Speechification

So we have a problem. Out there in Radio Land there exist a few radio programmes that are always always good, week-after-week, show-after-show. I don’t know why but—if you ask me—a disproportionately large number of these programmes comes from America, where they have no state broadcaster and precious little state funding for radio.

Why is this a problem? Of course it’s not really a problem. It’s just that, here at speechification, we like to bring you a variety of great speech radio. How can we do that if the producers of This American Life keep coming up with clever and beautiful shows like this one? This episode is about memory. Read about it here.

We’re not linking to MP3s for This American Life since the show is self-funding so you should really get over there and pop a few quid in the collecting tin—the podcast is free. In fact, I think they’re developing a pretty interesting economic model: the streaming MP3 and the podcast are free but if you want to download and keep the show you pay 95 cents. I wonder if it works.

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)

There’s also something unbearably romantic about From Our Own Correspondent on Radio 4, but perhaps especially when listening while bundled up in warm blankets during a lie-in on a grey winter weekend morning.

In case you’re not familiar with the show, it describes itself as “personal reflections by BBC correspondents around the world” which is a wonderful thing indeed. It’s not a travel show, but a glimpse into the quiet moments of the lives of British journalists on foreign assignments.

Personally, I can’t help picture the faces and suitcases behind all these lovely British accents sitting in front of their microphones in lonely hotel rooms in distant and exotic places. This week’s epdisode brings us thoughts on the impact of recent strikes in Paris, contemplations of the Commonwealth from Uganda, a glimpse into family life in rural China, a hunt for size ten shoes in Yemen and even enticing descriptions of twenty-first century Timbuktu. (MP3, Real)

The whole thing is tied together by Kate Adie, the much loved flack-jacketed BBC chief reporter who was apparently once shot at by an “irate Libyan” on one of many war assignments.

I have only just now realised that From Our Own Correspondent is available as a podcast. I’ll be subscribing to that now then.

[Photo by ny156uk on Flickr]

I’m sure that many of our readers turn to speechification in order to get away from The Archers. But it would be remiss of us not to note that yesterday Radio 4 turned on The Archers podcast. You could make a very good case for The Archers being the most successful programme in speech radio’s history, even if it is often completely baffling and annoying. I suspect those of us who grew up in Radio 4 households will always have a strange relationship with it, unable quite to like it but still feeling like Shula and Nigel and the Grundy’s are our own neighbours. And always hoping that one day, somehow, Nelson Gabriel will turn up again.