When John saw the serious expression on the doctor’s face, he wanted honesty and clarity. The doctor obliged: he had pancreatic cancer, and was going to die. “And how long have I got?” he asked. At this point, the doctor’s nerve, comically and ironically, failed him. “How long is a piece of string?” came the ludic response.
As it transpired, this particular piece of string was longer than anyone could have guessed. John is still alive and in rude good health. His tumour has disappeared. But so has all his money, blown on a six-month valedictory bout of hedonism. “Never mind,” he says: “at least I’ve got my health.”
We heard John’s story as part of a new series of Jon Ronson On . . ., (Radio 4, Thursday of last week), which was devoted to a study of bad news — how we give and receive it.
An expert in the art of delivery is Nick, an insolvency practitioner whose unenviable task it is to tell rooms full of people that they are fired. Keep it short and simple is the advice. Once they have heard the headline, they won’t listen to the rest.
Jon Ronson is, by his own admission, not an expert. Typical is his clumsy response to the news that his best friend’s mother had died of septicaemia: “Everyone’s dying of septicaemia these days,” he declared, attempting a kind of consolatory outrage. “What is it with septicaemia!”
Jon Ronson’s quirky, self-deprecating humour is perfect for radio. He manages to get his eccentric interviewees to open up, while gently ribbing them at the same time. The anecdotes that result are a delightful combination of poignancy and comedy.
The final story in this episode came courtesy of Bill, a former religious correspondent for The LA Times. Bill had been filling his column with upbeat stories, such as the one about women who provided sober, modest clothing for Barbie dolls, until he started investigating child-abuse allegations in the Roman Catholic Church in the United States.
The monstrous way in which the Church tried to cover up, then defend, its personnel turned Bill away from his faith, and finally led him to “come out” to his readers in an article proclaiming a new-found atheism. Here was a man ground down by bad news. Yet, as far as his agnostic wife was concerned, the result was entirely welcome.
If Bill’s spiritual journey does not sound entirely rational, he can be forgiven. Even the most ultra-rational believers can surprise you. Take the Councillors of Calvinist Geneva, whose wizened image is belied by their adoption of a chestnut tree to indicate the official arrival of spring.
Listeners to MindMaps: Geneva (Radio 3, Tuesday of last week — repeated from last year) were escorted on an evocative tour of the city by Ruth Scurr, a historian of the republic. We met a number of impressive characters, not least Isabelle Graesslé, the first female head of the Genevan Company of Pastors.
The first female ordination in Geneva was only in 1926; so it is an achievement for Graesslé to have risen so far, so fast. Even more impressive is her ability to explain — in good English — the theology of predestination: not an easy task in any language.
|
back to Media
previous story
|
next story 
back to top
