Says You

There are now two cities in the country that have two all-talk public radio stations. And I’ve lived in both! WGBH just bought another radio station and restructured to be an all-talk station so now WBUR has some new competition (check out the recent article in Boston Magazine). I have to say I love my public radio (as I write this I’m listening to a podcast of fresh air). And Boston is ripe with wonderful productions right here in our own backyard. One of my favorites, and lesser known, is Says You. I stumbled upon My Word years ago when I lived in San Francisco (the first city in the country with two all-talk public radio stations). For those of you not familiar, My Word is an old BBC production that is so good it still is in reruns, even 20 years after its last production. It’s a radio quiz show about words: vocabulary, etymology and more. Says You is something similar, but is American and is still in production. Think Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me, but instead of the subject matter being current events, it’s all about… you’ve got it – words! Same dynamic though – very funny and entertaining.
But I keep missing the show. So going through my list at lunch (yes I started lists again), I decided to tackle item 14, “Look up Says You schedule”. I’ve got it written down now. Written down for Boston (two times on WGBH). Written down for beyond Boston, the neighboring stations I might happen to drive through while visiting folks one state over on the weekends. I even discovered it’s on an AM station out of Holyoke. Who knew.



And while writing this up I figured I’d check to see if one of the benefits of living in a city with two all-talk public radio stations might be listening to reruns of the superb show My Word. I vaguely remember catching it here, or do I? And this is what gets my goat – the arbitrariness. I sifted through the WGBH schedule. I even checked out KQEDs schedule. But when my search comes up with a potential WBUR listing, I can’t access it. “Access Denied: Surf Control” How crazy is that? Work’s got a frustrating surf control program on our machines. I’ve run up against this before while streaming songs off of youtube to help me get over the mid-afternoon hump (30 minute limit). Or when I was catching up on facebook postings during my lunch break (30 minute limit). I even had the IT guy tell me to go onto wireless when he was helping me find the best scotches (no alcohol, tobacco or gambling sites). It’s just silly. So I think, maybe, My Word is on at 10:30 pm one night. Which night? I’ll have to wait and find out.



Unfortunately, Says You doesn’t have podcasts. And I did a quick search of some of the areas I know my loyal readers live. I mean reader :) And not much luck there. You can potentially stream the radio stations that do carry the show, or buy the podcasts, or enjoy this little snidbit from their Daily Dispatch page:



HALF BAKED…

Posted October 22, 2008

As I heard it, the correct translation of Marie Antoinette’s statement, “Let them eat cake” should correctly be, “Let them eat poorcake.”


French ovens were heated with wood or other materials that generated soot that coated the walls of the oven. To keep the bread dough from becoming covered with this soot, the walls of the oven were coated with a mixture of flour and water. When this mixture had dried to the walls of the oven, the bread dough was placed in the oven and baked.


After the oven had cooled down, the sooty, flour mixture--like sooty matzo--was chipped off the walls, placed in a basket, and put on the outside steps for the poor to take and eat. Thus, the lady in question was simply giving practical, if somewhat flippant, advice to her poor subjects: If one cannot afford the bourgeois bread, he can avail himself of the poor man’s “cake.”


Carl F. Weggel of Boston, MA