World Book Cafe: Detroit
Nichole Christian visits a city with a rich history and a powerful reputation, to explore the role of words and writing, meeting the storytellers and poets who are capturing the…
Christianity and the classical world
Classicist and journalist Catherine Nixey talks about her new book The Darkening Age with Professor Edith Hall. Their discussion explores the momentous changes that occurred when Christianity became the dominant…
Are We Living in a Simulation?
Elon Musk thinks we definitely could be, and it seems he is not alone. The idea that we might simply be products of an advanced post-human civilisation, that are simply…
Proms Extra: Sleep and Insomnia
Nick Littlehales, sports sleep coach and chair of the British Sleep Council, talks with novelist A. L. Kennedy about sleep and insomnia. {listen}
Proms Extra: Opium and Creativity in the 19th c.
From Thomas De Quincy via Coleridge to Berlioz, a second-generation opium addict, Daisy Hay and Richard Davenport-Hines discuss why drugs were thought integral to creativity first in England and later…
Wet weekend
Rob's weekend has been wet, even though it hasn't rained! What's happened? Feifei's about to find out and learn a new authentic English expression! {listen} Transcript FeifeiHello. I'm Feifei and…
The English We Speak: Not a sausage
Neil and Feifei want to find out about Rob’s new job. But he’s saying absolutely nothing about it. Learn how we can express the idea of ‘absolutely nothing’ with the…
The English We Speak: Donkey’s years
Why has Rob got a donkey in the studio?! It's probably got something with today's authentic English phrase which is about not doing something for a long time. How long…
The Mind v the Brain
It's one of the hardest problems in neuroscience. How do the chemical processes and electric signals produced by our brains result in the complex and varied experiences and sense of…
Oxygen: A Matter of Life and Death
Brian Cox and Robin Ince are joined on stage by chemist Andrea Sella, science broadcaster and writer Gabrielle Walker and comedian Sara Pascoe to look at the life and death…