tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6126042.post-1080688490076162532004-03-31T00:14:00.000+01:002004-03-31T00:18:26.436+01:00<strong> <br />Hell. It was just three weeks ago that we were writing about Alistair Cooke's decision to give up Letter from America, and now he's dead.</strong> <br /> <br />Looking back at the 9th March posting, we think it stands as a pretty good epitaph to the great talker's skills and talent. <br /> <br />One point we didn't mention then, though, which was well made in the excellent Radio 4 obituary programme today, was how deliberately Cooke developed a spoken, rather than written, style. <br /> <br />Even now, few people writing for radio really capture the broken, discursive shapes and structures of real speech. What we hear is generally the written word, spoken out loud – which is not the same thing at all. <br /> <br />Cooke consciously worked on a style that would sound like talking, rather than reading. <br /> <br />You can see the difference if you examine any of his scripts, which look, on paper, as if they desperately need the touch of a clever, and tireless, sub-editor. He knew better, and we should give him full credit for knowing exactly the effects he was trying to achieve. <br /> <br />We loved the voice, the unexpected detours, the way he meshed together the trivial and the sublime, and the way he was always there. <br /> <br />Now he's not. And we will be missing him for a long time to come. <br /> ianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00882602151850785568noreply@blogger.com