Radio review: Questions, Questions

Ever wondered about camels' spit? ... Radio review. Photograph: Graeme Robertson Questions, Questions (Radio 4) ended the current series yesterday in lively form. Presenter Stewart Henderson went to Suffolk to find out how a quiet rural nook became known as Sodom and Gomorrah. With a backdrop of stirring music, Henderson was perky, and he does tend to sound distractingly like Paul Daniels when he's perky."We're halfway through our pilgrimage to Sodom and Gomorrah," he chirped, relishing the incongruity. He couldn't stop saying the names. "Have you always realised you've had Sodom and Gomorrah in the area?" he asked a local resident. "Your Sodom and Gomorrah is idyllic," he told them. Enough already.Then the programme swooped over topics such as whether you can grow fruit and vegetables in your stomach ("little allotments flourishing in your innards," as Henderson put it). You can't, really, although apparently peas can sprout in your lungs. Next was why camels spit. Having been on the receiving end of this, Henderson really wanted to know. "And why does the spit smell so rank?" he added in a dreamy few minutes of lunchtime radio. The expert at London zoo explained: "Generally it's already been down in their stomach."This is one of those programmes that steals up on you: quite annoying until they investigate something you'd like to know and then, despite yourself, you're hooked.

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