Culture File

This weekly, carpet empresario, Hadi Maktabi on the language of the loom, Marise Gaughan on a possible future for reality tv, designer, Reed Berkowitz on the game-like qualities of #QAnon, and Rob Long on talking truth to actor.

Limerick-based Irish-Australian sarod soloist and composer, Matthew Noone shares some of his favourites in watching, reading, listening, tasting and smelling.

Writer, producer and observer of the Industrial Storytelling Complex brings up another tale from the coalface.

Gaming expert, Reed Berkowitz spies interactive storytelling techniques and alternative reality gaming mechanics in the #QAnon phenomenon. The uncut Zoom of this convo is here: https://youtu.be/gAyI3WdcnJE

Art historian-Instagrammer and dealer, Dr Hadi Maktabi on the woven languages of antique carpets

After deep research in both reality tv and documentary genres, comedian and writer Marise Gaughan has a plan.

Zoologist and smell specialist, Prof Matthew Cobb on some of his lockdown resources in books, video, podcasts, wine and food.

How much do communal experiences - like movies, or global pandemics - have in common? Rob Long has experiences of both to share.

A journey into the other worlds of Chinese Scifi with writer and translator, Xueting Christine Ni as our time-travelling guide. (Part 1 of 2)

Writer and translator, Xueting Christine Ni continues her time-travelling guide to ChiSciFi. (Part 2 of 2)

A journey into the other worlds of Chinese Scifi with writer and translator, Xueting Christine Ni as our time-travelling guide. (Part 1 of 2)

Composer and artist, Jennifer Walshe attempts to orientate herself towards the sunny uplands, using tech both old and new.

Photographer, Kevin Cummins met up with Ian Curtis and the other members of Joy Division on the snowy streets of Manchester, 42 years ago, 6 January 1979. He took some photos. (First broadcast: 2013)

North London music producer, John Collins, best known for his work with The Specials and Lovers Rock queen, Janet Kay, has fallen hard for Tallis, Byrd and Monteverdi.

This month's Zoom call takes all the angles on the sense of smell, with an all-star noses panel featuring: writer, @Harold_McGee; perfumer, @Meabh_Mc_Curtin; neuroscientist, @smellosopher; zoologist, @matthewcobb; and experimental perfumer, @AleesaCohene.

This month's Culture File Debate panel on smell, @Harold_McGee @smellosopher @matthewcobb @AleesaCohene @Meabh_Mc_Curtin, imagine new perfumes for the season.

Harold McGee, arguable the world's most influential food writer, has just finished a decade-long dive into the world of smell, from prehistoric carrion to the art of listening to fragrance, from chemistry to neuroscience, from flatulence to perfume. In this extended interview, he guides us through the extraordinary everyday of smell.

What exactly is the odour of mortality? This week Rob Long sniffs out some telling molecules.

Harold McGee on why wine writing gets such a bad press, as well as his own sudden brush with anosmia, the loss of the sense of smell that can be an early sign of COVID infection. (3/3. Part of Culture File's Scent Week)

Harold McGee continues his "Nose Dive" taking us back to some of the earliest flowers, and the fragrant information that filled the prehistoric air. (2/3. Part of Culture File's Scent Week)

Harold McGee, the scholar whose On Food And Cooking inspired a revolution in the kitchen, turns his attention to smell. (Part of Culture File's Scent Week)

This week, it's the turn of author and druid, Ellen Evert Hopman to share with some of her treasured watching, reading, listening, tasting and smelling.

This week, Jennifer Walshe's audio diary retraces the composer's first steps back into mid-pandemic Bloomsbury; German director, Halina Dyrschka talks sexism, spiritualism and the never-quite-lost art of Hilma af Klint; Paddy Woodworth rediscovers the icy writings of Barry Lopez and Rob Long pours another Martini Shot.

When exactly is it a good time to fire your agent, wonders Rob Long? And will there be cake?

For his latest suggestion for stocking an ideal shelfful of nature writing, Paddy Woodworth makes a case for Barry Lopez writings on the far North.