Trade, Davos, Ocean travel and Mermaids

Arts & Ideas

BBC

Society & Culture

4.2 • 599 Ratings

🗓️ 2 February 2018

⏱️ 45 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Anne McElvoy looks at trade past and present as she discusses a book questioning economists' reliance on GDP with its author, David Pilling, and reports on debates from the world economic forum annual meeting at Davos with American reporter Rob Cox. She also looks at a new novel depicting a "mermaid" displayed as a visitor attraction by an 18th century London-based merchant, and is shown around an exhibition exploring the design and impact of ocean liners with one of its curators, Ghislaine Wood. .

Ocean Liners: Speed and Style runs at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London from 3 February – 10 June 2018

The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock - the debut novel from Imogen Hermes Gowar is out now. Sarah Peverley is a New Generation Thinker who teaches at the University of Liverpool and a Leverhulme Research Fellow (2016-18) working on a project entitled 'Mermaids of the British Isles, c. 450-1500.'

Producer: Luke Mulhall

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome back to the home of the oxymoron. Evil genius. He asked the newspaper to print his obituary early so he'd enjoy it. That's like hiding at your own funeral. Yeah, a big, great gig. I'm Russell Kane. Join me to weigh in on whether the biggest players in history are more evil or genius. Becoming that rich, I'd say that is some level of genius. It also helps that it's a long time ago, right?
0:23.3	It's like the podcast version of telling your kids the ice cream van plays music
0:27.0	when it's out of ice cream.
0:28.8	Listen to Evil Genius on BBC Sounds.
0:32.0	Thank you for downloading this program from the free-thinking team at the BBC.
0:36.2	I'm Anne McHelvoy.
0:38.2	This is the BBC. I'm Anne McHelvoy. This is the BBC.
0:43.2	Hello, we're taking you from the elite powwow in the snowy peaks of Switzerland
0:48.1	to mysterious marine maidens, and to some of the grander ships they may have tried to lure
0:54.1	onto the rocks as a new exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum celebrates life on the great luxury liners of yore.
1:02.0	More from those glamorous travels later.
1:16.7	But for an encounter with modern might on land,
1:19.6	you can't do much better than to drop by the World Economic Forum at Davos.
1:24.3	A large sprinkling of the world's richest and most powerful
1:27.3	have just shaken the snow off their
1:29.2	boots and i went along too to report on an event that saw donald trump angler merkle and
1:35.9	emmanuel macon addressing the gathering of CEOs NGOs and the world's influential the alpine ski
1:43.5	setting is a combination of vastly overpriced accommodation
1:46.8	and the whir of helicopter blades, whisking guests in and out of a place
1:51.6	that was best known previously as the setting for Thomas Mann's pre-World War I novel, The Magic Mountain.
1:59.3	It's exhilarating, and the ethos of Davos is combining growth with
2:03.7	more prosperity. Improving the state of the world is its stated mission. But is it mistaken to focus
	...

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