Thinking Allowed's Laurie Taylor
The preamble
As last week I've picked out a selection of the currently available Radio 4 podcasts. You can listen online or download to keep, or put onto your phone or MP3 player. There are many more available on the Radio 4 podcast page.
Some podcasts are available for only seven days (eg Comedy of the Week; Friday Night Comedy) but others do have a huge archive you can download at any time (eg Desert Island Discs; In Our Time). If you haven't used podcasts from the BBC before there's some podcast help here.
The selection
1. Lives in a Landscape
All of the current series where award-winning presenter Alan Dein goes in search of original stories from around the country is now available as a podcast.
More programme info
Download the podcast
2. Thinking Allowed: Kissing men - Decline of violence in history
Laurie Taylor explores Professor Steven Pinker's notion of a decline in human violence as well an apparent rise in heterosexual men kissing other men.
More programme info
Download the podcast
3. Four Thought: Dreda Say Mitchell
Crime novelist Dreda Say Mitchell argues that the importance of the family, faith and community has been ignored in the debate about social mobility.
More programme info
Download the podcast
4. Warhorses of Letters
Stephen Fry stars as Napoleon's horse and Daniel Rigby stars as Wellington's horse in a love story of two horses sundered by war told through their letters to each other.
More programme info
Download the podcast
5. Desert Island Discs: John Peel Archive Special
Sue Lawley's castaway is broadcaster John Peel. This episode has been made available to mark the broadcast of the first John Peel Lecture on 6 Music.
More programme info
Download the podcast
Paul Murphy is the editor of the Radio 4 blog
