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paralleljulieverse · 4 years

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“We’ll be educating Archie, so we’ll be busy for a while...”

We are a little late with this commemorative post, but last month -- 6 June, to be precise -- marked the 70th anniversary of the debut of Educating Archie (1950-59), the legendary BBC radio series starring ventriloquist Peter Brough and his dummy, Archie Andrews. Fourteen-year-old Julie Andrews was part of the original line-up for the 1950 premiere season of Educating Archie and she would remain with the show for two full seasons till late-1951/early-1952.

It would be difficult to exaggerate the significance of Educating Archie during the ‘Golden Age' of BBC Radio in the 1950s. Across the ten years it was on the air, it grew from a popular series on the Light Programme into a “national institution” (Donovan, 74). At its peak, the series averaged a weekly audience of over 15 million Britons, almost a third of the national population (Elmes, 208). Even the Royals were apparently fans, with Brough and Archie invited to perform several times at Windsor Castle (Brough, 162ff). The show found equal success abroad, notably in Australia, where a special season of the series was recorded in 1957 (Foster and First, 133).

Audiences couldn’t get enough of the smooth-talking Brough and his smart-lipped wooden sidekick, and the show soon spawned a flood of cross-promotional spin-offs and marketing ventures. There were Educating Archie books, comics, records, toys, games, and clothing. An Archie Andrews keyring sold half a million units in six months and the Archie Andrews iced lolly was one of the biggest selling confectionary items of the decade (Dibbs 201). More than a mere radio programme, Educating Archie became a cultural phenomenon that “captured the heart and mood of a nation” (Merriman, 53).

On paper, the extraordinary success of Educating Archie can be hard to fathom. After all, what is the point of a ventriloquist act on the radio where you can’t see the artist’s mouth or, for that matter, the dummy? Ventriloquism is, however, more than just the simple party trick of “voice-throwing”. A good “vent” is at heart a skilled actor who can use his or her voice to turn a wooden doll into a believable character with a distinct personality and dynamic emotional life. It is why many ventriloquists have found equal success as voice actors in animation and advertising (Lawson and Persons, 2004).

Long before Educating Archie, several other ventriloquist acts showed it was possible to make a successful transition to the audio-only medium of radio. Most famous of these was the American Edgar Bergen who, with his dummy Charlie McCarthy, had a top-rating radio show which ran in the US for almost two decades from 1937-1956 (Dunning, 226). Other local British precedents were provided by vents such as Albert Saveen, Douglas Craggs and, a little later, Arthur Worsley, all of whom had been making regular appearances on radio variety programmes for some time (Catling, 81ff; Street, 245).

By his own admission, Peter Brough was not the most technically proficient of ventriloquists. A longstanding joke -- possibly apocryphal but now the stuff of showbiz lore -- runs that he once asked co-star Beryl Reid if she could ever see his lips move. “Only when Archie’s talking,” was her deadpan response (Barfe, 46). But Brough -- described by one critic as “debonair, fresh-faced and pleasantly toothy” (Wilson “Dummy”, 4) -- had an engaging performance style and he cultivated a “charismatic relationship with his doll as the enduring and seductive Archie Andrews” (Catling, 83). Touring the variety circuit throughout the war years, he worked hard to perfect his one-man comedy act with him as the sober straight man and Archie the wise-cracking cut-up.

Inspired by the success of the aforementioned Edgar Bergen -- whose NBC radio shows had been brought over to the UK to entertain US servicemen during the war -- Brough applied to audition his act for the BBC (Brough, 43ff). It clearly worked because the young vent soon found himself performing on several of the national broadcaster’s variety shows. His turn on one of these, Navy Mixture, proved so popular that he secured a regular weekly segment, “Archie Takes the Helm” which ran for forty-six weeks (ibid, 49). While appearing on Navy Mixture, Brough worked alongside a wide range of other variety artists, including, as it happens, a husband and wife performing team by the name of Ted and Barbara Andrews.

Fast forward several years to 1950 and, in response to his surging popularity, Brough was invited by the BBC to mount a fully-fledged radio series built around the mischievous Archie (Brough, 77ff). A semi-sitcom style narrative was devised -- written by Brough’s longtime writing partner, Sid Colin and talented newcomer, Eric Sykes -- in which Archie was cast as “a boy in his middle teens, naughty but lovable, rather too grown up for his years-- especially where the ladies are concerned -- and distinctly cheeky” (Broadcasters, 5). Brough was written in as Archie’s guardian who, sensing the impish lad needed to be “taken strictly in hand before he becomes a juvenile delinquent,” engages the services of a private tutor to “educate Archie” (ibid.). Filling out the weekly tales of comic misadventure was a roster of both regular and one-off characters. In the first season, the Australian comedian, Robert Moreton, was Archie's pompous but slightly bumbling tutor, Max Bygraves played a likeable odd-job man, and the multi-talented Hattie Jacques voiced the part of Agatha Dinglebody, a dotty neighbourhood matron who was keen on the tutor, along with several other comic characters (Brough, 78-81).

In keeping with the variety format popular at the time, it was decided the series would also feature weekly musical interludes. “Our first choice” in this regard, recalls Peter Brough (1955), “was little Julie Andrews”:

“A brief two years before [Julie] had begun her professional career as a frail, pig-tailed, eleven-year-old singing sensation, startling the critics in Vic Oliver’s ‘Starlight Roof’ at the London Hippodrome by her astonishingly mature coloratura voice. Many people of the theatrical world were ready to scoff, declaring the child’s voice was a freak, that it could not last or that such singing night after night would injure her throat. They did not reckon with Julie’s mother, Barbara, and father, Ted: nor with her singing teacher, Madame Stiles-Allen. In their care, the little girl, who had sung ‘for the fun of it’ since she was seven, continued a meteoric career that has few, if any rivals” (81).

As further context for Julie’s casting in Educating Archie, the fourteen-year-old prodigy had already appeared on several earlier BBC broadcasts and was thus well known to network management. In fact, Julie had already worked with the show’s producer, Roy Speers, on his BBC variety show, Starlight Hour in 1948 (Julie Andrews Radio Artists File I).

Julie’s role in Educating Archie was essentially that of the show’s resident singer who would come out and perform a different song each week. In the first volume of her memoirs, Julie recalls:

“If I was lucky, I got a few lines with the dummy; if not, I just sang. Working closely with Mum and [singing teacher] Madame [Stiles-Allen], I learned many new songs and arias, like ‘The Shadow Waltz’ from Dinorah; ‘The Wren’; the waltz songs from Romeo and Juliet and Tom Jones; ‘Invitation to the Dance’; ‘The Blue Danube’; ‘Caro Nome’ from Rigoletto; and ‘Lo, Hear the Gentle Lark’” (Andrews 2008, 126)

Other numbers performed by Julie during her appearances on Educating Archie include: “The Pipes of Pan”, “My Heart and I”, “Count Your Blessings”, “I Heard a Robin”, and “The Song of the Tritsch-Tratsch” (”Song Notes”, 11; Julie Andrews Radio Artists File I). Additional musical interludes were provided by other regulars on the show such as Max Bygraves, the Hedley Ward Trio and the Tanner Sisters.

Alongside her weekly showcase song, Julie’s role was progressively built into a character of sorts as the eponymously named ‘Julie’, a neighbourhood friend of Archie’s. In a later BBC retrospective, Brough recalled that it was actually Julie’s idea to flesh out her part:

“We were thinking of Educating Archie and dreaming up the idea...and we wanted something fresh in the musical spot. We had just heard Julie Andrews with Vic Oliver in Starlight Roof...and we thought, why not Julie with that lovely fresh voice, this youngster with a tremendous range? So we asked her to come and take part in the trial recording and she came up with her mother and her music teacher, Madame Stiles-Allen...and Julie was a tremendous hit, absolutely right from the start. She used to sing those lovely Strauss waltzes...and all those lovely songs and hit the high notes clear as a bell. And then she came to me and said, ‘Look...I’m just doing the song spot, do you think I could just do a line or two with Archie and develop a little talking, a little character work?’ So, I said, ‘I don’t see why not’, So we talked to Eric Sykes and Roy Speer and, suddenly, we started with Julie talking lines back-and-forth with Archie, and Eric developed the character for her of the girl-next-door for Archie, very sweet, quite different from the sophisticated young lady she is today, but a lovely sweet character” (cited in Benson 1985)

As intimated here, an initial trial recording of Educating Archie was commissioned by the BBC, ostensibly to gauge if the format would work or not. This recording was made with the full cast on 15 January 1950 and was sufficiently well received for the broadcaster to green-light a six-episode pilot series to start in June as a fill-in for the popular comedy programme, Take It From Here during that series’ summer hiatus (Pearce, 4). The first episode of Educating Archie was scheduled for Tuesday 6 June in the prime 8:00pm evening slot, with a repeat broadcast the following Sunday afternoon at 1:45pm (Brough, 88ff).

All of the shows for Educating Archie were pre-recorded at the BBC’s Paris Cinema in Lower Regent Street. Typically, each week’s episode would be rehearsed in the afternoon and then performed and recorded later that evening in front of a live audience. Julie’s fee for the show was set at fifteen guineas (£15.15s.0d) for the recording, with an additional seven-and-a-half guineas (£7.17s.6d) per UK broadcast, 3 guineas (£3.3s.0d) for the first five overseas broadcasts, and one-and-a-half guineas for all other broadcasts (£1.11s.6d) (Julie Andrews Radio Artists File I).

The initial six-episodes of Educating Archie proved so popular that the BBC quickly extended the series for another six episodes from 18 July to 22 August (“So Archie,” 5). Of these Julie appeared in four -- 25 July, 1, 8, 14 August -- missing the fist and last episode due to prior performance commitments with Harold Fielding. Subsequently, the show -- and, with it, Julie’s contract -- was extended for a further eight episodes (29 August-17 October), then again for another eight (23 October-18 December). These later extensions were accompanied by a scheduling shift from Tuesday to Monday evening, with the Sunday afternoon repeat broadcast remaining unchanged (Julie Andrews Radio Artists File I). All up, the first season of Educating Archie ran for thirty weeks, five times its original scheduled length. During that time, the show’s audience jumped from an initial 4 million listeners to over 12 million (Dibbs, 200-201). It was also voted the top Variety Show of the year in the annual National Radio and Television Awards, a mere four-and-a-half months after its debut (Brough, 98; Wilson “Archie”, 3).

Given the meteoric success of the show, the cast of Educating Archie found themselves in hot demand. Peter Brough (1955) relates that there was a growing clamour from theatre producers for stage presentations of Educating Archie, including an offer from Val Parnell for a full-scale show at the Prince of Wales in the heart of the West End (101). He demurred, feeling the timing wasn’t yet right and that it was too soon for the show “to sustain a box office attraction in London” -- though he left the door open for future stage shows (102).

One venture Brough did green-light was a novelty recording of Jack and the Beanstalk with select stars of Educating Archie, including Julie. Spread over two sides of a single 78rpm, the recording was a kind of abridged fantasy episode of the show cum potted pantomime with Brough/Archie as Jack, Hattie Jacques as Mother, and Peter Madden as the Giant. Julie comes in at the very end of the tale to close proceedings with a short coloratura showcase, “When We Grow Up” which was written specially for the recording by Gene Crowley. Released by HMV in December 1950, the recording was pitched to the profitable Christmas market and, backed by a substantial marketing campaign, it realised brisk sales (“Jack,” 12). It was also warmly reviewed in the press as “a very well presented and most enjoyable disc” (“Disc,” 3) and “something to which children will listen again and again” (Tredinnick, 628).

In light of its astonishing success, there was little question that Educating Archie would be renewed for another season in 1951. In fact, it occasioned something of a bidding war with Radio Luxembourg, a competitor commercial network, courting Brough with a lucrative deal to bring the show over to them (Brough, 103-4). Out of a sense of professional loyalty to the BBC -- and, no doubt, sweetened by a counter-offer described by the Daily Express as “one of the biggest single programme deals in the history of radio variety in Britain” (cited in Brough, 104) -- Brough re-signed with the national broadcaster for a further three year contract.

For their part, the BBC was keen to get the new season up on the air as early as possible with an April start-date mooted. Brough, however, wanted to give the production team an extended break and, more importantly, secure enough time to develop new material with his writing team. Rising star scriptwriter, Eric Sykes was already overstretched with a competing assignment for Frankie Howerd so a later start for August was eventually confirmed (Brough, 105ff). The Educating Archie crew did, however, re-form for a one-off early preview special in March, Archie Andrew’s Easter Party, which reunited much of the original cast, including Julie (Gander, 6).

The second 1951 season started in earnest in late-July with pre-recordings and rehearsals, followed by the first episode which was broadcast on 3 August. This time round, the programme would air on Friday evenings at 8:45pm with a repeat broadcast two days later on Sunday at 6:00pm. The cast remained more-or-less the same with the exception of Robert Moreton who had, in the interim, secured his own radio show. Replacing him as Archie’s tutor was another up-and-coming comedy talent by the name of Tony Hancock (Brough, 111). It was the start of what would prove a star-making cycle of substitute tutors over the years which would come to include Harry Secombe, Benny Hill, Bruce Forsyth, and Sid James (Gifford 1985, 76). A further cast change would occur midway through Season 2 with the departure of Max Bygraves who left in October to pursue a touring opportunity as support act for Judy Garland in the United States (Brough, 113-14).

The second season of Educating Archie ran for 26 weeks from 3 August 1951 till 25 January 1952. Of these, Julie performed in 18 weekly episodes. She missed two episodes in late September due to other commitments and was absent from later episodes after 14 December due to her starring role in the Christmas panto, Aladdin at the London Casino. She was originally scheduled to return to Educating Archie for the final remaining shows of the season in January and her name appears in newspaper listings for these episodes. However, correspondence on file at the BBC Archives suggests she had to pull out due to ongoing contractual obligations with Aladdin which had extended its run due to popular demand (Julie Andrews Radio Artists File I).

Season 2 would mark the end of Julie’s association with Educating Archie. When the show resumed for Season 3 in September 1952, there would be no resident singer. Instead, the producers adopted “a policy of inviting a different guest artiste each week” (Brough 118). They also pushed the show more fully into the realm of character-based comedy with the inclusion of Beryl Reid who played a more subversive form of juvenile girl with her character of Monica, the unruly schoolgirl (Reid, 60ff). Moreover, by late 1952, Julie was herself “sixteen going on seventeen” and fast moving beyond the sweet little girl-next-door kind of role she had played on the show.

Still, there can be no doubt that the two years Julie spent with Educating Archie provided a major boost to her young career. Broadcast weekly into millions of homes around the nation, the programme afforded Julie a massive regular audience beyond anything she had yet experienced and helped consolidate her growing celebrity as a “household name”. Because Archie only recorded one day a week, Julie was still able to continue a fairly busy schedule of concerts and live performances, often travelling back to London for the broadcast before returning to various venues around the country (Andrews, 127). As a sign of her evolving star status, promotion for many of these appearances billed her as “Julie Andrews, 15 year old star of radio and television” (”Big Welcome,” 7) or even “Julie Andrews the outstanding radio and stage singing star from Educating Archie” (”Stage Attractions,” 4). In fact, Julie made at least two live appearances in this era alongside Brough and other members of the Educating Archie crew with a week at the Belfast Opera House in October 1951 and another week in November at the Gaumont Theatre Southampton (Programme, 1951).

Additionally, the fact that the episodes of Educating Archie were all pre-recorded means that the show provides a rare documentary record of Julie’s childhood performances. To date, several episodes with Julie have been publicly released. These include recordings of her singing “The Blue Danube” from 30 October 1950 and the popular Kathryn Grayson hit, “Love Is Where You Find It” from 19 October 1951. Given recordings of the series were issued to networks around Britain and even sent abroad suggests there must be others in existence and, so, we can only hope that more episodes with Julie will surface in time.

Reflecting on the cultural significance of Educating Archie, Barrie Took observes that, “Over the years [the] programme became a barometer of success; more than any other radio comedy it was the showcase of the emerging top-liner” (104). Indeed, the show’s alumni roll reads like a veritable “who’s who” of post-war British talent: Peter Brough, Eric Sykes, Hattie Jacques, Max Bygraves, Tony Hancock, Alfred Marks, Beryl Reid, Harry Secombe, Bruce Forsyth, Benny Hill, Warren Mitchell, Sid James, Marty Feldman, Dick Emery (Foster and Furst, 128-32). All big talents and even bigger names. However, it is perhaps fitting that, in a show built around a pint-sized dummy, the biggest name of all to come out of Educating Archie -- and, sadly, the only cast-member still with us today -- should be “little Julie Andrews”.

Sources:

Andrews, Julie. Home: A Memoir of My Early Years. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2008.

Baker, Richard A. Old Time Variety: An Illustrated History. Barnsley: Remember When, 2010.

Barfe, Louis. Turned Out Nice Again: The Story of British Light Entertainment. London: Atlantic Books, 2008.

Benson, John (Pres.). “Julie Andrews, A Celebration, Part 2.” Star Sound Special. Luke, Tony (Prod.), radio programme, BBC 2, 7 October 1985.

“Big Welcome for Julie Andrews.” Staines and Ashford News. 17 November 1950: 7.

Broadcasters, The. “Both Sides of the Microphone.” Radio Times. 4 June 1950: 5.

Brough, Peter. Educating Archie. London: Stanely Paul & Co., 1955.

Catling, Brian. “Arthur Worsley and the Uncanny Valley.” Articulate Objects: Voice, Sculpture and Performance. Satz, A. and Wood, J. eds. Bern: Peter Lang, 2009: 81-94.

Dibbs, Martin. Radio Fun and the BBC Variety Department, 1922—67. Chams: Palgrave MacMillan, 2018.

“Disc Dissertation.” Lincolnshire Echo. 11 December 1950: 3.

Donovan, Paul. “A Voice from the Past.” The Sunday Times. 17 December 1995: 74.

Dunning, John. On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.

Elmes, Simon. Hello Again: Nine Decades of Radio Voices. London: Random House, 2012.

Fisher, John. Funny Way to Be a Hero. London: Frederick Muller, 1973.

Foster, Andy and Furst, Steve. Radio Comedy, 1938-1968: A Guide to 30 Years of Wonderful Wireless. London: Virgin Books, 1996.

Gander, L Marsland. “Radio Topics.” Daily Telegraph. 13 March 1951: 6.

Gifford, Denis. The Golden Age of Radio: An Illustrated Companion. London: Batsford, 1985.

____________. “Obituary: Peter Brough.” The Independent. 7 June 1999: 11.

“Jack and the Beanstalk.” His Masters Voice Record Review. Vol. 8, no. 4, December 1950: 12.

Julie Andrews Radio Artists File I, 1945-61. Papers. BBC Written Archives Centre, Caversham.

Lawson, Tim and Persons, Alissa. The Magic Behind the Voices: A Who's Who of Cartoon Voice Actors. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi Press, 2004.

Merriman, Andy. Hattie: The Authorised Biography of Hattie Jacques. London: Aurum Press, 2008.

Pearce, Emery. “Dummy is Radio Star No. 1.” Daily Herald. 6 April 1950: 4.

Programme for Peter Brough and All-Star Variety at the Belfast Opera House, 22 October 1951, Belfast.

Programme for Peter Brough and All-Star Variety at the Gaumont Theatre Southampton, 12 November 1951, Southampton.

Reid, Beryl. So Much Love: An Autobiography. London: Hutchinson, 1984

“So Archie Stays on.” Daily Mail. 1 July 1950: 5.

“Song Notes.” The Stage. 28 September 1950: 11.

“Stage Attractions: Arcadia.” Lincolnshire Standard. 18 August 1951: 4

Street, Seán. The A to Z of British Radio. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2009.

Took, Barry. Laughter in the Air: An Informal History of British Radio Comedy. London: Robson Books, 1976.

Tredinnick, Robert. “Gramophone Notes.” The Tatler and Bystander. 13 December 1950: 628.

Wilson, Cecil. “Dummy Steals the Spotlight.” Daily Mail. 27 May 1950: 4.

____________. “Archie, Petula Soar to the Top.” Daily Mail. 20 October 1950: 3.

#julie andrews #educating archie #peter brough #archie andrews #radio #bbc #british #1950s #ventriloquist #hattie jacques #max bygraves #tony hancock

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thisunofyork · 6 years

Text

If All Do Their Duty

This is the first chapter for my current manuscript. I hope you like it!

That England that was wont to conquer others,

Hath made a shameful conquest of itself

Chapter 1

The radio paused for a second, letting out just the slightest hint of static before a voice brought it to life.

“This is the BBC,” the radio announcer’s voice said in a stiff, English accent. “Today, terrorist leader and traitor Clement Attlee was hung in London for crimes against Britain and our allies.” Arthur frowned and looked up from the book, Idylls of the King, he’d been resting next to the register. This was a surprise, they hadn’t broadcasted a hanging in weeks. He didn’t know who this Clement Attlee man was—or had been, as the case may be, but he must have been important enough if Joyce and the BBC were broadcasting it. The radio droned on and Arthur’s eyes returned to the book he was leaning over. “On the continent, His Royal Highness and regent, the Duke of Windsor, arrived in Hungary to attend the coronation of their new king, His Apostolic Majesty Franz Joseph II. In the east, our allies continue to see gains. Marshal Von Brauchitsch assures us that—“

“Arthur, Arthur turn that off and come help me,” his father’s voice called out from the back. Arthur let out a disappointed sigh and closed the book. Before he made his way back he flipped the placard in the door from Open to Closed and turned the nob on the little radio. It would just be for a moment. “Come on Arthur, where are you?”

His father was starting to sound angry. Arthur hurried past meticulously organized shelves and through the back door. Once, the storeroom had been cramped with boxes of goods ready for the store. But now, with rationing even more intense then it was before, the backroom was almost empty. Only a few boxes were stacked in the corner despite the abundance of room. His father kept the backroom clean, ready for the day when it would be full again. Whenever that would be.

He found his father at the back door, his arms occupied by a carton of milk jugs.

“Take this, there’s more,” his father grunted. Frank Moore was a big man with a wide set face, dark eyes and a head that seemed to lose hair everyday. A far cry from the picture of him from 1918 that sat on their mantle piece. Even in that aging photograph, Arthur could always see the proud look on his father’s younger face and the Military Cross pinned to the breast of his uniform. His older brother Edmund had gotten his father’s size and muscle, while Arthur looked the image of his mother and sister; lean and sinewy, with grey eyes and an uncontrollable mop of dark hair.

His mother complained about how often she had to cut his hair and often threatened to shave his head and sell the hair to a wig maker. His father on the other hand, insisted that the Army would fix what he called Arthur’s unruly mopamong other things.

But with the way things were going, there was no chance of that happening anytime soon.

He grabbed the carton from his father’s arms and let out a groan as he felt the full weight. His father turned and grabbed another carton from the flatbed trolley.

“Who are these from?” Arthur asked, inspecting the bottles. They used to get milk from a farm up in Yorkshire until it had been turned into an airfield. His father handed him another carton.

“Mr. Keyes stopped by with these to repay us for your mother helping with their clothes,” his father explained, hefting a third and final carton onto the table. His mother was a talented seamstress and used to sell clothes to old Mr. Meyer for his store. But Mr. Meyer’s clothing store had been shut down and he’d disappeared over a year ago.

“Mum didn’t want them?” Arthur asked. It was a fair question, times were tight in Britain these days and they didn’t have the business they used to. His father scrunched his nose.

“The Keyes make awful milk,” his father revealed. “The army took most of their good cattle and they’re left with the shoddy ones.”

“And we’re going to sell it?” Arthur continued. His father that annoyed look he got whenever he and Arthur spoke more than a few words to each other.

“Times are tough and people want milk, even if it tastes a little off,” he replied with a shrug. Arthur stood there awkwardly while his father counted up the bottles and added them to the store’s inventory. The closest his father came to academics was maths, he was always careful with his inventory, especially with the war on. Arthur started to hear voices coming from the front of the store. I turned the radio off he thought. Right? But then the voices grew louder and he realized that he had forgotten to lock the front door. His father’s head shot up instantly and he wheeled on Arthur.

“You locked the door, right?” he asked with a serious look. Arthur felt the color drain from his face and he slowly shook his head. His father grimaced and strode past him, just barely knocking into his youngest son and into the storefront. Arthur turned and did his best to follow his father’s long strides. “Bugger me Arthur, how many times do I tell you to--“

But his father stopped dead in his tracks and Arthur had to lean around his father to see what had made him stop. Four German soldiers in grey uniforms stood in the front. All four of them wore dark helmets with Swastikas imprinted on the sides and rifles hung on their backs. One soldier stepped forward with a little smile.

“Pardon us, Herr shopkeeper, but my men and I are thirsty and your shop is the only one around,” the soldier explained with barely covered contempt. His father took in a deep breath. The German soldier turned and eyed the sign whose back read Open. “Ve know you are closed but…your door vas unlocked.” One of the other soldiers suppressed a snicker and the lead soldier’s smile grew larger.

“Thank Gott ve are here to protect your country. It might not be safe to leave your door unlocked like that,” the soldier suggested.

“Arthur, fetch four colas for these men,” his father said in a raspy voice. The lead soldier looked at him.

“Ah, your son?” the soldier asked. His father didn’t respond. “He’s quite a strapping boy, no? Perhaps one day he will be able to help our efforts on the continent. Ve all must do our duty to fight Bolshevism.” Arthur’s father didn’t say anything but waited while he went to the icebox and pulled out four Coca-Cola bottles. One by one, he cracked the little metal lids off of them and held them out for the Germans.

“Ah, Coke,” the soldier exclaimed. “One of my favorites, even if it is from such a decadent country like the United States.”

“We get ours bottled and shipped from London,” his father assured them. The soldier only nodded and handed Arthur’s father a small stack of Reichsmarks. They were about to leave entirely when the soldier that had led them turned towards Arthur and his father. “Ve thank you for the refreshment. And a word of caution, please be careful, there’s a dangerous criminal loose in the area.”

“We’ll report anything suspicious,” his father replied, his voice flat and unemotional. He was parroting what was written on all the posters that the occupation troops had put up. The soldier smiled and cocked his head in silent mockery.

“Danke.” And then the door closed behind them with a soft thud. The air felt electric and Arthur just stared at the door as if they’d turn right around and…well, he didn’t know what he was afraid they’d do. But what was anyone afraid of the Germans for? They’d been here for two years and as long as you kept in line they’d leave you alone.

His father maintained his stony silence for a moment, counting out the Reichsmarks that the soldiers had paid in. They could have just as easily demanded the drinks for free and left. Instead they’d made a point of buying it with Nazi-printed Reichsmarks. There must have easily been at least fifteen bills there for how little the drinks cost. But what could they do about it? The Reichsmarks had been artificially set to be more valuable than pound sterling.

After a second counting his father swore and shook his head.

“Pa…” Arthur said meekly. Franklyn Moore let out a long and low sigh and wheeled on Arthur.

“How many times have I told you Arthur, lock the bloody door!” he roared in his deep and booming voice. “I need your help keeping the store going while your brother’s still in France.”

“I…I’m sorry pa,” Arthur started. “I…I’m trying to do better. Edmund, he taught me how the shop works.”

“But I’m not seeing it from you Arthur--bloody hell, boy you’re 17,” his father growled. “Sooner or later they’ll come for you and send you off to a work camp or to a factory. And then where will we be? Without your brother we’re barely getting by as it is.” Arthur was not unused to his father’s quick temper or his high expectations. He’d raised both his sons that way. But whereas Arthur struggled, Edmund had flourished. Edmund had been first in his marks and beloved by everyone in the neighborhood. When Edmund volunteered for the army a few years back, his father had never been prouder. Sometimes Arthur wished he’d signed up then too, just for some recognition. But then the invasion came and they, along with most Britons lost contact with the military units left on the continent. A year had passed until they received a typed letter with Edmund’s signature on the bottom. It confirmed what the radio was saying and what had been written on German leaflets dropped over the UK. That under the terms of the armistice, Edmund and his unit was to remain prisoners of war in Germany for a year, protected and held to the standards outlined by the Geneva Convention. The letter said that soon he and his men would be demobilized and given the chance to return home.

Arthur still remembered the way that they’d read and reread that letter. He, his parents and his sister, all huddled around one piece of paper in the parlor. That was one of the few times he’d seen his father soften—even just a little bit. He’d placed his hand on Arthur’s shoulder and squeezed. In just one motion he’d said what they’d all thought in relief. He’s alive. It didn’t matter if every serviceman’s family had received the same letter; it gave them hope. Edmund Moore was alive, alive in some camp in Germany or Northern France and not dead in some field outside Dunkirk. Not every British family was that lucky. It was for that reason that the Moores tried their best to stay on the good side of the occupying Germans. His father, despite his patriotism, never once showed any sign of resistance. They all simply kept calm and carried on.

Arthur tried find the words to defend his actions, but he couldn’t find them. What was there to defend? The better question was how could he defend himself to a man who had already chosen his favorite son. Arthur just stayed silent and his father sighed and shook his head as he turned away.

“Right, how about you clean the store,” his father said. The store had been cleaned just the other day, but it wasn’t a suggestion. So Arthur silently agreed and grabbed the dustpan and broom. After a long and methodical sweep of the front room his father next ordered him to the storeroom. He was sweeping the back stoop by the time the sun was setting, his head hung low. I could just volunteer for the work battalions he thought. There were posters for them everywhere, big colorful posters depicting smiling British boys working the soil while equally smiling German soldiers marched behind them with grateful salutes. Written in bold English writing was WORK FOR GERMANY. WORK FOR A BRIGHTER TOMORROW.

Sure, it wasn’t the army—there was no British Army, but it was some kind responsibility. And it might even make his father see him as a man, and then he might notice Arthur or care about him. Notice you’re gone he thought. And how much work he has to do himself. That certainly wouldn’t make his father any happier. Between the shop and his mother’s sewing, the Moores were already working hard to stay afloat. And what would happen without him?

Arthur didn’t want to think about what would happen to his parents if they were lost to the streets. It wasn’t like the early days, there was no way to escape to Canada or America. The German fleet patrolled the North Sea, they talked about every sinking and every victory on the BBC. Arthur looked up when he heard footsteps on the cobblestones approaching. The alley ran behind a few homes and shops, with high fences to keep loiterers—or a German patrol away. A tall figure was running towards him, panting. Arthur squinted and then his eyes widened when the figure got closer.

“Edmund?” he exclaimed. His brother came to a stop right in front of him and Arthur saw that his normally tall, handsome and put-together brother was disheveled and out of breath. His clothes were dirty and his eyes darted about wildly as he clutched a long object wrapped in brown cloth. “We thought you were still in France, the letter they sent…”

“I was in France, but I’ve been back for a little while,” he exclaimed breathlessly. Arthur shook his head.

“Then why didn’t you come find us?” he pleaded. Edmund just stood there, struggling to breath. “You know dad’s inside, you should come in.” Edmund surprised his brother by shaking his head.

“Sorry Artie, but I don’t have much time,” he said through labored breaths. He shoved the bulky brown clothed object into Arthur’s hands, knocking his broom to the ground. Arthur was frozen in place, confused and Edmund grabbed his shoulders and looked his younger brother right in the face. “Don’t let them get this. Please little brother.” Arthur just nodded.

“I’ll come back for it and explain everything. I promise,” Edmund hissed. Arthur just nodded again and Edmund pulled him into a hug. “Stay safe little brother.”

With that his older brother ran off towards the end of the alley, peered around the corners and then disappeared. Arthur was left in stunned silence, with nothing but the sound of a few birds, a weathervane blowing in the wind and the distant hum of a truck.

“Come inside,” his father’s curt voice called from the open storeroom door. Arthur shook his head, trying to make sense of what just happened. He wasn’t in France so where was he? Edmund had said he’d been back for a little while, so why hadn’t he come back home? Arthur’s mind raced as he wondered what sort of trouble his brother could be in. Had Edmund broken out of a POW camp? Or perhaps he was part of the resistance, which might explain why he didn’t contact them after he returned home. The Moores hadn’t gotten involved in the anti-German resistance but there were plenty who had. It’d been the worst right after the invasion and since then had died down. Still, there were rumors of sporadic gunshots or the odd ambush. The Moores always feared the German’s retaliation for acts of resistance. In one town, they indiscriminately rounded up and executed upwards of 30 people. The BBC bragged about it later that night.

But the sun had set and his father was already angry enough with him. So he went inside, balancing the bulky odd package his brother had entrusted to him. Do I really want to know what it is?If his brother was in trouble—which it seemed like he might be, unfurling the mottled brown sheet would only cause Arthur trouble. Or worse, bring the Germans down on him and his family. Arthur decided to hide it and stowed the odd package in the corner of the storeroom behind some empty boxes.

“Coming.”

His father did one final count of all their items; double checked the numbers and then turned off the store’s lights. They didn’t have the business to justify staying open past five and on top of that there was a half six general curfew in place for the entire country. Arthur couldn’t stop thinking about seeing Edmund—standing there, disheveled and panting. He wanted so desperately to tell his father that Edmund was home. He’s here, he’s in Britain and he’s alive. The two might actually bond over the fact that Edmund was home. But he didn’t tell his father, mainly because then he’d have to explain that his older brother seemed to be in trouble, handed him a strange package and then ran off. And then they’d be wrapped up in trouble too.

His father flipped off the shop lights, leaving them at the mercy of the dim oil lamps lit along the high street. Arthur wondered if this is what his town had looked like in the last century. He had grown up in the modern age, so oil lamps lighting his hometown was an all-together foreign concept to him. Arthur’s hand hovered by the doorknob while his father straightened his coat. He didn’t know what but something seemed to be holding him back.

“Come on then Arthur,” his father groaned. He turned the knob and both men stepped outside into the darkened street. It was quiet, with only a few muffled sounds from houses nearby and the distant bark of someone’s dog. He used to hear Luftwaffe engines for the night patrols that flew out of nearby RAF Redhampton. But tonight it was quiet.

His father fished the keys out of his coat pocket and turned to lock the front door when the barking multiplied and grew louder, soon being joined by German voices yelling. His father’s head shot up.

“Pa.” But his father hushed him and looked around. Then they heard low thuds. Grenades? Arthur thought. But the way they were coming it was clear that they weren’t bombs, but footsteps. His father seemed to realize it too and his eyes grew wide. He wrenched back open the front door and all but shoved Arthur in first, following him and locking the door behind him. Both Moores crouched by the door as they saw a bulky German truck come to a stop along the high street. Soldiers were barking orders and they held their guns at the ready.

“Haven’t seen them like this since the invasion,” his father breathed. “Fucking hell, I wonder what they’re after?” Arthur felt his whole body go cold and his chest felt like it was in a vice grip. I know what they’re after. Then the thuds grew louder and closer. Arthur saw one German look down the street and then quickly move to the side when two thick, armored legs came into view. He couldn’t see where the long legs ended but the new arrival obviously sported some spotlights because then searchlights lit the street. The spotlights then parted and roamed beyond the high street.

“I didn’t know they had any of those bleeding things outside London,” his father whispered.

“What is it pa?” Arthur asked worried. But his father hushed him again. A German soldier was leaning back and shouting up the heavily armored legs at someone—or something, up there. Then the ground vibrated as a loud groan sounded as the legs thundered down the high street. More soldiers ran off but two remained behind, lighting cigarettes and taking positions around the street.

“Should we leave pa?” Arthur whispered. His father squinted at his wristwatch and shook his head.

“We’re past curfew,” his father stated. “And those Jerries don’t look to be in a forgiving mood.” Arthur turned back to stare out the window. Both of the soldiers that stood watch on the high street held their rifles at the ready. Arthur’s felt like his heart would beat out of his chest. Edmund must have gotten far away by now, right?

One of the soldiers seemed to respond to something down the street, turned to say something to his fellow guard and then ran off in the direction that the armored legs had gone. The remaining sentry looked around for a moment then ducked into the cab of the truck for a few minutes.

“Now?” Arthur asked. But his father shook his head. Arthur was going to say more until the soldier exited the cab and looked about nervously. Suddenly, gunshots sounded in the distance. The loud, metallic barking of rifle fire made Arthur flinch and he instinctively ducked. His mind went to Edmund immediately. They must be after him he thought. Even the German soldier earlier had mentioned that they were looking for someone. Arthur suppressed a little groan.

He should have told his father, his father could have found Edmund and then…then all three of them would be have been shot. Arthur and his father for harboring a fugitive and Edmund for whatever it was he was running from. Arthur tried to assure himself that Edmund was fine. He has to be he told himself. Edmund always overcame whatever life threw at him; it was why Arthur had looked up to him.

He heard more rifle shots and then his father ducked as they heard new gunshots, these like a sail ripping in half. Arthur’s heart was beating fast, not because he was scared of the gunshots, but because he was scared that Edmund was on the other side of them. Both Moores looked up when they heard the approach of a car. Most civilians didn’t drive anymore; those that still had cars either couldn’t afford the gas rations or didn’t want to attract attention from more desperate Britons. Others had lost their car during the invasion by German or British soldiers. Those left driving had the privilege of petrol and protection.

When it came into view, Arthur saw it was one of the boxy little cars the German officers preferred. It reminded him of a crude copy of the American jeeps that some of the Brits used to drive around before the invasion. Two men were in the car but only one exited. Arthur could just barely make out a tall, lean figure in a dark outfit. Lamplight reflected off of medals and buttons and Arthur could barely make out a Nazi armband against a dark uniform, the kind worn by senior officials. He’d only ever seen Germans in black uniforms when something was very wrong.

The tall Nazi shared a few words with the remaining sentry and then both men looked down the street.

“What’s happening now?” Arthur glanced at his father but he didn’t answer him. German soldiers trickled down the street back towards the truck. Then the ground began to shake again as those terribly long, armored legs approached. The floodlights switched on and created a pool of light in front of the tall and darkly clad figure. Two soldiers tossed a slumped over body into the light. He put a hand over his mouth to stifle a cry. EdmundArthur realized. Oh my god they’ve found him. Arthur was afraid his heart would climb out of his mouth. Could he and his father rescue Edmund? Not likely, not when he was surrounded by a platoon of German soldiers around him. Arthur also wasn’t keen on finding out what was at the top of those thick armored legs.

“The back door—that’s our only way out,” his father hissed. “They’re distracted.” But Arthur found himself rooted to the spot as he watched the tall, shadowed figure speak to Edmund. He could barely hear them but he saw Edmund hold his head up wearily and only say a few words before keeling over. The shadowed figure turned away from Edmund. Then a soldier pulled a pistol from his belt and a gunshot sounded. Arthur watched his brother’s body convulsed for second and then grow deathly still.

Arthur let out a yelp of surprise that would have been louder had his father not wrapped a hand around his son’s mouth. A few soldiers started looking around.

“We have to go,” his fathered said as he helped Arthur to his feet. “Out the back—now.” Arthur felt tears welling in his eyes as they ran through the storeroom; his mind not even going to the strange object his brother had left him. His father locked the back door of the storeroom and they hurried down the alleyway, the floodlights illuminating the high street in the distance.

They found Arthur’s mother and sister waiting up with tea when they arrived home.

“What happened?” his mother called to them once they’d gotten inside and locked the door behind them. “I was worried about you two, it’s after curfew.” He saw a deep frown on his mother Elizabeth’s small round face. Dark eyes set back in her round face glistened with worry.

“We heard gunshots,” his sister Viola said concerned. Viola Moore shared a lot of traits with her mother, save for the broad head and fine jawline of her father.

Arthur’s father explained what happened, he noticed that his father left out the Germans who came into the store this morning. He talked about the Nazi official that they barely glimpsed and mentioned the thick, armored legs.

“They brought one out here,” she gasped, her voice drifting briefly back into her native Welsh accent.

His father only nodded and continued. He spoke about the boy they saw killed. None of them had any idea it was Edmund. I have to tell them now he thought. They have to know, Arthur had to tell them. If not, they’ll spend the rest of their lives waiting for a son who’ll never come home.

When his father was finished his mother was silent for a moment. Then she turned to Arthur and his sister.

“Right, it’s already late. Scrub up as best you can and get some rest,” she ordered. Viola protested but Arthur just slinked off to his bedroom upstairs. It was a cramped bedroom, made even more cramped by the fact that Arthur had shared it with Edmund. He’d only

His bedroom was small but it had been his since Edmund joined the army. Now it’ll stay mine he thought glumly as his eye went to the twin-sized bed that laid parallel to his. Arthur’s mind replayed his brother’s last moments, him accosting Arthur in the alley and then…then being executed on the high street. He’s gone Arthur kept thinking as tears fell silently from his eyes and onto his blanket.

He didn’t know how late it was when he finally fell asleep, his mind drifting to that bulky package that Edmund had thrust into his arms.

#alternate history #Fantasy Writing #fantasy #www2 #britain #magic

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d2kvirus · 6 years

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Dickheads of the Month: January 2019

As it seems that there are people who say or do things that are remarkably dickheaded yet somehow people try to make excuses for them or pretend it never happened, here is a collection of some of the dickheaded actions we saw in the month of January 2019 to make sure that they are never forgotten.

It seems that Rachel Riley is quite smart at maths but a complete moron at anything else, what with her accusing Noam Chomsky of antisemitism in spite of the fact that Chomsky is a little bit Jewish, before following it up by encouraging her far-right Twitter followers to dogpile onto anyone voicing different opinions to her - which mainly involved a 16-year old girl bearing the brunt of it. However she wasn’t finished there, as when she was rightly being criticised for encouraging her followers to dogpile onto people she then went whinging to the press about being bullied by left-wing trolls before announcing she needed personal security for when she was attending Countdown tapings, which sounds uncannily similar to the same stunt Laura Kuenssberg pulled a couple of years ago

Starting the year with a bang we had Chris Grayling first try and defend the Seaborne Freight farce by saying he was supporting up-and-coming British business (while omitting the parts about them being owned by the brother of a significant Tory donor, or not having any ships or trading history, let alone the fact the contract wasn’t even put out to tender) and followed that up by claiming the rail fare hikes are entirely the fault of the unions and definitely nothing to do with shareholder dividends or years of rail services taking the piss with fare hikes on January 2nd every year. Of course, Grayling being Grayling, he also helped out the Britait debate by saying that a second referendum shouldn’t take place because if the result came back in support of Remain it would go against The Will Of The People™ - which apparently said people willingly voting to remain wouldn’t be

It didn't help Grayling that those checking the Seaborne Freight website found that their Ts & Cs were from the template used when setting up a website for a takeaway food outlet, the timetable for services was blank (and, for some reason, in Latin), while their privacy page had forgotten that the fields marked [Business Name] are supposed to be filled with the name of the business using the website

Overly sensitive snowflake Piers Moron Morgan spent a hell of a lot of time and energy yelling from the rooftops how appalling it was that Greggs are selling vegan sausage rolls, which is apparently the downfall of humanity as we know it and definitely not the hourly cry for attention from an attention-seeking lunatic - and while some claimed it was a stunt because he and Greggs share a PR agency, that theory appears to have been ever so slightly undermined by him then spouting off about McDonalds selling vegan Happy Meals

It’s funny how James Goddard demonstrated just how much of a difference a day makes, with him threatening Anna Soubry and Owen Jones on January 7th and bellowing at police officers that if they so much as touched him he’d start a a war...yet on January 8th he was bawling his eyes out on Twitter because his Facebook and PayPal accounts had been terminated

Lying (through his teeth) in front of a tractor Boris Johnson claimed he never mentioned Turkey at any point during the EU Referendum campaign - and when confronted with his numerous comments about Turkish immigrants flocking into the UK if the country voted Remain by Channel 4 journalist Michael Crick, he ran away to hide like an utter coward

Proving that gaslighting is the in thing at the BBC, Director General Tony Hall stated in an interview with the Financial Times that there is no need to discipline Andrew Neil for referring to Carole Cadwalladr as a “mad cat woman” as he had apologised - except for the fact that, while it may be plausible that Neil apologised to the BBC, there has not been a public apology for his comments

Sticking with the BBC, it took just two editions of Question Time before Fiona Bruce showed her true colours as she spent ten minutes making jokes about Diane Abbott (including suggesting that she only became Shadow Home Secretary because she once slept with Jeremy Corbyn) prior to one edition which Abbott was a guest on, and for the remainder of the episode constantly talked over Abbott while letting the other guests speak uninterrupted, including allowing Isabel Oakeshott to not just make a patently false statement but use said patently false statement to attack Abbott. It wasn’t helped that when the BBC finally got around to admitting fault almost two weeks later, their statement actually said it was a joke - you know, like the school bully tries to claim when they get caught

Oh boy, there were so many triggered manbabies were up in arms about a Gillette advert for suggesting that maybe, just maybe, being a toxic dickhead isn’t any way to behave - to which they responded by acting like a bunch of toxic dickheads throwing a temper tantrum all over social media not seen since Nike featured Colin Kaepernick in an ad campaign

I’m going to assume AnonymousQ1776 thought they were being really, really clever when posting that video clip of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez coupled with their sneering comment that made them sound uncannily like a teenage edgelord who doesn't know what communism is but throws the word around a lot. I’m also going to assume they weren’t happy when the stunt backfired on them by not only making Ocasio-Cortez look like a normal human being who does normal things, but doing so also reopened the can of worms about what Brett Kavanaugh was up to when he was younger...

Middle England’s favourite edgelord Rod Liddle obviously needed to be extra quote-unquote provocative this month after using his column in The Sun to suggest that what Britain needs is a new political party that represents traditional values - which means neither Muslims nor the entire LGBT spectrum are not allowed

Just when you thought John Humphreys couldn’t sound any more like a pompous windbag with the credibility of a arthritic toad, he only goes to suggest that the Republic of Ireland should rejoin the UK - because who gives a toss about centuries of history or the minor inconvenience of 92% of irish people preferring to remain in the EU when Radio 4′s most jumped-up presenter suggests they swallow their pride and return to the warm chokehold of the British Empire?

It appeared The Daily Star had a real scoop when they printed an interview with Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson in which he made scathing comments about the “snowflake generation” and how they were “looking for reasons to be offended” - that is until Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson issued a statement saying that not only did he not say those things, but he also never gave that interview

It seems The Board of Deputies of British Jews never got around to reading The Crucible judging by their going Full Baddiel and accusing Tottenham fans of antisemitism and, in the same statement, said they should follow the model of Chelsea fans - yes, the same Chelsea fans who have subjected Spurs fans to songs about Hitler and gas chambers for decades, who just so happen to be under investigation by UEFA for their anti semitic chanting during a Europa League match against Vidi in December

This month’s worst case of Trump Derangement Syndrome comes from Sarah Huckabee Sanders after she said that God wanted Donald Trump to become President in an interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network

Lucky for Lara Kollab there’s nothing in the hippocratic oath forbidding being an anti semitic bigot on Twitter. On the other hand, there certainly was in the employment contract at the hospital she worked at, which is why they fired her

Somehow the British Army paid £1.5m on an recruitment ad campaign that was so successful that it led to members of the army quitting when finding out their photos were used to recruit “Snow flakes" (sic) and “Me me me millennials” - but that didn’t stop Gavin Williamson claiming it was “a powerful call to action” (rather than “bloody patronising”) while James Cleverly mouthed off like an idiot on Twitter in support because mouthing off like an idiot on Twitter is all that somebody who makes their surname fair game on a regular basis like James Cleverley knows how to do

It took a while but Jake Paul finally found a way to reclaim his crown of Most Odious Paul Brother by hitting upon a loot box scheme to encourage his viewers to, in effect, gamble - because apparently he (and Ricegum) only paid attention to the part where the likes of Electronic Arts were making money hand over fist when they were shoving loot boxes in all their games, but didn’t bother listening when various gambling commissions began looking into the practise

To prove my point James Cleverly took it upon himself to take to Twitter and sneer “You do realise that it’s not a documentary” when I, Daniel Blake was airing on TV - because it's better to score points on Twitter than admit that a UN report late last year was damning of the Tory government’s treatment of their less well-off citizens, isn’t it?

Trying to explain away his dickheadishness saw Wayne Hennessey claim he wasn’t doing a Nazi salute in a photo that happened to be taken by German teammate Max Meyer, he was actually waving at somebody - and the reason he had his finger on his top lip wasn’t the well-known mimicry of Hitler’s ‘tache but he was putting his hand to his mouth so somebody on the other side of the room could hear him. For some strange reason nobody was convinced...

Attention-seeking loon Laura Loomer didn’t learn from the humiliation conga line that was her so-called protest at Twitter HQ judging by her protest against illegal immigration that involved her climbing over the fence around Nancy Pelosi’s property and setting up a stall on Pelosi’s lawn - at which point she appears to have forgotten what she was protesting about and instead kept yelling for Pelosi to respond to her, even though anyone with C-SPAN would’ve told her Pelosi was currently in the Senate

In order to promote her UK tour Azealia Banks thought the best idea was to vomit a long string of invective about the Irish on her social media all because she got irked by one Aer Lingus flight attendant

Can somebody tell Bill Maher that he doesn’t make himself sound more correct every time he regurgitates the “adults shouldn’t read comics” rant he first brought it up in the wake of Stan Lee’s death? Because it appears nobody has

Out of curiosity, is Gregory Prytyka Jr. still popping over here in an attempt to find material to try and attack me with because they can’t handle the fact I called them out for their tedious shitposting, or have they crawled back under the rock they usually live under?

And finally, harrumphing to himself in a way that everyone can hear (although they wish they couldn’t) is Donald Trump and his banquets that look suspiciously like those given by the megalomaniacal villain of Kingsmen, continuing to throw a diplomatic temper tantrum over a wall he said Mexico would pay for

#dickheads of the month

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melledotca · 6 years

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Podcasts

I ported Parts 1-5 over from my old WordPress blog, and have updated those since. From then on has been added anew as I’ve started listening to new stuff. First post was back in 2010, so some of these I stopped listening to (or they ended) years ago. YMMV.

Part 1

A History of the World in 100 Objects

Andrew turned me on to this one, which comes to us from the BBC. If you've ever watched a show like Britain's Secret Treasures, this is quite similar, and one of the objects featured so far is one that was also on the show.

Each podcast they feature an item from world history and talk about what it is, when and where it came from, what it was for, and other socio-cultural contexts, often with interviews with really interesting folks. And there is some Attenborough. :)

Answer Me This!

Two British people get questions in from all over the world, though mostly from other British people, about anything and everything, and then they endeavour to answer them. Some of them relate to trivia, some actually require a bit of research about origins and such, and some of them are filthy and funny. Cuz, y'know, it's the internets. Host Olly really, really loves his cat, Coco, and Helen hates cats.

How Stuff Works

These were some of the first podcasts I started listening to. Stuff You Should Know has been going for a decade now, and while I listened to hundreds of episodes, I stopped listening some time ago. The landscape just filled up with too much more interesting stuff. I still listen to Stuff You Missed in History Class and Stuff Mom Never Told You, though I moved on from BrainStuff, TechStuff, and Stuff to Blow Your Mind, etc. some time ago. There have also been some video ones that I would catch up on while painting, doing dishes, etc.: Stuff They Don't Want You to Know, Stuff of Genius, Stuff From the Future. With various partnerships, etc., How Stuff works has a bunch more podcasts now, but I am kind of overflowing, so haven’t spent much time looking into them.

Fw:Thinking

This was a How Stuff Works/Discovery show (from when Discovery had acquired them, which has since been un-done). The two hosts from TechStuff and another guy hosted this one. Longer format, and tech topics that cover a potentially broader range – e.g. science that's not necessarily tech, as well as social implications and things like that. Lasted a few months on this one.

The Memory Palace

Publishing is a bit inconsistent, but I’ve had this one on the list for years, and it will stay. Interesting little vignettes from history. Sometimes funny, sometimes sad, often presented from a really unique and brain-twisting angle. And Nate diMeo rivals Roman Mars for Most Soothing Voice.

Savage Lovecast

Dan Savage's advice show, which goes along with his column, wherein people call in and leave questions, comments, rants, etc. It's human sexuality-centric, though there are cultural aspects as well, particularly those relating to non-vanilla, monogamous, heterosexual relationships and interactions. I didn't listen to this one regularly, but would binge listen for a week or two until I was tired of the weird problems of the young/old/gay/straight/bi/trans/kinky/etc. I don't always agree with Savage's perspectives or advice, but I learned a fair bit, too, which is even better than just being entertained. Gave up on it some time back.

Sawbones

The husband, Justin, plays the dumb everyman to his wife, Sydnee, who is a doctor. They (mostly she) present a medical condition, phenomenon, etc. and discuss how it was perceived and treated throughout history. As you can imagine, many of them are rather horrifying from a modern perspective, but can also be kinda funny, hence the tagline, "A marital tour of misguided medicine". Everything from headaches to fertility issues shows up, and if you're the kind of person who makes it a point of visiting 19th century surgical museums while on vacation (yup), you'll dig this. That said, eventually it started to annoy me (him, particularly), so I gave up on it.

Welcome to Night Vale

This is weird. That cannot be overstated. Ostensibly it's a community updates radio broadcast from a desert town in the US. Except there are angels and aliens and wild dogs and homicidal wheat and wheat byproducts. There's not just a local constabulary, but a Sheriff's Secret Police. There's a long and expensive boardwalk, except there is no water anywhere near the town. There's an eccentric old woman and a dreamy scientist, and random shadowy characters who come and go. Occasionally people get vaporized. Or there's a bake sale. Anything could happen. That was just the first season. Like I said, weird. But with fun music and compelling overall. I never got around to following up on succeeding seasons, but I know some people remain big fans.

The Moth

The Moth is a series of storytelling events that go on around the US, and are semi-professional. A lot of the speakers present more than once, there are awards and a championship and such. A lot of the speakers are also professional writers, and I gather you call a hot line to pitch your story idea and they work with you to polish it up and get it ready for prime time. The podcast is a distillation of these stories (which are also played on the radio in the US, I gather), and rarely disappoint. In fact there've been a couple of times when I probably shouldn't have been driving while listening, they're that engrossing. There's a book, too, of hand-picked stories. Highly recommended, but eventually I just kinda lost interest, like with TED Talks, etc.

This American Life

Was the number one podcast in the US for a long time. Don’t know if it still is. I am not a fan of the host, Ira Glass', voice, but you get used to it. It's a bit like The Moth, in that it contains in-depth stories about lives often very unlike your own. But it's also journalism, too, to get these stories, with a fair bit more socio-political commentary, whether it's about a Chicago school with a lot of gun deaths, or just how dangerous acetaminophen is. The topics cover an amazing wide range, and some shows are a lot more heart- or gut-wrenching than others, which is cool. The amount of work that must go into making these shows is staggering. All that said, I didn’t stick around very long.

Quirks and Quarks

From the CBC, podcast version of the radio show. All manner of science, and plenty of dinosaurs – everyone likes dinosaurs! I've also noticed that there tends to be a lot of women among the scientists they interview, which I appreciate. Eventually moved on from this, too.

Ontario Brewer

A great way to get to know the breweries and beers of Ontario, and the people who make them. (Craft brewing folks tend to be a lot of fun.) I find Mirella Amato, the host, to be fairly pretentious, but it's not really about her. I also tend to only listen to every other podcast. They do two per brewer, first picking a couple of their beers and talking about them, as well as the brewery history and whatnot. Then in the second one they pair the beers with cheese, chocolate, etc. A podcast about people talking about tasting things strikes me as a bit dumb. Not sure if they still make this one.

99% Invisible

Originally recommended by two very different friends, which is a good sign, and remains a staple. They had a clothing mini-series called “Articles of Interest” that was super interesting not long ago. It's about design in the world, architectural and otherwise. It looks at things you may never have seen, and things you look at every day. They could cover a specific iconic building, or a chair design that’s been ripped off a million times, or the history of pockets. A good way of shifting your perspective a bit. And Roman Mars rivals Nate DiMeo for Most Soothing Voice.

The Nerdist

I find Chris Hardwick a little annoying sometimes, and things can get pretty in-joke-y when Matt and/or Jonah are there. However, they also interview really cool people, so those are fun. I don't listen to all of them, and skip the ones where it's only Chris and co. talking, or when the guest is someone I don't know or care about. Plenty of great geek culture, though. Gave up on this one a long time ago, and turns out Hardwick IS a dick, so done with that genre.

StarTalk Radio

Neil DeGrasse Tyson's space-y show/podcast. He gets some really cool guests, but the musical bits are really annoying. Includes both Tyson talking science, and discussing with the guests. The cool part is that they're not all boffins. Could be Dan Aykroyd or Tony Bourdain or Joe Rogan. Didn’t last very long with this one. Just didn’t click.

Crash Course World History

Video series. John Green delivers the history of the world in 10-ish minute chunks. He explains the what, where, when, etc., as well as how those things affect the world now. He also has mad love for the Mongols, which never stops being funny. Aside from learning a more inclusive, less west'n'white version of history, you'll also get fun tidbits, like how the Silk Road (which wasn't just one route) helped bring the plague (Black Death, anyone?) to Europe from Asia.

Thug Notes

Big props to Dave for turning me on to this one. Sparky Sweets, PhD (alias), delivers book/play summaries and analysis on classic works of literature, from Austen to Shakespeare, in 5-ish minute increments, accompanied by entertaining animations and charmingly colloquial language. Frankly, his summaries and analysis are better than a lot of the formal education in lit that I've received. And way funnier. I don’t think many of these get made anymore as they got acquired and he’s been doing other projects.

Part 2

CANADALAND

News, media, and criticism about Canada. Jesse Brown is the guy who broke the Ghomeshi scandal. It's opened my eyes to how little I knew about what's going on, news-wise, in the country, and who's making the news (and what their agendas are).

Caustic Soda

Violence! Disaster! Weirdness! Big time geeky, lots of science, lots of grossness, sometimes really interesting guests. Plus the Muppet Show cover theme song for when they have guests always makes me grin. Has been over for a while, but the archive is worth a listen.

Criminal

In keeping with the true crime vein, stories recounting actual crimes with interesting details, weird twists, or lingering mysteries. Fits in well for folks who like Serial and such.

The Truth

Short radio plays/vignettes that are odd, affecting, and strangely engaging. It's really hard to describe, but hooks you quickly. I tend to go a while not listening to it, and then I’ll catch up and an episode will totally grab me.

Part 3

CANADALAND: COMMONS

COMMONS is the second podcast CANADALAND started producing, covering Canadian politics and related topics. It initially drew me because it was sort of a “politics for people who aren’t into politics” twist. In addition to covering news and issues, they would get into things like what the Senate is and how it’s for, or dig into terms like populism or what a fiscal conservative is, which is handy. The podcast has cycled through several sets of hosts and with each iteration has had a very different focus and flavour. The second group focused a lot more on social justice issues. They have mostly had hosts who are relatively young and people of colour, which I think helps expand the perspectives. With the most recent iteration the host is a journalist who has been exploring corruption in Canada.

Freakonomics Radio

Same schtick as the books, etc., and one I'd listened to some time ago, but then it seemed to disappear. Back now and enjoying it. Economics isn't really my thing, either, so it's interesting to see it approached from angles that do interest me, or have a certain "WTF?" aspect, like an episode on the economics of being a sex offender (it's a really bad idea - aside from being punished for the crime, you're going to be punished socially and financially pretty much forever). Stephen Dubner has since gone out kind of on his own, and I think has plans to take the production in new directions, so we’ll see what they get up to.

All the Books

This one’s great because it’s about books and I get lots of recommendations and I like the hosts. It used to be frustrating because it was expanding my TBR list too quickly, but I learned after a while that the hosts and I don’t love the same things, so most of what they love/recommend isn’t going to be a huge priority for me. There’s a backlist show/episode interspersed with new releases, too, which I don’t really follow, but it’s an interesting rabbit hole. They get a nice variety of genres, author types, etc. as well.

Gastropod

This one is one of my favourites. It’s about food, but explored via science and history. And of course there’s the odd weird taste test, because food and entertainment. There's some cute "friction" between the hosts sometimes, as Nicola is British by birth, and so has very across-the-pond opinions on many things related to cuisine, manners, etc. Whereas Cynthia is American and Jewish and her east coast experiences reflect that, too. The ladies are both writers and journalists and have gone on some amazing adventures. And hey, what better way to learn all about a gazillion varieties of potato than to go to Peru and attend a festival for them. WILL make you want to eat and drink all the things.

Invisibilia

This one's about unseen factors that shape our world, though that sounds pretty vague, and if you just start listening to episodes things can seem kind of random. They will cover huge topics, like how humans' tendencies to assign (or chafe against) categorization shapes our world, or how our expectations of "disability" may be off base. Sometimes the approach is a bit more sideways/quirkier, though. I really like the combination of stories and anecdotes focused on the topics, but also how they blend that with science and studies and all that other rigorous stuff. They’re longer episodes, and seasons are spread out pretty far (I think the hosts have a lot of other projects), but good for a long walk and a think.

Mystery Show

Defunct now, but was super quirky and charming. The premise is that the host and chief investigator takes on a mystery for each episode. Something that's been bothering someone for some time (could be weeks, could be decades), and solves it. That could mean finding out something, returning something to its owner, etc. It can't just be something solvable by using the Internet, as we're so prone to doing these days. (I will note that my perception of the host based on her voice was SO completely off base when I finally saw a picture of her.) It’s one of those story-centric podcasts where the premise seems frivolous, but totally isn’t in the fullness of time, as it were. One of the earliest episodes I listened to was about returning a unique belt buckle to a chef. Turned out to be an amazing chase and surprisingly poignant. Certainly unique, and really gets you pondering unknown or unsolved things in your own life and how one would go about solving them (especially without the internet).

White Coat, Black Art

This one’s from the CBC, and the host is Dr. Brian Goldman, who’s a long-time ER physician in Toronto. The premise is looking at healthcare from “all sides of the gurney”. It goes well beyond emergency medicine, though, and tackles issues like wait times, marginalized or ageing populations, managing disabilities, the opioid epidemic, and broader ties to history, politics, and society. In a country where we have a huge Baby Boomer cohort getting ever older, and the challenges that brings, there's a lot to talk about. He also has some fantastic and intriguing guests, and some fascinating glimpses into how healthcare gets handled elsewhere (like the US and Europe), for better or worse.

Part 4

The Allusionist

Helen Zaltzman from Answer Me This talks about the English language. Quirks of words and phrases, where sayings came from, invented languages, colloquialisms and slang, history and evolution, you name it. She has some great guests from other relevant podcasts, too, which make for some fun times. Good stuff for word nerds.

Another Round

Another now defunct Buzzfeed podcast, but was really excellent. American, and largely focused on Black culture. (Both hosts are Black women.) Highly irreverent, and regularly makes fun of white people and mainstream culture - moments in white history are some of the funniest stuff I’ve ever heard. It's not all goofing off, though. There's a lot of discussion of race and related issues, gender, socioeconomics, straight up pop culture (it is from Buzzfeed...) and some really great interviews from people like Hilary Clinton, Valerie Jarrett, Anil Dash, and Hannibal Burress. You never quite know what you're going to get, which makes it more fun. Archive recommended.

The Black Tapes

I started listening to this one because Paul Bae of You Suck, Sir is one of the producers. I gave up after the first season. It was just trying too hard and dragging out waaaay too much. It’s a radio drama about investigations of the paranormal, a bit X-Files-y. The idea being a serialized investigation of an unsolved case each episode, but they got away from that pretty quickly. The dialogue is also a bit rough sometimes, and they go way over the top with the soundscaping for suspense and drama, which I found really distracting.

Death, Sex & Money

Does what it says on the tin, though depending on the interview, focus, and stories, might get more or less of any one of those foci. Mostly interviews and discussions with really interesting (sometimes famous) people about the stuff we don’t talk much about openly. And of course there’s plenty of, “I can’t believe I said that!” The one with Jane Fonda was excellent.

Lore

History, folklore, and stories woven together. This was Aaron Mahnke’s first podcast, and it has since spun out into a media empire with books, a TV show, and more podcasts, etc. Mahnke’s delivery style has smoothed out over time. He was a bit... Shatneresque for a while there. The stories are true, with a hint of mystery and plenty of the unexplained. But Mahnke does a good job of weaving in myth, folklore, the supernatural, and other relevant things to give richness and context to the stories. And they never entirely wrap up tidily. His Cabinet of Curiosities is a good, shorter sister accompaniment to this.

Planet Money

A bit similar to Freakonomics... but not really. All manner of finance-related topics covered from a variety of angles, though US-centric, unsurprisingly. Sometimes more finance-centric, but other times gets way more into psychology, anthropology, etc. There was an episode on the anatomy of a scam was fascinating and heartbreaking. Great investigative work. But then there are others like the one about "delicious cake futures" that're just irreverent and hilarious.

Reply All

"A show about the Internet". Which it is, but... that doesn’t really tell you anything. This one is often SO much fun, and they go down some incredible rabbit holes, whether they’re explaining internet culture to their boss by unravelling a tweet (”Yes, Yes, No”) or exploring a weird tech mystery, like a phishing incident. You will definitely learn things you had no idea about, become fascinated by fraud, and realize you barely know anything about the breadth and depth of internet culture.

Still Untitled: The Adam Savage Project

Another round of serious geekery. Mythbusters' Adam Savage and friends just... talk about stuff. Projects they're working on, particularly Adam's, geeking out over... things. Things they like, things they've made, things other people made that they wish they had... There's a definite maker bent and a geek pop culture bent. Like The Martian has gotten a lot of love over the past while. But they talk about everything from billiards to camping, and it goes along with the Tested show as well. For science! I didn’t end up keeping up with this one for long, since I’m not that kind of maker and the shows were fairly long.

Stuff Mom Never Told You

This one I've been listening to for years, through several iterations of hosts. The focus was a bit more political and career-centric with the last hosts, and a bit more cultural with the current ones. All things feminism and gender, and the related issues where those things are concerned. It’s US-centric, so some of the content isn’t always entirely relevant outside the country (like healthcare and reproductive rights), but good to be reminded that Gilead isn’t entirely fictional...

Stuff You Missed in History Class

Like the above, have been listening for years, so time to give it its due. It is an American podcast, so there's plenty of US history on offer, but they do cover plenty of other countries, time periods, and types of history. Everything from fashion, to art, to great dynasties, to titillating scandals, to amazing characters, to disasters (both ancient and modern-ish). They try to include plenty of history that’s not just white and male-centric (though they get plenty of complaints about “too many women”, because people are assholes. They also have really interesting interviews, often with authors. This Day in History Class is their little sister podcast, which is a 5-minute daily on what happened that day historically.

Part 5

50 Things That Made the Modern Economy

Coming to us from the BBC World Service, this one reminds me somewhat of my much-loved A History of the World in 100 Objects. It considers a wide range of products and services, from barcodes to insurance to paper. They explain where these things came from, why they were revolutionary, their broader influence and importance, and their ongoing value and evolution in today's world. Episodes are fairly short, so good for a quick hit thought provocation, or you can save them up for a fascinating topical binge (and see how some threads of history, business, tech, etc. fit together).

Crimetown

Exposes the seedy underbelly of various places and people. Season one was Providence, Rhode Island (including infamous mayor Buddy Cianci and New England crime boss Raymond Patriarcha). Season two will focus on Detroit. The first season had characters and stories that were straight out of the movies, including the wise guy accents. Classic mobsters and mayhem. Great for true crime fans, but with a bit of a twist.

The Infinite Monkey Cage

The longer format of the weekly BBC Radio 4 show, with Robin Ince as the straight man, and British science's favourite media son, Prof. Brian Cox. Each episode irreverently tackles a science topic, from sleep to gambling to climate change, assisted by a panel of scientists, academics, writers, and comedians. The schtick wore a bit thin for me after a while, though one Christmas episode on ghosts was a particular highlight.

Longform

As advertised, these are long interviews (typically an hour or a bit more) with a variety of interesting folks, the key connecting thread being that they're all writers or editors (or both). That's a pretty broad category, though, as interviewees range from Ta-Nehisi Coates to Nate Silver to Malcolm Gladwell. I don't listen to every one, but when you get a good one, man, is it interesting stuff. Problem is you don’t know before you listen what ones will be gold, and it’s a lot of time to commit.

Note to Self

Defunct now, this one styles itself as "the tech show about being human", which is true, though it leans heavily at times on lifehacking and projects - things like making ourselves more efficient, establishing good habits, etc. None of that was really my thing and I tended to skip those episodes. It also learned a lot toward issues and lifestyles of the modern family, which can either be interesting from a peripheral perspective (since I don’t have kids) or more blablah I don’t care about. Stuff about digital privacy, racism online, etc. were pretty universally interesting and useful topics, though.

Only Human

This one wraps science and humanity around politics and currently events (US-centric). Like US "bathroom laws" and how they tie into real families with trans kids, and the clinics and medical staff that work with and treat those kids. Or medical care on Native reservations accompanied by centuries old well-earned mistrust of the establishment. Or accompanying a doctor whose mission it is to provide safe abortions in the south, and how increasingly difficult that's become. I thought this one was defunct, but looks like I just stopped listening after a while. (I know they went through a pretty intense self-improvement project phase, which was of zero interest.)

Revisionist History

Malcolm Gladwell’s first dive into podcastland, and definitely one of my favourites. After the 2016 US election, this show and Tony Bourdain’s Parts Unknown kept me sane. In each episode, Gladwell takes a historical event, recounts it, then deconstructs it and re-recounts it from other angles, shedding new light and context on it. In certain ways it’s classic Gladwell. It tackles racism, sexism, homophobia, and all the other big -isms. It gives names to issues and societal quirks you’ve always been aware of but never had definitions for. Some stuff is broadly culturally or historically fascinating, but I guarantee something will hit you way closer to home than you ever expected. So far this one’s three seasons in, and he’s how started a network, Pushkin Industries, which also now includes the Broken Record music podcast.

See Something Say Something

Buzzfeed used to have some fantastic content by great diverse voices. I’m not sure how much of it is left now that this, Another Round, and probably others have ended. This one is about being Muslim in America, and is an instance where I have no issues with stories, perspectives, and content from Millennials and those younger. Mixes pop culture with religion, intellectual discourse with goofy irreverence, and you’ll definitely learn stuff every episode. The number of smart, successful female guests was also always a highlight.

Weekly Infusion

Didn’t last long with this one, but checked it out since Nicole Angemi, who I follow on Instagram, was a guest. It ended up a bit slick and overproduced for my taste, though it did dig into medical issues, pathology, etc., which is up my alley. They did make things really accessible, perhaps almost too much so. And they had celeb guests or other notables who either have a stake in the medical issues being discussed, or are experts in that field. I listened to episodes about anaphylaxis to epilepsy to synesthesia, so something for everyone if the format is cool with you.

You Must Remember This

The first couple seasons were a great binge for me, covering all the fascinating stories, scandals, juicy trivia, and big characters in the first century of Hollywood. There were some fantastic series, like Charles Manson's Hollywood, the Blacklist/McCarthy Communist witch hunts, Hollywood during WWII, or “Six Degrees of Joan Crawford”. But since then it’s gotten more meh. Just topics or series that don’t interest me or that feel like they’re getting a bit too peripheral. May still be fascinating to super hardcore movie history buffs, though. The most recent series was really side content to go along with the book she has coming out, so we’ll see if future seasons are any more like the older stuff or not.

Part 6

Aaron Mahnke’s Cabinet of Curiosities

This is the same guy who does Lore and Unobscured. These episodes are shorter, each with a couple of stories about a wide variety of people, places, things, events, etc. that are unique, odd, or generally unexplained. Because they don’t have to fill out a longer episode, you’re more likely to hear about things that weren’t covered in a bunch of other podcasts.

Broken Record

Malcolm Gladwell’s second podcast outing, in addition to my beloved Revisionist History. It’s only a few of episodes in so far, and music podcasts haven’t really been my thing, but the first episodes have been super interesting. I did skip the third one since I don’t like Rufus Wainwright. Definitely willing to give this one a few more episodes to see how it plays out. The guests are the folks who’ve been there and done that and have all the stories.

Committed

This one’s a season in, and it’s about relationships, but it’s wide and deep. Getting pregnant at 14, infertility, a terminal brain tumour, lost at sea, second marriage, life sentences in prison... these are not your average suburbanites. Or they are, but it’s parts of their lives you’ve never known. Elevated snotbomb risk from time to time, but really well done and there’s something relatable in every episode.

Bodies

Also one season in. By women, for women, about women (though anyone else listening in will learn A LOT). Stories of health and issues and the struggles of getting correct diagnoses and treatment and how life and bodies change. I suspect most women would relate to something in every episode, even if it’s not specifically about an issue you’ve dealt with. Men would probably have a lot of holy shit moments listening in.

No Such Thing As A Fish

The researchers for the UK quiz show QI sit around and riff on their four favourite facts of each week, along with supplementary facts and random anecdotes, bad puns, dumb jokes, and taking the piss out of each other. It’s very nerdy and a lot of fun and will fill your brain with excellent trivia. They do a lot of live shows as well, so many of those are a bit themed to wherever they are on that week.

OPPO

Another CANADALAND podcast, which I have recently gotten rid of due to overload. Jen Gerson and Justin Ling basically spend each episode kvetching at and interrupting each other regarding politics and issues of the day. Not sure how well they actually represent particularly opposing political views, but she’s a woman and lives in Calgary and he’s a gay dude in Toronto, so, okay? I do find out about issues I hadn’t heard much about, so that’s good. I think it’s more just YMMV re. the hosts.

The Secret Life of Canada

This one was picked up by the CBC and I am still kind of bitter that I missed the ladies at the Kitchener Library a while back (I wasn’t listening to the podcast yet, but still). Basically, stuff you never learned in school about our country’s history, and which, frankly, should pretty much just replace our still very white, patriarchal, colonial history teachings.

Sidedoor

From the Smithsonian, the podcast covers all kinds of stories, people, events, and things from the museum. A bit hard to pin down, but super interesting, and talks about everything from a famous skeleton in their collection (the guy used to work for the Smithsonian!) to Gullah cuisine. Very American-centric, unsurprisingly, but enjoyable for history/anthropology nerds.

Small Town Dicks

True crime stories, but the twist is that the detectives who investigated them are the ones talking about them. The hosts are Yeardley Smith (best known as the voice of Lisa Simpson) and Zibby Allen, who I wasn’t familiar with. Then they usually have one or both of Detectives Dan and Dave, who are twins and cops (though one’s retired now and the other’s been promoted to Sergeant), as well as frequently guests who are other cops talking about the specific case of the week. I’ve found the handling of the subject matter both really in-depth (and sometimes pretty horrific or even comical) but also respectfully done, which is more than I can say for some other true crime podcasts I’ve tried.

Sold in America

A fairly new 8-part series about sex work in the US with a focus on trafficking and the many issues directly entwined with it — previous trauma, poverty, unemployment, addiction, etc. I’m almost to the end, and it’s been excellent, and often quite uncomfortable. It is US-focused, but the issues there are no different from here or anywhere else. The host Noor and her team travel a lot of talk to a lot of people whose lives this is or has affected, so these aren’t third-hand stories; this is lived experience, from women at the Bunny Ranch in Nevada to trans youth trying to overcome homelessness.

This Day in History Class

The little sister of Stuff You Missed in History Class, a daily, five-minute quickie of what happened on that date historically. Good snack for history nerds. Sometimes ties into longer episodes on the same or related topic that SYMIHC will be covering as well.

Unladylike

The two former co-hosts of Stuff Mom Never Told You went out on their own and are working on a feminist media empire (their book came out last month). Same topics re. feminism, gender, politics, sexism, diversity, culture, etc. Sometimes lighter, sometimes super heavy, but really interesting and they have some fantastic guests. And they can swear now. In addition to all the doom and gloom out there, they do also try to bring the good news (and diversity), too.

Black Tea

Former CANADALAND: COMMONS co-host (and current Melle coworker) Andray Domise and his friend (lawyer and activist) Melayna Williams get into culture, issues, and current events, particularly relating to Black communities in Canada (and somewhat the US as well). A lot of it goes over my head (big reveal: I am not Black, and I am old), but it’s cool to learn about stuff I know nothing about, and a common complaint I have is that too much of the media I consume, especially podcasts, is US-made/centric, so the CanCon is refreshing. Also at times very funny, though when there is a rant to be ranted, they don’t hold back.

The Butterfly Effect

Author/journalist/film maker Jon Ronson did this one-off series investigating the effects of the explosion of the online porn industry on the legacy porn industry. He was fascinating by the idea that online porn as we now know it is basically attributable to one guy in Belgium (and one company), and wanted to know what the far-reaching effects of that have been. It’s fascinating, and weird when you end up having moments almost feeling sorry for people and producers in a business that is, to put it mildly, problematic and exploitative. However, at the same time, it is a fascinating dive into human psychology.

Death in the Afternoon

New podcast by the ladies behind The Order of the Good Death, including Caitlin Doughty, its founder, who has written two books and has a popular death-positive YouTube series; Sarah Chavez, who you have very likely come across online as she’s widely involved in death education, culture, etc.; and Louise Hung, their coworker, who has also written broadly and extensively online. Typically they start off digging into some story/urban myth about death (or a sensational death) and breaking down the truths and fallacies and intricacies of the story. Then Sarah will tell a longer story of death relating to the issue at hand, which often involves mystery, folklore, etc.

Dirty John

This was originally an LA Times series, which was turned into a podcast, and is now being made into a TV series. True crime story centring around a truly horrific dumpster fire of a human being and the family he terrorized. Sensational, certainly, but also mind-blowing that it actually happened, and a lot of psychological explorations. Big time potential triggers for mental and physical abuse, drug addiction, violence, and other issues.

Ear Hustle

All about life inside San Quentin prison in California, and hosted by Nigel Poor, who volunteers there, and Earlonne Woods, who has been incarcerated there, but whose sentence was commuted as of US Thanksgiving 2018, so he’ll be free shortly. One imagines things will change somewhat with him shortly being on the outside, though he’ll remain a producer on the show and will report on post-prison life. The show does a good job of fleshing out and humanizing the inmates and stories, though doesn’t sugar-coat that some of these men are in for really bad stuff. It also sheds light on broader issues like the prison pipeline, over-representation of people of colour, and challenges of life after prison.

My Dad Wrote A Porno

There are three hosts, all friends, and host/story reader Jamie’s dad “Rocky Flintstone” is the writer dad in question. Apparently a while back he learned of and/or read 50 Shades of Grey and figured he could do that. (Given how terrible it is, who couldn’t?) So he took himself to the garden shed and wrote... Belinda Blinked. The resulting podcast is Jamie, James, and Alice reading the book(s) and talking about it (mocking it savagely). It’s filthy, the writing is terrible (and Mr. Flintstone seems to lack even basic understanding of female anatomy, among other things). The commentary is hilarious and frequently includes education about things like female anatomy (as much for James, who is gay, as anyone). They just finished the fourth book as of November 2018, and will return with the fifth next year. After the annual Christmas special, of course.

Taste Buds

Another offering from the CANADALAND folks. One season so far, and I won’t be tuning in for a future one. The premise of a former restaurant critic sitting down with restauranteurs is potentially interesting, but nothing about the actual execution of it really grabbed me. It’s also all in Toronto, so places I’ve never been and mostly people I’ve never heard of (and don’t care).

Thunder Bay

Also a CANADALAND offering, and the result of hitting their crowdfunding goal last year. A five-part series hosted by former COMMONS host Ryan McMahon (who is an Indigenous person) about the city, people, politics, and culture of Thunder Bay, ON. Accompanied, unsurprisingly, by the corruption, racism, social issues, and deaths of a number of Indigenous youth over the last few years. It’s a horror show, and not easy to listen to, but the degree of racism, sexism, and corruption shouldn’t really surprise anyone with their ears generally open. Or if it is surprising, then listen to it twice. Also a good thing to send to anyone who tries to argue that Canada doesn’t have the same kinds or level of issues as the US.

Unobscured

Aaron Mahnke’s latest podcast, and a historical deep dive. (Kind of like the historical flip side to the cultural side that is Revisionist History). For the first season he’s digging into the Salem Witch Trials. It’s a degree of background and detail that very few people are likely to be familiar with, and it had way more to do with politics, power struggles, religion gone awry, misogyny, and other familiar social ills than with ergot poisoning, religious fervour run amok, the devil among us, or whatever else has become the pat stories in the succeeding few hundred years. As I understand it each season will be regarding one event and take a similarly deep approach. It’s at times a bit more detail than I care about, but I’m still curious about how it’ll wrap up and what next season will bring.

Part 7

Code Switch

One of the NPR family. Had to pick and choose of the backlist, since it’s been on the air for several years and there’s NO WAY I’d be able to listen to them all. However, it is really interesting to hear their discussions/insights of major events months or years later. The hosts are people of colour, as are the guests, so the focus is on race identities and issues. Being NPR, it’s pretty American-centric, but like most other things, that still affects the world beyond their borders. Sometimes hard to listen to, but I absolutely always learn something.

Dressed

This is one of those where, on the surface, it’s not my thing, but then I end up getting really engaged and learning tonnes. This one is from the How Stuff Works/I Heart Radio network, and is about the history of fashion. Now, fashion itself isn’t really my thing, but fashion is very much tied to history, politics, gender issues, the environment, global trade, race relations, and a million other things. I don’t listen to every episode, but I always learn stuff. The two-parter on the history of Black Dandyism is an excellent example of a topic that ties in all the subjects I mentioned and more, and was just super interesting.

Ologies with Alie Ward

Definitely a new favourite, though I’m still about a year behind in the backlog, and episodes tend to be 1-2 hours long. Host Alie Ward refers to it as a “science adjacent” podcast, though it is scientific and in the top 10 on Apple’s Science podcast rankings. Basically, Alie interviews an “ologist” in each episode, an expert on a given topic, anywhere from squids to crime to postcards. The personalities of the ologists really come through, which make it funny and quirky and sometimes things go down the strangest and most charming rabbit holes. A big bonus is that few of the ologists are old bearded white dudes. (Though the bearded old white dudes are delightful, too – mushrooms!) Alie’s asides and inputs take a bit of getting used to, but I enjoy them now. Sometimes they’re additional educational tidbits she researched, sometimes they’re just dorky moments. It’s one of those shows where, even if the topic doesn’t seem up my alley, I listen anyway, because I already learn and enjoy myself. And when there are topics like dogs I’m basically a slavering fangrrl. Also, excellent Instagram recommendations.

Terrible, Thanks for Asking

I was iffy about this one, though the host was a guest on another podcast I listen to and was really interesting, so I gave it a shot. It’s definitely not for bingeing, as it’s basically interviewing people and telling stories about the worst times in their lives. (There’s something of the flavour of Committed as well.) And the host, Nora McInerny, knows what she’s talking about in that realm. (She’s one of those stories that you would think was just too over the top if it was on TV.) Definitely shows you a lot of facets of life, though, and there’s much to learn and empathize with. Just... make sure you have something fun for a palate cleanser.

30 Animals That Made Us Smarter

Also from the BBC, and I love their series. This one basically takes aspects of nature that we’re researching to benefit the human world and influence new tech. Kingfisher beaks for faster trains, tardigrades and vaccines, etc. Short, fun, fascinating. Around the same time I learned about this one I also learned that 50 Things That Made The Modern Economy is also back with a new season, so that’s back on the list, too. Definitely recommended.

Atlanta Monster / Monster: The Zodiac Killer

I’ll say right up front that I didn’t love either of these, but was in a lull where I needed more content. I’m not a fan of this style where they really try an manipulate episode to episode, where it’s like, “He totally did it!” followed by “They’re totally railroading him!” And so on. Plus, neither series has a conclusive answer, which... is that ever satisfying. But it’s got the expected stuff for the true crime junkies.

Crackdown

This is a really interesting piece of journalism. It’s a series about the drug war, opioid crisis, policy, and the real world of addiction as produced by people who have addictions. The host was a heroin addict for years and has been on Methadone for quite some time as well. They also lost one of their editorial board members to overdose basically between the production of the first and second episodes. It’s real, raw, and often very angry, as it should be. It explores a lot of angles, like the disaster that was replacing Methadone, and Portugal’s decriminalization of drugs, to the dangers of the supply and using these days. Not pretty, but should pretty much be required listening for anyone living somewhere with an opioid crisis... which is pretty much everywhere...

Disgraceland

Self-described as “rock ‘n’ roll true crime”. It’s pretty much pure voyeurism, and absolutely illustrates the worst of humanity, but also doesn’t let us off the hook for our complicity in how celebrities act and why they’re allowed to be (expected to be?) like that. I mean, the first episode was about Jerry Lee Lewis and how he pretty much got away with murdering his fifth wife. (His fourth died under pretty sketchy circumstances, too.) If you like (auto)biographies by 80s/90s metal band members and that sort of thing, you’ll love this one. I tend to really like the behind the scenes stuff of just about anything, including history, and this fits that bill.

The Dropout

Basically, if you would rather listen to the story of Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos instead of reading the book, this is your podcast. Based on what a friend said about it I was expecting it to be a bit different. I didn’t love it, but it does have plenty of twists and turns and sketchiness and intrigue. Unlike my previous gripe, they really also don’t try and make you go back and forth on whether you think they committed fraud or not. Or, at least, if they were trying to, they really failed. This is a standalone series, so is a shortish binge, pretty much.

The End of the World with Josh Clark

They put a lot of resources into this one, but given how long Clark’s mainstay podcast Stuff You Should Know has been one of the top downloads overall, he knows what he’s doing and probably has some sway with a passion project. (And given everything is branded with the “with Josh Clark” bit, his involvement is very intentional.) Basically, this one looks into ways we might wipe ourselves out - rogue AI, biotech, natural disasters, etc. It’s interesting and well done, but I found myself zoning out from time to time. The sound design also gets a bit over the top sometimes, which bugs me. I also think they dragged it out too much. They didn’t really need the end episodes.

Jensen and Holes: The Murder Squad

This is newish for me (and they’re only a few episodes in). It’s kind of an evolution in true crime programming. Jensen is a journalist and Holes is a recently retired investigator/profiler/scientist. His recent claim to fame is helping catch the Golden State Killer. (And Jensen helped finish Michelle McNamara’s book on the same subject after she died.) Both of them are specialists in unsolved and cold cases, and have decided to start focusing more on trying to get them solved rather than just reporting on and looking into them themselves. There’s a huge true crime fanbase with amateur sleuths out there, and this endeavours to harness that, along with new tech, social media, etc. Crowdsourced criminology, basically. Interesting idea, and I look forward to seeing how it plays out. Each episode they take a known killer, or known victims, and present what’s known about the victims, crimes, locations, killer, MO, etc. They interview people who were involved or investigated the crimes at the time. And they put the case information up on their website - facts, photos, maps, etc. and let the audience do their thing as well. So this one doesn’t talk about cases til the end of things, but if what they’re trying works, could be some fascinating stuff.

Lagered Tales

This one is put out by Beau’s All Natural Brewing Company out of Vankleek Hill in eastern Ontario. It features a rotating cast of hosts from among the brewery’s staff, and covers a variety of topics, from brewery news, industry events, local stories, deep dives on beer topics, chats with other folks who work at Beau’s, as well as Canadian entertainers and other interesting industry people. It’s folksy and well-produced at the same time, and while it won’t be up everyone’s alley, I find it fun.

This Podcast Will Kill You

LOVE this one. Haven’t been listening long, but totally binged the whole backlist. It’s two disease ecology grad students, both named Erin, and they talk about... diseases! They both have PhDs and one of the Erins is also in medical school, so they know their stuff re. infectious diseases. It’s both solidly scientific and accessible to the average person. They cover pathogens, parasites, etc. in depth, as well as what they do to people, how they spread, their histories, how dangerous they are to humanity overall, etc. They also have signature cocktails for every disease/episode. Perhaps not for the squeamish, but super interesting. Also occasionally dad-level bad jokes, which is just excellent.

Part 8

Everywhere

Fairly new and part of the I Heart Radio family (which bought the How Stuff Works family). Host Daniel is a travel writer, and he is intermittently joined by friends/colleagues (including Holly from Stuff You Missed in History Class). It is about travel, but also not. It’s not about “I went here and this is what it’s like and what I recommend”, though there are bits of that. It’s more about recommendations for how to travel well, both for your own enjoyment and the benefit of the people and places you see. He has an overarching “commandment” theme for each episode, but they’re positive, i.e. “Thou shalt” rather than “Thou shalt not”. Can get very philosophical and poetic, and his voice/manner of speech has taken me some getting used to. Not sure it’ll be a long term addition to my list, but still enjoying it half a dozen episodes in.

Solvable

Another from the Pushkin Industries stable (Malcolm Gladwell and co., so Revisionist History, Broken Record, and others). In this one several hosts take turns talking to experts in various fields working to solve the world’s big problems, from civil war to cervical cancer. It’s smart, deeply informative, and does leave you feeling more informed and, dare I say it, hopeful. Another one where, even if you don’t think the topic is right up your alley, you listen anyway because it’ll suck you in with learning and fascinating perspectives. And then there are some like the interview with former Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard that are total “holy shit, YES“ experiences.

Your Undivided Attention

Fairly new, and I’m only abour four episodes in, but really enjoying it. Deep dives on the big platforms and technologies we use, and how they’ve been designed and built to control us, along with the lack of ethics and oversight going into how these companies develop tools and algorithms, because revenue and time on site and data mining is a bigger priority than actually not being evil. It’s hosted by Tristan Harris, who used to be a design ethicist at Google, and Aza Raskin, who has the dubious distinction of having invented infinite scroll. (His dad, Jef, worked at Apple and invented the Mac computer, Magic Mouse, and more, and wrote The Humane Interface.) At various points during their interviews with other industry experts (ranging from former YouTube developers to former CIA operatives) they also have asides where they do deep dives/discussions on various points or ideas that have come up in the interview. Doesn’t get overly technical for a lay audience, and will definitely get you thinking and paying more attention to how you use your devices and online services, and how you are being guided, manipulated, and used by the biggest companies in tech.

The Anthropocene Reviewed

Hosted by author and YouTube educator John Green, he picks two things that are part of the human-centered world (the anthropocene) and reviews them as a... human in the world, basically, and based on his life experience. He ends with giving each a star rating out of five. He has some method to the madness of the two things he picks, and how he feels they relate to each other, but he doesn’t really explain it. Teddy Bears and Penalty Shootouts, the Lascaux Cave Paintings and the Taco Bell Breakfast Menu – really anything is fair game. In his typical style, he relates personal memories and anecdotes, waxes philosophical, and wonders about questions big and small. He also at times goes mildly off-topic to address tougher issues, like depression and anxiety disorder, which he’s dealt with all his life, and which in one way or another relates to one of the topics he’s discussing. It’s strange and quirky and an enjoyable way to see the world through someone else’s eyes.

Hit Man

This one just got started, but so far has an interesting premise. The host heard about this small press-published book from years ago, which I’d also heard of, called Hit Man: A Technical Manual for Independent Contractors. It’s literally a murder manual, and has allegedly figured in an assortment of killings. In this case, though, there’s a specific multiple homicide that it gets tied to, and the eight-episode arc dives into that case and the surrounding story. Will probably appeal to true crime fans, but haven’t heard enough yet to determine if it’s a keeper.

Noble Blood

Another from the I Heart family, and it’s both historical and true crime, in a way. It’s also pretty new, so not a lot of episodes so far. Basically it’s about noble/royal and famous people from history who came to a bad end. The host kicked off with one about Marie Antoinette. Pretty sure you know what happened to her. There’s another about King Charles II, and one about an Australian butcher who claimed to be a long lost baronet. I like dirty history, so am looking forward to more of thing one.

Part 9

The Dream

Apparently the host wanted to call this something with “scams” in the title, but there were some legal issues there. But that’s what this podcast is about. Season one was about MLMs. Multi-level marketing, aka direct marketing, networking marketing, or, more closely accurate, pyramid schemes. Not only is it educational about what they are, how they work, and who they target, it explains a lot about who is susceptible (again, targeted) and why they persist, even though like 99% of people who attempt to get rich quick with them fail and lose money. Sometimes a LOT of money. The second season is about the “wellness” industry in all its predatory glory. Unsurprisingly, there’s a fair bit of overlap with MLMs, how women are disproportionately sucked in, etc. It’s pretty US-centric, but then, these scams exist all over the world, and I think we all know someone who’s tried to flog that crap at us, so super relatable.

Gravy

Created by the Southern Foodways Alliance, so pretty much entirely American-centric, but doesn’t lose anything for it, since there’s a tonne about culture, history, immigration, class issues, and other more broadly relatable topics. It’s all about the evolving American south through a food lens. It’s as engaging as it is hunger-inducing, and I guarantee you’ll be surprised at just how non-homogenous the South actually was and is.

mortem

This one’s new from the BBC, and is only a few episodes in so far. The host is Carla Valentine, who has a fair bit of a media presence already via her Instagram and TV work, among other things. It’s a semi-fictional, semi-scientific series, with the stories broken up into several chapters, one per episode. In each story, there’s a murder victim and a mystery about who done it. Could be an elderly woman found dead in her kitchen, or a discorporated jawbone found on the Scottish coast. These actual “murders” are fictional, but the processes and procedures Carla discusses are quite real, as are the medical, law enforcement, and forensic experts she talks to as if they were real investigations. Entomology, forensic odontology, a soil expert, you name it. Fortunately to date they have solved all the cases, so there is that pleasant sense of closure.

Make Me Over

This is a series presented by the maker/host of You Must Remember This, all about image and expectations in Hollywood. Weight, age, plastic surgery, drugs, racism - it’s got it all. It uses the same celebrity and Hollywood history lens as YMRT, and, for reasons that should be obvious, focuses on famous women from various eras, from Esther Williams to Vanessa Williams. Instead of Karina Longworth narrating these stories, she’s recruited a series of writers, journalists, and others to research and explore characters and stories that have interested them. It’s pretty damning, though I can’t imagine the realities of the Hollywood machine would be a surprise to anyone at this point.

27 Club

This one comes from Jake Brennan, host of Disgraceland, and continues the theme of celebrities behaving badly. Though in this case it ends up killing them, as each season will tell stories of one celebrity who died at the age of 27, hence the name. Season one is about Jimi Hendrix, and season two will be Jim Morrison. Presumably Kurt Cobain, Amy Winehouse, and others will follow. Unsurprisingly, it’s a lot of sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll, though depending on your age and musical tastes, I imagine some featured performers’ stories will be more familiar than others. No shortage of crazy stories and self-destructive behaviour, with plenty of rock history in the mix.

Cautionary Tales

Tim Harford hosts this one, among many, many other things he does. (I also follow his 50 Things That Made the Modern Economy.) It’s been on hiatus a while. Or maybe he was only planning one eight-episode season. I don’t recall. Basically, it’s stories of mistakes, from the ancient world to modern times. Who did what, how decisions were bad, what went wrong, and what can we learn from that. There are often stories or parts of them we may know, from history, the arts, and beyond, but these are angles you’ve likely never heard of or considered. There are plenty of whoa moments when you realize how history would have been differently written without these errors.

Decoder Ring

From the website: “In each episode, host Willa Paskin takes a cultural question, object, or habit; examines its history; and tries to figure out what it means and why it matters.” Which does make it sound drier and more anthropological than it is to the ears. Like I guarantee you had no idea how long the song Baby Shark has been around, how many versions there are, and how many countries and origins can claim it. Or how ice cream trucks became a thing. Or the term “friend of Dorothy” and how it relates to the entirety of modern gay culture. Did you know “cancel culture” was as nasty as it is today back in the 1860s? And, near and dear to my heart... rubber ducks. History, anthropology, technology, economics, it’s amazing how interconnected things are, particularly those we rarely stop to consider.

Disorganized Crime: Smuggler’s Daughter

It may not be the case for everyone, but for me, definitely a glimpse into a world and someone else’s childhood that’s VERY much not like my own. The host and her parents are pseudonymous, but back in the 60s and for several decades, her parents (largely her dad) were fairly big time pot smugglers in California. It weaves together the 60s counterculture and its hippie proponents, the history of California and its regions and the people who’ve inhabited it before it became the sterile, exorbitantly expensive tech wonderland it’s become. And how those hippies built their thriving businesses. It ties in how the world changed over time and the business with it, becoming less of a gentleman’s game and more of a dangerous illegal business. And how the 80s war on drugs blew up everything and ruined a lot of lives.

Dolly Parton’s America

An absolutely fantastic nine-part series from WNYC Studios, and largely thanks to the fact that Dolly Parton was in a car accident years back and befriended her doctor. (The main host is his son.) A lovely combination of history, tracing Dolly’s life and origins, her career, her business savvy and the empire she’s built. All woven beautifully together with her music, interviews with her and those around her, and related stories from modern history and culture that she influences, like how Dolly became a gay icon. A brilliant, talented, and fascinating woman and some of her stories beautifully captured.

Historic Royal Palaces

Recorded talks by British academics, sometimes on site where the people they’re discussing lived and historical events took place. Eg. talking about the Tudors at Hampton Court Palace. There are people and eras we know a lot about, like the Tudors, Henry VIII’s wives, etc. But also ones looking at medieval queens and their lives, power, and roles, through to Princess Diana and how she was different than anyone before her. Women’s roles, women in power, how being LGBTQ+ was looked upon and lived historically, fashion and its meanings and uses, and other fascinating and very human topics also get explored.

Outliers - Stories from the edge of history

In partnership with Rusty Quill, for each episode a writer or playwright creates basically a one-act play about a character of their choosing. Typically they’ve given a few options and select one whose history, location, and circumstances are interesting. The general idea is that the focus is on some “nobody” who happens to be present for and fictionally shed a light on much bigger people and events. They’re essentially two-parters, with the second piece being an interview with the playwright and getting into the history, what captured their imagination, issues with the process, and other interesting tidbits. Often, the scullery maid, the valet, the prison guard, and others, can have a fascinating “voice”, and a more interesting take on historical events than any scholar.

Part 10

This is Love

From the folks who make Criminal, just, y’know, love-ier. I gave it a try when it was first launched, but it didn’t really grab me, so didn’t continue listening. Several seasons went by. And then to trumpet the arrival of Season 4, they did a crossover pair of episodes with Criminal, about some wolves in Yellowstone, and they got me. Season 4, you see, is all about animals, so I’m a half-dozen episodes in so far and really enjoying it. Because animal love stories! So far they haven’t been sneaky bastards with some “the dog dies at the end” twist, fortunately. Whether I’ll stick around for Season 5, who knows.

The Dose

Sort of a sister podcast in shorter form than CBC’s White Coat, Black Art, with the same host. It’s been COVID-centric since March, for obvious reasons, but did launch slightly before the pandemic, so early episodes were about things like aspirin and heart attacks, BMI and what it means and if it’s relevant, etc. I did some skipping over time when I was overdosed on COVID news, but they are broadening coverage again as time goes on, but keeping the topics very up-to-the-minute relevant, like discussing how racism in the healthcare system can affect people and make COVID treatment and outcomes worse.

Over the Road

By and about long-haul trucking (in the US), which may be a dying way of life, we’ll have to see. Hosted by “Long Haul Paul”, who’s been a trucker for several decades, and who is also a folk singer/songwriter (also intermittently featured). The stories are accompanied by a cast of characters, and truckers and those in their world are pretty much all characters. They cover a broad range of topics, like different kinds of trucking and how they’re perceived in the culture; how technology is affecting trucking and what that means short- and long-term; who chooses a career in trucking and why, and how that affects family and the the rest of life, etc. Since Dad drove truck for a bit, I’ve had a glimpse into that world, but it’s really engaging, whether you know anything about it or not. And it’s work that touches all of us, whether we know it or not.

Cool Mules

A six-part special series from Canadaland about ye olden days of Vice Media (around 2015), when coolness and exploitation were the name of the game, which ended up with cocaine smuggling-related convictions for “Slava P” and a bunch of young kids who made some really bad choices and were manipulated by people who shouldn’t be anyone’s role models. Proof that not all criminal masterminds are evil geniuses.

Home Cooking

Global treasure, chef, cookbook writer, columnist, and Netflix star Samin Nosrat and Hrishikesh Hirway (aka Hrishi, broadly talented media dude and most familiar to me as the guy behind the Song Exploder podcast), decided to make a podcast series for folks stuck at home during the pandemic, possibly with a limited pantry, and perhaps forced to cook more than they were used to. There’s a running joke about beans... There are delightful guests and it’s a lot of goofy fun. There are terrible puns, and solid cooking advice that anyone can use. Alas, to date it’s only four episodes, but savour them like a fine meal, my friends.

Permission to Speak

I didn’t think I was going to get into this one, but every episode has managed to bring something that held my interest or got me thinking. Host Samara Bay is a voice coach for everyone from Washington to Hollywood, so her work ranges from teaching accents and dialects to helping women in positions of power (or who want positions of power) to speak up, to helping leaders engage their audiences instead of desiccating them or putting them to sleep with dry speeches. Every episode she has a guest, usually women, from a wide variety of professions and backgrounds, and their discussions cover a lot of ground, but there’s are always useful and engaging nuggets of realization, learning, and things anyone can act on.

Part 11

The Last Archive

This one’s newish and from Pushkin Industries, whence comes favourites like Revisionist History and Broken Record. Professor and historian Jill Lepore tells stories, digs into history and artifacts, and endeavours to answer, “Who killed truth?” And yet, none of that really clearly explains the episodes, which remind me a bit of the Decoder Ring podcast as well. Each episode features a story from the past, some historical episode, tied to some tangible thing that draws us into the largely narrative and context. (These things are from the fictional Last Archive.) If you like the kind of history that ties in weird and wonderfully disparate aspects with unexpected threads right through to the present day, this one’s for you.

Tumanbay

A narrative fiction podcast, now three seasons in, and with some book tie-ins to date with other media in the works. While fictional, it ties to the real history of the Mamluks in Egypt, and some of the world’s very real histories, cultures, religions, etc. The intermittent narrator is a key character in all seasons, and very much an anti-hero with an abiding interest in self-preservation. Game of Thrones fans with a bit of a more Middle Eastern interest would likely enjoy it, though there’s definitely a lot about palace intrigues and sabre rattling and invasions and the like.

My Funeral Home Stories

Grant, the host, is from a family that owns several funeral homes, crematories, and other death-related services. He started working part-time in the family business when he was 13, and while they didn’t immediately throw him into the deep end, he saw and experienced things at an age that would raise a lot of people’s eyebrows, I’d suspect. However, if you’re not squeamish, this is the guy you want to be seated next to at a cocktail party, because he has stories, and some of them are equal parts insane and horrific. Some of his descriptions are really graphic, so it’s definitely not for everyone. He also has sort of a running narrative/stream of consciousness thing going as he recounts what he was thinking during these events, and some of it is funny, dark, and at times weirdly random and unrelated. It tracks as very realistic for the average human in very non-average situations.

#podcast #audio #storytelling

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cubaverdad · 7 years

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Independent Journalism Seeks to Revive Press Freedom

Independent Journalism Seeks to Revive Press Freedom / Iván García Iván García, 3 May 2017 — Let's step back in time. One morning in 1985, Yndamiro Restano Díaz, a thirty-seven-year-old journalist with Radio Rebelde, took out an old Underwood and wrote a clandestine broadsheet entitled "Nueva Cuba." After distributing the single-page, handmade newspaper up and down the street, one copy ended up pinned to a wall in the Coppelia ice cream parlor in the heart of Havana's Vedado district. His intention was not to criticize the autocratic regime of Fidel Castro. No, it was simply an act of rebellion by a reporter who believed that information was a public right. In his writing, Yndamiro tried to point out the dire consequences that institutional contradictions were having on the country's economy. He was arrested and questioned at Villa Marista, a jail run by the political police in southern Havana. Later that year he was arrested again, this time for having given an interview to the New York Times. That is when his troubles began. He was fired from Radio Rebelde and branded with a scarlet letter by Special Services. Without realizing it, Yndamiro Restano had laid the foundations for today's independent journalism in Cuba. Cuba was emerging from overwhelmingly bleak five-year period in which censorship was having an almost sickening effect. The winds of glasnost and perestroika were blowing from Gorbachev's USSR. Some intellectuals and academicians such as the late Felix Bonne Carcasses decided the time was right for more democratic openness in society and the media. Havana was a hotbed of liberal thought. Journalist Tania Díaz Castro along with young activists Rita Fleitas, Omar López Montenegro, Estela Jiménez and former political prisoner Reinaldo Bragado established the group Pro Arte Libre. According to the writer Rogelio Fabio Hurtado, Cuba's independent press was born out of the first dissident organization, the Cuban Committee for Human Rights, led by Ricardo Boffill Pagés and the organization's vice-president Rolando Cartaya, a former journalist at Juventud Rebelde. In a 2011 article published in Martí Noticias, Cartaya recalled, "When we arrived at dawn at his house in Guanabacoa's Mañana district, Bofill had already produced half a dozen original essays and eight carbon copies of each for distribution to foreign press agencies and embassies." No longer able to work as a journalist, by 1987 Yndamiro Restano was making a living cleaning windows at a Havana hospital. He would later be fired from that job after giving an interview to the BBC. Frustrated by not being able to freely express himself in a society mired in duplicity and fear, he joined the unauthorized Cuban Commission on Human Rights and National Reconciliation created by Elizardo Sánchez. Along with other journalists fired from newspapers, magazines, radio stations and television news programs who were eager to publish their own articles without censorship, Restano decided in 2011 to form an organization that would allow reporters condemned to silence to work together. Thus was born the Cuban Association of Independent Journalists, the first union of freelance correspondents. In 1991 — a date which coincided with the beginning of the Special Period, an economic crisis lasting twenty-six years — the Havana poet Maria Elena Cruz Varela founded Criterio Alternativo which, among causes, championed freedom of expression. In an effort to crack open the government's iron-fisted control of the nation, Maria Elena herself, along with Roberto Luque Escalona, Raúl Rivero Castaneda, Bernardo Marqués Ravelo, Manuel Diaz Martinez, Jose Lorenzo Fuentes, Manolo Granados and Jorge A. Pomar Montalvo and others signed the Charter of Ten, which demanded changes to Castro's status quo. On September 23, 1995, Raúl Rivero — probably Cuba's most important living poet — founded Cuba Press in the living room of his home in La Victoria, a neighborhood in central Havana. The agency was an attempt to practice a different kind of professional journalism, one which reported on issues ignored by state-run media. Now living in exile in Miami, Rivero notes, "I believe in the validity and strength of truly independent journalism, which made its name by reporting on economic crises, repression, lack of freedom and by looking for ways to revive the best aspects of the republican-era press." He adds, "There was never an attempt to write anti-government propaganda like that of the regime. They were pieces whose aim was to paint a coherent portrait of reality. The articles with bylines were never written so some boss could enjoy a good breakfast. They were written to provide an honest opinion and a starting point for debate on important issues. That is why, as I found out, Cuba Press was formed at the end of the last century." Cuba Press brought together half a dozen official journalists who had been fired from their jobs. Tania Quintero, now a political refugee who has lived in Switzerland since 2003, was one of them.* Once a week, Quintero boarded a crowded bus to deliver two or three articles to Raul Rivero, whose third-floor apartment was a kind of impromptu editing room, with no shortage of dissertations on every topic. An old Remington typewriter stood vigil as the poet's wife, Blanca Reyes, served coffee. The budding independent journalism movement had more ambitions than resources. Reporters wrote out articles in longhand or relied on obsolete typewriters using whatever sheets of paper they could find. Stories were filed by reading them aloud over phone lines; the internet was still the stuff of science fiction. The political police often confiscated tape recorders and cameras, the tools then in use, and well as any money they found on detainees. They earned little money but enjoyed the solidarity of their colleagues, who made loans to each other that they knew would never be repaid. Those who headed other alternative news agencies also had to deal with harassment, arrest and material deprivation. That was the case of Jorge Olivera Castillo, a former video editor at the Cuban Institute of Radio and Television who wound up being one of the founders of Havana Press. Twenty-two years later, Olivera recalls, "Havana Press began life on May 1, 1995. A small group led by the journalist Rafael Solano, who had worked at Radio Rebelde, was given the task of starting this initiative under difficult conditions. After working for four years as a reporter, I took over as the agency's director in 1999 and worked in that position until March 2003, when I was arrested and sentenced to eighteen years in prison during the Black Spring." Faced with adversity, the former directors of Havana Press — Rafael Solano, Julio Martinez and Joaquín Torres — were forced to go into exile. "More than two decades after this movement began, it is worth noting its importance to the pro-democracy struggle and its ability to survive in spite of obstacles. Those initial efforts paved the way for the gradual evolution of initiatives with similar aims," observes Olivera. For the former prisoner of conscience, "independent journalism remains one of the fundamental pillars in the struggle for a transition to democracy. It has held this position since the 1990s, when it emerged and gained strength due to the work of dozens of people, some of whom had worked for official media outlets and others who learned to practice the trade with remarkable skill." This is because independent journalism began with people who had worked in technical fields or in universities but had no journalistic experience or training. They are self-taught or took self-improvement courses either in Cuba or abroad, carved a path for themselves and are now authorities their field. They include the likes of Luis Cino, Juan González Febles and Miriam Celaya. Radio Martí was and still is the sounding board for the independent press and opposition activists. The broadcaster reports on the regime's ongoing violations of freedom of expression, its intrigues, its delaying tactics and its attempts to feign democracy with propaganda that rivals that of North Korea. In a 2014 article for Diario de Cuba, José Rivero García — a former journalist for Trabajadores (Workers) and one of the founders of Cuba Press — wrote, "It is worth remembering that this seed sprouted long before cell phones, Twitter, Facebook or basic computers. The number of independent journalists has multiplied thanks to technology and communication initiatives over which the Castro regime has no control." Necessity is the mother of invention. Even without the benefit of proper tools, a handful of men and women have managed in recent years to create independent publications such as Primavera Digital, Convivencia or 14ymedio. Currently, there are some two-hundred colleagues working outside the confines of the state-run media in Havana and other provinces, writing, photographing, creating videos and making audio recordings. But they still face risks and are subject to threats. At any given moment they could be detained or have their equipment confiscated by State Security. Their articles, exposés, chronicles, interviews and opinion pieces can be found on Cubanet, Diario de Cuba, Martí Noticias, Cubaencuentro and other digital publications, including blogs and webpages. In almost lockstep with the openly confrontational anti-Castro press there is an alternative world of bloggers and former state-employed journalists. They practice their profession as freelancers and hold differing positions and points of view. Among the best known are Elaine Díaz from Periodismo de Barrio, Fernando Rasvberg from Carta de Cuba and Harold Cárdenas from La Joven Cuba, all of whom are subject to harassment and the tyranny of the authorities. Reports issued by organizations that defend press freedom in countries throughout the world rank Cuba among the lowest. The regime claims that there have been no extrajudicial executions on the island and that no journalists have been killed. There is no need. It has been killing off the free press in other ways since January 1959. Since its beginnings more than two decades ago, Cuba's independent press has sought to revive freedom of the press and freedom of expression. And slowly it has been succeeding. In spite of harassment and repression. *Translator's note: Tania Quintero is the author's mother. Source: Independent Journalism Seeks to Revive Press Freedom / Iván García – Translating Cuba - http://ift.tt/2rnpDNa via Blogger http://ift.tt/2rnGH5N

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paralleljulieverse · 7 years

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In Blake Edwards’ 1982 film Victor/Victoria, there is a bittersweet moment when Victoria Grant (Julie Andrews), the down-on-her-luck English protagonist stranded in Depression-era Paris, drops her hitherto plucky facade and dissolves into weepy distress. Having been caught in a wintry downpour with newfound gay friend, Toddy (Robert Preston), Victoria retreats to Toddy’s apartment to dry off and enjoy a cognac-fuelled heart-to-heart. When she subsequently tries to slip back into her now dried clothes, Victoria discovers to her horror that they have shrunk to tattered rags.

“My best dress,” she wails in shock at the waifish reflection in the dressing mirror. “I can’t go out like this…What am I going to do?!” “Sell matches!” retorts Toddy in a vain attempt to jolly the situation. Victoria manages a wan chuckle before collapsing in tears into Toddy’s comforting embrace.

The reference in this scene to Hans Christian Andersen’s “Little Matchgirl” is clear enough but Toddy’s gentle quip harbours another, potentially more pointed, intertextual allusion.* Star Julie Andrews actually played the Little Matchgirl in a 1959 tele-musical adaptation of the classic Andersen fairy tale made for BBC TV.

Titled The Gentle Flame, the programme was something of a landmark event in British broadcast history. One of the most ambitious TV musical projects undertaken to that date by the BBC, The Gentle Flame was developed as a tailored showcase for Julie Andrews, with a specially commissioned script by writer-director Francis Essex (Essex, 40), and a suite of new songs from Ronald Cass and Peter Myers, the composer-lyricist team who would later go on to write a string of hit film musicals for Cliff Richard (Donnelly, 144-46). Airing in peak time on Christmas Eve, The Gentle Flame was promoted as a major holiday entertainment and it attracted a substantial national audience (Cowan, 5).

To put The Gentle Flame in historical context, the 1950s was a period of profound transformation for British broadcasting. In 1954, the nation’s booming television market was opened to commercial competition with the creation of the ITA (Independent Television Authority) and the BBC suddenly lost its privileged monopoly as the sole TV network (Briggs, vol. V, 3ff; Holmes, 2ff). Confronted with a new landscape of competition and changing popular tastes, the iconic UK broadcaster moved to improve its marketability with an expanded range of audience-friendly fare.

Earlier in the decade, the BBC had appointed Ronald Waldman as Head of its TV Light Entertainment Division and he was influential in overhauling the network’s programme offerings (Briggs, vol. V, 24). A seasoned industry veteran with many years experience as a successful radio producer, Waldman believed that the key to attracting a mass audience was the strategic use of “star power”. In a 1956 memo discussing the results of an internal audience research bulletin, Waldman noted with alarm how “two out of three viewers declares [sic] the ITA was better than the BBC in the matter of Variety…and stars” and that the broadcaster “must try and get some personalities” (cited in Bennett, 56).

One of the “personalities” high on Waldman’s wish list was Julie Andrews. Years previously, Waldman had played an instrumental role in Julie’s early career when he introduced her as a ‘child prodigy’ to the airwaves of Britain on his popular radio show, “Tonight at 8″ in 1947. It was a longstanding professional association shared by other members of senior management at BBC-TV. When Waldman was promoted to Executive Business Manager of Programming in 1958, his former role of Light Entertainment Head was taken over by Eric Maschwitz who, as it happens, had also worked with Julie in her child star years on the production team of Starlight Roof (Briggs, vol. V, 196). It’s possibly not surprising, then, that “the Beeb” should have been keen to secure Julie for its expanding roster of television ‘names’ in the late-50s.

Not that Julie was exactly a stranger to the small screens of Britain. She had made her television debut as far back as 1948 appearing on Rooftop Rendezvous alongside parents, Ted and Barbara Andrews (”Rooftop”, 27). She then popped up with some regularity across the early 1950s as a guest on assorted TV musical variety revues and quiz shows. She even made a high profile appearance on the “commercial competition,” performing in 1955 on ATV’s hugely popular Sunday Night at the London Palladium, produced by another old-time associate, Val Parnell (Gray, 12). By the time Julie returned to the UK in 1958 as the triumphant star of My Fair Lady, her celebrity was at an all-time high and conditions were ripe for promotion to TV leading lady in her own right.

In what was claimed to be “one of the biggest fees ever paid to a British star”, Julie was signed by the BBC in May 1959 to an exclusive deal for “four hour-long TV spectaculars” (”Julie Signs,” 3). Originally scheduled as monthly broadcasts to start in June, the series was subsequently postponed until after Julie had finished her London run in My Fair Lady in the autumn (”Julie’s TV Show Postponed”, 3). Meanwhile, the BBC built up public anticipation by featuring Julie in a special pre-filmed appearance on Harry Secombe’s popular variety show, Secombe at Large (30 May 1959, BBC). It also secured rights to Julie’s appearance on The Jack Benny Show from CBS in the US which it broadcast in September (Noble, 6).

Finally, on November 12, the first of Julie’s four specials for the BBC bowed amidst much fanfare (“Highlights,” 9). Simply called The Julie Andrews Show, the 45-minute specials (slightly shorter than the originally announced one hour format) were broadcast fortnightly on a Thursday evening at 7:30pm. The first three entries followed a standard TV variety format with Julie hosting, singing, performing and chatting with a roster of changing guest stars. The fourth and final entry took a different approach, devoting the timeslot to the premiere production of a new Christmastime musical, The Gentle Flame (”Gentle,” 7).

A loose adaptation of Andersen’s “Little Matchgirl,” The Gentle Flame starred Julie as Trissa, the nineteenth-century beggar girl who uses her last box of matches to keep warm on a bitterly cold snowbound night. One by one she lights the matches and:

“as she does so she is transported into a world of music, beautiful gowns and dancing. She meets a young man and falls in love but when she discovers that the room in which she met him had been boarded up a long time ago, she finds herself poor and back in the street again” (Taylor, 8).

Appearing alongside Julie in the programme was a supporting cast of seasoned character actors including John Fraser as Charles the fantasy suitor, Jay Denyer as the Shopkeeper, and Pauline Loring as the haughty Rich Woman. Special musical support was provided by members of the Brompton Oratory Boys Choir (”Gentle,” 19).

In many ways, The Gentle Flame was not unlike a smaller-scale British Cinderella, the celebrated 1956 TV musical created by Rodgers and Hammerstein for Julie. Yet, despite its considerable cultural and historical significance, The Gentle Flame has largely fallen into obscurity. As far as can be ascertained, it hasn’t ever been seen since its initial broadcast almost sixty years ago and it is overlooked in all but the most exhaustive historical commentaries. Even Julie herself gives the programme short shrift. In her memoirs, she dispenses with the BBC series in a few short paragraphs, concluding with the matter-of-fact summation: “We ended up with four fairly good shows, the final episode airing on Christmas Eve” (268).

So what happened to The Gentle Flame and why isn’t it a bigger deal today? For a start, there is a question mark over whether or not a copy of the programme exists or, for that matter, ever did. Sadly, both the BBC and the BFI (British Film Institute) report that they don’t hold The Gentle Flame in their libraries and that there are no known records of it in any other archival repository (BBC Archives, personal communication, 11 November 2017).

Up until the 1960s, most British television content was produced via live transmission and wasn’t typically recorded (Holmes, 9-10). Some select programmes were filmed in advance and others of special note were captured for subsequent rebroadcast and/or preservation using telecine cameras (in much the same way that Cinderella was recorded as a kinescope by CBS), but the lion’s share of TV content was live and unrecorded. Industry practice started to change in the late 1950s with the advent of videotape technology but, because it was prohibitively expensive, its incorporation was patchy. As late as 1963, less than a third of BBC programming was routinely recorded (Turnock, 95-96).

In the case of The Gentle Flame, it is difficult to determine the exact technical status of its production. Not only is there no known copy of the original broadcast but, even more disconcertingly, BBC Written Archives have “not retained any production files for The Gentle Flame or other Julie Andrews Specials” (BBC Archives, personal communication, 11 November 2017). All that exists in “official holdings” is a microfilm copy of the script, an audience research report, and a handful of production stills. In the absence of concrete documentary evidence and/or a labour-intensive detective hunt through papers and collections that may still be in existence from people involved in the production, all we can ultimately do is speculate about how The Gentle Flame was produced and if a recorded copy was ever made.

Technical credits for the programme list an entry for “film sequences” by A. Arthur Englander and editing by Pamela Bosworth (“Gentle,” 19). This would suggest that at least some of the programme’s material was pre-filmed. The most likely scenario is that it was produced as a mix of live broadcast and pre-filmed sequences. This hybrid style was fairly common practice for BBC programmes of the era where pre-filmed sequences would be inserted into an otherwise live broadcast, typically to add exteriors or special effects shots that were impossible to do in a studio or to offer a “breathing space” for costume and scenery changes (Turnock, 87).

There is certainly evidence that this practice of mixing live and pre-filmed sequences was used in earlier episodes of The Julie Andrews Show. Newspaper reviews make mention of the fact that, among other things, a comic sketch between Julie and Kenneth Williams in Episode 1 and an animated sequence and appearance by Stanley Holloway in Episode 3 were all pre-recorded inserts (Erni, 23 Dec., 38; Sear 26; Taylor 16). In the case of The Gentle Flame, it is most likely that the fantasy sequences with Julie and John Fraser at the ball would have been pre-filmed. Publicity photos reveal dramatic costume and hairstyle changes in these scenes that would have been difficult to negotiate in an exclusively live format. So, at a minimum, some of the material elements from The Gentle Flame must have existed in a recorded format.

Furthermore, given the unprecedented expense and prestige of these Julie Andrews specials, it beggars belief that the BBC wouldn’t have recorded them in some form or other –– if not for posterity, at least with an eye to possible rebroadcast and/or extended distribution. Historian Rob Turnock (2006) notes that, as early as 1952, the BBC was recording select live performances and staged programmes and even “established a transcription unit to distribute telerecordings and purpose made BBC films abroad” (90). Moreover, much of the reason the BBC commissioned their own staff writers to develop new programmes––as they did with The Gentle Flame––was to “generate material that it owned and could record by itself” without having to negotiate permission and clearance from external rights holders (ibid.).**

However, even if the BBC did record The Gentle Flame, it is no guarantee that the recording would still be in existence today. Because TV was widely viewed in the era as a transient medium of live communication –– in much the same way as radio or theatre –– there was little sense that TV programmes had lasting value or should be conserved beyond the period of their immediate use. It wasn’t till 1978 that the BBC initiated an archival policy but, by this stage, it was estimated that over 90% of all previous programming had been destroyed, whether through outright disposal or through wiping over for re-use (Fiddy, 3). When the BBC made the move to colour transmission in 1967, for example, it undertook a wholesale junking of old monochromatic programmes in the misguided belief that they no longer had appreciable value or purpose (Fiddy, 8). Hours of content from even hugely popular BBC series such as Doctor Who, Steptoe and Son, and Dad’s Army were lost in this way.

So if The Gentle Flame were indeed recorded, any copies would really need to have defied the odds to have survived to the present day. But, who knows? Events like the BFI’s annual “Missing, Believed Wiped” public appeal have had great success in turning up many BBC programmes previously presumed lost forever. So maybe a copy of The Gentle Flame is lurking in some dusty, out-of-the-way storage facility somewhere just waiting to be rediscovered. If you’re reading this, Dame Julie, Check the attic!

Finally, the question remains: was The Gentle Flame any good? Well, critical reception of the programme was, it must be said, mixed. Maurice Wiggin of the Sunday Times called it “charming Christmastime fare” that displayed “cunning visual talent at full stretch,” though added as a slightly acerbic aside that writer-director Francis Essex “should stick to directing and leave writing to writers” (20). Guy Taylor, resident critic for The Stage, was positively rhapsodic in his review:

“My Christmas viewing started with Julie Andrews, and what better viewing can you find than that? She appeared with John Fraser in a delightful forty-five minute programme called The Gentle Flame, written and produced by Francis Essex…Everything about this show was right, the photography was delicate, the sets were imaginative and beautifully lit and the special music and lyrics by Peter Myers and Ronald Cass were charming…Essex’s script was excellent blending fairy-tale with the naturalistic and how nice it was to hear English spoken so clearly by Miss Andrews. Essex must have had this in mind when he wrote it.” (31 Dec, 8)

Others were not quite so enchanted. Irving Wardle of The Listener wrote that The Gentle Flame was:

“a really bad example of old-style musical comedy, eliciting push-button responses to such things as a waif in the snow, a ballroom and a Byronic bachelor with pots of money. The legendary association between romance and wealth is unobjectionable, but one does object to the dreadful dialogue (’This is my first ball’) Mr. Essex inflicted on Julie Andrews, and to the fact that he destroyed the sad poetry of the original by making the real world as fanciful as the one the girl imagined” (Wardle, 31 Dec, 11).

So, who knows? The Gentle Flame could be a lost mini-musical treasure or a hamfisted failure. Either way, to see and hear the young Julie Andrews perform a role written just for her during her prime Broadway years would have to be as close as imaginable to the perfect Christmas treat.

Notes:

* Whether or not the reference to the Little Matchgirl in Victor/Victoria is an intentional nod to The Gentle Flame is hard to know. Blake Edwards was certainly a master of satirical allusionism and, like most of the films he made with his wife and longtime collaborator, Victor/Victoria features more than the odd snook at the “Julie Andrews image” including, in this case, quips about nuns, exploding umbrellas, and even recycled jokes from Thoroughly Modern Millie. However, The Gentle Flame isn’t exactly a high profile entry in the Julie Andrews canon, so any intertextual reference would be pretty left-of-field. Interestingly, the joke about the Little Matchgirl in Victor/Victoria was inserted during production. The original shooting script has a different line in this scene:

Victoria: What am I going to do? Toddy: Well, you could open a boutique for midgets! (Edwards, 34)

** Clutching at straws, Julie does state in her memoirs apropos her BBC TV series that “we would tape one show a week” (279). Of course, the verb “tape” here could be being used symbolically rather than literally, but hope springs eternal.

Sources:

Andrews, Julie. Home: A Memoir of My Early Years. New York: Hyperion, 2008.

Bennett, James. Television Personalities: Stardom and the Small Screen. London: Routledge, 2011.

Black, Peter. “Peter Black’s Teleview.” Daily Mail. 13 November 1959: 18.

Briggs, Asa. The History of Broadcasting in the United Kingdom. Vols I-V. London : Oxford University Press, 1995.

Cottrell, John. Julie Andrews: The Story of a Star. London: Arthur Barker, 1968.

Cowan, Margaret. “TV a Comedown? No, Says Julie.” Picturegoer. 12 December 1959: 5.

Donnelly, K.J. British Film Music and Film Musicals. London: Palgrave MacMillan, 2007.

Edwards, Blake. Victor/Victoria. Unpublished screenplay (Final revised version: 23 Feb 1981), Culver City, CA: Blake Edwards Company, 1981.

Erni. “Foreign Television Reviews: ‘The Julie Andrews Show’.” Weekly Variety. 18 November 1959: 34

_______. “Foreign TV Followup: ‘The Julie Andrews Show’.” Weekly Variety. 23 December 1959: 38

Essex, Francis. “Some Passing Memories.” Television: The Journal for the Royal Television Society. Vol. 16. No. 1, 1976: 36-41.

Fiddy, Dick. Missing Believed Wiped: Searching for the Lost Treasures of British Television. London: British Film Institute, 2001.

Forster, Peter. “Television: Instead of Lunch.” The Spectator. 11 December 1959: 878.

“The Gentle Flame.” Radio Times. 20-26 December 1959: 7, 19.

Gray, Andrew. “Julie Andrews is Booked for Sunday Palladium.” The Stage. 6 October 1955: 12.

“Highlight s of the Week: Julie Andrews.” Radio Times. 8-14 November 1959: 9.

Holmes, Su. Entertaining Television: The BBC and Popular Television Culture in the 1950s. Manchester University Press, 2008.

“Julie Signs Up for TV.” Daily Mail. 12 May 1959: 3.

“Julie’s TV Show Postponed.” Daily Mail. 13 June: 3.

Noble, Peter, ed. British Film and Television Yearbook, 1960. London: BA Publications, 1960.

“Rooftop Rendezvous.” Programme Listing. Radio Times. 21-27 November, 1948: 21.

Sear, Richard. “Last Night’s View: The Unspoiled Fair Lady.” Daily Mirror. 13 November 1959: 26.

Taylor, Guy. “In Vision: Julie Andrews Makes Her BBC-TV Debut.” The Stage and Television Today. 19 November 1959: 16.

_______“In Vision: All Those Faithful Viewers.” The Stage and Television Today. 31 December 1959: 8.

Turnock, Rob. Television and Consumer Culture: Britain and the Transformation of Modernity. London: I.B.Tauris, 2006.

Wardle, Irving. Critic on the Hearth: Bitter Rice.” The Listener. 19 November 1959: 8.

__________. “Critic on the Hearth: A Blow Out.” The Listener. 31 December 1959: 11.

Wiggin, Maurice. “Television: Low Tide, High Noon”. The Sunday Times. 27 December 1959: 20.

Wright, Adrian. A Tanner’s Worth of Tune: Rediscovering the Post-War British Musical. Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2010.

#julie andrews #television #musical #christmas #bbc #1959 #Hans Christian Andersen #the little match girl #the gentle flame #francis essex #ronald cass #peter myers #british musical

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