Monday, June 29, 2009

In Praise of Upshares Downshares with Nils Blythe on Radio 4's PM

I'm rather fond of Radio 4's PM programme with Eddie Mair, but I have a special love of the money slot around 5.30pm (when I'm now quite likely to have reached the car to head home). Nils Blythe and Mair put out a call some time ago for a more catchy name for the slot than 'the markets', and in response the option they went for was the delightfully punning 'Upshares Downshares' (in honour of the late lamented Upstairs Downstairs series of the 1970s).

It was probably inevitable, but once the seeds were set, people were no longer satisfied with just a brief snippet of the programme's original theme music (there are MP3s of the various music from the show at the show site). So now, each week, we are treated to a variant on the original with this week's adopting a 'I do like to be beside the seaside' pier-organ version.

It's incredibly silly in many ways, but the inventiveness of the radio audience is somehow charming and I do feel as if I have missed something if I fail to catch this bit of the PM broadcast.

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