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My name's Linda Davies and I Commission Podcasts for BBC Sounds.

As you'd expect, at the BBC we make podcasts of the very highest quality featuring the most knowledgeable experts and genuinely engaging voices.

What you may not know is that the BBC makes podcasts about all kinds of things like pop stars,

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Thanks for downloading analysis, the program about the ideas that shape the world.

In this edition, the work of a relatively obscure

Lebanese-American philosopher has captivated Downing Street, including the

Prime Minister. Janan Ganesh of the Economist interrogates this relationship.

Hamstead Heath is a vast wild park in North London.

One day last December, I took a walk through here with two of the most senior policy

advisors to the Prime Minister, Steve Hilton and Rowan Silver. Also there was a

Lebanese American writer and former Wall Street trader called

Nassim Nicholas Talib. He may seem an unusual person for too busy Downing Street

staff to spend a day with, but Talib's ideas are hugely influential on the government.

His central insight is about how little we know, an idea captured by the title of his

book, Black Swan.

The Black Swan, page 21.

Before the discovery of Australia,

people in the old world were convinced that all swans were white.

...