So last night I listened to Radio 4 in bed. I quite often listen to the radio at night but it’s a lot easier at uni where I have a normal bed and can listen to a “proper” radio as opposed to at home where my bunk bed (which I once fell through and as a result always go to sleep in an odd sort of brace position in) means I have to listen on my MP3 player or my brother’s old cassette player if I remember to put batteries in it. Listening on my MP3 player also means that in order to maintain signal I have to avoid touching the headphones (other than having them in my ears) and ever so often have to wave it round my head a bit. Here are some reviews of what I listened to...
Brain of Britain
Listening to Brain of Britain I did of course shout a few answers out (“Mulligatawny!” “Dame Edna Everage!”) few of which were right as Brain of Britain is the kind of quiz show where you are impressed with yourself if your incorrect guess matches that of contestants (“wow I thought something that they thought!”) It’s still sad not to hear the contestants being referred to as Mr or Mrs So-and-So now that previous host Robert Robinson has gone (for an idea of his idiosyncratic presenting style watch this hilarious A Bit of Fry and Laurie parody http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npvQ3M3WaPA) However this did mean tonight we got to hear a lot of the splendid name “Lincoln Allison” which sounds like the name of a fictional private detective, Lincoln Allison PI or something along those lines. Another nice quirk is that as all the rounds but one are the same the current host Russell’s Davies’ periodic announcements of a new round seemed wonderfully arbitrary and Numberwangesque. There were also a few points in the programme where I mistook erudite pauses for a loss of signal and started waving my MP3 player in the air.
Had a bit of a Google today trying to find out something about the history of the show and discovered it was originally a segment of the wonderfully passively-aggressively titled 1950s quiz show “What do you know?”Although not my favourite Radio 4 quiz show (I prefer the breathtakingly obscure connections of Round Britain Quiz) Brain of Britain is a pleasant listen with its unrelentingly old-fashioned feel.
Adventures in Poetry
The best of the programmes I listened to last night even though I usually avoid (probably unfairly) any Radio 4 programmes about poetry. Adventures in Poetry explored Australia’s “unofficial National anthem” Waltzing Matilda and its author Banjo Paterson (whose name might be even more splendid than Lincoln Allison’s) with interviews from various academics. Interestingly the programme didn’t just focus on one aspect of Waltzing Matilda but instead explored different interpretations/approaches: was it a coyly veiled political statement? a defiant celebration of Australian identity? or just a means for Banjo to flirt with his friend’s sister?
The only worry I had about this programme was that although it did focus on the lyrics rather than the music it was still surely more “Adventures in Song” than Adventures in Poetry though as it was so interesting it seems churlish to complain.
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