Hello, this is David Runsman and I want to tell you about my new podcast.

It starts next week and it's called Past Present Future.

It's a podcast of ideas and it's about the history of the most interesting ideas, from

politics to philosophy, from science to fiction.

Our first episode comes out next Thursday, the 27th of April and it's with the novelist

Ian McEwen, who tells me about his favourite work of political fiction.

It's a book that explains a great deal about democracy.

So really almost immediately you're taking into the heart of who votes and who doesn't

vote, who's capable, who isn't capable and it's right at the heart as it were in this

very short novel of the political process which is why for the last 40 years I've been

pressing it on people, film directors, friends who love fiction people who want to make

a special case with a novella to say this is one of the most extraordinary and brilliant

political novels.

The following week I'm going to be talking to Helen Thompson about the TV show Dallas

that dominated the world in the 70s and 80s but turns out to be about much more than

just who shot J.R.

So there's a really ongoing theme through Dallas that runs all the way through the show,

is that the land at South Fork is sacred and if oil touches that then something really

destructive has happened and that is a taboo that can't be crossed and J.R. is constantly

pushing against that taboo.

Past present future is also going to have every month one episode in the history of ideas

stream in which I talk about thinkers and ideas from the past and I'm going to be starting

...