Radio
A Radio 3 doc that contains some of the best insults I’ve ever heard
A recent Sunday Feature on Radio 3 contained some of the best insults I have ever heard. Contributors to the…
What happened to the supermodels of the 1990s?
‘What advice would you give to your younger self?’ has become a popular question in interviews in recent years. It’s…
Enjoyable and informative but where’s the drama? Political Currency reviewed
The first episode of George Osborne and Ed Balls’s new podcast, Political Currency, opened with an old clip of the…
You’ll have a lump in your throat: BBC Radio 4’s Four Sides of Seamus Heaney reviewed
It’s now been ten years since Seamus Heaney died, and after a great poet’s death it’s natural, I suppose, that…
The rise of vampirism in Silicon Valley
The Immortals, which begins on Radio 4 this week, is not for the faint-hearted. While it professes to be about…
Beautiful and illuminating: Radio 4’s the Venice Conundrum reviewed
The playwright Carlo Gozzi marvelled at ‘The spectacle of women turned into men, men turned into women, and both men…
The stuff of nightmares: Retrievals podcast reviewed
It is the stuff of nightmares, or a queasily dystopian film plot. A woman is undergoing a surgical procedure in…
A comedy double act from John Cleese and Justin Welby: the Archbishop Interviews reviewed
I’m listening to John Cleese talking to Justin Welby in the new series of The Archbishop Interviews when the thought…
Gripping and admirable: BBC Radio 4’s Fever: The Hunt for Covid’s Origins reviewed
It’s the whodunnit – or whatdunnit – that has kept scientists, politicians, journalists and armchair sleuths speculating ever since the…
Perfect radio for a nation of grumblers: Radio 4’s Room 101 with Paul Merton reviewed
Welcome back to Room 101, which has returned to the radio – after nearly 30 years on TV – and…
Looking for a male role model? Check out the silverback gorilla
One so often hears about famous people who are horrible when they think no one important is looking – barking…
Prayer for the Day is the best thing to wake up to
As the owner of a radio alarm clock, I could theoretically start listening to the Today programme before I’m even…
How productive is it to listen to productivity gurus?
I was making my way slowly through one of my dismally prosaic little to-do lists – ‘pay the water bill’…
Crossing Continents is the best of the BBC
Ask a member of Generation Z where in the world they would most like to live, and chances are they…
In praise of From Our Own Correspondent
Most of us are familiar with the notion of writer’s block, that paralysis of invention induced by the appalling sight…
Is the BBC World Service superfluous or a vital adjunct of British diplomacy?
Is the World Service superfluous, or a vital adjunct of British diplomacy, wonders Oscar Edmondson
A short introduction to the philosophy of Moomin
One of the lesser-known schools of modern philosophy is the Philosophy of Moomin. Like Cynicism or Epicureanism, it is difficult…
What’s the difference between Shamima Begum and Unity Mitford?
The debate sparked by Josh Baker’s BBC podcast on Shamima Begum, and her teenage flight to join Isis, has divided…
What a voice Plath had – stern yet somehow musical, long-vowelled, bear-like: Radio 4’s My Sylvia Plath reviewed
Can you ever truly know a poet? The question arises every time one publishes a collection that looks vaguely confessional.…
His dark materials
Radio works its strongest magic, I always think, when you listen to it in the dark. The most reliable example…
Is Matthew Parris the modern Plutarch? Radio 4’s Great Lives reviewed
Whenever I listen to Great Lives on Radio 4, which is often, I am reminded of the gulf between fame…
An all too brisk and too narrow history of eugenics: Radio 4’s Bad Blood reviewed
Like so many of history’s great catastrophes, the story begins with an eccentric Victorian Englishman. Francis Galton was a maker…
An author speaks out against social censorship: The Reith Lectures reviewed
‘The Age of Anxiety’, W. H. Auden’s book-length poem, has always been described as strange, and difficult. It is an…
The extraordinary case of Malcolm MacArthur
Non-fiction tells you what happened, fiction affirms the kinds of things that happen. According to Aristotle, anyway. So while journalism…
Manet’s Mona Lisa: Radio 4’s Moving Pictures reviewed
Elizabeth the First is a ten-part American podcast series that isn’t about Elizabeth I at all. The assumption of its…
