This is Spectator Radio and you're listening to The Books Podcast with Sam Leith.

Hello and welcome to The Spectator Books Podcast. I'm Sam Leith, the literary editor for The Spectator.

This week I'm very pleased to be joined by Peter Stanford. We're going to be talking about

angels and he's the author of the new book, Angels,

A Visible and Invisible History.

And it covers everything from the books of Enoch and Ezekiel to, you know, Robbie

Williams and I don't remember noticing Peter Stringfellow in there, but, you know, another angelologist and note.

Possibly.

Now, Peter, in the visible part of this book, at least, there is so much mad stuff.

And maddest of all, at least on the face of it, is the opening.

You open with a survey saying that something like one in three British people maintain,

I don't know how successful this survey is, maintain that they believe in angels

and that approximately one in ten claim to have seen one.

Indeed.

There's an even mad a bit, remember.

This survey must be bought, surely.

The figures can't be like that.

Well, the even mad a bit is that 7% of atheists say

they believe in angels, which always seems to pitch out. It's a perfectly kind of reputable company

who've done them. I don't think it, well, it's mad on, you're right, it's mad on several levels.

It's mad on the level that if you look at most recent opinion polls for people who say they are

religious, they come out at about 25% for people who say they are religious, they come out

...