Author Archives: samiraahmed
Stop making do. Is Britain up for mending a culture of exploitation?
A few years ago I was in a cathedral with 400 sixth formers. We were debating ethics and green living. Many seemed very concerned. “How many of you buy cheap clothes that you throw away?” I asked. I saw plenty … Continue reading
The making of Do Pass Go: boardgames in the internet age
Do Pass Go my BBC Radio 4 documentary, airing on Friday April 14th 2017, has its origins in a piece I wrote about the Libyan dictator General Gadaffi playing chess on TV in the run up to his toppling, and … Continue reading
Posted in Business/Economics, Children, Culture, Design, Games, Germany, Radio
Tagged boardgames, british museum, climate oasis, culture, dagnis skurbe, essen, friedemanm friese, FTW, Germany, grant dalgliesh, irving finkel, James wallis, jessy bradish, magic the gathering, mombasa, pandemic, royal game of ur, the dice tower, the last spike, tom vasel
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The poison that is destroying civility and how to fight it
‘How did you get into first class? You don’t deserve to be in first class. ‘You should be in common class. In fact, you shouldn’t be in this country at all. ‘You don’t deserve to be here. Bloody foreigners. Where … Continue reading
Posted in Crime and Justice, Culture, journalism, Media, Politics, Theatre
Tagged alexander mackinnon, BIG ISSUE, faisal islam, gina miller, jo cox, john bercow, John Major, monday club, Racism, sanaa shahid, this house
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The making of John Ruskin’s Eurythmic Girls
John Ruskin’s Eurythmic Girls is a Radio 3 Sunday Feature which airs this Sunday Feb 26th at 645pm Intellectual and art school champion of medieval art he may have been, but it is John Ruskin’s alleged horror of female pubic … Continue reading
Posted in Books, Children, Culture, Education, History, Radio
Tagged culture, eurythmics, feminism, John Ruskin, of queens gardens, Queenswood School, sesame and lilies, Victorians
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How to win the coming culture war in 2017
A version of this article first appeared in The Big Issue magazine in January 2017. Journalism worth paying for. Available weekly from street vendors or subscriptions here. History rarely falls into neat numerical decades. I would assert the 1980s (yuppies, … Continue reading
Posted in Books, Comics/graphic novels, Culture, Film, Media, Music, Politics, Radio, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Theatre, TV, Uncategorized
Tagged ali smith, BIG ISSUE, books, cinema, culture, culture war, Disney, dr quinn medicine woman, dreamgirls, everbody's talking about jamie, feminism, film, FTW, henry krieger, Hollywood, jane seymour, jon musker, media, moana, pauline boty, politics, rogue one, ron clements, susan faludi, tv, tyrus wong, unforgotten, Wonder Woman
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How should broadcast news journalists interview and talk about extremists?
Over the weekend I spoke to veteran ex BBC journalist Robin Lustig, Berlin correspondent Damien McGuinness for an insight into Germany’s media and Stuart Stevens, Mitt Romney’s 2012 senior strategist for 2 articles I wrote for The Guardian and The … Continue reading
Posted in Germany, journalism, Media, Politics, Radio, Religion, TV
Tagged AfD, alt right, BBC, Berlin, BIG ISSUE, Damien McGuinness, Donald Trump, journalism, Luegenpresse, media, Mitt Romney, Nazism, Newswatch, Nigel Farage, Pegida, politics, Robin Lustig, Stuart Stevens, terrorism, tv
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Adjust your privacy settings now, fool! Reading The Woman In White in the instagram age
(Warning contains some partial but not big spoilers!) “Habits of literary composition are perfectly familiar to me. One of the rarest of all the intellectual accomplishments that man can possess is the grand faculty of arranging his ideas. Immense … Continue reading
Posted in Books, Culture
Tagged front row, instagram, the woman in white, twitter, Victorians, wilkie collins
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Ladybird books: Constructing the future past of modern Britain
I used to visit a beloved university English professor and his wife. He had won the Military Cross for hand to hand combat in the liberation of the Netherlands in 1945 but never talked about the terrible things he’d seen. … Continue reading
Posted in Books, Children, Culture, Design, Environment, Germany, History, Media, Uncategorized, War
Tagged 60s, Bachelor of Hearts, books, conway hall, culture, Hardy Kruger, Ladybird books, media, michael balcon, politics, publishing, Sylvia Syms, war, wolf rilla
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We’ll get the President we deserve: Suzan Lori Parks on Hillary Clinton & America’s woman problem
“You’ve consumed too much of the Kool-Aid that the man has been serving you.” Pulitzer prize-winning playwright Susan Lori Parks came into the Front Row studio last week to talk about When Father Came Home From The Wars opening at … Continue reading
Posted in Books, Culture, History, Media, Politics, Radio, Theatre, Uncategorized, War
Tagged American Civil War, culture, feminism, Hillary Clinton, media, politics, Suzan Lori Parks, Theatre Royal Stratford, US politics, war
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Lessons for Trump and us all from the Ronald Reagan Memorial Library
“I wonder what it’s all about, and why We suffer so, when little things go wrong? We make our life a struggle When life should be a song…” We should perhaps we grateful that the teenage Ronald Reagan never grew … Continue reading
Posted in History, journalism, Media, Politics
Tagged 80s, BIG ISSUE, Donald Trump, politics, Ronald Reagan
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