Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Journalist who has reported on the fall of the Berlin Wall, the attempted coup against Gorbachev, and Nelson Mandela's walk to freedom; doyenne of English journ
On the island
Eight records
Choir of King's College, Cambridge
I've chosen it really because it's blindingly beautiful. And secondly, I was brought up as a Roman Catholic, so I listen to a lot of sacred music.
sometimes music transcends everything. And I feel this about this track.
Improvisations on the theme music from Pather PanchaliFavourite
most of all, this reminds me of the kind of India that still lives on in my heart.
Cello Concerto in E minor, Op. 85
somehow when I'm on the road in some dusty or strange very foreign place, I have a kind of primeval yearning for the English countryside, which I never visit normally. And this is a very English piece of music.
when I listen to it, I feel the music is so beautiful that it becomes almost an elegy for every anonymous person who has died in hideous circumstances.
Piano Concerto No. 1 in D minor, Op. 15
Oddly enough, it's associated, in my mind, with one of the worst interviews I ever did in my life, and that was with Imelda Marcos.
It combines two passions. One is driving in the sort of states which are called flyover territory... He's using also South African musicians. So you get... My Love of South Africa... and you get them combined in one.
It's called Eshal, which means God, and it's a kind of plea for peace. And curiously enough, although she was an Israeli diva, she was very popular among the Palestinians.
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:58Do you like playing the kind of brainless bird when you're out in the field?
Well, in the sort of countries I tend to work in, they're very contemptuous of women. And the way to get round this problem with them is to be as bird-brained as you possibly can, because they don't see you as a threat. And I always remember Dame Freya Stark... wrote that the great advantage of being a woman is that you can always pretend to be more stupid than you are, and everyone believes you. And what she meant was every man believes you. So I go round looking, frankly, like some bird-brained dimbo, and I have a huge handbag.
Presenter asks
11:55Did you feel very loved by your mother?
Yes, my mother being extraordinarily beautiful, I think was rather shaken by the fact that uh her daughter wasn't. And yet I was obviously clever. So when her own beauty started to fade... she became quite bitter, and in a curious way, I think, quite jealous of me. So I always felt emotional blackmail from her. And I have to say, and it's a terrible thing to say, but you know, when she died, I was actually extraordinarily relieved.
Presenter asks
16:51What makes you so semi-detached about [marriage and emotional attachments]?
It may be from my childhood that um I feel that I mustn't get too emotional and too emotionally attached to anything in my life. Um it doesn't work out that way because I'm wholly emotionally attached to him and my daughter.
The keepsakes
The book
P. G. Wodehouse
I know an awful lot of his stories off by heart. But I only have to read a line like 'Aunt calling to aunt, like Mastodon's bellowing across the primeval swamp,' and I start laughing again. And of course it's a totally unreal world. It's an idyl. It's one he invented. and I think I would sit chortling away until I was rescued.
The luxury
Enormous amounts of garlic and a garlic press
Because basically I can eat anything twigs, boulders, stones, whatever, so long as it's drenched in garlic. Of course I'm not sure that the rescuers would want to rescue me, because I would smell long before they reached me.
Presenter asks
23:08Do you develop a kind of immunity to these [horrific] sights?
When you're working, you are. Very much like a forensic scientist... you can't go ahead and say this was a massacre of civilians unless you're sure of it... I don't call myself a war reporter. I specialize in foreign political stories, but of course over the years it has involved war, massacres and so on.
Presenter asks
28:59Have you lain in your bed in a hospital bed and contemplated your own demise more intensely than you've ever done out in the field?
No, I once heard a doctor... talking to my husband... more or less saying it was terribly serious and you know, hinting to my husband that maybe I wouldn't make it. Um And I remember thinking Well, in a way, I don't totally mind dying now, because I've had a jolly good run for my money. But then of course I thought, well actually I'd rather not die, 'cause my family would be so upset, so I thought, well, I won't, and didn't.
“the great advantage of being a woman is that you can always pretend to be more stupid than you are, and everyone believes you. And what she meant was every man believes you.”
“I'm not in the job of educating oafs around the world in sort of gender politics and and that kind of thing. I'm there to get a story, and if using femininity can get it, I'm happy about that.”
“I think what it did was it made me almost slightly cold blooded. Because I didn't expect Anything tremendously good to happen to me.”