Thanks to my uncle, and Tracy the cleaner, holding the fort during the day I was able to get up to Bristol to do my radio show today. This was a great relief as I had a busy show planned.

First up was a pre-recorded interview with Gili Bar Hilel, an Israeli translator who, amongst other things, has been responsible for bringing the work of J.K. Rowling and Diana Wynne Jones to Hebrew readers. The discussion included shout outs for Frances Hardinge, Garth Nix and Philip Reeve. Gili and I also briefly discussed the situation in Gaza.

The second half hour saw me joined in the studio by Karen Garvey from Bristol Museums and Gordana Grabež, the Executive Director of the National Museum of Serbia, who is in Bristol on an exchange visit to learn how we do community-based museum exhibits. Karen will be teaching her all about things like the Revealing Stories exhibition that I helped put together, and also the You Make Bristol exhibition that Karen masterminded. In return maybe Bristol will get a loan of some of the fantastic art collection that Belgrade has, including everyone from Hieronymous Bosch to Rubens to Picasso. We talked quite a bit about the history of the Balkans, from Roman times through to Tito. There was also some brief mention of Zoran Živković, and of the embarrassment of the tennis. At least Novak did beat Andy, so we were even less happy than Gordana.

You can listen to the first hour of the show here.

For the second hour I was joined by Jo Baker from the charity, Child Victims of War. The main focus of our conversation was the situation in Iraq, which is quite horrifying (and not for the reasons you’ll hear in the British media). Of particular note was the accusation that US forces are using radioactive weapons (not just depleted uranium) in Iraq, and that these weapons have been sold to Israel. The discussion of how drones are used was also quite horrifying, and led to us speculating that Bristol’s expertise in robotics could lead to the city becoming a leading manufacturer of actual robot war machines.

You can listen to the second hour of the show here.

The playlist for today’s show was as follows:

• World Party – Meet Your Feet
• Money Don’t Matter 2 Nite – Prince
• Friendship Update – The Go Team
• Rescue Me – Fontella Bass
• War – The Temptations
• Save the Children – Marvin Gaye
• Tribal War – Black Roots
• Life During Wartime – Talking Heads

Next week’s show, assuming I am able to get to Bristol, will feature Glenda Larke.