Podcast episodes I enjoyed in March - Pat Nevin, the Irishness of Kate Bush, Nazi sterilizations, Mike Leigh, Nicholas Parsons, Naomi Klein, ice cream, the Taj Mahal, Boy George, Oliver Cromwell, and Lenny Henry's influence on Theresa May and Caitli
Word In Your Ear - Pat Nevin - “Pat Nevin has musical memories even better than scoring a diving header against Arsenal”….a sentence that could keep Socrates, Plato, and every phone-in host on every radio station busy for years
BBC Witness History - Nazi Eugenics - horrific, tragic and weirdly banal. A tough listen. “In July 1933, Adolf Hitler passed a law requiring the sterilisation of Germans with physical and mental disabilities. Helga Gross was one of those sterilised.”
Word in your ear - Nick Duerden’s talked to 50 pop stars about life when the big time’s behind you - Eddie Tenpole-Tudor (of the Swords of a Thousand Men, and Who Killed Bambi) got down to a shortlist of two for the Richard E. Grant role in Withnail and I
Give Kate Bush back to the Irish - Kate Bush is judged to score 9.5 on the Irish-o-meter
This Cultural Life - Mike Leigh - on the night of the second or third repeating of Abigails Party, the weather was dreadful, a strike had taken out ITV, and BBC2 was showing something ‘very esoteric’. 16 million people therefore watched Mike Leigh’s show
BBC - Political Thinking with Nick Robinson - The Theresa May One - the former PM relates how hearing Lenny Henry changed her mind about the Windrush scandal. Henry was giving a speech at a memorial for Stephen Lawrence and he said that the Windrush people had to produce four pieces of documentation for every year they had been in the UK
BBC - This Cultural Life - Caitlin Moran - aged 13, Caitlin Moran somewhat optimisitically applied for the job of Managing Director of Comic Relief. Lenny Henry replied “You wouldn’t want to be MD of Comic Relief, it’s really boring, but I’m sure you will fly like a comet through British society’’”. Moran says she lost the letter but knows it off by heart
Hancocks Half Hour - The Blood Donor - perfect, in my opinion
That Reminds Me - Nicholas Parsons - originally the host of Just A Minute was going to be Jimmy Edwards, but he was unavailable when the pilot was recorded
WTF with Marc Maron - Naomi Klein - “conspiracy culture often seems like it’s anti-establishment…its a gift to the establishment”
BBC Radio 4 - Archive on 4 - Scoop - Mr Whippy ice cream was based on the American Mr Softy. Mrs Thatcher didn’t invent either
This Cultural Life - Jarvis Cocker - Jarvis Cocker says that the lady in Common People is not the wife of the Greek Finance Minister
Linda Smith’s A Brief History of Timewasting - I’ve only heard one of these but it was very funny. There was a great line from Margaret John (Doris from Gavin and Stacey) to the effect that if life was a Countdown puzzle then she’s in the bibbedy-bibby-boo bit rather than the boom-diddy-boom bit. Or words to that effect.
Cardew ‘The Cad’ Robinson? Comedy’s great lost heroes remembered by Robert Ross - The Word in your Ear podcast - lovely chat about old semi-forgotten comedians, like Roy Jay, the “Spook Spook Slither Hither” chap. The podcast / book needs to be a multi-part BBC4 series
EP99: Yoon Suk Yeol–The Hated and the Dead - South Korean presidents can only serve one term. Not having any prospect of re-election seems to be a bad thing
Dave Rimmer’s classic Culture Club book is republished. Boy George hated it “as it was all true” - Word in Your Ear - Culture Club split their songwriting royalties equally, like U2 and REM
History Extra - Great Reputations - Oliver Cromwell - Oliver Cromwell’s was voted the 10th ever Greatest Briton in a poll in 2002. I guess ‘great’ doesn’t necessarily mean ‘good’?
A short history of the Taj Mahal - the poet Rabindranath Tagore described the Taj as ‘a teardrop on the cheek of time’
Using Out-Gridview to interactively select one item from a collection
I’m not sure I’ve ever had cause to do this before…but it’s quite handy.
I’m writing an add-on to Spotishell, a powershell module for mucking about with Spotify. I’m searching for a song and then I want to manually select the one that I think is the best version to include on a playlist.
Out-Gridview turns out to be perfect for this.
The code is:
$SelectedTrack = $CollectionOfTracks |
select-object track,
artist,
album,
released,
trackid |
Out-GridView -OutputMode Single
This returns the one track into the $SelectedTrack variable.
<img src=“https://cdn.uploads.micro.blog/139254/2025/screenshot-2025-03-31-175209.png" width=“600” height=“342” alt=“A computer window displays a list with details about tracks titled “The Sick Bed of Cuchulainn” by The Pogues, including albums, release years, and unique identifiers.">
I love pop music and I love Chelsea (Pat was a great Chelsea player in the ’80s)
The sentence below will keep me awake at nights
Very much enjoyed seeing Jenny Eclair last week. Last saw her in the mid ’90s, I think. She was funny then, and she’s funny now
I’m enjoying The Residence but I will be disappointed if it doesn’t turn out to be Kylie Minogue who done it 😃
I live in the top right hand corner of this map. I wish it was still called Mizmaze Hill. I’ve never found out where the Mizmaze was.
My new favourite website.
Chicken sandwiches, dinosaurs and sign language.
They are all woke.
Marvellous free kick from the man who is surely England’s future captain
⚽ #EngLva #ItsComingHomeAndReeceJamesIsBringingIt
I took this pic 3 years ago today while I was out running. It’s a house in the Close which was done up to be Miss Havisham’s house in the BBC’s Great Expectations
I very much like the cover of the upcoming Kate Rusby LP…but does it look a bit like it’s going to be another Christmas record?
the last nesting place for mammoths in the whole of Wessex - Flanders and Swann on Stonehenge
I’d not heard this before. Flanders and Swann were a duo I just about remember that did comic monologues and songs
This is their take on Stonehenge. It’s in the genre of posh people lampooning less posh people, but funny anyway. YMMV!
Well wot’s this then? You’re not going to put up these great ugly stone blocks ‘ere, are you? You can’t do that! I’ve got Ancient Lights on my cave! Well, what is it anyway? A henge? Well, what’s a henge? You may call it megalithic culture, I call it vandalism! I suppose you realise this is about the last nesting place for mammoths in the whole of Wessex?
The whole thing is here:
YouTube - Built-up Area - Flanders and Swann
…and I got the words from: Ian Kitiching website - Built up area
In praise of the blossomest blossom
A rubbish-y photo of a rubbish-y roadside….but it’s enough to remind me of Dennis Potter, again
It was at this time of year in 1994 that Dennis Potter, then dying of cancer, gave a celebrated interview with Melvyn Bragg published under the title Seeing the Blossom. He spoke of how the imminence of death gave his experience of the world a heightened intensity. “At this season, the blossom is out in full now … and instead of saying ‘Oh that’s nice blossom’ … last week looking at it through the window when I’m writing, I see it is the whitest, frothiest, blossomest blossom that there ever could be, and I can see it.
In praise of …… seeing the blossom
#TodqyILearned that Blackboard Jungle, the film that introduced Rock Around The Clock to the world, was written by Ed McBain under his real name, Evan Hunter
I hope Newcastle hang on. From what I’ve seen they’ve been much the better team.
It’ll be revenge for ‘74 😃
#LivNew
I’ve seen Russ Noble a couple of times and I think he’s a genius. I can imagine this happening at one of his shows
What is the strangest thing that has happened at one of your live shows?
At one show, there was a guy in the audience who was my doppelganger, so I was chatting to him. It was a sold-out theatre, so there were no empty seats at all. His friend, who was sat next to him, drunkenly got up and staggered out to the toilet. So I gave the guy who looked like me one of my shirts from backstage – we dressed him like me and he stood on the stage while I sat in his drunk friend’s seat in the audience. I kept performing into the mike, while this guy mimed and walked around like me on stage.
So the drunk guy came back and looked up at the stage. He hadn’t clocked it was his friend up there. Eventually he came over, looked down and saw me sitting in his seat. His head exploded.
I love pictorial maps
This was in a hotel room. It’s by a chap called Justin Eagleton. His website is here:
I just finished Zero Day. There are good things in it, but it felt like there was a simple story but then they threw in X, and Y, then a bit of Z until it was a bit like one of my less successful chillis. YMMV.
My words or the day from 2015 to 2022, from absurd to yonder
ILike a poor man’s Suzie Dent I used to post a ‘word of the day’ on Twitter. They were words I liked the sound of, or the meaning of, or words that just kept popping up in my brain
I’ve just now cobbled together some powershell commands to pull stuff out of my downloaded Twitter archive. This list is the first fruit of that dubious achievement 😃
- ramshackle
- skullduggery
- mawkish
- rigmarole
- discombobulate
- happenstance
- skedaddle
- gush
- ruffled
- amok
- chortle
- edible
- reverberate
- shuck
- musty
- impinge
- bosky
- dawdle
- curdle
- staunch
- wobbulator
- rigmarole
- rambunctious
- the vig
- higgledy-piggledy
- Laggards
- haunch
- gizzard
- shtick
- tatterdemalion
- interstitial
- skulduggery
- hugger-mugger
- scamper
- ruffian
- genial
- bramble
- truffle
- hankering
- scrimp
- absurd
- flounce
- flummox
- extrusion
- scramble
- pestle
- rancid
- scrofulous
- saunter
- wondrous
- befuddled
- spud
- machinate
- resonate
- gratitude
- scruple
- besmirch
- tardy
- slumber
- dimple
- bustle
- befuddled
- sinister
- husky
- razzmatazz
- tingle
- crepuscular
- gesticulate
- frazzled
- tamp
- grapple
- truckle
- rigmarole
- amicable
- gargle
- griddle
- gusty
- modicum
- miscreant
- dumpling
- liniment
- chevron
- snigger
- merge
- wrought
- gumption
- rabble
- ponder
- maritime
- surge
- meander
- blustery
- bliss
- rowdy
- pith
- damp
- machination
- chirpy
- engrossed
- ocelot
- frisson
- triumph
- drench
- griddle
- shudder
- quandary
- gloop
- ping
- furlong
- squirm
- reverie
- camaraderie
- lunge
- patter
- jaunty
- trundle
- linnet
- agog
- flounce
- brisk
- froth
- tinge
- lagoon
- curdle
- fizzle
- glee
- burst
- finagle
- pernickety
- stipple
- miscreant
- flummox
- tumble
- mellifluous
- stooge
- wry
- precipitate
- hirsute
- rascal
- wistful
- manky
- chaff
- skittle
- quench
- nuzzle
- ineffable
- poodle
- vestibule
- mishmash
- twelve
- chivvy
- snooze
- flannel
- giggle
- gusty
- parish
- vanquish
- startle
- muffle
- mischief
- pebble
- roughage
- jibber-jabber
- gabardine
- perspicacious
- munch
- quandary
- crumble
- reckon
- .
- merriment
- slobber
- musket
- mumble
- ragwort
- resurgence
- glimmer
- turnbuckle
- perch
- halcyon
- drizzle
- ethereal
- curdle
- shoestring
- bungalow
- skittish
- dream
- kelp
- reverberate
- mitigate
- miscreant
- jittery
- gleam
- shimmer
- convivial
- marmalize
- groove
- ochre
- swelter
- skirmish
- oblivious
- sprinkle
- moreish
- hankering
- pundit
- amok
- happen
- mulch
- flutter
- brunt
- sprightly
- happenstance
- baffled
- prattle
- crumple
- scatter
- sinew
- cherub
- abundant
- autumnal
- bedraggled
- fisticuffs
- trickle
- jaded
- crinkle
- lucid
- melody
- dozen
- muffle
- expunge
- rubble
- mirage
- cribbage
- palaver
- corroborate
- scrawny
- jot
- heft
- crepuscular
- digit
- scruffy
- embroiled
- guttering
- smudge
- rummage
- ado
- balustrade
- cattle
- stubble
- askance
- wanton
- jostle
- capacious
- scamper
- adamant
- frost
- purloin
- crackle
- tinsel
- kindling
- dunk
- mariner
- gist
- mollusc
- growl
- chirpy
- exuberant
- mumble
- creosote
- gesticulate
- hocus-pocus
- sprout
- satsuma
- stroll
- schism
- skew
- trickle
- ditto
- scrimmage
- middling
- epitome
- tabernacle
- spruce
- rickety
- mooch
- mishmash
- tomfoolery
- diffident
- twill
- crumple
- febrile
- chrysalis
- styptic
- griddle
- machinate
- swarthy
- wrinkle
- ceramic
- chipper
- antiquity
- stirrup
- thistle
- sanguine
- rife
- sprinkle
- pithy
- frothy
- nebulous
- truckle
- resin
- mulch
- hunkering
- batten
- codger
- shiplap
- fricative
- blossom
- desultory
- grinning
- skint
- valve
- behest
- parish
- filibuster
- dazzling
- snout
- malleable
- daub
- jettison
- tumultuous
- sombre
- nincompoop
- hillock
- grizzled
- chuffed
- stockade
- hue
- outwith
- jovial
- glitch
- mulch
- drizzle
- myriad
- flange
- fiddlesticks
- divot
- russet
- gravel
- albeit
- dunk
- totter
- Blighty
- guttural
- slumber
- foible
- cusp
- jettison
- effervescent
- yonder
- trot
- simmer
- clavicle
- behest
- manifest
- stickler
- fickle
- calypso
- tingle
- stove
- temper
- incorrigible
- peregrine
- bickering
- smidgen
- musty
- vestibule
- tryst
- glitch
- drowsy
- aghast
- luminous
- divulge
- shimmering
- mull
- cadge
- stanchion
- cleft
- hubbub
- tryst
- stymied
- combustion
- squat
- squabble
- festoon
- resplendent
- raddled
- natterjack
- swelter
- gormless
- schmuck
- toggle
- scamper
- giggle
- wallop
- balustrade
- sparrow
- lilting
- sniff
- hustings
- slake
- parsnip
- raddled
- nobbled
- paraphernalia
- hankering
- sizzle
- fricative
- smattering
- scant
- warble
- qualm
- buddy
- heft
- waif
- dromedary
- batten
- froth
- conkers
- gladden
- ribbon
- purport
- dithering
- scurry
- fume
- knuckles
- autumnal
- turmoil
- slouching
- wreak
- foist
- follicle
- raucous
- speckled
- tustle
- gabardine
- commensurate
- paradiddle
- muffle
- chilly
- piffle
- harbinger
- bangle
- gantry
- caper
- saunter
- vacillate
- tardy
- banjaxed
- hoik
- minion
- tousled
- nostrils
- amalgamate
- garnish
- skiff
- tad
- declamatory
- plinth
- rumbustious
- stucco
- strum
- hush
- bubble
- plangent
- rankle
- lustre
- mulled
- tinsel
- ponderous
- footfall
- tidings
- swaddling
- eggnog
- myrrh
