"History of Folly" on BBC Radio 4, Saturday 1030h

robindch · 24-04-2004 3:41pm #1

hi all -

For the next four weeks, Frances Wheen, occasional panellist on Radio 4's News Quiz and author, is doing a radio version of his current book on silliness. The program's being broadcast on saturday mornings at 1030h and its homepage is at:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/history_of_folly.shtml

...from where you can "listen again" to it.

Enjoy.

- robin.

== program summary =======================================

Sat 24 Apr, 10:30 - 11:00 30 mins

Francis Wheen presents a series looking at some of mankind's greatest blunders.

1/4. Group Think

Why, to begin at the beginning, did Trojan rulers drag that suspicious-looking wooden horse inside their walls despite every reason to suspect a Greek trick? In the first of a new series, Francis Wheen examines the perennial tendency of politicians, scientists, and others in authority to act perversely, and how, when more rational alternatives are clearly present, the best and the brightest can blithely and arrogantly march into colossal blunders.

Pgibson · 11-09-2008 10:43pm

robindch wrote: »

Why, to begin at the beginning, did Trojan rulers drag that suspicious-looking wooden horse inside their walls despite every reason to suspect a Greek trick? .

Laoco�n warned his fellow Trojans against the wooden horse presented to the city by the Greeks. In the Aeneid, Virgil gives Laoco�n the famous line Equo ne credite, Teucri / Quidquid id est, timeo Danaos et dona ferentis, or "Do not trust the Horse, Trojans / Whatever it is, I fear the Greeks even when they bring gifts." This line is the source of the saying: "Beware of Greeks bearing gifts."
The Trojans disregarded his advice, however, and in his resulting anger Laoco�n threw his spear at the Horse. Poseidon (some say Athena), who was supporting the Greeks, subsequently sent sea-serpents to strangle Laoco�n and his two sons, Antiphantes and Thymbraeus. (Some accounts say Apollo sent the serpents for an unrelated offense, and only unlucky timing caused the Trojans to misinterpret them as punishment for striking the Horse.)

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Pgibson · 11-09-2008 10:57pm

P.S. You can pick up BBC Radio 4 on your car radio (or any radio with LW) at 198kHz Long wave, loud and clear, over most of western Europe. Even at the far western edge of Kerry.

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