For reasons beyond my control

For reasons beyond my control I have to stay in a single room for a couple of weeks. Yes with Netflix, but on a mobile phone, no TV. I'm too old to watch films and series on a mobile phone.

I'm lucky and can work from this room, but I need my pauses. Oddly enough I've been saving up recordings of podcasts and radio programs for just this eventuality. I listened to BBC Radio comedies since I was a young boy

I'd imagined my need for comedy it would occur in a hospital, but it hasn't, fortunately.

So first I listened to On Mardle Fen by Nick Warburton.

 
 
 
 


It is a strange comedy/drama, but entertaining. Samuel, the old codger who has knowledge of the East Anglian fens, is the best character. Zofia, the foreigner working as a waitress, is the least convincing. Her language mistakes are unconvincing. But not enough to ruin the series.

Next there was Ed Reardon's Week to fill the lonely hours:


The adventures of an out of work writer, with his agent "Ping".

After that,  Boswell's Life Of... Freud, Maria Callas, Agatha Christie... great comedy:


 Then I listened to as many Clare In The Community as I could find...

 Of course anything by John Finnemore is worth two or three listens...


So, if for some reason, you cannot get out of the house, try these podcasts. Some are no longer available on the BBC site, but are available on the Internet Archive.



 

 

 

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Comments

  1. omnivoristSaturday, 31 October, 2020

    I am not under similar confinement (yet) but have been listening to Simon Schama's History of Britain on Audible. I have always wanted to clarify that bit between the Roman's and 1066 - not to mention the later bits too. Trouble is - it takes some concentration to take it all in. I am constantly having to wind it back to the place where I fell asleep, or otherwise drifted off.

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    Replies
    1. Owen RansenSunday, 01 November, 2020

      Ah yes, the "falling-asleep-in-the-middle-of-a-podcast" phenomenon. I know it well. Oddly enough it does not happen with music, which keeps me awake.

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