Public Service Broadcasting
The Microphone (The Fleet is Lit Up)
Here, putting the world right on broadcasting itself, is Mr. George Bernard Shaw

[Bernard Shaw]
The politicians have not yet found out the microphone
They still imagine that they are addressing political meetings
And they don't understand that the microphone is the most wonderful tell-tale in the world

If you speak insincerely to a political, say an election audience
The more insincere you are, the more hopelessly you are away from all the facts of life
The more they cheer you and the more they are delighted
But if you try that on the microphone, the microphone has a certain magic
It gives you away instantly
You hear the political ranter
You hear that his platitudes mean nothing and that he doesn't really believe them
And there's something more important
If you nerve yourself to face the microphone by taking, say, half a glass of whiskey
The effect produced is that you are shockingly drunk

[Thomas Woodrooffe]
At the present moment the whole fleet is lit up
When I say lit up, I mean it's lit up by fairy lamps
We've forgotten the whole royal review
We've forgotten the royal review
The whole thing is lit up by fairy lamps
It’s as fantastic – It shouldn't appear as tall
It’s just ... It’s fairyland, the whole thing is fairyland
It's fairyland (fairyland, fairlyland ...)
Now when I say the fleet is lit up, in lamps
I mean she’s outlined, the whole ship's outlined
In little lamps

I’m sorry, I was telling to people to shut up talking
What I mean is this:
The whole fleet is lit up
In fairy lamps
And each ship is outlined
Now as far as I can see
Well, I suppose I can see down about five or six miles
The ships are all lit up
They’re outlined, the whole lot, even the destroyers are outlined
In the old days, you know, destroyers used to be outlined by only a little kind of very bit of lights
Nowdays, the destroyers are lit up ... by ... the outline looks solid
In a second or two, we’re going to fire a rocket, going to fire all sorts of [?] things
And you can't actually see them but you'll hear them going off
You may hear a minor reaction when I see them go
Because, um
I’m going to try and tell you what they look like as they go off
Because at the moment, the whole huge fleet here
The thing we saw this afternoon
This colossal fleet
Lit up
By lights
There’s nothing between us and heaven
There’s nothing at all
And the whole thing is in fairyland
It isn’t true
It isn’t here
And, as I say it
I’m trying to give you, ladies and gentlemen, my concern
The fleet’s gone, it’s disappeared
I was talking to you
In the middle of this damn ...
In the middle of this fleet
And what’s happened is the fleet’s gone and disappeared and gone
We had 100, 200 warships around us a second ago
And now they have gone

It’s gone, it’s gone
There’s no fleet
It’s disappeared
No magician who ever could have waved his wand could have waved it with more acumen than he has now at the present moment