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The text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

Lisa Mullins: There’s a one man show at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland that’s perfect if you’ve got money to burn. Actually that is if you’ve got money to shred. The one man in the one man show is Gary McNair and at one point he suggests that members of the audience put their cash into a shredder. Now Gary McNair, why would you do that?

Gary McNair: Well, the whole idea behind the show is to look at money as a belief system. Money seems to be the sort of regular constant in our lives that fluctuates so much in value in meaning and importance and the show sets out for us as individuals to question our relationship to money.

Mullins: So it’s a good philosophy but I have to say so far Gary you haven’t convinced me that I should put my cash into a shredder. What’s your pitch?

McNair: I have a £10 note on me which I invite somebody to shred, and at that point after somebody has shredded my money there’s a cheer and there’s a sort of good feeling around the room. It’s at that point that I then put the challenge out and at that point I would say something like, Now, you’ve done such great work today brothers and sisters I’m really proud of you. In every way you’ve stepped up to the challenges and I want to thank you for being so responsive. I want to offer you all the final chance to understand the value in yourself. So tell me, does anyone here have any of their own money they’d like to put in this shredder?  Now don’t answer just yet. Instead I’d like you think about it.

Mullins: I’m thinking.

McNair: I’ll give you a second to think about it.

Mullins: Still thinking.

McNair: Good, let’s say, what if we had another crisis and our governments couldn’t bail us out? What if our money became worthless and we had to resort to another system of exchange. Set yourself free now and you’ll be ahead of the game. While everyone else is still scrambling around in the dirt looking for the last pennies you’ll be prepared. You’ll know that this is just a part of our history and that we as human beings will do what we do best and adapt. So then brothers and sisters, who’s going to come up here and show us how?  As a nice little bonus for the people who come up I give them their shredded note away as a reminder of what they’ve achieved and to remind themselves that greed may never darken their door ever again.

Mullins: I don’t know how many Americans come to this but you know technically here in the US it’s illegal to burn bank notes or to destroy them, is it okay to do it there?

McNair: Yes it’s legal. Strangely it’s not legal to deface them but it’s legal to destroy them. We’ve had many phone calls with the Bank of England. I can’t say they understand but…

Mullins: So no mustaches on the Queen but you can shred the note?

McNair: Yes.

Mullins: What percentage of your audience actually ponies up, gets its money shredded?

McNair: The first night there was five people and last night, the second night, there was four of an audience of about seventy/eighty which seems quite small as a ratio but it’s enough to sort of create that moment for the rest of the audience and there’s very much an idea that you’re no better or worse if you do it or don’t. The idea is that it becomes a moment that people can either react to or experience for themselves and they can experience it whether by doing it or witnessing it and all the while helping you hopefully question your relationship to money.

Mullins:  Gary McNair, good luck in your one man show at the Forest Fringe this is part of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and your show runs through just about the end of August, right?

McNair: Yep, ’till the 27th.

Mullins: Okay, may you keep the shredder running. Thank you Gary.

McNair: Thank you very much Lisa.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

The action is set in Philadelphia, PA, but that’s not where they’re filming for the next couple of weeks. The city we’re looking for isn’t in the United States.

It’s in the United Kingdom. This city has the third largest population in Britain. It also has wide roads and is laid out on a grid pattern – one of the reasons it was chosen to double for Philadelphia.

One more clue: this city is in Scotland.

And the answer is Glasgow!

Lisa Mullins talks with Liam Finn, who works in a restaurant in Glasgow, where some of the streets are now being transformed into Philadelphia for the zombie flick.

Photo quiz: spot the difference between Glasgow and Philadelphia

Cochrane Street (Photo: @glasgowcc)

Watch the Snow Leopard in action:

• Ghana Ski Team

Read the Transcript
This text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

MARCO WERMAN: This is The World. I’m Marco Werman. Every time the Olympic Games roll around there’s usually one or two competitors who are just a bit surprising – fish out of water. Take the famous Jamaican bobsled team who took part in the 1988 winter Olympics in Calgary. Well the next winter games get underway 101 days from now in Vancouver and there will be another unusual participant but he won’t be there just to make up the numbers as The World’s Alex Gallafent reports.

ALEX GALLAFENT: Kwame Nkrumah-Acheampong is a slalom skier. He happens to be from Ghana. Not a lot of snow there. But he happens to love throwing himself down snow-covered mountains at high speed.

KWAME NKRUMAH-ACHEAMPONG: Unless you’ve been at the top of a giant slalom or super [PH] G course looking down and looking at the slick slope, all the gates, and everybody looking in your face, waiting to see what you can do, it’s really hard to understand why people go into ski races when they know they can break their legs, their necks, their back. It’s just a wonderful sport.

GALLAFENT: And Acheampong is good at it. He’s just qualified to represent Ghana at next year’s Olympics – the country’s first representative at the winter games. Oh and he only started skiing six years ago.

ACHEAMPONG: I got a job at the indoor ski center, picked up a pair of snowblades and had a go.

GALLAFENT: That indoor ski center was in the UK, the country where Kwame Nkrumah-Acheampong lives today. He’d left Ghana to pursue a master’s degree in tourism management but school was expensive. He had to get a job. Working as a receptionist at a sport’s center seemed a good fit. Free indoor skiing was a bonus.

ACHEAMPONG: I just did it for the fun of doing it. [INDISCERNIBLE] every staff member who worked there. So I just had a go. And it’s kind of snowballed and I find myself heading to Vancouver.

EDDIE EDWARDS: I just think he should go there and enjoy every minute of it.

GALLAFENT: That’s Eddie Edwards also in the UK. Over two decades ago he captured the world’s attention at the Calgary games. Eddie Edwards was known as the Eagle. In regular life Edwards worked as a plasterer. He still does in fact. But at the Olympics his quixotic mission was to excel at the ski jump. He didn’t. Eddie the Eagle Edwards was depending on your perspective a hero of amateurs everywhere of simply the worst ski jumper ever to appear at the Olympics.

EDWARDS: There were those who thought this is great and that was exemplifying the whole Olympic spirit. And there were those who felt I wasn’t an athlete and shouldn’t have been there.

GALLAFENT: Eddie Edwards expects Kwame Nkrumah Acheampong will get the same kinds of reaction in Vancouver.

EDWARDS: I think he knows and everybody else knows that I don’t think he’s going to win a medal or go even close. But he should go out there and enjoy the whole experience of being in the Olympics and do the best he can. That’s all everybody can expect of him and just enjoy it really.

GALLAFENT: But hold on says the Ghanaian skier who has a nickname of his own – the snow leopard.

ACHEAMPONG: I think Eddie the Eagle let the whole fun side of what he was doing take over you know what he was trying to achieve and instead of being looked upon as a professional sports person he became a joke.

GALLAFENT: Ouch. The snow leopard isn’t messing around here. When he has the funding he trains in the Italian Alps and he’s far from the worst Olympic level skier around. Still Kwame Nkrumah Acheampong is realistic about his Olympic chances.

ACHEAMPONG: I can’t win the races I go into. [INDISCERNIBLE] tough. So skiing is a sport which just has an endless challenge for me. And I don’t want to look at the final table of athletes and see myself at the bottom. I’d want at least five other athletes to be behind me.

GALLAFENT: You wouldn’t bet against him. For The World I’m Alex Gallafent.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.

Read the Transcript
This text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

LISA MULLINS:  I’m Lisa Mullins, and this is The World.

[SOUND CLIP FROM THE LIFE OF BRIAN MOVIE]

LISA MULLINS:  Nope, this is a story about that movie. Monty Python’s Life of Brian was released 30 years ago, but not in some cities, among them, Glasgow. The wise men in the Scottish city considered the film blasphemous, what with its story about a Jewish man who was mistaken for the Messiah. But the prayers of Monty Python fans have now been answered. Councilors in Glasgow have ended the ban. Liz Cameron sits on the council, and on the board of the local independent movie house. She’s been wanting to show the film since the movie came out back in 1979.

LIZ CAMERON:  I was a young woman in the city at the time, and I remember being pretty well upset, not simply because I wanted to see the Life of Brian, as I’m a big fan of Monty Python, but also because our city’s a great city and it’s a very cultured city. And it’s actually made its way in postindustrial times as being a culture to the center, and I couldn’t understand why we would damage our reputation in this way. However, that was the case. And in fact, no one has asked for that ban to be lifted, until this year.

LISA MULLINS:  Liz, what does it matter if the Life of Brian has been banned or not, or the ban is lifted? Especially since it’s shown on TV and DVD?

LIZ CAMERON:  I think there’s a lot to be gained from sitting in a cinema and watching a fabulous movie. I think particularly a fabulously funny movie. It’s the ambience in the atmosphere that’s created by that. It’s actually different from, yes, the great buzz you get when you put on your DVD, and when you put on your tele. That’s great, and I’m a great movie watcher on tele as well, but there’s nothing like watching a movie in the cinema. And that’s why we in the city, both on the council, and myself as Chief of the film feature, are so weighted to the idea of cinema being important. Sitting with everybody being matey, and everybody loving the movie is just quite spectacular. It’s like listening to an orchestral concert in an audience, rather than just at home.

LISA MULLINS:  Excellent. Liz, what’s your favorite line from the film?

LIZ CAMERON:  [LAUGHS] Well, I think it’s got to be, “He’s not the messiah, he’s just a very naughty boy.” But I do love, “Always look on the bright side of life.” Because, when you’re in public life here, and every town, I think in every country in the world these days, in the middle of organization, it’s sometimes difficult to think of something that makes you laugh, and makes you sing. Well, “Always look on the bright side of life.” It’s fantastic, and I’ll stick with that one.

LISA MULLINS:  Okay. Liz Cameron, councilor in Glasgow, and also chair of the Glasgow Film Theater talking about the ban that has been lifted in Glasgow on the 1979 film, Life of Brian, which is gonna be showing at your theater in September. Thank you very much.

LIZ CAMERON:  Thank you Lisa.

[SOUND CLIP FROM THE LIFE OF BRIAN MOVIE]

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.