Radio 2

If you wish to know how to become a master negotiator, a formidable body of books will now offer to train you in that art, but I’m not entirely sure it can be taught. The greatest natural asset, I suppose, is the ability to enjoy the game: the performative mulling, tough-talking, buttering-up, pitching of curve balls and – when absolutely necessary – flamboyant execution of a real or bluff exit. Yet even for those of us who are clumsy and reluctant hagglers, the mechanics of striking a deal can be fascinating. This is the stuff of the Dealcraft podcast, hosted by Jim Sebenius, a professor of the Harvard Business School,

Last Saturday on Radio 2 Claudia Winkleman was inaugurated as the host of what was formerly Graham Norton’s mid-morning spot. She announced her arrival by playing ‘Help!’ by the Beatles and offering a line-up comprised solely of fellow Saturday-night TV presenters. Here was Sir Tom Jones, calling in from ‘a terrace overlooking the Thames’ and repeating more or less the same interview he had delivered on Graham Norton’s TV show last month. Half an hour later came David Walliams, and to round things off Ant & Dec were prevailed upon to talk about their ‘jampacked’ ITV show later on that day. ‘How do you not unravel doing it?’ gushed Winkleman,