Podcasts 2022

Welcome to my annual roundup of podcasts on my listen-to list in 2022. It hasn't been a classic year for new podcasts, at least not of the sort that interest me; and several have fallen by the wayside. This isn't a complete list, but it's stuff that I think has changed during the year.

Discards

Starting with those that I unsubscribed or muted this year: Zero Ducks Given and The Supermassive Podcast finally became too tiresome to listen to, despite the occasional good content. No complaints, because we don't pay for this stuff; and who am I to say that the participants shouldn't (seem to?) be having such a good time when they produce the material we benefit from. But to enjoy it with them, you would need to be there, and of course we aren't. So all the laughing, joshing and in-jokes can fall a bit flat when you're tramping round the park on a Monday evening in your usual hour of evening exercise.

I've also taken a break from Non Censored (Rosie Holt) and What Most People Think (Geoff Norcott). The first because it's all a bit samey, which can get dull when it's a weekly production. Ditto the second, because as a long-time listener and reader of his books, I get to intuit what Geoff thinks most people think. And the interview pieces with other comedians are likely to be interesting only to those also in the trade - I doubt that me chatting with another database dude would interest anyone much either.

Retired

We lost Taking Politics in the spring, which was a surprise and a pity. I realise that producing this stuff must be time expensive, but I'm still surprised they didn't continue on an occasional basis. I haven't heard from David Runciman since.

Looking for some kind of replacement, I quickly found The Rest is Politics, a political commentary with Alastair Campbell and Rory Stewart. They approach politics from slightly different angles: one is a journalist and former member of Tony Blair's inner circle during his time as Labour PM; the other was a civil servant, soldier, Tory minister and leadership candidate. Originally intended as a debating forum ("disagree agreeably"), there is currently more consensus than dispute. The output might be described as attractive to the enlightened metropolitan elite, which is where I probably am.

To complete politics, the excellent Payne's Politics will need to be renamed as the eponymous journalist has moved on from the FT. But with so much talent in house, I'm confident I'll still be listening to something much like it each Saturday morning as I vacuum Neddyhaar Towers.

Other podcasts to fall into regretted quiescence are those from Andrew Neil, Jeremy Paxman and Mark Nicholas.

New Podcasts

On a related note, I now take In Moscow's Shadows from Mark Galeotti, which is an excellent briefing on Russian affairs. The subject matter is of course topical, and it's good enough to subscribe to with real money, though I don't suppose that's the reason he does it.

Merryn Somerset Webb has moved to Bloomberg and has launched a new podcast, Merryn Talks Money. It looks good so far, but despite the agreeable reintroduction of John Stepek (also now relocated from Moneyweek to Bloomberg), it's early days. This also seems to mean that the Moneyweek production has fallen by the wayside.

Others

The idiosyncratic Dominic Frisby is back with The Flying Frisby, which covers all manner of stuff from promoting his performance art projects to cryptocurrencies and gold. It's short - probably mercifully so - but worth a listen once or twice a week.

I also like Money Makers by Jonathan Davis, a weekly discussion of Investment Trusts, which is much better since its change of format. And of course, I always listen to Uncle Jim's World of Bonds when it's being produced.

Quite why the BBC have cajoled those of us who listen to Inside Science to use their imperfect Sounds app, I don't know. In any case, I probably listen to it less then I used to as a result. Excellent alternatives can be found with Sabine Hossenfelder's YouTube production; and Futureproof from Newstalk, lead by the excellent Jonathan McCrea.

Alan Fraser, RIP

I hardly ever post much at this site (or anywhere else much, for that matter) and today there are two. Both are some words recalling old friends who have recently slipped away. This post is about Alan Fraser, a former member of Beckenham & Bromley chess club and, for some years, a regular member of the club's London League team that I led.

Always a reliable team member, Alan would often score well against much stronger opposition, especially if the game didn't go on too long. One in particular, when we were playing a much stronger team, Alan's opponent noisily complained about having to play someone with such a low grade relative to his own. He played quickly and carelessly, whereas Alan played in his normal, unhurried style. The next thing we knew, we're one point ahead as Alan won a rook for nothing, leading to more noise as his opponent had to resign and leave in a huff! He was very pleased with that result, and rightfully so.

I only play the odd weekend tournament, but whenever I did there was a very good chance I'd find him there, and we would exchange the usual pleasantries, and gossip a little about mutual acquaintances. And if he wasn't there, he was usually playing elsewhere. He really did play an awful lot of chess, by anyone's standards.

I sometimes wondered whether he occasionally "managed" his grade, perhaps making draws at tournaments where he stood no chance of winning, just to ensure that he wouldn't be pushed up to a higher graded section in future events. Or maybe it was just the stamina failed him in better positions, who knows. In any case, the only occasion I remember playing him myself - an end-of-season, time-handicapped fun event - and he beat me!

Alan was a quietly spoken chap, but with a surprising sense of humour, happy to share opinions  that might be considered controversial within the small world of UK chess. There's a little more, with some pictures, here.

Farewell, Alan.

Nigel Jones, RIP

I was saddened to read of the death of my old work colleague, Nigel Jones, this week. We'd been colleagues at the ill-fated IT Partners, a consultancy setup by the computer manufacturer, ICL, just before the early-nineties recession. Nigel was a really nice guy who had a senior operational role there, whilst I was still pretty wet behind the ears (as they say). One of relatively few to be on paid client work, Nigel was working in the UK and all-over, whilst somehow managing the workload of a county councillor.

I only learned of his death last night, whilst repeating the story of how "a friend of mine became an MP by mistake". This was Nigel, who stood in his local constituency of Cheltenham for the Liberal Democrats in the 1992 election. At that time, Cheltenham was a safe Tory seat, and Nigel was not expecting to change that. However, it was too soon it seems, for the citizens of Cheltenham to accept a black MP, official Tory candidate or not. The rightfully aggrieved losing candidate was John Taylor, who has an interesting later story of his own.

To his shock and horror, Nigel was returned as the MP for Cheltenham.

I can still remember talking to him about his unexpected career move in the office the following week. It was a mixed blessing, he said: an MP's salary was less than he currently had, and although I'm sure he was excited by the challenge, there was the danger of being dumped out at the following election and struggling to re-establish himself in a career where five years out of the business is a long time. He needn't have worried, as Cheltenham returned him again and again, until in 2005 he entered the Lords.

We met by chance a couple of years later on a train to Paddington. He didn't seem to be having much fun: MPs were subject to a lot of abuse, he said; and there wasn't great support for day to day duties. He'd just come from a ceremonial tree-planting ceremony at a Swindon hospital. But there was no hole for it, and the ground was frozen hard. They'd had to implore the press photographers not to show that Nigel was holding the tree just to keep it from falling over, as it couldn't be planted in the ground. Funny story, in its way, though he was to suffer a much worse insult in 2000, when he was attacked by a sword-wielding, mentally ill guy.

Farewell, Nigel.