“HERE BE DRAGONS”

Maps have always held a special fascination for me. The early navigators and map-makers, when coming upon a strange land and not knowing what it contained, would usually use the words in the title to describe what they thought might be there.

Radio reception was excellent the other evening, so I used it to good effect with my wind-up radio (I have a small ‘carbon footprint’!). I happened to tune into a Central European programme – I won't say from where – and at a break in the quite good music heard the hourly news.

Whilst not understanding WHAT was said (even though I spent 20 years in the region) I recognised enough to know that the young lady reading it had no interest in what she was saying. Her job, as I perceived it, was to “read something” and then get off the air as quickly as possible. She read it in a voice that I can only describe as “dead” – no emotion, no interest, nothing. And the speed of delivery – stunningly fast, with words and sentences chasing each other like a dog chases a cat! I wondered whether she used the same voice outside of her job. And she must have had well-developed lungs as I didn’t hear pause for breath!

This aroused my curiosity, since vocalised emotion is a gift we have that gives the listener clues to ourselves, our thoughts and opinions (and maybe, I thought, this was the reason behind her “style”). I sent an email to a friend who had worked in radio broadcasting and his reply was that in his view this “style” was a hold-over from Socialism, where the words were of significance and that absolutely NOTHNG should detract from them. Hence, the newsreaders were trained to have no expression or emotion.

To me this still-existing form is not only surprising, but also sad. If we can’t show emotion when we speak, how will those listening be able to form an opinion (or perhaps in Central Europe opinions are not, even now, required of the population, at least in the eyes of the political class). Surely a “dead voice”, whether on the radio or face-to-face is the sign of a dead personality.

My map of that part of Europe now uses the words of the old map-makers and says “here be (Socialist) dinosaurs?”

Until next time,

P.S.