The Defined, the Definitive, and the Infinite: Thoughts Provoked by the Absence of “A Million Casks of Pronto”

Scoop up a tidbit, seemingly at random, however half-baked or nutritiously dubious.  Ask what made you stick your fork—or spork or chopstick—in it.  Reflect on why that morsel suits your palate, if indeed it does, at that particular moment in time.  Present your thoughts on a platter meant for sharing.  Hope for company, but don’t count on it.  That, in a coconut shell has been my approach to writing for the web since I commenced this journal back in the blogging heyday of 2005.  Eight hundred and forty-seven entries on, I am still at it, even though my diet, constitution and taste for potluck have changed considerably.

Not that I know exactly what those “Million Casks of Pronto” alluded to in the title of this blog entry contain; but more about that in as “pronto” as I can manage, especially since, as Wordsworth might have put it, these are lines composed a few minutes from Bronglais Hospital, where I went—and went under—for an endoscopy today.  Gallstones be damned, I am in a reflective mood, and those “Casks,” which were tossed onto the airwaves back in 1924, have been on my mind for quite some time now.

Continue reading “The Defined, the Definitive, and the Infinite: Thoughts Provoked by the Absence of “A Million Casks of Pronto””

“The lights have gone out!”: Commemorating One Hundred Years of Plays for Radio

First slide of my presentation

Taking the radio play to the library has long been an ambition of mine, given that dramatic and literary works written for the medium of sound broadcasting occupy comparatively little space on the bookshelves.  Taking the first of its kind to a national librarythe National Library of Wales, no less—is a chance of a lifetime amounting to poetic justice.  Allow me to shed a modicum of light on that, and on my benightedness besides.

So that meaningful conclusions may be drawn from my peculiar challenge of commemorating one hundred years of radio dramatics in just a few minutes, it strikes me as essential that the centenary first be quartered, a fate I hope to escape on 22 February 2024, the date set for the event.

Continue reading ““The lights have gone out!”: Commemorating One Hundred Years of Plays for Radio”