Blog posts by year and monthAugust 2011
Posts (25)
Securing Freedom: The 2011 Reith Lectures continue
The first part of the 2011 Reith Lectures entitled Securing Freedom were presented by Burmese pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi. In the second part of this year's lectures marking the 10th anniversary of 9/11 the former Director-General of MI5, Eliza Manningham-Buller will discuss how, once ...
Q: So what kind of music do you play on Radio 4? A: This week, that'd be Glen Campbell...
Glen Campbell featured on Friday's edition of the Today programme talking about his forthcoming album and tour. He and his family spoke to Peter Bowes about his philosophical approach to the onset of the Alzheimer's with which he was recently diagnosed. There's a magical few bars of Gentle on my...
Questions, Questions: Last in the series
In the last programme of the series Stewart Henderson got more than a little peckish when listener Edward Giles asked why bacon is the only thing to come in rashers and not slices. Food Historian Ivan Day cooked up some answers. Having had his fill of meaty morsels, Stewart was feeling like s...
Black Roses: The Killing of Sophie Lancaster - Four years on
Editor's note - In 2007 a young student, Sophie Lancaster suffered fatal injuries while protecting her boyfriend Rob from a ferocious attack by a group of youths. She later died on August 24th 2007. Black Roses: The Killing of Sophie Lancaster is a drama documentary marking the anniversary of he...
The origins of the Notting Hill Carnival?
Calypsonian Lord Kitchener on the BBC TV programme Caribbean Carnival, 1951 In the opening episode of Stories from Notting Hill, Kwame Kwei-Armah pinpoints the West Indies cricket team's victory over England at Lord's in 1950 as a seminal event in the Notting Hill Carnival's origins even t...
Val McDermid's Village SOS
Ed's note: Next week you can hear Val McDermid's five part Woman's Hour drama Village SOS on Radio 4. It's part of a larger project that includes a BBC One series and a BBC Learning campaign. More details at the end of this post - PM. It was a bizarre pitch. "We're making a reality s...
The Thinking Allowed Newsletter: High rise and low morals
Ed's note: The Thinking Allowed newsletter gets sent out on Wednesday mornings and while its primary purpose may be alerting listeners to the contents of that afternoon's programme it's always a great read in its own right. In the newsletter this week Laurie Taylor paid tribute to his friend and...
Questions Questions: "Why does bacon come in rashers and everything else in slices?"
This week Stewart was basking in the reflective glory of cats' and dogs' eyes after listener Robin Atack asked us to find out why our furry friends' eyes appear to glow green in flash photography. Gordon Kirk asked us to put to bed the old wives' tale 'when swallows fly high, the weather will...
Listen online: The History of Titus Groan
In case you missed The History of Titus Groan in Saturday's Classic Serial slot you have until Sunday afternoon to hear it in its entirety on the Radio 4 website (details at the end of this post). Titus and Muzzlehatch: Image courtesy of the Mervyn Peake Estate In The Guardian radio ...
Afternoon play: Higher
I've wanted to do a series about Higher Education for some time. I taught part time at a university for ten years and always thought it was an area ripe for satire. The expansion of tertiary education in the Blair years meant our newer universities were unprepared for the overload of bureaucracy...