A Brief History of Cunning
Seriously...
BBC
4.1 • 885 Ratings
🗓️ 20 February 2018
⏱️ 60 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
How cunning is Donald Trump?
In Queenan on Cunning, the satirist Joe Queenan explores a word rarely associated with the current President of the USA.
"From Odysseus to Bismarck, via Brer Rabbit and Machiavelli's The Prince, there's a fine tradition of tricksters and hucksters, but where does the Donald fit in the mix? You need patience, intelligence, forward planning - some of these are Trump-like qualities. Stress on the some. But he's by no means a modern day Odysseus. Not much of a sailor."
With contributions from Adam MacQueen, author of The Lies of the Land; Edith Hall, who wrote a cultural history of Homer's Odyssey; and Tibor Fischer, whose forthcoming novel is called How to Rule the World.
Plus John Sergeant, Kathy Lette, Richard Nixon, Alistair McAlpine, Laura Barton ... and a campaigning American president cross-faded with a much loved song from The Jungle Book.
The producer in Bristol is Miles Warde.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This was an impregnable fortress. The only way you get out was in a wooden box. |
| 0:05.0 | The controversial maximum security prison impossible to escape from. |
| 0:09.0 | And one of the duties of a political prisoner is the escape. |
| 0:12.0 | The IRA inmates who found a way. of a political prisoner is the escape. |
| 0:12.5 | The IRA inmates who found a way. |
| 0:14.5 | I'm Carlo Gableer and I'll be navigating a path |
| 0:19.5 | through the disturbing inside story of the biggest jailbreak in British and Irish history. |
| 0:25.0 | The narrative that they want is that this is a big achievement by them. |
| 0:28.5 | Escape from the maze, listen first on BBC sounds. |
| 0:34.0 | This is the BBC. Sorry to interrupt your scheduled listening experience. |
| 0:48.0 | My name is Haley Campbell and I'm the host of UnPopped, |
| 0:51.0 | a new podcast that digs deep into pop culture. |
| 0:54.0 | Search for us and subscribe via your usual podcast, Supplier. Hi and welcome to Seriously. |
| 1:06.0 | Cunning is like pornography. You'll know it when you see it. |
| 1:10.0 | Ah, cunning. Like a crafty fox or a wily politician. But who's actually cunning? |
| 1:21.3 | If indeed I was cunning, then I would keep very, very quiet to budget. |
| 1:27.0 | Well, prepare yourself for an education because today's seriously interesting story is a brief history of the word. |
| 1:35.4 | From ancient Greece to the USA and Nixon. |
| 1:39.0 | I want the American people. |
| 1:41.0 | I want you to know beyond the shadow of a doubt that during my term as |
| 1:47.1 | president justice will be pursued fairly fully fully, and impartially. |
| 1:56.2 | And yes, a certain current president of the United States |
... |
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