Robert Tavernor
Monday 25 June 2007 21:45-22:30 (Radio 3)
Kenan Malik talks to architect and academic Robert Tavernor, whose new book attempts to show the important part measurement plays in human experience.
He argues that ever since early peoples used handspans and foot lengths to judge distance and height, civilisations have assessed themselves in relation to the world around them.
Kenan also explores the legacy of New Labour's Third Way with it's architect, Anthony Giddens.
The Third Way
Tony Blair 
Playlist
The Third Way
This week marks the end of Tony Blair's Prime Ministership, and a decade of the Third Way politics which helped him gain office. But what were the intellectual foundations of the Third Way - and crucially, what has been its legacy after ten years of New Labour government?
Tonight on Night Waves, Kenan Malik speaks to the architect of the Third Way, Anthony Giddens, about the theoretical framework he created, which radically melded social justice and free-market economics.
They'll also be joined by historian Dominic Sandbrook and the editor of the Spectator magazine, Matthew D'Ancona, to assess the continuing significance of this brand of political ideology.
Robert Tavernor
We all know a metre is a hundred centimetres and there are twelve inches in a foot.
But what have been the artistic and scientific arguments surrounding the development of the modern measurement system?
Robert Tavernor, author of a new book on the subject, speaks to Kenan about the many struggles to make sense of the world through measurement, as they visit three key locations which encapsulate Tavernor's argument.
The book, Smoots Ear, A measure of Humanity, is out now.
Shut up and Sing
A new documentary follows the fallout from the controversial episode when the American band The Dixie Chicks spoke out against President Bush, expressing shame that he hailed from the same state as them - Texas.
In the months that followed, the band were deemed unpatriotic and their music was boycotted.
Shut Up And Sing, a feature-length film, finds out what happened after these events and examines the limits of free speech and its place within the music industry.
The critic Diane Roberts joins Kenan to give the Night Waves verdict on the film, and to explain what it tells us about the complex relationship of the American South to the country's wider cultural and political landscape.
Shut Up and Sing is on national release in cinemas from 29th June
Baghdad Wedding
An interview with debut Iraqi writer, Hassan Abdulrazzak, whose new play, Baghdad Wedding, is set in the run-up to Iraq's historic elections in 2005.
Baghdad Wedding is on at the Soho Theatre, London, from 28th June to July 21st.
