A little bit late but here's the book meme.

What I Just Finished Reading

The Vizard Mask by Diana Norman. The absorbing story of Penitence Hurd who arrived in London from New England at the same time as the Plague. How Penitence survived the Plague to create a new life for herself in Restoration London makes for very gripping reading with some ( Read more... )

This is just for me really. I have woken up to the Today programme on Radio 4 for more years than I care to remember and usually it's a litany of gloom, doom and despondency, but occasionally they cover something more cheery. As I used to work in radio it had particular resonance for me to hear that one man has been creating his own radio soap ( Read more... )

Happy Thanksgiving to all the Americans on my flist and Happy Thursday to everyone else! The sun is at least shining today which is a marked improvement on yesterday ( Read more... )

I can't let this one go by. Amidst all the current BBC news drama it's the 90th birthday of something it does better than anything else - Radio.

A compilation of radio moments through the years from the BBC Sound Archive, which was founded as explained in the 1937 clip by a secretary who realised the value of old recordings when her bosses didn't ( Read more... )

I keep meaning to write about this and then forgetting that I haven't. Oh, my ageing brain!

Last Thursday we went to see a dramatised version of "Howl's Moving Castle" by the late Diana Wynne Jones at the Southwark Playhouse.

( I don't think we're in Ingary anymore )

Today is the day that BBC Radio 7 turns into BBC Radio 4 Extra for reasons that are probably clear to the BBC Trust, but not totally clear to me. There are some different programmes, but mostly it's the same mix of archive comedy, drama and readings. As I really like Radio 7 (apart from its very annoying jingles) I'm quite happy about that ( Read more... )

I'm on the BBC Tickets mailing list and very, very occasionally we actually go to something. It's a free evening out but it does involve an awful lot of standing about in the cold outside and then hanging about inside (with a continuously whinging husband), so I have to be pretty sure it's going to be something we'll enjoy (otherwise more whinging ( Read more... )

We made it through Christmas. As J put it "Christmas Day was very civilised, but yesterday was pandemonium" which translates as we had a nice quiet day on Christmas Day with my parents (or as quiet as it can ever be with my mother there) and an incredibly noisy day yesterday at my parents' house with my brother, sister-in-law and family. My nieces ( Read more... )

As our final holiday treat I was lucky enough to get us tickets to a free evening's entertainment at Broadcasting House watching "Bleak Expectations" being recorded. For people that haven't heard this it's a Radio 4 comedy show which is a) very funny and b) stars amongst other people a certain Anthony Head. Last night as well as the lovely ASH we ( Read more... )

Just in case anybody is interested and didn't know, David Tennant is on Radio Four again this afternoon starring in the Classic Serial "Of Mice and Men" at 15:00 GMT. More info hereThis should, technology gods permitting, be available on the iPlayer for at least a week (the Classic Serial is sometimes up for longer ( Read more... )