Next week, 9th January, my new job begins. And so too does my new daily commute, starting with the 6am bus, lasting some 4.5 hours each day. That’s a lot of time to try and fill productively.
Some of the time I can occupy with reading and writing — a mix of work and pleasure — but other times I’m going to be too zonked to do anything but sit back and listen… so what I’m looking for are suggestions of the best podcasts to download.
Here are my current podcast subscriptions… They’re all pretty predictably politics, culture, media and comedy based… and very BBC-skewed:
Are there other gems I’m missing out on. If so, do please let me know.
New post: Which podcasts am I missing out on? Crowd-sourcing my commuting listening… http://t.co/GuDQe4hD
- The Bugle, a weekly satirical podcast from Andy Zaltzman and John Oliver
- The Infinite Monkey Cage, R4 science show hosted by Robin Ince and Brian Cox
- Utter Shambles, a comedy-interview show from Robin Ince and Josie Long
And, slightly different from the ones you listen to, but is a favourite of mine:
- Nerdist Writers Panel, a mixture of writers from US TV shows discussing the writing process
I was going to suggest the Economist podcasts, which are brilliant and which you’d love, but they’re not available for download any more.
From the BBC I also really like From Our Own Correspondent (foreign correspondents’ stories), Witness (short items about history) and In Our Time (intellectual discussions). Analysis and the Documentaries can be good too.
The FT has some good podcasts, most notably World Weekly.
If you like literature and poetry, NPR’s The Writer’s Almanac is a nice short one to start the day with.
Also recommended are The Book Show and Philosopher’s Zone (both from the ABC in Australia). Especially the latter is really good.
(They should all be easy to find, but let me know if you need links.)
Slate (www.slate.com) do a range of podcasts – you might like the Political Gabfest
Since you like More Or Less, you may also like NPR’s Planet Money.
Thanks for the suggestions, Jason, and Martijn, my iPod is stuffed!