Not another one - podcast

 

This represents an unusual departure form the usual content of this blog in not being a book.  It does satisfy the disclaimer 'Mostly' and certainly conforms to the stated content in that it is a political podcast.

I find politics a difficult sphere to understand and one in which it is difficulkt to get meaningful perspectives.  I don't find the BBC particularly insightful although I did enjoy Politics Live for a time when Jo Coburn was in the chair.  The printed press and online political platforms are generally highly partisan.

I had quite a long period of enthusiasm for the podcast Oh God What Now particularly when Ian Dunt, Dorian Lynskey, Alex Andreou and Ros Taylor where regular panelists.  This podcast arose from the former Remainiacs.  Then times changed and the cast became less to my liking.  Beyond that I grew aware of the 'echo chamber' element of this along with so many other platforms.  A wider perspective on the world of politics seemed an important thing to look for.

'Not another one' references Brenda from Bristol in her response to the news of another impending election.  This is not particularly pertinent but it does give a flavour of the podcast which includes a nice thread of humour.  The main tenet is to provide a cross section of political thought and for the discussions among the team members to be completely respectful.

The four protagonists shown in the image are, from left to right -

Tim Montgomerie.  A former Tory and indeed the creator of the website ConservativeHome.  He has written for most of the major broadsheets and has had advisor roles for the Tory party.  He has recently Joined Reform.

Miranda Green.  Writes for the FT and had former politcal roles within the LibDem party.  She brings a lively ingredient to the podcast.

Steve Richards.  A well known political journalist with a history with the BBC, Guardian, Independent and the New Statesman.  He runs a very good podcast 'Rock and Roll Politics'.

Iain Martin.  Has links with the Times and Telegraph.  He also brings a wine buff element and advocates Co-op wine choices.

So here we have two shades of the right in Tim Montgomerie and Iain Martin and two shades of the left in Steve Richards and Miranda Green.

I find the episodes refreshingly lively and they give a broad political perspective.  It is stimulating to hear political views that don't align with my own interrogated and all this in very good humour.

The Naked Neanderthal by Ludovic Slimak

Following reading Alice Roberts' trilogy and having recently delved into contemporary genomics I was excited to learn more about this interesting hominid.

I often find that the transition between one writing style and another is one that takes a little time to adjust to.  Perhaps it was the case that with the recent books that I've read having been particularly well written I was expecting something similar.  From the very start I found the writing style rather opaque - I would often reread a sentence in search of meaning.  As the book is translated from the Russian this perhaps contributed to these difficulties.  On the other hand a translation can provide an opportunity rather than being a burden.

Beyond the style of the writing I found the content was rambly.  I kept going in the hope of learning something tangible while being taken off at various tangents.  The author is fond of referring to Ancient Greek thoughts which I found particularly irrelevant as the Ancient Greeks knew nothing of the Neanderthals.

In terms of genetic information this turned out to be scant.  I was frustrated to learn that modern humans contain some Neanderthal genes whereas no human genes have been located within the Neanderthal genome; but what are the implications in this ?

On the more positive side I did learn that Neanderthals inhabited Europe before Homo sapiens

arrived at which point Neanderthals rather mysteriously became extinct.  There is apparently no real explanation for this.

 

The Screaming Sky by Carles Foster

 

I noticed this book while browsing the tables in the Hillbillies Bookstore in Gairloch.  The author's name struck a cord and I remember reading 'Being a Beast' some years ago on the recommendation of a friend.  That was an extraordinary read about how he, by way of experiment lived as a badger.  I opened the book, read a few lines and went to the paying desk.

The writing was the main draw.  I just love and revel in good writing: for me it is reward enough in itself.  By the same token I have given up on books that are seemingly written without any inspiration of style; this may be quite apart from the interest in the content.

The author confesses to being obsessed with Swifts.  He travels the world at the drop of a hat to sit and watch Swifts in far flung places from southern Europe through central Africa to the far south of that continent.  I was not expecting to learn about Swifts but I did.  And I learned much about this incredible species in a very easy and enjoyable way.  Charles feeds the reader information about Swifts that he has gleaned through extensive reading of scientific papers but does so through the rich and enthralling narrative.

We learn a lot about the author's psyche and he comes across as a very emotional character with many vulnerabilities.  He clearly has a very keen intelligence and also has great self-awareness.  He walks a very fine line while speculating on what the birds may be feeling while managing to avoid the trap of anthropomorphism.  The text is amusing while the humour is light.

Current scientific tools such as geolocators and satellite trackers have given us a wealth of new and often unexpected information about many wild creatures in recent decades.  Despite this there is still much that is not understood when it comes to enigmatic and unusual species like the Swift.  Charles is clearly fascinated by these gaps in our knowledge and understanding and highlights these alongside the recent facts and hypotheses that have emerged.

These days I rarely gravitate towards the Nature Writing section in bookshops.  There's just something about the idea of reading about nature in that rather wooly way that I want to withdraw from;  rather I want to actually experienc nature in a very direct way.  It sometimes feels as if writers have a Nature Writing mission.  It did not feel this way with this book; I didn't feel as if I was being told about Nature: I felt as if the author was writing about his experiences and feelings - not so much for my benefit but more just to express his own enthusiasm, joy and ultimately his obsession.

This is a very special book written in a very special way about an even more special species of bird that has captured the imaginations of many of us.

Hiking with Nietzsche by John Kaag

This is one of the books that I picked up at the Hillbillies Bookstore in Gairloch.  I have to admit that I was so fascinated by the title that it has jumped the queue in my reading list.

The author is an academic philosopher and has mde two journeys in the Alps that retraced Nietzsche's footsteps.  One journey was as a young man and the other in middle age having become a parent.  At the onset of reading this I had only a very vague notion of Nietzsche's ideas.  I knew that the Nazis took him as a model for their malign operation. But the truth is that this was a very selective hijacking of his ideas and one that was amplified by Nietzsche's sisiter's wanting to further her nationalistic ideals.  She dealt with his affairs following his death so that she was able to manipulate his philosophical ideas for her own ends.  The truth is that he was neither nationalistic nor was he anti semitic.

I enjoyed the read which takes the reader on the author's Alpine walks while weaving in Nietzsche's thoughts and fragments of his writing.  John clearly empathises with Nietzsche's psyche and found the journeys punctuated with reading Nietzsche's books helpful in 'becoming who you are'.  I did not share that empathy and interestingly neither did John's wife whose philosophical leaning is toward Kant who was very much rejected by Nietzsche.

I was interested to get further perspective on Nietzsche so I reread Bertrand Russels section on him in 'History of Western Philosophy'.  This was useful and interesting too that Russell clearly had no affinity for Nietzsche.  I looked also at Nigel Warburton's chapter on Nietzsche in his 'A Little History of Philosophy' and at the end of this Nietzschean immersion I think I have some understanding of this brilliant but very trouled character. 

 

The Challenges of Democracy and the Rule of Law by Jonathan Sumption

I picked this book up on a recent visit to Cogito Books very much on impulse and based largely on a general interest in the subject and also having heard the author speak on the R4 Today programme.

It was not an easy read and much less so than I had expected.  I found myself rereading sentences more often than I would have liked.  While it is clearly intended for a general rather than a legal audience there are rather frequent legalese turns of phrase that I found rather unclear on many occasions.  It was not all bad news however and many of the issues that he raises were fascinating and insightful.

The idea that democracies are vulnerable mainly from within came as something of a surprise but he supports that view quite eloquently.  Jonathan tells us that we in Britain expect much more protection from the state than was once the case; we have become more risk averse.  This leads governments to make decisions based on what the public is likely to blame them for rather than what is best for society.  He clearly takes a very critical view of the covid lockdowns and describes the approach as Hobbsian.

While considering democracy he warns us that autocracy which is what many democracies degenrate into is a very bad form of government and often leads to quick and bad decision making.  This argument counters the often held view that democracy leads to paralysis and indecisive measures being taken.

There are some interesting elements of conflict discussed - that of morality versus consent for instance.  This amounts to the dichotomy  between the moral ideal and what is acceptable to the populace.  Privacy and security are in similar conflict.  He frames the undesirable result of the winning of 'consent' over 'morality' as 'majoritarian tyranny' - shades of Brexit perhaps ?

Hillbillies Bookstore and Trading Post, Gairloch

 The signpost in Gairloch pointed to the Town Square and for want of any better destination we headed that way.  Shortly we came upon two rather gaudy buildings next to a small car park.  In any other setting I would probably have dismissed the idea that this was somewhere worth investigating: it was however 'the only game in town'.

We found our way in via the Coffee Company entrance and immediately the aroma held promise.  On entering the book section the shelves of books were interspersed with cards quoting Orwell, Oscar Wilde and various other characters in that same vein.

I was not particularly in need of reading material having recently visited the excellent Cogito Books in Hexham where I came away with these four -

... more on those later.

The selection of books was very impressive and I came away with copies of Hiking with Nietzche and The Screaming Sky.  It felt very refreshing so see a range of books that seemed to have been selected with real feling rather than the more usual 'best sellers'.  And that 'real feeling' was very much in line with my own preferences and had a strong environmental and ethical leaning.  We resolved to return later that day for an afternoon coffee and cake.

The plan for the day involved being outside walking while the rain held off and then repairing to sheltered places once the grey skies threatened.  And so in advance of the coffee another browse of the books was just too tempting.  This time I selected James O'Brien's How they Broke Britain - this is an author I haven't read but I had heard him in other media and so was receptive to the idea of dipping further into his material.  I came away with In Search of one Last Song too in the interest of some balance in the direction of natural history.

These will all be reviewed in due course, as will the haul from Cogito.

The Orchid Outlaw Ben Jacob

 I have had an interest in British native orchids for over twenty years and have travelled widely to see these plants.  The title consequently held an irresistable allure.

This is first and foremost a very good read.  It can be enjoyed simply because Ben tells a good tale.  There is more however and the book gives us some interestinhg historical content, it enlightens us on some legal matters and it shows how environmental protections often fall well short of what we expect of them.

Ben is an outlaw but one with laudable motives.  He transgresses the law in digging up orchids that he knows are about to be destroyed in a way that does not beak the law.  He tells us that environmental impact assessments which are required before construction projects can proceed are often inadequate; they can fail to identify the presence of orchids simply because they are hard to detect and would need to be searched for at restricted times of the year and with great diligence. 

The breeding biology of orchids is complex and differs in many ways from most other vascular plants.  Having read this book I now understand aspects of orchid anatomy and physiology that were never clear to me before.  We all know that Darwin was a remarkable scientist but I certainly did not know that he studied orchids in great detail and discovered aspects of their cross-polination that were new to me.

Schedule 8 of the Wildlife and Countryside act of 1981 gives greater protection to a select group of plants that includes eleven orchid species but omits some seriously declining species.  Even these species that have enhanced legal protection are left vulnerable as they can be desroyed if their destruction was unforseen - this is quite a get out !

Ultimately this is an inspirational account of one man's mission to save a group of plants that is just one small part of the threatened wildlife of out own country and of the world.

Genomics Step by Step Michael Roberts

 I have dipped into genetics a few times over the years and found the terminology frustratingly opaque.  What is an allele, can we see it ?  There seemed to be elements with names but without clear functions.  Terms such as 'junk DNA' made me suspicious, was it really junk ?  We can see chromosomes but what about genes ?  And how do they sit with chromosomes ?

Increasingly I have read about genetic testing.  I heard that a Siberian Lesser Whitethroat was confirmed as such by sequencing the cytochrome b gene from a feather sample last year; this was a first for my home county of Cumbria.  But why that gene ?

A search online produed a lucky find.  This book was published in 2025.

The field of genomics (so called because it deals with the entire sequencing of base pairs rather than looking simply at genes) is advancing fast.  It has grown alongside IT improvements as it relies heavily on data analysis.

The book is arranged in chapters and while the author tells us that we can dip in at any point, I think a systematic work through is essential.  This is particularly so for readers without a good grounding in contemporary genomics.

It is very systematically layed out, it's not chatty, there are no anecdotes but is is very clear.  The groundwork is layed out in advance of the more complex aspects such as medical applications and ethical implications.

One thing that has always puzzled me is that the human genome project was completed in 2003.  But whose genome was sequenced ?  There is no single genome as we are all genetically different.  Well, it turns out that the first genome to be fully sequenced was that of James Watson a few years later.  Yes, that same Watson who discovered the double helix along with Francis Crick.

Another interesting revelation is around that of the formerly named 'junk DNA'.  Unsurprisingly, this is no junk; it influences the expression of genes.  It turns genes on and of and amplifies and supresses them.  This is an absolutely vital function.  So many conundrums become clear.  This is not to say that everything is now understood.  Michael Roberts makes it very clear that cetain elements and functions are still not fully understood.

I now understand that a gene is a discreet section of a chromosome, it has a start point and an end stop along the chain of DNA that is the double helix.

It is all so elegant and the book explains that elegance with great simplicity.

The Alice Roberts Trilogy: Ancestors, Buried and Crypt

 I picked up a copy of Crypt in the excellent Cogito Books in Hexham without realising that it was the final part of a Trilogy.  I had never read any of her work previously  but I liked it so much that I bought the other two books.  So effictively I travelled back in history rather than starting with prehistoric times; that was a completely fine way to explore these three time periods.  History certainly does not need to be treated sequentially as each period relates to what came before and what followed from its own perspective.

This volume deals with the period from 1000 CE to 1500 CE.  Alice's background is an interesting one; she studies medicine and had a short career in that before teaching anatomy in a medical school setting and then moving on to archeology and now has a specialism in biological anthropology.  This is effectively a melding of the expertise acquired through the succession of her careers.

The threads of genetics (and more particularly and currently genomics), osteo anatomy and microbiology run through the book and these I found particularly fascinating.  Archeology, particularly in its contemporary form that uses very recent scientific tools creates hard evidence that adds to the history that we understand from written commentators who may not be entirely objective or accurate.  She describes how these current scientific tools can be used to confirm or refute medical diagnoses from this mediaeval period when diagnoses had to be made on the basis of symptoms and signs alone when medical knowledge was primitive and biased by unhelpful influences.  So we see the hard evidence from the archeology coming up against the written record on many occasions.

The writing style is very easy and Alice uses contemporary turns of phrase in a very measured way; it is on the one hand chatty but also very authoratative.  She builds in a nice touch of humour that adds a lot to the appeal.  It left me feeling that I would very much like her as a person; this is something that we already know of course from her television appearances.

                                                                        .............

The next volume that I read was Buried, partly because it dropped through my letterbox next and partly as it involved moving back through history.

This deals with the first millenium in Britain.  It gives fresh insights into how people lived in the Roman period and that which followed.  What comes through quite strongly is a thread of elitism that followed the departure of the Romans as Britain entered the early mediaeval period.

Again current scientific methods are discussed and amazing as the way that DNA can give us answers about contemporary questions, it is even more amazing the ancient DNA (aDNA) can be retreived and sequenced from skeletons dating back to this period.  I was fascinated by the way that it is sourced from the petrous temporal bone that lies in the base of the skull - words that hark back to my student days !  Not only does Alice describe aDNA from skeletons but DNA from bacteria such as Yersinia pestis the bacterium causing plague can be identified.

..............

The final volume that I read, the first volume  in the series deals with the prehistoric period, going backwards in time from 0 CE.  This is Ancestors.

The anecdotal style creates a personal atmosphere within which the hard facts sit comfortably.  For example "We're in the Crick Institute. It's like a cathedral this place. Or a monastery. ".

The old debate as to whether the spread of ancient cultures resulted from the spread of ideas or from the movement of populations is being resolved through genomic studies and other recent scientific processes such as stable isotope analyses which can reveal which geographical area came from: teeth provide useful evidence as the apatite crystals in the enamel contain markers indicating regions of origin.

Close examination of bones has revealed what happened to an individual not only in life but also after death.  And some macabre conclusions are reached !

......

In summary, these have all been a wonderful read with rigorous scientific detail wrapped up in a very accessibale package.