Transcript for New inventions

Presenter: Welcome to ‘Tech-Today!’ This week it’s National Science & Engineering Week, so to celebrate we asked Jed our science correspondent to give us a round-up of new inventions.

Jed: Hi, yes, I’ve got some very interesting things to tell you about today, starting with a fun one. Wing- suits, those suits that look like bats and allow people to fly, or glide, at least. They’re the ultimate in cool.

Presenter: But, they’re not very new, are they?

Jed: Well, no, but the modern ones are better than ever and last October was the first ever world championship in China. The price is coming down, too. Now you can buy one for 600 to 2,000 dollars. It’s still too expensive for me, but I suppose it’ll keep coming down.

Presenter: OK, what about useful new inventions?

Jed: There are lots of those. There’s a new solar water distiller created by Gabriele Diamanti aimed at parts of the world where it’s hard to get clean drinking water. You pour in salty water and let the sun do the work for a few hours. Then, hey presto! You have clean water! It’s a very simple device and fairly cheap to produce.

Presenter: Can I hear some doubt in your voice?

Jed: Well, they still need help with investment to start producing the distiller properly. So if anyone out there has money to invest in a great product …?

Presenter: Absolutely. Get in touch with the designers.

Jed: Another useful invention which it would be good to see in production are “enable talk gloves”. These were invented by some Ukrainian students to allow people with speech and hearing impairments to communicate with people who don’t understand sign language. The gloves use sensors to translate sign language into text, then into spoken language using a smartphone. A brilliant invention!

Presenter: Yes, that could benefit thousands of people. Jed: Another useful invention comes from a surprising source, James Cameron, the film director.

Presenter: The 'Titanic' director?

Jed: The very same. Cameron was part of a team, headed by engineer Ron Allum, which designed the Deepsea Challenger Submarine, capable of descending to the lowest parts of the sea, 10km down. Last year Cameron went down to the bottom of Challenger Deep, the deepest part of the sea in the world. He was the first person to do a solo dive there, and he stayed for three hours, the longest time so far.

Presenter: That sounds impressive! Jed: Yes. We know so little about what’s at the bottom of the ocean, and it’s important to find out more. OK, so now for something useful in a different way. You know that feeling when you’re trying to get tomato ketchup out of a bottle and it won’t come out, but you’re sure there’s lots more in there? Presenter: Yeah, of course. It’s really annoying.

Jed: Well, a team of students at MIT, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, have come up with a new product that you use to coat a glass or plastic bottle, and then what’s inside, hair gel or mustard, or whatever, comes out really easily.

Presenter: So, it saves hours of frustration trying to get stuff out of bottles?

Jed: Exactly. Right, now for my favourite invention. This is really silly, but I love it. It’s a way of producing clouds indoors.

Presenter: Clouds?

Jed: Yes. A Dutch artist has come up with a way of forming perfect, small, white clouds inside. They’re just beautiful. I don’t think you can do it yourself at home yet, though.

Presenter: I don’t think I’d want to.

Jed: Oh, you would if you’d seen the photos. They’re amazing.

Presenter: OK, Jed, thanks for that. We’ll leave you with your head in the clouds and see you again next week!

Tapescript 15.

When Paul Feldman started his business, you know, he really thought that at least 95% of the people would pay for their bagels. This was presumably because that was the payment rate that he got in his own office. But in fact this rate wasn’t representative at all. I mean in his office, most people paid probably just because Feldman worked there himself, and they knew him personally, and probably liked him.

So when Feldman sold his bagels in other offices, he had to accept less. After a while, he considered that a company was “honest” if over 90% of the people paid. Between 80 and 90% was what he considered to be normal, you know the average rate. He didn’t like it, but he had to accept it. It was only if a company habitually paid less than 80% - which luckily not many did – that he would feel he had to do something. First he would leave a note, sort of giving them a warning, and then, if things didn’t improve, he would simply stop selling there. Interestingly, since he started the business, the boxes he leaves to collect the cash have hardly ever been stolen. Obviously in the mind of an office worker, to steal a bagel isn’t a crime – but to steal the money box is.

So what does the bagel data tell us about the kind of offices that were not honest, the ones that didn’t pay? Well, first of all, it shows that smaller offices are more honest than big ones. An office with twenty to thirty employees generally pays 3 to 5% more than an office with two to three hundred employees. This seems to be because in a smaller community people are more worried about being dishonest – probably because they would feel worse it they were caught.

The bagel data also suggests that your mood, how you feel, affects how honest you are. For example, the weather is a really important factor. When the weather is unusually good, more people pay, but if it’s unusually cold or rainy, fewer people pay. And people are also affected by public holidays, but in different ways- it depends which public holiday. Before Christmas and Thanksgiving, people are less honest, but just before the 4^th of July and Labour Day they are more honest. This seems to be because holidays like the 4^th of July, are just a day off work, and people always look forward to them. But Christmas and Thanksgiving are holidays where people often feel quite stressed or miserable. So their bad mood makes them less honest.

The other thing Feldman believes affects how honest people are is the morale in an office. When employees like their boss and like their job, then the office is more honest. He also thinks that the higher people are promoted, the less honest they are. He reached this conclusion because over several years he’d been delivering three baskets of bagels to a company that was on three floors. The top floor was the executive floor, and the lover two floors were people who worked in sales, and service, and administrative employees. Well, it turned out that the least honest floor was the executive floor! It makes you wonder whether maybe these guys got to be executives because they were good at cheating!

But in general the story of Feldman’s bagel business is a really positive one. It’s true that some people do steal from him, but the vast majority, even though no one is watching them, are honest.

Tapescript 16.

A: One possibility is to adapt our product.

B: Alternatively, we could just modify the communications.

A: Either we slightly modify both the product or the communications is that only small manufacturing costs would be incurred.

A: By modifying both the product and the communications we’d be in a better position to meet the specific needs of the markets we want to enter.

B: Inventing a new product would mean high manufacturing costs. On the other hand, if we just introduced Perfectaroma in the same form, we’d need completely different kind of communications.

A: Adapting Perfectaroma means a 7% increase in costs. In contrast, if we also modify the communications, costs will go up by 11%.

Tаpescript 17.

Presenter Now it’s time for our regular Wednesday afternoon sport about words and their origins. And I have with me, as usual, our English language expert, Sally Davies. So what are the three words you going to tell us about today, Sally?

Sally Hello, John. My three words today are ‘ketchup’ ‘orange’ – that’s the fruit, the colour came later, and ‘tennis’.

Presenter Let’s start with ‘ketchup’ then.

Sally Yes, well, the Chinese invented a sauce called ‘ke-tsiap’, spelled K-E-hyphen –T-S-I-A-P in the 1690s. It was made from fish and spices, but absolutely no tomatoes. By the early eighteen century, it’s popularity has spread to Malaysia, and this is where British explorers fist found it, and obviously really liked it. By 1740 the sauce was part of the English diet-people were eating a lot of it and was also becoming popular in the American colonies. And they renamed the sauce ‘ketchup’, because it was a bit easier for the English to pronounce. Then about fifty years later, in 1790, some American colonists in New England mixed tomatoes into the sauce and it became known as ‘tomato ketchup’.

Presenter So it is American after all?

Sally Well, it’s very interesting that neither ‘orange’ in English nor ‘naranje’ in Spanish or ‘arancia’ in Italian, come from the Latin word for ‘orange’, which was ‘citrus aurentium’. Instead they, they all come from the ancient Sanskrit word ‘narangah’. There is also an interesting story about where this word, ‘narangah’, comes from. It’s said that it comes from ‘nagaranga’, which literally means ‘poison for elephants’.

Presenter Poison for elephants?

Sally Yes, apparently one day in around the 7^th or 8^th century BC an elephant was passing through the forest, when he found a three which he had never seen before. This tree was full of beautiful, temping oranges; as a result, the elephant ate so mane that he died. Many years later a man came to the same spot and noticed the remains of the elephant with some orange trees growing from what had been its stomach. The man then exclaimed, ‘These fruit are nagaranga’ that is, ‘ poison for elephants’.

Presenter So is this true ?

Sally Well, I don’t know, but it’s a nice story!

Presenter And finally our last word is ‘ tennis’.

Sally This is my favouriteone, and it shows that the English have always had their own special way of pronouncing foreign languages. Tennis is a sport which first developed in France. The name was originally ‘tenez’ which is from the French verb ‘tenir’ which means in this case, something like ‘Here you are’. Players used to say ‘tenez’ when they hit the ball meaning something lake ‘There, try to get this one’. But the sport lost popularity in France and gained popularity in England at the same time. So, English people were still using the word ‘tenez’ each time they hit the ball, but they were saying it with the English accent which sounded more like ‘tennis’, and eventually it took this new spelling. Then the sport gained popularity worldwide and was taken up by many nationalities, including the French – but they now had to call it ‘le tennis’!

Presenter Fascinating! Well, thank you very much for those three words, Sally, and we’ll look forward to next week’s programme.

Tapescript 18.

I’m a great art lover. I look at beautiful paintings and sculptures and wish I could be artistic. I can’t draw or paint to save my life. I wonder why some people are so talented and can create amazing pictures, when other people, like me, can’t even draw good matchstick. I would like to fill my house with art from all over the world. It’s interesting to see how different cultures have different kinds of art. There’s nothing better than visiting art galleries when you go to another country. I prefer more traditional art. I don’t really understand a lot of modern art. I look at a pile of bricks in a museum but can’t see how it’s art. I always laugh when my children say, “Daddy, I can do better than that!” I often think they can.

Tapescript 19.

Russian scientists have recreated a plant from cell tissue that had been frozen for 30,000 years. The research team from Russia’s Institute of Cell Biophysics team regenerated the plant from tissue found in the Siberian permafrost. It was a pioneering project that paves the way for other plant species to be revived. The plant the scientists brought back to life is called the Silenestenophylla. It is the oldest plant ever to be regenerated, beating the previous record for date palm seeds that were stored for 2,000 years in Israel. The plant had been stored away by squirrels during their hibernation 30 millennia ago, during the age of woolly mammoths. It froze and never thawed.

The scientists believe that the regeneration of the Silenestenophylla plant means the permafrost is a natural store of ancient life forms, many of which could be recreated. Lead researcher Svetlana Yashina said: “We consider it essential to continue permafrost studies in search of an ancient genetic pool, that of pre-existing life, which hypothetically has long since vanished from the earth's surface.” Dr Robin Probert, head of conservation and technology at the UK's Millennium Seed Bank, said: “There is an opportunity to resurrect flowering plants that have gone extinct in the same way that we talk about bringing mammoths back to life, the Jurassic Park kind of idea.”

Tapescript 20.

Their story

I Who wrote Abba's songs?

J Well, Benny and Bjorn wrote the music together, Benny on the piano and Bjorn with his guitar. StigAndersson, who was their manager, usually thought of the titles, for example, SOS or Fernando and then it was Bjorn who wrote the lyrics for that title. At first, it was very hard for Bjorn to write lyrics in English - it's easy to forget that he was writing in a foreign language - but by their third album, his English had improved, because he was reading a lot and travelling, and he started to feel much more confident.

I Why didn't they do many tours?

J There are several reasons. For one thing they didn't really need to - Abba's records were always number one in the charts without them going anywhere. But perhaps the main reason was that after Agnetha and Bj urn's children were born, Agnetha wanted to spend more time with them -she hated leaving them. And she also developed a bit of a phobia about flying. She became less and less enthusiastic about appearing in public, especially abroad.

I Did they have a lot of problems with the media?

J Well, I suppose like with so many famous people, the press were always making up stories about them - for example, when they arrived in Sydney at the beginning of their Australian tour the tabloids said that they were just actors who'd come over, not the real singers. There was also a story that they'd made a deal with a Russian record company to get paid in potatoes, because they didn't think the rouble was a stable currency! And then of course the press were always intruding in their private lives.

I Who was this most difficult for?

J Well, Anni-Frid had a hard time about her father. She thought her father had died when she was a baby, but then a German journalist claimed that he was in fact alive and living in Germany -which turned out to be true! But I'd say that Bjorn and Agnetha suffered most, particularly at the time of their divorce. They tried to make things easier for themselves by telling journalists that it was 'a happy divorce', but as Agnetha says in her autobiography, 'we all know there are no such things as happy divorces.'

I Why did Agnetha become a recluse? J I think probably she had got tired of all the media attention and wanted to be left alone. And also she was really shocked by a serious car crash she had in the 80s. Nowadays she spends most of her time alone, especially now that her children have grown up. She lives on an island in Sweden, and there's a big 'Keep Out' sign outside her house.

I Do the members of the group still keep in touch?

J To a certain extent. Benny and Bjorn still work together so they see each other a lot, but they don't see the two girls very often. Bjorn and Agnetha have two children, so they meet occasionally but not very often. Anni-Frid lives abroad but she visits Sweden from time to time and says hello to the boys.

I Do you think Abba will ever play together again?

J No, I don't think they will play again. There was a time once when it seemed possible - they came together once in 1986 to be interviewed on a TV programme, and there was talk of another Abba album, but it never happened. Bjorn said recently that for Abba to play again it would have to be something 'absolutely extraordinary' - and I can't think what that could be.

Tapescript 21.

The film All Quite On the Western Part Front was made in 1930 with what was then an enormous budget of one and a quarter million dollars. It was based on the novel by Erich Maria Remarque and was the first ever anti-war film in era of sound. The film came out only a dozen years after the end of the First World War and the film reflects the anti-war mood of young people in this period. The movie was successful commercially and it won Oscars in Hollywood for Best Film and Best Director. It still remains one of the few early sound films watched by modern audience.

The film begins at the start of the war and shows examples of the enthusiasm for the war in 1914 whish persuaded millions of young Europeans to join up and fight for their country. It follows a group of young German soldiers from the moment they volunteer to the time when they actually go to the front in France. The young men are very soon disillusioned when they see the reality of trench warfare constant bombardment, senseless deaths, horrific living conditions, mud mad lack of food. In one scene, the French attack the German lines and are cut down by German machine guns. The Germans counteract but this time it is the turn of the French to drive them back. In the battles, the German soldiers lose a lot of men but find themselves in exactly the same trenchers as before. It is at this point in the film that the soldiers talk about the war.

Part 2

Soldier 1: There’s eighty of us left. The rest is in dressing stations or pushing up daises.

Soldier 2: Well, how do they start a war?

Soldier 1: Well, one country offends another.

Soldier 2: How could one country offend another? You mean there’s a mountain over in German gets mad at field over in France?

Soldier 1: Well, stupid. One people offends another.

Soldier 2: I don’t know any Frenchmen or Englishmen personally – nobody has offended me. Oh, that’s it. I shouldn’t be here at all. I don’t feel offended.

Soldier 1: It don’t apply to tramps like you.

Soldier 2: Good. Then I can be going home right now… The Kaiser and me… Me and the Kaiser feel just alike about this war. We didn’t neither of us want any war, so I’m going home. He’s there already.

Soldier 1: Somebody must have wanted it. Maybe it was the English. No, I don’t want to shoot any Englishman. I never saw one till I came up here. And I suppose most of them never saw a German till they came up here. No, I’m sure they weren’t asked about it… Well, it must be doing somebody some good.

Soldier 2: Not me and the Kaiser.

Soldier 1: I think maybe the Kaiser wanted a war.

Soldier 2: I don’t see that. The Kaiser’s got everything he needs.

Tapescript 22.

Angelina was born in LA in 1976. She loved movies and started acting classes to follow her dream of movie stardom. She was rebellious and became a punk with dyed purple hair and tattoos. Her movie career took off in 1997 and within a few years she had won an Oscar. Her 2001 role as Lara Croft in the blockbuster “Tomb Raider” shot her to international fame.

Angelina hasn’t limited her career to acting. She became involved in humanitarian work while filming in Cambodia. She is now a UN Goodwill Ambassador, visiting refugee camps in poor countries. She donates large sums of money to help the plight of underprivileged people. She has effectively used her stardom to highlight world problems.

Unfortunately, Jolie’s personal life has come to overshadow her other pursuits. The tabloids are obsessed with her relationships, especially the current one with Brad Pitt. The couple is now referred to not as Brad and Angelina but as “Brangelina”. The media seem more caught up with what they eat and drink than the important humanitarian work Angelina continues to do.

Helping other people is what truly motivates Angelina. In 2001, she said: “We cannot close ourselves off…and ignore the fact that millions of people are out there suffering.” In addition to acting awards, she has received wide recognition for her humanitarian work. She became the first winner of the UN’s Citizen of the World Award. It seems likely more accolades will follow.

Tapescript 23.

Rosa: Maybe I’d better go through the article again, just to be sure. Can you remember what it was called?

Mick: “Sample Surveys in Social Science Research”, I think. By Mehta.

Rosa: M-E-H-T-A?

Mick: Yeah. And he also recommended a more recent book, called “Survey Research” by Bell, I think. It’s in that series published by London University.

Pete: And if we try to use interviews instead, I saw a book in the departmental library that’ll be helpful: it’s called “Interviews that work”, by Wilson, published in Oxford in 1989.

Rosa: Right. I’ve got a tutorial now. Can we meet up again later this week? What about Friday morning?

Pete: Suits me. Eleven o’clock?

Rosa: Fine.

Mick: Before Friday, I think we should all look through the reading list.

Tapescript 24.

I was at work when I heard the news on TV. It had been pouring with rain for several days and I could see that the River Vltava was swollen. Now It appeared that there was a real danger that the river would overflow. All of us who lived or worked near the river were being advised to get out and move to a place of safety. My office is in the Centre of Prague only a hundred meters from the river bank and I live in a flat in a small town just a few kilometers north of Prague, right on the banks of the River Vltava, so I was in danger both at work and at home.

My wife and baby were at my flat, so I did the sensible thing and went home immediately. I packed my wife and my child into the car and I drove them to her parent’s house. They would be completely safe there. So far, so good! But then I stopped being sensible, and I jumped back into the car and went back to our flat. Why did I do that? I told myself that it was because it was afraid of looters breaking into our flat and stealing things, but the truth was that I sort of felt that I wanted to be in the middle of things, to be involved in what was happening.

I stayed up all night watching the TV bulletins. They were giving regular reports on how fast the water level was rising at various places throughout the Czech Republic. There was a journalist reporting from just down the road from where I was, north of Prague, so I could sit in my sitting room and watch the danger increase as the minutes passed, but I still didn’t move. I suppose I had a kind of perverse desire to be the last person to leave our block of flats. I could hear cars starting up and setting off all evening, and from time to time I looked out at our car park and I could see that it was almost empty.

At about three in the morning, my car was the only one left in the car park and my nerves gave out – or maybe I just came to my senses, because I finally decided to get into the car and escape. The roads towards Prague were flooded, so I decided to try to get to a relative’s house which was a few kilometres away in the opposite direction, away from the river. I tried various escape roads but even these roads were impassable now. I was about to give up – I thought I’d left it to late. On my last attempt, I drove until I met another car which was blocking the road. The road ahead was flooded, but the driver of the other car was wading into the water to see how deep it was. He said he thought he could make it, so I decided to follow him. The water was rising quickly now, but he drove really really slowly through the water and I felt a bit impatient. Anyway, he managed to get through the water safely. I followed him, but I went much more quickly. Water was coming into the car under the door, and the engine made a funny noise like a cough a couple of times, but I got through and finally arrived safely at my relative’s house.

I was one of the lucky ones. My office escaped the flood and my flat wasn’t damaged at all as it’s on the third floor. But the poor people who lived in the ground floor – their flats were very badly damaged. They had been completely under water.

Tapescript 25.

Interviewer What advice would you give to someone visiting London for the first time?

Sebastian It's often said that London is a city of villages, for example, Hampstead, even Chelsea, were all villages in the past; so take some time to get to know the village you are staying in before you start to explore the famous sights.

Interviewer What's the one thing you would say someone visiting London should do or see?

Sebastian Outdoors: walk up Parliament Hill - you get far and away the best view over the city. Indoors: the British Museum. When you see what the people of ancient times were capable of, it makes you feel humble about the achievement of our own age.

Interviewer And what's the best place to have your photo taken?

Sebastian I've always liked the classic view of the Houses of Parliament either from Westminster Bridge or from the other side of the river.

Interviewer What's your favourite landmark?

Sebastian St Paul's Cathedral. It is so hidden-away that when you catch your first sight of it, it's always a thrill. You just turn a corner and suddenly there it is.

Interviewer What's the best place to watch the sunset?

Sebastian Well, the views from the bridges are always spectacular. I imagine the London Eye, by Waterloo Bridge, would be a good spot, but I am ashamed to say I have never been on it. And on a summer evening I like the roof garden of The Trafalgar Hotel just off Trafalgar Square - you can watch the city lights come on as the sun sets.

Interviewer What's the best place to be at dawn?

Sebastian In the summer, almost anywhere. I love the city when it's completely deserted in the early morning light. One of my favourite places to be at that time is the all-night bagel shop on Brick Lane. I love queuing on the pavement outside for a salmon and cream cheese bagel in the early morning, because then it means I must have been out all night doing something fun or interesting. But in winter the best place to be at dawn is in bed - definitely!

Interviewer What would be a good thing to do on a scorching hot day?

Sebastian Getting a boat on the Serpentine or in Battersea Park is one of my favourite things, and another of my favourite places, the London Aquarium, is somewhere where you can escape from the heat into a world of water and air conditioning.

Interviewer What's a good thing to do which is absolutely free?

Sebastian Walking in the parks. London's parks deserve their fame. I love walking in Hyde Park. It always reminds me of my childhood - I have memories of feeding the squirrels there.

Interviewer What do you think is the most romantic place in London?

Sebastian In Kensington, Knightsbridge, and Chelsea, residential squares have enclosed gardens. They're magical places at any time of day, like secret gardens, but at night you can often hear nightingales singing - they're the only birds that sing at night. It's very romantic.

Tapescript 26.

I .In today's edition of The Book Programme we're going to talk to Raymond Simpson, historian, and author of Race to the South Pole. Mr Simpson, the irony of the story is that although Captain Scott reached the South Pole one month after the Norwegian explorer Amundsen and died on the return journey, he got all the glory, but Amundsen, by comparison, has been largely forgotten. Do you think this fair?

RS Absolutely not. Amundsen arrived first because he was better prepared in everyway. He had done all his research and planning before setting off. He had the right clothes; he had sufficient food supplies, and most importantly, he had the right transport, that is, skis and dogs. In contrast, Scott's decision to use ponies instead of skis and dogs was absolute madness. As well as that, his food supplies were very deficient in calories for such a hard journey, and he didn't take clothes that were warm enough for the awful weather conditions. In fact I'd say Scott's planning was so bad it undoubtedly resulted in his death and the deaths of all his men. I also think Captain Scott's personality was partly to blame for the tragedy. He was quite an arrogant man, you know, who didn't listen to advice. I think he was convinced that he'd succeed simply because he was an English gentleman.

I So why do we remember Scott and not Amundsen?

RS I think we remember him principally because he and his men all died. It was a tragedy, a glorious failure. I think we always tend to remember glorious failures. But also I think we remember him because of his diaries. As you know they were discovered along with the frozen bodies of his men, and personally I think that they were written mainly to try to justify his own bad decisions.

I So you think Scott should be criticized rather than glorified?

RS In many ways, yes. Scott lost the race - and his life - because of his bad preparation more than anything else. He should have done his research better. He should have made sure that his team had the right food and clothes. And above all he shouldn't have taken ponies. They couldn't survive the freezing conditions as well as dogs could - in fact all the ponies died. Scott and his men were struggling on foot with their sledges, while Amundsen and his team had skis and dogs.

I Race to the South Pole is a great adventure tale as well as a story of human courage and incompetence. Mr Simpson, thank you very much

Tapescript 27.

P To begin tonight's debate, I'd like to welcome Greg Tyler, who is a well-known wildlife journalist. Greg, what do you think?

J TV channels nowadays are always showing documentaries about wild animals like the tiger becoming extinct, and we see horrible scenes of them being hunted and killed. When people see these programmes they immediately think 'Oh no! How terrible, we must do something.' But the documentaries don't usually tell us why the tiger is being hunted. If they did, we'd probably find that in most cases it's because the local people depend on hunting animals and then selling them to earn a living. Some of you may remember the film Gorillas in the Mist. It's a film about a young American woman, a conservationist, who was trying to protect some gorillas in a very poor region of Africa. At the end of the film the local people killed her. Why? Because they depended on hunting and selling the gorillas to foreign zoos and collectors. By protecting the gorillas, the conservationist was destroying the local economy. So I think it's all a question of priorities. We can't just say 'stop hunting wild animals'; first we have to solve the problem of how people in poor countries can live without hunting. You often see in the newspaper campaigns for 'Save the tiger' or 'Save the gorillas', but it really should be 'Save the people'. If we save the people first and make sure they can survive, then they'll be able to stop killing the animals.

P Thank you, Greg. And now, it's hello and welcome to Nina James, who's a biologist from California. Nina, what's your point of view?

B I'm a biologist and ecologist, and I can tell you that the most serious problem facing this planet today is the destruction of our ecosystems. For those of you who aren't quite sure what ecosystems are, let me just explain. By ecosystems I mean the relationship not only between animals and plants but also between them and their environment. There are many well known reasons why they are being destroyed, for example, air and water pollution and the destruction of the rainforests. But there's another very important reason and that is that thousands of species - birds, fish, and animals - are becoming extinct. They're becoming extinct mostiy because of too much hunting. Now, you may ask, why is this a problem? Does it really matter if some species disappear? After all, the dinosaurs became extinct, and that doesn't seem to have been a problem. But what people don't realize is that when one animal species disappears, this has a chain reaction. It makes other animal and plant species disappear too. It will eventually cause a complete collapse of our ecosystem. And if, or rather when, this happens, the results will be catastrophic. The more animals that become extinct, the less food there will be for man, and that will mean starvation on a world-scale, with millions of people dying of hunger. Although I agree that it's a question of priorities, the fact is that we have to protect animals first, not people, because if we don't protect the animals then we haven't got much of a future on this planet.

Tapescript 28.

I’m really interested in the culture of other countries. I don’t know why, but I always think other cultures are more interesting than my own culture. Every time I travel, I learn wonderful, strange, amazing and interesting things about other cultures. One of the biggest surprises I had was when I went to the USA as a child. I’m English so I thought Americans had the same culture as me. When I went to America I understood Americans and British are very different people. Understanding the culture of other people is very important. It helps us all to get along. If everyone really tried to learn about other cultures, the world would be a more peaceful place. The world is becoming smaller, so I think this is happening.

Tapescript 29.

Interviewer ... and with me I've got Emily and Alex. Emily, what kind of questions did you ask?

Emily Well, the organizers of the event suggested a list of topics, you know, sort of pre-prepared questions, but I thought that they were very er artificial, you know strange. So I asked quite normal questions like, "Why did you come tonight? or 'Have you been speed dating before?' or 'What do you like doing in your free time?' I found that the conversation ran more smoothly when I asked people these kinds of normal questions.

Interviewer How about you Alex?

Alex Yes, same as Emily, really. I also asked quite normal things like, 'What do you do? Have you done this before? Do you enjoy living in Oxford?' Things like that.

Interviewer Did other people ask you interesting questions?

Alex Yes, some were quite interesting. Ones I can remember are, 'If you were an animal, what would you be?' Or, 'If you had to choose a different career from your current one, what would it be?' One woman even said 'I've heard that you were in prison once - is that true?' I don't know where she got that from!

Interviewer And you, Emily. Were you asked anything unusual?

Emily Not really! The most common questions were 'Are you American?' or 'Where are you from?' The second most common was, 'Why do you live in England?' Although one person did ask me, 'If you could be invisible for a day, what would you do?'

Interviewer How did you answer that?

Emily I said I'd go to work and play tricks on my colleagues in the office like hiding things!

Interviewer How many matches did you get?

Emily I chose six men that I would be happy to see again, and of those six, four of them had chosen me too, so I got four matches.

Alex I got three.

Interviewer Did you go out with any of the people?

Emily Yes, I went on one date with a guy who teaches biochemistry at university. It was a bit of a disaster though, because earlier that morning I'd been to the dentist, and I'd had an injection, so by the time that we met for coffee I had terrible toothache and I was in agony. I had to go home after half an hour. We've exchanged a few emails since then, but we haven't managed to meet. We're both very busy. Also, to be honest, I don't think he's really my type. He seems to be really keen to get married and have children straight away and I'm not.

Interviewer What about the other three matches?

Emily The second man contacted me directly after the event and invited me to dinner. But then he sent me a text message the next day and cancelled. He said that he had met someone else. The other two have been in touch, but we haven't been able to meet yet. But in fact, I've decided that for the moment, I'm actually happy being single so I don't think I'll be speed dating again any time soon.

Interviewer How about you Alex?

Alex I emailed one of the matches, a woman I quite liked and we met at a bar in Oxford. At the speed dating event she seemed really bubbly and good fun, but after spending a few minutes with her it was very clear that we had nothing in common. The atmosphere was awful and it was all very awkward and I think she felt the same so we just finished our drinks and left. We didn't contact each other again.

Then I arranged to meet another of my matches. We'd really got on well at the speed dating so I was quite excited about meeting her. Unfortunately, on that morning, I'd found out

that I'd lost my job and I was really worried that I would not give the right impression because I was feeling so unhappy about my work situation. But actually, Susanna quickly made me forget everything and we had a great evening. We then met up the next day and went for a long walk. And well, to cut a long story short, six months later I took her to Paris and proposed, and two months ago we got married!

Emily Aaaah!

Interviewer So a real success story for you then?

Alex Absolutely!

Tapescript 30.

Interviewer Have you ever been to a music festival?

Anne Isle of Wight in the 70s.

Interviewer What was it like?

Anne There were just thousands and thousands of people just chilling out doing whatever you wanted to do. And it was just great fun - there was music, dancing, a great memory actually.

Interviewer Have you ever been to a music festival?

Jordan Yes, we have a rock festival back home in Ohio that we go to, a lot of my friends and I go to.

Interviewer What's it like?

Jordan I don't know what it's called but it's just like a whole bunch of alternative music, it's like two days long and you all go and it's just a fun time -all outside. There's a ton of people and they're all usually younger, from like college age usually, and they have a whole bunch of stages set up, and there's just bars in different places, and you can just go and hang out and listen to some music.

Interviewer Have you ever been to a music festival?

Mike Yes, I went to Glastonbury.

Interviewer What was it like?

Mike Incredibly muddy, incredibly muddy, but great fun, absolutely so much fun, I didn't get any sleep at all, it was, so much fun.

Interviewer Have you ever been to a music festival?

Ray Yes, not for many years. When I was much younger I went to Bath, Bath Music Blues festival, I've been to Reading Music Festival. I can't remember which other ones I've been to, but yes, in the 1970s and early 80s I went to quite a few.

Interviewer What were they like?

Ray From a 57-year-old's point of view? Well, at the time they were really exciting. I can remember a long journey down to Bath, sleeping in a field, I can remember expensive food, waiting up all night to the see the band that you wanted to see and then falling asleep. I can remember being taken back to sleep in somebody's tent then waking up and realizing we were in the wrong tent, and had no idea whose tent we were in the next morning. I can remember feeling slightly sort of sick and hungry all the time I was there, but yeah, it was good, it was exciting.

Interviewer Have you ever been to a music festival?

Harley No. Oh, yeah, actually. The Big Chill? Yeah, we went to the Big Chill.

Interviewer What was it like?

Harley Yeah, it was really good. I went with my dad and my sister, we went in a camper van. So we camped and yeah, it was good.