Tuesday 1 July 2008

Och, it's a bogle


BBC 7, the digital radio channel, specialises in drama and comedy. I enjoy both, and particularly appreciate the Listen Again facility, which works through the standard RealPlayer.

BBC 7 is currently running a series of dramas on Sundays under the heading The Darker Side of the Border. These are ghostly or grisly classics from Scottish authors. The first choice is a two-part dramatisation of Conan Doyle's 'The Captain of the Polestar'. It's all very full-blooded and hairy, as you might expect in a tale of whaling. I have heard it before and it's pretty good. The eponymous captain is obsessed by a spectral lover that may lure him and his crew to their doom. That's McDOOOOM! We're all doomed, I tell ye, captain. Sorry, wrong story. 

Conan Doyle deserves more credit for his ghost stories. He deserved no credit for the Brigadier Gerard stuff, or indeed his support for Spiritualism. But I suppose he'll always be the chap who created Sherlock Holmes. If, indeed, the next generation thinks of Holmes as a fictional character at all. 

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