First off: huge welcome to all the new subscribers! I’m thrilled you’ve joined the Hello You family. (If you subscribed after my last newsletter, which was all photographs, then this might seem a bit odd, but buckle up and go with it? It’ll be worth it, I promise.) I hope you enjoy what I do - audio, podcasts, photography, trying the make the world a better place - and I really hope you’ll share it with your friends, family, colleagues, members of your WhatsApp chat, others in your faith community, your board games club, wherever you hang out.
And if you’re new to Hello You and/or my Substack, or if you’ve been with me for all thirty of the previous podcasts and the other stuff too, can I ask you to do something for me?
At the top of each newsletter, and at the foot of each one too, there’s a little heart with the work LIKE next to it. Could you please click on the heart, each time I send you an email?
Two reasons: It gives me the same kind of dopamine hit as being smiled at by an attractive stranger in a bar does (or might do, let’s be realistic here). And, apparently the magic of technology means that the more heart-clicks I get, the more likely this is to be noised abroad, as the ancients said. It’ll get recommended to more people, it’ll appear in front of more eyes so Hello You will find its way into more ears.
So, what’s cued up for you today?
Well, I’ve not done a simple soundscape for a while, so I thought it was time I did.
This episode should’ve been with you at least 24 hours ago, hence the references to the weekend, but y’know, life happens. Anyway, it’s here now.
It was recorded sitting on a bench, as it happens, but it’s not Bench. My next Bench will be recorded next Tuesday afternoon, April 23, and I’ll be sitting on the bench on Wyle Cop in Shrewsbury. It’s almost at the top of the hill, outside the Lion Hotel. Between a BT junction box and the machine where you pay for parking, so if nothing else I’ll have lots of visitors from out of town to talk to, every last one of them saying ‘How the hell do you work this thing?’
I’ll have been to my first counselling session for quite a while the previous evening, so I might be in contemplative mood, pondering what faithful listener The Captain calls ‘the complexities of life’. Like, when the instructions say ‘heat for four minutes, stir, then heat for a further three minutes’, does anyone actually do that?
If you’re a new subscriber thinking ‘WTF is Bench? Does he mean that clothing brand that did those long coatigan hoodie things twenty years ago?’ then let me help you out.
Bench is when I sit on a bench somewhere, in a public place. I have my small, discreet portable audio recorder with me. And if you or anyone should happen to sit next to me, and we strike up a conversation, I’ll start recording - with informed consent, obviously - and that day’s recordings will make up an episode of Hello You.
So, Bench. My job is just … Bench.
Anyway …
When I’m not Benching, or interviewing really interesting people, or just mumbling about the complexities of life alone at home, I’m recording Soundscapes.
Using the aforementioned portable audio recorder, I just be in a place in Shropshire. And I record the sounds of what’s happening around me, in gorgeous wide wrap-around stereo. Hence they’re best listened to on earbuds or (better) headphones.
This soundscape was recorded on Saturday afternoon, in Greenfields Recreation Ground in Shrewsbury, Shropshire. Take a listen, and all will become clear.
Soundscapes started as an experiment, but I’ve had lots of positive response to them. Some people love being transported to a different place, some use them as ASMR, others find them an aid to sleep. Tell me how you use them? And if you have any suggestions for cool places I can record a soundscape, let me know?
Whilst you’re about it, I’d love to know your thoughts on anything I send you. Comment on Substack, Spotify (Hello You’s on there too), Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn or wherever you find it. Tell your friends? And click on the heart!
Have a good week. There are more links to click below, if you’re curious.
Hello You 31: Saturday Soundscape