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We meet the chefs whose job it is to guarantee racers get the 10,000 calories they need each day to compete. Listen here.

A movie called ‘The Journey’ tells how the leaders of the warring tribes of unionists and nationalists in Northern Ireland risked the wrath of their followers to rescue a faltering peace process. It’s a narrative that should appeal to audiences at home and abroad but, as Ian Wylie reports from Belfast, the movie’s struggles to get a theatrical release – despite a highly regarded cast, experienced producer and film festival plaudits – demonstrate the increasing difficulty in bringing independent films to a cinema screen near you. Listen here.

Ever since Nasa rocketed Neil Armstrong to the moon in 1969, European space agencies have envied US spending power. But as space missions become big business in the private sector, start-ups from Europe are holding their own against their counterparts across the Atlantic. Read more here.

It’s reckoned there are more than 6,000 Irish pubs around the world, from Healy Mac's in Kuala Lumpur to The Wild Rover in La Paz. But what are the necessary ingredients for a good one? We sent Ian Wylie to Belfast to ask the founder of New York’s Dead Rabbit bar, Sean Muldoon, how to launch the perfect Irish pub. Listen here.

If Cromarty, Forth, Tyne and Dogger mean anything to you then you’re probably one of the hundreds of thousands of radio listeners who enjoy the UK shipping forecast, broadcast each night on BBC Radio Four. Like the UK equivalent, the rhythmic, almost poetic language of France’s shipping forecast has endeared it even to those who will never set foot on a yacht or trawler. But as Ian Wylie reports from Paris, budget cuts mean that the French are preparing to say au revoir to the meteo marine. Listen here.

You don't often hear Belgium and innovation in the same sentence. But the Belgians did invent the speech bubble and gave us Tintin - and one young publishing house in Brussels is giving airtime to a new generation of Belgian comic artists through a radio show dedicated to le neuvième art, or “the ninth art” as comics are regarded there. In Brussels, Ian Wylie caught a tram to meet two of the presenters of Radio Grandpapier.  Listen here. 

Spanish shipbuilders have seen out the storms and now, thanks to booming global demand, their order books are full. But as the yards launch ships for the Australian navy and the world’s biggest dredgers, could the tide turn again? Read more here.