With recent guests such as Michael Wolff, James O'Brien & Gabriel Gatehouse, we sat down with Peter York to hear more about his new podcast Peter York’s Culture Wars House Party...
Welcome Peter! As you were planning your new podcast venture, were there any podcasters or shows that inspired you?
My Main motive in getting a podcast was to get certain ideas discussed and out into the national conversation in a different way, with a different platform, which could attract a different audience from print journalism. I don’t think of myself as a great podcast listener, but in fact I am because I listen to a lot of stuff that’s been streamed from Radio 4. And I’m a great YouTube watcher, and the clever long-form stuff on YouTube has been great inspiration for a long time.
I was listening back to a podcast before we put it out, and I was thinking that one of the inspirations was a mainstream TV programme, namely Nick Robinson’s ‘Political Thinking’, where he grills people about how they came to have the views they do and what they mean in practice.
If you were throwing an actual Culture Wars House Party, who would be on the guest list?
This is a brilliant one. And I’m assuming for this, I don’t need to worry about the tyranny of distance or whether someone’s actually alive or not! I’d have the late Tom Wolfe, because he was inspirational regarding the Culture Wars. Even though I didn’t agree with him politically. I’d have the late Barry Humphries because he was a complete genius at the culture war distinction, with a great visual literacy from architecture to fashion. He had a real feeling for the visuals and the nuances of language. I’d have the wonderful Carol Cadwalladr and the wonderful Yasmin Alibhai Brown.
I’d have Bryan Ferry in the hope he can be persuaded out of his hard shell because he’s very observant indeed! I’d have Michael Wolff, who was my first podcast guest, who’s been looking at power play in New York for decades. I’d have Ash Sarkar, because she’s good on contemporary culture and she’s good on sequential thought as well.
That’s just for starters, there are lots of people I’d like to have staggering around my living room!
What’s something you believed strongly in the '80s that you’ve completely changed your mind about?
Since the 80’s I’ve become more political. in the 80’s, I don’t think I was political at all. There was an awful lot I was seeing and people whom I was meeting that I didn’t understand in political terms at all. I’m now an annoying geek who lectures people.
What have you particularly enjoyed in the culture scene recently? What’s caught your attention?
I have to say that YouTube has been absolutely transformative for me, because it’s introduced me, in a ‘para social’ way, to a lot of people, ideas and institutions I knew nothing about. There’s a young Trans Woman who does brilliant ‘lectures’ on high-brow philosophical ideas and uses all sorts of costume changes and filming tricks to make it interesting. She’s called Philosophy Tube. There’s also another very brilliant young person who does big political and philosophical ideas and references, Tom Nicholas. He’s hilarious! I love Byline Times, which I write for sometimes. I met them in about 2017 I think.
Listen to Peter York's Culture Wars House Party on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.
Learn more about Peter's latest book A Dead Cat On Your Table.