The Glass Box for Tuesday
The Glass Box is the place where you can comment on what you heard on PM, interact with other listeners and get responses from the people who make the programme.
Just click on the "comment" link.
The Glass Box is named after the booth outside the PM studio where we all discuss the programme at 18.00 every weeknight. We try to be honest and constructive. Sometimes there is criticism, and the criticised get a chance to explain themselves.
The people who make PM will read the comments posted, and will sometimes respond. Unless it's Roger Sawyer editing. He's completely hopeless. Please feel free to post your thoughts. There is a link to previous Glass Boxes on the right.
Also on the right, you'll find lots of other links you might like. The Furrowed Brow for example is the venue where you can start talking about anything serious of your choice: The Beach is a fun place, and there are links to Blog entries with photos, audio and links. And if you want to see us drone on about awards, you can do that too.
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It took a while to be able to open the glass box this evening, and when I finally got a look inside it was empty. Had one of you lot spilt tea in it and shorted out the works or something?
I’m curious about this ‘etter’ group. Isn’t it ETA?
I have to admit that I do not going to the pub very much.
I was brought up in pubs and clubs, and if today's establishments were a bit more like those of yore, you know, venues for social intercourse rather than venues for the procurement of tomorrows hang-over, I might be more inclined.
Is this just me?
I thought the professor interviewed about middle-class overindulgance in alcohol sounded as if he was on some substance or another. It may just be his accent/manner of speach, but it was not the crisp, clear tones of EM and others.
I do know of a professor who *is* on something - methadone. He was given a massive dose when he was not expected to live; he lived, but was hooked.
If Australia Day is such a huge success for the country, why does Australia still have a public holiday for the Queen's Birthday?
I think we should be told..
After listening to the untrameled, humourless, mumbo-jumbo-laden smugness of your 'psychtherapist', I have to conclude that I prefer the 2012 logo (dreadful though it is).
Hello,
Is the psychotherapist getting the Sanddancers mixed up with Bellydancers. the Sanddancers had there arms held in angular positions, and looked very like the London logo.
A lovely piece about the WW1 veteran who was ill... sorry, 111.
The psychotherapist was daft as a brush, as expected. (Egyptian dancers not angular? Does she not remember Wilson, Kepple and Betty?)
I missed most of the Australian lady due to my washing the dishes, but if we got a "Britain Day" and it was a bank holiday, an awful lot of people would just jet out of the country for a long weekend.
Goodness, something actually about the programme from me for once. Three somethings, in fact.
First, my heart sank when the nice Aussie lady said 'Communities are encouraged' to enjoy Australia Day. If they are actually keen on it, why does anyone need to encourage them? It sounds to me like another occasion when 'community' is being used to mean 'nobody real at all'.
Second, if ordinary Joe Bloggs asked Channel 4 please not to show picrutes of his mother's dying moments on the telly for all to gawp at, I bet Channel 4 would say 'oh, ok then' and leave them out.
Third, you had a chap on whose birthday is *tomorrow*. Why on earth did you broadcast this today? Can't you wait to open his birthday presents, or something?
That last is a serious comment on the tendency of Radio 4 to celebrate things early. Programmes about Midsummer Day get aired on June 12th, and so on. Why do it? Why not wait until the right day comes round?
PS I haven't in years heard such risible hokum as that being spouted by the inkblot lady. Analysis straight out of a teenage girls' magazine in the 1960s. Full marks to Eric for managing to sound as if he were taking it seriously.
What's happened to this programme? It gets more like the equivalent of Tonight with Cliff Michelmore every day that passes. I keep expecting to hear the Scottish tones of Ffyfe Robertson(?) coming over the airwaves. There is a thread on the Today message board about cuts in the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ News programmes. Can I suggest PM is the first casualty?
I'm worried after hearing other people's responses to the 2012 Olympics logo. It looks like a map of London to me. Am I normal?
I saw the LloydsTSB customization in the paper today, and my main worry about it is that the colour palette will be determined by potential corporate sponsors, not by what is really going to look good or work.
OK, so things in Kenya are really, really bad. They are. They're awful.
But from what I hear, Zimbabwe is far worse.
If you want chapter and verse for the programme, I can put you in touch with someone.
Email follows, for the hard of frogging.
Fifi
Quite agree with VT Thinblot, a name no doubt that will set the psychologist off on a Rohrschach outing if she is reading this.
These snap judgements are clever-clever but more revealing about the lady than the sub-Freudian mumbo jumbo she offered us by way of explanation.
With a glass of Cabernet Merlot from South Australia red wine in one hand and a young blonde on my knee - I am writing this little blog....sorry only dreaming that I was Errol Flynn in a previous life...but am having a glass of Larrikin (sic). So was I really dreamimg that alcohol consumption, too much apparently and a piece on the spirit world was back to back, was some one on PM taking the pxss? But if Asa Briggs is/was correct even before Claudius came to Britian in AD 43 the Ruling Elite were trading in wine and slaves, so nothing new in the last few millenniums, it would appear!
However the piece on Mr Henry E (111 years old) was wonderful....it really warms the cockles of your heart in this cruel cynical world....especially if the new Ruling Elite want a British day - when according to Expedeia the on line service org who 'conducted a survey of tourists boards around the world that rated British tourists as the most obnoxious', with the Chinese catching up fast ( The Sunday Observer - New York Times selection)...so we could ask, is it worth it?
Brian V Peck
I thought the psychotherapist piece was tongue in cheek? Was it not? -- That whole ink blot analysis thing was dicreditted years ago -- I thought she was just giving a humourous take on it.
But then, what do I know -- when I first heard Guns'n'Roses I thought they were being ironic...
I just wanted to say what an exquisite interview you gave with the Russian Ambassador. It was pure genius. It just shows that you don't have to be aggressive to make them squirm!
Well done you!
Aperitif (15) Thank goodness for your comment! I had been chuckling in a sixth-form-humour kind of way at the psychologist's comments. Then I read all the comments on this thread and wondered if I'd missed the point again, in a sixth-form-brain kind of way.
I'm with Appy (not literally, I should add!). I thought the Psychotherapist piece sounded very tongue in cheek, and I think she approached it in the same vein, making it one of those pieces (like last week's RSPB one) that's there just to point out how silly the news can be at times.
btw, any chance of the unedited version of the RSPB piece appearing on the blog, along with the classic Golden Joystick award intro from last year?
I thought the whole analysis interview of the Olympic logo was set up in order to embarrass Rupert. Wasn't it? Is it his birthday or something?
Listening to the psychotherapist on tonight's prog put me in mind of the old ink-blot gag:
Man goes to psychiatrist to take a Rorschach ink blot test, Shrink shows him the first blot and asks him what it reminds him of. "Sex" replies the man. Shrink shows him the second ink blot and asks him what it reminds him of. "Sex" replies the man. And so it goes on throughout the whole test. Psychiatrist asks the man what the blot reminds him of and the man replies "Sex" every time.
Eventually, the test finishes and the man asks what the psychiatrist for his diagnosis. "Hmmm...." replies the shrink "It seems to me that you are completely obsessed with sex."
"What!? Me obsessed with sex?" exclaims the man "You're the one with all the dirty pictures!"
I am sooo sorry...missed a lot of the prog..but the ink blots tell me, along with the tea leaves in the bottom of my mug....that this was another outstanding piece of broadcasting from the Beeb Beeb Ceeb.....keep up the good work...
.......Nurse.....the screens please...and page Dr.......
Annasee (20)
wot u on gal.....Rupert a touch under the weather....jus' ask jonnie...FCOL
Fearless (19),
I remember that "Golden Joystick" comment - but wasn't it a question within the interview?!! Wasn't an outake made available in the audio sections?
Appy, Fearless and others, the ink-blot thing sounded so definate on every issue I soon decided it was a complete hoax.
Perhaps I took the psychotherapist too seriously, but I just thought she was incapable of seeing anything exceot problems in everyone's lives. I'm glad Eddie asked for her own opinion on the logo, though.
Morning All...
Roger the Editor here (by the way Big Sis, thanks for defending my honour a few weeks ago o the blog, but I really don't mind. I dish it out rather a lot, so I have to be prepared to take it).
Yes, the psychotherapist was supposed to be tongue in cheek. It would stretching things a bit to suggest we could do some serious analysis based on what people think about the logo. Mark you, Lucy the psycho-therapist did analyse me once on the basis of a shirt I was wearing. And I think the logo looks like a cubist painting of a pavement pizza.
Annasee (20), I am afraid Rupert is completely unembarrassable.
I've tried MANY times, but he is beyond embarrassment.
The highlight for me was 111-year-old Henry Allingham. A big happy birthday to him. I spoke to him yesterday to let him know Hugh's piece was going to be on. He was great. And the Russian ambassador was rather revealing. It will be intersting to see how the whole Russia story debvelops.
I can't blame today's typos on my three-year-old daughter this morning. She's downstairs, laughing madly like Inspector Dreyfuss in the later Pink Panther film. I blame my hangover. I too ignored Government concern over alcohol, because my 2005 in bond white burgundy arrived yesterday. A bit young still, but I had to try one.
Which reminds me of this joke:
Man in restaurant: Waiter, do you have a White Macon?
Sommelier: No, just my normal working clothes.
Toodle pip
Rog
Anth, you are right. mea culpa! It was, of course, Eddie's first question to the winner... It still brings back memories even now. I don't think it ever made the audio clips section though...
Morning Roger and good to hear from you. Thanks for an interesting and varied programme last night. Glad to know no one was taking the ink blot thing too seriously. Perhaps you can tell me, was I right about Guns'n'Roses after all?...
P.S. What's with all the Pink Panther references lately?
Not related to the glassbox but just heard an interesting comment from two male guests house hunting from Ayr in Scotland.
I asked why they were moving down from Scotland to Bournemouth. Their reason was that Scotland was becoming indepenent and too anti-English (though one of the men was Scottish).
I wonder how widespread this opinion is?
Jonnie (29):
I haven't noticed a lot of anti-English feeling as such up here.
There *is* a lot of feeling against the oft-mentioned London-centrism in both government and media. In particular, it'll be interesting to see how the nationality of both Tim Henman and Andy Murray apparently change during Wimbledon depending on how they're doing. If they're both doing well, Tim will change from "British" player to "English" player, while Andy will change from "Scottish" to "British".
To be honest, this tendency in the media has been so blatant for so many years that I just laugh it off as a joke now, but for some people that can get very irritating.
The very unconvincing arguments that the Olympics in 2012 are for the whole of the UK, not just for London are something else that's starting to get up people's noses. If the overspend reaches a point where it has to be bailed out from national funds rather than London and the Lottery, then expect a big backlash.
(Of course, the movement of lottery funds from nationwide projects to pour into the Olympics already means the rest of the country is - sort of - paying for it.)
Mostly though, Scots are too busy hating each other to have time to hate the English...
Can't remember much about yesterday's programme apart from Eddie's excellent interview with the Russian Amb. It was like listening to Nick Clarke at his best.
Oh, and the 111-year-old war veteran was fabulous. I won't live that long (nor would I want to), but he was incredibly inspirational. Well done Hugh - again!
I feel very sorry for the MaCanns over the kiddnapping of their daughter. But in some way I feel that by going out for their dinner and leaving the children alone that it was a factor that conbritutated to her kiddnapping. I have just been on holiday with 2 children and not once did we even consider leaving them in the room while we ate. It is something you wait to do when the kids are alot older. We did go on holiday before maddie was taken so not something done because of what has happened. Its not easy with young children but they do grow up and you have your life to do what you want then. I hope that she is found safe and well