The Beautiful Brain | Audible
Book of the Week: Losing Earth | BBC Radio 4
The Beautiful Brain, a four-part podcast made for Audible by producer–presenter Hana Walker-Brown, is both a lovely and a painful listen. Lovely, because of the care and tenderness Walker-Brown puts into her work; painful, because of the subject matter.
The podcast is about CTE, of which I knew nothing before listening. CTE, or chronic traumatic encephalopathy, is a brain disease caused by repeated blows to the head. The symptoms are similar to extreme, rapid onset dementia. There is no cure. One of the most high-profile CTE sufferers was Jeff Astle, who played football for West Bromwich Albion in the 60s and 70s and scored the goal that won West Brom the FA Cup in 1968. Astle was diagnosed with early onset dementia at the age of 54 and died five years later, in 2002. At the inquest into his death, the coroner ruled that Astle’s death was “by industrial disease”. Football was the industry that Astle worked in; CTE was the disease he suffered due to his work.
Except that nobody in his family had known that Astle had CTE. All the expertise was in the US, where a pioneering neurological doctor, Dr Bennet Omalu, had been performing autopsies on the brains of dead American football players. He discovered that their brains were immensely damaged because of the recurring, non-serious head-blows they’d had through playing their sport. He brought his research to the attention of the sport’s governing body, the NFL, which tried to discredit him. And guess what happened in the UK when CTE was brought to the attention of UK football’s governing body, the FA? If you know the FA you will not be surprised, but even the cynical might be shocked.
In The Beautiful Brain, we meet Astle’s widow, the immensely charming and kind Laraine; also her daughter Dawn, just as engaging. We also meet the relevant doctors, experts researchers and journalists. Also, as Walker-Brown expands the topic outside of sport, we meet women who have suffered CTE due to domestic abuse. Bruises heal, but brain damage is permanent.
This podcast would be depressing if it weren’t for Walker-Brown’s skill. Her interviews with Laraine and Dawn are warm and touching and bring home just how loved Astle was as a husband and father. Walker-Brown gets doctors to explain clearly the difference between CTE and Alzheimer’s, what indicative proteins they look for in their autopsies. And she helps women who have suffered domestic abuse for years talk calmly about the long-term effects on their brain function. Because of this, she gets the listener to invest as well as sympathise.
By the end of the four episodes, you want to join the campaign, to get sport to stop concentrating on making money and instead change the rules so that under-18 footballers are banned from heading the ball at all, so that American football changes its tackles, so that rugby is made safe. Also to make judges understand that people who have suffered regular head trauma may well forget details, get their facts mixed up or not retain information very well, so that domestic abuse sufferers aren’t judged as unreliable witnesses. It’s all so clear and yet the authorities are resistant. The Beautiful Brain is essential listening.
The reaction of those in power to scientific evidence on CTE is reminiscent of the reaction of those in power to scientific evidence on climate change. Radio 4’s Book of the Week: Losing Earth tracks that reaction. Nathaniel Rich’s account starts in Washington in the 1990s and tells the story of how climate change could have been stopped back then, if only the powerful had acted. But they didn’t want to. They liked their lives as they were. They were having fun! So were we!
The question is, do we leave everything as it is or do we acknowledge that there are times when that fun comes at too high a price?
Music in context: three offerings
Broken Record
We’re into the second series of this podcast, presented mostly by Malcolm (Tipping Point) Gladwell, but with strong contributions from his co-hosts, producer Rick Rubin and New York Times veteran Bruce Headlam. The first two episodes are, essentially, a long conversation with the American multi-instrumentalist Questlove, which I definitely recommend; then there’s David Byrne (always brilliant), folk singer Mary Gauthier and others. This is a very American show, which means the hosts offer fairly uncritical reverence and don’t use the edit button much, but there are some gems within. The bonus? Each guest plays at the end.
Stay Free
Produced by Spotify and BBC Studios, this eight-part documentary series about British punk band the Clash is hosted, perhaps surprisingly, by Public Enemy’s frontman, Chuck D (he explains why early in the first episode). I approached this podcast reluctantly, having been force-fed the Clash throughout my youth, but this is a great series that employs BBC archive material really effectively, as well as the music. Commentary is intelligently used, the sound production is top drawer and the Clash are clever, insightful interviewees. And Chuck D has a lovely reading-out-loud voice. Excellent stuff, even if you know everything about the band.
Country Hits Radio
A new venture from Bauer Radio, the owner of Kiss, and, more relevantly, classical music station Scala Radio, Country Hits is aiming to attract listeners aged 25 to 44. Amazingly, it’s the UK’s first nationwide country radio station (there’s also the recently launched Smooth Country, which is online only). It’s an easy-listening affair, with established Americana expert Baylen Leonard on mid-morning weekdays and Una Healy, formerly of the Saturdays, presenting on – yes – Saturdays at 9am. When I tuned in, I heard Taylor Swift in her pre-pop mode, Luke Combs, Toby Keith and many mentions of whisky and blue jeans.
