Category: radio

  • Tree story

    Some really evocative sounds – mostly squelching and chopping, actually – in this lovely Open Country programme on Radio 4 about the astonishing natural and social history of the Oak…

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  • Excited scientists

    At the bottom of the Southern North Sea there is a landscape: river beds (including one as big as the Rhine which has been named The Shotton), coastlines, lakes and…

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  • Some things are only possible on the radio

    Three beautiful and evocative examples of the art of radio from the Radio 4 treasure trove. Last week’s Open Country, a really fascinating programme about East Anglian Churches and Chapels,…

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  • Monday afternoon listening

    Just what you need on a Sunny Monday afternoon: a lovely Russell Davies George Formby doc (MP3) and part one (MP3) of an interesting series about work from Bill Morris,…

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  • More radio gems

    You’ll cry. You will. This programme (MP3) about a scheme encouraging imprisoned parents to record bedtime stories for their kids at home is a gem. And before you get on…

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  • A creature of the Beeb

    You know those kids abandoned in the woods and brought up by wolves? Well, I was brought up by the BBC. By Radio 4, to be specific. I mean that…

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  • America on the radio

    First: amazing story, this: Malcolm X’s personal archive – correspondence, photographs, writings, the lot – wound up on eBay (or at least on eBay‘s posh cousin Bonnington’s). Tony Phillips made…

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  • Yodeling for pleasure

    Lots of infectious laughter in Sandy Toksvig’s programme about yodeling on Radio 4 last weekend. The thesis: yodeling cheers you up. I can’t help but agree. My iTunes library contains…

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  • Keane on Keane

    When I was young and a bit scary-looking I used to hitch-hike round the West of Ireland and I once spent a couple of nights in a small town in…

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  • Let’s hear it for 40-ish blokes

    My wife is always telling me that our generation is now in charge. Although I seldom, these days, feel very in charge (I’m doing my best, though. Me: “yes. It…

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