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Jan 2025

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January 25, 20251 hr 7 min

Improving SimpleX

“Improving SimpleX w/ Evgeny from SimpleX and Daniel Keller from Flux” from Opt Out. Released: 0. Genre: Podcast.

January 25, 202541 min

The Patch – Gairloch – BBCR4

“Gairloch” from The Patch by BBCR4. Released: 2015. Genre: Spoken Word. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00268lk

May 30, 202449 min

How is life becoming “enshitified”?

There’s no sharper way to assess the state of life in the early 21st century than through a lens of “enshitification,” a term this week’s guest coined. It’s described as the slow and steady worsening of each and every bit of our daily existence, and as Cory Doctorow has argued, particularly as it pertains to the work of technology companies that have captured our attention, our dollars, or both. But some people have it worse than others. For instance, the incarcerated, on whom – as this week’s guest explores in his new novel – companies test and roll out strategies and technologies and a surveillance apparatus that is later used to exploit populations at large. So, just how is life becoming “enshitified?” and how can we make things better? On this 100th(!) episode of Open to Debate, David Moscrop talks with Cory Doctorow, best-selling science fiction author, activist, and journalist. His latest book, The Bezzle, is out now. https://blubrry.com/electionyear/132101392/how-is-life-becoming-enshitified/  

May 7, 202435 min

Kicking Back with The Cardiffians

Kicking Back with The Cardiffians. There Now In A Minute.

April 18, 202427 min

Alice at Crackpot Hall

Released On: 07 Nov 2015 Available for over a year Newcastle writer David Almond investigates the story of a wild child who was said to roam the Yorkshire Dales near Crackpot Hall in the 1930s – and makes a surprising discovery. Crackpot Hall is an ancient, ruined farmhouse near the village of Keld, which lies on the crossroads of the Pennine Way and the Coast to Coast Path in Swaledale. In its time, it has been a hunting lodge, an office for the local lead-mining industry and a family farm. The acclaimed children’s writer David Almond has long been intrigued by Crackpot Hall, and for decades has travelled west from his home near Newcastle to visit it. Recently, his curiosity was rekindled when he read about Alice, a four-year old child who was said to have been discovered roaming wild near Crackpot in the 1930s. Led by the fabled laughter of Alice, David set out to find the wild child again and hear her story. Prepared to engage his imagination as a writer if facts alone failed, David was amazed by what Crackpot could still reveal. Spoiler Alert: Alice was 4 years old when Ella Pontefract and Marie Hartley, the author and illustrator of a 1930s guide-book to Swaledale declared they had found her – “with a mocking, chuckling laugh” as she roamed alone with her dog and cats near Crackpot. Like many others, David believed Alice to be a figment of the two women’s imagination, so he set out to make a programme about how places create stories. He found Alice, now 88, living in a village near Carlisle, and as full of laughter as ever. With music arranged by the Leeds-based composer Emily Levy. Producer: Beaty Rubens. Released On: 07 Nov 2015 Available for over a year Newcastle writer David Almond investigates the story of a wild child who was said to roam the Yorkshire Dales near Crackpot Hall in the 1930s – and makes a surprising discovery. Crackpot Hall is an ancient, ruined farmhouse near the village of Keld, which lies on the crossroads of the Pennine Way and the Coast to Coast Path in Swaledale. In its time, it has been a hunting lodge, an office for the local lead-mining industry and a family farm. The acclaimed children’s writer David Almond has long been intrigued by Crackpot Hall, and for decades has travelled west from his home near Newcastle to visit it. Recently, his curiosity was rekindled when he read about Alice, a four-year old child who was said to have been discovered roaming wild near Crackpot in the 1930s. Led by the fabled laughter of Alice, David set out to find the wild child again and hear her story. Prepared to engage his imagination as a writer if facts alone failed, David was amazed by what Crackpot could still reveal. Spoiler Alert: Alice was 4 years old when Ella Pontefract and Marie Hartley, the author and illustrator of a 1930s guide-book to Swaledale declared they had found her – “with a mocking, chuckling laugh” as she roamed alone with her dog and cats near Crackpot. Like many others, David believed Alice to be a figment of the two women’s imagination, so he set out to make a programme about how places create stories. He found Alice, now 88, living in a village near Carlisle, and as full of laughter as ever. With music arranged by the Leeds-based composer Emily Levy. Producer: Beaty Rubens. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/b06nr54x    

March 16, 202458 min

Douglas Adams

Released On: 02 Jan 2000 Available for over a year In a special edition of the programme, James Naughtie and a group of readers talk to author Douglas Adams about his classic world-wide bestseller The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p00fpvbm  

March 16, 202456 min

Don’t Panic! It’s The Douglas Adams Papers

Released On: 03 Mar 2018 Available for over a year John Lloyd unearths the private papers of his friend and colleague Douglas Adams, and discovers more about the agonies he went through to write The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. The papers, donated to St John’s College, Cambridge University, include note books, ramblings, rants about how hard it is to write, unfinished scenes and passages never included in Douglas Adams’ books. John Lloyd co-wrote the first series of Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, which started on BBC Radio 4 in 1978. He reveals that he and Douglas Adams had been commissioned to write the first novel together, following the success of the radio series, but Douglas decided to “give me the boot” and went on to write the books on his own. The novels have sold something in the region of 14 million copies. Other contributors include the original producer and now novelist Simon Brett; original cast members Simon Jones, Geoffrey McGivern and Mark Wing-Davey; and Paddy Kingsland of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. John also discusses how unpublished writings by Douglas Adams were used in a further series of The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy. A Bite Media production for BBC Radio 4, first broadcast in March 2018. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/b09tbl2s  

November 17, 202355 min

The Theory of the Leisure Class

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the most influential work of Thorstein Veblen (1857-1929). In 1899, during America’s Gilded Age, Veblen wrote The Theory of the Leisure Class as a reminder that all that glisters is not gold. He picked on traits of the waning landed class of Americans and showed how the new moneyed class was adopting these in ways that led to greater waste throughout society. He called these conspicuous leisure and conspicuous consumption and he developed a critique of a system that favoured profits for owners without regard to social good. The Theory of the Leisure Class was a best seller and funded Veblen for the rest of his life, and his ideas influenced the New Deal of the 1930s. Since then, an item that becomes more desirable as it becomes more expensive is known as a Veblen good https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001sdrt

September 17, 202356 min

The Hundred Year Ego – Archive on 4

It’s 100 years since Sigmund Freud wrote The Ego and the Id, a book that reshaped the way we think about ourselves and the workings of our minds. David Baker explores the ego’s journey over the past century – from the inflated egos of dictators and the music of Hollywood films, to the mind-expanding love-ins of the hippy era and the greed is good ethos of neoliberalism. And, he asks, what can we make of claims that artificial intelligence is developing an ego of its own? Producer: Neil George Executive Producer: David Prest A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001qm0k

March 10, 202342 min

Democratic capitalism – marriage on the rocks

It’s Ok To Be Angry About Capitalism is the title of the new book by the US politician Bernie Sanders. In it he castigates a system that he argues is fuelled by uncontrolled greed and rigged against ordinary people. He tells Tom Sutcliffe it’s time to reject an economic order and a political system that continues to benefit the super-rich, and fight for a democracy that recognises that economic rights are human rights. The Chief Economics Commentator at the Financial Times Martin Wolf looks more closely at how and why the relationship between capitalism and democracy appears to be unravelling. But despite the failings – slowing growth, growing inequality and widespread popular disillusion – he argues in The Crisis of Democratic Capitalism that the relationship remains the best system for human flourishing. But the economist Kate Raworth believes that mainstream economics has had its day. Its failure to predict and prevent financial crises, while allowing extreme poverty, inequality and environment degradation to persist, means its contributing to, not solving, societal unrest. She argues that her theory – Doughnut Economics – offers a new model for a green, fair and thriving global economy. Producer: Katy Hickman https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001jkjn