Start the Week - Paul Abbott: finding comedy in the tragic
On Start the Week Andrew Marr explores how childhood experiences affect later life.
The screenwriter Paul Abbott famously put his early life into the television series Shameless. Although his later work, including his latest police drama No Offence, moves far beyond his own experiences, he excels at finding the comedy in the tragic.
In France the writer Édouard Louis has caused a storm with his brutal autobiographical novel about class, violence and sexuality. The book is his attempt to bury his childhood.
The psychiatrist Gwen Adshead spent years working at Broadmoor Hospital studying the nature of human violence and looks at the moral choices people make.
The poet Paul Farley is interested not in the early life of poets but in their dying. From Shelley's drowning to Sylvia Plath's desperate suicide their deaths have become the stuff of myth casting a backward shadow on their work, creating a skewed image of the poet's life as doomed and self-destructive.
Serious Inquiries Only - SIO13: Food Fight! With Kavin Senapathy
Today Thomas talks with Kavin Senapathy about science, food, and the misinformation and pseudo science that is so prevalent in the food industry today. Kavin is co-Executive Director of March Against Myths, a Forbes contributor, and co-author of "The Fear Babe: Shattering Vani Hari's Glass House". You can find more from her on Facebook and Twitter. Leave us a Voicemail: (916) 750-4746! Support us on Patreon at: patreon.com/seriouspod Follow us on Twitter: @seriouspod Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/seriouspod For comments, email thomas@seriouspod.com Questions, Suggestions, Episode ideas? email: haeley@seriouspod.com
Crimetown - S1 E09: A Deal With the Devil
One night in 1982, a 20-year-old man is senselessly murdered at an abandoned gas station. A mobster is taken into witness protection after he pins the murder on his boss. This brutal crime will push three wiseguys out of the mafia in very different ways.
For a full list of credits, and for more information about this episode, visit crimetownshow.com.
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Curious City - ‘Gratest’ Fear: The Psychology Behind Chicago’s Sidewalk Grates
Sidewalk grates make people feel uneasy. An anxiety expert said this uneasiness is rooted in something much deeper.
Curious City - ‘Gratest’ Fear: The Psychology Behind Chicago’s Sidewalk Grates
Sidewalk grates make people feel uneasy. An anxiety expert said this uneasiness is rooted in something much deeper.
50 Things That Made the Modern Economy - Insurance
Legally and culturally, there’s a clear distinction between gambling and insurance. Economically, the difference is not so easy to see. Both the gambler and the insurer agree that money will change hands depending on what transpires in some unknowable future. Today the biggest insurance market of all – financial derivatives – blurs the line between insuring and gambling more than ever. Tim Harford tells the story of insurance; an idea as old as gambling but one which is fundamental to the way the modern economy works.
Producer: Ben Crighton
Editors: Richard Knight and Richard Vadon
(Image: Lloyds Coffeehouse, Credit: Getty Images)
The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe - The Skeptics Guide #604 – Feb 4 2017
Forgotten Superheroes of Science: Rudolf Diesel; News Items: Human Pig Chimera, Life Review Experience, Communicating with the Locked In, Homeopathic Teething Products, Metallic Hydrogen; Who's That Noisy; Your Questions and E-mails: Centrifugal Force; Science or Fiction
CrowdScience - Should we Use Ships to Transport Fresh Water?
Earth’s surface may be 70 percent water but many places are struggling to access it. We look at a range of water supply options including delivering it by tanker. In Malta we meet a man trying to solve its water problems, with a clever contraption to recycle sewage.
Do you have a question we can turn into a programme? Email us at crowdscience@bbc.co.uk
Presenter: Marnie Chesterton Produders: Cathy Edwards and Marijke Peters
(Image: Tanker ship. Credit: Getty)
the memory palace - Episode 103 (The Rose of Long Island)
The Memory Palace is a proud member of Radiotopia, from PRX, a curated network of extraordinary, story-driven shows.
Music
- We start and end with Daniel Berenboim playing Lizt's 6 Consolations, S. 172: No. 3 in D flat minor.
- We hit up Yes But, from Danny Bensi and Saunder Jurriens' score to Christine.
- We return to the official Memory Palace love theme of William Henry Harrison, The Gentle Softness, Lalo Schiffrin's score to The Last Dragon
- We cruise on the U.S.S. Princeton to Dispute by Yann Tiersen.
- Twist comes to Missing Pieces from the Broken City score.
Notes
- I read quite a bit about the Tylers, but really, one needs only to read "and Tyler Too," by Robert Seager II.