How to live off the land for a year
Could you live off the land for a year without buying a single thing to eat? This was the challenge…
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…
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…
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…
The illiterate poet who produced the world’s greatest epic
With its carefully calibrated sense of time, the Iliad is clearly the work of a single man and not a ‘rolling snowball’ of different contributions, argues Robin Lane Fox
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
Blue monkeys, bull-leaping and child sacrifice: why were the Minoans so weird?
Daisy Dunn on the mysterious Minoans
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.…
Butchered to make a Roman holiday: cruelty to animals in and out of the Colosseum
Brutality might be expected of a people who fed each other to lions – but it extended even to the elephants the Romans regarded as soulmates
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 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…
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…
The genius of More or Less
In a week of slim audio pickings, I spent time reacquainting myself with some of the BBC classics and can…
When Lee Miller met Picasso
During the liberation of Paris in August 1944, the photographer Lee Miller made her way to Picasso’s studio on rue…
The curse of Medusa: Stone Blind, by Natalie Haynes, reviewed
Natalie Haynes has been compared with Mary Renault, the historical novelist who scandalised readers in the 1950s with her unflinching…
Emily Maitlis tries too hard not to be teachery on her new podcast
The competition between news-led podcasts is nearing boiling point. If you tuned in to The Media Show on Radio 4…
