In a sign-of-the-times move, 5 Live this week launches a series of sport shows that will be podcast before broadcast. The first, called Flintoff, Savage And The Ping Pong Guy, features former cricketer Andrew Flintoff, former footballer Robbie Savage and former table tennis champion Matthew Syed talking about whatever sporting matters grab their attention. Syed promises “raw honesty”. Flintoff says: “I’m looking forward to an intelligent conversation with Matthew. Robbie will be there, too.” This cocktail of banter and insight is available on Monday 13 February.
The British love nothing more than an heroic failure, as our pride in Dunkirk suggests. And as Joe Queenan discovers in A Brief History Of Failure (Saturday 11 February, 8pm, Radio 4), we’re not alone. In the footsteps of hundreds of tourists, Queenan huffs and puffs his way to the top of the Château de Montségur, where the Cathars failed to hold off an encircling army in the 13th century. He winds up in Virginia, where thousands regularly re-enact a war their ancestors lost. In between, we hear from Armando Iannucci, journalist John Sergeant and classics professor Edith Hall.
The recording of Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours was a slow business. It was made even slower by the fact that none of the songwriters wanted to share their lyrics with the other members because the songs were mostly about the other members. Rumours is the main subject of the second part of Jo Wood’s Musical Muses (Wednesday 15 February, 10pm, Radio 2). It also covers the musical romans à clef of Leonard Cohen, Lionel Richie and Chris De Burgh. In Private Passions (Sunday 12 February, noon, Radio 3), crime writer Peter Robinson talks to Michael Berkeley about the music favoured by his famous creations and why Yorkshire is the best place to hide a body.
The White House has been producing so much news, tittle-tattle and black comedy recently you have to feel sorry for podcasts stuck with slow-moving beats like football. It’s particularly interesting to hear from the former White House staffers who make Pod Save America, which calls itself “a no-bullshit conversation about politics”. These speechwriters and advisers know no more than anybody else what’s actually going on but they’re good on what usually goes on, which is a useful benchmark against which to judge the present madness.
Every edition of the NPR Politics Podcast at the moment begins by telling you exactly what time of the day it was recorded and warns that things may have changed by the time you get to hear it. No kidding. Of all the podcasts offering a flavour of what reporters discuss with each other in the newsroom, this is the best. All the contributors have good voices, but I particularly like senior correspondent Ron Elving, who sounds as if he may have served under gnarly 70s US TV journalist Lou Grant.
