Radium Rave

Caveat: I haven’t actually listened to this yet but I want to preserve the link. Neil Gaiman recommends this BBC radio program with this glowing (pun intended) description:

It begins with stuff about the Radiation mania of the 1930s — people would use Radium Suppositories, hold Radium Parties where you’d drink Radium drinks from punchbowls in darkened rooms and glow in the dark and giggle a lot. And Radium-dissolved-in-water was sold as a 1920s Viagra — which was fine until bits of you, literally, started falling off. Then, as the show goes on, we get Perpetual Motion, and the concept of the Internet Bubble of the late 90s as giant Ponzi scheme. Lovely stuff.

This sounds like my kind of thing. I’ll give it a listen at work tomorrow.

Update: I did listen to it and while the whole thing was interesting, I thought the wackiness of the first part set a standard the last half couldn’t compare to. Ponzi schemes are interesting and all, but drinking radium as an aphrodisiac and then having your body parts fall off is in a whole different league.

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Dave Slusher is a blogger, podcaster, computer programmer, author, science fiction fan and father. Member of the Podcast Hall of Fame class of 2022.