In Our Time : Automata. BBC Radio 4’s flagship programme… “discusses the history of real and imagined machines that appear to be living, and the questions they raised about life and creation”, with the usual intimate round-table of scholars and scientists. Unlike many BBC programmes, the In Our Time recordings are available to those outside the British Isles — and even have .MP3 files.

Picture: impsandthings: Steampunk Automata (2010). He also has video of it working.