Desert Island Discs

[Ray de Galles]

So, there used to be an archive for the show which was searchable by individual guests, songs, artists, luxuries and books but it appears to have disappeared.

It's mentioned on this page of R4 website :

Search by castaway name, occupation, date of broadcast and programme presenter were prioritised with a free text search facility for music, book and luxury choices.

but frustratingly not linked to or seemingly anywhere I can find in my search.

Anyone got any ideas?

[G-Man]

Well, on the BBC website it is up. Random page.

[Ray de Galles]

I’ve seen that but it’s not searchable, is it?

[Various Artist]

I see what you mean Ray, although there's at least an "A-Z" tab at the top of the pages with all the guests listed under their first name's (for some reason) initial. Does that help at all? Or are you viewing on mobile and not seeing even this, or something?

[Giggler]

I see what you mean Ray, although there's at least an "A-Z" tab at the top of the pages with all the guests listed under their first name's (for some reason) initial. Does that help at all? Or are you viewing on mobile and not seeing even this, or something?

I've found that, but I'm buggered if I can find how you search for, say, how many people chose a song by Scritti Politti.

[Ray de Galles]

Yeah, that’s what I’m looking for, the facility to search for who chose a certain song, artist, luxury or book rather than than necessarily to find a certain castaway.

It used to be available and is referred to in the link in the OP but appears to have been scrapped. Most frustrating.

[Bored Of Education]

No, I have to tried to locate it but to no avail. It was the only way that you could find out that the only DID guest to choose a Motorhead song was Grayson Perry (Killed By Death). How irritating and, surely, pointless as they had already included the search facility. Unless it was to make way for the BBC World Service Pidgen English version, in which case, fair play.

[Ray de Galles]

I’m sure one of the searches I did revealed Tim Minchin was the only castaway ever to choose a Deep Purple song, which seemed ridiculous.

I only went back to look for it the other day to resolve some full-blooded arguments in the office about luxury choices and was bereft to find it had disappeared.

[Sits]

Sandie Shaw picked eight of her own songs.

[ursus arctos]

I think that people may be recalling this Database that the Guardian put together, which no longer seems to work, unfortunately

[Satchmo Distel]

This link explains what happened to the old site

https://github.com/tfmorris/desert_island_discs_records

The Guardian database was compiled by Francis Irving in 2010 and is here

https://classic.scraperwiki.com/scra...discs-records/

[Satchmo Distel]

Try this link to download the whole spreadsheet, which should then be searchable. You may have to register to morph.io but it is free

https://morph.io/tfmorris/desert_island_discs_records

[Ray de Galles]

Thanks for those. I don’t understand them one bit but I’m sure I can do some digging and at least it’s confirmed the old database has been taken down from the BBC site.

[G-Man]

Sandie Shaw picked eight of her own songs.

Not in the show I heard. I think it was Joan Sutherland, the Australian soprano, who liked the sound of her voice a little too much.

[Sits]

That's weird. I remember working through quite a few of the archive and that struck me. Occasionally people do it more than once but it would be surprising if she had. I'm now intrigued where I got this.

[Satchmo Distel]

Sandie Shaw picked two of her own records but she is beaten by these

https://pouletnoir.wordpress.com/201...-island-discs/

[Ray de Galles]

Now I want to know the other person with the good taste to take a Gary Glitter record.

‘Tiger Feet’ by Mud is one of my eight, it was the first time I was aware of pop music as a thing.

[Doraemon]

On one of the many programmes that there have been celebrating DID's longevity there was a bit more explanation behind Elizabeth Schwartzkopf choosing 8 of her own recordings.

They were all pieces that meant a lot to her, but she had never had the time to listen back to her recordings and to use them to help refine her performance. She felt that being alone on a desert island would allow her the time to do this.

At least that was her excuse.

[G-Man]

Ah yes, Schwartzkopf, nor Sutherland. They all sound the same to me.

[Satchmo Distel]

I was able to download the database as a CSV. Doing a find produces a result with all the cells in which the search term appears. Results so far in the popular music field:

Beatles 283, Kinks 16, Smiths 13.

[Various Artist]

That seems a remarkably low incidence of Kinks, to me. Blimey.

[Lang Spoon]

People are dicks.

[Satchmo Distel]

Tony Hancock picked Gloomy Sunday, aka The Hungarian Suicide Song

[G-Man]

Here's a mix of songs selected by musicians on Desert Island Discs.

[Satchmo Distel]

Earliest punk selection: Career Opportunities, The Clash, Shirley Conran, July 1977 http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p009mzhs

Earliest Beatles choice I have found so far: All My Loving, chosen by Arthur Askey (!), 1968. Askey appeared four times, across a 38 years span, and chose Yesterday on the last one (1980).