There’s a BBC radio programme that existed for 70 years now. It’s called Desert Island Discs and each week a person of interest is invited to imagine what it would be like to be a castaway on a remote island. The guest of the show is asked to choose 8 music tracks which will be played in the hour that the show is on, additionally he or she can select a book to take along to the island and a luxury item such as sunblock, a comfy bed with lots of pillows or an Italian coffee machine and grinder. The choice of music tracks always reveals a lot about the guest as well as the unusual type of interview that is conducted with them. I really liked the episode with Morrissey – his (excellent) choice of songs reveals what time of musical history still plays the greatest part in his life. On the BBC website you can browse through the whole archive, starting in January 1942 with actor Vic Oliver.

Part of this is certainly due to a charming obsession with particular slightly outmoded ideas, such as radio – a quirk leading to the introduction of a 24h radio station at the end of last year, which actually has some programs well worth following. For instance, why not tune in this Saturday at noon, when magCulture’s Jeremy Leslie will be talking about Slow Print and mono.kultur, among many other titles.

Now that you’ve seen us dancing to some unlikely tunes (last week, thanks to Chris Taylor), why not talk about Robert Sylvester Kelly for a minute: He may or may not be about to drop a memoir, amazingly titled Soula Coaster: The Diary Of Me (he is the true head of headlines, you know?), and of course he already promised “his fans an intimate and unforgettable ride.” However, we still prefer some of those alternative titles…

If things go pear-shaped in the current economic climate and you can’t even afford batteries, at least you’ll be able to tune into this crank-powered radio. The Bamboo SAFE AM/FM radio by Lexon uses a dynamo powered by a crank – 2 minutes of cranking for 30 minutes of listening!

Aliens don’t always land in the United States – Peckham, Camberwell and New Cross are quite likely too! Joe Cornish from my favourite radio show Adam & Joe on BBC 6 Music wrote and directed Attack the Block. It will be his first feature film and will be released the the UK on May 13th. It’s a story of unlikely hoodie heroes called into action during an alien invasion of England. Joe abandoned his radio show for a year to work on this but The Adam & Joe Show will we back on BBC 6 Music on April 1.

And that was it!

Since then I got caught in their web of highly developed narrative techniques and styles, sound games, and most of all, highly interesting subjects.

They start every podcast with a main subject on which they previously developed some research on, to then discuss it with different interviewees, questioning them, debating hypotheses and exploring the subject in every possible direction. The themes range from science to music, society, nature, etc., (they call it “a program about science and curiosities”) and it’s not that they reach any conclusions at the end! but that probably they will make you question simple things that you’ve taken for granted, that you never stopped to think about before, or most important –  make you laugh non-stop!

Make yourself a treat and download some of them to your mp3 player to listen to while going to work in these grayish-dark mornings. They will definitely lift your mood up for the day!

Over the past two days, the Test Signals conference in Berlin has heard about radio’s latest mutations. One such development is Radio Aporee, a sound-mapping project that enables anyone to contribute to the audible environment of a neighborhood. Sound can be recorded, uploaded to a mapping tool, then played back via smart phones. A user listening to Radio Aporee as they move through a neighborhood can hear recordings of ambient noise, histories dictated by local residents, poetry inspired by the area, music recorded in the street, or any conceivable audio contribution. The project is currently seeking participants.

Test Signals ends tonight with a party at HBC, hosted by the local reboot.fm station, which broadcasts on 88.4FM across Berlin.

BBC 6 Music stands alone in playlisting intelligent, challenging alternative music. Getting rid of it would be a travesty. Read more here.

While everybody in the Northern Hemisphere is worried about what else they can put on to feel warmer, our editor Sarah is on her way to Australia right now, where she can expect problems of the opposite kind: What else could I take off – it’s over 30 degrees!

There are some funny Australians who can provide some light relief. Tomorrow will be the first time that popular Australian radio djs Hamish & Andy will host a show in Europe. On digital radio BBC 6 Music at 4:00 pm (UTC), you can listen live + free on the BBC website – in Germany and other countries with CET it will be from 5:00 – 8:00 pm.

A truly great Australian is Chris Lilley. He is a comedian, television producer, actor and writer, best known for his creation and portrayal of characters such as Mr G, Jonah Takalua and Ja’mie King as shown in the mockumentary television series We Can Be Heroes and Summer Heights High. Last year HBO started broadcasting Lilley’s shows and now, in a cooperation with ABC TV and the BBC, let him create a new show called Angry Boys, unfortunately there is no release date scheduled yet. In the meantime catch up with his previous shows or just watch them again, it’s still funny the second time around.