Speechification

More great behind the scenes stuff from Radio 4. This time looking at the world of Olympic judges and adjudicators. I love the contrasts between the passions and angsts of the athletes and the calm, necessary pernicketiness of the judges. Nicely presented by Allison Curbishley. MP3 here.

This is brilliant radio; media paying attention to the stuff of everyday life, specifically holes in the road. Taxi drivers complaining, road menders explaining. Lovely. MP3 here.

Get up early Saturday morning for the next few weeks for Julian Putkowski’s quirky 15-minute snapshots from the national archives: this week, a breathtaking incidence of corporate manslaughter from 1900 in which hundreds of people from the North of England were poisoned, apparently by bad beer. But were they? MP3.

Fifteen splendid minutes about the people who turn pages for musicians during live concerts - the ultimate job where the greatest achievement is not to be noticed. Googling the programme reveals this page from the production company, but yields no more information than the BBC programme page. Googling the producer, Simon Hollis, reveals that he’s also made a previous speechification favourite - A Nasty Case Of The Vapours. Before doing this it would never have occurred to me to follow the work of a particular producer, but I wish there was a way I could. The MP3 is here. (Steve - we should add Mr Hollis to the tags for the ‘vapours’ programme)

Here’s another terrific RTE documentary. This one’s about emigration but not about the drastic, once-in-a-lifetime emigration of the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. In this doc we hear the voices of men and women driven from County Mayo in the decades after the second world war by rural poverty to pick potatoes in Scotland and Northern England, usually for months on end and in pretty grim conditions. It’s another beautifully made programme, too: quiet and reflective. The voices do all the work.

Here’s the MP3 and here’s the RTE Documentary on One podcast. There seems to be a disagreement between the programme’s web page - which links to two programmes and gives them different names - and the podcast. Maybe someone from RTE will read this and clarify for us.