A bit of a bump, and a late one at that, but R4 are re-broadcasting (at least, I assume that they're repeats) Jon Ronson on... at 11.30pm on Thursday nights.
I caught one a couple of weeks back, where he told the amazing tale of a woman who had been wooed and wed by a man who, it turned out, worked for the CIA. Or didn't. Or maybe he did. We ended up as baffled as she was (not to mention the other wives who'd fallen for the same story). The guy was clearly a classic sociopath, but apart from that, who he was or what he did remained a mystery.
Last night, Ronson was mainly concerned with telling the tale of a woman who'd survived the 7/7 bombings, only to find that nutty conspiracy forums (oops, was that my prejudice showing?) were accusing her of lying, and maybe not even existing as a real person. To prove that she wasn't part of some government cover-up, she joined one of the forums (fora?), but the more she protested, of course, the more they accused her of, at the very least, mental problems. By the end of the show, she'd given up arguing the toss with people who refused to listen.
Ronson did try to argue the toss with David Shayler (yes, that one), who is apparently convinced that the 7/7 attacks (like 9/11 before them, natch) were part of some vast conspiracy to blacken the name of Moslems and too... well, lots of other stuff, too. Every time Ronson tried to say, but I've met this woman, she's quite real, Shayler would come back with, but have you seen the evidence - if you saw it all, you'd believe what I say. When Ronson asked just why DS couldn't accept that the bombings happened, he replied that, since he hadn't seen enough evidence that they did, he couldn't possibly believe this woman was real.
It got quite silly, obviously, to the point where Ronson suddenly said "Oh, fuck off!", although I have to say that Shayler wasn't overly offended. He even offered to let his supporters know that Ronson wasn't a shill (his word) or stupid. Ignorant maybe, he said, but not stupid...
I believe a later show also features Ronson talking to David Shayler. Should be worth catching!