Radio column: Estates of the nation deliver some home truths

If, on Monday morning, the news that David Cameron was to announce proposals to abolish housing benefit to the under-25s and restrict welfare payments to large families left much of the nation poleaxed, for radio editors desperate to move the national conversation on from the deficiencies of the English football team and a dead tortoise, it was nothing short of a gift.
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Jesca Hoop: "It feels good to tell people how it was."

Several years ago Jesca Hoop was sitting in the bath in Los Angeles when the phone rang. At the other end was Elbow's Guy Garvey. He had heard her debut album, Kismet, and wanted to know more about its author. It turned out to be a pivotal moment. As well as interviewing her on his radio show on BBC6 Music, thereby introducing her to a British audience, Garvey invited Hoop to support Elbow on tour. Through that she met her current partner, the band's manager, Tom Piper, prompting her move from sunny LA to the earthier environs of Chorlton in Manchester.
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Radio column: Ulysses blooms once more

Like many others before me, I attempted Ulysses in my late teens. I managed to read the whole of the spine before uttering an exhausted "Sod this" and turning my attention to what I felt was a more deserving literary cause: Jilly Cooper's Riders.
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Radio column: How Richard Branson grew up and found his wings

When Richard Branson was five years old his mother stopped the car, ordered him to get out and told him to make his own way to his grandparents' house. This, it turns out, wasn't an act of cruelty but an effective lesson in learning how to stand on your own two feet.
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