Radio 4
Talking books
If ever I found myself at a pretentious literary party obliged to play David Lodge’s ‘Humiliation’ game and to confess…
Dream team
The aching hum of crickets. The susurrus of reeds. The lapping of waves. The unmistakable noise of a sound technician…
There will be blood
LBC likes to tell us it’s ‘Leading Britain’s Conversation’, though in the case of weekday pre-lunch presenter James O’Brien you’ll…
Ways of seeing
Perhaps the news that Radio 5 live will be the only BBC station (under the new broadcasting rights agreements) to…
Ebola shakes
By some quirk of fate, just as news reached the papers that the Scottish nurse who had contracted Ebola while…
Transported by Tolstoy
To have listened to Radio 4’s marathon ten-hour adaptation of Tolstoy’s War and Peace as it was being broadcast on…
From Ted to Troy
How many digital radios have you bought over the years? How many are still working? Of the four I used…
Filling in the blanks
‘So — take heart,’ said Alan Bennett, sending us out from his play, Cocktail Sticks, on a cheery note. The…
Parenting
‘Not still War and Peace!’ exclaimed my husband on 1 January during the all-day Tolstoy splurge on Radio 4. In reality…
All together now
It was a bit of a surprise to hear Jarvis Cocker, the embodiment of cool and former frontman of Pulp,…
A dose of good sense
Each year the Reith Lectures come round as Radio 4’s annual assertion of intellectual authority, fulfilling the BBC’s original aspiration…
Sister act
She was the sequinned star of the airwaves back in the 1920s, the first preacher to realise the potential of…
Still life
You might think it a fool’s errand to attempt programmes about art on the wireless. How can you talk about…
Object lessons
What Radio 3 needs is a musical version of Neil MacGregor. The director of the British Museum and now a…
Girl power
It was when she said how she loved ‘watching the computer do exactly what you wanted it to do’ that…
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…
In sickness and in health
Last week on Front Row (Radio 4) the singer Joyce DiDonato recalled the advice she gave the new graduates of…
Low life
Music of the Forest on Radio 4 last week was a profile of the anthropologist Colin Turnbull, 1924–1994, who achieved…
Sight and sound
A strange coincidence on Saturday night to come back from the cinema, having seen a film about a woman fighting…
Oh! Carol
‘Isn’t that charming!’ Carol declares at the height of the great Home Farm cocktail party, after being subjected to Jennifer’s…
Tread carefully: your garden’s saturated with race
Is your life saturated with racial meaning? The most common answer to this question, when I ask friends and acquaintances,…
A broadcaster’s notebook
I usually spend most of the week at home in South Devon in front of my computer. But for the…
Bedtime stories
There I was trapped in the bathroom at 10.55 p.m., unable to leave for fear of missing anything. The time…
Ukip isn’t a national party. It’s a Tory sickness
It can happen that something ought to feel wrong yet somehow doesn’t; and you wonder whether this means that in…
The 5 Live effect
It’s amazing to think that it’s 20 years since the launch of Radio 5 Live. But it was bright and…
