TED Radio Hour and Me

Within a few hours of stepping off the plane after  24 hours travelling  from South Africa at The National Arts Festival.   I’m sat in studio  at the BBC in central London. I'm talking to Guy Raz  and it's for a show called  TED Radio Hour.   It is my number one  favourite podcast on planet earth and to be asked to take part is a big deal. It describes itself thus: “Ted Radio Hour - A journey through fascinating ideas, astonishing inventions and new ways to think and create. based on Ted Talks.  But I'm  tired. After half an hour I find it difficult to articulate.  It's unexpected but not the kind of unexpected I expected.    If the interview is a warm bay then I’m treading water  far from the coast.  Guy's voice is coming from the sky. I am shouting my answers back. His voice is calm soothing honest enquiring and sincere. He wills me to the coast. And just as I'm helped to stand, it's over.  Ninety minutes.  We say our goodbyes and i walk through fibreoptics out of the BBC and into the city heat.   Sometimes my  story, which I try to articulate  in a way that I feel makes it manageable and palatable, sometimes it falls apart. The audience for Ted Radio Hour is 30 million. It'll be broadcast in August.[ted id="lemn_sissay_a_child_of_the_state"]