Be Excellent To Each Other

What podcasts should we all be listening to? Preferably ones that are available through iTunes to make it nice and easy for me and my new iPod.

I have Steven Fry's so far.

I always recommend the Ricky Gervais ones, because nothing else has made me cry with as much laughter as those.

They're video ones, aren't they? I mean, I have a new iPod Classic thing, so it's fine, I just can't be arsed to watch videos on it. If you know what I meeeean?

I get a few podcasts each week. Good gaming one are:

game theory - intelligent debate mostly
chatter box - on the all games network there are others there too
retrogamers and games for windows - on the 1 up radio network

On the 1 up radio network also check out the broken pixels link. Some of those are quite funny.

Hope this helps and you haven't heard some of these.

Ooh and One Life Left obviously.

This thread seems awfully familiar....

Fighting Talk (5 Live)
Mark Kermodes Movie Reviews (5 Live)
Friday Night Comedy (Radio 4 - The News Quiz and The Now Show)
Guardian Unlimited Football Weekly
Countdown with Keith Olbermann

Guardian Media Talk is pretty good, apart from the walking , talking camp stereotype that is Gareth McLean. Thankfully he is usually on at the end (ooh missus as he would say) so you can skip him.

The main ones I always trot out are:
Movies You Should See (Retrospective movie discussion.)
Escape Pod/Pseudopod/PodCastle (Short stories: Sci-fi, horror and fantasy respectively.)
12 Byzantine Rulers (History stuff -- you can skip the intro show, I think, but it's otherwise grand.)
Twitch Asylum (Vidgame discussion.)

The Gervais ones are indeed great, including the old XFM radio shows. I also really like the Russell Brand and Adam & Joe stuff.

There's a handful of video ones, but the rest are just audio. What Sledge said about the XFM shows, too.

Seconding the Escape Pod et al.

Obviously One Life Left is THE podcast. Speaking of which it's having a party in London on the 26th of April at which I should be performing a live Free Market Economy. Naturally you'll want to be there.

Podcasts are shit.
They have a shit name as well. Back in my day they used to be "webcasts". Fuck you Apple.

But they are neither. They are files. On a website.

The -cast suffix indicates something that is transmitted. Podcasts are entirely passive.

"webisode" is my new favourite least-favourite word.

Ooh, debate time! I disagree. It's just an on-demand service. Would you say that on-demand TV isn't transmitted?

Well, is it transmitted? Does it use a transmitter?

Something that passively sits somewhere until you go and fetch it certainly isn't transmitted. Unless the milk is transmitted to me for my cup of tea when I fetch it from the fridge.

On demand service? It's a file!

Transmit just means to pass from one thing or person to another. It's possible to request something and then have it transmitted to you.

Piffle. Downloading a file is not the same thing has having a file 'transmitted to you' by the web server.

I guess, I suppose the thing with computing terminology is that it's all analogy and they usually end up breaking down at some point. Surely the thing with podcasts is that you can subscribe and then have each one download (or be transmitted to you) without any further intervention.

But we don't need new terminology for doing exactly the same thing.

If I download a word file from a website, nobody starts calling it a 'doccast'.

We apparently have a "webinar" coming up to raise awareness of a product made by one of the other divisions in the company.

I can't stand that word. That word is "webinar" just in case you were in any doubt.

Malc

#I bet you some cunt somewhere, probably in a suit, does.

Oh aye. I'm not debating that. I do think they are transmitted, though.

Wahay, for fans of horror and oldie time radio plays I've found The Zombie Astronaut's blog, it features tons of old readings of classic horror, including readings by Roddy McDowel and Basil Rathbone and old CBS radio plays.

http://z0mbieastronaut.livejournal.com/

If you like that kind of thing the Frequency of Fear podcast is a splendidly weird thing...er...y. It features an over arching story with multiple shorter pieces included as part of the overall podcast. If you listen to a number of these types of things (Sci-fi, Horror & speculative fiction podcasts) you'll recognise a lot of the voices. God knows how they afford to do this with multiple episodes a month and a fanastic level of prodution.

http://frequencyoffear.com/

Danny Baker on Radio 5 when he is back in September
Fighting Talk on Radio 5 when back in September
Frank Skinner on Absolute Radio
606 on Radio 5
Football Weekly from The Guardian
Jonathan Ross on Radio 2

+ check out the Dave Gorman podcasts from Absolute Radio (only a few of them as he was standing in for Frank Skinner).

Ooo...I'd forgotten that Baker was back next month. Hopefully we will finally find out what the update was on Joanne that we never got when he had the falling out with Wippit.

Richard Herring has a new weekly 'stand up' podcast featuring Emma Kennedy. First episode is downloadable here.

http://www.comedy.org.uk/podcasts/as_it_occurs_to_me/

The Rock Paper Shotgun podcast is mildly risible. Gillen can be a bit annoying, but the John Walker/Jim Rossignol podcasts are usually worth listening to.

The Nature magazine and Scientific American podcasts are great - some pretty hard science, but presented light-heartedly and accessibly. Material World from Radio 4 is pretty decent, too.

If you're at all interested in music that isn't shit, then NPR's All Songs Considered podcasts are excellent, and Musicheads from Massachusetts Public Radio is a great reviews show.

Phil Jupitus and Phill Wilding's "Perfect 10" is also great and hilarious, and surprisingly well produced.

Agreed. I never finish a Gillen/Quinns one. But I can happily finish a Walker/Rossingnnongoll one. I tried to listen to "Rum Doings", which is Walker and some spanish guy*. It was pretty terrible.

I just invented a nationality for him. He was some non-english-european. I can't remember.

I go through phases with podcasts, but it's nice to have something to listen to on a train or bus that doesn't draw disapproving looks from old ladies and you don't get asked, "would you mind turning that down please?" That said, the Adam & Joe podcast has often made me laugh like a lunatic on the train into work, drawing concerned glances from ladies young and old. Their stuff on BBC6 and from Xfm is well worth listening to if you like that sort of thing.

South African, I think you'll find

Rum Doings can be a bit pretentious and full of itself at times, but I live in Cambridge so it's no worse than what I hear students talking about on a more-or-less daily basis, and it is occasionally entertaining.

I actually had to take myself away into a quiet corner of a jury waiting room the other day because I was literally crying with laughter at the "fibreglass bums" in Pleasurewood Hills.

except it was a tube train carriage rather than a jury waiting room, and there weren't any quiet corners. I listened to the end of the same podcast the next day, only to hear them giving tips on how to cope with such public mirth situations, which was frankly a bit late.

Mentioned this in another thread but Iain Banks' Transition is a great podcast.

Richard Herring has a new comedy podcast, "As it occurs to me". I haven't heard it yet but it's supposed to be more comedic and less random than the Collings and Herrin podcast. I'm mainly posting this to make me remember to subscribe to it when I get home.

Yeah I listened to the first couple of those too, really good.

I'm enjoying aye-eye-ottumah as Mr Herring seems to insist on calling it. I think it's a really interesting model for producing a show - I hope it does really well, but I gather he's having trouble getting enough of an audience for the live show to make it worthwhile, which is a bit of a shame. It'd be good to see this sort of thing flourish as an alternative to the traditional radio model of comedy shows. I just hope he's got the stamina and finances to keep it up for the ten weeks he promised...

I'm subscribed to:

The Archers
The Archers Omnibus
History of the World in 100 Objects
Radio 4 Friday night Comedy
The Times's "The Game" Podcast

Anything else I should get? Preferably, ones which are divisible by 30 minutes as that's the time it takes me to drive to college and back and a 15 minute one for te park and ride bus there and back/cycling time.

Thanks.

The Bugle: John Oliver (now of the Daily Show) and Andy Saltzman's weekly news podcast hosted on The Times Website.

Lovely, thanks, I'll check them out tomorrow.

Has anyone recommended This American Life? It's brilliant. It feels - and this is intended to be high praise - like something the BBC would do when it's firing on all cylinders.

Hey I do a podcast now! I'm not entirely sure I'd recommend it though. It's usually about games and films. And some other waffle as well. I think part 2 of the most recent one is about the best we've done so if you listen to that and don't like it then we're probably not worth bothering with.

Other podcasts that are quite good:

Skeptic's Guide to the Universe - http://www.theskepticsguide.org/
Skeptoid as well.

I'm checking that out, thanks Dr G.

Old thread , but probably most appropriate to point out the last 2 Nerdist Podcasts are :

Patrick Stewart (for all those playing TNG Scum)



http://www.nerdist.com/2011/09/nerdist- ... k-stewart/

And Bryan Cranston (Breaking Bad)



http://www.nerdist.com/2011/08/nerdist- ... -cranston/

I'm getting more into podcasts now.

It used to just be Gervais.
Then I added Football Weekly.

Now I listen to The Whistleblowers (Mark Webster's footy podcast), Footballistically Arsenal (I'm not an Arsenal fan, but I find them interesting, and it's from the same lot as Whistleblowers), WTF with Marc Maron (comedian. I first got into him recently, when he got a really good interview out of Andrew 'Dice' Clay, and he is generally good).

Oh noes...News International have (probably understandably) decided to withdraw funding from The Bugle...there's only a couple of Year in Reviews and then that's it unless they get some funding.

Time for John Oliver to tap up John Stewart and get some of that Comedy Central cash.

Salzman has stated that withdrawal of funds has nothing to do with them tearing NI a new arse over phone hacking. I'm not so sure.

fife live world football phone in, is always amusing

Answer Me This is roughly my favourite podcast in podcastland. It's not always laugh-out-loud funny but it's such a nice way to pass half an hour a week, like hanging out with a small group of bright, witty people that you really like. Most of the other stuff I listen to is connected to my weird niche-y interests like boardgaming and Yankee Helmetball so I'd hesitate to recommend them to most people. Other folk have mentioned This American Life, the Grauniad Football Weekly and the Skeptic's Guide, anyway.

Not a podcast but showing up in iTunes as one - Consolevania Season 1 and Season 2 are now available for download :

http://t.co/g0AxVTIy

If you can, listen to "This American Life" episode #323 called "The Super". There's an absolutely amazing couple of stories on there, which I really enjoyed. The first of which begins in New York in the 1980s, the second begins with a chat at a petrol station.