Posts Tagged ‘BBC’
Treading lightly…
In this 1974 clip from the BBC news magazine Nationwide, Mr. Tony McCabe demonstrates how to jump on eggs without breaking them:
Slow news day…
[TotH to The Presurfer]
***
As we struggle to balance “nimble” and “quick,” we might light a candle for Lucifer Calaritanus, bishop of Cagliari in Sardinia; he died on this date in 370 (according to St. Jerome; it may have been 371). Though the status is elsewhere disputed, Lucifer is considered a saint in Sardinia, and today is his feast day. In any case, his name– which means “bearer of light”– is a reminder that “Lucifer” had not in his life time attained its Satanic connotation. Indeed, it was St. Jerome, in his translation of the Bible into Latin (the Vulgate) in the 390s, who made “Lucifer” synonymous with the Dark Lord… Given that Jerome was a theological antagonist of (Bishop) Lucifer, the naming may not have been altogether coincidental.
The Annals of Cultural Relativity, Vol 12: Christmas Giving in Different Countries…
Why do kids wish that their parents behaved like Luxemborgers, while parents wish their kids had more Dutch expectations? The Economist explains it all:
When it became an independent nation in the seventeenth century, the Netherlands pioneered what today would be called austerity chic: think of the plain interiors painted by Vermeer or ruddy-faced merchants in their black smocks by Frans Hals. Today’s chart, which shows a correlation between Christmas spending (culled from various sources) and wealth (in purchasing-power parity terms), suggests that the disapproval of those Amsterdam merchants still has some sway over their descendants. Lightly-taxed Luxemborgers, by contrast, are exceedingly generous outliers. Footloose readers would be well advised to head there for December 25th.
As we reach for the wrapping paper, we might recall that it was on this date in 1932 that the world received a gift from Britain: The BBC World Service began as the BBC Empire Service operating on shortwave frequencies. Its broadcasts were aimed principally at English speakers in the outposts of the British Empire, or as George V put it in the first-ever Royal Christmas Message, the “men and women, so cut off by the snow, the desert, or the sea, that only voices out of the air can reach them.”
Expectations for the new Empire Service were kept low. The Director General, Sir John Reith (later Lord Reith; see almanac entry here) said in the opening program: “Don’t expect too much in the early days; for some time we shall transmit comparatively simple programmes, to give the best chance of intelligible reception and provide evidence as to the type of material most suitable for the service in each zone. The programmes will neither be very interesting nor very good.” (As recording hadn’t yet been mastered, Reith had to read the same statement, live, five times over a 7 hours period to account for different time zones.)
From that modest beginning, the politically-independent, non-profit, commercial-free Empire Service, now the World Service, has become the world’s largest international broadcaster, operating in 32 languages to bring current affairs, culture, education, and entertainment via shortwave, internet streaming and podcasting, satellite, and FM and MW relays to over 188 million listeners the world over.
Alistair Cooke reading “Letter from America” on the World Service (source)
All Reith Now!…
Bertrand Russell delivering the first Reith Lecture
The Reith Lectures were inaugurated by the BBC in 1948 to honor the contributions of its first Director General, John Reith (more formally known by the end of his career as “John Charles Walsham Reith, 1st Baron Reith”).
Lord Reith had operated on the principle that broadcasting should be a public service that enriches the intellectual and cultural life of the nation. In that spirit the BBC invites a leading figure to deliver a series of radio lectures each year– the aim being “to advance public understanding and debate about significant issues of contemporary interest.”
And so, over the last 63 years, British listeners have been treated to Arnold Toynbee on “The World and the West,” Robert Oppenheimer on “Science and Common Understanding,” John Searle on “Minds, Brains, and Science,” John Keegan on “War in Our World,” Marina Warner on “Managing Monsters”… and dozens more extraordinary minds explaining and provoking.
As of a few weeks ago the BBC has made the entire audio library of Reith Lectures available online, from Bertrand Russell’s kick-off through 2010’s Martin Rees on “Scientific Horizons.”
Hallelujah!
[TotH to @brainpicker for the link]
As we listen and learn, we might recall that it was on this date in 1908 that “SOS” (. . . _ _ _ . . .) became the global standard radio distress signal. While it was officially replaced in 1999 by the Global Maritime Distress Safety System, SOS is still recognized as a visual distress signal.
SOS has traditionally be “translated” (expanded) to mean “save our ship,” “save our souls,” “send out succor,” or other such pleas. But while these may be helpful mnemonics, SOS is not an abbreviation or acronym. Rather, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, the letters were chosen simply because they are easily transmitted in Morse code.
click image above, or here
A good scare…
HW: Do you find that audiences are frightened by different things now from the things that frightened them when you started, what, 30 years ago… 35 years ago, making films?
AH: No, I wouldn’t say so, because after all they were frightened as children. You have to remember this is all based on “Red Riding Hood,” you see? Nothing has changed since “Red Riding Hood.”
In 1964, Huw Weldon (later, Director General of the BBC) interviewed Alfred Hitchcock for the BBC series Monitor…
Part Two here
HW: Have you ever been tempted to make what is nowadays called a horror film, which is different from a Hitchcock film?
AH: No, because it’s too easy… I believe in putting the horror in the mind of the audience and not necessarily on the screen.
[TotH to Brain Pickings]
As we reach for our security blankets, we might recall that, though accounts of an unusual aquatic beast living in Scotland’s Loch Ness date back 1,500 years, the modern legend of the Loch Ness Monster was born when a sighting made local news on this date in 1933. The Inverness Courier ran the account of a local couple who claimed to have seen “an enormous animal rolling and plunging on the surface.” The story of the “monster” (a label chosen by the Courier editor) became a media sensation: London papers sent correspondents to Scotland and a circus offered a 20,000 pound reward for capture of the beast.
Photo “taken” in 1934, later proved a hoax (source)
Teach your children well…
Your correspondent is headed again across the Dateline (where he loses all track of what day it actually is), thus (R)D will be in abeyance until March 9 or 10, when “service” will resume again.
In the meantime, a message from the past to the future…
In 1959, philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, and social critic Bertrand Russell appeared on the BBC interview program Face-to-Face. As the program came to its final two minutes, he was asked a valedictory question: “What would you tell a generation living 1,000 years from now about the life you’ve lived and the lessons you’ve learned?”…
[TotH to Open Culture]
As we do our level best to take good advice, we might recall that it was on this date in 1611 (81 years before the beginning of a case Russell might have cited, the Salem Witch Trials, on this date in 1692) that John Pell was born. An English mathematician of accomplishment, he is perhaps most remembered for having introduced the “division sign”– the obelus: a short line with dots above and below– into use in English. It was first used in German by Johann Rahn in 1659 in Teutsche Algebra; Pell’s translation brought the symbol to English-speaking mathematicians. Indeed, Pell was an important influence on Rahn, and edited his book– so may well have been, many scholars believe, the originator of the symbol for this use. (In any case the symbol wasn’t new to them: the obelus [derived from the word for “roasting spit” in Greek] had already been used to mark passages in writings that were considered dubious, corrupt or spurious…. a use that surely seems only too familiar to legions of second and third grade math students.)
John Pell (source)
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