Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
A politician and journalist, best known as a Tory MP and editor of The Spectator, who lost his frontbench job over an affair.
On the island
Eight records
Because it's just a fantastically optimistic, happy song.
Booker T. Jones, Al Jackson Jr., Charles Pitts, Donald Dunn
This is the theme tune of Test Match Special, which brings to me very fond memories of playing cricket in the yard with my brothers, all of whom are better than me at cricket.
St Matthew Passion, BWV 244: "Ich will hier bei dir stehen"
Rundfunkchor Leipzig, Dresden State Orchestra, Peter Schreier
A it's number one one of the number one most beautiful songs in the whole o of music, but also because it has great sentimental importance for me because I listened to it at university when I was going through mods and mods was a nightmare.
I want you, James, if you're listening, I want you to eat your words, because this is the most fantastic, vigorous introduction to a rock song you could possibly have. It may be corny, but it's brilliant.
Variations on a Theme by Joseph Haydn, Op. 56aFavourite
Berlin Philharmonic, Herbert von Karajan
I particularly remember it because I was... desperately ill as a child and my father came and played it endlessly on the record player when I was recovering.
The one thing about Van Morrison is that you can't... He's one that he's just you can't have too much of him, do you know what I mean? He's like, you can overdose on him a bit, but this is great.
It was the highest moment in my journalistic career when Joe Strummer actually sent me a letter saying how much he admired a column I'd written about hunting funnily enough and he was a fantastic man, a great hero of mine, a good poet as well as a fantastic rock musician.
Symphony No. 5 in C minor, Op. 67: IV. Allegro
New York Philharmonic, Leonard Bernstein
I think EM Forster described as elephants walking on the roof of the world. And it is very very good noise to have in your car when you're driving fast along some autobahn.
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:31If you had to choose between journalism and politics, you'd choose politics, would you?
Yes, of course, yes, yes. I always wanted to... do it. I knew always knew I was going to be an MP and I always knew I'd be very disappointed with myself I if I didn't do it.
Presenter asks
3:40Have you got a prayer of becoming Prime Minister?
I suppose all politicians in the end are are like kind of crazed wasps in a jam jar, each individually convinced that they're gonna make it and get out and... survive... in an evolutionary sense it's vital that everybody should have the delusion that they could.
Presenter asks
7:13What was it like [on your grandfather's farm in Exmoor]?
Well, it was it was jolly cold, I think, is uh would be honest... We didn't have central heating. We didn't even have electric light, I want you to know. It was one of those areas of the country that was not... Wired up to the grid, yeah.
Presenter asks
The keepsakes
The book
Homer
I'd need something in a foreign language that I could devote my mind to translating back into English, and I think I'd take Homer, just 'cause it's the beginning. Also, it's very, very long.
The luxury
I think mustard would be ideal. I what I read like is a very big pot of that French seedy mustard. ... a huge supersonic supersized uh French pot of clay pot full. Any kind of meat is more or less bearable with mustard.
Were you swatty? Or was it just naturally clever?
Well, it's a colossal swat, of course. And I urge anybody listening to this programme also to be a colossal swat. It's the only way forward.
Presenter asks
18:50Do you take full responsibility for that editorial [about Ken Bigley]?
I take full responsibility for that editorial. I commissioned it, I edited it and I carry the can for it... What I should have done was I should have resigned from the front bench and apologize for those things that we'd got wrong.
Presenter asks
27:01Is the charm sort of all a bit of a ruse to get you by?
I was very deaf as a child... I had a terrible glue ear, and I could basically hardly hear anything anybody was saying. And I think I must have developed then a certain sort of evasiveness... If you can sort of guess what's going on, but you're not quite sure, it's often as well to be a little bit vague.
“I suppose all politicians in the end are are like kind of crazed wasps in a jam jar, each individually convinced that they're gonna make it and get out and survive”
“My silicon chip, my ambition silicon chip, has been programmed to try to scrabble my way up this cursor's honorum, you know, this ladder of things.”
“I think if I made a huge effort always to have a snappy, inspiring sound bite on my lips, I think the sheer mental strain of that would be such that I would explode and I think it's much easier, therefore, for me to try to play what shots I have as freely as I can.”