TWT FM

At this year’s TWT festival in Brighton, TWTFM recorded its very first podcast in front a live audience. 

Featuring a glittering line up of actors, musicians and speakers from across the TWT community, we explored the role of political meetings in political organising and in the social lives of activists.

Taking up the suggestion that 'freedom is an endless meeting', we looked back at experiments in radical and participatory democracy across history up to the present day.

In this final episode of our series on leisure we look at holidays. During the pandemic, we’ve seen campaigners arguing for the “right to holiday”; now, as we finally begin to open up, we see the complications of permitting limited international travel as the pandemic continues to devastate other countries. Meanwhile, the hospitality industry within the UK braces itself for what could be its busiest ever season.

All this gave us at TWT cause to reflect on the psychic and political framing of holidaying. The aesthetics of holidays are bound by class; from the gentrification and dispossession that tourism and holiday home ownership can engender, to the extreme indulgences of luxury travel. Rethinking the conditions and implications of holidaying is part of a wider socialist project.

TWT FM is a podcast from The World Transformed. This episode was produced by Sarah Vowden, Matt Huxley, Aron Keller, Oli Cox and Charlie Clarke, with contributions from Stephanie Sherman from Autonomy, Owen Hatherley, Mark Jenkin, Ben Norris and Martha Dillon from Its Freezing in LA.

During lockdown, walking became one of the only activities we were allowed to do. Some people trudged the same daily route while others go out into the rural or urban environment to explore on foot, but for almost everyone, their relationship to walking changed in some way. But our ability to walk only extends as far as we are allowed to go. Access to space has been a key theme of this series, and questions about who owns land in both country and city dictates how we are able to use it - for walking, protesting, residing and more, rights being further curtailed by the proposed Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act currently going through Parliament. So come on an audio ramble with us, as we turn our attention to walking.

TWT FM is a podcast from The World Transformed. This episode was produced by Oli Cox, Matt Huxley, Sarah Vowden, Jess Thorne and Seth Wheeler with contributions from Nick Hayes, Luke Smith and Chloe Massey. You can find out more about the campaign for the right to roam by visiting www.righttoroam.org.uk, and you can find out more about how we can Kill the Bill by listening to our podcast on the subject from March. .

Spas, saunas and bathhouses may not seem to be the most obvious leisure spaces for the left to be fighting for. For many, they bear association with luxury and decadence. But this impression misses a rich and complex history of bathhouse culture,  one is imbued with a democratic and communal spirit. In this episode of TWT FM, we’ll explore spas as a place of relaxation and recovery from work, a space that challenges rigid masculinity and celebrates queer culture.

This episode of TWT FM was produced by Sarah Vowden, Charlie Clarke, Matt Huxley and Aron Keller with contributions from Julian Siravo from Autonomy, Sarah Anand, Alessandro Brava and Wayne Gruba from New Docklands Russian Banya and Steam bath, with audio from the film ‘The Baths’ by Anouska Samms and Sofia Pancucci-McQueen. You can view ‘The Baths’ here - https://vimeo.com/547387966

There was something of a national frenzy when pubs partially reopened on April 12th. But what exactly is it about these cozy wood-panelled institutions that inspires an almost fanatical level of devotion? To answer this question, we’ve ordered up three rounds of refreshing audio beverages to quench the minds of even the most parched listeners, including a potted history of pubs, discussions on organising bar staff, and a pub crawl to remember across time and space. 

TWT FM is a podcast from The World Transformed. This episode was produced by Matt Huxley, Sarah Vowden, Aron Keller, James Roadnight, Tom Williams and Charlie Clarke with contributions from Callum Cant, George Brierly, and Liz from the South London Bar Tenders Network.

On Sunday evening the 18th of April, 12 European football clubs shocked the footballing world by announcing plans for a new European Super League. The move by billionaire owners of the ‘dirty dozen’ clubs to create a closed-shop oligopoly would eviscerate grassroots football and destroy any remaining integrity at the top of the sport.

As opposition rings out from all quarters, we thought it would be good opportunity to release our extended interview with football writer David Goldblatt, which first aired in our Football Fandom episode. David is a writer, academic, and broadcaster who has written several highly acclaimed books about football including, ‘The Ball is Round: A Global History of Football’ and ‘The Game of Our Live’. Speaking to TWT’s Tom Williams, David traces the transformation of football from an elite aristocratic past-time to a mass working class phenomenon and latterly, a plutocratic plaything for finance capitalism

TWT FM is a podcast from The World Transformed. This episode was produced by Tom Williams, Matt Huxley and Aron Keller with contributions from David Goldblatt.

During lockdown, watching football at home has become the only way to enjoy one of the country’s favourite leisure activities. But football fandom simply hasn’t been the same without the camaraderie and collective joy that comes with supporting your team from the terraces or down the pub. In this episode, we explore how, with its aristocratic origins, football grew to be a major part of working class cultural life, and why football fandom remains an important site for socialist transformation.

TWT FM is a podcast from The World Transformed. This episode was produced by Tom Williams, Matt Huxley, Aron Keller, Charlie Clarke, Oli Cox and Sam Swann, with contributions from David Goldblatt, Viv Soni, Jane Connor, Joe Kennedy, Juliet Jacques, Viv Soni and Callum Bell.

Boredom has proliferated under COVID. But the type of boredom we’ve collectively experienced during lockdown is radically different to that of previous generations. Where once boredom was an empty listlessness, today it’s hard to claim that we ever truly have nothing to do. In this mini-episode of TWTFM, we explore boredom in the age of anxiety.

TWT FM is a podcast from The World Transformed. This episode was produced by James Roadnight and Aron Keller with contributions from Sam Swann, Marcus Gilroy Ware, Norah Lopez Holden, Hettie Chadwick Dickenson, Rivkah Brown, Oli Cox and Shaira Begum.

We’re taking a short break from our series on leisure to bring you a mini-episode responding to the wave of protests around the tragic death of Sarah Everard and the government's Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts bill. You'll hear from activists, lawyers and academics about what this draconian legislation actually entails and how we can effectively mobilise to resist it.

TWT FM is a podcast from The World Transformed. This episode was produced by Sarah Vowden, Matt Huxley and Aron Keller with contributions from Seth Wheeler, Hope Worsdale, Zehrah Hasan, Becka Hudson, and Luke Smith.

At TWT we believe a good party is political praxis. But with its enclosed spaces, sweaty bodies and often licentious activities, it seems as if dance-floors will be some of the last places to reopen after lockdown. This episode we go deep on dance: from striking workers shaking their hips to David Mancuso’s perfect house party, we explore how issues like space, time and resistance to commodification come to the fore when we move our bodies together.

TWT FM is a podcast from The World Transformed. This episode was produced by Matt Huxley, James Roadnight, Oli Cox, with contributions from Bile and Isabel from United Voices of the World, Dana Mills, Amirah Cole, Sophie and Teegs from Partisan, Liam from the Kazimier, Rhodri from Cube Microplex, Tim Lawrence, Jeremy Gilbert and Chloe Massey.

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