Latest news with #5Live
BBC News
5 days ago
- Sport
- BBC News
'Totally understand why Isak wants to explore his options - we're stagnant'
Lee Johnson from the Newcastle podcast True Faith says what should have been a transformative summer for the Magpies "seems to be turning into a bit of a nightmare".Eddie Howe had already said he was "frustrated" by the lack of business they have been able to do in this window, but things have gone from bad to worse as striker Alexander Isak wants to explore his options elsewhere."Usually when that happens the writing is on the wall," said Johnson on BBC Radio 5 Live. "Isak will have a very good idea of what he is worth at this moment in time."I totally understand why he wants to explore his options - we are stagnant at the moment in terms of what we can actually do."There is a food chain in football. Ultimately, we are not at the top of it."I will be gutted if we lose him because I'd hoped when Hugo Ekitike went to Liverpool it would have put Isak's potential move on the back-burner."He's a wonderful footballer... a world-class talent - no doubt about it."He is up there with Erling Haaland in terms of being one of the best strikers in the world. There is just something about him."He is clever with his football and he scores goals for fun, so we are very fortunate to have him."We've just had an amazing season, in which we won our first trophy in 70 years, and he helped us win that."The hope was that this summer would have been a transformation for ourselves but it seems to be turning into a bit of a nightmare now."
The Herald Scotland
6 days ago
- Sport
- The Herald Scotland
The golf is fine but it is the scenery I love the most
To be honest, despite 40 years - more or less - of living in Scotland, if I say the word home I still usually mean Northern Ireland and that corner of the province at the top of the map slightly to the right of Derry/Londonderry. Which meant when it came to the TV coverage of the Open all I wanted to see were the drone shots of the coast. The golf I could take or leave. Read More On radio, though, the sport had a rather meditative, relaxing quality. Golf, like snooker, is the nearest sport to an ASMR video (autonomous sensory meridian response, but you all knew that), or, in the circumstances, ASMR audio. The BBC could package the whispery commentary, the satisfying smack of golf club on ball and the polite applause that results; the BBC could easily package it as a well-being broadcast. It probably helped that on Sunday there wasn't much sporting tension or jeopardy. Scottie Scheffler's road to Open victory was, for the most part, a procession. Local hero Rory McIlroy was one of the many who couldn't get close to him. Golf - with its inbuilt gaps in play as players hustle to catch up with their ball - requires its commentators to fill the airtime with little word portraits and that's the fun of it. Commentator Katherine Downes probably offered up my favourite, describing the fifth hole 'tumbling down towards the sea' at Royal Portrush. 'This green,' she began, 'It just looks even better today on this clear day. The sea, that patchwork of blue … these lazy, low, frothy waves collapsing onto the beach after the long trip across the Atlantic, the white jagged cliffs carved into the coastline. It is magnificent.' Yes , it is, Katherine. I've cleaned that beach. Some 25 minutes later, admittedly, she slightly overegged things. 'I don't know if you can hear it overhead,' she said, 'but just as Rory McIlroy is lining up this putt there's an enormous flock of seagulls that have come calling and corring down the hill as if to cheer on McIlroy. 'They're supporting the Northern Irishman, the Northern Irish seabirds, circling overhead.' Well, maybe. But they could also have been Scottish gulls on an awayday. 'They're must be 50, 60 of them,' she continued, 'and another flock, white flecks out to sea, settled on the blue water as McIlroy settles his feet into the green. This for a birdie. And in it goes.' It was all really rather soothing. Earlier on Sunday morning Northern Irish presenter Colin Murray was clearly enjoying his trip home for 5 Live. 'I want to start by giving you some stats. Six scoops of ice cream from Morelli's, five packets of Tayto crisps, four packets of Ritchie's Cinnamon Lozenges, three Maine pineappleades two Ulster fries and a cheeky Chinese from the Red Dragon in Ballycastle; the Open has ruined any chance of me making my summer weight.' That sounds like a perfect Northern Irish summer if you ask me. Oh, and you can get Morelli's ice cream in Tesco in Scotland now, by the way. There was something rather ASMRish too about Five Leaves Left Revisited, a new 6 Music documentary which aired in the early hours of Tuesday morning. All that delicate music and whispering vocals from one of British folk music's lost boys. Presented by Radiohead's Ed O'Brien, the programme explored - as the title suggests - the story behind the creation of a new box set dedicated to Nick Drake's first album Five Leaves Left. Drake's own story has always been defined by its tragic ending - he died aged just 26 from an overdose of antidepressants - and by the fact that no one was much interested in his music when he was alive. But this documentary wasn't really interested in the shorthand legend of the man - the stellar talent crippled by stage fright and mental health issues. No, it was more interested in the music. And so we got early recordings of the songs that made up his debut album - just Drake and guitar and tape - as well as input from his engineer John Wood and producer Joe Boyd, as well as his sister Gabrielle. The result was like an extended feature in Mojo or Uncut, where every last detail of the recording process is nailed down. Rather nerdy for the uncommitted listener, perhaps, but Drake fans will love it. And listening to those songs again had the same anaesthetic effect as listening to golf club on golf ball. I was happy to let it wash over me. Radio as comfort blanket. Listen Out For: Acqua Alta, Radio 4, Sunday, July 27, 3pm Even radio likes a good murder mystery. Julian Rhind-Tutt plays Commissario Guido Brunetti in this new two-part drama featuring author Dona Leon's Venetian detective.
The Herald Scotland
18-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Herald Scotland
Stop this insidious propaganda that Queen was Live Aid's best band
At the time I thought Hall and Oates were the best performers on the day (mostly because they were joined by David Ruffin and Eddie Kendricks of The Temptations). Watching the concert again on BBC Two on Saturday night George Michael's performance of Elton John's Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me seemed to me head and shoulders above everything else on the day (and I'm as allergic to Elton John as I am to Queen). One wonders what might have happened if Wham! had played a full set. Freddie Mercury, lead singer with the rock group Queen, during the Live Aid concert (Image: PA) But as it is the legend goes that Queen were the standouts and I suppose there must be something to it. 'There's a reason why people still talk about the Queen performance or the U2 performance,' Midge Ure - who, along with Bob Geldof of the Boomtown Rats instigated the whole Band Aid/Live Aid thing - told Dermot O'Leary on Radio 2 on Saturday morning. 'They were standout moments. They will go down in history … If you want to play in front of a lot of people this is how you do it.' And the thing is, he added, on the day Queen's singer Freddie Mercury didn't feel that great. But, Ure suggested, he responded to the audience. 'It was like watching Clark Kent turn into Superman.' I guess Ure knows what he's talking about. His band Ultravox played Wembley that day too. But unlike Queen and U2, he said, 'we looked like rabbits in the headlights up there. It was just alien to stand in front of 80,000 people with a potential television audience of 2 billion. That's just petrifying.' Midge Ure during the Live Aid concert (Image: PA Archive/PA Images) Perhaps that's because, as he explained to Patrick Kielty over on 5 Live later in the morning, the band went onstage without a soundcheck. Because of the cutting-edge tech they used, they normally needed five hours to make sure everything was working. Ure has always come across as one of pop's good guys; someone who never let a modicum of success go to his head. And he's a practised raconteur. Talking to Kielty about the making of the Band Aid record he admitted that on the day of the recording neither he nor Bob Geldof were sure anyone would turn up. 'There's Bob and I standing outside an empty studio on a cold, wet Sunday morning surrounded by cameras and microphones and we had no idea who was going to turn up because we'd spoken directly to the artists. Not an adult. Not somebody who might write down where and when they were required. 'So, yeah, there's just Bob and I standing there and Bob leans over to me and says to me 'if it's just the Boomtown Rats and Ultravox we're …' Well, he didn't repeat the expletive, but he probably didn't need to. " You can imagine … But they all turned up.' Read more As for Live Aid itself, Ure recalled being in the green room before things kicked off. 'You could see the bands all clique together. The New Romantics were in one corner and the rock guys were in another corner and the moment Status Quo kicked off you looked around the room and all the heads were nodding.' Talking about Live Aid must have become second nature to Ure over the years. But he shows no signs of getting bored of it and, better than that, he remains amused and amusing on the chaos of the whole thing. My favourite story was probably the one he told O'Leary about meeting Freddie Mercury at the Wembley Arena, which was acting as the backstage area for the Stadium during Live Aid. It was the only time he ever met Queen's frontman. 'I'm walking down the hallway of the arena and I see Freddie sitting perched on the edge of a fountain,' Ure recalled. 'And he spies me and he calls me over. 'Darling, darling, come here.' So I'm chatting to Freddie and he says, 'You're that lovely boy from the Boomtown Rats, aren't you?'' Listen Out For: Screenshot, Radio 4, July 22, 11am Just a quick shout for Mark Kermode and Ellen E Jones's film show which this week tackles Scotland on screen. And so Frankie Boyle talks Trainspotting, Kayleigh Donaldson tackles Bill Forsyth and Brian Cox gets to speak about the greatest ever Scottish film, I Know Where I'm Going.
India Today
16-07-2025
- Politics
- India Today
NCERT textbook flags ‘brutality' of Mughals: Divisive ploy or course correction? Experts debate
In this episode of 5Live, the focus is on the death of a 20-year-old student in Balasore, Odisha, which has sparked massive outrage. The student, who died by self-immolation after suffering 96% burns, had filed multiple complaints of sexual harassment against a professor at Akhir Mohan University. Her pleas for justice to the college principal and other authorities were repeatedly ignored. Her father has called the death a murder, stating, 'When my daughter died, he didn't die, he was killed.' The incident has led to widespread protests across Odisha, with opposition parties calling for a Bandh. Following the outcry, the accused professor and the college principal have been arrested. The program also covers other major news, including Mamata Banerjee's 'Bengali pride' march and the escalating war of words between the government and the opposition over India's foreign policy. Additionally, significant changes to NCERT's Class 8 social science textbooks are discussed, detailing religious intolerance during the Mughal period. The revisions describe rulers like Babur as brutal and note Aurangzeb's demolition of temples, while adding a disclaimer that 'no one should be held responsible today for events of the past.' The programme also covers the escalating language war in Maharashtra, where Minister Nitish Rane suggested Azaan be recited in Marathi in Madrasas. In another major development, the alleged mastermind of a conversion racket, Changur Baba, has given his first reaction, stating, 'I am innocent. I don't know anything.' Further reports include the demolition of Satyajit Ray's ancestral home in Bangladesh and Uttarakhand's move to include the Bhagavad Gita and Ramayana in the school syllabus.
India Today
16-07-2025
- Politics
- India Today
NCERT's new Class 8 history: 'Darker period' of Mughals, sultans introduced
In this episode of 5Live, the focus is on the death of a 20-year-old student in Balasore, Odisha, which has sparked massive outrage. The student, who died by self-immolation after suffering 96% burns, had filed multiple complaints of sexual harassment against a professor at Akhir Mohan University. Her pleas for justice to the college principal and other authorities were repeatedly ignored. Her father has called the death a murder, stating, 'When my daughter died, he didn't die, he was killed.' The incident has led to widespread protests across Odisha, with opposition parties calling for a Bandh. Following the outcry, the accused professor and the college principal have been arrested. The program also covers other major news, including Mamata Banerjee's 'Bengali pride' march and the escalating war of words between the government and the opposition over India's foreign policy. Additionally, significant changes to NCERT's Class 8 social science textbooks are discussed, detailing religious intolerance during the Mughal period. The revisions describe rulers like Babur as brutal and note Aurangzeb's demolition of temples, while adding a disclaimer that 'no one should be held responsible today for events of the past.' The programme also covers the escalating language war in Maharashtra, where Minister Nitish Rane suggested Azaan be recited in Marathi in Madrasas. In another major development, the alleged mastermind of a conversion racket, Changur Baba, has given his first reaction, stating, 'I am innocent. I don't know anything.' Further reports include the demolition of Satyajit Ray's ancestral home in Bangladesh and Uttarakhand's move to include the Bhagavad Gita and Ramayana in the school syllabus.
