ARCHIVE: JULIE BINDEL ON 70,000 VOLUNTEERS...
A success at the London Olympics, so let’s cash in and take them off the dole and employ them. Image courtesy of Andy Wilkes via flickr.com ©©
Episodes
Things Unseen
Things Unseen grapples with a spiritual climate that no longer conforms to orderly patterns – with fewer of us attracted to formal religion, but many still believing that there’s more out there than meets the eye. Thought-provoking speech radio for people of faith – and those who just feel intrigued by the spiritual dimension to life.
Episodes
ARCHIVE: MICHAEL BUERK ON OUR GOLD MEDALS
‘It’s public schoolboys and girls wot won them. Social mobility hasn’t just seized up, it’s gone into reverse; state schools’ lack of ambition betrays our children’ Image courtesy of ahisgett via flickr.com ©©
ARCHIVE: MICHAEL BUERK ON THE OLYMPICS
'We're firmly in the grip of glorious delusions'. ... admitting you can learn to love them while acknowledging the delusions they foster
ARCHIVE: BUERK MICHAEL BUERK ON THE COLORADO KILLER
‘Obama promised “out of this darkness a brighter day will come”; it won’t, of course, because he won’t do anything about guns and the culture of his society which, like ours, is becoming ever more infantile.’ Image courtesy of esc.ape(d) via flickr.com ©©
ARCHIVE: MICHAEL BUERK ON A DESPICABLE HISTORY
Moral relativism of the worst kind: ‘lecturing others on human rights, while trying to escape responsibility for our abuse of them’.
ARCHIVE: MICHAEL BUERK ON ANDY MURRAY‘S SOB STORY
‘Self-control used to be a virtue. Now it’s thought of as dysfunctional. If we don’t display our feelings, it’s assumed we don’t have any’. Image courtesy of Nick J Webb via flickr.com ©©
ARCHIVE: MICHAEL BUERK SKEWERS FIFTY SHADES OF GREY
‘Our rubbish tells more about us than our art, and so it is with this ‘puerile tripe and mummy porn’ Image courtesy of crawford.I via flickr.com ©©
ARCHIVE: MICHAEL BUERK ON ARGENTINA’S ‘BREATHTAKING HYPOCRISY’
As its President accuses Britain of ‘naked colonialism’. This from a country of European immigrants ‘whose national policy has been to wipe out all trace of the people they snatched it from’. Image courtesy of ¡Que comunismo! via flickr.com ©©
ARCHIVE: SAME-SEX MARRIAGES: EQUAL RIGHTS OR ‘PURE POLITICS’?
David Cameron supports it, Nick Clegg says ‘when’ not ‘if’, the Churches worry about canon law and sin, and gays are split between ‘bring it on’ and ‘this is not the time’. Heat and light in our provocative and informative debate. Image courtesy of Guillaume Paumier via flickr.com ©©
ARCHIVE: MICHAEL BUERK ON THE EXHIBITION OF INVISIBLE ART
‘leaving judgment, intellect, and common sense at the door, and Instead fitting in with the vacuous as they glorify the vacant’. Image courtesy of Damien Cugley via flickr.com ©©
ARCHIVE: MICHAEL BUERK ON THE CASE FOR ‘UNIVERSAL’ BENEFITS
.....’partly selfish, partly economic, but especially moral: it’s about justice, social solidarity, and incentivising virtue’ Image courtesy of IanVisits via flickr.com ©©
ARCHIVE: MICHAEL BUERK ON MORMON MITT ROMNEY
'It's one thing believing what is inherently unlikely, but what about believing something absolutely, obviously, and provably wrong?' Image courtesy of More Good Foundation via flickr.com ©©
ARCHIVE: TREVOR BARNES ON ‘HATE’ CRIMES THAT AREN’T
Public busybodies delight in the depletion of our vocabulary and the policing of our thoughts. ‘It impoverishes us all’. Image courtesy of puuikibeach via flickr.com ©©
ARCHIVE: TREVOR BARNES ON AN UNEXPECTED (AND UNWANTED) GIFT
The King James Bible to every school ...’an empty gesture, potentially divisive, and a thinly-disguised attempt to tell teachers what to teach’. Image courtesy of bookchen via flickr.com ©©
ARCHIVE: TREVOR BARNES ON WHY INSULTS ARE GOOD FOR US
‘In a healthy democracy, it’s every citizen’s right to be insulted... Freedom of speech is at stake here’ Image courtesy of Stephen Dagnall via flickr.com ©©
ARCHIVE: BUT THEY ARE ONLY RUSSIANS
John Sweeney visits Ukraine to recall Stalin’s great famine with aged survivors, and to tell the story of two journalists – one who lied and won the Pulitzer, one who told the truth and was killed.
ARCHIVE: TREVOR BARNES ON THE APPEARANCE OF ROBOCOP
The pending Olympics are ‘an excuse for normalising the deployment of Action-men and women packing more heat than soldiers in Afghanistan’. [Image courtesy of Trojan631 via flickr.com ©©]
ARCHIVE: TREVOR BARNES ON ‘THE FRIGHTENERS’ BEING PUT ON US ALL...
Our children are in danger, yes, but ‘from the jobsworth’s mindset, and from the rule book untempered by common sense’
ARCHIVE: TREVOR BARNES ON WHY WE SHOULD BE ON OUR GUARD
‘I hate cigarettes, but as they’re legal people must be allowed to smoke them whether or not it hastens disease...’ Politicians should not intervene.
ARCHIVE: JULIE BINDEL ASKS WHY SO MANY BENEFITS FOR PARENTS
‘I often think that smug mums and dads will soon insist on pushchair lanes so that they don’t have to bother with us childless pavement pests’
ARCHIVE: JULIE BINDEL ON AN 'UNJUSTIFIABLE PROTECTION'
The mother of the Yorkshire Ripper’s last victim discovered the police cannot be sued for negligence. 28 years later, the situation is the same. This is a scandal – not least for rape victims, who are often not believed.
ARCHIVE: COLD WAR SYMBOL FOR A GENERATION part 2
The Berlin Wall, guarded for 28 years, saw many violent deaths and many ingenious escapes. Gerry Northam reports.
ARCHIVE: COLD WAR SYMBOL FOR A GENERATION part 1
How and why the Berlin Wall went up 50 years ago.
ARCHIVE: JULIE BINDEL ON THE WAR IN AFGHANISTAN
Hundreds of troops die, yes, but thousands of civilians. And what do those soldiers – 404 so far – die for, exactly? [Image courtesy of AghanistanMatters via flickr.com ©©]
ARCHIVE: JULIE BINDEL ON WHY PAYING FOR SEX IS WRONG
‘Prostitution is a cause and consequence of women’s inequality... Men need to be educated out of the belief that paying for sex can ever be a right’. [Image courtesy of Cédric Puisney via flickr.com ©©]
ARCHIVE: TREVOR BARNES ON HEALTH AND SAFETY 'MADNESS'
Where exactly was common-sense while 'appropriately-trained personnel' had to be summoned to fish the body out of three feet of water? [Image courtesy of Tomorrow Never Knows via flickr.com ©©]
ARCHIVE: ASSISTED DYING DIGNITY IN DEATH OR SOCIAL PESSIMISM?
The clash on a call for legalised assisted dying, without fear of prosecution
ARCHIVE: IMMIGRATION OPEN HOUSE OR CLOSED DOOR
Net migration into Britain this year reached 250,000. On one side of the Immigration debate, capped levels, earned citizenship, ID cards, and annual migration reports - on the other, open borders, a welcome for all, a call to increase the size of the cake, a celebration of a multi-cultural society.... Emma Barnett interrogates David Goodhart, Director of the independent think-tank Demos, and Ceri Dingle, Director of Worldwrite, an education charity campaigning for global equality - and then lets...
ARCHIVE: TREVOR BARNES ON RICHARD DAWKINS
‘God exists, or doesn’t. It’s a 50-50 shot. Dawkins can’t call believers stupid for having taken a punt; after all, he did’.
ARCHIVE: TREVOR BARNES ON UNIFORM MADNESS
‘Gender specific school uniforms can cause serious distress’ – one more example of saying goodbye to reason and good sense. [Image courtesy of Chris Millett via Flickr.com ©©]