It's London season on Radio 4 – but many people will tell you that every season is London season in the media, never mind on BBC radio. In an effort to appease the 53 million people who don't live in the capital, the documentary There's More to Life than London asserts that the city isn't the be all and end all (listen again here). Admittedly the concept is a bit flawed: attempting to offset a season of programming about London by talking about London a bit more, albeit from a negative point of view. However, after the inevitable minute or two of vox-pops about the cost of living and how rude Londoners are, there some interesting points worth further consideration.
The self-perpetuating myths of the city being a creative powerhouse and the only one with good career prospects continue to draw people there, so how can the cycle ever be broken? And is the snobbery and inverted snobbery of "London versus the regions" holding the entire country back? The documentary doesn't answer these questions, unfortunately, but provides some interesting food for thought.
The recently reprieved 6 Music served up Independents Day on 4 July (geddit?) to celebrate independent record labels. Huey Morgan (The Huey Show, listen again here) picked out his favourites for the occasion, surfing the wave of songs that sound excellent on a summer day without plunging into torpor. From the Sex Pistols to Nigeria's Peacocks Guitar Band International, it is a thoroughly enjoyable playlist. Plus, there's a live session with his Fun Lovin' Criminals and Roots Manuva – dubbed Criminal Manuvas (watch and listen to the performance here).
If you are pushed for time, try to grab 15 minutes for the first of Five Stories by Rose Tremain (Radio 7, listen again here). Peerless is the tale of a retired man's loneliness and lack of purpose – compared with his wife's active schedule of voluntary work – which is resolved by his acquaintance with a penguin. Touching and charming, it crams fistfuls of sadness into a very small space.
Lastly, Jack Dee has been winning hearts and minds as the new host of I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue (Radio 4, listen again here). Enough words have been spoken about the totemic Humphrey Lyttelton, so I'll not weigh them up here. But on the self-titled "antidote to panel games", Dee is the perfect antidote to the cloying comfiness of the audience clapping along to "one song to the tune of another". You're left with the distinct impression that he's flashing them a trademark pitying sneer, and it's like a palate cleanser, allowing you to enjoy the craftsmanship of panelists Cryer, Garden, Brooke-Taylor and, this week, Toksvig.
