To BloodLily16: since, as far as I know, I still can't contact you directly, feel free ;)
Anyway, here's for my sixth chapter today. The things I can do when I'm bored with access to the internet!
Things you wouldn't hear on the radio:
It was a new thing, the traffic report. Mechanisation had only just reached the point where cars were more common than horses, so they were still feeling things out a little.
The leader of the project was fairly sure, however, that it should not be like this:
"I repeat: There is an accident on Main Street. It's a good one, so hurry up; there's flames and everything!"
He was fairly certain that traffic reports should be clinical and dispassionate, delivered calmly and without any little… additions.
The poor man who had been handed this project suddenly realised just why the previous leader was so eager to get rid of it.
The ABC [Amestrian Broadcasting Corporation] had very few programs that looked to be in a death spiral, the dreadful singing contest being one that came to mind, but it was going to take so much hard work to get the Traffic Report working, even locally in Central, and especially if the attitudes of the reporters stayed the same as they were now. The excitable young men on the staff seemed to be in it mainly for the kudos with their friends and as a way of getting entertainment and girls.
Hmm, allegedly there were places opening up on the Fuhrer's Speech time…? Maybe try to get in there instead…
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The new music-based radio channels were mind-boggling and especially popular among the youth of the population. All except one; on that channel, even the DJs were tired and looking for better work.
"You're listening to Wave FM, the same five songs… all day long. Hooray…"
The senior citizens' favourite channel, Wave FM, was the only one that played the kind of music they liked to hear; slow waltzes and other calm dance music. Only five of their discs actually had lyrics, but, although they would never admit it, most people turned onto it when they needed calming down after a bad and/or long day.
It was the most listened-to radio in the Military Dorms, come to think of it.
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Hughes had been up all night, working on a case and it was somewhat gratifying, upon turning on the radio, to know that there was someone in greater mental agony than he was.
"Good morning! It's six AM and this is the breakfast show!"
There was a brief pause as he shuffled papers or something, before a sob was heard.
"Who's awake at six AM?! My dad didn't get up a six, and he worked in the Youswell coal mines!"
Hughes got up to refill his mug with industrial-strength coffee.
Ah, the sweet sound of other people's suffering first thing in the morning…