麻豆社

Violinist Nigel Kennedy talks to Richard and Suzy about performing Vivaldi鈥檚 Four Seasons at the Proms, 25 years after his acclaimed recording of the work.

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Gavin Pretor-Pinney is author of the best-selling听'The Cloudspotter's Guide'听and the founder of the

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He believes that clouds generally get a bad press and that people should appreciate their beauty.

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Paralysed from the shoulders down, Barry West has spent 17 years trying to focus on what he can do rather than what he can鈥檛.听 After climbing mountains, skiing and scuba diving he鈥檚 now turned his attention to art and spends up to 12 hours a day painting using only his mouth.听

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Shlomo demonstrates the piece of technology transformed his talent for beatboxing from a party trick to a creative endeavour.听

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Sylvia and Dennis Bloor love nothing better than going to Alton Towers and spending their day on the big dippers sometimes going on the same ride 20 to 30 times in just one visit. They belong to the and travel the UK and America looking for their next big thrill.

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As the Beano celebrates its 75th anniversary, we talk to eight year old Ruby, who is mildly dyslexic and her Mum Christina about how the comic has helped her to enjoy reading and writing.

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Photo: Ruby and her Grandma enjoying听reading the Beano.

Historical novelist Lindsey Davis, author of the Falco听series of crime stories, chooses the storm scene from Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony (This version -听Symphony No 6 In F Pastoral Opus 68: Lightning, Thunderstorm -听Allegro by the London Symphony Orchestra, Wyn Morris) and 'I'm Still Here' by Millicent Martin.

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I had some friends to lunch the other day and, the average age being bang on fifty, the conversation turned to retirement. Not so long ago fifty was in hailing distance of retirement and I know a few of my parents鈥� generation who clocked off at fifty five and headed for the golf course. Far fewer of my generation are doing the same, although my older brother, a police officer, retired at fifty two with one of those public sector pensions that鈥檚 practically the equivalent of a win on the lottery. He is the Last of the Mohicans, though, because they changed the terms the very next month. Timing is everything.

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I don鈥檛 begrudge him and his pension at all, he earned it; not all of us at this lunch were so fortunate and the prospect of retiring at all seems incalculably remote to many. Clergy, for example, often without property of their own and paid very modestly, can be really stuck when the time arrives, and the Church Times is full of advertisements for posts described as House for Duty, unpaid, but with a Vicarage free of charge in return for three days a week. Good for propertyless clergy of pensionable age, but you cannot help but wonder how they鈥檒l cope with Parish Outings to Alton Towers in their eighties.

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鈥淲hat about you?鈥�, someone asked. I am one of the lucky ones, thanks听to听an early deposit from the proceeds of 80s synth pop and a manager worth her weight in gold, so I can expect to afford to give up work before I鈥檓 too knackered to enjoy it, all things being equal. But when I said that ideally we鈥檇 like to divide our time between the west of Scotland and north Norfolk someone said 鈥淲on鈥檛 you miss the city?鈥�, I said, without hesitating, 鈥淣o鈥�. No more London, where I鈥檝e lived on and off, mostly on, all my adult life, where half the people I know live, a choice of opera houses and no need to drive?

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No, I won鈥檛 miss it at all, I thought. Or, rather, I won鈥檛 miss living there. Most of the things I love about London I can get on a day trip, or, thanks to the hospitality of a friend, on an overnight trip. I certainly won鈥檛 miss the crowds, the snakepit worlds of work, the hairtrigger tempers of roadusers, restaurants where they make you feel they鈥檙e doing you a favour taking chunks of your money for a mouthful of salad and then demanding the table back when they feel like it. I grew up in the country and I鈥檓 back there now, or that bit of the country on the edge of towns and industrialisation where the fields begin and the what鈥檚 left of the woods spread and the less shy wildlife puts in an appearance. I鈥檇 like more of that, I think, watching the seasons come and go, the rhythms of nature change tempo, the weather.

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鈥淵ou鈥檒l be bored,鈥� my friend said, 鈥測ou won鈥檛 last a week鈥�. Maybe he was right. I know I would miss the anonymity of a big city, where you never know who you will bump into and neither do they. Saturday Live can be like that, offering the enchantment of brief encounters. This week, for example, with Sian on leave Suzy Klein and I will be joined in the studio by violinist Nigel Kennedy听and听mouth-painter Barry West. Gavin Pretor-Pinney from the Cloud Appreciation Society encourages us to look up and daydream, and beat boxer Shlomo shows off his loop sampler, the thing about him.

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Join us at nine.