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BBC Radio 4 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced BBC Home Service.

BBC Radio 4

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Weekly discussion programme, setting the cultural agenda every Monday

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Start the Week: Mastering a new skill

Mastering a new skill

BBC Radio 4 - Start the Week, Mastering a new skill

Tom Sutcliffe with Adam Gopnik, Hannah Critchlow and Rebecca Struthers.

Adam Gopnik, Hannah Critchlow and Rebecca Struthers sharpen their skills, with Tom Sutcliffe.

How do people learn new skills and become real experts? These were the questions the author Adam Gopnik wanted to answer in his new book, The Real Work – a term magicians use for their accumulated craft. He apprenticed himself to an artist, a dancer, a boxer, and even a driving instructor to see if could get to the bottom of the mystery of mastery, and better himself.

Rebecca Struthers is a true master of her profession – horology. In Hands of Time, A Watchmaker's History of Time she reveals the inner cogs and workings of clocks, and explores the ways in which they have helped shape human history. But she also regrets the endangered art of traditional watchmaking and the loss of heritage skills.

The neuroscientist Hannah Critchlow explains what’s happening in our brains when we learn new things, especially later in life. And she argues that two heads may be better than one. In her latest book, Joined Up Thinking, she extols the virtues of working and learning together.

Producer: Katy Hickman

Image Credit: Rebecca Struthers for Hands of Time

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

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