Mark Leonard discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Mark Leonard is Co-Founder and Director of the European Council on Foreign Relations, the first pan-European think-tank. His new book is Surviving Chaos: Geopolitics When The Rules Fail, which is available at https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=surviving-chaos-geopolitics-when-the-rules-fail--9781509575220.

This podcast is powered by ZenCast.fm

Tahmima Anam discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Tahmima Anam is the author of the Bengal trilogy and a recipient of the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best First Book and the O. Henry Award. Her short story ‘Garments’ was shortlisted for the BBC National Short Story Award. She is a Granta Best of Young British Novelist and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Born in Dhaka, Bangladesh, she trained as an anthropologist at Harvard University and now lives in London. Her new novel is Uprising, which is a Political Fiction Book Prize Finalist for the Orwell Prize and is available at https://www.waterstones.com/book/9781837265817.

This podcast is powered by ZenCast.fm

Séamas O'Reilly discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Séamas O'Reilly is a writer and author who has worked as a columnist for the Observer, the Irish Times and the Irish Examiner. He is Features Editor of London satirical magazine, The Fence and his writing has appeared in The Guardian, the New Statesman and the New York Times. His memoir Did Ye Hear Mammy Died topped the Irish Times Bestseller List for seven weeks, and won Best Biography at the 2021 Irish Book Awards. Séamas currently lives in Walthamstow, London with his family. His new novel is Prestige Drama, which is available at https://www.hachette.co.uk/titles/seamas-oreilly/prestige-drama/9780349727899/.

This podcast is powered by ZenCast.fm

Ed Maklouf discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Ed Maklouf attended school in England before moving to the USA to study at Stanford University, where he conducted specialized research into group communication and how people make decisions together. After graduating, he went on to found several start-up companies in the emerging field of “democracy technology,” building tools designed to improve participation, representation, and large-scale deliberation.

His work eventually led him to Barcelona, where he began a sustained research project on voting systems. During this period, he came to know and collaborate with leaders of the Arhuaco tribe in Colombia, whose sophisticated traditions of consensus and guardianship of the Sierra Nevada deeply influenced his thinking. Maklouf now serves as ambassador for the Arhuaco Sen Foundation, helping to connect Indigenous perspectives on agreement with contemporary debates about democracy and governance.

The Majority Myth grows out of several years of research into Collective Agreement: a framework that combines formal voting theory and Indigenous knowledge systems to ask when a decision can truly claim to speak for ‘the people’. It is available at https://bit.ly/MajorityMyth.

2.  The Arhuaco Indigenous Tribe https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20190329-the-ancient-guardians-of-the-earth

3.  Friendship https://www.townandcountrymag.com/education-college/a38866811/boarding-school-friends-memoir-admissions-kendra-james/

My Mum's Paintings My dad is a well known sculptor, Raphael Maklouf, who sculpted the portrait of the Queen on UK coins, but my mum never shows her work.

Trees Roots https://www.trees.org.uk/Trees.org.uk/files/61/6181f2b7-e35d-4075-832f-5e230d16aa9e.pdf

Etymology https://www.youtube.com/RobWords

This podcast is powered by ZenCast.fm

Emer McLysaght and Sarah Breen discuss with Ivan six things which they think should be better known.

Emer McLysaght & Sarah Breen are co-authors of the Aisling series. Oh My God, What a Complete Aisling was the bestselling fiction title of 2017 in Ireland and its sequel, The Importance of Being Aisling, won the award for best popular fiction book at the 2018 Irish Book Awards. The third book in the series, Once, Twice, Three Times an Aisling, won the same award the following year and the fourth book in the series, Aisling and the City, won again in 2021. The final book in the series, Aisling Ever After, was published in Autumn 2023 and was an instant number one bestseller. Combined, the Aisling books have sold more than 400,000 copies to date. Their new novel is Our Deadly Summer, which is available at https://www.waterstones.com/book/our-deadly-summer/emer-mclysaght/sarah-breen/9781526692153.

In 2015 Ireland legalised a number of Class A drugs for 24 hours because of a loophole in legislation.

An Irishman invented cheese and onion crisps at his kitchen table in 1954

The Irish language

Nearly all the world’s Viagra is made in a small Irish town 

Ireland is the only country in the world to have had a female, democratically elected head of state be succeeded by another female, democratically elected head of state, and both were called Mary 

Republic of Loose

This podcast is powered by ZenCast.fm

Charles Moore discusses with Ivan six things which he thinks should be better known.

Charles Moore was editor of the Daily Telegraph from 1995 to 2003, editor of the Sunday Telegraph from 1992 to 1995 and editor of the Spectator magazine from 1984 to 1990. He is now the Chairman of The Spectator. He became a non-affiliated peer in July 2020. He wrote the authorised biography of Margaret Thatcher, which is available at https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/458867/margaret-thatcher-by-moore-charles/9780241687673.

This podcast is powered by ZenCast.fm

Sean Murphy discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Sean Murphy is founder of the non-profit 1455 Lit Arts and directs the Center for Story at Shenandoah University. He has been publishing fiction, poetry, reviews (of music, movie, book, food), and essays on the technology industry for over twenty years. His latest book is red, white, and blues, his fourth poetry collection, which is available at https://www.seanmurphy.net/rwb/.

This podcast is powered by ZenCast.fm

Steven Seidenberg discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Steven Seidenberg is the author of Anon (Omnidawn, 2022), plain sight (Roof Books, 2020), Situ

Steven lives in Boston, America, and frequently travels with his work, particularly in Europe.

This podcast is powered by ZenCast.fm

Daniel Hahn discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Daniel Hahn is an award-winning translator, author and editor of numerous fiction and non-fiction works. He is one of the editors of The Ultimate Book Guide, the first volume of which won the Blue Peter Book Award. Other titles include children’s works such as Happiness Is a Watermelon on Your Head (a picture-book for children) and a new edition of The Oxford Companion to Children's Literature. He has been a chair for prestigious international prizes including the International Booker Prize, the IMPAC Dublin Award and the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize. He was previously chair for the Society of Authors and currently serves on the board of trustees for English PEN. His new book If This Be Magic is available at https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/if-this-be-magic-the-unlikely-art-of-shakespeare-in-translation-daniel-hahn/75a20e19805e32b5.

This podcast is powered by ZenCast.fm

Joanna Jensen discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Joanna Jensen is the founder of the British multi-award-winning baby and child personal care brand, Childs Farm which she created in 2010 as a result of her own daughters’ sensitive and eczema prone skin.

A former Investment Banker in both London and Hong Kong, Jensen transformed an emotional need into a commercial brand from day one. Her brand was launched into mainstream retailers Boots and Waitrose in 2014 and became the number one brand in the baby and child toiletries category in 2019 disrupting the more established legacy brands with its natural, sustainable and fruity formulas, and seeing Johnson Baby’s market share tumble from 32% to 13% in just 5 years.

In March 2022, Jensen sold 92% of Childs Farm for £36.8m to PZ Cussons Plc, the branded consumer goods business and owner of well-known brands such as St.Tropez, Imperial Leather, and Carex selling the final 8% in January 2025.

Jensen’s first book Making Business Child’s Play: How to build a winning brand was published in September 2025. From idea to launch, she details everything entrepreneurs don’t know they don’t know to endeavour to learn what took her six months to learn in 6 minutes.

This podcast is powered by ZenCast.fm