
Creatures of Habit
Readers John Paul Connolly and Shiloh Coke explore habitual behaviour - good or bad, logical or absurd, healthy or otherwise.
Can you quit, change your habits, follow those New Year Resolutions? Readers John Paul Connolly and Shiloh Coke explore habitual behaviour through poetry and prose. With music by Bach, Steve Reich and This Is The Kit.
The subtle stings of misfortune have James Whitcombe Riley reaching for his pipe, Alain de Botton observes the way our love of the familiar shapes our relationships, Beckett’s Molloy takes habitual behaviour to a compulsive extreme, and Amy Lowell is troubled by a hauntingly persistent idée fixe. But good or bad, logical or absurd, healthy or otherwise, – where would be without these repetitive quirks of behaviour that shape our identity and order our world? And so, when Allen Carr offers you a pain free path to quitting – will you take it? Perhaps the poet knows best the fear of the blank page and the power of routine to conquer it. And so we return to habit and to the setting down of words.
Producer: Laura Yogasundram
Last on
Music Played
Timings (where shown) are from the start of the programme in hours and minutes
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Allen Carr
Extract from Allen Carrs Easway to stop smoking, read by John Paul Connolly
Mark Haddon
Extract from The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, read by Shiloh Coke
Carl Denis
Habit, read by John Paul Connolly
James Whitcomb Riley
I Smoke My Pipe, read by John Paul Connolly
Edgar Albert Guest ?
Habits, read by Shiloh Coke
David Mason
Disturbed Paradelle, read by Shiloh Coke
Samuel Beckett
Extract from Molloy, read by John Paul Connolly
Amy Lowell
A Fixed Idea, read by Shiloh Coke
Alain de Botton
Extract from The Course of Love, read by John Paul Connolly
Leonard Nathan
Surprise, read by John Paul Connolly
Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks
My Worst Habit, read by Shiloh Coke
Al Young
Kicking, read by Shiloh Coke
Stanley Kunitz
The Round, read by John Paul Connolly
Broadcast
- Sun 6 Jan 2019 17:30