Author Archives: samiraahmed
Life lessons from a south London girl to Kingston University graduates
I was hugely honoured to me made an honorary Doctor of Letters by Kingston University today, “in recognition of her contribution to journalism and gender equality”. Here’s the speech I gave at the graduation ceremony. You can watch it on … Continue reading
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Discovering The Beatles at Stowe Tape – An Experiment in Time
(Updated Sep 12th with link to my article in the Journal of Beatles Studies and April 10th 2023 with set list and link to a feature for The Observer) It was sixty years ago today…. A spread from the Stowe … Continue reading
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Inside the Mary Whitehouse diaries
Archive on Four Disgusted, Mary Whitehouse is on Radio 4 March 5th 2022 at 8pm It was back in summer 2019 that I first found out that Oxford University’s world famous Bodleian Library had just acquired the Mary Whitehouse diaries. … Continue reading
People had come expecting The Beatles. They saw and heard something rather more akin to Slade – Oasis at the Viper Room December 1995
I was a young BBC News Correspondent and had arrived to cover for the BBC’s LA Correspondent over Christmas. I was very jetlagged after playing Mortal Kombat II nonstop for 11 hours on the flight over. But then Jeremy Cooke … Continue reading
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Art of Persia: Episode 3: Genghis Khan to 1979
The final part of Art of Persia ends where most programmes and news about Iran begin – in the Islamic Revolution of 1979. We feature the beautiful Shiraz-born poets Saadi and Hafez and their influence on Byron Goethe and the … Continue reading
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Behind the scenes of Art of Persia – episode 2
We’ve had such amazing audience praise and enthusiasm for Episode 1 so I thought I’d give some more insights and answer a question. A number of viewers asked why we described the Cyrus Cylinder -with its declaration of tolerance for … Continue reading
The art of making Art of Persia
It was 2016 when I was first approached about the possibility of going to Iran to make a major series about the history and art of Persia. It took 3 years to get the visas and we filmed exactly a … Continue reading
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Broadcasting Press Guild award speech 2020
This is the text of the speech I gave on winning Audio Presenter of the Year at the Broadcasting Press Guild Awards 2020 at the Guildhall, London. I’d like to add my thanks to producers and editors Jon Tolansky and … Continue reading
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Why the 90s was a bloody brilliant decade to be a young woman (despite the backlash)
Wrote this 2 years ago. It inspired 3 bonus questions on University Challenge in August 2018. (A lot has happened, like #MeToo) But posting it here Marcel Proust- style after finally seeing kd lang on her Ingenue at 25 tour … Continue reading
The story behind How I Found My Voice
The podcast is the idea of Intelligence Squared’s Matt McAllester and was developed by producer Farah Jassat – one of the brightest young talents in broadcasting – who recently joined Intelligence Squared after several years at the BBC as a … Continue reading
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Tagged adam buxton, benjamin zephaniah, how I found my voice, katherine ryan, philip pullman
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