The most exciting thing EVER!

I have just been recorded for Radio 4’s Feedback programme expressing my views or, as I like to think of them, ‘the views of the nation’, about the chairmanship of I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue. I now have all kinds of insider info about the programme and what might happen in the next [...]

Alter-ed Psalms

This afternoon’s Poetry Please was given over to the book of Psalms. Some were read in the King James version, and others in Robert Alter’s recent translation. These latter were particularly fabulous. There was an interesting selection of psalms, beginning with the familiarity of the King James version of Psalm 23, the bookends [...]

A little quiz

There are two teenage girls playing tennis on TV at the moment. One is tall and blonde, wearing a little fitted dress that barely covers her bottom. The other is wearing an aertex shirt and pleated skirt that look like my old school games kit. She also has acne and looks like she could do [...]

As the guardsman of time strokes the bearskin of eternity, and the sergeant major of fate orders him back to the barracks to put some clothes on…

Humphrey Lyttelton, jazz trumpeter, Old Etonian, ex-guardsman, and panel game host has died. I shall go home and listen to old I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue episodes in the sad knowledge that there will be no more to come.

It’s not our responsibility…

Listening to Saturday Live this afternoon I was utterly flabbergasted by the listener piece on the evils of homework. Not because the six year old boy didn’t want to do any. Nor even because his father would rather take him out and kick around a football. Nor even at the frustration of [...]

Where did the time go?

Pip Archer is fifteen years old.
And has a boyfriend.
In the Young Farmers.
Unbelievable.

William Blake

Those who were in History of Interpretation last week will not soon forget Dr McCartney’s recital of one of William Blake’s poems.  By an interesting coincidence, last week was the 250th anniversary of Blake’s birth and the BBC celebrated with this edition of Poetry Please which you can listen to online.  There are also links [...]

Failing

I was just listening to the News Quiz and giggling at one of the cuttings about a woman who took second prize in a cake competition for which she was the only entrant. It reminded me of something I heard on the Archive Hour a couple of years ago about a children’s poetry competition [...]

Shipping forecast

I have Radio 4 playing live on my computer at the moment.  I have missed the shipping forecast so much.  I have never needed to know where any of these mysterious sounding places are, nor what the code is by which the forecast is described.  I just love the soothing rhythm of the announcements:
Dogger, southeast [...]

Boris Johnson is Miss Marple

Andrew Marr (Scot) is presenting a series on Radio 4 at the moment about what it means to be English. The first episode which aired on Monday focussed on one of the most quintessentially English fictional characters: Miss Jane Marple, late of St Mary Mead, knitter and amateur detective. Presenting all the appearance [...]