I listened to a podcast (well, god help me two) about Able Archer. It was not very good (see here). But I persisted, and found what seems to be a pretty good podcast, Cold War Conversations, specifically episodes 19 and 269. They are interviews with Francesca Akhtar, who had done a masters and then PhD... Continue Reading →
Podcast reviews: Able Archer 83 and Ellis Island
I am not going to review every podcast I listen to - I mean, wtaf. But the two contrasting experiences yesterday are worth recording. In reverse order - Heather Cox Richardson starts the year’s “Letters from an American” with a typically interesting overview of 19th and early 20th century immigration to the United States (especially... Continue Reading →
Talk is cheap, mr climate “radical”
The moorhens and swans did well out of me today, as I fed them while walking along the canal. Real St Francis of Assisi stuff. Unfortunately, Pod(cast) did not reward me... I listened to a few episodes of a climate podcast that I had high hopes for. I won't name it (though obvs I could,... Continue Reading →
Three brilliant podcasts: on Callan (etc), Henry IV pt1 and the proscription of Palestine Action
Three podcasts (played at 1.5 because I am a philistine, according to the wife anyways) while I fed the moorhens, ducks and swans. Spybrary Spy Podcast: Paranoid Visions - Spies, conspiracies and the secret state in British television drama Am currently devouring the Adam Hall Quiller books (probably too quickly, to be honest). So found... Continue Reading →
Podcast recommendation: “All the Right Movies”
Moorhens eh, donchajustloveem? Well, I do, and do a most-days 90 minute round-trip walk along a canal towpath, throwing them aquatic bird food. This gives me the opportunity to both narrate stuff into a voice-recorder and also listen to podcasts. I will do a proper "these are the podcasts I currently find myself coming back... Continue Reading →
Essential podcast – “Letter from an American” (esp April 22)
We are in what Leonard Cohen once sang of as "the Blizzard" - information, misinformation, disinformation coming at us at impossible velocity and size. To have any hope of making sense of any bit of it, we need speicalists who can communicate - "public intellectuals." This being a public intellectual is harder than it looks,... Continue Reading →
Podcast review (cat-belling) and a vain plea for decent podcast tips
I'm not going to mention the name of it, but it's a climate-y one which has some really quite good guests. I listened to a couple a while back and was .. underwhelmed. I've dipped my toe in again and I've got (1) to say… I'm still really underwhelmed. The guests are smart. The host... Continue Reading →
Taylor Swift, cathexis, Zizek and (oof) black boxes
I came to the podcast Ordinary Unhappiness very recently while on a Wilfred Bion binge (blog post abt that stuck in development hell). The shtick seems to be that three very well-informed-on-psychoanalysis young(ish) East Coast Americans (two seem married, to each other I mean) will have a topic (Bion and groups, the 1967 film The... Continue Reading →
Podcast review: Every breath you take, Alice Bell on Cursed Object podcast
So, following on from review of Rebecca John talking about Charles Keeling and the Air Pollution Foundation on the History of California podcast, here's some brief thoughts on Alice Bell on the Curated Object. If you know of podcasts that deal - even tangentially - with the history of man-made climate change (research, politics, etc),... Continue Reading →
Podcasts: Hisham Matar on James Baldwin, Private Eye on Justin Welby, Jeremy Clarkson etc
Fed swans, ducks and, obvs, moorhens, including juvies. Listened to three podcasts. Notes on a Native Son (different writers on a Baldwin passage - excellent series). This one was Hisham Matar, choosing not a bit from a novel or essay but Baldwin on a talk show in May 1969. A must must listen. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mq_jufwQBSM The... Continue Reading →
marchudson.net 