Best of the Spectator

On this week's episode, Dr Max Pemberton explains that while just as many people are seeing their GP as before the pandemic, something has changed. (00:55) After, Andrew Watts argues that you shouldn't buy a second home in Cornwall. (09:15) Ysenda Maxtone Graham finishes the episode, lamenting the loss of indoor singing. (14:00) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Polly Morgan is an artist whose trade is taxidermy. She recently won the First Plinth Award, and in her time has sold to celebrity clients including Kate Moss and Courtney Love. On the podcast, she tells Katy Balls about her unusual childhood growing up on a farm with ostriches, goats and llamas; why she got fired by Prue Leith; and the ins and outs of taxidermy. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Experts are saying we are now officially in a third wave but how concerned should we be? (00:56) Also on the podcast: What will the mood be like when Boris meets Biden (14:33)? And are UFOs no longer a laughing matter?(23:00)With Scientist Simon Clarke, mathematician Philip Thomas, spokesperson for Republicans Overseas UK Sarah Elliot, Spectator World editor Freddy Gray, astrophysicist Tim O'Brian & author Lawrence OsbornePresented by Lara Prendergast.Produced by Cindy Yu, Max Jeffery and Sam Russell. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this week's Book Club podcast, Sam Leith's guest is one of America's foremost magazine journalists, the New Yorker's Lawrence Wright. His new book is The Plague Year: America In The Time of Covid. He tells Sam what a book brings to recent history that week-to-week journalism can't, about the extraordinary happenstance that put him in contact with one of the unsung heroes of the vaccine race, and the three reasons Covid was such a catastrophe for the US. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Craig Brown is an awarding winning critic, satirist and former restaurant reviewer. His most recent book One Two Three Four: The Beatles in Time, won the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction.On the podcast, he talks to Lara and Olivia about the horrible food at Eton, his utter failure to bake a cake, and proposes that one of the least important things to him when he was reviewing a restaurant was the food. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On this episode: Chris Daw QC on the blame game that surrounds the Hillsborough disaster and why it's time to move on (01:00); Lionel Shriver suggests we should just give Scottish nationalists what they want and watch the chaos unfold (07:40); and Sam Russell, the Spectator's new broadcast producer, talks about how book lovers are turning TikTok into a book club (16:25). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What was once dismissed by the mainstream media as a right wing conspiracy theory, seems to have made its transition, into credible possibility. It now seems very plausible that COVID came from a Chinese lab. But will we ever know for sure? And even if we did, what would we do about it? Freddy Gray talks to Thomas Frank, who recommends we all read this. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Why is the National Trust in crisis, and can it be fixed? (00:55) Plus, is there going to be a ‘fake meat’ revolution? (14:15) And finally, should wedding readings stick to the classics or is it acceptable to go for something a bit more out there? (24:25)With Spectator columnist and former editor Charles Moore; Simon Jenkins, chair of National Trust between 2008 and 2014; Anthony Browne, a Conservative MP and chair of the Environment APPG; Olivia Potts, The Spectator’s vintage chef and co-host of our Table Talk podcast; writer Laura Freeman; and Revd Canon Dr Alison Joyce, rector of St Bride's church in London.Presented by Lara Prendergast.Produced by Sam Holmes, Cindy Yu and Max Jeffery. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this week’s Book Club podcast Sam's guest is Lauren Hough - author of an outstanding new collection of autobiographical essays called Leaving Isn’t The Hardest Thing which describe a life that took her from growing up in the Children Of God cult via being discharged from the US Air Force and jobs as a bouncer in a gay bar and a “cable guy” on the road to being a writer. She talks about not writing a misery memoir, what elites don’t know about working class life, “lesbian drama”, and the benefits of revising your work on magic mushrooms. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What is it like to be a journalist in China? There are obvious restrictions on freedom of speech, but, as Cindy Yu finds out on this episode, there are creative ways to navigate the strict system of censorship. The end result is a complex media landscape - some have to litter investigations with state propaganda; others continue to report on sensitive issues (like the Wuhan Covid cover up) and rely on editors for protection; while growing digitisation and a strongman President continue to threaten what little independence flourished at the beginning of the century.With political scientist Maria Repnikova, author of Media Politics in China, and former journalist Fang Kecheng, now an Associate Professor in Journalism at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.