Podcast Rotation

I subscribe to a lot of podcasts. (Blame 2016 for most of them.) The current regular rotation is heavy on politics (especially Brexit and the US) and gaming, with a mix of quirkier ones in there too. For those curious, the ones I semi-regularly listen to are:

• 50 Things That Made The Modern Economy: Tim Hartford on obvious or obscure bits of the modern world, from fire and money to chatbots and cubesats. Short and punchy.
• 99% Invisible: Languid anecdotes about oddly interesting or interestingly odd things. A bit hit or miss, but the good episodes stick in your mind.
• Bombshell: National security and international politics, and a surprising amount of discussion of fantasy literature.
• Death of 1000 Cuts: Tim Clare’s podcast on writing. Rambling style takes a little getting used to at first, but there’s great stuff in here.
• Deep State Radio: National security and politics; the jokes about fallout shelters are a little less ironic of late.
• Ditch Diggers: Long-running writing podcast; I’m still just getting into this one, and learning who’s who.
• Fictoplasm: Insightful breakdown of using novels as fodder for roleplaying games.
• 538 Politics: Not as good as it used to be; I rather miss Harry Enten, and anyway, polarisation makes polling a lot less interesting.
• Friday Night Comedy: BBC’s friday night comedy; the News Quiz is really the only worthwhile segment.
• In Our Time: Fantastic, wide-ranging deep dives into pretty much any topic. Highly recommended.
• Irish History Podcast: Delves deep into various topics on Irish history, especially the famine. The jaunts outside the 19th century tend to be more self-contained and interesting.
• Irish Times Inside Politics: Usually good, often smug. Interviews can be worthwhile.
• Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff: The pinnacle, as the lads themselves would say. Highly recommended.
• Lovett or Leave It: Comedy outrage about American politics. Hit or miss, but good for weeks when the news is so awful it’s best delivered in a joke wrapper.
• Morgue Reads His Own Tweets Out Loud: I hope the wonderful Morgue will tweet about reading this blog post, which will then appear on this podcast, which does exactly what it says in the title.
• Most Notorious! True crime. Mostly murders, mostly 19th/early 20th century. Good for Cthulhu stuff.
• Negative HP: Grimdark fantasy and gaming podcast, just getting off the ground.
• No Such Thing As A Fish: Researchers from QI giving their favourite facts of the week. Can be very interesting, can be a bit like being stuck in a college bar with people who think they’re clever.
• Plot Points: Gaming discussion; I’ve been plugging Ben’s History of TSR series a lot because it’s fascinating (if the history of gaming fascinates you, and why wouldn’t it?)
• Pod Save America: Ex-Obama staffers on Democratic politics. At some point, the 2016 campaign will end, I pray.
• Pod Save The World: As above, on international politics.
• Politico’s EU Confidential: A bit impenetrable, but I’m trying to get into it more. American politics is pro-wrestling, UK politics used to be Shakespeare, Irish politics is generally Beckett (Vladimir: Let’s not elect Fianna Fail! Estragon: Nor Fine Gael! They elect Fianna Fail or Fine Gael.) Euro politics appears to be opera – very, very slow-moving, and you need someone to explain what’s going on all the time.
• Rational Security: More national security. I really should cut one of these…
• Recode Decode: Kara Swisher interviews people from tech. Interviewees rarely as interesting as interviewer.
• Brexit Republic: Irish news on Brexit. Recommended.
• Spycast: Interviews with ex-spies, usually ex-CIA. A bit one-note, but worth it for the odd interview.
• Stay Tuned With Preet: Ex US attorney. First 10 minutes of the show are a good recap of the week’s news from a legal perspective; the interviews that follow are usually worthy but not always interesting.
• Story Time: Kids’ bedtime stories. The boys often fall asleep to this.
• The Adventuring Party: Discussion of the Irish gaming scene and gaming in general. A fairly wide take on tabletop gaming, and usually very good.
• The Allusionist: Soothing podcast about words and language. Absolutely no national security content at all.
• The Blindboy Podcast: An ‘aural hug’ by one of the Rubberbandits. Early episodes were great, but it’s a long show and I’ve fallen behind on it.
• The Ezra Klein Show: The high priest of technocratic liberalism interviews people. Usually very interesting.
• The Good Friends of Jackson Elias: Very long-running and often excellent Cthulhu Mythos & horror podcast.
• The Good Place: The Podcast: Podcast about the series, hosted by one of the actors. Lovely.
• The Grognard Files: Old-school gaming discussion.
• Guardian Politics Weekly: Currently, 45 minutes of screaming.
• The Land of Desire: History of France. Just started listening to this one, as I’m running a game set in Paris in 1895.
• Lawfare: Rational Security’s serious face.
• Skiffy and Fanty Show: Another long-running SFF-cast I’ve only just started tuning into.
• The Weeds: Politics and American current affairs through a policy lens. Remember when policy wasn’t accompanied quite so often by words like “inhumane” or “genocidal” or “absolutely insane”?
• West Wing Weekly: Nearly at the end of its run-through of the series, and it’s getting tired. Like the series.
• Today Explained: Daily explainer. The ones where they go through news stories are only ok, but on those rare days when there’s no major news, they drop in something quirky like a dive into TikTok.
• What Would The Smart Party Do: Gaming discussion.

A better person would provide links for all these. An even better person would use google or their podcast provider of choice to find them.