It’s the annual bonus episode. Throughout the year, the people who appear on the show tell me a lot of interesting stuff, not all of which is relevant to the episode they initially appeared in, so I stash it away in preparation for this moment. This year, hear about the history of roller skates, zazzification, giant origami, the heat death of the universe and more.

Find information about this episode at http://theallusionist.org/bonus2017.

Come to see the live Allusionist show at SF Sketchfest, 10pm 12 January at the Brava Theater in San Francisco. Tickets are on sale now at http://tinyurl.com/allusionistsfsketchfest2017.

The show’s online home is http://theallusionist.org. Stay in touch at http://twitter.com/allusionistshow and http://facebook.com/allusionistshow.

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Charles Dickens wrote about the plight of the impoverished and destitute members of British society. So how come his name is a synonym for rosy-cheeked, full-stomached, fattened-goose, hearty merry “God bless us every one” Christmas?

Avery Trufelman and Katie Mingle of 99% Invisible report from the streets of Victorian London at the annual Dickens Christmas Fair in Daly City, California, while historian Greg Jenner explains the origins of the festive traditions for which Dickens gets the credit, without even wanting the credit – in fact, his motivation for writing A Christmas Carol was far from a cash-in on Christmas.

Find out more about this episode at http://theallusionist.org/dickens-christmas.

The show’s online home is http://theallusionist.org. Stay in touch at http://twitter.com/allusionistshow and http://facebook.com/allusionistshow.

Support the show: http://patreon.com/allusionist

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Somebody has really ticked you off. You’re all steamed up inside and you want to vent that rage using words, but you don’t want to confront them directly because you’re either too polite or too cowardly. So do you:

A. Subtweet them.
B. With your finger, scrawl an insulting message into the dirt on their car.
C. Get a small sheet of lead, scratch into it a message cursing your enemies, roll it up and throw it into your nearest sacred spring?

Oh, I forgot to mention that it’s 1,700-2,000 years ago and you’re living in the Ancient Roman Empire, so the answer is C.

Stephen Clews, the manager of the Roman baths at Bath, shows us the curses that were sloshing around in the waters for hundreds of years.

NB One category A and one category B swear appear in this episode.

Find out more about this episode at http://theallusionist.org/curse-tablets.

The show’s online home is http://theallusionist.org. Stay in touch at http://twitter.com/allusionistshow and http://facebook.com/allusionistshow.

Support the show: http://patreon.com/allusionist

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You’re holding a letter. What’s inside? A weather report from 5,000 miles away? Some devastating family history? A single word? A heartfelt dispatch from your past self that’s about to change the course of your life?

Find out more about this episode at http://theallusionist.org/open-me-2.

The show’s online home is http://theallusionist.org. Stay in touch at http://twitter.com/allusionistshow and http://facebook.com/allusionistshow.

Support the show: http://patreon.com/allusionist

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From Me To You’s Alison Hitchcock and Brian Greenley didn’t know each other well. But when Brian was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer, Alison offered to write him letters. 100 letters later, their lives were changed.

Ear Hustle is a podcast made inside San Quentin by and about the men incarcerated there, in collaboration with Nigel Poor. In prison, a letter is a precious thing.

Find out more about this episode at http://theallusionist.org/open-me-1.

The show’s online home is http://theallusionist.org. Stay in touch at http://twitter.com/allusionistshow and http://facebook.com/allusionistshow.

Support the show: http://patreon.com/allusionist

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Roman Mars returns for our annual dose of eponyms – words that derive from people’s names. This year: explosive revelations about the origins of the word ‘guy’. Find out more about this episode at http://theallusionist.org/guy.

CONTENT NOTE: the episode contains a description of 17th century torture and execution.

The show’s online home is http://theallusionist.org. Stay in touch at http://twitter.com/allusionistshow and http://facebook.com/allusionistshow.

Support the show: http://patreon.com/allusionist

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You’ve encountered technobabble when Doc Brown is shouting about flux capacitors in Back To The Future, or when Isaac Asimov writes about positronic brains. Astrophysicist Katie Mack and NASA JPL technologist Manan Arya discuss how science fact relates to science fiction.

This episode is a collaboration with Eric Molinsky of Imaginary Worlds; listen to his episode about technobabble, featuring ACTUAL HOLLYWOOD TECHNOBABBLERS, at http://imaginaryworldspodcast.org.

The show’s online home is http://theallusionist.org. Stay in touch at http://twitter.com/allusionistshow and http://facebook.com/allusionistshow.

Support the show: http://patreon.com/allusionist

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“Accent is identity. It’s a way of encoding and signaling – almost completely at an unconscious level for most people – who they feel like they are, who they want to be seen as, what group they feel like they belong to.” The podcast Twenty Thousand Hertz investigates how accents have evolved in the UK and USA.

Hear Twenty Thousand Hertz at http://20k.org and find out more about this episode at http://theallusionist.org/evolution-of-accents.

Stay in touch at http://twitter.com/allusionistshow and http://facebook.com/allusionistshow.

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Crossword-solving is often a solitary activity – over breakfast; on the train; on the loo… But a few times a year, crossword puzzle enthusiasts gather in their hundreds to compete to be the fastest, most accurate crossword-solver. This episode comes to you from a church basement on the Upper East Side of New York City, wherein takes place America’s second largest crossword puzzle tournament: Lollapuzzoola.

For more about this episode, visit http://theallusionist.org/lollapuzzoola.

Stay in touch at http://twitter.com/allusionistshow and http://facebook.com/allusionistshow.

Support the show: http://patreon.com/allusionist

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“It’s sort of frozen body language; that’s what handwriting analysis is about.”

Since it caught on a couple of hundred years ago, graphology – analysing handwriting to deduce characteristics of the writer – has struggled to be taken seriously as a practice. But undoubtedly, there are things about ourselves that we can’t help but reveal in our handwriting. Graphologist Adam Brand explains the ‘pseudoscience/useful art’.

For more about this episode, visit http://theallusionist.org/graphology.

Stay in touch at http://twitter.com/allusionistshow and http://facebook.com/allusionistshow.

Support the show: http://patreon.com/allusionist

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.