Thursday 4 August 2011

Kafka would have approved...

One of my favourite aspects of Radio 3 are the news bulletins. Everything happening out there in the world is very distant and really a distraction from music in general and R3 in particular.

Oodles ago a friend and I joked that a Prime Ministerial assassination would be reported as, 'The Rt Hon John Major [yes that long ago], the Prime Minister has been assassinated... Later on Radio 3 we continue our series of broadcasts of concerts given at this year's Edinburgh International Festival....'

Today, at the end of an item on the winding up of a government quango charged with winding up government quangos because it wasn't winding up government quangos after all, the continuity announcer said, 'Kafka would have approved.' Then it was back to the music.

Still, it's not all bad a live late night Prom tonight; The Tallis Scholars in an all Victoria programme.

2 comments:

Patricius said...

Spot on! I almost fell off my chair when they announced between pieces that Mrs Thatcher was resigning. I quickly retuned to Radio Four. That news was simply too momentous and I had to convince myself it was true!

leutgeb said...

That must have been quite something.

R4 has its own quirks, of course, like spitting the network and putting The Archers on LW when something big happens. I remember that happening for the Thatcher resignation and the start of the first Gulf War.

Because Ambridge always carries on.

Mind you, I found myself in the parallel universe of Archers Extra recently without realising. Weird.