The Author Archive Podcast

Richard Dawkins - The War on Science

There are powerful politicians who have taken to denying scientific facts to further their own ambitions.

This took another massive leap into the abyss when President Trump removed all the limits on greenhouse gas emissions in the US.  Not a solution to the problem - just a denial of its existence. Inconvenient scientific facts denied and dismissed.

There is a new book edited by Lawrence M.Krauss - The War on Science.

Among the writers and scientists who have contributed chapters is Richard Dawkins.

Professor Dawkins talked to me about his chapter.

Eric Bibb talking about his life as a blues troubadour, the political and musical legacy he inherited from his father Leon ....and his new record.

Eric Bibb is a blues music legend.

In this conversation he talks about his teenage life growing up in the middle of the New York civil rights movement.

The people he knew... Paul Robeson, Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Pete Seeger ..... and how his father Leon Bibb continues to be an inspiration.

In the middle of an increasingly wayward world Eric Bibb is a voice of sanity.

Andrew Lownie - Entitled

It seems that Andrew has moved out of Royal Lodge. The sorry story continues.

Andrew and his ex wife Sarah are in the Epstein linked news again.

The photographs of him on his knees by a young lady lying on her back on the floor don't look good. The begging notes from Sarah to Jeffrey are embarrassing.

When this interview was recorded in August 2015 Andrew was a prince and a duke living in a very big house. That is now history.

Andrew Lownie has spent four years researching the lives of Andrew Windsor and Sarah Ferguson, who used to be the Duke and Duchess of York.

The book is full of dramatic details of lives spent sailing very close to the wind but mostly protected by their royal status. Not anymore.

What Andrew Lownie tells me will stop you in your tracks.

 

 

Nina Simone

Nina Simone was born on February 21st 1933.

There has been news recently of a plan to buy Nina Simone's childhood home in Tryon North Carolina and make it into a museum celebrating the life and work of the girl who was born Eunice Waymon.

I interviewed Nina  in December 1998 just before her last ever show at the Royal Albert Hall in London.

She was talking to me for a programme on the radio station Jazz fm, which would promote the concert.

Nina had a reputation for being a tricky interviewee but on the day she was delightful and during the conversation she was eager to give her views on sexism, racism and feminism.

After the interview I  was asked to introduce Nina on stage at the Albert Hall. It was a memorable day.

 

 

Stephen P. Kershaw - The Harvest of War -Three Epic Battles that Saved Democracy: Now available in paperback.

The future of democracy is a popular talking point at the moment. It seems some democratically elected leaders would like to change the system that gave them the job in the first place.

History records that we have been here before! When I talked to Dr Steve Kershaw about his book about battles in ancient Greece. it seemed that the human desire for conflict is unchanged through history. 

Three Epic Battles that Saved Democracy is an entertaining and instructive read - now published in the US by Pegasus Books. 

Great review in the Wall Street Journal.

Will it be read in the White House?

 

Sir Rannulph Fiennes, Eric Newby, Lucy Irvine.

In 2019 Sir Rannulph Fiennes was diagnosed with Parkinsons disease.

A few years ago as part of the Cheltenham Literary festival I interviewed Sir Rannulph on stage at the Everyman Theatre about his family history book 'Mad Dogs and Englishmen'.

I remember shaking hands  - a non standard formality for him. He told me how he had to adopt a DIY approach to dealing with frost bite in his fingers.

In this episode there's a conversation I had with Sir Rannulph later in a London studio, a chat with the legendary travel writer Eric Newby, and the life of the unforgettable Lucy Irvine.

Lucy had replied to an advertisement in 1980 seeking a woman to spend a year on a desert island with a man she didn't know.  This  adventure became a film starring Oliver Reid. She tells me how she went on to write the story of another island dwelling family in her book Faraway.

Memorable stories.

 

Michael R. Payne : Fast Tracks and Dark Deals

Michael Payne has spent his whole working life in the sports marketing business.

In his autobiography he tells how sport became big business.

In this  wide ranging conversation we discuss how the Olympics were saved from oblivion, whether FIFA were right to award Donald Trump a special peace prize.... and the major challenges facing sport in our connected digital age.,

Sophie Kinsella : Shopaholic Ties the Knot

Unbelievably Sophie Kinsella has died.  

This archive conversation was recorded at the Langham Hilton in London and I remember that Sophie ( real name Madeleine) turned up with lots and lots of shopping. That was to be expected because the conversation was to mark the publication of the third in the shopaholic series of stories.

She was great fun to talk to. That  isn't PR  spin .... she really was.

Huge sympathy to her husband and five children. 

 

 

Simon Sebag Montefiore : the life of Potemkin

Putin seems determined 'to make Russia great again'

His motivations are difficult to understand but listening to historian Simon Sebag Montefiore might go some way to explaining his thinkng.

Simon Sebag Montefiore explains the mythic status of  this eighteenth century Russian statesman, and military leader Grigory Potemkin. 

In this conversation recorded in London in 2000 Simon Sebag Montefiore tells David Freeman about practical politics in 18th century Russia and how Potemkin made his way in society with the help of the love of Catherine the Great.

Their relationship has been told in films but the way Simon tells the story is probably more gripping and unbelievable.

Simon told the story in full in his the books, Prince of Princes, and Catherine the Great and Potemkin, The Imperial Love Affair.

Interesting to hear Simon say that Putin read this book and what he learned has informed his political views. This lead to the invasion of Ukraine  and a significant incident when Russian troops broke into the crypt of the cathedral in Kherson and removed the bones of Grigory Potemkin. 

This is history to remember. Putin uses this history to justify his actions.

 

 

 

 

 

Anthony Seldon : The Path of Light. Walking to Auschwitz

Sir Anthony Seldon has written about a 1,300 kilometre walk he took across Europe from Southern France, through Austria and the Czech Republic finally reaching his destination, Auschwitz in Poland.

On the journey he seeks out inspiring stories of the lives of 'figures of light'.

As he tells me , while he was walking through places associated with fascism and the second world war he was well aware of the worrying state of global politics in the 21st century.

A thought provoking conversation.