Brompton makes 100,000 foldable bikes in London every year and exports about 75% of them. Chief executive Will Butler-Adams tells us how he grew the business around the world. He also explains how he's navigating inflation, and the prospect of recession. Plus, why he believes his mission is not simply to sell more bikes, but to change how people live in cities around the globe.

Producer/presenter: James Graham Photo: Will Butler-Adams on a Brompton bike at his London factory. Credit: Brompton.

Comics are a multi-billion dollar industry and comic conventions - or cons - attract thousands of fans, desperate to meet their heroes and splash some cash.

Elizabeth Hotson visits the MCM event in London to find out what’s hot and what people are spending their hard-earned money on.

We hear from Joëlle Jones, a comic book writer and illustrator, Jenny Martin, Event Director at MCM Comic Con and Michael Loizou from Brotherhood Games.

Plus tattooist Matt Difa shows off his Star Wars inkings and Vincent Zurzolo, the Chief Operating Officer of Metropolis Collectibles in New York looks back on one of his most memorable comic book sales.

Producer: Elizabeth Hotson Presenter: Elizabeth Hotson

Picture Description: Comics at Wellcome Trust Superhero exhibition, Picture Credit: Getty Images

Margrethe Vestager is the European commissioner for competition.

Ms Vestager has been spearheading the landmark Digital Markets and Digital Services Acts aimed at regulating the global technology industry.

The new rules passed the European Parliament in July and will start to be implemented in the spring.

Victoria Craig sits down with Ms Vestager to ask about the commission’s win against Google in one of Europe’s biggest courts (which resulted in a record fine).

She also explains the importance of her hallmark legislative endeavours on global competition and fairness in the big tech space.

And she talks about how the EC’s Important Projects of Common European Interest programme – which allows joint investments in riskier technologies – could help alleviate Europe’s energy crisis.

Producer: Stephen Ryan Presenter: Victoria Craig

(Image: Margrethe Vestager. Credit: Google)

Could building more homes and offices out of wood instead of concrete help tackle climate change?

We travel to Finland, where growing numbers of homes and offices are being built using wood, and the industry is booming.

We’ll hear how it can help improve sustainability in cities and take a look at the challenges and benefits of using more wood inside our offices and homes.

And we'll also hear concerns about the impact on the country’s famous forests. Presenter Maddy Savage speaks to Miimu Airaksinen - vice president of development at Finnish building company SRV, about the construction process and the technology being used.

Mai Suominen, a senior forest expert for the World Wildlife fund explains the benefits of using wood to make buildings, because they can store carbon that’s already been removed from the atmosphere by trees for decades.

Ali Amiri from Aalto University has been exploring the costs and benefits of using wood for building - and the impact of the war in Ukraine which has increased interest in wood as a building material.

And Maddy gets a tour from Linda Helen of an eight story wooden office block in Helsinki that’s home to one of Finland’s biggest gaming companies Supercell.

Produced and presented by Maddy Savage.

(Image - wooden building in Helskini. Credit: BBC)

Millions of people, mainly women, sign up for jobs as domestic workers overseas. Yet much of this work is informal, with households enforcing their own terms behind closed doors - leaving the workers vulnerable to exploitation and abuse.

In this episode, Laura Heighton-Ginns meets domestic workers who escaped modern slavery.

Jackie was forced to work extreme hours, sleep on a hard floor, and given only leftovers to eat for two years. Grace felt she had no choice but to take a domestic job overseas, but discovered many women who do this work are victimised.

As well hearing their stories, Laura speaks to the newly appointed Philippines Secretary of State for Migrants and UN International Labor Organisation and asks why domestic workers still lack basic protections.

Presented and produced by Laura Heighton-Ginns.

(Image: Grace Nine. Credit: BBC)

The global events industry was valued at more than $1.1 billion in 2019, before the start of the covid-19 pandemic. Live music and concert events alone lost $30 billion in 2020 and most outdoor festivals were cancelled. This year, in 2022, with more people vaccinated around the world, many festivals have managed to return but are having to cope with rising prices and staff shortages, as well as people with less cash to spend.

Monica Newton, the CEO of the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown, South Africa, tells us about the challenges she's faced in holding this year's event. The director of the Great British Food Festival in the UK, Daniel Maycock, says they've managed to avoid putting up ticket prices so far and are trying to support smaller businesses.

Lisa Louis travels to the Rock en Seine festival, to the west of the French capital Paris to speak to the director, Matthieu Ducos, about how he's had to adapt. She speaks to food and drinks vendors about how they're coping with rising prices and festival goers about how they're dealing with having less money in their pockets.

Presenter: Emb Hashmi Reporter: Lisa Louis Producer: Jo Critcher

(Image: Matthieu Ducos, director of the Rock en Seine festival, Parc de Saint-Cloud; Credit: BBC)

For online influencers getting verification - a blue tick next to their social media account name - is the ultimate prize. It brings credibility and elevates their status online.

Presenter David Harper investigates how accounts can become 'verified', what it means, and if you make your money through online platform, how much is it actually worth?

David speaks to Matt Navarra, a social media consultant and industry analyst. Matt has worked for Meta and Google amongst others and says he asked how to get a blue tick dozens of times each week. He explains why verification is useful to brands and users.

Entrepreneur Jacques Bastien lives in New York, he works with different brands and companies, and explains why verification is so important for his clients, making them seem more trustworthy. He says the blue tick has a financial benefit which is hard to quantify, but is there.

And the BBC’s China media analyst Kerry Allen explains the different approach by Sina Weibo, where accounts are checked and ‘verified’ to a certain degree when an account is created. She explains the different ‘V’ system that accounts have depending on who owns the account.

Presented and produced by David Harper.

(Image: Social media influencer. Credit: Getty)

The sport of lacrosse has a long history, being one of the oldest sports in North America. But, for a long time, many players couldn't earn a living in the same way athletes could who were playing in established leagues like Major League Soccer or the National Football League. After a time as one of the best lacrosse players in the world, Paul Rabil, along with his brother Mike, an established businessman and investor, decided to start their own league that could give players a livelihood.

We speak to the brothers to find out the challenges of starting a league from the ground up, and how they had to convince players to join them, and from there, we also find out how it could be going global, and why the story has been turned into a major documentary that has aired on ESPN.

Presenter: Rahul Tandon, Producer: Ed Butler

(Image: Paul and Mike Rabil at an event; Credit: Craig Barritt/Getty Images for Premier Lacrosse League)

The coronavirus pandemic allowed many people worldwide to work in new and radical ways. It brought some of the biggest changes for computer-based office workers, many finding themselves working from home for the first time. Research from McKinsey Global Institute, the international management consultancy firm, suggests remote work in some form, is likely to remain for this group of employees. We discuss what the continued shift towards remote work means for both businesses and employees around the world. We hear from Roseleen Kagiri, a remote worker in Nairobi, Kenya, and Hailey Walker who works from home in Chicago in the US. Matt Wilson, co-founder and co-chief executive of Omnipresent, a tech start-up, reveals why his business employs all of its workers remotely. Nick Bloom, professor of economics at Stanford University in California tells us about studies he’s done on working from home and how remote work affects productivity, and Harriet Molyneaux, managing director at HSM Advisory, a global advisory group focussed on the future of work based in London, explains why employers are now looking more closely at remote hybrid work to attract and retain the best talent. Presenter/producer: Tara Holmes (Image: Woman sitting at desk with cup of coffee; Credit: Getty)

Tabasco sauce has been around since 1868, Lea and Perrins’ Worcestershire Sauce since 1837. So how have these brands managed to survive for so long?

David Reid explores why some brands outlive their founders by more than a century.

David speaks to Harold Osborn, CEO of McIlhenny Company which makes Tabasco.

Patrick Barwise, emeritus professor of management and marketing at London Business School explains what happened when Coca Cola tried to 'tweak' their recipe.

Samir Nanji, spokesperson at KraftHeinz who now own Lea and Perrins, explains the history of the sauce - and how an early batch didn't go too well.

And Jake Burger, cocktail expert from Portabello Road Gin and The Ginstitute explains how Angostura Bitters outlasted prohibition to become a bar staple.

(Image: Tabasco sauce bottle. Credit: Getty)

For years women working in certain jobs, such as banking or retail, have had to wear high heels as part of the company’s dress code. But now women around the world are fighting for the right to choose their own shoes at work.

Elizabeth Semmelhack, the director and senior curator of the Bata Shoe Museum in the Canadian city of Toronto tells us the history of the high heel and its journey from the battlefield to the boardroom.

Ally Murphy, a former flight attendant, describes the pain caused to cabin crew who are made to wear high heels at work.

Nicola Thorp, who led a campaign in the UK to make it illegal for companies to force workers to wear high heels, says many companies are now changing their shoe policies because they don’t want the bad publicity.

Change is slower in Japan, however, where supporters of the #KuToo movement continue to campaign against mandatory high heels at work. The BBC’s Singapore correspondent, Mariko Oi, who is from Japan, tells us how corporate dress and expectations are still firmly embedded into Japanese culture.

Then we travel to the Indian capital, Delhi, to find out if the pandemic has changed companies’ attitudes to workwear there.

Presenter/producer: Jo Critcher

Music courtesy of Dorian Electra: "The Dark History of High Heels"

(Image: woman suffering from foot pain; Credit: Getty Images)

As Ukraine seemingly makes dramatic advances on the battlefield, we look at what this may say about the situation inside Russia itself. Military analysts are describing what seems to be a depleted Russian military machine, lacking in morale, but also possibly lacking in the kinds of military equipment it needs to sustain its war effort. One estimate in August put the loss of hardware (not including missiles) at $16 billion. That's hard to replace, given the supply problems and falling growth brought about by wide-ranging western economic sanctions.

We look inside the country at the way the economy is progressing, with the thoughts of one Russian business-owner, Dmitry Nechaev, and from western-based economists, Sergei Guriev at Sciences Po University in Paris, and Elina Ribakova, deputy chief economist at the International Institute of Finance. The US-based political scientist Stephen Crowley, of Oberlin College, then considers how much a weakened economy is likely to create the type of political pressure to make President Putin reassess his war strategy.

Presenter/producer: Ed Butler

(Image: Russian President Vladimir Putin at the desk in his office; Credit: BBC)