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The Bunker – News without the nonsense

Extra: ISOLATION INSPIRATION with author Francis Spufford

The Bunker – News without the nonsense

Podmasters

News, Government, Politics, Society & Culture

4.61K Ratings

🗓️ 21 March 2021

⏱️ 22 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

A bonus weekend edition… Finding inspiration in the midst of pandemic can be difficult, but how hard is it to write a book about a city you can’t visit because of lockdown? And how has the Church fared during this period of enforced isolation? Author and practising Christian Francis Spufford talks to Ros Taylor about his new novel Light Perpetual, the “incredibly natural” failure of imagination in the midst of this pandemic, and how COVID has left the Church “smaller and wobblier” than ever before. “The ordinariness of the Blitz leaps out at me… people woke up having survived the night, dusted themselves down and went to work” “People will sit in cafes and ride on trains again… they’ll regard this as the weird glitch of 2020” “COVID has been catastrophic for the church… it will emerge smaller and wobblier than before the pandemic started” Presented by Ros Taylor. Produced by Andrew Harrison. Assistant producers Jacob Archbold and Jelena Sofronijevic. Music by Kenny Dickinson. Audio production by Alex Rees. THE BUNKER is a Podmasters Production See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

My name is Stan. I'm at. Nice to meet you. So you took up photography where? I've always loved

0:05.5

photography but I turn it into earning a living at 60. I enrolled on a day course.

0:11.8

Well college. I loved going to college. It's good you can retry. I'm enrolled on the day course. But college?

0:13.0

I loved going to college.

0:14.0

It's good you can retrain and do something.

0:16.0

Yeah, yeah.

0:17.0

Let's talk about working, learning, saving and making the most of living longer.

0:22.0

Phoenix Group is the UK's largest long-term savings and retirement business.

0:28.0

Search Phoenix Group living longer.

0:30.0

Pets brings so much joy.

0:32.0

From those happy greetings at the door to the warm cuddles on the sofa

0:36.7

so give a little love back with dental life from Purina a range of delicious chues made for dogs and tasty snacks for cats that help clean and support your pets, teeth and gums, essential for their overall well-being and a happy, healthy life. They give you plenty of smiles so

0:55.3

look after theirs with dental life. Pick up dental life in the pet food aisle. Welcome to the bunker, I'm Ros Taylor. What's it like to write fiction during a pandemic and we know what

1:14.8

lockdown has meant for landlords and pub goers but how have Christians experienced it?

1:19.9

Talking to me today is the author of the new novel like Perpetual Francis

1:24.3

Welcome to the bunker Francis. Hi thanks Ross. Where have you been spending the

1:29.5

pandemic? Indores mostly. My wife works in Eelie Cathedral and we live in a house just next to it.

1:38.0

So I am in one of the luckier and prettier, nicer places to hunker down in but I miss London where I used to commute to work and I miss cafes where I used to write for preference.

1:58.0

So I'm in a, it's a velvet cage, but it's a bit of a cage.

2:03.0

This is your second novel, but it's by no means your first book.

2:07.0

You've written in many different genres, essays, memoir, history,

2:11.0

polemic even.

...

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