BBC Radio 4
This UFO testimony had me hooked
In October 1964, a young man was driving to a dance in Hamburg, Pennsylvania, when his radio began to pick…
We’ve been doing a monstrous disservice to goldfish
As everyone knows, Londoners don’t talk to strangers. And heaven forbid that anyone should make eye contact on the Tube.…
Do men and women need different podcasts?
Do men and women need different podcasts? The notion goes against the unisex, every-sex, what-is-sex-anyway culture we have come to…
The funniest current affairs show since Brass Eye: Into the Grey Zone reviewed
It was something a friend said to me about The Revenant, Leonardo diCaprio’s bloody-minded and brutal Oscar vehicle: ‘The problem…
Why do writers enjoy walking so much?
Writers like walking. When people ask us why, we say it’s what writers do. ‘Just popping out to buy a…
Radio 4's new H.P. Lovecraft adaptation will give you the chills
Of all the many things I’ve learned from the radio so far this decade, the most deranging is that the……
How podcasts have transformed radio
As if on cue, Lemn Sissay’s new series for Radio 4 tackles all those questions we would rather ignore in…
Why I love a bit of death on a Sunday night
There’s nothing like a nice bit of death on a Sunday evening. Radio 4 originally transmit their obituary programme Last…
Can giving voice to the horrors of the past re-traumatise?
It is 50 years since Ronald Blythe published Akenfield, his melancholy portrait of a Suffolk village on the cusp of…
Without Joe Grundy The Archers feels lost
There was something really creepy about listening to the ten-minute countryside podcast released last weekend by Radio 4 supposedly transporting…
Even Donald Trump is tweeting about Spectator USA
We’ve just launched the US edition of The Spectator and the reaction so far has been great. Americans can be…
Did Radio 2 really need to give us four days of the Beatles to celebrate Abbey Road?
This Changeling Self, Radio 4’s lead drama this week, clearly ought to have gone out in August. It’s set —…
Why 80 per cent of young people in this Macedonian town have turned to posting ‘fake news’
It’s such a relief to turn on the radio and hear the voice of Neil MacGregor. That reasoned authority, his…
The joys of Radio 4’s Word of Mouth
I first heard Lemn Sissay talking about his childhood experiences on Radio 4 in 2009. At that time he was…
Will you last beyond the madeleine? Radio 4’s In Search of Lost Time reviewed
The madeleine upon which Proust’s seven-volume epic In Search of Lost Time pivots makes its significant appearance after just 18…
The woman who wrote Afghanistan’s electoral laws lives on a houseboat in Bristol
By the age of eight Vaira Vike-Freiberga had learnt that life was both ‘very strange and very unfair’. Her baby…
An important story but not for the faint-hearted: Deadliest Day podcast reviewed
One of the advantages that podcasts have over the scheduled array of programmes is the space that can be given…
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…
What drives Emily Maitlis?
It can’t be easy to find yourself on the other end of the microphone when you’re a journalist of the…
What Mary Wollstonecraft writes about motherhood is still so relevant
Walking into Fingal’s Cave, after scrambling across the rocks to reach it from the landing stage where the boat from…
The extraordinary life of 104-year-old dancer Eileen Kramer
It’s not often you hear the voice of a 104-year-old on the radio. You’re even less likely to hear one…
Tweedy or Trainer: Which kind of Brexiteer are you?
‘Too tweedy? Goodness gracious me!’ Rory Stewart sounded startled. A contender for the Tory leadership, he was being interviewed by…
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,…
