Speechification

Atlantic Public Media curates a weekly podcast of nature programmes from all around North American public radio - a pretty rich source, it turns out. Here's a lovely short feature from the 1980s about snakes, produced by Public Radio veteran Jay Allison.

Wouldn't it be great to add the BBC's radio nature programmes to the mix? I wonder if anyone's thought about that. Especially since most of them are already available in perpetuity online. Here's the MP3 and here's how to support Atlantic Public Media.

The picture, Southern Copperhead, is by Reader Walker. Used under licence.

The Curious Ear is Ronan Kelly's feature strand for RTE Radio 1 in Ireland. Kelly wins awards all over the place for this stuff. It's always playful, often very moving (maybe sometimes a bit too arch). This one's lovely. It's about the people you'll find under the stands at Dublin's legendary GAA venue Croke Park while there's a game on (some of them praying).

The Curious Ear goes out in the Doc on 1 slot on RTE Radio 1 and there's an excellent podcast. Here's the programme's web page and the MP3.

Hugh Sykes visits Madley Communications Centre, near Hereford, the site of the world's largest earth satellite station (you can see it on Google Maps). Madley reaches out over the Atlantic and even to the Indian Ocean to communicate with geostationary satellites, providing the vital link in the transmission of raw news - and has played a crucial role in a number of world events. [MP3]

The first programme in the latest Global Perspectives series, an annual collaboration between the World Service and eight other broadcasters, this year taking 'islands' as its theme. And once again, it's very good. [MP3]

Alert Bay - My Life So Far was created from recordings gathered by five young people from Alert Bay, a remote island off the west coast of Canada. The young people, aged 11 to 17, were trained by two producers from the Canadian Broadcating Corporation. The producers lent them recording equipment and gave them a simple task: 'Tell us about where you live. Tell us about your life.'

If you're wondering where Alert Bay is, it's here and there are more pictures here and a website here.

It's always worth having a dig around on the BBC World Service site. There are some excellent documentaries there, and they tend not to expire. So I can just point to their MP3 here. This is a show from August 2008 about Medina Wasl - a large scale recreation of a set of Middle Eastern villages, built by the US military in California, for practising fighting and peace-keeping amongst civilian populations.

Peter White is one of my favourite Radio 4 presenters. I find myself listening to In Touch on a regular basis, because he's always interesting and informative and, well, friendly, even when discussing issues of minority interest. He pops up elsewhere on a regular basis - I heard him recently explaining on another programme that blind people don't get jokes about horses with long faces - and it's always good to hear his voice. Here he is talking (to all of us) about Louis Braille, and the story behind his invention. As an added bonus, lots of great French accents. [MP3]

I should also say that this doc is taken from my latest exciting discovery, the World Service's awesome Documentary Archive podcast, which contains hundreds of 20 minute docs, which apparently don't go unavailable after a week. Go grab that RSS.

A perfect little programme from Hardeep Singh Kohli featuring Camus, Nabokov and Bob Wilson. And drawing a compelling parallel between drummers and goalkeepers. Also reminds us of the best football song ever: "Nayim, From The Halfway Line". MP3 here.

Alan Dein is the man behind Don't Hang Up, a Speechification favourite. A couple of years ago, for a particularly dark episode of the show, he called a payphone on the seafront in Margate (listen to the original programme here). He found himself speaking to an amazing 14 year-old girl called Hannah whose life sounded like it was already spiraling into chaos and sadness.

In this spellbinding episode of his social observation series Lives in a Landscape, he's made contact with Hannah and the resulting interview is haunting and also full of a kind of anxious hope for Hannah, who is now 16. I don't like to gush but the trailer for this show, in which I learnt that Dein had found Hannah and her grandmother who looks after her—was enough to give me goosebumps. This is what I pay my licence fee for. Here's the MP3.

In New York State there's a community—called Lily Dale—established in 1879 by Spiritualists. Yes, Spiritualists. As a consequence the town is full of mediums. This lovely half-hour doc by Frank Falk was originally made for CBC Canada and went out in a religion slot on The World Service at the crack of dawn this morning (MP3).

And I've just noticed that's two CBC programmes in a row! Pic by Ross G.

Lovely, slow-paced, contemplative Radio 3 Sunday Feature about Byzantium and its continued influence. Pretty much the exact opposite of the Russell Brand Show in so many ways... What a rich and varied thing the BBC is. Here's the MP3 and here's the programme page.