I have some time to do more recording now. Okay, so it’s not hyper-original recording trains but I liked the screech of the wheel flanges as it rounds a fairly gentle bend. I was at the same level as the track across a dip due to the lie of the land
Also a chance to see how this Audioboo thing works… which seems to be pretty well 2018 update – they decided to start charging $9.99 a month. You must be kidding, guys, I may as well pay WordPress £33 a year to be able to get audio facility. There’s no low-end offering.
I was making a binaural recording of this fairground roundabout when another sound recordist arrived to get a clip from the ride itself – he asked the proprietor if it was okay at the beginning of the clip.
The actual fairground organ is a recording played out of speakers either side of the organ facade. The giveaway, apart from no moving parts, was when the operator fiddled with the volume control 😉
An exasperated mother has to take a big kid and a little kid to task after Dad pushes his child’s scooter too fast. Overheard on the way to the Ipswich Beer festival by the docks.
Borough Market is under the arches leading in to London Bridge Station, and this trader was hawking snacks and decent fast food, like wild boar sausages and hare. I couldn’t work out what the heck he was calling out when I was there and I still can’t work out what his exhortation is.
At the beginning of the track there is the shrill call of starlings. I was chuffed, because something really bad has happened to London’s birdlife over the last thirty years, as many once common birds are common no more. There used to be thousands of starlings in London, there was an enormous roost at Charing Cross station decades ago.
Most tragically, the humble house sparrow seems to have surrendered the fight. As a child growing up in London they were everywhere, in the parks you could sometimes see some old boy feeding hundreds, in the ways tourists feed the sparrows outside Notre Dame in Paris.You’d walk past the hedges in suburban London and be chided with the peremptory chirp of a house sparrow. No more – in the last three decades the chirp has fallen silent as the cockney sparrows have abandoned the city. Central London is now pretty much a bird-free zone apart for the ubiquitous pigeon.
Starlings have also abandoned the city, so it was a treat to hear their call. Perhaps these have worked their way up the river, for Borough market is near the river at London Bridge.
St Paul’s Cathedral is only a stone’s throw from the tall glass-faced buildings of London’s financial district. I was sitting in the gardens ot the cathedral, and the bells sounded really odd, as if there was an organist following on after then about 2 seconds late. This must be the echo coming from the glass-fronted buildings about 0,5km away, it does nothing for the tone
I was recording the waves at Southwold pier as darkness started to fall. The air was still enough to give it a go without being taken down by the sea winds.
Suddenly, in the distance I hear the sound of geese, and a massive vee of geese pass overhead, possibly a hundred birds in all
This fairground roundabout was set up in the town centre, and seemed to have some sort of mechanical organ contraption in the middle which delivered this hurdy-gurdy melody.
