François Mitterrand's life story is told with panache, while Brian Cox and Robin Ince try to face reality
*Book of the Week *(Radio 4) | iPlayer
*Today* (Radio 4) | iPlayer
*The Infinite Monkey Cage *(Radio 4) | iPlayer
My mornings last week were properly en-jollied by Philip Short's biography of François Mitterrand on Radio 4's *Book of the Week*. Mitterrand's life is exactly as uninteresting as you might imagine, but his tale is transformed by reader Henry Goodman's exqueezeet rrrrenderring of ze accsont fronsayse. This only gets fully frou-frou when he does the characters' voices, but then he really gives it some welly, and it sets up your day having someone inform that there's "a mitting of the Rrrrezizztanse and zey are wetting fur may". Although I've had to stop drinking coffee when the programme's on because I keep spluttering all over my keyboard.
Accents still matter when it comes to radio, and on Wednesday *Today* had a little chat about being northern. Mishal Husain introduced Stuart Maconie as a "self-styled northerner", which seemed unfair, as he is northern and doesn't live in London. ("Self-styled" should be banned as an adjective when introducing people: it's always a sneer.) Anyway, Maconie was as charming as ever and made a few salient points about what northerners are allowed to be good at, namely, indie music and entertainment. It reminded me of the constant search for role models for black kids that aren't from sport or urban music. If you're just the light-ent laffs between the serious discussions, if you're always on the back pages rather than the front, then you never attain true power.
Or is that just my perception? On last week's *Infinite Monkey Cage*, the discussion was about whether it is possible to truly know reality, whether we can ever be objective. I do like this programme, though the speed of it can sometimes be bewildering. Mostly this is down to host Robin Ince, a lovely man determined to zoom through life without wasting a minute, absorbing as much about it as he can on the way. He always sounds on the verge of crossness, Ince, as does David Mitchell: their impatience is what makes them funny.
Essentially, The Infinite Monkey Cage is Melvyn Bragg's In Our Time but with the pomposity removed and with the added ingredients of a) a live audience and b) Brian Cox. It's all about learning stuff, filling our minds with proper facts and interesting notions, thus, we hope, shoving out any half-baked opinions about the broken-down marriage of two people we have never met.
Cox, the funky physicist, is an excellent co-host, though he will keep doing that thing that scientists think is funny, which is bigging up his own subject as opposed to other sciences. This is as about as hilarious as football team rivalry, but it can lead to some interesting put-downs: last week, the fantastically named neuroscientist Beau Lotto was moved to comment that "physics is actually quite easy", which the audience loved. Cox believes that everything can be measured (which it can, in the world of psychics), and through those measurements we can find the absolute truth of the world. Alan Moore, a writer, said: "Yes, but how do we look at the measurements, Brian?"
The different voices on this programme were what gave it its character: not only was each person approaching the problem from a different angle, they did so in diverse tones. Claudia Hammond was logical but approachable, Lotto was soothing and American, almost new wave, and Alan Moore's Midlands accent had you constantly readjusting. He sounded so cosy, so warm-snug-in-a-pub. And yet what he talked about was anything but. Fantastique! Reported by guardian.co.uk 13 hours ago.
*Book of the Week *(Radio 4) | iPlayer
*Today* (Radio 4) | iPlayer
*The Infinite Monkey Cage *(Radio 4) | iPlayer
My mornings last week were properly en-jollied by Philip Short's biography of François Mitterrand on Radio 4's *Book of the Week*. Mitterrand's life is exactly as uninteresting as you might imagine, but his tale is transformed by reader Henry Goodman's exqueezeet rrrrenderring of ze accsont fronsayse. This only gets fully frou-frou when he does the characters' voices, but then he really gives it some welly, and it sets up your day having someone inform that there's "a mitting of the Rrrrezizztanse and zey are wetting fur may". Although I've had to stop drinking coffee when the programme's on because I keep spluttering all over my keyboard.
Accents still matter when it comes to radio, and on Wednesday *Today* had a little chat about being northern. Mishal Husain introduced Stuart Maconie as a "self-styled northerner", which seemed unfair, as he is northern and doesn't live in London. ("Self-styled" should be banned as an adjective when introducing people: it's always a sneer.) Anyway, Maconie was as charming as ever and made a few salient points about what northerners are allowed to be good at, namely, indie music and entertainment. It reminded me of the constant search for role models for black kids that aren't from sport or urban music. If you're just the light-ent laffs between the serious discussions, if you're always on the back pages rather than the front, then you never attain true power.
Or is that just my perception? On last week's *Infinite Monkey Cage*, the discussion was about whether it is possible to truly know reality, whether we can ever be objective. I do like this programme, though the speed of it can sometimes be bewildering. Mostly this is down to host Robin Ince, a lovely man determined to zoom through life without wasting a minute, absorbing as much about it as he can on the way. He always sounds on the verge of crossness, Ince, as does David Mitchell: their impatience is what makes them funny.
Essentially, The Infinite Monkey Cage is Melvyn Bragg's In Our Time but with the pomposity removed and with the added ingredients of a) a live audience and b) Brian Cox. It's all about learning stuff, filling our minds with proper facts and interesting notions, thus, we hope, shoving out any half-baked opinions about the broken-down marriage of two people we have never met.
Cox, the funky physicist, is an excellent co-host, though he will keep doing that thing that scientists think is funny, which is bigging up his own subject as opposed to other sciences. This is as about as hilarious as football team rivalry, but it can lead to some interesting put-downs: last week, the fantastically named neuroscientist Beau Lotto was moved to comment that "physics is actually quite easy", which the audience loved. Cox believes that everything can be measured (which it can, in the world of psychics), and through those measurements we can find the absolute truth of the world. Alan Moore, a writer, said: "Yes, but how do we look at the measurements, Brian?"
The different voices on this programme were what gave it its character: not only was each person approaching the problem from a different angle, they did so in diverse tones. Claudia Hammond was logical but approachable, Lotto was soothing and American, almost new wave, and Alan Moore's Midlands accent had you constantly readjusting. He sounded so cosy, so warm-snug-in-a-pub. And yet what he talked about was anything but. Fantastique! Reported by guardian.co.uk 13 hours ago.