MetaFilter posts tagged with podcast and BBC

'Let my armies be the rocks and the trees and the birds in the sky'

Omon Ra — Wed, 08 May 2013 16:34:01 -0800

BBC Radio 4 has begun to transmit Tweet of the Day, a 90 second 5:58 A.M. weekday broadcast (also podcast!), featuring the songs of UK birds. The program is set to last for 265 episodes, and will feature a revolving door of presenters, beginning with Sir David Attenborough.

The Value of Culture

Kattullus — Sun, 06 Jan 2013 15:52:49 -0800

The Value of Culture is a five part BBC radio series by Melvyn Bragg (which can be downloaded as a podcast) which explores the modern concept of 'culture' from its roots in mid-19th Century Britain, specifically Matthew Arnold's Culture and Anarchy and Edward Burnett Tylor's Primitive Culture (vol. 2), and exploring the discourse and uses of the concept until the present day. There are five episodes, each a little over forty minutes long, focusing in turn on Arnold and the roots of the concept of culture, Tylor and the anthropological conception of culture, C. P. Snow and the 'Two Cultures' debate, mass culture and culture studies, and then ending with a debate on the value of culture today.

"The phrase 'intergalactically stupid' appeared... and he responded."

Kattullus — Sat, 10 Nov 2012 07:46:08 -0800

The Mark Kermode and Simon Mayo's Film Review YouTube channel has a lot of videos of film reviews from the livestream of their BBC radio show and podcast, going back about five years. They are sorted by genre, film rating, geographic origin and one special category, Classic Kermodean Rants, which includes his reviews of Transformers: Dark of the Moon, Sex and the City 2, in which he ends up sing-shouting The Internationale, and Angels and Demons, which woke a man from a coma (mp3, story starts at 5:10, and it is followed up here, beginning at 5:30).

Author interviews

cog_nate — Fri, 22 Jun 2012 11:05:26 -0800

"Book TV's After Words features the author of a recently published hardback non-fiction book interviewed by a guest host with some knowledge, background, or connection to the subject matter of the book." There's also a podcast version (link goes to XML feed), for those who'd rather listen. Many more non-fiction author interviews can be found at Booknotes (transcripts and streaming video). If your tastes run to interviews with authors of fiction, check out the BBC's Modern Writers archive. (BookTV (but not specifically After Words) previously, Booknotes (but before the series ended) previously.)

The Written World - A History of Writing

carter — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 21:42:28 -0800

The Written World is a five part radio series put together by Melyvn Bragg as part of the In Our Time BBC radio project. The programmes look at the history of written word, and how it has shaped our intellectual history. Each episode is available as a podcast and has an accompanying page (1 2 3 4 5) with images and links for further exploration. Also: The books that shaped history (narrated slideshow); the British Library page.

More Mayo, Hold the Kermode

Kattullus — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 13:20:01 -0800

More Mayo is the podcast version of BBC's Simon Mayo Drivetime. Mayo is best known outside of the UK as one half of the Mayo and Kermode's Film Reviews. The centerpiece of the More Mayo podcast is the confessions, where listeners write in asking forgiveness for past transgressions. They are often funny and sometimes jaw-dropping (such as the first one in the latest episode). The podcasts are generally around a half an hour long and contain three or four confessions and a short interview with anyone from huge celebrities to debut novelists to children. The podcasts are available to download for 30 days.

From Our Own Correspondent

hippybear — Sat, 03 Sep 2011 06:40:28 -0800

For over 50 years, the BBC's From Our Own Correspondent has been an opportunity for reporters to share a bit of context, some relevant history, one or two of the characters encountered en route, some description of a foreign country or capital, in 5 or 10 minute segments. The program is available online in various formats: the weekly 30 minute version can be heard (in its entirety or individual segments) via the BBC website, or there are a wide variety of podcasting options available for those who prefer to download. Alternately, the BBC World Service daily 10 minute version can be heard online. For a different approach, the FOOC Archives have the past few years' worth of segments, sorted by geographical region. One recent highlight was Rana Jawad's revelation (in her own voice) that she went underground during the uprising in Libya and that she is, in fact, Tripoli Witness, one of the main sources of information from the capital for the past few months. This story was later covered by NPR.

Monday, 9:00 AM. Briefing meeting with Deparment Research Team Thirty-Two.

benito.strauss — Sun, 03 Apr 2011 16:53:00 -0800

The Department. Regular listeners to The Bugle (previously) will have been missing their usual weekly dose of historico-politico-silliness. But there is a fallback. While Bugle co-host Andy Zaltzman has been travelling about Asia, the regular Bugle feed is vamping with filler. If you're missing The Bugle, read on. For three seasons prior to their launching The Bugle in 2007, John Oliver and Andy Zaltzman wrote and acted in the BBC Radio 4 comedy The Department. The Department, a bureaucratic organization hidden from both the public and the government, has secretly been running the country (Great Britain) for ages. Working for The Department Oliver and Zaltzman form two-thirds of Research Team 32. Each week the team addresses one of the Big Problems facing the country, such as Trade, Immigration, Terrorism, or The British Transport System. The show starts with the statement of the problem and then lays out several silly solutions. In one episode, proposed solutions to the problems of Transport include lowering expectations, being brutally honesty with travellers, an award show for the worst rail disasters, installing football managers to manage transit employees, etc.. (The third member of Team 32 is played by Chris Addison, better known for playing the cherub-faced bastard Ollie in The Thick of It.) So if lines like "Blaming hip-hop for gun crime is like blaming J. M. W. Turner for stormy seas." is your type of observational comedy, give The Department a try. But where to listen? Sadly, the BBC isn't currently re-running it or making it available for purchase, so I'll quote The Bugle's own tweet "Google and the word 'torrent' can help out.

A Brief History of Mathematics

Kattullus — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 21:17:18 -0800

A Brief History of Mathematics is a BBC series of ten fifteen-minute podcasts by Professor Marcus du Sautoy about the history of mathematics from Newton and Leibniz to Nicolas Bourbaki, the pseudonym of a group of French 20th Century mathematicians. Among those covered by Professor du Sautoy are Euler, Fourier and Poincaré. The podcasts also include short interviews with people such as Brian Eno and Roger Penrose.

A Widow's Journey.

chunking express — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 06:06:41 -0800

A Widow's Journey [MP3]. "In 1989, Appapillai Amirthalingam - the most prominent political figure of the Tamil community - was assassinated at his home in the Sri Lankan capital, Colombo. Twenty years on, the Tamil Tigers have been defeated by the military. Appapillai's wife and son travel back to their homeland in search of his legacy in an attempt to understand what the future holds for Sri Lanka's Tamil people."

BBC World Service Documentaries

Kattullus — Sat, 08 May 2010 17:33:10 -0800

BBC World Service has over 500 audio documentaries you can download. The subject matter is incredibly wide ranging, for example, internet cafés, the influence of Islamic art on William Morris, South African female AIDS activist Thembi Ngubane, Yiddish, the importance of cows, novelist Chinua Achebe, financial risk management, Obama as an intellectual, the physical and emotional effects of a car crash and many, many more. If the quantity and variety are overwhelming, you can subscribe to a podcast, which delivers a new documentary to you every single day.

BBC Podcasts to learn about bakery fresh British popular music

Kattullus — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 19:47:16 -0800

BBC Introducing is an excellent way to keep tabs on what's fresh in the British popular music scene without having to live in a rainsoaked armpit. There are four podcasts for you to download, the flagship Best of Unsigned Podcast, Homegrown Mix with Ras Kwame, Scotland Introducing and BBC Radio Northampton's Weekender. All feature bands that are either unsigned or just recently signed and the music ranges from hip hop to punk rock to what sounds awfully like the soundtrack for a NES game with half-hearted chanting over it. This is an excellent resource whether you're casual searcher for new songs or the kind of anorak who knows which British indie band was first to use an 808.

2007 Reith Lectures

Aloysius Bear — Fri, 13 Apr 2007 11:51:16 -0800

Over the next four weeks, Jeffrey Sachs will be giving the 2007 BBC Reith Lectures. Download [MP3] the first week's lecture ("Bursting at the Seams"), or subscribe [XML] to the podcast. Listen to the 1999-2006 lectures in full, or hear historic lecturers such as Bertrand Russell and J.K. Galbraith.

Take One Museum

feelinglistless — Sun, 19 Feb 2006 08:53:44 -0800

Take One Museum on BBC Four is the Russian Ark of documentaries as expert Paul Rose looks around a museum, with the help of some tour guides in one take over a thirty minute period. I caught the tail end of the Royal Navy Submarine Museum episode and he seemed like a man of great enthusiasm. Much like New York's Museum of Modern Art's podcast official and unofficial, an audio podcast version of the show is available so that a visitor to the actual museum can cover the same ground with the aid of their mp3 player. Excellently, it's the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester next week so I'll definitely be going there again soon to see what this is like.