Original Broadcast: Gadgets and Gizmos
Despite the warm weather, Steve Caplin is not tempted by the Japanese human fridge in which overheated people can cool down for a mere £7,000. Nor is he inclined to shell out for the first mass-produced humanoid robot, a Chinese product, which looks either like something from a Kpop band or a sex doll. And while he is impressed by the video of an invisible drone, he wonders if they've considered how to use a camera with it. Cyborg cockroaches can now go underwater wearing a diving suit. ChatGPT has escaped from a sandbox and broken into a rival's system. There's a puzzling crowdfunded folding pry bar that goes ting and can open bottles while a podcast microphone is more impressive. Amazon Web Services has been glitchy and charging small users upwards of £5 billion. And the University of Sheffield is trying to grow salad, mustard, tomatoes and the like half a mile down an old coal mine.
Guests: Steve Caplin
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Original Broadcast: The Business Of Film
James Cameron-Wilson says that #1 The Odyssey helped box office soar 86% despite hot weather and The World Cup. However, opinions are divided. Those who have seen it on IMAX (where it broke records) think it a masterpiece. Those who have viewed it on ordinary screens are less convinced. In his normal multiplex James found the music irritating, the dialogue sometimes unintelligible, the picture very dark and the many starry cameos distracting. Puzzled by a 15 certificate for such a mild and unbloody film, he often had no idea what was going on and believed none of it. He was far happier with Heartstopper Forever, the Netflix feature film based on its TV series which he really enjoyed and thought surprisingly touching. Not so Enola Holmes 3 with Milly Bobby Brown which, after two outings that he loved, feels like a mediocre TV episode.
Guests: James Cameron-Wilson
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Original Broadcast: Gadgets and Gizmos
Steve Caplin laments the passing of Long Wave radio. He can't wait while a new robot makes a bed so slowly and is nervous about a pair of robots performing live surgery. British Airways is to use bionic baggage handlers. Scientists can now produce lab-grown sperm in artificial testicles taken from skin cells. A French company is producing portable disaster-proof shelters while an American one will lower your home into the ground in the event of a catastrophe. There's a robot which will clean your barbecue. And it turns out robots are much better at proving they are human than humans are.
Guests: Steve Caplin
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Original Broadcast: The Business Of Film
James Cameron-Wilson says that cinemas are suffering from the heat, Wimbledon and the World Cup with box office down 31%. He wasn't keen on #1, the live action version of Moana which lacks magic and mostly feels like a cartoon. Although it's not for everyone, he was more interested in #23, Rosebush Pruning, a black comedy about a family with an abundance of problems on a country estate with the likes of Jamie Bell, Callum Turner and Elle Fanning. It's a curate's egg with no narrative thrust. As it is shocking and nasty in places, it's not one for gentle souls. His highlight of the week is the Blu-Ray release of Oh! What a Lovely War, Richard Attenborough's directorial debut. A musical satire of the First World War with an amazing star cast, it holds up remarkably well.
Guests: James Cameron-Wilson
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Original Broadcast: The Business Of Film
James Cameron-Wilson reluctantly returns for more of those yellow mischief-makers in #2's 'Minions & Monsters', which provides kids with a quick snapshot of early film history and little else of value. He raves about the third film in the chart, Olivia Wilde's chamber drama 'The Invite', which he says is distinguished by Wilde's direction, terrific performances and an enormously witty screenplay from Will McCormack and Rashida Jones. James also covers StudioCanal's 4K UHD Blu-ray release of Russell Mulcahy's 1986 film 'Highlander', which arrived on the 29th June and celebrates the film's 40th anniversary.
Guests: Chad Kennerk,James Cameron-Wilson
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Original Broadcast: The Bigger Picture
For the final Bigger Picture with Simon Rose, Professor Tim Evans of Middlesex University looks back over the past 12 years of the programme. Into the good category, he places the advances in technology in areas like medicine, the digital world and the AI revolution. This will give a huge uplift to developing countries. As to the bad, that would include the polarisation of political life as the state hollows itself out from the inside, with taxes at an all-time high and services getting ever worse. Tim highlights the number of people under 40 abandoning the NHS, who believe they won't get a state pension for them and who see their future not in Britain but abroad. The ugly is the ever increasing indebtedness of the world's most advanced democracies and the rising authoritarianism which threatens the underpinning of our open society.
Guests: Professor Tim Evans
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Original Broadcast: Gadgets and Gizmos
Steve Caplin is so amazed to discover that you can watch World Cup matches on BBC in 3D, it has almost made him keen on football. WhatsApp is soon to allow user names but you might need to get in quickly to reserve the one you want. Steve visited an Amazon fulfilment centre (a warehouse to the rest of us) and was amazed at what he saw. Delivery robots will soon be allowed throughout the UK, but it will need a change in the 1835 Highways Act forbidding "carriages" on the pavement. Commodore have made a retro flip phone. Dead lithium batteries can soon be resuscitated. Scout badges include the likes of digital comms and content creation. The BBFC are using AI to help classify films.
Guests: Steve Caplin
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Original Broadcast: The Business Of Film
James Cameron-Wilson thought he was in for a treat with #2 Supergirl, starring Milly Alcock. But it is disappointingly tedious, with lots of fighting and killing and a surprising 12A certificate, given that it deals with alcoholism and sex trafficking. #27 Blue Heron, a Canadian film about childhood trauma, is highly regarded by some. But James found it self-indulgent, abtruse and unfathomable. He was keener on Netflix's romcom Voicemails for Isabelle. It looks great, has a super soundtrack, winning performances and boasts dialogue so effervescent, he would happily watch it again for that alone. It's the sort of film that makes you happy to be alive. In the Hand of Dante, also on Netflix, stars Al Pacino, Martin Scorsese and more but is two films in one, with an intriguing modern thriller weighed down by a plodding medieval biopic. It's half a masterpiece, half a disaster.
Guests: James Cameron-Wilson
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Original Broadcast: The Financial Outlook for Personal Investors
For Simon Rose's last discussion with Russ Mould of A J Bell, Russ looks at the tentative bid for FTSE 100 stock Segro, once a warehouse REIT, now moving into data centres. It's the 16th bid for a UK property company in the last four years and yet UK investors don't seem interested in UK commercial property. The 10-year gilt yields 4.7% against a sector yield of 6.3%. Does that premium compensate investors for the risks? Russ wonders why, if REITs believe the sector discount to assets of 25%, they don't buy back their own shares. It would be more positive for the sector than bids, even if those bids show that there are people overseas who think that there is value there.
Guests: Russ Mould
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Original Broadcast: The Bigger Picture
It is hard to say what finished off Keir Starmer as PM, says Mike Indian. It was political death by a thousand cuts. But he seemed to be decent and honourable and tried to do his best. Posterity will probably be kinder to him than many current critics are. It now seems certain that Andy Burnham will become Prime Minister and Mike thinks it right that there won't be a distracting leadership contest. Burnham says he will stick to Reeves's fiscal rules which means he will have to show a lot of creative thinking. He is more charming and wittier than Starmer, but will that be enough? His appointment of Chancellor will be crucial. We don't really know what a Burnham premiership will look like. Mike reflects that in the nine years he and Simon Rose have been discussing The Bigger Picture, the world has become a less certain place, politics is now a lot less kind and public trust in institutions and politicians has declined considerably.
Guests: Mike Indian
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