iTunes Update

Just a quick message to let you know that I've found out a minor niggle with the iTunes Podcast Directory.

If you subscribe to the podcast at iTunes you'll automatically download each new episode as soon as we publish it, so that's the best way to stay up to date. However, if you just search for the podcast or are not subscribed, at the moment you'll only see the first episode listed in the iTunes Directory.

Apparently this is an issue which a great deal of podcasters experience, the problem resting mainly on the shoulders of Apple, but I'll try and sort it out as quickly as possible.

As I say however, if you subscribe to the podcast at iTunes, or subscribe to the blog here or even at Feedburner, you can rest assured you'll always be up to date. Alternatively, the new episodes will always be available at the website if you prefer to stay current that way. Either way, if you do come across any difficulties downloading or finding the new episodes, just let us know and we'll point you in the right direction.

Hope you're enjoying the second episode in the meantime!

The Second: "Glasgay"

The Second: "Glasgay".

In this, the second episode of For the Love of G...lasgow, the official podcast of the Top Ten Glasgow Guide, we provide you with a slightly shorter, partial improvement on our last effort. It takes a while for us to get up to speed, then we ramble 'hilariously' on about the end of the Olympics, London 2012 and our united football team, the wacky intuition of our firemen and police force, why you'll enjoy Glasgow in the coming weeks if you're a gay sectarian geek, Alan's eBay success and his mysterious popularity with unknown ladies, and we also discuss folks who write or open messages in bottles.

It really is a 'must listen' this time.

Honestly!

Keep the comments coming!

Wowsers!

Since we've been found in iTunes and started appearing in podcast directories dotted around the place, we've been getting more and more subscribers, more dowloads, more unfortunate souls destined towards psychiatric counselling following even but a faint listening to our first episode.

So please feel free to keep up the comments. Tell us what you want us to mump our gums about, ask us a question, tell us a story, or even a joke, and we'll no doubt mention you in our next episode.

In the meantime, thanks for listening and I'll let you know once we've recorded our next one.

Cheers.

We're up and running!

We've just been successfully accepted into iTunes and are beginning to climb the ranks already, so you can now search for and subscribe to the podast directly from iTunes.

I've also been submitting the podcast to a few other directories, and as part of the validation process have to include the following links, so apologies if the code gives you the heeby-geebies!

My Podcast Alley feed!{pca-3db2d43f8f20df8d6849418e435ea28e}

claim-my-podcast-in-podbean{scid-U2NvdHR5YmhveQ==-ecid}

Thanks for continuing to listen and I hope you enjoyed the first episode. Let us know what you think either way.

Cheers.

The First: "Apologies"

The First: "Apologies".

In this, the first episode of For the Love of G...lasgow, the official podcast of the Top Ten Glasgow Guide, we discuss amongst other things, pandas, the best and worst of the Olympics, the tragedy of life in Glasgow, our mate Jimmy fighting in some place called "the Taliban", death by chips and cheese, and those crazy people who comment online.

We would like to apologise for any offence that may have been caused by such chat. We apologise for the length of the podcast. And for the sound quality. And for the fact that due to the remnants of a bad cold, Scott's voice sounds like Michael Jackson. Just, well, sorry.

We'll try better next time!

And so, the editing begins...

Well, we finally pulled the magic out the bag and recorded our first podcast last night.

Yey! I hear you cry. Or is it just crying?

Over the next few days I'll be editing the thing to make it sound funny, so hopefully I'll have something approaching comedy for you to download at some point during the weekend.

(...)

The mics are here - long live the mics!

Well, I've finally got my hands on the microphones.

(cue the charcoal gasps of disappointment...)

I ended up having to collect them yesterday evening at a depot in Bellshill, and having relied on Google maps (schoolboy error) got completely lost along the way. To be frank, taking a scenic tour of Cambuslang and Blantyre in the impending darkness isn't my idea of fun, not least because for the entire journey I was in dire need to go for a wee streamie! That is, a wee wee. The toilet.

So, at one point during my increasingly-disturbing travels I stopped off at a petrol station to ask two questions:

1. Where am I?
2. Which road am I on?

I figured that if I could find out the answer to these two simple enough questions, I could find my way again on the Google Maps thing I've got on my phone.

The girl at the till, well, quite helpfully in response to those two questions, she told me that my phone was nice.

I said "Yeah thanks, it is nice. So, which road am I on again?".

She said "I've got a Nokia phone but it's broken. I'm waiting for it to get fixed."

I said "Oh right. And the road we're on?"

She said "Well, it's not been too busy today so it hasn't."

I said "Oh, hasn't it? OK, so I've really not got much time here."

She said "Right, you're the first person I've seen here for a while."...

...This went on for some time.

About 5 minutes into this distracting chat with this mutant of a girl however, some huge guy in a yellow Council jacket came in to pay for his petrol. He was quite clearly reeking of booze despite his car being parked outside with his kids in it (I'm assuming they were his!).

He said, whilst spitting his chewing gum onto his hand, "Awright mate? Whaur ye headin?"

I said "I'm just looking to find out where I am mate, and which road I'm on."

He said, a little too interested and with a plainly threatening glint in his eye, "Aye, but where ye gaun?"

I said "Bellshill Industrial Estate."

He said "Och aye, the industrial estate? Aye, well, jist heid up the road ther, take a left an ye'll see a fermer's track. Jist heid alang ther for a few miles an it'll take ye right tae the estate."

OK, well that seemed easy enough, but having some echoing doubts about these directions I said nicely to the man in the least feminine voice I could muster, "Thanks mate, but which road are we on just now?"

He said, lowering the tone in his voice and staring straight into my eye, "Aye, jist take a left up ther and go up ra fermer's track."

Right then.

I backed away, squeaking timidly to both of them "Thanks. I've got to go now. See you later..."

They just stood there in silence, eyes glazed.

Something just seemed wrong with the entire scenario. It felt like I was being set up, delayed, the "locals" watching my every move on the CCTV camera. Waiting. Sharpening the best of their cutlery in anticipation.

So I finally escaped with my life thankfully intact, found my way to the depot, collected the mics, got home, exploded in the bathroom, took a stiff drink to calm the nerves, and tried for the rest of the night to make the recording software on my laptop recognise two mics. I gave up, so for now it'll have to be one mic between myself and Alan, but having tested it with Tracey (boy do I know how to show a girl a good time!) the quality seems to be OK anyway, well, aside that is, from the whiney voice.

So we're good to go, and we'll be recording the first episode tomorrow night. Once it's done I'll have the mp3 up as quickly as I can. You'll be able to download it directly from the website or at archive.org where all the episodes will be hosted. It'll also be available for download right here on the blog, on Feedburner, and once it's accepted, at iTunes as well.

Thanks for continuing to subscribe to the podcast, and I look forward to your thoughts once we're finally on our way.

In the meantime, after my Journey of Near Death, I'm off for some counselling.

The waiting continues...

You may be [insert here the word 'happy' or 'sad'] to hear that despite my incessant broken pining and scratching at the door, the microphones have yet to arrive.

My only guess is that someone at PC World, the magical wonder emporium from whom they've been ordered, has done some digging and found out for what purpose the mics are intended, and that in a feat of manic desperation has taken them home and buried them hurriedly in a mafia-esque shallow grave somewhere in the back yard, as would perhaps, a dog with a terrible secret.

Thanks for the great comments on the new image - the general consensus seems to be that those five minutes I spent creating it weren't a complete waste of time. Regarding the comments though, I've noted that more folks are preferring to comment via the website rather than here on the blog. Maybe it's because your name doesn't show up there, but please don't be shy, we'd be more than happy if you used the blog for posting your comments, good or bad.

We were hoping to record the first podcast tomorrow night, but if the microphones still fail to turn up I think instead we'll just have to make do with watching Great Britain slip further down the medals table at the Olympics. It's quite the spectacle for those who care!

I'll keep you posted.

New Official Image?

OK, so what do you think?

I've spent, well, at least five minutes thinking up and drafting this image. I'm looking to create an image that will go onto our podcast when it's released to iTunes, so this is what you'd see in your little iPod or generic mp3 player when you download and play each episode.

If it gives you the dry boak just looking at it, don't think twice about letting me know, although I'd recommend a bucket before you ruin your keyboard.

That said, I'd be more ecstatic if you told me that its design, the simple happiness it reflects, with one sauntering gaze has given you the purpose in life you've been yearning for since birth, since the career advisers in school and their witches' brew guidance propelled you aimlessly towards decades of office block hell, towards a need to read this.

The reason for the smiley face is down to the unavoidably triumphant campaign started in Glasgow around 25 years ago, entitled Glasgow's Miles Better (or was it Glasgow Smiles Better?!!), a campaign which signalled the forceful regeneration of a City tarred for years with an unfortunate reputation borne from social depravity and the violence it bred.

And the image of the campaign was the smiley face of Mr. Happy. It was destined to succeed!

So let me know what you think.

Cheers.

The expectations of ex-pats

So I received a superb message through the website yesterday concerning the podcast.

It was from some guy called James from Los Angeles. He told me he was originally from Glasgow, and that having read the blog about the up and coming podcast, he's suddenly taken the view that he never wants to return to Glasgow again!

I mean OK, so he did put the usual cheeky parting gesture of 'Ha Ha!', but I'd like to think he meant what he said.

Subscriptions per day hit a new high yesterday (keep up the good work!), and I've been listening to other podcasts by folks like Limmy, Herring & Collins, and those crazy guys from the World of Warcast to get a feel for the true pulse of the nation. All I've surmised from them however, is that our great nation is just one sick collection of wierdos, so Alan and I should have no difficulty in becoming heroes of our time!

Arrabest.

So what to talk about...

Well, as I sit here like a sodden cabbage by the letterbox waiting for the microphones to arrive, my thoughts are beginning to turn towards what you might like to hear in our little podcasts.

Alan, now, you'll hear him rambling on about how tragic his life is in Glasgow, why he's turned to comedy to mask his inner turmoil, why his only hopes and dreams of hope lie in the impending subscriber stats for the podcast, why if no-one listens, or otherwise do listen and then listen no more as they're done listening to him and his unlistenable lists of grievances, those hopes and dreams will need to be consigned to the trash, along with the carpet in his flat that was damaged in a recent flood of tears.

So that leaves me.

Aside from attempting to curb Alan's regular flailing abuse of this and that, my initial plan is to steer the yapping around what's happening in Glasgow, the talking points in the City and why more than likely we don't care about them, nestled comfortably as we are in our lives of self-importance.

But I want to know what you'd like to hear. Anything at all and we'll give it a go, because whilst I'm absolutely certain that in time you'll cherish as you would a baby on your doorstep our narrow-minded, egocentric, poorly-researched view of the world, a view cloaked to invisibility so masterfully on my website, in actual fact we'd love to talk about what you want, because at the end of the day, we need you as a friend.

So comments and ideas would be much appreciated, and thanks again for continuing to subscribe even though we've not even recorded the first episode (Alan's positively brimming with happiness at this, so please don't pop his balloon!).

Cheersanawratbyrawayeh?

It's getting exciting!!

Since I put the last post up, I've also blogged about the new podcast on my website and have been receiving some encouraging messages even before we hit the ground running. We've already got some subscribers and I can't thank you all enough for that, although I really hope folks aren't too disappointed when they finally get to hear our pointless drivel!

Anywho, continuing on our arduous steps in preparation, the other night I finally got around to ordering some USB microphones to use on the podcast, so that at the very least, whilst our incessant chat may end up completely devoid of quality or anything approaching humour, at least it won't sound as though we're recording the thing whilst sharing a seat in the cludgie!

Once they arrive I'll have to work out how to record on Audacity with two mics, as the thought of speaking over one microphone only inches away from Alan has been keeping me awake for some time. And not in a good way.

I'll keep you posted, and if you've not done so already, subscribe away using the Feedburner link here, and if you feel the need once you've done so, a cleansing bath may rouse your mind back to sanity...