mattypenny

Note that I have put stuff in quotes sometimes…but these will only be approximations of what people have said. I’ve heard most of this stuff while running or walking the dog or trying to get to sleep so I can’t be very precise

ABC Conversations - The invisible Mrs Orwell - “I lost my habit of punctual correspondence during the first few weeks of marriage because we quarrelled so continuously & really bitterly that I thought I’d save time & just write one letter to everyone when the murder or separation had been accomplished.” Eileen O’Shaughnessy, six months after marrying George Orwell

The Hated and the Dead - Golda Meir - Golda Meir fled Russian pogroms as a child, but went on to become Prime Minister of Israel

BBC - When it hits the fan - Inside the Sun’s historic apology to Prince Harry - “'reputation'' is partly about what others think of you, but as importantly it’s about what you think of yourself”. David Yelland talks about his time as editor of The Sun

CBS You Are There - The Charge of the Light Brigade - i was surprised that the Charge of the Light Brigade was a big enough event in the USA for CBS to make a show about it

Word in Your Ear - Will Hodgkinson - after discussing the cover of a Roxy Music record, “we’ve had quite a cohort of people of your age whose first memory of pop music was that they found it rather frightening”

BBC Bookclub - Val MacDermid - Val Mcdermid says something like “we all know, in our heart of hearts, that this isn’t the way in which crimes are solved”

BBC Witness History - Brownie Wise: The creator of Tupperware parties - the sales director of Tupperware was called Brownie Wise, which seems quite appropriate

A short history of….. Highwaymen - Dick Turpin was originally a butcher, who fenced poached venison. He was eventually arrested after shooting a rooster.

The Most Conservative Country Songs of All Time (“Try That In a Small Town” is just the latest) By Rolling Stone - the songs are largely a mixture of cynical, sad and stupid imho, with the one exception of ‘Okie from Muskogee’. Includes a nice story about Nixon asking Johnny Cash to cover ‘Okie’, and something called ‘Welfare Cadillac’…and Cash doing ‘What is truth?’ instead

BBC Book Club - Simon Armitage on Sir Gawain and the Green Knight - I found a footnote in an old periodical once that said the small bit of land where my great-grandmother had a house was once the home of Gawain’s descendants….honest!

BBC Great Lives - Stamford Raffles - I didn’t know Raffles founded London Zoo

BBC Book Club- Ben McIntyre on Agent ZigZag - on Eddie Chapman, a safe-cracker who got recruited by German intelligence during World War Two and won an Iron Cross, but then started working for MI5

Smokey Robinson : Bullseye with Jesse Thorn - there’s a nice story in this about Tracks of My Tears. The ending was changed after what sounds like a it was a weekly team meeting at Motown. I dont think i’ve ever been in a meeting that’s been quite that productive

BBC Book Club - Art Spiegleman on Maus - Spiegelman was originally planning a book about race in the USA, featuring Ku Klux Kats

A Short History of the Fukushima Disaster - I’m not sure about whether nuclear power is a good thing, but the bravery of the Fukushima workers was incredible

Joel Stein - Story of the Week - The Implosion of a Leading Anti-COVID Vaccine Group - Joel Stein gets interviewed about a story he’s written for the FT about a populist anti-lockdown outfit

EP93: The Arctic Five - The Hated and the Dead The Arctic Five are the five countries with coastlines on the Arctic Ocean. They are: Canada, Russia, Norway; through Alaska, The United States; and Denmark, through Greenland,

A Short History of…the Irish Potato Famine - there was a lot of this, too much of this, to be honest, that i didn’t know

There’s more, much more at

• podcast episodes 2024
• podcast episodes 2023
• podcast episodes 2022