Poetry

The Mexican poet

She smokes in her Mercedes

she flaunts the rules

she wears French stripes

her thick black hair sharply cut

she’s listening to the radio

she’s thinking about her son

wondering how he’s doing.

She’s thinking about the Mexican

poet protestor as he leads

thousands of demonstrators

from Cuernavaca almost to

the Texan border at El Paso.

She knows his heart will still

be breaking for his son

slain in a senseless drug war

nobody wants but everybody gets.

Joselyn Duffy Morton©

BBC, Radio 4 Extra

Hello again,
Michael McDonough is a writer/producer /director who, in 1983, produced 13 Ray Bradbury stories for audio. Michael later said
" the most fun I have ever had was producing Bradbury 13. Ray gave me total carte blanche on the stories I chose ".
Indeed Ray Bradbury was so pleased with the results, that he provided an opening voice-over for the series, and also gave Michael permission to produce any of his stories at any time.
I am delighted that we have been able to acquire Bradbury 13 for broadcast on Radio 4 Extra. You can hear the first story, The Ravine, in the 7th Dimension on Saturday evening.
When we contacted Michael McDonough, he kindly offered to write us a blog on the making of Bradbury 13.
Here is an edited version:
" I decided as a very young man in the late 1970s to someday adapt Ray Bradbury's stories into the audio format. I was very influenced by the sound in the movies back then, and having grown up near Hollywood I met Ray Bradbury through some friends. He immediately loved the idea of adapting his work into radio. I received a grant from National Public Radio in 1983 to produce thirteen half-hour dramas for national broadcast, and Ray was very supportive of the idea.
I chose stories from his works that I felt would work in audio and I went to work adapting them into radio scripts. My intent was for the audience to feel like they were watching a movie as they listened to them, so I wrote the stories with film-style settings and transitions in mind. I set about recording original sounds, and manipulating them in the studio on multi-track tape machines to create a library of sound material to use in the shows. I decided not to update Bradbury's scripts into the current time era, but kept them in their original settings of the 1950s and 60s when they were written, so the sounds were appropriate for that time period.
I hired two friends who were budding music composers, Roger Hoffman and Greg Hansen to write original music for the shows, and a live orchestra was recorded in the studio. The music in the series is patterned after and heavily influenced by legendary British Film Composer Bernard Herrmann, who wrote many fantasy and dramatic films scores for many classic films including "Psycho", "The Day The Earth Stood Still" and "Cape Fear".
On the technical side, I decided to record the actors using a binaural microphone set up, which simulates true stereo sound.on dirt, cement and various surfaces
Finally, I was able to hire legendary Hollywood voice talent Paul Frees to introduce each story and voice the closing credits. His credits include numerous motion pictures, including George Pal's original "War Of The Worlds", many Disney cartoons, and the voice of Disneyland's attractions "Pirates of the Caribbean" and the "Haunted Mansion".
The finished shows were broadcast on over 250 NPR radio stations throughout the United States, and won the Prestigious George Foster Peabody award in 1984. All in all, it was a work of love!"
The full version of Michael's blog, plus photos, will be available this weekend on the Radio 4 Extra blog
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/radio4/.

And finally,
In 2009, Radio 2 ran a competition for the best bed-time story - ever. The winner was a magical story about a mouse, who goes for a walk in the woods in search of nuts, and in his search overcomes various obstacles and outwits a huge creature, the Gruffalo. The book is of course The Gruffalo, and the author is Julia Donaldson. Julia is a best-selling author, whose books were the most borrowed from libraries last year. She has over 120 books to her credit, and I was very pleased to hear the announcement this week that Julia Donaldson has been named as the Children's Laureate for 2011-2013.
The Children's Laureate post was created in 1999, and previous Laureates have included Michael Rosen, Jacqueline Wilson and Michael Morpurgo. Julia, who lives near Glasgow, is the first Scottish-based author to be awarded this prestigious title. My congratulations to Julia, and best wishes in her campaign to promote books for deaf children, and her support for libraries.
Happy listening!
Mary Kalemkerian
Head of Programmes, BBC Radio 4 Extra 

Cover caption

Summer's over. Photo: Roger Morton

Raving Reporter

 

Maslak, Istanbul

A Sunday or two ago I found myself waiting to board a Lufthansa plane at Munich for the United Nations Least Developing Countries Conference number 4 in Istanbul (from now on, it will be referred to as UN LDC IV - we love Roman numerals in international organisations) I soon became aware of my fellow passengers and was amazed at the stereotypes.

Tall, very young girls, ballet dancer slim, but not together in a group, waited to board with shiny bright new turquoise passports proclaiming Moldovian National were first in the line. They were followed by what appeared at first look, to be a bunch of priests (having several priest-pals from my Rome days I can spot one - in or out of mufti). This lot were wearing the traditional NGO male uniform - trousers, jacket and t-shirt all in black, a two-day stubble and reeked of smoke having rushed from the Camel Smoking Lounge when the flight was called. Why the rush? I don't know, as they all had Business Class tickets and EU passports.

There were assorted women with assorted headscarf styles, their husbands/brothers/fathers/elder sons all wearing the traditional garb of the region - a black leather jacket. Children were numerous and quite well-behaved unlike the bunch of American tourists who were heading to pick up a Carneval cruise in Istanbul ... and was the whole plane aware that they had been bumped off their original plane and wanted to sit together?  No? And I did not care (it was only three hours to Istanbul).

I was sitting at the window, a splendid black American guy was on the aisle and yes, in between us snuck a Carneval cruiser who began asking the guy on the aisle a barrage of questions. No questions came my way as I had already been chatting with the steward in German so he was unaware that I could have been added to his chatroom.

He asked the aisle-guy if he was American too?

reply, mm,
going to Istanbul?

reply, mm,
what are you doing in Istanbul?

reply, changing planes…

My ears pricked up - why would one change planes in Istanbul?
He was going to one of the ‘stans’… one of those places that time forgot but the ex-Soviet union remembers well and would really like back, sometime soon.

The Carneval cruiser then asked in booming tones "Work for the government?"

Silence, for a full five seconds and then a reply of  "Something like that".

Drinks were being offered and after his first mouthful of beer my neighbour asked me, in a very slow, loud and deliberate way "DO YOU SPEAK ENGLISH?" while pointing at me.

I smiled, said yes and he politely complimented me upon my grasp of the English language as I explained why I was headed to Istanbul. I returned to Der Spiegel and lurid pictures of more bombings in an over-bombed world.

Finally arriving in Istanbul, we disembarked. The ballet dancers were collected by very tall, very wide-shouldered young men in NGO uniform and leather jackets - the men did not look pleased or too interested in ballet and the girls looked scared. We read about trafficking, it’s going on in front of us at borders, in airports every day.

The Carneval cruisers were collected by a clucking official who promised them an evening of oriental entertainments, the NGO lot headed towards the taxis and I met Sergun who had been allocated to me so I could not get lost from the airport to the hotel.

Sergun was a poster boy for the Turkish army in an ersatz or possibly a knocked-off real Prada suit, brightest of white shirts which matched his teeth and a wide, fluorescent, fuschia pink tie. We were transported to town in the shuttle bus with large UN letters on it, along with some Cotton growers from Africa, some desertification types and somebody from the World food Programme. Speeding into the city, giant banners proclaim the arrival of the UN circus.

I cannot fail to notice in the five years since I had last been to Istanbul, the immense construction that has taken place and is still ongoing. As the Bosphorus came into view the spectacular skyline of Sultanahmet is quite unchanged, nothing comes close to the immense Blue Mosque or Aghia Sofia, but look further afield and the new buildings of Maslak, the financial district dominate the other side.

The pace of UN LDC IV was frantic as speakers (Prime Ministers or European Commissioners or Presidents) from every known nation, took to the stage and delivered speech after speech and pledge after pledge of resources. These included Ahmadinajad,and Karzai. Ban Ki Moon seems a nice chap - he certainly is serious about funding, his staff reliably informs that the speeches are taken verbatim as he writes down everything that is pledged so if a politician forgets, (most of Gleneagles pledges are still nowhere in sight) the UN  has recorded who has promised how much and by when.

Themed debates encompassing the Ministers for Trade of small Pacific islands and a Cambodian speaker who only spoke with optimism for the future of his country are to be applauded. Solutions found for home-grown issues are exchanged and question-and-answer sessions go on into the night.

Palestine took the floor and the Plenary chamber filled. An eloquent speech followed on Ending occupation, establishing a state which was launched in August 2009 with the date forseen as September 2011. Israel was next and it emptied very quickly.

In between the speeches which continue all day, every day for a week, similar, but not as musical as the Orthodox church at Easter, there are side-events where cotton growers, tourism touts and NGOs ply their businesses - those men in black or African ladies in bright waxed cloth could be saving tree sloths, distributing camel cheese from the Sahel or promoting tourists to vanishing atolls.

The third ring in these conferences is usually the official restaurant where Prime Ministers, Heads of State and passing dignitaries of the host country greet, meet and eat at a staggering rate. The organisation of these lunches is not to be joked at ... Ministers are notoriously sly at accepting an invitation and will wait until the last minute to turn up unannounced (if they have not received a better offer that day) thus table planning and protocol goes out the window or should I say - down the Bosphorous as plans à l'anglaise or à la française are jilted for ‘Wherever’. Receptions can replace real life for a week and skills of balancing plate and glass come to the fore.

Our Turkish hosts were exemplary, perhaps organisation is easier in a country with a huge army, the conference has been a major success and we all return home knowing that there is no ‘them’ and ‘us’. A large percentage of the participants are returning to countries that are further under water than when they left ten days before. A Japanese minister gave a very emotional ‘thank you’ speech to include some of the poorest countries on the planet like Tuvalu and Kiribati who had come to his country's aid after the earthquake and tsunami.

The UN is the bane of many developed countries, it is fashionable to deride its aims and objectives which seem to take too long to achieve, however the professionals who are the UN are committed to keeping everyone talking - like barking dogs,keep them barking.

And Sergun? The younger generation of Turkey do not share their parents’ hopes in joining the EU, they may no longer even care, they have invented their own future, it might not include Europe but it would be our loss not theirs. He and his friends have no intention of emigrating. Emigrants return with tales of precarious lives, they retire home to Turkey and they bring everything back with them.

Raving Reporter

Poetry

Sleeping Mask

River mist floating religiously

alongside cleaned white

Basilica spires,

sipping from my glass

I think if I could paint,

I would paint only water. 

My carafe has my

sleeping mask reflected inside,

grey mysterious shingled layers.

In a shop window yesterday,

I saw a 786 euro dress, miniscule sequins

shimmering in perfect curves.

Once I could have danced the night away 
in a dress like that

tonight from my hospital bed

I watch swallows fly past and

wonder where their nest is.

At home, chez nous,

their babies are already hatched but crouching low.

Joselyn Duffy Morton©

Stephen O'R's Oz

Billy Hunter has shuffled off this mortal coil.
Young Billy Hunter was a state champion swimmer with Olympic potential  who doubled for Tony Perkins in that great 1960's flick ''On the Beach' and decided to take acting. Old Billy Hunter, the country cove from Ballarat,had become a double entity. On screen he was gruff man of the people playing an astonishing
range of interesting Australian characters. Off screen he was lover of the Australian vernacular that enjoyed ordinary Australian people At the farewell to Billy Show held on last Thursday at the Princess Theatre
in Melbourne  on a wintery day in this city of toffs and lefties where the poor wear beards and the rich well cut suits. We were treated to yarns of Billy's great claim to fame as a bullshit detector without peer. Not for this nationally know screen star the coffee bars of Carlton or St Kildare but the old school worker’ pubs such as the All Nations at Richmond where those of us without wives or husbands gathered for a drink or three after the hearse had gone its way.
Billy always asked for 'walk around money' when he was on a film. It drove producers mad but fuelled a thousand friendships with strangers who approached the lone Billy at the bar. A few minutes with him made a person feel noticed and over the years there was hundreds of us on and off set who were taken in by this gruff man with a warm heart and a shallow pocket.

I remember acting in a scene with him and there was this sense of being dragged down the corridor in the wake of a dirty but powerful tramp steamer who was not going to wait for nobody so you had better swim fast if you wanted tostay in the same breathing space.
A man’s man who abandoned his loving child at four coming back into her life only to leave her again with his death. His forty-plus son mumbled drunkenly adoring the ceremony realizing he would never get Bill’s attention.
I liked him and thousands of others real, or fantasied feelings, were like mine. A good funeral with lots of good footage. Thanks Bill it was nice to have bumped into you, mate.

Stepehen O’Rourke

BBC, Radio 4 Extra

Hello again,
We've had a splendid range of guest artistes popping into our studios recently, to chat and discuss their work, whether in writing or performing.
Mark Thomas was Arthur's Smith's guest in this week's Comedy Club. Mark spoke about his upbringing as "the son of a preacher man" and also talked about his visit to the Middle East and his 750 kilometres walk along the length of the West Bank Barrier - on both sides - Israeli and Palestinian. Mark's experiences have resulted in a new one-man show, and a book which was published in April, Extreme Rambling.
Jason Byrne recently won the prestigious Sony Radio Academy Gold Award for his Radio 2 stand-up series, The Jason Byrne Show.
The Sony judges were truly won over by Jason's show, as in their opinion it was "the best use of the audience in any entry this year and by its consistent laugh-out loud moments." We have scheduled Jason's show for Friday evenings on Radio 4 Extra, beginning in July.
Jason dashed into the Comedy Club to talk to Arthur about his new tour, Cirque de Byrne and also spoke enthusiastically of his love of the work of three comedy greats Tommy Cooper, Eric Sykes and Barry Cryer. He has good taste in comedy!
The third comedian/writer to come to our Comedy Club studio this week was Alexei Sayle. Alexei discussed the difference between his quiet, real life nature and his angry, vitriolic stage persona. Alexei is appearing at the Stoke Newington Literary Festival, and is also co-hosting at London's South Bank Centre, At Last, the 1981 Show, a celebration of the alternative comedy scene in the 1980s.
We've certainly been keeping Arthur busy this week.
Mike Walker is one of the top dramatists currently writing for radio. Mike's work - original drama and adaptations - covers all genres, whether science fiction, horror, historical, or the classics. He would certainly merit the accolade of "The Radio Dramatists' Dramatist"
His most recent work on Radio 4 Extra was the excellent dramatisation based on the Holinshed Chronicles, The Plantagenets, and we also repeated in the 7th Dimension his award-winning Alpha and Omega.
It’s always a pleasure to meet up with Mike, and I was delighted to see him again early this week, when he came in to be interviewed about his radio work, including his dramatisation of Neville Shute's post-apocalyptic end-of-the-world novel, On the Beach, which you'll be able to hear on Radio 4 Extra in a few week's time.
China Mieville has been described as "one of the most interesting and promising writers to appear in the last few years in any genre."
China came in to Radio 4 Extra, and amongst other things, spoke about his latest novel, Embassytown.
You can hear China's interview in next week's 7th Dimension.

Mary Kalemkerian, BBC, Head of Programmes, Radio 4 Extra

Cover caption

Photo: Roger Morton 1968 Jag poking out of the Victor Hugo carpark building in Bordeaux

Poetry

Uncle Sandy

Met my 91 year old grandfather

outside in the farm yard

black curly hair thinner now

 and whiter, lots of white.

We talked, jerkily, unevenly

I wanted to hug him

but never had. Not once.

My Uncle Sandy

hated my mother so much

he wouldn’t let me inside

with my young

NZ husband.

I thought of him today

when I heard President Obama

was visiting his great great great

grandfather’s birthplace in Monegall in Ireland.

I don’t even have a photo of mine

but in my mind’s eye I see him clear as day

ramrod back,  tall and slender

handsome, welcoming us,

embarrassed he couldn’t invite us in

for a cup of tea.

We’d come such a long way.

Joselyn Duffy Morton©