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The Thought Show

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Brings together in a single hour The Why Factor; More or Less and Trending.

The Thought Show: Safe Drinking, Sex Tape Mystery and Fanfiction

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Factual: Life Stories

Man drinking beer.

31/03/2016 GMT

Safe Drinking, Sex Tape Mystery and Fanfiction

BBC World Service - The Thought Show, Safe Drinking, Sex Tape Mystery and Fanfiction

Are the benefits and harms of drinking alcohol being judged correctly?

Are the benefits and harms of drinking alcohol being judged correctly, who is behind a string of sex tapes in Georgia and what motivates writers of fan fiction?

In More Or Less, new alcohol guidelines were issued recently in the UK which lowered the number of units recommended for safe drinking. But are the benefits and harms of alcohol being judged correctly? Tim Harford hears from  Professor David Speigelhalter. 

In BBC Trending, the mystery of the sex-tapes featuring Georgian politicians which have been posted online, and more are expected soon. But it isn’t clear who’s responsible, or what the people posting them want to achieve. And Chinese women explain why they took the ‘A4 Challenge’, and posted pictures of themselves online showing that their waists are thinner than a piece of A4 paper. The trend has been widely criticised, but some participants say the critics are missing the point.

And in the Why Factor, what motivates the writers of Fanfiction, the global phenomenon in which amateur writers create new stories in the existing fictional worlds of their most loved films, TV shows and books. For many it is an obsession – but why do they do it? And how do the writers whose works are taken on by the fanfiction community feel about it?
It is not for the money; fanfiction is a non-commercial pursuit, although some writers do make the transition from amateur to published author. The most famous example of this is E.L. James, whose blockbuster book: 50 Shades of Grey, started out as fanfiction based on the Vampire inspired Twilight series.


(Photo: Man drinking beer. Credit: George Marks/Retrofile/Getty Images)

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