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BBC Radio 4 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced BBC Home Service.

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Something Understood

Religion & Ethics

Ethical and religious discussion that examines some of the larger questions of life

Ethical and religious discussion that examines some of the larger questions of life, taking a spiritual theme and exploring it through music, prose and poetry

BBC Radio 4 LW

Something Understood: Creatures of the Wind

Embracing the Classical

24/07/2016

Creatures of the Wind

BBC Radio 4 - Something Understood, Creatures of the Wind

Mark Tully hears how winds like El Nino, the sirocco and the trade winds connect us all.

Mark Tully hears how winds like El Nino, the sirocco and the trade winds connect natural ecosystems, as well as human societies and beliefs.

Mark Tully hears how winds like El Niño, the Sirocco and the Trade Winds connect the earth's ecosystems, as well as human societies and beliefs.

The science of this inter-connectedness is explained by David Carlson, Director of the World Climate Research Programme. He discusses with Mark how commerce, conflict and culture have been shaped by the flow of air around our planet, and how ideas can be carried on the breeze.

From idyllic breezes to tempestuous storms, and from the Saharan desert to the South China Sea, artistic images of the wind are summoned, in music, by Benjamin Britten, Nina Simone and Frederic Chopin - and, in words, by Joseph Conrad, Percy Bysshe Shelley and Jan DeBlieu.

Mark considers also how the wind can be one of the wonders of nature that connect us to God, and how it can so overawe us that we lose our self awareness and experience the transcendent.


A Unique production for BBC Radio 4.

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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