It’s the final GMCRF fm. Today we have the news, the review of the Katy Price magazine and, as it is the last one, reminisce about the show.

Finally, in the place I would usually plug the website relentlessly I would like to write a very brief farewell to you. It, if you have religiously followed both Will and Myself on this podcast adventure, is has been a good few years…  and it has been really quite delightful. From the early days of the Dan Barker Show with William Jones when we were solely doing a video podcast to the very end. This one.

The video show meant editing away on the iMac using iMovie, using poor cameras and hosting on a .mac account. It was probably the most awful (yet strangely charming) production we have ever done; two idiots making the longest straw ever, to two idiots playing golf with éclairs and eggs. Anywhere, in the early days of the show we decided to do a very brief audio show (entitled, imaginatively enough, “The Dan Barker Audio Show”). This was to describe the production process of the show (I don’t know how we claimed to have one, it was Will and I doing stupid things) and to serve as an advert of sorts, but it quickly morphed into something in its own.

The video show was possibly one of the most brilliant excuses for messing around, filming it and then transforming this poor quality footage into something which was a better, more refined package we could call our own show. Two of the best episodes we did, naturally, were our last. Firstly, we had the JFK extravaganza. With, what is in hindsight, a pretty poor script, we both spent the day building a narrative to explain the true cause behind the death of an American president and the second episode is the one after that, in which we then tried to tie the loose ends up  because of the complete lack of continuity and attempt to return to ‘normal programming’. This would be the last Dan Barker Video Show.

For some reason we paused for a while. Then Will, Richard and I started GMCRF fm. Again, with the same slapdash style .Mac website we moved away from the type of slander present in the Audio Show to a more topic focused discussion. We, for some reason, chose Gaming, chiefly because of Richards insistence and also our desire to try something new despite the Audio Show pointing both Will and I in the direction we ended up going with in the later 20ish episodes (trashy news, random arguments, political chat and naturally, the type of brilliant rants as with the Trafigura episode – so basically talk radio). I feel like this though, was important. We quickly both developed a completely unique insight into the games industry, but we also had shown to our selves that a third person really didn’t work for the show. Perhaps because it was a different type of relationship we had with Richard, or perhaps its because we had different interests and opinions. However, I felt that it was a significant milestone, both with Richard on the ‘new’ podcast and then afterwards when Richard had left and Will and I continued.

As mentioned in the show, this isn’t something we were necessarily willing to talk about much (until this episode) for some reason, Richards name cropped up from time to time as a joke wondering where his attendance was or for some other obscure reason, but on reflection he was a footnote in its existence. There was not the correct relationship between Richard and the two of us. This is quite clear in the episode Will isn’t here, it doesn’t flow. It’s broken. So I feel that if he continued to attend, and didn’t basically snub us for 15 minutes of his time, the show quite well wouldn’t be around today. It certainly wouldn’t have been the same as it is. So in a way, I regret to say it, but I thank Richard for not coming that day (which in effect signalled his departure, though at the time it didn’t seem that clear to us). It enabled us to broaden our horizons, it enabled us to flow much better and more importantly it enabled us to be a lot more entertaining.

Not following the JFK script that day made that days footage much more difficult to edit, and the perfect metaphor for my last words for the ‘scheduled’ posts. Its this sense of sheer randomness and a complete lack of concern that is something which I personally look back on The Dan Barker Show with William Jones, The Dan Barker Audio Show with William Jones and of course GMCRF fm with some amount of envy. Very few times in ones life does one have to have such a lack of concern; with a lack of important exams to worry about, no University (or University fees to worry about), no dependant family or job, and no real worry about the inevitability of death – yet the podcast has documented this period.

Over these few years we have changed, we are no longer blissfully unaware of the world around us, we are much more intelegent, we successfully navigated our way trough the minefield of sixth form (with the added bonus of making an arch nemesis), we got much taller and somehow even more sarcastic and witty and somewhere along the lines I got robbed. But there is one even more important thing I want to highlight, it has been fantastic… I can’t think what would have filled the void if creating, what is in essence, a timeline of our developing opinions and thoughts, wasn’t here. Something which not many people get to do at all; but both Will and I have done this and shared it with the world in hourly, sometimes two hourly chunks.

Whilst I have said it several times, both on the podcast and after, I would like to thank Will. No one else would have been crazy enough to accept the invitation to “record some stuff for a video show”, especially one under my own name… and then to come back! But he did. I would also like to thank you. Whilst we don’t have that many listeners, some are out there. I thank you for sharing this amazing journey of the last four years, this really quite ‘public’ journey.

So, as always with these things I am going to end it with this advice. I find it rather fitting to what we have created and my attitude to life, and it comes from Steve Jobs quoting,  naturally, someone else. Simply,

“Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish”.

Thank you.

And now a quick word from Will:

We made it to 54 episodes, which is actually 52 if you discount the “mythical” lost episodes. 52 is not an especially large number of episodes for a regularly running broadcast, but GMCRFfm was recorded on a fortnightly schedule. You then need to factor in occasional holiday breaks, frequent exam breaks and a surprisingly long break where we found our selves starting sixth form. 2 ½ years. That is the rough estimate of how long Dan and myself have been doing this show. Then of course there was the “Dan Barker Video Show (with Will Jones)” and before that there was the “Dan Barker Show” (I hadn’t earned a place in the title at this point).

What we are actually looking at here is the end of a four year period of our lives. These four years have lined up with, what anyone would agree, are pretty defining years of a young persons life. We have both set forward paths for ourselves. Paths which we will now follow for the rest of our lives. We made lifelong friends and short lived  enemies. We learned about life. We learned about the universe. We learned about everything. In short, we grew up.

Now I am not going to give a detailed history of the show, Dan has done that already. Rather, on the verge of setting out on a new journey, it’s the perfect time to say this one simple comment. I wouldn’t change a thing.

Outside of my academic career, I have never been prouder of anything than I am of the last 20-30 episodes of GMCRFfm we recorded. They (d)evolved from a structured gaming show to a highly opinionated news debate bringing you “the news you care about”, and allowing us to return to what our two man team did best. Argue. We took the angle of forgetting the microphones were there. There is no acting or planning, what you hear is genuinely just two hours of our conversations that we recorded every other week. It was real and it was us.

Now, Dan has mentioned in his goodbye statement that he wishes to thank me for joining him in this four year chapter. I think that there is something wrong with that. No thanks need to be given. I got to spend one day every fortnight having more fun than I would have ever expected. We never really did any of the shows for anyone other than ourselves. There was no point beating around the bush, we had maybe 5 or 6 listeners. The audience, good as you have been, were never the main drive behind the show for either of us. The point was to laugh, and you mark these words, I have laughed for four years. We came up with an excuse to argue, to ridicule, to criticise, we played golf with snails on top of water balloons, we blew up batteries, we did countless variations on the “Coke and Mentos” tests, we made the worlds longest straw (Guinness World Record pending), we nearly gave a cat a bath in lithium water and we made a low budget (£0) time travelling epic.

I hope that those of you who have listened to the show have gotten as much joy out of listening to it, as we got out of making it. Hell, if you even got half as much, you must be pretty damn happy right about now.

Most people our age would have spent their time hanging out in parks, going out drinking, partying and generally “living on the edge”. In that respect neither of us have really had the full experience of a teenage life, but what I know I have, what I am certain Dan has, is a wealth of fantastic memories that are imaginative, hilarious, brilliantly nerdy and downright silly. Memories that will last me for the rest of my life, so in that respect, the thanks really needs to go to 14 year old Dan. Thank you for having a really rubbish idea to record a one off podcast.

Goodbye…

Will and Dan, 2008

]]> http://www.gmcrf.co.uk/2011/09/08/thankyouandgoodbye/feed/ 0 0:00:01 It’s the final GMCRF fm. Today we have the news, the review of the Katy Price magazine and, as it is the last one, reminisce about the show. Finally, in the place I would usually plug the website relentlessly I would like to write a very brief far[...] It’s the final GMCRF fm. Today we have the news, the review of the Katy Price magazine and, as it is the last one, reminisce about the show. Finally, in the place I would usually plug the website relentlessly I would like to write a very brief farewell to you. It, if you have religiously followed both Will and Myself on this podcast adventure, is has been a good few years…  and it has been really quite delightful. From the early days of the Dan Barker Show with William Jones when we were solely doing a video podcast to the very end. This one. The video show meant editing away on the iMac using iMovie, using poor cameras and hosting on a .mac account. It was probably the most awful (yet strangely charming) production we have ever done; two idiots making the longest straw ever, to two idiots playing golf with éclairs and eggs. Anywhere, in the early days of the show we decided to do a very brief audio show (entitled, imaginatively enough, “The Dan Barker Audio Show”). This was to describe the production process of the show (I don’t know how we claimed to have one, it was Will and I doing stupid things) and to serve as an advert of sorts, but it quickly morphed into something in its own. The video show was possibly one of the most brilliant excuses for messing around, filming it and then transforming this poor quality footage into something which was a better, more refined package we could call our own show. Two of the best episodes we did, naturally, were our last. Firstly, we had the JFK extravaganza. With, what is in hindsight, a pretty poor script, we both spent the day building a narrative to explain the true cause behind the death of an American president and the second episode is the one after that, in which we then tried to tie the loose ends up  because of the complete lack of continuity and attempt to return to ‘normal programming’. This would be the last Dan Barker Video Show. For some reason we paused for a while. Then Will, Richard and I started GMCRF fm. Again, with the same slapdash style .Mac website we moved away from the type of slander present in the Audio Show to a more topic focused discussion. We, for some reason, chose Gaming, chiefly because of Richards insistence and also our desire to try something new despite the Audio Show pointing both Will and I in the direction we ended up going with in the later 20ish episodes (trashy news, random arguments, political chat and naturally, the type of brilliant rants as with the Trafigura episode – so basically talk radio). I feel like this though, was important. We quickly both developed a completely unique insight into the games industry, but we also had shown to our selves that a third person really didn’t work for the show. Perhaps because it was a different type of relationship we had with Richard, or perhaps its because we had different interests and opinions. However, I felt that it was a significant milestone, both with Richard on the ‘new’ podcast and then afterwards when Richard had left and Will and I continued. As mentioned in the show, this isn’t something we were necessarily willing to talk about much (until this episode) for some reason, Richards name cropped up from time to time as a joke wondering where his attendance was or for some other obscure reason, but on reflection he was a footnote in its existence. There was not the correct relationship between Richard and the two of us. This is quite clear in the episode Will isn’t here, it doesn’t flow. It’s broken. So I feel that if he continued to attend, and didn’t basically snub us for 15 minutes of his time, the show quite well wouldn’t be around today. It certainly wouldn’t have been the same as it is. So in a way, I regret to say it, but I thank Richard for not coming that day (which in effect signalled his departure, though at the time it didn’t seem that clear to us). It enabled us to broaden our horizons, it enabled us to flow much better and more importantly it enabl[...] Blog, Nintendo, Podcast, Website Dan Barker, William Jones yes no http://www.gmcrf.co.uk/2011/07/26/time-travel-episode/ http://www.gmcrf.co.uk/2011/07/26/time-travel-episode/#comments Tue, 26 Jul 2011 18:41:52 +0000 Dan Barker http://www.gmcrf.co.uk/?p=485

Episode 52, the episode from the future which is also from the pasts past. Yes, the lack of news today is explained by two things,

A)    the fact that in this episode we have travelled in time

B)    The lack of important news anywhere

But on the bright side we do talk about Candy Bar Girls, which is the single greatest television programme on Channel 5, ever. And we have a Sunday AM style review of the newspapers, yes, its all kicking off today you know.

Do as usual in that you go to gmcrf.co.uk etc…

Rupert Murdoch in London trying not to be papped, yet still looking rather smug...

What an amazing week we have just witnessed, seven days ago we were expecting the BSkyB deal to be given the green light by Jeremy Hunt, the Culture, Media, Sport and Olympics minister. Now we have just seen to collapse of the BSkyB deal all together, which to me is really quite remarkable.

So, the casualties so far of the Phone-Hacking saga has been both News of the World (and the two-hundred hacks working there, not to mention the free-lancers) and now Murdoch’s £8 Billion BSkyB take over. Notably though, however, not Mrs Brooks (quite good friends with Tony Blair and Cameron, cheif-executive of News International), James Murdoch (who is in charge of News Corporations Asian and European operations, he is also Chairman on the BSkyB board) and obviously the overlord and operator of the death star his self, Rupert Murdoch. Never has there been a set back so big, the end of a dream for the 80-year-old media-mogul than alleged phone-hacking.

However if you think this is over, its really not. I believe that this was just a way to avoid questions over the ‘fit and proper’ status OfCom have to declare you as, as a broadcaster.  Currently 39% of BSkyB give him a controlling stake within Sky (and if you believe that Sky News would become more left or right wing, it would be very hard due to OfCom and the regulations they have in place ensuring that broadcast news is ‘impartial’ — the case for it not been implemented in newsprint is because of broadcasting having limited spectrum, whereas anyone can open a newspaper in theory). But, if they are found as not a ‘fit and proper’ organization to own the other 69% of BSkyB they would then have to sell the other 39% of BSkyB they own, by law. So this is another Murdoch ruse to sidetrack us both away from the commons debate (and ultimate vote, many news soundbites would be provided here) and then to, more importantly for the Murdoch’s (chiefly James), die down calls for a ‘fit and proper’ test on the Murdochs — however, this hasn’t worked as well as they had anticipated, which as mentioned could result in the complete loss of BSkyB or the dilution of their stock holding now OfCom are investigating with the probable result of them being fit and proper as no criminal charges have been filed against them as of yet.

This is for other reasons too, News International is falling apart. We have already seen them starting to try and fight back with The Suns front page declaring that Brown is wrong about them ‘hacking’ his phone messages, but to me this mainly highlights how Brown can’t even score an open goal with the goal posts so far apart it could be best described as a wonder of the universe (if he bothered to read the Press Complaints Commission’s [PCC] code of conduct, and invoked 6(v) he would have killed the story). Then not helped by Andrew Neil reporting that brown said to Murdoch on September 29th 2009 (the day that the Sun switched its support from Labour to the Conservatives on the day of Browns last speech to his party, which I personally thought was quite a compelling speech), “I will destroy you”. Brown even believes that he would still be in power today if it wasn’t for News International’s support for the Conservatives, so he too (like all in politics) is living in a dream world where they think Murdoch’s press is all powerful. They aren’t. He likes to pick winners so he can sell papers, its as simple as that. The only reason he backed Blair/New Labour in ’97 is because it was really quite obvious they were going to win. In fact you would have to be a delusional idiot on the moon to think otherwise… and the fact he likes to pick winners is also why he has never, ever really spoken to the Liberal Democrats.

13th July 2011, The Sun

With the signs of News Internationals fight back, this indicates to me that they are going to attempt to keep hold of the Newspapers they have left (The Sun, The Times and The Sunday Times) for a considerable time, or sell them in the next year. A contradiction I agree, but they wont hold onto them for the medium term because then the enquiry will report whilst they are still in ownership and it would appear worse if they were to sell them around this time than to sell them now (people will forget) or to hold onto them and declare that “management has changed” etc, though Brooks’ would have to go, and possibly even James. This seems very unlikely to happen, they will probably get shifted around in the company though.

In my opinion the fight back shouldn’t continue with front pages declaring X was wrong; they may not even have to bother with a public fight back at all. Several internet reports are now indicating that this fiasco is going to move on from News International onto other papers on Fleet Street such as the Mirror and Piers Morgan in particular. In fact it doesn’t help that in Piers’ book, ‘The Insider: The Private Diaries of a Scandalous Decade’ he writes;

Apparently if you don’t change the standard security code that every phone comes with, then anyone can call your number and, if you don’t answer, tap in the standard four digit code to hear all your messages. I’ll change mine just in case, but it makes me wonder how many public figures and celebrities are aware of this little trick.

In addition to this idiocy by Piers Morgan, Richard Desmond’s papers will be looked at carefully (in fact his Sunday paper related to the Star has had its offices searched according to reports). So when the Prime Minister said “We are all in this together” in relation with MPs and the Press, Fleet Street can also say “We are all in this together”. In fact they’re all in the shit together and its not going to get much better.

One thing is obvious though, Fleet Street will change. The editors are all angry at News International. They have shut down the biggest newspaper in the world, and they have drawn attention to all of this. If I was them I would be asking Murdoch, “What have you done? Your hacks have messed everything up. You should be ashamed of yourself”.

Note, every time someone says “fit and proper” in random discourse about the subject profusely… they almost certainly have an agenda. Watch out for that.

[We had a fantastic debate about this on the last podcast, which you can find here]

Another brilliant episode today. We have arguments about advertising, the ethics of phone hacking and the low-down on the News of the World downfall. On a more serious note we have the latest celebrity news from the world of Katie Price, a review of Jenifer Anniston’s new film and an all important apology from the co-host his self.

Remember you can go to www.gmcrf.co.uk, email us at letters@gmcrf.co.uk and share the episode.

NOTE: All claims in this episode around the newspaper allegations are allegedly. Due care was taken in ensuring that you heard this however if this wasn’t sufficiently conveyed most of these claims haven’t been proven yet and therefore are alleged claims.

Remember go to the website, www.gmcrf.co.uk, email us at letters@gmcrf.co.uk.

Other than that, go to the website which is www.gmcrf.co.uk and email us at letters@gmcrf.co.uk

We also have real Gaming news too, covering the massive Sony failure and some hilarious Nintendo News…

Remember to go to www.gmcrf.co.uk and e-mail us at letters@gmcrf.co.uk.

So, what’s different? Well lets start this review off with a hypothetical question… What score will this game get? Out of ten that is. Well if it’s out of ten it’s obviously going to be nine because if they give it a ten the users of the website will instantly think that there is something suspicious going on. So, by giving it nine we can both write about some improvements that can be made, thus increasing the word count, and we can also charge more for the people who want to a ten for their game AND we can then prevent a user revolt in the comment stream at the end of the article, which we will tell you to “comment with your opinions of the game” just to patronize you.

Leaving this hypothetical question aside, I must now pose another hypothetical question. How awesome is this game? Well it must be fucking awesome. It was made by Valve you see. VALVE! Remember half-life 3? No? Ohh, but still VALVE!!!!!!!!!1!!!!!! That’s why we gave it a nine, we don’t want you to secretly tell you that we have loads of ads (please click on some of these ads please…just click, go on, click here) for the game so giving it a low score might be a bad idea because you as the audience don’t want to pay for this content anymore because they like to think they can get everything for free. Well it’s not, proof is in this brilliant review in which we recommend you should absolutely buy this game (see, if we don’t say this we won’t get any more Portal 2, or even Valve ads for our website). Where was I? Ahh, IT’S A VALVE GAME AND YOU MUST BUY IT!!! IT’S WELL ORIGINAL!

In it’s originality Valve has really gone out of it’s way to create original ideas and game play mechanics and such and stuff. Blah blah blah…

Firstly, they got a celebrity to do the voice over. Stephen Merchant (Who? Ahh, the tall guy who is Ricky Gervases agent in Extras) does something in it, so that’s fucking awesome. I don’t know, I haven’t played the game but I assume that it is because in this sheet I have been given by Valve and the PR Overlord who is sat behind me constantly telling me about it whilst I am sat in a darkened room playing the game tells me it’s awesome. So it must be. See, I have 1 hour to play this game so I can’t be bothered, so I’ll just copy this PR sheet.

But it’s okay! See, we here at GMCRF haven’t been given enough money to point out how stupid every single sucker who fell for Steam PR trap (It’s a trap!) should be very, very ashamed of them selves. Really? You seriously thought that they would break their complex release strategies because you were stupid enough to fall for them saying if you bought some indie games the release would come faster? If you did you are a blithering idiot. No. Seriously. You are. They release a date like they did to get all the people who seriously think a business is a kind and genuine entity with their users at heart when they release it early when they just got you as the user to spend more money than you otherwise would do buying these games because it would allegedly come early (though, it was one day ‘early’, well done there!) BUT IT’S VALVE!

Another original idea Valve created all by them selves is the paint mechanic – something they absolutely didn’t steal to an extent by buying a company some students who attended digi-pen created. So, that’s great. But the PR guy behind me doesn’t want me to mention this, the fact that the same happened to Portal in the first place and he also isn’t very happy with the point that the release of Portal 2 is a shameless PR stunt.

I digress; this isn’t really a review of Portal 2… If you haven’t noticed. It’s a very angry commentary on how all the news industry, specifically the online news arena, even more so in the tech/gaming news genre is controlled by paying advertisers and PR companies. Seriously, I can’t see why the release of Portal a whole pathetic day early was a news worthy event. This very subject is something you will have heard both Will and I talk about in the podcasts, yet I hardly hear it in any other program/production.

Finally, another point I hopefully conveyed within this article is that sequels are evil and have ruined the creativity of the industry. This is because companies are so set on what sells, they are afraid of changing that formula in a way which will make the game better because of angry, deluded, ‘fans’ who can’t face change. This is the reason why video games are not and can not be art, the basic lack of control of the artist (making this medium a truly unique experience and insanely hard to even make a compelling story with the typical game) and and the very fact that the game is for a reason, not to entertain, not to compel, not to inspire. No, it’s nothing but money and therefore sales — And the PR companies that run the industry and the world are responsible for this!

Authors note: This isn’t necessarily an attack on the news outlets mentioned and not one on those who work at these places. To be absolutely explicit, it is an attack on ad-supported content which corrupts the content of news-sources and how people are suckered into PR tricks by these corporations.

Go to the website which is gmcrf.co.uk, e-mail us at letters@gmcrf.co.uk, and do what ever else with the episode within the law.