libby purves and midweek

[zanz1bar]

So today she had a very moving a positive account of a holocaust childhood by thomas buergenthal.

And then an interview with a pig farmer?

Not the best combination in the world!

But hey at least it wasn't someone who has sailed around their own bath tub, or rowed up the drain pipe.

[Threadworm]

Hate Libby Purves. Hate this programme. I always call it Midbrow.

[boccadellaverita]

Who was it who said that the five most depressing words in the English language are "Here's Libby Purves with Midweek"? Wish it had been me!

[LittleBella]

It's such an awful programme isn't it?

Will anyone be on to tell us why it's actually very good?

[boccadellaverita]

It's just so formulaic. Start The Week and In Our Time obviously have a formula too, but they don't give me that deadening sense of deja entendu that I get with Midweek, where one programme is pretty much indistinguishable from the next.

[unavailable]

I dont think its the format that is awful - I'm afraid its Libby Purves. She sets my teeth on edge.

If anyone else was presenting, I dont think I would avoid it in the way I do ( to the extent of re-tuning to 5 live for the duration.)

[zanz1bar]

i can put money on one of next weeks guest being a sailor or a farmer.

any takers?

[Threadworm]

I always picture Libby Purves and Shula Archer as being one and the same person.

[zanz1bar]

oh libby, libby, libby

you let me down..no sailors, no farmers, no artisan yoghurt knitters.

and i listened all the way to the end.

[R4]

Bocca I love the phrase "deja entendu" and it sooooo fits Midweek. I cannot stand LP.

I hated her on The Learning Curve too where she had the same artisan yoghurt knitter mentality. She used to love the stories about one-legged lesbian prisoners getting a NVQ Level 0 in basket weaving but you could hear her getting practically rabid if anyone dared talk about schools, achievement and SATs/GCSE. It was almost as if she was anti-academia (although, of course, it was different for her DC: both of whom went to Oxford).

[Vamonos]

God it's like middle class dinner party hell - where no-one knows each other, with the hostess desperately trying to flog the tenuous links between them.

Hostess: "Oh Mr X, so you're a bridge architect, how fascinating. Ms Y - are you a fan of bridges?"

Mrs Y: "erm.." "oh yes, I cross a lovely one on my way to work every morning"

Aaaaargh

[boccadellaverita]

But I've just seen on the Ed Stourton thread that our Libby stood up for him in the Times.

R4 - Glad you like the deja entendu. I am visualising the one-legged lesbian prisoners getting a NVQ Level 0 in basket weaving. Actually I know people in prison education ...

[queenceleste]

LOL LOL LOL boccadellaverita!!!

so funny.

I hate to be unsisterly but LP is the most heinously irritating harridan.
The nervous laughter
The terribly clunking linking of guests
The dropping in of having had a colonial childhood/going to Oxbridge/or other showoffy thing like living in Suffolk on a farm blah blah blah

BUT the story of her son's suicide is very very heartbreaking and that makes me give her a tiny bit of a break, but not enough to actually listen to the programme.

[boccadellaverita]

I had entirely forgotten about her son. I suppose with that and her defence of Ed Stourton we should cut her a bit of slack. I still think her programme's terrible and she is the personification of smug but I'll try to rise above it from now on.

[R4]

But didn't she publish a book of his diaries and such after his death? That's a bit

[boccadellaverita]

Did she? That's a tricky one. I can see that in those horrendous circumstances, one might want to do something to commemorate one's child's life.

I think I'll give her a reprieve. The programme's still rubbish, though.

[R4]

Shall we start a sweep on who will be this week's guests.
Nil point for suggesting a farmer / sailor / mountaineer / mime artiste.

[boccadellaverita]

How many of them will just have published a book?

[fishie]

midweek is a shining light compared to you and yours. always the lowest point of the day.

or maybe that is when the strains of 'one one ONE one one' float up the stairs as ds fails to go to sleep and dh opens another beer. and i am missing the archers.

[boccadellaverita]

Ah! You and Yours.

[moondog]

R4 is shit.
I've never been into it.
So bloody smug.
That awful awful woman with a big arse and half moon glasses who wears a carpet over her shoulder is the worst.

Jenni Murray. Woman's Hour
She needs shooting.

[queenceleste]

fishie oh yes the HORROR that is you and yours, that terrible woman on that horrible programme, it makes me want to throw myself under a bus.

But R4, what about the man who was on Midweek last year who wrote a book about finding his French Horn in the attic and having a go at learning it again! Oh the glorious fascination of that man and all his ilk and the festivals of mime artists !!!!!!!

[midnightexpress]

I glazed over for a minute there.

V tedious. Aside from the sailors and farmers there is usually a woman who has worked as a nurse/women's-something-or-other in a far-flung hell hole, plus a man who has given up doing one thing in order to do something else (and written a book about it). And someone with a 'remarkable' childhood.

Though about Libby's son. Doesn't excuse tediosity of guest list on mw.

[seeker]

I didn't know that LP's son had committed suicide - that's awful. I love her parenting books - I'm always recommending them to people.

[queenceleste]

I just found this on the midweek website. This is a contributor some of us tragically missed:

"CAPTAIN FRODO
Frodo Sandven, aka Captain Frodo is a contortionist from Norway. He is currently appearing in La Clique, a melange of cabaret, new burlesque, circus sideshow and contemporary variety currently at The Hippodrome in London's Leicester Square. His act includes squeezing himself through two tennis racquets bringing new meaning to the word contortion. La Clique is at The Hippodrome, Leicester Square until 1st February 2009. "

[boccadellaverita]

Snort!

That very last bit reminds me of how BBC shows in the 1970s would always end with a voiceover saying "Wendy Craig [or whoever had just starred in the variety show or sit com] is currently appearing at the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre, Guildford". Why did they do that? And why did they stop?