Things Called Jazz That Are Not Jazz (Radio 4) | iPlayer
The Briefing Room: Jesse Morton: The Jihadi Who Changed His Mind (Radio 4) | iPlayer
The Matter of the North (Radio 4) | iPlayer
Next week (tomorrow!) is Back To Reality. The end of summer, the new school year, the door-slam on a not-quite-scheduled life and the restart of a regulated routine. Ah well. Just to cheer us up, The Archers are going all in with the Trial of Poor Helen for the whole week. Supporters of Helen Titchener, wife of Rotten Rob, are urged to take a picture of themselves drinking tea (solidari-tea, geddit?) and to post it on social media, in support of virtual Helen and real-life domestic abuse victims. I will be listening, and obviously I am anti-Rob, and any other person who makes their partner live in fear. But I don’t like tea, and even if I did, such hash-tag-based trumpery would not be my cup of it.
Excuse my harrumphing. I’ve actually had a nice audio week. Things Called Jazz That Are Not Jazz was an engaging programme that started off whimsically, with presenter and “failed jazz musician” Russell Finch showing some jazz-labelled artefacts to Stewart Lee. These included a jazz wardrobe, a jazz rubber ball and a jazz toilet seat decorated with flowers. Lee was wry and pointed (“Presumably those are wardrobes which have an improvisatory attitude with the relationship of being a wardrobe”), which you would expect. But as the programme progressed, Finch found his position shifting, from someone who felt he was protecting the “real” definition of jazz, as an experimental, revolutionary music, to a person who wasn’t sure what jazz was exactly. And even if it was what he believed it to be, whether he should defend its name. This show promised entertainment but expanded your mind rather more than you expected. A jazz programme, in fact.
On Thursday I caught David Aaronovitch interviewing ex-jihadi Jesse Morton in The Briefing Room. This was unnerving, if somehow unsurprising. Morton was treated badly during his childhood and adolescence. He recounted how he would push jihadi ideas, by offering all the material of radicalism, without explicitly recommending it. Eventually he went too far, broke the law and was put in jail. While in there, the kindness of his captors, and the writings of Locke and Mill, helped him to change his attitude. He is no longer radicalised. This programme was interesting from start to finish, and, although I began by thinking it would have been better written down – as long, detailed journalism – I changed my mind. It was shocking to hear how Morton spoke as a jihadi, and how he speaks now. A different person.
I’ve been tuning in, on and off, to Melvyn Bragg’s 10-part exploration of the north. Though, actually, The Matter of the North is more an exploration of Bragg-isms. The series showcases all the delights and frustrations of Bragg’s shows: the whizz through history, the hopping about, the quick mix of anecdotal and academic. In one programme, Joan Bakewell mentioned that she changed the way she spoke when her Cambridge flatmates laughed at her for saying “wash the pots” instead of “do the washing up”. Throughout, Bragg’s speech has become more northern, and – specifically – more Braggish. It slurs and twirls and swoops, like a curlew above a moor.
