Radio Day

Yesterday, between bouts of vomiting, I spent dozing and half-listening to Radio 4, which was a largely painless and often rewarding experience, tho the endless churning of news and programme trailers was irksome. It seemed to be Atheism Day, with the dreaded Dennett on Start the Week, where he (the No 1 Bright) seemed pretty dull against our own Raymond Tallis (also an atheist, but of a humane, tolerant bent). But then came the Afternoon Play - an extraordinary affair, titled Grace and co-written by one Mick Gordon and, er, Prof A.C. 'the Hair' Grayling. The heroine (Grace!) was a ghastly, shrieking, bullying, castrating woman driven by fanatical atheism, whose party piece seemed to be a gleeful unpicking of William Paley (very cutting edge). She's driven into a Medea-like fury when her son decides to (hoho) become a priest. I must have nodded off (several times probably) because next thing it seems the son has been killed in some kind of Islamist atrocity (religion, you see - it kills people) and she is belatedly setting about a spot of self-questioning - apparently by having her brain electrically stimulated in the hope of having a 'religious experience'. All very strange. I suppose it might have worked if Grace hadn't been so loud and hysterical and entirely alienating. It certainly didn't do anything to further the atheist cause - or maybe, in the eyes of atheists, it did. Most things do.