Radio 3
Chance encounters
Some might say that Jeremy Corbyn is cloth-eared, tone-deaf, socially inept but on Monday morning, as the death of the…
There will be blood
It was a stroke of genius to invite Glenda Jackson to make her return to acting as the star of…
You can’t forget what Will Self says – even if you wish you could
It lasted for just a few seconds but was such a graphic illustration of the statistics behind the bombing campaign…
Bach breaking
It’s just not what you expect to hear on Radio 3 but I happened upon Music Matters on Saturday morning…
National Poetry Day broke the key rule of poetry readings: never let normal people do the reading
Imagine what Brennig Davies must have felt like just before 11 o’clock last Tuesday evening. The 15-year-old was about to…
Special effects
Maybe what we love about radio is the way that most of its programming allows us the luxury of staying…
The BBC’s music man
To Radio 2 to meet Bob Shennan, controller of the BBC’s most popular radio station (the station attracts one third…
Summer listening
Just back from a few nights in Sweden to find the perfect programme on Radio 3. It was one of…
Selective memory
It’s 70 years since the bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and yet there has been no rush to…
Tax return
Make no mistake: the Proms, whose 2015 season was launched last night, would not, could not, exist without the BBC,…
Talking books
If ever I found myself at a pretentious literary party obliged to play David Lodge’s ‘Humiliation’ game and to confess…
Sister act
She was the sequinned star of the airwaves back in the 1920s, the first preacher to realise the potential of…
Signs of contempt
Why do we ruin beautiful places to make them appeal to those who’ll never visit anyway?
Object lessons
What Radio 3 needs is a musical version of Neil MacGregor. The director of the British Museum and now a…
Radio Three-fall
The new controller of Radio 3 has at last been appointed. Alan Davey (not to be confused with the former…
Battle of the bookworms
‘Did you find it a good read?’ asked Harrriett Gilbert. An incredibly long drawn-out sigh from Mr Paxman. ‘I think…
Six appeal
It’s happened almost by stealth but the number of listeners to 6 Music has now overtaken Radio 3, creeping up…
Walk on the wild side
After a walk in Richmond Park beset by rush-hour traffic, the Heathrow flight path and a strange swarm of flying…
Steeling the show
Visitors to Chatsworth House this spring might wonder if they have stumbled through the looking-glass. The estate’s rolling parkland has…
Landscapes of sound
When the BBC proposed to do away with 6 Music a few years ago, the media-savvy fans of the station…
The Spectator’s Notes
The accusation that the Tories have been installing their people in public appointments should evoke only a hollow laugh. They…
The Third way
When my colleague Charles Moore first began accusing Radio 3 of becoming ‘babyish’, and talking down to us as if…
The Spectator’s Notes
When I interviewed Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, the former president of France, for my biography of Margaret Thatcher, I asked him…
The Spectator’s Notes
Who owns Scotland? The people who most commonly ask this question believe that the land has been wrested from ordinary…
The genius of Gluck
This is the first of my more-or-less monthly columns, the idea of which is to report on operatic events other…
