Friday Night Party Line

I’ve been a co-host on the Friday Night Party Line podcast three times now. Follow that link and see episodes 37, 38 and 39.

The iTunes description for this show is “Smart guests. Eclectic topics. Really, anything is fair game.” The idea is that Thaed, the moderator, invites a different panel of interesting people to talk about various topics. The range of guests is very impressive, including lawyers, economists, technology experts, IT professionals, theoretical physicists, professional bloggers, artists and much more. The topics usually revolve around something technological, something societal, something philosophical or something silly. One minute the topic will be “What kind of pen do you use?” and it’ll be followed by a massive discussion on artificial intelligence (with an AI and machine learning PHD student leading the way).

It’s one of my favourite podcasts (though early episodes were a bit slow), and I have a lot of fun every time I take part in a recording session.

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My own podcasts 2: The Science Fiction Book Review Podcast

As well as a podcast about juggling, I do a show where I review every science fiction book I read, whenever I finish reading it. Here’s a review from SFX Magazine, March 2009 edition, page 130, ‘KNEEL BEFORE POD: Free podcasts rated’:

“Science Fiction Book Review Podcast – www.sfbrp.com

Four stars out of five.

The set-up is as no-frills as the title – Berlin-based SF fan Luke Burrage reads a sci-fi book, and then talks about it – but while some literary podcasts can be dreary, Burrage is an enthusiastic motormouth with an infectious love of the genre. His tastes are varied, and even if you don’t agree with all of his opinions, they’re still fun to listen to.”

A nice review that seems to hit on all the things I aim for with this podcast. The podcast itself has been an amazing success. The listener numbers aren’t huge, but the feedback I get is really good, and I’m constantly getting really great book suggestions from the listeners.

You can find the SFBRP website here, and a lot more information on the SFBP Wiki.

I’ll be posting here each time I upload a new podcast, but I’ll link to the website, not directly to the mp3 file itself.

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My own podcasts 1: The Juggling Podcast

I record two podcasts about two of my favourite hobbies: juggling and science fiction novels. Both of them have the most boring names possible. This is intentional. I like it when you can say a name people instantly know what they are getting.

The Juggling Podcast is one I usually record with Pola, and we talk about our travels and shows we do and shows we see. We do interviews with lots of famous and some not so famous jugglers. We do workshops about performing and various other topics. The thing is, we haven’t recorded a new episode for two months, and there was a two month gap before the last one too. This is down to a number of factors:

1. We’ve been away from home for ages.
2. We’ve not been to a juggling convention since the EJC.
3. I’ve been in a lot of pain from a trapped sciatic nerve and haven’t been juggling much.
4. We’ve both been working hard on other projects.

Of course, we don’t intend to “podfade” entirely. Once we get inspired by new topics and find new people to talk to we’ll start producing podcasts more regularly again. You can subscribe using this feed.

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Promo shots

Matthew McGurk

Matthew McGurk


On my last cruise I met Matthew, a magician from the UK. His promo image was good, but he looked rough. Intentionally rough, with stubble and scruffy hair. Good for some gigs, but to cruise clientele it might seem a bit too rough. I offered to come along to his technical run and snap some photos, to see if I could better capture his current image. I had no control over the lighting, and no time to make him pose past saying “Look at me… now!” CLICK. But I think I got a few good photos. The best is the one above, even though it could be sharper and a bit less blue. The full selection of passable attempts is here.

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Travel videos

When I travel I don’t only take my Canon DSLR, but a little Canon video camera too. The video quality isn’t great, but it suits my projects fine. I have a year-long video project on the go at the moment. It is looking really good so far, as is the “making of” documentary I’m making alongside it. But of course it won’t be ready until this time next year.

Meanwhile, here are two recent videos that I’ve posted on youtube:

” Pola and I went wave spotting again today. We found some big ones.”

“Luke talks about packing his bags before flying to a gig.”

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