Spike Milligan

The disgraced royal Andrew Mounbatten Windsor is headline news again.  He invited Jeffrey Epstein to be a guest at Balmoral Castle. What happened while he and his girl friend Ghislaine Maxwell were staying there is now being investigated by the police. When 'Entitled ' was published last year it caused quite a stir, changed the lives of the Duke and Duchess of York for ever .... and became a number one bestseller. The new paperback of Entitled contains a whole chapter of new information and chronicles what has happened in a tumultuous year. Andrew Lownie predicts that there is more information to come. The story continues ...... A gripping conversation.  

TV is full of police dramas, but one of the best was Inspector Morse, invented by Colin Dexter. Colin Dexter was a splendid writer. His creation  Morse is superb on the page and just as gripping on television. I used to meet Colin in the pub on Banbury Road in Oxford, The Dew Drop. He was great company and almost completely unaware of his success and star quality. I recorded this conversation in his house after the publication of The Remorseful Day. He was relaxed and very happy to look back at his life in education and crime writing.

Recently there has been a surge of on line interest in the  anarchic radio comedy The Goon Show. On YouTube there is splendid documentary simply called 'Spike'. Spike was Terence Alan Milligan. His parents were Irish but he was born in India. He was 83 when he died in 2002. In this episode Spike talks to David Freeman about his life in comedy, The Goons, and the mental health problems that dogged his life after he was blown up by a wartime bomb.

The war that is spreading across the Middle East has a religious dimension. American aggression is supported by evangelical Christians, Iran is an Islamic state and Israel has its own Jewish deity. Donald Trump tells his followers that he was chosen by god.  None of the gods seem to be seekers for peace. All seek vengeance and revenge.  In early 2025 a million Hindus tried to bathe in a river at the same time. Why would anyone think this would be a good idea. Robin Dunbar is Professor of Evolutionary Psychology at the University of Oxford. From his academic standpoint he charts the evolution of religion in all its many guises and forms. Does the professor's analysis explain the enduring but shrinking appeal of non logical beliefs?

Before Patrick Nally created and sold sponsorship packages for FIFA and the Olympic Games, sport had no money. Patrick was in at the beginning creating the money monster that sport has become. He was even responsible for giving the world Sepp Blatter. Was that a good idea? Should Gianni Infantino have a million pound plus salary? In the early days were payments paid in brown envelopes in car parks? It's a jaw dropping story!

The mid term elections are almost upon us. It is very easy to get very troubled by the current US administration . Doing diesel deals with the Putin regime .... organising a live streamed public execution..... every day a new low. Who could have predicted that the American Vice President would have thought it part of his task to question the Pope's understanding of theology? Who could have predicted that Donald Trump would think it a good idea to read parts of the Bible to the nation?   Have they redefined god in their own image? It seems that the current American administration is behaving in even more wild emotionally driven vindictive ways. This gripping and shocking book tells the story of the radical conservative movement shaping Donald Trump's agenda and how it threatens freedoms, values and democracy.  Since this conversation was recorded the situation has got much worse.

Jeffery Archer has died. The obituaries all make reference to his colourful life. This conversation was recorded in the year 2000, the year before he was jailed for perjury. Im sure it's coincidence that there are two ex high flying Tories on this podcast who both found themselves in jail for lying under oath. LIke others that came after him this former vice chairman of the Conservative Party and would be Mayor of London had supreme confidence in his ability to tell lies and then lie his way out of the consequences of the earlier untruths. Jeffery Archer was confident he would always 'get away with it'. The edifice of untruths became unsustainable and eventually collapsed.  The reason for this interview was the publication of a new collection of short stories. The coverage in the tabloids at the time was much more about his relationship with a prostitute and how he persuaded a friend to give her money to go away. With hindsight his lies were going to send him to prison and I should maybe have asked him about being banished from the Tory party and his payments to sex worker Monica Coghlan. That might have made a more riveting conversation.  What cannot be denied is that he was a very successful author. A lauded politician at the Conservative conference. Whatever you feel about Jeffrey Archer he was undeniably a supreme storyteller.

This splendid book tells the stories behind the buildings.  It starts 3,000 years ago in Troy and finishes with what castles have become in the nuclear age. It's not just buildings, it's walls and people. Dan even puts the bombastic projects of Donald Trump in an historical perspective. This might not make you feel better but it does provide context. Vanity expressed in big extravagant buildings is not new! Castles by Dan Jones is an entertaining page turner full of insights and fascinating facts.      

There is an article in the Daily Telegraph written by Petra Khasoggi. When she was a teenager she discovered that her biological father is Jonathan Aitken. It is not a consistently happy story.  We are used to politicians , particularly Tory politicians, being untruthful. Twenty five years ago Jonathan Aitken was a high profile journalist and Tory politician who found himself in very hot water He was pursued mercilessly by sections of the British press when they gathered evidence to show that he had encouraged one of his daughters to lie in court to get him out of a tight legal corner into which his own lies had lead him. He was found guilty and sentenced to a jail term As a sideshow to his public fall from grace he ran up a huge legal bill which he could not pay. Bankruptcy was inevitable. Many were sceptical when he 'found God' in jail. He confounded his critics however by sticking with religion and becoming ordained as a vicar. Later he returned to jail as a chaplain. There was a book published in 2003 called 'Pride and Perjury'. Jonathan Aitken talked to David Freeman about it, and his life,  soon after publication.  

Sir Ranulph Fiennes is still in the news. Where he is still unknown but he is often referred as a national treaure. Sir Ranulph Fiennes met David Freeman when his book 'The Secret Hunters' was published in 2001. The book tells the story of a diary that was found in a shelter in Antarctica in 1997. This opens the door to a world of deprivation, war, survival and revenge. It's a gripping page-turning read, but is it fiction?