[bse] The Cows Are Mad … An interesting and unsettling BBC Radio podcast on the history of the UK’s BSE epidemic.

[truecrime] Bible John: Creation of a Serial Killer … An engrossing BBC podcast looking at the Scottish serial killer Bible John.

[podcasts] Death by Conspiracy? … I’ve really been enjoying this BBC podcast’s deep dive into the death from Covid of a UK man drawn into the web of online conspiracies.

[podcasts] Two podcasts series I’ve listened to recently…

• Hunting Ghislaine … John Sweeney examines how Ghislaine Maxwell became a convicted sex trafficker.


• The Coming Storm … An attempt to understand QAnon and it’s history.

[podcast] The Great Post Office Trial … A powerful podcast on the British Post Office scandal – the complex story about what is likely to be the biggest miscarriage of justice in British history.

[podcasts] The Battersea Poltergeist … I’ve really been enjoying this BBC Podcast’s deep dive into a paranormal 1950s British haunting.

[truecrime] The Rise of the True-Crime Podcast … A look at how True Crime podcasts got mainstreamed. ‘She taught herself production by googling “How do I use GarageBand to edit.” She dropped three episodes at once, and within two weeks, she had 4,000 downloads. “I chalked it up to being in the right place at the right time. Then Justin [Evans] from Generation Why mentioned me and my show. That put me on the map. By the end of the week, I had 75,000 downloads.” That was in 2016, which true-crime producers described as still the Wild West of indie podcasting. Everyone learned by trial and error. They knew one another and shared tips in private Facebook groups; they attended conferences like CrimeCon to drum up publicity. They learned about filing Freedom of Information Act requests to obtain coroner reports and the pitfalls of using copyrighted music. They compared notes on how much to charge advertisers poking around this new medium and what hosting platforms cost. They set up Patreons, sold merch, plugged one another’s shows, and guest-hosted tirelessly. Ludlow also belongs to an informal FB group of female podcasters who support and encourage one another.’

[partridge] Alan Partridge on his new podcast: ‘This is the real, raw, be-cardiganed me’ … Funny Alan Partridge profile as he launches a new Podcast. ‘Has Partridge been inspired by any other podcasts? “Less other podcasts, more by the excellence we see all around us: a dog leaping to catch a stick, a ballerina doing a brilliant ballet, a forklift truck driver steering one-handed while smoking.” Having said that, he admits to enjoying the true-crime genre (“Nothing beats settling down with a glass of wine and a plate of sandwiches to be entertained by the ins and outs of a man found battered to death in a hedge”) and is considering using a second series of his podcast to explore the disappearance of a friend who fell from a pier in 2013, never to be found.’

[apollo] 13 Minutes to the Moon [Series 1 | Series 2] … Outstanding BBC Podcast on the inside story of Apollo 11 and how Apollo 13 was saved.

[podcasts] Go read and then listen… What are the best in-depth investigative podcasts? … ‘On the podcast “You Must Remember This”, I completely enjoyed the series they did on the Manson Family.’ [Related: You Must Remember This – Charles Manson’s Hollywood]

[podcasts] 52 of the Best True-Crime Podcasts … exhaustive looking list focusing on American true-crime. Accused: ‘Reporter Amber Hunt digs into the murder of 23-year-old Elizabeth Andes, who was found dead in her Ohio apartment in December 1978. Incredibly well produced and researched, it’s Cincinnati’s Serial.’

[podcast] Buffy – In Our Own Time — a podcast where Buffy is discussed in the style of Melvyn Bragg’s In Our Time … ‘I began to think about those conversations you have with your friends about stuff you all know about, the stuff of pop culture, not high culture and I thought how much fun it would be to replicate those kinds of chats in an In Our Time format. So it’s not professionals talking about an area of expertise, it’s enthusiastic amateurs, talking about something they love. With the passions, conceits and errors that entails. I thought of calling it In Our Own Time to signal its amateur status.’ [via Tom]