Goodbye 7, hello Extra

At the end of this week BBC 7 will cease to exist as BBC 7 and BBC Radio 4 Extra will be born. I for one am a fan of 7 – it has been a wonderful source of archive material and a few new pieces. Its challenge has always been that its catalogue is limited and over the years there has been a good deal of repetition so I hope that the new incarnation will give it a further injection of material. However I have to confess to a tinge of sadness that somehow the quiet and unsung quality of 7 will now get shared more widely. Terrible possessiveness I know – and stupid as 7 already gets a million listeners.

On the schedule this week they have the concluding part of a Professor Challenger series. Always been a fan of Conan Doyles work, and of that eras writers particularly.
A Challenger series – the Lost World has just aired on Radio 4 as well. I have to say I find the rather predictable gender changing that goes on when dramatising these things is really rather nonsensical. It changes the dynamics in the story, it introduces themes that weren’t there in the original, it misrepresents the circumstances of when the story is set and is just another metropolitan affectation so beloved by the Beeb. Oh dear another whinge.

Otherwise not a bad piece – but Bert Coules would have done it better :o)

An auspicious day!

World Book and Copyright day – and St Georges day all rolled into one. Doesn’t come much better as far as I am concerned. So I recommend you:

• Settle down with a nice pint of good English bitter – how about trying something from the PotBelly Brewery in Kettering a fine micro brewer, Yeller Belly would be my choice today.
• Have a read of a good book, how about Tulagi Hotel – written by a Fin but in English – in fact it is the first book by a Fin to be both written and published in English not in Fin.
• Listen to some great spoken word and in the spirit of being inclusive I would recommend any of the quintessentially English Sherlock Holmes dramatised by Bert Coules and on the very fine BBC7

The game's afoot: Follow your spirit, and upon this charge. Cry 'God for Harry, England, and Saint George!