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Listening to Trees A Crowd, a podcast exploring the ‘56(ish) native trees of the British Isles’, solved one of childhood’s…
Miliband’s last supper
You have to hand it to Ed Miliband. After bacon sandwich-gate, he might never have eaten in public again, but…
Title deeds
The best thing on the radio last week was, without question, Kind Hearts and Coronets. You may have missed it…
Bring me my spear
Manet’s ‘Botte d’asperges’ are probably the most famous asparagus in the world. The artist painted the delicious white- and lilac-tinged…
Inside stories
Prison-based podcast Banged Up, now in its second series, is far more uplifting — and less soapy — than its…
Sins of the father
I’d forgotten what a rich and deep and characterful voice John le Carré had. Listening to author and lawyer Philippe…
Barack and the Boss
Barack Obama wants the world to know how much he loves singing. In his new podcast, which takes the form…
From Downton to Dudley
The Duchess of Rutland, Emma Manners (née Watkins), grew up on a farm in the Welsh Borders before becoming proprietress…
Englishness vs California dreaming
On Archewell Audio, Harry and Meghan’s new podcast, ‘love wins’, ‘change really is possible’, and ‘the courage and the creativity…
Merry blooming Christmas
No one captures better than Raymond Briggs the ambivalence that many of us feel towards the festive season, says Daisy Dunn
Spotted dick and custard
I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue has just been voted the greatest radio comedy of all time by Radio Times,…
Lamb to the slaughter
The Slightly Foxed podcast, like the quarterly and old bookshop of the same name, is almost muskily lovely. It’s the…
Partridge on the menu
In the week Jenni Murray left Woman’s Hour, I was listening to Alan Partridge on his new podcast, From the…
Peake practice
Mervyn Peake’s unsettling illustrations reveal a gentle, kindly man with the soul of a pirate, says Daisy Dunn
The art of the monologue
If you’ve been listening to The Archers lately, you’ll know how tedious monologues can be. The BBC has received so…
Viva la vulva!
I spent half an hour this week listening to a woman make a plaster cast of her vulva. Kat Harbourne,…
Corona-gardening
The American diet was probably at its healthiest in the second world war. Fearing interruption to supply chains, Washington launched…
Gnarly men and pretty boys
If you study History of Art, people generally assume you’re a nice, conscientious, plummy-voiced girl. Sometimes, people are right. It…
The wonder of Wodehouse
Everyone knows a Lord Emsworth. Mine lives south of the river and wears caterpillars in his hair and wine on…
Hogsflesh and herring
Wilhelm Nero Pilate Barbellion, real name Bruce Frederick Cummings, earned his living measuring the legs of lice in the Natural…
Watcher of the skies – and the coffee pot
‘To be recognised and accepted by a peregrine,’ wrote J.A. Baker in 1967, ‘you must wear the same clothes, travel…
Inside stories
Nicolaes Maes (1634–93) relished the simple moments of daily life during the Dutch Golden Age. A woman peeling parsnips over…
And did those feet
Writers like walking. When people ask us why, we say it’s what writers do. ‘Just popping out to buy a…
What really happened at Troy?
Heinrich Schliemann had always hoped he’d find Homer’s Troy. Although he had no archaeological background to speak of, he did…
Did Radio 2 really need to give us four days of the Beatles to celebrate Abbey Road?
This Changeling Self, Radio 4’s lead drama this week, clearly ought to have gone out in August. It’s set —…
