I swear I am going to stop describing things as ironic. I said I would and now I really must. So all I’m going to say is that these are ironic times, get over it. The events that have prompted my even being tempted to use the ‘i’ word is connected to my recent blog about keeping our retirement lives simple.
Remember that? So this period has caused a bit of soul searching along the lines of do we really need three houses, three cars, three blogs a week, two music sessions a week, thousands of books, hundreds of pictures etc., monthly nights out with friends I no longer like. The simple answer is, no, no, no, no, no, no and no again. And probably a whole lot more no’s in other areas.
But like trying to pin jelly to the wall, my retirement life refuses to stay skewered. My latest complications are linked to troubles in the vineyard (the topic of the last retirement blog) and, more self-inflicted, trying to set up a podcast – again. I have written twice, I think, about podcasting, once recently and once several years ago after a Masterclass course at The Guardian. So far podcasting has remained elusive. Until now?
I say this challenge was self-inflicted but actually that’s not quite true. It was more at the door of my unwell friend who currently languishes in an Australian treatment programme. I say languishes but that’s not quite correct either. True, he can’t come home after his visit to see his daughter and family but it’s debatable whether he wants or is inclined to. It seems he is getting better treatment in OZ that he would from our own dear NHS. So go figure.
He clearly has too much time on his hands while receiving treatment and appears to think I’m in the same boat. Which, as I’ve pointed out, isn’t the case. And as I vaguely remember from past efforts this setting up of a podcast is far from straightforward.
The podcast is yours truly narrating (is that the word?) the vineyard blog. On advice from my son-in-law I sent my first effort, as an audio file, to my chum in OZ by simply recording using the voice memo software on Mrs Summerhouse’s iPad. Worked a treat, job’s a good un, or so I thought.
My OZ bound (as in stuck not as in heading to) chum, thought not. If I understood him correctly he thinks the 10 minute limit imposed by the iPad software, too short and the sound was flat. Hmm, don’t know about the latter and disagree with the former. But he’s the guy when it comes to podcasting, so what’s a lowly pod reader to do?
And this is where it got very complicated and consequently has taken several hours of my life (that I will never get back). I’ll keep it simple, ha. I’ve got a gizmo called BOSS, that’s the little bugger above. It looks small and unassuming but do not be deceived, nope, is in fact devilishly difficult to use being both small and fiddly and technically obscure. Not to record the voice (my voice) but turning that voice into an audio file that I can then send on to my chum to do whatever wizardry he’s going to do to put the podcast out on the airwaves or whatever they are these days.
I had told my chum that I did not like the sound of my own voice but he persuaded me my rich, Northern accent would perfectly suit the pod content. Well I allowed myself to be convinced and as I say the recording part wasn’t a problem. What followed was.
I gave up with BOSS and tried my hand at another piece of software. A programme called Audacity. I used it before to record some of my musical efforts. But that was about 10 years ago and although it’s the same programme this obviously isn’t the same brain. This was equally as unsimple. I have to admit I wasn’t sure that putting out a podcast was a good idea.
I sent my chum two audio files recorded on this software. He emailed me back to tell me they weren’t audio files!!** Well, I don’t know what the heck they are then. Strike two for this attempt at recording.
Having gone along with my chum’s idea to put The Vineyard Years out there, I’m rapidly, if over several hours of pain can be described as rapid, coming to believe that the simple (that word again) iPad version is the way for us to go.
Whether you as the listener, should you choose, will be able to tell which option we went for, I really doubt. It seems in fact like you’ll be hearing, should you choose to listen, which is of course debatable, to the iPad version as, while writing this retirement blog, I received an email from my chum saying I could stick with the iPad version but just to ‘tap it and change to Lossless’, for ‘better sound quality’. I gave the task to my son-in-law to carry out when he delivered our weekly shopping and our daughter delivered, at a socially-distanced distance, my father’s day presents ( a Wisden and a cherry cake, as you ask).
So the iPad is now on this ‘lossless’ setting and I’m ready, on this Monday morning, to try again. I’ll let you know in a short while how it went.
Well it went, as might have been predicted, in a complicated fashion, nothing simple at all. The recording on iPad went as it should but then the sending of file, well what can I say? The version I sent to myself as a test failed repeatedly to download on to my laptop but downloaded fine on to my phone. I’m in the process of sending the file to my chum in OZ. The intriguing question is, which version will he get? The simple or the complex? I know which one my money is one given recent events.