Jeremy over at Adactio followed up the last Rissington Podcast’s chat about favourite podcasts with his own list. So, in true meme style, here’s mine.
Rissington is the only web-related podcast I’m listening to at the moment – so I’d love to hear tips about others that I really should be listening to. My other regulars are Football Weekly from The Guardian, The Game Podcast from The Times and The Word Podcast from Word Magazine.
The two football podcasts are in competition with each other, but very different in style. The Guardian’s is real knockabout stuff, but still very informative about European football. Part of this comes from presenter James Richardson, a real favourite of mine from the days of Football Italia on Channel 4, a much-mourned programme from the days when we were distinctly less well-informed about football outside of our own shores.
Here he is in his Channel 4 pomp – before necessity led us to the same hairstyle – here with Elvis Costello.
Sean Ingle – a regular on The Guardian‘s show – wrote a great tribute to the programme that really captured its influence. For once, the comments are well worth reading too.
I’m still tickled that James has made so little attempt to get up to speed with English football. This a man who’s heart remains very much in Serie A. And who can blame him.
Over on The Times, Gabrielle Marcotti and Guillem Balague present The Game. It takes itself a bit more seriously than The Guardian, but is really helped by the hosts’ willingness to talk about what they know, the quality of guests they get and their ability to get more than soundbites from them. I suspect it is because their guests aren’t particularly well-informed about the reach that podcasts have, but they tend to be refreshingly open in a way you just don’t get in print or on TV.
For me, podcasts are delivering a far more intelligent take on football than you’ll ever get from Match of the Day or Sky Sports. When I listen to, or watch, people talking about football, I really want to learn something, and better understand how to read the game. You just won’t get it on TV and only rarely on radio where there are too many people, too close to the teams, players and managers they are meant to be ‘analysing’ to offer any value or insight.
Lastly, there is the Word podcast, presented by the magazine’s editors Mark Ellen and David Hepworth. The two come across like a Statler and Waldorf of popular music, and very funny with it too. Some of the recent interviews, particularly with Jim Niven about the A&R profession have been simply brilliant. Full of great anecdotes, but a lot of insight too, particularly on the strange death of recorded music and the implications for the record company business model and artist rights. It’s good stuff.
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