For all fans of Charlotte – I am aware of several amongst my colleagues – Steve Elliott mentioned this last night, at a BBQ over at his house:

On Broadcasting House this week we wanted to pay homage to al-Jazeera’s new English-language network.
As imitation is the sincerest form of flattery we thought it would be nice to test an Arabic version of Radio Four.

So we got Charlotte Green to present one of Radio Four’s more iconic fixtures in Arabic (you can listen here).

I would like to take this opportunity to apologise to the listener who found it ‘frightening’. I also apologise to the listener who found it too politically correct. That really was not the intention. Finally, I would like to apologise to the listener who thought they had gone mad when listening to it. You have not.

It’s definitely… different.

For American readers, you may need this background material, too. And perhaps my previous article on the topic.