0:01

BBC Sounds, music, radio,

0:03

podcasts. Hello, I'm Lauren

0:05

Laverne and this is the Desert Island Discs

0:08

podcast. Every week I ask my guests to

0:10

choose the eight tracks, book and luxury they'd

0:12

want to take with them if they were

0:14

cast away to a desert island. And

0:17

for rights reasons, the music is shorter

0:19

than the original broadcast. I hope you

0:21

enjoy listening. My

0:44

castaway this week is the volcanologist Clive

0:47

Oppenheimer. He has been Professor of Volcanology

0:49

at the University of Cambridge for some

0:51

30 years, though you're as

0:53

likely to find him out in the field as you are

0:55

in the lecture hall. He's visited

0:58

some of the world's most mysterious and

1:00

dangerous places, studying over 100 volcanoes, though

1:03

Antarctic ice and machine gun-toting rebels in

1:05

Ethiopia have sometimes been as much of

1:08

a risk as errant lava flow. He

1:11

was born in London, where his lifelong love

1:13

of geology was sparked by childhood visits to

1:15

what is now the Natural History Museum. Many

1:18

of us view volcanoes as purely

1:20

destructive, but his research, books and films,

1:23

two of which were made with his

1:25

friend Werner Herzog, aim to help us

1:27

see volcanoes as a vital part of

1:30

the evolution of Earth and mankind.

1:32

He says volcanoes make us aware, not

1:34

just to feel and sympathise with the

1:36

story of humankind, but to

1:38

draw us all into the bigger mysteries of

1:40

the soul and the cosmos, where something beyond

1:43

what we know. Clive

1:45

Oppenheimer, welcome to Desert Island Discs.

1:47

Thank you. Clive, you've been

1:49

described as an ambassador for volcanoes.

1:51

Now, if they're dangerous, mysterious, exciting,

1:54

I think it's hard to imagine

1:56

a more dramatic environment. Is there

1:58

something addictive about them? I

2:00

think there is, I mean for me there is. I spent

2:03

my whole life almost looking into

2:05

them but I think it's

2:07

not for everyone. I mean I've been with

2:09

people who've been absolutely freaked out by the

2:11

multi-sensory experience you get near an active volcano.

2:14

I mean it really it's assailing everything, the

2:16

sight of the lava lake, roiling

2:18

in the bottom of the crater, the gases rolling

2:20

out stinging your eyes and you can taste them

2:22

at the back of your throat. The

2:25

smell of sulphur, like a struck

2:27

match. These gases are very acid

2:29

so your eyes are streaming, you can hear the

2:32

detonations and pistol shot-like sounds or

2:34

the roar of a jet engine.

2:37

And maybe you'll even feel the vibrations of

2:39

the ground through your feet or these sounds

2:41

resonating in your chest. I mean

2:44

it's an alien environment almost the way

2:46

you're describing it but there's this interesting

2:48

duality because you also write and talk

2:51

about volcanoes in very poetic almost human

2:53

terms. And there's this idea that we

2:55

are made of the stuff of volcanoes,

2:57

we have this deep connection to them.

3:00

You say Carl Sagan observed that we're

3:02

made of star stuff but it's actually

3:04

volcanic activity that shape those elements into

3:07

us. That's right, I

3:09

measure volcanic gases and one

3:11

of the things I noticed is if you look

3:13

at the composition of gases it's not that dissimilar

3:15

to the composition of a human. They've

3:18

got a bit more sulphur than we have. We're

3:20

ultimately made of the breadth of

3:22

volcanoes that's been cycled countless

3:25

times through the earth through the action

3:27

of plate tectonics and volcanism. Volcanoes

3:30

play a huge part in the

3:32

lives of millions of people. Most

3:34

recently we've seen evacuations and disruption

3:37

in Iceland following eruptions there. Was

3:39

this latest activity expected? It

3:42

was. I mean not necessarily the

3:44

precise timing and location but what

3:47

we can see geologically is when that

3:49

peninsula has been active in

3:51

the past. It's been active for two,

3:53

three, four, five centuries. So we might

3:55

be looking at... It's a big change

3:58

then potentially. change

4:00

the picture of risk because this

4:02

is in a region quite close to

4:05

all of this infrastructure, the airport, a

4:07

power station, the town of Glendovic, it

4:09

poses different hazards to some of the

4:11

eruptions in more remote parts of Iceland.

4:14

To what extent can you preempt

4:16

as volcanologists what's going to happen?

4:18

How predictable is this kind of

4:21

event? Somewhere between forecasting

4:23

the weather and forecasting an earthquake.

4:25

There are a lot of sensible

4:27

signs. The fuel of an eruption

4:29

is magma, molten rock, and that's

4:31

typically many kilometres below the Earth's

4:33

surface. And to erupt, that has to come

4:35

up to the surface. And

4:38

in doing so, it's going to crack apart the

4:40

rocks that are already there and that will make

4:42

earthquakes. It lifts up the ground. We can detect

4:44

that from space or with GPS instruments

4:48

and gases will leak out that we can measure as

4:50

well. We're going to talk about

4:52

your work, but of course you're going to share your

4:54

discs with us today. And I know that for you,

4:56

music is a very important part of your life. You're

4:58

a keyboard player. Have you got synthesizers at home? I

5:01

do. I've got some from when I was a teenager

5:03

and I've got some newer ones and I don't get

5:05

so much time to play them now, but it's a

5:07

big part of my life. Let's dive in. What's your

5:10

first choice today, Clive? It's Blue

5:12

Rondo Allatook by the Dave Brubeck

5:14

Quartet. And this was one

5:16

part of my mother's collection. So I get my

5:18

love of music and words, I think, from my

5:20

mother. She had quite an

5:22

eclectic collection. She had all 78s, she

5:24

had musicals, she had Gilbert and Sullivan

5:27

and she had this one of the jazz

5:29

greats, Blue Rondo Allatook. And I think I

5:31

loved its rhythmic qualities, its

5:34

changes and just the sheer

5:36

virtuosity that you hear in jazz. Thank

6:19

you. Dave

6:37

Brubek, Blue Rondo Allatirk from your mum

6:40

Sue's record collection Clive Oppenheimer. So I know

6:42

that you've said about your mum that she

6:44

gave you the gift of resilience and from

6:46

what I've heard about her it sounds like

6:48

she had plenty of that herself. Tell me

6:50

a little bit about her. Well

6:52

in many ways, I mean both my parents are

6:54

mysteries, they were quite old when I was born

6:56

and had lived whole lives which I only know

6:58

a smattering of. She

7:01

left school at 14. She

7:03

married young. She had her first

7:05

daughter, my half sister, Wendy, during

7:08

the war. She's a London girl. So she was in

7:10

for the blitz. She was here. I

7:13

think she was moved out of London for a

7:15

bit and her husband was in the Royal Air

7:17

Force, navigator in Lancaster's. He was

7:19

killed after the war while still at the Royal Air

7:21

Force in an air crash. She

7:24

met my father in the late 50s. They

7:26

had a daughter who was born a couple

7:29

of years before me who died very

7:31

young. She never talked about

7:33

these things but she had a

7:35

difficult life and was very, very resilient

7:37

and imparted that to me. Am

7:40

I right in thinking that she went back to college in later life? She

7:42

did. She did. She left school very young

7:44

and she went to

7:47

the Open University, did a foundation degree

7:49

and then enrolled at Hatfield Polytechnic and

7:51

was to read history with English in

7:54

her mid 60s. She graduated and

7:56

I was super proud of her and

7:58

even more so, I I studied

8:00

at the Open University myself for PhD

8:03

and I taught the kinds of students like

8:05

my mother in later life and then I

8:07

really came to understand how Much

8:10

of a challenge it would have been for her

8:12

to get up to speed with all this learning

8:14

so late in life I want to

8:16

get to the next disc if that's alright with

8:18

Hugh Clive. It's your second choice today What are

8:21

we going to hear and why? This

8:23

takes me to The

8:25

area of Sussex around Hastings where

8:27

we used to go on holiday

8:29

every summer in a village

8:31

called Fairlight And would this be

8:33

with your much older sisters and their children?

8:36

Yes, and especially my sister Wendy has two

8:40

boys and they're about my

8:43

age so I kind of grew up between

8:45

generations with these these half siblings in 1976

8:49

it was the heat wave we were down there and The

8:52

Montreal Olympics was on and

8:55

we were running around the garden in the

8:57

heat competing for quality street medals height

9:00

of disco and This track Dinah Roth love

9:02

hangover. I think was in big

9:04

in the charts I've

9:22

got to see Diana

9:42

Ross and the love hangover So

9:44

Clive Oppenheimer your parents met each other a

9:46

little bit later in life And each had

9:49

these huge stories behind them by that time

9:51

for your mother a widow who'd come through

9:53

the blitz And it was

9:55

your father John his third marriage. I think

9:57

when he married your mom he'd escaped in

10:00

the 30s. He was in his 50s

10:02

when you were born. So how much

10:04

do you actually know about his story, his past?

10:07

Not a great deal. His father was

10:09

an artist and was already working in

10:12

London, had a studio in London. He

10:15

was looked to for painting people

10:17

in high society, politicians, Einstein's

10:19

fact home in 1931, I think.

10:22

That's the closest I get to an atomic

10:24

physicist, by the way, to ask about Robert Altwein. That's

10:26

where the science comes in. So no, no,

10:28

no connection to the other Oppenheimer. No,

10:30

no. What about your father? What did he do

10:33

for a living? He settled in South Africa

10:35

for a bit, worked on the stock exchange,

10:37

worked in a sausage factory, came

10:39

back to London, and he

10:42

ended up in advertising at

10:44

a press that printed these huge

10:46

boosters for hoardings. He

10:48

wasn't an easy man at all. He'd

10:51

been displaced, his education had

10:53

been disrupted. I think he'd had his

10:55

nose broken by some Hitler youth before

10:57

leaving. And he was

10:59

very jealous of my

11:02

half-sisters, my mother's daughters, even though

11:04

he also had three daughters. So

11:06

he was controlling. He wanted your mum to himself. Yes.

11:09

And he made their lives quite

11:11

miserable. And eventually my mum left

11:13

him. Were you scared of him?

11:17

I don't think I really knew to be

11:19

scared or anything. As a child, you

11:21

just roll with it. He

11:23

was very, not threatening to me, but

11:25

he was very threatening to people that

11:28

had helped my mum, for example, supported her

11:30

when she left him. I mean, I soaked

11:32

it up, but I didn't really

11:34

know how to process it. He

11:37

was very different to different

11:39

people outside the family. People found

11:41

him eccentric and funny and charming

11:44

and erudite. And

11:46

he was something different in the family.

11:48

People often say that children end up as

11:51

a version of or a reaction to their

11:53

parents. And I wonder if that's

11:55

the case for your relationship with your father a little

11:57

bit. I think I'd see myself as an

11:59

aversion to it. Yes, I

12:01

found him to be very hypocritical. I mean,

12:03

we're all hypocrites, but it's a quality I

12:05

try to I hope I haven't got He

12:08

also couldn't really control himself. He hoarded.

12:10

He had lots and lots of

12:12

lawn mows He's living in a flat in in

12:15

London But they were you know in a warehouse

12:17

somewhere and he ate a lot and couldn't control

12:19

that and I think these are all things He

12:21

couldn't really control spending money. My mum

12:24

set the opposite example of

12:27

being frugal of being

12:29

independent of being resilient and resourceful

12:34

And it sounds like she managed to hold on

12:36

to her sense of fun and play which is

12:38

Remarkable really considering what she was going through she

12:41

did in the end She she had Parkinson's

12:43

and went downhill slowly But over a

12:45

period of time and that was

12:47

very sad to see her lose her independence particularly

12:49

for example, she she was probably one of the

12:51

first women to learn to drive and That

12:54

gave her an independence that she

12:57

really really valued. She sounds like

12:59

a wonderful woman It's time for

13:01

your next piece of music Clive Oppenheimer disk

13:03

number three I think we're gonna tap into

13:05

your love of keyboards here We

13:07

are so this was a turning point for me

13:09

in life probably would have been about 14 listening

13:12

to the radio late at night and they

13:15

played Kraftwerk and I

13:17

immediately went out to try and buy the album,

13:19

but I didn't realize Kraftwerk was a German word

13:21

beginning with a K So I struggled to find

13:23

it. Anyway, I tracked it down It

13:26

chimed with me immediately and before long

13:28

I had some synthesizers and I was

13:31

playing With my nephews

13:33

bike and Brett. We had our

13:35

own little ensemble What

13:37

we called well, I think we call ourselves

13:39

the innuendos. No, we didn't I don't

13:41

come over what we call ourselves We

13:44

are farts. Oh, okay. Like a man who's been

13:46

in a few bands. That's the sense. I'm getting here a

13:48

few public Enema was the low point because it

13:50

really described the effect we had on the audience

13:55

This is Kraftwerk's Out

13:57

of Barn I Love it and it's quite a long track

13:59

so it'll be. It on the island I get my valley.

14:36

Kraft. Mac Autobahn, nineteen seventy Four kind

14:38

of and Hyman your love of words

14:40

is obvious to anyone, his read your

14:43

work and I think that the can

14:45

acquire in early age to. A

14:47

are very much nothing. Again, that's that

14:49

came with mother's milk. C C loved

14:51

words of language. We played scrabble and

14:53

boggle a note on a daily basis

14:56

for be almost. I spent my team's

14:58

playing music and writing bad poetry and

15:00

taking photographs. I in a new at

15:02

this stage I was gonna go into

15:04

geology and science, but I love the

15:06

humanities as well and I think it's

15:08

one of the things that we don't

15:11

really value enough in society to such

15:13

the how. Interdisciplinary. We

15:16

could be in linked together physics with

15:18

English or mass with history because all

15:20

these things and collect in a way

15:23

to. Tell me about that another theology and

15:25

handed it actually start free. That.

15:27

Began indigenous community him in London which I

15:29

dunno I must have as it is around

15:31

a new in ten as part of the

15:34

Natural History Museum now. I. Was

15:36

just in or at that

15:38

the wonder if these gems

15:40

and minerals. Huge opals, a

15:42

gold nuggets. there was a

15:44

radioactive mineral with a guy

15:47

to can take clicking away

15:49

and I think to split

15:51

the aesthetics of these specimens

15:53

really captivated me. so after you

15:55

finish school you to to year at to

15:57

for university and spend some time traveling during

16:00

Indonesia looking at active volcanoes. So I

16:02

think you said that was where you

16:04

discovered their immense mystique, their mystery. What

16:07

was it that captured you? These

16:09

were all the first volcanoes I ever saw and

16:12

some of them were quite active and steaming

16:14

and rumbling but also there were

16:16

temples built on their sides and

16:19

people venerating them. I

16:21

saw both sides of what a volcano

16:23

is. It's a natural wonder but it's

16:26

also part of a human

16:28

ecosystem. Clive we're going to take a moment for

16:30

your next disc. It's your fourth choice today. What have

16:32

you gone for? This is the

16:34

first gig I went to. Maybe he

16:36

just turned 15 or so and

16:39

it was at the electric ballroom in Camden

16:41

Town and maybe one of the first shows

16:43

that this band had played is the B-52s

16:47

and none of my friends wanted to go.

16:49

I went along and of course you know

16:51

your first gig it's unforgettable. It's so exciting

16:53

the sound and this particular

16:55

track turned out to be quite prophetic for

16:58

me. It's lava. B-52s

17:29

and lava. Clive you said you couldn't get

17:32

anyone to go to the gig with you

17:34

but I happened to know that your mum

17:36

was a B-52s fan. She was. Well she didn't

17:38

have a lot of choice to be honest. I played

17:40

a lot of loud music. So

17:42

the two of you studied at Open University.

17:44

As you mentioned you did your PhD at

17:47

the Open University and you actually had the

17:49

chance to do some fieldwork on Stromboli in

17:51

Italy. I need to hear about

17:53

your time there dodging lava bombs because it sounds

17:56

extremely intense. Yes The

17:58

idea was to measure temperature. Which

18:00

is to see how well we can measure

18:02

them from space wire to make them on

18:04

the ground. And that involves going up to

18:06

the crater stromboli, leaning over with a little

18:08

infrared thermometer like the kind of thing you'd

18:10

put in your ear, but a sort of

18:12

long range version and measuring the temperature. The

18:14

law for and these fence at fifty meters

18:16

away they are exploding. This was exploding every

18:18

every ten minutes or so and the projectiles

18:20

lama bombs are flying out there so much

18:22

when they hit the ground they splat and

18:24

we call them cow pack mother because they

18:27

they. That's what they look like on the

18:29

ground and on one. Occasion one of these

18:31

bombs planted very close and I went

18:33

to into a half that the turns

18:35

out they're very very hot seat of

18:38

chef I did. Yes it was a

18:40

steep learning curve. And. What about your

18:42

attitude to rest? Because vulcanology is a

18:44

sign that has a considerable amount to

18:46

frisk advanced and plenty of people unfortunately

18:48

have died studying for to knows how

18:50

much time do you have to take.

18:53

Well, a great deal. And of course

18:55

this was driven home to me when

18:57

I was a Phd student. My own

18:59

had a department, was killed on a

19:01

volcano in Columbia in the early nineties.

19:03

Jeff Brown. That was a

19:05

big deal in the community which

19:07

lexicon motors scrutiny as how important

19:09

is it for us to get

19:11

these measurements were oxy putting ourselves

19:14

in harm's way. So yes we

19:16

were much. I think much

19:18

more careful and rigorous. Live beyond

19:20

our understanding of geology. People are increasingly

19:22

looking out volcanic activity through the prism

19:25

of climate change and environmental science to

19:27

tell us a little bit more about

19:29

about the real that volcanoes plane nuts

19:31

and how they intersect cause it's not

19:34

widely understood Adam thing. For.

19:36

kings have a very important role

19:38

in climate and out saying in

19:40

the pre industrial times that they're

19:42

probably the most important factor in

19:44

climate change and the main way

19:46

they do it is is a

19:48

large explosive or ups and can

19:50

put a lot of salsa gas

19:53

in the stratosphere and this will

19:55

oxidized make tiny little particles reflect

19:57

rid of sunlight back into space

19:59

so that cooling effect at the surface

20:01

that can affect crops and

20:03

pasture around the world and that

20:06

can lead to a cooling of a few years.

20:08

But there's no way to recreate that

20:10

kind of cooling effect with the particles,

20:13

the sulphur particles, to bring temperatures

20:15

down. It's one of the

20:17

ideas to combat warming is basically

20:19

to simulate volcanic eruptions and

20:22

put dust into the stratosphere. What

20:24

do you think of it? Well I don't

20:26

think it's a good idea. It will have other

20:29

less desirable consequences and it won't stop

20:31

things like acidification of the oceans and

20:33

deaths of corals. It

20:36

can lead to deficits in rainfall

20:38

in very important grain baskets of

20:40

the world. For example the Indian

20:42

monsoon, the East Asian monsoon could

20:45

be affected. It's time to take a

20:47

break and go to the music. I'll have your fifth choice

20:49

today. What are we going to hear and why? This

20:51

is another game-changer. This is going back to

20:54

PhD days. It's a track by the Pixies

20:56

and it's one of those tracks

20:58

when I first heard it. I

21:00

just instantly keyed into this and I thought

21:03

that's good and the Pixies changed everything for

21:06

me in this debate. Pixies

21:41

and Debezo. Clive Oppenheimer, you've spent quite

21:43

a bit of time in North Korea working

21:45

on the Mount Pectu volcano. How did the

21:47

team on the ground there respond to your

21:50

visit? I think for some of the scientists

21:52

you were the first person from

21:54

outside the country that they'd ever worked with. Yes,

21:57

I mean it's of course very isolated but It.

22:00

Scientists are the great thirst for

22:02

knowledge who know that that disconnected

22:04

from the international conference circuit and

22:06

they don't get the journals. and

22:08

they had some very antiquated bits

22:10

of operators for measuring gas emissions.

22:12

but they were very subject to

22:14

power cuts said that be big

22:16

data gaps in their seismic records

22:18

so they were very excited when

22:20

I first went in two thousand

22:22

and eleven the river excited to

22:24

share. Their knowledge of Mount

22:27

Paektu and they were very well trained

22:29

in the fundamentals the t of physics

22:31

of seismic waves but they were not

22:34

really aware of where volcanology is which

22:36

is is actually almost to sort of.

22:38

It's a meeting of the natural sciences

22:40

in the social sciences so the this

22:43

was a disconnect and they would ask

22:45

quite curious things about you know how

22:47

do we stop the volcano erupting and

22:50

one of their concerns was that if

22:52

it did or up that it would

22:54

destroy some very important. Cultural sites he

22:57

seemed to be smart about that have

22:59

impacted could have on people. Trying

23:02

to event that amount that to riches they'll

23:04

make his own had sent to make into

23:06

the him center Tommy little break that what

23:08

you find. A number of

23:10

people complained about the films. are

23:12

you know I didn't learn anything

23:14

about volcanoes Next grade because it's

23:16

really a film about the underworld

23:18

and and the cosmologists that the

23:20

communities living on cocaine is. How

23:22

about these extraordinary natural wonders on

23:24

their doorstep in Vanuatu? We stayed

23:26

in a village and I had

23:29

a conversation the chief of the

23:31

village who was describing how he

23:33

visited the crater once and look

23:35

ten and saw this read stuff

23:37

flowing like water. But. It

23:39

couldn't be water because it it was part in

23:41

it was. The. Wrong color And

23:43

so it made complete sense to me

23:45

that you couldn't ignore that. You couldn't

23:47

Not. Put. That. into

23:50

some cosmology some way of seeing the

23:52

world and how it works and of

23:54

course you know it's a place of

23:56

spirits and it's a place of the

23:58

afterlife for him And that seemed to me

24:01

equally valid as my

24:03

interpretation of it based on having

24:05

studied geoscience at university. This human

24:07

fascination with volcanoes is obviously, it runs

24:10

very deep. How do you explain it?

24:12

I think you have said that there's

24:14

a sort of spiritual element to it, really.

24:17

I would explain it on, I guess,

24:19

a couple of levels. One is just the visceral

24:21

war experience of being on a volcano, you

24:24

know, feeling vulnerable, probably. But

24:26

I'm also there professionally to get

24:28

the best observations I can to understand

24:31

how that volcano is working, how it's

24:33

plumbed in in the regions that I

24:35

can't see or touch. And

24:37

when the instrument's running, that's when I've got time to

24:39

just take in where I am. And

24:42

is that when you're happiest? Are those some

24:44

of your happiest moments? Oh, my

24:46

spirit soars when I'm on a volcano. Where

24:48

you're meant to be. It's

24:50

time for your next piece of music, Clive, your

24:52

sixth choice. Tell us about it. Well,

24:55

this has some resonances for me

24:57

for Indonesia. It has some gamelan,

24:59

Indonesian gamelan-like motifs in it. And

25:02

it's also by a composer whose

25:04

work I adore. It's Olivier

25:06

Messia, and it's the

25:08

Prongalila Symphony. I think this

25:10

piece actually captures everything

25:14

about humanity and the human condition. It's

25:16

a love song. It's a hymn to

25:18

joy. And it's got

25:20

complex motifs and moments

25:22

of extraordinary beauty. And it has

25:24

these gamelan sounds. It has

25:27

bird song. He was passionate about

25:29

bird song. The piece we hear

25:31

has got blackbirds, nightingales, and garden

25:33

warblers. Part

26:30

of the Tarunga leader symphony by

26:32

Messian, performed by the Bastille Opera

26:35

Orchestra with Yvonne L'Oriot on piano,

26:37

Jean L'Oriot on Andmartino and conducted

26:39

by Myung Won Chung. Clive,

26:42

one of the places that you visited

26:44

most frequently for your research is Antarctica

26:46

to study Mount Erebus, the volcano there.

26:48

You've said you quite happily live there

26:50

and have referred to the place as

26:53

your muse. How does it feel when

26:55

you go back? In some ways it's

26:57

a crazy place to go and you're aware

26:59

that there isn't much of a safety net

27:01

if there's some kind of medical emergency, an

27:03

accident, because if the weather

27:05

is bad, although we're so

27:07

close, there would be no possibility of

27:10

being rescued or bringing medical support in.

27:12

So it's the basics of trying not to fall

27:14

over and hurt yourself? Yeah and also trying to

27:16

make sure your friends colleagues don't do

27:18

something like that as well. So you're

27:20

watching after each other, you're watching out

27:22

if someone else is looking hypothermic. It's

27:25

nearly 4000 meters high so the temperature

27:27

up there is minus 30, minus 35 and

27:29

in wind chill

27:31

it can be you know minus 70. And you've

27:34

played your own part in the places history because

27:36

in 2012 you discovered the

27:38

campsites used by Captain Scott's team

27:40

during their expedition. Was there

27:42

a sense of kinship with the scientists who trod

27:44

the same path as you was sent earlier? Captain

27:47

Scott had died by the time some

27:49

of his comrades were climbing Erebus.

27:51

So they kept going? So they kept

27:54

going and they climbed to

27:56

the top on the 12th of December 1912

27:58

and I was exactly a

28:00

century later, 1212, 2012, and I thought I've

28:02

got to commemorate this

28:05

ascent somehow. I

28:07

was reading their account and there

28:09

was a photograph labeled highest camp

28:11

in Antarctica. There's

28:13

the tent, the pyramid tent, there's some men

28:15

standing around it. I looked at the rocks

28:17

behind and thought I wonder if I can

28:19

find where that was. It took

28:22

me 15 minutes. I thought it'd be a needle in

28:24

a haystack. It was about 800 meters away. There was

28:26

a little stone circle where they held

28:28

down the tent flaps. I

28:30

even found bits of bread

28:33

and broken glass and pemmican

28:35

where the food supplies that they didn't need

28:37

anymore on the left had been blown by

28:39

the wind and snagged in the rocks. It's

28:42

a historic site and monument now. It's protected

28:44

now. What was that like for you standing

28:46

in that place and seeing those ordinary

28:48

things that people just like you had left behind?

28:50

I didn't just see the ordinary things. I saw

28:52

them in a flash. I saw them and I

28:54

couldn't help saying hello boys. It was like looking

28:57

across time 100 years earlier. As

28:59

well as working in very difficult environments,

29:02

your work has also brought you

29:04

into contact with some quite dangerous

29:06

people on occasion. There was one

29:08

time when you were almost kidnapped.

29:10

What actually happened? This was in Ethiopia

29:14

on a volcano with a lava lake in

29:16

Ethiopia called Atalae. Pretty soon we ran into

29:19

a couple of characters armed

29:21

to the teeth. One of them was playing with a hand grenade

29:23

the whole time. It's

29:26

a place where there aren't police.

29:28

If you show up with

29:30

money and food and medicine and water

29:33

and vehicles, you're there for a reason.

29:35

If you're there for a reason

29:37

then it's right that you should pay

29:39

to be there. We made some negotiations but

29:42

they turned up and I camped the following

29:44

day and things got pretty hairy. What happened?

29:46

I mean this was all going on in

29:48

the Afar language so I didn't follow all

29:50

of it. There was an elderly

29:53

chief from a nearby settlement who was

29:55

sort of moderating. We'd got all

29:57

of the permits, all the authorisations. We had some local

29:59

guides. And I'd been uncomfortable,

30:01

one of the guides was armed, but

30:04

I think we wouldn't have got out of it if he hadn't been,

30:06

so there was some balance in the weaponry,

30:08

and eventually the old chief said it's best if you

30:10

leave in the morning. And you

30:12

just... Fine, yeah. Wow. Did you go back now?

30:14

Have you been back to with your business? Yes,

30:17

yeah, I've been back a few times, and I'd

30:19

say half the times I've had sort of episodes a little

30:21

bit like that. It's time for some more

30:23

music. I have your seventh choice today. What are we going

30:26

to hear, and why are you taking it to your island

30:28

with you? Well, this is

30:30

by Ethiopian musician Bezwerk Azfau.

30:32

It's a song called Tizata,

30:35

which every Ethiopian musician has

30:38

performed, and it means longing

30:41

or memories or

30:43

remembrance. I didn't really

30:45

know Ethiopian music until I first went there,

30:47

and I was immediately struck by its kind

30:49

of waltz rhythms and this Ethiopian jazz, and

30:52

I was staying next to a cassette shop,

30:54

and they blared out music every morning that

30:56

woke me up. It will

30:58

remind me of traveling in Ethiopia, and it

31:01

will also, through its

31:03

theme of remembrance, help me think of

31:05

home. Bezwerk

31:37

Azfau and Tuzata. Clive Ropenhimer, you've

31:39

spent your life observing the much

31:42

longer volcanic life of our planet,

31:44

and I wonder if your work

31:46

has shaped your perspective on your

31:49

own personal story. Being a

31:51

geologist, it does make you think

31:53

about cycles, and we see cycles

31:55

from hundreds of millions of years'

31:57

timescales to short timescales of glaciation.

32:00

coming and going. I do

32:02

feel kind of enmeshed in the way the

32:05

planet works. Yeah, I do

32:07

think about it even when I drink a cup of coffee

32:09

I think about, well, that coffee probably grew on a volcano.

32:11

It's almost time for us though, our cycle

32:13

moves on inevitably to the island where soon

32:15

you are going to be cast away. What

32:18

kind of island are you picturing? I

32:21

obviously quite like it if it had a volcano on it.

32:23

I mean there are lots of volcanic islands around the world.

32:26

I don't see why not. What about the

32:28

idea of solitude? How are you in your own

32:30

company? I distinguish between being

32:32

lonely and being alone and I'm quite

32:34

happy alone. I quite like

32:37

aloneness and I've really felt that with

32:39

great intensity in Antarctica. If there's no

32:41

wind and it's a

32:43

sunny day, you feel the sun warming you up

32:46

and all you can hear is your breathing and

32:49

your own heartbeat and there

32:51

is a great serenity in that. Who or what

32:54

will you miss the most when you're on the

32:56

desert island? Oh, well,

32:58

my wife, my two daughters, Poppy and

33:00

Maya, of course I'll miss them dreadfully.

33:03

Well, we'll let you have one more disc before you go. What's it

33:05

going to be? This is

33:08

a track by John Taverner,

33:10

him for the Dormition of the Mother of God, and

33:13

it has a line in it, something like, oh

33:15

ye apostles assembled from the ends of the earth.

33:18

So that reminds me of Antarctica

33:20

and also in the films that

33:22

I've made with Werner Herzog, we've

33:24

used Russian Orthodox music, which has

33:26

some similarities to this, its voices.

33:29

And I do love just the sound of the

33:31

human voice. I think that will be something that

33:33

will entertain the wildlife on the island after they've

33:36

heard the pixies. Thank

33:59

you. We are all

34:02

here and all

34:05

of you are. We

34:11

are all here in this room. We

34:30

are all here. Him

34:39

for the Door mission of the Mother

34:41

of God by John Taverner performed by

34:43

The Sixteen, conducted by Harry Christopher's. You

34:46

drifted away listening to that track Clive Oppenheimer.

34:48

Where does it take you? It

34:50

takes me to Antarctica. It takes me to the

34:53

blue ice, the expanse where you

34:55

could walk and walk and walk

34:57

and the crunch of

34:59

the ice beneath your feet and the

35:01

solitude, the quiet and the contemplation. So

35:04

the time has come Clive, I'm going to send

35:06

you away to the island. I'm giving you the

35:08

Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare and you

35:10

can take one other book, your own selection. What

35:13

will it be? I'm going to take

35:15

a book by Patrick White for no

35:17

other reason than he was one of

35:19

my favorite authors. A

35:21

number of his books were historical fiction

35:23

but based on real characters who were

35:25

pitting themselves against the

35:28

desert or one was indeed in

35:30

a shipwreck actually. But I

35:32

think I'll choose one of his books, The Vivisector,

35:34

which is about the life of a great artist.

35:36

And I just loved some of his descriptions. He

35:40

wrote about the human condition

35:42

with tremendous intensity and insight.

35:45

You can also have a luxury item for

35:47

pleasure or sensory stimulation. What have you gone

35:49

for? I'm a little bit worried

35:51

that you're going to say I can't have this. It's a

35:53

seismometer, which does have a practical use

35:55

but I promise not to use it to predict an

35:57

eruption if there is a volcano on the island. OK,

36:00

so what are you going to use it for Clive? To

36:02

listen to the earth, to listen to the

36:04

music of the earth. I'll hear it rattling

36:06

here and there. Yeah. I

36:08

will just enjoy those vibrations. Excellent,

36:11

and you simply must have it. And

36:13

finally, which one track of the eight that

36:15

you've shared with us today, would you save

36:17

from the waves first? It's got

36:20

to be De Besa. It's the Pixies

36:22

loud quiet playbook that defines me. So

36:24

I have five of the Pixies. Clive

36:26

Oppenheimer, thank you very much for letting us hear

36:28

your desert island discs. Thanks so much. It's been

36:30

a thrill. Hello.

36:42

It was lovely to chat to Clive, and

36:44

I hope he's very happy listening to the

36:46

sounds of his island. There are more than

36:49

2,000 programs in our archive, which you can

36:51

listen to, including fellow adventurers Simon Reave, Steve

36:53

Bakshaw, and Ann Daniels. You can find

36:55

all of those programs if you search

36:58

through BBC Sounds or on

37:00

our own Death Island Discs website. The

37:02

studio manager for today's program was Andrew

37:04

Garris, and the producers were Tim Bano

37:06

and Sarah Taylor. Join me next time

37:08

when my castaway is the costume designer,

37:10

Sandy Powell. Hello,

37:19

it's Zahn Fantullican here, and I'm back with

37:21

my twin brother, Chris. That's me. In the

37:24

third series of our Radio 4 podcast, A

37:26

Thorough Examination, and we're going to be talking

37:28

about exercise. Now, I really love it, and

37:30

this has been really annoying for me. In

37:32

fact, it's gone beyond annoying. It's more like

37:34

you've joined some sort of cult. But I

37:36

think Chris needs to do more. In fact,

37:39

I think everyone needs to do more. There

37:41

is a general crisis of inactivity in the

37:43

UK that we should all be worried about.

37:47

So in this series, we weigh up whether

37:49

exercise really is the miracle cure for all

37:51

that ails us, or whether it's been oversold

37:54

and actually lounging around is just fine. Listen

37:57

to us resolving the argument on BBC Sam.

38:00

need Fr prooflands