The Day I Nearly Died

I nearly died at the weekend, well almost because I had man Flu, the worst kind where you ache all over and feel very sorry for yourself.  I was so ill I spent two days in bed, I couldn't be bothered to watch TV so had the radio on instead.  Mostly Radio 7 that treasure trove of sometimes superb sometimes a little bit, er, crap programming from the BBC archives. 

I also listened to Radio 4 that cosy middle-class radio station where the listeners cling on to it like a child to a comfort blanket.  I remember falling asleep to some pretentious rubbish about something or other chaired by a very well-spoken BBC woman and her Chelsea or possibly Notting Hill clique.  I woke up though to The Food Programme which was all about the future of the Irish food industry.

This was a superb programme, robustly presented with excellent contributors, proper and sparse use of music and effects, when the effects were there somebody was explaining what we were hearing - oh joy.  Also the narrative drove the piece, it flowed effortlessly from one topic to another.

Also I heard the most amazing use of audio.  The reporter talking to a farmer about his farm allowed the farmer to answer the question and then as the farmer drifted off topic, he took a fade and ran a voice over with the farmer still blabbing in the distance and then stopped his VO at the point where the farmer became interesting again.  We were always told never to mix vocal with vocal but on this occasion it worked really well. So well done Radio 4 you are the best resourced station in the world and sometimes you produce the best programmes too.