Listens

Jon Ronson on the culture war. Ignore that though: this piece is excellent and highly affecting.

The best sitcom of all time. John Finnemore’s radio series about ‘an airline for whom no job is too small but many, many jobs are too difficult’.

An Chinese mother hires an American surrogate to carry her baby.

Based on a Fringe show about straight-to-DVD releases. Just wonderful.

The New Yorker’s ‘Writer’s Voice’ is dependably excellent. This story lingered on my mind for years.

The spectacular Jill Lepore untangles the sci-fi roots of Silicon Valley’s extreme capitalism and bizarre techno-optimism.

Deadpan cast confronts Moby to retrieve a set of CDs.

A man finds a newborn baby on the New York subway.

As it turns out, the bagged ice industry is bloody interesting.

The unsettling future of low-lying coastal settlements.

The search for a song that doesn’t seem to exist. Escalates absurdly.

Jill Lepore can do no wrong. Axis-power propaganda broadcasts and the rise of doubt.

Malcolm Gladwell on country music, which he professes to loves and I hate. His piece makes me reconsider.

David Dimbleby and A-list interviewees on the events that led to the Iraq war.

A post-modern, poetic sitcom with canal boats.

Damon Krukowski, once of Galaxie 500, does for audio what John Berger did to art.

Who’d have thought going to the moon was so complicated. Perfectly formed pod.

Hari Kunzru makes an engrossing, opinionated argument. Great précis of Warwick Uni in this one.

Irritatingly-titled dive into the surprising roots of ‘Who Let the Dogs Out’.