Hugh Schofield

Hugh Schofield is Paris correspondent for the BBC.

Sunday

Hugh Schofield

How I fell for 78s

From our UK edition

I recently made a programme about the British jazz pioneer Arthur Briggs. Yes, I know. Arthur who? The much-missed Jeremy Clarke told me: ‘If only he’d been called Arthur “Big-Boy” Briggs or “Honeydripper” Briggs, maybe things would have turned out differently.’ As it was, his name always suggested a painter-decorator from Edwardian Brixton rather than one of the hottest cornetists on the prewar jazz scene. Briggs was a Caribbean child of empire who, as a teenager, fell in with makers of the new music in New York, then after the first world war helped bring jazz across to Europe.

Friday

Hugh Schofield

Hugh Schofield, Igor Toronyi-Lalic & Michael Simmons, Lisa Haseldine, Alice Loxton and Aidan Hartley

From our UK edition

37 min listen

On this week’s Spectator Out Loud: Hugh Schofield asks why there is no campaign to free the novelist Boualem Sansal (1:26); The Spectator’s arts editor, Igor Toronyi-Lalic, reacts to the magazine’s campaign against frivolous funding and, continuing the campaign, Michael Simmons wonders if Britain is funding organisations that wish us harm (8:00); Lisa Haseldine reflects on whether the AfD’s rise could mean ‘Weimar 2.0’ for Germany (17:08); reviewing Thou Savage Woman: Female Killers in Early Modern Britain, by Blessin Adams, Alice Loxton explores the gruesome ways in which women killed (25:05); and, from Kenya, Aidan Hartley reflects on how a secret half-brother impacted his relationship with his father (35:13).  Produced and presented by Patrick Gibbons.

Thursday

Hugh Schofield

Why is there no campaign to free novelist Boualem Sansal?

From our UK edition

Paris What possible crime has the award-winning novelist Boualem Sansal committed that merits being locked away for three months now by the Algerian police? Listen to the Algerian government – and its cheerleaders on social media – and theanswer appears to be that he is at best a stooge for the French far right, at worst an outright traitor. Friends of the man paint another picture: a gently spoken free-thinker with the courage to speak his mind. Sansal, who is 80 and suffers from cancer, was arrested at Algiers airport on 16 November as he got off a plane from Paris. He has been in an Algiers prison ever since, with visits to hospital for treatment. His Parisian lawyer, François Zimeray, has still not been given a visa, so the charges are unclear.