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On Point news analyst Jack Beatty on why the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has set its Doomsday Clock at 85 seconds to midnight, its highest estimate of the likelihood of global catastrophe.

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In front of an audience at the Contains Strong Language Festival in Salford Tom Sutcliffe is joined by three guests to celebrate poetry ancient and new and to explore the latest innovations in hearing the spoken word.

The Poet Laureate Simon Armitage discusses his new verse translation of the ancient epic poem Gilgamesh, a timeless adventure story of power, love and loss. The poet and academic Jade Cuttle celebrates found objects - from Mesopotamian tablets to mudlarking treasure troves. Professor Trevor Cox from the University of Salford’s world-renowned Acoustics Innovation Institute explains the latest science behind hearing, listening and making yourself heard.

Producer: Katy Hickman

What was it like growing up in Egypt in the 1930s? How difficult is it to move between writing for children and adults? What is the best thing to do when afflicted with writer’s block?

In this week’s episode, John is joined by writer Dame Penelope Lively

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The award-winning writer Louise Kennedy speaks to Radio 4's Take Four Books about her latest novel, Stations, and, together with presenter James Crawford, they explore its connections to three other literary works.

Stations follows Róisín McCaffrey as she meets and Red Camelin as a teenager in their small Irish hometown in 1982. Red's reputation for trouble precedes him – but Róisín finds herself swept up in his storm, and soon their connection deepens.

For her three influences Louise chose: I Could Read The Sky by Timothy O’Grady and Steve Pyke (1997); The Grass Arena by John Healey, now printed as a Penguin Classic, (1988); and J.D Salinger's Franny and Zooey (1961).

Louise Kennedy grew up a few miles from Belfast. She is the author of the acclaimed short-story collection, The End of the World Is A Cul de Sac which won the John McGahern Prize. Her debut novel Trespasses, published in 2022, has been translated into over twenty languages. It won Eason Novel of the Year at the An Post Irish Book Awards, Best Debut at the British Book Awards and the McKitterick Prize, and was also shortlisted for several awards including the Women's Prize for Fiction, the Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize and Barnes and Noble Discover Prize.

In 2025, Trespasses was made into a limited TV series by Channel 4, starring Lola Petticrew, Tom Cullen and Gillian Anderson. Before starting her writing career, Kennedy spent nearly thirty years working as a chef. She lives in Sligo.

Producer: Dominic Howell

In the first of five episodes to celebrate reaching the episode 500 mark by looking at things he skipped in earlier series, Peter talks to a leading expert on the poems of Sappho. 

Mark Coles profiles Alice Weidel, the some say, unlikely joint leader and public face of the far right, nationalist AfD - the Alternative for Germany party.

Weidel's a right wing populist and a self confessed fan of Margaret Thatcher. Yet in some respects, particularly when it comes to her private life is seemingly at odds with, almost the antithesis of what her party stands for.

Her supporters don't seem to mind. Weidel and the AfD have notched up a series of big win in local elections this month, including Saxony Anhalt, causing huge headaches for beleaguered German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s, Christian Democratic Union.

With the AfD currently topping opinion polls, many are now wondering out loud if Weidel could become Germany’s first far right leader since the Second World War.

Production team:

(00:00) – Clíona Ní Ríordáin and Patrick Cotter discussion
(07:05) – Máighréad Medbh interview
(01:04:52) – Southword poem, Incantations of Loss by Lani O’Hanlon 

Máighréad Medbh is a poet and prose writer with nine published books. Most of her poetry books are long-form sequences or narratives, and her ecological verse novel, Parvit of Agelast (Arlen House), was shortlisted for the 2017 Pigott Prize. After her first book from Blackstaff Press in 1990, she earned a reputation for dramatic presentation, performing widely in Ireland and abroad. She has written for radio, collaborated on award-winning art films, and has three novels online. In 2025 she was awarded the Aodh Ruadh Ó Domhnaill Poetry Exchange, during which she completed her new work Dwelling, a transhistorical exploration of identity, change and displacement, conflating poetry and essay.

This week's Southword poem is 'Incantations of Loss' by Lani O’Hanlon, which is published in issue 49. You can buy single issues, subscribe, or find out how to submit to Southword here.

Host Meg Wolitzer presents two works that reassess and redefine our ideas of “the West.”  It’s both a landscape of awesome beauty, and the scene of cultural appropriation, and we’ve got two masters sharing and shaping our experience.  In Louise Erdrich’s “The Hollow Children” a natural disaster tests family ties.  It’s read by Tate Donovan.  And writer and environmental activist Rick Bass stress tests the West, and his main character, in “Fires,” read by John Benjamin Hickey.  We also reprise part of an interview with Louise Erdrich from earlier in the year.  In it, she mentions a new novel in progress, which has now been published: The Mighty Red: A Novel.

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This is a catch-up version of James O'Brien's Mystery Hour. To join the game, call 0345 60 60 973, Thursdays at 12pm.

UnHerd’s Freddie Sayers talks to Oxford philosopher Professor Nick Bostrom about the escalating concerns over artificial intelligence, weighing whether catastrophic warnings from industry insiders reflect genuine existential fears or commercial strategy, while analysing technical threats like deceptive alignment and autonomous AI coordination alongside the broader economic, geopolitical, and societal risks of managing superintelligence.

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