Now that BBC Radio 4 has started releasing all its output for reply (albeit only for a relatively limited time after broadcast), it makes sense to refer you to programmes which might be of interest, whether or not you're in the UK.
There are two at the moment (or will be by the end of today) which you might be interested in:
- this week's edition of The Moral Maze turns its attention to the question of organ donation by presumed consent. The Moral Maze can be irritating and frustrating, but can also be extremely thought-provoking. The current edition manages to avoid the kind of intellectual Rottweilery which Dr David Starkey so often used to bring to it, and which was no doubt gratifying for him, but not much use to anyone with an interest in the question being debated. There's a fascinating range of participants, including an organ recipient, healthcare professionals, medical ethicists and philosophers. The latter expressed a really quite hard-line utilitarian view which was challenging and somewhat counter-cultural, but raised some interesting points.
It's just occurred to me that they could have entitled the programme "Organs of the State". ho ho
- this evening there's a documentary rather mischievously entitled "Spy School", which (judging by the trailers) aims to attract listeners with the well-worn claim that the Foreign Office's MECAS (Middle Eastern College of Arabic Studies) was a school for spies, as if it were some kind of le Carré-esque Sarratt. I lived there for almost five years, while my father was the principal of the college. He'll be on the programme.
OK, they were my first five years, so I was not exactly conscious of the espionage potential of the establishment ;^), but the logic of the matter seems to me to be inescapable:
- the UK public sector has always needed linguists, whether for the civil service, armed services, commonwealth administration or whatever;
- some percentage of civil servants work in intelligence (and need language skills);
- 'immersion' is always reckoned to be the best way to learn languages;
- a college to train public sector linguists can therefore be expected to teach languages to some proportion of students who go on to work in intelligence. It will be interesting, by the way, to see how Kim Philby is referred to. He's often cited as MECAS' most notorious alumnus, though the principal instructor from the 50s, Sir James Craig, says he was never there and didn't learn Arabic. According to Wikipedia's chronology, Philby was a press correspondent for the Observer and the Economist, based in Beirut.
However, it can also be expected to turn out linguists who go on to have nothing to do with the intelligence services.
To me, characterising MECAS as a 'spy school' which also happened to teach Arabic is rather like calling a pub a dead-letter drop which also happens to serve beer. If it excites you to think of it that way, be my guest... ;^)
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Is this it, Robin? I heard two references (quotes) (presumably) to your Dad.
Interesting.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/news/pip/1ef0d/
Thanks for the lesson.
Posted by Carolyn on January 21, 2008 at 01:01 AM GMT+00:00 #