My hobbyistic interest is radio. True, I spend most of my radio listening hours tuned to either Radio 1 or a talking station. In London this will typically be LBC. In Liverpool this’ll be City Talk. I hate sport so I miss-out those bits, but everything else is ok. And I’m constantly searching for adventurous non-formula stuff to listen to.
I’m out of touch with the ever shrinking world of today’s radio from the inside, so tend to keep an increasingly vague ear on news about who’s pressing the ‘Next’ button here, or who’s being made redundant there. However, I do have a tendency to hang round websites fashioned to reflect the interests of anoraks (radio listeners). That’ll be the anoraks of the offshore radio stations and land based pirates of 25 -30 years ago. The radio equivalent of steam train enthusiasts.
Most of the conversations will be about radio from the old days, deejays from the old days, or music from the old days. However, people keep dying.
It started noticeably a few years ago. A couple of times a year the news would break about this person or that person having died. But, it’s speeding up! Almost every month now there’s another name to lament. And, not just from the people who were out there ‘doing it’, but also from the enthusiasts or anoraks who used to listen to them doing it.
More and more are dropping dead. Those that haven’t died appear to be suffering from diseases and disabilities commonly associated with old age. So, all the new news from these folk is peppered with death and decay.
I’m finding this rather depressing. It’s a bit like I’ve developed a habit of hanging around old people’s homes or a hospice whenever I read the various websites or communities that anoraks stagger in to. The sites are less about the wonders of radio, and more and more about who’s died and when. They are one huge Obituary column now.
I’m guessing my real issue is that all this talk about who’s died amongst people who themselves are near death reminds me of my own mortality and lack of years left on this plane of existence. And, I really don’t like it.
England's England 