This new blog is intended to be a notebook filled with useful links, resources and articles. It reflects the journey I am currently taking for myself – I’ve been a journalist and radio maker for about six years now, but only recently have I begun to focus on the greater challenges of making radio documentaries. As I looked around for resources and help with the medium, I found that whilst film documentary was bursting with useful material – books, websites, and courses – the resources out there to help with radio documentary were relatively sparse and scattered.

Some of the articles on the blog will be about the practical challenges in making radio docs – everything from insurance to permissions to copyright. But mostly I would like it to be about the creative elements and craft, drawing on examples of great radio documentary makers in the field, past and present.

In part, I am creating the blog just to help order all the material I am currently collecting – I have a small but growing collection of books and documentaries on my shelves and on my computer. But writing a blog is also a social activity, and I hope that in putting myself out there, I may also meet some like minded radio makers willing to share their ideas, and also that what I am discovering may be of use to other radio makers wishing to learn more about the this medium.

It’s early days for the new blog, but I have at least half a dozen posts already brewing in mind, so if you are interested, stay tuned for updates.

Sounds a bit dry? It’s anything but.

The first program was quite an eye opener. It explains what offshore banks really are (clue: they don’t have to be islands!) and revealed the scale of the “tax gap.” – the gap between how much tax the exchequer should be receiving, and how much it actually receives.  According to Richard Murphy, a campaigner and tax expert interviewed by Naomi on the show, there’s about £70 billion in illegal tax evasion, £25 billion in legal tax avoidance, and £25 billion in late payments in the UK – enough in total to fund the whole of the NHS.

As well as being informative, the show managed to make an important but potentially dry and technical subject entertaining – each show starts with a round-up of the latest tax evasion headlines, and the shows theme tune is a jazzy tune reminiscent of the roaring twenties – perhaps a deliberate musical reference to the excess that preceeded  the last great depression?

Check out the website, or follow @tackletaxhavens on twitter for the latest Taxcast news. And if you run a radio station or write a blog, and want to feature the Taxcast, get in touch with naomi [at] taxjustice.net.

I met him at Edinburgh College of Art, where he began by explaining how what had begun as detached artistic observation has now become a movement and a place which he feels he just can’t leave.

You can listen to the piece on Iplayer for the next seven days – it starts 17 minutes into the program. It’s also followed by a great interview with Paul Mason, author of “Why It’s Kicking Off Everywhere: The New Global Revolutions.”

Last weekend delegates from Occupy Camps around the UK gathered in Edinburgh for a conference – the second national UK conference of it’s type – to discuss the challenges facing their camps, and to brainstorm positive ideas to tackle them. They met and stayed in the building formerly occupied by the Forest Cafe, which had been squatted for three weeks and re-opened as a “People’s Cafe.”

There were some serious issues – particularly the pressure which many of the camps are feeling from people with alcohol ,drug and mental health problems who are being attracted to the camps. But there was also a great sense of positive energy at the conference, a desire to learn from mistakes and share experience.

This is the subject of a discussion we are planning for the new year on the BBC Culture Cafe, and one in which we’d like you to give your views. We are also looking for contributors, so if you have something to say on this subject, please comment on this blogpost or tweet the @BBCCultureCafe

I’ve been following the trail of the artist around Edinburgh for the last six weeks, trying to work out who they are, and why they are doing it – you can hear my feature on the BBC Book Cafe at 1:15 on Monday the 28th of November.

Nowadays we remember in different ways. With Remembrance Day just passed, many of us will have worn a poppy, watched the ceremonies on television, or listened to stories commemorating the fallen on radio. But these acts somehow lack the permanance and solemnity of words carved into stone.

In Scotland, this skill of carving words onto stone is a dying art, with few practitioners left. But Radio producer David Stenhouse and poet Robert Crawford, who are making a documentary about Simonides, managed to find one craftsman from Historic Scotland who still has those skills.

This radio piece was broadcast on the BBC Book Cafe on Thursday the 14th of November. 

If you’ve passed by St. Andrew Square over the last month, you can’t fail to have noticed the village of tents that have sprung up there. Occupy Edinburgh protesters have been there since October 15th, one of the smaller protest camps that have sprung up in city centres around the world since the Occupy Wall Street demonstration in September. The Edinburgh site is now pretty well established, with a kitchen tent, social space and program of events.

Last weekend there was an open day of activities, including “pedal powered” screenings of three documentaries. So, we went along to take a look – and even took a tent down so that we could spend the night.

The Guardian has just published a cool new online Edinburgh city guide. The guide features recomendations for pubs, accommodation, museums, vintage shops and outdoor attractions.

There’s even a playlist of Edinburgh songs put together by Ian Rankin (I’m having a listen now as I write this.)

Actor and writer Alastair Mackenzie has made a video about his favourite places in the capital.

I also contributed to the guide, putting together four themed cycle routes through the city; canal boats, coffee and breweries, art and nature down the Water of Leith, the city centre to the beach, and the castle to Duddingston Loch.

Check them out, and let us know what you think – maybe you’ve got a route you’d like to suggest?

There’s an outline description of the documentary below, but there’s an awful lot to do before it sees the light of day – above all, I have to find time to both pitch it and produce it, which is going to be a challenge with my current work commitments.

Last days of the Forest – a radio documentary

The Forest is an award winning, radical arts space in the heart of Edinburgh – a safe haven for the creative and chaotic,  the weird and the wonderful.

Or at least it was.

Operating on a shoe-string budget, staffed by volunteers and  funded by a vegetarian café, the venue operated as a free, open access arts venue, steadfastly refusing to charge for thousands of shows, exhibitions and events.

But this August the venue, and the people who made it come to life, had to say good-bye to the building that they had made their home. The charity that owned it had gone bust, and the building was up for sale.

The Story

This radio documentary will follows the last ten days in the Forest in its home at 3 Bristo Place – the passionate efforts of volunteers to hold onto the building, the intense artistic activity of the place during the Edinburgh Festival, and the sad but beautiful rituals as they said goodbye.

It explores the reasons that some people are drawn to places like the Forest – why they find themselves investing more and more of their time, energy and love in something so seemingly fragile and ephemeral.

It is also a tale with a hopeful ending. The Forest is still running a campaign to buy the building back – and I hope that by telling the story of the people and the place, I can contribute to that campaign.