Episode summary: Where’s my jetpack?

Episode summary: Why We Need Small Talk from The Art of Small Talk

Seriously? I listened to this because it popped up in the middle of a walk and wasn’t too long and so I didn’t bother cleaning up, but oh my. That’s one audiobook I will not be listening to in full.

Episode summary: How much does what you choose to eat come from what social class you were born into, or identify with now? In this episode, Sheila Dillon takes on the often uncomfortable conversation about social class in the UK, British people’s obsession with it, and what it’s doing to our health...

Episode summary: For the latest episode in our series about the hold of bad ideas, we welcome back the geneticist Adam Rutherford to talk about Linnaean taxonomy, a seemingly innocuous scheme of classification that has had deeply pernicious consequences. From scientific racism to social stratificati...

Episode summary: Against Food as a Benign Good with Lottie Hazell

Episode summary: How an ugly puppet created television as we know it

Episode summary: 5x15 brings together five outstanding individuals to tell of their lives, passions and inspirations. There are only two rules - no scripts and only 15 minutes each. Andrew O’Hagan is one of the most exciting and serious chroniclers of our times. Born in Glasgow, he has been nominate...

Episode summary: In 1980, posters appeared in subway stations and on telephone poles in New York City with a phone number to call. When you called it, you would hear a message: “This is Apology. Apology is not associated with the police or any other organization but rather is a way for you to tell p...

Episode summary: As the recent past will attest, the discovery of vaccines can not only save lives, but also change the course of human history. Speaking with Matt Elton, Simon Schama explores the story of inoculation, charting the individuals and organisations who played a pivotal role in its use a...

Episode summary: In today’s episode about seemingly good ideas gone badly wrong David talks to the philosopher and journalist Kathleen Stock about Facebook Friends, something that was meant to make us happier and better connected but really didn’t. How did online friendship become so performative? D...