The Story: Welcome to Makerfield
Today’s episode of The Story – the daily news podcast from The Times and The Sunday Times – is my adventures in Makerfield – the by-election to end all by elections. Makerfield isn’t actually a real place. It’s a group of former mining towns just south of Wigan, on the fringes of Greater Manchester, nestled […]
Newsletter: the man who ruined the internet
I am currently enjoying the rarest of treats for the parent of a toddler: a week to myself. Michaela has taken our daughter Molly on a trip with some family and I have been left behind to bask in the momentary stillness of a usually chaotic home. I’ll get an early night, I thought to […]
Red lights and red flags
Sometimes, when I am driving home from hosting my late night Times Radio show, I hit a red traffic light at a roundabout near MediaCity. I think you know where this is going. It’s 01:30. There is nobody around. The red light is for a slip road off the main dual carriageway. It isn’t a […]
The story I didn’t have time to tell you…
A few years ago I made a documentary about a man who claims to be God… and the people who follow him. But there was one story we didn’t quite get time to tell. If you are hearing about this for the first time, I know what you’re thinking: that sounds a bit like a […]
Newsletter: The Pale Blue Dot
It was a couple of hours before Donald Trump promised to bomb Iran back to the Stone Age that humanity did something extraordinary. Under an eruption of blinding white steam and churning orange fire, hundreds of tons of metal and four intrepid humans were thrust into space. The launch of Artemis II is the culmination […]
The Story: Who is Iran’s New Leader
I am hosting today’s episode of The Story podcast from The Times and The Sunday Times – and we’re exploring who Iran’s new Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, really is. Thrust to power during a conflict that killed his father, with the Iranian regime as it’s most vulnerable, American fire power breathing down their neck, a […]
Newsletter Version: Meet the Attention Activists
Can I have your attention, please? Professor D. Graham Burnett would like it, too. Graham is an historian of tech and science… and through his research has become so passionate about reclaiming our attention from the grip of tech giants and addictive digital media that he has started a new movement. Alongside some colleagues, friends, […]
Meet the Attention Activists
Can I have your attention, please? Professor Graham Burnett would like it, too. Graham is an historian of tech and science… and through his research has become so passionate about reclaiming our attention from the grip of tech giants that he has started a new movement. Alongside some colleagues, friends, artists, activists and other researchers… […]
The Story: how Darren and Dell could change British politics
Darren doesn’t much care for people like me. He doesn’t trust the mainstream media, and although he was happy to have a chat with me, he did wonder how I might misrepresent our conversation. I met Darren on the terraced street he calls home, in Gorton, in Greater Manchester. At the end of the street […]
Why do we feel nostalgic? Newsletter version
Last night, after bathing Molly and putting her to bed, I got stuck into one of my favourite pastimes: taking the bins out. What was once a grubby chore has become a rare moment of solace. It’s just me and the night sky… and the bins. I pause for a moment after I’ve delivered the […]