BBC Radio 4
Radio’s role in winning the Cold War
Some of us grew up worrying about reds under the bed, which was perhaps not as foolish as all that…
Is forgetting a modern disease?
If you were to ask me by the end of the week what I had written about in this column…
The secret to one of the nerdiest – and longest-running – quizzes around
Last year was a bit of a year for Radio 4 anniversaries; maybe most notably, Desert Island Discs celebrated 70…
Nothing about Radio 4’s Across the Red Line suggested it would be as riveting as it was
On paper and on air, there’s nothing to suggest that the Radio 4 series Across the Red Line will have…
What Rwanda can teach us about gender equality
What an incredible statement we heard on My Perfect Country. ‘I can walk into a boardroom and forget I am…
Podcasts have a long way to go to catch up with radio
It’s racing up the UK podcast charts, overtaking (as I write) the established favourites such as No Such Thing as…
Radio 3 offers a refreshing antidote to the current conversations about Europe
The season of Advent, for most children, means anticipation, gleeful waiting, the counting down of days. But after a certain…
What it feels like to hold a heart
It’s been heart week on Radio 4, celebrating the anniversary of the first ‘successful’ heart transplant in 1967, which was…
Why local radio is thriving
It’s 50 years since the first local radio stations were launched by the BBC in yet another instance of the…
I never understood the appeal of Ken Dodd
It’s always odd to hear a familiar voice on a different programme, playing an alternative role. They never sound quite…
Why talking about death is a essential part of living
Mandy was 38 when she was told she was ‘in the end stage’, suffering from COPD and finding it more…
The ties that bound us
Only Neil MacGregor could do it — take us in a single thread from a blackened copper coin, about the…
Faulty connection
There’s no doubting her passion for the programme of which she is now chief of staff. Talking to Roger Bolton…
Woman of a thousand voices
‘On air, I could be the most glamorous, gorgeous, tall, black-haired female… Whatever I wanted to be, I could be……
Diary
Next month, the Today programme marks its 60th anniversary, so I have been mugging up on the archives. If there…
Face time
The inimitably pukka voice of Jacob Rees-Mogg echoed through Radio 4 on Thursday morning. He was not, though, talking about…
India in a day
Bold programming by the powers-that-be at Radio 4 meant it was possible to listen to all seven episodes of Ayeesha…
Could a change of body language make a difference to American policing?
One of the most shocking items of recent news has been the bald statistic that the number of people shot…
We’re not more genderfluid now. We’re just duller about it
Sex has always been less binary than it looks – but we’ve never been this boring about it
Gyles Brandeth's diary: The pub where the Queen came in by the fire escape
Hard on the heels of the 90th birthday of Nicholas Parsons (10 October) comes the 65th birthday of the Prince…
