sir_guinglain

On Tuesday night I was discussing broadcasting history with someone and mention was made of Asa Briggs. Within an hour his death was announced. A few hours later, I learned of Sylvia Anderson's death; and now, Cliff Michelmore, a broadcaster who was moving into a retirement phase in my childhood but who still loomed large. The sense of twentieth-century Britain tidying up after itself through the death of people who seemed to epitomise aspects of the mid-late century spirit which animated last year is even stronger this. Some links:

The BBC Archive Cliff Michelmore page

Cliff Michelmore switches off Lime Grove studios, The Late Show, 1991

Cliff Michelmore interviews David Jones (the future David Bowie), Tonight, 1964

The Shadows: 'Lady Penelope' from Thunderbirds are Go - shared by outonbluesix as a tribute to her alter ego, Sylvia Anderson

Sylvia Anderson interviewed for the third or fourth generation of fans of Lady Penelope and Thunderbirds, Blue Peter, 1995

I've not watched this, but here's Asa Briggs in discussion early last year at the University of Sussex

An episode of The Seven Ages of Radio with Asa Briggs, starting with part of one of my favourite broadcasting quotations from David Dunhill, with added Tony Blackburn, though the structure of the series seems somewhat pessimistic.

While I'm making a link post, here's a Kickstarter worth exploring: Duel for Citizenship by Holly Matthies

Among the many projects displaced by my actually obtaining regular employment was the management of my two hard disc recorders, particularly the creaky secondhand one which lives in my bedroom under my 1980s Rediffusion portable. I've been catching up this evening, and as a result I'm currently being transported back to 23 November 2013 and listening to that morning's Radio 2 Graham Norton show live (with prerecorded inserts - and of course, to be technical, lots of old records) from the Doctor Who Celebration at ExCel. There are some arch inserts - the first traffic report ends with the information that traffic has cleared around Metebelis Three after a rush for blue crystals - and after words with Matt Smith, Jenna Coleman, a defensively self-deprecating Steven Moffat and superfan costume and prop exhibition curator Andrew Beech, Colin Baker has just trotted out his ancient but understandable resentment towards Michael Grade, and all has been interspersed with as much music actually played on Doctor Who as possible. It was a frenetic and hyperbolic few days, or rather weeks, barely imaginable ten or twenty years earlier, and for all Graham makes fun of the detail of Doctor Who lore he has to read out, it seems to have judged its tone more carefully than the dire Afterparty which went out later on BBC Three, about the only good thing in it being the participation of Jackie Lane.

There is also a distressing amount of paper on my study floor, three days after I submitted my tax return, which accounts for most of it...