Podcasts

I listen to about a bazillion podcasts! I've hit that age or time of my life when all music is starting to sound the same, so I've almost entirely stopped listening to it now.

I have become quite a "skeptic" in the last ten year, so I have several of those I listen to. I'll just list a ton of those and others that I listen to and let you decide if you'd like to try any. There are some I'll leave off as they're... a bit offensive? The humour is a little off colour shall we say!

This is not in order of preference, this is in order that they're showing up on my podcast app according to recent release date!

Lore. Sort of mystical (true?)stories. I don't listen to it often, so I can't remember off hand exactly what it is, but I binge listen to several every few months.

WTF with Marc Maron. Another I binge listen to sometimes, it's an interview based podcast. He's interviewed Obama and other famous and not so famous people.

Dan Carlin's Hardcore history. I like it, but I find his tone of voice hard to concentrate on sometimes!

Skeptics Guide to the Universe Skeptics talking about science and stuff.

The Flop House. Some of the writers of The Daily Show talking about flopped and bad movies! It can be very funny.

The Allusionist. With Helen from Answer Me This, which I'll talk about later. Helen talks about the etymology of words and things. It's more interesting than it sounds!

Friday Night Comedy. Basically it's just the 6.30 comedy show from BBC radio 4 that was on Friday! It alternates between The Now Show and The News Quiz.

Stuff They Don't Want You To Know Audio Podcast. (there was a video one as well) All the conspiracy theories you can imagine! I'm far from a conspiracy theorist, total opposite in fact, but I find them fascinating!

Call Your Girlfriend. Two women call their friends and talk about stuff!

Strangers. People talking about their lives. Heartbreak, uplifting, yadda yadda. It's good for going for a walk!

No Such Thing as a Fish. The "elves" from QI do random little facts they learnt recently. Take with a pinch of salt sometimes as they're not always all that true, but it's cute.

Thomas and the Bible. Thomas. Reading the bible. Then making fun of it gently. It's interesting as I have no desire to read the bible, but I'm interested in what it actually says. I've been listening on and off for a few years and I'm STILL no where near through the old testament!

Freakonomics Radio. One of the writers of Freakonimics presents a radio show about economics in ways you'd never think of!

Sawbones. A doctor and her husband talk about the crazy practices in medicine of old, strange things going on now and sometimes various modern and long gone ailments.

Welcome to Night Vale. Best said by the web site! "Welcome to Night Vale is a twice-monthly podcast in the style of community updates for the small desert town of Night Vale, featuring local weather, news, announcements from the Sheriff's Secret Police, mysterious lights in the night sky, dark hooded figures with unknowable powers, and cultural events."

Judge John Hodgeman. John Hodgeman decides on peoples weird and wonderful problems they call him about! They each give their case and then he decides on who is right.

Stuff You Missed in History Class. A nice podcast about history you probably haven't heard before. There's a lot of "Stuff" podcasts and lots of them are interesting.

The British History Podcast. Goes way, way back! There's 196 eps so far and they're still on the vikings!

Death, Sex and Money. Stories and interviews about death, sex and money! Duh.

I Was There Too. People who took part in making "classic" films and film scenes talk about them!

Skeptoid. Fairly short, debunking various conspiracy theories etc

Talk Nerdy. Cara Santa Maria interviews people and they talk nerdy.

The Thrilling Adventure Hour. Newly made staged productions of old style American radio shows! Lovingly mocked.

The League of Nerds. Two or three nerds talking about nerdy stuff.

Reasonable Doubt. "Comedian Adam Carolla is joined by criminal defense attorney Mark Geragos for a no holds barred conversation about current events, pop-culture and their own personal lives. Along with occasional guests the guys will also take listener phone calls and answer your questions."

Thinking Sideways. A group of people talking about old true crime cases. Some very, very old, some quite recent.

Criminal. Another true "crime" podcast. Sometimes talks about very light things but is sometimes quite heavy.

Answer Me This Currently on holiday as the male presenter is about to have a baby with his wife, but they'll be back in a couple of months. Basically, 2 people talking about things people pose as questions to them!

The Bugle. The brother of Helen from Answer Me This and John Oliver talk and joke despairingly about the news! I think it's gone to monthly now as John Oliver is so busy, but I think it's still worth it.

Sword and Scale. Morbidly interesting. I kinda hate myself a little for listening to it, but it is fascinating. It's true crime, but often includes really horrible detail. Be warned, if you think you might be interested, it won't make you feel good about humanity or yourself!

And, as I've spent so long writing this, last but not least!

Oh No Ross and Carrie. One of my favourites at the moment! "We do it so you don't have to"!. They go along to weird cults and do weird things like try the new Soylent Green etc. At the moment, they're doing scientology!! It's fascinating if you like that kind of thing!

Aaaaahhh thank you Janine, this is SO exciting! Most of those sound really 'up my street'! The Allusionist sounds fantastic, I love stuff about etymology and really just about language in general so I know I'll be hooked on that one! I've been meaning to listen to Nightvale for the longest time, but I'd forgotten all about it so I think that's where I'll begin. I'm defo going to go for Oh No Ross and Carrie too, I love those things where people get themselves stuck into weird stuff so that they can tell you about the experience!
I'm going to save the list so that I can keep referring back to it, I like listening to podcasts when I go out walking too, I don't know anybody here yet so when my OH is at work the only time I leave the flat is to walk on the beach and listen to stories! Thanks so much for taking the time to give me such a comprehensive list! x

Yeah, I have terrible facial recognition, so even if I do know people I accidentally blank them! I listen to podcasts constantly when I'm walking, partly so I have an excuse that I blanked them lol

I hope you find some you like! I'm sure you will, a lot of those are very popular. It's hard to find ones that aren't so huge but maybe I'm more interested in. Besides, that's just some of the ones I listen to more  regularly, or at least binge on a few times a year. If I included the ones I have that I listen to less frequently or want to listen to and have added to my subscribe list but don't download, I'd need at least 50 hours in the day to listen to them and my post would have been crazy long!

Hahaha there are so many out there aren't there? That's why it occurred to me that my best bet was to ask around, I think you could easily miss out on some good ones without word of mouth recommendations!
I tried Night Vale yesterday and I loved it, so strange!
I partly wear my huge headphones all the time because I find doing 'stop and chats' really awkward at times haha! (I used to think I had bad facial recognition then I went for an eye test and it turned out I was just blind as a bat!) Not that I have to worry about that here, I literally know 4 people!

Lol my eye sight is actually pretty good. It takes me ages to find something in a face that I can latch on to and remember. I'm normally screwed if someone changes a hairstyle or something! If I know someone that has bright hair or something, changes are ok because I know them for having bright hair. If they dye their hair brown then I'm screwed again lol

Mostly I'm an introvert though and I just want to avoid conversations, like you. I've been known to duck out of the way of someone I know and really like, just because I really am not in the mood to talk or I feel drained from interactions earlier. I don't know many people here either, I'm not one for making friends locally and I move a lot, but people get to know me because of my hair and style of dressing, so people try and do that, as you put it, stop and chats! Bad enough when I know someone, but when someone I don't know stops me and I'm there trying to work out how I know this person and mentally stabbing myself for having such poor recognition... when I don't even know them!

I often find new ones on random forums. If I come across a forum by googling a question or something, I'll check if that forum has a thread on podcasts. That way I find ones on all kinds of stuff. The sword and scale one I find that I feel weird about listening too, I found on a fan forum of some kind when it was only about 2 episodes old. Sometimes I don't find anything interesting, but it can come up with some nice little nuggets too!

There is another podcast you could try. Sampler. I only listened to it once, not knowing what it was about, but decided quickly I shouldn't listen to it anymore. It's basically a podcast that listens to other podcasts and talks about them as little samples of what's out there. Useful if you want more podcasts. Not useful for me when I already have too many lol

Face-blindness is an actual thing isn't it? You might have that! I'm worse with names, I get it into my head that someone has a certain name (usually the name they look like they should have!) and then their real name just goes out of my head! I always second guess myself because of it too, my poor OH always has me whispering "are they called..." in his ear constantly when we're out with his friends!
I used to think I was an extrovert as I find it easy to talk to people at parties and stuff, and I know loads of people because of that but then I realised I was just over-compensating for feeling awkward and trying harder than other people! I have a lot of friends but left to my own devices I'd mostly rather just stay at home on my own! I sometimes think I sabotage myself by trying to keep up a large friend group when it takes a lot out of me to socialise!
I'll give Sampler a go, but I'll prob end up having to put a self-imposed ban on after a while too, I can see me getting carried away and lining up more than I'll ever be able to listen to!

Oh, it's totally a real thing! Though, I do well at recognising famous people in the tests, so I never register as face blind. But you spend ages staring at their faces on huge screens, so I tend to quickly see the quirks in famous peoples faces, and that's how I recognise them.

Real people I don't know, it takes me ages to be able to easily recognise them and I can still walk past even my own boyfriend and not recognise him if I've not noticed his walk. So I don't know! It's not a massive impediment, it's just a bit embarrassing, but anyone I know just lets me walk past (which has happened a lot) or stop me if they want to talk. I'd prefer the former if I'm honest lol I do have trouble with names too. I just avoid ever using peoples names! I've tried that method of association to remember names... I can't remember the associations I make lol

The extro/introvert thing is fascinating. People think I'm an extrovert when they don't know what they really mean. All it  really means is if you gain energy from being with people or if it zaps you. Boy does it zap me fast! I used to try and have large friend groups, but I realised quite quickly that I just can't do it and I end up resenting people. So now, I have lots of people I know online and consider friends, but it's perfect as we just talk when we need to. I've been part of a facebook group chat with people I met on a forum 15 years ago and we've been in this chat for about 4 years now! We can say nothing for days and then we might chat for hours. If you don't feel like it, you can just stay out and turn off notifications for a while. It suits us all so well! Other than that, I just have friends through my boyfriend. But back to the original point, I'm basically an outgoing introvert. So like you, I can talk very easily in a lot of situations. So yeah, I think you'd be better off slimming down your friend group a bit if you can. Or finding other ways to communicate, so you feel like you're always in touch, but you're not being drained in the same way. The internet really saved my sanity lol

An outgoing introvert sounds just about right for me too when you explain it like that! I have found that since I moved house I'm finding things a lot easier, as I can talk to my friends online without constantly feeling guilty that I haven't seen all of them that particular week (I just have to steel myself for visits home when I have super busy 4 day weekends!). It's weird coz I miss my close friends but I sort of don't want to make close friends here. I find too that the more time I spend alone the more I enjoy it and don't want to socialise!
The face-blind thing is so fascinating! I think perception in general is so weird, we can all really only ever know what we perceive things as but people see things so differently! Hahah the association thing doesn't work for me either, I accidentally call people by the thing I associate their name with and it's not always flattering!

I found a great podcast, very apt for us here!

http://thebeautybrains.com/blog/

About the science behind the products we're using.

That sounds pretty interesting!
Since we last spoke on this topic I became utterly obsessed with Welcome to Nightvale and I'm nearly caught up to date on it! I think I'm going to listen to the Allusionist next maybe. I've been listening to one called Start Up I think, about a guy starting his own business who has no experience of it before- it's quite apt for me at the moment!

I just listened to a couple of episodes of Lore and now I'm too spooked to go downstairs to my bedroom to get changed! (it was the one about ghost miners stuck in a tunnel that did it!)

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lol aww! It can be a bit creepy. I'm quite lucky that listening to stuff doesn't freak me out. Watching films can do, but only while I'm watching them. Jump scares get me, but REALLY annoy me, that's just cheating!

I've been listening to a nice little bite sized daily podcast that I save up and listen to at the end of the week. "On This Day" which is, probably obviously, stories of what happened on this day in history. I really like the presenter and the stories often link (though tenuously generally!) and it's informative and fun. My fav kind!

My only complaint is, as with too many others, that the music is a bit too loud in comparison with the vocal. When you're listening walking along a busy street you end up having the volume on the high side. I often find myself scrabbling for the volume button!

I hate jump-scarey films, I get really tense! But then eerie or spooky stuff really stays with me! I love spooky stuff though so I don't do myself any favours haha!
That sounds good, I'll have a look for that. My brother has got me into one called the Dead Authors Podcast. It's a comedy one, from a live show, based around the premise that HG Wells really has a time machine and is bringing back dead authors to be interviewed live on stage. Depending on how good the guest is it can be a bit hit or miss, but some are very funny (each author is played by a different guest comedian. That can have sound problems too, so you do have to keep one hand near the volume control, but they usually warn you if they think the episode has that going on in it.

Oh! I heard someone talking about that a while ago and then promptly forgot it! I'll add it to my subscriptions 😀 Thanks!

Let me know what you think, I'm finding it a bit hit and miss, but on the episodes that are a hit they are very very funny.