Radio 4 series Let's talk about Death

Didn’t know where to put this thread so feel free to move it admin.

I know the tital is a bit morbid but I was stuck in the car between jobs this evening listening to radio 4 between 8.00 PM and 8.45 PM. There was a program on about DNR-Do not Resusitate and discussing it from all sorts of angles and with paramedics who have to make judgement calls on their visits. All in all a very well presented program with a balance of views and opinions. It seems to be part of a series and here are the downloads. From what I heard tonight I would recommend it .

Thanks for the idea. I’ll try to get to listen at the weekend.

Am I the only one who finds the standards of radio documentaries and journalism better than tv or newspapers these days? Or am I just getting to the grumpy age?

Radio documentaries are nearly always loads better than TV ones.

I think that is because makers know that those who listen to R4 are simply more intelligent than TV viewers, and most of all because they don’t have to do stupid ‘infotainment’ stuff.

With nearly all TV documentaries you can boil down the ‘information’ to about ten minutes in every hour - the rest is stupid graphics and broadcaset cameras talking to people or standing on clifftops etc etc etc. All incredibly stupid.

R4 is just ‘talking heads’ nearly mostly. There are still a lot of wasteful ‘interviews with real but incredibly inarticulate and stupid members of the public’ etc…those phone ins are the worst, eg even on You and Yours, mostly because the phoners ramble hopelessly!

My moan about R4 is that whenever I turn it on it’s NOT the stuff I want to hear…that’s on at ‘weird times’. I know I can record them or download them etc, but haven’t got around to it yet.

In Our Time by Melvin Bragg is worth the licence fee alone.

R4 reminds me that the populatin of the UK is NOT entirely stupid.

Sounds very useful. Thanks, Henrietta

Certainly on the science side , radio documentaries leave tv ones in the shade.

As if the heavyweight ones would cut no ice on tv ?

Blue Planet and other DA documentaries excluded … as are some of Horizon’s finest.

Oh for a DA to cover our world ?