Sunday sustenance

Before we knuckle down to the week’s offerings I’m going to seize the opportunity (this review is a one-off, so no need to panic) to champion a regular programme: Something Understood (Radio 4, Sunday mornings at 06:05 and repeated at 23:30). It’s on every week and, while some are better than others, I’ve never heard a dud. It is neither more nor less than a 30-minute encouragement to be human — just what my (church-free) Sunday morning needs before the bells take over the airwaves.

Mark Tully (the most frequent presenter) picks up a subject in both hands (this week: mentors) and handles it with sympathy, good sense and good humour — he always sounds to me like a modest man who has understood not just something, but pretty much everything. Other voices will read poems and tell stories; other people will be introduced to mull over the selected topic and we will hear music — this week Bach, Bernstein and ‘The Bare Necessities’ all featured. It’s half an hour which is neither too big nor too clever but a right-sized portion: audible brain-food of the gentlest, most restorative kind. The edible equivalent would be a perfectly timed boiled egg and a pot of strong tea.

‘We hear with our ears, but we listen with our mind.’ That message, which introduced The Sound of Fear (Radio 4, Thursday), is in itself resonant; thrilling; portentous. This excellent programme examined how our live and leaping imaginations turn sound into effect. When we hear the shrieked alarm of a gang of spooked cockatiels our mind listens and is put on alert — it is perfectly natural, a forest-learned response, to hear a noise and to imagine — envisage — anticipate — an unseen, unrealised threat.