Public

We at Rosebud are thrilled about today's guest, and we know you will be too: it's Richard E Grant. Actor, writer, influencer and star of one of the most loved British films of all time, Withnail and I, Richard talks to Gyles about his extraordinary childhood. Born to good-looking parents in the ex-pat community in then-Swaziland, Richard's young life was full of Enid Blyton, barbecues and Pelham puppets - but things changed when his mother left the family and his father descended into alcoholism. What follows is a story full of shocks and surprises - including adultery, attempted murder and estrangement - and is well worth listening to. Richard also tells Gyles about his move to London, how he broke into acting, and how he met and married his wife, Joan Washington. And he talks about how he has coped since Joan's death in 2021.

Many thanks to Richard for this fascinating conversation.

Don't forget to subscribe to our YouTube here. Join The Rosebud Family here. And visit our website here.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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.

Grigory Rasputin rose from a humble Siberian peasant to become one of the most influential figures at the court of Tsar Nicholas II. A mystic and self-proclaimed holy man, he won the trust of the Romanov family and gained extraordinary access to power. But his growing influence, scandals and enemies at court deepened the crisis facing imperial Russia. In Rasputin and the Downfall of the Romanovs, historian Antony Beevor explores how the “mad monk” became entangled in the empire’s final collapse.

• Guest: Antony Beevor, historian
• Producer: Ali Benton

Misha Glenny and guests discuss the laws that Hammurabi (c1810 - c1750 BC), King of Babylon, had carved into a black basalt pillar in present day Iraq and which, since its rediscovery in 1901 in present day Iran, has affirmed Hammurabi's reputation as one of the first great lawmakers. Visitors to the Louvre in Paris can see it on display with almost 300 rules in cuneiform, covering anything from ‘an eye for an eye’ to how to handle murder, divorce, witchcraft, false accusations and more. The Code of Hammurabi, as it became known, made such an impression in Mesopotamia that it was copied and shared for a millennium after his death and, since its reemergence, Hammurabi and his Code have been commemorated in the US Capitol and the International Court of Justice.

With

Martin Worthington

Frances Reynolds

And

Selena Wisnom

Producer: Simon Tillotson

Reading list:

Zainab Bahrani, Mesopotamia: Ancient Art and Architecture (Thames and Hudson, 2017)

Dominique Charpin, Hammurabi of Babylon (I.B. Tauris, 2021)

Prudence O. Harper, Joan Aruz and Françoise Tallon, The Royal City of Susa: Ancient Near Eastern Treasures from the Louvre (Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1992)

J. Nicholas Postgate (ed.), Languages of Iraq, Ancient and Modern (British School of Archaeology in Iraq, 2007), especially ‘Babylonian and Assyrian: A History of Akkadian’ by Andrew R. George

Martha T. Roth, Law Collections from Mesopotamia and Asia Minor (2nd edition, Scholars Press, 1997)

Marc Van De Mieroop, King Hammurabi of Babylon: A Biography (Wiley, 2005)

Marc Van De Mieroop, A History of the Ancient Near East ca. 3000–323 BC (4th edition (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2006)

Selena Wisnom, The Library of Ancient Wisdom: Mesopotamia and the Making of History (Allen Lane, 2025)

Martin Worthington, Complete Babylonian: A Comprehensive Guide to Reading and Understanding Babylonian with Original Texts (Teach Yourself Library, 2012)

In Our Time is a BBC Studios Production

Spanning history, religion, culture, science and philosophy, In Our Time from BBC Radio 4 is essential listening for the intellectually curious. In each episode, host Misha Glenny and expert guests explore the characters, events and discoveries that have shaped our world.

We secular moderns sometimes make the assumption that philosophy is what you do when you're interested in the Big Questions of human existence, but not interested in religious answers. But the sacred/secular divide is itself a modern invention, and would not have made sense to medieval thinkers. This week we're exploring medieval Jewish philosophy - its fascinating cross-fertilisation with the Islamic culture of its day, its primary philosophical concerns and the things it can teach us about navigating a precarious and challenging world today.

This episode is presented by Mercury, the banking platform that makes this show possible. I can’t imagine trying to run my business without them. Learn more at https://mercury.com

I wanted to ask him how he dreams up vivid characters and how he writes about a city, a town, or a place. If you want to write, come up with stories, imagine worlds and put them onto the page, you're in the right place.

About the host

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Irish have high trust in government, and, also, a surprisingly widespread belief in conspiracy theories. What explains the Irish appetite for conspiracies, and how can damaging beliefs be slowed down? Plus: a digression about bouncy castles.

• Guest: Jane Suiter, Professor in the School of Communications at Dublin City University (DCU) and director of DCU's Institute for Future Media, Democracy and Society
• Producer: Alex Tighe

I must say, among all the wise people commenting on this world’s situation, I honor Jeffrey Sachs especially for being relentless on the dangers out there, going back to the Biden years.

Jeffrey Sachs.

He has worn his dread on his face. And in his voice, no matter that people get tired of it. And he’s very specific about the risks: of nuclear escalation for one; about grave economic damage in the rise of the BRICS alternatives to the trading nations, the old imperial remnant; but also about sleepwalking into World War III.

The post Sleepwalking into World War III appeared first on Open Source with Christopher Lydon.

The legends surrounding the figure of Rasputin are so well-trodden we may think we know the story, but how did a man born as a peasant come to find himself within the Tsar’s inner circle and how instrumental was he in the downfall of the Romanov dynasty. Luckily, we have historian Antony Beevor to answer every one of these questions and more. 

“I have always said that they are the same person. And the drama of this story is that one ends up dead in the darkest prison in America, and the other in the White House.” — Michael Wolff

A few days ago we had Jason Pack on the show suggesting that the Anglo-American media elite had a degree of complicity in the Epstein scandal. Michael Wolff disagrees. The media weren’t complicit, he says. They were just dumb. They found the story unseemly, were uncomfortable with it, and avoided it out of disdain—not conspiracy. David Remnick of The New Yorker was “dismissive of the whole thing.” The word Wolff keeps coming back to is “ick.”

Wolff knew Epstein. He recorded an estimated hundred hours of interviews with him. He has tried repeatedly to sell an Epstein book. Every publisher passed—the last time as recently as autumn 2025. One cited “the ick factor.” Others feared a Trump lawsuit. The man who made fortunes for publishers with Fire and Fury couldn’t get a deal on the story he knows best. If you want the closest thing to a firsthand account, Wolff says, read “The Last Days of Jeffrey Epstein” in his collection Too Famous. He’s probably right.

What emerges from the conversation is a portrait of Epstein as a middleman in a city of middlemen—but one who was genuinely interested in the people he connected, which is rare in that world. His sexual depravity was at war with his ambition to be respectable. The blackmail theory? “Certainly not true,” Wolff says. People came because they liked being there. He was their friend. And then there’s Trump. Wolff’s most explosive claim is that they are the same person—the closest relationship both men had in life was with each other. The drama is that one ends up dead in the darkest prison in America and the other in the White House. It’s Gatsby without the romance. And that’s what makes them both so vile.

As for the Trump show, Wolff has given up predicting its end. It doesn’t end until Trump dies. He is sui generis—nobody will replace him. He doesn’t understand legacy, doesn’t care about it, and when it’s no longer about him, could give a fuck. We’ll be trying to figure out how this happened for the next hundred years.

Five Takeaways

•       The Media Didn’t Conspire—They Were Just Dumb: Wolff dismisses the idea that the Anglo-American media elite knew more about Epstein than they were letting on. They didn’t know anything, he says. They found the story unseemly, were uncomfortable with it, and avoided it out of disdain—not conspiracy. David Remnick of The New Yorker was “dismissive of the whole thing.”

•       No Publisher Would Touch the Epstein Book: Wolff has tried repeatedly to sell an Epstein book. Every publisher passed. One cited “the ick factor.” Others feared a Trump lawsuit. The last attempt was autumn 2025. The man who made fortunes publishing Fire and Fury couldn’t get a deal on the story he knows best. The publishing industry’s failure of nerve, Wolff says, is total.

•       Trump and Epstein Are the Same Person: Wolff’s most explosive claim: Trump and Epstein are the same person. The closest relationship both men had in life was with each other. The drama of the story is that one ends up dead in the darkest prison in America and the other in the White House. Gatsby without the romance.

•       Epstein Was a Middleman in a City of Middlemen: What made Epstein different wasn’t the blackmail—Wolff says that’s “certainly not true.” People came because they liked being there. Epstein was genuinely interested in the people he connected, which is rare among New York’s professional middlemen. His sexual depravity was at war with his ambition to be respectable.

•       The Trump Show Doesn’t End Until He Dies: Wolff has been predicting the end of Trump for years. He now concedes it probably doesn’t end until Trump departs “this veil of tears.” Trump is sui generis—no one will replace him. He doesn’t care about legacy. He doesn’t even understand the concept. When it’s no longer about him, he could give a fuck.

About the Guest

Michael Wolff is a two-time National Magazine Award winner and the author of Fire and Fury, Siege, Landslide, All or Nothing, and Too Famous. He has been a columnist for Vanity Fair, New York, the Hollywood Reporter, and the Guardian. He lives in Manhattan.

References

Books and references:

•       Too Famous: The Rich, the Powerful, the Wishful, the Notorious, the Damned by Michael Wolff — contains “The Last Days of Jeffrey Epstein”

•       Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House by Michael Wolff

•       Previous Keen On episode: Jason Pack on the Epstein files and media complicity

•       The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald — referenced throughout as the model for Epstein, “but without the romance”

About Keen On America

Nobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen. In Keen On America, Andrew brings his pointed Transatlantic wit to making sense of the United States—hosting daily interviews about the history and future of this now venerable Republic. With nearly 2,800 episodes since the show launched on TechCrunch in 2010, Keen On America is the most prolific intellectual interview show in the history of podcasting.

Website

Substack

YouTube

Apple Podcasts

Spotify

Chapters:

• (00:41) - Introduction: The media elite and Epstein