Tuesday 26 April 2011

Album Review: The Wombats - This Modern Glitch

Hands up if you remember the Wombats. Their First Album, 'A Guide to Love, Loss and Desperation' reached number 11 in the UK album charts in 2007, and with its catchy, fun hypnotic pop sound it was an enjoyable album. Some would say that it slightly lacked in lyrical depth with its songs about being infatuated with your GP (EW MRSA!) or being infatuated with a stripper (EW herpes) but that was part of its beauty. When I learnt recently that lead singer Matthew Murphy has recently completed rehabilitation owing to an addiction to anti depressants which plagued the first album I was curious as to the effect that this would have on the second album.

The result is a slightly confused album, combining songs about girls and fast cars (Girls/Fast Cars) with songs about anti depressants (Anti-D). Fortunately the latter is a metaphorical love song where Murphy compares himself to an anti depressant but it still somewhat kills the mood of the opening three cheerful tracks. The album does have some highlights, with the electro pop sound of 'Tokyo (Vampires and Wolves)' and the anthemic sing-along chorus of 'Schumacher the Champagne', but overall it seems like most of the album is spent merely padding out the few good tracks . None of the songs are particularly bad, but many are painfully average. Quirky and fun the album may be, but memorable it certainly isn't.

6/10

Sunday 24 April 2011

(Late) Radio Script

University staff across the country took part in a planned strike on Thursday regarding a row over current salaries, job security and pensions. I spoke to Dr William Sherwood from The University of Winchester about why he was taking part in the strike.

AUDIO INSERT: University Strike
INWORDS: ”There’s a couple of issues”
OUTWORDS: ”Less Fresh Money available at the end”
DURATION: 0’19”

More than 45 students are expected to compete for each graduate job this year; a recent report suggests that many companies are refusing to even consider graduates without relevant work experience. We spoke to a postgraduate student about her job prospects.

AUDIO INSERT: Graduate Jobs
INWORDS: “I left University with”
OUTWORDS: “A bit, like, pointless really”
DURATION: 0’22”

High speed Broadband will be in place across Hampshire by 2014. Hampshire County Council voted in favour of the project which would see an improvement in the current speeds. Councillor Raymond Ellis, a supporter of the Hampshire Broadband project said that “Hampshire can’t afford not to do this”. The project is expected to take between 12 and 32 months to complete and may cost more than 3.5 million pounds.

Winchester Tourist Information Centre has been shortlisted to win the ‘ National Tourist Information Centre of the Year’ award. The Centre won the gold award at the South East regional finals in October and is now in the final four. The winners will be announced in Birmingham on the 15th of April.

Saturday 9 April 2011

News of the World phone hacking apology.

The News of the World have apologies for their conduct in light of phone hacking accusations. Read the full, and somewhat surprising apology here:

http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/notw/public/nol_public_news/1266448/News-International-statement-News-of-the-World-says-sorry.html