Repeat Until Funny

In 'A Christmas Carol', Charles Dickens wrote: “There is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good humour.” While Dickens clearly wasn’t keeping abreast of the latest developments regarding mutant coronavirus strains, his heart was most probably in the right place. After all, who isn’t moved to tears by that moment in ‘A Christmas Carol’ where Michael Caine buys a turkey for Kermit and his son Robin?

In this Christmas cracker of a podcast (cheaply made, bad jokes, and ultimately disappointing), James and I look at the history of winter revelry. We talk about the ancient Roman festival of Saturnalia, the (first) cancellation of Christmas, and disconcerting Victorian Christmas cards.      

In a special edition of Repeat Until Funny, James and I bark up the history of dogs, picking the bones of [multiple puns about dogs].

We look at Greyfriars Bobby, the Nazis, and the first dog in space.

Bone appetite.

In the last episode of the critically [redacted] Repeat Until Funny season one, James and I go toe to toe and mano a mano with the ever bobbing and weaving issue of censorship.

We discuss how annoying Socrates was, John Stuart Mill's obsession with corn, and Holocaust denial (it's hard to make that sound as pithy as the first two). Enjoy! Or [redacted]...

Socialism: equality, working together, community, dancing. What's not to like (apart from the dancing)? Yet, the charge persists: sounds good in theory, but it will never work in practice.

In this episode, we look at why this accusation has been levelled against Socialism and whether or not it is a fair summation. James also talks about Russian smurfs.

Statues: should they stay or should they go? If they stay there will be trouble, if they go there will be double (which suggests that they should stay as that would reduce the trouble by half).

In this episode, History teacher Cassie Cope and I grapple (not literally) with the topical issue of statues depicting questionable historical figures.

A moral panic: widespread fear, most often irrational, that someone or something is a threat to the values, safety, and interests of a community or society at large.

This episode of 'Repeat Until Funny' tries to learn the lessons of the Garrotting panic of 1862, where Londoners wore exuberant spiked collars to protect themselves from a wildly exagerrated threat.

This episode of Repeat Until Funny is led by James, who describes himself as a 'globally renowned scholar on Japan who never has made (and never will make) any mistakes on the subject.'

We look at three major Japanese civil wars, the importance of legends and collectivism to Japanese society, as well as how to pronounce Oda Nobunaga.

In this episode of Repeat Until Funny, me and James talked about why the old always seem to hate the young.

We look at Ancient Greece, 19th Century Britain, and the American ‘teenager’ of the 1950s and 60s. We also manage to repeatedly lambast and lament the youth of today.

Part two, where me and James look at the star of 'Bedtime for Bonzo' (and 40th President of the USA).

Episode two of Repeat Until Funny has a special guest: my bro(ther), James.

We talked about populist U.S. presidents, seeing what lessons can be gleamed from those who tried to make America great again the first time around.

It was so much fun (/ it went on for so long) that I’ve split it into two episodes to make it more palatable to the human ear.