Barthes, Capitalism and Taste

In 1954, the French critic and semiotician Roland Barthes began a series of essays in which he analysed the popular culture of his day. He called his essays "Mythologies." In this series of witty talks the acclaimed writer and critic Peter Conrad delivers a series of 21st Century Mythologies in a French accent of the mind. Conrad ranges over the defining effluvia of our era, from the Cronut to the Shard, to the Kardashians. In this first programme Conrad turns his mind to an innovation Barthes would have abhorred: the screw top wine bottle.