It would be tricky wouldn't it.
Something my parents played
Something from university
Something about meeting my wife
Something classical (throw it in halfway, nobody will notice the incongruity)
The Beatles (perhaps Something)
Something my kid likes
Something outside the Western musical tradition.
Something contemporary, no matter how clumsily I justify it.
Book: something anodyne.
Object: something anodyne and potentially useful, that Kirsty has to allow because I've been so charming
Saved from the waves: wife or child-based ditty
I listened to an archive episode at the weekend and was surprised by how shite Roy Plomley was - stiff, charmless, unable to coax out interesting aspects of his castaways. Very much inferior to Kirsty Young.
I'd just pick ten songs I like when I'm doing the picking.
Meaningless anyway innit.
Not if you're hoping to cop off with Kirsty Young, it isn't.
Why do they have to mention Roy Plomley every week?
His apparently ferocious widow (Diana Wong) owns the rights to the show, I think.
https://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-111413594.html
Also, on Just A Minute they mention Ian Messiter each week.
I liked Roy Plomley. Not so sure about the iron girly approach. Different ways for different days, I suppose.
Kirsty is by far the best host. She seems to enjoy it, which is more than can be said for her forebears.
Self-explanatory, surely. She can plays cutesy and awe-struck, as required, and she's as hard as nails. Obviously a winning combo in our day and age.
Why do they have to mention Roy Plomley every week?
His estate owns the format.
---Tum te tum.
Something like
Elgar - Ave Verum Corpus (I used to sing it when I was a kid)
Bax - Tintagel (the Sea, the Sea)
Malcolm Arnold - Cornish Dance No 3 (the sound of home, a sly dog)
Crowded House - Distant Sun (love)
SunnO))) - Alice (the sound of other worlds)
Wire - Outdoor Miner (never the same twice)
Vaughan Williams conducts Vaughan Williams' Symphony No 4 (a ferocious performance, a full four minutes faster than anyone else, of my favourite symphony. )
The Unthanks - The King of Rome (the song most likely to make me cry, and also the song that speaks most to my upbringing. Billy Bragg's "Between the Wars" is an honourable second).
Book would be HG Wells, "Tono-Bungay".
Good work on the unthanks.
Charlie, you’ll lose that bird...
I think it depends if you want to survive or not. if you choose things, for example, linked with your beloved wife who is 10,000 miles way and (presumably) mourning your (presumed) death, then anything too personal would send you mad. So, I think, four songs to jump around and be daft to, and four more serious pieces for when you want to have a bit of a think.
For the book : a rattling good yarn or something to cheer you up. So a toss-up between Conan Doyle or Wodehouse, for example.
I'm not sure exactly what you're allowed. I mean, it seems a bit unfair if a single track by Napalm Death is treated as one choice in the same way as the entirety of the Ring cycle.
I don’t think either of them would assist your longevity.
It may depend on your location. For example: You Don't Miss Your Water (till your well runs dry), might be highly appropriate at many levels.
My 8 (8 not 10) would be either favourites or works I'd assume would need a lot of listening to get to grips with. They would all would have to be as close to inexhaustible as possible, to last an indefinite stay. Love the choice of V.W. conducting his own 4th Symphony. Fantastic performance.
He once ending a rehearsal of it saying, "Well, I don't know if I like it, but it's what I meant."
Richard Ingrams claims the idea didn't originate with Plomley but someone else a couple of years earlier. Can't remember who.