Speechification

Here’s a nice long one. Nearly two hours of poetry and music on the theme of the weather from Radio 3: you might consider it a companion to Dan’s much scarier Aussie weather post from a few days ago. You’ll probably think this one’s a bit soporific for your cutting edge tastes but the choice is eclectic enough—from A. A. Milne to Kurt Weill and from Kathleen Ferrier to Steve Reich. I think this would make a great soundtrack to a longish train journey. London to Bristol, say. In the rain.

Here’s the programme’s MP3 and here’s the extensive playlist.

As we’ve been seeing on Speechification recently, Radio 4 is not the only place to go for intelligent speech. The World Service should be an obvious choice, and I’ve recently been addicted to Mike Williams’ three part series “Inside the Climate Change talks” which I discovered thanks to the documentary archive podcast.

It soon gets out of being an introduction to climate change, and becomes a fascinating guided tour of the behind the scenes action at G8 in May, and the preparations for the December UN Summit in Bali.

• Part one (mp3)
• Part two (mp3)
• Part three (mp3)

At its best, it’s like Today in Parliament on an international stage. I would have liked to hear more of the international negotiations on the floor of the G8 from the horses mouths though; Mike Williams is so keen to explain what we’re hearing in these meetings that we sometimes don’t get much of a chance to hear it for ourselves. Other than that, it’s an enjoyable and fascinating series.

Photo credit: intimaj on Flickr.