Lincolnshire Poacher… Again
August 23rd, 2008 by Steve BowbrickFor the Numbers Stations post I uploaded an MP4 instead of an MP3 and I think I broke the podcast. So here’s the programme again in the right format: MP3. Sorry!
spy
Tracking the Lincolnshire Poacher
August 22nd, 2008 by Steve BowbrickElliot Moore, loyal listener, reminds me about the enigmatic and spooky Numbers Stations and this terrific programme (MP3) from 2006 presented by Simon Fanshawe all about them. I’ve got a four-CD set of meticulously recorded and annotated Numbers Stations somewhere—compiled by short-wave geeks and spook-watchers The Conet Project.
There’s something profoundly unsettling about the persistence into the digital age of these cold war holdovers: radio stations that broadcast nothing but impenetrable coded messages which we have to assume (Governments won’t even acknowledge they exist) are intended for proper, old-fashioned spies. Elliot says you can get the Conet recordings here and the sleeve notes here, released under an open licence, which is nice.
I recommend that you download them and listen to them back-to-back in a darkened room with nothing but a bottle of Polish Vodka and a cyanide capsule for company. Elliot also provides links to expert Simon Mason’s web site on the topic and to another numbers stations web site whose August log shows that the stations are still very much alive. The Lincolnshire Poacher, by the way, is the name given to one of the broadcasts (presumably originating in Great Britain) by the spook watchers because it uses the folk tune of that name as a call sign.
Amis, Amis and Bond
May 19th, 2008 by Steve BowbrickJames Bond just won’t go away will he? Here’s a nice Sunday afternoon doc about Kingsley Amis’ surprising 007 fixation and the five (count them—five) books he wrote about him in the 1950s. Charlie Higson, who writes the really excellent Young Bond series (come on Charlie, get on with the next one!) presents and Amis junior contributes. Very good (MP3).
bookmarks by: delicious.com
