Ockham’s Razor: Applied imagination
January 1st, 2008 by Dan Hill
Recently relocated to Australia from Britain, I’ve been enjoying an entirely warped sense of Christmas. Prawns with white bread on tabasco sauce, 30 degree heat, shorts and sandals every day, yet Nat King Cole still warbling away over the mall’s PA. Sometimes it feels like Christmas; other times, like Christmas on some alien world. It’s Christmas, but not as I knew it.
Perhaps this accounts for my struggles to find some Aussie Christmas speech radio. For try as I might, having scoured the ABC Radio National schedules for the last week, I haven’t found a suitable contribution to Speechification’s Christmas theme. I liked the sound of this week’s The Daily Planet, presented by the improbably named Lucky Oceans, in which he promises: “Rev. J.M. Gates’ fiery sermon In a Manger, five Arkansas prisoners a-caroling, Leadbelly inviting us to the festivities, a Calypso solution for unwanted Christmas scroungers, and Butterbeans and Susie’s teasing song - Papa Ain’t No Santa Claus (And Mama Ain’t No Christmas Tree).” Also, the excellent weekly show The Media Report hosted a discussion on the life of Charles Dickens as journalist. But neither of those seem quite right.
So the closest I can get to the Christmas theme is this show featuring someone called Val Yule.
The programme is the idiosyncratic, short weekly called Ockham’s Razor, and in this edition, Yule, a retired psychologist from Melbourne, talks about the power of imagination. “Applied imagination is the ability to consider what may be possible in the real world, not only in fantasy”. It’s good stuff.
As is Ockham’s Razor in general. It’s dedicated to allowing “thoughtful people to have their say without pesky interviewers interrupting, or someone of opposite views turning the exercise into a joust. There are times when a speaker needs a clear run, some proper control, and this is what Ockham’s Razor provides.” It’s a smart old-fashioned little show. And with that, Happy New Year.
Ockham’s Razor: Applied Imagination (mp3)