Voices

Originally Published In 'My Choice Of Words' (Paragon Press 2021)

The very last thing that I did last night was listen to the radio. 

The World Tonight on BBC Radio 4 has long been a guilty pleasure and airing as it does here at 23:00 CET I now find it the perfect bedtime story as I lay my head to rest in Brussels. 

That much of its narrative and many of its narrators in recent years have become local and speak to the European that I have become is an added bonus, but there is something about radio news that I find more vivid, more engaging, and ultimately more rewarding than television.

In the years that I spent working as an advertising copywriter I learned the importance of what was then called tone of voice and of ensuring its consistency over time. And from Troon to Aberdeen to London to Warwickshire to Shropshire to Warsaw to Dubai via Hereford and finally, for now at least, to Brussels, Radio 4 has been a constant companion, and a consistent one too.