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.