In Pictures: The BBC Reith Lectures

[oldironside]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/in-pictures-13647943

This is well worth a click through. To too many household names there, but some interesting titbits, especially J K Galbraith's take on the capitalist system in 1965. I'm also gladdened to see Aung San Suu Kyi will be delivering the next Reith Lectures. That should piss off a few fascist pigs in the ruling junta.

[LeftishBrit]

1. Thanks for posting these!

My own Reith lecture story:

I got the opportunity to attend one of Ramachandran's 2003 lectures, which was held in Oxford. Ramachandran lectured with great enthusiasm, and looked like quite a showman - he had a very bright, multicoloured shirt - but at the same time was very serious about the science. It was about synaesthesia, and people who e.g. 'see' letters or numbers as having certain colours. It's particularly common with numbers, and Ramachandran thought that this is because the number and colour areas of the brain are close to each other, and overlap in some people. He spoke for example about one person whom he'd studied, who had synaesthesia for numbers and colours, and also had one of the common forms of partial colour blindness, where he could not perceive certain colours normally. This man was able to 'see' colours in response to numbers, that he was not able to perceive visually; and he described these as 'Martian colours'.

At the end, we had question time, where people (who had generally booked to do so in advance) could ask questions and get answers, which were recorded and mostly later trasmitted for radio listening. The last question came from someone whom I knew from work. He referred to Ramachandran saying that in many languages, words with the sounds 'o' or 'oo' often mean something big, and words with sound 'ee' often mean something small. "So what does this imply about the word 'penis'?" A startled reaction from the audience; a fairly brief and noncommital reply from Ramachandran; and no, this particular question was NOT transmitted on Radio 3 for the world to hear!


In any case, it is indeed great that Aung San Suu Kyi will be giving next year's lectures.

[oldironside]

2. I can't imagine any circumstances...

... in which Radio 3 would broadcast the word "penis". Radio Four definitely, 606 on Radio 5 might use a different euphemism, Radio 2 never, and Radio 1 cuts out the middle man by having Chris Moyles broadcasting.