Speechification » space

Cosmic Quest

Steve Bowbrick — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 11:55:22 +0000

Here's a particularly egregious example of the wastefulness of the BBC's programme archiving policy. Heather Couper's marvelous Cosmic Quest is a thirty-part series about the history of astronomy that's been going out over the last six weeks on Radio 4: a top dollar resource for enthusiasts, educators and the generally curious. The first twenty-five episodes of the series have been thrown away already and you're going to have to get your skates on if you want to hear the last five because they too will have been overwritten by the end of this week.

I know this is more a sin of omission than of commission—that's just the way the automated archiving set-up works. I also know that there'll be some rights issues here (I imagine Couper herself has plans for further exploitation of the series and BBC Wordwide probably has an option to repackage the shows) but I believe that it's essentially a kind of public service vandalism to commission such powerful stuff and not to create a permanent home for it online where licence fee-payers, schools, parents and the rest can get at it.

The optimal location for a content asset like this, created using public funds for use by the British public, is in a public place like the BBC's web site. Any other use of this asset will, inevitably, under-utilise it (even if thousands can be persuaded to buy it on CD or in book form) and the BBC's purpose here ought to be to make the best possible use of it by sharing it as widely as possible.

So, enough with the whinging. Here's the final episode, about the search for extraterrestrial life. You can listen to an omnibus edition of the last week's shows here for the time being and, I notice, the whole series seems to be knocking around the torrentsphere in chunks of various sizes if you're that way inclined.

The Essay: New Archaeologies

Steve Bowbrick — Fri, 30 May 2008 23:04:57 +0000

Here's another lovely series of Radio 3's The Essay. In this one we learn from four archaeologists that the discipline extends further than you may have expected. To the surface of the moon (or at least the parts of it affected by human visitors), for instance. Also to Long Kesh/Maze prison in Northern Ireland where Republican hunger strikers died, a wood by a B-road near Sheffield where 19th and 20th Century graffiti artists carved their names on the trees and the fields in Essex where some radio masts once stood. Really fascinating, surprising stuff. Here's episode one (MP3), which is the one about the moon. You can hear the other three here for the next few days (the fourth episode's Real stream jumps and skips a bit, beware).

Journey Into Space

russell — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 18:11:51 +0000

Journey Into Space was the original BBC sci-fi series, a hit on the radio in the fifties, running eventually to over 60 shows. It's also been a late night stalwart for BBC 7, always there for the lonely insomniac, making for dreams populated by theremin and booster rockets. The Saturday play last week was a specially written new episode, taking the story 30 years forward, into 2013. David Jacobs is splendid as Jet Morgan, he somehow has exactly the right voice for someone who's been entirely alone in a spaceship for thirty years and is perfectly fine with it. MP3 here.

The Astronauts’ Wives Club

Steve Bowbrick — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 13:44:04 +0000

Sometimes good radio leaves me in awe. It's the patience, the respect for material, the attention to process. Here's a good example. Sarah Cuddon has visited and recorded the wives of the first generation of American astronauts and she's come back with something quite thoughtful, sad and lovely (MP3).

Between The Ears – Dream Astronomy

russell — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 19:58:52 +0000

I sometimes feel there's a rather predictable formula for radio documentary - especially if the subject is slightly abstract. Female voice-overs will whisper at you. Radio crackle and/or digital glitches will be added. Sweeping music and white noise will drift in and out. Occasionally an expert will crop up. Not terrible, but not that inventive.

And then you get programmes that aren't that far from the formula but which are still hypnotic and deeply listenable. This edition of Between The Ears is an example. The music is well-chosen and stirring (Messiaen and Sisask), the acting is splendid and the subject is fascinating - the letters written early in the 20th century to Mount Wilson Observatory in California by people who wanted to share their own experiences of connection to the universe. It'd be easy to just make fun of the loopiness of some of these letters and theories, but they do something more subtle than that. It's more of an illustration of the way mental illness will fasten on any grand, mysterious and current topic. (MP3 here)

Radio Lab – Space and Musical Language

russell — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 13:39:10 +0000

I'm sure I've raved about Radio Lab (from WNYC) before, but in case you can't take a hint, here's another opportunity. There are two programmes here that are as good as any you'll ever hear, especially in the tiny world of science broadcasting. The first is Space (MP3) which attempts to explain our tininess in the universe's massiveness through devices like really affecting interviews with Carl Sagan's widow. The second is about Musical Language, (MP3) and contains fascinating stuff about how the brain adapts to new musical sounds (using the Rite Of Spring as an example). The site also has some great links to things like Diana Deutsch's audio illusions. Both programmes are well, well, worth listening to.

And if you're a bit more of an audio/radio nut, you can listen to this lecture/conversation at the Apple store in New York where they talk about how they make the programme, with the helpful addition of genius film editor Walter Murch on the elements of storytelling. Makes you glad to be alive in the age of radio.