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Hello and welcome to Spectator Out Loud.

Each week we choose some of our favourite pieces from the magazine and ask their writers to read them aloud.

I'm Patrick Gibbons and on this week's podcast.

As he steps down from BBC Radio 3's breakfast program, Petroctralani reads his diary for the week. Garth Roberts demands

that we make book jackets nasty again. Tom Lee writes in defence of benzodiazepines. The medicine

the Ratcliffe Patriarch obsesses over on the most recent series of the White Lotus.

Reviewing the sleeproom, a very British medical scandal by John Stock,

Leila Senai reflects on how many unethical practices must have occurred in the name of psychiatry.

And finally, Iram Ramzan provides her notes on cousin marriages.

Up first, Petroctralani.

The cherry blossom was at its finest as I made my last early morning trip through Regents

Park to Broadcasting House to present Radio 3's breakfast.

When hire bikes arrived in London, the planners were thoughtful enough to install a docking

station outside my flat. I've used the heavy cycles for my commute ever since. Over the past

14 years, I've become accustomed to the regular faces on my route. The man in an elegant dressing

gown surveying the morning scene while waiting for his dog to pee,

the jogger who for some reason processes backwards along the pavement. Whatever the supposed

health benefits of his technique, I've always wondered how he avoids colliding with one of the elderly

...