I have been on the radio – just.
A week ago I wrote down here a conversation that Anna and I had on a Saturday afternoon. It had become very difficult. As I wrote it, there were just a few words, about a hundred and fifty, but with repeats the conversation in real time had been over four hours long. (See my posting, 1 August, conversations on a lazy summer afternoon)
Last week there was a series of programmes about memory and dementia on Radio 4, so I sent in this extract from my blog as a way of explaining some of the issues of communicating, both talking and listening. A young woman phoned me, would I record it for their programme on Friday. She explained they only they wanted a minute. So I did the hundred and fifty words.
There had been programmes from Monday to Thursday so by Friday the editor was probably a bit tired of the subject, and there were just three brief comments, including mine. The extract, describing four hours, was now edited down to less than a minute, so they cut the bit where the conversation had got difficult, and somewhat lost the plot. It did not leave much time to make the point about nedding to listen, before the programme went on to interview Michael Winner about his eating habits.