2007 Podcasts

Podcasts Help

About the Guests

Councillor Merrick Cockell, Leader of the Council, Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea

Cllr Merrick Cockell is Leader of the Council and is responsible for developing overall strategic and financial plans, appointing other Cabinet Members and allocating portfolios, communicating with the public and others, speaking up on matters of local concern, forming partnerships with others and leading on the new Local Strategic Partnership. Prior to becoming leader Councillor Cockell was a long-time Chairman of the Portobello Business Centre,
which provides training and professional advice to start-up and small businesses and also the Chelsea
Centre, a theatre and arts charity. Councillor Cockell is currently Chairman of London Councils (formerly the
Association of London Government).

James Naughtie, journalist and presenter

James Naughtie has been a presenter of Radio 4's Today programme since 1994. His career as a journalist began at The Aberdeen Press & Journal in 1975. In 1977 he moved to The Scotsman in London and joined its Westminster staff in 1978 and subsequently became the paper's Chief Political Correspondent. In 1981 he worked on the national staff of The Washington Post as the Laurence Sterne Fellow. James joined The Guardian in 1984, becoming its Chief Political Correspondent in 1985. Since 1992 he has also been a presenter of the Proms on television and has introduced televised opera on BBC2. From 1990 to 1993 he presented Opera News on Radio 3 and he continues to present live opera relays. He was voted Radio Personality of the Year in 1990 at the Sony Radio Awards and won the Voice of the Listener and Viewer Award for radio in 2001.

Brian Sewell, art critic and writer

Brian is a prolific writer, critic and broadcaster specialising in subjects as diverse as opera, politics, wildlife and motor cars. In April 2003 he was awarded "The George Orwell" prize for his political/current affairs column on the Evening Standard. In February 2004 he received the "Art Critic of the Year Award" for his weekly column on Visual Arts. Amongst his broadcasting credits, he has written and presented a documentary on the life of Graham Sutherland for BBC television and wrote & presented the acclaimed series 'The Naked Pilgrim", "The Road to Santiago" and "The Grand Tour" for Five television.

Podcasts Help

What is a "podcast"?

A podcast is now really a catch all term for what is essentially a large mp3 file. An mp3 file is simply a smaller and more compressed version of normal music or sound files (commonly in WAV format). It was begun as a concept by apple as downloads for their mp3 player "Ipod" - hence podcast. It has rather passed into general parlance in the same way that we call a vacuum cleaner a "Hoover"! However, these files can be played on any computer with a media player (such as Windows Media Player, Itunes etc.) a pair of headphones or speakers and a sound card installed (most computers have one of these when you buy it). They can also be played on any mp3 player - you do not have to own an Ipod. You would simply download the files onto your player in the normal way.

What about quality?

Because we do not want the files to be too large, these podcasts are compressed to 112kbps. This means that there is a decent sound quality to them but they are not huge files. Much depends on the quality of your player of course but you should have no problems with the quality - certainly of the speech content. The music volume is quite low so as to avoid distortion.

How do I download/listen to them?

You can listen to them on your computer or put them onto your mp3 player. Before you do anything you need to save them to you computer. To do this:

• Right click the podcast link (use the button on the right of your mouse)
• Select "Save target as". You then need to select where you want to save it. You can save it to you desktop or create a new folder.
• The file will begin to download. How long this takes depends on the speed of your internet connection and your computer.
• When it has downloaded you can import it into your itunes library or simply go to the file, double click it and the file will open in your default music/media player.