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22/01/2020

Samantha Harvey: The Restless Unease

In this week’s Book Club podcast, Sam's guest is the novelist Samantha Harvey, whose new book — The Shapeless Unease: A Year of Not Sleeping — is an extraordinarily written, funny and terrifying account of her experience with insomnia. She talks to Sam about the strange contortions that the mind makes when the boundaries between conscious and unconscious thought start to fray, and how writing — as she sees it — saved her from madness.Presented by Sam Leith. Become a Spectator subscriber today to access this podcast without adverts. Go to spectator.co.uk/adfree to find out more. For more Spectator podcasts, go to spectator.co.uk/podcasts Contact us: podcast@spectator.co.uk Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
28/04/2022

A plan to rescue Christian art

Few things are more depressing than the art, architecture and furnishings of the average modern church. The glorious aesthetic of light and colour of the Middle Ages and Renaissance has been replaced with an infantile modernist decor more suited to a primary school than a place of worship. In the Catholic Church, especially, bishops who may privately have reasonably good taste happily commission cringeworthy 1970s-style art because they think it's demanded by 'the spirit of Vatican II'. Is there any way Christian art can escape from the grip of mediocrity? My guest on this episode of Holy Smoke thinks there is. She's the charismatic Rome-based art historian Dr Elizabeth Lev, whose TED talk about the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel is both erudite and, in places, hilarious. Liz's plan to rescue Church art is ingenious and, I think, achievable. But to find out more you'll have to listen to the podcast. Become a Spectator subscriber today to access this podcast without adverts. Go to spectator.co.uk/adfree to find out more. For more Spectator podcasts, go to spectator.co.uk/podcasts. Contact us: podcast@spectator.co.uk Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
18/01/2023

Ashley Ward: Sensational

My guest on this week's Book Club podcast is Ashley Ward, author of Sensational: A New Story of our Senses, which takes us on a cultural, historical and neurobiological tour of the sensorium. Along the way he tells me why Aristotle's notion of five senses is a convenient but cockeyed idea, why men are best letting their wives pick out the curtains, why we call ginger-haired people "redheads" and, oddly, how a pooping dog might do in a pinch as an aid to navigation. Become a Spectator subscriber today to access this podcast without adverts. Go to spectator.co.uk/adfree to find out more. For more Spectator podcasts, go to spectator.co.uk/podcasts Contact us: podcast@spectator.co.uk Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
20/10/2022

Sixty years on, Vatican II turns nasty

Ten years ago the Catholic Church happily celebrated the 50th anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council. Most people thought it was a good thing – and those who had their doubts were careful to express them diplomatically. Sixty years on, by contrast, Vatican II is the source of rancorous division in a collapsing Church. Liberals, describing themselves as 'The People of God', are invoking it to propose surreal changes to the doctrine that would have scandalised the Council fathers. They like to portray the forthcoming two Synods on Synodality – whose consultations attracted only a minuscule number of lay Catholics – as the fulfilment of Vatican II. Even, in some circles, as a sort of Vatican III. Meanwhile, traditionalists, assured by Benedict XVI that they could attend the Latin Mass without rejecting the Council, are now regularly mocked by Pope Francis for their 'rigidity'. He's busy banning their Masses, claiming that they're incompatible with Vatican II. And some traditionalists are wondering if he's right – in the sense that it was the Council that sowed the seeds of what they regard as the Bergoglian heresy. Conspiracy theories abound. In this episode of Holy Snoke I ask whether, considering not just this present nastiness but also the failure of the 'People of God' to meet the evangelical challenges of the Council, it might have been better if Vatican II had never happened. Become a Spectator subscriber today to access this podcast without adverts. Go to spectator.co.uk/adfree to find out more. For more Spectator podcasts, go to spectator.co.uk/podcasts. Contact us: podcast@spectator.co.uk Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
09/12/2020

Ed Caesar: The Moth and The Mountain

In this week's Book Club podcast, my guest is the journalist Ed Caesar, whose new book The Moth and the Mountain tells the story of a now forgotten solo assault on Everest that ended in disaster. But as Ed argues, the heroic failure can be a richer and more resonant story than any triumph -- and as he painstakingly excavated the story of Maurice Wilson, it was just such a rich and resonant story he discovered: of a character who became fixated on the mountain as a means of redeeming wartime trauma and a chequered and at times disgraceful romantic history, of getting his own back on hated authority figures, and -- just possibly -- of finding a safe space for his darkest secret of all. Become a Spectator subscriber today to access this podcast without adverts. Go to spectator.co.uk/adfree to find out more. For more Spectator podcasts, go to spectator.co.uk/podcasts Contact us: podcast@spectator.co.uk Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
30/01/2019

Josh Cohen: Not Working

In this week's books podcast Sam is joined by Josh Cohen, author of the Not Working: Why We Have To Stop. Josh is a literary critic and a working psychoanalyst, and his book is a thoughtful and subtle discussion of the way in which work dominates not only our lives and identities but our leisure time too -- and a speculation about some of the ways we might set about changing that. His references range from Max Weber and Freud to Orson Welles, Andy Warhol, Emily Dickinson and David Foster Wallace. Is it all the fault of "late capitalism"? Has the digital age made quiet contemplation impossible? And why, Sam queried, does his eccentric list of great idlers include some of the most insanely productive people in history? Presented by Sam Leith. Become a Spectator subscriber today to access this podcast without adverts. Go to spectator.co.uk/adfree to find out more. For more Spectator podcasts, go to spectator.co.uk/podcasts Contact us: podcast@spectator.co.uk Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
06/10/2017

The Protestant passion of Queen Victoria

With A.N. Wilson, author of The Victorians.Presented by Damian Thompson and Cristina Odone. Become a Spectator subscriber today to access this podcast without adverts. Go to spectator.co.uk/adfree to find out more. For more Spectator podcasts, go to spectator.co.uk/podcasts. Contact us: podcast@spectator.co.uk Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
23/02/2018

Why London’s universities are becoming scary places for Jewish students

With Alastair Thomas. Presented by Damian Thompson. Become a Spectator subscriber today to access this podcast without adverts. Go to spectator.co.uk/adfree to find out more. For more Spectator podcasts, go to spectator.co.uk/podcasts. Contact us: podcast@spectator.co.uk Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
22/03/2022

Chinese Whispers: the Taiwanese view on Ukraine

Taiwan is not Ukraine. But despite the very important differences in their situations, the Russian invasion can still shed much light on Taiwan's future. Even many Taiwanese think so – and have followed the developments closely, with solidarity marches held for Ukraine, protests at the Russian embassy and the Ukrainian flag lighting up Taiwanese buildings.On this episode of Chinese Whispers, my guests and I discuss the mainstream take on Ukraine (and also the not so mainstream – such as the view that America can't be relied upon, given it hasn't despatched troops to Ukraine). I'm joined by Brian Hioe, editor of New Bloom, an online magazine covering youth culture and politics in Taiwan, and Professor Kerry Brown from Kings College London, author of The Trouble with Taiwan.We give a primer on Taiwanese politics – what does the thriving democracy look like? How are elections held, and what are the major political parties? We discuss how China – instead of particular social or economic issues – is the main political topic dividing the left and the right (the 'Greens' and the 'Blues'), and whether, with mainstream Taiwanese opinion becoming ever hawkish on China in the aftermath of the Hong Kong National Security Law, the more pro-China forces in Taiwanese politics, such as the Kuomintang, really have a future in the country (Kerry says: ‘I don’t think the KMT can be written off.')In a crowded continent, there are also other power-brokers. We talk about the influence of America, and where Japan – Taiwan's erstwhile coloniser – fits in with all this. There have been calls for Japan to be more heavily armed in order to deter a Chinese invasion. How would the Taiwanese feel about that? Brian tells me: ‘Views of Japan differ sharply between the pan-green and the pan-blue camp. For the KMT, they remember a lot of the Sino-Japanese war and the crimes committed by the Japanese from that period. But for the pan-greens, who are sometimes descended from those that were in Taiwan for the Japanese colonial period, [remember] the period as a time of higher living standards and improved education, and in which Taiwan is being brought up as a colony rather than these political killings and mass violence, etc. They have a much more romanticised views of a Japanese colonial period.’In the end, economics may supersede politics. If President Tsai Ing-wen can't deliver on the economy given her tough stance on China (which is still Taiwan's biggest trading partner), then domestic politics may be in for another shakeup. As Kerry says: ‘It’s the issue that we all wrestle with. Their biggest economic partner is also their biggest security threat’.Additional listening: do tune in to a previous episode with Professor Rana Mitter, if you need a primer on why exactly Taiwan's history means that it is in this position and how the shared language and culture with the People's Republic of China came abouthttps://www.spectator.co.uk/podcast/why-does-china-care-about-taiwan-. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
25/09/2021

Spectator Out Loud: Katy Balls, Nicola Christie, Hannah Tomes

On this week's episode, Katy Balls gives us her thoughts on the importance of Keir Starmer’s performance this weekend at the Labour Party Conference. (00:54) Then Nicola Christie raises the curtain on the exciting new wave of British musical theatre. (06:53)And finally, Hannah Tomes talks about why Facebook won’t let her post about the English waterway Cockshoot Dyke. (15:50)Presented by Sam Holmes Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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