On Sunday, 31 January 2016 a nation used to waking ‘up to Wogan’ on his Radio 2 breakfast show instead awoke to the shocking news that Sir Terry Wogan had passed away at the age of seventy-seven. One of Britain’s most-loved broadcasters, Terry Wogan had been a fixture on the airwaves for over five decades with his dry, laconic wit and commentary making him instantly recognisable to his legions of fans. Hosting a number of radio shows for the BBC over the years, including Weekend Wogan right up until November 2015, Wogan broadcast to a record-breaking 8 million listeners at his peak, winning numerous popularity polls over the course of his career. Not content with ruling the airwaves, his long-running talk show Wogan is now the stuff of TV legend, as are his sardonic observations on the Eurovision Song Contest which made him the face of Eurovision to many, even today. But perhaps his most important contribution to British society, and the one of which he was most proud, was his work with Pudsey the Bear to raise an astounding ?600 million for Children in Need since he presented the very first show in 1980. Author Emily Herbert draws on the reminiscences of many famous friends and colleagues to create an authoritative and entertaining tribute to one of the funniest, most lovable and prolific broadcasters of all time.

Exploring the ambiguous relationship between fandom and consumer culture, this book provides a critical overview of fans, fan cultures and fan experiences in relation to the broader experience and transformation economy. Fans and Fan Cultures discusses key theoretical concepts concerning celebrity, fandoms, subculture, consumerism and marketing through a range of examples in film, travel and tourism, football and music. With an emphasis on social media, and how various online platforms are utilised by brands, artists and fans, the authors explore how this type of communication often contributes to trivialising authentic expressions of cultural and social values and identities.

This book presents the first in-depth study of the Eurovision Song Contest from an Australian perspective. Using a cultural studies approach, the study draws together fan interviews and surveys with media and textual analysis of the contest itself. In doing so, it begins to answer the question of why the European song contest appeals to viewers in Australia. It explores and challenges the dominant narrative that links Eurovision fandom to post-WWII European migration, arguing that this Eurocentric narrative presents a limited view of how contemporary Australian multicultural society operates in the context of globalized culture. It concludes with a consideration of the future of the Eurovision Song Contest as Australia enters into the ‘Asian century’.

Sir Nigel Thompson walked to school around the bomb craters of the London Blitz--it made him want to build things, rather than knock them down. After studying structural engineering in Africa, he worked on hospitals and theaters in London, and later headed the team that designed University of Qatar. He went on to design Embankment Place, a massive office complex built over London's Charing Cross railway station. Turning from building to rebuilding, he explored construction opportunities for British firms during the Gulf War, in Kuwait's still-burning oil fields. Following the 1999 bombing of Serbia and Kosovo, he led a reconstruction task force in Kosovo at the request of UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, for which he was knighted. Thompson's memoir details his long career in architectural design and construction, and in restorative development.

In his book Josef Hrdlička opens the question of what exactly constitutes Exile Poetry, and indeed whether it amounts to a category as fundamental as Romantic or Bucolic lyricism. He covers the intricately complex and diverse topic of exile by exploring selected literary texts from antiquity to the present, giving due attention to writers that have influenced the exile discourse; from Ovid, Goethe and Baudelaire to the thinkers and poets of the 20th century like Adorno or Saint-John Perse. Against this backdrop of exile poetics, he turns his attention to Czech poets who left their homeland after the Communist Coup of 1948 and were notable contributors to Czech literature abroad. Hrdlička considers the works of Ivan Blatný, Milada Součková, Ivan Diviš and Petr Král, to show the continuity and changes in the western poetic tradition and expressions of exile.

Examining work by novelists, filmmakers, TV producers and songwriters, this book uncovers the manner in which the radio – and the act of listening – has been written about for the past 100 years. Ever since the first public wireless broadcasts, people have been writing about the radio: often negatively, sometimes full of praise, but always with an eye and an ear to explain and offer an opinion about what they think they have heard. Novelists including Graham Greene, Agatha Christie, Evelyn Waugh, and James Joyce wrote about characters listening to this new medium with mixtures of delight, frustration, and despair. Clint Eastwood frightened moviegoers half to death in Play Misty for Me, but Lou Reed's 'Rock & Roll' said listening to a New York station had saved Jenny's life. Frasier showed the urbane side of broadcasting, whilst Good Morning, Vietnam exploded from the cinema screen with a raw energy all of its own. Queen thought that all the audience heard was 'ga ga', even as The Buggles said video had killed the radio star and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers lamented 'The Last DJ'. This book explores the cultural fascination with radio; the act of listening as a cultural expression – focusing on fiction, films and songs about radio. Martin Cooper, a broadcaster and academic, uses these movies, TV shows, songs, novels and more to tell a story of listening to the radio – as created by these contemporary writers, filmmakers, and musicians.