Radio and podcasts

Time for another of my occasional podcast recommendations. This time it’s for Radio 4’s In Our Time, which is roughly speaking a weekly "Cabinet of Curiosities". Each edition involves three learned people talking with Melvyn Bragg about an erudite topic from science, history or philosophy that you’ve probably never heard of, or if you have, not really considered it.

To show you what I mean, here’s a list of the subjects covered in the last few editions:

• Octavia Hill, the Victorian welfare reformer and co-founder of the National Trust
• The Bhagavad Ghita, the famous Hindu holy text
• The dawn of the iron age
• The medieval university
• The nature of free will – is it an illusion or not?
• The age of the universe
• The Taiping rebellion
• Maimonides, the Jewish medieval philosopher

Next up: neutrinos.

It’s only about 40 minutes long, you can listen to it every Thursday on Radio 4 or download it as a podcast. And although Melvyn Bragg is a little smug and irritating, it’s well worth listening to.