Radio Okerwelle

 

Radio Okerwelle

 

Ever fancied listening to some pop music from Prague, rock music from Russia, or talk from Taiwan? Go to Radio Garden. The concept is simple: you look around a global map and select an area that interests you. When you click on that region and select a green dot signifying a radio station, the feed will automatically start playing, telling you the name of the station you are listening and where it is.

The platform gets hundreds of submissions every week and has grown its collection of live radio stations from 7,000 to more than 30,000. You can listen to stations from all over, as far and wide as Sicily in Italy and Texas in the US. And it's free, with pop-up ads being the only commerce-based inconvenience. They appear every few minutes while you listen to tunes, but they aren't intrusive. You can close or ignore them.

 

At Radio Okerwelle

 

It's fun to tune in to some of the locations where I used to work and live - Athens, Jeddah, Apia, Penang, Windhoek, Port Moresby, Honiara, Balikpapan, Rangoon, and so on - but best of all is to tune in to my old hometown in Germany and listen to "Radio Okerwelle", although it no longer plays oompah or sentimental schmaltz music but English pop.

Someone from my hometown whom I recently befriended through the hometown facebook page Braunschweig - Im Wandel der Zeit works as volunteer at Radio Okerwelle, so I shall tune in more regularly to hear how much his taste in music differs from mine. Give it a spin, Ralf!

 

Googlemap Riverbend

 

So, like, when did all this start?

 

 

The habit of ending statements with a stress that makes them sound a bit like questions is one that winds many people up - including me. So many people now believe that the speech pattern originated in Australia that they've dubbed it the Australian Question Intonation.

English is a notoriously woolly language, full of ways to say one thing and mean another, but why add to the confusion by ending a sentence with an interrogative tone so that it sounds like a question even when it's just a statement? Like that, in fact.

"So what did I do today? Well, I went canoeing on the river? Which was, like, really really fun? And then I had a cold beer on the jetty?"

Did you notice the 'like' I slipped in as well? Some people can't speak a full sentence without it, which is another pet hate of mine. And the list is growing because I've just noticed this latest habit of starting almost every sentence with the word 'so', the kind of 'so' which is so meaningless that you'd be inclined to separate it from the rest of the sentence by a comma - if you still believe in punctuation, that is!

I know it's a living language but it shouldn't be killed off prematurely. I don't think that needs a question mark, do you?

 

Googlemap Riverbend

 

Sieh nach den Sternen - gib acht auf die Gassen!

 

 

So stand es auf der Vorderseite meines Abschlusszeugnisses vom 18. März 1960 welches ich für über sechzig Jahre mit mir durch die ganze Welt schleppte (aber wer in Australien oder Südafrika oder Neu-Guinea oder Birma oder Saudi Arabien wollte denn schon wissen daß ich in allen Fächern "sehr gut" hatte, ausser Religion und Naturlehre - "gut" - weil ich immer wieder die Spanische Inquisition erwähnte und mehr wissen wollte als wie es die Kaulquappen machten, Musik - "befriedigend", Zeichnen - "ausreichend", Werken - "befriedigend", und Sport - "mangelhaft"?)

 

 

Also wurde aus mir kein Mozart und auch kein Dürer und schon gar nicht ein Fritz Walter, sondern nur ein ganz langweiliger Buchhalter und dann Wirtschaftsprüfer und Wirtschaftsberater und Komputerprogrammierer.

Es dauerte mehr als sechzig Jahre bis mir plötzlich klar wurde daß das Wichtigste an diesem Abschlusszeugnis nicht die Zensuren in den Innenseiten waren sondern das Wilhelm Raabe Zitat auf der Vorderseite.

Für mehr als sechzig Jahre war ich ein Träumer gewesen. Jetzt, nachdem ich in meinem Leben in vielen Sackgassen gelandet bin, ist mir endlich klar geworden daß ich dem Wilhelm Raabe früher hätte zuhören sollen: Sieh nach den Sternen - gib acht auf die Gassen!

 

Googlemap Riverbend

 

My library

 

 

It is foolish to think that you have to read all the books you buy, as it is foolish to criticize those who buy more books than they will ever be able to read. It would be like saying that you should use all the cutlery or glasses or screwdrivers or drill bits you bought before buying new ones.

There are things in life that we need to always have plenty of supplies, even if we will only use a small portion.

If, for example, we consider books as medicine, we understand that it is good to have many at home rather than a few: when you want to feel better, then you go to the 'medicine closet' and choose a book. Not a random one, but the right book for that moment. That's why you should always have a nutrition choice!

Those who buy only one book, read only that one and then get rid of it. They simply apply the consumer mentality to books, that is, they consider them a consumer product, a good. Those who love books know that a book is anything but a commodity."

So wrote Umberto Eco, of "The Name of the Rose"-fame, who owned 50,000 books, about home libraries. I think he would have approved of my library (see above) and the more modest one in "Canberra" which only houses books on travel and linguistics, and the even more modest one inside "Melbourne" which comprises all my books currently "on the go", to say nothing of the five very large bookshelves in the living-room which are more of a static display of the many books I have read and loved but haven't returned to for almost as long as I have lived here.

 

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