The Shoe Show Mystery

I went to bed at two this morning, so I set my alarm for eleven o’clock to make sure I did not sleep for over eight hours as doing so makes me groggy. I did what I usually do, which is set the radio to turn on a minute after the buzzer, so I am woken up by the buzzer and then have the radio playing automatically as I get up. It saves me having to waste time putting it on.

This didn’t work today. I woke up at about 11:30, and the radio was playing. Resonance FM. One of the advantages of living where I do is that I can actually listen to Resonance over the air. It’s supposed to be broadcast to the whole of London but I could only occasionally catch the signal in the suburbs where my parents live. It’s a non-commercial station devoted to "radio art" and run by the London Musicians' Collective, with meagre funding, so I can forgive them for failing to reach my ears when I am in Bromley, and they do stream online. You should check it out.

Anyway, to my delight, there was a woman talking about her shoes, and sharing anecdotes about them. She described her pair of hardy New Rocks, which survived two Glastonbury Festivals, and talked about the time that she and a friend Tippexed the swooshes off Nike trainers in the cloakroom at school. It was called ‘The Shoe Show’. I had never heard it before, but I loved those last five minutes. At the end, the presenter announced that it was the last episode of this series.

Woe! If only I had known! But she then said that she would be back for a second series later in the year, and gave the address for The Shoe Show’s blog, where there would be pictures of all the shoes she’d talked about this series. I immediately got excited and wondered if there would be podcasts available or another way I could download the show. I also remembered that Resonance repeat their material late at night/early in the morning – I have listened to a lot at that time. They have a schedule - or supposedly they do, yet it's never availiable when I look - but I usually just tune in whenever I have nothing else more exciting to do. So I had high hopes of getting to hear this interesting show properly.

Then I went to the blog. It hasn't been updated since September 2006. After searching the Resonance FM website, I have concluded that there were no more episodes made. It's not available as a podcast. According to the website, Resonance are broadcasting repeats all this month because they are moving studio, but the schedule is a dead link so I can't see when anything is on. At least there is the blog, which has good pictures and archives although it was short lived - I recommend you take a look, but - Frustration! I discover something awesome, but only catch the last five minutes of the last episode!

Universe, what did I do to deserve this torment?