Mummies, Jungles and Lost Properties

Last Monday (30th) the first episode in Series Five of The Museum of Curiosity was broadcast on BBC Radio 4. It featured presenter John Lloyd CBE and new curator Humphrey Ker with guests Egyptology Professor Joann Fletcher, explorer and altruist Colonel John Blashford-Snell, and comedian and environmentalist Mark Watson.

Photo copyright: Stevyn Colgan

Here's The Badger Hole of Ignorance podcast in which producers Dan Schreiber and Richard Turner discuss the episode with host Ken Plume:



Secondly, here's Jo Fletcher's extraordinary documentary - in full - telling the story of how she and her colleagues revived 2000 year old techniques to mummify a modern man. Mummifying Alan: Egypt's Last Secret is the fascinating, touching and respectful story of a very brave man facing his own death and of the dedicated scientists who worked hard to make his death something special and celebratory while also increasing the sum of human knowledge.



Next up, here's the documentary The Mission: A Grand Adventure in which 'Blashers' delivers a baby grand piano to the Wei Wei tribe in the middle of the Guyanese rain forest. Glorious British eccentricity at its best (sadly, the sound quality is a bit rough but quite watchable):



And here's Mark Watson in Australia doing some fantastic stand up (NSFW!):



More next week.

Badger Hole Special #1 - All about Series 1

In this episode of The Badger Hole of Ignorance, producers Dan Schreiber and Richard Turner discuss Series 1 of the show, recorded in 2006.

Aiding host John Lloyd in this first series was guest curator Bill Bailey.

The guests, and their donations, were as follows:

Show 1: Professor Richard Fortey (Curators of the Natural History Museum and the Giant Hornet of Chang Jiang), Sean Lock (The modern Scarf Knot) and Brian Blessed (The Yeti).

Show 2: Fran Beaumann (A Pineapple), Dr Gary Sheffield (Anderson Shelters) and Ben Elton (Privacy).

Show 3: Arthur Smith (Arthur Cravan), Professor Frank Close (Nothing) and Professor Ronald Hutton (Father Christmas).

Show 4: Victoria Finlay (Pliny the Elder), Kevin Day (The Battle of Waterloo) and Alastair Fothergill (the Hairy Angler Fish).

Show 5: Sir Jonathan Miller (Nottingham Alabasters), Dr Phillip Ball (Phlogiston) and Professor Marcus du Sautoy (The Monster).

Show 6: Dr John Gribbin (The Big Bang when it was the size of a Grapefruit), Alan Davies (Epping Forest) and Martha Reeves (Silence).

So here's the podcast hosted, as always, by the affable Ken Plume:



(All photos copyright Dan Schreiber)