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Thursday, October 02, 2008
Tranny toilet dilemma
Which toilet do you use if you're a transexual? It's a real existential conundrum in Manchester, UK!... as heard on the Jeremy Vine Show, Radio 2, 1/10/08.
Monday, March 12, 2007
Pi Day
Wednesday (3.14) is Pi Day. Weekend America gives us some tips on remembering it.
Any Racism?
Lieutenant Colonel Peter Mercer was fired from the opposition front bench after saying that calling a black soldier a black bastard was the same as calling a redhead a ginger bastard. The comments on BBC Radio 4's Any Answers were illuminating on the reaction of the British public.Friday, June 30, 2006
Brycheiniog crannog
Llangorse Lake, near Brecon, has an artificial island or crannog - the only one known in Wales. Made between AD889 and 893, it was the site of a palace of the kings of Brycheiniog. The Anglo Saxon Chronicle refers to the destruction of a site near Llangorse by an English army in 916AD. On Radio 3's Twenty Minutes Horatio Clare investigates it's myths and legends.Friday, June 23, 2006
Spoof backfires
BBC radio presenter Jeremy Vine apologised after his show ran a spoof news bulletin that Soham killer Ian Huntley had been murdered. Rumours spread that Huntley, 31, had died and journalists put in calls to the Home Office and police. Police called it "irresponsible" and said it had to inform Holly and Jessica's parents that the story wasn't true. Huntley is serving life in Wakefield jail for killing the 10-year-olds in 2002.Wednesday, June 21, 2006
Tyranny of public opinion
Michael Duffy's Counterpoint on ABC Radio National discussed John Stuart Mill's prophetic contributions to modern liberal thought.Tuesday, June 20, 2006
Angry Black Woman Syndrome
A clip aired on NPR last week is generating a great deal of buzz in the African-American community. It features a man arriving at the house of his former spouse with a new partner: a white woman. When they complain about this, he berates the black women for their inability to keep a decent black man - because of their penchant for drama and fighting.
Sex with Robots
Is it acceptable to have sex with a robot that looks like your daughter? This question is among those being debated at the Geneva Convention for Robots, a code of ethics that's under development to govern how human beings use robots. Heard on World Update.
Live at Leeds 2
The Who, Live at Leeds is still regarded as the best live album of all time. Surviving band members Roger Daltry and Pete Townshend have started their latest tour with a recreation of the classic university gig. Former Entertainments secretaries Andy Kershaw and Simon Brogan, who booked the band 36 years ago, reminisce on Newsnight.
Dead Cities
Thursday, June 15, 2006
Requiem for Gyorgy Ligeti
The avant-garde Transylvanian composer Gyorgy Ligeti is perhaps best know for the music used by Stanley Kubrick in 2001, A Space Odyssey and Eyes Wide Shut. He talked to John Tusa on Radio 3 shortly before he died last week.
Janet and John
Another double-entendre story about John Marsh, newsreader on Friday, June 09, 2006
How to get excommunicated
A caller to Sunday Night Safran asks how he can get excommunicated. Father Bob McGuire suggests he try assassinating the Pope.Monday, May 29, 2006
The Smell of Rain
Why does the
Nuking Viet Nam
Torn Curtain this week tells the story of how Richard Nixon came up with the idea of dropping nuclear bombs on Viet Nam.
Tree of Knowledge Dead
The historic Tree of Knowledge, a ghost gum in the central western Queensland town of Barcaldine, has been poisoned. One of the first May day marches in the world took place during the Shearers' strike on May 1, 1891. It was a symbol of the Australian Labor Party, which was founded in the town in 1891. It appears someone poured about 30 litres of chemicals over the tree's roots. From Australia All Over.Saturday, May 27, 2006
Mea Culpa
At last, the two lame ducks, Bush and Blair, have admitted they were wrong. From the
Kill Bliar
In the magazine GQ, the Respect MP George Galloway has said that the assassination of Tony Blair by a suicide bomber would be morally justified. He confirms his views on the BBC's PM programme.Friday, May 26, 2006
Kaotians in Darlington
A sex slavery cult, the Kaotians, based on a series of 1960s science fiction novels, the Chronicles of Gor, has been uncovered by police in Darlington. The cult's master talks to Jeremy Vine.
Taliban in Oldham
Here's two Bengali-British brothers from Oldham, near Manchester, on the BBC Asian Network with very contrasting views about integration.Thursday, May 25, 2006
Kids + money = misery
Discussing his book, Stumbling on Happiness, Daniel Gilbert tells Diane Rehm that bringing up children does not make parents happy. Indeed, their happiness only returns to pre-marriage levels when the children leave home! The same is true of lottery-winners and money.
Hardwired gender
Dr Leonard Sax believes that biological differences between the sexes are so great that they learn in very different ways, and he's now the founder of the National Association for Single Sex Public Education. He talks to Richard Aedy on the ABC's Life Matters.Wednesday, May 24, 2006
Racist Moment
Oscar winning actress Halle Berry got miffed when BBC radio interviewer Chris Moyles pretended to be a "fat, American black guy.""Are we having a racist moment here," she asked? Berry and Jackman continued the morning show interview for several minutes. A BBC spokesman said Moyles' attempted breakfast humor was not racist.
Friday, May 19, 2006
Dry mouth
A typically Tuesday, May 16, 2006
Hugo Chávez in London
The Venezuelan leader, Hugo Chávez is in Britain at the invitation of London mayor Ken Livingstone. Here he is predicting the end of the American Empire.Monday, February 27, 2006
Miserere
All grown-up now, conductor and violinist Roy Goodman is most famous for singing Gregorio Allegri's 1638 masterpiece,Miserere as a 12-year old boy soprano in 1963.
The Speech that Shook the Kremlin
On Feb. 25, 1956, Nikita Khrushchev took the podium on the final day of the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The speech he gave was so surprising and unexpected that some members of the audience fainted. Officially, the speech was an attack on the cult of personality that had grown up around Stalin. But the full text went even further. Heard on BBC Radio 4.Friday, February 24, 2006
Bluetoothing
In Syria, where strict social codes control how young people interact, Bluetooth has become a social world of its own. Young adults use it to flirt, to meet, and then take it from there. The World's Aaron Schachter reports from Damascus.
Thursday, February 23, 2006
Radio gets out of Dodge
Gunsmoke was arguably the best ever radio drama series. In 1959 it moved to television, signalling the beginning of the end of network radio in the US. Unfortunately, William Conrad was thought too fat to play his character Marshall Matt Dillon on TV, as Ed Walker explains on The Big Broadcast on WAMU, Washington DC.Wednesday, February 22, 2006
Guarding against raven flu
Legend has it that if the six ravens Branwen, Hugine, Munin, Gwyllum, Thor and Baldrick, ever leave the Tower of London, the Kingdom will fall. In these days of bird flu that's a bit of a worry, says Ravenmaster Derrick Coyle on The World.Monday, February 20, 2006
Teenager repellant
Howard Stapleton demonstrates his Sonic Teenager Deterrent to BBC Radio 2's Jeremy Vine. Nicknamed Mosquito, it emits an 80dB 16kHz sound that only young people can hear. Drives them crazy, in fact...Thursday, February 16, 2006
The Dick who is President
The comedians have been having a field day with Dick Cheney's shooting of his lawyer last week Nightline podcasts from the US ABC.Tuesday, February 14, 2006
Child killer
The Good Old Days weren't always so good, as this Dragnet episode from 1950 gruesomely demonstrates. Heard on The Big Broadcast from WAMU in Washington DC.
The most passionate love poem in the English language
It's still a mystery why Geoffrey Chaucer, who was so fluent in French, should have written in rough and unfashionable English. Thank goodness he did, because Troilus and Criseyde, read here by Carolyne Larrington of Oxford University on In Our Time, is reckoned to be the most passionate love poem ever written...Hir armes smale, hir streyghte bak and softe,
Hir sydes longe, fleshly, smothe, and whyte
He gan to stroke, and good thrift bad ful ofte
Hir snowish throte, hir brestes rounde and lyte;
Thus in this hevene he gan him to delyte,
And ther-with-al a thousand tyme hir kiste;
That, what to done, for Ioye unnethe he wiste.
Drag in history
John Safran and Father Bob McGuire discuss the use of transvestitism in politics through the ages, prompted by the film Munich.
Romani online
The gypsy language Romani is Europe's second largest minority language (after Catalan). Now it's online, as reported on Go Digital this week.Monday, February 13, 2006
Hearty Drink
It's commonly assumed that a small amount of alcohol daily is beneficial for the heart. However, according to Dr Rod Jackson on The Health Report, it's probably only heavy drinking that confers significant protection, and that has other problems...
iPlod
Thomas Niccum has decided to fight the modern sendentary lifestyle by doing most of his work while walking on a treadmill (called iPlod). He was inspired by the Mayo Clinic's Dr. James Levine, who calls it NEAT (Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis). They talk to John Gorton on Future Tense.Tuesday, February 07, 2006
Pilkington man
Unemployed British radio producer Karl Pilkington has become an unlikely superstar on the most popular podcast in the world, The Ricky Gervais Show, free from The Guardian newspaper.
Atheist's prayer
Some typical comical banter from Monday, February 06, 2006
Breathless devotion
Ian Purdon had a mad dash to present the news on the BBC World Service's Focus on Africa last week, eventually having to give up, gasping for air. Replayed here on Write On.
Friday, February 03, 2006
Oily Sand
Thursday, February 02, 2006
40 years of optical fibre
Charles Kao (Chinese University of Hong Kong) invented optical fibre 40 years ago. He talks to Gareth Mitchell on the BBC's Go Digital.Wednesday, February 01, 2006
Working girls
What's life like as a prostitute? The ABC's Street Stories finds out.
Monday, January 30, 2006
Save the Radio 4 UK Theme
The Radio 4 UK Theme at 5.30am is a rousing collection of UK folk songs, carefully interwoven to produce a great piece of music with which to start the day. It has been around for 33 years, and was created by Fritz Spiegl, an Austrian who came to the UK in 1939. It is a medley of "Rule Britannia!", "Danny Boy", "What shall we do with the drunken sailor?" (in counterpoint with "Greensleeves"), "Men of Harlech" (equally cunningly combined with "Scotland the Brave"), "Early One Morning" and finally back to "Rule Britannia". The controller of Radio 4 plans to get rid of The Theme in order to broadcast some extra shipping news, prompting a public outcry, with two MPs tabling parliamentary motions against its axing.Friday, January 27, 2006
Annoy.com
Annoy.com is a website designed to get up people's noses. It therefore may be illegal under new legislation outlawing harrassment.
Arise Dr. Karl Kruszelnicki AM
Dr. Karl Kruszelnicki was awarded a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) in the Australia Day honours list for his work as a science communicator. Here he is on ABC's Triple J talking about flashing tongue piercings.