Here's the first topic of today's Talk Media. To hear the full episode go to www.patreon.com/talkmedia

Here's the first topic of today's Talk Media. To hear the full episode go to www.patreon.com/talkmedia

An extended listener questions this week featuring questions from Alex MacDonald, Bill White and Colin Bone.

Here's the first topic of today's Talk Media. To hear the full episode go to www.patreon.com/talkmedia

We are delighted to welcome John Nicolson to the show today for the first time. Thanks to John for joining us remotely, hopefully next time we will have him in for some tea and biscuits!

Listener question this week is from John Nichol.

Recommendations:

Angela

Severance - Apple TV

Eamonn

The Passage of Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson

John

The Plot Against America - Philip Roth

Brian and Maggie - The real interview CH4

Here's the first topic of today's Talk Media. To hear the full episode go to www.patreon.com/talkmedia

Today's show was recorded before Israel announced their delay in releasing Palestinian prisoners.

Listen questions from Jim Hunter, James Ross and Linda.

Recommendations:

Eamonn

The Rose of Tibet - Lionel Davidson

David

War was my comfort zone, until I had to walk away - BBC Outlook

Here's a free listen to the first topic from this week's show. If you want to hear the other two topics, listener questions and recommendations, go to www.patreon.com/talkmedia and help us to continue our independent look at the stories hitting the news and the media behind them.

Happy New Year to you all from everyone at The Big Light.

Here's a free listen to the first topic from this week's show. If you want to hear the other two topics, listener questions and recommendations, go to www.patreon.com/talkmedia and help us to continue our independent look at the stories hitting the news and the media behind them.

We're really happy to be back in the studio and delighted to have such a packed first episode.

A bumper show today full of energy and great debate.

We'll be back with our first show of 2025 on 8th January. Wishing all of you a peaceful and happy Christmas and New Year.

Recommendations:

Catriona

Swiped - CH4

Emma and Matt Willis challenge a group of Year 8 pupils at the Stanway School in Colchester to give up their smartphones completely for 21 days

Angela

Irresistible -BBC2

Why are ultra-processed foods so irresistible, and how they have come to dominate food culture? This documentary by medical doctor and academic Dr Chris van Tulleken features interviews with former food industry insiders who talk openly about the way in which popular foods have been designed to be irresistible.

Food companies go to extraordinary lengths to ensure their products connect with consumers - from using brain scans to assess the deliciousness of ice cream to carefully engineering the sound of a crunch. Ultra-processed foods are hyper-delicious and super-convenient, have long shelf lives and are extremely cheap. But a growing body of evidence is linking these products to our declining health.

David

A Quiet Evening: The Travels of Norman Lewis

Collected here, from a period of nearly five decades, are thirty-six of Norman Lewis’s best articles. In each, his writing crackles with poker-faced wit and stylistic brilliance. As a witness to his times – the good, the bad and the absurd – he was unmatched, and his instinct for important events, and moments, was infallible. His range here includes Ibizan fishermen, an interview with Castro’s executioner, the genocide of the South American Indian tribes, a paean to Seville and his meeting with a tragic Ernest Hemingway. That meeting was ‘a shattering experience,’ Norman wrote to Ian Fleming who had commissioned him, ‘of the kind likely to sabotage ambition.’Fortunately it didn’t, and the articles assembled between these covers are compulsive, hilarious, tender and beautifully written, at times deeply upsetting, and always unforgettable.

The Golden Road: How Ancient India Transformed the World 

With a mind-boggling mastery of sources, Dalrymple weaves a thrilling tale of India’s cultural hegemony, not forgetting its invention of mathematics and related disciplines still in use today - Andrew Lycett, Spectator

Eamonn

Comfort and Joy

Alan Bird (Bill Paterson, Outlander, Dad's Army) thinks he has life pretty well organised. Glasgow's top DJ, with a nice apartment, and the only red BMW Cabriolet north of Manchester, he has little to worry about until his kleptomaniac girlfriend Maddy ditches him just before Christmas.

Listener questions from Kay Springham and Iain Campbell.

Recommendations:

Eamonn

The Only Girl In the Orchestra - Netflix

This short documentary celebrates trailblazing double bassist Orin O'Brien, the first woman to become a full-time member of the New York Philharmonic.

Angela

Cover - BBC Sounds

The man tasked with finding and killing alleged IRA informers was an informer all along. Reporter Mark Horgan traces the story of the secret British Army Agent known as Stakeknife.

David

My Silent War - The Autobiography of a Spy - Kim Philby

In the annals of espionage, one name towers above all others: that of H. A. R. "Kim" Philby, the ringleader of the legendary Cambridge spies.

A member of the British establishment, Philby joined the Secret Intelligence Service in 1940, rose to the head of Soviet counterintelligence, and, as M16's liaison with the CIA and the FBI, betrayed every secret of Allied operations to the Russians, fatally compromising covert actions to roll back the Iron Curtain in the early years of the Cold War.

Written from Moscow in 1967, My Silent War shook the world and introduced a new archetype in fiction: the unrepentant spy. It inspired John Le Carre's Smiley novels and the later espionage novels of Graham Greene. Kim Philby was history's most successful spy. He was also an exceptional writer who gave us the great iconic story of the Cold War and revolutionized, in the process, the art of espionage writing.

At the end a question from Alex MacDonald.

Recommendations:

Eamonn

Me and Mon Ami - YouTube

Adventures On The French Riviera In a Citroën Ami. We may not have driving licences but that won’t stop us. Join us as we go up mountain and down dale in this sunny place for shady people. Along with our chihuahua Twiggy we’ll take you to amazing villages, fantastic local restaurants, and off the beaten track beauty spots in our tiny sans permis electric car. History, culture, property and a healthy dose of Northern humour. So why not subscribe and join us on our ever so slightly crazy journey?

Angela

Say Nothing - Disney+

FX’s series “Say Nothing” is a gripping story of murder and memory in Northern Ireland during The Troubles. The 9-episode series is based on the book by Patrick Radden Keefe. Spanning four decades, the series opens with the shocking disappearance of Jean McConville, a single mother of ten who was abducted from her home in 1972 and never seen alive again. Telling the story of various Irish Republican Army (IRA) members, Say Nothing explores the extremes some people will go to in the name of their beliefs, the way a deeply divided society can suddenly tip over into armed conflict, the long shadow of radical violence for all affected, and the emotional and psychological costs of a code of silence.

Paddy

Hot Ones - YouTube

The show with hot questions and even hotter wings. Watch Sean interview celebrities such as Gordon Ramsay, Tommy Chong, and DJ Khaled as they burn their tastebuds.

Included questions from Paul Hampton, David Arnott and Muriel Cockburn.

A deep dive into the fast moving situations in both the Middle East and Ukraine, discuss the threat of strikes at The Guardian and The Observer and we consider the latest drama to spark court dealings - this time it’s the Netflix and the Mendez Brothers.

Recommendations:

David

UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese calls David Lammy a 'genocide denier'

Trump team divided over Ukraine war end plan, debates demilitarized zone, NATO freeze

Semi-Invisible Man: The Life of Norman Lewis

Norman Lewis Books

Eamonn

Dominic Dunne Vanity Fair

The Mansions of Limbo by Dominick Dunne

Justice: Crimes, Trials and Punishment by Dominick Dunne

Another City, Not My Own by Dominick Dunne