Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Explorer and author known for retracing historic journeys, such as Marco Polo's route to China's border.
On the island
Eight records
Piano Trio No. 7 in B-flat major, Op. 97 "Archduke"
Daniel Barenboim, Pinchas Zukerman, and Jacqueline du Pré
to remind me of the backup that I've always had in my projects. And in this case, it's my assistant, Sarah Waters, who has really always run the central office
refers to what I mentioned about enjoying lyrics. I think the lyrics of this are absolutely splendid.
an extract from a piece of music, uh an orchestral suite, which was written about the Brendan Voyage after I published the book of that project.
that's my uh ten-year-old daughter's favourite and therefore has become one of my favourites. She's spent a lot of time quite recently in the back of the car, right behind my head, playing it on a small cassette player
Orchestra of the National Theatre Prague, conducted by Karl Böhm
again, as I mentioned, about reminding me of people. This is for my ex-wife, who helped me very much with the Brendan project, and it's one of her favorites.
Non, je ne regrette rienFavourite
I still think is one of the most uh lively of all singers, and it's her most famous one.
it's still the sort of the um prototype punk rock motorcyclist record.
Paul McCartney and Denny Laine
it's uh very evocative. I live in County Cork in the west of Ireland, where some of the members of Wings also have or had homes, and of course the Mile of Kintar, it's that uh west part of Scotland which we sailed past in Brendan, and it's just a lovely tune.
In conversation
Presenter asks
4:19How did you raise the money for [the Marco Polo expedition] and how did you organize it?
Well, there was surprisingly little money was needed. In fact, there were three of us, and our total funds came to two hundred pounds, with which we proposed to set off on two motorcycles and two sidecars, and follow Marco Polo's route by the simple process of using his book as a as a guidebook.
Presenter asks
9:30How did you know what kind of craft [St. Brendan] had sailed in?
The directions are remarkably precise. In the Navigatio in the Latin text, it described exactly what sort of leather the hull is made of, and that was the amazing thing. The skin of this boat was the skin of oxen.
Presenter asks
13:22How long did you estimate the [Brendan] voyage would last?
I was hoping to do it in a single season, that is to say, a very brief sailing season up there. And in fact, we got as far as Iceland in two months. And at that stage, my good friends in the Icelandic Coast Guard said, Look, you've done jolly well to get here, but the storms are coming in, and unless you get some decent weather, it's very foolhardy to go out again and go on. So we left the boat up there, and it took us fifty days on the second season. So it was a total really of almost four months to make that voyage.
The keepsakes
The book
James Morris
which I think probably I would read and it would teach me more about how to write really, really well.
The luxury
Having had that ghastly experience with my cook aboard Soha, and having lived under these conditions, I would have thought that perhaps f you know, improving some of that fish that one would hope to catch, or the cocoanuts, would be legitimate with herbs from that garden.
Presenter asks
20:34Is there any historical evidence that Sinbad the Sailor existed?
Yes, I think from the literary evidence really is wh where one begins. It's very, very rare that you get a figure of romance like that which doesn't have an original kernel of truth somewhere.
Presenter asks
26:01Where was [the Sinbad ship] built for you?
In Oman, on the beach, classic way of building a ship. You walk along the beach and say, I shall build here, and you mark out a suitable spot, lay the keel and away you go.
Presenter asks
34:25Were you becalmed at all [on the Sinbad voyage]?
Yes, for the best part of a month. … It was the absolute classic. It was the doldrums, and we were drinking our water, eating up the food, obviously everything pretty severely rationed. And it was a very interesting psychological strain because they sit there, day after day after day, getting nowhere.
“I enjoy words, and so I tend to listen to words rather than to music.”
“One of the most frightening sights, um absolutely vivid in my memory, is the bump in the middle of the night when you meant to be out in the middle of the ocean and you hit something.”
“The whole thing was sewn together. This is a sixty ton ship. Sown together, sailing six thousand miles and held together with parcel string, essentially.”