SPEAKER_04 0:01

Hello and welcome to Wild Angles A radio show with a collective view on ordinary everyday objects and subjects one theme per episode with various reflections, opinions, and ideas, and of course music Wild Angles. Today's theme is tables, brought to you by the lovely Christelle.

SPEAKER_01 1:02

Hello, my name's Crystal. Today we are talking about tables, and I thought I'd talk to you about desks. When I was little, all my friends would speak about doing homework at their desk and doing colouring at their desk. And I felt a bit jealous. I didn't have a desk, and here all my friends doing these wonderful things at desk. It sounds such a grown-up thing to have a desk, and all the possibilities having a table in one's room could offer. And after much drilling, one day, lo and behold, I got my father's Hammy Down desk. And here it stood, nice and proud. It was a wooden one. And I decorated it with lots of random stuff that a ten-year-old owns. A mushroom made out of wood, some beads, my pens, of course. And slowly the desk began to accumulate objects, at first objects I thought were pretty, maybe not even quite useful to the desk. And then it would just be a depository for my mess. And my clothes from the day before would just be thrown on the desk. It was just a way of organizing my chaos. And the desk never actually became used, and the normal desk function just became a toys chest, if you like. And I'd always get told of go hide your desk, go make room for it. What's the point of having a desk if you can't use it? And I just couldn't really answer it, to be honest. I I never really used it. And then one day, a few years later, I went to university and at my halls of residence, there was this giant desk. It was big. We were talking two, two and a half meters long. It was amazing. I fell in love with it. The beauty of having such a big desk was I could still have my chaos of mess at one end of the desk because it was so big. Like I could still do my work on one end and actually use the desk to its desk-like functions. I could have my pens out, I could have multiple projects on the go, I could have my sewing one end of the table, knitting on another, and my computer at the other end, and still room for a book pile. It was fantastic. It was a perfect excuse to be messy. It was amazing. Now finally it looks like my time has come because whenever I came back from university, I still had my tiny desk. And I knew the importance of having a big desk, but even when I kept it tidy, I still could only just about fit on one canvas. There was no room for my paint or my paintbrushes or anything like that. So I'd still end up just painting on the floor. But now we are moving house. And this is my aim to get the biggest, the longest desk possible. And I'm gonna lay it out so I can still be chaotic and messy, but still use it for my own good to produce work. One end this is my dream desk. There's gonna be a giant basket, and the basket's gonna be full of lots of different multicoloured wool and knitting needles. That's gonna be my knitting station. Further down, there's gonna be some books, the books I'm reading, and some notepads, maybe all the notes I'll be taking from my books. And then further down, maybe other my laptop, um, and maybe a bit of a clear space as well. Come on, I've got to be somewhat tidy. And then maybe further down, there's gonna be all my art supplies, paintbrushes, um, canvases, anything. And then the last one centimet centimetres I'll dedicate to absolute chaos. Um that is my aim. I cannot wait to have a big, sturdy, solid desk that I can put up with all my chaotic mind. My song of choice this week is Ray Street by Courtney Barnett. Um, the song mentions the word table at one point, but it's just a song that to me invokes a kind of mundane creativity, and I want my desk to be there. I want it to be the heart of creativity of my life.

SPEAKER_14 7:25

In the old days, where you sat at dinner told everyone how important you were. The king sat at the head of a long rectangular table, his best friends sat close to him, and the people he didn't like as much sat far away at the other end. This caused a lot of jealousy and even fighting among the knights. Everyone wanted to be the most important person in the room. King Arthur wanted to stop the fighting, he decided to use a table that was a perfect circle. Why? Because a circle has no head at a round table. Every seat is exactly the same. The rang table was a symbol that all of Arthur's knights were equals. They were sat down, they weren't just soldiers, they were a king. Arthur was still the king, but by sitting at a rang table, he was saying, I value your voices as much as my own. It was also a way to keep the peace. It's hard to stay angry at someone when you are all part of the same circle. It showed that the strength of the kingdom didn't come from one man at the top, but from everyone working together. There was one special rule, though. There was always one empty seat called the dangerous seat. It was saved for the best, most honest knight who would someday find a famous treasure called the Holy Grail. Even today, hundreds of years later, when world leaders or bosses have a round table meeting, they are copying King Arthur. They are trying to show that everyone at the table has a right to be heard. It teaches us that the best way to solve a problem isn't by being the boss, it's by making room for everyone. My song choice is Sit Down by James.

SPEAKER_16 12:10

Near to where I live. And in reality, the table is actually a moor that from a distance, say a hundred kilometres, resembles a table. And we call it the tabletop, and it's one of my favourite places to go. In the next few minutes, but I'm gonna tell you why. When you arrive at the tabletop, you kind of pass through a series of rocks, which I call the wardrobe Tanania. After the rocks, a depression or a valley stretches out below you and along the tabletop. And you can only actually see this valley when you climb this mountain, and you cannot see it from anywhere else. Except maybe if you fly over it like a bird or like a glider. You know, they make those funny noises as they come over. Sounds like someone in pain. The valley it feels like a secret place, and actually, to be honest, it feels like an island in the sky. At the base of the valley is a stream, and I often lay down and among the poets, daffodils, how appropriate, and imagine how this stream formed a depression over an abundance of deep time. The stream drops off at the edge of the tabletop, forming a large, beautiful waterfall, and I call this waterfall the vulture shower. Why? You may ask. Well, during my pleasant lunches here after a long climb, I have seen griffin vultures, the iconic bird of the gorge to bird on, in their tens come here and drink from the stream, bathe in the stream, and then dry their wings on the tabletop edge in the warm golden sun. When they bathe, they become very vulnerable as they cannot fly particularly well until their feathers are completely dry. This tabletop is perfect for them, as it is so remote. They can refresh and clean themselves undisturbed. The waterfall, near where they bathe, is a place where if they used head and shoulders or dead man soldiers to get the pun for vultures, uh, they could easily refresh themselves, but they never do. It's just my imagination working overtime. I have since discovered that a depression or a valley like this on the tabletop, hidden from view, where it can only be viewed whilst you're in it, usually on a mountain top, is called a sanctuary. Or a sanctuary. What an appropriate name. This safe paradise is not only a refuge for vultures, but also I have seen herds of shamwa, the madnesses of marmots, and the clatterings of a chaff. I've also seen a royal pair of golden eagles, and of course, although I've never seen them with my own eyes, the mighty grey wolf. He comes here for rest, to be away from the glare of the world and take pulls from the accusations of Red Riding Hood. The sanctuary here atop this mountain table is otherworldly. All tables are useful, and this one has such a secret purpose. One that you would never guess from a hundred kilometers away in the crisp winter when you spot it. A table mountain that harbors such wildlife secrets and is covered in white snow. My song fits perfectly to the sanctuary that I've just enlightened you with. It is the Big Rock Candy Mountain by Harry McClintock.

SPEAKER_19 15:34

One evening, as the sun went down and the jungle fire was burning, down the track came a hobo Icon. And he said, Boys, I'm not turning. I'm headed for a land that's far away, besides the crystal fountains. So come with me, we'll go and see the big rock candy mountains. In the big rock candy mountains, there's a land that's fair and bright, where the handouts grow on bushes, and you sleep out every night, where the boxcars all are empty, and the sun shines every day, on the birds and the bees and the cigarette trees, the lemonade springs where the bluebird sings in the big rock candy mountains, in the big rock candy mountains, all the cups have wooden blue legs, and the bulldogs all have rubber cheeks, and the hens lay soft boiled eggs. The farmers' trees are full of fruit, and the barns are full of hay. Oh, I'm bound to go where there ain't no snow, where the rain don't fall, the wind don't blow, in the big rock candy mountains. In the big rock candy mountains, you never change your socks, and the little streams of alcohol come a trickling down the rocks. The brakesmen have to tip their hats, and the railroad bulls are blind. There's a lake of stew and a whiskey too. You can paddle all around them in a big canoe in the big rock candy mountains. In the big rock candy mountains, the jails are made of tins, and you can walk right out again as soon as you are in. There ain't no short-handled shovels, no axes, saws, or picks. I'ma goin' stay where you sleep all day, where they hung the church that invented the work in the big rock candy mountains. I'll see you all this coming fall in the big rock candy mountains.

SPEAKER_00 17:47

You're listening to Wild Angleseur pourraillir à travers El Sol s'écrit avec de l'air Pour te dire que je me sens seule, je dessine à l'encre en désert, je marche à la vie, je me sous la législato Hi, my name is Caitlin, and here's a little story about how tabletop roleplaying games or TTRPGs helped me overcome loneliness. A couple of years ago I was living in Japan and I got a new job which was pretty far away from where I was living. So I had to move, I had to leave my husband there, and no friends, and this is also during COVID. So no social events. I didn't know anybody, and it was a pretty lonely time in my life. But around this time I was really into podcasts, and I came across this group called Critical Role, who played Dungeons and Dragons together every Thursday. I had never played DD before, so I didn't understand the rules at first, but they made it really easy to understand. And I just got sucked into the story and I wanted to find out what was gonna happen next. Like most TTRPGs, with DD you roll a 20-sided dice to determine if your character succeeds or fails at doing something. So you really don't know what's gonna happen, and the plot kind of unfolds naturally together. So the players and the game master or GM who's running the game have to be creative and think on their feet. And this makes it so much fun to listen to as well as to play. So I started listening to Critical Role a couple of episodes into their second campaign. So I went back and listened to all the episodes from the start. And each one is about four hours long, so even listening on two times speed, that's a lot of time. At this time in my life when I didn't really have a social life, Critical Role became a source of comfort to me. And then when things did start to open up again, I found some other English speakers who played DD in person. And we got together and started playing a different TTRPG called Pathfinder. This turned into a weekly online group, and we even continued playing when our members were split between Japan, US, and Europe. Just because we were having so much fun together. Even with the difficult time difference, we still wanted to play. When we moved to Paris in 2023, in order to make friends again and keep up a social life, I actually found an in-person Pathfinder group on Reddit. And I had a great time playing with this group for almost a year. And even when I moved away, we still play online sometimes, uh, with me joining online and the other players playing in person. And I also have an online DD group that I play with that are all over Europe and in the United States too. Now, I haven't really kept up with Critical Role since the end of campaign two, but I'll always think of it as a fond friend that introduced me to TTRPGs and really got me through a difficult time in my life. And I'm really happy to see that Dungeons and Dragons especially is having a bit of a cultural renaissance thanks to the DD movie. Of course, Critical Roll has its own TV shows called Vox Machina and the Mighty Nine on Netflix, as well as Stranger Things. So if you've ever been interested in trying a TTRPG, I really recommend. You just get out there and try it. It really is some of the most fun you can have. So, with that, here's the song by the metal band Gygax, named for Gary Gygax, the co-creator of Dungeons and Dragons, called Dice Throwers and Rock'n'Rollers.

SPEAKER_12 25:57

Tables remind me of being at school. So I went to a little Church of England primary school, very, lovely old building. Except it didn't have a place to eat, so when it was lunchtime at twelve o'clock, all the dinner ladies would come and pick us up and we would walk side by side up the road, literally one minute, to the village hall, and that's where we'd eat our lunch. I was one of the kids who had a pat's lunch, so like a Tupperware box with sandwiches in it. Now my sandwiches were not that exciting. I would probably have like a ham sandwich or a cheese sandwich or a cheese bread sandwich. And sometimes one one of these really horrible kind of patties, like I think it was a chicken pate I really used to like. I wouldn't touch it now with a barge pole, but anyway, this is what I have my sandwiches. My mum was very kind, she made me my sandwiches, and I would be sat on the tables in the middle of the the hall where all the other people with their their sandwiches, their pat lunch would eat. I always wanted to be on the other tables that had the school dinners because they just looked a bit more interesting. So I begged my mother, please can I have um the the school dinners and I did it for one time only to find out they were just disgusting, you know, really overskew vegetables and meat that you just don't even know what animal it came from. And maybe that's why I'm a vegetarian now. So after that revelation, you know, the grass is always greener on the other side, I tried the other side, and the grass was definitely better back on the side that I came from. So back to the pat lunches. Um I was a bit naughty because I had a friend who her mum was uh heavily into health foods, so this meant that everything she had was probably organic, it was probably very good for her, but my friend was not allowed sugar. I mean it was super strict. Anytime I would come with a chocolate bar in my lunch box because I'd have a chocolate and a little cake, she would come with like a rice cake with this oh this disgusting stuff called carob, which is like a substitute for chocolate, I think. And it always smelt like she'd open up a lunch box and we'd all be like, ooh, what's that? And it would smell like poo, basically. Um and so she would beg me and ask, Oh please, I really, really want your chocolate bar. And I remember uh thinking, I don't really want to give you my chocolate bar. But this friend, although she didn't have any sugar, she wasn't allowed any sugar, she always had loads of pocket money and all the best new toys. And I guess I was quite jealous, really. And so because she had all this money with her, I said, Okay, one time I had like a cadre's cream egg, I think it'd just been Easter. Now I wouldn't normally have a Cadbury's cream egg in my pet lunch. This was exceptional. But I said, I'll give you my cadre's cream egg, but you have to give me a pound for it, and a pound was so much money there. This is when the cabbage cream eggs were like 12p. Anyway, she did. She gave me the pound. I was like, man, I can make a mint from this. Maybe I missed my vocation in life. Anyway, I sort of feel a bit guilty about it, but you know what? I really did enjoy spending that pound. When we walked into that dining hall, and I'm trying to glorify the experience in hindsight, of course, it was like it was uh set for a banquet for us children. On that note, my uh music is the arrival of the Queen of Sheba by Handel, because it's probably historically and contextually wrong, but I d this piece of music that they used to play when we came into assembly in the morning for school, I can just imagine the Queen of Sheba arriving with this beautiful, exquisite banquet set out before her house party has the same quiet architecture.

SPEAKER_18 32:43

It's not the walls. It's not the house, or then having a good house does help. But actually, the tables it has. The first thing you see when you walk in, is a drink table. It's gonna be a drink table. I know the freaking And then you step outside and then you find the smoking table. You go out there to get a bit of a you know, a break. And the conversation feels a bit more honest. You go out there for a bit of a smile for the noise taking a break. And then at some point, maybe as it gets you know, further into night, someone turns a table into something else entirely, they stand on it, they sing they might be karaoke on it, turn into a stage, it's the same table that you have but you know, used differently and then like every house party kind of unravels, people disappear. Someone's looking to their coke. Uh the music's still going for some reason, but for a bit it does work. Everything everything seems to work, everyone seems friendly. That's the whole point. This is Born Slippy by Underworld.

SPEAKER_17 37:40

But some backstory first. I've always felt like a lucky guy. In fact, uh I always felt blessed. The sun has always shone on this skinny bottom of mine. I think it's because I've been surrounded by um I am surrounded by a beautiful loving family. I live and work in an incredible place, and I've got the most amazing friends you could ever dream of. Friends that date back 40 or 50 years. In fact, my main friendship group are friends from primary and secondary school, and we're as close now as we have ever been. In my life there was another wave of friendship making in the early to mid-90s when I first came to France. And I met a group of guys and girls then, and they have been friends of mine for over 30 years. People like Ian and Gaz and Kev, but to name just a few, people I love dearly, and they're really close friends and mates. Now, this is the story of a new friend I met a couple of years ago. I had an emergency, a job that needed an expert, and there was no better place to go than his place of work. Now for a bit of context, this was unfortunately a medical emergency, and I was at hospital and I met this guy on his his operating table. He is a surgeon and a urologist, and he has been my urologist for the last two years. Now I don't want to be dramatic about it, but over the last couple of years I've had operations big and small, and he's been with me all the way. I've had a million meetings with him in his office, and uh of course we have to talk about the medical side of things first, but once that boring stuff is out of the way, we talk about life, family, and passions, and his passion is rap music. He is a singer and a music producer, and with his best friend Cyril, they produce rap music and it's wonderful. I had the great pleasure uh with my daughter and my partner to go and watch him in concert over in Toulon and we were extremely proud of him. One night also, sorry, one day he phoned me up out of the blue and asked me if I'd be a special guest, and this I think is an incredible idea. Him and his two friends uh had the idea of uh inviting each of them would invite somebody that the other guys didn't know. And he phoned me up out of the blue and asked me to be have the great honour of being his special guest. So I went over, we all sat around another big table, we had a racelet and a few beers and got to know these guys and it was another incredible evening and a great idea. Anyway, needless to say, you never know when you're gonna meet your next mate or friend. It could be in a bar, it could be on the bus, it could be while walking your dog, or like me, it could be on an operating table. And you can never have too many friends. So it's a wonderful, wonderful thing. So thank you, Doctor. Thank you for being cool. Thank you for letting me message me message you anytime. Especially thank you, and it's something I'll never forget, for speaking to my daughter and putting her mind at ease. And so, as a small way of paying you back, I'm going to let the world listen to Vinland. It's a song by Cyril and Sergey Beats, aka Doc. And please, before you come too famous, just fix me up one last time. Have a great evening, all the very best, and cheers, mate.

SPEAKER_11 40:57

I'll see you soon for a Guinness Cette nuit je me couche, versé par la haudie cache, le bruit tes honneurs dans la ville, j'ai encore des doutes. Est-ce que tu m'aimais vraiment ? Au final c'est pas important, là-bas me rends compte, je commence à générer de la haine, toxicité dans la laine, laisse du vitreux, je sais plus quoi faire de mes mains et je ressens comme un nœud Mais t'es dommage t'es fasse de ma tête Comme c'est cool d'asseoir que de vivre que de luxe et de bitcoin Commets trop marrant depuis l'école Au final pourtant j'en ai qu'un exquis de souvenirs sur le tech J'ai vidé mail en bête, je suis à sec, j'ai vu qu'elle aventure jusqu'à année Hier, t'es seulement une histoire de plus J'ai pas le temps pour des trucs qui vont me freiner Je vais pouvoir te sortir de ma tête, avancer dans ma tête Et virer nos photos, non grenier Je tape la musique m'élève A partir d'aujourd'hui J'ai une veut qu'elle s'en m'élève Moi je veux rapper, rapper, mater jusqu'à mon éter Et les faire vibrer devant la scène avance Dans mon immensité démunie D'un quoi je t'ai tes femmes Le consensus solo dans mon nid Défilé comme tu faisais ce mettre tout ses fonds Enquête du Vinland, je le vois parfois dans mes rêves Et sorti pilote Drakkar Ça ressemble un peu à ma terre Mais en main ma cap Là-bas elle est légale ma cam Je me vends contempler les grandes plaines Tricoter la laine de ma chèvre nez Je repense à grand-père Papy j'ai trouvé mon avion Mais aujourd'hui elle manque à la pelle 24 biches et je commence à toucher mon rêve Du bout des doigts Je suis pas le meilleur parolier de ma gêne Mais en termes de vécue il y a un sacré écart Je vois les éclats De la fracture créée par nos ébats Ça me fait du mal j'ai la nausée d'emboîte Quand ma caméra manque Je fais que de penser à toi Putain qu'est-ce qui ne va pas J'ai besoin d'être un peu de verdure Je me bats ma fato Laska Ça fait du bien d'être l'or des lascats chauffés mon cœur de ce frotte Alaska brutalisé par le vite et ses pièces J'ai compris tellement de choses J'ai fait les sans pas dans ma chaise solo ma face à ma main C'était des uniques solo dans mon episode De file com too Fresh Send me to Congress for travel No sit uni Farge solo dans mon e Vaslis Response Defile Com to Fuzest You Send Me To Cho I must have been about fourteen.

SPEAKER_13 43:38

It was a particularly rainy day during the school holidays and I was scanning my parents' bookcase looking for something to read, preferably something with some juicy adult themes. Inexplicably I settled on The Problems of Philosophy by Bertrand Russell. All Bertie's observations about a simple wooden table made young Johnny think. So I thought I might read you a bit. To the eye it is oblong, brown and shiny. Although I believe that the table is really of the same colour all over, the parts that reflect the light look much brighter than the other parts and some parts look white because of reflected light. If I move, the parts that reflect the light will be different, so that the apparent distribution of colours on the table will change. If several people are looking at the table at the same moment, no two of them will see exactly the same distribution of colours, because no two can see it from exactly the same point of view. And any change in the point of view could make some change in the way the light is reflected. There is no reason for regarding some of these as more really as colour than others. This colour is not something which is inherent in the table, but something dependent upon the table and the spectator, and the way the light falls on the table. When in ordinary life we speak of the colour of the table, we only mean the sort of colour which it would seem to have to a normal spectator from an ordinary point of view, under usual conditions of light. But the other colours, which appear under other conditions, have just as good a right to be considered real and therefore to avoid favouritism, we are compelled to deny that, in itself, the table has any one particular colour. The shape of the table is no better. We are all in the habit of judging as to the real shapes of things, and we do this so unreflectingly that we come to think we actually see the real shapes. But in fact, as we all have to learn if we try to draw, a given thing looks different in shape from every different point of view. If our table is really rectangular, it will look from almost all points of view as if it had two acute angles and two obtuse angles. If opposite sides are parallel, they will look as if they converged to a point away from the spectator. If they are of equal length, they will look as if the nearer side were longer. All these things are not commonly noticed in looking at a table because experience has taught us to construct the real shape from the apparent shape, and the real shape is what interests us as practical men. But the real shape is not what we see. It is something inferred from what we see. And what we see is constantly changing in shape as we move about the room, so that here again the senses seem not to give us the truth about the table itself, but only about the appearance of the table. Thus it becomes evident that the real table, if there is one, is not the same as what we immediately experience by sight or touch or hearing. The real table, if there is one, is not immediately known to us all. There must be an influence from what is immediately known. Hence two very difficult questions at once arise, namely one, is there a real table at all? And two, if so, what sort of object can it be? So there we have it. Things ain't what they seem, even something as basic as a table. Let's hear what Ian Dewey has to say about Bertrand Russell's observations.

SPEAKER_15 49:56

Hi, Kev the Poet here, and so this week's topic is tables. Tables are amazing, aren't they? There's so many different types and sizes, and in the house alone you can have, well, there's coffee tables, side tables, breakfast tables, bedside tables, and who doesn't love a nest of tables? But let's be honest, when it comes to tables, the dining room table is king. When I was a kid, the dining room table played a central role in family life. Every meal was consumed there, and our evening meal was the time we'd all sit around and talk about our respective days, with the little black and white portable TV showing the news in the corner. I'd go as far to say it was probably the only time we've probably spent it we spent together as a family was around our dining room table. But today I'd like to talk about my dining room table. It's nothing special. It's wood, round, quite old, but probably the cause of most of the arguments that take place in my house. I will hastily add that me and my partner of many years are very happy together, and when I say arguments, I should probably say disagreements. We don't shout, we don't get angry, but our dining room table is a constant source of frustration to my better half. Now, we moved into our current house about four years ago. It was just the two of us. The first time I actually saw the house was the day we moved in. It's a long story. But I was assured it was perfect. The biggest selling point was that there was a loft conversion, which would make the perfect office for me. Ooh, I like that idea, and I was sold. You see, I work from home, and indeed, on seeing it for the first time, it was perfect, with views over the bay and plenty of room for my dartboard. A big problem, however, is that we have a dog. She's a greyhound, she's quite old, she sleeps about 22 hours a day and hates being left alone. She also can't climb stairs and is bloody heavy, and carrying her up to bed every night is bad enough. But two flights of stairs to my office? That was never gonna happen. And she's crap at darts anyway. Also, like many men out there, I am baffled by the amount of online shopping that my partner does. And consequently, I'm on first name terms with the numerous delivery guys who daily ring our doorbell, and I don't really want to be racing up and down two flights of stairs trying to get to the door before they disappear. So taking these two factors into account, my office is actually and permanently our dining room table. I wouldn't say I am a messy person, but I do have lots of files and papers, and like to how can I put it, spread things out quite a bit. Therefore, every day my partner gets in from her working day, and I am greeted with that look, that eye roll, that shake of the head. I do get it. Our downstairs is all open plan. So no matter where you are in the downstairs of our house, you can see that table. I do tidy up at the end of each day, but there's not much room for anything else whence I have. So the result is that the dining room table is rarely used for dining, and this frustrates the hell out of my partner. We have other tables where we can eat, but dinner on laps, on the sofa is nearly always what happens. I should add that if we have guests round, that's different. The table will be cleared and cleaned. My laptop, files, and piles of papers are neatly placed on the floor. She hates this too, by the way, but it does mean we can dine. And we can dine properly at the table. In the old-fashioned way. What she also hates though is when someone pops round unexpectedly and enters the house and are confronted by my mess. Q conversation between partner and unexpected visitor about the state of the table, followed by conversation between partner and me about the state of the table. So I'd like to dedicate this song to my beautiful partner. It's a kind of an apology. But I'd also like to state that other than my Kylie Minogue obsession, if this is the biggest bugbear I've heard regarding our relationship, then I'd say we're doing alright. It's Life With You by the Proclaimers.

SPEAKER_02 55:42

Music was by Johnny Rose.