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Ciaran Goggins is an independent investigator and researcher who has frequently written about, discussed, and analyzed the suspicious death of British weapons expert Dr. David Kelly. [1, 2, 3, 4]The Context of Dr. David Kelly's DeathThe Background: In 2003, Dr. David Kelly was unmasked as the source behind a BBC report accusing Prime Minister Tony Blair's government of "sexing up" a dossier regarding Iraq's weapons of mass destruction (WMDs). [1, 2]The Incident: Shortly after being grilled by a parliamentary committee, Dr. Kelly was found dead on July 17, 2003, in Harrowdown Hill, Oxfordshire. [1, 2]The Official Verdict: The government-appointed Hutton Inquiry bypassed a traditional coroner's inquest and ruled the death a suicide caused by a slashed wrist and a Coproximal overdose. [1, 2, 3]Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-opperman-report--1198501/support.
Laura Reineke is triple crown swimmer from Henley, UK, completing the Santa Catalina channel swim, the English Channel and the 20 Bridges swim of Manhattan Island. Locally, she is a Henley Mermaid, a group that swims for socialjustice, and founder of Friends of the Thames. She is Sue Ryder Woman of Achievement 2016. In this podcast I am with her in Henley, Oxfordshire, to discuss her swimming achievements, Henley Mermaids and her campaigning work for a clean River Thames.
This week's show comes to you from Diddly Squat Farm in Oxfordshire where the Irish Farmers Journal team attended the Cereals event. We chatted to Ceres Rural agronomist Will Sturdens, hear from Kaleb Cooper and report the highlights. Importantly we keep an eye on crops in Ireland. Brian Reilly of Drummonds reports from the north east. We look at the paper and grain prices. You can listen to the podcast here. The Tillage Podcast is supported by Bayer Crop Science.To register for the UCD Lyons open evening and the live podcast recording click here: https://share-eu1.hsforms.com/1TD2IPxPUTuyqGnuWFnPwQwets9e Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
In this honest, open, and reflective conversation, Sunday Times bestselling author, journalist, and podcast host Clover Stroud joins Mandy Manners, SHE RECOVERS Trusted Advisor and Coach, to discuss writing as a tool for recovery, letting go of shame through sharing our story, and how it can help as a way to connect with and help others.Clover talks about her process as a writer to connect with her emotions and how it has helped her through grief, motherhood, and change. She talks about what has shifted since becoming sober. How she has found it a powerful tool for creativity and connection. Clover discusses how her sister Nell inspired her sobriety journey in the years before she sadly died from cancer at the age of 46 in 2019. Together, Clover and Mandy discuss growing up in the UK in the 90s and the hedonism of that time, especially both growing up in the English countryside. They discuss what home means to them whilst living abroad, which was the subject of Clover's fourth book, The Giant on the Skyline, and how belonging may not necessarily be a place or a person, but a specific feeling. Clover talks about learning to find new ways to connect in sobriety through crafts and her Substack community. She discusses what being sober has given her in terms of connection with her children and her marriage, and how it is something she feels proud to talk about.About Clover:Clover Stroud is a Sunday Times bestselling writer, journalist, and host of her own podcast, Tiny Acts of Bravery. Her first book, The Wild Other, was shortlisted for The Wainwright Prize. Her critically acclaimed second book, My Wild & Sleepless Nights: A Mother's Story, and third book, The Red of My Blood, were instant Sunday Times bestsellers and rated amongst the best books of the year in which they were published. Her fourth memoir, The Giant on the Skyline, was published in May 2024. Having spent the past three years living in Washington, DC, with her husband and the youngest three of her five children, she recently returned to her UK home in Oxfordshire.https://www.cloverstroud.com/https://www.instagram.com/clover.stroudhttps://cloverstroud.substack.com/https://shows.acast.com/tiny-acts-of-braveryAbout Mandy:Mandy Manners is a certified life and recovery coach. A qualified coach supervisor, trainer, speaker, and author. She is a certified SHE RECOVERS Coach and Trusted Advisor for Education and Pedagogy for the SHE RECOVERS Foundation.https://www.mandymanners.com Resources Mentioned in Episode:https://sherecovers.org/recovery-storytelling-workshop/SHE RECOVERS Retreat: From Memory to MemoirLooking to heal with writing or recover with words?Find your voice, write your recovery, or begin your memoir on retreat with award-winning author and psychotherapist Ann Dowsett Johnston.Over 5 days in a cozy chalet in the maple forest of Québec, you'll explore healing through daily writing practice, embodied movement, nature, deep rest, and meaningful connection with like-hearted folks.Step into your story this autumn. Explore this retreat here.About SHE RECOVERS® FoundationSHE RECOVERS Foundation is a non-profit public charity and a global grassroots movement serving thousands of women and non-binary individuals in or seeking recovery from life challenges, including mental health issues, trauma, and substance use. SHE RECOVERS is dedicated to redefining recovery, inspiring hope, ending stigma, and empowering women to increase their recovery capital, heal themselves, and help other women do the same.If you found this conversation helpful and you are able, please consider donating to our lifeline organization or sharing it with others who may benefit. We would love to also receive your rating and review of the SHE RECOVERS Podcast on your favorite platform.Visit sherecovers.org to donate today.
and testings their quizzin' brains its Malcolm in Hastings and Sarah in Oxfordshire!
Send us Fan MailIn this episode of the Nature Recovery Podcast, Vittorio Anah speaks with Camilla Burrow, the Chief Executive of the local environmental charity Wild Oxfordshire. Camilla explains the work Wild Oxfordshire has done and is planning do.Wild Oxfordshire are supporting The Nature Festival which happens in Oxford 21-27 June 2026.https://thenaturefestival.org/ They explore:Camilla's experience running Wild OxfordshireWhat the charity is involved with currentlyHow Wild Oxfordshire chooses its projects How success is measured for an environmental charity The current state of Oxfordshire's environmental organisation landscape The biggest challenges facing Wild Oxfordshire and organisations like itThe importance of coordination and collaboration between environmental charities in OxfordshireThe long term vision for Wild Oxfordshire Find out more about Camilla and Wild Oxfordshire's work here:The Leverhulme Centre for Nature Recovery is interested in promoting a wide variety of views and opinions on nature recovery from researchers and practitioners.The views, opinions and positions expressed within this podcast are those of the speakers alone, they do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of the Leverhulme Centre for Nature Recovery, or its researchers.The work of the Leverhulme Centre for Nature Recovery is made possible thanks to the support of the Leverhulme Trust.
This week on the BBC Introducing in Oxfordshire & Berkshire podcast, Dave's joined by Mount St. Helen to hear how everything from religious iconography to black and white photography has influenced his music, plus what to expect when he plays our stage at Truck this year!Plus, Alex catches up with Rila's edge to hear about their gig at Reading's Purple Turtle, and there's a little taste of their new music.Here's this week's track list: • Wilderness States - Split (Kid Kin remix) SISTRA - In Two White Label - I'm a Mess Jennifer Lourea - Shades of time Joe Hicks - The Architect Kerr Mercer - Love Me Twice [tipped by Jess Iszatt at BBC Radio 1] Joe Bray - Options Purple Grace - Just 19 YOURBOYWONDER - Keep It Sweet Matilda Pratt - Valentine BUSHROD - People Pleasing Mount St. Helen - Helpless Mount St. Helen - California A Better Life - Under The Setting Sun (feat. Holly Taymar) kemastry - Jezebels and Jellybeans SideBanks - Oh, How I Tire Santa Carla - Meteor Beth Zero - Down with the Ship Rila's Edge - Buck Michy Tree - Rock Bottom Mark Bosley - I Know Why You Don't Call Me Krabberz - Engage Marlia Rae - Name In Lights • If you're making music in Oxfordshire and Berkshire, send us your tunes with the BBC Introducing Uploader: https://www.bbc.co.uk/introducing/uploader
This week on the BBC Introducing in Oxfordshire & Berkshire podcast, Dave catches up with Richard Neuberg to hear about his new solo album 'The Vine'. Plus, Alex chats to May Kolta about her new music and gig at Pizza Express Live!Here's this week's track list: • Premium Leisure - Afters DJ Amricky - Burnin (feat. YK) Mona Vale - Just Danny Chaska & Oscar Grouch - Lights Bidz Music - Arrivals Gigi Wilde - do you still smell like jasmine MOTHER - UNHOLY Shao Dow - MATA また Naked Brunch - Bitter Soul Lewis Bolland - Calm (Sleep Version) BSEARL - HARMONY Lucy Leave - Tractor Richard Neuberg - Everything Dark Is Light Richard Neuberg - Saltwater Je'Zell - Hard Fall Flyboy Jetty - LA Forlorn - Keeper Of The Well Headphones Wasp - Coming Through Bear Trap - Why Won't You Disappear The Dionysus Ensemble - Connections Emily Frances - Hymn May Kolta - Empress (NKK) Henry Taylour - A Fleeting Moment Grace Angelique - All Time Low Brook Ellingworth - Whole Damn Time • If you're making music in Oxfordshire and Berkshire, send us your tunes with the BBC Introducing Uploader: https://www.bbc.co.uk/introducing/uploader
This week on the BBC Introducing in Oxfordshire & Berkshire podcast, Dave meets rennie, who after working with some of the UK's most respected live acts is now stepping forward with his own music on his debut EP. He also catches up with Ronan Munro from Nightshift magazine on the eve of the final ever issue. Plus, Lauren finds out about Henley Jazz Festival with Rebecca Poole and Denny Ilett, and Alex catches up with Shock Horror after their gig in Oxford's James Street Tavern.Here's this week's track list: • Remember Monday - Delusional montykeates - Casual den of dog - Make Me FAWLERS - slob Orchid - DRIP Young Knives - Your Car Has Arrived Charis - Frequency HOLiDAY MYSTICS - Dream Big (for Stevie Nicks) doops - flatlands Mazawattee - Animals Rebecca Poole - You Still Make Me Laugh INDIYA - MUSE overpass - Is This Real? Rose Rey - Last Call Lover Rennie - Great Height Silo - Low Sun BJERGLUND - On Repeat Shock Horror - On TV Ellie Chadwick - Was It Just Me NE1 - Oh Please • If you're making music in Oxfordshire and Berkshire, send us your tunes with the BBC Introducing Uploader: https://www.bbc.co.uk/introducing/uploader
It's double trouble with Jane in Solihull & Nick in Oxfordshire.
Peter and Bill chat about some news items. Chelsea is sold out and opened to the general public Tuesday 19th May. Our friends at Malvern Garden Buildings have a stand and are exhibiting again. It may be a controversial year as one of the designers is getting criticised for using an AI app to design gardens. Peter has found a new range of pencils from Sprout World that have seeds in the end so you can grow things from your old pencil. Bill suggests writing labels from the top down and put a date on it so you know when you started them. It is also very important to protect your young seedlings from late frosts. Young plants still need protection.If you fancy visiting a Garden, Aspley Guise has many houses with open gardens on 24th May. Ramsden near Witney Oxfordshire also has 15 gardens open on the 24th. On the 30th gardens are open in Moggerhanger Bedfordshire and Carterton in Oxfordshire. If these aren't local to you have a look at the NGS website, Pumpkins Beth's website or the Open Gardens website.Sir David Attenborough has had his 100th birthday.Taylors bulbs have won a Gold medal at the RHS Malvern show, next for them is the Chelsea Show, could it be another Gold Medal?Peter learns the fact that his Tomatoes are too cold as the undersides of the leaves are going purple and the fact that he might be overwatering his Courgettes. If you have lost seedlings in the recent cold spells, you still have time to replant seeds or pop in to your local Garden Centre and buy some young seedlings.Our thanks to Chiltern Music Therapy for providing the music. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Debbie Gilbert discusses The Soul Aligned Life with Sophie Watson, soul coach and regional director for the Athena Network in south west Oxfordshire. Sophie won a Silver award for Best Coach at the 2025 Best Business Women Awards. Her journey into coaching began when her world fell apart all at once, a difficult job, her mum's diagnosis with early onset Alzheimer's and breast cancer, and her an her husband's unexplained infertility, all hitting within the same period. What came out the other side was a coaching business built entirely on lived experience. In this episode they talk about what a soul aligned life actually means in practice, what holds women back from becoming who they truly are, and why acknowledging what is wrong is always the first step forward. Sophie also shares honestly about losing both parents within five months and what that taught her about looking after yourself first. Warm, thoughtful and genuinely moving. About Sophie Sophie Watson is an award-winning intuitive guide and transformation coach with over a decade of experience helping women navigate change, rediscover who they truly are, and build lives that feel genuinely fulfilling. She specialises in supporting women who appear fine on the outside but feel disconnected, overwhelmed, or at a crossroads beneath the surface. By uncovering deeper patterns and blocks, Sophie helps her clients reconnect with their clarity, confidence, and sense of direction. Alongside her coaching work, Sophie serves as Regional Director for The Athena Network – SW Oxfordshire. Here, she champions women in business through connection and collaboration. She is also the founder of Marvellous Marvin's Fur Baby Art, creating bespoke artwork that captures the personality and spirit of beloved animals. {2:12} How Sophie became a coach. {5:18} The AThen Network and what it means to Sophie. {5:55} What holds women back from who they really are. {8:02} Why Sophie entered the Best Businesswomen Awards. {10:23} What the soul laigned life actually means. {13:20} Typical challenges faced by clients. {14:40} How long transformation takes. {17:01} BEcoming an Athena Regional Leader. {20:42} What Sophie has gained through networking. {24:11} The one step you can take to get unstuck. {25:20} What helped Sophie overcome her challenges. {28:41} Plans for 2026/7. Connect with Debbie at: https://thebusinessawardsshow.co.uk https://bestsmeawards.co.uk/ Connect with Sophie: http://www.sophiewatson.co.uk/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/sophie-watson-create-a-life-you-love Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SophieWatsonTimeToCreateALifeYouLove Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sophiewatsonsoulcoach/ The Athena Network SW Oxfordshire - https://theathenanetwork.com/sophiewatson/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-athena-network-sw-oxfordshire/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AthenaSWOxon Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/athena.southwestoxfordshire/ Marvellous Marvin's Fur baby Art: https://www.marvellousmarvins.co.uk/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarvellousMarvinsFurBabyArt Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marvellousmarvinsfurbabyart/
Shed Sessions have stepped into Glasshouse Studios in the Oxfordshire countryside for this enticing episode with The August List.The music is bold, haunting, and beautiful. It also has the habit of transporting our host Warren into other realms.There's talk of horror films, a British Bullterrier in a field of turnips, tattooing Ryan's artwork, and creating and recording music in different places to bring songs together.It's a stripped back and acoustic set crafted specially for us. There's double bass, violin, acoustic guitar, two exquisitely enter-twined voices and a shed load of soul.We love The August List and we're confident that you will too.Thank you for listening.Audio by QuenYou can find out more about The August List here:https://open.spotify.com/artist/4wLyGH4PoT6RRyn6j9Zbsu?si=yyPIi6d1SFe9jOchYIFmMw@theaugustlist (Instagram)https://theaugustlist.bandcamp.com/album/sun-pinned-on-ghost-sky (bandcamp)Photos from the session by @ianhanhamphotos (Instagram) can be found on @shedtreasures (Instagram).
They named their band after a cabinet in Oxford's Pitt Rivers Museum, and once formed a band with Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood... this week on the BBC Introducing in Oxfordshire & Berkshire podcast, Dave catches up with Charms Against The Evil Eye.Plus, Lauren meets Niki Kini at her immersive headline show... but did she have a sweet or spicy experience?! And, Alex has a report from Reading's excellent Are You Listening? Festival with Lost Velvet and Puma Theory.Here's this week's track list: • The Race - Best Is Yet To Come Ace Clvrk - Heavenly Waters Folly Oh Yes - Zombie Of Silicon Valley Haints - Hollow Temples The Subtheory - Things that caught my attention Niki Kini - Murder You 1-800 GIRLS - sometimes [tipped by Jaguar at BBC Radio 1 Dance] The Afterword - An Illusion My Crooked Teeth - Stay At Home Twin Skeletons - Useless DRZ - Like U The Deadbeat Apostles - Keep it to Yourself Felix Ross - Everything's Changing Sofia and the Antoinettes - I Don't Know What I'm Doing on Earth, I Don't Know What on Earth I'm Doing [tipped by Jess Iszatt at BBC Radio 1] Charms Against The Evil Eye - Dark Matter Kelly Michaeli - Tephra Hey! This is Brad - Just Listen Frozemode - dirtyman [tipped by Alyx Holcombe at BBC Radio 1 Rock] Lost Velvet - Burnt Puma Theory - Hit & Run (Live at Farm Road Studios) Meli Foster-Turner - Serendipity Murds - Land Of Me Eva Gadd - Have It All • If you're making music in Oxfordshire and Berkshire, send us your tunes with the BBC Introducing Uploader: https://www.bbc.co.uk/introducing/uploader
After watching their local river grow murky and lifeless, two retired neighbours decide to take on the water industry and its regulators. The unlikely sleuths begin a ten-year battle to clean up our rivers.On the banks of the River Windrush in Oxfordshire, Kate Lamble meets campaigners Ash Smith and Peter HammondReported and presented by Kate Lamble Producer: Elle Scott Sound Design: Andy Fell Executive Producer: Joe Kent Commissioning Executive: Tracy Williams Commissioning Editor: Dan Clarke Rinsed is a BBC Studios production for BBC Radio 4
Today's guest is Peter Tickler, an established writer of crime fiction, mostly set in and around Oxford and Oxfordshire. Peter has been much praised for the authenticity in his literary depictions of Oxford and for his nuanced characters. Having worked in the IT dept of the Potato Marketing Board in Between Towns Road, Peter would often look down onto the carpark of neighbouring Cowley police station. Perhaps it was inevitable then that his first fictional protagonist DI Susan Holden should be based there. The ensuing Oxford Series of crime novels have been enormously successful. We also talk to Peter about his time at Keble College, his public speaking events, and his love of Oxford United. LINKS: https://www.petertickler.co.uk/
This week on the BBC Introducing in Oxfordshire & Berkshire podcast, Dave's joined by The Samurai Seven to talk about their brand new single Punching Down, their first release in 25 years! Plus Lauren meets Danny Mellin backstage at The Bullingdon in Oxford, and Alex speaks to Natalie Gray about her new music and headline gig at Wycombe Community Arts Centre.Here's this week's track list: • Tom Caro - Until Eventually Orchid - DRIP V.I.C - 40 Doors Almost Alice - Okay, Tomorrow Sebastian Croft - Better than ever Camille Baziadoly - Unlikely Places Felix Green - Forgot To Love You Gen and the Degenerates - Favourite Jumper [tipped by Alyx Holcombe at BBC Radio 1 Rock] Conor McLain - In My Nature (People Pleaser) TRASHCAT - GOSPEL Danny Mellin - Meet Me in the Afternoon Shiny Brain Crayons - So Alive Jess Tuthill - Until You Tell Me Not To The Samurai Seven - Bonnet The Samurai Seven - Punching Down Yung Toro - no regrets [tipped by Jess Iszatt at BBC Radio 1] The Covasettes - Honeymoon Forever Cherry Mint Koala - Slow Motion Nineteen Natalie Gray - Favourite Megan Wroe - Lovestep [tipped by Jaguar at BBC Radio 1 Dance] Civil Villains - Punching Down Benza - Back Down Memory Lane (feat. Swali) • If you're making music in Oxfordshire and Berkshire, send us your tunes with the BBC Introducing Uploader: https://www.bbc.co.uk/introducing/uploader
This episode with Ben Selby from the Fire Brigades Union takes a clear and honest look at the pressures facing the UK fire and rescue service, from funding cuts and the loss of around 12,000 firefighters since 2010 to the real-world impact seen in places like Oxfordshire and Dorset and Wiltshire. We explore the strain on on-call systems, the need for national standards and how workforce changes, duty systems and family support are shaping the modern job. The conversation also dives into firefighter health, contamination and the move toward health monitoring, alongside a critical discussion on water infrastructure, flow rates and the risks of relying on a system firefighters do not control. This is a grounded, wide-ranging discussion about safety, resilience and what the future of the fire service could look like if the current trajectory continues.Support & Join the FBU HERE Connect with Ben HEREAccess all episodes, documents, GIVEAWAYS & debriefs HEREPodcast Apparel, Hoodies, Flags, Mugs HERE Please check out our Partners supporting this episode areWilliam Wood Watches - Discount code FFPODCAST gives the user 10% off full range on websiteFIRST TACTICAL- tactical gear for elite operatorsGORE-TEX Professional ClothingMSA The Safety CompanyJAFCOIDEXFIRE & EVACUATION SERVICE LTD Send us Fan MailSupport the show***The views expressed in this episode are those of the individual speakers. Our partners are not responsible for the content of this episode and does not warrant its accuracy or completeness.***Please support the podcast and its future by clicking HERE and joining our Patreon Crew
This week on the BBC Introducing in Oxfordshire & Berkshire podcast, Dave's joined by Josephine Illingworth to hear about her new EP 'Bright Things I Found In The Dark', plus she's playing live in session too - tap here for the full live video - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0nhtljqWant to know what's planned at this years Are You Listening? festival - Alex West catches up with organiser Dave Maul.Here's this week's track list: • Octavia Freud - Platforms Kah'Nya - WELELE PLAIINS - Dirty Fish May Kolta - Tides Right Honey Grace B - First Day Of My Life Garfield & Nico - Find A Way Emily Francis Trio - Lydian Child Pixie McCann - Deja Vu [tipped by Jess Iszatt at BBC Radio 1] White Horses - One Step to Heaven i4M2 - Unwound (Radio edit) KalemGR - Everything GR Nolan Chenchery - Memori Josephine Illingworth - Old Holy Feeling Josephine Illingworth - The Mythical (live acoustic session) unpeople - clouds [tipped by Alyx Holcombe at BBC Radio 1 Rock] Rhi'N'B - Let You Know Puma Theory - Telephone Man (Live at Farm Road Studios) Nicole Allan - Used To Be LAKE ACACIA - Tear You Down Stephen Caulfield - Blue Vessels Polly b Rose - the Drifter Ginja - Golden Henry Taylour - If I Only Knew • If you're making music in Oxfordshire and Berkshire, send us your tunes with the BBC Introducing Uploader: https://www.bbc.co.uk/introducing/uploader
This week on the BBC Introducing in Oxfordshire & Berkshire podcast, Dave catches up with the energetic indie-pop band Still Pigeon to talk all about their brand-new self-titled EP. Plus, blending jazz, gospel and R&B, f:sv brought her distinctive sound to Reading's South Street Arts Centre, where Alex joined her for a special listening party celebrating her debut EP GREEN TEARS. And Lauren dives into the story behind one of her favourite BBC Introducing musicians - this time it's alt-pop artist Mackenzie!Here's this week's track list: • Giant Party - Into The Never Age Big Fear - Anger Niki Kini - Murder You Hannah Jane Lewis - Riding in Cars with Boys SKINSHIP - I Make Me Wanna Go Dancing With Me Bevs - Break You Down Shock Horror - On TV Ivy Marcia - Who Am I To You? (Live from Bluebell Studios) VENUS GRRRLS - Eve Still Pigeon - Odd Sock Still Pigeon - Season 2 Mackenzie - Idiot Of The Decade Arkayla - Run Kid Mount St. Helen - Nineteen Beaker - 50 Men f:sv - Advocacy (feat. kiNOTES) Captain Kuppa T and the Zeppelin Crew - Crooks and Nannies DRIIA - Void Drawing Room - New World shanelle - somebody like me Denzil Grenade - Easy On Me Lily Beck - Free Bird • If you're making music in Oxfordshire and Berkshire, send us your tunes with the BBC Introducing Uploader: https://www.bbc.co.uk/introducing/uploader
Throwbacks are where I re-release old episodes from the archives. So don't worry if you have heard it already, as 'New episodes' will continue to come out on Sundays. To get some of the old episodes heard.~~~Tonight's guest is David in South Wales with a strange encounter in 2007 in a field in Oxfordshire, and the events that followed only sprinkled more high strangeness onto the incident.More information on this episode on the podcast website:https://ufochroniclespodcast.com/ep-235-the-bicester-encounter/Want to share your encounter on the show?Email: UFOChronicles@gmail.comOr Fill out Guest Form:https://forms.gle/uGQ8PTVRkcjy4nxS7Podcast Merchandise:https://www.teepublic.com/user/ufo-chronicles-podcastHelp Support UFO CHRONICLES by becoming a Patron:https://patreon.com/UFOChroniclespodcastX: https://x.com/UFOchronpodcastAll Links for Podcast:https://linktr.ee/UFOChroniclesPodcastThank you for listening!Like share and subscribe it really helps me when people share the show on social media, it means we can reach more people and more witnesses and without your amazing support, it wouldn't be possible.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/ufo-chronicles-podcast--3395068/support.
Throwbacks are where I re-release old episodes from the archives. So don't worry if you have heard it already, as 'New episodes' will continue to come out on Sundays. To get some of the old episodes heard.~~~Tonight's guest is David in South Wales with a strange encounter in 2007 in a field in Oxfordshire, and the events that followed only sprinkled more high strangeness onto the incident.More information on this episode on the podcast website:https://ufochroniclespodcast.com/ep-235-the-bicester-encounter/Want to share your encounter on the show?Email: UFOChronicles@gmail.comOr Fill out Guest Form:https://forms.gle/uGQ8PTVRkcjy4nxS7Podcast Merchandise:https://www.teepublic.com/user/ufo-chronicles-podcastHelp Support UFO CHRONICLES by becoming a Patron:https://patreon.com/UFOChroniclespodcastX: https://x.com/UFOchronpodcastAll Links for Podcast:https://linktr.ee/UFOChroniclesPodcastThank you for listening!Like share and subscribe it really helps me when people share the show on social media, it means we can reach more people and more witnesses and without your amazing support, it wouldn't be possible.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/ufo-chronicles-podcast--3395068/support.
Welcome back to the People's Countryside Environment Debate Podcast, the podcast that bravely asks, “What even counts as environmental anymore?” Ever since the COVID lockdowns, you lovely people have been sending us two questions per episode, and in true professional fashion, we still refuse to look at them before hitting record. Sometimes your questions have absolutely nothing to do with the environment, but don't worry, we'll heroically drag them back to nature by the ankles. It's April, after all, the perfect month for pretending we know what we're doing.Samantha, from Cumbria, England sent in the first question - “What do you guys think of mobile phones in daily life, bearing in mind that many podcast listeners listen to you on their phones?”Stuart highlights how constant phone use distracts people from their surroundings, reducing awareness and even basic safety. William shares similar concerns, noting how absorbed individuals can miss obstacles, risks, or social moments. They argue that while digital tools are now essential, mindful use matters: Step aside to message, stay alert, and let technology serve rather than dominate. They also stress balancing innovation with sustainability as society advances.John, Charlbury, Oxfordshire, England sent the last question today - “What do you two feel about the altered and expanded bus network in Oxford City and surrounding areas?”Stuart kicks things off with, “Absolutely fantastic. If only I could actually use them,” before admitting that public transport feels like an assault course of noise, confusion, and accessibility hurdles. Still, he loves the idea of park and ride buses linking up like some utopian transport Pokémon evolution.William points out that yes, this episode is painfully local, but Oxford's expanded bus network is worth celebrating. Congestion points, bus gates, and deals with operators have magically reduced traffic enough to let more buses exist, and once Botley Road finally reopens, the routes might even make sense.Stuart then reminds us that adding buses doesn't mean people know what to do with them. He recalls a visitor who didn't even know how to buy a ticket, proving that cultural habits are harder to shift than timetables.William suggests a radical idea. If you use the bus, take someone who doesn't and show them how it works. Revolutionary stuff.Stuart notes that some people treat any change like a personal attack, so progress only happens once enough people adopt it that everyone else either joins in or sulks.William wraps up by saying you don't need half the country to reach a tipping point, about a third will do. Humans love fitting in, after all, especially when the crowd is heading in the right direction.What do you make of this discussion? Do you have a question that you'd like us to discuss? Let us know by sending an email to thepeoplescountryside@gmail.comWe like to give you an ad free experience. We also like our audience to be relatively small and engaged, we're not after numbers.This podcast's overall themes are nature, philosophy, climate, the human condition, sustainability, and social justice. Help us to spread the impact of the podcast by sharing this link with 5 friends podfollow.com/ThePeoplesCountrysideEnvironmentalDebatePodcast , support our work through Patreon patreon.com/thepeoplescountryside. Find out all about the podcast via this one simple link: linktr.ee/thepeoplescountrysideSign the Petition - Improve The Oxfordshire Countryside Accessibility For All Disabilities And Abilities: change.org/ImproveTheOxfordshireCountrysideAccessibilityForAllDisabilitiesAndAbilities
A new independent report, commissioned by DEFRA, examines the unique challenges facing upland farmers and communities in England. We speak to the author of the report Dr Hilary Cottam. She has been asking people living and working in the uplands what they want for the future. Our National Parks mark their 75th anniversary this week. We hear about the importance of volunteers to the Peak District National Park, and we also visit a peatland restoration project in Bannau Brycheiniog, formerly the Brecon Beacons, in Wales.As the conflict in the Middle East continues, we've been reporting on the impact on farmers and food producers here in the UK who are facing pressure from increasing fuel and fertiliser costs. After farmers in the Republic of Ireland were offered a 100 million euro support package by their government to help cope with increasing costs, farmers in Northern Ireland are asking the UK government for more financial support too. Another impact of the war in Iran is the knock-on effect of spiralling fuel prices on the availability and cost of the plastic wrapping used for silage bales. With tractors already out in the fields cutting grass to make silage, an agricultural supply business tells us prices of some crop plastic may go up by as much as 40%.As the Environment Agency begins to clear thousands of tonnes of domestic and commercial rubbish from a huge flytipping site in Oxfordshire, we hear from the Country Land and Business Association who say that flaws in the application system to become a licensed waste carrier are making it easier for criminals to illegally dump waste at scale.Presented by Charlotte Smith and produced by Jo Peacey. A BBC Audio Bristol production.
This week on the BBC Introducing in Oxfordshire & Berkshire podcast, Dave catches up with Who Ate All The Crayons before they release their second EP ‘Evergreen'. Plus, Lauren finds out what's happening at the Bullingdon in Oxford for Record Store Day, and what Truck Store's plans are for their 15th birthday. And, Alex meets Tyler from RG Records - to hear how they are supporting artists in Reading's music scene.Here's this week's track list: • Carty S x Fangol - Brilliant Gear Tilly Valentine - Undercover (feat. Meduulla) Baby Maker - Inguhlund Frannie B - Villain Jdeezy - Bigger Picture JAZ IMSKY - MAGICK (feat. Duppy) Maddie Ashman - Waterlilly Solar Culture - Another Evening homesick - u were here [tipped by Jaguar at BBC Radio 1 Dance] Willie J Healey - Heaven Now The Borough - Identification Roseanna - Help me Who Ate All the Crayons - Honest Talks Who Ate All the Crayons - Tree DEAR TASH - City of Angels [tpped by Alyx Holcombe at BBC Radio 1 Rock] Unbelievable Truth - Building Modeste - Queen Chloe August - antisocials Oscar Dunbar - Lucy (Alt) Natalie Gray - Favourite Stornoway - Zorbing (Radio 2 Sofa Session) The Mighty Redox - But Why Sion Whiley - Fragile We Are Girl Like That - flustered Elmiene - Reclusive • If you're making music in Oxfordshire and Berkshire, send us your tunes with the BBC Introducing Uploader: https://www.bbc.co.uk/introducing/uploader
From a listener's mystery novel set in a perfume shop, refillable candles, a handsome man holding a bouquet by a fireside and where to find vintage fragrance posters - this episode is a veritably bulging postbag of perfume-matching pondering!Kathy (aka Kat LaGue) is a long-time listener and author of two ‘cosy mystery' novels set in a fictional perfume shop of her hometown, Baltimore, Maryland. You can read all about her work here: https://katlague.comWith her first ever signing event happening in May, Kathy ‘thought it might be fun to bring a bit of the shop experience to the table by offering pre-sprayed blotters for people to sniff.' For the first book she wanted a leathery/rose Chypre; for the second, the smell of a ‘kouign-amann, the glorious Breton butter cake. I'd love to find a fragrance, or even a layering combination, that evokes caramelized sugar, rich butter, and just a hint of salt.'We suggested…For the leathery rose Chypre:Angela Flanders Leather Rosa‘Inspired by the soft and sensual quality of leather with its naturally dry aroma, yet warm skin like touch. Leather Rosa is a new dark rose scent, deep and bewitching in nature, cherished rosa damascena, but dressed this time in a coat of the finest vintage leather.Sophisticated and elegant notes of exotic agar wood and smoky oudh add a leathery tobacco accord, while the warmth of amber makes an appearance in the base of this sensuous combination cherishing a heart of rosa damascena and a sweet top note of rose du mai and raspberry.'Hermès Kelly Calèche‘Kelly Caleche is a nod to two iconic Hermès objects: the Kelly bag and the caleche, a horse-drawn carriage and the House's signature. Kelly Caleche was created in 2007 by perfumer Jean-Claude Ellena. This "perfume exuding leather and flowers, as light as an angel's wing" is dedicated to women who exhibit free-spirited elegance and whose unisex equestrian style refuses to take itself too seriously.A floral and leathery fragrance, Kelly Caleche Eau de Parfum combines the opulent notes of rose with powdery mimosa, along with the enveloping character of benzoin.'For the second book:Maison Margiela Afternoon Delight‘Afternoon Delight captures a moment of self-indulgence, transporting you to a Parisian café where the uplifting aroma of warm madeleines fills the air. This sweet yet light, ambery gourmand fragrance evokes moments of joyful escapism.At the heart of the fragrance is a Madeleine accord, evoking Afternoon Delight perfume's sense of comfort and conjuring a moment of “me time,” where the quotidian fades away. This blends with the creamy and woody notes of sandalwood, while the deliciousness of Madagascan vanilla pod lingers in the fragrance. These notes all capture the memory of an enveloping moment for oneself.'Frassäi Blondine‘Once upon a time, in a faraway land, a fair and gentle princess grows up beloved by her father, surrounded by precious jewels, exotic fruits and mouthwatering dainties. When left behind in an enchanted forest by a deceitful coachman, BLONDINE is captivated by the most beautiful flowers she has ever seen. Rejoicing in their profusion and delighting in their perfume, she commences to fill her hat and pockets with them, until she finds herself farther and farther away from home. A fragrant tale of alluring florals, decadent sweets, and enigmatic musks, where courage and hope are the key to living happily ever after; here Blondine's story begins.Green mandarin, pear leaves, salted butter caramel, tiger lily, ashok flower, cocoa, castoreum, blond musks, and tonka beans.'Kylie Cosmetics Caramel Cloud Hair & Body Mist‘Caramel Cloud is a warm, ambery gourmand hair and body mist that envelops the senses with a smooth, buttery fragrance profile. The scent opens with rich notes of almond and pistachio butter, creating a nutty foundation that melts into a heart of caramel and brown sugar accords for a toasted, sweet character. At the base, soft musk and pure vanilla extract leave a delicious, cloud-like finish on both skin and hair.'(Layered with…)Demeter Fragrance Library Pretzel (available in Cologne, Bath & Body Oil, Body Lotion, Perfume Oil)‘Savour the iconic aroma of a New York Style Warm Pretzel. This fragrance captures the essence of freshly baked dough, lightly salted and perfectly warm, creating a scent that is both comforting and nostalgic. This fragrance will transport you to the bustling streets of New York City.'Penhaligon's Changing Constance‘Constance is what one might call A Very Modern Woman. She has no regard for custom, and does exactly as she likes. Cool cardamom, hot pimento, salted caramel - her contrary perfume breaks every rule.Key notes: cardamom, salted butter, caramel, tobacco.'PHLUR Caramel Skin Body Mist‘Decadent, deep and full of warmth. Caramel Skin is a deliciously sweet sensation that sparks desire, with refined sophistication and bold attitude. The dance between spun caramel, brown sugar and vanilla provide an indulgent and tantalizing taste. Bergamot adds brightness, while creamy sandalwood and musk elevate the fragrance into a confident and sensual symphony. Caramel Skin Body Mist is sweet, sexy and simply irresistible.'For B.O'Riodan, who's ‘rying to be a more discerning shopper' and wants to find fragrance candles where you can buy a refill separately, we recommend…Lords Fragrance House Candle Refills‘A new harder vegetable stearin wax formulation that allows us to make refills to slot into your pots! Available in 3 scents, Positano, Yellowstone and Oxfordshire. These fit our classic 1 wick vessel and our ceramic stripe vessel.'TOLD London Candle Refills‘This refill is hand-poured in the UK with 100% natural wax for a clean, long-lasting burn. Designed to refresh your Told London illustrated porcelain vessel, it delivers the same fine scent while reducing waste.'The Constant Candle Company (the one that Nicola promised she'd mention in the notes)"Constant Candle supplies everything you need to create a new candle sustainably - direct to your door. Pre-fragranced luxury eco-friendly candle wax to heat and pour into a candle holder of your choice, cotton wick plus a wooden wick holder together with instructions and videos."Also try: finding a candle-making workshop near you. Many of them ask that you bring your own vessels to be filled!Rachel Cooke loves wearing men's fragrances, but is looking for something pretty specific, scent-wise. Namely, one that smells like ‘a sexy bearded man in a suit that's smells typically masculine but he's holding a beautiful bunch of fragrant flowers but also in front of an open a fire!!'We thought these might night the spot…Floris Leather Oud‘Leather Oud has an opulent, deep sensual note of rich earthy vetiver and warm amber that combines beautifully with rose and sandalwood. Leather Oud has an opulent, deep sensual note of rich earthy vetiver and warm amber that combines beautifully with rose and sandalwood.Top notes: bergamot, leatherHeart notes: carnation, geranium, oudh, patchouliBase notes: oudh, vetiver, woody amber.'Penhaligon's The Cut‘Penhaligon's The Cut Eau de Parfum is a refined blend of spices and woods. Opening with an energetic twist of saffron, nutmeg, and coriander, the fragrance is stitched together with remarkable precision, offering a bold yet refined first impression.The heart unfolds with cistus labdanum, rose, and incense, creating a smoky, resinous warmth softened by a floral undertone. This sophisticated harmony evokes the swagger of Savile Row, where clary sage strides confidently, followed by lavender's dignified applause.In the base, patchouli, cedarwood atlas, and sandalwood deliver a deep, grounding finish. The result is a long-lasting fragrance of elegance and character, perfectly suited to both men and women who appreciate classic craftsmanship with a modern twist.Parfums de Marly Layton‘Layton blends juicy apple with calming lavender, wrapped in the earthy depth of patchouli. Elegant, sensual and flamboyant.Top Notes: apple, bergamot, cardamomHeart Notes: lavender, violet, geraniumBase Notes: patchouli, vanilla, guaic wood,praline.'Horace Oud Rose‘Oud Rose is refined yet extravagant, like wearing a leopard-print tuxedo to the opera. Geranium Rose and Rosemary offer a vibrant aromatic freshness. At the heart, a sensual, freshly cut Rose blends with a deep Patchouli. Finally, Oud, Cypriol and Sandalwood create a mysterious intensity.'Anforh Sorn‘Smoky, leathery, and floral with a deep amber resonance. Sorn is the most ornate and expressive of the three Anforh fragrances: indulgent but refined, modern yet vintage in structure.From the Scots word “sorn” (to linger by charm or persuasion), Sorn is a fragrance of memory and atmosphere. It captures the sense of what remains - the warmth in the air, the trace on the fabric, the echo of an evening.Top notes: pimento berry (allspice), clove bud, bergamotHeart notes:...
Skills gaps are being talked about in boardrooms everywhere right now, but I think we need to look far deeper than recruitment statistics or the latest government target. It's not just about how quickly you can hire or how many apprenticeship schemes you've got going - it's about what your workplace stands for, and the environment you're creating for people to grow and truly engage.A thriving organisation isn't filled by accident. What's really shaping the capability pipeline? If we want high-performing teams, we have to consider how leadership, education, industry, and even the earliest childhood experiences all connect. Charlotte Harris from Nicholsons joined me for a conversation that stretched from government forestry targets and primary school curriculums, to the reality of recruiting and retaining people in the green sector.There's huge value in nurturing potential from within. That means valuing a diversity of backgrounds, creating workplaces where everyone from Gen Z to seasoned experts can learn from each other, and making sure there's proper support for people moving into management. Too often, people become ‘accidental managers' without the tools or mindset to succeed – and we miss the chance to build leadership capability for the future.Charlotte has a keen eye for what actually helps people thrive at work - clear expectations, self-awareness, and a workplace culture where feedback is welcomed up and down the ladder. There are some brilliant prompts here for anyone who wants to step back from firefighting and really understand the bigger picture.Getting leadership and culture right isn't glamorous, but it makes all the difference to wellbeing, engagement and performance. If you want people to flourish, you need more than recruitment drives and bolt-on initiatives - you need a company that listens, learns, and adapts together.More about CharlotteCharlotte Harris is an Associate Director of People at Nicholsons, an environmental consultancy and contracting practice with offices in Oxfordshire, Northamptonshire and Gloucestershire. She is passionate about people-first culture and balancing kindness and inclusion with productivity and accountability to drive commercial success.Charlotte works within a wonderful People Team who help to deliver the key concepts discussed in this podcast.Get in touch with Charlotte: https://www.nicholsonsgb.com/contact-us/Resources & ReferencesInsight to Action: Beyond Skills Gaps: Building a Culture Where People ThriveWatch this episode on YouTubeHear me discuss the widening manager capability gap: Five People ChallengesFind out where some of your gaps lie with this resource: The Intentional Performance GuideLeadership Insights for a Changing World – Oxfordshire Business Summit Free eBook CIPD: Effective people managers: An evidence reviewClosing skill gaps from within: the case for internal mobility (CIPD Podcast)Investors in People whitepaper: The Broken LadderContact details for LisaLinkedIn: lisapsychologyWays to work with me: itstimeforchange.co.uk/tailored-supportJoin The Leadership Lens: itstimeforchange.co.uk/lets-connectEmail me for a friendly chat: lisa@itstimeforchange.co.uk
Professor Stephen Westaby is a former heart surgeon and writer. During his career he performed over 11,000 operations and pioneered the use of life long artificial hearts as an alternative to donor transplants.Stephen was born in Scunthorpe in 1948 and went to medical school at Charing Cross Hospital in 1966. The following year he suffered a serious head injury during a rugby match which had a major impact on his personality. He changed from being a shy person lacking in confidence into a fearless, ambitious operator – qualities, he believes, made him entirely suited to being a surgeon. In 1981 he took up a Research Fellowship in Alabama with John Kirklin, the first surgeon to successfully perform a series of open-heart operations using a heart-lung machine. During his time there Stephen discovered that medical nylon caused some patients to die of post-perfusion syndrome. Following his discovery, the manufacturers of the equipment removed it from the circuit which led to a substantial drop in cardiac surgical mortality.In 2000 he implanted a revolutionary new heart pump into a man who was terminally ill with heart failure using a device called the Jarvik 2000. Temporary devices – known as bridge to transplant devices – had been used to stabilise patients while they waited for a donor heart but this surgery – transplanting a permanent artificial heart instead of a donor heart was the first of its kind.Stephen retired from the NHS in 2016. The following year he published Fragile Lives: A Heart Surgeon's Stories of Life and Death on the Operating Theatre which won the BMA President's Award.Stephen has two children and lives with his wife in Oxfordshire.DISC ONE: Wonderful Land - The Shadows DISC TWO: Viva La Vida - Coldplay DISC THREE: Baker Street – Gerry Rafferty DISC FOUR: America - Simon & Garfunkel DISC FIVE: Forever Autumn - Justin Hayward DISC SIX: Moonlight Shadow - Mike Oldfield DISC SEVEN: Go Your Own Way - Fleetwood Mac DISC EIGHT: Rachmaninoff: Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Op. 43: Var. 18. Andante cantabile Performed by Vladimir Ashkenazy (piano) and London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by André PrevinBOOK CHOICE: Exercitatio Anatomica de Motu Cordis et Sanguinis in Animalibus by William Harvey LUXURY ITEM: A family photograph CASTAWAY'S FAVOURITE: Forever Autumn - Justin Hayward Presenter: Lauren Laverne Producer: Paula McGinley
This week on the BBC Introducing in Oxfordshire & Berkshire podcast, Ahead of their headline gig at Oxford's Jericho Tavern, Dave catches up with Alto Alto! Plus, Lauren meets South Arcade backstage at The O2 Arena in London before supporting 5 Seconds of Summer, and... she's blending contemporary jazz with art-pop and prog-rock - Alex chats to Phoebe Rea about her new EP Anybody Else?Here's this week's track list: • Finessa - Repetition Isaac Stuart - Champagne Emma Hunter - Snake BLISSFOOL - it's you (feat. Jake St Ange) Dani Sylvia - Company bedd - ou Have Nice Things (Electro bedd Re-Working) Emmeline - 2BY2 Henry Grace - Moving On South Arcade - SUPERMAN Brodie Milner - A Hateful Song [tipped by Jess Iszatt at BBC Radio 1] Molly Brown - Thank You To That Alto Alto - Honeycomb Alto Alto - Spanish Procession AMARA ctk100 - THONG [tipped by Jaguar at BBC Radio 1 Dance] 916 Nikz & Booda - Go Pro Moonrakers - Hark,Hark The Bigger the God - Janet and John Phoebe Rea - It Is What It Is Lo Rays - Cease and Desist [tipped by Alyx Holcombe at BBC Radio 1 Rock] Jody and the Jerms - Grace Laura Loh - Good to Me Endless Idiot - Zero Sum Glass Animals - Tokyo Drifting (with Denzel Curry) • If you're making music in Oxfordshire and Berkshire, send us your tunes with the BBC Introducing Uploader: https://www.bbc.co.uk/introducing/uploader
Landscape designer Luciano Giubbilei joins host Steph to reveal all about his dream garden. He describes growing up in Italy, his own landscape inspirations, including Villa Gamberaia in Florence and Rousham in Oxfordshire, and his own new landscape project at The Field in Mallorca. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Peter Gibbs and the GQT panel have traded parks and community gardens for a visit to the Oxfordshire home of Dame Mary Berry. On this week's panel are Matthew Pottage, Christine Walkden and Bunny Guinness.Among today's questions, the panellists troubleshoot evergreen roses plagued by black spot, unravel the mystery of why clematis keep failing on one side of a small London garden, and help a listener planning a late‑August wedding by suggesting plants that peak at the tail end of summer.Later in the programme, Mary shares her own gardening triumphs, from peaches ripened under winter covers, to treasured raised beds of herbs, strawberries and asparagus.Producer: Dan Cocker Assistant Producer: William Norton Producer: Matt SmithA Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4
This week on the BBC Introducing in Oxfordshire & Berkshire podcast, Dave introduces you to the music of "experimental freak pop" artist My Liberal Pony, plus Alex meets SISTRA to hear about their upcoming debut album and how their sisterly bond shaped it!Here's this week's track list: • Si Noble - The Witching Hour Still Pigeon - I Never Dreamt White Label - Dance On My Own Waves Rush In - Colours Bleed (For Mum) Niki Kini - Blinding Lights x Watermelon Sugar (live at Maida Vale) Chima Anya - IMPULSE Civil Villains - High Achievers Lee Switzer-Woolf - I Might Be An Alien Beaker - Backgarden Means Of Production - Paper Lungs (Flights of Helios Remix) Girl In The Year Above - Mama, My Heart Is Achin' [tipped by Jess Iszatt at BBC Radio 1] The August List - The Cinnamon Bear National Anthem My Liberal Pony - OUMUAMUA Goldbar - Gravity (feat. Victoria Port) KNIFE BRIDE - crucify [tipped by Alyx Holcombe at BBC Radio 1 Rock] Taylor & Girish - Julian MarysGarden - Freefall J.Monroe - Stay (feat. Man Like Proctor) The Foam Heads - New Joy Lou Lyne and the Blue Almond Project - Busy Mind SISTRA - Is It Just Me? LookWho'sPlaying - The Need Ameliah Jayne - Firecracker Stornoway - Marco Polo • If you're making music in Oxfordshire and Berkshire, send us your tunes with the BBC Introducing Uploader: https://www.bbc.co.uk/introducing/uploader
Morse code transcription: vvv vvv Cake Picnic 2026 Inside Sydneys giant cake party Potential Houthi threat to Red Sea shipping could further damage global economy Teenagers say weekend and Saturday jobs are impossible to find Tiger Woods Where does latest arrest leave golf greats legacy Major Scottish gangland figure arrested by Spanish police in Bali Murder inquiry launched after young woman dies in Leeds Beckhams Blackpool lighting plans irk Oxfordshire neighbours No Kings protests Thousands across the US rally against Trump I was naive, says minister who quit over Labour Together claims Major fire tears through Leeks historic The Big Mill
Morse code transcription: vvv vvv Major fire tears through Leeks historic The Big Mill Tiger Woods Where does latest arrest leave golf greats legacy Teenagers say weekend and Saturday jobs are impossible to find Beckhams Blackpool lighting plans irk Oxfordshire neighbours Cake Picnic 2026 Inside Sydneys giant cake party Potential Houthi threat to Red Sea shipping could further damage global economy Murder inquiry launched after young woman dies in Leeds No Kings protests Thousands across the US rally against Trump Major Scottish gangland figure arrested by Spanish police in Bali I was naive, says minister who quit over Labour Together claims
Morse code transcription: vvv vvv Cake Picnic 2026 Inside Sydneys giant cake party Teenagers say weekend and Saturday jobs are impossible to find No Kings protests Thousands across the US rally against Trump I was naive, says minister who quit over Labour Together claims Beckhams Blackpool lighting plans irk Oxfordshire neighbours Potential Houthi threat to Red Sea shipping could further damage global economy Major fire tears through Leeks historic The Big Mill Tiger Woods Where does latest arrest leave golf greats legacy Murder inquiry launched after young woman dies in Leeds Major Scottish gangland figure arrested by Spanish police in Bali
Morse code transcription: vvv vvv I was naive, says minister who quit over Labour Together claims Murder inquiry launched after young woman dies in Leeds Beckhams Blackpool lighting plans irk Oxfordshire neighbours Teenagers say weekend and Saturday jobs are impossible to find Tiger Woods Where does latest arrest leave golf greats legacy Potential Houthi threat to Red Sea shipping could further damage global economy Major fire tears through Leeks historic The Big Mill No Kings protests Thousands across the US rally against Trump Cake Picnic 2026 Inside Sydneys giant cake party Major Scottish gangland figure arrested by Spanish police in Bali
This week on the BBC Introducing in Oxfordshire & Berkshire podcast, Dave introduces you to the incredible music of singer/songwriter Joe Bray!Plus, why are they all in their pyjamas!? Alex West dons his finest dressing gown to catch up with Girl Like That after their gig at The Bullingdon in Oxford, and Lauren Skinner dives into the BBC Introducing uploader to bring you the journey of one of our faves - this time it's Danny Mellin!Here's this week's track list: • SISTRA - Is It Just Me? Cave Man - All In Alto Alto - Mediterranean Sun Naked Brunch - Tied To Me Magma - Bread Lost Velvet - Burnt Flyboy Jetty - Creek sap green & Dolly Doo - Ring Ring Mc Inna - Stressed out Joe Hicks - If Only Konyikeh - Mercenary [tipped by Jess Iszatt at BBC Radio 1] Dom James Jr. - Fifty Shades of You All is Worth - Save Them From The Fall Purple Grace - Narcisisst Sadie Fine - Rodeo Joe Bray - Waiting Sam Girling - Look What U Done [tipped by Jaguar at BBC Radio 1 Dance] The Jacques - Tall Tale Man Girl Like That - flustered Helen Pearson - Foxes Club Will - Move The House DeadWax - Bang On [tipped by Alyx Holcombe at BBC Radio 1 Rock] Liza Xenia - Porcelain Indica Blues - So Low Danny Mellin - When She's With Me Arimea - Silent Space The Dopamine Project - Watching Rain David Bergen - Blackberry Honey Farm Cathy Hattam - Let Us Be Free • If you're making music in Oxfordshire and Berkshire, send us your tunes with the BBC Introducing Uploader: https://www.bbc.co.uk/introducing/uploader
Johnny Mac shares five good news stories: the Smithsonian names the Ghostbusters New York City firehouse (Hook and Ladder 8) among 250 places to visit as America approaches its 250th anniversary, with the full list at smithsonianmag.com; German scientists develop a fish gill-inspired wastewater filter that removes up to 99% of microplastics by rolling particles along a cone-shaped mesh into a separate chamber; a Ryanair passenger buys all 68 onboard scratch-card packets and wins nothing, amid reports that jackpot winners enter a separate envelope draw with long odds; an Oxfordshire cash-only “five penny” Swinford toll bridge, founded by an act of parliament in the 1700s, earns about £500 a day and polarizes reviewers; and Oklahoma City police share footage of a dog stealing a porch package, which is recovered. 00:11 Ghostbusters Firehouse Trip01:10 Fish Inspired Microplastic Filter01:54 Ryanair Scratch Card Bust02:57 Britain's Five Penny Bridge03:44 Porch Pirate Dogs Caught John also hosts Daily Comedy NewsUnlock an ad-free podcast experience with Caloroga Shark Media! For Apple users, hit the banner which says Uninterrupted Listening on your Apple podcasts app. Subscribe now for exclusive shows like 'Palace Intrigue,' and get bonus content from Deep Crown (our exclusive Palace Insider!) Or get 'Daily Comedy News,' and '5 Good News Stories' with no commercials! Plans start at $4.99 per month, or save 20% with a yearly plan at $49.99. Join today and help support the show!Get more info from Caloroga Shark Media and if you have any comments, suggestions, or just want to get in touch our email is info@caloroga.com
Some gardens demand attention. Rousham simply holds it. Tucked into the Oxfordshire countryside, this is a place where design and landscape speak in the same breath - where structure yields to softness and every view feels both composed and completely inevitable.In this episode of The Country House Podcast, we sit down with Michelle from Woodsford Landscape Designs to unpick what makes Rousham so extraordinary: the planting philosophy, the sense of place, and that rare quality of a garden that feels as though it has always been there, waiting to be discovered.If you enjoy tuning in, please consider supporting us by joining one of our membership tiers on our Patreon page - we love getting to know members of our community. Please also like, share and comment as you see fit. For more information, please visit our website. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Jesús Huerta de Soto traces the Austrian school's intellectual roots from the Spanish scholastics to Rothbard, making the case that anarcho-capitalism is the natural endpoint of the classical liberal tradition.The Ludwig von Mises Memorial Lecture, sponsored by Yousif Almoayyed.The Austrian Economics Research Conference is the international, interdisciplinary meeting of the Austrian school, bringing together leading scholars doing research in this vibrant and influential intellectual tradition.Full Text version of the Lecture (Submitted by Prof. Huerta de Soto):Thank you very much to the Mises Institute and Joe Salerno for his kind introduction as well as for inviting me to deliver this “Ludwig von Mises Memorial Lecture” to celebrate the one hundredth anniversary of Murray N. Rothbard's birthday. It is the second time I visit the Mises Institute to deliver this most important lecture: The first one was almost thirty years ago, back in April 1997, when I delivered a lecture on “The Scholastic Roots of the Austrian School”. In this second opportunity I am very happy to have been able to accept Joe's invitation and to come with a very well represented retinue of ten of my colleagues and doctoral students. All of them are teaching as professors or making their research at our more than twenty-year-old Doctoral and Master Programs in Austrian Economics at King Juan Carlos University back in Madrid, and which is the only one officially approved and with full validity inside the whole European Union. You have already had the opportunity to hear from each one of them a detailed description of the so-called “Madrid Austrian Research Hub” and of all the activities we are developing every year, including the 54 Doctoral Theses on Austrian Economics that have been read up to now in our program. And here you have also copies of the English version of our main books published by Routledge, Edward Elgar, and by the Macmillan Austrian Series edited by my Madrid Colleagues, the German professor Philipp Bagus and the Canadian professor Dave Howden. And you will have the unique opportunity to buy these books that, as you know, have a hefty price of almost 100 pounds each one, at the almost “stolen property” and symbolic price of 5 dollars per copy, thanks to the most generous help of the Spanish Jesús Huerta de Soto Foundation that is helping to finance our participation in this important event.And now what I will do in the next forty minutes is to try to summarize not only my main contributions, but also “The Libertarian Vision of the Scientific and Moral Truth” as we see it from our Austrian School Hub in Madrid. And I will do it by focusing on a series of fundamental points.Precisely, the youngest of all sciences, Economics is the one that has provided Humanity with the most important scientific contributionThe first one is that Economics, being the last science to arrive, or as Mises said, "the youngest of all sciences," has nevertheless achieved the milestone of providing Humanity with the most important scientific contribution. For the first time, and thanks to Economic Science, human beings have discovered and understood that voluntary social cooperation, free from all institutional and systematic external coercion, generates a spontaneous order that cannot be designed nor organized by anyone, and that peacefully and without limits drives the prosperity and expansion of Humankind.This transcendental message of Economic Science, on the one hand, resolves the impossible antithesis of attempting to apply, within the realm of interactions carried out by human beings endowed with free will, the manipulative approach of external entities that human beings have no choice but to use, supported by technology and the natural sciences, in order to dominate the subject of the material world. And on the other hand, this is a radically revolutionary message: for the first time, it has been scientifically demonstrated that states, in any of their forms, are neither necessary nor viable; that Society, understood as a process of voluntary human interactions, does not need anyone to govern it, because it regulates and organizes itself spontaneously; and that the attempt to coordinate Society on the basis of social engineering and state coercive commands is impossible, doomed to failure, and gives rise to all kinds of distortions, social conflicts and violence, that continually hinder and block human progress.Economic science is generalized into a complete Theory of Liberty that makes it possible to reinterpret History and promote the expansion of civilizationThe second point is that Economics has been generalized into a whole Theory of Liberty, understood as the most essential attribute and requirement of human nature. Liberty means that all human actions are carried out voluntarily, based on the principle of non-aggression, and free of external coercion or violence imposed and organized from above by the always minority group of human beings who, under whatever title, exercise any kind of political power.Moreover, Economics dismantles and turns upside down the erroneous and biased account of Thomas Hobbes and his followers. Neither was the "state of nature" a terrifying situation, nor did a supposed "social contract" ever exist or was it necessary to create and maintain a State that would impose order and guarantee peace. What happened was precisely the opposite: natural evolution consisted, above all, in the spontaneous discovery of the great advantages provided by voluntary exchanges and peaceful trade. Systematic and generalized violence, war, and terror arose only with the appearance of States, as coercive institutions composed of the most antisocial and violent human beings, who wanted (and still want) to live at the expense of plundering those citizens who earn their living by working and trading peacefully with each other (Oppenheimer, 1926).Thus, Economics, demonstrates that what Étienne de La Boétie named "voluntary servitude", is an anti-human aberration to which human beings have been subjected for centuries. And that it is not necessary to continue with the resigned habit of obeying the State; nor do governments enjoy an aura of prestige (but are literally "stripped" of any attribute of intellectual or moral superiority); nor is the caste—or “praetorian guard”—of intellectuals, “experts”, and acolytes that surround states and rulers to be regarded as untouchable; nor should we allow ourselves to be seduced and deceived by subsidies or perks, whether supposed or real, with which they seek to purchase the will and secure the loyalty of exploited human beings, so that they will consent, voluntarily and permanently, to their exploitation and servitude (De la Boétie, 1975).Economics is the Science developed by the Austrian School of Economics, which should in fact be known as the Spanish School, as it has its origins in the thinking of our scholastics of the Spanish Golden AgeThe third point is that Economic Science has reached its highest level of development thanks to the Austrian School of Economics. As you know, our school is based on the realism of its analytical assumptions, in the dynamic approach based on the entrepreneurial, creative, and coordinating capacity of every human being, and in the study of the spontaneous and self-regulated order of the social process of voluntary human interactions (Huerta de Soto, 2008). The institutional and multidisciplinary approach of the Austrian School is also very relevant. As a result of the spontaneous social process important institutions emerge which, in turn, make it possible and drive it forward: Law and property rights rooted in human nature and discovered and developed spontaneously outside the state; the family, a basic and essential institution, on which the expansion of Humanity is made possible and consolidated; moral principles, which act as a true "automatic pilot" for liberty and which human beings internalize and transmit from generation to generation, thanks to the family and other community or religious institutions; economic institutions, and in particular, money, which also evolves spontaneously outside the State, and which can and should be considered the social institution par excellence, since by overcoming the problems of barter, it enables the exponential multiplication of voluntary exchanges and human interactions, within which the rest of the social, linguistic, moral, legal, economic, and religious institutions are discovered, shaped, and perfected.Our fourth point is that the first theorists of the spontaneous order emerged in the field of law, led by the great jurists of classical Rome. They were the first ones to understand the organic and evolutionary nature of the social process, and so they became, without being aware of it, the first economists. Their tradition was kept alive throughout the Middle Ages thanks to the Catholic Church and, through thinkers such as Saint Thomas Aquinas, Saint Antoninus of Florence, and Saint Bernardino of Siena, eventually came to influence the Spanish scholastics of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries gathered around the University of Salamanca. As Rothbard demonstrated (Rothbard, 1976) these thinkers of the Spanish Golden Age should be considered the most immediate precedent of the Austrian School of Economics, which, precisely for this reason, should be called the Spanish School of Economics. And in fact, these Spanish scholastics were already able to articulate the following ten essential principles which constitute the theoretical foundation of the Austrian School:Firstly, the subjective theory of value developed by the Bishop of Segovia, Diego de Covarrubias, who as early as 1555 clearly explained that, although the objective nature of wheat is the same in Spain as in America, its price was higher in America because there human beings subjectively valued it much more highly; from this follows the correct relationship between prices and costs set out by Luis Sarabia de la Calle, in the sense that it is market prices that determine costs and not the other way around, as equilibrium theorists mistakenly believe; the Scholastics also realized that equilibrium models and prices lack realism and theoretical meaning because they presuppose a degree of knowledge “so complex that only God, and in no case human beings, could ever acquire it” (in latin “pretium iustum mathematicum licet soli Deo notum”), as already explained by the Jesuit cardinals Juan de Salas in 1617 and Juan de Lugo in 1643, more than three hundred years earlier than Hayek could conclude that “a science which assumes knowledge that can never be acquired is not a Science”; also the dynamic concept of competition is fundamental, understood as a process of rivalry among sellers based on the dynamic conception of market processes developed by Jerónimo Castillo de Bobadilla and Luis de Molina in 1589 and 1597, and that has nothing to do with the static model of "perfect competition" of equilibrium theorists; and also the important contributions of the Spanish Scholastics related with capital theory, business cycles, and the effects of fiduciary media generated by banks; so, particular emphasis should be placed on the rediscovery of the principle of time preference by Martín de Azpilcueta, following what Lessines had already stated in 1285; as well as on the fact that bankers commit mortal sin when they operate with fractional reserves, creating bank deposits as a form of virtual money (or chirographis pecuniarium, as Luis de Molina said in latin) that only exists in their accounting books and distorts the structure of relative prices, creating bubbles and deep economic crises that ultimately "bring everything crashing down," as Saravia de la Calle and Tomás de Mercado so vividly explained in the 16th Century; and in short, the Scholastic's idea that it is impossible to organize society through coercive commands due to lack of the information that would be required to give them coordinating content; as well as the discovery that inflation is a hidden and very harmful tax that arises from an act of tyranny, since it is neither known nor accepted by citizens, which would even justify the assassination of the King according to the theory of tyrannicide, a contribution originally made by the Castilian Comuneros eventually defeated by the tyrant King Charles V in 1521, and developed by Father Juan de Mariana almost a century later [in 1610].This entire line of proto-Austrian scholastic thought also spread throughout the Americas, especially in the newly founded universities of San Marcos in Lima and Mexico City in 1551 where brilliant disciples of these Scholastics, who had studied at the University of Salamanca itself, came to occupy prominent academic positions. Thus, for example, we should mention the cases of Bartolomé Frías de Albornoz in Mexico, and above all the great Juan de Matienzo, who became judge and president of the Royal Audiencia of Charcas and Lima from 1560 onwards (Popescu, 1997).Finally, the doctrine of our scholastics did spread even to North America two centuries later through the books of Juan de Mariana, who greatly influenced Thomas Jefferson and the founding fathers of the United States.However, the southern part of the continent ultimately proved unable to neutralize the wave of growing statism and centralization that first came with the arrivals of the Habsburgs in Spain, and which was intensified even further after the arrival of the Bourbons with Philip V at the beginning of the eighteenth century (Martínez Marina, 1820). How different and much more prosperous and libertarian might the historical evolution of Spain and Latin America have been, had the statist centralism of the Habsburgs and the Bourbons not prevailed, and had the far more libertarian, local, and decentralized traditional representative institutions of the kingdoms of Castile instead remained predominant—institutions that were dismantled, together with Europe's first libertarian revolution, beginning with the defeat of the Castilian Comuneros at Villalar on April 23, 1521 (Leonard Liggio, 2025).The most important and far-reaching contributions of economic scienceLet us now turn, in greater detail, to the most important contributions of Economics, as developed by the Austrian School.First, human cooperation takes place spontaneously, without the need for anyone to organize it coercively from outside. This is so because human beings are endowed with an entrepreneurial and creative capacity that continually drives them to discover the multiple opportunities for profit that arise in their environment. Each of these opportunities embodies a previous discoordination in human behavior that remains latent until it is discovered and overcome by the corresponding entrepreneurial act. This entrepreneurial act always arises from a creative tension and interpretation of events of the outside world that is essentially subjective and, therefore, cannot be reproduced by any artificial intelligence algorithm; in other words, the same objective events can be interpreted in multiple ways, even contradictory ones, without it being possible to postulate which is correct until the corresponding entrepreneurial process is completed in the form of a subjective profit. In any case, every entrepreneurial act involves, firstly, the creation of information that did not exist before (regarding the profit opportunity that arose from the previous discoordination that had gone unnoticed); secondly, the transmission of that knowledge (directly to the parties involved in the entrepreneurial act and indirectly through a series of institutions and signals such as market prices); and third and finally, the coordination of the previous maladjustments takes place when the parties involved learn motu proprio, that is, voluntarily and for their own benefit, to discipline their behavior according to the needs of others (for example, when they discover that they achieve their ends more effectively by specializing and trading peacefully the mutual results of their efforts). The discovery of the essence of this pure entrepreneurial act, with its elements of creation and transmission of information and the spontaneous coordination of the previous maladjustments continually generated by human coexistence, constitutes the most important contribution that Economic Science has provided to Humanity, and explains why the spontaneous process of voluntary social cooperation that drives the multiplication of human beings and the expansion of civilization does not require any statist system of institutional coercion.Another essential contribution of Economics is the concept of Dynamic Efficiency, understood as the process of unlimited expansion of human creativity and entrepreneurial coordination that arises only within a specific institutional framework of moral and legal norms. This framework is the one grounded on the ethical principle according to which every human being has a natural right to appropriate the results of his entrepreneurial creativity; that is, a property right over what one has created and which did not previously exist, which is the most obvious and important human right. For this reason, (dynamic) Efficiency and Morality and Justice (properly understood) cannot be separated one from the other; or, as we might say, they are two sides of the same coin in the sense that only Justice and Morality induce and generate efficiency; and at the same time, what is dynamically efficient in economic terms cannot be neither unjust nor immoral. All of which, on the other hand, demonstrates the integrated order that exists in the social universe, and highlights the three levels of research (theoretical, ethical, and historical) that complement and reinforce with each other and are essential in our search for truth (Huerta de Soto, 2000).Finally, another key contribution of Economic Science is to have demonstrated the impossibility of socialism, or better, the impossibility of statism, in the sense that it is impossible for the State to achieve and coordinate what it promises for the following four reasons:First, because of the enormous volume of information required for such coordination, which the State cannot acquire because it is dispersed in the minds of the eight billion human beings who participate and interact in the social process every day. Second, given the tacit and inarticulate character of this information (and therefore its inability to be transmitted in an objective manner). Third, because the information that is generated is not "given," nor is it static, but instead changes continuously as a result of human creativity, making it impossible to transmit today information that will only be created tomorrow, and which is precisely the information that the organs of State intervention and the so-called “experts” would need today in order to direct society to achieve their objectives tomorrow. And fourth, and above all, because the coercive nature of State commands blocks the entrepreneurial activity of creating the very information which the State organization itself would need in order to give its commands a coordinating content. In sum, the State is always and everywhere violence and coercion; coercion blocks the entrepreneurial act of creation, discovery, and adjustment of discoordinated human behavior, while at the same time preventing the creation of the information and the emergence of free market prices that make economic calculation and social coordination possible. For this reason, statism is not only unnecessary but is also scientifically impossible.The impact of these essential contributions of Economics on the course of social evolution has so far been very limitedAll of these scientific contributions have so far achieved only a very partial, imperfect, and limited impact on the inertia of a social and political reality that has for centuries been characterized by the coercive power of States and rulers, and by the more or less resigned servitude of the citizens. And despite the very limited nature of this impact to date, which at best has materialized in a series of naïve and "liberal" revolutions aimed, with as much arrogance as lack of success, toward the impossible objective of trying to separate and limit the powers of states and rulers through political constitutions and "liberal democracies" (Rothbard, 2009); Humanity has been propelled as never before in those places and historical moments where it has managed, despite everything, to at least partially free itself from the State and open up some of the new channels of liberty shown by the teachings of Economics. Beginning with the Industrial Revolution, which was but the first chapter of the never-completed "Revolution of Liberty" inspired by Economics. And although what has been achieved in terms of prosperity and standard of living by the now eight billion human beings seems relatively significant—and indeed it is—we cannot even conceive of the standard of living and population size that could be achieved if Humanity were able to take full advantage of and fully implement the teachings of Economic Science.We can be few and poor in a context of servitude and submission to the State, or many and wealthy in a context of liberty (Hayek, 1988, p. 133). The globe is practically empty of human beings (the Earth's current population would fit into an area equivalent to that of the state of Alaska, with a population density equal to that of Brussels). And we cannot even imagine the prosperity that could be achieved in a free market daily driven by eighty billion, or even eight hundred billion, human beings. Economics explains and demonstrates that the increasing prosperity of an ever-growing population of human beings never results from deliberate and coercive State plans, nor from the egalitarian income redistribution, nor from increases in public spending, nor from subsidies, debt, or inflation, but only arises from the free market of the capitalist system. This consists of the process of voluntary exchanges among all human beings who, endowed with an innate entrepreneurial and creative capacity, are able to detect and assess, through the system of free prices, the relative urgency and necessity of each good and service, overcoming the relative scarcity of each and satisfying, every day and in the best humanly possible way, the desires and needs of billions of consumers. Entrepreneurs who succeed in this never-ending process of profit-seeking accumulate significant resources, which, in turn, are saved and invested in capital goods and new technologies that make human beings increasingly productive, boosting their wages and standards of living; a virtuous process of continuously expanding prosperity and population growth that, if not coerced or hindered by the State, has no limits.Therefore, it is crucially important for the future of Humanity that it be able to take full and maximum advantage of the lessons and essential message in pursuit of human liberty that Economics provides. But this will only be possible if we are able to unmask and carefully analyze the powerful forces of the pseudoscientific and counterrevolutionary reaction that has been mobilized to prevent the advance of the theory of liberty derived from Economic Science. Despite their diverse origins, they all converge on the same objective: to attempt to justify and preserve State coercion at all costs under the appearance of scientific legitimacy. They are driven by the "fatal conceit" (Hayek, 1988) of many visionaries, thinkers, and supposed "experts" who believe themselves to be clever enough to correct the spontaneous market order, of course, using the violence and coercive power of the State. Together with a privileged caste of rulers, bureaucrats and acolytes, they continually manipulate a Humanity that is sadly accustomed to serving the State. For all of them, it is vital that statism be maintained and that the message of liberty provided by Economics never prevail.Next, we will list the main reactionary pseudoscientific currents that have infiltrated Economic Science like a lethal virus and constitute, in Hayek's terminology, "the counter-revolution of science" (Hayek, 1955).Pseudoscientific reactionary currents opposed to Economic Science. The role played as “useful innocents” by many libertarian economists of the counterrevolutionary mainstreamFirst, positivism and scientism as pseudoscience. By "scientism" we must understand the improper application of the methods of the natural sciences to the field of Economic Science. Thus, while the natural sciences study their object of research as something external, measurable, and quantifiable, Economics studies the implications of the voluntary actions of human beings. And given the essentially creative nature of human beings, the supposed empirical "evidence" has, at best, only a superficial, partial, and always historically contingent value. In Bastiat's words, of "what is seen" —or rather, what is believed to have been seen— but not "what is not seen" (Bastiat, 1995); and at worst, it always entails the assumption, that human beings are an object of research that can be manipulated as the matter of the external world studied by the natural sciences. This inevitably introduces the idea that to improve the world, the State and its rulers must use their coercive power to manipulate and change the things they believe they see in their historically contingent "empirical photos." But these "empirical photos" cannot capture the underlying dynamic essence of spontaneous social processes, let alone what is already happening spontaneously to solve and coordinate every problem. Therefore, it is not surprising that from the very first steps of Economic Science promoted by the Austrian School, its most violent opponents were the "socialists of the chair" gathered around the German Historical School, reinforced in France by the empiricists of the school of Saint-Simon, the insane Comte, and Durkheim, who sought to create a new and alternative pseudoscience of society. And their unhealthy positivist and ultra-empirical influence has persisted to the present day, first through American Institutionalism and later through the massive compilation of empirical data, for example, in the work of Wesley C. Mitchell or Henry Schultz, the latter, as shown by Professor Salerno, having gone on to exert a decisive influence on his assistant Milton Friedman and, through him, even on the Chicago School itself (Salerno, 2023).Secondly, the pseudoscience of neoclassical economics is characterized by its claim that only its own approach constitutes true “science,” that is, the approach based on the principles of equilibrium, maximization, and constancy. Moreover, in addition to the lack of realism of its assumptions, it adds the reductionism of a mathematical language that has developed in response to the needs and demands of the natural sciences, but which is alien to Economic Science because it does not allow for the subjective concept of time or entrepreneurial creativity. Neoclassical economists develop their pseudoscience based not on real human beings of flesh and blood, but on "ideal types" that are like "robotic penguins" who, even in their most sophisticated dynamic stochastic general equilibrium models are limited to moving and reacting to events and State coercion as if they were characters of a sort of economic video game ("videogame economics"). Yet neoclassical pseudoscience, despite its apparent and ever-increasing sophistication, is not capable of accounting for the immense complexity of the real world and rebels against the idea of spontaneous market order in two ways that are equally harmful to human liberty: on the one hand, by promoting the coercive "social engineering" of central banks, States, and governments to use "fine tuning" to force reality toward to the mathematical optimum of their models; and, on the other hand, by labeling as "market failures" everything they believe they observe in reality that does not coincide, in their empirical studies, with their ghostly models of “perfect” equilibrium and adjustment (Milei, 2023); failures that, according to them, refute the "benefits" of the spontaneous order of the market and human liberty, and justify their elimination as soon as possible by a coercive State authority. Note also how neoclassical pseudoscience needs, and feeds upon, the empirical work of the previous pseudoscience, positivism, in order to justify its conclusions against human liberty and in favor of State coercion, so that positivists and neoclassicists join hands and end up reinforcing each other in their reactionary agenda.Third, Keynesianism and macroeconomics as pseudoscience. The very “macro” approach already entails, inevitably, an obvious bias in favor of justifying State intervention, aggression, and coercion against the spontaneous order of the market and human liberty. As F. A. Hayek pointed out in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech in 1974 (Hayek, 1978), macroeconomists ignore everything they cannot measure, specifically truly relevant economic processes and theories. At the same time, they believe that certain aggregate concepts—which lack genuine economic meaning—possess a “real” existence, that permits to collect empirical information or evidence that can be manipulated and statistically treated. Once again, macroeconomic pseudoscience goes hand in hand with positivist pseudoscience, and the two reinforce with each other in their counterrevolutionary reaction. Furthermore, Keynesianism is particularly harmful: not only does it flatly deny the coordinating capacity of creative entrepreneurship and the spontaneous market order, but it also builds as an alternative explanation a whole model—of course—of equilibrium with permanent unemployment, to justify the coercive intervention of the State in the lives of human beings in the form of all kinds of fiscal and monetary manipulations. Moreover, the macroeconomic and Keynesian pseudoscience feeds upon, and is reinforced by, the pseudoscientific approach of the Neoclassical School, to the point that, the so-called "neoclassical Keynesian synthesis" became, throughout the twentieth century, the main reactionary movement inside Economics. Keynesians and macroeconomists thus become the champions of that intoxication with statism, manipulation, and political power which constitutes the framework, orchestrated by governments and central banks, to which we have, regrettably, become accustomed and in which we are forced to live. This context repeatedly destabilizes the spontaneous market order, generates serious financial and economic crises and social conflicts, and continually hampers the prosperity and advance of civilization.We have left the quasi-religious mysticism of Marxist pseudoscience for last, because Marxism was scientifically dead even before it was born: in fact, it emerged with—and was theoretically demolished by—the subjectivist revolution led by the Austrian School of Economics. From the beginning, the Austrian School's development of time preference and capital theory revealed the contradictions and grave scientific errors of Marxism, while at the same time exposing its pronounced character as an intellectual fraud (Böhm-Bawerk, 1949). This intellectual fraud was historically illustrated by the collapse of the Soviet Union, and of virtually all other communist countries, after many decades of unspeakable human suffering for a large part of the world's population, all of which was perfectly consistent with the theory on the impossibility of statism developed by the Austrian School beginning with the von Mises of 1920 (Mises, 1936), and which was the final nail that forever sealed the coffin of the corpse of Marxist pseudoscience (Huerta de Soto, 2010).Finally, in this context, we must mention the destructive role played by a number of distinguished economists who, although they defend liberty and the market economy, could be described as a kind of "useful innocents" in Mises' terminology (Mises, 1947). This is so because, even though they officially oppose rampant statism and defend liberty, by accepting—even if only partially—some of the postulates of the reactionary pseudoscientific currents we have described, they ultimately end up, often without intending to and much to their regret, providing additional impetus to the statist reaction within our discipline; for example, when they insist on advising States with proposals aimed at making them more efficient and at helping them do somewhat better things that they should not be doing at all. By way of illustration, we should include in this category of “useful innocents”, for example, thinkers as the Karl Popper of The Open Society and Its Enemies (Popper, 1966, p. 366), who came to admire the “scientific capacity” and even the “humanism” of Karl Marx, and who proposed a statist strategy of “piecemeal social engineering”; or George Stigler, when he claimed that only empirical evidence could determine which economic system, socialism or capitalism, might function (Stigler, 1975, pp. 1-13); and, more generally, the members of the Chicago School, led by Gary Becker and Milton Friedman. Becker when defending that only economics developed within the strict limits of equilibrium, constancy, and maximization, typical of the neoclassical pseudoscience, constitutes true "economic science." And even more serious could be considered the case of Milton Friedman, whose very sincere love of liberty and intense and popular media support for free markets stand in sharp contrast to his pseudoscientific approach based on the aggregate method of economics of Keynesian origin, on positivist empiricism, and on the full acceptance of the unrealism of assumptions. Only in this way it can be explained Friedman's litany of scientific errors which, much to his regret, have invariably ended up reinforcing statist interventionism, to the point that Hayek himself was forced to conclude that after Keynes's The General Theory, the book that has done the greatest harm to Economic Science has been Friedman's Essays in Positive Economics (Hayek, 1994, pp. 145).The failure of democracy and classical liberalism: the triumph of statismAs we see, many classical liberals and advocates of liberal democracy have also acted as "useful innocents." The fatal error of classical liberals lies in the failure to realize that their program is theoretically impossible, because it incorporates within itself the seeds of its own destruction, precisely to the extent that it considers necessary and accepts the existence of a State (even if it is "minimal") understood as the monopolistic agency of institutional coercion. Therefore, the great error of classical liberals is very basic: they believe in a program of political action and economic doctrine that aims to limit the power of the State, while at the same time accepting it and even considering state's existence necessary. However Economic Science has already shown that the State is unnecessary, that statism (even in its minimal form) is theoretically impossible, and that, given human nature, once the State exists, it is impossible to limit its power. On the other hand, liberal democracy is a concept as naïve as it is impossible. Mises already warned us that democracy could only function if all its participants accepted the classical liberal principles, which is impossible because democracy itself encourages and amplifies vote-buying and the partisan use of power. So, the inevitable conclusion is that "liberal democracy" is a contradiction in terms as absurd as speaking (following Anthony de Jasay) of a “square circle,” of “hot snow,” or of a “virgin prostitute” (A. de Jasay, 1990). And even Hayek considered democracy unworkable if it is understood as the exercise of absolute power by majorities (Kratos in classical Greek). It should therefore come as no surprise that democracy once and again tends to be a perverse system based on lying and buying votes with money stolen through taxation.The fact is that the State attracts like a magnet the worst passions and vices of human nature, for instance, when individuals try to obtain rents produced by others using the State's coercive power. Moreover, the combined effect of the privileged groups, the phenomena of governmental myopia and vote-buying, the megalomaniacal character of politicians, and the irresponsibility and blindness of bureaucracies generate a dangerous, unstable and explosive cocktail, continually shaken by social, economic, and political crises which, paradoxically, are always used by the political caste to justify further doses of intervention and statism that, instead of solving problems, further aggravate them. Statism therefore corrupts the entire social body and at the same time blocks the spontaneous and free market solutions of social and economic problems.In fact, the State has become the "idol" that almost everyone turns to and worships. Statolatry is the most serious and dangerous social disease of our time. We are educated to believe that all problems can and must be detected and solved by the State. Our destiny depends on the State, and the politicians who control it are expected to guarantee everything our well-being may require. Human beings remain immature and rebel against their own creative nature, which makes their future always uncertain. They demand a crystal ball that assures them not only knowing what will happen, but also that any problems that arise will be solved for them. This "infantilization" of the masses is encouraged by politicians, as it justifies their own existence and ensures their popularity, position of dominance, and capacity to control. In addition, a whole legion of intellectuals, so-called "experts," and social engineers join in this arrogant intoxication of power. Not even the Church and the most respectable religious denominations have been able to realize that statolatry today constitutes the principal threat to the free, moral, and responsible human being; that the State is a false idol of immense power, worshipped by all, and that does not allow Humanity to be free from its control or have moral or religious loyalties beyond those the state can dominate. Furthermore, it is kept hidden from the public that the state is the true source of social conflicts and evils, and "scapegoats" (such as "capitalism" or private property) are blamed for the problems, and they become the goal of the most serious condemnations, even from moral and religious leaders, almost none of whom have realized the deception or dared to denounce that statolatry is the main threat in the present century to religion, morality, and, therefore, to human civilization.Perhaps the main exception within the Church is included in the brilliant biography of Jesus of Nazareth written by Benedict XVI. That the State and political power constitute the institutional incarnation of the Antichrist should be obvious to anyone with a minimal knowledge of history who reads the former Pope's considerations on the most serious temptation that the Evil One can present to us (and I quote Ratzinger literally): "The tempter is not so crude as to propose to us directly the worship of the devil. He merely proposes that we opt for the rational solution, that we prefer a planned and organized world in which God may have a place as a private spiritual matter, but must not be allowed to interfere in our essential purposes. Soloviev attributes to the Antichrist a book entitled The Open Road to World Peace and Prosperity; it becomes the new Bible, and its core message is the worship of well-being and rational planning," by the state (Ratzinger, 2007). And so, we should not be surprised that, for example, the great author of The Lord of the Rings, J. R. Tolkien, whose Catholic anarchism I fully share, went so far as to say that he would arrest anyone for simply daring to pronounce the word "State." Because the State is, always and everywhere, a reality of violence and systematic coercion against the most intimate essence of the human being, which is his capacity to act freely, creatively, and spontaneously; and so, it is unavoidable to conclude that the State is essentially immoral and that statism constitutes the principal threat to humankind.A theological digression: the dismantling of statism as a logical necessity inseparable from the work of GodAnd almost without realizing it, we can go ahead with a theological digression on how dismantling the State is a logical and moral necessity inseparable from the work of God. I fully understand that referring to God in this conference may come as a shock to many of those present, but I would ask that even those who do not believe in God, at least for dialectical purposes, make an effort of imagination and, for the next few minutes, imagine that God does indeed exist.And what do we mean by God? We must understand God to be a Supreme Being, Creator out of love for all things. And the most important creature that God has created is precisely the human being: in His image and likeness. And if there is a point of connection between God and man, it is precisely in the creative entrepreneurial ability: the capacity to discover, to see, and to create new things, goals and actions. But now I am going to go one step further and attempt to demonstrate that God is not only the Supreme, loving Creator of all things, but that—moreover—God is libertarian.And what does it mean to say that God is libertarian? It means that God, the Lord of all the Universe, has absolute power over it, and yet He chooses not to use force, but always leaves his creatures free. To the point that He gives human beings the freedom to rebel against Him; even though, again and again, God forgives human beings and allows them to rise up and begin anew.God always lets the universe He has created, flow in a spontaneous manner ("laissez faire, laissez passer, le monde va de lui même" could be the motto of our libertarian God). And this despite the fact that human beings tempt God again and again and demand that He manifest His absolute power, that He give us clear and indisputable signs of His existence and supreme power in order for us to believe in Him. But of course, God does not accept our challenge. Why? Because love and liberty are inseparable, and a forced conversion, for example by an evident cataclysm, would be completely contrary to that liberty with which God has created human beings out of love.Moreover, the Kingdom of God is not of this world; Jesus himself says this to a fearful Roman state official, who was also in charge of judging him: "My kingdom is not of this world." Does this mean that there are two types of kingdoms? The kingdoms of this world or States, which would be legitimate at their own level (remember "render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's"), and the Kingdom of God, of ("render unto God the things that are God's"). That is the standard interpretation that has prevailed until now, but I think is completely wrong. The Kingdom of God—which is the exact opposite of the kingdoms or States of this world—never makes systematic use of violence and coercion: it is a Kingdom that has already come to us and, moreover, has been given to us freely, in an act of immense mercy and love (Deus caritas est). And just as the hateful institution of slavery came to an end, the Kingdom of God will also dismantle the kingdoms of this world, the states of this world, or as St. Paul said, of every principality, power, and glory (Ephesians 1:21-23), because God is libertarian and man is made in the image and likeness of God.Ludwig von Mises, in his book Interventionism, introduced the term "destructionism" to refer to the economic and social effects of statism. If Evil (represented by statist destructionism in Mises' terminology) were to prevail, the human race and civilization would have disappeared long ago. The fact that, despite everything and the immense power of seduction of statism over humankind, the process of social cooperation continues to unfold and even prosper in certain historical periods and geographical areas, is a clear manifestation that God does not abandon the world nor leave libertarians alone in their struggle against the Evil; and that Good, represented by liberty, the principle of non-aggression, the spontaneous order of the market, entrepreneurial creativity and coordination, and above all, moral principles, always with God's help, prevails and is capable of overcoming Evil, represented by the fatal conceit of the statist ideal and the destruction that it produces.And now I will finish with some thoughts on anarcho-capitalism as the only possible system of social cooperation truly compatible with human natureAnd now I will finish with some thoughts on anarcho-capitalism as the only possible system of social cooperation truly compatible with human nature. The most important intellectual and moral event that is taking place nowadays is the full fusion between Christianity and anarcho-capitalism. Because anarcho-capitalism is the only possible system of social cooperation that is truly compatible with human nature. Anarcho-capitalism is the purest representation of the spontaneous market order in which all services, including law, justice, and public order, are provided through a voluntary process of social cooperation. In this system, no area is closed to the drive of human creativity and entrepreneurial coordination; efficiency and justice in the resolution of problems are simultaneously enhanced, while the conflicts, inefficiencies, and discoordinations generated by the State are eradicated at their root.The progressive abolition of States and their gradual replacement by a dynamic network of private agencies different legal systems, and providing all kinds of prevention and defense services, constitutes the most important social transformation that will take place in the twenty first century. Without forgetting that exactly what prevents us from knowing with precision what the future without the state will look like, the creative nature of entrepreneurship, is what gives us the peace of mind of knowing that any problem will tend to be resolved and overcome, once the entrepreneurial effort and creativity of Humanity are devoted to its solution (Kirzner, 1985).Therefore, the revolution against the “Old Régime” carried out in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries by the old classical liberals, today finds its natural continuation in the anarcho-capitalist revolution of the twenty-first century. The message of anarcho-capitalism is clearly revolutionary. Revolutionary in terms of its goal: the dismantling of the State and its replacement by a competitive market process consisting of a network of private agencies, associations, and organizations. And revolutionary in terms of its means, especially in the scientific, economic-social, and political fields:a) First, Scientific revolution, in the field of Economic Science, which becomes the general theory of spontaneous market order extended to all social areas. And by contrast and opposition, the theory and analysis of the effects of social discoordination generated by statism in any sphere in which it operates, as well as the study of the transition process from the State towards liberty.b) Second, an Economic and social revolution, as we cannot even imagine today the immense human achievements and discoveries that could be made in an entrepreneurial environment totally free from statism. Today, and despite continuous governmental harassment, an unknown civilization is already developing, with a degree of complexity that is beyond the reach and control of the state, and which will achieve unlimited expansion once it manages to completely rid itself of statism. And when human beings become more and more aware of the perverse nature of the State that restricts them, and of the immense possibilities that are frustrated each day when the State blocks the driving force of their entrepreneurial creativity, the social demand to reform and dismantle the State will multiply creating a future that is largely unknown to us but that will elevate human civilization to heights that we cannot even imagine today.c) And finally, a political revolution in which, although day-to-day political struggle is important, it should not be the top priority. It is true that the least interventionist alternatives must always be supported, in clear alliance with the efforts of classical liberals in their long term impossible democratic limitation of the State (including reforms such as those proposed by Hayek in the third volume of Law, Legislation, and Liberty). But the anarcho-capitalist does not stop at this task, for he knows that he can and must do much more. He knows that the ultimate goal is the total dismantling of the State, and this goal leads all his imagination and political action in everyday life. And here we cannot fail to mention the unprecedented impact of our disciple and follower of our Master Program in Austrian Economics in Madrid, the President of Argentina, Javier Milei, who has done more than anyone else before to disseminate the principles of the Austrian School and the anarcho-capitalist ideal. Principles that he never ceases to quote and explain and defend once and again in all his public appearances, from the United Nations to the Davos Forum; and in all his meetings with other Heads of State, universities, and parliaments, to whom he even gives copies of the most important Austrian works by Mises, Hayek and even myself, as he did, for example, with the two popes, Francis and Leo XIV, with the French President Macron, the Italian Prime Minister Meloni, and even with Elon Musk. For us, it is a great honor that Milei has, to a large extent, emerged from the Austrian School of Madrid and that he continually keeps drawing inspiration from us. This is, without a doubt, much more important than incremental political steps in the right direction—which should of course be welcomed—and that should never fall into a political pragmatism that could betray the ultimate goal of achieving the end of the State (Huerta de Soto, 2010).And all this with tireless enthusiasm in the search for scientific and moral truth, an attitude that, inspired by the immortal work of Miguel de Cervantes, we could describe as follows: "It matters not whether they be giants or windmills, when the plume of our helm is stirred by the winds of tenacity and faith." And always creating a future that, although it may seem distant today, may at any moment witness giant steps that will surprise even the most optimistic among us. History has entered into an accelerated process of change which, although it will never stop, will open a whole new chapter when humankind finally succeeds in ridding itself definitively of the State, reducing it to no more than a dark historical relic of tragic memory.Thank you very much.REFERENCESBASTIAT, Frédéric: Selected Essays on Political Economy, Foundation for Economic Education, New York 1995.DE LA BOÉTIE, Étienne: The Politics of Obedience: The Discourse of Voluntary Servitude, Free Life Editions, Nueva York 1975.BÖHM-BAWERK, Eugen von: Karl Marx and the Close of His System, Augustus M. Kelley, Nueva York 1949."The Exploitation Theory," Capital and Interest, Vol. I: History and Critique of Interest Theories, Libertarian Press, South Holland 1959.HAYEK, Friedrich A. von: The Counter-Revolution of Science, Free Press, New York, 1955.Hayek on Hayek: An Autobiographical Dialogue (eds. Stephen Kresge and Leif Wenar), University of Chicago Press, Chicago 1994.Law, Legislation and Liberty, Vol. III: The Political Order of a Free People, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London 1979.The Fatal Conceit: the Errors of Socialism, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 1988."The Pretence of Knowledge," in New Studies in Philosophy, Politics, Economics and the History of Ideas, University of Chicago Press, Chicago 1978.HUERTA DE SOTO, Jesús: Socialism, Economic Calculation and Entrepreneurship, Edward Elgar, Cheltenham y Northampton 2010."A Hayekian Strategy to Implement Free Market Reforms," in Theory of Dynamic Efficiency, Routledge, Oxfordshire, 2010.Proyecto Docente, Chapter I: "Ciencia y Economía," Rey Juan Carlos University, Madrid 2000.The Austrian School: Market Order and Creative Entrepreneurship, Edward Elgar, Cheltenham y Northampton 2008.DE JASAY, Anthony: Market Socialism: A Scrutiny, published by the Institute of Economic Affairs, Occasional Paper no. 84, 1990.KIRZNER, Israel: "The Perils of Regulation: A Market Process Approach" in Discovery and the Capitalist Process, University of Chicago Press, 1985.LIGGIO, Leonard: "The Hispanic tradition of Liberty," published in Procesos de Mercado: Revista Europea de Economía Política, vol. XXII, nº 1, Summer 2025, pp. 403-420.MARTÍNEZ MARINA, Francisco: Teoría de las cortes o grandes juntas nacionales de los reinos de León y Castilla, Collado, 1820.MILEI, Javier: Capitalism, Socialism, and the Neoclassical Trap, in The Emergence of a Tradition: Essays in Honor of Jesús Huerta de Soto, Volume II (editors Howden, D., Bagus, P.), Palgrave Macmillan, Cham, 2023.MISES, Ludwig von: Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis, Jonathan Cape, London 1936.Planned Chaos, Foundation for Economic Education, Irvington-on-Hudson 1947.OPPENHEIMER, Franz: The State, Vanguard Press, Nueva York 1926.POPESCU, Oreste: Studies in the History of Latin American Economic Thought, Routledge, London 1997.POPPER, Karl: The Open Society and its Enemies, Princeton University Press, Princeton 1966.RATZINGER, Joseph. Jesus of Nazareth: From the Baptism in the Jordan to the Transfiguration. Translated by Adrian J. Walker. Doubleday, New York, 2007.ROTHBARD, Murray N.: "New Light on the Prehistory of the Austrian School," in The Foundations of Modern Austrian Economics (editor Edwin G. Dolan), Sheed and Ward, Kansas City 1976, pp. 52–74.Anatomy of the State, Ludwig von Mises Institute, Auburn 2009.SALERNO, Joseph. "Milton Friedman's Views on Method and Money Reconsidered in Light of the Housing Bubble", in The Emergence of a Tradition: Essays in Honor of Jesús Huerta de Soto, Volume I, (editors Howden, D., Bagus, P.), Palgrave Macmillan, Cham, 2023.STIGLER, George: The Citizen and the State, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1975, pp. 1-13.
This week on the BBC Introducing in Oxfordshire & Berkshire podcast, Dave speaks to Oxford singer songwriter and Heartstopper actor Sebastian Croft about his new single 'Better than ever'. Plus, Alex meets Royal 2000 to hear about his new track ft. Hak Baker. And, our Connections series continues - where bands recommend bands - this time Lauren gets to know folk/trip-hop trio Yellow County.Here's this week's track list: • HIFEELINGS & Dyzzy - FRIENDS? Mazawattee - Pixelated Flowers The Kokroachez - That Kinda Girl Diezelbud - Dinner Parties Aruna - All for Nothing Cheap Suits - Half A Heart Dan Whitlam - Hear You Speak [tipped by Jess Iszatt at BBC Radio 1] Oscar Grouch - Unsend Franz Siren - Down Low Rose Rey - Dirty Martini Sebastian Croft - Better than ever Just For Fun - Undressed [tipped by Jaguar at BBC Radio 1 Dance] Emily Frances - At the Beginning Royal 2000 - Wannabe P.S. Finn - 20 Years loveshy - Blackout [tipped by Alyx Holcombe at BBC Radio 1 Rock] Yellow County - Jungle Santa Carla - Everyone Needs Love Bethany Lyn - Cookie Meadowsuite - The Once and Future King New Nerve - In Your Story James McKean and the Blueberry Moon - Persian Sky • If you're making music in Oxfordshire and Berkshire, send us your tunes with the BBC Introducing Uploader: https://www.bbc.co.uk/introducing/uploader
This week on the BBC Introducing in Oxfordshire & Berkshire podcast, Dave speaks to folk artist Jennifer Lourea for the first time, to discuss her album Reforest Your Dreams, which reflects on our relationship with the natural world. Plus, Alex meets Taz from After Hours promotions - hear about her new night at the Firefly in Reading. And... who does Lauren Love? She takes a deep dive into the journey of one of our faves - South Arcade!Here's this week's track list: • Girl Like That - flustered ace clvrk - Dance Until The End Of The World (feat. Electro Symphony) Eva Gadd - I Just Flew to the Moon kemastry - Firework Factory Franco Lopez - Caught Crying Alice Mary - Spiral Tino - Munyun Mariella - Room For You [tipped by Jess Iszatt at BBC Radio 1] Caitlyn Scarlett - Heart 2 Heart Andrew Jones - Ain't Quite a Truck Aggy - Thick and Thin Sloepark - Del Oro Savannah Gardner - This Pain is Love Jennifer Lourea - Reforest Your Dreams BlckHry - Waiting 4 U Jeninski - Not you it's me Lu.Re - Get Up [tipped by Jaguar at BBC Radio 1 Dance] Desert Storm - Newfound Respect Kelly Michaeli - Frankenstein South Arcade - Drive Myself Home No Worries if Not - Big Baguette Miette. - the fear pt i Simon Veaney - Dovetailing (feat. Barricane) • If you're making music in Oxfordshire and Berkshire, send us your tunes with the BBC Introducing Uploader: https://www.bbc.co.uk/introducing/uploader
This week on the BBC Introducing in Oxfordshire & Berkshire podcast, Dave catches up with Lucy Leave to discuss their double album: Feelings Explorer I & II, plus Alex visits Warren Rodel's garden shed in Botley - to get the lowdown on his creation, Shed Sessions!Here's this week's track list: • Jack Goldstein - falling off the earth JAZ IMSKY - LET GO OF ME Nick Magenta - Change frances willow - julia ben Danny Mellin - Feeling Blue Jess Tuthill - The Space Between montykeates - Ugly Niki Kini - God's Hitlist (Maida Vale session) Tom Caro - In Your Mind FAWLERS - dark Shao Dow - Alright (feat. Lotus Juice & Oricadia) Sweets - WEIRD MONEY[tipped by Jess Iszatt at BBC Radio 1] PallBear - Do Us Part LULU - Friendly Advice Lucy Leave - Making Art (Keeps Me Alive) Lucy Leave - The Letter P and the Number 7 Avamo - Dynamite Oliver Green - Heart Severed In-Flight Movie - Easy Martha May - OVER IT Kloyd - New Love [tipped by Jaguar at BBC Radio 1 Dance] Ash Adams - healing Pitchdrop - Funk • If you're making music in Oxfordshire and Berkshire, send us your tunes with the BBC Introducing Uploader: https://www.bbc.co.uk/introducing/uploader
In this episode, I'm taking you to Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire, England — one of the most magnificent country estates in all of Britain and absolutely worth your time.I'll share why Blenheim Palace isn't just another stately home, but a UNESCO World Heritage Site packed with history, drama, and architectural wow moments. From its sweeping Baroque design to its jaw-dropping interiors, this place is grand in every sense of the word.Of course, we'll talk about its connection to Sir Winston Churchill — who was born here — and what you can expect from the exhibitions dedicated to his life and legacy. But Blenheim Palace is so much more than Churchill. I'll walk you through the state rooms, the long library, the formal gardens, the landscaped parkland, and those iconic views that make you stop and just stare for a minute.I'll also share why I think you should plan to spend a full day here (yes, a full day), along with practical tips on timing your visit, how to approach the palace and grounds, and how to make the most of your time.If you love history through travel, grand architecture, gorgeous gardens, and places that feel both regal and deeply human, then Blenheim Palace deserves a spot on your England itinerary.Let's wander through one of England's most impressive estates together.Want to chat more about Blenheim Palace?Send me a note at Lynne@WanderYourWay.comIn this episode:0:45: Intro1:53: Placing Blenheim Palace on the map3:31: Palace history5:35: Pricing 7:06: Things to see in Blenheim Palace14:49: The palace grounds21:05: Final thoughts and tips26:58: Wrapping it upImportant links:Blenheim PalaceWander Your WayWander Your Way AdventuresWander Your Way ResourcesREI ★ Support this podcast ★
Today's poem is a sonnet for a war-torn world with a collapsing center. “…As the oldest of four children born in rapid succession, Wilfred developed a protective attitude toward the others and an especially close relationship with his mother. After he turned four, the family moved from the grandfather's home to a modest house in Birkenhead, where Owen attended Birkenhead Institute from 1900 to 1907. The family then moved to another modest house, in Shrewsbury, where Owen attended Shrewsbury Technical School and graduated in 1911 at the age of 18. Having attempted unsuccessfully to win a scholarship to attend London University, he tried to measure his aptitude for a religious vocation by becoming an unpaid lay assistant to the Reverend Herbert Wigan, a vicar of evangelical inclinations in the Church of England, at Dunsden, Oxfordshire. In return for the tutorial instruction he was to receive, but which did not significantly materialize, Owen agreed to assist with the care of the poor and sick in the parish and to decide within two years whether he should commit himself to further training as a clergyman. At Dunsden he achieved a fuller understanding of social and economic issues and developed his humanitarian propensities, but as a consequence of this heightened sensitivity, he became disillusioned with the inadequate response of the Church of England to the sufferings of the underprivileged and the dispossessed. In his spare time, he read widely and began to write poetry. In his initial verses he wrote on the conventional subjects of the time, but his work also manifested some stylistic qualities that even then tended to set him apart, especially his keen ear for sound and his instinct for the modulating of rhythm, talents related perhaps to the musical ability that he shared with both of his parents.In 1913 he returned home, seriously ill with a respiratory infection that his living in a damp, unheated room at the vicarage had exacerbated. He talked of poetry, music, or graphic art as possible vocational choices, but his father urged him to seek employment that would result in a steady income. After eight months of convalescence at home, Owen taught for one year in Bordeaux at the Berlitz School of Languages, and he spent a second year in France with a Catholic family, tutoring their two boys. As a result of these experiences, he became a Francophile. Later these years undoubtedly heightened his sense of the degree to which the war disrupted the life of the French populace and caused widespread suffering among civilians as the Allies pursued the retreating Germans through French villages in the summer and fall of 1918.In September 1915, nearly a year after the United Kingdom and Germany had gone to war, Owen returned to England, uncertain as to whether he should enlist. By October he had enlisted and was at first in the Artists' Rifles. In June 1916 he received a commission as lieutenant in the Manchester Regiment, and on December 29, 1916 he left for France with the Lancashire Fusiliers.”-via Poetry Foundation This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dailypoempod.substack.com/subscribe
When society, financial systems and human beings fall short, how can we repair the damage? Tom Sutcliffe hosts Radio 4's discussion programme which starts the week, exploring the social, moral and political contradictions of the world we face today, with US novelist George Saunders, Turkish writer Ece Temulkuran and investigative journalist Oliver Bullough, The Booker Prize winning novelist, George Saunders new book Vigil deals with the moral ambivalence of a greedy oil executive; the death bed reckoning of a man who resists facing his life and legacy. The Turkish writer, Ece Temulkuran's new book Nation of Strangers: Rebuilding a Home in the 21st Century explores the rising global displacement of people who will need to forge stronger connections amid political and social upheaval. In an investigation of money laundering, Oliver Bullough's Everybody Loves Our Dollars sets out the scale of the problem and why we are failing to tackle the global systems that allow illicit money to move freely using sites as varied as Bicester Shopping Village in Oxfordshire and a casino in Vancouver, Canada. Producer: Ruth Watts
After what was the wettest January on record for some, more rain means more problems for farmers, from flooding and waterlogged fields to worries about the impact on this year's harvest and their bottom lines. This week we heard from farmers at different ends of the country.We hear from the Environment Agency boss on building resilience though natural flood management, in a landscape recovery project in Oxfordshire.And AI in dairy: Big Brother is watching moo.Presented by Charlotte Smith and produced by Beatrice Fenton.
New track sites, swim tracks, and mating dance arenas around the world tell us about the behavior of theropods, ceratopsians, and sauropods. Plus David Spira joins from Room Escape Artist to share his favorite dinosaur themed escape rooms.For links to every news story, all of the details we shared about Segnosaurus, links from David Spira, and our fun fact check out https://iknowdino.com/Segnosaurus-Episode-558/Join us at www.patreon.com/iknowdino for dinosaur requests, bonus content, ad-free episodes, and more.Dinosaur of the day Segnosaurus, a therizinosaur with interesting teeth.Interview with David Spira, co-creator of RoomEscapeArtist.com, which publishes well-researched, rational, and reasonably humorous escape room reviews, design tips, player tips, and industry commentaryIn dinosaur news this week:The Science Museum of Minnesota closed for a day in response to the local ICE presence. If you want to support Minnesotans go to www.standwithminnesota.com/In Bolivia, there are almost 18,000 theropod dinosaur tracks that show evidence of running, sauntering, and swimmingAn earlier study of the Carreras Pampa site also found that the theropods feet sunk in the mudOne set of footprints shows the fastest running theropod trackway in the CretaceousScientists re-examined the longest known theropod trackway in ChinaDinosaur Ridge, Colorado, has the largest known dinosaur mating dance arenaTracks from 76 million years ago may show that ceratopsians and ankylosaurs hung out togetherPaleontologists found a set of sauropod tracks that show it made a loopScientists found multiple trackways in Oxfordshire, England, from mostly sauropods walking at a steady paceTheropod footprints were found in a crisscross pattern in Texas, U.S.Thousands of prosauropod footprints from the Triassic were found in a national park in Italy This episode is brought to you by the Colorado Northwestern Community College. Join them for two weeks digging up dinosaur bones in the field, preparing fossils in their lab, or in their new field geology program. For details go to CNCC.edu/paleo26And by Squarespace, go to https://www.squarespace.com/IKD to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain using code IKDSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
What does it mean to pray without ceasing? Father Rick Ganz explores contemplative prayer drawing from John 15 and the image of the vine and branches. He introduces the ancient Jesuit practice of the Examen and offers a beautiful vision of prayer as enjoying God's presence in all of the moments of our lives.Key Scripture Passages: Luke 18v40-43; John 15v1-9This podcast and its episodes are paid for by The Circle, our community of monthly givers. Special thanks for this episode goes to: Sid from Tuscaloosa, Alabama; Josh from Oxford, Oxfordshire; Margaret from Woodland Hills, California; Ashley from Dallas, Texas; and Erin from Centralia, Washington. Thank you all so much!If you'd like to pay it forward and contribute toward future resources, you can learn more at practicingtheway.org/give.
In March 2011, The Sunday Times ran an article on the discovery of a mysterious cache of palm-sized, ring-bound books made of lead. These lead codices, as they have become known, contain mysterious symbols and inscriptions. One tablet in particular features a portrait of Jesus and has preserved the seven seals that would have bound it together along its left-hand side. David and Jennifer Elkington photographed the books, brought samples to the UK for analysis, and assembled a team of eminent scholars to study them. At the same time, the books were quickly becoming an international phenomenon, the Israelis and Jordanians began a very public dispute over the location of the site where they were discovered. Convinced that the codices are the earliest Christian documents ever found, the Elkingtons put their reputations on the line as they raced to authenticate the find amidst an array of vested interests which sought to suppress them. In their quest to crack the code, the Elkingtons have been subjected to personal threat but they have continued the fight to ensure the world understands the importance of the codices, which may well pre-date the New Testament. Their significance in our understanding of early Christianity cannot be underestimated.One day in Oxfordshire, England, in 2007, husband and wife academics David and Jennifer Elkington viewed a set of photographs that would change their lives. The objects in the pictures appeared to be antiquated books, made of metal and replete with iconography and inscribed with ancient script.The couple travelled to Jordan where the codices were found, brought samples to the UK for analysis and assembled a team of eminent scholars t study them. At the same time, the books were quickly becoming an international phenomenon - the Israelis and Jordanians began a very public dispute over the location of the site where they were discovered. Convinced that the codices are the earliest Christian artefacts ever found, the Elkingtons put their reputations on the line as they raced to authenticate the find amidst an array of vested interests that sought to suppress them.This is the journey that takes them from the sleepy shires of England to harrowing trips to the Middle East, involving Bedouin dealers and expeditions to unexplored caverns dating from the dawn of Christianity."Although I heard, I did not understand. So I said, 'My Lord, what shall be the end of these things?' He replied, 'Go your way, Daniel, for the words are closed up and sealed until the end of time.'" DANIEL 12:8-9https://www.leadbookcentre.com/about-us.phpBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/earth-ancients--2790919/support.