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| By Nathan Chantrell, on March 27th, 2010  I was pleasantly surprised to see that tonights airing of the Delia Derbyshire documentary “Sculptress of Sound: The Lost Works of Delia Derbyshire” on BBC Radio 4 was listened to by enough people to make her name a trending topic on Twitter in the UK for most of the evening – and not just because it means I wasn’t the only person listening to Radio 4 at 8pm on a Saturday night!
Most people will have been exposed to Delia Derbyshire’s work even if they aren’t aware of her name as she created the original 1963 arrangement of the Doctor Who theme tune. Her interpretation of the original score by composer Ron Grainer left him so stunned that on hearing the finished version he asked “Did I really write this?” to which Delia replied “most of it”. Grainer was so impressed with the result that he even tried to get her credited as co-composer but BBC bureaucracy prevented it. The documentary explains how creating such other worldly sounds in those days was a laborious process involving recording individual notes on magnetic tape which were then spliced together to make up the final tune. The show also includes various interviews and recordings with Delia and other examples of her music that demonstrate how far ahead of her time she was. In particular the 1968 White Noise album “An Electric Storm” made with David Vorhaus and fellow Radiophonic Workshop member Brian Hodgson is one of my favourites and is now considered an important and influential album in the development of electronic music. Sadly Delia died in 2001 at the age of 64 as a result of complications from breast cancer treatment. After her death her private collection of the material she recorded was bequeathed to Mark Ayres, archivist for the BBC Radiophonic Workshop who has worked with Manchester University to create a digitised archive of her work. If you missed the documentary you can hear it on iPlayer here or it is repeated on Monday at 3pm on Radio 4. By Nathan Chantrell, on November 9th, 2009  “Understanding is a kind of ecstasy” – Carl Sagan
The great Carl Sagan would have been 75 today. Most famous for the 1980s TV series and accompanying book, Cosmos, he was a prolific science writer producing more than 600 papers and articles and was the author, co-author, or editor of more than 20 books including the novel Contact which was the basis for the 1997 film of the same name. As well as being an engaging writer and presenter, Sagan was a critical thinker, scientist and visionary and was also a proponent of the search for extraterrestrial life and an advocate of SETI. He was part of an all too brief popularisation of science and is quoted as saying “We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology“. His efforts at putting this right were not wasted but there is still a long way to go. Cosmos covers a wide range of subjects including the origin of life, the value and worthiness of the human race, and the relative insignificance of the earth in comparison to the universe. Even thirty years on it is still a must watch for anyone even remotely interested in science and remains an astounding piece of television. You can watch Cosmos on Google Video starting here. I’ll leave you with another quote from the great man: Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known” – Carl Sagan
By Nathan Chantrell, on October 24th, 2009  As improbable as it seems, seventeen years after Mostly Harmless and eight years after Douglas Adams’ untimely death, a new Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy book is upon us once again. Artemis Fowl author Eoin Colfer bravely steps into a rather large pair of shoes to bring us And Another Thing…, the sixth episode of the increasingly inaccurately named Hitchhiker’s trilogy. I wasn’t sure about this on several levels, Hitchhiker’s has such a loyal following and had been a huge influence on my life from an early age so for someone else to carry it on seemed a bit like sacrilege and just cashing in on its success. I didn’t think anyone could continue in anything like a similar style either. I’d never heard of Eoin Colfer before but he is obviously a well known and liked author (albeit of children’s books) and Douglas Adams’ widow Jane and his daughter had approved of his continuation of the H2G2 legacy so that was something positive to hang onto.
Having just finished it I am pleased to say that it is a much better than I expected, Douglas Adams it is not but Eoin Colfer has managed to take a lot of his style and successfully make it his own without trying to mimic it completely. The original characters seem authentic and there are lots of references for aficionados to pick up on, even if some seem a little crowbarred in at times, and on the whole the story isn’t bad. My biggest criticism would be that the “guide notes” sometimes seemed awkwardly placed, breaking the flow of the story and often weren’t good enough to justify the interruption. It’s not got the depth of irony or humour that the originals had either but Douglas had a unique writing style and, certainly in the early days, was renowned for his way of rewriting and rewriting, reducing what might have originally been enough for a chapter or more down to a few powerful lines of dialogue. So while it might not be as good as Douglas at his best I am pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed it. It can’t be easy trying to write in someone else’s style so all credit to Eoin Colfer for what I think is a worthy addition to the world of The Guide, he’s one froody dude and it was great to have the guys back again. All Hitchhiker’s fans should give it a go. By Nathan Chantrell, on September 22nd, 2009 Remember all the exciting things we were promised? Back when the year 2000 seemed unfathomably distant the future looked rosy, by now we would be living in a Star Trek like world where robots would do all the work and we would be able to spend all our time on leisure pursuits. A world where diseases and even the common cold would be a thing of the past. Now here we are, nearly ten years into the 21st century, where is it all? Where is my jetpack, my electric flying car, the underwater cities and the day trips to the moon? What happened to being able to control the weather? Instead, we have a growing disparity between the haves and the have-nots and the technological wonders that would bring our new peaceful, prosperous society have not appeared. Our cars are still grounded and powered by fuel extracted from the earth at great cost (both monetary and politically) not electricity. The electricity which by now was supposed to be “too cheap to meter” instead of increasingly expensive and still generated by pollution spewing power stations burning a dwindling supply of fossil fuels. Even some of the things that have materialised are disappointing, the household robot is here after a fashion, but it’s really just a vacuum cleaner. The jetpack is here too but you won’t be going to work on one anytime soon. Recreational space travel might be on the cards but it’s not going to be the ubiquitous, even routine image portrayed in the likes of 2001: A Space Odyssey for a long time, if ever. So what went wrong? Well I think a lot of the time, investment and talent that should have gone towards bringing us these things has been squandered on military development, procurement and war. The oil companies and others tried to strangle the electric car at birth for their own financial gain (at least this seems, finally, to be making progress again) and fear of nuclear power killed our cheap electricity. Maybe those were just more optimistic times too. Sure, it’s not all doom and gloom; Computers, the internet and gadgets such as smartphones are bringing a different, perhaps unpredicted, slice of “the future of the past” into our present but it’s not for all, there is still war, famine, sickness and a huge percentage of the worlds population still don’t even have basics such as clean drinking water. Maybe William Gibson was right when he said “the future is already here, it’s just not very evenly distributed”. At the very least, we’re more than a bit behind schedule and frankly, it’s all a bit disappointing really. By Nathan Chantrell, on January 26th, 2003 There is some sort of Blake’s 7 “25th anniversary extravaganza” on next Sunday on R7 @ 8am and then repeated at 9pm. Can’t find any more info than that really though. ENTERTAINMENT: Zen and the Art of Blake’s Seven
Channel: BBC Radio Seven
Date: Sunday 2nd February 2003
Time: 08:00 to 11:00 (starting in 6 days)
Duration: 3 hours. By Nathan Chantrell, on November 26th, 2000 There was mention in todays Sunday Times of the possibility of a new Dr Who movie: Dyke calls up Daleks to take on Hollywood – let’s hope it’s better than the last one!
yeah, yeah, I know… I’ll believe it when I see it too… | |
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