Link to podcast--can be listened to online, no need for special technology if you have speakers on your computer:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/r4choice/
Flexible Friend or Foe
Fri, 5 Feb 10
Duration:
57 mins
How did a little sliver of plastic take over the world? Journalist Max Flint explores the arrival of the credit card into British life and the huge role it plays today. The credit card was launched by Barclays in the UK in 1966. The Barclaycard was marketed at first as a 'shopping card', rather than a credit card, due to the British public's resistance to getting into debt. Barclaycard's first on-screen ad was targeted at women and featured the famous Barclaycard Bikini Girl who, oblivious to the shocked looks of passers-by, makes her way down a busy shopping street, wearing nothing but a lilac-coloured bikini with her Barclaycard in the bikini bottom. The Bikini Girl and subsequent marketing has now given rise to the biggest cause of personal bankruptcies in the UK. That first card is now accompanied by some 1,700 other credit cards in Britain alone, and we have the unenviable record as the world's most intensive credit card country, with 67 million cards for 59 million people.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/r4choice/
Flexible Friend or Foe
Fri, 5 Feb 10
Duration:
57 mins
How did a little sliver of plastic take over the world? Journalist Max Flint explores the arrival of the credit card into British life and the huge role it plays today. The credit card was launched by Barclays in the UK in 1966. The Barclaycard was marketed at first as a 'shopping card', rather than a credit card, due to the British public's resistance to getting into debt. Barclaycard's first on-screen ad was targeted at women and featured the famous Barclaycard Bikini Girl who, oblivious to the shocked looks of passers-by, makes her way down a busy shopping street, wearing nothing but a lilac-coloured bikini with her Barclaycard in the bikini bottom. The Bikini Girl and subsequent marketing has now given rise to the biggest cause of personal bankruptcies in the UK. That first card is now accompanied by some 1,700 other credit cards in Britain alone, and we have the unenviable record as the world's most intensive credit card country, with 67 million cards for 59 million people.