Books, plays and films have been written about it, its onset feared in some quarters, pilloried in others, and it will, eventually, affect almost all women. Though that’s not why Sarah Vine wants to talk about the menopause, but why, in some circumstances, it can be a huge liberation for women; finally freed from being slave to one’s hormones, and that’s just the beginning. So, why, do so many women fear the onset of the menopause?
Plus, Peter Hitchens, is told several times a week (online, never in the street or to his face), how much cleverer his older brother Christopher was, and that Peter should have died in his stead. This used to annoy Peter, understandably, but now he finds these brickbats amusing and interesting, and is left wondering, sibling rivalry, what is it all about?
On our reading and watch list this week:
· Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury
· A Series of Unfortunate Events - Lemony Snicket
· The Menopause Brain: The New Science Empowering Women to Navigate Midlife with Knowledge and Confidence – Dr Lisa Mosconi
To get in touch, email: alas@mailonline.co.uk, you can leave a comment on Spotify or even send us a voice note on Whatsapp – on 07796 657512, start your message with the word ‘alas’.
Take our show survey at:
https://ex-plorsurvey.com/survey/selfserve/550/g517/250305?list=9
Presenters: Sarah Vine & Peter Hitchens
Producer: Philip Wilding
Editor: Chelsey Moore
Production Manager: Vittoria Cecchini
Executive Producer: Jamie East
A Daily Mail production. Seriously Popular
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37:19
The Death Penalty and What I Did (or didn't do) On My Holidays
To Peter Hitchens, the idea of capital punishment (at least at home here in the UK) could make for a country that is less vengeful and, he goes so far as to suggest, even more gentle. Having experienced two executions while working in the US, he knows the power of that final switch and the deterrent it might bring. But is he right, would the shadow cast by capital punishment be enough quell violent crime and those who commit it?
Plus, on a much lighter though no less graphic note, we look at holidays and Sarah’s memories of her dad driving the family home from Rome to West Wales, steering with only his knees, a cigar in one hand, a beer in the other, and music blaring to the point where it made both children travel sick. Childhood holidays, it’s not all sandcastles and ice cream.
On our reading and watch list this week:
· Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
· 12 Angry Men
· The Kraken Wakes – John Wyndham
To get in touch, email: alas@mailonline.co.uk, you can leave a comment on Spotify or even send us a voice note on Whatsapp – on 07796 657512, start your message with the word ‘alas’.
Take our show survey at:
https://ex-plorsurvey.com/survey/selfserve/550/g517/250305?list=9
Presenters: Sarah Vine & Peter Hitchens
Producer: Philip Wilding
Editor: Chelsey Moore
Production Manager: Vittoria Cecchini
Executive Producer: Jamie East
A Daily Mail production. Seriously Popular
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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37:26
The End of Education and Did We Really Win the War?
Sarah’s two children are currently at university, which is rather handy as a regular listener has asked that Peter and Sarah chime in on the current state of the education system here in the UK. And how times have changed, Peter spent his university years trying to kickstart social unrest, while Sarah pursued a job at The Body Shop.
And as the Union Jacks flutter in the hazy afterglow of VE Day, Peter rand Sarah reflects respectively on their father and grandfather’s service, one at sea in Scapa Flow transporting weapons to Russia, the other fighting in the jungles of Burma.
On our reading and watch list this week:
· The History Man – Malcolm Bradbury
· Quartered Safe Out Here - George MacDonald Fraser
· The Phoney Victory – Peter Hitchens
To get in touch, email: alas@mailonline.co.uk, you can leave a comment on Spotify or even send us a voice note on Whatsapp – on 07796 657512, start your message with the word ‘alas’.
Take our show survey at:
https://ex-plorsurvey.com/survey/selfserve/550/g517/250305?list=9
Presenters: Sarah Vine & Peter Hitchens
Producer: Philip Wilding
Editor: Chelsey Moore
Production Manager: Vittoria Cecchini
Executive Producer: Jamie East
A Daily Mail production. Seriously Popular
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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43:38
Applying Udder Cream and the End of Civilisation
Sarah’s brother was at home in Madrid this week when Spain underwent a blackout, alone in the dark with the only the thing in his house still working, his old radio. This week too saw the start of the great switch-off of analogue phones; and just look at the chaos caused by a cyber-attack at Marks and Spencer in the last few days. So, Sarah’s question is this, as we fall under the thrall of ever updating technology, are we going unwittingly back to the dark ages?
Meanwhile, Peter is as reluctant as the average vampire to be seen in the sun, so why, every summer, does he turn the colour of an expensive riding saddle? Tune in for a remarkable, death-defying story of being stranded in Mogadishu and having to flee across the desert to escape. And sunburn.
On our reading and watch list this week:
· The Stand – Stephen King
· Black Hawk Down
· Leave The World Behind – Rumaan Alam
To get in touch, email: alas@mailonline.co.uk, you can leave a comment on Spotify or even send us a voice note on Whatsapp – on 07796 657512, start your message with the word ‘alas’.
Take our show survey at:
https://ex-plorsurvey.com/survey/selfserve/550/g517/250305?list=9
Presenters: Sarah Vine & Peter Hitchens
Producer: Philip Wilding
Editor: Chelsey Moore
Production Manager: Vittoria Cecchini
Executive Producer: Jamie East
A Daily Mail production. Seriously Popular
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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29:28
Turn off your TV and Bloody Taxes
Not unlike the Rolling Stones, Peter Hitchens is ready to toss his TV through the nearest window. He’s in accord with the late, great Groucho Marx who was once moved to remark: "I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book." Once forced to rent a TV to watch the news before being quickly lured towards shows like Minder, Peter is now wary of the television, to the point he blames it for a lot of the world’s woes. Tune in for that.
And as the customer friendly ad for the Inland revenue insisted, tax doesn’t have to be taxing. Try telling that to Sarah and her circle of friends who have tried and failed to reach the HMRC to query a bill or simply get help. The revenue sent bailiffs to the door of one friend, while another chum had to draw down part of their pension to meet a tax demand. So, here’s the question, why are the inland revenue so awful and insistent on treating people like criminals?
On our reading and watching list this week:
· The Wonder Years
· Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business – Neil Postman
· The Great Tax Robbery: How Britain Became A Tax Haven For Fat Cats And Big Business – Richard Brooks
To get in touch, email: alas@mailonline.co.uk, you can leave a comment on Spotify or even send us a voice note on Whatsapp – on 07796 657512, start your message with the word ‘alas’.
Take our show survey at:
https://ex-plorsurvey.com/survey/selfserve/550/g517/250305?list=9
Presenters: Sarah Vine & Peter Hitchens
Producer: Philip Wilding
Editor: Chelsey Moore
Production Manager: Vittoria Cecchini
Executive Producer: Jamie East
A Daily Mail production. Seriously Popular
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
What's the Big Idea?
Finally, Sarah Vine (once memorably described as being ‘like and loathed in equal measure, divisive, but never indecisive’) and Peter Hitchens (a man whose writing a critic was called to compare to a Guardsman’s boot: ‘as highly polished and potentially lethal’) meet once a week to look at the world and mutter, alas…
Acclaimed columnist and journalist Sarah Vine and best-selling author and broadcaster Peter Hitchens discuss and dissect social, economic, and pop cultural flotsam and jetsam that have risen out of the dark waters of that week’s news.
Taking one big idea each episode and pulling it apart with élan, imagine Vine and Hitchens respective columns brought to life and then skewered, scoffed at, debated, and given the full weight of Vine and Hitchens impenetrable gaze. Though an accord might not always be reached, it’s the journey that matters.
Whether it’s the tech bros gone rogue – Meta tearing up its own rule book on fact checking, Musk attempting to influence governmental policy, or the knotty subject on society’s ever-increasing reliance on anti-depressants to treat what might just be the modern malaise and not depression at all. Or, evil, nature or nurture? Does evil actually exist or is it an idea that hangs over us, or do we just sometime embody it and the actions themselves are evil, not the individual?
All this and more are to be pored over, one towering topic each week discussed with humour, insight, and real understanding.
Take part in our listener survey here:
https://ex-plorsurvey.com/survey/selfserve/550/g517/250305?list=9#?
To get in touch email alas@mailonline.co.uk, you can leave a comment on Spotify or even send us a voice note on WhatsApp - on 07796 657512 start your message with the word 'alas'
Presenters: Sarah Vine & Peter Hitchens
Producer: Phillip Wilding
Editor: Chelsey Moore
Production Manager: Vittoria Cecchini
Executive Producer: Jamie East
A Daily Mail production. Seriously Popular
South Africa