Podcasts

James Cameron-Wilson casts his eye over another dismal week for the UK cinema box office, with the new Star Wars film Solo disappointing, despite the last minute arrival at the helm of Ron Howard. James also reviews Show Dogs - a contender for the year's worst film - and recommends Downsizing, now out for home viewing.

Steve Caplin delves into facial recognition technology, with Amazon under attack for selling its software to the police, Orwellian moves in China in the classroom and Facebook being urged to adopt the technology for its ads by Martin Lewis. Also a cautionary Kickstarter and Indiegogo tale, the Florida zombie power outage, an app to relight photos and how to track others without a phone.

Want to keep up with the latest earnings updates from the States? Well join Chris Hill and the Motley Fool Radio Show team here on Share Radio, direct from Washington DC, for news, views and analysis of the US stocks that matter. In this week's show: Lowe’s gets some love; Footlocker jumps higher; Tiffany sparkles; And what the heck is GDPR??? Aaron Bush, David Kretzmann, and Jason Moser talk earnings news and analyze what a new set of privacy rules means for investors.

Mic Martin is a former police dog handler who found fame as the no-nonsense trainer in BBC TV’s ‘Dog Borstal’ and now runs a successful dog training business, and trains animals for film and TV. His latest project is the movie ‘Show Dogs’, working with up to 40 animals a time. He adores the animals he works with and says that often the humans who also require training. He’s been responsible for dogs used in the Harry Potter films, in some of the Bond franchise films and in numerous TV adverts.

Ever heard of money flipping? It’s a new scheme doing the rounds on Facebook and social media that promises to turn your £50 into potentially thousands. So how do you do that? Simple really, you pay others to get onto the bottom rung of a pyramid and then recruit more people to move you up a level and get paid yourself. What makes it so dumb is that it doesn’t even try to have the legitimate veneer of famous pyramid schemes of the past. It’s a Ponzi scheme, plain and simple, but what is one of those and who was Charles Ponzi, the man the scams are named after. On this week’s podcast, Simon Lambert, Lee Boyce and Georgie Frost step back to America in 1920 to find out how Ponzi soared and then crashed – and look at the new money flipping scheme that has brought a trick as old as time to today’s digital age.

In this episode of Policy Matters, hosts Franz Buscha and Matt Dickson are joined by Dr Lindsey Macmillan from University College London to discuss the role of education in social mobility. Issues relating to education are never far from the policy agenda or the headlines – whether it is early years education, university tuition fees or the possible return of grammar schools. But what does academic research tell us about the role of education at each age and stage in improving life-chances of children from poorer backgrounds, and what does this mean for policy? Franz and Matt discuss these issues with Lindsey; and also consider the limits as to what education policy can achieve, given the way that the UK labour market – and wider society – is structured.

Adam talks to author Dean Williams about the inspiration and insight behind his first book, The Path to Financial Peace. Dean discusses why it’s not how much you earn that’s important, but rather how much of what you earn is kept and invested. He talks about the importance of a financial review and the power of compounding, why the lack of financial education in schools is detrimental to our attitude towards finance as adults, and how education and mindset is crucial to finding your own pathway to wealth. Find out more at www.exclusivevisions.co.uk.

Professor Tim Evans looks at Italy's new government and considers whether its policies might pose a bigger problem for the EU than Brexit, at the Swiss Vollgeld referendum which, aiming at ending fractional reserve banking, is making Central Bankers nervous and at the Orwellian nightmare facing a persecuted minority in China.

James Cameron-Wilson reviews Deadpool 2 in the context of a box office depressed by great weather, the Royal Wedding, football and other distractions. He also reviews the Blu-Ray release of the 1960 movie Inherit the Wind, with Spencer Tracy and Frederic March and the home release of the Chilean Oscar-winner, A Fantastic Woman, both of which he strongly recommends.

Graham Spooner of The Share Centre looks at the recent results from Marks & Spencer, asking if they could have done anything differently with hindsight. He also examines the closure of Tesco's non-food website Tesco Direct and figures from Kingfisher as well as setting into context in the light of the record highs for the stock market and the firmness of the oil price.