Listening While I Work (34)

New Zealand Listener, Volume 11, Issue 261, 23 June 1944, Page 12

Listening While I Work (34)

By

Materfamilias

T= announcement of the Allied landings in France broke into our programmes with dramatic suddenness and it is to the credit of the NBS that they were ready with a selection of stirring records--a sober and dignified accompaniment to the exciting news. This good beginning on the Tuesday night was continued on the Wednesday morning and so made it tolerable for even radiophobes to leave on their sets for news flashes. Bg ns 7% HORTAGE of electricity has led to shortening of listening hours. This might be an advantage. Rationing should help us to appreciate what we can get of the rationed goods. There should be fewer people turning sets on and leaving them on for the day. The more often we consciously turn a set on or off the more often do we consciously decide that we want to listen. All the same, the effect of cutting off radio from 11 am. to 12 noon from the Wellington stations has its disadvantages too. It increases the proportion of "Breakfast Music" and "Music While You Work," and it gives a rather jampacked hour of devotional -service followed by one or two talks and then news. The two interludes of good music which usually came from 10.30 a.m. and again at 11.20 a.m. have had to be cut out. Except for the short Morning Star programme at 9.30 a.m, there is very little to satisfy the morning listener who doesn’t like talks or jazz or musical comedy. There is not much, for instance, that would be restful for the convalescent. ne x Bg N a recent article in Picture Post, Rebecca West has a good deal to say about the new General Forces programmes of the BBC. The purpose of these programmes is to link men in the Forces with people at home in England so that they should feel less out of touch with each other. We do not hear these particular items here but a good many of Miss West's criticisms apply quite aptly to us. She makes three main points. The first is that there is a preponderance of bad variety music, the second that there are too many bits and pieces, and the third that there are not enough serious talks. As I heartily agree with what she has to say on the last two counts and as she says what she has to say far better than I could I shall quote from her:"This (the obsession with brevity) is a manifestation of a modern folly which is always cropping up in some new field, and always brings disaster with it. Years ago some ‘modern tempo.’ He had apparently noted the undeniable fact that in the modern factory the machines tick over more rapidly, and that railways. = a and hey va ort motor-cars . cB e a long distance in a very short o. and formed the curious conclusion t we who (continued on next page)

‘continued from previous page) minutes, a quarter of an hour, twenty-five minutes, half an hour. There are items which cram into three-quarters of an hour as many as six variety turns with a quantity of roguish personal introductions." (This sounds very like the 2YA Saturday night The Stage Presents BBC programme.) Miss West continues:"This means the end of good broadcasting. A radio item, like a good article, must have a beginning, a middle, and an end, A comic variety turn depends on the presentation of a character to the audience, and the exhibition of that character tu certain circumstances. This cannot be done in a fluster . . . This means that the listener . . . feels caught up into one of those nightmares which torment the influenza patient by taking him from station to station, always missing his train, and dropping his luggage." ue * * So much for bits and pieces, Miss West also thinks that listeners at home in the Forces could have more talks. "It may be said that men overseas do not want intellectual fare. This is flat" rubbish. In the last analysis, man does what it amuses him to do. If he has cultivated his mind through the ages, it is because the cultivation of the mind is fun. Few people who have never mountaineered can believe that toiling over snowfields and forcing aching limbs up rock faces is fun, though those who have done it know there is no better. The BBC would not be using their monopoly conscientiously if they did not put talks of sound intellectual character before people who have been prejudiced against the intellect by economic handicap." And with that Miss West goes on to suggest some of the brains which could in England be drawn upon for talks and some of the topics which would be wel-comed-even simple radio lessons in Russian for example. Would more talks and more serious talks be’ welcomed here? There are after all alternative programmes from other stations. On the whole we have very few serious talks if we exclude the news commentaries from London. There are gardening talks and book reviews (not enough) and now some excellent Winter Course talks once a week from each station, but they are enly 15 minutes. During the day there are A.C.E. Talks for the housewife twice a week, and these could be classed as serious in so far as they are instructional. Most other talks are intended as light entertainment full of anecdotes and reflections and quotations and sometimes laughs. Why not half-hourly Winter Course talks during the day on the lines of W.E.A. lectures instead of "Music While You Work"? Those who didn’t like it could get another station and would miss nothing of any consequence, and those who did listen might gain a good deal. It would be a change for the woman at home to feel that her intelligence and understanding were over-rated and not under-rated by radio authorities.