Pure genius. You have to listen to the 9th May edition of the live phone-in Down The Line! At some point I had to shut my office door, as I was laughing so much but trying not to be too loud so ended up with tears streaming down my face.
This week’s topic: Religion, and Korean scientists’ discovery of a new colour.
Make sure you’re not operating heavy machinery, or driving fast, before you listen.
(I don’t know if there is an archive, so you might have to listen to it before they replace it with next week’s edition.)
Example exchange (~22nd minute):
Host: Who’s next? I’ve got Muhammed, from Birmingham. Hello!
Guest (strong Brummie accent): Hello.
Host: Now I don;t want to jump to any conclusions, Muhammed, but are you perhaps a Muslim?
Guest: That’s right.
Host: Right. So what do you want to talk about?
Guest: Well, I’m ringing about this new primary colour…
Host: Can I say… We’re also talking today about religion, and it’s great to have a Muslim on the phone.
Guest: Yes.
Host: And I wonder if you could perhaps talk about what it’s like being a Muslim in this day and age….
Guest: Oh, right. Yeah. I don’t wanna talk about that. I’ve rung up about the primary colour.
Host: But it’s interesting isn’t it…? Do you find that there is a lot of er, intolerace towards you, and do you find that people look at your in a different way,….. than they used to, say, pre-9/11?
Guest: But what they gonna call this colour? That’s what I wanna know, ‘cos…
Host: But…
Guest: You know, like, when I was young….
Host: Listen…
Guest: ….they told me that you had blue, red, and green, or blue, red, and yellow…
Host: that’s right….
Guest: Depending upon whether you’e doing Art or whether you’e doing Physics….
Host: I don’t think that people at home understand, neccessarily, what Islam means….
Guest: Well, I don’t know really, ‘cos everyone’s different, but…. how can you name a colour?
Host: Never mind about colours…..!!
It goes on like this for a while….Brilliant.
Example exchange (~27th minute):
Host: Hello, you’re through to Down the Line, Hello?
Guest (woman’s voice; polite well-meaning tone): Hello, I just wanted to say… People seem very quick to judge the Muslims, but I think that we should wait a while, because you never know, they might come good….
Host: Hmmmm
Guest: …My son, for example. He used to be a right little terror….
Host: Hmmm
Guest: now, he’s a successful painter….
Host: Well thank you very much for your call!
And then the next one with the dog just had me rolling on the floor. I can’t even describe it…..
-cvj
May 9th, 2006 at 8:46 pm
This is hilarious. Thanks!
May 10th, 2006 at 2:08 am
Yes, very informative.
May 10th, 2006 at 2:28 am
The Lord is not aware of individuals in the rock business!
May 10th, 2006 at 2:42 am
The complaints posted about the program are a scream too. Great stuff.
May 10th, 2006 at 6:34 am
That’s great! And since I was sitting on the floor when it came on, I was literally ROFL when the dog bit came on.
Wolverine – I read the complaints on the message board, and I have a theory: the people posting are the same ones who do phone into “Any Answers”. I just wish Jonathan Dimbleby would respond as appropriately as Gary Bellamy, for example “You’re just going round in circles”, “Oh god…”, “You’re not really going anywhere with this, are you?”.
May 10th, 2006 at 7:47 am
Hmmm very strange indeed! It’s a loony bin out there isn’t it?
May 10th, 2006 at 8:15 am
Oh, this is brilliant. Thanks!
May 10th, 2006 at 8:37 am
HAHAHAHA!!!! Magik
May 10th, 2006 at 9:55 am
The dog owner is hilarious! Close second for me is the London cabbie (he must be) in the beginning: “My fairy tale is better than yours!” and “I can’t hear ya lov.”
I honestly don’t know whether there are planted phone calls in there, it all sounds very real and to some extent plausible.
May 10th, 2006 at 10:56 am
Ummm.
May 10th, 2006 at 12:28 pm
Now this is just plain scary. Look at the picture of the show’s host. Then go to Lubos’s site and look at his picture.
It’s frightening. Coincidence? You be the judge.
Elliot
May 10th, 2006 at 3:32 pm
Always with the stillness. . . Unless, of course, your dog is barking, in which case it is always with the SHUT IT! WILL YOU SHUT IT!!!!. . . .
May 10th, 2006 at 3:37 pm
Ah…yes…. the stillness…..
Brilliant.
Oh, gosh, just a mention of the dog cracks me up all over again….
-cvj
May 10th, 2006 at 7:01 pm
For what it’s worth, they archive the shows. Its a new show, so only 3 are listed on the left hand side. The BBC seem to be pretty good at keeping archives available.
May 10th, 2006 at 7:22 pm
Thanks Joe. That was (frustratingly) not always the policy in the past, and so I’m glad to hear that this is now the norm.
Cheers,
-cvj
May 10th, 2006 at 7:36 pm
I’m just listening to it now, and it seems pretty clear that it was set up. There is no way you could get that many oddballs in a row.
May 11th, 2006 at 11:50 pm
Uproar!
http://media.guardian.co.uk/site/story/0,,1773143,00.html
May 12th, 2006 at 2:48 am
[...] Oddly enough, a huge number of people really thought that the utterly hilarious show Down the Line (see here), airing on Tuesdays at 11:00pm on the BBC’s Radio 4, was actually a real phone-in! Rather than seeing it as a wonderful spoof, parody, and commentary (which it clearly is), they thought it was a crass attempt by Radio 4 to broaden the scope of its programming. Angry of Tunbridge Wells got out the pen and paper to write a letter…… [...]
May 12th, 2006 at 2:54 am
Joe… Where did you say the older programme is? There’s nothing listenable under the link for the older episode. It is like the old days where the new epidose of a programme erases the old.
Can you find it?
-cvj
May 12th, 2006 at 7:12 am
Hi Clifford. It looks like I made a mistake, sorry for getting your hopes up.
May 14th, 2006 at 3:39 pm
[...] (via Cosmic Variance) Posted by Paul in Religion and Superstition, TV and Radio (14/5/2006 at 9:38 pm) [...]
May 24th, 2006 at 4:09 pm
[...] This Guy has much more interesting things to say about it, but this 'phone in' show is friggin' hilarious!! [...]