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- [00:00]
Amida Van Ry
You're listening to the Monocle Daily, first broadcast on 6th May, 2026 on Monocle
- [00:05]
Andrew Muller
Radio, Friedrich Merz's celebrations of his first year as Germany's Chancellor. Tempered by fears he might not complete a second, Russia manages expectations ahead of a scaled down Victory Day parade. And would you rather your town was overrun by peacocks or moose? I'm Andrew Muller. The Monocle Daily starts now.
- [00:26]
Quentin Peel
Foreign.
- [00:37]
Andrew Muller
Hello, and welcome to the Monocle Daily. Coming to you from our studios here at Midori House in London. I'm Andrew Muller. My guests, Quentin Peel and Amida Van Rye will discuss the day's big stories. We'll reflect on the legacy of the late Ted Turner, founder of cnn. And our on this Day historical feature will recall an athlete who did what many believed impossible. Stay tuned. All that and coming up right here on the Monocle Daily. This is the Monocle Daily. I'm Andrew Muller. I am joined today by Quentin Peel, journalist and regular Monocle Radio contributor. And by Amida Van Ry, senior research fellow at the center for European Reform. Hello to you both.
- [01:18]
Quentin Peel
Hi.
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Andrew Muller
Hello, Amida. First time on the Monocle Daily. Therefore, as is traditional, we have made you waddle into Studio one wearing the office owl costume. Looks good on you, as is usual as well. Of course, we don't make guests wear the head. Then we wouldn't be able to hear them. Making the guests wear the head would, of course, be ridiculous. But introduce yourself to our listeners, if you would.
- [01:42]
Amida Van Ry
Thank you so much. So, yeah, I'm Armida. You know, I'm Dutch, Italian, from Brussels. As we were talking about earlier. I've been in London for over a decade now, which feels like a very long time. Perhaps it's time to move on.
- [01:55]
Andrew Muller
But you just got here. Let's see how the show goes before you make any drastic decisions.
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Amida Van Ry
Yeah, and I've been working on security and foreign policy and all the fun things that are currently keeping us busy for about that amount of time.
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Andrew Muller
Quentin, our listeners know who you are by now. You have been, however, recently reading books about spies.
- [02:16]
Quentin Peel
Yes, I've been traveling through history rather than traveling through space, reading about the Cambridge Five and sort of rediscovering all the weird and wonderful things about what it was like to be a spy or to. To be hired as a spy in the 1990s, 1930s, when the world was very divided and a very, well, really very different place to where it is now. Or was it maybe we're just waiting for the big conflict to blow up?
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Andrew Muller
Quentin, I'm going to Rise above insinuating that you remember the 1930s. Well, but seriously, as a traveling, well connected foreign correspondent type, did you, did you never get a tap on the shoulder from.
- [02:57]
Quentin Peel
Well, to be honest, I did, but it was from my favorite uncle who was one of those guys who went round the British universities meeting the tutors and saying, have you got any good chaps?
- [03:08]
Andrew Muller
And he took me out to dinner for our listeners. This is literally how the British security services used to recruit people.
- [03:14]
Quentin Peel
Absolutely. And this spy books are full of it. Anyway, he took me out to a very nice dinner and said, by the way, you know, would you be interested? And I said, I don't think I'm patriotic enough. And anyway, I can't keep any secrets. I'm going to be a journalist.
- [03:30]
Andrew Muller
We will have more from Quentin and Amida shortly. But first, Ted Turner, founder of CNN, has died at the age of age of 87. More than anyone else, Turner is responsible for better and for worse, for the fact that TV news stopped being something you watch for maybe half an hour in the early evening and became something you could immerse yourself in around the clock. I'm joined now by Fionnuala Sweeney, journalist, broadcaster and former CNN anchor. Fionnuala, where do you even begin to summarize the legacy?
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Fionnuala Sweeney
I mean, I think he was really a disruptor before the term became fashionable and in the 1970s he thought his fellow Americans really ill informed by the existing news at the time, which usually and still does on many of the major stations end at 7pm at night. And he had this idea because he owned a cable station in Atlanta, a local cable station, to transmit it, beam it up on a satellite across the country into American homes. And that really took off. But he still always had this idea to have a news channel because he felt he needed to, to widen Americans diet and consumption of news. So he launched CNN in 1980 and it was often named. I'm sure our listeners know Chicken Noodle News because it was very scrappy and it was very rough around the edges. But gradually people began to realize that they could switch it on and see a White House briefing before even the press secretary had walked into the room and they could hear all the questions being asked and all the answers and not have to rely on a sound bite prepared by a journalist and a report later. And when you think about that and compare that with today and the fake news, it's really kind of ironic that today, CNN and other network news established new services that he was so against in the 1970s. Are now themselves considered to be fake news, even though they're based largely on the kind of diet of showing everything and talking about everything. So I think his legacy is huge. I mean, as someone who worked for him, he was known as Ted to all his employees. And we would see him around the place occasionally. I know that when I started in the 90s, I moved to Atlanta to work there for about 18 months. And I know he was involved in the decision to send me to London to become an anchor in what was becoming a very fast growing production center operation for CNN there. So he was minutely involved in those kind of decisions. But then in 1995, Time Warner bought Turner Broadcasting Systems, which had CNN and Turner Sports, Cartoon Network, you know, Castle Rock Entertainment, all these other companies, film companies. And he was still very much involved. But by the time AOL stepped in in 2000, he really was becoming less and less involved in, in the running of the place. And he did largely leave it to the executives and. But for a long time he lived above the newsroom in cnn. There was a penthouse above center, which is now no longer CNN Center. But he, he used to kind of come down occasionally in his dressing gown or he would want to talk to people and it was all very, you know, casual. But he also. One thing I'd like to say, you know, Americans often don't get very many annual leave days or vacation days. And he made sure that his American employees had, you know, the same entitlements as European workers, which was largely unheard of and still is. And also benefits, health benefits, which was extraordinary. He was supporter of the United nations at the time as well, donating millions to it. At one point, did you get the
- [07:10]
Andrew Muller
sense that media was actually what he was most excited about, though? I mean, he did lead an eventful and busy life. He also raced 12 metre yachts. He owned the Atlanta Braves. Owned them indeed, when they were World series champions in 1995. Also the Atlanta Thrashers and the Atlanta Hawks, and had a side hustle in raising bison.
- [07:32]
Fionnuala Sweeney
I think he just had a. We are in Montana. He loved living in Montana and he moved there eventually. And in fact, when he stepped away from cnn, he was so curious about life. He actually opened Bison Restaurants, a chain of Bison restaurants in Atlanta and across the country. And I think he was just an incredibly kind of a curious man. He just was interested in so many things. Sailing was his huge passion. But he also really loved being in the countryside, interested in news and, and, and I think really is going to be remember as one of A kind. I really was thinking today, what would he make of today's world? And if he were the age he was in the 70s, what would he be doing? And would he be as we see him, you know, now and with the benefit of hindsight, you know, left of center, liberal, left of center, even though he was a multimillionaire or what role would he be playing now if he were up and about and would he, he never really did challenge Rupert Murdoch. He largely stayed away from the spotlight. And I think that was one of the tricks that CN missed in the 90s and the noughties rather. When Fox started, I think CNN was in such the ascendancy after the, particularly the first Gulf War that they didn't notice this upstart coming up alongside them until suddenly Fox News was the right of center response to cnn, seen as liberal, left of centre. And now of course today the news has moved so much that Fox is seen as quite centre or maybe centre right.
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Andrew Muller
Just finally for Noolah, is it fair to say he leaves us as one of that rare breed of media prop that the journalists who worked for him didn't actually complain all that much about?
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Fionnuala Sweeney
I don't think they did. I think everybody knew him as Ted and Nobody called him Mr. Turner. There's a video you can, if somebody wants to go down a black hole, a Rabbit hole on YouTube you can find like video shot on the day of 911 in Atlanta. And just, you know, as people in the newsroom began to realize the scale of this disaster that was unfolding before their eyes and he was in the control room, but very much kind of in the background and you know, talking to the executives but letting them do their job. And I, I don't think very many people had a bad word to say about him at the time. I mean the other thing, you know, for people of my generation and younger, it was kind of the Facebook of its time in a way because for so many people I worked with at cnn, they grew up in various places around the world, had never had an opportunity maybe to see parts of the world covered in the way that CNN did. And maybe, you know, for understandable reasons their own countries didn't have that kind of coverage. I think, you know, we're in England, BBC, Channel 4 people are very well served, ITV by the news services and the newspapers. And I think I've worked with so many people who as children would watch CNN and obviously somewhere said I want to be part of that. So I think he did bring a huge moment in people's lives where world leaders used to phone up and talk to each other on cnn. And that was quite extraordinary at the time. So I think there's not very many people who worked for him that are going to be saying a bad word about him today.
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Andrew Muller
Fenullah Sweeney, thanks for joining us. Well, let's bring out in our panel on this one, Quentin Peel and Amita Van Ry. Quentin, first of all, costs and benefits to 24 hour news. Has it all been good or do we blame this legacy at least slightly for the fact that news journalism actually reporting a story has become somewhat overrun in the broadcast context by pundits sitting around a table in a studio pontificating about the state of the world?
- [11:09]
Quentin Peel
There is an element to that. We're drowning in information and it doesn't help to have it all there. And indeed, as I find to my cost sometimes as well, that 24 hour television does need people to be talking and commenting on the news all the time. Having said that, the good side of it, I think, is CNN really started a process of making the news less stuffy. It made more accessible to people and it made it not more opinionated. That was much more the Fox thing. I think it made it more accessible to people and, you know, people understood things better as a result. So definitely good and bad.
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Andrew Muller
Almeida, what, what have you made of it? Because I'm, I'm going to go ahead and guess that unlike the rest of us around this table, the idea of the news being on 24 hours has just always seemed normal to you.
- [12:04]
Amida Van Ry
I'm so glad that my skincare routine is working so well that you're judging me to be younger than I am. But no, I mean, I definitely grew up with the 8 o' clock news and that was it. And that has changed in my lifetime. But what I think, you know, these big commercial media companies like CNN and Fox and others have changed. And there was actually some really good, I think it was FT analysis on this actually, you know, media writing about media is that there is no longer a single source of truth in the US in the way that in the UK actually, people do still tune into the BBC and do still look to the BBC as a source of truth. You know, we can disagree or agree whether that's a good approach. But in the US that no longer exists. And so that has contributed to these levels of polarization that you now see in American society for which it's very hard to put the genie back in the bottle.
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Andrew Muller
Well, we'll start properly in Germany, where Chancellor Friedrich Merz is not so much celebrating his first year on the job as wearily acknowledgin acknowledging its passing. After 12 months. Just 19% of his fellow citizens declare themselves happy with the performance of Merz's coalition government. 15% with Merz personally. And even a proportion of those Germans unhappy with the Chancellor fret that he is sleepwalking the country into an election victory for the far right alternative for Deutschland. Quentin, first of all, is it possible to sum up where it all went wrong or is this more a case of it never having had a chance to go right?
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Quentin Peel
It was fairly rocky from the start. I mean this was not an easy relationship, I think, but he clearly won the last election. His party came out as the largest and he's not an easy man to deal with. I think a very experienced politician from way back. But having said that, he's quite prickly and I think that has not, it's not kept the team together as well as he might. He's not like Angela Merkel who he didn't get on with, somebody who was good at knocking heads together and making people agree on things. But he's had an impossible situation to deal with because he comes into power and you know, here comes Trump and you know, the whole Europe Atlantic relationship, which he was very committed to and has always believed in very strongly, is up for grabs. And I think he's having real trouble dealing with that. So I don't think it's all his fault.
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Andrew Muller
I mean, does he have a case there, Armida, that much though I would like to have concentrated on domestic priorities. Please, fellow citizens, take a look at the state of the world. I have had to pay attention elsewhere.
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Amida Van Ry
There is an element of that, but that is also a bit of a cop out argument. Of course there is truth in the matter that we've had crisis after crisis pretty much since the 2007 financial crisis, then the Eurozone crisis, migration, etc. But I will also say if we think back to even before when he was voted in as Chancellor, he already had a rocky start. There was a very controversial non biding motion that he passed through parliament on immigration, which he could only do with the support of the AfD, the German FAR right party. He forced through a constitutional change to release the debt break, allowing the German government to borrow more, which was very controversial at the time and is not something that CDU politicians were comfortable with. And on top of that, if you remember the first time, so the German parliament has to vote for the Chancellor. The first time the vote went through Parliament, it was voted down. So already from the get go, there was disagreement within the coalition that he pulled together with the sbd, the Social Democrats, on his chancellorship, essentially, and that has continued throughout this first year.
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Andrew Muller
Quentin, do he or his coalition have any options? Are there plausible means by which he might turn this around and. Or does Germany have one of those systems under which they can simply sling the leader and stick someone else in if they don't think he's doing the job?
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Quentin Peel
No, I don't think so. I think one, it's very difficult to actually call a government to a halt early. You either have to bend the constitution. Gert Schroeder did it once, so normally they would carry on till 29 feeling rather uncomfortable. I mean, the problem he's got is actually not primarily the weakness of his own party, although it has wobbled a bit. It's the weakness of his partner. It's the centre left, the Social Democrats, who came out of the last government much weakened and have actually done quite really badly in the state elections that we've had this year already. And the cdu, now the CDU is trailing by a percentage point behind the alternative for Germany, the far right. But I certainly do not see at this stage that there is, you know, we are thinking, oh, my God, the far right could become the next government. I don't think we're at that stage yet. And in all the years that I used to be writing about Germany and from Germany, they were always telling me, oh, where's the far right? Are they coming up? And I would always say, no, not yet.
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Andrew Muller
But does Mertz have a more fundamental problem? Media? Because this does afflict some politicians for reasons which may or may not be entirely their fault. It's not so much that the voters have decided they don't like the policies, they've decided they don't like the politicians.
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Amida Van Ry
I think there's a big element of that. Yeah. I mean, you talked about his approval ratings at the top. You know, polls said different things, but 15 to 19%, which is very low, but he has to stick it out. And I think that, you know, voters knew this when they went to the polls and voted for the city. You. He was the head of the party, so he was going to become chancellor. So there's an element of eat your, no, make your bed and lie in it, or whatever the expression is. I also think that unlike Merkel, Mertz has chosen to address a number of issues head on, whether that is pension reform, health care reform, the economy and all those things, which means making very difficult decisions and pushing through very difficult reforms that may well be unpopular with the electorate, but he's decided to do so because otherwise it just has to happen. Right? Germany's economy has been in the slump for years running now, so there's an element of dealing with the package that he's been dealt, as we were talking about before, and trying to address that which is almost by definition going to make him somewhat unpopular.
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Andrew Muller
And just finally on this one, Quentin, and looking at those wider issues which may be consuming his attention, is it possible to argue that he's handled any of those especially well? Because, again, the tempestuousness of the current President of the United States is not his fault, but it is something he has to deal with. And there does seem a fairly clear link between Mertz using the word humiliated about the United States current misadventure in the Persian Gulf and Donald Trump deciding to whisk 5,000 US soldiers out of Germany.
- [19:17]
Quentin Peel
Yeah, I'm not sure that's actually such a disaster as it might, on the face of it, look like whisking 5,000 soldiers out of Germany. There are an awful lot of American soldiers still in Germany. And I also think that it's almost a relief sometimes to see Friedrich Mertz actually saying things as they are about, for example, the war in Iran and saying this is a war without strategy. Maybe the word humiliated was a bit unwise and a bit strong and he does tend to blurt it out a bit. But that again is perhaps a relief. German politicians over the years have been awfully mealy mouthed and unwilling to face up to reality. So I actually, you know, I may be wrong, but I actually regard it as a bit of a religious relief.
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Andrew Muller
Well, to Russia now, where President Vladimir Putin may be looking forward to the annual Victory Day parade less than he usually might. Victory Day, commemorating Germany's surrender at the end of World War II, has in recent years been the cue to trundle a mighty display of Russian military hardware over the cobblestones of Red Square. This year it seems less so. Russia has managed expectations downwards, acknowledging either or both. The fact that much of Russia's military machinery is presently disassembled in the sunflower fields of the Donbass, and that that Ukraine's enterprising drone operators may have perceived the parade as an irresistible target for mischief. Almeida how big a climb down is this for Putin? Whether he wants to admit it or not, there will apparently be no tanks or ballistic missiles in this parade. Air defence batteries have been deployed around the parade Region, area, venue. Mobile phones have been shut off across Moscow. This is not a confident projection of power. It's it.
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Amida Van Ry
There's so much in that to unpack, but I'll take it one by one. So the first thing is, I mean we have seen from the start of Russia's full scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 that the parade has been scaled back because so much of the actual equipment was needed in, well, for the war effort, essentially. So in 2003, I think there was only one tank, for example, so it had been skilled back already. At the same time, Ukraine's ability to strike deep into Russia, including in Moscow, on a repeated basis shows that Russia is unable to defend cities and that has amplified the need to reconsider the security considerations around this. But it's also meant that or shown to Russian citizens that the war is closer to home, much closer to home than they would like it to be, that they can't just ignore what's going on, you know, in, in the southwest and, and yeah, and so that Ukraine is bringing this war much, much closer to Russia. The response to then crack down through repression and cutting off Internet and cutting off apps like Telegram and things like that, I think is particularly interested and really shows to me a regime that is trying to crack down as much as it can because it feels like it's losing its grip on its citizens.
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Andrew Muller
Quentin, it's probably a bit much or a bit optimistic to say that Ukraine is on the front foot, has the upper hand, etc. But in the last few weeks we have seen it emerge as a supplier of air defence expertise and kit to the Gulf. Those countries are under attack from Russia's ally in Iran. We have seen President Zelensky merrily skipping down the steps of his official jet to attend a European summit in Yerevan, which Putin would have assumed was well and truly within Russia's sphere of influence. Is Ukraine actually making progress here?
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Quentin Peel
Well, these are pretty wobbly signs that we're seeing out of Russia, I was about to call it the Soviet Union. Some of these things do bring it back and it really is extraordinary. One, I mean also the fact that Putin himself has not been seen very much in public at all.
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Andrew Muller
There's been, I think, two confirmed public appearances.
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Quentin Peel
Yes, and they've been reusing old television pictures to try and suggest that he's still out and about somewh. But so that all suggests that there is quite a degree of wobble which I did not expect to see because after all, Russia is a real beneficiary from the war in Iran. You know, it's getting much more money for its oil and the Americans have actually, you know, lifted the sanctions on stuff that's on the high seas and so on. So you would have thought that Russia would be sitting back and saying, hey, things are going our way. But you know, all these signs, and particularly I think the signs of the clampdown on data transfer transmission, on WI fi, on telephone, mobile phone signals in Moscow. I mean, to hell the taxi drivers can't work in Moscow properly at the moment because they haven't got a signal. It's extraordinary.
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Andrew Muller
I mean, and all this is occurring amida in a context in which the United States is at the very least indifferent to Ukraine, at worst sort of actively hostile. I mean, is there an argument that over the last four years, just as Europe has discovered that it had perhaps overestimated the Russian military menace, it has also perhaps underestimated its own capacity to resist it?
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Amida Van Ry
I'm not sure. So I don't. I mean, Russia is bogged down in Ukraine at the moment, right, which is why it's not doing anything more menacing than the gray zone hybrid threats, which are severe if you're on the eastern flank, right? So that's happening on a monthly, if not daily, weekly basis. So we really shouldn't underestimate that. I think that the bigger issue is that, you know, the U.S. which is a more structural, long term change, right, this is not going to change if there's a Democratic president that comes back in. The burden shifting discussion of Europeans taking more responsibility for their own security is really truly and well underway. Now, the positive development of the past few weeks has been, as Quentin was alluding to, has been that Ukraine has been able to demonstrate that it is also a security exporter and a net contributor to security through its expertise and know how in drone warfare and otherwise. And it can also do that for Europe, it's not just in the Gulf. And so that is one of the positive things. But I mean, the way that America or Trump's rhetoric is undermining NATO cohesion and NATO's Article 5 for everyone to see is hugely damaging.
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Andrew Muller
Well, we will move along to something entirely different and we will, I'm warning you now, have sound effects. So brace yourself, because we are going to be looking at Italy finally. And eastern Germany. That was a peacock and then a moose, to be clear, in that order, interspersed with some irritable Italians queued by way of introduction to a reminder that where the intersection of wildlife and urbanity is concerned, there is A line between the charming and the pestilential. The Italian seaside settlement of Punta Marina is positively plagued by peacocks, which, handsome though they indisputably are, make a terrible racket, wreak havoc in gardens, and necessitate, for obvious reasons, the frequent cleaning of cars, footpaths, windows, and roofs. In eastern Germany, meanwhile, moose are spotted with increasing frequency, having meandered over the border from Poland and the Czech Republic, where they have flourished thanks to conservation programs. Granted, there are not, as yet, reports of hundreds of them marauding Dresden, Cottbus, or even Berlin itself. But what if there were? Then what? Why, yes, we are resorting to frantic speculation in order to hold this item together. Quentin, where. Where would. Where would you be on the peacocks? Would you find them charming or. Or your expression suggests not horrible.
- [27:33]
Quentin Peel
What a ghastly noise. I thought for a moment that it was actually an restaurant, but I think it was even more.
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Andrew Muller
I mean, if the peacocks don't start behaving themselves, that could be an option.
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Quentin Peel
I must say, peacocks are not my favorite bird. They are sort of controversial, weird, and they should be locked up in, I don't know, zoos or somewhere. But on the other hand, the moose, now that is a magnificent animal. And that's something that. And. And what a wonderful noise. It sounds like somebody who's had a bad meal in a German restaurant.
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Andrew Muller
So. So you'd be okay with your. Your suburb being maraudered by moose?
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Quentin Peel
I don't think I'd see much of it, but my suburb is marauded by foxes and parakeets, but not a moose.
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Andrew Muller
Yet the racket there, Armida, of the peacocks does remind me of the Rainbow Lorikeet somewhat from the old country, I. E. Australia. Obviously, they're not nearly as big as peacocks, but they are that slightly jarring thing of just exquisitely beautiful to look at. For listeners who don't know what a rainbow Lorikeet looks like, I urge you to look it up. It's one of those things where you will think, how on earth did you just, like random nature, create this? They're extraordinary. But, oh, my God, the noise, it's just absolutely horrendous. And so, yeah, your. Your views on the Rainbow Lorikeet can change dramatically depending on how much sleep you're trying to get. Do you have a particular favorite urban creature? We're going to try and be upbeat here. I don't know where you are on peacocks or moose, but are there any you actually like when you see them?
- [29:06]
Amida Van Ry
I mean, I think as with any wildlife in an urban setting, in small, limited doses, what I would say. But I've got, I've got a tiny little outdoor space in, in London and I have a robin that visits every day and that makes me very happy.
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Andrew Muller
See, I, I, I don't know Quentin, where I, where you are on robins. I, I find I, I have, I have a garden which does frequently attract robins, but they, they do kind of have this, this, this attitude about them as if like they, they follow me around. Yeah, they're cheeky little they, they do with this sort of attitude that, I mean I, I, I have more than once found myself just saying, seriously, what are you looking at? It's my garden.
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Quentin Peel
Hey. But they're wonderful in springtime they're this wonderful chatter that they come out with and in contrast to the rather dreadful noise of the crows or the magpies or indeed the parakeets. So I'm very pro robin, I'm pro all the little ones, even if they all look a bit the same. But at least the robin you can recognize the red breast and a little
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Amida Van Ry
bit of personality is a good thing, I'd say.
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Andrew Muller
Well, is it though? I mean the, the British magpie, I mean it does make an absolutely hideous racket as opposed to the Australian magpie, which makes an, a really curious, strange and sweet song. Although I am again, context is everything. Big fan of the kookaburra, the laughing Australian bird. Lovely. At a distance, less so on your windowsill at 7 o' clock in the morning. I speak from bitter experience, but we, we, we did want to close by just asking, asking you finally if there is a particular animal you think actually would enliven the streets of your town if turned loose in it. I mean, pick anything you like.
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Fionnuala Sweeney
Oh dear,
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Amida Van Ry
now that is a good question. I mean, I think given, you know, the number of foxes that already run rampant, which is kind of gross, and the number of awful pigeons and things like that, we again, we need to balance it out and measure it out a little bit more. But anything slightly more exotic could be quite fun.
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Andrew Muller
Basically you want something exotic that also eats foxes and penguins.
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Amida Van Ry
That would be great. Preferably wouldn't eat my dog though, because then we'd have an issue.
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Andrew Muller
Foxes, penguins, but not dogs. I'm not sure if there is a single animal that fits that description, but I will have our people look into it. Quentyn.
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Quentin Peel
Well, how about koalas? Could we bring koalas to our gardens? I mean, lend us the odd exotic animal from Australia.
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Andrew Muller
You would would need to plant the very specific sort of eucalypt which is the only thing they eat. They are apparently quite picky and then
- [31:37]
Quentin Peel
it sucks up all the water out of the ground and nothing else grows.
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Andrew Muller
They do do exactly that. See, what we are learning there is that everything has a price. Quentin Peel and Amida Van Ryj, thank you both for joining us. Finally on today's daily, our on this day historical series recalls one of those athletic feats which seemed impossible until it didn't. The progress of athletic excellence has been in part a sequence of aspirations towards daunting benchmarks. Arguably the most intimidating of all of them fell in London in April 2026 when Sebastian Sarwe of Kenya ran the first sub two hour marathon. In race conditions getting around the 42 kilometer course than you'd have been able to do it on a hired e scooter once you factored in slowing for corners.
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Narrator
Come on Sebastian, you can get this history in the making. Under two hours. Nobody has ever done this. They said it couldn't be done.
- [32:44]
Andrew Muller
Other marks which have appeared next to impossible until someone eclipsed them include the sub 10 second 100 meters. A barrier broken by the United States Jim Heinz at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics and the sub 22nd 200 by the United States Tommy Smith at the same games. One which once loomed at least as large as any of the above was the four minute mile. But by the 1930s it was starting to look theoretically doable. Ish. Before World War II, the English runner Sydney Wooderson, an unlikely looking sort who was only 5 foot 6 and competed wearing National Health Service spectacles, had run a mile in of front four. Oh, 6.4.
- [33:32]
Sports Commentator
In a house in Brixton is a collection of trophies to make any sportsman green with envy. They have all been won by the fastest man on two legs in the country, Sidney Wooderson, Britain's most famous runner.
- [33:43]
Andrew Muller
During the 1940s, further chunks were bitten out of the record by two Swedish runners, Arne Anderson and Gunda Hag.
- [33:52]
Sports Commentator
Here in Harvard Stadium, Gunter Haag adds a new record to his brilliant career. Clocked in 4 minutes 5 and 310 seconds. The Swedish champion turns in the fastest mile ever run outdoors in America.
- [34:05]
Andrew Muller
By 1945, HAG had got it down to 4 minutes 1.4 seconds.
- [34:15]
Narrator
When you got friends and neighbors close
- [34:20]
Andrew Muller
though, that was over. Over the next few years it began to be wondered if that was as good as it could get. After all, there has to be a limit of human physical capacity somewhere. Nobody will ever run a marathon in 10 minutes or pole vault over the top deck of the stadium. So the absolute possible best in any athletic discipline has to be somewhere between where we are now and similar hyperbolic hypotheticals. Roger Bannister was a 25 year old English doctor. He'd finished 4th in the 1500 metre at the 1952 Olympics in Helsinki and had subsequently set himself at becoming the first to run the four minute mile. Time was of the essence. In another respect, at least two other runners, the American Wes Santee and the Australian John Landy, fancied their chances. On May 6, 1954, Bannister turned out for the British Amateur Athletics association against his alma mater Oxford University at the Iffley Road track in Oxford. Oxford. It was a lousy day, damp and blustery, and as Bannister caught the train from Paddington that morning, he was inclined to save his big effort for another day. Nevertheless, at 6pm he set off also in the field of six, his designated pacemakers, Chris Brasher and Chris Chataway.
- [35:42]
Sports Commentator
From the start, teammate Chris Brashear sets a grueling pace with Bannister hard on his heels and Chris Chataway waiting to take over.
- [35:48]
Andrew Muller
It was never going to be easy. And it wasn't.
- [35:51]
Sports Commentator
250 yards to go and Bannister takes over. Watch his giant stride take him to the front as he races the last lung bursting furlong to the finishing post. This was it, the final effort against the seconds that have kept him and many others from the four minute mile.
- [36:06]
Andrew Muller
Years later, Bannister wrote vividly of that last immortal lap. It was as if all my limbs were caught in an ever tightening vise. Blood surged from my muscles to my brain and seemed to fell me. I felt like an exploded flash. Bulb vision became black and white and I knew I had done it before. I heard the time and done it
- [36:28]
Sports Commentator
he had up to the finishing line.
- [36:30]
Quentin Peel
Time?
- [36:30]
Sports Commentator
3 minutes 59.4 seconds. Shattering the 4 minute mile, the Everest of athletic achievement.
- [36:35]
Andrew Muller
It is self evidently difficult to become the first to do something for slightly different reasons. It's harder to be the second. You've done just as much work and you're less likely to be remembered. A little over six weeks later in Turku, John Landy ran a mile in under four minutes. And under Bannister's time, the fates at least did Landy the favour of arranging. A couple of months after that, one of the most famous races in the history of athletics at the 1954 British Empire and Commonwealth Games in Vancouver. Bannister and Landy at that time the world's only sub 4 minute milers reached the final of the men's 1 mile event. It would pass into legend as the mile of the century or the miracle mile.
- [37:23]
Sports Commentator
Just before the end of the third lap, which Landick clocked exactly to his schedule, Roger Bannister closed the gap and a terrific thrill spread among the spectators. This was going to be the mile of the century. A duel between the world's only under four minute men.
- [37:37]
Andrew Muller
Landy finished second again mown down by Bannister in the final straight. Both men had run under four minutes. Both would also proceed into long and distinguished lives. Sir Roger, a neurologist whose accomplishment in that field alone would have earned him his knighthood. Landy, an executive, a conservationist and eventually governor of Victoria. The world record for the men's mile as of this recording stands at 3.43.13 put up by the great Hickam El Guerrouj of Morocco in 1999.
- [38:12]
Narrator
Nayant trying to move in on Hickam El Guerrouj. He's closing. Watch the time. The world record 3 hours and 3 9. They race to the finish line. Jicama El Gharroj is going to hang on. He's got a world record.
- [38:26]
Andrew Muller
Maybe that's as good as it can get. Maybe it isn't. Anyone who beats it will be an incredible athlete, yet unlikely to be as well remembered as someone who ran it on this day 72 years ago, around 17 seconds slower. Bannister's feat was many things, but among them it stands like the first two hour marathon. 10 second 122, 200 as proof of how beguiled we are by a round number. And that is all for this edition of the Monocle Daily. Thanks to our panelists today, Quentin Peel and Amida Van Rij. Today's show was produced by Chris Chermack and researched by Josefina Astradnagla Gomez. Our sound engineer was Lily Austin with editing assistance from Elliot Greenfield. I'm Andrew Muller here in London. The Daily is back at the same time tomorrow. Thanks for listening,
- [39:14]
Quentin Peel
Sam.