Five in the Eye 334 with Simon

MICHAEL Hello and a very warm welcome to episode 0334 of Five in the Eye with me, Michael Ohajuru. As regular listeners know, this is the show on Colourful Radio where we pick five stories in the news that have caught our eye - some serious, some more light-hearted - and we take them apart and reassemble them. Right in front of your eyes! Or ears! PHIL And this is Phil Woodford joining Michael via Zoom this week and welcoming a very special guest. He’s an old pal of Michael’s from way back when, making his debut on the Eye. It’s Simon Denman. Hi there Simon. SIMON Hi Phil, hello Michael. It’s great to be hear on Five in the Eye. And I can reveal our top story this week is going to be the emergence of the Omicron variant of coronavirus. Has Africa been poorly treated for being honest and transparent about the mutant bug? MICHAEL For our second story, we turn to Barbados. In a ceremony earlier in the week, the island nation transformed itself into a republic and bade goodbye to the Queen as Head of State. How many other Commonwealth nations may follow suit? And could it ever happen here in the UK? PHIL What’s story number three? Well, back in the early days of the web (which Michael and Simon claim to remember) there was an edition of the tech magazine Wired that made some eerie predictions of the future. We check just how accurate they have proved to be. SIMON And for number four, we ask whether it’s possible to steal someone else’s cookery recipe. An article in an American newspaper suggests a possible crime wave. Or possibly a microwave. MICHAEL And finally this week, to finish the show, the pressure is on for us to have a less consumerist Christmas. Would you consider giving second-hand pressies? PHIL Not your old socks again, Michael! And that’s this week’s Five in the Eye!