Podcast
You know how some people can listen to their recorded voice, and they have no problem with it?
Well, that’s not me.
Nonetheless, I bring you My First Podcast. The first part is Cassiphone interviewing Marianne, which is interesting; the second part is Cassiphone and I having a yarn about Troy, which I have previously raved about here. I have listened to, oh, about 10 seconds of it. I am sniffling a lot – had a nasty cold – and I think I sound dreadful. If you think I sound like I do in real life, don’t bother telling me! Because I don’t want to know that. Still, it is very exciting to have this podcast up – a first for ASif!, and quite possibly going to become a semi-regular feature. And if GJ gets Skype too, the world had better start trembling!
Hell, and the history thereof
As I cook an enormous lasagne to feed a 5 year old and 4 year old tonight (and their parents), I’m catching up on my “In our Time” podcasts. At the moment it’s “The history of hell,” which is interesting for a whole load of reasons. But something that just struck me: Bosch and Luther were contemporaries! Fascinating.
Now they’re talking about the fact that in many early traditions, hell was freezing, rather than being, with the speculation that this is some sort of folk memory of the change, 10,000 years ago, from the last Ice Age. Apparently – and I don’t know who thinks this – there is an idea that the Ice Age changed over just 10 years or so, such that people would experience it very obviously.
And now they’re talking about Heart of Darkness The Waste Land. The idea of the journey down the Congo, to the supervisor at the inner station, who might be described as a modern Tiresias. Now that is a really, really interesting idea.
BBC radio shows
I’ve been listening to “In our Time” today: my house has been invaded by musos, taping a demo of some new songs written by Esther. So I’m banished to the bedroom, with my puter and a couple of books.
So I’ve listened to the episode on the Diet of Worms, on the EncyclopeÌdie, and at the moment to Poincare and his conjecture… which I admit I’m not listening to very carefully, so I’m actually not really sure what the conjecture is. Nevertheless, I do enjoy these episodes, despite the fact that often I think Melvyn is a but of a knob, and seems to try and trip his guests up. Sometimes I guess his seeming-abrasiveness is to get the entire thing done in 40 minutes, which is always an effort.
Delano R Franklin
…is one of the cleverer names I’ve heard recently in a story. This is from “Paradox and Greenblatt,” written by Kevin J Anderson, from EscapePod (episode 74). This was a very, very clever story – well worth streaming or podcasting!
Marlowe
Am listening to the BBC4 programme on Christopher Marlowe at the moment. I had no idea that he was born in the same year as Shakespeare. Interesting discussion on how they influenced each other – apparently Shakespeare actually quotes Marlowe somewhere, which is very cool. And Marlowe is the one who first really exemplifies blank verse and long soliloquies, taken up by Shakespeare. Very cool. I always did love Faustus.
Melvyn Bragge
I’ve been listening to a lot of BBC Radio’s “In our time” today. It’s good, but Bragge really is quite arrogant and butts in a lot; I guess he needs to do this to some extent, to keep the speakers in order because it’s radio, but still – he wants to be an expert on everything and keep on proving himself to be the best. Boring.
Randomly Yours, Alex 