Start the Week

Apr 07 2025 602 ep. 41 mins 42.7k

Start the Week Podcast artwork

Weekly discussion programme, setting the cultural agenda every Monday

Society & Culture

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Untangling fact from fiction

Apr 07 2025 41 mins

In 1967 a group of writers in the US pulled off an ingenious hoax – the publication of a so-called top secret document detailing how global peace would destroy American society. Even when the deception was revealed, many groups on the left and right argued it was true, or that it revealed truths about the ‘deep state’. Phil Tinline takes up the story in Ghosts of Iron Mountai

Delusions of grandeur and freedom of speech

Mar 31 2025 41 mins

The celebrated artist, Sir Grayson Perry, has a new exhibition of work, Delusions of Grandeur, made in direct response to the masterpieces at the Wallace Collection in London (until 26th October). He candidly admits he initially found the Collection’s opulence difficult to work with, until he created an alter-ego artist, Shirley, who was inspired by the aesthetic.In recent years

Abdulrazak Gurnah on family and resistance

Mar 24 2025 41 mins

Abdulrazak Gurnah won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2021 ‘for his uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the effects of colonialism.’ In his latest novel, Theft, he returns to the streets of his childhood home in Zanzibar, to trace the intertwined lives of three young people in a story of love, betrayal and kindness. The Possibility of Tenderness is a memoir by the

Lockdown and the Covid generation

Mar 17 2025 42 mins

Five years ago, in response to the Covid pandemic, the government mandated a series of lockdowns, with the closure of schools and businesses and social distancing. Tom Sutcliffe is joined by guests to discuss how such a monumental event could have had affected brain cognition, and whether there have been lasting effects on young people. But he also hears tales of resilience among n

How political ideology affects the brain

Mar 10 2025 41 mins

In The Ideological Brain Leor Zmigrod studies the impact of political ideology on the makeup and shape of the brain. She found that those on the political extremes, as well as those with the most dogmatic beliefs, display more cognitive rigidity. The historian John Rees focuses on the small group of firebrand parliamentarians at the heart of the English Civil Wars. The Fiery Spirit

The Great Auk meets Victorian explorers, and zombie ponds

Mar 03 2025 41 mins

The Great Auk: Its Extraordinary Life, Hideous Death and Mysterious Afterlife is the subject of Tim Birkhead’s new book. This goose-sized seabird became the favoured food of hungry sailors and hunters, and the last two were killed in 1844. But then the bird became an obsession for collectors who vied for the last skins, eggs and skeletons. Victorian hunters, explorers and collect

Community and industrial decline

Feb 24 2025 41 mins

The story of Liverpool’s once thriving port is one of spectacular rise, and spectacular fall. In Liverpool and the Unmaking of Britain, the historian Sam Wetherell looks at the city post-WWII, as the decline in the port led to the poverty and neglect of its population, the deportation of Chinese sailors, and the discrimination against the city’s Black population. It’s a histo

Writing and rewriting history

Feb 17 2025 42 mins

History was written down for the very first time in the ancient region of Mesopotamia. In Between Two Rivers, Moudhy Al-Rashid tells the story of the civilisations that rose and fell, through the details left on cuneiform tablets from 4000 years ago – from diplomatic letters to receipts for beer. And the drive that led ancient scribes to record the events and legends of the past.

Wages for Housework – then and now

Feb 10 2025 41 mins

From the early 1970s feminist activists from across the globe campaigned under a single demand – Wages for Housework. The historian Emily Callaci traces the lives and ideas of its key creators in her new book, Wages for Housework: The Story of a Movement, an Idea, a Promise. The campaign highlighted the need to change the way work, and especially what has been traditionally deeme

Manufacturing and sustainability

Feb 03 2025 41 mins

We might live surrounded by manufactured goods but the business of making is far removed and often hidden from our lives, according to the Professor of Innovation at the University of Cambridge, Tim Minshall. In Your Life Is Manufactured he takes readers on a tour of mega-factories to artisanal craft shops, seaports to supermarkets to reveal the systems and decisions behind manufac