these weird isles

These Weird Isles - the second of two podcasts in which I explore Japan - islands as weird as the UK . I discover a space at the centre of the Japanese belief system and reflect on how the Japanese must perceive the British.

The first of a two part interlude - Those Weird Isles: Japan. Next time - Kyoto.

The South Downs is a one hundred mile long ridge of chalk laid down in the cretaceous period. Chalk is the remains of single celled creatures that drifted through the oceans around 140 to 66 million years ago. It makes up most of south east England and is a relatively young rock, but travel north and west and the geology of the UK gets much older. The science of geology deals with these huge time spans by creating aeons, eras, periods and epochs. But geology is not static. Change is everywhere. The world is not made up of things, only processes.

Thanks to Tim for some beautifully volcanic guitar.

This is the 'Happy Valley' of Sgt Catherine Cawood, and the home of the Cragg Valley Coiners. Ted Hughes, Poet Laureate was born here, his wife, Sylvia Plath, is buried here. We stayed in a converted piggery on a hilltop, where jackdaws tapped at the window and the fog sealed us off from the world outside. Spoiler alert: a glimpse of the end of Series 3 is given away here.

A misguided attempt to record on site, an 'outside broadcast' which degenerates into a pub crawl. I'm joined by Caerleon resident and local historian Will O'Connell, a man whose knowledge of Caerleon he doesn't share with us here. Most of this podcast takes place in the Roman fortress town in south Wales. It's a fascinating place, but we spent most of our time in the pub. You'll learn nothing.

A trip to East Anglia, to the Fens and to Norfolk in search of finger in the ear folk singers, Brexit country and a vision of the future when the floods come and the UK becomes a minor archipelago, its lowlands lost and forgotten under the North Sea.

(I drove east, not west, from Cardiff. This mistake was not deliberate. I am an idiot).

The dubious story of the Neanderthal brothers of Tregaron and the role of the equally reclusive cyberneticist Stafford Beer in world events.

George Orwell on Jura writing 1984, smoking roll ups and trying to shake off tuberculosis.

William Hershel, professional musician, amateur astronomer, discoverer of Uranus, built a telescope in Slough so huge it remained the biggest in the world for fifty years.

Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein in Bath. Jane Austen lived there a few years before. Could the two have crossed paths?