BBC
How to talk to astronauts
Television has the pictures but the most spine-tingling moments in the recordings from the Apollo space missions are the bursts…
I admit it: I enjoyed the Women’s World Cup
I was asked on to the BBC Today programme — my old manor — last week to talk about the…
Kanye wipes the floor with David Letterman
My plan to cut the BBC out of my life entirely is working well. Apart from the occasional forgivable lapse…
Jonathan Dimbleby is right: we need to rise up and defend the BBC
There’s been a Dimbleby on air since before I was born but last Friday saw the end of that era…
Nice men make terrible leaders
The Duke of Marlborough gave a toast last week that brought the house down during a Turning Point dinner for…
Diversity’s valued — unless it’s diversity of opinion
The BBC has advised its journalists not to use the word ‘terror’ or ‘terrorist’ when some bloke blows himself up…
What would you do if you were a Syrian migrant?
‘Put yourself in their shoes,’ says Zahra Mackaoui, a British-Lebanese journalist who has been following the stories of refugees from…
Sunday night on the Beeb was an orgy of virtue-signalling and third-rate sport
After its new costume drama You Go, Girl! (Sundays) about how amazing, empowered and better-than-men women are, especially if they…
Are the ‘village idiots’ right about Brexit?
The former BBC presenter Gavin Esler has very kindly given us an insight into how BBC people think (had we…
The UN’s extinction warning doesn’t add up
Anyone watching the BBC’s News at Ten on Monday would have been surprised to learn that economic growth poses a…
Why do we still use the Qwerty keyboard layout and not Dvorak?
‘Can you fly down this evening?’ she was asked by her boss in the Delhi office of the BBC. ‘Yes,…
Why was Something Understood cut?
It was never given the choicest slot in the schedule, airing first thing on Sunday morning with a repeat at…
Why has Frankie Boyle gone so soft?
‘I spend a lot of time helping teenagers who’ve been sexually abused…’ — beat — ‘…find their way out of…
The transgender agenda could topple intersectionality
It is a great disappointment to me that my phrases don’t get picked up by other writers and then society…
If you liked Triumph of the Will, you’ll love Our Planet
If you liked Triumph of the Will, you’ll love this latest masterpiece of the genre: Our Planet. The Netflix nature…
The man who changed the sound of radio
He is said to ‘have changed the sound of speech radio’, not just by giving voice to those who until…
Art is often best experienced on the radio
At its best audio can be a much more visual medium than the screen. Making Art with Frances Morris (produced…
Listening to plays in a foreign language is a weirdly engaging experience
As the ravens circle around Broadcasting House in London’s West End, presaging difficult times ahead for BBC Radio, with less…
Is the increasing secularisation of funerals a good thing?
‘You’re thinking these girls all wrong,’ Miss Mai tells Enid in Winsome Pinnock’s play Leave Taking, adapted from the recent…
I always come away more confused after listening to Moral Maze
Is it me or are we now faced (or perhaps I should say fazed?) much more often by stories in…
Why wasn’t Poetry Please in the Radio Times’s top 30 greatest radio shows of all time?
With the upsurge of listeners to Classic FM (now boasted to be 5.6 million listeners each week) and the imminent…
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My diversity targets for the BBC
Terrible news for gay broadcasters — the BBC has only one year to meet a diversity target which says that…
The attempt to bring back topicality to Ambridge has been far too effective
It’s becoming clear that the travails afflicting all the major players in The Archers, Radio 4’s flagship drama, are intended…
Why Gomorrah could never have been made by the BBC
Boy often likes to rebuke me for having impossibly high standards when it comes to TV. ‘Why can’t you just…
In defence of Fiona Bruce
Will I be allowed to take my dog to Europe after 29 March? A trivial question, you might think, in…
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