The Author Archive Podcast

This book is selling very well ahead of Mother's Day.

Prue talks to me about her life and how she still has a lot of fun.

Ageing, acting your age, health, exercise, fame ...... she talks about it all!!!

The new war that is happening now and the the appalling inhumanity still happening in the world makes this conversation distressingly relevant. There is the thought that some people are less human then others. 

Some people in power seem to think that bombs and missiles provide an answer.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted on December 10th 1948.

We now live in a world where the rights agreed in that document are widely ignored.

Racial intolerance is on the march . The horrible spectre of antisemitism is looming over the news as is denial of the rights of Palestinians. 

As an American bishop recently said ..... immigrants and gay people are as valuable as everyone else.

A good time to listen to the words of the late Sir Martin Gilbert.

The name Winston Churchill has been used recently to score political points.

Sir Martin Gilbert is known as Churchill's biographer, but also as the historian of the Holocaust.

This conversation with David Freeman took place when his book Never Again was published. Sir Martin's thoughts on war are sadly relevant.

Sir Martin died in 2015.

The man who used to be Prince Andrew is now back at his new Norfolk home with dogs for company.

Apparently he will soon have a chef and a valet who will address him as 'Sir'. Unbelievable.

The sorry story continues.

Andrew and his ex wife Sarah are in the Epstein linked news again.

The photographs of him on his knees by a young lady lying on her back on the floor don't look good. The begging notes from Sarah to Jeffrey are embarrassing.

When this interview was recorded in August 2015 Andrew was a prince and a duke living in a very big house. That is now history.

Andrew Lownie has spent four years researching the lives of Andrew Windsor and Sarah Ferguson, who used to be the Duke and Duchess of York.

The book is full of dramatic details of lives spent sailing very close to the wind but mostly protected by their royal status. Not anymore.

What Andrew Lownie tells me will stop you in your tracks.

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In the wake of the Andrew Windsor  scandal there is much questioning of the need for the  royals at all

Being royal is not a job you can apply for.  If you decide to walk away from your royal identity or are pushed away from it just what are you left with?

This book,'Traitor King', tells the story of an inglorious royal. It is a shocking example of what happens when inherited status is randomly given to a person who is clearly not up to the task. The book is the basis of the Channel 4 programme that shed light on the whole episode.

As well as telling the historical story Andrew Lownie discusses the lessons that can be learned by the present Royal Family. 

This book was published long before 'Entitled'.

There are powerful politicians who have taken to denying scientific facts to further their own ambitions.

This took another massive leap into the abyss when President Trump removed all the limits on greenhouse gas emissions in the US.  Not a solution to the problem - just a denial of its existence. Inconvenient scientific facts denied and dismissed.

There is a new book edited by Lawrence M.Krauss - The War on Science.

Among the writers and scientists who have contributed chapters is Richard Dawkins.

Professor Dawkins talked to me about his chapter.