Passage to India
After a month cooped up in a Scottish castle, no internet, no TV, and no radio, watching hectic snowflakes billowing…
Ways of seeing
Perhaps the news that Radio 5 live will be the only BBC station (under the new broadcasting rights agreements) to…
Arab spring
Last weekend BBC Arabic celebrated 77 years since John Reith (as he then was) launched the first foreign-language service of…
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…
Serial killer
The fuss may now be over, the last episode of Serial revealed. But if the global success of WBEZ Chicago’s…
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…
India’s sacrifice
At six o’clock on 31 May 1916, an Indian soldier who had been captured on the Western Front alongside British…
Object lessons
What Radio 3 needs is a musical version of Neil MacGregor. The director of the British Museum and now a…
Voices of the world
‘Don’t take it for granted,’ she warned. ‘It’s one of the few places where you can hear diverse voices, different…
Girl power
It was when she said how she loved ‘watching the computer do exactly what you wanted it to do’ that…
Radio Three-fall
The new controller of Radio 3 has at last been appointed. Alan Davey (not to be confused with the former…
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…
Toenails and tadpoles
‘I don’t know what I think,’ says Lenny Henry, echoing what many of us who were listening were probably also…
Sight and sound
A strange coincidence on Saturday night to come back from the cinema, having seen a film about a woman fighting…
Nursing on the front line
It’s the tub of bright red geraniums at the heart of the picture that startles. How did anyone have time…
Out of this world
I’m willing to bet it’s only on the BBC’s Radio 3 that you’ll find yourself listening to a programme quite…
Oh! Carol
‘Isn’t that charming!’ Carol declares at the height of the great Home Farm cocktail party, after being subjected to Jennifer’s…
Six appeal
It’s happened almost by stealth but the number of listeners to 6 Music has now overtaken Radio 3, creeping up…
