Radio: A bohemian rhapsody for a long-lost world

It was only a shame that Shane didn't press Thursday's guest a bit harder when he came on air to discuss a dramatic new report declaring that a third of adults are now overweight and that this constitutes as big a threat to mankind as global warming and war. Broadcasters surely wouldn't let a politician make such alarmist comments without challenge, so why do doctors get such an easy ride?

The doctor in question even quoted Health Minister Leo Varadkar, who pointed out earlier this year that the Government "can't make you skinny", and said that he agreed, before adding: "What the government can do is stop people getting fat." Really? Politicians can stop us eating pizza and taking no exercise? Good luck with that one, lads.

It was then on to discussing the "toll [obesity] takes on the world economy", as if the economy is a distinct thing with inalienable rights, separate from the people who make it up. Fat people contribute to the world's coffers too. This urge to see them as a bunch of feckless scroungers sponging off virtuous, hard-working thin people is rather disturbing, when you think about it.

Relief from nannyish censoriousness came in the form of BBC Radio Four's Today, as James Naughtie visited artist David Hockney at his home in California. The 77-year-old lamented the death of hedonistic nonconformism. "I lived in bohemia, and I always expected to live in bohemia . . . It meant you weren't suburban. It's the suburbs that have talken over bohemia now. Look what they've done. No smoking, no this, no that. They're absolutely ruining it."

Hockney is 77 now, and still making new discoveries about perspective. "I just work all the time, I don't go out . . . I only go out to the dentist, the doctors, the book store, and the marjuana store."

It was one of those interviews that could have gone on all day and never become boring. It also highlighted the strengths of Naughtie as a broadcaster. He was entirely at ease with each turn taken by the free-ranging conversation. Compare the painfully awkward interview with author and Costa Book Awards nominee Mary Costello on Wednesday's Morning Ireland. Cathal Mac Coille sounded as if he didn't know what to say to her. Perhaps it was dropped on him at short notice.

Best programme of the week was Radio Four's The Once And Future King, second of an ongoing six-part adaptation of TH White's classic about King Arthur on which Disney's The Sword In The Stone was loosely based. It's atmospheric and absorbing, perfect family listening in the run-up to Christmas, and David Warner makes a great Merlin. Though did it really need three directors? Well, that's the public sector for you.