This week on The Sound Kitchen you’ll hear the answer to the quiz about the "storming of the Bastille". There’s the listener mailbag, great music, and of course, the new quiz question. So click on that little "Listen" arrow above, and join in!
Hello everyone!
Welcome to The Sound Kitchen. You can catch the programme on-the-air every Saturday, at 4:52, 6:22, and 7:52 universal time. You’ll hear the winner’s names announced and the week’s quiz question, along with all the other ingredients you have grown accustomed to: your letters and essays, “On This Day”, quirky facts and news, interviews, and great music … so be sure and tune in every Saturday.
This week’s quiz: was a French history question. As you know, France celebrates its Fête Nationale – its National Day - on 14 July. That is the day which commemorates the beginning of the French Revolution in 1789, when revolutionaries attacked the Bastille Prison in Paris, thinking there were political prisoners inside. On 19 July, I asked you to write in with the number of prisoners the revolutionaries actually found inside the prison.
The answer is: Seven! And none of them illustrious political prisoners! Never-the-less, the revolution had begun. In August of that year feudalism was abolished, and the “Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen” was published.
The winners this week are: Uzair Inam, from Lahore, Pakistan; Sourodeep Sarkar, from Murshidabad, India; RFI Listeners Club member Mr Bezazel Ferhat ben Rabah, from West Skikda, Algeria; new listener Uche Nwosu from Lagos State, Nigeria (welcome!), and Mr Atiqur Rahman, from Dhaka, Bangladesh.
Congratulations, winners!
This week’s question: This week, I happened across an article in the New York Times science section about “sprites”, which so fascinated me I then spent half the day reading about them. Sprites are a recently discovered weather phenomenon … they are, as the New York Times put it, “majestic emanations of light that flash for an instant high above thunderheads”. You can see them with the naked eye, although as they only last from one one-hundredth to one-tenth of a second, if you blink you may miss them. As NASA scientist Otha H Vaughan, Jr wrote: “If you are looking in the right place and think you saw something, you probably did.”
I want you to write in and tell me what you know about Sprites, those “majestic emanations of light” seen (if you’re lucky) in thunderstorm lightning flashes. By the way, why are they called “sprites”? Hint: William Shakespeare had something to do with it …
Get your answer in by 3 November, and be sure to tune in on 8 November to see if you are one of the lucky winners! As always, be sure you send your postal address in with your answer … and, if you have one, your RFI Listeners Club membership number. Send your answers to:
or
To our new mailing address:
Susan Owensby
RFI – The Sound Kitchen
80, rue Camille Desmoulins
92130 Issy-les-Moulineaux
France
or
By SMS … You can also send your quiz answers to The Sound Kitchen cell phone !!!!
Dial your country’s international access code, or “ + ”, then 33 6 31 12 96 82. Don’t forget to include your mailing address in your text – and if you have one, your RFI Listeners Club membership number.
Remember, it’s not just the quiz which wins you a prize. If your essay goes on the air, you’ll find a package in the mail from the Sound Kitchen. Write in about your community heroes – the people in your community who are quietly working to make the world a better place, in whatever way they can. As listener Pramod Maheshwari said: “Just as small drops of water can fill a pitcher, small drops of kindness can change the world.”
I am still looking for your “This I Believe” essays, too. Tell us about the principles that guide your life … what you have found to be true from your very own personal experience. Or write in with your most memorable moment, and/or your proudest achievement. If your essay is chosen to go on-the-air – read by you – you’ll win an RFI radio or a box set of world music CDs, edited by RFI!
Send in your musical requests, your secret “guilty” pleasure (mine’s chocolate!), your tricks for remembering things, your favourite quotations and proverbs, descriptions of the local festivals you participate in, your weirdest dream, the book you are reading and what you think about it, or just your general all-around thoughts to:
Include a phone number, so I can call you. Put that pen to paper! Don’t put it off!
The Sound Kitchen Listeners Cookbook has been published! It is a lovely little book and I am quite pleased. Many thanks to everyone who contributed. We’re using it as a quiz prize, so let me know if the cookbook is what you would like for us to send to you when you win a quiz.
Did you know there is such a thing as official RFI Clubs? Up until now, they have always been French clubs, but now we want to open them up to all our listeners … and open them up we have! There are already 20 brand new official RFI Clubs: in Kisii, Kenya, started by Mogire Machuki; in Ain Kechera, Algeria, with Ferhat Bezazel as president, and in Holguin, Cuba, started by Ivan Carralero. There are five RFI clubs in India: in Murshidabad, with Mr Najimuddin as president; in Medinipur, with Dr S S Bhattacharya at the helm; in Hyderabad / Miryalguda, headed up by Mrs P Sreelatha Reddy; in Sainikpuri / Secunderabad, with Hari Madugula as president, and in Maharashtra, created by Sandeep Jawale. There are now three clubs in Bangladesh: in Dhaka, started by Wali Ahad; in Rajshahi, with Salahudin Dolar as president, and the Kaptai RFI Fan Club, headed up Jahangir Alam. And Ras Franz Manko Ngogo from Tarime, Tanzania, is heading up the Kemogemba Club.
A warm welcome to our newest clubs: the RFI Amour Fan Club in Rajshahi, Bangladesh, with AKM Nuruzzaman as president; the RFI Listeners Club Gambia in Brikama Town, The Gambia, with Lamin Ceesay as president; the RFI Listeners Club GYPC Makassar, in Makassar, Indonesia, with Uki Ruknuddin at the helm; the Shawon DX Corner in Lalpur, Bangladesh, with Rajib Kumar Mondal as the head; the Friends Radio Club in Naogaon, Bangladesh, Dewan Rafiqul Islam, president; the Green Listeners Club in Rampura Phul, India, with Mrs Sonkia Gupta as president, and the RFI Listeners Club headed up by Hyrum Karyea Mennoh, in Monrovia, Liberia.
Welcome one and all!
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What about you? You can either transform your existing radio club into an RFI Club, or create a brand new one. Then, anytime you plan special events – be they humanitarian, cultural, or sports-oriented; if you want to host an environmental program, or a day dedicated to health issues - RFI will help you with ideas and free promotional items for your members. You’ll also be eligible to participate in special RFI Club events, like the recent football tournaments. RFI’s Listener Relations Department sponsored football tournaments for the Clubs to run during the World Cup Football Tournament. RFI furnished the team tee shirts, the footballs and trophies, as well as RFI banners.
If you are interested in either changing your radio club into an RFI club, or if you would like to create a brand-new RFI club, the first step is to read the RFI Club Charter:
http://clubsrfi.blogs.rfi.fr/sites/clubsrfi.blogs.rfi.fr/files/The%20RFI_Club%20Charter.pdf
If you are willing to abide by the Charter, write to my colleagues in the Listener Relations Department and let them know. They’ll help you with the rest of the process.
Sébastien Bonijol
Chrystelle Nammour
RFI – Relations Auditeurs
80, rue Camille Desmoulins
92130, Issy-les-Moulineaux
France
Which leads me to another item of interest: the RFI Listeners Club. Our Listener Relations department has decided that everyone can belong to the RFI Listeners Club, but you will only be issued a membership number, not an identity card. Only members of an official RFI Club will have identity cards. As an RFI Listeners Club member, you will still win a premium prize if you win a Sound Kitchen quiz. So no reason not to join – although having an official RFI Club is really far cooler.
If you only want to be a member of the general RFI Listeners Club – that’s great, too! Just send me (or Sébastien and Chrystelle) your full name, your postal mailing address, and if you have one, your e-mail address. You’ll receive an RFI Listeners Club number; include that number every time you enter a quiz, and if you are a winner, you’ll get a premium prize!
Nota bene: The RFI Listeners Club used to be called “Club 9516”. So if you are a member of the “Club 9516”, you are already a member of the RFI Listeners Club. Your “Club 9516” membership number still works – no need to reapply. Just include your membership number on your quiz entries.
I look forward to hearing from you soon!
All the best,
Susan
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