I am the lucky recipient of these – a birthday gift. So far I have not used them, but they are lodged in the back of my mind making plans that I hope will come to something when my blogging year is done.

Over the years I’ve tiptoed out into the podcast/audio world a couple of times, and to my surprise I’ve discovered that once I’ve got over the stage fright, it’s relatively simple. To date my shaky editions have been made on an old (2014) 13-inch MacBook Pro, with a microphone, a connector, and the help of GarageBand (which came with the computer).

The first time I came across a big problem was with the short story I’d written during lockdown. I’d assumed that recording the different sections would involve exactly the same process I’d used for earlier podcasts. I was wrong. I soon discovered that when reading, every breath I took was huffing into the recording. It sounded like I was blowing up balloons in the background, or else puffing along on a running machine. I consulted a recording veteran and was told I needed a ‘pop shield’. Since I didn’t have one, didn’t even know what one was, a homemade version was produced by stretching a cleaning cloth across the gap in a coathangar, and then stapling it in place. The difference it made was amazing. On I plodded.

Then, recording done, I packed away the duvets and debris, the microphone, and the coathanger pop shield, and went back to blogging.

However, since then three gifts have arrived. The first was a proper pop shield, and then a few weeks later the amazing equipment above. How lucky … and daunted … am I.

Now there’s planning, and a big space for ideas.

Copyright Georgie Knaggs & The Phraser 2023