The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Review
On My Wavelength
Where did all the goths go? Dom Joly is on the case in Archive on 4: Dom Holy: Goth or Not? (tonight, Radio 4, 8pm), in which he reflects on his own personal history of being a goth. Or, now he comes to think of it, was he ever actually a goth at all? What are the essential ingredients of a goth? Joly and producer Alison Vernon-Smith paint a history of the goth subculture, what it means, and why it matters, including a memorable trip to Whitby
Goth Weekend.
My house is full of Jan Pieńkowski books, and it’s easy to pretend this is because of my children, but it’s really, secretly, for me. He died in 2022, and was one of the greatest illustrators in history, I think; perhaps best known for the Meg and Mog series and his gloriously inventive Haunted House pop-up book, and many more besides, particularly works that showcased his skills in paper cut and silhouette art.
I was thrilled, then, to see Jan Pieńkowski: Meg and Mog and Me (Sunday, Radio 4, 4.30pm) in the schedules: Ed Vere and producer Geoff Bird celebrate Pieńkowski’s genius and life.
We are an island nation, and boats are essential to our national story. But the distinctive boatbuilding traditions that developed across different areas of the country, often in response to the particular materials available in different places and the peculiarities of the water that needed to be navigated, are often overlooked. On The Essay: A Circumnavigation of the British Isles in Five Traditional Boats (Monday to Friday, Radio 3, 10.45pm), five writers reflect on their local boat-making traditions.
First up is Annamaria Murphy on the elegant Cornwall and Isles of Scilly pilot gig.
Marking 40 years since the miners’ strike of 1984, in The Miners’ Strike: Return Journey (Tuesday, Radio 4, 9.30am) Chris Jackson revisits the news story that was his very first gig as a reporter in south Wales, exploring memories personal and political.
Marianna Spring, the BBC’s disinformation and social media correspondent, investigates online hate in Why Do You Hate Me? (Wednesday, Radio 4FM, 11am), with each episode picking up a different specific case to explore. There are many shades of grey here, especially in episode one, where it feels difficult to know where, if anywhere, to place your sympathy. The first subject is a 22-year-old Polish woman named Julia, who went viral online for claiming to be Madeleine McCann.
In Witness History (Thursday, World Service, 8.50am), we are transported back to 1994 and the opening of the first commercial internet cafe in London, founded by Eva Pascoe. It was, ingeniously, named Cyberia. Kylie Minogue was apparently among its first guests, and even learned how to use the internet there. And just look at her now. Pascoe tells Witness History what it was like to run the most cutting-edge establishment that the 1990s could imagine.
Everyone knows that plastic is evil now. So what should we use instead? Many environmental campaigners have concluded that the solution lies not in futuristic technology, but actually in very old technology, and, in particular, much more use of wood. This week’s episode of the environmental series Rare Earth (Friday, Radio 4, 12.04pm), presented by Tom Heap and
Helen Czerski, explores whether we may be poised on the brink of a new Wooden Age.