Speechification

This is great—and a real find. I’ve never heard Radio Cafe before. I learn that it’s a daily magazine show on BBC Radio Scotland, in this case presented by Janice Forsyth. Forsyth interviews Lou Reed, perhaps the world’s most prickly interviewee, and the show exposes a lot of process (the booking of taxis, some entertaining studio awkwardness and Forsyth’s nervous inner dialogue) to illustrate the difficulty of pinning the legend down. A little gem (/programmes, MP3).

More forty-something thrills from Radio 2. This time a terrific three-part series about songwriting that originally went out last Summer. All three subjects—Leonard Cohen, Nile Rodgers and Patti Smith—are old enough and rugged enough not to be troubled by self-doubt or by fear of the opinion of others so we get disarming honesty about methods and inspirations. Of the three, Smith is probably the most guarded but this is still a mesmerising show (MP3) and the other two parts are here.

I don’t often listen to the whole of Radio 4’s ‘Broadcasting House‘ programme (because smug reviews of newspapers usually annoy me), but I was glad to catch the final five minutes of this morning’s edition. Paddy O’Connell interviews the artist Jonathan Yeo, who unveiled his portrait of Blair yesterday. Here is a recording of just that final four-minute segment (MP3).

Photo: Reuters

In this slot, Jonathan Yeo talks eloquently about the way the poppy in the painting subverts the New Labour rose, as well as being an allusion to the the war(s) for which Blair will be remembered.

We don’t often share just a short clip of a programme, and I wonder if you think it works. In case you did want to listen to the show in its entirety, the stream is now online too, and Broadcasting House has its own podcast too.

All the historical analogies were long ago used up. Shakespearian? Check. Greek tragedy? Check. Mediaeval Popes? Check. Robber Barons? Check. He must have grown sick of that photo of he and his wife dressed as Cardinal Richelieu and Marie Antoinette (so I’m sure he won’t mind me running it one more time).

I wouldn’t normally pick an interview from Today for Speechification but, blimey, Conrad Black’s good value. This item comes between Black’s conviction and his sentencing so the interview is quite pregnant with dramatic tension. As Black says: “this is not over.” We can only watch this space. (MP3)

I found this treasure at the bottom of my iTunes library. It went out as part of The Times’ (apparently moribund) classical podcast back in January. It’s an interview with Maria Callas recorded forty years ago. She’s everything you’d expect of an operatic diva of the old school. The unnamed interviewer (I think Callas calls him ‘Mr Dance’) fawns expertly and Callas delivers the unnerving mix of fragility, coquettishness and steely self-belief that caused millions to love her. Blimey (MP3, podcast).