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Off the Page: No Country for Old Men

No Country for Old Men

BBC Radio 4 - Off the Page, No Country for Old MenSearch BBC

Dominic Arkwright and his guests explore the idea of time and things slipping away.

Dominic Arkwright, Guy Browning, Katharine Whitehorn and Tibor Fischer explore the idea of time and things slipping away. From 2012.

"That is no country for old men," wrote Yeats in the opening line of his poem Sailing to Byzantium. 

"I am trying to write about the state of my soul," he later explained. 

Since when the phrase has been picked up in a novel by Cormac McCarthy, and a Coen brothers film based on the same book. 

But are we any closer to understanding what this phrase means, beyond realising something poignant is at work?

Tibor Fischer, Katharine Whitehorn and Guy Browning all approach the subject with three very different columns about age, experience, and youth. 

For Guy Browing this is no longer a country for old men because they've decided that staying young is more to their taste. Katharine Whitehorn, agony aunt at Saga, argues for the creation of a fourth age of man, while Tibor Fischer worries about what has changed more, his world or him. 

Presented by Dominic Arkwright.

Producer: Miles Warde   

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in May 2012.

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

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