Fi Glover is a bit of a traveller. She is also more than a little obsessive about the radio. In January 2000 she set off on a journey which took her around the world, via many radio stations and some very strange communities. From Somerset Sounds to Howard Stern City, Miami to Monserrat, it is a wonderfully funny and strangely moving quest to find the perfect radio station.
| ||||||||||||||||||
Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
A seasoned BBC Radio presenter, Glover is no stranger to the audio medium. Her friendly, down-to-earth delivery and pleasant British accent make her tales all the more appealing. A huge fan of radio, Glover took a few months off to travel the world and visit interesting, quirky radio stations in different countries. Among them: a Viennese station with programs that taught English idioms for traveling international businessmen (and which, at the time of Glover's arrival, was about to switch to an all-music format); a station in Beirut run by and for homesick Irish soldiers; a station in Montserrat that provided crucial information and emotional support to the inhabitants during devastating volcanic eruptions and their aftermath; and the home base of Dr. Joy Browne, whose advice call-in show is syndicated across America. Glover is endearingly honest, especially when recounting her frustrating and fruitless efforts to contact paranormal radio host Art Bell, and her nervousness at being in Beirut, fearing personal danger. Glover's enthusiasm for radio is contagious. She marvels at the fact that in any country in the world, one can turn on the local radio station and immediately find out what's on the minds of the natives, and embraces the arrival of Internet radio, which allows one to hear stations all over the globe without leaving home.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Review
“Her wit is brut dry.” – Anne Karpf, Observer
“Glover is witty and, I’m afraid I have to say it, feisty to boot.” – Stephen Armstrong, The Times
“Glover is witty and, I’m afraid I have to say it, feisty to boot.” – Stephen Armstrong, The Times
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
More About the Author
Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Feisty Fi's Travels with her radio,
By
This review is from: I'm an Oil Tanker (Paperback)
Fi Glover is an acclaimed BBC Radio Five Live broadcaster who began her career at the BBC's smallest local station Somerset Sound, later worked for GLR in London, flirted with television in BBC2's The Travel Show and now hosts BBC Radio Five Live's late show.Glover is a self-confessed radio anorak whose first priority, when checking into any hotel room anywhere is to tune in the bedside radio to whatever local station takes her fancy. The Travel Show having given her a dose of wanderlust, she decides to travel to various far-flung parts of the world and discover them through their local radio stations. For some reason she has not made a radio programme about this, she has instead written a book, presumably because there was more money in a book. There's certainly very little in radio (and even less in web sites!). I am an Oil Tanker is a travel book, in much the same way that Bill Bryson's books are and we are immediately as interested in the person doing the travelling as we are in the journey itself. The first thing I do when I pick up a book to read it is look for a list of chapter titles to give me some idea of what might lie in store. This doesn't work with Terry Pratchett books but in this case we get: 1. Are you the girl on the radio this morning? ... so we're clearly going to have a varied and interesting time in the company of a girl with a fully working sense of humour as our guide! At the start of the book we find ourselves unceremoniously plonked in North California at a radio station whose breakfast show appears to be being presented by a couple of 'good old boys' who are absolutely full of it, and yet their programme connected with its audience and the phone-in element seemed to be the show's saving grace. I guess you had to be there. In complete contrast chapter 2 takes us to Austria, and specifically to Blue Danube Radio, a wonderful station with an educational remit aimed at the international traveller. Sadly, at the time of her visit BDR is about to be closed, to be replaced by new and trendy Fear FM. Fear FM will not be, as it happens, a completely different station but one staffed by exactly the same people working in the very same building. But fortunately for us the change has not yet happened at the time of Glover's visit, and the book is well worth reading just for this chapter alone. The Frank Warren bit comes in because Glover gets given Frank Warren's ticket for Euro 2000, so we're on our way to a small opt-out outpost of Five Live at Charleroi in Belgium. This gives us a fascinating insight into the way BBC radio manages to function on a budget worth slightly less than half a pair of shoelaces. (I presume this is what people mean when they say shoestring?) I particularly enjoyed her visits to Palm Springs, where she sampled KJJZ's brand of Cool Jazz and Montserrat, where Radio Montserrat proved to be the cement which held the island together both during and after the eruption of the islands once 'dormant' volcano. To say that this book is readable is an understatement. Fi Glover has a wonderful writing style in which she holds little of herself back. In Beiruit she tells us of the "roasty toasty heat" of the Lebanon: "we are all dripping with sweat - obviously I could at this point pretend that I was simply perspiring slightly but I wasn't, I was drenched - I suggest we stay under the shade of the trees in the garden to chat amicably about how he got to be a DJ in the middle of a war zone. This is the army after all - no time for idle chit-chat." Fi Glover is the perfect companion on this trip around bits of the globe. There is also an abridged audiobook.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Making Radio Waves,
By
This review is from: I Am an Oil Tanker (Audio Cassette)
Fi Glover, a dj on BBC in England, finds herself between radio gigs for a few months, and decides to see what radio is like in other countries. So she buys a wind-up radio that requires no batteries or electricity and sets off for some places she'd heard were interesting, radio-wise. Travels With My Radio is the result, a hodge-podge of radio adventures in Europe, America, Lebanon, and the Caribbean.
The original title was I Am An Oil Tanker, based on a radio blooper made by a dj reading a breaking news bulletin. I'm glad the title was changed to something more straightforward because I would have ignored the book otherwise, thinking it was a children's book. As it was, I saw the title in a catalog (since Amazon doesn't sell the book, only the audiotape, I don't have any qualms about saying that I found it in The Common Reader catalog) and thought, what a great idea for a book. I always travel with a tiny transistor radio and enjoy hearing the different programs around the world. Since Glover is in the business, she gains access to stations and radio hosts wherever she goes and this behind-the-scenes look is quite revealing. She sets off determined to meet Howard Stern and Art Bell, as well as some less famous, less quirky radio personalities. At least half the book is set in the U.S., in California, Las Vegas, New York, and Chicago. Part of the fun of Travels With My Radio, for me, is the Britishness of it. (The book is not published in the U.S.) It's always fun to see what someone from abroad thinks of your country (Ciao, America by Beppe Severgnini, for example). Glover translates everything American into something her intended readers, Brits, will understand. So we end up with a New York traffic reporter saying "there's one flipped over on the carriageway in Queens," and a Santa Rosa dj saying "another beautiful summer day in Sonoma County with lows of 25 (celsius) on the coast." She misspells unfamiliar placenames: Pahrump, Nevada is consistently spelled Parumph and San Bernardino as San Bernadino. And she decides to take the Greyhound bus to Palm Springs from L.A. Naturally she finds her fellow riders are an odd, scraggly lot, because in this country, no one rides the bus unless they are unable, physically or legally, to drive a car. When she tries to take the city bus within Palm Springs, the bus driver advises her to take a cab. Even though it is now possible to listen to just about any radio station in the world on the internet, Glover still manages to make her radio travels relevant. Her description of Gene Hackman giving a petulant interview, her arrival and adventures in Las Vegas the very week that Art Bell was quitting his paranormal talk show (coincidence?), her white-knuckle drive through Beirut, all great stories. She should be on the radio.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
|
|
Tag this product(What's this?)Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organize and find favorite items. |
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
