Eastern airs
On Private Passions this week the writer Amitav Ghosh gave us a refreshingly different version of what has become a…
Loose women
Late Night Woman’s Hour has created a Twitter storm with its twice-weekly (Thursdays and Fridays) doses of ‘mischievous and unbridled…
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…
Words on war
It’s really hard to imagine now a world before 24-hour news, continually and constantly accessible in a never-ending stream of…
Selective memory
It’s 70 years since the bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and yet there has been no rush to…
Matters of life and death
‘Bait by Cartier,’ she growls as her priceless diamond bracelet is strapped to a piece of rope and dropped overboard…
Space case
The idea that Radio 2 should be sold off by the BBC to a commercial rival is as nonsensical as…
Tax return
Make no mistake: the Proms, whose 2015 season was launched last night, would not, could not, exist without the BBC,…
Caught offside
It’s not surprising that politicians have such an on-off relationship with the broadcast media. One slip. One casual comment. One…
Anniversary fatigue
There’s a part of me that thinks OK, we’ve heard enough now, one year on from the beginning of the…
Sea sound
It’s often not visual images that stimulate memory but a smell, a taste, the sound of pebbles crashing on to…
Evan sent
Evan Davis’s series on business life, The Bottom Line (made in conjunction with the Open University), has become one of…
There will be blood
If you’re in the least bit squeamish you’d better stop reading now. What follows is not for those who blanch…
Dr Johnson in Tahrir Square
Goodness knows what the Great Cham would have made of Radio 4 airing an adapted version of his philosophical fable,…
Object lesson
The idea of using objects — salt, cod, nutmeg, silk — to turn history lessons into something popular and accessible…
The lives of others
‘I call Zelma Cacik who may be living in London,’ says the announcer, in the clipped RP accent of the…
Home and away
An extraordinary black-and-white photograph of a young black boy taken on the Isle of Wight by Julia Margaret Cameron in…
Presence of mind
‘It’s hard to know how to tell this story,’ she said as she began. ‘Because it’s so loaded. It’s so…
Three cheers
The new controller of Radio Three, Alan Davey, was on Feedback this week (Radio Four) talking to listeners about his…
I, Bette Davis
It was called Frankly Speaking and by golly it was. The great screen actress Bette Davis was being interviewed by…
Keeping the faith
There was no shortage of Easter music and talks across the BBC networks with a sunrise service on Radio 4…
Recorded delivery
‘You can hear pretty clearly the sound of one of the helicopters and you can see it in the darkness,’…
Serial success
To a debate on the future of radio at the BBC where it turns out not to be a discussion…
Talking books
If ever I found myself at a pretentious literary party obliged to play David Lodge’s ‘Humiliation’ game and to confess…
