Babycham

Beaujolais – a refuge for impecunious wine lovers

With his three-piece suits, poodle hairdo and bizarrely bendy physique, Tom Gilbey looks like he was created in a secret laboratory beneath the streets of Turnham Green by the Wine Marketing Board. But I have it on good authority that he is a real person. Gilbey came to prominence last year as the self-styled ‘wine wanker’ who ran the London marathon, stopping every mile to taste a wine blind and guessing most of them right. Now we have the inevitable book; and while Gilbey isn’t an elegant prose stylist in the manner of Oz Clarke, Thirsty: 100 Great Wines and Stories (Square Peg, £20) is an enormously entertaining read. It’s

Matthew Parris, Joanna Bell, Peter Frankopan, Mary Wakefield and Flora Watkins

38 min listen

On this week’s Spectator Out Loud: pondering AI, Matthew Parris wonders if he is alone in thinking (1:10); Joanna Bell meets the leader of the Independent Ireland party, Michael Collins, ahead of the Irish general election later this month (8:41); Professor Peter Frankopan argues that the world is facing a new race to rule the seas (17:31); Mary Wakefield reviews Rod Dreher’s new book Living in wonder: finding mystery and meaning in a secular age (28:47); and, Flora Watkins looks at the Christmas comeback of Babycham (34:10).  Produced and presented by Patrick Gibbons.