The speaker on today's Desert Island Discs, which I heard by mistake, said he had been planning his choice of records since he was twelve.

I'd be embarrassed to be asked on to Desert Island Discs. Do you think you can upgrade to Private Passions if you ask nicely? I'd much rather have Michael Berkeley being sniffy about my limited musical horizons than Sue Lawley about my politics.

posted at: 16:28 | path: /N | permanent link to this entry

...does not translate into English as "Virgin Radio".

posted at: 18:47 | path: /N | permanent link to this entry

I was sitting in the waiting room between platforms two and three. A member of staff locked the door to platform three. Platform three was finished for the night. The national anthem started going round my head.

I didn't stand.

posted at: 22:13 | path: /N | permanent link to this entry

Radio Four wasn't the only radio station to have a theme tune first thing in the morning. Radio One, before it went twenty-four hour had a peculiar brassy one, too. Some BBC local services had theme tunes written by the late Delia Derbyshire, which may have been the last progressive thing they ever did.

The latest series of Doctor Who, at least from my standpoint in the kitchen making the tea and only hearing it rather than seeing it, was dreadful, all space-opera cliche with no sense of the alien. Even the opening notes of Fritz Spiegl's UK Theme are more frightening. I discovered this yesterday morning when they played it on Today at about 0830. It wasn't the time of day after all.

You don't need the defunct Radiophonic Workshop to make unsettling music. If they replaced Sailing By with James McMillan's Tuireadh, nobody would ever get on a boat again.

I wonder whether the incidental music for Doctor Who was commissioned by people who not only don't like music, but don't even like the sound it makes?

posted at: 18:18 | path: /N | permanent link to this entry

As if to prove me wrong, there's a preview for a Radio Four programme this week beginning "The fine structure constant..." Maybe it'll be a New Scientist-style edition based on some intrinsically unverifiable predictions published in the Journal of We Publish Anything, illustrated on the front cover with a naked woman.

posted at: 18:15 | path: /N | permanent link to this entry

I'm not going to claim that Peter Day talking about podcasting for half an hour is intrinsically better than ninety seconds of Sir Digby Jones telling me that I don't work enough, take too many holidays and there are starving children in India who'd be grateful for my job.

What I will say is that the BBC strike has reminded me of what I feel is Radio Four's greatest failing. It can't surprise me, because I'm economically active. The programmes that look interesting in the schedules are all buried at 11 in the morning. I suppose this is because James Boyle programmed "Interesting-looking documentary, 1100" back in 1997, to counterbalance "Noddy science, 2100" later in the day. If they did broadcast something better at 2100, I'd miss it because of the stranding.

posted at: 22:02 | path: /N | permanent link to this entry

I came down the stairs a moment ago to hear light saxophone music coming from Radio Four (Query: What was Radio Four doing on in the house after 0900? I have now retuned.), so I assumed there'd been a coup and meanwhile here was some music.

It took the presenter, identifying the saxophonist as Jan Gabbawreck, the shaven-headed Dutch techno casualty, to remind me that this was Desert Island Discs. I didn't realize they still made it. It's like one innumerate interviewing another for forty minutes, interspersed with the second innumerate's favourite differential equations. "Anything by Sturm and Liouville, Sue."

posted at: 09:31 | path: /N | permanent link to this entry