The Edition: See change, A.I. ghouls & long live the long lunch!
Best of the Spectator
The Spectator
4.4 • 785 Ratings
🗓️ 24 April 2025
⏱️ 38 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
‘Francis was a charismatic pope loved by most of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics’ writes Damian Thompson in the cover article this week. But few of them ‘grasp the scale of the crisis in the Church… The next Vicar of Christ, liberal or conservative’ faces ‘challenges that dwarf those that confronted any incoming pope in living memory’.
Ahead of Pope Francis’s funeral this weekend, Damian joined the podcast alongside the Catholic theologian Fr Alexander Lucie-Smith to unpack all the political intrigue underpinning the upcoming papal conclave. They say that he who enters the conclave as a pope, leaves as a cardinal – do we have any clues to who could emerge as Francis’s successor? (1:01)
Next: the ghastliness of AI ghouls
The late Lily Parr – a chain-smoking, 6ft, Lancastrian, lesbian pre-war footballer – has been resurrected via an AI avatar. All fun and games at first glance but, as Mary Wakefield writes in the magazine this week, what the AI’s creators have summoned is ‘a ghoul, a flimsy echo of Parr, infused with the spirit of Gen Z’, lacking the original’s character. Aside from the obvious issues, is this ethical, or even legal?
Mary worries that overworked and underpaid teachers could soon deploy AI to summon the spirit of Churchill or Shakespeare. How concerned should we be about AI creep? Mary joined the podcast to discuss. We thought who better to ask about AI than AI itself so ChatGPT’s latest AI model joined Mary to answer a few questions… (19:09)
And finally: long live long lunch!
Kenton Allen writes in defence of the traditional business lunch in the magazine this week. And it should be two hours at a minimum. This isn’t a ‘long’ lunch, he says, but a ‘proper’ lunch. What does the decline of the work lunch tell us about society today? Kenton joined the podcast alongside the Spectator’s restaurant critic Tanya Gold. They say there was a serious purpose to a long lunch, something being lost today by the modern workforce. Plus, they share their restaurant tips for the best long lunch. (27:46)
Presented by William Moore and Lara Prendergast.
Produced by Patrick Gibbons and Oscar Edmondson.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Spectator magazine is home to wonderful writing, insightful analysis, and unrivaled books and arts reviews. |
| 0:06.1 | Subscribe today for just £12 and receive a 12-week subscription in print and online. |
| 0:11.2 | Alongside that, you get a 20-pound John Lewis or Waitrose Voucher. |
| 0:14.3 | Go to spectator.co.uk forward slash voucher. |
| 0:31.7 | Hello and welcome to the edition podcast from The Spectator, where each week we shed a little light on the thought process behind putting the world's oldest weekly magazine to bed. |
| 0:36.7 | I'm Narra Prendergars, the Spectator's Executive Editor. |
| 0:39.7 | And I'm William Moore, the Spectator's Features Editor. |
| 0:42.6 | On this week's podcast, we unpack the many crises awaiting the next Pope. |
| 0:47.7 | We look at the AI ghouls haunting history, and we celebrate the long lunch. |
| 1:01.3 | Music haunting history, and we celebrate the long lunch. First up, in his cover piece for the magazine this week, Damien Thompson, the spectator's |
| 1:07.3 | associate editor and host of the Holy Smoke podcast, looks ahead to the papal succession. |
| 1:13.9 | He says that the next vicar of Christ will face challenges that dwarf those that confronted |
| 1:18.6 | any incoming pope in living memory. Whether it's debate over church doctrine, financial |
| 1:23.9 | problems, or sexual abuse scandals, those are just some of the crises that Damien identifies. |
| 1:30.2 | As the Cardinals gather in Rome ahead of the papal conclave, what can we expect, |
| 1:34.3 | and who is likely to end up leading the world's 1.4 billion Catholics? |
| 1:39.0 | Damien enjoyed the podcast to discuss, along with the Catholic theologian, Father Alexander Lucy Smith. I started |
| 1:45.1 | by asking Damien to take us through some of the challenges facing the next Pope. Yes, I think |
| 1:50.7 | the first one, the one that ought to take precedence is the doctrinal confusion, because for the |
| 1:56.3 | first time, really, in the history of the Catholic Church, it's not clear what it teaches on certain very |
| 2:02.9 | hot-button issues of sexuality. So, as I say in the piece, you know, the question, the answer to the |
| 2:08.7 | question, what does the Catholic Church teach about gay blessings is the same as the answer to the |
... |
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