Speechification

I remember the Marchioness disaster for a couple of reasons, because a neighbour of ours was on the ship, and survived, and because many of those that didn’t made it all the way down to Putney; a grim sight on the way to school. But I didn’t know that the Thames lifeboats weren’t established until 2002 - a full thirteen years after the disaster, and I’m very pleased, because they sound like a thoroughly good (read: unpaid) and professional (in an amateur British way) lot. I also want a go in a hurricane simulator. [MP3]

I’m going to apologise in advance for this greasy, compulsive little episode of Between Ourselves, but there’s a revelation about 15 minutes in I couldn’t resist. I won’t spoil it for you. Otherwise, enjoy this half-hour of rank hypocrisy and weasel excuses, as Olivia O’Leary becomes gradually more incredulous at the moral vacuum threatening to consume the studio. (Thanks to Tom Taylor for the tip - Listen Again cut off the first minute or two, but I doubt you missed much.) [MP3]

Laurie Taylor’s Thinking Allowed can slip very easily into patrician BBC mode, but in this broadcast it manages to keep it’s head above water, and however many times I hear it, I’m a sucker for Iain Sinclair’s Dracula-in-Purfleet, Martians-in-Woking spiel. Throw in some stuff about Ballard and post-war planning, and I’m sold. [MP3]

Hot air balloons! Duchesses! Reeedeeeeculous French accents! What more could you want? They’re building the blogosphere up there, you know. [MP3]

I’d never come across Something Understood before, probably because it’s broadcast at 6am and 11.30pm on Sundays, but it seems like rather a good idea, despite its new-agey premise. Every week, “the programme examines some of the larger questions of life, taking a spiritual theme and exploring it through music, prose and poetry”. This week: aging. Lovely stuff. [MP3]

A Radio 4 staple, Word of Mouth delves into two of my favourite subjects: taboo words and aphasia (MP3). Both illuminate the inner workings of the mind, the first by overuse, the latter by exclusion. There’s also a stack of malapropisms even I hadn’t heard, and the excruciatingly awful Dr Word. Sorry about that. Words good though, when unbound by snobbery.

A creepy bedtime story for you: the first episode of Richard Matheson’s classic post-Apocalyptic Vampire tale I Am Legend [MP3] from BBC7. Forget the recent Will Smith remake, or even Charlton Heston’s Omega Man - this is the real thing. If I was on Watchification I’d have been adding all the British B-Movie stuff BBC4 has been featuring, but you’ll have to be satisfied with this classic pulp instead. You can catch the rest of the episodes here.

Twenty years after Nation of Millions…, Chuck D gives his thoughts on rap, filesharing, and the Nation of Islam. On the Today show. The only reason to be up at 8am on a Bank Holiday Monday.

I was very excited to hear - on Radio 4 -that the weekend past was going to be a Paul Scofield tribute weekend over on Radio 7. BBC Radio 7, graveyard of the forgotten sitcom and the deservedly banished panel game, might actually be worth listening to.

Paul Scofield was one of our greatest Shakespearean actors until his death in March, noted for his distinctive voice and delivery, and most famous for his generation-defining Lear, and his Thomas More in A Man For All Seasons. Personally, my favourite role of his is the droll, slightly camp narrator of Patrick Keillor’s peerless London, and its follow-up Robinson In Space.

Unfortunately, this tribute turned out to be simple rebroadcasts of just three plays, which are all a bit long for Speechification, but if you have an hour and a half to spare, this is a heads-up that they’re all available on Listen Again for the next week:

• Anton in Eastbourne, Peter Tinniswood’s last play, written as a tribute to Scofield and his great love of Chekhov (Listen Again).
• Macbeth, with Peggy Ashcroft (Listen Again).
• Dionysus, with Diana Rigg and Chiwetel Ejiofor (Listen Again).

Misha Glenny’s new book McMafia: Crime Without Frontiers has been recieving excellent notices all over town, and the World Service have snapped him up for a four-part series charting the explosive growth of international crime following the end of the Cold War and other conflicts. He estimates that industrious crooks account for a fairly staggering 20% of the world’s GDP.

In the first programme [MP3] Glenny travels to British Columbia to meet the Canadian weed growers who use science (and Blackberries) to get their product over their border to a wealthy, heavily toking, but increasingly annoyed US. Access is key here, and as a former and much-honoured reporter in the former Yugoslavia (him, not me), I look forward to seeing who he’s cosied up to next week, reporting on cigarette smuggling in the Balkans.