On Tuesday night I was discussing broadcasting history with someone and mention was made of Asa Briggs. Within an hour his death was announced. A few hours later, I learned of Sylvia Anderson's death; and now, Cliff Michelmore, a broadcaster who was moving into a retirement phase in my childhood but who still loomed large. The sense of twentieth- ( Read more... )

A gift in pdf from the BBC Genome team: the Christmas Radio Times of 1923. More is explained at the BBC Genome blog. This is the era of the BBC as monopoly private company rather than autonomous corporation and that's reflected in the business-led feature writing which opens the magazine; but there are contributions too from Ramsay Macdonald, a few ( Read more... )

Among the many projects displaced by my actually obtaining regular employment was the management of my two hard disc recorders, particularly the creaky secondhand one which lives in my bedroom under my 1980s Rediffusion portable. I've been catching up this evening, and as a result I'm currently being transported back to 23 November 2013 and ( Read more... )

A very good preliminary exploration of the culture which allowed Jimmy Savile to prosper, in the online edition of the London Review of Books. I don't agree with everything, and some of the contextual details are wrong which skews Andrew O'Hagan's argument. 1963 is the age of Carry On Jack or Carry On Spying rather than Carry On Camping, and there ( Read more... )

I'm not usually one for linkspam, but here are a few items which have distracted me today:

• For sale: Bush House. A landmark of BBC World Service history.
  
  • Christopher Middleton at The Telegraph mourns the end of an era; but how often is 'Lillibulero' played on the BBC World Service these days? Its associations are questionable to say the least.
• Auction ( Read more... )

While working on a current writing commission, I've been listening to the final part of the BBC Radio Collection adaptation of Dorothy L. Sayers's Gaudy Night, as broadcast earlier this week on BBC Radio 7. The adaptation was recorded a long time after the Radio 4 adaptations, and released in 2003 - when Ian Carmichael, who plays Lord Peter Wimsey ( Read more... )

As seen care of wellinghall and tree_and_leaf...

The Archers alter ego quiz
Your Result: Jim

Salve Jim. Retired academic you are easily bored and long for the cut and thrust of debate. In its absence baiting Shula will have to do. Underneath there is just a touch of the old rogue about you.
Brian

Pat

Nigel

Neil

Jenny

Lillian

Pip

Lynda

Clarrie

The Archers alter ego quiz
( Read more... )

Somewhere in the imagination of those with a nostalgia for times before they were born, a man in an E-type Jaguar will forever be driving out of a multistorey car park. An attractive woman will jump into the passenger seat, and away they will go. Something in the camera angles will tell us that this image, grainy telerecording though it is, is ( Read more... )

This morning on Radio 4, I heard the nineteenth-century followers of Jane Austen referred to as a "fandom" in Book of the Week: Jane's Fame. That the reader was Star Trek: First Contact's Borg Queen, Alice Krige, added a little to the effect. It's probably been some time since 'fandom' left the SF ghetto, but I first encountered it in a list of SF ( Read more... )