Cabin Pressure, Winter Depression

We had comedy as well as (winter) depression on this week's show - the whole range of human emotions in one tidy package.

Shona Holmes wrote and recorded an episode of radio comedy Cabin Pressure for us as a tribute to the original series. If you're not familiar with Cabin Pressure, it is a BBC radio sitcom series written by John Finnemore. The show follows the exploits of the oddball crew of the single aeroplane owned by "MJN Air" as they are chartered to take all manner of items, people or animals across the world. Shona wrote a 13-minute episode called Cabin Pressure - Glasgow and recorded it right here in Basel. Listen to the episode again here.

Our guest today, Professor Anna Wirz-Justice, has invested a lot of her academic career into looking into chronobiology - that's the study of biological rhythms. When it's winter and the days are short and dark, some people are strongly affected by winter depression - or Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). This has long been an area of study at the Centre for Chronobiology in the Psychiatric Hospital of the University of Basel. Anna Wirz-Justice told us what you can do to treat SAD. Listen to the interview again here - and visit the non-profit CET website for more information.

Our music today was of course Christmas-themed:

Smith & Burrows - As The Snowflakes Fall

Yeah Yeah Yeahs - All I Want For Christmas

The Knife - Christmas Reindeer

Manic Street Preachers - The Ghost of Christmas

Run DMC - Christmas in Hollis

Train - Shake Up Christmas

Queen - Thank God It's Christmas

The whole English Show team wishes you a Merry Christmas!