I couldn’t resist sharing this as part of an occasional series about Google AI Garbage. Earlier this evening (Sunday 24th August 2025), I searched to see if there was a BBC Proms concert this evening. This is what the AI summary produced. I think it’s priceless, right down to the last line!
The BBC Proms having started on Sunday (20th July), I decided to listen to some of the concerts via BBC Sounds. One can’t get BBC Radio 3 on the radio here in the Republic, at least not this far from the border.
I was disappointed, then, to see that BBC Sounds is no longer available to listeners outside the UK. Apparently The BBC is making BBC Sounds exclusively available to UK license fee payers, meaning users outside the UK, including those in Ireland, will no longer be able to access the full service. This change came into effect yesterday (21st July).
So here I am, as I write this, on 22nd July, listening to this evening’s Promenade concert via BBC Sounds. No, I’m not doing anything illegal or unlawful. Neither did I last night, when I listened to Mahler’s Symphony No. 7. It’s just that the change has been implemented in a very peculiar and confusing way.
To start with, this is what I see a see on my screen right now:
I don’t think you get the top message if you listen in the UK, but then you might be listening on the radio anyway.
At the top it says use the BBC.com or the BBC App. For one thing I can’t find any sign of the “BBC App” on PlayStore on anywhere else. For another, BBC.com offers only Radio 4, BBC World Service and a random selection of podcasts. So neither of those options are any good for listening to Radio 3.
If you click to “Find out how to listen to other BBC stations” you get this page which “explains”:
Earlier this year, we launched a new audio service outside the UK on BBC.com and the BBC app. This includes access to BBC Radio 4 and BBC World Service English, thousands of hours of podcasts (including Global News Podcast, World of Secrets and Infinite Monkey Cage) – as well as some of the best of the BBC’s journalism and storytelling including news and history programming.
As part of the announcement, we said we planned to close BBC Sounds to audiences living outside the UK later this year, making it available exclusively to people in the UK. Anyone who lives in the UK will still be able to use the BBC Sounds app when they go on holiday abroad. We can now confirm that BBC Sounds closed for listeners based outside the UK on 21 July 2025.
Leaving aside the mystery of the “BBC app”, this suggests that BBC Sounds is closed to listeners outside the UK. Except it isn’t.
The article goes on to explain:
Please use the links below for live listening access to the BBC’s other radio stations from across the UK, including BBC Radio 1, Radio 2 and Radio 3, 6Music, 1Xtra and Asian Network, Radio 4Xtra and 5Live, all the BBC’s stations from the UK nations and every local radio station in England.
The link to BBC Radio 3 is this:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/live/bbc_radio_three#noapp
In other words, it takes you back to BBC Sounds, which is where I am listening now! As far as I understand it, one can still listen to the live internet stream of BBC Radio on BBC Sounds, so it’s not closed to listeners outside the UK after all. What is closed (to us foreigners) is the back catalogue of past recordings. I only ever listen to live broadcasts, however, so after all that it’s business as usual for me.
I hope this clarifies the situation.
There’s no escaping the signs that summer is drawing to a close. The weather took a decidedly autumnal turn at the end of last week, and though I resisted the temptation to turn the central heating on at Chateau Coles I fear it won’t be long before I have to face reality and take that step. I hope I can hold out at least until the conventional end of summer, the autumnal equinox, which this year happens at 21.02 BST on Friday, 22 September.
Saturday saw the Last Night of the BBC Proms season. I’ve enjoyed a great many of the concerts but I only listened to a bit of the first half of the Last Night as I find the jingoism of the second half rather hard to stomach. I did catch Nina Stemme on the wireless giving it some welly in the Liebestod from Tristan und Insolde, though. Pretty good, but difficult to compare with my favourite version by Kirsten Flagstad.
One of the highlights of the season, just a few days ago, was Sir András Schiff’s late-night performance of Book I of The Well Tempered Clavier which had me captivated for two hours, until well past my usual bedtime…
However, as the Proms season ends in London the music-making continues in Cardiff with a new series of international concerts at St David’s Hall and Welsh National Opera’s new season at the Wales Millennium Centre (which starts on 23rd September). I notice also that, having finished his complete Beethoven cycle, Llŷr Williams is embarking on a series of recitals of music by Schubert, starting on November 9th at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama.
Another sign that summer is over is that the last Test Match of the summer has ended. Excellent bowling by Jimmy Anderson (and, in the first innings, by Ben Stokes) meant that England had only a small total to chase, which they managed comfortably. Victory at Lord’s gives England a 2-1 win for the series over West Indies. That outcome is welcome for England fans, but it doesn’t do much to build confidence for the forthcoming Ashes series in Australia. England’s pace bowlers have shown they can prosper in English conditions, when the Duke ball can be made to swing, but in Australia with the Kookaburra they may find success much harder to come by. More importantly, however, only two of England’s five top-order batsmen are of proven international class, making their batting lineup extremely fragile. So much depends on Cook and Root, as I don’t think it is at all obvious who should take the other three positions, despite a whole summer of experimentation.
There are a few one-day internationals and Twenty20 matches coming up as well as three full weeks of County Championship fixtures. In particular, there are two home games for Glamorgan in the next two weeks (one against Northants, starting tomorrow, and one next week against Gloucestershire). Their last match (away against Derbyshire) was drawn because three of the four days were lost to rain, but weather permitting there should still be a few opportunities to see cricket at Sophia Gardens this year.
And of course it will soon be time to for the start of the new academic year, welcoming new students (including the first intake on our MSc courses in Data-Intensive Physics and Astrophysics and new PhD students in Data-Intensive Science who form the first intake of our new Centre for Doctoral Training). All that happens just a couple of weeks from today, and we’re having a big launch event on 25th-26th September to welcome the new intake and introduce them to our industrial and academic partners.
Anyway, that reminds me that I have quite a lot to do before term starts so I’d better get on with it, especially if I’m going to make time to watch a few days of cricket between now and the end of the month!
In the Dark 