Chris Nelms

I wrote previously (24th December 2006) about recording BBC Radio programmes as MP3 files so that you can listen to them later on an iPod, or burn them to a CD. Recently the BBC has changed the way it stores its ‘Listen Again’ radio programmes for use with the iPlayer so the method I described no longer works. Radio programmes are available on the BBC’s servers as Real Audio files that previously required you to install the free Real Audio player on your computer. These files are still available but the naming convention has changed. For example, previously the weekly Saturday Play was always available with the same filename (http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/aod/ shows/rpms/radio4/saturdayplay.rpm), so I had an automated job that would download this file every week so that I could listen to the programme later, even if ‘later’ was several weeks or months afterwards when the actual recording was no longer downloadable from the BBC. Sadly now every file has a different name or path. So for example today’s Saturday Play is available here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/aod/playlists /7d/lm/h0/0b/RadioBridge_uk_1430_bbc_radio_fourfm.ram. Look at the collection of character pairs separated by forward slashes in this link. The 7d/lm/h0/0b is actually the reverse of the programme’s PID which, I’m guessing, is the Programme Identifier or similar. For today’s Saturday Play the PID is b00hmld7. This appears to be the unique component that defines this particular episode of the programme. Last week’s Saturday Play had a different PID, and so will next week’s. The thing is, how can we find out what that is?

I’ve come up with two ways, neither of which is as convenient as the name being static. The first is what I would call a do-it-yourself method. Browse the BBC listen again website to find the programme you want (e.g. Radio 4’s listen again page is at www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/progs/listenagain.shtml). Click the link to listen to the programme in the iPlayer but click the pause button as soon as it starts to play. Now right-click the black bar near the bottom of the iPlayer (just below the play/pause button) and choose View Source. This will display an editor window containing the iPlayer’s HTML source. Search the file (using Ctrl+F) for Real:. This will take you to the section of the source where, immediately after the colon, is the link to the Real Audio file you need. Copy everything from http:// to .ram. Paste this into your Real Player or other recording application and you should be able to download the file and save it in MP3 (or other convenient) format for future listening. This method works, but what a chore! I was hitherto recording around 30 Radio 4 programmes a week and with static names the whole process was completely automatic. Using Audio Hijack Pro on my Apple Mac the jobs were all scheduled in the Mac’s iCal calendar and would be recorded even if I was away from home.

The alternative method I’ve discovered is using an excellent website which I stumbled across at www.iplayerconverter.co.uk/. Initially I thought this was the answer to all my prayers but it isn’t quite. There is much useful content on this site but it isn’t comprehensive and I have encountered several errors in the PIDs they report. For example, as I type this they show the PID for this afternoon’s Saturday Play as b00hmlhk when actually it’s as shown above. Also the website shows that programme as not available for download when it clearly is because I’m downloading it right now. Nevertheless this website has content which offered welcome information when I was hunting for solutions to this problem. One of their most useful offerings for me (provided the links are correct!) is an RSS feed of programme links for your preferred BBC radio channel. For example the Radio 4 feed is at feed://www.iplayerconverter.co.uk/r/4/aod/rss.aspx. If you have an RSS reader or email client that supports RSS you can use this to receive a daily feed of links for downloading. I should add that the link sent via RSS for today’s Saturday Play was correct, unlike their website. The RSS feed provides updated links throughout the day for every programme (except those that cannot be downloaded), and it’s a simple matter to click on the required link (or copy it) to obtain access to your chosen programme.

Another development of interest is that the BBC makes available an XML file for each of its Radio channels containing key details of their programme schedule, including the all-important PID. Every three hours the Beeb releases an updated XML file containing details of all programmes that can be downloaded now, and that will be available in the coming 48 hours. A fascinating description of this XML data, and how to obtain it, is contained in this document: http://docs.google.com/View?docid=d9sxx7p_38cfsmxfcq. For example the Radio 4 xml file can be downloaded from www.bbc.co.uk/radio/aod/availability/radio4.xml. If I had more time on my hands I’d be very tempted to write an application that would use this data to automate all my downloading. Maybe next year…

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Something strange is happening with the charging for medical prescriptions. It is widely known that the British Government’s deficit in income compared with its expenditure has caused The Treasury to explore all means of saving money and increasing the taxation of the electorate without actually taking the politically damaging step of announcing an increase in tax rates. I suspect that one area which is being exploited is prescription charging.

I take a daily capsule of Omeprazole to control acid production in my stomach because repeated burning and scarring of my oesophagus was causing a constriction, and threatened serious longer-term problems. My specialist prescribed the medication and indicated that I shall have to take it indefinitely. When my GP first started prescribing this medicine in 2007 he did so for three months at a time and I paid a prescription charge of £6.85 for that quarterly supply of capsules.

On 1st April 2008 the Government raised the charge for prescriptions to £7.10, an apparent increase of 3.65%. However when I next visited my GP’s surgery in Mere, Wiltshire to obtain a repeat 3-monthly prescription the receptionist said I could now only receive my prescriptions four weeks at a time “because of a change in the law to save waste”. I asked how this would save waste when I need to take to take this medicine daily and she gave one of those ‘it’s nothing to do with me and I don’t care anyway’ shrugs. This had the effect of making the real increase in my prescription charge an enormous 337%, not the 3.65% announced by the Government. Furthermore, the surgery announced a reduction in their opening hours at the same time so that patients who don’t work in Mere would find it extremely difficult to visit the surgery every 28 days without taking time off work, and for those of us who live several miles from Mere we would incur additional transport costs as well as the inconvenience. By coincidence, soon afterwards Louise was prescribed a course of antibiotics by another GP at the same surgery, who also repeated that he could only give her 28 days’ worth of medicine at a time. On that occasion the surgery actually cut up the drug manufacturer’s bubble pack with scissors, dividing a single box of pills into two so that my wife had to pay a double charge.

I was sufficiently incensed by this to write to my MP to enquire how this ‘change in the law’ had been kept so quiet. He forwarded my letter to the Department of Health, and received a reply from the Rt Hon Dawn Primarolo MP, Minister of State. Ms Primarolo stated: “While it may now be common practice for prescriptions to be issued for one month or 28 days at a time, there has been no Government directive to specify the length of time for which prescriptions should be issued. Responsibility for prescribing, including the issue of repeat prescribing and the duration of prescriptions, rests with the doctor who has clinical responsibility for that particular aspect of a patient’s care.” She goes on to say: “The decision of how much to prescribe for how long is…..a complex one and should be left to the doctor.”

Therefore my GP’s receptionist misinformed me by saying the law had changed. Presumably she did this either because she was poorly trained by the doctors for whom she works or because the surgery has introduced a policy of restricting prescription duration so that patients pay more for their medication. I wrote to my GP, Dr Edward Halsey, at Mere Surgery, enclosing a copy of Ms Primarolo’s letter, and invited his comments. He didn’t reply by letter but telephoned me at 9.45 one evening. His approach to the questions in my letter was guarded but he did conclude by saying that I could have a quarterly prescription “if you want one”. Well of course I would prefer to pay £7.10 for a three-month supply of my medicine than £23, and be saved the aggravation of visiting the surgery so regularly to collect it.

So a few days later Louise visited the surgery to collect my quarterly supply of Omeprazole. Curiously, instead of 13 weeks’ supply, the doctor had prescribed 12 weeks. She queried this and the good doctor was summoned from his consulting room. He gave no reason why he thought a quarter comprises 12 weeks when it is clearly 13, but he amended the prescription so we got there in the end. It remains to be seen whether we’ll have a similar battle in three months’ time. Also it makes me strongly suspect that many other patients at that surgery who didn’t challenge the receptionist’s “change in the law” story are still paying too much for their medicines.

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A week of unusually heavy snow has given many drivers in the UK an experience that they have either not had before, or that they had forgotten about. My 50 mile drive home from work on Monday evening (2nd February ‘09) which usually takes around 1 hour 20 minutes took 3 hours 30 minutes. Worse, there were several modest slopes that my car struggled to climb at all. Once rubber tyres lose their grip on snow, or snow that has been compressed and polished by other vehicles into ice, it is very difficult to regain any traction.

For several years I have carried a pair of snow chains in the boot of the car as part of my emergency kit. I tried fitting them a couple of times when I bought them but that isn’t the same as using them on snow. I carry them not so that I can get to work on the snow but purely as a last-resort emergency measure if I need to get home and am stranded, or perhaps if I must ferry someone to hospital when the roads are otherwise impassable.

Today I have stayed at home, the roads this morning being covered with such deep snow that attempting to drive to work would have been foolhardy. It was a perfect opportunity to try fitting the snow chains and driving on them. When in the box snow chains are a confusing tangle of coloured links. Even when laid out carefully they can be hard to understand. The brief, multi-lingual instructions don’t help. Nevertheless I crouched by my front wheels in the snow this morning and fitted the chains knowing that I might one day be grateful for having undertaken this exercise. The first chain took about 10 minutes to fit but the second was completed in half that time.

I then took the car out onto the snow-covered roads. Grip is immeasurably better and one quickly gains confidence that the front wheels will retain grip when ascending and descending the slopes. The steering is still awkward as the front wheels follow ruts left my other vehicles and I found myself gripping the steering wheel tightly. The sensation is not a pleasant one and the car doesn’t travel as smoothly as if on a normal tarmac surface. Nevertheless as an emergency measure they are well worth having, the purchase price being an insurance premium to give peace of mind.

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