For the last few months there have been a rash of quite ancient
comedy parlour games being adapted to Twitter where groups of friends
devise, in 140 characters of course, punnery and wordplay around film
and tv titles. Just in the last month credit crunch movies (eg: The Italian Jobless), medieval movies (eg: You've Got Chain Mail)
have had their moment in the sun. In response a small group of Radio 4 fans
including a lot of the Twitter regulars working here have had minutes
of fun of an evening adapting these memes to our favourite national speech network; CreditCrunchRadio4 spawned for example the rather bleak The Pip. My best attempt at medievalradio4 was You and Your Serf (sorry). However none so far had generated more than a brief flurry of interest.
But then Radio 4 announcer; Kathy Clugston found herself on a train journey home yesterday evening was bored and tweeted this:
At first there was just a handful of top quality responses from someregularcontributors , and a couple of lame attempts from yours truly and it looked it was time for bed and the shipping forecast as usual. However I work up this morning and there were incredibly nearly a thousand tweets of programme titles mostly containing boos, wees and lots more Tims. About midnight Radio 4's very own King of Twitter; Mitch Benn had joined in and gradually by the time all his legions of followers had picked up on it; Radio 4 - minus 1 letter, was in Twitter parlance, trending. So to avoid you doing the rather hard work of sifting through the tweet archive.
Our favourite 20 #radio4minus1letter tweets
higgis: A look at Judeo-Roman history through one woman's obsession with a charioteer: Woman's Hur #radio4minus1letter · View
richardberryuk: #radio4minus1letter - "lose ends" an invited panel have to find the end of the sellotape roll · View
MitchBenn:
#radio4minus1letter Fedback- Roger Bolton tries to answer listeners'
letters and emails but finds someone's done it already. · View
MitchBenn: #radio4minus1letter Loose Eds - Stourton, Mair and Reardon on a bender · View
SirTerence: I nominate this as winner @jamescridland Snooker-based comedy panel show: I'm Sorry I Haven't A Cue #radio4minus1letter · View
bopeepsheep: #radio4minus1letter Jus A Minute. Contestants have 60 seconds to produce a tasty gravy without repetition, deviation, hesitation, or Bisto. · View
dogzero: #radio4minus1letter "Road Casting House" - join American doctor, Hugh Laurie as he makes various highways using molds and plaster of paris · View
lesleypeal: #radio4minus1letter 'taking a stan' in which fergal keane talks to rap star m&m · View
jonnydollarUK: #radio4minus1letter Omens hour. A black cat and a man who once broke a mirror discuss the ides of March. · View
Jefy: "The NES quiz" Sandi Toksvig grills punt and dennis on game consoles that never quite caught on #radio4minus1letter · · View
jimh: The Shipping Forecat - a daily nautical report from a feline stowaway #radio4minus1letter · · View
mmechevrolet: #radio4minus1letter Just an inute - eskimos campaign for the correct spelling of their name · View
LordPlumpton: @Xanneroo #radio4minus1letter Tet Match Special, in which Henry Blofeld remembers the Vietnam war · · View
loveandgarbage: RT @Barc_alpha: #radio4minus1letter Geoffrey Boycott and Blowers travel supersonic in the world's fastest planes - Test Mach Special · · View
jimeasterbrook: @kathyclugston Arming Today. Making sure Humphries, Evans, et al are properly equipped for dealing with politicians. #radio4minus1letter · · View
jasperparsnip: #radio4minus1letter Dow the line. Musings on American industrial averages. · View
rpudd: #radio4minus1letter Bok at Bedtime. Members of the South African rugby team read from their memoirs. · View
Now obviously this sort of japery wasn't invented yesterday. In fact this blog post is really a long way round of reminding you all that the true masters of this activity for over nearly 40 years no less. Are back! (Monday June 15th: 6.30pm) And not on Twitter. Well apart from him.
(Oh. A handful of the tweets online have a high innuendo factor. If the thought of what Samantha has got up to over the years offends then steer clear.)
Ok. If you're bored on the commute home tonight. mmm. #radio4plus1letter. That could be fun.
Jem Stone is Portfolio Executive for Social Media at BBC Audio & Music
LBG, I don't think you can compare the two - both are very different beasts. Have you tried Twitter? I followed the #Radio4minus1letter tweets as they were happening and they were both inventive and hilarious.
I like 'Clue' but by its very nature it is full of in-jokes and cliques which form part of its charm. In contrast, Twitter can be utterly inclusive and democratic; a joy of modern technology. Not to mention excellent discipline to limit messages to 140 chars.
Besides, I'm sure when the new series of Clue starts, there will be a string of tweets contributing to #CheddarGorge, #UxbridgeEnglish etc.
perfectsix - If one day, many moons from now, the joys of the written word have lost all meaning, they have stopped making films, no more music is being written and most human life on earth has been killed off by Gaia, then I might, just might, find life so unutterably dull that I am forced to descend to the vapid inanity which Twitter seems to be, but until that day...
Still, posting replies on BBC blogs is probably not that much further up the food chain, so maybe I haven't gotten as far to fall as I'd like to think...
Maybe you have something in common with Socates who distrusted the written word:
""If men learn this, it will implant forgetfulness in their souls; they will cease to exercise memory because they rely on that which is written, calling things to remembrance no longer from within themselves, but by means of external marks." (from Plato's Phaedrus)"
Analsis - A programme about a tidy nun Word of Moth - facinating insights into bashing your head against a lightbulb Bell - Rather monotone version of Bells
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07:03, Wednesday, 3 June 2009
At first there was just a handful of top quality responses from some regular contributors , and a couple of lame attempts from yours truly and it looked it was time for bed and the shipping forecast as usual. However I work up this morning and there were incredibly nearly a thousand tweets of programme titles mostly containing boos, wees and lots more Tims. About midnight Radio 4's very own King of Twitter; Mitch Benn had joined in and gradually by the time all his legions of followers had picked up on it; Radio 4 - minus 1 letter, was in Twitter parlance, trending. So to avoid you doing the rather hard work of sifting through the tweet archive.
Comment number 1.
At 21:37 3rd Jun 2009, lordBeddGelert wrote:I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue = 5 Stars
Twitter Panel Games = 1 Star [and that's being generous...]
And 'movies'. Are they a bit like 'films' then ?? Do tell.
Complain about this comment (Comment number 1)
Comment number 2.
At 23:06 3rd Jun 2009, Alex wrote:LBG, I don't think you can compare the two - both are very different beasts. Have you tried Twitter? I followed the #Radio4minus1letter tweets as they were happening and they were both inventive and hilarious.
I like 'Clue' but by its very nature it is full of in-jokes and cliques which form part of its charm. In contrast, Twitter can be utterly inclusive and democratic; a joy of modern technology. Not to mention excellent discipline to limit messages to 140 chars.
Besides, I'm sure when the new series of Clue starts, there will be a string of tweets contributing to #CheddarGorge, #UxbridgeEnglish etc.
Complain about this comment (Comment number 2)
Comment number 3.
At 23:44 3rd Jun 2009, lordBeddGelert wrote:perfectsix - If one day, many moons from now, the joys of the written word have lost all meaning, they have stopped making films, no more music is being written and most human life on earth has been killed off by Gaia, then I might, just might, find life so unutterably dull that I am forced to descend to the vapid inanity which Twitter seems to be, but until that day...
Still, posting replies on BBC blogs is probably not that much further up the food chain, so maybe I haven't gotten as far to fall as I'd like to think...
Complain about this comment (Comment number 3)
Comment number 4.
At 22:26 4th Jun 2009, _marko wrote:To #3: lordBeddGelert
Maybe you have something in common with Socates who distrusted the written word:
""If men learn this, it will implant forgetfulness in their souls; they will cease to exercise memory because they rely on that which is written, calling things to remembrance no longer from within themselves, but by means of external marks." (from Plato's Phaedrus)"
Complain about this comment (Comment number 4)
Comment number 5.
At 16:29 6th Jun 2009, johndrinkwater wrote:RIP Humph.
Complain about this comment (Comment number 5)
Comment number 6.
At 13:36 11th Jun 2009, amandamariebenson wrote:Analsis - A programme about a tidy nun
Word of Moth - facinating insights into bashing your head against a lightbulb
Bell - Rather monotone version of Bells
Complain about this comment (Comment number 6)