New entertainment

I do not consider myself an early adopter. Friends will snigger, but I am not all that much of a geek and I am usually a little way behind most crazes. Ahead of some, true, but not by all that much. I have a second generation iPod, for example, and I’m unlikely to upgrade until it dies.

Which is by way of explanation for the fact that, despite having been aware of podcasts more or less since they started being mentioned, I’ve scarcely listened to any until now. I tried a couple, but for a chap who used to be paid to play with “the biggest train set a boy ever had,” quality and content underwhelmed me.

A chance remark at a dinner last week changed that. We were raving, kindred spirits, about the joy of lectures from The Teaching Company,¹ when my companion mentioned that courses were now available as podcast-type downloads.

Wednesday I checked, downloaded a sample and marveled at the magic of MPEG-4, which remembers where you were even if you play something else in between. Thursday I dipped a toe in the wider waters of podcasts. Friday I was raving to all and sundry about how wonderful they were.

Listening to my first two talks, I was inspired and informed, and I decided that I would try and find something to write about in each good podcast. I have my first two subjects, but they still need a bit of work. In the meantime, a new category was called for, and a little something in the way of introduction.²

The Teaching Company, by the way, does an excellent line in free giveaways too, though it is not all that Mac friendly. This week, you can learn about [St Patrick's Day]http://www.teach12.com/ttcx/StPatrickLecture2006.aspx?ai=20482&pc=Excerpt.³