Andy Kershaw and Music Planet

[Guest]

I have just heard from the BBC that Music Planet featuring Andy Kershaw and Lucy Duran will start on Thursday 13th January 2011 and will continue for 8 weeks.

[Lateralthinking1]

This is really excellent news. I am so pleased that Andy is returning, the concept of the series is imaginative, and the combination of Andy and Lucy looks inspired to me.

[Globaltruth]

I'm in this odd parallel thread-iverse, where the same threads with the same replies exist in slightly different space/time continuum. Hang on whilst I find some appropriate music...

[Paul Sherratt]

>>will start on Thursday 13th January 2011

With a repeat in the World Routes slot at the traditional kick-off time the following Saturday.
And then archived permanently I would think.

[Paul Sherratt]

Any on-line bets for the number of viewers who then listen to the radio programmes ?
10
100
1000
10000
100000
1000000

[johncorrigan]

I'm goin' for a Googol, Paul!

[Lateralthinking1]

I have just googled "Googol". It is ten duotrigintillion on the short scale, ten thousand sexdecillion on the long scale, or ten sexdecilliard on the Peletier long scale. But being Radio 3, most of you probably knew that.

[johncorrigan]

That Andy Kershaw has a hefty fan base, Lat, but I decided not to go for a googolplex.

[Martin Reynolds]

That googol would probably mean that only a couple of Klingons in the whole universe would be listening.

[Globaltruth]

from Googol to infinity

My quick way of remembering that is that it's approximately the number of posts I did on the r3 MB's .. also, slightly worryingly, when coupled with a bordello (ahem) the name of a great NY gypsy WM band. Oh yes, and nearly the name of the writer of Dead Souls (how appropriate on this day). Who was raised in the Ukraine, which neatly and possibly oddly takes me and lat back to the world of Bosie...er, or not.

[Martin Reynolds]

Ah yes. Dead souls. I read that in my youth. More of a Turgenev man myself these days.

[Martin Reynolds]

Sorry, ignore my remark re. Googol. Wasn't paying enough attention. I will stay after class and do a googolplex of lines.

[johncorrigan]

Actually my initial concern when reading Paul's numbers re audiences was that he was writing them in binary.

[Martin Reynolds]

History
In 1938, Edward Kasner's nine-year-old nephew, Milton Sirotta, coined the term googol, then proposed the further term googolplex to be "one, followed by writing zeroes until you get tired". Kasner decided to adopt a more formal definition "because different people get tired at different times and it would never do to have Carnera be a better mathematician than Dr. Einstein, simply because he had more endurance and could write for longer". It thus became standardized to 10 to the power googol. One could never write such a number down because the space required would be larger than the universe.

[Lateralthinking1]

Thanks Martin for the clarification. Actually, I remember now. Dear little Milton Sirotta. Of course.

On the great NY band of a similar name to googolplex, I have a theory. If there is one thing that Womad audiences can agree on, it is that Tony Allen should be there every year. But if there is one thing that will guarantee at least one wrestling match beside the falafel stand, it is the suggestion that the great NY band should have been playing.

Except for Mamer. That is me against the rest of the globe, truthfully.