The Bells, The Bells

One of the many joys of listening to radio from around the world is the insight it gives into the sounds, culture and psyche of the nations- and perhaps even more so how these are constantly changing. Three very contrasting but equally delightful programmes using the airspace of BBC Radio can serve as examples today.

Tired after a busy week of rather cerebral but enjoyable activity, I had a relatively early night on Saturday and had my usual choice when it came to what I left my radio tuned to overnight. Did I want the relatively restful sounds of Classic FM, or was some intelligent speech the order of the night through Radio 4?

Four won, hands down, but I dozed off during the latter stages of The Moral Maze- an interesting choice of scheduling for a Saturday night. A pity, as it would have been interesting to hear the worthy and erudite panel's conclusions on the tricky topic of Forgiveness, which seems to have been much in the news of late. The Moral Maze has become something of a 4 insitution, no doubt in much the same way as onceThe Brains Turst did, though before my time.

"MM" is an example of radio's potential to stimulate and inform intelligent thought and decision-making, too little exploited by other stations in the present day in the UK although I suppose it could be argued that the ubiquitous phone-in does try. Mind you, that depends on who's taking the calls, of course. The Moral Maze owes much of its success to the stewardship of chairman Michael Buerk, the former BBC TV news "anchor" who brought the story of the 1984 Ethiopian famine to Britain's eyes, which was the catalyst for the launch of the phenomenon that was and is Band Aid.
Meanwhile on TalkSport, so far the only national commercial speech station on AM, Mr Buerk is up against George Galloway,MP, revered or reviled representative of the people (depending on your perspective) more likely to be found in the Big Brother house than the Commons, House of and certainly not Broadcasting House.
Mr Galloway is the choice to host TalkSport's late-night weekend phone-in, and notoriety alone surely means the listening figures will soon be on the up for the national chat n'ad shop- though I rarely listen to it myself. Somehow, I can't see TalkSport, or any other "mainstream" commercial station for that matter, ever offering The Seagull as a Play of the Week. That however was the choice of Radio 4's nightwatchman of the airwaves, World Service this week.
This play proved to be a compelling listen in a modern adaptation; I'm not normally much of a one for high art and culture, I have to admit, but anything written by an Anton (my middle name) always attracts my ears, much as an earlier play did on Radio 4 some years ago, Anton in Eastbourne, being about the imagined life of the brilliant Russian dramatist if he'd moved to the South Coast town in which I lived most of my life at the time. Definitely worth hearing again, if you have the chance during the next seven days.
Then, taking us away from the far-off sounds of St Basil's, Moscow, in the mind's ear, come the bells of St Lawrence, Hungerford in Berkshire, the featured church for today of Radio 4's Bells on Sunday, one of the quaint features of the traditional sabbath which it's re-assuring to find surviving in a too secular age. The sound of church bells is in fact one much used by short wave radio stations around the world as their audio calling card, but to the best of my knowledge Radio 4 is still the only place you will hear them in the UK. Unless of course some Lunchpack of Portland Place has it in mind to axe them as well. Heaven forbid!
Now, back to a Sunday snooze and no alarm bells...