Simon Toon

At last I've found some Wi-Fi access here in Dresden: in the foyer of an IBIS hotel they have a Vodafone hotspot, and it only costs me €6.95 for 30 minutes of lovely Wi-Fi! At last I can upload my latest video podcast. Sorry for the delay!

The Britcaster Forum closed last night. The end of an era. Jon Buckley, over at Citizen Scoop has done a very good job of compiling a commemorative podcast to mark this sad occasion. Warning, it contains a rather embarrassing contribution by me. Take a listen!

You've got to hear this podcast featuring Brian Haw on Dissident Vox. http://www.dissidentvox.com/blog/_archives/2006/11/21/2516014.html

Aw, Madge played my Haiku on her Yeast Radio show 442 , about 43 minutes in. That's so nice of her! Even though I wrote it myself, she was very kind about it. Shucks!

Will Brown and I have embarked upon a challenge to write and record a poem for each others shows (Will's show is Cloudy Day Art ), and to record a daily audio-blog to document the progress. Will's blog is here , and the feed is here . I'm using my existing personal feed . The deadline is September 9th.

This is pretty cool. Adrian Pegg pointed to this youTube video of a beautiful cover version of 'Hey Ya'.

I wish Israel would act like a grown up country and stop killing Lebanese civilians, especially as a lot of the victims are children. I also wish the UK and USA governments would stop trying to create a 1984 society with their 'war on terror' and all these suspiciously fake-looking terrorist attacks, engendering racial fear of the enemy within, and using all this to ' protect ' their citizens with constant surveillance (biometrics identity cards, RFID tags, plundering of ISP and mobile telephone network data, etc., etc.) and legislation enabling them to silence, expel and detain people without evidence for great lengths of time.

Tony Lees and his girlfriend Nikki are off around the World. I wonder whether they'll find somewhere they prefer to be rather than here in England. Probably.

Another fantastic issue of Podcast User Magazine has just hit the podosphere, and you can win a great sE Electronics Reflexion Filter!

I got a call from Podshow today. This could get interesting!

In the Drill Hall bar after the recording of The Now Show on Thursday, I had a great chat with Will Saunders, Deputy Head of BBC Radio Comedy, about podcasting and The Now Show. You can hear the recording I made on my personal podcast feed at http://feeds.feedburner.com/SimonToon .

BBC flagship comedy podcast, The Now Show, hits the podosphere tonight. I was lucky enough to be invited to see the recording of the topical comedy show last night, which will be broadcast on Radio 4 at 6.30pm and then be made available as a podcast at 7pm. It was an absolutely hilarious show, and included a very funny podcasting-oriented song by Mitch Benn, which may or may not make it into the final edit. I've been a fan of this radio show for many years, and it's great to see it join the BBC's podcasting trial. It's a flagship in my book, as it is BBC radio's first proper comedy show to break through all the comedy writer licensing issues and be made available for people to download for free and store on their hard drives in perpetuity. I hope this will be the first of many, and if it is successful in the podosphere I'm sure it will be. The keys to its success in the podosphere will be the quality of the writing, and the position the BBC has in being able to

It worked! The petition worked! A Bit of Fry and Laurie Series 1 will be available on DVD from Monday!

Today I did a show of The Rantings of a Northern Bloke for Andy while he's away in Wales. Well, actually Andy did all the talking really, recording it on my answerphone. I just did all the technical stuff. Fun! I hope I can do that again. Hopefully also Paul will record something for the show soon.

Issue 2 of PodcastUser Magazine is now available to download for FREE! You can also susbcribe to an RSS feed to get the new issues immediately! I've got an article in there and Andy Taylor has got a letter in there aswell. Enjoy!

BBC News: Video shows Bush Katrina warning USA President Bush, the man who said no-one could have foreseen the breach of the levees in New Orleans, has been shown on video being told by Michael Brown that the levees had a strong possibilty of breaching and that all available resources should be made available. Bush is either incompetant, or a liar. Either way, he is unfit for office and must go.

Adrian Pegg has done it again: he has pointed out this petition hoping to get Channel 4 to make Peep Show series 4.

The Podcast Magazine I have been involved with seems to have gone down really well! It's called Podcast User Magazine, but it's not just for users – it's also for podcast creators and businesses interested in using podcasting. It's a free PDF download, too! Check it out!

It's out! Podcast User Magazine is now available to download! Well done and congratulations to everyone involved in its production. You all worked bloody hard. Download it, and blog about it, now! Point to it here: http://podcastusermagazine.com

Just like podcastpaul and Phil Coyne , I'm jolly excited to have an article of mine published in the new : Podcast User magazine that will be coming out very very soon. Keep checking here for further details. (Sorry, Paul, it's no longer an exclusive for you.)

Please everyone, sign this petition for 'A bit of Fry and Laurie' to be released on DVD.

I think Andy is amazingly brave to read out his own private diary from 8 years ago on his podcast. I wonder if his wife has heard it? Knowing Andy, she probably has. Anyway I think it's really touching to hear what was important to him in his life back then when he must have been about 17 years of age. It's really cool that he is doing this. By the way, I still owe you some happy new year wishes: Happy New Year!