CONTORTED PASTA

Been a while since I've done one of these ... but at the same time, it's been a while since I've been working on something that has allowed (or indeed necessitated) interesting words coming in my ears. But the last week or so I've been doing the most extremely basic colouring-in, so interesting radio has been essential.

Actually, the main thing I have to link here isn't radio at all, but rather a free(?!) course from Yale on African-American history. It goes without saying that I didn't learn much about it in school; for all my TV intake was heavy in history documentaries, they were mostly cheap imports from a British knacker's yard and so rather short on the existential struggles of Black America – and I'm not sure my interest would have been piqued if they were. There is a very long post about race, media, and unconscious bias brewing, so I will say no more here; suffice it to say that there's a gap in my knowledge that is overdue being fixed, and finding this link provided the perfect opportunity to fix it.

AFAM 162 with Prof. Holloway

If you want to go all-in, there are reading materials and everything on the site as well; I've mostly been listening to it as a 'radio' lecture, but I do highly recommend switching over to watching it when he's definitely showing something. It's not a bucket of laughs, but for the first time since getting into the Oregon Trail back in Grade 5 I find myself being inspired by American history, which had hitherto been little more than a history of acquisition, be it by war or purchase or just sheer bloodymindedness. It's like discovering a spinoff series that is better than the original, and even though I consider myself to be fairly well historically informed, it has completely upended my perspective on most things. Do give it a spin.

Having been deep in the guts of these lectures all day provided the most serendipitous moment when Poetry Please, a programme I don't dislike but only ever listen to by accident, came on while I was cleaning the kitchen. The guest was a sociology professor by day, Marvel writer by night, and being a Black woman from Chicago, laid down a killer hand of poems which I would not have understood nearly so well without the fresh contextualisation. Poetry Please with Eve Ewing

And then there's the usual roster of radio plays and whatnot ...

Journal of the Plague Year - Another not-exactly-radio, but made by someone from the radio! Daniel Defoe was only a wee bairn when the Great Plague hit London in 1665, but as an adult he researched the heck out of it and wrote this mock first-hand account. Simon read it, and I listened while sewing masks, back at the start of the pandemic, and I may have linked to it then. It has become no less relevant, and the excellent reading helps smooth over what might be awkwardly archaic language on the page. (Classical theatre training FTW!)
The Divine Comedy - Dante's epic poem of the afterlife is another gaping hole in my education, but a friend of mine is super into it, so I thought I'd give this a listen just to get my bearings. I'm sure a fan of the original would find it cringey, but I thought it rather good, so maybe you will too.
Sparks - I had trepidations about this musical which juggles grief with dating, but it turned out to be really touching and well-executed, with good tunes as well, so I pass it on to you.
London Particular - A three-part drama about living within layers of history; time travel is no new narrative conceit, but this does it in a fun way that goes some interesting places. It starts out a little slow, but by halfway through ep.3 I was hoping it would be a regular series.
Day of the Triffids - John Wyndham's classic is not actually about killer plants so much as what happens to society when it's had the rug pulled out from under it, and as such, it's as timely now as it's ever been.
Cadfael: Virgin in the Ice - This was probably my favourite episode of the TV series, to which I was devoted as a teen; usually this is bad news for radio adaptations, but Bert Coules works his mystery-radio magic so well I don't even mind that it's not Derek Jacobi in the lead.
Elephant in the Room - Panel show in which weirdo comedians measure up their likes, dislikes, and life experiences with public norms. Worth listening for the made-up names of respondents alone.
I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue - It's been an interesting year of live shows now being recorded in isolation – ISIHAC's recording tour was interrupted by the first lockdown, but the format actually made the transition to Zoom panel quite well, though the zaniness inherent in the show might be a good cover ...
Genius - Guests present to an certified genius (of some stripe or other) to ascertain if their ideas are, in fact, genius or not. Sadly the 'how to determine the opposite of anything' episode has expired, but they are all good. I especially recommend the Armando Iannucci one.
The Consultants - One of my regular favourites in the genre of Barmy Sketch Show. Often office-based but not always. Occasional songs.
What Does the K Stand For? - I have a bit of a soft spot for this sitcom about a first-generation Nigerian family in South London because it was airing when I first moved to London, and it was such a different perspective, with such strong characters.
The Brothers Faversham - Silly fake Victorian biographical sketches of an over-the-top family, with bonus "ads" and occasionally a surprisingly poignant moment.

Well, I'm off to continue getting schooled while doing my colouring-in (funny how they'd never let you do that in actual school), so, happy listening!

I haven't done a recap or reflection in quite a few years; I've blogged enough, and we've all reflected enough, that I don't think one this year would be necessary or appropriate. But I do feel like I have learned a number of important things that maybe sum up 2020 better than anything else, so for what it's worth, here's a collection of them:


I'll probably add to this list throughout the day, but here's something to start with, anyway.

When I moved into this 500-year-old house, I knew it was going to be cold. At the time, daytime highs were in the low teens Celsius, and while that wasn't cold per se, it was cool enough that the draughts – mostly coming from the authentic leaded faux-medieval 1970s windows – were plainly perceptible. The heating had been programmed to go half an hour in the morning and evening to keep the pipes from freezing, and that was ample; I turned it off mid-May and, aside from a particularly chilly week in June, didn't turn it on again until mid-November.

The kitchen is furnished with an Aga, which is essentially a gas update of the old wood- or coal-burning cast iron stove. It takes ages to heat up, but when it gets hot it stays hot for ages. During the summer I would only run it on the coolest day in the 7-day forecast, cooking everything I could and then living off salads and leftovers for the next week. The only downside to this system (aside from spending an entire day on my feet) was that the Aga heats the water, so most of the time I had no hot running water. However, I had been hearing about the health benefits of cold showers for years, and decided I might as well give it a go. To my surprise, after a few weeks I actually got to like them, and the prospect of a hot shower seemed gross and feverish. Maybe the Victorians were on to something.

Now, of course, it is cold – in fact the last few days have been about as cold as it ever gets around here, freak Siberian high pressure systems notwithstanding. The same advice that touted the benefits of cold showers started with 'since central heating means we don't adapt to the changing seasons anymore ...' so I was determined to try doing it the old-fashioned way and see how low I could go. It wasn't just machismo: my house in Cambridge had been kept rather cool as well, and I discovered when I went on my sailing trip that this gave me superpowers of resilience compared to my comfortably-heated crewmates who were miserable all the time. If I could adapt to an even colder house then I could be even more resilient, and British winter would have no power over me at all! (OK, maybe there was a little machismo.)

And, I have to say, it has worked. I have been persuaded to increase the heating to a whole hour in the morning and afternoon, with a short booster late in the evening in case I'm working past 11, which is the case more often than not, but so far I haven't needed more than that. There were a couple of uncomfortable weeks as the nights got longer in October, but then we had a warm spell in November that felt positively balmy, and now that we're back to freezing temps I am finding them no trouble at all. In fact, it was only this morning (foggy, -1°C) that I finally pulled out one of the lighter merino base layers I'd taken to Antarctica, a layer I'd sometimes gone without in the dry cold down there, but wore pretty consistently through March back in the UK. This acclimation thing, it turns out, actually works.

I bang the polar drum a lot, but something I wish I had more opportunity to talk about is how the seemingly superhuman men of the Heroic Age came from a very very different everyday life than we do. The most privileged of them went to ancient stone boarding schools with unheated dormitories, where toughening up was part of the curriculum. They all lived in houses warmed by coal-burning grates which had to be re-lit in the morning, and they all had draughty single-glazed windows. Many of them spent most of their life outdoors, in all weathers. They appeared to be made of different stuff because, well, they kind of were.

I am pleased to discover that some shadow of that physical resilience is still available to us pampered moderns without having to leave the comfort and convenience of home. Having visitors would be complicated – do I tell them to bundle up, or do I pump up the heating to be stiflingly warm? Luckily the pandemic has cut the Gordian knot for me, this year – no visitors! And I don't have to worry about cold depleting my immune system because I don't see anyone to catch a cold from. I can be as mad as I want in my historic hut, unchallenged.

Not gonna lie, though, resilience or no, it's nice to have a hot shower again.

You'll be happy to hear that after yesterday's unproductive productivity, and finally getting the work done in the runup to midnight, I spent all day today faffing about, after an extremely long lie-in. There was one short email I needed to write and I took about an hour to do it.

Tomorrow morning I'm going for a walk, and might not touch a single apple ... except to eat it, because I have a pie in the oven right now. There may be a glass of wine as well. The sole aim for the evening is to get the kitchen tidy, and thanks to the fourth load of dishes in two days, it's nearly there.

Hashtag Sabbath etc. etc. Peace out, yo.

My dreams are usually not very reflective of reality – or at least, not the parts of reality you'd pay any attention to; they frequently involve errands and passports and train timetables, but almost never real people, significant life events, or even actual places. On the rare occasion I do remember them, they are usually so boring I throw them away after first recollection on waking up.

Lately this has shifted, and I'm not entirely sure why. Three dreams in the last couple of weeks have featured real people in real places and even something I'm actually interested in, another rarity. In one, a mostly-online and politically active friend was very excited about a book of 19thC Russian short stories and, at a party, was starting a political conversation with my very Republican dad. (Alas I woke up before I saw how that turned out.) In another, I had Wilson's freeze-dried hands in a paper bag in my actual kitchen – they were beginning to leave grease stains on the paper – but when someone came by to take a look, they turned out to be brown leather gloves. (In fairness, I had been colouring a page with a closeup of his hands the day before, but neither my work nor the Terra Nova Expedition usually make it into dreamspace.)

Last night I had only my second pandemic dream since March: I had gone in to Cambridge for some reason, and it was packed, mostly with rowdy young people, no one wearing a mask. I have made it a point to put a mask in the pocket of every coat because I am a very absent-minded person, but it was a mild day so I hadn't worn a coat and therefore didn't have a mask. I did have three kerchiefs on hand and tried to tie one or another around my face bandana-style, but they kept slipping down and I couldn't figure out a way to get them tighter. My sister, unusually, was there, and offered me her scarf, but it was a very loose weave so not much better than a placebo. I also stopped for an alfresco lunch with my ex-BF (who lives in Vancouver, not Cambridge) who'd just had a proper kitchen sink installed under a panoramic window overlooking Midsummer Common (in Cambridge, not Vancouver).

In marked contrast to the last time I lived alone, I have been remarkably happy rattling around this big house on my own, and never lonely. I do wonder, though, if my nocturnal brain stocking dreams with real people, instead of NPCs as it usually does, might have something to do with not seeing anyone I know most of the time. I have long theorised that the prevalence of boring everyday dreams is compensation for spending most of my waking hours in my imagination; perhaps real people are turning up now to compensate for not appearing during the day?

I came, I bought, I got home again (eventually ...).

It was just as quiet as I had hoped it would be, despite last night's late quasi-announcement that we're likely going into Second Lockdown this coming week, which made me fear people would get an early start on their panic-buying. Bless you and your late-rising ways, Cambridge. I think it was the first time I'd been in the city centre Sainsbury's since I moved ... I used to be in there a few times a week, before, so it was a little nostalgic.

It turned out that I could buy a bikeload of animal products – which is also about as much as I can fit in my freezer – without needing my second voucher. The voucher says it's good for two years; hopefully in that time there will be a moment when redeeming it won't be so fraught or so timely.

We really should have gone into Second Lockdown ages ago. The scientific advisory panel to the government suggested it in September; Labour has been calling for it since mid-October; the government have dragged their feet in the face of all evidence ostensibly because Labour wanted it. So we're back in the same position as in March, where those in charge don't want to take any responsibility, and so put it off and put it off until it gets really bad and much harder to recover from. They had all summer to prepare for this, and now the trends in the nationwide case rate are far worse than their worst-case projections. While the characterisation of the Terra Nova Expedition as doomed by its own bumbling hubris is not at all backed up by the historical record, it is very easy to see how, when suggested, one might suppose it must be true, as this character trait seems to be nailed to the flagstaff of British leadership. 'Lions led by donkeys' is just as true now as it was in WWI. Laden with 20lbs of groceries and cycling into an incoming storm, my trip home was much longer and harder than it ought to have been; the symbolism was really rather clunky.

On my own completely selfish part, I'm looking forward to lockdown. Schools are supposed to be staying open, so traffic won't be as low as it was this spring, but it'll be nice to have it a little quieter again. I've got a massive bag of flour, more apples than I know what to do with, a freezer full of cooked meals and ingredients for more. This afternoon I'll be moving the main parts of my workstation down to my bedroom, so I can keep that warm and abandon this draughty corner of the open-plan first floor until spring. The burrowing therefore is very nearly literal, and lockdown gives me every excuse to keep my burrow to myself.

There's a chance of frost on Wednesday. The bird feeders are full and the garden more or less put to bed. I observed, my first autumn in Britain, how even if one didn't know Halloween/Samhain was a thing, this precise day was perceptible as a turning point from autumn into winter. You can just feel it. This year, the human world is participating in step with the natural and spiritual one. Wherever we are going, we are going together, but where that might be is anyone's guess ...

Just realised it's been nearly a month since I posted ...

I did not, in the end, die of taxes, but it was pretty close and I'm still pretty pissed off about it. For being one of only two countries in the world that requires its citizens to file even when they live and pay taxes in another country, the US is remarkably clod-headed about considering the possibility someone might be filing from abroad. So in case anyone has stumbled across this blog while trying to file via TurboTax because they can't find an accountant who will touch US tax returns, here is my advice:

When they ask you in the opening questionnaire if you are self-employed, DO NOT say yes.

When they ask you if you have any W-2s to report, DO NOT say yes.

Yes, these are lies. But if you answer truthfully they will funnel you into the default income section, and you will be trapped in a maze of numbers not talking to other numbers when they should, and it will not be nice.

All foreign income – which is all your income, whatever the source, if you are legally resident abroad – needs to be reported in the foreign income section, which is an entirely different section from the 'income' section, for some reason, and you only find it after you've gone through (or skipped) everything else. If you fill out the regular income section it will treat you as though you're in the US no matter what address you give it, and the foreign tax exemption will NOT apply no matter how bona fide you are.

I have left a note in my tax documents so that 2021 Tealin does not waste two weeks and tarnish her soul with hatred the way 2020 Tealin did, and have put them away, and am starting to move on with my life, THANK GOD.

Today, for the first time since March, I am getting on a train. I am only going two stops, and rural ones at that, during a time of day when the trains were usually pretty empty even in the Before Times, and will of course be thoroughly masked and alco-gelled, so hopefully this will not be the start of another dark adventure. I am going for a lovely walk through the lovely countryside with a lovely friend, which will scrub off some of that tarnish, I hope. Will I remember to bring my sketchbook? Who knows! It'll be a good day regardless.

I have been working on my taxes. September isn't the usual tax season, but I get a 6-month extension on my US taxes on account of living abroad, which puts the due date in October. (I haven't heard anything about a Covid extension as was offered to domestic tax filers, so am proceeding as usual.) UK taxes aren't due until January, but while I've got the books open and the numbers in my head, it makes sense to do them at the same time and beat the rush.

On one hand, international tax treaties mean I don't actually have to pay taxes in both countries, but the US can't bear the thought of not knowing all the financial details of one of its peons, so I have to file them just the same, and pay for the privilege of doing so.

Usually this process takes three days or so, because I need to do at least one currency conversion on all my income and receipts, and on each month's interest on every one of my international bank accounts, even when they're pennies, according to the exchange rate on the day. It's a lot of sums. Most people in my position would be working for some big firm which has sponsored them to work abroad, and can afford to pay someone else to prepare their taxes. That is very much not the case with me. I couldn't even justify accountants' fees by claiming they get me a higher refund, because I'm self-employed – I don't get a refund! Besides which, the vast majority of accountants in the UK refuse to handle US tax returns. There is a very good reason for this: they are not idiots.

This year has been even more complicated than usual as I have a mountain of receipts from my Antarctic trip, and the various personal and global madnesses of 2020 have kept me from updating my books since this time last year. Consequently, that process has taken a whole week. I sat down to file today, but quickly ended up in a dead end with HMRC, where I needed my calculated tax amount to fill out a supplemental form, but couldn't calculate it until I'd supplied the end result of said supplemental form. So I moved on to filing my US taxes, but everything is different this year: Instead of dropping in my total income and expenses and confirming that I'm still paying taxes abroad, I now have to itemise everything and move up to the higher filing package to do so. 'It's OK!' says the filing company, 'You can pay for it out of your refund!' I don't get a refund.

I have support requests in for both things, but goodness knows if/when any response will come back. I was looking forward to having everything finally squared away today, but it looks like I'll be in Revenue Purgatory for another week at least. I could keep plugging away at my US return, supplying what I know is ultimately irrelevant information because it's all going to total $0 at the end anyway, but frankly, if I have to make the numbers dance for another week I am going to be spending more time Googling 'how to fake your own death' than getting anything done. Meanwhile my email falls more and more atrociously behind, and I haven't done any work on what is, theoretically, my actual job.

So I'm putting the books away. I still have a month until the US taxes are due, and what little I can do on that front I could do just as well when my query gets a response. If there's any comfort to be had, here, it's that next year should be a lot simpler: no research trip, no teaching in a country that docks its own taxes before sending me the cheque (thanks Switzerland), and I've stocked up on the work supplies I need for the foreseeable future. I really wish I could move ahead with the decks clear, but that's obviously not an option this year.

Every time I go through this process I come out hating the world, but planning to be back in Canada soon, I am extra determined to go down to ONE bank and stay in ONE country, and pray my family quits the US so I can finally kick off that ball and chain. I liked paying Canadian taxes, and that's the one country I belong to which doesn't ask me to do it every year!

As you know if you've been following me, I am learning Danish. I was surprised to find out, while looking for something else on Duolingo, that I have been at it for three years now! Granted, there were some long pauses in there, but I've been back at it since coming back from Antarctica and, as the mental bandwidth well has refilled over the summer, really applying myself to finishing the course.

For those unfamiliar with Duolingo, each lesson has five levels with varying numbers of exercises within them, each comprised of a set of sentences. The 'levels' don't get any harder, they're just repeating the same material – I suppose they've figured out that N repetitions is what will cement something in your head. Once you've done all the exercises in all five levels, that unit is finished, and you only have to do a refresher every couple of weeks to keep that achievement valid. I try to get everything up to Level 4 before moving on, so that if I'm feeling intellectually overtaxed I can go back and complete a known unit rather than trying to squeeze new information into my head.

It is still fun, and it's also a nice mental palate cleanser when preoccupied with other things (or a bit of productive procrastination when one's job for the week is, for example, taxes), but it's also been interesting to see how my ease with it rises and falls. I hit a tough patch a couple of months ago, where the sentences were just too long and there were too many new words in them, so I went back and focused on getting more of the previous units to completion. Then I started watching an episode of The Bridge every night, which is mostly set in Sweden but one of the main characters is a Danish-speaking Dane, and even though I couldn't understand most of what he said, just an hour a day of trying seemed to make a substantial difference in my proficiency on Duolingo.

That ended a while ago, and there's been a gradual tailing off in my proficiency since then, but I really hit some bafflement when I arrived at the Future Perfect Tense, i.e. describing something as having finished, but in the future. There seemed to be no pattern at all to whether one refers to something being in the past, but on a future date ('I have done my taxes next Saturday') or when one describes arriving at a state of being ('I am coming to have done my taxes') or a direct translation of English ('I will have done my taxes'). Usually the patterns and rules make themselves pretty self-evident in the exercises so I have rarely looked at the 'tips' for the lesson, but not making head or tail of Future Perfect myself I had a look this morning.

Turns out, Danish doesn't really do Future Perfect, so there aren't any rules for it. To paraphrase the Duo writers, 'We know you anglophones love talking about what will, in the future, be the past, so we've thrown together some guesses about how you'd say it in Danish just to make you happy. Oh and even though 1/3 of our exercises teach you to say "will have..." that sounds really weird in Danish and nobody actually says it, lol!' So I guess this is just a memorisation exercise and learning things wrong. I really wonder sometimes if they actually expected anyone to get this far through the course ...

There has been so much good radio on, I have been too busy listening to it to get this list out in a timely fashion. Therefore some of these shows are expiring fairly quickly, and if you want to listen you should get a move on. For assistance in that, I am providing the expiration date for the first available episode, which I hope may be helpful.

FICTIONAL

Fatherland - This dramatisation of Robert Harris' book knocked my socks off when I first heard it 15 years ago, and the more I listen to it the more I am convinced it is the finest radio play ever made. Alternate history, Nazis won the war, hardbitten detective, pesky lady journalist – practically every noir trope, but it goes places. Oh, it goes places. It doesn't get repeated nearly as much as it used to, so don't miss this opportunity. (7 Sep)
A Study in Scarlet - Bert Coules' radio adaptations of the entire Sherlock Holmes canon (and some extras) are one of the best things ever to happen to radio drama, and 4 Extra has happily repeated the longer ones after a long absence. I have linked to the first episode of A Study in Scarlet but once you launch the player it should take you through The Hound of the Baskervilles and The Valley of Fear as well. (2 Sep)
The 39 Steps - I think I heard this one ages ago, and if memory serves it preserves some rather uncomfortable antisemitism from the book (which I assume the West End play does not) but it is a rollicking good jape otherwise. Plus, Tom Baker! (19 Sep)
Evil Under the Sun - I haven't heard this one yet, but the others in this series of Poirot adaptations have been very good so I assume this is as well. I don't like Christie's milieu as much as Doyle's – what can I say, I'm stuck in 1910 – but that's nothing against the production team here who really know how to put a radio play together. (20 Sep)
Only You Can Save Mankind - The aliens a pre-teen boy is fighting in his video game suddenly surrender, and demand safe conduct out of the war zone as per the Geneva Convention. Terry Pratchett takes the twist of Ender's Game and uses it as a starting place, exploring important ideas about humanity in the process. As a radio production this one leaves something to be desired, but it's still worth listening, especially if you haven't read the book. (18 Sep)
Journey to the Centre of the Earth - Unlike the book, which reads like 'everything we know about geology in 1864 held together with gossamer threads of plot', this adaptation focuses more on the adventure, and does a good job of subterranean atmosphere. (12 Sep)


FACTUAL

The Mark Steel Lecture - Always interesting and engagingly presented, the episode I've linked to is about Oliver Cromwell but everything else Steel talks about is worth a listen too. (1 Sep)
All The Planet's Wonders - A refreshingly joyful exploration of, in this case, astronomy, but the whole series will lift your spirits with wonder and curiosity. (3 Sep)
Radiolab - This series is a huge hit in podcast land, but I find it overproduced to the point of distraction so I've never really got into it. However, live shows cannot be edited to Kingdom Come, and I enjoyed this one – mainly about what killed the dinosaurs – hugely. (8 Sep)
Meet David Sedaris - It took me a while to come around to Mr Sedaris but I know lots of people like him a lot, so if you are one of those people, or wonder if you might be, here is your heads-up that his series of essay readings is back on Radio 4. (27 Aug)
How Perkin Brought Purple to the People - I haven't listened to this programme yet, but I know this story from James Burke, and it's a good one! There is no natural dye that gives you magenta, so a huge range of colours was unavailable to fashion, until someone created one from a fossil fuel byproduct. (indefinite)
The Infinite Monkey Cage - Radio 4's classic irreverent science show is back, this time discussing one of Dreamy Professor Brian Cox's favourite subjects: black holes. Recorded with an online audience! (indefinite)
You're Dead To Me - This series of history podcasts got at least ten pages of my book done. The host is the head geek behind Horrible Histories, then every episode he brings in a different expert and a comedian to discuss a historical subject for just under an hour. I'm pretty sure I've linked to it before, but it's started updating again. (indefinite)
Intrigue: The Ratline - Loving family man Otto Wachter died mysteriously in Rome a few years after the end of WWII. Could this have anything to do with what he got up to when a high ranking officer in the SS? If you enjoyed Fatherland you may find this a good chaser; its incredible twists and turns take you for quite a ride. (indefinite)

FUNNY

That Mitchell and Webb Sound - After taking their show to roaring success on TV, David Mitchell and Robert Webb returned to radio for one last go in 2013. They have lost none of their genius. (31 Aug)
Cabin Pressure - R4 has apparently finished its rerun of the best radio sitcom ever with Series 2 – I can only assume they're saving the rest for when the country needs a laugh again this winter. If you've missed it up till now, you can still listen to the last four episodes. (23 Aug)
John Finnemore's Souvenir Programme - More genius sketch comedy! Honestly the name should be enough to get you to listen, but if you need further convincing, well, there just isn't a dud sketch in the whole show, and it's up to, what, eight series now? (3 Sep)
Old Harry's Game - The sitcom set in Hell really hits its stride in Series 2, when the overcrowding situation in Hell forces Satan to try to make humanity a little less sinful. (indefinite?)
Listen Against - This started as a topical comedy, where the week's programming on Radio 4 got chopped and boiled into an absurd gumbo, but it's funny enough that it keeps getting rerun as a comedy in its own right. Possibly the most self-referential thing R4 has ever made. (29 Aug)
Agendum - In a similar vein of spoofing the news, this one cocks a snook at in-depth investigative reporting and punditry. (7 Sep)
Radio Active - Dipping back into the deeper archives for this one, another sort of mock news programme from the 1980s, with roving reporters and funny names and running gags ... It should be tired by now but it still makes me laugh. (2 Sep)
The Wildebeest Years - Never before have so many puns been crammed into 28 minutes. (28 Aug)
Talking and Not Talking - A rare female-fronted silly sketch comedy; one of the best for recurring characters, including Carol who is Fine and the magnificent China Lion Lady. (1 Sep)
The Horne Section - I suppose it's a variety show, but I think of it as 'a children's show for grownups,' with skits, songs, and a generally uplifting gentle whimsy that I think we all need right now. (4 Sep)
I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue - The antidote to panel games which has now become the model for panel games. They're rerunning some classic episodes so fill yer boots with such immortal rounds as One Song To The Tune Of Another and Sound Charades. (2 Sep)
Reincarnathan - R4's comedy output has not been stellar of late; this sitcom about a failed human trying to make good through a series of animal reincarnations is not genius, but is the best new thing I've heard in a while. (29 Aug)
King Cutler - Some people will listen to Ivor Cutler and think 'Is this a joke?' Others will listen and think 'Is this a joke?' but not be able to stop listening and, perhaps, in the right mood, double over with laughter. Which are you? (20 Sep)
Paul Sinha's General Knowledge - The quizmaster comes back with his arms full of facts, which he effortlessly strings together in front of our very ears. (18 Sep)