James Marriott discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

James Marriott is a columnist at The Times, writing about society, culture and ideas.

1. The poetry of Geoffrey Hill https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v07/n06/tom-paulin/the-case-for-geoffrey-hill

2. CAT S22 Flip https://www.reddit.com/r/dumbphones/comments/16p2an2/cat_s22_flip_reviewjustwow/?rdt=55955

3. Uzbekistan https://www.wildfrontierstravel.com/en_GB/blog/places-to-visit-in-uzbekistan

4. The acronym WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_WEIRDest_People_in_the_World

5. The War Against Cliche by Martin Amis https://www.theguardian.com/books/2001/apr/14/fiction.martinamis

6. Rossini's opera L'Italiana in Algeri https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPodHwCbE5k&pp=ygUQI2l0YWxpYW5hZW5hcmdlbA%3D%3D

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Keetie Roelen discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Keetie Roelen is a leading thinker in poverty and social policy and a longstanding advocate for social justice. She currently works as a Senior Research Fellow and Co-Deputy Director at the Centre for the Study of Global Development at The Open University, the largest university in the UK. She is also founder and host of the podcast Poverty Unpacked, exploring the hidden sides of poverty in conversation with a broad range of experts.

Keetie has a PhD in Public Policy and has been working in the field of poverty, social policy, and international development for more than 15 years. Keetie has widely published in academic journals and books, and her work has featured in media such as the Guardian and BBC World Service. She has spoken about how to address poverty to multiple audiences, ranging from government ministers at the UN and MPs in UK parliament to students and activists. Keetie is passionate about contributing to a fairer world and creating more prosperous lives for all. Across her career, she has listened to personal accounts of hundreds of families and interviewed dozens of experts, building a deep appreciation of the complexities and opportunities for addressing adversity. Her new book is The Empathy Fix (https://atlantic-books.co.uk/book/the-empathy-fix/) which seeks to tell a new story about why hardship persists and how we can break the cycle.

1. European films https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/feb/10/european-film-must-see-25-movies

2. Transplant Games https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-66336861

3. Early paintings by Van Gogh https://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/arts/artwork/early-paintings-by-vincent-van-gogh.htm

4. Assistance dogs https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/guidance/assistance-dogs-guide-businesses-and-service-providers

5. ATD Fourth World https://www.atd-fourthworld.org/who-we-are/

6. Dominicanen bookshop in Maastricht https://www.awellreadwanderer.com/boekhandel-dominicanen-unique-bookstore/

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Nabeel Qureshi discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Nabeel S. Qureshi is an entrepreneur and researcher specializing in artificial intelligence and healthcare. He is the CEO of a new startup company and a Visiting Scholar at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. Nabeel is based in New York and grew up in Manchester, England.

1. The filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/01/17/the-metaphysical-world-of-apichatpong-weerasethakuls-movies
2. Empson's Seven Types of Ambiguity https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1975/01/23/incomparable-empson/
3. Wittgenstein's late notebooks, Culture and Value https://prismatically.blog/2020/08/30/wittgenstein-culture-and-value-whereof-one-cannot-speak-thereof-one-must-be-silent/
4. The pianist Grigory Sokolov, especially his recording of Bach's Goldberg Variations https://open.spotify.com/track/0iD6SmRyOj23fCKyG4x8zj?si=decbea5bd38f4515&nd=1&dlsi=ce22c9bdf87a4ba4
5. The essay Art as Technique by Viktor Shklovsky https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/english/currentstudents/undergraduate/modules/fulllist/first/en122/lecturelist-2015-16-2/shklovsky.pdf
6. A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v15/n08/john-lanchester/indian-summa

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Anna Ploszajski discusses with Ivan six things which she thinks should be better known.

Dr Anna Ploszajski is an award-winning materials scientist, comedian and storyteller based in London. She’s a materials generalist, equally fascinated by metals, plastics, ceramics, glasses and substances from the natural world. Anna channels her passion for storytelling about materials through writing, podcasting, presenting and training scientists and engineers in the art of storytelling. Her first book, Handmade: A Scientist’s Search for Meaning Through Making, is out now. In her spare time, Anna plays the trumpet in a funk and soul covers band and is an ultra-endurance open water swimmer. Find out more at www.annaploszajski.com.

1. Materials science https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Materials_science

2. Into the Woods by John Yorke https://www.waterstones.com/book/into-the-woods/john-yorke/9780141978109

3. Ultra-swimmer Sarah Thomas https://sarahthomasswims.com/.

4. Trumpets can play quietly! https://www.alisonbalsom.com/

5. Barberette https://www.barberette.co.uk/

6. IFIXIT https://www.ifixit.com/

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Helen Gordon discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Helen Gordon’s books include Notes from Deep Time (Profile), Landfall (Penguin) and, with Travis Elborough, Being a Writer (Frances Lincoln). She has written about nature, science, art and books for various newspapers and magazines including the Economist’s 1843 magazine, the Guardian, the TLS, Apollo and Wired UK. A former Granta magazine editor, she currently teaches creative writing at the University of Hertfordshire.

1. Deep time https://profilebooks.com/work/notes-from-deep-time/

2. James Hutton https://www.edinburghgeolsoc.org/edinburghs-geology/geological-pioneers/james-hutton/ and https://www.geolsoc.org.uk/GeositesSiccarPoint

3. Campi Flegrei https://volcano.si.edu/volcano.cfm?vn=211010

4. The view towards London from Farthing Downs https://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/things-to-do/green-spaces/farthing-downs/visit-farthing-downs

5. Man in the Holocene https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/Man-in-the-Holocene-by-Max-Frisch-Geoffrey-Skelton/9781564784667

6. Desk Set https://www.allmovie.com/movie/v13391

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Novelist John King discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

John King is the author of nine novels with a tenth (London Country) to be published in 2023. His debut The Football Factory was turned into a film starring Danny Dyer and Dudley Sutton, while his most recent (Slaughterhouse Prayer) is being developed for television. His first novella The Beasts Of Brussels appeared as one-third of The Seal Club in 2020 along with work by Irvine Welsh and Alan Warner. The second of a proposed trilogy (Seal Club 2: The View From Poacher’s Hill) is due in 2023. John co-owns London Books, edits the London Classics fiction list, publishes and edits the small-press fiction journal Verbal and co-runs the Human Punk nights at London’s 100 Club. He has also written articles and reviews for the likes of the New Statesman in the UK, la Repubblica in Italy and Le Monde in France. You can find out more at https://www.john-king-author.co.uk/

1. The Middle Path https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhadasa

2. The benefits of leaving the EU https://www.john-king-author.co.uk/liberal-politics

3. The realities of animal slaughter https://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/til-the-pigs-come-round/

4. Drinking beer in public houses is good for our health https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/essays-and-other-works/the-moon-under-water/

5. The so-called lowlife literature of 1930s London https://www.london-books.co.uk/

6. Dharma Blues https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbAb9oqkHlQ

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Economist Anton Muscatelli discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Professor Sir Anton Muscatelli has been Principal and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Glasgow since 2009. An economist, his research interests are monetary economics, central bank independence, fiscal policy, international finance and macroeconomics.

Sir Anton was Chair (2016-21) of the First Minister’s Standing Council on Europe, a non-political group providing expert advice to Scottish ministers on Scotland’s relationship with the EU. He was a member of the Scottish Government’s Council of Economic Advisers 2015-21, and subsequently advised them on the National Strategy for Economic Transformation. He is a member of the advisory group for Sir Paul Nurse’s Review of the UK’s Research, Development and Innovation Organisational Landscape. From 2017-20 he was Chair of the Russell Group of UK research-intensive universities. He has been a special adviser to the House of Commons Treasury Select Committee on fiscal and monetary policy, and he has advised the European Commission and the World Bank. He holds an honorary degree from McGill University in Canada.

1. The life of James McCune Smith https://www.universitystory.gla.ac.uk/biography/?id=WH24115&type=P&o=&start=0&max=20&l=

2. The importance of central bank independence https://www.ft.com/content/c233c60e-7d88-465a-9b8b-c35b6a5ca339 (paywall)

3. Cooking with fresh (Apulian) artichokes https://personalpuglia.com/2012/11/27/an-abundance-of-artichokes-food-itlay/

4. Sostiene Pereira by Antonio Tabucchi https://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/nov/21/pereira-maintains-tabucchi-review

5. The game of Maniglia/Manille https://www.pagat.com/manille/mariglia.html

6. Basilica of St Nicholas in Bari https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basilica_di_San_Nicola

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Novelist Kamila Shamsie discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Kamila Shamsie was born and grew up in Karachi, Pakistan. Her novel, Home Fire, won the Women’s Prize for Fiction in 2018. It was also longlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2017, shortlisted for the Costa Best Novel Award, and won the London Hellenic Prize. She is the author of six previous novels including Burnt Shadows, shortlisted for the Orange Prize, and A God in Every Stone, shortlisted for the Women’s Bailey’s Prize and the Walter Scott Prize. Her work has been translated into over 30 languages. Kamila Shamsie is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and was named a Granta Best of Young British Novelist in 2013. She is professor of creative writing at the University of Manchester and lives in London. Her new novel is Best of Friends, which is available at https://www.waterstones.com/book/best-of-friends/kamila-shamsie/9781526657862.

Kamila Shamsie is in conversation with Nesrine Malik at London’s Southbank Centre on Wednesday 28th September. Tickets are available at https://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/whats-on/literature-poetry/kamila-shamsie-best-friends?eventId=907048.

1. The Peshawar Museum https://aboutkp.kp.gov.pk/page/peshawar_museaum

2. Women’s cricket https://theconversation.com/the-history-of-womens-cricket-from-englands-greens-to-the-world-stage-132904

3. How to dress on scorchingly hot days https://www.gearpatrol.com/style/a736579/how-to-dress-cool-through-hot-weather/

4. The Pakistan floods https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/14/world/asia/pakistan-floods.html

5. Ada I and II of Caria https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ada_of_Caria

6. City walks https://www.ft.com/content/9d190dfe-97d5-4a9a-b8a3-8019589e9cee

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Philip Ball discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Philip Ball is a freelance writer and broadcaster and worked previously for over 20 years as an editor for Nature. He writes regularly in the scientific and popular media and has authored many books on the interactions of the sciences, the arts, and the wider culture, including H2O: A Biography of Water, Bright Earth: The Invention of Colour, The Music Instinct and Curiosity: How Science Became Interested in Everything. His book Critical Mass won the 2005 Aventis Prize for Science Books. Philip is a presenter of Science Stories, the BBC Radio 4 series on the history of science, and is the 2022 recipient of the Royal Society’s Wilkins-Bernal-Medawar Medal for contributions to the history, philosophy or social functions of science. He trained as a chemist at the University of Oxford, and as a physicist at the University of Bristol. His latest book is The Book of Minds (2022), a survey of the varieties of mind that do and might exist. Find out more at www.philipball.co.uk.

1. Our genome is not a blueprint for us https://aeon.co/essays/our-genome-is-not-a-blueprint-for-making-humans-at-all

2. Emmy Noether https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxmDphojQUU

3. Glenn Branca https://www.theguardian.com/music/2018/may/14/glenn-branca-dead-guitarist-composer

4. The Blue Flower by Penelope Fitzgerald https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1997/07/17/paradise-in-a-dream/

5. What mercury feels like https://www.quora.com/What-does-mercury-feel-like

6. The deceptive cadence https://www.aaronkrerowicz.com/beatles-blog/the-beatles-use-of-deceptive-cadences

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Travel writer Tharik Hussain discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Tharik Hussain in an author and travel writer whose work often serves to counter popular and authorised narratives. His debut book, Minarets in the Mountains: A Journey into Muslim Europe, was nominated for the Stanford Dolman Travel Book of the Year award and the Baillie Gifford Prize in Non Fiction, and named a Book of the Year in the New Statesman, Prospect Magazine and the Times Literary Supplement. Hussain is also a Lonely Planet author who has written for the BBC, National Geographic and The Guardian. He developed Britain’s first Muslim heritage trails in Woking, Surrey and is a Fellow at the University of Groningen’s Centre for Religion and Heritage.

You can find out more about Tharik's work at https://linktr.ee/TharikHussain and www.tharikhussain.co.uk

You can find out more about the Muslim heritage trails: https://www.everydaymuslim.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/01Trail-EM-WMHT-WokingTrail.pdf and https://www.everydaymuslim.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/02Trail-EM-WMHT-MuhCemWalk.pdf

1. Offa's Dinar https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/gold-dinar-of-king-offa
2. The Shah Jahan Mosque https://shahjahanmosque.org.uk/
3. Twelve centuries of European Jewish-Muslim co existence https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2019/1105/Where-an-ancient-Jewish-Muslim-coexistence-endures
4. Indigenous European Muslim culture https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/voices/forgotten-muslims-southeastern-europe
5. There is an official 'Arabic' EU language https://airmalta.com/en-gb/blog/malta/the-fascinating-history-of-the-maltese-language
6. The oldest mosque in the US https://www.salaamgateway.com/story/five-historic-mosques-of-america-you-shouldnt-miss

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Rebecca Struthers discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Dr Rebecca Struthers is an independent watchmaker and time historian.

The co-founder of multi-award-winning workshop Struthers Watchmakers, in her practice, she specialises in the continuation of historic watchmaking techniques to restore old and craft new artisan timepieces.

A real time doctor, Rebecca is the first watchmaker in British history to earn a PhD in horology.

Rebecca is a Trustee of the Museum of Timekeeping (UK), a Fellow of British Horological Institute, a Sustainable Skills Ambassador for the Association of Heritage Engineers, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, and an Academy Member of the Grand Prix d'Horlogerie de Genève - considered the Oscars of the watchmaking world.

Her book, Hands of Time, explores the human history of time told through the objects we’ve invented to measure. It will be published in May 2023.

Find out more at https://strutherswatchmakers.co.uk.

1. John Wilter https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/196974

2. Benjamin Banneker https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Banneker

3. The Museum of Timekeeping https://www.museumoftimekeeping.org.uk/

4. Staffordshire Moorlands https://www.visitpeakdistrict.com/visitor-information/staffordshire-moorlands-tourist-information-centre-p677411

5. The Radium Girls https://www.kate-moore.com/the-radium-girls

6. Dogs can tell the time https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/canine-corner/201911/can-dogs-smell-time

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Rebeca Ramos discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Rebeca Ramos is a Venezuela-born architect and designer. Her international body of work includes of multi-disciplinary projects recognised for their design quality, cultural relevance and technological innovation. She led the design and delivery of the multi-award winning Maggie's Leeds; as well as the strategic definition of Google's largest urban Campus based in California.

Rebeca founded Studio RARE inn 2021 as the culmination of 16+ years of international practice in architecture, media and the arts. Blending creative disciplines, RARE leverages emerging technologies to re-imagine how we create, develop and experience places, environments and cultural artefacts.

She was the first and youngest appointed female Project Leader at Heatherwick Studio, and first Latin-American woman to fill the position in 2015. She has been featured in Bloomberg UK and Business Insider, with projects reviewed and acclaimed in the international design press.

1. Home television series https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_(2020_TV_series)
2. Tribal storytelling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigenous_peoples_in_Venezuela
3. The art of repair https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2021/aug/22/back-for-good-the-fine-art-of-repairing-broken-things
4. The artistic, cultural and architectural history of Venezuela https://www.admiddleeast.com/architecture-interiors/homes/gio-pontis-planchart-villa-in-venuzuala-is-an-icon-of-mid-century-modern-design
5. Emotional language https://www.nonviolentcommunication.com/learn-nonviolent-communication/feelings/
6. The Timeless Way of Building https://www.re-thinkingthefuture.com/rtf-architectural-reviews/a4713-book-in-focus-the-timeless-way-of-building-by-christopher-alexander/

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Subhadra Das discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Subhadra Das is a researcher and storyteller who looks at the relationship between science and society. She specialises in the history and philosophy of science, particularly the history of scientific racism and eugenics, and what those histories mean for our lives today. For nine years, she was Curator of the Science Collections at University College London, and also Researcher in Critical Eugenics at the Sarah Parker Remond Centre for the Study of Racism and Racialisation. She has written and presented podcasts, curated museum exhibitions, done stand-up comedy and regularly appears on radio and TV. Her first book, (Un)Civilised: 10 Lies That Made The West comes out in May 2023. For more information, go to https://www.waterstones.com/book/un-civilised/subhadra-das/9781399704359%C2%A0

1. Francis Galton https://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/museums/2015/10/22/francis-galton-and-the-history-of-eugenics-at-ucl/
2. Alok Vaid Menon https://www.instagram.com/alokvmenon
3. Alabama 3 https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2001/apr/04/artsfeatures.popandrock
4. Gaudy Night https://www.newyorker.com/books/under-review/an-overlooked-novel-from-1935-by-the-godmother-of-feminist-detective-fiction
5. Pocket https://getpocket.com/
6. The Muppet Movie https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-muppet-movie-1979

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Edward Carey discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Edward Carey is a writer and illustrator who was born in North Walsham, Norfolk, England, during an April snowstorm. He is the author of the novels Observatory Mansions and Alva and Irva: the Twins Who Saved a City, and of the YA Iremonger Trilogy, which have all been translated into many different languages and all of which he illustrated. His 2018 novel Little has been published in 20 countries. His novella The Swallowed Man, set inside the belly of an enormous sea beast, was published in 2022. His latest novel Edith Holler will be published on 3rd October by Gallic Books and is available at https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/edith-holler-edward-carey/7601350?ean=9781913547783.

He has written plays for the National Theatre of Romania and the Vilnius Small State Theatre, Lithuania. In England his plays and adaptations have been performed at the Young Vic Studio, the Battersea Arts Centre, and the Royal Opera House Studio. He has collaborated on a shadow puppet production of Macbeth in Malaysia, and with the Faulty Optic Theatre of Puppets.

Edward will be in the UK in October and speaking about Edith Holler in bookshops around the country: Waterstones Trafalgar Square (3rd October), Mr B’s Emporium (4th October), Blackwells Oxford (5th October), Blackwells Manchester (7th October) and Dragon Hall, National Centre for Writing in Norwich (8th October).

1. Commonplace books https://balzerdesigns.typepad.com/balzer_designs/2023/06/what-is-a-commonplace-book.html

2. Whitby Museum https://whitbymuseum.org.uk/

3. The art of Charles Altamont Doyle https://huntington.org/exhibition/unseen-world-charles-altamont-doyle

4. The fairy tales of Giambattista Basile https://www.britannica.com/biography/Giambattista-Basile

5. Norwich undercrofts https://www.norwichunderground.xyz/undercrofts/

6. Victorian toy theatres https://craftsmanship.net/the-rise-and-fall-of-toy-theatre/

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Historian David O Stewart discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

A recovering lawyer and proud graduate of Curtis High School on Staten Island, David Stewart has published five books of history and four historical novels. His most recent nonfiction work, George Washington: The Political Rise of America's Founding Father, has won several awards and was a finalist for Mount Vernon’s George Washington Prize. His most recent novel, The New Land, was inspired by family stories his mother told, and is the first of a trilogy. He lives in Maryland with his wife of 48 years, Nancy; they have three children and five grandchildren. His website is www.davidostewart.com.

His non-fiction books include The Summer of 1787: The Men Who Invented the Constitution, Impeached: The Trial of President Andrew Johnson and the Fight for Lincoln's Legacy, Madison's Gift: Five Partnerships that Built America, and American Emperor: Aaron Burr's Challenge to Jefferson's America.

His fiction books include The Lincoln Deception, The Paris Deception and The Babe Ruth Deception.

1. George Washington’s political skills https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Washington%27s_political_evolution

2. Philip Noel-Baker https://www.quakersintheworld.org/quakers-in-action/231/Philip-Noel-Baker

3. The Daughter of Time, by Josephine Tey https://chandlersfordtoday.co.uk/allison-symes-book-review-the-daughter-of-time-by-josephine-tey/

4. The Valle de los Caidos monument https://makespain.com/listing/valle-de-los-caidos/

5. The battles of Louisbourg in 1745 and 1758 https://www.thoughtco.com/french-indian-war-siege-of-louisbourg-2360795

6. The 1868 impeachment trial of U.S. President Andrew Johnson https://www.senate.gov/about/powers-procedures/impeachment/impeachment-johnson.htm

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Novelist Lavie Tidhar discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Lavie Tidhar was born just ten miles from Armageddon and grew up on a kibbutz in northern Israel. He has since made his home in London, where he is currently a Visiting Professor and Writer in Residence at Richmond University. He won the Jerwood Fiction Uncovered Prize for Best British Fiction, was twice longlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award and was shortlisted for the CWA Dagger Award and the Rome Prize. He co-wrote Art and War: Poetry, Pulp and Politics in Israeli Fiction, and is a columnist for the Washington Post. His latest novel is Maror, published by Head of Zeus, which is available at https://www.waterstones.com/book/maror/lavie-tidhar/9781838931353.

1. Joseph Grimaldi’s grave https://londonist.com/london/videos/grimaldi-s-cave

2. Bislama http://www.pentecostisland.net/languages/bislama/guide.htm

3. Marek Hlasko http://cosmopolitanreview.com/killing-the-second-dog/

4. Rarg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8EGIG-Sq5-c

5. Castro Mojito https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/beer-mojito

6. The Israeli Mafia https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/israel-middle-east/articles/a-field-guide-to-israeli-organized-crime

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Roma Agrawal discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Roma Agrawal MBE is a structural engineer and author with a physics degree.

She has designed bridges, skyscrapers and sculptures with signature architects. She spent six years working on The Shard, the tallest building in Western Europe, and designed the foundations and the ‘Spire’.

In addition to winning industry awards, she has been featured on BBC World News, BBC Daily Politics, TEDx, The Evening Standard, The Sunday Times, Guardian, The Telegraph, Independent, Cosmopolitan and Stylist Magazines. She was the only woman featured on Channel 4's documentary on the Shard, The Tallest Tower. Her books include Built: The Hidden Stories Behind Our Structures and How Was That Built?

1. Bharata Natyam https://www.culturalindia.net/indian-dance/classical/bharatnatyam.html

2. Emily Warren Roebling https://www.womenhistoryblog.com/2014/06/emily-warren-roebling.html

3. Foundations of structures https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1998-jun-01-mn-55439-story.html

4. ICSI https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intracytoplasmic_sperm_injection

5. Chaat https://www.tasteofhome.com/article/chaat/

6. The science of knitting and crochet https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/17/science/math-physics-knitting-matsumoto.html

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Tim Lott discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Tim Lott was born in Southall, West London in 1956. After a career in journalism, his first book, The Scent of Dried Roses, a memoir, was published in 1996 and won the PEN/JR Ackerley Prize for Autobiography. His first novel, White City Blue, (1999) a contemporary portrait of friendship and rivalry between a group of young single men, won the Whitbread First Novel Award. It was followed Rumours of Hurricane (2002), a portrait of working class life in Britain in the 1980’s, which was shortlisted for the Whitbread Novel Award.

Tim has been teaching writing for the last ten years, as a lecturer, teacher and individual mentor. He taught for three years at the Faber Academy, then moved to Guardian Masterclasses where he teaches individually and lectures with his partners John Yorke and Will Storr, collectively known as The Story Board. He has also taught creative writing at Brunel University and lectured at the University of East Anglia, the How To Academy, the Idler Academy, and the School of Life. His online mentoring course on Memoir is at TheNovelry.com.

1. Alan Watts https://medium.com/age-of-awareness/alan-watts-on-the-5-most-important-lessons-of-the-21st-century-6d1734aa6cf
2. The Game of the Goose http://ursuladubosarsky.squarespace.com/the-game-of-the-goose
3. Come and See https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-come-and-see-1985
4. Canelés https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/caneles
5. Hampstead Mixed Pond https://www.mixedpondassociation.org.uk/
6. The Fryer’s Delight https://www.timeout.com/london/news/step-back-in-time-at-this-old-school-fish-and-chip-shop-022522

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Emma Smith discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Emma Smith is Professor of Shakespeare Studies at Hertford College, Oxford: her most recent book is Portable Magic: A History of Books and their Readers.

1. The plays of Thomas Middleton https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v30/n23/michael-neill/old-dad-dead
2. New Lanark https://www.newlanark.org/
3. Abel Gance’s film Napoleon https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/nov/10/napoleon-review-silent-era-epic-more-thrilling-than-ever
4. French 75s https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/french-75-cocktail
5. The Scrivener app https://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener/overview
6. The jazz pianist Jan Johannson https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Johansson_(jazz_musician)

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Elisabeth Kendall discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Elisabeth Kendall is Mistress-elect of Girton College, Cambridge, and Senior Research Fellow in Arabic and Islamic Studies at Pembroke College, Oxford. Her current work examines how militant jihad groups exploit cultural traditions and local dynamics. Previously, she was at the Universities of Edinburgh and Harvard, and served as Director of a UK government-sponsored Centre focused on building Arabic-based research expertise.

Elisabeth has lectured at governmental, military and scholarly institutions all around the world and is a frequent contributor to international television and print media. She also sits on a variety of international boards and is Chairman of a grass-roots NGO in eastern Yemen.

She has authored and edited several books, including ReClaiming Islamic Tradition and Twenty-First Century Jihad. She conceived of the “Essential Middle Eastern Vocabularies” series, which includes the following titles which she also authored: Diplomacy Arabic, Intelligence Arabic and Media Arabic. She is currently working on a new book called Rock Stars of Jihad. Elisabeth has spent significant time in the field, especially in Yemen.

She can be followed on Twitter https://twitter.com/Dr_E_Kendall and YouTube https://www.youtube.com/c/ElisabethKendall/videos

1. Craft chocolate https://www.greatbritishfoodawards.com/blog/9-british-craft-chocolate-bars-you-have-to-try
2. War in Yemen https://www.cfr.org/global-conflict-tracker/conflict/war-yemen
3. The Great Courses https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wondrium
4. The Lycian Way https://cultureroutesinturkey.com/the-lycian-way/
5. Elizabeth Welsh https://www.girton.cam.ac.uk/events/elizabeth-welsh-1843-1921
6. Foreign languages https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-40954948

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In a change to the usual format, Ivan Wise discusses one thing which is Extremely Well-Known.

In April 1912, the world's largest ocean liner, the Titanic, sank on the fourth day of its maiden voyage. Over 1500 of its passengers and crew drowned.

For 110 years, this story has dominated our consciousness. Its mix of innovative engineering, New York high society and tragedy on the high seas has been adapted for film and television numerous times, is a text book case in the study of hubris and has been a subplot in shows as wide-ranging as Doctor Who, Downton Abbey and Family Guy. Why has this story become so well-known? And why is it that we all know about the Titanic but not about all the other maritime disasters?

As a reward for those who have listened curiously to many hundreds of choices of which they have never heard, finally here is an episode about a subject which everyone can relate to.

Archive interview extracts are taken from the 1996 Radio Netherlands documentary Titanic: A 20th Century Parable. https://archive.org/details/titanic-a-20th-century-parable

Titanic https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17631595 13 Maritime disasters more tragic than the Titanic https://www.theshipyardblog.com/13-maritime-disasters-more-tragic-than-the-titanic/ Lusitania https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/18-minutes-that-shocked-the-world Princess Alice disaster (1878) https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-44800309 Wilhelm Gustloff (1945) https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/deadliest-disaster-sea-happened-75-years-ago-yet-its-barely-known-why-180974077/

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Andrew Martin discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Andrew Martin is a prolific author of fiction and non-fiction books, some of which have a railway theme. His 'Jim Stringer' thrillers are set on the British railways of the early 20th Century, and the latest of these is Powder Smoke https://www.littlebrown.co.uk/titles/andrew-martin/powder-smoke/9781472154842/

His latest stand-alone novel is The Winker, about a 70s pop musician who winks at people, then kills them. https://www.littlebrown.co.uk/titles/andrew-martin/the-winker/9781472153982/

His new book is a travelogue-cum-memoir about his native county, called Yorkshire - There and Back https://www.littlebrown.co.uk/titles/andrew-martin/yorkshire/9781472154866/

His website is at https://jimstringernovels.com

1. Scarborough https://www.discoveryorkshirecoast.com/scarborough/things-to-do

2. Robert Robinson https://transdiffusion.org/2011/10/02/robert_robinson/

3. Bicycle saddle bags http://www.bikeroar.com/tips/to-saddle-bag-or-not-is-this-the-best-way-to-carry-gear-on-my-bike

4. Walter Wilkinson http://www.punchandjudy.com/wilkinson.htm

5. Sparklehorse https://pitchfork.com/features/article/9745-the-sad-and-beautiful-world-of-sparklehorses-mark-linkous/

6. Alan Godfrey Maps https://www.alangodfreymaps.co.uk/

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Rupal Patel discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Rupal Patel’s high-octane career has taken her from jungles and war zones to corporate boardrooms and international stages. After a thrilling career at the CIA, she earned her MBA and started her first award-winning business over ten years ago.

Called a ‘Power Woman’ by Harper's Bazaar Magazine, Rupal is a sought-after international speaker and business consultant who has spoken in front of thousands. As a sitting CEO, author, advisor, coach and mentor, Rupal helps founders, corporate executives, and next-generation change-makers cut through the noise of living and leading and make the impossible possible.

Her new book From CIA to CEO (Bonnier Books UK) provides a powerful new toolkit that reveals how the techniques of the CIA can help anyone find their voice and thrive in the world of business without conforming to stale stereotypes or dated “best practice”. With surgical insights and unique exercises, Rupal helps her audiences and clients leverage the CIA mindset to remake the rules of success and become unstoppable. Find out more about Rupal at www.rupalypatel.com.

1. The Raan of Kutch https://www.tripsavvy.com/great-rann-of-kutch-travel-guide-4134857
2. Ethiopian food https://www.foodrepublic.com/2015/10/14/ethiopian-food-primer-10-essential-dishes/
3. Putting yourself forward https://www.science.org/content/article/if-you-re-hesitant-apply-professional-awards-remember-it-s-worth-putting-yourself
4. Being interested https://www.scotsman.com/arts-and-culture/theatre-and-stage/robin-ince-importance-being-interested-1585670
5. Neil de Grasse Tyson https://www.haydenplanetarium.org/tyson/about/profile.php
6. Kouign amann https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/kouign_amann_09102

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Tori Herridge discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Dr Tori Herridge is an evolutionary biologist and Daphne Jackson Research Fellow at the Natural History Museum in London.

Her research addresses big evolutionary and environmental questions using a broad range of lab and field methods, all underpinned by the rich fossil record from the Quaternary Period (aka “The Ice Age”). She is an expert on fossil elephants, particularly those species which lived in Europe during the Ice Age: mammoths and straight-tusked elephants.

She is the co-founder of TrowelBlazers, an organisation dedicated to telling the stories of pioneering women in palaeontology, geology and archaeology, and addressing gender disparity in these fields today. See trowelblazers.com

She also makes TV programmes: Ice Age: Return of the Mammoth? (Channel 4/Science Channel), Woolly Mammoth The Autopsy (Channel 4/Smithsonian), T. rex Autopsy (National Geographic), Hannibal’s Elephant Army (Channel 4/PBS), as well as the series Bone Detectives, Britain at Low Tide, and Walking Through Time for Channel 4.

1. Finger limes https://www.riverford.co.uk/organic-fruit-veg-and-salad/fruit/finger-limes
2. Shropshire https://www.investinshropshire.co.uk/relocate-to-shropshire/shropshire-at-a-glance/fascinating-facts/
3. Trowelblazers https://trowelblazers.com/
4. The lost diversity of elephants https://theecologist.org/2016/jan/22/last-time-earth-was-hot-britain-was-land-hippos-and-elephants
5. Diana Wynne Jones https://www.csmonitor.com/Books/chapter-and-verse/2011/0404/In-appreciation-of-Diana-Wynne-Jones
6. The Ice Age wasn’t always cold https://www.climate.gov/news-features/climate-qa/hasnt-earth-warmed-and-cooled-naturally-throughout-history

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Steve Prest discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Steve Prest was a Weapon Engineer Officer who joined the Royal Navy after reading Electronic and Electrical Engineering at Loughborough University. He served in the Defence Communications Services Agency in Corsham in support of Op TELIC 1 (Iraq); undertook a short tour in Afghanistan as a Liaison Officer to Task Force Helmand; and has served on exchange with the French Navy. In the UK he has worked in Defence Equipment and Support, MOD, the Permanent Joint Headquarters and the Maritime Capability Division of Navy Command Headquarters.

At sea he was the Weapon Engineer Officer in HMS WESTMINSTER undertaking operations in the Mediterranean (Libya), Arabian Gulf and Indian Ocean; and then the Commander Weapon Engineer in HMS QUEEN ELIZABETH, bringing the ship out of build and home to Portsmouth.

Joining the nascent Navy Acquisition organisation in 2017, he was previously the Programme Director of the Type 31 Frigate Programme. He then became Deputy Director Navy Acquisition (Equipment and Systems), and Senior Responsible Owner (SRO) for the Maritime Electronic Warfare and Mine Hunting Capability Programmes. He fulfilled the role of Director Navy Acquisition from September 2022 until May 2023 and finished his career as Deputy Director People Change Programmes in Navy Command HQ.

Still working out what he wants to do when he grows up, Steve is now an independent consultant, advisor, commentator and speaker in the Defence sector and beyond. He has set up his own company, Alatar Ltd, and his self-appointed mission is “to help brilliant people to do amazing things”.

He is married to Kerry and they live on the Hampshire coast with their daughter, Emily. He enjoys reading and is a keen fan of most sports, participating when time and body allow.

1. The Royal Navy and what it does.
2. That life is stochastic not based on fate, otherwise risk management wouldn't work!
3. The Scouring of the Shire - from Lord of the Rings. It was a crucial part of the narrative arc in the books but missed out from the otherwise brilliant films.
4. Captain Cook. Everyone knows that he "discovered" Australia (he didn't really, but...) but his qualities as a leader and maritime professional should be better known.
5. That inclusive leadership isn't "woke nonsense" but is, at its heart, just good leadership.
6. Bluestone 42 - a BBC comedy drama about a British bomb disposal detachment details the camaraderie and bonds shared between the soldiers in the unit as they risk their lives defusing bombs.

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Novelist Benjamin Myers discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Benjamin Myers was born in Durham in 1976. His latest novel is The Perfect Golden Circle. His novel The Gallows Pole received a Roger Deakin Award and won the Walter Scott Prize for historical fiction. Beastings won the Portico Prize for Literature and Pig Iron won the Gordon Burn Prize, while Richard was a Sunday Times Book of the Year. He has also published poetry, crime novels and short fiction, while his journalism has appeared in publications including, among others, The Guardian, New Statesman, Caught by the River and New Scientist. He lives in the Upper Calder Valley, West Yorkshire.

1. Mini https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p05nrklh/inside-story-mini
2. Reunion by Fred Uhlman https://theexiledsoul.com/2019/07/14/book-review-reunion-by-fred-uhlman/
3. You Suffer by Napalm Death https://www.metalsucks.net/2016/06/07/happens-slow-napalm-deaths-suffer/
4. Glenda Jackson https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2020/jul/26/glenda-jackson-interview-i-am-an-antisocial-socialist
5. Soundcloud rap https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emo_rap
6. Hedgehogs https://ptes.org/get-informed/facts-figures/hedgehog/

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Catriona Seth discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Catriona Seth FBA is the Marshal Foch Professor of French Literature and a Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford. She was brought up in the UK, in Switzerland, in Venezuela and in Belgium. Before becoming a university academic, she worked as a translator and interpreter, as a management consultant and as a schoolteacher. She has published widely, mainly in French, on 18th-century literature and culture. Her objects of research have included Marie-Antoinette, smallpox inoculation, women's life-writing, Germaine de Staël and André Chénier.

1. Bilingualism https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20160811-the-amazing-benefits-of-being-bilingual
2. Loose-leaf Assam tea https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/life-style/food-news/what-is-assam-tea-and-what-are-its-benefits/photostory/69684080.cms
3. Auctions https://www.esprit-de-france.com/en/news/visit-auction-house-paris
4. Sleeper trains https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2020/feb/06/10-best-sleeper-trains-in-europe-night-trains
5. Concert halls for chamber music https://www.ucl.ac.uk/chamber-music/cmc-socials/metropoles-finest-chamber-music-venues
6. The life and works of Katherine Read https://www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/entertainment/2642310/katherine-read/

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Neil Brand discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Neil Brand has been a silent film accompanist for over 30 years, regularly in London at the Barbican and BFI National Film Theatres, throughout the UK and at film festivals and special events around the world, including Australia, New Zealand (three times), America, Israel, Sweden, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Luxembourg, and, in Italy, the Bologna, Aosta, Bergamo and Pordenone festivals where he has inaugurated the School of Music and Image to teach up-and-coming young pianists about silent film accompaniment.

Neil now has a very fruitful relationship with the BBC Symphony Orchestra which has resulted in London performances of his acclaimed orchestral score for Hitchcock’s silent Blackmail, the BBCSO / Barbican commission to score Asquith’s silent Underground and Chaplin's Easy Street. He followed these successes with two through-scored radio adaptations, The Wind in the Willows (Audio Drama Award Nominated) and A Christmas Carol for Orchestra, Choir and Actors commissioned by Radios 3 and 4 – all of these works orchestrated and conducted by maestro Timothy Brock.

Neil is also a prolific radio playwright including Sony- and Tinniswood- nominated dramas Stan (which he adapted for BBC TV) and Getting the Joke, as well as establishing the regular live-recorded musical series The Big Broadcast. He has twice toured nationally with Paul Merton as well as appearing in, and supplying music for, Paul’s silent film-related TV documentaries.

Neil is a TV presenter on BBC4 with his hugely successful series Sound of Cinema, The Music that Made the Movies and Sound of Song, is a regular presenter on Radio 4's Film Programme, a Fellow of Aberystwyth University and a Visiting Professor of the Royal College of Music and is considered one of the finest improvising piano accompanists in the world.

1. Richard Rodney Bennett https://www.theguardian.com/music/2012/dec/26/sir-richard-rodney-bennett

2. Sheridan Le Fanu https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2014/aug/28/sheridan-le-fanu-two-centuries-birth-vampire-ghost-stories

3. The musical of the Mystery of Edwin Drood https://www.broadwayworld.com/reviews/The-Mystery-of-Edwin-Drood

4. Satie House https://en.normandie-tourisme.fr/museums-and-heritage-sites/maisons-satie/

5. Radio Drama https://bookriot.com/history-of-the-radio-drama/

6. Rango https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/rango-2011

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Historian JD Dickey discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

J.D. Dickey has for more than 20 years been observing and writing about American history, society and culture. Of his book, Rising in Flames, Harold Holzer in the Wall Street Journal wrote, "No one interested in Sherman’s March should be deprived of his lively narrative. Absolutely spellbinding." His earlier book, Empire of Mud, was a New York Times bestseller and described the troubled landscape of Washington, D.C., in the nineteenth century. He has also written and spoken on on a broad range of historical and political topics in media such as TIME magazine, C-SPAN's Book TV, Public Radio International's The Takeaway and Literary Hub. In addition, he has lectured for the New-York Historical Society, the Pritzker Military Museum and Library, and the Atlanta History Center, among other organizations. His current work, The Republic of Violence: The Tormented Rise of Abolition in Andrew Jackson’s America, was published in March 2022 by Pegasus Books.

1. The Built, The Unbuilt and the Unbuildable https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/built-unbuilt-and-unbuildable

2. The Museum of Jurassic Technology https://www.mjt.org/

3. The Visitor https://jimorourke.bandcamp.com/album/the-visitor

4. Gregory Crewdson https://dianamarin.com/2019/02/19/review-gregory-crewdson-cinematic-photography/

5. The Flagellation of Christ http://www.travelingintuscany.com/art/pierodellafrancesca/flagellation.htm

6. Pandora and the Flying Dutchman https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/05/movies/pandora-and-the-flying-dutchman-restoration.html

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Rory Sutherland discusses with Ivan six things which he thinks should be better known.

Rory is the Vice Chairman of Ogilvy, an attractively vague job title which has allowed him to co-found a behavioural science practice within the agency.

Before founding Ogilvy’s Behavioural Practice, Rory was a copywriter and creative director at Ogilvy for over 20 years, having joined as a graduate trainee in 1988. He has variously been President of the IPA, Chair of the Judges for the Direct Jury at Cannes, and has spoken at TED Global. He writes regular columns for the Spectator, Market Leader and Impact, and also occasional pieces for Wired. He is the author of The Wiki Man, available on Amazon (at prices between £1.96 and £2,345.54, depending on whether the algorithm is having a bad day), and the best-selling Alchemy, The surprising Power of Ideas which don't make Sense, published in the UK and US in May 2019, and, co-written with his former colleague Pete Dyson, the newly released Transport For Humans on the behavioural science of transport.

Rory is married to a vicar and has twin daughters. He lives in the former home of Napoleon III - unfortunately in the attic. He is a trustee of the Benjamin Franklin House in London and a Patron of Rochester Cathedral.

1. Sherry https://www.sherry.wine/news/8-things-you-should-know-about-sherry
2. East Kent https://www.britain-visitor.com/uk-city-guides/east-kent-guide
3. The works of Iain McGilchrist https://jennymackness.wordpress.com/2020/05/15/introducing-the-work-of-iain-mcgilchrist/
4. Haydn https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1979/06/14/rediscovering-haydn/
5. Henry George https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2019/04/henry-georges-single-tax-could-combat-inequality/587197/
6. Air fryers https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/howto/guide/air-frying-healthy

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Philosopher Andy West discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Andy West is philosopher in residence at HMP Pentonville, London. His writing has been published in The Guardian, Aeon, The Big Issue, 3AM Magazine and Lito. He is the author of The Life Inside: A Memoir of Prison, Family and Philosophy (Picador 2022). For more information, go to https://www.amazon.co.uk/Life-Inside-Memoir-Prison-Philosophy/dp/1529032016/

1. Rectify https://www.vulture.com/2016/12/rectify-review-there-may-never-be-a-show-like-it-again.html

2. Little Bad Thing https://ethics.org.au/littlebadthing/

3. Nietzsche's idea of The Festival of Punishment https://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft4q2nb3dn&chunk.id=d0e604&toc.depth=100&toc.id=d0e595&brand=ucpress

4. Kafka’s short story Prometheus https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/06/29/the-rescue-will-begin-in-its-own-time

5. Nostalgia for the Light https://www.theguardian.com/film/2012/jul/12/nostalgia-for-the-light-review

6. The Graybar Hotel https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/sep/08/the-graybar-hotel-curtis-dawkins-review

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Katja Hoyer discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Katja Hoyer is an Anglo-German historian and journalist. She is a Visiting Research Fellow at King's College London and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. She writes about German politics as a Washington Post columnist as well as for several British newspapers like The Spectator and The Telegraph. Katja's debut book Blood and Iron - The Rise and Fall of the German Empire 1971-1918 became a bestseller in the UK. She is currently working on a new history of East Germany from 1949 to the fall of the Berlin Wall.

1. The Baltic coast https://www.travelstride.com/attractions/things-to-do-in-baltic-sea-attractions

2. Shrewsbury Prison https://guide2.co.uk/shropshire/listings/shrewsbury-prison/

3. Louise of Prussia https://departments.kings.edu/womens_history/luise.html

4. German cakes https://theculturetrip.com/europe/germany/articles/the-best-german-traditional-cakes-you-need-to-try/

5. Octopuses https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v39/n17/amia-srinivasan/the-sucker-the-sucker

6. Cultural output from behind the Iron Curtain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_of_East_Germany

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Jenny Kleeman discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Jenny Kleeman is a journalist, broadcaster and documentary-maker. She hosts the weekend Breakfast show on Times Radio and writes for the Guardian, the Sunday Times and The New Statesman. She has reported for BBC One's Panorama, Channel 4's Dispatches and VICE News Tonight on HBO, as well as making 13 films from across the globe for Channel 4's Unreported World. Her first book, Sex Robots & Vegan Meat, was published in 2020. She's currently working on her second book, The Price of Life, which will be published by Picador.

1. The Journalist and the Murderer by Janet Malcolm https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1990/03/01/the-morality-of-journalism/
2. The art of Oron Katz and Ionat Zurr https://www.rca.ac.uk/news-and-events/rca-stories/oron-catts-and-ionat-zurr-working-life/
3. King of Kong https://ew.com/article/2007/08/15/king-kong-fistful-quarters/
4. Here My Dear by Marvin Gaye https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/marvin-gaye-here-my-dear/
5. John Frusciante https://www.loudersound.com/features/drugs-ghosts-and-the-radical-re-birth-of-john-frusciante
6. Redwood trees in Kew Gardens https://www.kew.org/read-and-watch/redwoods-tallest-trees-on-earth

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Nicola Horlick discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Nicola Horlick is CEO of Money&Co. She has been a leading fund manager in the City of London for over thirty years. During that time, she has set up and managed several investment businesses. She now chairs a private equity business, is CEO of a film development company, and is a director of an NHS Foundation Trust.

1. Black Comedy by Peter Shaffer https://chicagocritic.com/black-comedy/

2. Joseph II of Austria https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v10/n10/william-doyle/despots

3. Many Lives, Many Masters by Dr Brian Weiss https://www.compulsivereaders.com/reviews/many-lives-many-masters-brian-l-weiss/

4. Pictures at an Exhibition https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sq7Qd9PSmR0

5. Orlanda Broom https://orlandabroomartist.com/

6. La Perriere https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Tourism-g1189181-La_Perriere_Orne_Basse_Normandie_Normandy-Vacations.html

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James Runcie discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

James Runcie is an award-winning film-maker, playwright and literary curator. He is the author of twelve novels that have been translated into twelve languages, including the seven books in the Grantchester Mysteries series. He has been Artistic Director of the Bath Literature Festival, Head of Literature and Spoken Word at the Southbank Centre, London, and Commissioning Editor for Arts on BBC Radio 4. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He lives in Scotland and London. For more information on his latest novel, The Great Passion, please see https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/great-passion-9781408885512/.

1. Bach’s Cantata 22 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcflikYLk1w

2. Ladi Kwali ceramics https://www.oxfordceramics.com/artists/107-ladi-kwali/overview/

3. Lydia Davis’ short stories https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2010/04/29/horse-sense-heartache/

4. The Lacemaker https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-lacemaker-1978

5. The Photos by The Photos https://www.allmusic.com/album/the-photos-mw0000495183

6. Fernet Branca https://spiritsreview.com/reviews/fernet-branca/

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Ivan Wise discusses four anti-war plays which should be better known.

1. Post Mortem by Noel Coward http://www.ww1plays.com/2015/07/noel-cowards-serious-war-play.html

2. The White Disease by Karel Capek https://artsfuse.org/198970/arts-commentary-pestilence-on-stage-part-one-karel-capeksthe-white-plague/

3. O’Flaherty VC by George Bernard Shaw https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O%27Flaherty_V.C.

4. Last Days of Mankind by Karl Kraus https://www.theguardian.com/culture/1999/dec/13/artsfeatures4

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Musician Lias Saoudi discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Lias Kaci Saoudi is a writer, artist and musician, and the front man of genre-bending iconoclasts Fat White Family. Born to a British mother and Algerian father, he grew up in the Republic of Ireland, Scotland and Northern Ireland, before moving to London and gaining a Fine Art degree from Slade School of Art.

During the first UK lockdown, Lias began contributing a series of unflinching autobiographical pieces entitled Life Beyond the Neutral Zone to the online cultural hub, The Social Gathering. He is published in The New Frontier: Reflections From the Irish Border (New Island Books, 2021) - an anthology of new writing from some of Ireland’s greatest contemporary authors marking the centenary of partition. He is also the debut guest editor of Ambit Pop, a new annual issue of the venerable quarterly arts magazine.

His first book, Ten Thousand Apologies: Fat White Family and the Miracle of Failure, co-written with Adelle Stripe (Black Teeth and a Brilliant Smile, Bloomsbury, 2019), is described by Miranda Sawyer in The Observer as “the story of a band that’s always on the brink: of stardom, of madness, of brilliance, of disgrace”. You can buy it at https://www.whiterabbitbooks.co.uk/titles/adelle-stripe-2/ten-thousand-apologies/9781474617864/

1. It’s me, Eddie by Eddie Limonov https://literaryreview.co.uk/its-me-eddie
2. Limits to medicine by Ivan Illich https://joannamoncrieff.com/2016/04/18/limits-to-medicine-re-visiting-ivan-illich/
3. Macho Music by Peter Gordon https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbeJKaAKLos
4. The Grass Arena by John Healy https://www.theguardian.com/books/2008/aug/05/biography
5. A feast of snakes by Harry Crews https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Feast_of_Snakes
6. Ratfucker by Armand Schaubroek https://trouserpress.com/reviews/armand-schaubroeck-steals/

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Justine Waddell is a writer, producer and actor. Through her production company, Asterisk Films, she has just picked up the 2021 Golden Prague Czech Television Award for her documentary feature film Janine Jansen: Falling for Stradivari. She has also produced Force of Nature Natalia, directed by BAFTA and Grierson-winning filmmaker, Gerry Fox, about prima ballerina, Natalia Osipova.

Virginia Woolf’s Night & Day, which Justine has developed with the British Film Institute and Piccadilly Pictures, is Justine's debut screenplay.

After graduating from Cambridge University, Justine’s film work as an actress includes lead roles in Alexander Zeldovich’s Target (Telluride Film Festival, 2011), where she learnt from Russian from scratch. She has also played leading roles in period dramas Wives and Daughters, Great Expectations and Tess of the D’urbevilles.

Justine is also the founder and CEO of Klassiki.online. Launched in 2021, Klassiki is the world’s first streaming platform to deliver classic and contemporary film content from Russia, the Caucasus and Central Asia. More information is available at www.klassiki.online.

1. Naoshima Art Island https://boutiquejapan.com/naoshima/

2. Abbotsford https://www.scottsabbotsford.com/

3. Russian language female filmmaking tradition https://www.calvertjournal.com/features/show/11768/women-directors-soviet-unions-silent-movie-era

4. Cecilia Payne Gaspochkin https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00509-3

5. African craft www.madwa.com

6. Constance Spry https://lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v43/n17/rosemary-hill/at-the-garden-museum

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Roisin Kiberd discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Roisin Kiberd's essays have been published in the Dublin Review, the White Review, the Stinging Fly and Winter Papers. She has written features on technology and culture for publications including the New York Times, the Guardian, Vice and Motherboard, where she wrote a column about internet subcultures. Having spent some time in London as the online voice of a cheese brand, she now lives between Dublin and Berlin. Her first book is The Disconnect: more details are at https://serpentstail.com/work/the-disconnect/.

1. Ologies www.alieward.com/ologies
2. The Surgeon’s Hall Museums, Edinburgh https://museum.rcsed.ac.uk/
3. VALIS by Philip K Dick http://www.conceptualfiction.com/valis.html
4. The OA https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-reviews/oa-review-1196307/
5. This tweet https://ifunny.co/picture/donald-j-trump-o-the-coca-cola-company-is-not-z7uZLjBg4, also as a bizarre, unintentional riff on this even more iconic tweet: https://twitter.com/tree_bro/status/79444819902074880?lang=en
6. The Conservatism of Emoji https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2056305115604853

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Science journalist Angela Saini discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Angela Saini is an award-winning British science journalist and broadcaster. She presents science programmes on the BBC, and her writing has appeared in New Scientist, The Sunday Times, National Geographic and Wired. Her latest book, Superior: The Return of Race Science, was a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize and named a book of the year by The Telegraph, Nature and Financial Times. Her previous book, Inferior: How Science Got Women Wrong, has been translated into fourteen languages. Angela has a Masters in Engineering from the University of Oxford and was a Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 2020 she was named one of the world’s top 50 thinkers by Prospect magazine. Find out more at angelasaini.co.uk

1. GenderSci Lab at Harvard University https://www.genderscilab.org/
2. Lux Magazine https://lux-magazine.com
3. Retraction Watch website https://retractionwatch.com/
4. Nirmal Purja https://www.nimsdai.com/
5. How to repair things https://www.ifixit.com/
6. Too Good to Go app https://toogoodtogo.co.uk/en-gb

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Jesse Norman discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Jesse Norman has been Conservative MP for Hereford and South Herefordshire since 2010. He was Financial Secretary to the Treasury from 2019 to 2021. Before entering politics Jesse was a Director at Barclays, researched and taught philosophy at University College London, and ran a charitable project in Communist Eastern Europe. His book Edmund Burke: politician, philosopher, prophet was listed for the Samuel Johnson Prize, the Political Book Awards and the George Orwell Prize. His book Adam Smith: What he thought, and why it matters was published in 2018.

1. My Life in New Orleans by Louis Armstrong https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/book-of-a-lifetime-satchmo-my-life-in-new-orleans-by-louis-armstrong-8609967.html
2. Wild swimming https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/uk/wild-swim-wye-river-a8499001.html
3. Heroes https://www.herefordtimes.com/news/18451446.heroes-now-jesse-norman/
4. "I don't understand" https://www.refinery29.com/en-gb/how-to-say-i-dont-know
5. The Burgers of Hereford https://aruleoftum.com/burgershophfd
6. The perils of diminishing marginal utility https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marginal_utility

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Vladimir Alexandrov discusses with Ivan two things which should be better known: both men who lived in Russia in the early part of the twentieth century.

Vladimir Alexandrov taught courses in Yale's Slavic Department on nineteenth and twentieth-century Russian literature and culture from 1986 to 2018.

While preparing to teach a graduate seminar on Russian émigré culture, he discovered Frederick Bruce Thomas, which resulted in the 2013 biography The Black Russian, which is now being developed into a dramatic TV series. In 2021, he published To Break Russia's Chains: Boris Savinkov and His Wars against the Tsar and the Bolsheviks, which is the biography of a remarkable revolutionary terrorist, political activist, government minister, and writer who has been described as "James Bond as written by Kafka." Vladimir's current project is a book about Russia's little-known support for the Union during the American Civil War. Find out more at www.valexandrov.com.

1. Frederick Bruce Thomas https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2013/10/10/vladimir-alexandrov-black-russian/ Further reading https://www.blackpast.org/global-african-history/perspectives-global-african-history/russia-s-black-entertainment-empresario-remarkable-saga-fyodor-fyodorovich-tomas-freder/

2. Boris Savinkov https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/to-break-russias-chains-vladimir-alexandrov-book-review-daniel-beer/ Further reading • https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4571&context=etd • https://origins.osu.edu/read/terrorism-path-better-russia?language_content_entity=en

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Gaia Vince discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Gaia Vince is a science writer and broadcaster interested in the interplay between humans and the planetary environment. She is a Senior Honorary Research Fellow at University College London in the Anthropocene Institute. She has held senior editorial posts at Nature and New Scientist, and her writing has featured in newspapers and magazines including the Guardian, The Times and Scientific American. She also writes and presents science programmes for radio and television. In 2015, she became the first woman to win the Royal Society Science Book of the Year Prize solo for her debut, Adventures in the Anthropocene: A Journey to the Heart of the Planet We Made. She is author of Transcendence: how humans evolved through fire, language, beauty & time and Adventures in the Anthropocene: a journey to the heart of the planet we made. Her next book Nomad Century: How to Survive the Climate Upheaval is published in 2022.

1. Hungarian sour cherry soup https://www.thespruceeats.com/hungarian-sour-cherry-soup-meggy-leves-recipe-1136687

2. Mangosteen https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/mangosteen

3. Friedensreich Hundertwasser https://hundertwasser.com/en

4. The Secret History of Writing https://inews.co.uk/culture/television/the-secret-history-of-writing-bbc4-documentary-review-lydia-wilson-655347

5. Heath Robinson https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/robinson_william_heath.shtml

6. Cassawary https://www.worldwildlife.org/magazine/issues/fall-2021/articles/meet-the-cassowary-a-bird-with-claws-rivaling-freddy-krueger-s

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Travis Elborough discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Described by The Guardian as “one of Britain’s finest pop culture historians”, Travis Elborough has been a freelance writer, author, broadcaster and cultural commentator for two decades now. Elborough’s books include Wish You Were Here: England on Sea, The Long-Player Goodbye, a hymn to vinyl records that inspired the BBC4 documentary When Albums Ruled the World, in which he also appeared, and A Walk in the Park, a loving exploration of public parks and green space. His latest, Through the Looking Glasses: The Spectacular Life of Spectacles, was published in July 2021 to immediate acclaim, saluted as "fascinating" by The Observer, while New Statesman stated, "It will make you look at specs with fresh eyes."

He has also collaborated on the popular and award-winning series of Unexpected Atlases with the cartographers Alan Horsfield and Martin Brown, the most recent of which, Atlas of Vanishing Places, appeared in November 2021.

1. The American Friend https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/3866-the-american-friend-little-lies-and-big-disasters

2. The Colonnade Bar http://thecolonnadebrighton.co.uk/

3. The New York Novels of Dawn Powell https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1996/03/21/queen-of-the-golden-age/

4. A Secret Wish by Propaganda https://www.classicpopmag.com/2018/03/propaganda-a-secret-wish-review/

5. Waiting by Fun Boy Three https://www.allmusic.com/album/waiting-mw0000057846

6. Birkenhead Park https://birkenhead-park.org.uk/birkenhead-parks-conception-and-opening/

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Journalist Peter Oborne discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Peter Oborne is a former political commentator of the Spectator, the Daily Telegraph and Daily Mail. He now writes about politics for Open Democracy and Middle East Eye. He is the author of The Assault on Truth, The Triumph of the Political Class, and The Rise of Political Lying as well as a biography of the cricketer Basil D’Oliveira. He was voted Columnist of the Year at the Press Awards in 2013. His website is https://boris-johnson-lies.com/.

The episode features a clip from The Death of Liberalism with Lord Paddy Ashdown by the Legatum Institute (22/6/15) and A Marriage of Convenience by Somerset Maugham, read by Daniel Weyman (https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b093pfrf).

1. Benefits of an afternoon nap https://www.forbes.com/sites/nomanazish/2021/06/23/should-you-be-taking-afternoon-naps-heres-what-the-sleep-experts-say/

2. Mohenjo Daro https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/mohenjo-daro

3. Paddy Ashdown https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/dec/22/paddy-lord-ashdown-obituary

4. The virtue of listening https://timesofmalta.com/articles/view/the-virtue-of-listening.31549

5. Fixers https://en.ejo.ch/ethics-quality/fixers-the-unsung-heroes-of-international-news-reporting

6. Somerset Maugham https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1990/02/01/maughams-half-half/

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Rob Doyle discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Rob Doyle is the author of four internationally acclaimed books: Autobibliography, Threshold, This Is the Ritual and Here Are the Young Men, which has been adapted for film. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Observer, TLS and Dublin Review among other publications, and he edited the anthologies The Other Irish Tradition and In This Skull Hotel Where I Never Sleep. His work has been translated into several languages.

1. Coriolanus (2011) https://www.theguardian.com/film/2012/jan/22/coriolanus-film-review-ralph-fiennes

2. Four Tet’s Spotify playlist https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2uzbATYxs9V8YQi5lf89WG?si=27dff54c2f194322&nd=1

3. The train journey from Dublin to Rosslare Harbour https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dublin%E2%80%93Rosslare_railway_line

4. Last Evenings on Earth, the story collection by Roberto Bolaño https://roughghosts.com/2016/07/25/poets-artists-and-other-lost-souls-last-evenings-on-earth-by-roberto-bolano/

5. Anthropoid https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r136kTbmOTw

6. Super Hot video game https://superhotgame.com

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Marieke Bigg discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Marieke Bigg is the author of Waiting for Ted, and This Won’t Hurt. Writing across fiction and non-fiction, she deconstructs the cultural givens around bodies, minds and identity. She holds a PhD in Sociology from the University of Cambridge, where she studied the technological transformation of human reproduction. In addition to her books, Marieke speaks about the sociology of medicine and psychiatry, and collaborates with biologists and artists to explore the social potential of science. She is also a training psychotherapist. She now lives in London. Her new book is A Scarab Where The Heart Should Be, available at https://deadinkbooks.com/product/a-scarab-where-the-heart-should-be/.

1. In Vitro Fertilisation - while most people know what it is, knowing more about this process and its history opens up new ways of thinking about the role of reproduction in society and will have us questioning what we currently regard as natural truths

2. Bruder Klaus Field Chapel, Peter Zumthor - a chapel mentioned in my book, shaped by pouring concrete over 112 tree trunks that were burnt away.

3. Taxonomy - how when we learn the names of natural things, we look more closely, and experience our place in nature.

4. In Praise of Shadows, Jun'ichirō Tanizaki - the ideas in this essay are often around for me, and also guided my thinking about my prtoagonist. The essay on traditional Japanese astheatics is a warning against an incessant pursuit of light (perfection, stimulation, happiness) in Western culture.

5. Anne Mclaren - an embryologist who I wrote my PhD on. Fascinating scientist who worked on IVF, sending mice to space with NASA, worked with Russian scientists during the cold war, and starred in an HG Wells film as a child.

6. The Way Out is In - podcast by followers of the Buddhist monk and peace activist, Thit Naht Tahn.

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Historian Catharine Arnold discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Catharine Arnold is a popular historian and television presenter specialising in dark themes. Her most recent book is Pandemic 1918, the Story of the Deadliest Influenza in History. Her other books include the acclaimed London Quartet. These include: Necropolis, London and its Dead, ‘entertainment of the most garish and exquisite kind,’ Peter Ackroyd, The Times. The Independent also rated Necropolis one of its Top Ten History Books in 2010. Her first novel, Lost Time, won a Betty Trask award.

1. Daisies https://www.theguardian.com/film/2009/may/30/new-dvd-releases-daisies-czech

2. Masha by Mara Kay https://shinynewbooks.co.uk/the-youngest-lady-in-waiting-by-mara-kay

3. Bilgewater by Jane Gardam https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/jane-gardam/bilgewater/

4. George Barker’s poetry https://mypoeticside.com/poets/george-barker-poems

5. Ronald Frame https://www.heraldscotland.com/life_style/arts_ents/13078532.Ronald_Frame_blows_the_dust_off_a_Dickens_heroine/

6. It’s Never Too Late https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It%27s_Never_Too_Late_(1956_film)

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Robin Baker discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Robin is head curator of the BFI National Archive - one of the world’s largest and most important collections of film and television – where he leads the team responsible for developing and interpreting the national collection. He has written and directed two short films and wrote the play Elephant and Castle for BBC Radio 4, starring Rory Kinnear and Olivia Colman. Robin has been attacked by cobras on two occasions. Follow Robin on Twitter @robinalexbaker and on Instagram @robinbakerbfi BFI website: www.bfi.org.uk

1. Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead: https://dauntbookspublishing.co.uk/book/who-was-changed-and-who-was-dead/
2. Cretan pottery: http://www.cretanethnologymuseum.gr/imke/html/en/104.html and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minoan_pottery
3. Kanchenjungha https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRmpWEGM3ZI
4. Geraldene Holt’s Cakes https://prospectbooks.co.uk/products-page/current-titles/geraldene-holts-cakes/
5. Early colour films https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqpp5ipMU_s
6. Spring 1938/Easter Sunday https://oliverlewisinfo.wordpress.com/2013/05/23/spring-1938-bertolt-brecht/ and https://open.spotify.com/track/0iCZWjglUB3cr0xXX56wQ2?si=677012daa31b4a97

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Jessica Nordell discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Jessica Nordell is a science and culture journalist whose writing has appeared in the Atlantic, the New York Times, the New Republic and many other publications. A former writer for public radio and producer for American Public Media, she graduated from Harvard University and the University of Wisconsin, Madison. She lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The End of Bias: A Beginning is her first book.

1. Notes on a Foreign Country by Suzy Hansen https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/a-shattering-and-a-shame-on-suzy-hansens-notes-on-a-foreign-country/

2. Somewhere in the Unknown World by Kao Kalia Yang https://harvardreview.org/book-review/somewhere-in-the-unknown-world/

3. Black Dog of Fate by Peter Balakian https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/peter-balakian/black-dog-of-fate/

4. Amaud Jamaul Johnson https://www.cortlandreview.com/issue-87/esteban-rodriguez-reviews-imperial-liquor-amaud-jamaul-johnson/

5. The skills to navigate difficult emotions https://www.gottman.com/blog/6stepstomindfullydealwithdifficultemotions/

6. The fact that biased behaviour and organisations can change https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/oct/02/the-end-of-bias-by-jessica-nordell-review-how-to-remove-your-blinkers

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