17 sounded interesting and it was.  A verbatim theatre piece using the recollections of people in later life of how life was when they were seventeen.

I had thought to hear from my contemporaries but most were that bit older, having been seventeen during the war or not long after.  Those who were from my era were socially or geographically distant so although I enjoyed hearing them it was not quite as immersive as I would have liked.

The young cast were enthusiastic and inventive but sometimes the desire to present a picture distracted from the words.  A piece made for radio really.

Murmel, murmel! was a skilfully executed and beautifully presented example of the silly walks and falling over school of comedy.

If your taste is anything like mine you should avoid it at all costs.  I wish I had.

If you've ever wondered Who Cooked Adam Smith's Dinner wonder no more.  Katrine Marçal tells us it was his mother.  Her book is not actually about the man himself but about economics, specifically economics from a feminist viewpoint and she wonders where the self-interest (a basic tenet of Smith's economics) lies in his mother's actions, albeit with tongue in cheek.

She suggests that while Christine Lagarde's remark "If Lehman Brothers had been Lehman Sisters there would have been no crash" is too simplistic it contains a kernel of truth.  She's interested in both the differences and the similarities in the economic behaviour of men and women and in the value that society places on their work, paid and unpaid.  Sounds very worthy but she speaks, and I'm sure writes, with a light touch.

Darryl Cunningham says that he regards himself as a cartoonist and his book Supercrash is a comic book with a serious purpose.  Designed he says to explain the 2008 financial crash to people who have very little understanding of finance and economics.  Amongst whom he counted himself before doing the mountain of reading and learning needed to write the book.

Both books are something of an attack on capitalism as it currently exists but both authors think it can get better and maybe reading their books would enable us all to give a hand in that endeavour.