Better Known

Rosie Andrews discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Rosie Andrews was born and grew up in Liverpool, the third of twelve children. She studied history at Cambridge before becoming an English teacher. She lives in Hertfordshire with her husband and daughter. The Leviathan is her debut novel.

The Mentalist https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2014/jan/09/mentalist-box-set-review

Haggis https://www.historytoday.com/archive/historians-cookbook/history-haggis

Visiting cathedrals https://britishheritage.com/travel/best-cathedrals-england

Natural History Museum in Tring https://www.dacorum.gov.uk/home/leisure-culture/shopping-and-town-centres/tring/natural-history-museum-at-tring

CS Lewis Space Trilogy https://plumfieldandpaideia.com/cs-lewiss-space-trilogy/

Elder Futhark runes http://www.shieldmaidenssanctum.com/blog/2019/3/12/the-elder-futhark-runes-and-their-meanings

This podcast is powered by ZenCast.fm

Raymond Baker discusses with Ivan six aspects of financial secrecy which should be better known.

Raymond Baker is the Founding President of Global Financial Integrity and the author of Capitalism’s Achilles Heel: Dirty Money and How to Renew the Free-Market System, published by John Wiley & Sons and cited by the Financial Times as one of the “best business books of 2005.”

He has for many years been an internationally respected authority on corruption, money laundering, growth, and foreign policy issues, particularly as they concern emerging market and developing countries and impact western economic and foreign interests. He has written and spoken extensively, testified often before legislative committees in the United States, Canada, the European Union, and the United Kingdom, been quoted worldwide, and has commented frequently on television and radio in the the United States, Europe, Africa, Latin America, and Asia on legislative matters and policy questions, including appearances on ABC News’ Nightline, Al Jazeera, BBC, Bloomberg TV, the CBS Evening News, CNN, NPR, PBS, and Four Corners (ABC1 in Australia), among others.

His latest book is Invisible Trillions: How Financial Secrecy Is Imperiling Capitalism and Democracy and the Way to Renew Our Broken System, which you can buy at https://www.amazon.com/Invisible-Trillions-Imperiling-Capitalism-Democracyand-ebook/dp/B09YDT98PY

This podcast is powered by ZenCast.fm

Steve Cross discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Dr Steve Cross helps experts to become the most fun, engaging and effective versions of themselves. He's a comedian and trainer and has previously failed at careers in science, museums, charities, education and universities. Steve runs Science Showoff events across the country and can be heard on his messy Dungeons and Dragons podcast, Chaotic Adequate. His website is drstevecross.com.

NBA Basketball https://www.smallerearth.com/uk/blog/basketball-explained

Tales of the Beanworld https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/ComicBook/TalesOfTheBeanworld

Road House https://www.flickeringmyth.com/2020/09/an-undeniable-action-classic-road-house/

Plumbing https://home.howstuffworks.com/home-improvement/plumbing/plumbing-basics-ga.htm

Kinnie Zest https://www.finewinesellers.co.uk/kinnie-zest.html

McMansionhell.com https://www.madamearchitect.org/interviews/2022/10/1/kate-wagner

This podcast is powered by ZenCast.fm

Kia Abdullah discusses with Ivan six things which she thinks should be better known.

Kia Abdullah is a bestselling author and travel writer. Her novels include Take It Back, a Guardian and Telegraph thriller of the year; Truth Be Told, which was shortlisted for the Diverse Book Awards; and Next of Kin, which was longlisted for the CWA Gold Dagger Award and won the Diverse Book Awards in 2022. Kia has also been selected for The Times Crime Club. Her latest novel is Those People Next Door.

Kia has written for The New York Times, the Guardian, the Financial Times, The Times and the BBC, and is the founder of Asian Booklist, a non-profit that advocates for diversity in publishing and helps readers discover new books by British Asian authors.

For more information about Kia and her writing, visit her website at kiaabdullah.com, or follow her at @KiaAbdullah on Instagram and Twitter.

Yellowjackets https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/tv/story/2021-12-09/yellowjackets-showtime-juliette-lewis-christina-ricci-melanie-lynskey

Danakil Depression https://www.brilliant-ethiopia.com/regions/danakil-depression

Cultural Muslims https://theconversation.com/cultural-muslims-like-cultural-christians-are-a-silent-majority-32097

Small Kindnesses http://www.danushalameris.com/poems.html

Plain English campaign https://www.plainenglish.co.uk/

London Boys https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpyg2Ig7wRo

This podcast is powered by ZenCast.fm

Do you ever have trouble remembering PIN numbers? Ivan Wise teaches you how: all you have to do is remember a hundred facts about the twentieth century and the exact year in which they happened.

Dolly the sheep https://dolly.roslin.ed.ac.uk/facts/the-life-of-dolly/index.html

Bob Beamon's long jump https://vault.si.com/vault/1968/10/28/the-long-long-jump

The climbing of Mount Everest https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/conquering-everest-22118304/

This podcast is powered by ZenCast.fm

Alexandra Popoff is a former Moscow journalist and Alfred Friendly Press Partners fellow. She is an expert on Russian literature and cultural history and the author of five literary biographies, including the award-winning Sophia Tolstoy and Vasily Grossman and the Soviet Century. Her book The Wives became a Wall Street Journal best non-fiction title for 2012. Popoff’s biography of Vasily Grossman won the Canadian Jewish Literary Award for biography, Saskatchewan Nonfiction Award, became a finalist in the 2019 National Jewish Book Awards, and was long-listed for the 2019 Cundill History Prize. Her new book, a biography of Ayn Rand, will be published by Yale University Press (Jewish Lives) in 2024. Popoff has written articles and reviews for The Wall Street Journal, Huffington Post, Literary Hub, The Globe and Mail, National Post, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and Tablet Magazine. You can find out more at http://russianliteratureandbiography.com/.

Immigration as an opportunity for a new beginning https://hbr.org/2021/08/research-why-immigrants-are-more-likely-to-become-entrepreneurs

Moving to Saskatoon https://www.britannica.com/place/Saskatoon-Saskatchewan

Biographies of lesser-known people https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/alexandra-popoff/wives/

The Forsaken: An American Tragedy in Stalin’s Russia by Tim Tzouliadis https://www.sfgate.com/books/article/Nonfiction-review-Tzouliadis-The-Forsaken-3197333.php

The idea of outlawing war https://wagingnonviolence.org/2018/07/hidden-success-kellogg-briand-peace-pact/

The Parable of Talents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_talents_or_minas

This podcast is powered by ZenCast.fm

Ivan Wise discusses Christmas music that should be better known.

Christmas is our most sturdily conservative tradition, and this December you will hear once again the same music that you have heard every other Christmas. The usual suspects dominate playlists in shopping malls, on radio stations and at parties. But how did we end up with this apparently immovable canon of Christmas songs? And what other Christmas music is out there that we should be listening to instead? George Ratcliffe Woodward, lyricist of Ding Dong Merrily on High, gets a rap makeover, Nikolai Gogol’s short story Christmas Eve inspired operas by Tchaikovsky and Rimsky-Korsakov and Tom Lehrer arrives to throw some cynical scorn over the Christmas schmaltz.

Past Three O’Clock https://www.hymnsandcarolsofchristmas.com/Hymns_and_Carols/past_three_a_clock.htm

This podcast is powered by ZenCast.fm

Francis Hamel discusses with Ivan six things which he thinks should be better known.

Francis Hamel is a British painter based in the UK with studios in Oxfordshire and Le Marche, Italy. He is known for landscapes and portraits as well as finely structured paintings of trees and flowers, paintings of the circus and theatre. In 2019 the V&A held an exhibition of his portraits, a monograph of his work was published in the same year.

Born in 1963 and trained at The Ruskin School, Oxford Francis Hamel has lived and worked in the William Kent designed gardens of Rousham in Oxfordshire for more than twenty years. The house, gardens and wider landscape are a constant source of inspiration. His work is held in public and private collections all over the world. Find out more at https://www.jmlondon.com/artists/francis-hamel/ and https://francishamel.com.

Drawing as a form of therapy https://www.theschooloflife.com/shop/drawing-as-therapy/

Jane Dowling http://www.chappelgalleries.co.uk/exhibitions/jane-dowling/jane-dowling.htm

John Cowper Powys https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1985/03/28/life-in-the-head/

Le Marche https://www.lonelyplanet.com/articles/top-experiences-italy-le-marche

Bitter Cherries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prunus_cerasus

Rousham Gardens in the winter https://rousham.org/

This podcast is powered by ZenCast.fm

Louise Hare discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Louise Hare is a London-based writer and has an MA in Creative Writing from Birkbeck, University of London. Originally from Warrington, the capital is the inspiration for much of her work, including This Lovely City and Miss Aldridge Regrets.

This Lovely City was featured on the inaugural BBC TWO TV book club show, Between the Covers, and was shortlisted for the RSL Ondaatje Prize. Louise was selected for the Observer Top 10 Best Debut Novelists list in 2020, securing her place as an author to watch. Miss Aldridge Regrets is her second novel.

This podcast is powered by ZenCast.fm

For the 250th episode, Alan Rusbridger discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.

Alan Rusbridger was Editor in Chief of the Guardian from 1995-2015. He is currently editor of Prospect Magazine and Chair of the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. Until 2021 he was Principal of Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford.

During his time at the Guardian, both he and the paper won numerous awards, including the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service Journalism. The Guardian grew from a printed paper with a circulation of 400,000 to a leading digital news organisation with 150m browsers a month around the world. He launched now-profitable editions in Australia and the US as well as a membership scheme which now has 1m Guardian readers paying for content.

He was born in Zambia, was educated at Cambridge and lives in London. He is the co-author of the BBC drama, Fields of Gold. He is a keen amateur musician and the author of Play it Again. His memoir of journalism and its future, Breaking News, was published in 2018. He is a member of the Facebook Oversight Board. His latest book, News and How to Use it, was published in 2020.

Bone-conducting headphones https://www.soundguys.com/bone-conduction-headphones-20580/

Audio sleep masks https://www.headphonesty.com/2021/02/best-sleep-mask-with-headphones/

The music of Billy Mayerl http://www.perfessorbill.com/comps/wmayerl.shtml

Electric bikes https://www.which.co.uk/reviews/electric-bikes/article/best-electric-bikes-aJMUp0P2yY0r

Why free speech matters https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/feb/26/free-speech-bigots-no-platform

Prospect magazine www.prospectmagazine.co.uk

This podcast is powered by ZenCast.fm