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Sara Cox sits in for Chris and is joined by David Mitchell who talks about his new Shakespeare role. Paul Carrack performs tracks from his latest album live in the studio. Plus Sara also speaks with Scott Mills who is in Stockholm for this year's Eurovision Song Contest.

2 hours, 59 minutes

Last on

Fri 13 May 2016 06:30
Â鶹ԼÅÄ Radio 2

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Clips

See all clips from Sara Cox sits in (3)

Music Played

  • Blur

    Parklife

    • (CD Single).
    • Parlophone.

  • Causes

    Teach Me How To Dance With You

    • (CD Single).
    • RCA.
    • 001.

  • Gloria Gaynor

    I Will Survive

    • Disco Fever (Various Artists).
    • Global Television.

  • Billy Joel

    Movin' Out (Anthony's Song)

    • The Stranger.
    • Columbia.
    • 1.

  • The Killers

    Read My Mind

    • (CD Single).
    • Vertigo.

  • Prince & The Revolution

    Take Me With U

    • 4Ever.
    • Warner Bros.

  • Frankie Laine

    Rawhide

    • Rediscover The 60's - Sealed With A K.
    • Old Gold.

  • Tina Arena

    Magic

    • (CD Single).
    • Wrasse Records.

  • James Morrison

    Red Red Wine

    • Â鶹ԼÅÄ Radio 2 Sounds Of The 80s Vol 2 (Various Artists).
    • Sony Music TV.

  • Paul Heaton & Jacqui Abbott

    D.I.Y.

    • What Have We Become.
    • Virgin EMI.
    • 001.

  • Joe Brown & The Bruvvers

    That's What Love Will Do

    • 25 Years Of Rock'n'Roll 1963 (Vol 2).
    • Connoisseur.

  • Foy Vance

    Upbeat Feelgood

    • (CD Single).
    • Gingerbread Man Records.

  • Justin Timberlake

    Can't Stop The Feeling!

    • (CD Single).
    • RCA.

  • Bucks Fizz

    Making Your Mind Up

    • Bucks Fizz: The Definitive Edition.
    • Cherry Pop.
    • 006.

  • Will Young

    Love Revolution

    • (CD Single).
    • Island.
    • 001.

  • Arctic Monkeys

    I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor

    • Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not.
    • Domino.

  • Paul Simon

    You Can Call Me Al

    • The Paul Simon Anthology (Disc 2).
    • Warner Bros.
    • 4.

  • Will Smith

    Gettin' Jiggy Wit It

    • (CD Single).
    • Columbia.

  • The Bangles

    Walk Like An Egyptian

    • Take A Break (Various Artists).
    • Columbia.

  • µþ±ð²â´Ç²Ô³¦Ã©

    Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It)

    • I Am.. Sasha Fierce.
    • Music World Music.
    • 1.

  • OneRepublic

    Wherever I Go

    • (CD Single).
    • Interscope.

  • Dexys Midnight Runners

    Jackie Wilson Said (I'm in Heaven When you Smile

    • Very Best Of Dexy's Midnight Runners.
    • Mercury.

  • Paul Carrack

    How Long? [LIVE]

  • Frank Wilson

    Do I Love You (Indeed I Do)

    • The Best Northern Soul All-Nighter (V.
    • Virgin.

  • Paul Carrack

    Sleep On It [LIVE]

  • ABC

    Viva Love

    • (CD Single).
    • Virgin.
    • 001.

  • The Jacksons

    I Want You Back

    • The Best Michael Jackson & Jackson Five.
    • Polygram Tv.
    • 1.

  • Paul Carrack

    Locomotion [LIVE]

Pause For Thought

Pause For Thought

From Rev’d Richard Coles, cleric and broadcaster:


Did you know that in the event of a global catastrophe the recommended way of finding out if British civilization has in any form survived is to tune into the wireless? Even as the asteroid hits the earth someone in glasses and sensible shoes will be reading out the shipping forecast: where there’s pips there’s hope.
Ìý
It helps explain, then, what radio hates above anything else - silence, or ‘dead air’ as it is called. At the Â鶹ԼÅÄ there’s a special circuit, which in the event of silence suddenly fires up and automatically plays soothing music until normal service is resumed. There’s a story that an announcer on Radio Three maintained a rapt hush for so long after a live broadcast this actually happened, and a late Beethoven string quartet was followed by Acker Bilk playing Stranger in Paradise.
Ìý
I was thinking about this earlier this week when I was staying at the monastery where I trained for the priesthood at Mirfield in Yorkshire. There silence is the rule of the house, and how strange that seems when you arrive, hissing with static, from the noise-filled world (how apt for mental health awareness week when we think of those for whom that static is unbearable). Ìý

Breakfast is eaten in silence, a custom that surely deserves a wider distribution; silence is observed in the cloister at all times; in church at all times apart from services; and throughout the monastery and grounds between the last service of the day, Compline at nine, and the first, Mattins, at six forty-five. At first it’s weird and everyone fidgets, and hums the theme from Strictly sotto voce, desperate I suppose to fill the nothingness up. But then, after a while, you get it – silence is not nothing.
Ìý
When I was there as a student after a few weeks of enforced silence I could recognise people by their gait, the rustle of their clothes, their shower gel; details – telling details – unnoticed in the usual din. Sometimes plunging into silence was like diving into a pool on a hot day, cooling and refreshing, waking you up from a doze you weren’t aware you’d been dozing. Best, though, was the gradual quietening of the internal noise we generate, our unedited commentaries, our self-promoting CVs, the meaningless chatter. Turn that down and you may be surprised at what you can hear.
Ìý
Try it. Obviously not right now. Ìý

Broadcast

  • Fri 13 May 2016 06:30
    Â鶹ԼÅÄ Radio 2

Farewell Chris Evans: The best bits from his last shows at Radio 2

After eight years of hosting the Breakfast Show, Chris Evans leaves Radio 2.

500 Words

Â鶹ԼÅÄ Radio 2's story-writing competition for kids.