Share Sounds

In the light of so-called "Freedom Day" and the pindemic, political commentator Mike Indian discusses with Simon Rose whether the government is breaking its contract with the public, opining that many of the problems appear to be caused by ineffective leadership at the top. It's a view reinforced by the explosive Dominic Cummings' interview on the BBC. It is Mike's contention that the Covid crisis will see the end of Boris Johnson's premiership.

...And then send us a postcard! Dan Miller, founder of the Points With a Crew blog, joins us to talk about travel hacking and how you can cut vacation costs by maximizing your credit card points.

Physical clutter is often a sign of mental clutter, and this episode aims to help clear away the hoarding complex. So if you're inclined to hold onto things with no good purpose, Adam Cox may be able to help as he takes us into the home of JR Tolkein's Hobbit in order to see past all that mental and emotional baggage.

Just when you thought that you could book to go back in the water. As if sorting a holiday, ensuring the country you want to go to is okay for long enough to get there, or dodging quarantine roulette wasn't enough, now car hire inflation is biting. In a sign of the inflationary times, the cost of renting a car has rocketed to about three times the price of last year and it's being blamed on the semiconductor shortage. How can a lack of computer chips drive up costs so substantially at the car hire desk? And what on earth has this got to do with the price of a bag of crisps? Georgie Frost, Grace Gausden and Simon Lambert look at holidays and inflation and the points where supply and demand are intersecting to create very odd scenarios, plus Simon expands on his crisp-based inflation explanation. Also, Grace investigates unpaid Dartford Crossing charges that spiralled into a £3,000 bill and Simon looks at what happens if you want to give your house to your child and whether that's an inheritance tax risk.

Prices rise as inflation concerns grow. Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, and Wells Fargo report earnings. Delta reports its first profit since 2019. And McCormick hires a taco czar. Motley Fool analysts Andy Cross and Jason Moser discuss those stories and weigh in on the latest from Disney, Netflix, Pepsi, and UnitedHealthcare. Plus, our analysts share two stocks on their radar: AppHarvest and Intuitive Surgical. And we revisit our interview with NYU Professor of Psychology Emily Balcetis, author of Clearer, Closer, Better: How Successful People See the World.

Adam Cox is joined by Natasha Chetty, from London-based tuition service inTuition Clubs, to look at the ongoing impacts of COVID-19 on education. Natasha explains how tuition can be used to supplement lost classroom learning and gives some tips to parents who are worried about the amount of lost classroom time their children have had.

Alison Southwick and personal finance expert Robert Brokamp challenge the conventional wisdom on life's biggest financial issues to reveal what you really need to know to make smart money moves. Ron Lieber with the New York Times is back to talk about some of the most common scams in current circulation and why younger people are more susceptible to falling for them.

Professor Tim Evans of Middlesex University asks if we are going back to the future, with users of Britain's roads paying as they go as they used to with turnpikes in the Georgian era. If so, why can't our politicians admit that's where we are headed? As United States forces leave Afghanistan, he points out that a new regional "Great Game" is looming. And, as unrest erupts in Cuba, he wonders if the regime there knows that its days are numbered.

James Cameron-Wilson on the latest UK box office where Black Widow, starring Scarlett Johansson, has not quite topped the opening weekend success of Fast & Furious 9. He feels it to be, however, one of the better Marvel films for some time. Online, he reviews fantasy adventure The Water Man, with Rosario Dawson, the only film to be directed by actor David Oyelowo. He enthuses over Pixar's latest animated feature Luca, which doesn't underestimate its audience's intelligence, finding it sad, though, that it is released not in cinemas but on Disney+.

Share Radio tech whizz Steve Caplin explains why Sainsbury's has decided to stop selling CDs and DVDs and why the Japanese government hasn't been able to scrap its fax machines. He gasps at the $1.5m auction for a Super Mario 64 game and even more being spent on Isaac Newton's handwritten notes. He discusses 3D police mugshots, the proposal to shoot containers at 760 mph down a mag-lev tube, at robot sculptors at Carrara, Italy's famed marble centre and at dynamic focus sunglasses and a table lamp controlled by a hovering steel ball - until it gets lost.