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

One of the authors of the Policy Exchange report on academic free speech thinks it is "ridiculous" to expect him to accurately portray an incident at Cardiff University in his study, both in the reporting and in a question put to a student sample.


Here is the incident Kaufmann incorporated into his study, as told by a Cardiff professor who was there. As you can see, the incident involved the university intervening to *uphold* free speech principles:


Here is the first mention of the Greer at Cardiff incident in Kaufmann's report. It refers to the "concrete case" of the "no-platforming of Germaine Greer". Any reasonable reader would assume that refers to an incident of no-platforming instead of its opposite.


Here is the next mention of Greer in the report. The text asks whether the University "should have overruled protestors" and "stepped in...and guaranteed Greer the right to speak". Again the strong implication is that this did not happen and Greer was "no platformed".


The authors could easily have added a footnote at this point explaining what actually happened in Cardiff. They did not.

You May Also Like

First thread of the year because I have time during MCO. As requested, a thread on the gods and spirits of Malay folk religion. Some are indigenous, some are of Indian origin, some have Islamic


Before I begin, it might be worth explaining the Malay conception of the spirit world. At its deepest level, Malay religious belief is animist. All living beings and even certain objects are said to have a soul. Natural phenomena are either controlled by or personified as spirits

Although these beings had to be respected, not all of them were powerful enough to be considered gods. Offerings would be made to the spirits that had greater influence on human life. Spells and incantations would invoke their


Two known examples of such elemental spirits that had god-like status are Raja Angin (king of the wind) and Mambang Tali Arus (spirit of river currents). There were undoubtedly many more which have been lost to time

Contact with ancient India brought the influence of Hinduism and Buddhism to SEA. What we now call Hinduism similarly developed in India out of native animism and the more formal Vedic tradition. This can be seen in the multitude of sacred animals and location-specific Hindu gods