Better Known

By Ivan WiseSociety & Culture

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Typical duration
30 min
per episode

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Better Known episodes

April 12Joanna Jensen
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 is an active keen supporter of female founded businesses. She is an Angel Investor in 11 female founded brands and a leading advocate in supporting female founded businesses. She sits on the Angel Investment Committee for the Invest in Women Task Force.
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.
Small, consistent actions beat sporadic big ones
Your brain treats uncertainty as a threat
A ‘mast' year occurs every 3-5 years
Relationships are the real currency in business
Bees are infrastructure for our food system
Strong social connection is a biological need
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30 min
April 05Alexandra Tolstoy live
Alexandra Tolstoy returns to the podcast with a special live episode, recorded at a school. She discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.
Kyrgyzstan https://alexandratolstoytravel.com/
Female Explorers (Lady Jane Digby, Isabel Burton and the Decembrist Wives) https://www1.essex.ac.uk/history/documents/conferences/hero-soroka.pdf
Sailor’s Valentines https://www.worldofinteriors.com/story/sailors-valentines
Carbs https://www.bhf.org.uk/how-you-can-help/events/nutrition-for-sporting-events/carbohydrates-and-exercise
Lesser-known Victorian literature https://potpourri2015.wordpress.com/2018/05/24/author-profile-emily-eden/
Nukus Art Museum in Uzbekistan https://museumstudiesabroad.org/lysenko-savitsky-preserving-soviet-avant-garde/
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32 min
March 29Natalie Kyriacou
Natalie Kyriacou discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.
Natalie Kyriacou OAM is an award-winning environmentalist, writer, professional public speaker and charity director with a passion to spark curiosity about the natural world. She was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia and the Forbes 30 Under 30 honour for her services to wildlife and environmental conservation in 2018 and was recognised as one of The Australian’s Top 100 Innovators in 2022. She is a Board Director at the Foundation for National Parks and Wildlife and CARE Australia, the Founder and Chair of My Green World, a UNESCO Green Citizens Pathfinder, and an Australian Delegate and Climate Justice Lead at the W20. She was the United Nations Environment Programme’s Young Champions of the Earth finalist for her innovation in wildlife and environmental conservation and is LinkedIn’s Top Green Voice. Her new book is Nature's Last Dance, which is available at https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/nature-s-last-dance-natalie-kyriacou/376cc16767a86ffa.
Why Bonobos Have Peaceful Societies https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2022/06/bonobos-tolerant-peaceful-group-relationships-paved-way-for-human-peacemaking/
"Ugly" Animals https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/are-ugly-animals-lost-cause-180963807/
Chocolate and the Midge https://www.youtube.com/shorts/qFkUdZrfu2Q
The Joy and Impact of Birdwatchers https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/oct/12/birdwatching-australia-binoculars-going-birding-life
Nature is the World's Original Pharmacy https://theconversation.com/nature-is-the-worlds-original-pharmacy-returning-to-medicines-roots-could-help-fill-drug-discovery-gaps-176963
Stories of Wonder to Change the World https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/aug/24/hope-joy-absurdity-and-marvel-there-is-so-much-more-to-our-world-story-than-loss
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30 min
March 22Danny Bate
Danny Bate discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.
Danny Bate is a linguist, writer, broadcaster and podcaster who is fascinated by the study of historical languages and etymology. He took his BA and MPhil degrees from the University of York and the University of Cambridge respectively, and his PhD in linguistics from the University of Edinburgh. He can be found at dannybate.com. His new book is Why Q Needs U, which is available at https://dannybate.com/book/.
The alphabet is a product of migration, born out of a meeting of different peoples and their languages
Our letters started out as depictions of things (body parts, animals, everyday objects)
English's letters are connected via a big family tree to many other scripts, including many that seem 'alien' to its readers (e.g. Arabic, Hebrew)
There isn't universal one way to create writing, you pick which aspects of language (words, syllables, consonants) as a primary base
English and related alphabets aren't phonetically accurate (and that's okay)
Even when spelling diverges from a strict letter-to-sound ratio, new principles and processes can emerge
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31 min
March 15Deepa Anappara
Deepa Anappara discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.
Deepa Anappara’s debut novel, Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line, was named as one of the best books of the year by the New York Times, Washington Post, Time, Guardian and NPR. It won the Edgar Award for Best Novel, was longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction, and shortlisted for the JCB Prize for Indian literature. It has been translated into over twenty languages. Anappara is the co-editor of Letters to a Writer of Color, a collection of personal essays on fiction, race, and culture. The Last of Earth is her second novel and is available at https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-last-of-earth/deepa-anappara/9780861548620
19th century British mapping of Tibet by Indian surveyors https://royalsociety.org/blog/2023/09/mapping-india/
Cartography as a tool for furthering imperialism https://www.theelephant.info/analysis/2026/01/21/cartographic-colonialism-and-the-true-size-of-africa/
How we can find the colonised's experience in the coloniser's records and archives? https://shura.shu.ac.uk/30780/3/Cere-UncoveringColonialLegacy%28AM%29.pdf
The problems with 'Show, Don't Tell' and other similar creative writing diktats https://www.emwelsh.com/blog/show-dont-tell-rule
Indian is not a language! https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/11/25/should-a-country-speak-a-single-language
Tipu's Tiger at V&A https://www.vam.ac.uk/articles/tipus-tiger
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30 min
March 08Nigel Biggar
Nigel Biggar discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.
Nigel Biggar is Emeritus Regius Professor in the University of Oxford and Fellow of Christ Church. He founded in Oxford the MacDonald Institute for the study of Ethics and Empire. He is now a Fellow of St Cross College Oxford, and an author, lecturer and broadcaster throughout the English-speaking world. After many acclaimed academic books, he wrote and published the bestselling Colonialism. His new book is The New Dark Age: Why Liberals Must Win The Culture Wars, which is available at https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=the-new-dark-age-why-liberals-must-win-the-culture-wars--9781509568321.
Terence Malick's 1998 film, The Thin Red Line https://www.theguardian.com/film/1999/feb/26/film-of-the-week-the-thin-red-line
Helmuth James von Moltke (1907-45), anti-Nazi martyr https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/19666775-last-letters-the-prison-correspondence-between-helmuth-and-freya-von-mo
Sir John Malcolm (1769-1833): exemplar of empire https://www.westminster-abbey.org/abbey-commemorations/commemorations/sir-john-malcolm
'Mass graves' discovery in grounds of an Indian Residential School at Kamloops, BC, Canada, May 2021: to this day, no body has been disinterred. https://www.fraserinstitute.org/commentary/no-evidence-of-mass-graves-or-genocide-in-residential-schools
The World Values Survey 2023: showing Britain to be one of the least racist countries on earth. https://www.kcl.ac.uk/policy-institute/research-analysis/uk-world-values-survey
Kathleen Stock, martyr in the cause of free and honest thinking on campus https://www.theguardian.com/education/2025/mar/26/university-of-sussex-fined-freedom-of-speech-investigation-kathleen-stock
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31 min
March 01Matt Kaplan
Matt Kaplan discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.
Matt Kaplan is a science correspondent at the Economist. He is the author of The Science of Monsters and Science of the Magical, and co-author of David Attenborough’s First Life: A Journey Through Time. His new book is I Told You So! Scientists who were Ridiculed, Exiled and Imprisoned for Being Right, which is available at https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250372284/itoldyouso/.
The few doctors who worked out that handwashing was essential for preventing the spread of disease were attacked by their peers https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/ignaz-semmelweis-doctor-prescribed-hand-washing
George Washington disobeyed direct orders from the Continental Congress and inoculated his troops against smallpox during the Revolutionary War https://historyofvaccines.org/blog/washingtons-war-against-smallpox-revolutionary-inoculation-campaign/
Louis Pasteur was a vicious fellow who engaged in academic fraud. https://cms.viroliegy.com/2022/02/25/louis-pasteurs-unethical-rabies-fraud/
The mild mannered French physician Pierre Alexandre Louis worked out that the common practice of blood-letting was terrible for patients. https://www.grunge.com/812824/the-radical-history-of-bloodletting-explained/
Katalin Kariko https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/10/scientists-egos-key-barrier-to-progress-covid-vaccine-pioneer-katalin-kariko
Experiments exploring novel ideas are getting rarer as the effort needed to get research done steadily goes up https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/aer.20180338
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30 min
February 22Jane Dougherty
Jane Dougherty discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.
Jane Dougherty, of Irish origin, grew up in Yorkshire and now lives in France. She began writing by coming up with short stories and a YA series for her teenage children. Her first novel was published by an American publisher Musa in 2014. Since then, her poetry and short stories have been published online, in anthologies and magazines. She has been nominated twice for the Pushcart Prize and has published three poetry pamphlets. Her most recent novel, The Darkest Tide was published by Northodox Press in 2025. Pasiphae is available at https://www.waterstones.com/book/9781917163293
Déjà s'envole la fleur maigre (Paul Meyer, 1960) https://www.artforum.com/columns/paul-meyers-deja-senvole-la-fleur-maigre-231206/
Beatrice Cenci https://www.througheternity.com/rome/beatrice-cenci-life-death-rome
The Lot-et-Garonne département https://www.guide-du-lot-et-garonne.com/en/tourism/discover/the-lot-et-garonne.html
The works of Natalia Ginzburg https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1985/11/07/the-force-of-habit/
The painter Franz Marc https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v41/n12/michael-hofmann/at-the-orangerie
The Irish legend about Grainne and Diarmuid https://www.discoveringireland.com/the-legend-of-diarmuid-and-grainne/
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29 min
February 15Adam Steiner
Adam Steiner discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.
Adam Steiner is a swim-teacher, freelance journalist and author. When not saving lives he sits dreaming about all the books he will never write.
He has written several books of music criticism: Into The Never: Nine Inch Nails And The Creation Of The Downward Spiral, Silhouettes And Shadows: The Secret History of David Bowie’s Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps) and Darker With The Dawn: Nick Cave's Songs Of Love And Death.
He runs the Disappear Here poetry film project – 27 x collaborative poetry-films about Coventry Ringroad – and now curates the Living With Buildings poetry film series, screening experimental films about people, poetry and place. For more information, go to https://adamsteiner.uk/.
Being There, Jerzy Kozinski: movie and book – so this is a great example of late/last great art - Peter Sellers was very attached to the story and was determined to make the movie, so he had do more pink panthers for the studio to back him.
Lifeguards / Swim Teachers - under-appreciated, under-sexed, underpaid its one of the hardest jobs out there - sitting in a chair dreaming, not doing anything, but people always take it for granted.
40 - So we're always told that 40 is the new 30 etc - but it's a dangerous, difficult age.
When Biographies Become Biopics: Will Self said writers reading biographies of other writers is basically lit-porn – so we get caught up in a life narrative that often informs the work but steers us away from the original.
Real Dictators podcast - This is my go to 'easy' listening podcast, particularly when really ill I can just leave it on in the background and absorb.
Charity shops... the ultimate form of social progression. In London charity shops are a mecca for the undiscerning buyer.
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29 min
February 08Erin Somers
Erin Somers discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.
Erin Somers is a reporter and news editor at Publishers Lunch. Her first novel, Stay Up with Hugo Best was a Vogue Best Book of the Year in 2019. Her writing has appeared in the New Yorker, Paris Review, New York Times Book Review, New Republic, New York Magazine, Atlantic, Esquire, GQ, Best American Short Stories and many other publications. She has been the recipient of an Emerging Writer Fellowship from the NYC Centre for Fiction, a fellowship from the Millay Colony, and was a 2020 finalist for a National Magazine Award. She lives in New York's Hudson Valley with her family. Her new novel is The Ten Year Affair, which is available at https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/the-ten-year-affair-erin-somers/7940888?ean=9781837264568&next=t.
The record Entrance Music by Okonski https://okonski.bandcamp.com/album/entrance-music
The author Max Apple https://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/20/books/review/Hodgman-t.html
The film 101 Reykjavik https://www.theguardian.com/film/News_Story/Critic_Review/Observer_review/0,,501343,00.html
This recording of October in the Railroad Earth by Jack Kerouac and Stephen Allen https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hjPZpaXNsw
The Codex Seriphinianus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codex_Seraphinianus
Colony Pizza in Fairfield County, Connecticut https://colonygrill.com/
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28 min

About Better Known

From the publisher's feed

Each week, a guest makes a series of recommendations of things which they think should be better known. Our recommendations include interesting people, places, objects, stories, experiences and ideas…