Be Excellent To Each Other

What podcasts should we all be listening to? Preferably ones that are available through iTunes to make it nice and easy for me and my new iPod.

I have Steven Fry's so far.

I always recommend the Ricky Gervais ones, because nothing else has made me cry with as much laughter as those.

They're video ones, aren't they? I mean, I have a new iPod Classic thing, so it's fine, I just can't be arsed to watch videos on it. If you know what I meeeean?

I get a few podcasts each week. Good gaming one are:

game theory - intelligent debate mostly
chatter box - on the all games network there are others there too
retrogamers and games for windows - on the 1 up radio network

On the 1 up radio network also check out the broken pixels link. Some of those are quite funny.

Hope this helps and you haven't heard some of these.

Ooh and One Life Left obviously.

This thread seems awfully familiar....

Fighting Talk (5 Live)
Mark Kermodes Movie Reviews (5 Live)
Friday Night Comedy (Radio 4 - The News Quiz and The Now Show)
Guardian Unlimited Football Weekly
Countdown with Keith Olbermann

Guardian Media Talk is pretty good, apart from the walking , talking camp stereotype that is Gareth McLean. Thankfully he is usually on at the end (ooh missus as he would say) so you can skip him.

The main ones I always trot out are:
Movies You Should See (Retrospective movie discussion.)
Escape Pod/Pseudopod/PodCastle (Short stories: Sci-fi, horror and fantasy respectively.)
12 Byzantine Rulers (History stuff -- you can skip the intro show, I think, but it's otherwise grand.)
Twitch Asylum (Vidgame discussion.)

The Gervais ones are indeed great, including the old XFM radio shows. I also really like the Russell Brand and Adam & Joe stuff.

There's a handful of video ones, but the rest are just audio. What Sledge said about the XFM shows, too.

Seconding the Escape Pod et al.

Obviously One Life Left is THE podcast. Speaking of which it's having a party in London on the 26th of April at which I should be performing a live Free Market Economy. Naturally you'll want to be there.

Podcasts are shit.
They have a shit name as well. Back in my day they used to be "webcasts". Fuck you Apple.

But they are neither. They are files. On a website.

The -cast suffix indicates something that is transmitted. Podcasts are entirely passive.

"webisode" is my new favourite least-favourite word.

Ooh, debate time! I disagree. It's just an on-demand service. Would you say that on-demand TV isn't transmitted?

Well, is it transmitted? Does it use a transmitter?

Something that passively sits somewhere until you go and fetch it certainly isn't transmitted. Unless the milk is transmitted to me for my cup of tea when I fetch it from the fridge.

On demand service? It's a file!

Transmit just means to pass from one thing or person to another. It's possible to request something and then have it transmitted to you.

Piffle. Downloading a file is not the same thing has having a file 'transmitted to you' by the web server.

I guess, I suppose the thing with computing terminology is that it's all analogy and they usually end up breaking down at some point. Surely the thing with podcasts is that you can subscribe and then have each one download (or be transmitted to you) without any further intervention.

But we don't need new terminology for doing exactly the same thing.

If I download a word file from a website, nobody starts calling it a 'doccast'.

We apparently have a "webinar" coming up to raise awareness of a product made by one of the other divisions in the company.

I can't stand that word. That word is "webinar" just in case you were in any doubt.

Malc

#I bet you some cunt somewhere, probably in a suit, does.

Oh aye. I'm not debating that. I do think they are transmitted, though.

Wahay, for fans of horror and oldie time radio plays I've found The Zombie Astronaut's blog, it features tons of old readings of classic horror, including readings by Roddy McDowel and Basil Rathbone and old CBS radio plays.

http://z0mbieastronaut.livejournal.com/

If you like that kind of thing the Frequency of Fear podcast is a splendidly weird thing...er...y. It features an over arching story with multiple shorter pieces included as part of the overall podcast. If you listen to a number of these types of things (Sci-fi, Horror & speculative fiction podcasts) you'll recognise a lot of the voices. God knows how they afford to do this with multiple episodes a month and a fanastic level of prodution.

http://frequencyoffear.com/

Danny Baker on Radio 5 when he is back in September
Fighting Talk on Radio 5 when back in September
Frank Skinner on Absolute Radio
606 on Radio 5
Football Weekly from The Guardian
Jonathan Ross on Radio 2

+ check out the Dave Gorman podcasts from Absolute Radio (only a few of them as he was standing in for Frank Skinner).

Ooo...I'd forgotten that Baker was back next month. Hopefully we will finally find out what the update was on Joanne that we never got when he had the falling out with Wippit.

Richard Herring has a new weekly 'stand up' podcast featuring Emma Kennedy. First episode is downloadable here.

http://www.comedy.org.uk/podcasts/as_it_occurs_to_me/

The Rock Paper Shotgun podcast is mildly risible. Gillen can be a bit annoying, but the John Walker/Jim Rossignol podcasts are usually worth listening to.

The Nature magazine and Scientific American podcasts are great - some pretty hard science, but presented light-heartedly and accessibly. Material World from Radio 4 is pretty decent, too.

If you're at all interested in music that isn't shit, then NPR's All Songs Considered podcasts are excellent, and Musicheads from Massachusetts Public Radio is a great reviews show.

Phil Jupitus and Phill Wilding's "Perfect 10" is also great and hilarious, and surprisingly well produced.

Agreed. I never finish a Gillen/Quinns one. But I can happily finish a Walker/Rossingnnongoll one. I tried to listen to "Rum Doings", which is Walker and some spanish guy*. It was pretty terrible.

I just invented a nationality for him. He was some non-english-european. I can't remember.

I go through phases with podcasts, but it's nice to have something to listen to on a train or bus that doesn't draw disapproving looks from old ladies and you don't get asked, "would you mind turning that down please?" That said, the Adam & Joe podcast has often made me laugh like a lunatic on the train into work, drawing concerned glances from ladies young and old. Their stuff on BBC6 and from Xfm is well worth listening to if you like that sort of thing.

South African, I think you'll find

Rum Doings can be a bit pretentious and full of itself at times, but I live in Cambridge so it's no worse than what I hear students talking about on a more-or-less daily basis, and it is occasionally entertaining.