Month: May 2017

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Start the Week - Kate Tempest: Everyday Epic

On Start the Week Andrew Marr talks to the writer and performer Kate Tempest about her desire to bring out the epic in everyday lives, and to show the poetry in lived experience. Tracy Chevalier has taken the themes of Shakespeare's Othello and transported them to a US elementary school, while Hanif Kureishi mines the dark world of jealousy and revenge in his latest novel. Lewis Hyde looks back to mythical mischief makers from Hermes to Loki to celebrate modern day rule breakers as the shapers of culture. Producer: Katy Hickman

Image: Kate Tempest Photographer: Hayley Louisa Brown.

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Crimetown - S1 E18: The Prince of Providence

Buddy Cianci was once a crusading prosecutor who took on the mob. Now, he’s behind bars. For the mayor of any other city, this would be the end of the road. But Buddy isn’t any other mayor. And Providence isn’t any other city.

For a full list of credits, and more information about this episode, visit crimetownshow.com.

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World Book Club - Derek Walcott – Omeros

This month we mark the recent death of the St Lucian poet, playwright and Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott with another chance to hear him talk-on-the-programme about his poetic masterpiece, the book-length Omeros.

Following the wanderings of an extraordinary cast of characters from the island of St Lucia, Omeros echoes Homer’s ancient-Greek epic of war and love and deadly rivalry, the Iliad, in order to dramatise the lives, sufferings, displacements and conflicts of the inhabitants of today’s Caribbean.

It also explores the islands’ violent history of colonial wars and slavery.

(Picture: Derek Walcott. Photo credit: Vittorio Zunino Celotto/Getty Images.)

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50 Things That Made the Modern Economy - Video Games

From Spacewar to Pokemon Go, video games – aside from becoming a large industry in their own right – have influenced the modern economy in some surprising ways. Here’s one. In 2016, four economists presented research into a puzzling fact about the US labour market. The economy was growing, unemployment rates were low, and yet a surprisingly large number of able-bodied young men were either working part-time or not working at all. More puzzling still, while most studies of unemployment find that it makes people thoroughly miserable, the happiness of these young men was rising. The researchers concluded that the explanation was simply that this cohort of young men were living at home, sponging off their parents and playing videogames. They were deciding, in the other words, not to join the modern economy in some low-paid job, because being a starship captain at home is far more appealing. Producer: Ben Crighton Editors: Richard Knight and Richard Vadon (Photo: Hands holding game pad and playing shooter game on TV screen. Credit: Getty Images)
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Motley Fool Money - The Next Amazon May Already Be Here

Apple sells 50 million iPhones for the quarter. Facebook closes in on 2 billion subscribers. And MercadoLibre does its best Amazon impression. Plus, best-selling author and New York Times journalist Charles Duhigg talks American Express, Chase, and the battle to be your credit card. Thanks to Slack for supporting The Motley Fool. Learn more at slack.com.

 

 

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The Gist - What’s in the Bill? With Sarah Kliff

Vox health care writer Sarah Kliff returns to discuss the return of the health care reform bill that just won’t die. In Kliff’s estimation, the new bill, if passed in the Senate, would be great for the rich and terrible for the sick. Kliff is a columnist and co-host of The Weeds podcast.  In the Spiel, why we were surprised by zombie health reform.   Join Slate Plus! Members get bonus segments, exclusive member-only podcasts, and more. Sign up for a free trial today at slate.com/gistplus.

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