Editor's note: In Thursday's programme Melvyn Bragg and his guests discussed Gnosticism. As always the programme is available to listen to online or to download and keep.
Gnosticism
Hello
No sooner had the mics closed down than "what about the Cathars?" said Caroline Humfress. "And what about the Bogomils?" said Martin Palmer. "It's very rarely that anybody gets a chance to talk about the Bogomils. They were Gnostics too." "And what about Philip Pullman?" said Alastair Logan. "His Dark Materials has many Gnostic strands to it." "And what about The Matrix?" said Martin Palmer ...and what about, of course, a series of programmes on every subject we do? I'm all for it.
It appears that in China the Gnostic tradition allows women to be treated as the equals of men. Caroline also pointed out that in the Gnostic Gospels uncovered in 1945 was one book called The Thunder, Perfect Mind, which she describes as being completely beautiful.
Out into the streets this last week. Passed a children's playground, primary school, rainbow-coloured. All the children rushing around playing tig. High-pitched screams of joy. England's future.
Along the South Bank on Saturday. Such a mass walking in organised slowness. Reminded me of the crowds at wakes weeks in Blackpool in the 1950s. The same flow, the same ice-creams, the same dazed cheerfulness. And there was the Thames, flowing softly as ever, and the Wobbly Bridge that can take you over to St Paul's, and down from there into Fleet Street to seek out yet again the house of the incomparable Dr Johnson and just look at it and think what a mind once lived there.
Had deep dental work on Tuesday and thought I might not make it this morning. Not cosmetic. Essential, heavy lifting on the back beggars. Now face a regimen of pills: eight of these a day, three of those a day. Hate all pills. Try not to take a pill for anything. Pills tend to make me feel ill. Dilemma. And drink – when? How much? I don't do much but when it is forbidden fruit ...speaking of which, I was wandering round the area south of Regent's Park and looked down Weymouth Mews which I hadn't been down for years. Passed the Dover Castle pub with the, by now, usual collection of young people outside it, standing with their glasses of beer. I used to drink there when I was a trainee at the BBC in 1962-3. With the great old producers of the day: Laurence Gilliam, Louis MacNeice, René Cutforth. Heroic days. Tom Morris, the producer of In Our Time, drinks there now. Plus ça change.
Best wishes
Melvyn Bragg
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