This week’s best radio: Henry Blofeld meets Ken Bruce

Two of the very greatest voices on British radio meet when Henry Blofeld is the guest of Ken Bruce (3 July, 9.30am, Radio 2). On one side of the microphone we have a rich Dundee cake; on the other a particularly spicy Chelsea bun. It promises to be an aural feast. Blofeld, like a great teacher from years gone by, has the happy knack of being more interesting when he gets off the subject he is best known for talking about. For Ken, he chooses the Tracks of My Years, which include selections by Herb Alpert and the Kinks.

Randy Newman is something of a rarity among musicians in that he seems as interested in other people as in himself. So Randy Newman’s America (4 July, 10pm, Radio 2) promises to be a treat. It’s the first of a two-part series in which he talks about everything from the American dream to the beach culture of LA to the rhythm and blues music that inspired him and the taboos, conflict and bigotry that are as much a part of American culture as the aforementioned dream.

Once you’ve read John le Carré’s biography, you’re apt to see the figure of his father in all his fiction. That’s certainly the case with A Perfect Spy (2 July, 3.02pm, Radio 4), in which Julian Rhind-Tutt plays Magnus Pym, the double agent who learned the art of deceit from his con man father. He disappears following his father’s funeral, leaving MI6 to launch an urgent manhunt to stop him going to the other side.

The core competence of radio presenters is an ability to speak while concentrating on something else. The most egregious presenter errors used to be circulated among stations at the end of the year. Now, thanks to website Radiofail, we can all hear Chris Evans’s unfortunate choice of words going into news of the Grenfell Tower fire, BBC Radio Leeds’ staggeringly ill-judged musical quiz where the link was Ian Brady and, most tellingly, the DJ who can’t think of anything to say when the station’s computer breaks down and the music isn’t there to rescue him.

Waking Up with Sam Harris is the podcast of neuroscientist, philosopher and man most likely to play a disillusioned novelist in a film based on a Stephen King book, Sam Harris. Harris has long, absorbing “this is not funny” conversations with expert guests about such rib-tickling subjects as “surveillance capitalism”, Donald Trump’s foreign policy and details of how Isis sees the End Times.

Remainiacs announces itself as “the no-bullshit Brexit podcast” and proves that there is no subject so dark that the British can’t derive some bleak humour from it. It’s presented by Ian Dunt of politics.co.uk and Dorian Lynskey of this parish and sets itself the considerable task of guiding us through the ins and outs of the current black farce. It only misses a trick in not announcing every item featuring Boris Johnson and David Davis with the Laurel and Hardy theme tune. Still, early days.