Top YouTube picks from Terence

Of course you will already know that YouTube offers an endless resource of education and diversion, and here are a couple of things I’ve watched that I can recommend unreservedly.

My favourite singer, Billie Holiday, is the subject of a stunningly well-made television documentary first aired in 1984, The Long Night of Lady Day. This really is in a class of its own – a vast cut above the lurid journalism and gruesome biopics which claim to tell the story of her troubled life. People who knew Billie Holiday well, loved her, and had her measure as an artist were interviewed during the early 1980s – what a cast of characters they were! And how honest and moving their testimony! In tracing this portrait of a damaged, phenomenally gifted human being, the documentary’s makers seem to get it just right.

The Long Night of Lady Day

I appreciate all David Attenborough’s nature documentaries, but the most enthralling would have to be a two-part opus called First Life — an epic tale narrated with utmost concision and clarity and with Attenborough’s famous charm. Both parts of this amazing masterpiece are free to air.

First Life, Part 1

First Life, Part 2

If you may need to lighten up a bit, you can check out an old British comedy classic:

Monty Python Yorkshiremen sketch