Podcasts 2021

I now subscribe to a good few cricket podcasts, too many to digest all their output. Probably the best of them are Wisden Cricket (from the magazine of the same name) and The Analyst Inside Cricket (Simon Hughes and Simon Mann). The latter is more frequent but shorter, the former the opposite; both have their place. A shout out to Zero Ducks Given, a pro-am combination that can be fun to listen to, though the banter sometimes palls - you need to be there to appreciate it. Also, The Grade Cricketer, an Australian weekly, is engaging if you've got the time (almost always an hour plus). During the year we lost The Drinks Break, which was great when it started, though I'm not surprised it ended, as I guess not many productions even break even, let alone justify the time spent. Unusually, they made it clear on Twitter that it's ceased to be, rather than leave everyone wondering.

No real change in the science podcasts though I do find time for The Supermassive Podcast from the Royal Astronomical Society. It's a really rubbish name to be honest, but the content is interesting, and being monthly is about right.

On the news and general affairs front, I can't help but subscribe to the daily (4-minutes) Coronavirus Global Update from the BBC, surely a venture we all hope can be retired in 2022. My preferred news podcasts though come from the Financial Times, notably the weekly Payne's Politics and the week-daily FT News Briefing. A new (to me) is Chinese Whispers by Cindy Yu and The Spectator.

For investment, the MoneyWeek Podcast is often excellent, especially when Merryn is engaging with her sidekick, John Stepek. Chats with fund managers, which are a big part of its output, are often soporific fare however, something which is also now true of the Investors Chronicle. The Chronicle has lost some key people this year, two of whom (John Hughman and Phil Oakley) now produce Quality Shares Podcast, though it's irregular. All in all, this parting of the ways seems to have resulted in less than a zero-sum output.

In the miscellaneous category, honourable mentions go to The Lock In with Jeremy Paxman (long-form interviews of interesting people), The Perpetual Chess Podcast (better and better it gets, though I sometimes wish it were shorter), and Atomic Hobo (a bit niche, this one). And I can't ignore What Most People Think, the excellent no-ads production from comedian Geoff Norcott. It's in two forms: solo where he shares his views on this week's news and social media storms, and the interview format. His guests are usually other comedians, though the chat is not as comedic as you might expect. All in all, I prefer the monologue version, though that puts me in the minority, apparently.

Currently dormant but expected back in the new year is The Lazarus Heist, from the BBC, which is a documentary on cyber warfare in relation to North Korea. One we may have lost is FITV, another niche production (journalists based in the Falklands, basically) that I would have probably never subscribed to were it not for the yearning to hear something different during Lockdown.