Anyone have a subscription to The Times?

People by Andrew Pierce
The Times (subscription), UK - 14 hours ago
... The loveable Jim Naughtie had a rare interview with the author Ray Bradbury, 83,
who proved yet again that he could not care less what people think about him. ...

I don't think you need a subscription to The Times. The complete text of the "People" gossip column is here: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/printFriendly/0,,1-2-963942,00.html

It refers to a radio interview on the station BBC Radio 4...which is here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/today/listenagain/ram/today3_mars_20040114.ram

I missed this when it was broadcast, so thanks for alerting me to its existence. Now we can all enjoy!

- Phil (from the UK)

Phil:

Thanks for the links! I couldn't get onto the print site without buying a subscription, but the audio link was free...

PS,
I was lucky enough to hear a much more complete version of the David Frost story at the convention in Pasadena a couple of weeks ago. Hysterical!

Many thanks, philnic! I was able to listen to the radio interview. RB is a delight, as always.

Hmm... I must have subscribed to The Times and forgotten about it. Anyway, for the benefit of non-subscribers, this is the full text of the Bradbury item:

=========================================
"BBC allows Frost a light roasting over the Moon

WERE the editors of Radio 4�s Today sending out a coded message yesterday on Sir David Frost, the grand old man of BBC interviewers?

The loveable Jim Naughtie had a rare interview with the author Ray Bradbury, 83, who proved yet again that he could not care less what people think about him. Well, as the author of the classics The Martian Chronicles and Fahrenheit 451, he probably feels he is entitled to be self-indulgent.

Bradbury, speaking from his Californian home, about President Bush�s decision to launch the space mission to Mars, said: �The day Man first landed on the Moon I was in London. I was on David Frost�s show. He was so stupid I walked out.�

Yesterday�s interview was prerecorded."
=========================================

As you can see, it's not so much about Bradbury as about an assumption that the BBC might be having a dig at David Frost. Just a piece of gossip column tat, really. I think the RealAudio clip of the Bradbury interview itself is much more interesting than The Times piece.

- Phil

I enjoyed the audio clip. My favorite part was when he said, "I was born on Mars and just want to get back there."

Bradbury's National Book Awards acceptance speech, in which he speaks of the David Frost incident, is reproduced on this site, along with a link to the National Book Foundation: http://www.raybradbury.com/awards_acceptance.html
He also speaks about it here: http://pr.caltech.edu/commencement/00/c2kbradburyspeech.html
And here: http://www.csun.edu/cod/conf/1994/proceedings/Keynot~1.htm
And it is mentioned here: http://www.space.com/sciencefiction/bradbury_990924.html
And in this article about how the moon landing was reported in Britain: http://www.tvhistory.btinternet.co.uk/html/moon_itv.html
I also have a print interview in which he tells pretty much the same story.

Interesting article from the BBC, but, good God, read what scientist, Randy Wesson, said. Turn the moon into a garbage dump? I think not!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3402597.stm

Anyone here care to admit their age? How do you remember (or not) the moon landing? Or, if you don't remember the first one, do you remember any of them, and what is the first one you remember? I'll go first.

My memory of the first moon landing in 1969 is that, after months of buildup in school, we ended up moving right then and I missed the actual event. My parents tell the story that when we moved that day, the living room in the new house was bare empty except for the TV, and that we sat on the floor and watched it. I remember no such thing. I think at any other time I would have, but to a seven-year-old their first (and, at that point, only) move just swept away all else.

Sometime prior to this, I remember seeing a cartoon of a little boy asking his dad, "What's the big deal? Hasn't it all been done before?" and thinking the same thing. I guess there had been "moon shots," as far as sending an unmanned vehicle to the moon to take pictures. I suppose astronauts orbited near the moon, too--anyhow, I know they went into space--and at that age I must not have been able to see the difference between those things and an actual manned moon landing. I might have if it had been explained, but I never asked. I said nothing, figuring that since the grownups were all insisting this was NEVER done before, it was best to humor them.

Here's the frightening quote I referred to in an earlier post:


Randy Wessen, mission scientist at the US space agency's (Nasa) Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in California, dreams of using the Moon to make the Earth a better place.

"Just think, we could move all our polluting factories there to help protect the environment here."

Yikes! I sure hope he was kidding!!!

I hope they don't hear about this in other countries. Just what the U. S. needs, more reasons for popularity.

My age: 48.

Unless my memory is completely screwed up, the moon landing was on a Sunday. Our minister was so into it, that he hooked up a television in the buildings gym/cultural hall and he dismissed us from the chapel/sanctuary to go and watch the live landing as a congregation.

If the moon landing was not on a Sunday, I've both fabricated and made real this memory. Anyone know how to check out the day it occured? This is one of those memories that feels real, but there is a sort of tentativeness associated with it.

Oh, to be young again!

According to the Almanac Calendar, July 20, 1969, was a Sunday.

Thanks for looking that up. I think it's a true memory, but memory gets a bit more tentative . . .