Podcast episodes I've enjoyed over the last month - Joe Hart, ICE, Rod Stewart, Tainted Love, Victor Spinetti, Pata Pata, Stonehenge, Charles and Harry, Jamaica, Chelsea the Champions of the Universe, Robert Mueller, Katherine Ryan, Thomas Paine, Nig

Test Match Special - Joe Root goes second on the all-time list - the guest interviewee is goalkeeper Joe Hart. He’s interesting on choosing between football and cricket, and on saving penalties

Origin Story: ICE – How Trump built an American Gestapo - I didnt know that ICE agents are deliberately anonymous.They domt typically have ID numbers, and often use unmarked vehicles

Witness History - Inventing the black box Witness History - one of the management objections to the black box was that it would record ‘more expletives than explanations’

Word in your ear - Billy Sloan, the man who interviewed Grace Jones in a bath - before Covid, and PPE, and the whole story, Rod Stewart fell out with Baroness Mone

Lost Notes Returns with the True Story of ‘Tainted Love’ - I know a bit about the story of ‘Tainted Love’, but this is worth listening to anyway. There’s a great recording of the song played in a Northern Soul club….and also i never knew that Gloria Jones co-wrote ‘I havent stopped dancing yet’, with Marc Bolan

That remnds me - Victor Spinetti - Spinetti says that his grandfather walked from Italy to south Wales for work - there were no immigration controls. He also says he was only in the Beatles' films because George Harrison’s mum fancied him

Soul Music - Pata, pata - I very much like Miriam Makeba’s Pata Pata, its a wonderful song. I didnt know Pata Pata means ‘Touch Touch’

After dark - murder at Stonehenge - like Marmite, some people ‘get’ Stonehenge and some don’t. There’s not many people in the middle. I very much ‘get’ it, but i enjoyed this podcast parttly because its a conversation between someone who dies and someone who doesn’t. There’s a nice bit about going to winter solstice….although imho the proper experience is to walk from Amesbury not from the visitor centre.

When it hits the fan - a Right Royal Whodunnit - a tabloid photographer was in exactly the right place at exactly the right time to capture a brief meeting between Charles' representative and Harry’s representative. How did that happen, and why?

History Extra - The history of Jamaica: everything you wanted to know - the words ‘canoe’ and ‘hammock’ both come from indigenous Jamaican words

Straight Outta Cobham: The Athletic FC’s Chelsea show: Champions of the world! Chelsea stun PSG to bring home Club World Cup - worth listening to, especially for the bits of commentary at the start 😀

The Hated and the Dead - Robert Mueller - Tom talks to Devlin Barrett, author of ‘October Surprise: How the FBI Tried to Save Itself and Crashed an Election’

Desert Island Discs - Katherine Ryan - Katherine Ryan was sent to an entirely French-speaking school as a child, despite not knowing any French

The Rest is Entertainment - the longest running show in the world is The Shipping Forecast, which has been running for 167 years and started via telegraph

HIST 116: The American Revolution Lecture 10 - Common Sense - Joanna Freeman - Thomas Paine says that the person supporting the crown “ought to be considered as one who hath not only given up the proper dignity of man, but sunk himself beneath the rank of animals, and contemptibly crawls through the world like a worm.”

Private Eye podcast - Nigel Farage spends 22 hours per week on jobs other than being an MP

History Extra - Killers of the Flower Moon - the history behind the film

Round Britain Quiz - features a great music question. I recognised the songs - Mother and Child Reunion, Dream Lover, and Hong Kong Garden - but had no idea about the connection

BBC World Service - Witness History, Osmondmania, When Donny Osmond fans collapsed Heathrow balcony - The Osmonds were banned from Heathrow airport after a balcony collapsed when fans came to meet them

BBC Radio 5 Live - Midnight Meets With Colin Murray, Martin Fry - ABC’s first promo for their single When Smokey Sings was on Dutch TV. On the same show, and in the next-door dressing room, was Smokey Robinson