Hello and welcome to Spectator Out Loud. Each week we choose some of our favourite pieces from the magazine and ask their writers to read them aloud. I'm Patrick Gibbons and on this week's podcast. Patrick Kidd asks, why is sport so obsessed with goats?

Madeline Grant wonders why the government doesn't show US Vice President J.D. Vance, the real Britain.

Simon Heffer reviews progress, a history of humanity's worst idea.

Lloyd Evans provides a roundup of Edinburgh fringe.

And finally, Toby Young writes in praise of

Wormwood Scrubs. That's the common, not the prison. Up first, Patrick Kidd. It was late at night in

rural France and Martin wanted to discuss goats, and he didn't mean livestock. You write about sport,

he said, who is the greatest of all time?

I asked if he was talking about my stunning victory in the village bulls competition the previous night,

but it turned out he was thinking of a certain Serbian tennis player.

Novak Djokovic is the goat, he said, with the certainty that comes from a third bottle of Bourgui.

I conceded that Jokovic's record was a smidge in better than Raphael Nadal's,

though some might prefer the artistry of Roger Federer.

But didn't Bjornborg have an even better winning percentage in the Grand Slams?

This pleased Martin's Swedish wife.

And the career records of Serena Williams and Martina Novrata Lova are right up there.

Martin was unconvinced, so he turned to goats in other sports.

Cristiano Ronaldo or Lionel Messi in football, he said.

Though the shades of Maradona and Pele may say something about that,

I offer Jack Nicholas's record 18 majors in golf,

and that Don Bradman's test-batting average

remains so far above any other cricketer.

...