Foundations of knowledge
I don't always manage to listen to Melvyn Bragg's In Our Time on Radio 4 - one of those terribly worthy and Reithian, but usually very entertaining, Brains Trust-y programmes the Beeb does so well - but professional pride wouldn't let me skip this week's on the legendary ancient Library of Alexandria. It was full of fascinating nuggets - some archeological, some historical and some avowedly downright anecdotal - and I wholeheartedly commend it to librarians and library-lovers, with which I know my flist is well supplied. I loved the (probably apocryphal) story that one of the Ptolemies was so determined the library should be greater than any of its rivals in the neighbouring kingdoms, that he banned the export of papyrus from the extensive reedbeds around the city (whereupon the Pergamonese promptly invented parchment...)
IOT is very much aimed at the intelligent and interested layperson - on any given subject, if you know much about it already you probably wouldn't learn anything substantial; you might even, given the constraints of trying to romp through anything from King Lear to Wittgenstein in 45 minutes, get annoyed at the simplifications and elisions. But for a taster on, ooh, the physics of time, the Boxer Rebellion, Darwin, the Brothers Grimm... with several experts in the field moderated and steered by Bragg, it can't be beaten. I recently realised that as well as subscribing to the podcast, or Listening Again (which unlike most BBC iPlayer replays lasts forever, not a week), you can rummage around on Pirate Bay should you so wish and find downloads of all the past series. Quelle richesse.
Ooh, and altariel , they did The Waste Land the other week! (complete with erudite comment thread on the website, which rather shows up the limitations of the format by pulling apart all the things that the programme, which I haven't yet listened to, didn't get round to covering...)
IOT is very much aimed at the intelligent and interested layperson - on any given subject, if you know much about it already you probably wouldn't learn anything substantial; you might even, given the constraints of trying to romp through anything from King Lear to Wittgenstein in 45 minutes, get annoyed at the simplifications and elisions. But for a taster on, ooh, the physics of time, the Boxer Rebellion, Darwin, the Brothers Grimm... with several experts in the field moderated and steered by Bragg, it can't be beaten. I recently realised that as well as subscribing to the podcast, or Listening Again (which unlike most BBC iPlayer replays lasts forever, not a week), you can rummage around on Pirate Bay should you so wish and find downloads of all the past series. Quelle richesse.
Ooh, and altariel , they did The Waste Land the other week! (complete with erudite comment thread on the website, which rather shows up the limitations of the format by pulling apart all the things that the programme, which I haven't yet listened to, didn't get round to covering...)