The week in audio: Die Die DEI; Drama on 4: The Film; Good Hang with Amy Poehler; Confessions of a Female Founder and more
The Slow Newscast: Die Die DEI (Tortoise Media)Drama on 4: The Film (Radio 4) | BBC SoundsGood Hang with Amy Poehler (The Ringer)Confessions of a Female Founder with Meghan (Lemonada)Working Hard, Hardly Working (Grace Beverley) | Apple podcasts
The Slow Newscast is usually worth a listen. Take Die Die DEI, from the week before last. Queasy and pointed, it tackles the issue of the Trump administration's 'war on woke'. As soon as the orange man-baby got into office, his government started shutting down inclusion programmes, and corporate US followed. Why? It's not about saving money, or terminology-wrangling. It's far more deeply prejudiced.
Written and presented by Stephen Armstrong, the show focuses on one particular member of the Trump administration: the deputy chief of staff for policy and homeland security adviser, Stephen Miller. Described baldly by one contributor as 'a violently rightwing racist who is pushing a white nationalist agenda', he is far from a nice guy. But Armstrong is wise enough to tell Miller's story gradually. He was brought up in liberal, multiracial Santa Monica, California. Yet as a kid he dumps one of his friends by telling him exactly why he doesn't like him. 'Among that list of things,' recalls the friend, 'was my Latino heritage. That was one of the things that disqualified me from being his friend.'
We follow Miller through his college years, a controversial rape case (not his: he supported some lacrosse players who were falsely accused of sexual assault) and into the Senate. There, he uses the diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) approach against itself, telling white people that they are, in fact, victims. 'Hijacked victimhood' is what it's called: the idea that your lifestyle – your life – is put in a precarious position because other people are different from you. The way Miller plays it, it's a zero-sum game. You must triumph and 'they' – people not like you – must be vanquished.
Armstrong's script is excellent. I could quote from any part of the show, but he really hits his stride towards the end. 'Don't get distracted by absurdities. This administration is throwing out so many bouncing, multicoloured balls that it's almost impossible to focus on what's important. The trick is to watch Stephen Miller. When he says something, it matters… The truth is, his views haven't changed since he dumped his best friend for being Latino.'
There's something at once modern and classic about Armstrong's script, and I thought about this while listening to Drama on 4: The Film, a small gem of a radio play about a movie. Its subject is a true story. In 1945, Sidney Bernstein, a film-maker and producer, was given hundreds of hours of footage from the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Shot by British army crews for the Ministry of Information, the footage was basic but devastating, full of appalling, cruel, hellish murder. How to make this into a film that would both engage and expose the public to the horrors of the Holocaust? How to do justice to the suffering? Amazingly, Bernstein asked Alfred Hitchcock to help. And Hitch, initially reluctant, said yes.
Written by Martin Jameson, The Film is a Radio 4 drama of ye olde school: rather stagey, with theatrical speeches and performances. But it's also nicely paced, well acted, clear, moral. I found myself almost relieved that it exists. Not just because it's about the Holocaust, which should never be forgotten, but because it's an interesting real-life story that's a play, as opposed to an episode of a clever news podcast. Old-fashioned audio.
Here's an example of new-fashioned audio, and it's one that promises much. Amy Poehler, delightfully funny comedian and actor, has decided 'about four or five years too late' to give us a podcast. The pitch for Good Hang with Amy Poehler must have had producers drooling: Poehler simply scrolls her contacts list, calls up a famous mate and has a chat, avoiding anything controversial in favour of having a laugh.
Her first episode was with Tina Fey, who, being Tina Fey, took over and gave us insight (she works 12 hour days, plus 'homework' in the evening) and wit (she's worried about becoming one of those older Hollywood types who just 'tells it like it is'). But, God, it only takes a couple of episodes before we find ourselves riding on fumes. All is slapdash and self-congratulatory. An episode with actor Ike Barinholtz gives us almost nothing. There's a passing reference to him getting in an ecstasy mess in Amsterdam when he was younger, but we breeze past, and by the end of the show we know him no better. In every episode, Poehler enthuses so much about her guest – to their face! – that it feels performative. She laughs too much and for too long. Are these incredibly successful, creative, funny people so insecure that they need bolstering every other sentence? (Yes, clearly.)
In a similar vein, please welcome Meghan, Duchess of Sussex's latest podcast venture, Confessions of a Female Founder. Actually, don't bother, unless OMG-yes-sister-and-you-look-so-good-while-doing-it is your thing. Honestly, I think it's just how they talk over there. Their idea of a good hang, or a good podcast, is different from ours, and involves a lot less piss-taking.
Meghan's first show is with Whitney Wolfe Herd, founder of dating app Bumble, but, nope, we don't learn anything much, except about how Megs and Whits met (it was NYE and Wolfe Herd was wearing a rhinestone cowboy costume! The embarrassment!) and how supportive they are of each other.
If you want a decent podcast from a 28-year-old entrepreneur who's already built three companies and is generous with her business tips, then I recommend Grace Beverley's Working Hard, Hardly Working, now on episode 133. She also interrupts her guests too much to talk about her own life, but you get far more corporate insight and life practicality. The world, it seems, is full of these frantically perfectionist, success-obsessed, greige-swathed young women trying to get their life to work. I'd say relax, but they can't.
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The Herald Scotland
9 hours ago
- The Herald Scotland
My grandmother grew up brushing her teeth with radioactive toothpaste
Yes, I did listen to a bit of radio. Even a spot of Radio 4 comedy. Brave, I know, but I do like policeman turned comedian Alfie Moore's It's a Fair Cop (currently broadcast on Monday nights in the 6.30pm slot). But nothing serious. Nothing with any gravitas. Or nearly nothing. I did stumble on the latest series on Radio 4's The History Podcast. Well, I say, stumble but, actually, I was given a nudge by its producer. Read more I'd rather slept on Joe Dunthorne's current series Half-Life. I think I'd read the words 'Nazi Germany' in the blurb and decided it wasn't for me. How much Nazi Germany do you need, after all? But that really wasn't what Half-Life was about, as the arresting opening line testified: 'My grandmother,' Dunthorne began, 'grew up brushing her teeth with radioactive toothpaste.' Strong opener. Better still was the information that it was his grandmother's father who had made said toothpaste. Half-Life is a family biography that - like all family biographies - weaves into the flow of history. Dunthorne's great grandfather was a Jewish chemist working in a poison gas lab with the Nazis. And that is just the start of it. All episodes are available on BBC Sounds and The Road Through the Mountains, the episode that aired on Radio 4 this week (on Wednesday) was a particularly tough listen. At the heart of it was a telling of the story of the Dersim Massacre in Turkey in 1937 and 1938, when the Turkish government killed thousands of civilians during a Kurdish rebellion; 14,000 is the government figure. Others suggest the death toll was three or four times that number. 'That's why most people say the river was flowing blood,' Dunthorne's guide told him. 'It was not water, it was just blood.' To escape the Nazis, Dunthorne's family had fled to Turkey. His great grandfather may have helped the Turkish government buy chemical weapons from the Germans. Poison gas was then used to kill those who had fled into the mountains. History, Dunthorne is telling us here, leaves a stain on those who come afterwards. In Half-Lifee you can hear it in his voice. Over on 6 Music Tom Robinson was celebrating his 75th birthday on his Now Playing show on Sunday evening. The BBC's present was to take the slot away from him. Mary Anne Hobbs is taking over this weekend. Tom Robinson celebrated his 75th birthday (Image: BBC) Robinson, who has been occupying Sunday night on 6 Music for the last 14 years - in fact he's been a regular on the station for 23 years, all told - drolly opened proceedings by playing Here's Where the Story Ends by The Sundays. What followed was an understandably slightly self-indulgent two hours in which he played quite a few of his own songs - as requested by his listeners - and, for the most part, displayed a commendably stiff upper lip. He did admit that the whole thing was a little bittersweet, though he encouraged his listeners to tune in to Hobbs's show when it started. At least there were plenty of birthday/farewell messages from his fellow 6 Music DJs and the odd musician - Lauren Laverne, Nithin Sawhney, Jason from Sleaford Mods and Peter Gabriel most notably. Tony Blackburn - still going strong at 82 - also offered his congratulations, as did The Blue Nile's Paul Buchanan. The latter was presumably prompted by that old social media meme of Robinson dancing around the studio to Tinseltown in the Rain. Understandably. That tune is one of 20th-century Scotland's greatest gifts to the world. I was at best an irregular listener to Now Playing, but rather like the late Annie Nightingale, it was always clear Robinson had built up a real rapport with his audience. We're promised a 'borderless spectrum of music' on the new Mary Anne Hobbs show. That's her USP, of course. But is that what listeners want at teatime on Sunday? Time will tell. Listen Out For: Bill Dare: Comedy Alchemist, Radio 4, Thursday, June 12, 6.30pm Talking of Radio 4 comedy … This tribute programme celebrates the career of the late radio and TV comedy producer Bill Dare, creator of The Mary Whitehouse Experience and Dead Ringers. Dare was killed in a motor accident earlier this year.
The Herald Scotland
9 hours ago
- The Herald Scotland
I haven't fallen over on stage yet, says Del Amitri's Justin Currie
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He's been writing poison-tipped songs about self-inflicted pain for decades, spinning pop gold from imagined tales about being the last to know, taking adulterous roads to ruin, kissing things goodbye and nothing ever happening. Followers of his enjoyably sour online tour blogs have grown familiar with his on–the-road nihilism since he first booted up his laptop in 2008, a vent which will take the form of a book to be released later this summer. Its title, The Tremolo Diaries, is nicked from the Radio 4 documentary he made last year when he came out as a Parkinsonian, as he calls his fellow sufferers Subtitled Life On The Road And Other Diseases it deals with the fall-out from a hellish triumvirate of turns even he would have thought too heavy for any of the characters in his songs. And, funny stories about chopsticks in sushi restaurants or not, Currie has suffered. In a few dreadful weeks at the end of December 2022, he lost his mother to cancer, saw his girlfriend severely debilitated by a stroke and received the dreaded confirmed diagnosis of a condition which has been robbing him ever since of the talent which has made him one of the country's most popular and successful songwriters and live singers. No surprise, perhaps, that one day a few months later, he couldn't get up in the morning. And it had nothing to do with the disease's depletive impact on his motor skills. 'They give you a leaflet when they tell you you have Parkinson's,' he said. 'It's actually a really good leaflet, and on page five it says that everybody who gets Parkisnon's gets depressed. I've never been depressed before, but one day, a few months later, I couldn't get out of bed.' Del Amitri (Image: free) A combination of antidepressants and 'talking about it' helped Currie put his feet back on the ground a few weeks later. 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NBC News
a day ago
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These Latino restaurateurs in unlikely places are nominated for a prestigious culinary prize
Before moving to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, two decades ago, Oscar Ortega had left Mexico City at a young age and spent many years in several European countries, where he studied gastronomy with what he calls incredible teachers. But he never forgot 'where my roots came from, my origins,' he said in an interview with Noticias Telemundo. Cacao originated in Mexico, he explained, which was one of the reasons Ortega decided to dedicate himself to becoming a chocolatier, gelato maker and baker. This year, his Jackson Hole establishment, Atelier Ortega, is one of five finalists for the outstanding bakery prize of the prestigious James Beard Awards, which will be announced June 16 and are considered the Oscars of the culinary world. Ortega, whose desserts have won international competitions and who's been featured on numerous television programs, is one of almost 20 Latinos who are finalists across different categories, recognized for making their mark in the culinary and beverage arenas — including in states with smaller Latino populations. One of them is Wyoming, a state where 10% of the population is Hispanic and that many people might associate more with 'cowboy country' than with chocolate making, Ortega said with a laugh. 'But I said, 'Let's see, let's try,'' and he opened a chocolate and pastry shop in 2004. There were days when he didn't sell anything, he said, but then everything started selling out. To keep honing his skills, he began entering international culinary competitions. Initially, he represented Mexico, his native country, but after winning several times, he was invited to join the official U.S. team with which he has won several prestigious international awards. 'And after I made the desserts for the competitions, I would serve them in my bakery when I got back. And that's how it began to establish itself' to the point of getting James Beard recognition, Ortega said. 'Tastes just like my grandma's' Like Wyoming, Idaho and Alabama are not states with the largest Latino populations. But in Caldwell, Idaho, people of Hispanic descent make up almost 40% of the population compared to 13% in the rest of the state. In this city, Salvador Alamilla's dishes at his restaurant, Amano, have earned him a nomination for 2025 James Beard best chef: mountain, where he's competing against four other chefs in nearby states. The restaurant's website touts a dedication 'to uplifting the food and beverages of the Mexican diaspora through ancestral cooking methods.' From the beginning, Alamilla said, his restaurant sought to be a place that offered 'the dream of eating like you did at home, with food like your grandpa or mom used to make it.' That's why regardless of whether he wins the James Beard Award or not, he said he's already been rewarded by 'seeing how people react to this food, saying, 'That's how my dad made it,' or 'Wow, it tastes just like my grandma's.''
