The Audio Long Read

The Audio Long Read

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‘It could knock a whole street down’: the art of defusing a second world war bomb

On 14 January this year, army and navy squads faced an unprecedented challenge: one bomb on a Plymouth building site, another floating on a dredger in Exmouth. That afternoon, the clock started ticking By Samira Shackle. Read by Dinita Gohil. Help support our independent journali ...  Show more

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‘It could knock a whole street down’: the art of defusing a second world war bomb

On 14 January this year, army and navy squads faced an unprecedented challenge: one bomb on a Plymouth building site, another floating on a dredger in Exmouth. That afternoon, the clock started ticking By Samira Shackle. Read by Dinita Gohil. Help support our independent journali ...  Show more

From the archive: The disabled villain: why sensitivity reading can’t kill off this ugly trope

We are raiding the Guardian long read archives to bring you some classic pieces from years past, with new introductions from the authors This week, from 2023: For centuries, fictional narratives have used outer difference to telegraph inner monstrosity. As someone who uses a whee ...  Show more

Fixer, financier, spymaster: how the UAE’s Sheikh Tahnoon is setting his sights on AI dominance

The Emirati royal is increasingly influential on the world stage. Some see him as a visionary. Others compare him to a Bond villain. Who is he? By Jack Shenker. Read by Selva Rasalingam. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/longreadpod 

“Culture is stagnant, so politics is stuck” – playwright James Graham | Radical Thinking

Are we doomscrolling our way into a democratic crisis? That’s what the playwright James Graham fears may be happening, as he suggests that our algorithms have led us into ‘a massive crisis of the new’ and are preventing us from imagining a different future. Help support our indep ...  Show more