It's Schama Time!

[tealin]

Despondent over the completion of the television series A History of Britain, I crawled to the library's online catalogue... and what did I find, but:

A History of Britain.

On tape.

Cassette tape, that is. Which is to say, a medium which can be enjoyed at my place of employment.

I started listening to Volume 1 today, after I picked it up at lunchtime. Aside from the obvious goodness, it was odd... The introduction, which is read by Mr. Schama himself, was very long (not a bad thing), but my tape player goes slightly faster than the average speed so his voice sounded higher than it did on the DVDs. (Not, you know, chipmunk-style, but still.) Then the main body of the text started, and it's read by someone else entirely. That was particularly odd because large segments of it are identical to the narration of the DVDs and to hear it spoken by someone else is like hearing another singer cover a favourite pop tune. (Though, fortunately, not so frightful as Frank Sinatra's version of "Mrs. Robinson.")

Anyway, that was my adventure for today.

I also went to life drawing. The less said about that the better.

Comments

[ubiquitouspitt.livejournal.com]

I believe moment I heard History of Britain read by anyone but Schama, my brain would jitter and then explode from the shock of it... His voice lends, er, something to the presentation. Or perhaps it's simply the vitriolic way in which he enunciates the phrase, 'horny bitch.'