's your mate.. no dramatic jingles or background music, or silly voice-overs, just a real everyday guy you can relate to.... and it really works!! You actually start caring about the advertisements!

The talk shows tend to be very dramatic, and not bound by politeness and fairness like they are over here. Lots of mad, crazy opinions going on, which maybe you would expect.

Anyway, in some states, it is most radio presenters' dream to report when there is a hurricane. When there are huge-scale evacuations, and everyone has the radio on in cars, and its fast and furious speech radio (just like the hurricane) - many radio presenters dream of the day they are doing the live hurricane news show.

I'm hoping to be feeling better this weekend but not really sure. If so, I'm at Samaritans branch tomorrow, as part of our Information And Selection Event for newcomers. It's fun, we do group exercises and little debates - it's a great way of mixing people and getting people to think about and challenge their own opinions, as well as helping induct new people to the charity.