Category Archives: Radio

Only connect: Charles Correa and the power of the empty centre

Posted on May 15, 2013 by samiraahmed

I interviewed Charles Correa, India’s Greatest living architect  at RIBA yesterday, which is holding a retrospective of his remarkable career till September 4th. He’s just given them his archive of papers which you can explore online below. His story is … Continue reading →

Posted in Culture, Design, Radio, Science, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 7 Comments

The Politics of Spin: Beware the bland bomb

Posted on September 23, 2012 by samiraahmed

Image copyright & courtesy of www.barrydbulsara.com “I’m not sure it says government is crap,” said Armando Iannucci recently, of his political satire The Thick of It. “I think it says the people in government are crap.” Nowadays politicians and their … Continue reading →

Posted in journalism, Media, Politics, Radio, TV, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

BBC Bush: The House at the Centre of the Globe

Posted on July 12, 2012 by samiraahmed

To mark the closing of BBC’s Bush House, which sends out its final broadcast today, this is an updated memoir of growing up there in the 70s. Bush House, Aldwych: The centre of the universe My mother, Lalita Ahmed, used to freelance … Continue reading →

Posted in Culture, journalism, Media, Radio, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

What the hell’s the Presidency for? Re-assessing LBJ

Posted on June 1, 2012 by samiraahmed

This is based on my interview with  author Robert Caro and fellow American writer, Michael Goldfarb for BBC Radio 3 Night Waves on June 6th. You can listen to the programme here. (last 18 minutes) Which US President won an election with the largest ever … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, History, Radio, War | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

A Smashing Time: Murray Melvin on busting taboos in the 60s

Posted on March 27, 2012 by samiraahmed

For the third of my One to Ones for Radio 4 I wanted a Missing Angle on the golden age of British theatre and cinema — from the late 50s to the early 70s. You can listen to it here. … Continue reading →

Posted in Culture, Film, Radio, Theatre, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Don’t Go There, Lady

Posted on March 13, 2012 by samiraahmed

I wrote to journalist and future doctor Lucy Mathen as a child when she presented Newsround. More than 30 years later we met. I wrote a feature about it for The Guardian. And as a result of learning about how … Continue reading →

Posted in Children, journalism, Politics, Radio, Science, Travel, Uncategorized, War | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Why Professor Peter Higgs is Massive: the man behind the particle

Posted on December 18, 2011 by samiraahmed

This text is Copyright of the BBC. You can listen to this Profile documentary via the BBC website here. 3 years ago when the Large Hadron Collider was switched on at Cern in Geneva, few people had heard of Peter … Continue reading →

Posted in Radio, Science | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

What happened, pop pickers? Teenagers & radio

Posted on November 11, 2011 by samiraahmed

The decline of the teenage radio listener is not unique to Radio 1. I wrote this piece about the demographic challenge for The Guardian this week. One of my key sources in researching the piece was Will Page, chief economist … Continue reading →

Posted in Business/Economics, Children, Culture, Media, Music, Radio | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Don’t misquote me — lessons in interviewing from Johann Hari and Ed Miliband

Posted on July 2, 2011 by samiraahmed

Two incidents this week revealed  quite useful lessons about responsible interviewing. The Independent’s star columnist Johann Hari was found to have been quoting interviewees from other sources, while passing the quotes off as his own interview. Here’s Johann Hari’s own … Continue reading →

Posted in journalism, Media, Politics, Radio, TV, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

High risk, obviously. Blokeanomics? – Winning on shares

Posted on May 27, 2011 by samiraahmed

I was fascinated by an interview with two Cardiff schoolboys on Radio 4 this morning. Their school team had won a national “Shares for Schools” competition and two of them were interviewed  in the business slot about how they’d outperformed … Continue reading →

Posted in Business/Economics, Children, Education, Radio, Uncategorized | Tagged | Leave a comment