The Opinions (New York Times)
Grenfell: Building a Disaster (Radio 4) | BBC Sounds
Scripts (Radio Atlantic)
A Year in the Life of the Swinging Sixties (Radio 4) | BBC Sounds
Anyone needing an injection of intelligence at the end of the school summer holidays, like me, will welcome the New York Times’s savvy new podcast, The Opinions. Previously a subscriber-only service, now let loose into the world, its premise is simple: one voice, one idea, four times a week, in chunks of under 10 minutes. Imagine Thought for the Day a little longer, a lot more North American and without the higher powers, although the female voiceover beginning each show is comfortingly authoritative (“You’ve heard the news,” she says, Zen-ly. “Here’s what to make of it”).
Meaty issues abound, such as the failure of west coast liberalism, or how the Democrats can win seats in the rural US. The presenters don’t offer polished answers to problems but harness personal experiences that help show us fresh routes into these subjects. I loved Michelle Goldberg on what she calls “the Kamala Harris sugar high”, using interviews at a recent rally to explore why Democrats love their new candidate so much, given that her 2020 presidential campaign went nowhere. Also revelatory were Charles Blow’s thoughts on coming out in later life as bisexual, and David Brooks’s sweet essay on how to end the “social and emotional breakdown” of the US.
Inspired by growing up “somewhat aloof”, Brooks ends his seven minutes by offering punchy lessons for improving everyday life. He recommends treating your attention “like an on-off switch, not a dimmer” and listening loudly (“so actively… you’re burning calories”). These are also top tips for how to approach this lively podcast.
Short bursts of daily programming can also open up storytelling opportunities for much more sombre subjects. Kate Lamble has been doing sterling work on the BBC’s The Grenfell Tower Inquiry Podcast since 2020, but last week she began a new 10-part series, Grenfell: Building a Disaster. Its title was inspired by something said by Karim Mussilhy, nephew of Grenfell Tower victim Hesham Rahman: “We suffer and they prosper. The system isn’t broken. It was built this way.” Lamble tells us to keep this statement in mind as the 15-minute episodes continue.
The humanity of those who died in the fire in June 2017 is spotlit throughout. Early on, Mussilhy tells us how his uncle loved to be on the top floor of Grenfell: “I can see you playing football from here,” Rahman told his nephew, whom he helped raise. Lamble speaks to the honorary administrative secretary of the all-party parliamentary group on fire safety, Ronnie King, who sent numerous letters before the fire – 16 in two years – to government ministers, warning about the dangers of flammable cladding. We then hear what one civil servant said to a suggestion that a fire at night could kill many: “Where’s the evidence? Show me the bodies.”
What King thought when he first heard about the Grenfell fire is chillingly sad: “It was quite devastating, and I thought: Well, I think somebody might listen now.” Lamble also nails one “downside of democracy”: the short-termism of governments, leading to many more miscarriages of justice. Ahead of the publication of the inquiry report next month, this is a powerful, digestible way into the tireless work the BBC has done.
Another brilliant new listen on a scandal-surrounded subject comes from Radio Atlantic: a three-part miniseries, Scripts, written and presented by the reporter Ethan Brooks. It explores “the pills we take for our brains and the stories we tell ourselves about them” – a big story in the US, which is home to only 4% of the world’s population while consuming 80% of its opioids and 83% of its ADHD drugs.
Last week’s exploration of the reliance on Ritalin in the US – episode two of three – gripped me the most. It spools out from the story of Cooper Davis, who, as an eighth-grader, took two nips of Jack Daniel’s, firecrackers, a hunting knife and matches on a school trip before being diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and who now works for a nonprofit helping people make informed choices about psychiatric medication. His story is framed around the dangers of George Bush’s fixation on the 1990s becoming “the decade of the brain”, where different mental health conditions that eluded psychiatrists would be cured, just like that, by new drugs.
The idea of chemical imbalances being corrected simply is filleted robustly, as is the rise in the concept of being “your best possible self at all times” – a marketable ideal boosted by capitalism and social media. “Freud’s old dictum was that the whole point is to turn hysterical misery into common unhappiness,” says Benjamin Fong, one of Brooks’s interviewees, with a smile in his voice. “Well, that’s not a very American goal.” These are unexpectedly warm, engaging, essential shows.
Finally, a gorgeous find on Radio 4. A Year in the Life of the Swinging Sixties introduces us to The Public Ear, a 13-part arts show made for the Light Programme from summer 1963 to early 1964, thought long lost, but recently found by the audio detectives at the Radio Circle. Presenter James Peak plays the archive to Joan Bakewell, there first time round, to gauge her reactions, and spends far too much time explaining its significance to listeners. Still, this 60-year-old show sounds incredibly peppy and fresh when it’s allowed space to breathe.
Here’s the artist Pauline Boty crushing an establishment commentator sneering about pop; Mary Quant on “square dressing”; and some fabulous vox pops in which people on the street say what they’d like to blow up. Answers include “all the shopkeepers who swindle the housewives”, “Christine Keeler” and “the Beatles, because their sound is awful”. The full, unfiltered series should be broadcast immediately.
