Summary
Josie Long explores the way our collections and accidental archives define us. Diving into a head full of palindromes, love letters, artistic accidents and family recipes.
Featuring the writer Nikesh Shukla, the illustrator Ralph Steadman, love letter writer extraordinaire Janet Gallin, and Martin Clear, the winner of the World Palindrome Championship.
Janet Gallin Interview by Lina Misitzis Originally broadcast in The Heart episode Love Letters produced by Kaitlin Prest http://www.theheartradio.org/audio-smut/loveletters
Ralph Steadman: Better than Being in a Tent Featuring Ralph Steadman Produced by Leo Hornak
Yoko Is Not a Palindrome Featuring Martin Clear Produced by Miyuki Jokiranta
Family Recipe Featuring Nikesh Shukla
Series Producer: Eleanor McDowall
A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 4 first broadcast in December 2017.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is the BBC. |
| 0:03.2 | Hello, welcome to the podcast of Shortcuts. |
| 0:05.8 | I trust that you are well. |
| 0:07.7 | This is our audio love letter to you and to the future, |
| 0:13.3 | and I really hope you enjoy it. |
| 0:19.2 | This is Shortcuts. |
| 0:23.4 | Brief Encounters, and found sound. |
| 0:29.3 | Today, libraries. |
| 0:32.0 | You see, I don't like people who, they call themselves organisers, but they're not, really. |
| 0:36.9 | They're disorganizers. |
| 0:40.0 | You're going to be passing down some important information about yourself. |
| 0:43.7 | And that's right, I say let them learn a little something about Grandma. |
| 0:51.0 | When I was 12, my parents got divorced, and during that process, my mother boxed up all of my father's possessions and left them for quite a long time in the living room waiting for him to pick them up. And I found a little bundle of love letters that my dad had written my mum when they were teenagers when they were 19. |
| 1:13.6 | And they were so young and so charming. |
| 1:17.1 | In one of them there was a list which is like, things I love. |
| 1:20.2 | Number one, Dylan, number two, Formula One racing cars, number three, you. |
| 1:26.3 | Which I mean, you can see the seeds of trouble there that |
| 1:29.7 | she's only number three, even at that early stage. It was strange and it was sad to see this story, |
| 1:37.5 | this odd little personal archive from a completely different time, from completely different people |
| 1:43.8 | almost. |
| 1:45.0 | But it also helped me to see them both as young kids who didn't have a clue how things were going to turn out. |
| 1:51.0 | Our first story features an expert on love letters and romantic missives, Janet Gallen. |
... |
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