Radar: 01.09.25

Find out what I've been reading, watching, listening to recently.

Listening

Words and Music: The Coastal Path (BBC Sounds)

I’ve always loved Words and Music on BBC Radio 3. It’s such a simple idea: you take a load of great music, and you take a load of great writing, and you edit it all together based on a theme. I’ve just spent the week in Cornwall with my family and listened to this throughout the week. The coast is such an inspirational place, of course it is, but it’s also full of mystery and danger and sensuousness; this episode is brilliantly curated and captures so many different aspects of the coast in just over 90 minutes. Do yourself a favour: turn off your phone, just sit back and get swept away by it. Walking the coastal path is about being on the verge of one thing and another, being in two places at once, and in many ways, for me, is a real life metaphor for the poem which can also be two things at once. It seems to me that writing poetry is about walking the line, a kind of coastal path between one interpretation and the other, and it also points towards the tension involved in writing, being pushed and pulled between two or more ideas at once - the solidity and steadfastness of the land, against the rushing transience of the ocean. As the late, great John Montague wrote in his poem ‘The Edge’, ‘on the edge is best’. 

Watching

Doc Martin (ITVX)

We had the pleasure of visiting Port Isaac in Cornwall, and I’d been told before I went that the TV series Doc Martin was filmed there. I had seen snippets of the show before but never truly sat down to watch it. It’s written and created by Dominic Minghella, brother of the late Anthony Minghella who was famous for directing the Oscar-winning The English Patient among other films. So, as Doc Martin is set in Port Isaac (referred to as Portwenn in the programme) I thought I’d give it a spin, and I loved it. The episodes are about 50 minutes long and an excellent example of the comedy-drama genre with stock figures straight out of a commedia dell’arte, with finely constructed plots woven together quite impressively and economically. The dialogue is whip-smart and all in all it’s a wonderfully diverting piece of television which I’d highly recommend. It’s been written with great care and thought, and considering some of the naval-gazing, state of the nation rhubarb we’re subjected to, it’s refreshing to find a series which does what all television should do first and foremost: be well written and eminently watchable. The fact the scenery is recognisable is a bonus. 

Fortune Hotel (ITVX)

I’ve often wondered what the qualifications are for hosting a TV show besides being able to read stuff off an autocue - if anyone knows I’d be intrigued to hear. Is there an art to it that I’m missing? I was surprised to see Stephen Mangan hosting Fortune Hotel on ITV - surely he’s better than that, no? The idea is that there’s a suitcase with £250,000 and nobody knows which one it is, and it changes hands through a series of tasks. I watched three episodes and then gave up on it. A show like this hinges on the contestants and their ability to think strategically and, I’m afraid to say, these guys just weren’t up to it.  

The Hundred (BBC IPlayer)

You may have noticed that I’ve written about cricket before in these posts. Cricket, in my humble opinion, is one of the great ball games. And I love it in all its forms, and have particularly been enjoying The Hundred, a welcome innovation which sees the best players from around the world play not in regional teams such as Yorkshire or Surrey, but generalised franchises such as Northern Superchargers or the Oval Invincibles. It’s great entertainment and great to see a number of players who you wouldn’t normally come across such as Liam Livingstone for the Birmingham Phoenix who seems to hit sixes for fun. Giles Coren recently called it 'pyjama cricket' in The Times, but I think it’s colourful and exciting - great viewing and a great way to get the next generation interested. If only there was more of it on free-to-view TV, as opposed to the measly two offerings per week from the Beeb. 

Playing

Contexto

Scrabble; Bananagrams; Wordle - word games are most definitely my bag, and I’ve discovered a new one! If you, like me, love a good word game, then welcome to Contexto (a sibling of Conexo and Letroso). The aim of the game is to guess the word ranked number 1. You attempt this by entering words at random, your entries are given a number, and the more guesses you make the more you start to discover the context of the word. It’s so simple, fiendish and addictive, and great to play alone or with family on a long car journey, as I found out on our mammoth 6-hour journey back.