pre-Edison sound recording

I heard about this on radio 4 this morning - 17 years before Edison's phonograph, Parisian inventor Edouard-Leon Scott de Martinville had made a recording of Clair de Lune - but I managed to miss Charlotte Green's subsequent fit of giggles:

According to the Daily Mail:

Green's stern but smooth news-reading voice has become an article of faith for many traditionalists who listen to her bulletins on Radio 4's Today programme.

However:

Scott de Martinville's invention was useful for the scientific investigation of sound waves but could not play back its recordings - unlike Thomas Edison's 1877 phonograph.

But while the 10 second track played, it is claimed someone in the studio told her that the noise sounded like a bee buzzing in a bottle.

After this, her famously unswerving composure evaporated into a mixture of giggling, wheezing and what sounded like weeping as she tried to carry on.

Repeated attempts to resume her news-reading were aborted in new fits of laughter, as listeners at home were left open-mouthed by the bizarre antics.

Thankfully:

Today programme editor Ceri Thomas yesterday defended the news-reader's behaviour.

He said: "We had hundreds of emails coming in about it. Now inevitably there were a couple that didn't think it was great but 98 per cent of people thought it was the highlight of their morning. I am not going to encourage it every day, but these things happen, it's live.

"She's a professional, she knows she is not there to giggle. But that noise was wonderfully ridiculous and I suspect a lot of people in the same position would have done the same.

Click here for the BBC version of things and an audio of Ms Green's giggles.