Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Newspaper proprietor who bought the Daily Telegraph and turned it into a hugely profitable newspaper.
On the island
Eight records
Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-flat major, Op. 73 ('Emperor')Favourite
Rudolf Serkin, New York Philharmonic, Leonard Bernstein
The Emperor Concerto struck me as a time of great hopefulness in his career, and great hopefulness in Europe that Napoleon would make something of the French Revolution.
I am somewhat of a devotee of patriotic American songs... the spirit of American liberty is one that has inspired the masses of the world.
General MacArthur's Address to Congress (April 19, 1951)
General MacArthur's address struck me since I've been listening to it as an adult, as a remarkably prescient comment on the future of East Asia.
In fernem Land (from Lohengrin)
Rene Kollo, Berlin Philharmonic, Herbert von Karajan
this has always seemed to me to be Wagner before he became completely obsessed with German nationalism.
it has a special place with me because when I was at the height of my courtship with my wife I had to go away for four weeks and we had heard this in slightly emotive circumstances, so she gave me a disc of it and I played it while I was away.
Piano Concerto No. 1 in E minor, Op. 11 (second movement)
Emil Gilels, Philadelphia Orchestra, Eugene Ormandy
I always found Chopin's work with pianos to be really exquisite... his music was very gentle and very subtle for a country with such a difficult history.
I always used to listen to with a very appreciative ear was Paul Robeson.
Los Angeles Philharmonic, Zubin Mehta
I always admired Tchaikovsky for firing off cannons in the eighteen twelve overture.
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:10Why did you buy the Telegraph, Conrad Black? Was it as much to gain position here as it was to make money?
No, I had really no interest at all in position here. I bought it because I was interested in the business... What was interesting to me was working with the writers and with the editorial product. I was not in that mold... I'm not doing that.
Presenter asks
2:36What kind of preferments are there? I mean, you immediately, when you came here in '85, met Mrs. Thatcher. You came to know her very well, didn't you?
Well, that is not altogether surprising. I think that's not unlike what would occur in other countries. But in this country, You have a national press and the influence of the London morning newspapers ramifies throughout the country. That is not something North Americans are much familiar with. There is also in this country a tremendous interest by the media in the media. In a way that tends to make personalities out of the newspaper chairman, whether on their merits they deserve it or not.
Presenter asks
7:03How much do you seek to use the influence that you have with your editors to propagate your own views?
The keepsakes
The book
John Henry Newman
I think I would take Cardinal Newman's Apologia, although he was not a Cardinal when he wrote them.
The luxury
I thought what I would take... is a model that I have of HMS Hood... It's a splendid model, about six feet long, and it always reminds me of my passion... for Naval Affairs.
Very little. In the first place they are all broadly speaking conservative newspapers and I am broadly speaking a conservative person. In the second place, I find that in this sort of thing your choices are either to take no interest in the editorial product... Or, as Lord Rothermere has done, and as we do. install editors that in general you are going to agree with to minimize frictions. But there are some, okay?
Presenter asks
10:05You don't personally hold the present Prime Minister in great esteem, do you? You've been pretty dismissive about him in your autobiography. You accuse him of relying on a Baldwin-esque shilly-shallying pleasantness.
No, I didn't think it was Dammy, and I gather that Baldwin is somewhat to my astonishment having a a bit of a revisionist comeback, but In the first place I didn't Tell Charles Moore to lay off him. I I urged upon him a little more civility, and I have done on a couple of occasions. In the second place, while I have considerable respect for the Prime Minister, I think he is both unlucky and, if I may say this without being too patronizing, not obviously the repository of all the leadership aptitudes that you would wish for for the holder of such a great office. But I think he's a fine man doing his best.
Presenter asks
24:47Your first marriage failed, would you say, because of the move across the Atlantic to here? Was that the price you pay?
Mm. That might be oversimplifying it. I I I would have a certain natural reticence about going too far into why it failed. Nothing scandalous or shocking, but I think it was what the French would call a bifurcation, not only geographically, but my wife, with whom my relations are cordial, wanted a simpler life, And and I think that the interests binding us together gradually declined. I'm afraid that's not an uncommonly encountered problem with marriages, and that afflicted us.
“I think I could defend myself against the charge of having done that [succumbed to raving megalomania].”
“The spirit of American liberty is one that has inspired the masses of the world.”
“I often think of those days [when he ran a small weekly] when I take visitors to our press hall here in Docklands and the print run begins and then flashes across the board one million copies required.”
“I couldn't live the way he does [Rupert Murdoch], and I couldn't operate my business the way he operates his. He's a much bolder man than I am and he has to use the American jargony bets the company from time to time. If you want to be well to do, you have to do that at least once, but after you've at least in my case done it, you don't ever want to do it again.”
“I tend to buy things and not to sell them. Even cars, if I like the car, I just don't sell it. I buy another one when it gets old, but I don't sell the car.”