Product Review

Series eight in Stephen Fry's consistently amusing and interesting series about the English language, with four half-hour programmes originally broadcast on BBC Radio 4.

The first involves John Lydon, better known as Johnny Rotten, talking about the problems of emotional language in "Words Fail Me" ("A cracker", said the UK newspaper The Guardian). Then what rainy small talk really means in "Talking About the Weather". "Do You Promise Not to Tell" enters the odd world of secret language, and "English Plus One" gets inside the minds of people who are bilingual in English and one more language.

Guests include John Lydon, Professor Stephen Pinker, meteorologist Tomasz Shafernaker, comedian and doctor Phillip Hammond and former intelligence man Harry Fergusson.