bookmark_borderPodcasts

It’s been a while (a year!) since I wrote about podcasts but with my recent change of job, and a 30-odd minute commute by bus, I’ve been hunting about for some more podcasts to fill my time, and on the way I’ve ditched a couple I used to listen to, so I thought it worthwhile popping a list of my current subscriptions here in case anyone else has the same, admittedly specific and narrow, set of interests as me.

In saying that, most of my choices of whether to subscribe to a podcast or not is largely based around time. Anything over 40 odd minutes doesn’t make the cut – every rule has exceptions of course – and my subscriptions are varied as I’ll happily listen to someone talking about pretty much anything as long as they are engaging and passionate about their topic. I’ve dropped a couple of podcasts recently purely because of the voices, shallow I know but I really don’t want to spend 30 minutes cringing at every gasping adenoidal breath of a host who offers neither passion nor much humanity as they speak.

However looking at the list of my subscriptions (below), it does have a fairly narrow focus that covers design, tech, Apple fanboy stuff, comedy, food, science and desert island discs, so if anyone has any suggestions please leave a comment, doesn’t really matter what the topic is, as long as it’s around the 30-40 min mark (or less!).

So, in no particular order, here is my current list of podcast subcriptions:

  • TEDTalks (audio) (subscribe) (website) – the audio only versions of the TED talks, doesn’t always make sense without the visuals, YMMV.
  • Answer Me This! (subscribe) (website) – random questions answered with humour, knowledge and pathos (ok, not pathos, swearing. Whatever).
  • Song Exploder (subscribe) (website) – Take one song and break it out, artists discuss inspirations, production ideas and how a song becomes a song. Fascinating.
  • a16z (subscribe) (website) – Discusses trends, news and the future of a world being shaped by technology.
  • Serial (subscribe) (website) – The rule breaker – usually at least one hour long but an indepth look via investigative journalism, at one true story. Fascinating.
  • Clockwise (subscribe) (website) – Four people, four topics, tech/geek/apple fanboy tastic chat.
  • In Our Time (subscribe) (website) – From BBC R4 – Melvyn Bragg and guests the history of ideas, usually in great detail. Challenging at times, always interesting.
  • Canvas (subscribe) (website) – two fulltime iPad users talk iOS and mobile productivity. Every episode (so far) has been full of useful hints, tips and apps.
  • Refresh (subscribe) – a show about things we plug in, program and play with – from the people who brought you Cards Against Humanity
  • Radiolab (subscribe) (website) – a show about curiosity, where sound illuminates ideas, and the boundaries blur between science, philosophy, and human experience.
  • 99% Invisible (subscribe) (website) – MY CURRENT FAVOURITE – Design is everywhere – a weekly exploratoin of the process and power of design and architecture. ALWAYS fascinating and way more entertaining than it sounds.
  • No Such Thing As A Fish (subscribe) (website) – MY SECOND FAVOURITE – The QI Elves discuss four random topics. Irreverent, educational, funny, rude, enlightening. A simple format that really works.
  • Gastropod (subscribe) (website) – Food with a side of science & history.
  • The Allusionist (subscribe) (website) – Linguistic adventures, a look at words, how they came to be and how they shape how we act and think.
  • Thinking Allowed (subscribe) (website) – From BBC R4, discussions on how society works.
  • Desert Island Discs (subscribe) (website) – From BBC R4, truncated show (they can’t play all of the tracks) so you get the chat without having to listen to all of the music choices.
  • Ctrl-Walt-Delete (subscribe) (website) – Walt Mossberg (hence the name) and the Verge editor-in-chief discuss the last tech news and ideas.
  • The Broad Experience (subscribe) (website) – Discussing issues facing women in the workplace today.

Hopefully someone might find something new in the above list!

Ohh and I’m still using Overcast, largely because it works and does some clever little things that help – my favourite feature is probably the button that lets me skip 30s forward as I’m really fed up hearing about Squarespace and Mailchimp – and it also has a good directory which has helped me find some of the above podcasts.

Got a suggestion? Drop it in the comments!

bookmark_borderWeekend Reading

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  • Why do the British say ‘sorry’ so much?
    It is probably the most over-used word in the United Kingdom: whether they are sorry about the weather or sorry because someone else has bumped into them, chances are your average Briton has blurted out at least one apology in the past hour or two.
    Obviously I’m sorry I am posting this given that you all probably feel like you should read it now, yeah, sorry about that.
  • Your Letters Helped Challenger Shuttle Engineer Shed 30 Years Of Guilt
    When NPR reported Bob Ebeling’s story on the 30th anniversary of the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger, hundreds of listeners and readers expressed distress and sympathy in letters and emails.
    I can’t even imagine what he must’ve gone through. Such a public catastrophe must weigh heavy.
  • Nina Simone, and the Black American Woman
    In 1966, Simone made a dramatic, public change, one that would prove pivotal in redefining her image and her role as a cultural leader. Her archivist and friend Roger Nupie tracked this revolutionary new look with a more regal bearing on- and offstage.
    Great story of an amazing artist becoming a true icon.
  • Why it took Starbucks 45 years to announce a store in Italy
    Starbucks is preparing to take up one of its biggest challenges yet: opening its first store in Italy, the birthplace of the espresso.
    I wonder how many double shot, soy milk, no foam cappucinos they’ll sell?
  • Facebook Reactions are a gift to advertisers and law enforcement alike
    Facebook’s new “Reactions” – a thumbs-up, a heart and four faces with expressions ranging from mirth to shock, sadness and anger – are intended to help users better express their responses to posts.
    This shouldn’t be a surprise, and I don’t think Facebook is evil, just that the machinations behind the scenes are rarely considered by the majority of the people who use it everyday.
  • Photos of the Glasgow High-Rises That Are About to Disappear
    Urban planning in Glasgow, Scotland, has never suffered from a lack ambition. When post-war zeal dictated that the infamous slum of the city was to be torpedoed in the late 1960s and 1970s, there were mass scale demolitions.
    A bit of local history, learn something new every day.
  • 50 Extraordinary Photos From One Year in Space
    Some 340 days ago, astronaut Scott Kelly arrived at the International Space Station to begin his 11-month mission to explore and help document the effects of longterm spaceflight on the human body.
    Dear everyone, look at these, our planet is stunning, amazing and we really should be fighting harder to keep it that way.
  • Spotify is using 50,000 anonymous hipsters to find your next favorite song
    Spotify’s personalized Discover Weekly playlist has won millions of fans with its uncanny ability to find music based on your musical preferences. But what if you’re tired of the music that it feeds you?
    I’ve tried these other playlists, much more hit and miss but then, that’s the point!
  • The Unlikely Birth of the Beloved Zamboni
    The boxy four-wheeled contraption is not particularly graceful. It does one job, night after night, intermission after intermission.
    You might not recognise the name, but you know what a Zamboni is… and no, it’s not an Italian pastry.
  • Twitter Has Become a Park Filled With Bats and Perverts
    A few days ago, I decided to stop using Twitter. Until recently I tweeted a few times a day — mostly to tell jokes, and to promote my work as a journalist and television writer. I’ve been using it since 2009, and have amassed about 170,000 followers. I like Twitter.
    Spot on analogy, but fails to answer the key question, who is batman?
  • Goodbye to curtains and clutter: how we learned to​ ​buy​​ less stuff
    From books and DVDs to furniture and food, Britons are buying fewer material goods. But will freeing ourselves from consumerism make us happier?
    Yes. Well, maybe. Mostly. OK, it might, a bit. Depends. Sorry.
  • The 6 Healthy Food Trends You Should Be Trying Right Now
    When it comes to eating healthier, some of us try to set some easy-to-keep food resolutions at the start of the year. Others go for some healthy comfort food recipes.
    Because trends are ALWAYS the best thing to follow, right?
  • Harvard researchers discovered the one thing everyone needs for happier, healthier lives
    My grandmother once told me this little story that stuck with me. One afternoon at a doctor’s appointment, her doctor moved her large purse to another chair and remarked how heavy it was. “You must be very rich,” he said to her. “I am,” she said affirmatively.
    My gran once told me about flirting with American soldiers at a dance. This article is nothing to do with that though, it just popped into my head.

bookmark_borderFake it

Fake it until you make it

I feel fantastic. I’m great. I’m good. It’s a wonderful day. All good here.

They are just words but they trip off my tongue easily these days, pavlovian responses to the standard office greeting “How are you?”.

I glance outside at the blue sky, the sun is shining, I have a job, I have a roof over my head, what the hell have I got to be sad about anyway? So when people ask me “How are you?” I repeat my responses.

I think I’m fooling them. I know some days I’m trying to fool myself. Thankfully those days are few and far between, as when I started this little training exercise with myself it’s fair to say that some of the days were not fantastic, great, or even good. They were fucking awful, dreary, gloomy days. The world was muted behind frosted glass, visible if I concentrated really hard, but concentrating is tiring so I stopped doing that.

It was an HR manager at a company I used to work for – ohhh I’ve always managed to hold down a job, no matter how dark the clouds were overhead – that got me thinking about my standard response to those morning queries.

I’d wake up, struggle out of bed, struggle into the shower, struggle out the front door, and finally sit myself at my desk and congratulate my pathetic self that I’d managed to perform some menial tasks, the same ones EVERYONE ELSE did with ease; cos that’s how it works, there was only me in the world in my head, everyone else breezed through their days with a smile.

I’d bump into the HR manager at some point, it was a small office, and he’d ask how I was. “I’m alright,” I’d reply, then my British politeness nerve would quiver and I’d add “how are you?” and he’d reply with a smile, a confident tone, “I’m great”, or “I’m fantastic”. It was only months later when he gently suggested that one day I might respond in a similar vein to see what it felt like that, some weeks later, I tried it for myself.

It felt strange at first, alien words that railed against what I was actually feeling but I read once that it takes at least three weeks to make a habit stick so I kept at it.

“Morning, how are you?”
“I’m great thanks! How are you?” said with beaming smile.

At the end of the second week it was becoming second nature and, you know what, it was working. It did feel good to feel good, even if I was faking it. Maybe it’s like a mood placebo? Fake feeling happy, feeling fantastic and whilst you might not instantly feel that way, you’ll at least not feel like complete shit and that the world would better off without you.

I catch myself now and again these days, years later, saying “I’m ok” or “I’m alright” and the next time some asks me I say “I’m good”. It became an established scale of mood that I use with partners to this day.

Alright = things could be better but I’m not in a bad place
OK = things could be better but I’m feeling content
Good = things are on the up, my mood is high and the sun is shining!

There are other words on the scale of course, I’m sure you can imagine those.

So there you have it. Fake it until you make it.

Sounds like bullshit, right? Well I guess it is, the depression didn’t suddenly vanish, it wasn’t a miracle cure but it did help, the world felt a bit lighter, the glass wall a little more transparent.

And so to the big question, would it work for you?

Guess there’s only one way to find out… answer me this, how are you?