Classic Desert Island Discs - Simon Reeve

Desert Island Discs

BBC

Society & Culture, Music Commentary, Music, Personal Journals

4.4 • 13.7K Ratings

🗓️ 15 December 2024

⏱️ 36 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Simon Reeve is a broadcaster and writer best known for his TV documentaries which combine travel and adventure with investigations into the challenges faced by the places he visits.

His journeys have taken him across jungles, deserts, mountains and oceans, and to some of the most dangerous and remote regions of the world. He’s dodged bullets on frontlines, dived with seals and sharks, survived malaria, walked through minefields and tracked lions on foot.

Simon grew up in Acton in west London. He experienced anxiety and depression as a teenager and left school with few qualifications. He eventually found a job in the post room at the Sunday Times and from there progressed to working with the news teams, filing stories on a range of subjects from organised crime to nuclear smuggling.

In the late 1990s he wrote one of the first books about Al-Qaeda and its links to Osama Bin Laden. His expertise in this area was quickly called upon after the 9/11 attacks in the USA, and he became a regular guest on American television and radio programmes.

The current pandemic put Simon’s overseas trips into abeyance and he has turned his attention to the UK, recently making programmes about Cornwall and the Lake District.

DISC ONE: Eskègizéw Bèrtchi by Alèmayèhu Eshèté DISC TWO: Vissi d’arte - from Puccini’s Tosca, performed by Kiri Te Kanawa with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Sir John Pritchard DISC THREE: It Takes Two by Rob Base & DJ EZ Rock DISC FOUR: We Will Rock You by Queen DISC FIVE: Mr Brightside by The Killers DISC SIX: Wiley Flow by Stormzy DISC SEVEN: You’re Lovely to Me by Lucky Jim DISC EIGHT: Rocket Man by Elton John

BOOK CHOICE: Moonshine for Beginners and Experts by Damian Brown LUXURY ITEM: Bird seed CASTAWAY'S FAVOURITE: Rocket Man by Elton John

Presenter Lauren Laverne Producer Paula McGinley

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're about to listen to a BBC podcast, but this is about something else you might enjoy.
0:05.4	My name's Katie Lecky and I'm an assistant commissioner for on demand music on BBC Sounds.
0:10.8	The BBC has an incredible musical heritage and culture and as a music lover, I love being part of that.
0:17.5	With music on sounds, we offer collections and mixes for everything, from workouts to
0:22.4	helping you nod off, boogie in your kitchen, or even just a moment of calm. And they're all put
0:28.3	together by people who know their stuff. So if you want some expertly curated music in your life,
0:34.9	check out BBC Sounds. BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts.
0:41.3	Hello, I'm Lauren Levern and this is the Desert Island Discs podcast.
0:45.3	Every week I ask my guest to choose the eight tracks, book and luxury they'd want to take with them
0:50.3	if they were cast away to a desert island.
0:53.3	For rights reasons, the music is shorter than the original broadcast. I hope you enjoy listening. My castaway this week is the broadcaster and writer Simon Reeve.
1:24.8	You might know him as the intrepid on-screen adventurer,
1:28.0	whose dodged bullets on front lines, walked through minefields, tracked lions on foot,
1:33.0	and been detained for spying by the KGB. But his media career began much earlier
1:38.2	after he wrote one of the first books about Al-Qaeda back in 1998. It was ignored when it came out, but three years later,
1:45.9	in the wake of 9-11, he found himself on television screens across America. He circumnavigated
1:52.1	the world three times and visited 120 countries, though perhaps the most dangerous journey
1:57.5	he's taken was one he revealed only recently, his troubled path to adulthood.
2:02.5	As a teenager, he suffered poor mental health, and by 17 he left school with one GCSE,
2:07.9	no job and facing an uncertain future. Getting hired as a postboy at the Sunday Times helped him
2:13.6	turn things around, along with the advice from a kindly benefits clerk to quite literally
2:18.2	keep putting one foot in front of the other. He says, I'm not travelling to film a holiday brochure.
	...

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