Radio Favourites

[Guest]

I wondered whether Forum members might like to list any radio programmes to which they regularly listen on channels other than Radio 3? My current favourites include:
Desert Island Discs (now taking a summer break) and Just A Minute (R4)
Round The Horne (R4 Extra)
Russell Davies (the art and craft of the popular song) (R2)
And at least some of 'Today', of course....how refreshing, this very morning, to hear Jim Naughtie say 'phenomenons' and then immediately correct himself! (R4)
And I'm really looking forward to Alan Bennett's readings this week! (R4, 2245-2300).

[Nick Armstrong]

Catching up on the Desert Island archive via R4 podcasts - all of them since 1997!! Patricia Routledge's is an absolute gem.

Talking of which, I'm also in the process of listening to Bennett reading the book that's broadcast this week, along with the other in the 'Smut' volume in a downloaded audiobook version that I got free. Inevitably, full of characteristic chuckle-worthy felicities.

The elderly Bennett sounds though as if he hasn't yet found properly-fitting false teeth - rather indistict sometimes. Tempus fugit... ("said Graham")... You'll enjoy, Ofca. It's rather naughty!

[amateur51]

Catching up on the Desert Island archive via R4 podcasts - all of them since 1997!! Patricia Routledge's is an absolute gem.

Talking of which, I'm also in the process of listening to Bennett reading the book that's broadcast this week, along with the other in the 'Smut' volume in a downloaded audiobook version that I got free. Inevitably, full of characteristic chuckle-worthy felicities.

The elderly Bennett sounds though as if he hasn't yet found properly-fitting false teeth - rather indistict sometimes. Tempus fugit... ("said Graham")... You'll enjoy, Ofca. It's rather naughty!

Cheers for this Caliban - I shall h'investigate!

I confess to being a big fan of Harriet Gilbert's arts programme The Strand on BBC World Service on Long Wave in the very early hours and of Eddie Mair's iPM, where the listeners send in one sentence glimpses of their lives this week. The man's a largely unsung genius imho - a terrific griller of shifty politicians (a fabulous interview with the hapless Frances Maude about The Big Society - cant personified!) and he has a wicked sense of humour - a broadcasting gem

[Pianorak]

Harriet Gilbert's Book programme and The Strand. Nigel Rees' "Quote - Unquote" is a special favourite. Gone off Eddie Mair who comes across as just a bit too rude and arrogant for my taste.

[Serial_Apologist]

Very little apart from Toady [sic] which is on while my brain wakes up, or maybe not, for news and comment. It epitomises one aspect of "political cross-examination" by setting an example of either letting politicians and others in positions of power and responsibility get away with it through a soft line of questioning, or not allowing them to make the (often self-incriminating) answer to the loaded question. You always know that, when some vital painful revealing truth is about to be hit upon, time will be announced on the interview. One would not complain, but where else is one supposed to obtain "objective" data on today's world for figuring out where next to put one's X? Or, for that matter, the straightforward, example-giving courtesies so lacking in todays uncaring society? Last friday was a prime example.

Oh, and Any Questions/Any Answers.

S-A

[vinteuil]

my radio 4 listening includes -

melvyn bargg's thursday programme
andrew marr's monday programme
profile
sat: review
front row
iconoclasts
material world
great lives
feedback
media show
thinking allowed
more or less
last words
food programme

plus some comedy from R4 / R4extra
isihac
isirta
milton jones
count arthur strong
cabin pressure
news quiz
burkiss
beyond our ken / horne

Many of these seem to assume a level of intelligence and concentration that radio 3 in its current lollipop CFM mode no longer aspires to...

[Norfolk Born]

I forgot to to mention the wonderfully bizarre, bizarrely wonderful 'Cabin Pressure', which has just landed (hopefully only for a brief stopover ).
Other comedic pleasures from the recent, and not so recent, past that are worth mentioning are 'Bleak Expectations' (theme tune courtesy of Sir Edward Elgar!) and 'The Wordsmiths at Gorsemere'.
I always listen to 'The News Quiz'.
Radio 4 plays, like Radio 4 humour, are very much a curate's egg. However, I do enjoy Richard Briers and Stanley Baxter in their 'Two Pipe Mysteries'.

[Pianorak]

I forgot to to mention the wonderfully bizarre, bizarrely wonderful 'Cabin Pressure'

ditto!

[Lateralthinking1]

Well, I'm about 95% radio and 5% television. I also range widely because I like to know what is going on. Sad isn't it? I should get a life. There probably isn't a programme that I wouldn't miss. Sometimes I make the wrong choices.

Fairly regularly:

4 - DID (depends on the guest), From Our Own Correspondent (quality programme - I'm also a fan of Kate Adie), GQT (pretty essential although my favourite gardeners are on TV), Thinking Allowed (Laurie Taylor who I associate with my university), Poetry Please and Word of Mouth (cross-refer to "The Verb"), Just A Minute, ISIHAC, Count Arthur Strong, Milton Jones, Ed Reardon, Tom Wrigglesworth (the best for me of the comedy), Round Britain Quiz, Brain of Britain and Counterpoint (I like quizzes).

LBC - Night time phone-ins (mainly Anthony Davis - a very underrated broadcaster)

Only occasionally:

2 - Tony Blackburn's Pick of the Pops, Chris Evans, Dermot O'Leary, Paul Gambaccini (not very often, sometimes I feel that I just want something very light on in the background, normally I would choose silence)

4 - Any Questions and Any Answers (depends who is on), Today and PM (if I feel strong enough for the news), The Archers (you can't avoid it) , Front Row, Feedback, Great Lives, (in each case it depends who is featured) You and Yours and Money Box (depends on the topic), occasional music documentaries, repeats of Hancock's Half Hour, occasional play

5 - Saturday afternoon sport (only when I can be bothered which is rare these days), Wimbledon tennis
6 - Cerys Matthews, Gideon Coe, Tom Ravenscroft, Lauren Laverne, Mark Radcliffe (each maybe once a fortnight)

BBC London - Robert Elms, Gary Crowley (about once or twice a month), Joanne Good night time phone in

Talksport - George Galloway phone-in (about once a month)

[Panjandrum]

Martin Sixsmith's: "Russia: The Wild East"
Michael Hordern/Richard Briers: "What Ho Jeeves"
"Last Word" (sometimes)
"Great Lives" (occasionally)

[2LO]

LBC - Night time phone-ins (mainly Anthony Davis - a very underrated broadcaster)

Yes, he does seem agreeably knowledgeable. I used to (sort of) enjoy a few minutes of Clive Bull before the sleep timer silenced him, but he appears to have disappeared, at least for now. Pleasantly tolerant of idiotic callers.

In central London I can receive Resonance FM (104.4 kHz), the youthful and no-budget 'community arts' station (also available on-line). Between programmes of sub-Stockhausen squawks and drones are some praiseworthy hours of folk music, arts discussions, left-ish politics and amusing conspiracy theories.

Otherwise, it's up to R4 and much of the fare mentioned already - but I must include 'Fags, Mags and Bags', fast and detailed comedy set in a Glaswegian corner shop, which makes me laugh anyway.

[Nick Armstrong]

Cheers for this Caliban - I shall h'investigate!

The more I listen to my audiobook version, the more I think that you must not miss Bennett's "The Shielding of Mrs Forbes", Ammy!! First of 7 episodes this evening at 22:45 (and on iPlayer thereafter)

[Lateralthinking1]

2LO - Thank you for the Resonance FM tip. I may have heard that in the distant past but I will certainly check on it again.

Mr Davis is an old head on young shoulders with a great sense of humour and recognizable values. He has a range of experience from thoughtful, balanced, political commentary to very traditional light entertainment. He also has a lot of knowledge about the history and geography of London and can talk more than a bit about the lighter forms of jazz.

For me, he stands out in radio as exceptional for (a) being so normal and (b) having what I would call a proper radio voice. There are very few of the latter outside Radios 3, 4 and 5 and, to be frank, even 5 on that is wobbly. My only reservations really are that occasionally he treads a little too much towards the centre right politically for my tastes and he has a tendency to overdo things. Balancing a morning programme on Jazz FM and a night time phone in on LBC appears to have been occasionally difficult for him.

I feel that he should be a Beeb person by rights and while there is no obvious current slot, I would have thought that he could do that Jimmy Young-to-Jeremy Vine programme magnificently. He should be given a chance the next time JV is on his hols, as they say in Radio 2 land. - Lat.

[Segilla]

I too have gone off Eddie Mair. Far too big for his boots now and sometimes I find too much jocularity in a News programme.

I didn't fully understand his tiff with Robert Peston but it was unseemly the way Peston was treated. The latter seeking a reason for the friction / attempting to repair the hurt - or whatever, was curtly told, "You can go now", by EM.

[Norfolk Born]

The more I listen to my audiobook version, the more I think that you must not miss Bennett's "The Shielding of Mrs Forbes", Ammy!! First of 7 episodes this evening at 22:45 (and on iPlayer thereafter)

Heard Episode 1 last night - AB on top form. I hope that 'unfatuate' is rapidly recognized by the OED as the valuable addition to the English language that is so obviously is.