Closing Time for the Firm
Jonathan Meades and Thomas Jones, 30 October 2024
Writer and filmmaker Jonathan Meades introduces and reads his review of Tina Brown's book about the royal family, The Palace Papers, from April this year.
Writer and filmmaker Jonathan Meades introduces and reads his review of Tina Brown's book about the royal family, The Palace Papers, from April this year.
James Butler and Florence Sutcliffe-Braithwaite talk to Tom about Britain's new monarch and Prime Minister.
Jon Day talks to Tom about the history and psychology of the accumulation of objects, from Anglo-Saxon treasure to the Collyer twins of Harlem, by way of Freud, Marie Kondo and Day’s own father. When does clutter become a hoard? Are we all digital hoarders now? And should we worry about it?
Geoff Mann talks to James Butler about 'green growth' and 'de-growth' and how they might challenge the dominance of GDP growth in political decision making
James Meek, recently returned from Mykolaiv, talks to Tom about the area of southern Ukraine that has become a crucial battleground in the war, as Russian forces seek to maintain control of the land they’ve occupied west of the Dnieper, and the Ukrainians try to push them back across the river.
John Lanchester talks to Tom about the recent scandals involving two DAX-listed companies, Volkswagen and Wirecard, and the ways in which they challenge the stereotypes of German business.
Emma John and Natasha Chahal join Tom to discuss England’s victory in Euro 2022, the long history of women’s football – mentioned in a poem by Philip Sidney in the 16th century, banned by the FA for half of the 20th – and what may happen next.
Miranda Carter talks to Tom about the history of the world’s longest-running interview show, Desert Island Discs.
Andrew Liu talks to Tom about the Chinese workers who followed the gold rush to California, Australia and South Africa in the 19th century, as described in a new book by Mae Ngai, The Chinese Question.
James Butler joins Tom to consider the fall of Boris Johnson, the candidates hoping to replace him, and what the next few years of British politics might look like.
Laura Beers and Deborah Friedell talk to Tom about the recent decision by the US Supreme Court in Dobbs v. Jackson, which removed the constitutional right to abortion.
Seamus Perry and Mark Ford discuss the lives and works of two poets, Frank O’Hara and John Ashbery, close friends and leading lights of the New York School, who sought to create an anti-academic poetry, hedonistic and free of the puritan American tradition, and attentive to their personal differences from mainstream experience.
Bee Wilson talks to Tom about palm oil, which can be found in everything from pot noodles to shaving foam.
Adam Shatz, the LRB’s US editor, talks to Sindre Bangstad and Reza Zia-Ebrahimi about the Great Replacement conspiracy theory, from its origins in the high tide of French colonial expansionism in the 19th century and propagation through writers such as Jean Raspail and Renaud Camus, to its influence on mass murderers in Norway, New Zealand and the United States.
Madeleine Schwartz talks to Tom about the trial of twenty men accused of involvement in the Paris terrorist attacks of 13 November 2015, which left 130 dead.