Grumble Thread

[Bryn]

Now trying to listen to Richard B’s pieces from yesterday. [New Music Show] What clever people made the BBC Sounds app so that it’s not possible to rewind or go to a specific point in the programme?!!

What sort of device are you using BBC Sounds on? On a Windows machine, you just slide the playback cursor to any point in the programme you want.

[Dave2002]

What sort of device are you using BBC Sounds on? On a Windows machine, you just slide the playback cursor to any point in the programme you want.

A large iPad Pro. If I looked at the schedule I could get a different interface via a browser, but right now I don’t want to do that for another reason. The iOS implementation of BBC Sounds seems very poor.

PS: You gave me an idea - the software person’s equivalent of the engineer’s - hit it with a hammer. Turned the gadget off and rebooted. however the “Clever” software simply went back to exactly the same state as before, so now waiting for the programme to finish so, I can get back to the bits I really want to hear.

[antongould]

A large iPad Pro. If I looked at the schedule I could get a different interface via a browser, but right now I don’t want to do that for another reason. The iOS implementation of BBC Sounds seems very poor.

PS: You gave me an idea - the software person’s equivalent of the engineer’s - hit it with a hammer. Turned the gadget off and rebooted. however the “Clever” software simply went back to exactly the same state as before, so now waiting for the programme to finish so, I can get back to the bits I really want to hear.

Have you not got the Sounds app on your iPad ….. ?????

[Nick Armstrong]

Now trying to listen to Richard B’s pieces from yesterday. [New Music Show] What clever people made the BBC Sounds app so that it’s not possible to rewind or go to a specific point in the programme?!!

The “Sounds” app on my iPad Pro is completely rewindable plus little buttons to allow 20 second hops back or forward. I’m very puzzled by your grumble!

[Dave2002]

The “Sounds” app on my iPad Pro is completely rewindable plus little buttons to allow 20 second hops back or forward. I’m very puzzled by your grumble!

I get that for today’s live sounds, but for yesterday’s program I see Stop/start button, and a track list. Perhaps it would work better if I hadn’t downloaded it, though so far I’ve been reluctant to erase the download. I expected the track list to work by double tapping on each item - but it doesn’t.

[Serial_Apologist]

For the past few weeks The New Statesman has been sending me précis of each current edition, of which one can click on just one article heading to read in full. With each advertised edition comes an offer of a month's free trial. I applied just now, only to find that one is obliged to sign up for an entire year, costing £49.

No way - the "free offer" is no such thing, and one has better things to do with one's time!

[Nick Armstrong]

I get that for today’s live sounds, but for yesterday’s program I see Stop/start button, and a track list. Perhaps it would work better if I hadn’t downloaded it, though so far I’ve been reluctant to erase the download. I expected the track list to work by double tapping on each item - but it doesn’t.

I still don’t follow or understand what you’re using. It’s the same for all programmes for me (bar the extra ‘play from start’ option for ‘live sounds’)…

[Old Grumpy]

I still don’t follow or understand what you’re using. It’s the same for all programmes for me (bar the extra ‘play from start’ option for ‘live sounds’)…

On my Android phone (which is what I use for Sounds listening) the tracklist is on a white background. Clicking on each tracklisting just gives an option to hear it on Spotify or Apple.

At the bottom of fthe track listing is a black bar with the pause/play function icons. This black bar can be pulled upwards with the fingertip and will then fill the whole screen. The slider control with timing information will then appear, together with the twenty second forward and back options mentioned higher up this thread.

[Nick Armstrong]

On my Android phone (which is what I use for Sounds listening) the tracklist is on a white background. Clicking on each tracklisting just gives an option to hear it on Spotify or Apple.

At the bottom of fthe track listing is a black bar with the pause/play function icons. This black bar can be pulled upwards with the fingertip and will then fill the whole screen. The slider control with timing information will then appear, together with the twenty second forward and back options mentioned higher up this thread.

Do you or D2002 not have this screen with forward & back options?

[Old Grumpy]

Do you or D2002 not have this screen with forward & back options?

Yes, that is the screen I get by drawing up the black bar at the bottom of the white playlist screen. The other way to access it is to double click on the picture behind the programme listing (the picture with right pointing black equilateral triangle symbol for Play.

[Serial_Apologist]

Booking obstructions

No pun in the title, although it should be one.

I've just spent half an hour trying to figure out how to book for one particular event at the Dulwich Festival, now on. The whole rigmarole must vie with trying to get into GCHQ. You have to go through an online agency called Eventbrite. You find the booking page, all ready to enter your bank account code, and there's a box marked Event Code - about which you have to go to the Queries page, which tells you to click on that box. If no code appears there is no code, and you are advised to contact the agency. There was no booking code for the gig I hoped to attend.

Dulwich Festival used to be something really worthwhile to look forward to each year - for me classical music, jazz, guided history and environmental walks, and the chance to meet up again with kindred spirits. You would turn up at the appointed place, hand over a tenner or whatever on the door, or to the friendly guide hosting the walk, and then enjoy the event. Occasionally one would be turned away due to numbers, but equally often people who had telephone booked promising to pay at the event had not turned up at the appointed assembly time, so you would be let in. Frankly, the whole above-described is too much of a faff, one which makes me wonder if others, many of whom, from experience, are roughly in my age group, will have found even thinking about the procedural complexity of applying too stressful to be worth the unnecessary heartache and, by the way, extra expenditure for the privilege, however time-saving it probably is for someone else. It's enough to stir me into considering joining the short queue on the how long do you want to live thread.

Ironically, Dulwich Festival is opening a "pop-up event" in the village, for which read some kind of hut, commemorating its 30th anniversary, and presenting, probably, a picture gallery of past years. Like a very small number of other events it's free and you don't have to book, but I'm still trying to think up some reason for going. Nostalgia?

[Jonathan]

Migraine last night, feeling very off this morning

[vinteuil]

Migraine last night, feeling very off this morning

... almotriptan not working?

.

[Bryn]

Migraine last night, feeling very off this morning

You have my sympathy. Much earlier in my life, I would frequently get classic migraines with severe headache accompanied by flashing multicolored snaking shapes disrupting my vision and vomiting. Somehow, since I sustained a depressed fracture of the anterior cranial fossa above the left eye in a motorcycle accident in 1977, I only get the occasional retinal migraine with no headache or digestive problems.

[oddoneout]

No pun in the title, although it should be one.

I've just spent half an hour trying to figure out how to book for one particular event at the Dulwich Festival, now on. The whole rigmarole must vie with trying to get into GCHQ. You have to go through an online agency called Eventbrite. You find the booking page, all ready to enter your bank account code, and there's a box marked Event Code - about which you have to go to the Queries page, which tells you to click on that box. If no code appears there is no code, and you are advised to contact the agency. There was no booking code for the gig I hoped to attend.

Dulwich Festival used to be something really worthwhile to look forward to each year - for me classical music, jazz, guided history and environmental walks, and the chance to meet up again with kindred spirits. You would turn up at the appointed place, hand over a tenner or whatever on the door, or to the friendly guide hosting the walk, and then enjoy the event. Occasionally one would be turned away due to numbers, but equally often people who had telephone booked promising to pay at the event had not turned up at the appointed assembly time, so you would be let in. Frankly, the whole above-described is too much of a faff, one which makes me wonder if others, many of whom, from experience, are roughly in my age group, will have found even thinking about the procedural complexity of applying too stressful to be worth the unnecessary heartache and, by the way, extra expenditure for the privilege, however time-saving it probably is for someone else. It's enough to stir me into considering joining the short queue on the how long do you want to live thread.

Ironically, Dulwich Festival is opening a "pop-up event" in the village, for which read some kind of hut, commemorating its 30th anniversary, and presenting, probably, a picture gallery of past years. Like a very small number of other events it's free and you don't have to book, but I'm still trying to think up some reason for going. Nostalgia?

The experience at work with Eventbrite is not that good either. Two enduring issues are shutting the booking at midnight so visitors can't use it on the day(even worse, getting a message that implies there are no more spaces available) and not being able to print off alpha sorted lists for staff dealing with checking people in. There are often other problems such as incorrect payment due to confusing information; how much of that is due to indifferent competence/lack of thought of those at "head office" who set out the details to send to Evenbrite(we at the "receiving end" have no input or control) and how much is the result of the workings of Eventbrite( lack of ability to tailor forms to requirements? ) I don't know - quite possibly an unholy mix of the two! In terms of saving staff time, and making things easier for visitors, there have been many occasions where that is doubtful to say the least. We do know(because they tell us) that there are folk who are put off when faced with having to use it because they can't make sense of the options and forms(lack of clarity for those who have passes and get free/discounted entry is a recurring issue) or just don't see why they now have to use an external booking site for something that was previously always done direct.