Bloody BBC Woman’s hour - oh the poor menz can’t help it!

We just have to make our own spaces.

I think my R4 listening has dwindled to More Or Less, Rutherford and Fry and of course The Archers. I used to love WH, but it’s not a patch on its former self.

"Where Is George Gibney?" on BBC Sounds is absolutely riveting and utterly shocking.

The story I heard was by a man called Alex Preston.
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000kwxf

It would be great if the Woman's Hour drama featured writing by women. If that's too much to ask, finding stories that aren't actively sexist would be a start.

It's a saga of a cruel miscarriage of justice deliberately perpetrated on a large scale over many years. The callousness of the behaviour of the Post Office is breathtaking.

The Post Office Horizon scandal goodbyetrump. It'll make you so angry you'll want to smash things.

Really intrigued now!

Another day, another WH that makes me glad I cancelled my TV licence.

Growing up, I enjoyed the sense of slowly maturing into a proper, grown-up R4 listener but now, just as I move into the prime R4 listener years, it’s wall-to-wall waffle for the woke.

I hadn't heard of Agnieszka Dale so I was trying to find out more today. On Twitter she said: "My new short story tackles Anglo-Saxon machismo as if it was fictional." here

The first few minutes I heard of it sounded so much like so many awful self-important witterings by male writers, taking women's bodies apart and being vacuously "cool" - until it got so extreme I couldn't believe they'd air it, so I wondered if a woman wrote it.

Agree the "Spice" connection was tenuous but what do they expect. Daft and poncey concept.

I love Intrigue! So good.

Not a podcast but I’ve been listening to Hilary Mantel’s book of essays called ‘Mantel Pieces’ on Scribd. Thought provoking and it becomes clear on listening that Mantel is feminist as.

Also, if you like space and technology, the Apollo documentaries are terrifically good:
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p083t547
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p083wp70

The Post Office Horizon scandal goodbyetrump. It'll make you so angry you'll want to smash things.

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000jhpl

i can't be bothered with WH anymore either and i used to listen to it on bbc sounds in the evening and never missed an episode

podcast recommendations anyone?
I really enjoyed intrigue - tunnel29

I can but wonder at the brief given to the authors of these "five specially commissioned tales revolving around the possibilities of the word spice."

Must have been pretty broad, given that in Dale's story, 'spice' is the name John prefers to be known as - no explanation for this. I wonder if she had something kicking around and thought she'd crowbar a possibility of the word spice in by having John The Total Wanker parade it as his I'm Really Cool Me moniker.

Can you tell I thought it was dire ?

The Recipe for Love
Spice
Episode 4 of 5

A series of five specially-commissioned tales revolving around the possibilities of the word spice.

4/5. The Recipe For Love by Agnieszka Dale. A man called Spice is becoming bored with his life - until a chance encounter changes everything.

Agnieszka Dale is a Polish-born London-based author. Her first collection, Fox Season: And Other Short Stories, was published in October 2017.

Jesus, that sounds dire.

oh jaysus! i tried to look it up and couldnt get anything, and nothing on twitter.
did you catch the authorsname?

Not a book, Helmetbymidnight. Website describes it as "Five specially commissioned tales revolving around the possibilities of the word spice." This episode is about some wandering gonad with a thing for elbows who drinks vinegar for breakfast and calls himself Spice but he's actually John.

I hope the other specially commissioned tales were better. I usually enjoy the 15-minutes-of-Women's-Hour-that isn't-Women's-Hour.

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000kfy3

what was the book and the author? that sounds like an utterly bizarre choice.

I only came in in the middle of the show this morning. The presenter sounded completely disinterested.

Then the serial started. Some bloke flirting with any woman with a pulse, gobsmacked at the Scotswoman saying 'No' to giving him her number. 'Why are you being so difficult, I was just going to asked you out!' 'I know. And I said no.' The only bit of it that made any sense.

Jane Garvey's not woke. That's why she's leaving, I reckon.

I was listening to that short story in mounting horror until I thought "Is this actually by a woman and it's a piss-take of how some men write/see themselves?" Turns out it is (as far as I can tell), and once I'd worked that out I thought it was good - but I'm not sure it will have been taken that way by most.

Handmaid's Hour :o

The serial that followed it was a fetish-driven short story that left me feeling distinctly queasy.

Yes! I thought exactly this. I had to turn it off.

All the shiny happy people in people's hour land can skip about merrily centering the menz all the way to irrelevance as far as I'm concerned. Where are the grown ups? I used to love that programme.