Thread: I don't know about you, but staying sane recently hasn't been that easy. I've found it particularly hard to read novels - something that is usually my go-to therapy.

BUT I've always loved radio, and especially radio drama, and...

I was giving someone a few recommendations for things to listen to on BBC Sounds and realised I was getting carried away. I've heard tons of really good stuff in the past year and a lot of it is still online.

So here are some links! (stay tuned - this will take a while).
Firstly, there's Primo Levi's 'The Periodic Table' - unutterably brilliant. If you haven't heard this you've just got to stop what you're doing and do so. https://t.co/CDVfJ66XZU
Then there's Big Girl, Small Town by @michellegallen

Brilliant - probably the best thing I've heard on radio on a long time. A dark secret gradually gets revealed (or not) in small town near the British border in Ireland. https://t.co/OvNwCk7zlJ
For a bit of fun there are two Charles Paris Mysteries - A Doubtful Death / The Cinderella Killer. Bill Nighy plays a slightly louche thespian with a bent for amateur sleuthing. Funny dramas based on old radio plays by Simon Brett updated by Jeremy Front. https://t.co/TDXG8xHd8A
Then there's Orely Farm – by Anthony Trollope. I've discovered everything I like by Trollope through radio and TV adaptations, and do wonder if Dickens is a false-flag operation to obscure easily the best English 19th Century writer. Give this a go: https://t.co/gcG35UiOiU
You know that Grossman's 'Stalingrad' is on the radio already, right? If you didn't, you do now.

Vasilly Grossman's sad gorgeous glimpse of humanity in extremis. https://t.co/0sI6L0EGDe
On a lighter note, Flatshare is a nice modern drama. https://t.co/IqE04aDnNy
This is the only recommendation here that I have some qualms about. Andrew Scott takes on Joyce and spins young Dedalus in a way that is a bit unexpected. I really don't know if I like it or hate it.

But you need to decide for yourself. - https://t.co/tbKlsN90IF
I loved this Middlemarch - a standard BBC adaptation of a great novel. Completely addictive - I've listened to this one a few times all the way thorugh including one day-long marathon. https://t.co/yRZ4eUtHmX
More loveliness. Bernard Cribbins in a radio adaption of one of the most lovely novels around.

Cervantes with a touch of Guareschi's Don Camillo set in post-Franco Spain. Communist Mayor and his friend a Catholic priest find new windmills. https://t.co/Xx4atgeXA8
Radio Daze is a passable cold war thriller set in and around the BBC. If you liked the Thirty Nine Steps this will suit you. https://t.co/HQMEAegkkD
The Wuthering Heights adaption is a straight read through as far as I can see.

Everyone should read this book every few years anyway so treat this as a religious observance if you have to.
https://t.co/oW4kRkyzxi
Then there are the perfect-for-radio short stories.
Here's 100 of them.

The standouts are from de Maupassant. Joyce's Araby is there from Dubliners, & Balzac, Conan Doyle, Kipling, Poe & Ambrose Bierce also get outings.

For all tastes, a treasure trove https://t.co/bCf5V6r8Ug
... along with the master of the Irish short story, William Trevor's Last Stories.
https://t.co/4Yujs2HYM4

More from Culture

OK. Chapter 7 of Book 4 of #WealthOfNations is tough going. It's long. It's serious. It's all about colonies.

We can take comfort, though, in knowing that the chapter #AdamSmith says is about colonies is, in fact, about colonies. (IV.vii) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets


Colonies were a vexed subject when #AdamSmith was writing, and they’re even more complicated now. So, before we even get to the tweeting, here’s a link to that thread on Smith and “savage nations.” (IV.vii) #WealthOfTweets


The reason for the ancient Greeks and Romans to settle colonies was straightforward: they didn’t have enough space for their growing populations. Their colonies were treated as “emancipated children”—connected but independent. (IV.vii.a.2) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets

(Both these things are in contrast to the European colonies, as we'll see.) (IV.vii.a.2) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets

Ancient Greeks and Romans needed more space because the land was owned by an increasingly small number of citizens and farming and nearly all trades and arts were performed by slaves. It was hard for a poor freeman to improve his life. (IV.vii.a.3) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets

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Ivor Cummins has been wrong (or lying) almost entirely throughout this pandemic and got paid handsomly for it.

He has been wrong (or lying) so often that it will be nearly impossible for me to track every grift, lie, deceit, manipulation he has pulled. I will use...


... other sources who have been trying to shine on light on this grifter (as I have tried to do, time and again:


Example #1: "Still not seeing Sweden signal versus Denmark really"... There it was (Images attached).
19 to 80 is an over 300% difference.

Tweet: https://t.co/36FnYnsRT9


Example #2 - "Yes, I'm comparing the Noridcs / No, you cannot compare the Nordics."

I wonder why...

Tweets: https://t.co/XLfoX4rpck / https://t.co/vjE1ctLU5x


Example #3 - "I'm only looking at what makes the data fit in my favour" a.k.a moving the goalposts.

Tweets: https://t.co/vcDpTu3qyj / https://t.co/CA3N6hC2Lq