On the double

How very odd of Radio 4 not only to release The Ratline as a podcast before broadcasting it on the schedule in the conventional manner, but also to give its network listeners an edited-down version. It’s as if the podcast of Philippe Sands’s programme, which investigates war crimes by the Nazis, fuelled by his own family history and what he discovered while writing his book East West Street, has been given priority, and anyone who listens in the old-fashioned, switch-of-a-button way is somehow second-best and doesn’t deserve the full monty. The first episode of the ten-part series was six minutes longer online than on-air. What’s in those missing minutes, I wondered?

Not much. A bit of filling. Some extraneous detail. The sound of someone typing on a typewriter, just to make sure we pick up on the fact that we’re talking history here. There’s a good deal of hyperbole, claims of ‘unique’ access, the insertion of an anachronistic reference to Donald Trump, some voice-to-mike stuff from Sands himself, emphasising the personal nature of his quest.