Play Politics

By combining global research with real-world examples of extreme decision-making, Nick Tasler teaches us how to thrive when faced with difficult choices. More than just an audiobook, The Impulse Factor provides a clear understanding of why we make the choices we do - and the tools to turn those decisions into something great.

In a hole under the floorboards Silas Marner the linen-weaver keeps his gold. Every day he works hard at his weaving, and every night he takes the gold out and holds the bright coins lovingly, feeling them and counting them again and again. The villagers are afraid of him and he has no family, no friends. Only the gold is his friend, his delight, his reason for living. But what if a thief should come in the night and take his gold away?

What connects Paleolithic bone flutes to the invention of computer software? Or the Murex sea snail to the death of the great American city? How does the bag of crisps you hold in your hand help tell the story of humanity itself? In his brilliant new work on the history of innovation, international best-seller Steven Johnson argues that the pursuit of novelty and wonder has always been a powerful driver of world-shaping technological change.

We see it everywhere: shady zoning regulations in a small town; taxpayer money diverted into political campaigns; deals that enrich the few at the expense of the many; billion-dollar bailouts; and much more. When private interests need a political favor, they know whom to call. When politicians need money, they also know whom to call. The people involved try to keep most of it concealed behind closed doors. This is the system that prevails in Russia after the fall of Communism. But increasingly it is America's system as well.

Uncertainty is everywhere. It lurks in every consideration of the future - the weather, the economy, the sex of an unborn child - even quantities we think that we know such as populations or the transit of the planets contain the possibility of error. It's no wonder that, throughout that history, we have attempted to produce rigidly defined areas of uncertainty....

In der April-Ausgabe von Spotlight Audio können Sie einen nicht ganz ernst gemeinten Blick auf die wichtigsten Politiker der englischsprachigen Welt werfen und hören, was sie zu sagen haben. Außerdem geht es an die Traumstände der Bahamas, an denen echte Piraten der Karibik einst ihre Schätze vergruben.

It starts as an everyday fender bender: Two cars collide in heavy evening traffic. But when the police arrive to take statements, the occupants of one car take off running. They leave another man behind, slumped in the backseat, dead of a single stab wound to the chest. Lieutenant Frank Hastings abandons a family dinner to take charge of the scene, which rapidly devolves into chaos. The police corner one of the runners in an abandoned building, capturing him after a standoff.

In this five-act play, an aspiring writer becomes successful in the entertainment industry, and later as an author; however, his far-reaching ambitions compel him to seek a more influential role in society. He meets key people who possess certain knowledge and information that will help guide and challenge him as he realizes his dream of acquiring fame and glory and, more importantly, power. And yet, he is not alone in his long and eventful journey, for he has a veteran writer who is his pedagogue, and a chorus of young maidens who act as his ever-present conscience.

Uma reflexão sobre o que nos amarra e motiva. Nada foi dito sobre qualquer criatura, não há respostas sobre a pane elétrica e de rádio, ninguém sabe nada sobre o comportamento das aves e muito menos o porquê um eclipse solar está durante tantas horas a trazer de volta a idade das trevas. E se na realidade não viram nada nas árvores? Se a histeria coletiva e pessoas de má fé aproveitaram-se do momento para aterrorizar a cidade? Talvez apenas o que faltava era uma oportunidade de as pessoas mostrarem quem realmente são.

Humphrey Lyttleton - Bandleader, cartoonist, writer, chairman of BBC Radio 4's I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue, president of the Society for Italic Handwriting and doyen of jazz trumpeters. In conversation with June Knox-Mawer, Humphrey Lyttleton reflects on his extraordinary life; from schooldays at Eton and playing out Roll Out the Barrel outside Buckingham Palace on VE Day to the formation of this band in 1948 and his emergence as 'the godfather of British jazz'.

Radiospektakl' "Smuglaja ledi sonetov" po odnoimennoj p'ese Bernarda Shou,irlandskogo dramaturga, pisatelja, romanista, laureata Nobelevskoj premii v oblasti literatury. Izyskannaja, ostroumnaja istoricheskaja komedija, raskryvajushhaja tajnu zagadochnoj krasavicy, kotoroj Shekspir posvjashhal svoi legendarnye stihi. Rech' idet o samom legendarnom pojete i dramaturge - o Uil'jame Shekspire. Kakim byl v zhizni jetot genial'nyj chelovek?

Pervonachal'no Lessing sobiralsja napisat' tragediju «Virginija» - na sjuzhet o rimskoj Virginii. Sohranilsja nabrosok pervoj sceny etoj tragedii. Odnako vskore Lessing otkazalsja ot obrabotki dalekogo ot ego vremeni antichnogo sjuzheta, reshiv perenesti dejstvie iz drevnego Rima v sovremennuju emu jepohu. Na russkij jazyk tragedija byla perevedena vpervye N. M. Karamzinym v 1788 g.