Entertainment For Lively Minds
The new Podcast: "It's Alzheimers - the board game!"
Posted by David Hepworth on 13 February 2008 - 10:52am.
Two cocoa tins, a piece of string, a few scribbled notes, a can of high-energy drink Rock Star and some congenial company - that's all it takes to put together the eighth wonder of the media world, the Word weekly podcast. In the latest edition Mark Ellen and David Hepworth and Matt Hall join forces with Word's 99% True quizmeister and country cousin John Naughton to discuss:
• why the hell are people always sending pop music into space?
• Has the hunt for Britney Spears really been called off?
• What was the swearingest TV series ever broadcast?
• Why didn't John go out with Hugh Grant that night in Hollywood?
• What happened when Mark took Lucinda Williams out for dinner on Valentine's Day?
Splendid 'cast
...but would have loved to be able to hear the story about Mark and Lucinda Williams....sadly it disappeared into the road noise on the M25 - all the rest was fine. SPEAK INTO THE MIC!!
Will now have to listen to it again through headphones (shakes head sadly)
Earh calling ... got any Beefheart ?
Glad you aired the subject of NASA's latest broadcast.
Couple of reactions though: the Voyager records were sent not with a player but with instructions on how to make one ... this was the era of Clive Sinclair after all. Presumably we expect an irate alien to turn up in St Ives in about a billion years with a pile of parts ...
Anyway, I guess if they are that far ahead of us they'll be back to vinyl ... ;-)
My other point was that we shouldn't forget that the prime mover behind the "Murmurs of Earth" wasn't NASA but the late Carl Sagan, and he was trying the ultimate World Music compilation. If I recall correctly R&R got one track, Chuck Berry's Johnny B. Goode I think; "Dark was the night" was the one blues. He was trying to condense a whole planet's musical history on one disc ... arguably even harder than finding one typical Zeppelin number ...
But he'd always cheerfully admit that these messages were as much to his fellow Earthlings as the finders ... a bit like Stewart Brand's "Clock of the Long Now".
N
I listened to this week's podcast....
...with a sense of wonder and also a tiny bit of embarrassment that something I wrote, purely as a means of delaying a walk to the supermarket made such big ripples.
My Dave Gormanesque quest is to convince anyone who interviews Van Morrison from now on, to ask at least one carefully worded question, that will result in him saying a word or phrase from my reworking of On Hyndford Street; with kudos going to the man or woman who gets him to mention ‘Kerry Katona' or ‘The Jeremy Kyle Show.'
Once all the words have been collected they can then be spliced together to form a complete track.
Named and shamed
Tell me about it. I got done in last week's podcast. Ever since, I've been hiding under cushions with the curtains drawn. Can I come out now?
Come on...
...are you really saying that you *don't* want the fame and distinction that comes from being mentioned in the 'cast? Isn't this a very British sense of 'secretly proud embarrassment' (apologies if either of you are contributing from the former dominions).
Or maybe that's what the usernames are for? ;-)
It's the old adage
"Be careful what you wish for, because it might come true".
I still half expect to be followed by a baying pack of paps every time I nip out for a coffee.
(Still, at least they pronounced my surname right. My agent was pleased about that.)
Mark & Lucinda - or Homer & Lurleen?
As Mark Ellen told of his Valentine's Day meeting with Lucinda Williams, this was how I pictured it:
I'm sorry.
Brilliant!
That made me laugh a lot.
As did the anecdote. Right up there with Ellen's masterwork, the Chrissie Hynde/Fois Gras epic.
Re Mark & Lucinda
Fantastic anecdote, Brother Ellen. As Jimmy Beck says of Pehaligon in Cracker, I wouldn't want to come home to her on a flat week.
Naff and Nerk
I've always assumed "naff" came from Palare, as popularised by Julian and Sandy in Round the Horne.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palare
As it turns out, the etymology is disputed and the Wikipedia entry dismisses Mark's suggestion as a "backronym". "Ooh, isn't he bold?" as Sandy would say.
And I have no idea if there's a connection with Porridge but Fred Nurke is a character in an episode of The Goon Show ...
I'm completely hooked on the podcasts and enjoy them enormously. Thanks very much for all the entertainment and carry on giggling.
Beyond the grave duets
Hank Williams Sr and Hank Williams Jr.
Buffy
Quick point about the Buffy comment from another Word/Buffy fan.
The musical episode (Once more, with feeling)was fantastic, just pointing out another episode that didn't need swearing or singing or even (nearly) any words was 'Hush ' when The Gentlemen stole the unfortunate population of Sunnydale's voices.
Possibly one of the best, and scariest Buffy's ever and not a C-word or a swearing Nan in sight.
More Buffy please.