Podcasts you like

[Sheilbh]

Right so your choices are idealogically driven. :p

Yes - I listen to (and pay for) more podcasts by people who write for New Left Review or the London Review of Books than is remotely healthy

[mongers]

Right so your choices are idealogically driven. :p

Yes - I listen to (and pay for) more podcasts by people who write for New Left Review or the London Review of Books than is remotely healthy

Shelf, something you might enjoy, this lunchtime Radio 4 are doing 10 short programmes each covering a different Larkin poem, read and 'analysised' by the national poet:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0019yy1

Born Yesterday
Larkin Revisited

Across ten programmes and ten iconic Phillip Larkin poems, Simon Armitage, the Poet Laureate, finds out what happens when he unpicks Larkin's poems in his centenary year, and lets the language that entered the culture resonate as he goes about his own life as a poet ( 'Sent out of sight/ Somewhere becoming rain.', 'It becomes still more difficult to find/ Words at once true and kind/ Or not untrue and not unkind.').

Larkin's poems still feel like contraband: saying the unsayable, facing the reality of time and its passing - whilst offering moments of astonishing beauty and transcendence. Simon has lived with Larkin's work ever since he was told as a teenager that there was a real poet living in Yorkshire. He is fascinated by the way his poems are constructed; the way they often seem to tear things down, often exposing the truth of something difficult, and yet can also be freeing – the opposite of platitudes.

The poems Simon has chosen to explore (including 'Aubade' and 'The Whitsun Weddings') show Larkin's range and achievement; they are poems that face the truth of relationships, of death, as well as poems of place and civic life like 'Bridge for the Living' (an unusual commission for Larkin which celebrates Hull as an 'Isolate city').

In this series Simon takes us to the places Larkin's poems understood intimately – Coventry, and Hull – as he 'roadtests' different poems, to see what survives of them in 2022, especially when we know so much more about the private world of this complex and contradictory poet, than his first readers would have known.

Episode one;
Simon Armitage explores Philip Larkin's poem 'Born Yesterday' - a poem written to celebrate the birth of a baby girl, and which suggests she might be happier if she can be dull.

[mongers]

A podcast to mark Werner Herzog's 80th birthday, including a new interview with the man himself:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001bcpb

Werner Herzog at 80

To mark the 80th birthday of one of cinema's most enigmatic and polarising characters, Mark Kermode and Ellen E Jones explore the work, myth and legacy of Werner Herzog.

An encounter with Herzog is always compelling, and sometimes risky. When Mark interviewed him in the Hollywood Hills in 2006, the director was shot - an incident he dismissed as 'not significant'.

From the safe distance of a few thousand miles away, Mark and Werner reconnect (over Zoom) to address the conspiracy theory that the shooting was staged. Herzog also looks back at the enduring appeal of Fitzcarraldo, how his world view informs his work, and why there's a lesson to be learned in keeping up with the Kardashians.

To separate fact from fiction, Ellen E Jones talks to volcanologist and co-director of two Herzog documentaries, Professor Clive Oppenheimer. They discuss Herzog's scientific mind and why Clive kept quiet about a near miss with a lava bomb as they filmed Into the Inferno.

Writer and director Zak Penn used the Herzog legend as the inspiration for his mockumentary Incident at Loch Ness, which starred Herr Herzog as himself. Ellen and Zak discuss the tricks he played on his leading man, how he's easy to surprise but impossible to shock, and why Werner Herzog is such a beloved and supportive collaborator.

[Maladict]

Very much enjoying the Empire podcast.

[Habbaku]

It's a good 'un. As expected, Dalrymple is an excellent storyteller.

[Berkut]

What is that? The only thing I can find that appears to be Empire seems to be about movies?

[Sheilbh]

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/empire/id1639561921

It's interesting because they came up as the number one option on my Spotify when I heard about them (and it is very good) but now are being swamped by Empire (which is a big film magazine here).

[mongers]

An interesting new radio series on rare earths elements starting now on Radio 4/ BBC Sounds::

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001cdr6

The Scramble for Rare Earths


1. The Magnificent Seventeen
The Scramble for Rare Earths
Episode 1 of 5

Misha Glenny explores the world of rare earth metals and other critical raw materials. They are vital for the future of technology and the green transition. But some see China's monopoly on production as a major global threat.

In the first of five episodes, Misha finds out what the 17 rare earth metals are and hears about their weird and wonderful applications. He also discovers how China has managed to dominate the mining and refining of them.

Guests:

Dr Julie Klinger, Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography and Spatial Sciences at the University of Delaware and author of Rare Earth Frontiers: From Terrestrial Subsoils to Lunar Landscapes
Sophia Kalantzakos, Global Distinguished Professor in Environmental Studies and Public Policy at New York University and the author of China and the Geopolitics of Rare Earths

[Syt]

I've really been enjoying History of the Germans recently.

https://historyofthegermans.com/

It has a short 3 episode prologue, but starts proper in 918 AD. If you like medieval politics and shenanigans, betrayals and backstabbings, then the show has you covered. I came across it looking for a medieval podcast NOT heavily focusing on Britain.

The creator is taking his time and is thorough. He's at episode 80 and has progressed only to about the year 1200 with his latest episode.

[Threviel]

Would you know if it's quality is on the level of British History Podcast? Slow and methodical going with an academic slant?

[Syt]

Haven't heard the British history one. But his focus (he is not an academic historian) is definitely more on narrative history, not analysis so far (I'm 15 episodes in), but that suits me fine; I have forgotten much of that period from when our history class in school covered it.

[The Larch]

I've really been enjoying History of the Germans recently.

https://historyofthegermans.com/

It has a short 3 episode prologue, but starts proper in 918 AD. If you like medieval politics and shenanigans, betrayals and backstabbings, then the show has you covered. I came across it looking for a medieval podcast NOT heavily focusing on Britain.

The creator is taking his time and is thorough. He's at episode 80 and has progressed only to about the year 1200 with his latest episode.

I'm currently following one about the history of Italy (https://ahistoryofitaly.com/), now at episode 146, and they're still on the XVth century, after starting at the fall of the Western Roman Empire. 

[frunk]

Til Death do us Blart, five podcasters watch Paul Blart, Mall Cop II every year for Thanksgiving, forever.  If one of them dies there are appointed successors to take on the burden.  They just finished #8, and they are starting to add traditions.  The one for every eighth year was to secretly pick one of the podcasters to watch Here Comes the Boom instead.  The experience was compared to Andy Dufresne drinking a beer on the roof in Shawshank Redemption.

https://blart.libsyn.com

[DGuller]

Any thoughts on Lex Fridman podcast?  I listened to parts of a couple of episodes recently, as he's popular and he interviewed some guests I find interesting.  I'm getting a vibe that there is no there there, although I can't put my finger on exactly what I find unsettling.

[Valmy]

I've really been enjoying History of the Germans recently.

https://historyofthegermans.com/

It has a short 3 episode prologue, but starts proper in 918 AD. If you like medieval politics and shenanigans, betrayals and backstabbings, then the show has you covered. I came across it looking for a medieval podcast NOT heavily focusing on Britain.

The creator is taking his time and is thorough. He's at episode 80 and has progressed only to about the year 1200 with his latest episode.

I'm currently following one about the history of Italy (https://ahistoryofitaly.com/), now at episode 146, and they're still on the XVth century, after starting at the fall of the Western Roman Empire. 

Well hell the History of England (https://thehistoryofengland.co.uk/) is on episode 358 and just started Charles I's personal rule.