Updated list of BBC network radio URLs

Posted on April 3, 2015 by blogmywiki

Update March 2021

Please note this is a VERY old blog post and the BBC is closing the streams listed below. I mainly listen online to Fip which is not affected.

Have a look here for new streaming addresses and read the notes further down about extracting URLs from PLS files.
https://gist.github.com/bpsib/67089b959e4fa898af69fea59ad74bc3#file-bbc-radio-m3u

Updated April 2016 to include BBC local radio streams

The BBC has changed the way it streams a lot of its radio stations on the internet. You can read more about the changes on the BBC Blog.

One upshot of this was that none of my many RaspberryPi internet radios would pick up BBC stations any more. Yes, I know I can listen to most of them on DAB, but I like to be able to listen to everything in one place.

So here’s an updated list of URLs – these work with the Pimoroni Displayotron3000 Raspberry Pi radio which uses VLC as its player. I’ve not tried them with any of my MPC/MPD-based radios yet.

The nice thing about this list is it includes separate streams for Radio 4 FM and LW, useful if you want to listen to the full-length Yesterday in Parliament, for example. World Service isn’t on this list because I think the old URLs I was using are still working.

(As of Feb 2020, fip can be found at http://icecast.radiofrance.fr/fip-midfi.mp3, Scala Radio at https://stream-mz.planetradio.co.uk/scalahigh.aac)

National stations

BBC Radio 1
http://bbcmedia.ic.llnwd.net/stream/bbcmedia_radio1_mf_p

BBC Radio 1xtra
http://bbcmedia.ic.llnwd.net/stream/bbcmedia_radio1xtra_mf_p

BBC Radio 2
http://bbcmedia.ic.llnwd.net/stream/bbcmedia_radio2_mf_p

BBC Radio 3
http://bbcmedia.ic.llnwd.net/stream/bbcmedia_radio3_mf_p

BBC Radio 4FM
http://bbcmedia.ic.llnwd.net/stream/bbcmedia_radio4fm_mf_p

BBC Radio 4LW
http://bbcmedia.ic.llnwd.net/stream/bbcmedia_radio4lw_mf_p

BBC Radio 4 Extra
http://bbcmedia.ic.llnwd.net/stream/bbcmedia_radio4extra_mf_p

BBC Radio 5 Live
http://bbcmedia.ic.llnwd.net/stream/bbcmedia_radio5live_mf_p

BBC Radio 5 Live Sportsball Extra
http://a.files.bbci.co.uk/media/live/manifesto/audio/simulcast/hls/uk/sbr_high/ak/bbc_radio_five_live_sports_extra.m3u8

BBC Radio 6 Music
http://bbcmedia.ic.llnwd.net/stream/bbcmedia_6music_mf_p

BBC Asian Network
http://bbcmedia.ic.llnwd.net/stream/bbcmedia_asianet_mf_p

BBC World Service UK stream
http://bbcwssc.ic.llnwd.net/stream/bbcwssc_mp1_ws-eieuk

BBC World Service News stream
http://bbcwssc.ic.llnwd.net/stream/bbcwssc_mp1_ws-einws

Nations and regions

Radio Cymru

http://bbcmedia.ic.llnwd.net/stream/bbcmedia_cymru_mf_p

BBC Radio Foyle

http://bbcmedia.ic.llnwd.net/stream/bbcmedia_foyle_mf_p

BBC Radio nan Gàidheal

http://bbcmedia.ic.llnwd.net/stream/bbcmedia_nangaidheal_mf_p

BBC Radio Scotland

http://bbcmedia.ic.llnwd.net/stream/bbcmedia_scotlandfm_mf_p

BBC Radio Ulster

http://bbcmedia.ic.llnwd.net/stream/bbcmedia_ulster_mf_p

BBC Radio Wales

http://bbcmedia.ic.llnwd.net/stream/bbcmedia_walesmw_mf_p

Local radio (all broadcasting exactly the same programme as I compiled this!)

BBC Radio Berkshire

http://bbcmedia.ic.llnwd.net/stream/bbcmedia_lrberk_mf_p

BBC Radio Bristol

http://bbcmedia.ic.llnwd.net/stream/bbcmedia_lrbris_mf_p

BBC Radio Cambridgeshire

http://bbcmedia.ic.llnwd.net/stream/bbcmedia_lrcambs_mf_p

BBC Radio Cornwall

http://bbcmedia.ic.llnwd.net/stream/bbcmedia_lrcorn_mf_p

BBC Coventry & Warwickshire

http://bbcmedia.ic.llnwd.net/stream/bbcmedia_lrwmcandw_mf_p

BBC Radio Cumbria

http://bbcmedia.ic.llnwd.net/stream/bbcmedia_lrcumbria_mf_p

BBC Radio Derby

http://bbcmedia.ic.llnwd.net/stream/bbcmedia_lrderby_mf_p

BBC Radio Devon

http://bbcmedia.ic.llnwd.net/stream/bbcmedia_lrdevon_mf_p

BBC Essex

http://bbcmedia.ic.llnwd.net/stream/bbcmedia_lressex_mf_p

BBC Radio Gloucestershire

http://bbcmedia.ic.llnwd.net/stream/bbcmedia_lrgloucs_mf_p

BBC Radio Guernsey

http://bbcmedia.ic.llnwd.net/stream/bbcmedia_lrguern_mf_p

BBC Hereford & Worcester

http://bbcmedia.ic.llnwd.net/stream/bbcmedia_lrhandw_mf_p

BBC Radio Humberside

http://bbcmedia.ic.llnwd.net/stream/bbcmedia_lrhumber_mf_p

BBC Radio Jersey

http://bbcmedia.ic.llnwd.net/stream/bbcmedia_lrjersey_mf_p

BBC Radio Kent

http://bbcmedia.ic.llnwd.net/stream/bbcmedia_lrkent_mf_p

BBC Radio Lancashire

http://bbcmedia.ic.llnwd.net/stream/bbcmedia_lrlancs_mf_p

BBC Radio Leeds

http://bbcmedia.ic.llnwd.net/stream/bbcmedia_lrleeds_mf_p

BBC Radio Leicester

http://bbcmedia.ic.llnwd.net/stream/bbcmedia_lrleics_mf_p

BBC Radio Lincolnshire

http://bbcmedia.ic.llnwd.net/stream/bbcmedia_lrlincs_mf_p

BBC Radio London

http://bbcmedia.ic.llnwd.net/stream/bbcmedia_lrldn_mf_p

BBC Radio Manchester

http://bbcmedia.ic.llnwd.net/stream/bbcmedia_lrmanc_mf_p

BBC Radio Merseyside

http://bbcmedia.ic.llnwd.net/stream/bbcmedia_lrmersey_mf_p

BBC Newcastle

http://bbcmedia.ic.llnwd.net/stream/bbcmedia_lrnewc_mf_p

BBC Radio Norfolk

http://bbcmedia.ic.llnwd.net/stream/bbcmedia_lrnorfolk_mf_p

BBC Radio Northampton

http://bbcmedia.ic.llnwd.net/stream/bbcmedia_lrnthhnts_mf_p

BBC Radio Nottingham

http://bbcmedia.ic.llnwd.net/stream/bbcmedia_lrnotts_mf_p

BBC Radio Oxford

http://bbcmedia.ic.llnwd.net/stream/bbcmedia_lroxford_mf_p

BBC Radio Sheffield

http://bbcmedia.ic.llnwd.net/stream/bbcmedia_lrsheff_mf_p

BBC Radio Shropshire

http://bbcmedia.ic.llnwd.net/stream/bbcmedia_lrshrops_mf_p

BBC Radio Solent

http://bbcmedia.ic.llnwd.net/stream/bbcmedia_lrsolent_mf_p

BBC Somerset

http://bbcmedia.ic.llnwd.net/stream/bbcmedia_lrsomer_mf_p

BBC Radio Stoke

http://bbcmedia.ic.llnwd.net/stream/bbcmedia_lrsomer_mf_p

BBC Radio Suffolk

http://bbcmedia.ic.llnwd.net/stream/bbcmedia_lrsuffolk_mf_p

BBC Surrey

http://bbcmedia.ic.llnwd.net/stream/bbcmedia_lrsurrey_mf_p

BBC Sussex

http://bbcmedia.ic.llnwd.net/stream/bbcmedia_lrsussex_mf_p

BBC Tees

http://bbcmedia.ic.llnwd.net/stream/bbcmedia_lrtees_mf_p

BBC Three Counties Radio

http://bbcmedia.ic.llnwd.net/stream/bbcmedia_lr3cr_mf_p

BBC Wiltshire

http://bbcmedia.ic.llnwd.net/stream/bbcmedia_lrwilts_mf_p

BBC WM 95.6

http://bbcmedia.ic.llnwd.net/stream/bbcmedia_lrwm_mf_p

BBC Radio York

http://bbcmedia.ic.llnwd.net/stream/bbcmedia_lryork_mf_p

Update, July 2015: Fip has also moved, it’s now at http://audio.scdn.arkena.com/11016/fip-midfi128.mp3 – not sure if there is still a working low bandwidth stream.

Posted in BBC, radio, Raspberry Pi | Tagged , , , , | 90 Comments

I’m a personality prototype – you can probably tell

Posted on March 31, 2015 by blogmywiki

I’m increasingly distrustful of personality profiling. I’m also suspicious of the ‘fixed versus growth mindset’ ideas, but the more I think about pigeonholing people into personality types, the more I think the growth mindset people like Matthew Syed are on to something.

I used to work as a studio manager in BBC radio, a kind of mixture between a sound engineer, psychotherapist and cat-herder. Despite being told almost on my first day at studio manager school that “the job is 5% technical, 95% getting on with people”, I ended up working in a department that was governed by the assessment of people against Myers-Briggs psychometric personality tests.

If you’re not familiar with Myers-Briggs, you get asked a load of questions and then are assigned a 4 letter code that apparently describes your personality against four different dichotomies: extraversion/introversion, sensing/intuition, thinking/feeling and judging/perception. It’s slightly more subtle than the way people are divided in the Divergent YA novels and films, so beautifully mocked by Mark Kermode on Wittertainment. In that world you can only be one thing: selfless (abnegation), brave (dauntless, i.e. fresh out of drama school), clever (erudite, passed the 11 Plus / Oxbridge entrance exams) and so on. So let’s be kind, and say that Myers-Briggs is FOUR times more subtle than Veronica Roth’s novels.

In my old job, the prevailing management view was that to be a good studio manager you had to be a Myers-Briggs INTP. Anyone who diverged (see what I did there?) from this norm was regarded with suspicion. I was only mildly divergent myself, the T in INTP being my problem. Was I thinking or feeling. Every time I took the test I got a different answer: I thought I was thinking, but I felt I was feeling. I decided Myers-Briggs was hogwash, but kept quiet.

Such profiling was in the news again lately with some survey about finding the best place to live according to your personality type. I haven’t done the test, but it got me thinking about Myers-Briggs and what I was like 10 years ago and what I’m like now. I always used to think people generally stay the same, but since I left the BBC and retrained as a teacher, I think more than ever that people can change, and personality profiling is dangerous because it limits your options.

To teach is to perform. I never would have been able, for example, to address several hundred people in a packed funeral before training to be a teacher. I was, I believed, firmly introverted, from early childhood. As a boy, I wouldn’t say ‘boo’ to the proverbial goose – geese almost certainly being mates with swans, and anyone knows swans will have your arm off as soon as look at you. Extreme caution has brought me to my late 40s without ever breaking a bone. (I did badly sprain my ankle falling downstairs, quite an achievement in a single-story school, but that’s another story).

I also firmly used to believe that I liked and needed stability in my working environment. This limited my work options as I shied away from doing general supply teaching, as I genuinely thought I was the wrong personality type. A friend who does disaster relief work loves it, but I thought going into a different school every day, meeting new staff and children, never being sure of the routines or where the staff toilet was would be my worst nightmare. But it’s not. I love it. I wish I’d done it sooner, and the only reason I was held back was the four little INTP letters burnt into the back of my brain.

If you think you’re not going to like or succeed at something because of your personality – think (or feel, we’re all different at different times) again. Take the leap. You may love it. You may be good at it.

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Supply & demand: the school staffing crisis

Posted on March 21, 2015 by blogmywiki

There is, I believe, a looming crisis in school staffing. In fact, I think it’s already here.

We already know that the number of new teachers being trained is falling, and that schools struggle to retain staff after a few years. I think schools have coasted by until now knowing that there will be a new crop of Newly-Qualified Teachers (NQTs) each September, fresh cannon fodder if you’re of a cynical persuasion, ready to go over the top and take what’s coming for the greater good.

Except I think we have already run out of teachers, at least in primary schools.

A quick word about me: I am a late career-changer, training on the salaried School Direct scheme last year. I got offered a job in a different school after my first interview, survived Ofsted in my first half term, but didn’t survive until Christmas. The workload and stress was too much and incompatible with any kind of family life: I have three school-age children whom I never saw, and when I did I was unbearably stressed, shattered and grumpy. I was given a choice: your teaching career or your family. I chose my family.

Since then I’ve been working as a general supply teacher. It’s been absolutely fascinating, and has led me to my conclusion that already there aren’t enough teachers to go round, and things are getting worse.

A few caveats: I only work in London and the home counties, the situation may be different elsewhere. And you may argue that, as a supply teacher, I am by definition only seeing schools with staffing problems. I’d counter the latter by saying that I know of outstanding schools which never use supply teachers who currently have several unfilled roles.

The vast majority of schools I’ve been in have unfilled teaching roles, not for next September, but right now, or for after Easter, just three weeks away. Most schools I’ve been in have offered me contracts or jobs almost before I’ve taken my coat off. One deputy head was practically begging me to take a job, knowing she currently has unfilled roles filled with supply teachers on contracts and more staff about to leave. I’ve turned them all down.

Speaking to fellow teachers in staff rooms all over London, a common picture is emerging. Teachers are leaving the profession, or want to leave. Some are going part-time, if they can’t do that they are becoming Higher Level Teaching Assistants (HLTAs) in order to regain a work-life balance. Several have approached me to find out about how to become a supply teacher.

Pressures from management to assess pupil’s performance to three decimal places (or shades of orange, depending on which level-replacing assessment scheme they’ve bought into), demonstrate progress and change classroom displays weekly are driving both NQTs and more experienced staff out of schools.

It’s not just jobbing class teachers either. The recent Radio 4 File on 4 programme painted a shocking picture of the pressure already facing head teachers, even before election rhetoric about sacking heads whose children don’t know their 12 times tables. Heads of ‘failing’ schools are being ‘disappeared’ in some areas, with gagging clauses that prevent the true state of affairs from being talked about. If we keep sacking head teachers like football managers, where are their replacements going to come from? Who in their right mind would want the job?

It may be that I’m just not cut out for primary teaching, but I am shocked at the almost universal low morale of teaching staff in the South East of England. Doing supply isn’t financially sustainable for me in the long run, but I love it – and there’s no shortage of work. Since I put my CV on the Guardian web site, I’ve been fending off agencies offering guaranteed 5 days a week supply work.

Working off other people’s plans is tough, but I’m getting better at it, and more confident. It reminds me that I do love teaching, being in the classroom, working with the children. They seem to like me, too, and it’s lovely to get asked back and be remembered by children I taught for one day several weeks before. After marking and tidying, I can go home and cook dinner, talk to my children without biting their heads off, and even read with them. In the evening I might watch TV. TV! And I have my weekends back.

Working in so many different settings is so interesting, I’d even say all teachers should do general supply for a month or so. Odd to think in a few weeks I’ve worked in more schools than some head teachers have in their entire careers.

Why have so many schools offered me jobs? It’s not that I’m a particularly outstanding teacher. It’s because they are desperate for qualified teachers who will stick around longer than, ooh, 24 hours. So many classes have had several different teachers in a year. One class I was in had had a different supply teacher every day for a week. It’s not because we’re afraid of hard work. It’s not because we’re fickle. It’s because finally teachers are saying ‘enough is enough’ as their minds and bodies conk out, and they are walking. And I don’t think any political party realises or cares about the impact that this is having on our children.

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Brew School

Posted on March 8, 2015 by blogmywiki

I was lucky enough to get a last-minute place on the Brew School at the Brockley Brewery in Lewisham, London. I’m a huge fan of their porter, and have always wanted to have a go at home brewing so this was a perfect opportunity.

The school ran from 10am until, well 4pm in theory, but we were so darn efficient we finished early. Brewing is all about efficiency. And cleaning, apparently. (“We’re mostly cleaners who make beer as an incidental by-product,” one brewer said.)

There were 8 of us – a good number – and we paired up to choose what beer we wanted to make out of a choice of pale ale, porter and red ale. I chose porter to do something a little different, and because I love the Brockley porter so much.

We were taught an all-grain method, the idea being that we could replicate, more or less, what we did today at home. First up heated water to between 75 and 78 degrees C and we weighed the grains out. For porter we used mostly pale malt and added much less black malt (for colour), chocolate malt (for chocolatey flavours), torrified malt (for head retention – don’t lose your head) and crystal malt. I have no idea what crystal malt is, but probably best not to use crystal meth by accident.

When the water had hit the right temperature, we put the grains in mash tuns made out of large plastic coolers with taps and sieves fitted and added the water. With the lid back on, this steeped for an hour while we had lunch.

After the mashing is done, comes the sparging. Brewing is full of great words, and sparging is a new one on me. It’s apparently also known as launtering, which may possibly be an even better word. “He was launtering with intent to brew ale, m’lud.”

The idea is to run water through the wet grains to extract as much sugar as you can, because sugar makes alcohol. We got a very pleasing black oil-like liquid off at first, which got paler as it went. Then the fun bit – you boil it for an hour and start adding different hops at different stages to add bitterness and more flavours.

I added Fuggles (see, another great word), East Kent Goldings and some added Bramling Cross at the end of the boil, which I’m told should add some blackcurrant and citrusy notes.

By now the brew was smelling amazing and already tasted sweet. At the end of the boil, you are left with wort. You need to chill this as fast as you can down to 20 degrees C before putting in a sterile fermenter. This would, I think, be the trickiest part at home. Today we used a heat exchanger with cold tap water running through it – this worked really well costs around £200. (The brewery uses a much bigger one with commercial refrigeration units). You can use an ice bath at home, or make a heat exchanger with copper pipe loops that run cold water through the hot wort.

Then it was time to put the black gold in the fermenters, add an air trap and drink some beer. Well, we were in a brewery, it would have been rude not to.

A measure of the original gravity of the porter suggests it may end up around 4.3% abv. We took our fermenters home to add yeast to and in 5-9 days we should be ready to bottle. Joe our instructor made sure he explained how we do that, and gave us a syphon, yeast and sterilising powder to take home, so as long as it’s kept at the right temperature, none should go to waste.

In all a fantastic day which I’d highly recommend. The group was just the right size, our instructor was perfect: friendly, knowledgeable, enthusiastic and relaxed. We never felt we were being lectured, yet we learned a lot.

Just need to see how my porter turns out now…

You can see more photos from my day here and find out more about the Brockley Brewery on their web site http://brockleybrewery.co.uk

Update – listen to my podcast to learn more about the Brockley Brewery and the Brew School:

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DIY semi-interactive whiteboard

Posted on March 5, 2015 by blogmywiki

There’s been a bit of a debate on Twitter, hosted by @oldandrewuk, over the last few hours about the benefits of different display technologies in classrooms. Alongside interactive whiteboards (IWBs) like Promethean and SMART boards, people have been reminiscing about overhead projectors (OHPs), ‘traditional’ whiteboards with marker pens and extolling the virtues of visualisers.

In my incredibly short teaching career I have used all of those – yes, even OHPs, ‘modern’ touch screen TVs (awful – you can’t write on them properly, at least the two different models I’ve used) and I’ve done an observation in a classroom that still has a chalk blackboard in use daily. (Personally, if I had the choice I’d have an ‘old-fashioned’ Promethean board & projector with a mahoosive normal whiteboard right next to it. And a cheap visualiser – webcam on a gooseneck connected to the computer.)

Slightly flippantly, I suggested that perhaps this is a case of ‘a bad workman (or woman) blames his tools’, as I can’t say any of these different display technologies made much difference to my teaching. But it was interesting to see some people with a love for a ‘traditional’ whiteboard and a projector combined. I can see glare problems here – but no worse than you get on those AWFUL glossy touch-screen TVs some schools are fitting (ripping out perfectly serviceable IWBs in the process).

And that gave me an idea for a cheap semi-interactive DIY whiteboard:

DIY IWB

Have a big ‘traditional’ whiteboard, with marker pens in a magnetic holder, magnetic board rubber, and a projector on the ceiling hooked up the class computer or teacher’s laptop. Here’s the clever bit: you wrap tin foil round the caps of your marker pens. Connect a MakeyMakey* to your computer and wire up the left and right arrow pins to left and right arrows you cut out of tin foil and stick to a corner of the board. Between the two foil arrows you have another strip of foil you connect to the earth on the MakeyMakey.

This means that you can display, say a Powerpoint / Keynote / Prezzi, annotate using whiteboard pens, and you can use the foil caps if your pens to flip back and forth through slides without having to reach for the computer keyboard. Perhaps you can come up with some ideas for other buttons you could make on your whiteboard to trigger other things. What’s that at the back there, yes you in the Creeper hat? Minecraft controllers..?

UPDATE: I’m grateful for my old friend and colleague @jameswest for pointing out this awesome cheap IWB solution made from a Wiimote and some pens with LEDs fitted:

*the MakeyMakey is an awesome gadget that you plug into any computer’s USB socket, and you can trigger keyboard presses using switches you can make out of anything that conducts even a small amount of electricity – not just tin foil but also PlayDoh, fruit, vegetables and even small human beings.

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