I’d never come across Something Understood before, probably because it’s broadcast at 6am and 11.30pm on Sundays, but it seems like rather a good idea, despite its new-agey premise. Every week, “the programme examines some of the larger questions of life, taking a spiritual theme and exploring it through music, prose and poetry”. This week: aging. Lovely stuff. [MP3]
Terrific one-hour feature from Radio 3’s Sunday Feature slot about the history of religious tolerance, its roots in Holland and in John Locke’s luminous ‘Letters Concerning Toleration‘ (well worth a read, by the way). There’s a large minibus- or a small coach-load of grade-A scholarship on show here: very topical too. And, while we’re talking about Locke, here’s an In Our Time from February about John Locke and the Social Contract. (/programmes, MP3).
A particularly good Moral Maze from a stage at The Cheltenham Science Festival (which sounds like a riot). Rancorous and funny by turns. And Melanie Phillips is always a laugh isn’t she? Had me shouting and grumbling at the radio throughout (MP3).
I’m a little late with this, but things pertaining to Sir Arthur C. Clarke tend to have a timeless quality. Just after his recent death, ABC Radio National’s Late Night Live show re-broadcast an interview with Clarke from 2001. It’s a gentle listen, as host Philip Adams carefully and respectfully coaxes memories out of Clarke - on such matters as working with Stanley Kubrick, science and religion, marriage, writing, pondering death and satellites, and so on. We also discover that 2001 is one of the Pope’s favourite movies. All of this quietly and humbly revealed in Clarke’s warm Somerset burr, still detectable over a crackly line from Sri Lanka to Sydney.
Late Night Live: Arthur C. Clarke [mp3]
Radio 4 has a set of prejudices left over from the Reith days. Not bad prejudices, admirable actually, but not mainstream. A set of priorities that gives Radio 4 its character. Sport’s not that important, books and religion are, and Christianity is still part of the fabric of weekly life. Personally I find some of the religious stuff a bit irritating, the sappiness of Thought For The Day is always the final straw that gets Today turned off in my bathroom. But, anyway, anyway, what I’m building up to saying is that this week’s Analysis represents the best of these prejudices. It’s thoughtful, intelligent radio that examines religion as a human, social, cultural phenomenon, not just to be accepted but to be thought about. It looks at religion through the lens of science, not to determine its ‘truth’ or otherwise, but to see how what we can learn about it, to think about why we’re drawn to it. Radio 4 has a bias towards examination. I like that. Thanks to Matt. MP3 here.
Tom Mangold’s warm, grave voice rushes me back to a childhood of very serious and grown-up Panoramas (he was on the show for 26 years). He presents this programme - from the Beeb’s religion department - about a remarkable man, Jim McCloskey, a Newark presbyterian who works to get wrongly convicted people released from New Jersey’s jails (MP3).
St Augustine never saw a bible in his lifetime. There’s a fact to get your teeth into. This really fascinating Radio 3 four-parter (four experts: one essay each - and one of them’s the Archbishop of Canterbury!) about Augustine is full of such mind-blowing information, especially the fourth part - presented by Dr James J O’Donnell, one of Augustine’s biographers - which I’m featuring here for the podcast (MP3). Part one, part two and part three are here too. Wonderful.
Steve Evans talks to religious people about business, including an American evangelist whose Dallas construction firm actually belongs to God (MP3). This is the Christmas Day edition of Business Daily on the World Service.
I can’t grab the MP3 right now, I’m sitting at my Mother-In-Law’s computer, in her front room, next to the tree, while the younger members of the family play ‘it’ (or ‘tic’ or ‘tag’ depending where you’re from) and sprouts get ‘prepared’. And she’s not equipped with AudioHijack. But Steve suggested it would be nice for us all to link to a Christmassy programme and the festival of Nine Lessons and Carols from King’s College, Cambridge is the most Christmassy thing I can think of. Personally, as a lapsed Methodist agnostic, I’m not that bothered about the religious aspect, but the sound of it is extraordinary. Music that’s been tested over the centuries to inspire wonder, joy and fellow-feeling. Find a quiet hour and a half sometime this Christmas, pour yourself a glass of something special, slip some headphones on and bathe yourself in the sound of civilisation. The RealAudio stream is here.
Ernie Rea makes grown-up, enquiring religious programmes for Radio 4. Speaking as a Godless atheist (worse: a Catholic Godless atheist), I’ve found his stuff to be very useful over the years in forming a view of religious belief. He’s presenting a five-part series putting top 1st Century gospel writer Luke into his historic context. The first part’s excellent: animated by a handful of the kind of articulate, questioning academics that make you glad to be alive in a post-enlightenment culture (although it is a bit cold out at the moment). I’ll try to grab all five of these programmes and put them here in this entry: they’ll add up to something really useful (part one, part two, part three, part four, part five).
A blog of Radio 4. Not about Radio 4 but of it. We point to the bits we like, the bits you might have missed, the bits that someone might have sneakily recorded. Other speech radio from around the world will no doubt find its way here too.
Of course, one day this might turn into something else, maybe a new way of curating speech radio, or maybe it won’t.
Your hosts on this not very wild ride are Steve Bowbrick, Russell Davies, Dan Hill, Bobbie Johnson, Roo Reynolds and James Bridle. Drop us a line with your thoughts, unless you wish to complain about continuity announcers and their accents.
You might also enjoy the square-eyed sister site, Watchification.
Things tagged with 'speechification'
