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Internet Café Hobo
BBC Radio 4
A unique global project which aims to draw a map round the world, using Internet Cafes and the stories of the people who use them. The first two documentaries were broadcast on BBC World Service on 15th and 22nd December at 23.06 GMT. Countries covered so far: UK, USA, China, Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, Benin, France. Listen to them here. The third in the series of documentaries was broadcast on BBC World Service starting 11th March 2007 - with material from Australia and Fiji.
Pictured: Michael, proprietor of a café in a working class area of Nairobi.
Have a look at the map.
In the Beginning was the Nerd
BBC Radio 4
When Stephen Fry presented this Archive on 4 on BBC Radio 4, he started a small controversy. Was the Millennium Bug a genuine threat to our digital world ten years ago, or was it simply a case of panic stations? Read more and listen to an interview with a man who believed the latter was the case:
China’s Forgotten Admiral
Friday 5th February BBC World Service.
For BBC World Service. The story of China’s forgotten adventurer Zheng He, a 7 foot Muslim Eunuch whose fleet of explorers puts the European explorers to shame. You can listen here.
Fry’s English Delight
In the first programme, SO WRONG IT’S RIGHT, BBC Radio 4, Stephen examines how “wrong” English can become right English through usage. In the second programme, SPEAKING PROPER, he looks at the changes in what we used to call “Elocution”. The third, HALLO, is investigation into the development of the planet’s most universally understood word: Hallo.
“Everyone knows Stephen Fry is astonishingly brainy, and it's never more in evidence than here. To unravel the knotty issues, he has sought the help of professors, judges, journalists and lexicographers. Yet he outshines most of them ..all great fun.” Camilla Redmond, The Guardian. “Listen! You can hear the audience purring!” Miranda Sawyer, The Observer. “The Nation can take a few more Fry-ups”. Chis Maume, the Independent.
Hothouse Foresight Podcast
The Recession: How long, how deep, how bad? The Obama effect: Over-estimated or misunderstood? The banking crisis: Can banks restore trust? Is debt a way of life or financial death? Sustainability: Or Sustain-a-babble? How do we replace the green cult of austerity with the cult of scientific solutions? Clark Mulder Purdie's wide ranging initiative into communications futures for the Public Relations industry culminated in this podcast produced by Testbed featuring BBC Newsnight's Paul Mason and other experts at the eye of the storm.
Good Food Guide podcast
Listen here
Heston Blumenthal interviewed about news that his restaurant The Fat Duck was given a perfect ten out of ten by the new guide – the first such score for four years. Blumenthal celebrates with a demo of a palate-cleansing lime flavoured tour de force using ultra-cold liquid nitrogen.
Arabella Churchill: First Lady of Glastonbury
BBC Radio 4
9th July 2008
“People like Hawkwind who looked terrifying were playing in the wagon shed and kipping on the lawn. And doing other things out in the open too, with drugs and each other's bodies. I had been quite protected until then. My eyes were wide open.” Arabella Churchill, one of the founders of the Glastonbury Festival remembering the free festival she helped organise in 1971. A regular and essential part of the Festival, Arabella, Grandaughter of Winston Churchill died last year. This tribute programme recorded at Glastonbury this year and presented by Arthur Smith tells her story.