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

This week our question comes from Alison McKeever.

Recommendations:

Catriona

Who Killed Emma - BBC Scotland

The naked body of a young woman is found in isolated woods. Police never catch her killer. Journalist Sam Poling's investigation takes her into a dark and unsettling world of sex, rape, lies and murder. And it leads her to confront the man she believes is the prime suspect.

From BBC Scotland, Who Killed Emma? Is an eight-part podcast that forensically takes apart the police investigation into Emma's murder and unravels the impact of a series of coincidences and missed opportunities until a clear suspect starts to emerge.

Angela

Silo - Apple Tv

Silo is the story of the last ten thousand people on earth, their mile-deep home protecting them from the toxic and deadly world outside. However, no one knows when or why the silo was built and those who try to find out face fatal consequences. Ferguson stars as Juliette, an engineer who seeks answers about a loved one’s murder and tumbles onto a mystery that goes far deeper than she could have ever imagined, leading her to discover that if the lies don’t kill you, the truth will. In addition to Ferguson, Silo season two stars new addition Steve Zahn, alongside returning stars Tim Robbins, Common, Harriet Walter, Chinaza Uche, Avi Nash, Alexandria Riley, Shane McRae, Remmie Milner, Clare Perkins, Billy Postlethwaite, Rick Gomez, Caitlin Zoz, Tanya Moodie and Iain Glen.

Eamonn

The Day of the Jackal - Book - Frederick Forsyth

The Day of the Jackal - Now tv - Original Film

The Day of The Jackal - Sky Tv Series

The Day of the Jackal is a brand new thriller based on the classic 1971 book by Frederick Forsyth about a lone wolf and his global scale threat.

The official synopsis, from Sky, reads:

“An unrivalled and highly elusive lone assassin, the Jackal, makes his living carrying out hits for the highest fee. But following his latest kill, he meets his match in a tenacious British intelligence officer who starts to track down the Jackal in a thrilling cat-and-mouse chase across Europe, leaving destruction in its wake.”

With a fresh twist on the source material, including the subsequent award-winning 1973 film from Universal Pictures, The Day of the Jackal promises a chase across the world as the hunter becomes the hunted.

Recommendations:

Ruth

Cove and Kilcreggan Book Festival 2024

Amongst the popular authors this year are Liz Lochhead, Alex Gray, and a much lauded new kid on the block called Jen Stout, who has been recalling her adventures covering the conflict in Ukraine.

Tickets, both weekend and single event are available via the button below.

Breaking News !

We are pleased to announce our full list of Authors.

Saturday 23rd November

• Liz Lochhead
• Alex Gray
• Aasmah Mir
• Josie Long

Sunday 24th November

• Ken McNab
• Jen Stout
• Gavin Francis
• Peter Ross

More details on the authors can be found here

Tickets for the Individual Author Sessions are now available at the link below at £8 per session.

Weekend Passes at £55 each are still on sale and offer a £9 saving on individual tickets.

You will receive a ticket by email in the form of a PDF attachment which can be printed out or presented on your phone at the event. As soon as your payment is processed your name will be added to our list which will be available at the Cove Burgh Hall door. 

Cove Burgh Hall, Shore Road, Cove, G84 0LY.

Shetland - BBC

The dark side of one of the most beautiful places on earth. Uncovering secrets and lies from the past - detective drama starring Douglas Henshall, Ashley Jensen and Alison O'Donnell.

A Glasgow Girl: A memoir of growing up and finding your voice - Aasmah Mir

A Glasgow Girl is the coming of age story of Aasmah Mir's childhood growing up in 1970s Glasgow. From a vivacious child to a teenage loner, Aasmah candidly shares the highs and lows of growing up between two cultures - trying to fit in at school and retreating to the safe haven of a home inhabited by her precious but distant little brother and Helen, her family's Glaswegian guardian angel.

Intricately woven into this moving memoir is the story of Aasmah's mother, as we follow her own life as a young girl in 1950s Pakistan to 1960s Scotland and beyond. Both mother and daughter fight, are defeated and triumph in different battles in this sharp and moving story. A Glasgow Girl is a remarkable memoir about family, identity and finding yourself where you are.

Steeple Chasing: Around Britain by Church - Peter Ross

A thoroughly beguiling tour around the manifold riches of Britain's churches, Ross' immersive book ranges from unassuming parish to mighty cathedral and tells a defiantly human story of art, architecture, history and culture.

David:

Rebels and Renegades: Sheila Rock

Street Level Photoworks are pleased to present REBELS & RENEGADES, a two part exhibition featuring the outstanding work of Sheila Rock and Jill Furmanovsky, two pioneering women photographers who captured the zeitgeist of punk and the post-punk unfolding in music and style.

https://www.middleeasteye.net/ - Why Dutch support for Israel's football hooligans has roots in colonial racism

Eamonn

My Salinger Year - film

In New York City's late nineties, a young aspiring writer lands a day-job at J.D. Salinger's literary agency. While her eccentric and old-fashioned boss tasks her to process Salinger's voluminous fan mail, she struggles to find her own voice.

SALINGER- Documentary

Features interviews with 150 subjects - including Salinger's friends and colleagues who have never spoken on the record - as well as film footage, photographs, and other material never before seen.

A bit of a U.S. Election Special here. As we all wonder what the next 4 years of President Trump will bring, here is this week's episode with this trio on good form.

Recommendations:

Eamonn

The Kominsky Method - Netflix

Acting coach Sandy Kominsky and best friend Norman Newlander keep each other laughing as they navigate the ups and downs of getting older.

The War Room - Amazon

This documentary follows President Clinton's campaign trail and focuses on his aides, James Carville and George Stephanopoulos.

Paddy

https://theonion.com/ - America's Finest News Source..

Ludwig - BBC iplayer

David

Gideon's Spies: The Inside Story of Israel's Legendary Secret Service The Mossad (Paperback)

Gordon Thomas has a grasp of history… this is one of the few books to have captured the true nature of the Israeli Government and the thorough process of the Israeli power elite. Ari Ben-Menashe, Former Adviser on Intelligence to the Israeli Government Created in 1951 to ensure an embattled Israel’ s future, the Mossad has been responsible for the most audacious and thrilling feats of espionage, counterterrorism and assassination ever ventured. Gideon’ s Spies has been created from closed-door interviews with Mossad agents, informants and spymasters, and drawing from classified documentsand top-secret sources, revealing previously untold truths about the Israeli intelligence agency.

Bang-up-to-date, this new paperback edition of this best-selling book includes startling new information on subjects ranging from Weapons of Mass Destruction, international terrorism, North Korea’ s bird-flu war games and ‘ ethnic bombs’ . The riveting text is supported by glossaries, appendices and shows a Mossad as it has historically been: brilliant, ruthless, flawed but ultimately fascinating. 

David Pratt: What I learned from the US election result - The National

We are very lucky to have the participation of all our guests who give up their time to chat through the week's topics. Today we are ally pleased to welcome back Alison and Catriona.

Recommendations:

Alison

Why We're Polarized (Paperback) - Ezra Klein

America's political system isn't broken. The truth is scarier: it's working exactly as designed.

In Why We're Polarized, Ezra Klein reveals the structural and psychological forces behind America's deep political divisions, revealing how a system filled with rational, functional parts can combine into a dysfunctional whole.

Neither a polemic nor a lament, this book offers a clear framework for understanding everything from Trump's rise to the Democratic Party's leftward shift to the politicisation of everyday culture.

Klein shows how and why American politics polarised in the twentieth century, what that polarisation did to Americans' views of the world and one another, and how feedback loops between polarised political identities and polarised political institutions drive the system toward crisis. This revelatory book will change how you look at politics, and perhaps at yourself.

Catriona

The Londoner

The Bell - link to Catriona's article on Easdale Bros.

Eamonn

"What's the secret to still dancing at 106?"

Recommendations:

Angela

The Wild Robt - film

From DreamWorks Animation comes a new adaptation of a literary sensation, Peter Brown's beloved, award-winning, #1 New York Times bestseller, The Wild Robot. The epic adventure follows the journey of a robot--ROZZUM unit 7134, "Roz" for short--that is shipwrecked on an uninhabited island and must learn to adapt to the harsh surroundings, gradually building relationships with the animals on the island and becoming the adoptive parent of an orphaned gosling.

David

Searching For Gerda Taro - film

SEARCHING FOR GERDA TARO celebrates the life and work of Taro — a charismatic Jewish refugee from Germany, an anti-fascist, and a trailblazing photographer whose work would be forgotten for decades.

In 1935, Taro (then going by her birth name, Gerta Pohorylle), met Endre Friedmann, a Jewish photographer from Hungary trying to make a name for himself in Paris. They fell in love and moved in together. The next year, they changed their names to Gerda Taro and Robert Capa. Capa taught Taro photography. Taro in turn helped sell his photos and build his reputation. Together, they went to Spain to report on the civil war from the front lines. She captured the heroism of Republican fighters and documented the world’s first deaths of civilians from aerial bombardment.

SEARCHING FOR GERDA TARO shares dozens of stunning archival images by and of Taro. We come to understand her life and work through conversations with curators, authors, and descendants of those who knew her. For decades, her legacy was wrapped up with Capa’s, many of her photos seemingly lost. But with the discovery of thousands of her negatives in the mid-1990s, Taro can finally enjoy the credit she deserves as a brilliant photographer in her own right.

Eamonn

Absolutely Fabulous: Inside Out - Doc

Celebrate one of Britain's most-loved comic creations as

Jennifer Saunders, Dame Joanna Lumley, Julia Sawalha and

Jane Horrocks reunite to share anecdotes and backstage

secrets.