For this week’s show, the program in part was a tribute to the great Bob Dylan who John described as the ‘King of Kings among singers/songwriters. Syd Barrett’s ‘Bob Dylan Blues ‘composed by Syd was played. Reference was made to Dylan’s autobiography ‘Chronicles’ in which he refers to influences in his musical career and ‘Mojo’ have produced a CD with songs of many of them and we played Richie Havens ‘High Flying Bird’.

The program talked about an event being organised by Forest Friends Ireland which will take place on Culture night Friday the 16^th September next in Drumcondra starting at the Arts and Business Campus Lower Drumcondra Road, between 8 PM and 10 P M. It is a ‘tree hugging competition’ in memory of the very first tree huggers , the Chipkos of Bishnoi, Rajasthan, India, who gave their lives trying to protect their trees. There is a first prize of €100. The event is open to all age groups and there is no entry fee. There was a discussion about the importance of trees and how far people in Ireland would go to protect their trees. There was reference to sacred trees which are protected by Tuatha de Danann who do not react favourably to people who would remove or damage trees such as Hawthorn.

There was a brief discussion on different musical genres and Robert talked about the Electric Picnic which he attended. The program made reference to several well known songs written by Dylan and two ‘Love Minus Zero’ and ’Forever Young’ were both played.

Forest Friends Ireland links: www.forestfriends.ie, www.facebook.com/forestfriendsireland, www.facebook.com/peaceforestireland

The program finished with a mention of a few recent obituaries:

1. Uzbekistan dictator Karimov notorious for human right abuse and rendition centres.
2. Vera Caslavaska the world champion Czech gymnast who protested about the Russian invasion of Poland in 1968 as did the athletics world champion Emil Zatopec.
3. Fred Hellerman the last of the Weavers folk group has also passed away. He is reported to have said about Bob Dylan “He can’t sing, and he can barely play, and he doesn’t know much about music at all”
4. Richard Neville ‘Oz’ co-founder and leading light of the counterculture in London in the 1960s.

On the subject of the value of music, recent studies have shown that music can strengthen the  immune system.

John read out a letter to the editor of the Sunday Independent, written by John Fitzgerald of Callan, Co. Kilkenny condemning fox hunting.

Finally, it was noted that the sharp increase in jellyfish numbers appears to indicate significant ocean warming.

Presenter: John Haughton

Panellists Joe Dunne and Robert Miller