Verify, verify, I say unto you

Much spin surrounded the launch of BBC Verify which fact-checks and counters disinformation in external sources. So let's hope the same forensic analysis is applied to the BBC's own contributors.

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A Brief History of Time

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Philip Glass is sometimes wrongly credited with composing the soundtrack for the 2014 biopic of physicist Stephen Hawking The Theory of Everything . This is because the theatrical trailer for the movie used the track Runaway Horses from his score for another movie, Mishima , whereas Jóhann Jóhannsson actually composed the soundtrack . But Philip Glass did provide the soundtrack for the earlier Hawking documentary A Brief History of Time . I was reminded of Philip Glass' soundtrack when reading Graham Farmelo 's newly published biography Hawking: His Life and Work . When reading non-fiction books, one of the first things I do is to turn to the 'Acknowledgements'; because this puts the provenance of the book and therefore the possible agenda of the author into context. So I was somewhat concerned to read that Farmelo's biography was commissioned by Stephen Hawking's Estate . Fortunately my concerns were almost unfounded. This new and meticulously-researched bio...
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Variations on an Ukrainian Folksong

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The purpose of puffery and closed-mindedness

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Who am I?

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Word quickly spread that the old composer had lost it

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