Friday, June 22, 2007

Guilty Secrets


"You're an old soul." people have told me. It could just be that I'm an old person trapped in a young person's body, if my listening habits are anything to go by.

At about 6pm every day my ears strain for the sounds of Mr Zeus coming home. When I hear him, like a teenager frantically stubbing out an illicit cigarette, I turn down the volume on the computer speakers and close my guilty windows.

You see, I am a closet BBC Radio 4 listener. Being able to access it online has been part of the reason why I am now settling down so well in Athens.

It all began when I developed a crush on someone that bordered on the obsessive. I had just moved to London, and had just come out of a period of depression, so I think my obsession became a hobby to occupy me before I developed a social life. Or, indeed, a life of any description.

Anyway, I discovered this person had a habit of leaving the radio on at night tuned to Radio 4, so I started doing the same, in some sort of creepy attempt to reach him over the airwaves. Not surprisingly, my stalkerish affections were rejected, but the habit stayed with me.

For almost the entire time I lived in London, I would end my day by lying in bed and listening to the creamy rolls of posh English on BBC Radio 4, learning all kinds of things on their documentary slots and using the shipping forecast as my cue that it was late enough to go to sleep.

These days I leave the radio on while I work. The theme to the Archer's, which once upon a time was reason for me to laugh out loud at ridiculous Middle England, now has me listening carefully: Really? So and so is sleeping with so and so? But she never seemed the type! Who'd have thought!
Mr Zeus disapproves because he thinks it prevents me from learning Greek. I think secretly he's more worried that I'll morph into a pearl and pastel twin-set wearing middle aged woman.

So that's my guilty secret. I love listening to BBC Radio 4 and no one can stop me!

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