http://speechification.com Thu, 28 Aug 2008 11:31:03 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en 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 ... http://speechification.com/2008/08/28/between-ourselves-paparazzi/ 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 ... http://speechification.com/2008/08/27/imagination-and-suburbia/ Not, I'll grant, important radio. Not ground-breaking. Just a performer you'll know well, pushing beyond the boundaries of his career so far and... well... singing Leonard Cohen. Brave stuff—with many good gags and a kind of melancholy, which I suppose is borrowed from Cohen's words. Lovely (MP3). http://speechification.com/2008/08/26/arthur-smith-sings-leonard-cohen/ For the Numbers Stations post I uploaded an MP4 instead of an MP3 and I think I broke the podcast. So here's the programme again in the right format: MP3. Sorry! http://speechification.com/2008/08/23/lincolnshire-poacher-again/ Elliot Moore, loyal listener, reminds me about the enigmatic and spooky Numbers Stations and this terrific programme (MP3) from 2006 presented by Simon Fanshawe all about them. I've got a four-CD set of meticulously recorded and annotated Numbers Stations somewhere—compiled by short-wave geeks and spook-watchers The Conet Project. There's something profoundly ... http://speechification.com/2008/08/22/tracking-the-lincolnshire-poacher/ Here's an orgy of high-end medical sound for you: gurgles and pings, clicks and whirrs. A mesmerising programme recorded at Harefield heart hospital by sound artist John Wynne. The quiet voices of patients offset the clinical cacophany with their stories. The show went out in Radio 3's Between the Ears ... http://speechification.com/2008/08/20/hearts-lungs-and-minds/ On Radio 3 they're having a sort of Summer season of short essays from 100 clever and/or important people. It's all part of a real festival called Free Thinking that takes place in Liverpool at the end of October. In her contribution Marina Warner talks about the commodification of art ... http://speechification.com/2008/08/19/marina-warners-free-thought/ Imagine how a tabloid newspaper would've handled this story: primary schoolteacher turns sex-worker in small town in regional Australia. Yet despite the title, this ABC documentary is deftly handled (cough), occasionally moving, sometimes funny, and full of the easy complexity of real life. It's followed by another programme on related matters: ... http://speechification.com/2008/08/18/the-only-hooker-in-the-village/ The Australian Broadcasting Corporation still aren't scraping the bottom of the Barrell, though my puns now are. Here's another set of documentary features from producer Tony Barrell, who's moving on from Auntie (yes the ABC is also known as Auntie.) Three shorter programmes, again showing what a master of the ... http://speechification.com/2008/08/18/ambiguity-okinawa/ I wish The Specials had stayed with their previous name - The Coventry Automatics, that would really have solidified the West Midlandsness of the Two Tone time. This is a couple of pretty straight-forward documentaries about Two Tone, straight-forward but good. Some archive stuff, some ancient live performances, some reminiscence, ... http://speechification.com/2008/08/18/the-story-of-two-tone/