The Eternal Breakfast Debate in a New Place

[oddoneout]

Is the new Wallace and Gromit a BBC production? It was plugged with talk and music yesterday in the brief bit of Breakfast I heard, and the same thing has just happened on today's programme.
I am fan, and am looking forward to the new film but, seriously - is this really what Sam Jackson's vision for R3 involves?
Should we write in and suggest forthcoming film releases to be shamelessly promoted this way?
I have now abandoned Breakfast, even Petroc's weekday ones, the proportion of repetitive and pointless babble too high and the music interruptions being far too often of no interest or quality. Trouble is, habits take a while to change and the radio gets switched on when I come downstairs to start the day and it sometimes takes a while to register that there is no point in doing so; I probably subconsciously keep expecting that a miracle will have happened and we are back in the pre-SJ era, which wasn't brilliant, but in comparison...

[smittims]

I agree entirely. The first movement of this, followed, inexplicably , by the last movement of that, then we have to sit through another excruciating trailer before hearing the next snippet. If this is meant to introduce a new audience to classical music it must be giving them a very distorted idea of it.

[LMcD]

Is the new Wallace and Gromit a BBC production? It was plugged with talk and music yesterday in the brief bit of Breakfast I heard, and the same thing has just happened on today's programme.
I am fan, and am looking forward to the new film but, seriously - is this really what Sam Jackson's vision for R3 involves?
Should we write in and suggest forthcoming film releases to be shamelessly promoted this way?
I have now abandoned Breakfast, even Petroc's weekday ones, the proportion of repetitive and pointless babble too high and the music interruptions being far too often of no interest or quality. Trouble is, habits take a while to change and the radio gets switched on when I come downstairs to start the day and it sometimes takes a while to register that there is no point in doing so; I probably subconsciously keep expecting that a miracle will have happened and we are back in the pre-SJ era, which wasn't brilliant, but in comparison...

I thought I was dreaming that I was in a large department store, desperately trying to escape the dreadful seasonal 'background' music, only to wake up to find that I was actually listening to the Hampton (?) String Quartet's version of 'Let It Snow (x3)'.

[muzzer]

We’ve just had a segue from a comment about Netflix’s most popular Christmas thing being vid of a log fire ‘warm and comforting’ to ‘Haydn, a composer who is always warm and comforting’, or the like. This is why I’d rather mainline TTN or just stream WQXR. I have the same feeling when Emma Barnett is presenting Today. Jiminy flipping cricket who writes this bilge?

[smittims]

Well, at least they didn't try to portray Haydn as a paedophile, or a 'domineering patriarch' as Sarah Walker maligned Ralph Richardson's character in 'the Holly and the Ivy'. I complained to the BBC , but of course they won't do anything to stop this sort of thing.

[Ein Heldenleben]

Well, at least they didn't try to portray Haydn as a paedophile, or a 'domineering patriarch' as Sarah Walker maligned Ralph Richardson's character in 'the Holly and the Ivy'. I complained to the BBC , but of course they won't do anything to stop this sort of thing.

Doesn’t the RR character (he’s a Church of England vicar ) appear to be precisely that ? Perhaps she didn’t want to spoil the film for those that haven’t seen it . The reason the BBC won’t do anything to stop “this sort of thing “ is that it doesn’t entertain complaints about the motives of fictional characters even if a presenter has flown in the face of prevailing opinion. If it’s the feminism arguably implicit in SW’s remarks I think it’s quite reasonable to describe the 50’s C of E as patriarchal. Given recent events I’m not sure it’s changed that much.

[LMcD]

We’ve just had a segue from a comment about Netflix’s most popular Christmas thing being vid of a log fire ‘warm and comforting’ to ‘Haydn, a composer who is always warm and comforting’, or the like. This is why I’d rather mainline TTN or just stream WQXR. I have the same feeling when Emma Barnett is presenting Today. Jiminy flipping cricket who writes this bilge?

It's been pretty evident for some time that 'warm and comforting' is precisely what Radio 3 is intended to become, if it hasn't already done so, for much of every day of the week..

[Frances_iom]

R3 is merely following mass media - down market, little or no attempt to inform, mostly to titillate and online to get more adverts watched - my own thought is that like the Taliban's position on female education, an educated populace is a danger to the ruling class and is thus to be avoided.
TTN is the only program consistently free of inane comments -

[smittims]

Thanks for your view, Heldenleben, which I considered .


I have to say I don't find Gregory at all domineering or patriarchal in the film; on the contary he never has a moment for himself, his life is so devoted to others, nor his daughter (played by Celia Johnson) 'downtrodden' .

My complaint was about Sarah Walker abusing the occasion of playing a recording of the Malcolm Arnold/Christopher Palmer Fantasia on Christmas Carols (the music of which, although derived from the film score , has nothing to do with the characters or plot) as a pretext for an anti-male sexist remark which was not only incorrect but uncalled for. I'm sure if it were made by a man about a 'matriarchal' female character it would be (rightly) 'called out'.

Maybe I shouldn't have bothered. Maybe I shouldn 't even have been listening. Maybe Sarah Walker has a chip on her shoulder about the Church of England, or fathers, or the 1950. Who knows?

[LMcD]

R3 is merely following mass media - down market, little or no attempt to inform, mostly to titillate and online to get more adverts watched - my own thought is that like the Taliban's position on female education, an educated populace is a danger to the ruling class and is thus to be avoided.
TTN is the only program consistently free of inane comments -

... to which I would add Jazz Record Requests, Round Midnight, the Early Music Show and Private Passions, and also ... er .. well, I guess that's about it.

[french frank]

Maybe Sarah Walker has a chip on her shoulder?

Many otherwise reasonable human beings have chips on their shoulders. Some understandably so.

[Ein Heldenleben]

Thanks for your view, Heldenleben, which I considered .


I have to say I don't find Gregory at all domineering or patriarchal in the film; on the contary he never has a moment for himself, his life is so devoted to others, nor his daughter (played by Celia Johnson) 'downtrodden' .

My complaint was about Sarah Walker abusing the occasion of playing a recording of the Malcolm Arnold/Christopher Palmer Fantasia on Christmas Carols (the music of which, although derived from the film score , has nothing to do with the characters or plot) as a pretext for an anti-male sexist remark which was not only incorrect but uncalled for. I'm sure if it were made by a man about a 'matriarchal' female character it would be (rightly) 'called out'.

Maybe I shouldn't have bothered. Maybe I shouldn 't even have been listening. Maybe Sarah Walker has a chip on her shoulder about the Church of England, or fathers, or the 1950. Who knows?

I reckon the comments are a summary of the wiki entry on the film but possibly leaving out the way the full more benign character is revealed. It’s not at all like an Inspector Calls or Spring and Port Wine which do feature rather caricatured domineering patriarchs. I also think it’s perfectly ok to briefly summarise the contents of a film in an intro to music drawn from it.
It’s a bit of a classical dramatic trope isn’t it ? Leontes, Lear , Malvolio all elder men forced to confront the limits of their power. I don’t think a man referring to a “matriarchal “ figure or society would be called out unless it was inaccurate. Though it’s quite easy to misuse the term - anthropologists have different terms to define different elements of “matriarchy.” There are vanishingly few true matriarchal societies in the world - in the strict sense of the word. Even now our society retains some patriarchal elements with sons much more likely to inherit family farms and estates for example than daughters,

[Master Jacques]

R3 is merely following mass media - down market, little or no attempt to inform, mostly to titillate and online to get more adverts watched - my own thought is that like the Taliban's position on female education, an educated populace is a danger to the ruling class and is thus to be avoided.

Well put. BBC will now do anything and everything to avoid educating (aka challenging) the populace. Meanwhile the performing arts are being forced down the same rabbit hole, as the Arts Council busily distributes ever more of its diminishing supply of money to amateur community projects, rather than professional performers. Listening to Counterpoint this afternoon reminds me how swiftly a country can become, to all practical intents and purposes, brain dead.

[Ein Heldenleben]

Well put. BBC will now do anything and everything to avoid educating (aka challenging) the populace. Meanwhile the performing arts are being forced down the same rabbit hole, as the Arts Council busily distributes ever more of its diminishing supply of money to amateur community projects, rather than professional performers. Listening to Counterpoint this afternoon reminds me how swiftly a country can become, to all practical intents and purposes, brain dead.

Well as a piece of counter evidence there was a student in UC a couple of weeks ago who beat me to the Bruckner answer after a mere two or three bars. It’s been a long time since that has happened. The shame of it …
To all the evidence you cite can be added the classical music coverage in all the broadsheets - a pale shadow of my teenage years . Ditto the Literary coverage.
And yet there is a hankering after knowledge e.g. U3A , the Open University. I’m absolutely convinced that students at the university I went to work harder than I ever did (not difficult). There are some very intelligent and impressive young people out there believe me.

[Master Jacques]

I’m absolutely convinced that students at the university I went to work harder than I ever did (not difficult). There are some very intelligent and impressive young people out there believe me.

Yes, hardworking and intelligent: but the level of their general cultural knowledge is deplorable. Throw anything from the Greek Myths, Bartok or the Bible at them and they look like lost, slightly offended lambs. My last couple of university lectures have been a cultural shock, for me as much as the lambs.