Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in East London, as the capital starts to wake up. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com With a poem by Philip Larkin, To The Sea. "Everything crowds under the low horizon: Steep beach, blue water, towels, red bathing caps..." From the show: Opening/closing music courtesy of Chillhop: Philanthrope, Lea…

Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in East London, as the capital starts to wake up. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com With a poem by Mark Jarman, Reminder. "You're here and God's in heaven..." From the show: Opening/closing music courtesy of Chillhop: Philanthrope, Leavv - What Was Before https://chll.to/d6b0ec27 On this day: 28th…

Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in East London, as the capital starts to wake up. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com With a poem by Thom Gunn, The Hug. "I dozed, I slept. My sleep broke on a hug..." From the show: Opening/closing music courtesy of Chillhop: Philanthrope, Leavv - What Was Before https://chll.to/d6b0ec27 On this da…

Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in East London, as the capital starts to wake up. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com With a poem by Laurence Binyon, For The Fallen. "At the going down of the sun and in the morning We will remember them..." From the show: Opening/closing music courtesy of Chillhop: Philanthrope, Leavv - What Was B…

Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in East London, as the capital starts to wake up. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com With a poem by Billy Collins, Today. "If ever there were a spring day so perfect, so uplifted by a warm intermittent breeze that it made you want to throw open all the windows in the house..." From the show: Openin…

Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in East London, as the capital starts to wake up. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com With a poem by Lord Macaulay, an extract from Horatius. "And how can man die better Than facing fearful odds, For the ashes of his fathers, And the temples of his Gods..." From the show: Opening/closing music court…

Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in East London, as the capital starts to wake up. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com With a poem by Ezra Pound, The Ballad of the Goodly Fere. "No capon priest was the Goodly Fere But a man o' men was he..." From the show: Opening/closing music courtesy of Chillhop: Philanthrope, Leavv - What Was B…

Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in East London, as the capital starts to wake up. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com With a poem by AE Housman. "Loveliest of trees, the cherry now Is hung with bloom along the bough..." From the show: Opening/closing music courtesy of Chillhop: Philanthrope, Leavv - What Was Before https://chll.to…

Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in East London, as the capital starts to wake up. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com With a sonnet by William Shakespeare. "From you have I been absent in the spring, When proud-pied April, dressed in all his trim, Hath put a spirit of youth in everything..." From the show: Opening/closing music co…

Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in East London, as the capital starts to wake up. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com With a poem by Jorge Luis Borges, in a translation by Alastair Reid, The Just. "A man who cultivates his garden, as Voltaire wished. He who is grateful for the existence of music..." From the show: Opening/closing …

Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in East London, as the capital starts to wake up. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com With a poem by John Clare, The Skylark. "Up from their hurry, see, the skylark flies, And o'er her half-formed nest, with happy wings Winnows the air..." From the show: Opening/closing music courtesy of Chillhop: P…

Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in East London, as the capital starts to wake up. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com With a poem by Christopher Marlowe, The Passionate Shepherd to his Love. "Come live with me and be my love, And we will all the pleasures prove..." From the show: Opening/closing music courtesy of Chillhop: Philant…

Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in East London, as the capital starts to wake up. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com With a poem by Mary Oliver, The Summer Day. "Who made the world? Who made the swan, and the black bear?..." From the show: Opening/closing music courtesy of Chillhop: Philanthrope, Leavv - What Was Before https://c…

Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in East London, as the capital starts to wake up. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com With a poem by Thomas Campion, Now Winter Nights Enlarge. "Now winter nights enlarge The number of their hours..." From the show: On this day: 12th February, 1554, Lady Jane Grey, the Nine Days Queen, is executed f…

Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in East London, as the capital starts to wake up. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com With a poem by Rainer Maria Rilke, Evening, in a translation by Stephen Mitchell. "The sky puts on the darkening blue coat held for it by a row of ancient trees..." From the show: Opening music courtesy of Chillhop…

Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in East London, as the capital starts to wake up. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com With a poem by Susan Cooper, The Shortest Day. "And so the Shortest Day came and the year died And everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world Came people singing, dancing, To drive the dark away..." From…

Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in East London, as the capital starts to wake up. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com With a poem by Thomas Hardy, The Darkling Thrush. "I leant upon a coppice gate When Frost was spectre-grey..." From the show: Ecclesiastes 9:7 Ice in the Bedroom by PG Wodehouse On this day: 14th December, 1901, th…

Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in East London, as the capital starts to wake up. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com With a poem by Sara Teesdale, A Winter Blue Jay. "Crisply the bright snow whispered, Crunching beneath our feet..." From the show: 1 Thessalonians 5:4-5 On this day: 7th December, 521, St Columba is born in Gartan,…

Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in East London, as the capital starts to wake up. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com With a poem by Rowan Williams, Advent Calendar. "He will come like last leaf’s fall. One night when the November wind..." From the show: Psalm 100: 4-5 Jeeves and the Yuletide Spirit by PG Wodehouse On this day: 30…

Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in East London, as the capital starts to wake up. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com With a poem by Wislawa Symborska, Children of Our Age. "All day long, all through the night, all affairs – yours, ours, theirs – are political affairs..." From the show: Ecclesiastes 11:4 On this day: 23rd November…

Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in East London, as the capital starts to wake up. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com With a poem by Mary Oliver, Wild Geese. "You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert repenting...." From the show: Isaiah 45:8 The letters of Emily Eden …

Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in East London, as the capital starts to wake up. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com With a poem by John McCrae, In Flanders Fields. "In Flanders fields the poppies blow Between the crosses, row on row..." Donate to this year’s Poppy Appeal here. From the show: John 15:13 Operation Torch sees Allie…

Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in East London, as the capital starts to wake up. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com With a poem by WB Yeats, The Wild Swans at Coole. "The trees are in their autumn beauty, The woodland paths are dry..." From the show: Psalm 69:33 Hot Water by PG Wodehouse On this day: 2nd November, 1996, the blue…

Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in East London, as the capital starts to wake up. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com With a poem by John Donne, one of his Holy Sonnets. "Batter my heart, three-person'd God, for you As yet but knock..." From the show: Song of Solomon 2:14 The charge of the Light Brigade – here's a rare wax cylinde…

Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in East London, as the capital starts to wake up. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com With a poem by Rudyard Kipling, The Way Through The Woods. "They shut the road through the woods Seventy years ago..." From the show: Proverbs 17:17 Boswell's Life of Johnson On this day: 19th October, 1781, Lord C…

Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in East London, as the capital starts to wake up. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com With a poem by Christian Wiman, All My Friends Are Finding New Beliefs. "All my friends are finding new beliefs. This one converts to Catholicism and this one to trees..." From the show: Psalm 59:16 On this day: 12…

Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in East London, as the capital starts to wake up. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com With a poem by RS Thomas, A Day in Autumn. "Having looked up From the day’s chores, pause a minute..." From the show: Proverbs 2:8 Samuel Pepys sneaks a look backstage at Drury Lane in 1667 On this day: 5th October…

Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in East London, as the capital starts to wake up. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com With a poem by Thomas Hardy, The Ruined Maid. "O 'Melia, my dear, this does everything crown! Who could have supposed I should meet you in Town?..." From the show: Colossians 3:23 Just William's Luck by Richmal Cro…

Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in East London, as the capital starts to wake up. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com With a poem by Seamus Heaney, At The Wellhead. "Your songs, when you sing them with your two eyes closed As you always do, are like a local road We’ve known every turn of in the past..." From the show: Joel 2:23 On…

Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in East London, as the capital starts to wake up. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com With a poem by Ted Hughes, September. "We sit late, watching the dark slowly unfold: No clock counts this..." From the show: Psalm 27:9 The Code of the Woosters, by PG Wodehouse – first serialised in Britain in the…

Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in East London, as the capital starts to wake up. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com With a poem by Louis MacNeice, an extract from Autumn Journal. "September has come, it is hers Whose vitality leaps in the autumn..." From the show: Lamentations 3:22-23 On this day: 7th September, 1895, the first …

Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in the peace of the English countryside. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com With a poem by Rudyard Kipling, Dane-geld. "Though we know we should defeat you, we have not the time to meet you. We will therefore pay you cash to go away..." From the show: Matthew 24:27 The Gardener's Year, Karel Capek …

Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in the peace of the English countryside. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com With a poem by Edward Thomas, How At Once. "How at once should I know, When stretched in the harvest blue..." From the show: 1 John 2:17 The Compleat Angler by Izaak Walton On this day: 3rd August, 1914, Edward Grey says "t…

Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in the peace of the English countryside. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com With a poem by RS Thomas, The Other. "There are nights that are so still that I can hear the small owl calling..." From the show: Ezra 10:4 Mulliner's Buck-U-Uppo On this day: 27th July, 1586, Sir Walter Raleigh introduces …

Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in the peace of the English countryside. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com With an extract from Virgil's Georgics. "So all things are fated to slide towards the worst, and revert by slipping back..." From the show: Song of Solomon 5:2 A letter from John Keats to his brother Tom, written on a walki…

Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in the peace of the English countryside. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com With a poem by Adam Zagajewski, Try to Praise the Mutilated World. "Remember the moments when we were together in a white room and the curtain fluttered..." From the show: Deuteronomy 31:8 The amazing (and perhaps even luck…

Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in the peace of the English countryside. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com With a poem by AE Housman, an extract from Terence, This Is Stupid Stuff. "And malt does more than Milton can To justify God’s ways to man..." From the show: Proverbs, 15:29 The Gardener's Year, by Karel Capek and the Growi…

Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in the peace of the English countryside. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com With a poem by Robert Louis Stevenson, The Vagabond. "Wealth I seek not, hope nor love, Nor a friend to know me; All I seek, the heaven above And the road below me..." From the show: The Rings of Saturn by WG Sebald Isaiah,…

Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in the peace of the English countryside. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com With a poem by RS Thomas, Raptor. "You have made God small, setting him astride a pipette or a retort studying the bubbles..." From the show: Jeremiah 20:9 Sam the Sudden by PG Wodehouse On this day: 22nd June, 1633 – Galil…

Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in the peace of the English countryside. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com With a poem by CP Cavafy, Waiting for the Barbarians. "What are we waiting for, assembled in the forum? The barbarians are due here today...." From the show: On this day: 15th June, 1215, King John sets his seal to Magna Ca…

Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in the peace of the English countryside. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com With a poem by Dale Wimbrow, The Guy in the Glass. "When you get what you want in your struggle for pelf, And the world makes you King for a day..." From the show: Proverbs 18:21 Weekend Wodehouse: Ice in the Bedroom On thi…

Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in the peace of the English countryside. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com With a poem by Robert Frost, Mowing. "There was never a sound beside the wood but one, And that was my long scythe whispering to the ground..." From the show: Colossians 3:13 On this day: 11th June, celebrating Barnabas the…

Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in the peace of the English countryside. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com With a poem by Robert Louis Stevenson, Bright is the Ring of Words. "Bright is the ring of words When the right man rings them..." From the show: Daniel 3:16-18 'William the Reformer' from William – Again, by Richmal Crompt…

Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in the peace of the English countryside. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com With a poem by Hilaire Belloc, Tarantella. "Do you remember an inn, Miranda? Do you remember an inn?..." From the show: Matthew 6:14 St Ignatius of Loyola, author of the Spiritual Exercises and the evening Examen ritual On …

Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in the peace of the English countryside. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com With a poem by Stephen Spender, The Pylons. "The secret of these hills was stone, and cottages Of that stone made..." From the show: Isaiah, 1:7 On this day: 8th June, 1949 – George Orwell publishes his novel of technologic…

Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in the peace of the English countryside. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com With a poem by Ben Jonson. "It is not growing like a tree In bulk doth make Man better be..." From the show: Exodus 4: 10-12 Weekend Wodehouse: Something Fresh, a Blandings novel On this day: 5th June, 1833 – Ada Lovelace m…

Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in the peace of the English countryside. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com With a poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, an extract from Maud. "Ah God, for a man with heart, head, hand, Like some of the simple great ones gone..." From the show: Proverbs 15:1 On this day: 4th June, 1927 – play begins in th…

Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in the peace of the English countryside. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com With a poem by Felix Dennis, An English Light. "9:45 on a fine June night, I watch from the window and write and write..." From the show: 2 Corinthians, 3:2-3 William – The Dictator, by Richmal Crompton On this day: 3 June,…

Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in the peace of the English countryside. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com With a poem by Thomas Hardy, Drummer Hodge. "They throw in Drummer Hodge, to rest Uncoffined – just as found..." From the show: A Month in the Country by JL Carr On this day: 2 June, 1953, the coronation of Queen Elizabeth …

Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in the peace of the English countryside. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com With a poem by William Butler Yeats, The Lake Isle of Innisfree. "I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made..." From the show: On this day: 1st June, 1785, King Geo…