Podcasts about thames

Rob runs with Adam Pope, the author of Run For All Seasons and a man who accompanied him for a great deal of the coast to coast, on a loop around the Thames in the heart of London. Featuring cabbie's shelters, ancient Egyptian obelisks, the Artist's Garden, mudlarking and mudlarkers, the London Marathon's final hill, Ben Wilson's chewing gum art, Adam's next book, and Rob's lovely wife. Subscribe to the Fan Feed at ⁠⁠https://runcompod.supercast.com/⁠⁠ to hear Adam answer our bonus questions -  plus get early access, ad-free listening, and all manner of exclusive content.BUY OUR BOOKS; you can get Paul's NEW BOOK Running Through Sand here: https://www.waterstones.com/book/running-through-sand/paul-tonkinson/9781399404013, you can get Rob's book Running Tracks here - ⁠https://www.waterstones.com/book/running-tracks/rob-deering/9781800180444 Thanks for listening, supporting, and sharing your adventures with us. Happy running. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Government has approved an extension of some shellfish harvesting bans in parts of the Hauraki Gulf, at the request of three iwi. Until August 2028, Umupuia Beach on Auckland's Pohutukawa Coast, is closed to the taking of cockles, while Te Mātā and Waipatukahu on the Thames coast is closed to the taking of cockles, mussels, oysters, and pipi. The taking of mussels, pāua, and packhorse rock lobster will be banned on Waiheke Island. Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says there's big issues at stake related to this, and bigger challenges impacting the Hauraki area. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Who should control Britain's biggest water company? Chris Weston, the chief executive of Thames Water, says he "completely agrees" with the Prime Minister that the industry, and Thames Water, needs greater public control. But he draws a clear distinction between stronger public accountability and public ownership, arguing that nationalisation or special administration could delay investment, increase uncertainty and ultimately leave taxpayers carrying the financial risk.Thames spent more than £1bn more than it received last year, with the shortfall currently funded by creditors. Under special administration, Weston says that funding would instead have to come from government while a new owner was sought. Full nationalisation, he argues, would place Thames Water's decade-long infrastructure programme on the public balance sheet alongside defence, health and education. His preferred solution is the proposal from more than 100 creditors to write off around £9bn of debt, inject fresh equity and rebuild the company under a model that promises no dividends for at least ten years. He argues this private-sector restructuring can sit alongside stronger public oversight, clearer government direction, greater regional representation and a more company-specific regulatory regime.The debate over ownership comes as Weston warns Britain faces a much bigger challenge. Drought, he says, is no longer an exceptional event but "the new normal". Despite an unusually wet January and February, no rain fell across the Thames Valley in July, exposing a shortage of water storage across the South East.Thames has not built a reservoir since Farmoor B in 1977. A replacement scheme proposed around 2010 was rejected after the company failed to make its case successfully, and Weston believes the region would not be facing a hosepipe ban today had it been approved. The proposed Whitehorse reservoir near Abingdon remains in the planning process and is not expected to begin filling until 2038, with another three years needed before it reaches capacity.Population growth, government housebuilding targets and the rapid expansion of data centres will place even greater pressure on supplies. Weston questions whether data centres should rely on drinking water for cooling, suggesting treated effluent from sewage works could provide an alternative. He also says households will need to become more mindful of how they use water, with government playing a greater role in encouraging behavioural change.Weston also makes a notable concession about how the industry reached this point. Customers, he says, have "paid too little for water for too long". Thames operates 440 treatment works and a network stretching four times around the circumference of the Earth. Keeping bills low, he argues, meant insufficient investment in maintaining and modernising ageing infrastructure, although he accepts the company's current debt levels are unsustainable.On pollution, Weston accepts Thames must improve but refuses to promise sewage incidents can ever be eliminated entirely. The company treats around 4.3 billion litres of wastewater every day and, he says, succeeds 99.5% of the time on average. Extreme weather, ageing infrastructure and illegal connections mean completely eliminating pollution incidents remains "very, very slim".Presenter: Simon Jack Producer: Olie D'Albertanson/Ollie Smith00:00 BBC Editor, Simon Jack introduces podcast 03:09 Chris Weston joins pod, explains Thames Water's situation 06:18 Bills were too low for too long. 09:32 Unrealistic targets, swage and pollution 12:31 Privatisation of Thames Water 14:50 What's on the table now? 17:28 Greater public control, special administration and nationalisation 28:41 Drought, reservoirs and the new normal 34:29 Staff abuse and his own pay

688. Joining us today are Johnette Downing and Scott Billington. Combining Johnette's celebrated career as a children's author and musician with Scott's background producing over 100 roots, blues, and Louisiana heritage albums, this powerhouse couple celebrates regional music through their children's duo program, Swamp Romp, and their broader archival and biographical projects. Now available: Liberty in Louisiana: A Comedy. The oldest play about Louisiana, author James Workman wrote it as a celebration of the Louisiana Purchase. Now it is back in print for the first time in 222 years. Order your copy today! This week in the Louisiana Anthology. "Life on the Mississippi." Mark Twain. The Mississippi is well worth reading about. It is not a commonplace river, but on the contrary is in all ways remarkable. Considering the Missouri its main branch, it is the longest river in the world—four thousand three hundred miles. It seems safe to say that it is also the crookedest river in the world, since in one part of its journey it uses up one thousand three hundred miles to cover the same ground that the crow would fly over in six hundred and seventy-five. It discharges three times as much water as the St. Lawrence, twenty-five times as much as the Rhine, and three hundred and thirty-eight times as much as the Thames. No other river has so vast a drainage-basin: it draws its water supply from twenty-eight States and Territories; from Delaware, on the Atlantic seaboard, and from all the country between that and Idaho on the Pacific slope—a spread of forty-five degrees of longitude. The Mississippi receives and carries to the Gulf water from fifty-four subordinate rivers that are navigable by steamboats, and from some hundreds that are navigable by flats and keels. The area of its drainage-basin is as great as the combined areas of England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, France, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Austria, Italy, and Turkey; and almost all this wide region is fertile; the Mississippi valley, proper, is exceptionally so. This week in Louisiana history. July 24, 1769. Alejandro "Bloody" O'Reilly reclaimed New Orleans for Spain. This week in New Orleans history. July 24, 1947: The first streetcar on the St. Charles line was fitted with air conditioning, a welcome relief during the peak of the New Orleans summer. This week in Louisiana. COOLinary New Orleans ' Month‑Long Restaurant Specials August 1'31 Citywide New Orleans, LA Website: neworleans.com/coolinary New Orleans restaurants launch their annual COOLinary promotion on August 1, offering a full month of discounted prix‑fixe menus designed to bring locals out during the summer slowdown. More than a hundred restaurants across the city participate, from fine‑dining institutions to neighborhood favorites: Two‑course lunches: $28 or less. Three‑course dinners and brunches: $58 or less. Citywide participation: Restaurants in the French Quarter, Uptown, Mid‑City, the Marigny, and beyond. COOLinary has become one of New Orleans' most beloved summer traditions, giving locals a chance to try new spots ' or revisit classics ' at special seasonal prices. Postcards from Louisiana. Molly Ringwalds play at the Italian Heritage Festival. Listen on Apple Podcasts. Listen on audible. Listen on Spotify. Listen on TuneIn. Listen on iHeartRadio. The Louisiana Anthology Home Page. Like us on Facebook. 

Send us Fan Mail◆ Oil trumps politics ◆ Kuwait scores late winner ◆ How to save Thames Water harmlessly The three month euro/dollar basis swap was traditionally called the bully of the curve because it controlled the rest, but there is no doubt who's the boss now — dirty old oil.As the US and Iran traded blows, Houthi threats to close the Gulf of Aden made oil traders freak out this week. Their alarm seized bond markets globally, pushing French and German yields to decade highs and Treasuries to an 18 month peak.Gilt investors should have had a week of interesting navel-gazing, wondering whether new chancellor of the exchequer John Healey is going to be their next hero or villain. Instead they were rudely shaken out of it by global events, as Gilts turned out not to be special — all govvies were selling off. A measure of stability has returned, but it's looking like an edgy summer.Kuwait likely had that in mind when it brought a $6bn three tranche bond this week, in the last minute of extra time of the bond market's pre-summer season.It was the first public bond issue by any of the highly rated Middle Eastern governments since the war began. Investors lapped it up, delighting bankers, who hope it will encourage other issuers.Back in the UK, Andy Burnham isn't probably expecting a honeymoon as prime minister — he didn't win an election. But his peace will soon be disturbed by having to make a big call on Thames Water.The UK's largest water company, serving about a fifth of the population, is running out of money. Creditors have put a recapitalisation offer on the table, but nationalisation might be cleaner and safer.How it's handled matters keenly to the UK's dozen other water companies. A good outcome for Thames bondholders could reduce the perceived risk premium they have to pay, but a messy one could be slippery for their cost of capital.

Narrator: Jessika Downes-Gössl

The Story finds itself in the last years of the reign of Henry VIII- and we find our metropolis a place where innocent simple teenagers are burned alive, where security clampdowns see curfews and house searches, where ships explode on the Thames, where thousands of men leave the streets to march out to war, where the economy contracts, where no one is safe, and where all of this is caused by an obese, diseased, angry, foul tempered man, playing games with people and dragging all down into insanity.Cover includes portrait of Henry VIII by Cornelis Metsys.

A serial killer who kept his victims' heads, a woman held under a waterbed for seven years, and a phantom passenger who vanishes from the back seat — the open road has taken more than its share.EPISODE BLOG PAGE (includes sources): https://weirddarkness.com/HitchhikingHorrorsREAD or DOWNLOAD the full transcript of this episode: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/29xmnbkaFEATURED STORIES IN THIS EPISODE: The open road is a beautiful place where you can make friends that you'd otherwise never meet and have adventures that will change your life. But there are also extreme dangers to traveling with strangers on highways and backroads. No matter how trustworthy or well-intentioned a driver might seem, it's nearly impossible to tell if they are actually a predator or murderer, preying upon innocent hitchhikers. Creepy, true hitchhiker stories can make you think twice before picking up that stranger at the side of the road - or trying to "thumb it" yourself.LISTEN ON PODCAST APPS: Look for this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Amazon Music, Pandora, TuneIn Radio, and other podcast apps. Get a list of free listening apps here: https://weirddarkness.com/wdapps*No AI Voices Are Used In The Narration Of This Podcast*SOURCES and RESOURCES:“The Hitchhiker” original story at the beginning of this episode was written by HoneyBunny00:https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/2p8b53e2“Hitchhiking Horror Stories” by Isadora Teich for Ranker.com: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/3yj8t3ka, by Jacob Shelton for Ranker.com: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/2s4a2wkz, Eric Redding for ThoughtCatalog.com:https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/hk8pn8rf, and from ScaryCarries.com: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/2aead59t“Phantom Hitchhikers” posted at Anomalien.com: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/y4dxkv7m, Kelly Agan for Medium.com: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/36wucpzm, Paul Adams for The History Press:https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/2p8z538u, and Krystal DeCosta for ScientificAmerican.com:https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/mr29nkpa(Over time links may become invalid, disappear, or have different content. I always make sure to give authors credit for the material I use whenever possible. If I somehow overlooked doing so for a story, or if a credit is incorrect, please let me know and I will rectify it in these show notes immediately. Some links included above may benefit me financially through qualifying purchases.)WeirdDarkness® is a registered trademark. Copyright ©2026, Weird Darkness.Originally aired: January, 2021Weird Darkness gathers the true horrors of the open road and the ghosts said to haunt it, moving from real hitchhiker murders across the United States and abroad to the phantom passengers who vanish from the back seat before the ride is over.It opens with the account of a newly married couple driving through a rainstorm who stop for a soaked hitchhiker, drop him at a crossroads, and later break down on a dark stretch of highway, only for the wife to wake to police floodlights and the sight of the same man atop their car with a machete over her husband's dismembered body, an escaped prison inmate cut down by gunfire moments after she runs.From there the show turns to a long run of documented and reported cases. Jacci Ansell-Lamb was last seen hitchhiking from London toward Manchester in May 1970 and found sexually assaulted and strangled with electrical wire outside Knutsford, England, a killing police have linked to serial murderer Peter Tobin though no suspect was ever charged. A German traveler on foot near Timaru, New Zealand had all his belongings stolen by a man in a white Honda in February 2016. Along Australia's outback near the cattle town of Hughenden, as many as twelve hitchhikers including eighteen-year-old Catherine Graham and thirty-two-year-old Tony Jones turned up dead over roughly two decades on a stretch dubbed the Highway of Death, the murders still unsolved. On May 19, 1977, twenty-year-old Colleen Stan was hitchhiking to a friend's birthday in California when Cameron Hooker picked her up and held her as a sex slave for seven years, keeping her in a box beneath his waterbed until his wife helped her escape in 1984 and Hooker drew a 104-year sentence.Next comes the case of Edmund Kemper, the six-foot-nine "Co-ed Killer" born December 18, 1948, who shot his grandmother and grandfather at fifteen, was released from a psychiatric hospital into his mother's care, and between May 1972 and February 1973 picked up hitchhiking female students, killed and decapitated them, and had sex with the corpses before murdering his mother with a claw hammer on Good Friday 1973 and phoning the same local police he drank with to confess. Woven among these are firsthand accounts shared online, among them a driver whose kindness reportedly talked a would-be killer out of his plan, a New Zealand couple who vanished in 1989 near Thames leading to the disputed conviction of David Tamihere, and a backpacker in Austria who fled a trucker's advances barefoot at a gas station.From there the episode moves deeper into unsolved and predatory cases. Between 1972 and 1973 the Santa Rosa Hitchhiker Murders claimed at least seven women in Sonoma County, California, beginning with nineteen-year-old Kim Wendy Allen found bound and strangled in a creek bed on March 5, 1972, and including twelve-year-olds Maureen Sterling and Yvonne Weber, thirteen-year-old Lori Lee Kursa, fourteen-year-old Carolyn Davis, and twenty-three-year-old Theresa Walsh, the case never closed. The segment also gathers the crimes of clown-costumed killer John Wayne Gacy, trucker Keith Hunter Jesperson who dragged one victim beneath his rig, photographer Joseph Naso the "Alphabet Killer," the spree killers Douglas Gretzler and Willie Steelman, and sadistic trucker Ben Rhoades, caught when an Arizona trooper found a shackled woman inside his cab.The episode closes on the phantom hitchhiker, tracing the folk formula of the vanishing passenger before laying out the strongest real-world cases. One belongs to Maria Roux, killed on the N9 near Uniondale, South Africa on Good Friday 1968, whose specter was reported by driver Anton Le Grange in 1976 and motorcyclist Dawie Van Jaarsveld in 1978, her rear door seen opening and closing by a following officer. Another is "Lydia" of Jamestown, North Carolina, the white-gowned figure sighted at a railroad underpass since the 1920s and possibly rooted in the 1920 traffic death of Annie Jackson on the High Point Road. The final account belongs to carpet fitter Roy Fulton of Dunstable, England, who picked up a silent young man on Station Road near Stanbridge on October 12, 1979, turned to offer him a cigarette, and found the seat empty, a story he repeated without change on Arthur C. Clarke's World of Strange Powers in 1985.

A child's mutilated torso surfaced from the Thames near Shakespeare's Globe in 2001, and more than two decades later no one has been convicted of killing the boy investigators could only call Adam.EPISODE BLOG PAGE (includes sources): https://weirddarkness.com/TorsoInTheThamesREAD or DOWNLOAD the full transcript of this episode: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/3h6yrmk5FEATURED STORIES IN THIS EPISODE: Most people, when they think of the end of their lives, want to feel that they have accomplished something of significance. To leave a lasting legacy. But it is much more rare for someone to accomplish something significant – after they are dead! (Done By The Dead) *** Mrs. Elizabeth G. Wharton was a pillar of society in Baltimore, Maryland in the late 1800s. That is, until she was accused of murdering General William Scott Ketchum. (The Baltimore Borgia) *** For every legitimate and fascinating find by geologists, there seems to be a fraudulent find somewhere else trying to fool the masses. This has been a problem since geology became a thing – and one of the most fascinating of these true tales is the one about Baringer's Lying Stones. (The Lying Stones) *** A strange, ape-like creature with glowing eyes in England might really be, as some believe, a specter of the night. (Man-Monkey of the Night) *** It's hard to understand how human sacrifice has ever been a reality in any point in history – but what if you were to learn that evidence of it showed up in London, England… in 2001? (Torso In The River) *** A would-be geisha murders her lover… but the events leading up to and during the death make for a fascinatingly dark story. (The Murderess Geisha) *** When it comes to spectral animals, we're more than familiar with black dogs or hell hounds, ghostly cats, horses carrying a headed or headless phantom, even a ghost bear rumored to haunt the Tower of London… but have you ever heard of the American Southwest's ghost camels? (America's Ghost Camels)CHAPTERS & TIME STAMPS (All Times Approximate)…00:00:00.000 = Show Open00:02:24.699 = America's Ghost Camels00:09:18.422 = Done By The Dead ***00:22:00.457 = The Baltimore Borgia ***00:27:35.655 = The Lying Stones00:36:08.415 = Torso In The River ***00:42:13.573 = The Murderess Geisha00:54:03.666 = Man-Monkey of the Night ***00:58:48.550 = Show Close*** = Begins immediately after inserted ad breakLISTEN ON PODCAST APPS: Look for this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Amazon Music, Pandora, TuneIn Radio, and other podcast apps. Get a list of free listening apps here: https://weirddarkness.com/wdapps*No AI Voices Are Used In The Narration Of This Podcast*SOURCES and RESOURCES:“Man-Monkey Of The Night” by Nick Redfern for MysteriousUniverse.com: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/bdhdevrr“Done By The Dead” by Kyle D. Walter for ListVerse.com: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/y62afnj6“America's Ghost Camels” by Kathy Weiser-Alexander for LegendsOfAmerica.com: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/2p979beb“The Baltimore Borgia” by Robert Wilhelm for MurderByGaslight.com: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/y2whacb9“Torso In The River” by Richard Hoskins for MysteryConfidential.com: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/bdd5u543“The Murderess Geisha” by Dr. Romeo Vitelli for Providentia: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/yzy4v3wy“The Lying Stones” by Brent Swancer for MysteriousUniverse.com: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/2p854d9e(Over time links may become invalid, disappear, or have different content. I always make sure to give authors credit for the material I use whenever possible. If I somehow overlooked doing so for a story, or if a credit is incorrect, please let me know and I will rectify it in these show notes immediately. Some links included above may benefit me financially through qualifying purchases.)WeirdDarkness® is a registered trademark. Copyright ©2026, Weird Darkness.Originally aired: January, 2021This episode of Weird Darkness moves from ghost camels haunting the Arizona desert to corpses that kept making history after death, a Baltimore poisoning that gripped a courtroom for weeks, a professor fooled by carved stones, a child's murder in the Thames that London police have never solved, a Tokyo geisha who killed the man she loved, and a glowing-eyed creature on an English canal bridge.It opens in the American southwest, where the U.S. War Department imported some seventy-two camels in 1857 to haul supplies, only to turn the animals loose in the desert when the Civil War broke out and the soldiers tired of their foul temper and habit of spooking horses. Wild camels roamed Arizona for decades afterward, and one became legend as the Red Ghost — a beast blamed for trampling a woman to death in 1883 and later seen carrying a dead man lashed to its back, a rider who eventually decayed until a human skull dropped from the saddle in front of a group of startled prospectors. An Arizona farmer finally shot the animal in 1893, still wearing the leather straps that had held its corpse rider in place.From there the episode turns to figures who kept shaping the world after they died. A gang of Chicago counterfeiters led by "Big Jim" Kennally plotted in 1876 to steal Abraham Lincoln's body from his Springfield tomb and ransom it for a jailed engraver, foiled by a Secret Service informant working for the very agency Lincoln himself had signed into existence. A grave robber broke into George Washington's crypt at Mount Vernon in 1830 hunting the president's skull and made off with the wrong one. The British philosopher Jeremy Bentham left instructions to have his body dissected and mummified, and it sits on display at University College London to this day. And in the ninth century Pope Stephen VI dug up his predecessor Formosus, dressed the rotting corpse in papal vestments, propped it up for trial, found it guilty, and had it thrown into the Tiber.Next comes Baltimore in 1871, where Elizabeth Wharton, a respected society widow, hosted General William Scott Ketchum in her home on Hamilton Place until he fell suddenly ill and died with twenty grains of tartar emetic in his stomach — fifteen is enough to kill. Police discovered she had bought sixty grains days earlier, and a financial advisor named Eugene Van Ness nearly died the same way after she served him a drink. Her forty-two-day poison trial in Annapolis exhausted the medical and chemical experts of the day, and after deliberating through the night the jury acquitted her of murder.The episode then crosses to Germany, where Johann Beringer, a celebrated professor at the University of Würzburg, spent 1725 collecting strange carved stones dug up on Mount Eibelstadt by teenage boys he had hired — figures of birds, lizards, comets, and the name of God rendered in Hebrew. Convinced they were the handiwork of God himself, he published a book on them called the Lithographiae Wirceburgensis, only to learn the nearly two thousand stones had been planted by two envious colleagues, J. Ignatz Roderick and Johann Georg von Eckhart, who thought him an arrogant know-it-all and wanted to humble him.From an academic hoax the episode moves to an unsolved horror. On September 21st, 2001, a child's headless, limbless torso surfaced from the Thames near the Globe Theatre, wrapped in orange cloth, and London's Metropolitan Police could give the boy no name but Adam. Forensic analysis of poison and minerals in his remains traced him to the Benin region of Nigeria and showed he had been paralyzed and drained of blood in what investigators believed was a muti ritual killing. Nelson Mandela made an international appeal for information, and traffickers including Kingsley Ojo and a caregiver named Joyce Osagiede were investigated, but no one has ever been convicted and the boy's true identity has never been confirmed.The episode carries that darkness into 1936 Tokyo, where Sada Abe strangled her lover Kichizo Ishida in an inn after a days-long affair, then took a kitchen knife to his body and carried a severed part of him away in her handbag. Her capture two days later set off a national obsession the papers called "Sada mania," and her testimony about killing the man she refused to share became a bestseller in a country where such candor was scandalous. She was sentenced to six years, served her time as a model prisoner, and vanished from public life sometime after 1970.The episode closes on a cold English night in January 1879, when a furniture hauler crossing Bridge 39 over the Shropshire Union Canal near the village of Ranton was charged by a shaggy, ape-like creature with glowing eyes that leapt onto his cart and terrified his horse. When he swung his whip at the thing, the lash passed straight through its body, and the creature bolted down toward the canal and vanished. The folklorist Charlotte Burne later learned from the village constable that the sightings had begun only days after a man drowned in that same canal, in a place where people believed a violent death could send someone back in the shape of a beast.

It's more exciting than a mortuary freezer full of elephants... Join our audio fiction takeover of Theatreship! Three days of shows, talks and screenings on the Thames! Tickets for all events here Livestream tickets also available, or become a patron for livestream access to all three shows! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It was late Spring in London, England and celebrations were underway for Queen Elizabeth II's coronation. The year was 1953, and it was to be the first ever, televised coronation in the history. But the mood shifted when news broke that two teenage girls were found brutally murdered, floating in the river.Instagram: @CousinsonCrimePodcastEmail: CousinsonCrime@gmail.comTheme Music by AleXZavesaFor Bonus Content, Join our Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/CousinsOnCrimeCheck out our merch store! https://cousinsoncrime-shop.fourthwall.com/?Sources:https://www.murdermiletours.com/blog/murder-mile-uk-true-crime-podcast-107-the-thames-towpath-murders-part-one-the-girls?utm_source=chatgpt.comhttps://pulpinternational.com/pulp/entry/cover-and-scans-from-true-police-cases-february-1953/?utm_source=chatgpt.comhttps://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/2897147 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/75788609https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/50758637/barbara-songhursthttps://www.findagrave.com/memorial/50758684/christine_rose-reed

Welcome to Art is Awesome, the show where we talk with an artist or art worker with a connection to the San Francisco Bay Area.  Today, Emily chats with Miguel Arzabe, a engineer turned artist based in Oakland, Ca... About Artist Miguel Arzabe: Miguel Arzabe makes colorful and dynamic abstractions - weavings, paintings, videos. He starts by finding outdated beauty in paper ephemera from art shows, modernist paintings, discarded audio recordings. They are methodically analyzed, deconstructed, reverse-engineered. Drawing inspiration from the cultural techniques and motifs of his Andean heritage, Arzabe weaves the fragments together revealing uncanny intersections between form and content, the nostalgic and the hard-edged, failure and recuperation. Arzabe lives and works in Oakland, CA. He had recent solo shows at Shulamit Nazarian Gallery (Los Angeles, CA) and Johansson Projects (Oakland, CA). Arzabe's work has been featured in such festivals as Hors Pistes (Centre Pompidou, Paris), Festival du Nouveau Cinéma (Montreal), and the Geumgang Nature Art Biennale (Gongju, South Korea); and in museums and galleries including MAC Lyon (France), MARS Milan (Italy), RM Projects (Auckland), FIFI Projects (Mexico City), Marylhurst University (Oregon), the Contemporary Jewish Museum, Berkeley Art Museum, the CCA Wattis Institute, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Arzabe's work is held in public collections such as the Harn Museum of Art in Gainseville, FL; the de Young Museum; Albuquerque Museum of Art; Oakland Museum of California; San Francisco Arts Commission; the State of California; as well as numerous private collections. He has attended many residencies including Facebook AIR, Headlands Center for the Arts, Montalvo Arts Center, Millay Arts, and Santa Fe Art Institute. He holds a BS from Carnegie Mellon University, an MS from Arizona State University, and an MFA from UC Berkeley. In 2022 Arzabe was awarded the San Francisco Bay Area Artadia Award. In 2023 he was awarded a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant and and a Golden Foundation Residency. In 2024 his work was featured in the exhibitions About Place at the deYoung Museum and The Poetics of Dimensions at the ICA San Francisco. His work is featured in the 2025 contemporary art survey TEXTILES x ART published by Thames and Hudson AU. Visit Miguel's Website:  MiguelArzabe.net Follow Miguel on Instagram: @Miguel.Arzabe -- About Podcast Host Emily Wilson: Emily a writer in San Francisco, with work in outlets including Hyperallergic, Artforum, 48 Hills, the Daily Beast, California Magazine, Latino USA, and Women's Media Center. She often writes about the arts. For years, she taught adults getting their high school diplomas at City College of San Francisco. Follow Emily on Instagram: @PureEWil Follow Art Is Awesome on Instagram: @ArtIsAwesome_Podcast -- CREDITS: Art Is Awesome is Hosted, Created & Executive Produced by Emily Wilson.  Theme Music "Loopster" Courtesy of Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License The Podcast is Co-Produced, Developed & Edited by Charlene Goto of @GoToProductions.  For more info, visit Go-ToProductions.com Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Carl Smith joins Tom Dove, Neils Spooner and Adam Reed fresh off another incredible spring, with not one but two UK 50s already under his belt. From stalking a stunning Cornish linear on floating bread to finally banking a long-awaited reservoir common, there's plenty of big carp chat to get into.The conversation also dives into Carl's recent Japan film, chasing carp beneath Mount Fuji, the appeal of mystery fish, and why the unknown still drives so many anglers.

In this second sponsored episode with Findmypast — the follow-up to our Genealogy 101 introduction — Jonathan Thomas and Jen Baldwin, Research Specialist at Findmypast, go deeper into the records, techniques, and stories that turn a nervous beginner into a confident family historian. The episode covers the extraordinary richness of the 1921 census and 1939 register, why the newspaper archive is the place where ancestors stop being names and start being people, how the Industrial Revolution left its fingerprints across every family tree, the truth about name changes and spelling variations (it was almost never Ellis Island), how to avoid drowning in common surnames like Thomas or Smith, the unexpected discoveries that make genealogy so addictive — including Jen's own Cornish mail-order bride ancestor, an Irish great-great-grandfather with two arrests across two countries, and Audrey Thompson the World War II rat-catching champion — and how to connect all of it to the great currents of British history. The episode also covers parish records, military records, DNA testing, the role of offline archives, and the mindset that keeps family history a lifelong joy rather than a frustrating quest for perfection. If you haven't heard the first episode, Genealogy 101, go back and listen to that one first. Links Sponsor Findmypast — Start Your Free Trial (US) Findmypast — Start Your Free Trial (UK) British Newspaper Archive (via Findmypast) Findmypast Crime & Criminal Records The Family History Of — Findmypast Podcast Was Justice Served? Podcast — Jen Baldwin Also Referenced Genealogy 101 — Previous Episode with Jen Baldwin (listen first) Friends of Anglotopia Club Takeaways The 1921 census and 1939 register work best as a pair — together they bookend the interwar period, and used in combination they can anchor a family from living memory all the way back through the Victorian era. The 1921 is the most detailed census ever taken in England and Wales; the 1939 register is the only census-style record with full birth dates and tracks maiden-to-married name changes for women. The 1939 register is the foundational document of the NHS — a living document updated for decades after the war, making it uniquely valuable for women's research. ARP warden and Home Guard volunteer roles recorded in its margins bring the home front of World War II vividly to life. Less than 10% of historical records are currently available online. The other 90% live in county record offices, local archives, churches, and museums — and going to them in person, touching the original documents, is an irreplaceable experience that no screen can fully replicate. Names were almost never changed at Ellis Island. Spelling variations in records happen because clerks wrote what they heard, literacy levels were inconsistent, and people adapted their names to the culture they found themselves in. You are researching people, not names — and building a mountain of evidence is the only reliable way to confirm you have the right person. Common surnames are a solvable problem: search by address rather than name, find an unusual first name in the same family, use occupations as a generational signature, and use Findmypast's wildcard and name-variation search tools to cast a wider net before narrowing down. Military records are one of the most common gateways to unexpected discovery — attestation papers, service records, pension files, and medal rolls fill in the specifics of what an ancestor actually did, where they served, and what happened to them. The Pals battalions of World War I, where entire communities enlisted together and died together, are particularly powerful to research. Parish records predate civil registration by centuries — the earliest on Findmypast go back to the 1300s — and the parish chest records that accompany them reveal an ancestor's role in their community: tax records, poor relief, bastardy orders, apprenticeship documents, and more that have nothing to do with baptism but everything to do with understanding a life. DNA testing adds a powerful new dimension to family research — not as a replacement for documentary evidence, but as a corroborating tool that can confirm suspected connections, break through brick walls by connecting you to unknown cousins, and reveal migration patterns that the paper records haven't caught yet. The best cure for a genealogy brick wall is to switch branches entirely. Fresh eyes on a different part of the family tree — maternal lines, in-laws, siblings — often reveals the clue that unlocks the original problem. The answer to who your Thomas ancestor was is sometimes hiding in his wife's maiden name records. Replace the goal of a perfect family tree with the practice of curiosity. The satisfaction of genealogy is not in the quantity of ancestors collected but in the two-in-the-morning moment when everything suddenly clicks — and that moment always opens a hundred new questions. This is a lifelong hobby, and patience rewards it far more than brilliance does. Soundbites "She answers a mail order bride ad in Cornwall. She travels by herself across the Atlantic, gets on a train, goes to the highest incorporated town in Colorado at ten thousand feet, marries this man sight unseen. He dies in a mining accident. She waits a few months, answers another ad, gets on another train with her kids, moves to Nebraska. They shake hands, go to the courthouse, get married. That's not as unusual as you might think." — Jen on her Cornish ancestor Mary Daniels and the extraordinary ordinary lives migration records reveal. "Their name was not changed at Ellis Island. Did it happen occasionally? Yes. But not because someone at a table said, I think you look more like a Smith. Names change because clerks wrote what they heard. You are researching people, not names." — Jen on the biggest myth in genealogy. "I found a gentleman who fills the census in black ink — except for the marriage column, which is a giant red D that he has clearly spent a lot of time on. It's written over and over. You can see the imprint on the page. He felt very passionately about his divorce." — Jen on the 1921 census entry that is worth the price of a subscription on its own. "She volunteers for the Women's Land Army and the next thing you know she is the country's top rat catcher. She enters the competition, travels the country giving presentations, getting her picture taken by local media — the top rat catcher fighting to save Britain from the Nazis. Because we needed the crops." — Jen on Audrey Thompson, one of her favorite unexpected discoveries. "He gets arrested twice. Once in Ireland and once in Wales — the situation in Wales was a bar fight, quite literally, covered in the newspaper in a lot of detail. He ends up in Cork prison, then Wales, then Liverpool, then Pennsylvania. I know all of that because of newspapers, arrest records, and a passenger list. The records all connect to tell a much deeper story." — Jen on tracing an Irish ancestor through famine, crime, and migration. "There's only about a percent of historical materials actually available online. There are more records sitting in archives and churches and museums and little nuggets all over the country. Go to the county records office. Go to the cemetery. Touch grass. Actually get away from the screen — because it connects you with the past in a way you could never duplicate in an online experience." — Jen on why physical archives still matter. "The 1939 register is the foundational records for the National Health Service. It was a living document for decades after the war. When women got married from 1939 on, you have their maiden name recorded and then they would go in and scratch out the maiden name and write their married name over the top. For women's research, it's particularly important." — Jen on why the 1939 register is so valuable. "I went to the church in St. Dunstan's Parish in the East. They still have the same baptismal font sitting in the building. And the steps down to the Thames along Radcliffe Highway are still in the same place as they were in the 1600s when my ancestors would have been there. I believe I'm the first person in our direct line to go back to London since they left in 1635. That first trip over was extraordinarily special." — Jen on the moment family history becomes real. "In a Pals battalion, they recruited whole battalions from the same community. All those men were neighbors before the war. They went to school together, they married each other's sisters, they went to church together. You get this situation where you're looking at an entire village of people who enlist and then get caught up in a battle and hundreds of them die in the same night. This is more than just a pedigree chart. This is an opportunity to remember them." — Jen on World War I Pals battalions and why war memorials matter. "You make a discovery and you've been researching this for hours or sometimes months or years, and you finally find it. It's two o'clock in the morning and you are literally jumping up and down in front of your computer. And then you realize I found this thing — but now I have a hundred more questions. That's the bit that keeps people coming back." — Jen on the true nature of the genealogy addiction. Chapters 00:00 Introduction & Sponsor Message — Findmypast and the Genealogy 201 premise 02:07 Picking Up Where We Left Off — A recap of Genealogy 101 and the call to action 02:32 The 1921 Census and 1939 Register as a Pair — Bookending the interwar period 03:30 What Makes the 1921 Census So Special — Employer names, divorce, orphan data, and handwriting 03:37 The Man with the Giant Red D — A census entry that tells an entire emotional story 05:00 The 1939 Register — ARP wardens, full birth dates, maiden names, and the NHS connection 07:42 Why Was There No 1931 or 1941 Census? — A brief recap for new listeners 08:51 What the 1939 Register Tells Us That a Census Can't — Women's names, volunteer war roles, and evacuated children 10:06 Newspapers as the Place Where Ancestors Come Alive — The 19th-century explosion and what it captured 11:30 The Three Brothers and Their Mother — A World War I story told entirely through local newspapers 12:45 The Industrial Revolution and Migration — Following opportunity from countryside to city to colony 13:30 Mary Daniels from Cornwall — A mail order bride, Colorado, a mining accident, Nebraska, and the homestead that's still in the family 17:09 Why Ancestors Move Around — Following jobs, the 20-mile radius rule, and how records help you track them 19:38 What Findmypast Offers Beyond the Census — Partnerships, niche collections, and British-based expertise 21:00 Metropolitan Police Records, Parish Records, and the Federation of Family History Societies 21:53 The National Archives Partnership — Military records, crime records, and the Licenses to Pass Beyond the Seas 23:40 Jen's Own Ancestor in the 1635 Passenger List — Henry Collins, three children, four servants, and a socioeconomic revelation 24:55 Not Everything Is Online — Less than 10% of records are digitized; why you should still visit archives 26:58 Even the Emperor of Japan Uses Archives — A digression on Oxford, shipping records, and the world's most patient researcher 28:24 Name Changes and Spelling Variations — Why Ellis Island didn't do it and what actually happened 28:58 The Jacobs/Jacobich Problem — And Jen's own family dropping the E off Browne 31:43 You Are Researching People, Not Names — Common sense is queen 32:29 Findmypast's Name Variation Search and Wildcard Tool — How to cast a wider net 33:37 Dealing with Common Surnames — Occupations, addresses, unusual first names, and process of elimination 35:30 Suddenly Grateful for Abel — Jonathan's uncommon grandfather and why unusual names are genealogical gold 35:48 Unexpected Discoveries That Make It All Feel Alive — Military service, migration stories, and the records that connect 36:02 A Famine Survivor, Two Arrests, and a Bar Fight in Wales — Jen's Irish ancestor's journey 37:56 Audrey Thompson, Top Rat Catcher — How the Women's Land Army and newspaper archive combine 39:00 True Crime in the Records — A domestic servant, a storm, an affair caught in a parish church, and the real-life whodunit 40:50 British Remembrance vs. American Remembrance — Plaques in banks, poppies, and why the UK doesn't forget 42:17 Findmypast's War Memorial Collection — Photographed memorials with every name listed, accessible from Colorado 44:00 The Pals Battalions — Entire villages enlisting, fighting, and dying together in World War I 45:22 Visit War Memorials When You Travel — What they tell you about a village's past and the state of its memory 45:30 Perfectionism vs. Curiosity — Why the chase is better than the finish line 47:24 Up at Two in the Morning — The two o'clock discovery and the hundred questions it opens 48:02 When People Don't Find the Castle They Expected — Why your ordinary ancestors are more interesting than any aristocrat 49:38 Three Assignments for After This Episode — Parish records, switching branches, and citing your sources 49:59 Parish Records Explained — Baptism vs. birth, burial vs. death, parish chest records, and the records from the 1300s 53:31 Why Switching Branches Solves Problems — Fresh eyes, new records, and how the puzzle connects 55:27 Why Citing Your Sources Matters — Future you will forget, and Findmypast Workspaces can help 57:46 The Mindset That Turns a Beginner Into a Historian — Replace perfection with curiosity, embrace the lifelong hobby 59:09 Jen's Own Family Tree Back to 1635 — St. Dunstan's Parish, Radcliffe Highway, the baptismal font, and being the first to return 1:00:41 Jonathan's Takeaway — Time to call grandma and fill in the family tree 1:01:54 Wrap-Up and Sponsor Outro — Findmypast free trial links and an invitation to share discoveries Video Version

Send us Fan MailA welcome breeze plays among the reeds and carves ripples on the canal. Tonight, the Erica is moored on a perfect summer's night. We welcome you to join us as enjoy the quiet and go searching for older attitudes to summer, the shifting dates of Midsummer's Eve, and just why Midsummer Night's Dream was so unsummery.  Journal entry:10th July, Friday“Sitting chatting over a mug of tea On the stern of the boat The sound of music and children playing A swirl of energy at the end of day.Voices float across the water That dances with light. A mother with six newly hatched ducklings The sun sinks behind Horse Hill.”Episode Information:In this episode I read short extracts from Miles Hadfield's (1950) An English Almanac published by Dent, and Alexandra Harris' (2015) Weatherland: Writers and artists under English skies published by Thames and Hudson. I also refer to Hana Videen's (2022) The Word Hord: Daily life in old English published by Princeton University Press, Eleanor Parker's (2022) Winters in the World: A journey through the Anglo-Saxon year published by Reaktion Books, and Lia Leendertz's (2024) A Year in Story and Song: A celebration of the seasons published by Hatchette UK.  You can find Karen and Jason's YouTube channel here: Just Two People. With special thanks to our lock-wheelersfor supporting this podcast. Ana McKellar Susan BakerMind Shambles Clare Hollingsworth Kevin B. Fleur and David Mcloughlin Lois Raphael Tania Yorgey Andrea Hansen Chris Hinds Chris and Alan on NB Land of Green Ginger Captain Arlo Rebecca Russell Allison on the narrowboat Mukka Derek and Pauline Watts Anna V. Orange Cookie Mary Keane. Tony Rutherford. Arabella Holzapfel. Rory with MJ and Kayla. Narrowboat Precious Jet. Linda Reynolds Burkins. Richard Noble. Carol Ferguson. Tracie Thomas Mark and Tricia Stowe Madeleine SmithGeneral DetailsThe intro and the outro music is ‘Crying Cello' by Oleksii_Kalyna (2024) licensed for free-use by Pixabay (189988). Narrowboat engine recorded by 'James2nd' on the River Weaver, Cheshire. Uploaded to Freesound.org on 23rd June 2018. Creative Commons Licence. Piano and keyboard interludes composed and performed by Helen Ingram.All other audio recorded on site. Support the showBecome a 'Lock-Wheeler'Would you like to support this podcast by becoming a 'lock-wheeler' for Nighttime on Still Waters? Find out more: 'Lock-wheeling' for Nighttime on Still Waters.ContactFacebook at https://www.facebook.com/noswpodInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/nighttimeonstillwaters/Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/noswpod.bsky.socialMastodon: https://mastodon.world/@nosw  I would love to hear from you. You can email me at nighttimeonstillwaters@gmail.com or drop me a line by going to the nowspod website and using either the contact form or, if you prefer, record your message by clicking on the microphone icon. For more information about Nighttime on Still WatersYou can find more information and photographs about the podcasts and life aboard the Erica on our website at noswpod.com. 

On the Saturday July 11, 2026 edition of The Richard Crouse Show we’ll meet Linus O’Brien, director of “Strange Journey: The Story of Rocky Horror,” a documentary celebrating the 50th anniversary of “The Rocky Horror Show” and its creator, and Linus’s father, Richard O’Brien. The documentary, which is available now on Digital HD including Apple TV and Prime Video, tracks Rocky Horror’s humble beginnings as a 1973 London fringe theatre play, its subsequent flop on Broadway, its adaptation into the 1975 feature film, and its eventual resurrection via the midnight movie circuit. With interviews with creator Richard O'Brien and original cast members like Tim Curry, Susan Sarandon, and Barry Bostwick, alongside commentary from high-profile celebrity fans like Jack Black and Trixie Mattel, it is the most complete look at the Rocky Horror phenomenon to date. Then, we’ll meet longtime staff writer at The New Yorker, Patrick Radden Keefe. He’s earned a reputation for transforming complex, high-stakes stories of power, secrecy, crime, and corruption into gripping, cinematic page-turners that read like thrillers while maintaining rigorous factual depth. Today we’ll talk about his new book, “London Falling: A Mysterious Death in a Gilded City and a Family's Search for Truth,” the gripping true story of 19-year-old Zac Brettler, who in November 2019 jumped (or fell) to his death from a luxury Thames-side apartment directly across from MI6 headquarters.

******Support the channel******Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thedissenterPayPal: paypal.me/thedissenterPayPal Subscription 1 Dollar: https://tinyurl.com/yb3acuuyPayPal Subscription 3 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/ybn6bg9lPayPal Subscription 5 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/ycmr9gpzPayPal Subscription 10 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/y9r3fc9mPayPal Subscription 20 Dollars: https://tinyurl.com/y95uvkao ******Follow me on******Website: https://www.thedissenter.net/The Dissenter Goodreads list: https://shorturl.at/7BMoBFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/thedissenteryt/Twitter: https://x.com/TheDissenterYT This show is sponsored by Enlites, Learning & Development done differently. Check the website here: http://enlites.com/ Dr. Paul Pettitt is Professor of Palaeolithic Archaeology at Durham University. He specializes in Palaeolithic art and in the long-term development of the treatment of the dead. His survey of the biological and behavioral evolution of Homo sapiens was published by Thames and Hudson in 2022 (Homo Sapiens Rediscovered: The Scientific Revolution Rewriting our Origins). He is currently researching aspects of the visual psychology that underpins the earliest cave art.  In this episode, we start by talking about the origins of paleoanthropology, and the development of evolutionary thanatology. We then discuss mortuary practices in human evolution and across human societies, and mortuary practices in mammal societies. We talk about how people react to death, and the social roles of funerals. We discuss whether other animals are aware of death. Finally, we talk about the evolution of symbolism, and what can we learn about human cognition from the study of paleolithic cave art.--A HUGE THANK YOU TO MY PATRONS/SUPPORTERS: PER HELGE LARSEN, BERNARDO SEIXAS, ADAM KESSEL, MATTHEW WHITINGBIRD, ARNAUD WOLFF, TIM HOLLOSY, HENRIK AHLENIUS, ROBERT WINDHAGER, RUI INACIO, ZOOP, MARCO NEVES, COLIN HOLBROOK, PHIL KAVANAGH, SAMUEL ANDREEFF, FRANCIS FORDE, TIAGO NUNES, FERGAL CUSSEN, HAL HERZOG, NUNO MACHADO, JONATHAN LEIBRANT, JOÃO LINHARES, STANTON T, SAMUEL CORREA, ERIK HAINES, MARK SMITH, JOÃO EIRA, TOM HUMMEL, SARDUS FRANCE, DAVID SLOAN WILSON, YACILA DEZA-ARAUJO, ROMAIN ROCH, YANICK PUNTER, CHARLOTTE BLEASE, NICOLE BARBARO, PAWEL OSTASZEWSKI, NELLEKE BAK, GUY MADISON, GARY G HELLMANN, SAIMA AFZAL, ADRIAN JAEGGI, JOÃO BARBOSA, JULIAN PRICE, HEDIN BRØNNER, FRANCA BORTOLOTTI, GABRIEL PONS CORTÈS, URSULA LITZCKE, SCOTT, ZACHARY FISH, TIM DUFFY, SUNNY SMITH, JON WISMAN, WILLIAM BUCKNER, LUKE GLOWACKI, GEORGIOS THEOPHANOUS, CHRIS WILLIAMSON, PETER WOLOSZYN, DAVID WILLIAMS, DIOGO COSTA, ALEX CHAU, CORALIE CHEVALLIER, BANGALORE ATHEISTS, LARRY D. LEE JR., OLD HERRINGBONE, DAN SPERBER, ROBERT GRESSIS, JEFF MCMAHAN, JAKE ZUEHL, MARK CAMPBELL, TOMAS DAUBNER, LUKE NISSEN, KIMBERLY JOHNSON, JESSICA NOWICKI, LINDA BRANDIN, VALENTIN STEINMANN, ALEXANDER HUBBARD, BR, JONAS HERTNER, URSULA GOODENOUGH, DAVID PINSOF, SEAN NELSON, MIKE LAVIGNE, JOS KNECHT, LUCY, MANVIR SINGH, PETRA WEIMANN, CAROLA FEEST, MAURO JÚNIOR, TONY BARRETT, NIKOLAI VISHNEVSKY, STEVEN GANGESTAD, TED FARRIS, HUGO B., JORDAN MANSFIELD, CHARLOTTE ALLEN, PETER STOYKO, DAVID TONNER, LEE BECK, PATRICK DALTON-HOLMES, NICK KRASNEY, RACHEL ZAK, DENNIS XAVIER, CHINMAYA BHAT, RHYS, ALEX MACLEOD, HAIDAR, JULIEN PORCHER, ROBERT SUNDSTRÖM, AND JON STEWART!A SPECIAL THANKS TO MY PRODUCERS, YZAR WEHBE, JIM FRANK, ŁUKASZ STAFINIAK, TOM VANEGDOM, BERNARD HUGUENEY, CURTIS DIXON, THOMAS TRUMBLE, KATHRINE AND PATRICK TOBIN, JONCARLO MONTENEGRO, NICK GOLDEN, CHRISTINE GLASS, IGOR NIKIFOROVSKI, PER KRAULIS, ADAM HUNT, ANTHONY DI LORENZO, AND JOÃO BARBOSA!AND TO MY EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS, MATTHEW LAVENDER,SERGIU CODREANU, AND GREGORY HASTINGS!

Books at Bedtime: The Sign of the Four – Chapter 8 (The Baker Street Irregulars)Welcome back to a place of rest and tranquility with another soothing episode of Books at Bedtime, brought to you by the Calming Anxiety podcast and the Anchored app. Tonight, we continue our gentle journey through the fog-bound streets of Victorian London with Chapter 8 of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Sign of the Four, titled "The Baker Street Irregulars". As the thrill of the nighttime chase gives way to the soft light of morning, Toby the dog faithfully recovers a lost trail, leading Holmes and Watson to a quiet riverside wharf. Here, they discover that the elusive wooden-legged man has slipped away down the Thames aboard a steam launch named the Aurora. Rather than rushing into a frantic river pursuit, Holmes wisely delegates the search to his trusted, street-smart network of local lads: the Baker Street Irregulars. Returning to the warmth and safety of their 221B Baker Street rooms, our weary companions enjoy a restorative breakfast while chuckling over an eager, yet entirely inaccurate, newspaper account of the Norwood mystery. Holmes quietly unravels the chilling origins of the second suspect using his encyclopedic knowledge. Then, recognizing Watson's deep exhaustion, Holmes takes up his violin and plays a low, dreamy, and melodious air, guiding his friend—and you—into a peaceful, much-needed slumber. Take a deep breath, let go of the day's tension, and allow this classic tale to carry you gently into Dreamland.

Over the past 30 years, the quality of water in rivers has improved tremendously in many major cities around the world. So much so that what once seemed impossible has now become reality: people really are swimming in the Thames in London. Chris Rommer-Lee is one of the visionaries behind what is called the “Swimmable Cities” movement....

In the summer of 1813, American and British forces raced to build fleets on the shores of Lake Erie, each side betting that naval control would decide the fate of the western frontier. On September 10th, Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry sailed his squadron out to meet the British fleet under Robert Barclay. Early in the battle, Perry's flagship Lawrence was battered into a wreck, forcing him to row through open water under fire to reach the Niagara and continue the fight. Turning the tables, Perry drove his second ship straight into the British line, breaking their formation and forcing a full surrender within hours. The victory gave the U.S. total command of Lake Erie, cut off British supply lines, and paved the way for General William Henry Harrison's recapture of Detroit and the Battle of the Thames. Perry's now famous "Don't Give Up The Ship" battle flag resides at the US Naval Academy as one of its most treasured artifacts. **

Rob runs along the Thames with top runner, voice-of-the-nation and now best-selling writer Sophie Raworth.In the concluding part they get serious in Central London, talking about Sophie's first marathon very much not going to plan - as they run across the 26th mile - the late great George Alagiah and the loss of Sophie's Dad to Parkinson's. Subscribe to the Fan Feed at ⁠⁠https://runcompod.supercast.com/⁠⁠ to hear Sophie answer our bonus questions -  plus get early access, ad-free listening, and all manner of exclusive content.BUY OUR BOOKS; you can get Paul's NEW BOOK Running Through Sand here: https://www.waterstones.com/book/running-through-sand/paul-tonkinson/9781399404013, you can get Rob's book Running Tracks here - ⁠https://www.waterstones.com/book/running-tracks/rob-deering/9781800180444 Thanks for listening, supporting, and sharing your adventures with us. Happy running. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A desperate performer signs with a miracle agent who promises work, food, and a paying audience beyond anything Broadway can offer. But once the contract is signed, Mike Hennesy learns that show business has just opened on a much larger stage. The Agent by Stephen Marlowe. That's next on The Lost Sci-Fi Podcast. Stephen Marlowe returns to the podcast, and if the name doesn't sound familiar, you've already heard his work here under several others. He previously appeared as Milton Lesser, Darius John Granger, and C. H. Thames. Our story first appeared on page 94 of the April 1953 Avon Science Fiction and Fantasy Reader, the second and last issue to bear that title. Here's “The Agent” by Stephen Marlowe… Next on The Lost Sci-Fi Podcast, Sylvia finally finds a way to escape the life she believes is holding her back, but freedom proves far stranger than she imagined. As she drifts farther from the people who love her, she faces a frightening question: what if the life she abandoned no longer wants her back? The Good Life by John R. Pierce. Lost Sci-Fi Premium - https://lostscifi.supercast.com/ Buy Me a Coffee - https://lostscifi.com/coffee =========================== Newsletter - https://lostscifi.com/free/ Facebook - https://lostscifi.com/facebook YouTube - https://lostscifi.com/youtube X - http://Lostscifi.com/x Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/lostscifiguy Bluesky - https://bsky.app/profile/lostscifipodcast.bsky.social Merchandise - https://lostscifi.creator-spring.com/ =========================== Thanks to Our Listeners Who Bought Us a Coffee $200 Someone $100 Tony from the Future $75 James Van Maanenberg $50 James Van Maanenberg, MizzBassie, Anonymous Listener $25 Fintan Quigley, Curious Jon, David Bell, Steve, Miriam, Someone, Someone, Eaten by a Grue, Jeff Lussenden, Fred Sieber, Anne, Craig Hamilton, Dave Wiseman, Bromite Thrip, Marwin de Haan, Future Space Engineer, Fressie, Kevin Eckert, Stephen Kagan, James Van Maanenberg, Irma Stolfo, Josh Jennings, Leber8tr, Conrad Chaffee, Anonymous Listener $15 Every Month Someone $15 Steve, Someone, SueTheLibrarian, Joannie West, Amy Özkan, Someone, Carolyn Guthleben, Patrick McLendon, Curious Jon, Buz C., Fressie, Anonymous Listener $10 David, Anonymous Listener $5 Every Month Eaten by a Grue $5 Tammy, Owen, Bruce, Someone, TLD, David, Denis Kalinin, Timothy Buckley, Andre'a, Martin Brown, Ron McFarlan, Tif Love, Chrystene, Richard Hoffman, Anonymous Listener Listen without commercials and enjoy exclusive bonus episodes every month with Lost Sci-Fi Premium—start your free 7-day trial today. https://lostscifi.supercast.com/ Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

ON LOCATION | Sean Martin & Marco Ciappelli — Infosecurity Europe 2026 Two conferences, two moods: at RSA the drumbeat was resilience; at InfoSec, it's sovereignty. Sean and I close the week with Forrester analyst Madelein van der Hout — beaming in from the Netherlands — on why Europe makes a framework out of everything, what AI deployment is doing to the boardroom, and the security jobs that don't exist yet.

The South Bank of the Thames between Westminster and Blackfriars Bridges is known for its stunning views across London but also for its art & entertainment. In this podcast we'll look at how it came to be! Join us!

On the Saturday July 11, 2026 edition of The Richard Crouse Show we'll meet Linus O'Brien, director of “Strange Journey: The Story of Rocky Horror,” a documentary celebrating the 50th anniversary of “The Rocky Horror Show” and its creator, and Linus's father, Richard O'Brien. The documentary, which is available now on Digital HD including Apple TV and Prime Video, tracks Rocky Horror's humble beginnings as a 1973 London fringe theatre play, its subsequent flop on Broadway, its adaptation into the 1975 feature film, and its eventual resurrection via the midnight movie circuit. With interviews with creator Richard O'Brien and original cast members like Tim Curry, Susan Sarandon, and Barry Bostwick, alongside commentary from high-profile celebrity fans like Jack Black and Trixie Mattel, it is the most complete look at the Rocky Horror phenomenon to date. Then, we'll meet longtime staff writer at The New Yorker, Patrick Radden Keefe. He's earned a reputation for transforming complex, high-stakes stories of power, secrecy, crime, and corruption into gripping, cinematic page-turners that read like thrillers while maintaining rigorous factual depth. Today we'll talk about his new book, “London Falling: A Mysterious Death in a Gilded City and a Family's Search for Truth,” the gripping true story of 19-year-old Zac Brettler, who in November 2019 jumped (or fell) to his death from a luxury Thames-side apartment directly across from MI6 headquarters.

Introduction Most sales conversations about underperformance start with the wrong question. Is the messaging wrong? Is the tech stack outdated? Is the lead generation broken? Richard Spanier, author of Trust: Sales 2030 — A Field Guide to Frictionless Buying, argues that almost every assumption modern sales operates on, quotas, champions, gated content, CRM accuracy, pipeline stages, gets the buyer's reality backwards. In this episode of TheInquisitor Podcast, Marcus Cauchi presses Richard on what a genuinely frictionless buying process looks like in practice, and why he believes the systems most sales leaders rely on are built to manage the illusion of control rather than the reality of how people buy. Why This Conversation Matters Sales has spent decades optimising the seller's side of the transaction: better scripts, better cadences, better personalisation at scale. Richard's argument is that none of this addresses the underlying problem, which is that buyers do their own research, reach their own conclusions, and resent being pushed through somebody else's process. If that's true, a huge amount of sales infrastructure, from quotas to lead scoring to discovery calls, is solving the wrong problem. This conversation matters because it asks sales leaders to consider a genuinely uncomfortable possibility: that activity-based management is not just inefficient, it is actively corrosive to the thing buyers say they want most from a seller, which is trust. Guest Introduction Richard Spanier has spent 45 years in and around sales, 30 of them selling directly in the telecommunications equipment industry and 15 consulting. He has just published Trust: Sales 2030 — A Field Guide to Frictionless Buying, which sets out his case for redesigning the buying experience around the buyer's own momentum rather than the seller's targets. Major Discussion Points Sales has a trust problem, not a tech problem. Richard traces his thinking back to a client who rejected the standard personalisation playbook outright, which started him investigating why buyers were resistant in the first place. His conclusion: trust is being lost in the basic dynamic of a seller pushing and a buyer resisting. Frictionless by design. Rather than a faster funnel, Richard proposes redesigning the buying environment itself, including landing pages that let buyers build their own picture of a solution using their own inputs, with no email gate and no follow-up surveillance. Compensation built around the team, not the individual. Richard's proposal: take the profit on a deal and split it equally among everyone who touched it, from CSR to AE to sales engineer to manager. Marcus pushes this further, arguing that 20-account pods with deep account research outperform sprawling 200-account territories. Risk, not pain, is the real decision driver. Both Marcus and Richard argue that most sales methodologies focus on the supply side (pain, budget, authority, need) while ignoring the functional, social and personal risk the buyer is carrying internally, long after the seller has left the room. CRM and pipeline data are largely fiction. Richard estimates CRM accuracy at around 20 to 25 percent. Marcus argues even that may be generous, pointing out that CRM exists primarily to give management an illusion of control rather than to help sellers sell. Referrals: systematise or not? A genuine disagreement. Richard is sceptical that referrals can be systematised, arguing they have to be earned rather than requested. Marcus pushes back, describing how multi-threading and mapping a customer's wider ecosystem can make referral generation deliberate rather than accidental. Recommending the competition. Both agree that being honest about when you are the wrong vendor, and pointing the buyer elsewhere, builds more long-term trust and referral value than trying to win every deal. Practical Takeaways Stop gating content behind forms. If something is genuinely useful to a buyer, give it to them without an email capture. Track what the buyer has done in the last fortnight, not what the seller has done. Buyer-initiated movement is the real signal. Build smaller, deeply researched account pods rather than broad, shallow territories. When you are not the right fit, say so and point to who is. It is more likely to generate referrals than trying to win regardless. Stop letting "champion" stand in for "decision maker." A champion who will not defend you in the room they cannot bring you into is not a champion. Memorable Quotes "I was gobsmacked... the solutions I saw for personalisation were clumsy." "Commission breath... what is more emblematic of distrust than that?" "Stop calling a friendly contact a champion." "It's like turning the Queen Elizabeth around in the Thames." "Don't embrace rejection. You learn from it. You don't embrace it. How crazy is that?" Books and Resources Mentioned Trust: Sales 2030 — A Field Guide to Frictionless Buying by Richard Spanier Managing Up by Marcus Cauchi (forthcoming) Reference to Aaron Ross's outbound sales work Reference to Dan Kennedy on the cost of poorly timed outreach Guest Biography Richard Spanier spent 45 years in sales and sales consulting, 30 years selling directly in the telecommunications equipment industry and 15 years consulting on go to market strategy. He is the author of Trust: Sales 2030 — A Field Guide to Frictionless Buying, which argues for a redesign of the buying process around trust, evidence and buyer-led movement rather than seller activity. Subscribe If this challenged how you think about pipeline, compensation or trust in selling, subscribe to TheInquisitor Podcast for more conversations that question the assumptions B2B sales has been built on.   Useful links: Richard Spanier on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/spandev/ Richard's book, Trust: Sales 2030: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Trust-Sales-Field-Frictionless-Buying-ebook/dp/B0H4MNL1HR Marcus Cauchi on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcuscauchi/ #B2BSales #SalesLeadership #Trust #SalesStrategy #RevenueGrowth #BuyerExperience #SalesTraining #CRO #FrictionlessBuying    

Topic: Malcolm and Carol catch up on some recent food news and welcome Chef/Owner of Restaurant Tyler, BIN 612, and The Guest Room in Starkville, Ty Thames, to the show to talk about how he got started on his culinary journey and how that led to his newest endeavor, Mississippi Red Pepper Sauce.Guest(s): Ty Thames Host(s): Malcolm White and Carol PalmerEmail: food@mpbonline.orgIf you enjoyed listening to this podcast, please consider contributing to MPB: https://donate.mpbfoundation.org/mspb/podcast Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Rob's run along the Thames with top runner, voice-of-the-nation and now best-selling writer Sophie Raworth continues.In Part Two they talk about Sophie's book, staying fit as one gets older, the Thames itself, Rob and Paul's Coast-to-Coast, Sophie running in the Alps, and poles. Subscribe to the Fan Feed at ⁠⁠https://runcompod.supercast.com/⁠⁠ to hear Sophie answer our bonus questions -  plus get early access, ad-free listening, and all manner of exclusive content.BUY OUR BOOKS; you can get Paul's NEW BOOK Running Through Sand here: https://www.waterstones.com/book/running-through-sand/paul-tonkinson/9781399404013, you can get Rob's book Running Tracks here - ⁠https://www.waterstones.com/book/running-tracks/rob-deering/9781800180444 Thanks for listening, supporting, and sharing your adventures with us. Happy running. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

“Narrative remains a pretty unbeatable delivery device for information.” — Patrick Radden Keefe Has London really fallen? That's the question Patrick Radden Keefe — staff writer at The New Yorker and bestselling author of Empire of Pain and Say Nothing — addressed in his new book, London Falling: A Mysterious Death in a Gilded City and a Family's Search for Truth. One thing for sure is that Keefe himself hasn't fallen. He's been surprised by the book's success. “I thought the antibodies would get up because I'm an interloper,” the American confesses about writing about Britain. Antibodies or not, the book has been a #1 bestseller in both the UK and US. And we can look forward to an A24 and Brightstar TV adaptation soon. On London, the story is murkier. London Falling begins on November 29, 2019, when nineteen-year-old Zac Brettler falls to his death from a luxury apartment above the Thames. Every parent's ultimate nightmare. As it happens, I've known Zac's dad, Matthew, for many years. But what appeared to be a tragic accident or a suicide turned out to be something far more sinister — a story of double lives, dirty money, a dishonest businessman named Akbar Shamji, and a terrifyingly violent gangster known as Indian Dave. Lurking behind the Brettler death is what Keefe presents as the greatest deceit of all — London's cruel descent into what he sees as the moneyed miasma of post-Thatcherite neo-liberalism. London is, in Keefe's compelling narrative, the most invisible of cities — where power lies with criminals like Indian Dave, where the police are at best bystanders, and where a teenage fantasist from a comfortable middle-class family can become fatally entangled in a fallen world he barely understood. Five Takeaways •       Zac Brettler: The Double Life That Led to His Death: Zac Brettler was nineteen years old. He fell — or was pushed, or was forced to jump — from a luxury apartment balcony above the Thames on November 29, 2019. He had been living a double life: to London's criminal underworld, he was Zac Ismailov, the son of a Russian oligarch, heir to a great fortune. He had even fabricated bank statements showing a personal account holding $1 million. Under this guise, he became entangled with Akbar Shamji, a slippery businessman, and a man known as Indian Dave, a violent extortionist. Keefe's reporting suggests Zac jumped to escape from one of these men. Scotland Yard's passivity in investigating the case is, in Keefe's word, bizarre. •       London as a Twenty-Four-Hour Laundromat for Dirty Money: Keefe's portrait of London is the book's macro argument: a global city that has been hollowed out by decades of financial deregulation, whose financial sector is stacked with professional facilitators eager to help protect or conceal a dubious fortune, where posh mansions and private nightclubs serve as the visible surface of a hidden economy of criminal money. Zac Brettler was not rich. He was a boy from a comfortably off family who became fixated on the glitzy, mercenary, aspirational culture embodied by foreign billionaires who had bought mansions and football clubs in his city. London, in Keefe's telling, did this to him. •       The Brettlers' Consent: A Long Haul With the Family: Keefe had written 15,000 words for The New Yorker when he knew there was a book. He went to Matthew and Rochelle Brettler and their surviving son Joe and told them: I will only do this with your blessing. They read the finished piece, talked amongst themselves, and came back with a yes. Keefe's method: he is an open book; he invites sources to read his previous work. It took him an LSE graduate who became one of the most trusted journalists in the world to persuade a devastated family to trust him with their son's story. They made the right decision. •       Narrative as Delivery Device: Keefe's Method: Keefe on why he writes the way he writes: everyone has a phone in their pocket making claims on their attention. Narrative — true stories about real people, told with enough seductive propulsive energy — remains the most powerful way to convey information, to make someone who would not otherwise read nonfiction want to keep turning pages. He is looking, always, for inherently dramatic stories. London Falling is that: a whodunit, a parental love story, a portrait of a corrupted city, and a thriller, all in one book. The New York Times described the whole book as one of the best of 2026 so far. •       The Television Adaptation: A24, Brightstar, and the Lessons of Say Nothing: A24 and Brightstar are producing the television adaptation of London Falling. Five production companies had to audition for the Brettlers over Zoom. The family is involved. Keefe knows from Say Nothing — which took five years from book to screen and won awards as an FX series — that this cannot go on autopilot. The aim: something sophisticated, sensitive, and just to the family's story. The first word on the Mill Hill School website is “integrity.” Whether that word will survive contact with a television adaptation remains to be seen. About the Guest Patrick Radden Keefe is a staff writer at The New Yorker and the author of London Falling: A Mysterious Death in a Gilded City and a Family's Search for Truth (Doubleday, April 7, 2026; #1 New York Times bestseller), Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty (winner of the Baillie Gifford Prize), Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland (National Book Critics Circle Award; named one of the twenty best books of the 21st century by the New York Times), Rogues, and Chatter. He is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, the National Magazine Award, and the Orwell Prize. He served as executive producer on the award-winning FX series Say Nothing and is the creator and host of the podcast Wind of Change. References: •       London Falling: A Mysterious Death in a Gilded City and a Family's Search for Truth by Patrick Radden Keefe (Doubleday, April 7, 2026). •       Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty by Patrick Radden Keefe — referenced at the opening. •       Say Nothing (FX series, executive produced by Keefe) — referenced in the closing section. •       Andrew O'Hagan, Caledonian Road — referenced as covering similar London territory in fiction. •       A24 and Brightstar — the production companies making the London Falling television adaptatio...

In this week's episode photographer, filmmaker and artist Roger Ballen takes on our ‘Proust Photo Quiz'… The Proust Questionnaire is a set of questions answered by the French writer Marcel Proust. Proust answered the questionnaire in a confession album, a form of parlour game popular at the end of the 1890s. The album, titled An Album to Record Thoughts, Feelings, etc.was found in 1924 and published in the French literary journal Les Cahiers du Mois. Our ‘Proust Photo Quiz' is an adaption of the original text. Roger Ballen Ballen was born in New York in 1950, but for nearly 40 years he has lived and worked in South Africa. It was his work as a geologist that took him into the countryside with his camera in 1981 to explore the hidden world of small South African towns. At first he explored the empty streets in the glare of the midday sun but, once he made the step of knocking on people's doors, he discovered a world inside these houses which was to have a profound effect on his work. After 1994 he no longer looked to the countryside for his subject matter finding it closer to home in Johannesburg. Over the past thirty-five years his photography has evolved using a simple square format in stark black and white. A style he describes as ‘documentary fiction'. After 2000 the people he first discovered and documented living on the margins of South African society became a cast of actors. Ballen has made a number of short films including the collaborative film I Fink You Freeky in 2012, which has over 125-million hits on YouTube.  He also made an animated film, Theatre of Apparitions, which has been nominated for various awards. In 2017 Thames & Hudson published a volume of his collected photography with extended commentary by Ballen titled Ballenesque Roger Ballen: A Retrospective to accompany an exhibition of his work at Halle Saint Pierre in Paris, which took over the entire space for more than a year. ​In 2020, Hatje Cantz published Roger the Rat in which Ballen creates and documents a part-human, part-rat creature who lives an isolated life outside of mainstream society. Ballen has published over twenty-five books internationally and his works are in more than fifty of the most important international museum collections. He still lives in Johannesburg, South Africa. www.rogerballen.com Dr.Grant Scott After fifteen years art directing photography books and magazines such as Elle and Tatler, Scott began to work as a photographer for a number of advertising and editorial clients in 2000. Alongside his photographic career Scott has art directed numerous advertising campaigns, worked as a creative director at Sotheby's, art directed foto8magazine, founded his own photographic gallery, edited Professional Photographer magazine and launched his own title for photographers and filmmakers Hungry Eye. He founded the United Nations of Photography in 2012, and is now a Senior Lecturer and Subject Co-ordinator: Photography at Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, and a BBC Radio contributor. Scott is the author of Professional Photography: The New Global Landscape Explained (Routledge 2014), The Essential Student Guide to Professional Photography (Routledge 2015), New Ways of Seeing: The Democratic Language of Photography (Routledge 2019), and What Does Photography Mean To You? (Bluecoat Press 2020). His photography has been published in At Home With The Makers of Style (Thames & Hudson 2006) and Crash Happy: A Night at The Bangers (Cafe Royal Books 2012). His film Do Not Bend: The Photographic Life of Bill Jay was premiered in 2018. Scott continues to work as a photographer, writer and filmmaker and is the Subject Coordinator for both undergraduate and post graduate study of photography at Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, England. © Grant Scott 2026

Welcome to episode 284 of The All Seeing Guys Podcast with Greg and Joe The guys return, with Greg's eight-year-old daughter joining. They all catch up, share a few updates, Greg rolls his ankle more, and Joe has a CSI poo mystery at home to deal with; then it's on to geezedropping with plenty sent in by you. They all talk about a questionable ad from Kingston upon Thames, an update all these years later on the jogging bus pusher (didn't push an actual bus), then Indiana hijacks the episode to give voice to her political agenda with her thoughts on the social media ban and school  All this and more

Rob runs along the Thames with top runner, voice-of-the-nation and now best-selling writer Sophie Raworth.In Part One they talk adventures in broadcasting, Marathon Majors, the next generation getting into running, and the injury that made Sophie think she might not be able to run any more.Subscribe to the Fan Feed at ⁠⁠https://runcompod.supercast.com/⁠⁠ to hear Sophie answer our bonus questions -  plus get early access, ad-free listening, and all manner of exclusive content.BUY OUR BOOKS; you can get Paul's NEW BOOK Running Through Sand here: https://www.waterstones.com/book/running-through-sand/paul-tonkinson/9781399404013, you can get Rob's book Running Tracks here - ⁠https://www.waterstones.com/book/running-tracks/rob-deering/9781800180444 Thanks for listening, supporting, and sharing your adventures with us. Happy running. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When Thomas Platter, a Swiss tourist, went to see ‘Julius Caesar' at the Globe Theatre in 1599, it wasn't Shakespeare's language that attracted his attention but the ready availability of refreshments and the high quality of the players' clothes. The revolution in playmaking that he witnessed on the south bank of the Thames reflected widespread innovations in London's cultural life in the reign of Elizabeth I. For the first time, we can see the city clearly, in the panoramas and maps inspired by Dutch artists. New ideas about history are emerging in the works of Stow and Holinshed. And the growth of trade through piracy, with a new centre of commerce in Thomas Gresham's Royal Exchange, marks the beginning of England's imperial expansion. In this episode, Rosemary is joined again by Vanessa Harding to discuss this extraordinary moment in London's history and some of the reasons behind it, from Elizabeth's genius for survival to the city's lack of a university. Reading by Duncan Wilkins Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen in full, and to all our other Close Readings series, sign up: Apple Podcasts: ⁠https://lrb.me/applesignuplr⁠ Other podcast apps: ⁠https://lrb.me/scsignuplr⁠ Read more in the LRB: Charles Nicholl on Elizabethan true crime: ⁠https://lrb.me/lrep601⁠ Michael Dobson on Shakespeare's life: ⁠https://lrb.me/lrep603⁠ Colin Burrow on Walter Raleigh: ⁠https://lrb.me/lrep02⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The new book “London Falling” tells the true story of Zac Brettler, a 19-year-old Londoner who falls to his death in the Thames after living a double life pretending to be the son of a wealthy Russian oligarch. We speak with bestselling author Patrick Radden Keefe about mystery, money and police inaction as he searched for answers about Zac's death.

Someone asked me this from their pool. They were floating around listening to the podcast and thought, "did the people I'm obsessed with ever do this?" And it sent me down a rabbit hole, because the answer is so much more complicated and class-loaded than I expected. In this episode we cover: Why Tudors avoided hot baths (and why that was actually logical given what they believed about disease) Who could swim in Tudor England, and it's the opposite of what you'd expect The first swimming manual ever published in England, written by a Cambridge academic who was simultaneously being expelled for blowing a horn around the college grounds The Thames, which was exactly as bad as you're imaginingThe superstition sailors swore by to protect themselves from drowning, and why it made complete sense Tudor history isn't about dirty people who didn't know any better. It's about people with a completely different framework for understanding the world. Water was essential, deadly, and magical to them all at once. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This Day in Legal History: Magna Carta Sealed at RunnymedeOn this day in 1215, in a meadow at Runnymede on the south bank of the Thames, King John of England affixed his seal to a document the rebellious English barons had drafted, in which the king conceded a series of limits on his own royal authority. We call it Magna Carta — the Great Charter. The immediate political context was a baronial revolt against John's tax exactions for his disastrous French wars, and most of the sixty-three chapters as drafted in 1215 are concerned with the highly specific grievances of a feudal aristocracy: scutage, wardship, the inheritance fees of widows, the freedom of the church, the standardization of weights and measures in the king's markets. The two chapters that the centuries have remembered are 39 and 40. Chapter 39 says that no free man shall be taken or imprisoned or dispossessed except by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land. Chapter 40 says that to no one will the king sell, deny, or delay right or justice. The Charter was annulled by Pope Innocent III within ten weeks of sealing — the pope held that John, as a vassal of the Holy See, could not be bound by a treaty extracted under duress — and the country immediately collapsed into the First Barons' War. But John died in October 1216, his nine-year-old son Henry III's regents reissued the Charter as a tactical concession the next month, it was reissued again in 1217 and 1225, and by the late thirteenth century the 1225 version had been confirmed by successive kings as a foundational statute of the realm. Edward Coke, writing in the seventeenth century, transformed Chapter 39's “law of the land” into the doctrine of due process, and the founding generation of the American Republic picked up Coke's reading and wrote it directly into the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution. The phrase “due process of law” in those amendments is the most consequential American inheritance from the Runnymede document. The principle the barons were trying to extract from a beleaguered king — that the law constrains the sovereign too — is the substrate on which everything we recognize as constitutionalism is built. Eight hundred and eleven years on, the principle is still the work.The Rhode Island travel-ban lawsuit we covered on June 8 took a sharp turn on Friday. Chief Judge John J. McConnell, Jr., of the District of Rhode Island held a status conference in Dorcas International Institute v. USCIS at which he was openly frustrated with the Justice Department for failing to immediately implement his June 5 vacatur of the four USCIS benefit-freeze policies for nationals of the thirty-nine travel-ban countries. The judge's message, in plain terms, was that vacatur under the Administrative Procedure Act is self-executing — the moment the order was entered, the policies ceased to exist, and the agency was obligated to resume processing affirmative benefits, asylum claims, and adjudicator-instruction reviews on the prior pre-freeze basis. The Trump administration, after the hearing, told the court it would comply, restart adjudications, and clear the backlog. It also did what defendants typically do when they have lost on the merits and lost again on compliance: it filed a notice of appeal with the First Circuit and asked the appellate court to stay the vacatur pending appeal. That is the live question now. The First Circuit's stay analysis runs through the standard Nken v. Holder factors — likelihood of success on the merits, irreparable harm, the balance of equities, and the public interest — and the administration's strongest argument on each is going to be familiar: the executive needs administrative breathing room to implement a travel ban, mass restoration of adjudications creates national-security risk, the harm to applicants is reversible if their adjudications are paused for a few more weeks. The plaintiffs' strongest counterarguments are also familiar: the policies were unlawful when adopted and the agency had no business adopting them, the harm to applicants from continued delay is concrete and accruing daily, and the First Circuit is not in the business of staying vacaturs of unlawful agency action in order to let the agency continue acting unlawfully. Watch the First Circuit's calendar this week. The stay motion is the next inflection point.Trump officials agree to resume asylum processing after being scolded by judge | The Washington PostGoogle filed suit on Friday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York against a China-based cybercrime network it calls the “Outsider Enterprise,” alleging that the network's members used Google's Gemini large-language model to generate the code, copy, and templates for a phishing-as-a-service platform that has built more than nine thousand fraudulent websites and sent two and a half million scam text messages in the two weeks ending June 1 alone. The complaint is significant for two reasons. First, it is, to Google's knowledge, the first time the company has affirmatively sued threat actors for using its own generative-AI product as the input to a scaled criminal operation, as distinct from the more usual posture of suing scammers who impersonate Google brands. The legal theories are a mix of Lanham Act false-designation-of-origin and trademark-infringement counts, Computer Fraud and Abuse Act counts based on Outsider's unauthorized access to Google services, breach-of-contract counts on the Gemini terms of service, and a RICO count. Second, the factual record will be a road map for the next decade of AI-misuse litigation. The complaint describes Telegram channels in which Outsider members trade prompts that get Gemini to write phishing code, a library of two hundred and ninety prebuilt templates impersonating brands ranging from the U.S. Postal Service to state DMVs to E-ZPass, and an FBI estimate that the broader campaign Outsider participates in has stolen roughly 3.87 million card numbers and caused $1.9 billion in losses since July 2023. The remedy Google is seeking is a permanent injunction shutting the operation down, plus domain seizures and account terminations across Google's services and at major U.S. carriers, which Google says it has been coordinating with the FBI, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon. The deeper legal question the case may end up clarifying is whether and to what extent platforms can use private civil suits as the front-line enforcement mechanism against AI-augmented criminal activity that the public criminal-justice system has had trouble keeping up with.Google sues Chinese cybercrime ring that weaponized Gemini AI for phishing scams | TechCrunchA federal district judge in Washington on Friday issued a preliminary injunction barring the Trump administration from continuing to implement Executive Order 14253, the order under which the National Park Service had been scrubbing exhibits, signage, and online materials at sites administered by the Department of the Interior. The judge gave the administration three weeks to restore the materials it had already removed. The order at issue, signed in March, directed federal cultural agencies to identify and remove content that, in the executive's view, reflected “improper, divisive, or anti-American ideology” or “partisan” framing. In the months that followed, the National Park Service had taken down or altered displays addressing slavery, the Civil Rights Movement, the internment of Japanese Americans during the Second World War, climate change, and the histories of Native American dispossession at sites including the Stonewall National Monument, Independence Hall, and the Manzanar National Historic Site. The case is American Historical Association v. Department of the Interior, brought by historians' professional associations and a coalition of plaintiffs that includes affected park employees and visitor-experience contractors. The legal theory pleaded was multi-strand: First Amendment viewpoint discrimination as applied to government speech that has taken on a public-forum character, Administrative Procedure Act challenges on the ground that the agency failed to provide a reasoned basis for the removals and failed to consider statutory commands under the Organic Act of 1916, and a Federal Records Act challenge to the destruction of materials that constituted federal records. The judge held that the plaintiffs were likely to succeed on the First Amendment claim and the APA claim, found irreparable harm in the ongoing loss of public access to the underlying historical materials, and found that the public interest was best served by restoration. The administration is widely expected to appeal to the D.C. Circuit. In the meantime, the three-week restoration clock is running.Judge blocks Trump national parks order, calling it “censorship” | The Washington Post This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.minimumcomp.com/subscribe

Bob Thames is a community builder, entrepreneur, and nonprofit leader based in Shreveport, Louisiana. He serves as Treasurer for Shreveport Green, Development Director for Cohab, and sits on the board of Community Renewal. In addition, Bob leads Single Source Business Solutions, a firm dedicated to helping small businesses and individuals with accounting, tax, and consulting services. He is also the owner of Marilynn's Place, a community-loved favorite known for its authentic Cajun cuisine and local Shreveport charm. Known for his ability to connect people and ideas, Bob has organized events that highlight Shreveport's creativity, entrepreneurship, and local culture. His work blends business development with community engagement, creating opportunities for small businesses, makers, and nonprofits to thrive. Across his roles, Bob is committed to strengthening Shreveport's economic and cultural landscape while supporting organizations that foster collaboration and renewal. As a husband, father, and active leader, he brings both professional expertise and personal passion to every project, always focused on building a stronger, more connected community.   Marilynns Place: https://www.facebook.com/MarilynnsPlace/ Single Source: https://www.singlesourcebiz.com   Asking Why with Clint Davis Sponsors: A special thank you to the incredible sponsors of Asking Why with Clint Davis for investing in meaningful conversations that bring hope, healing, and growth to our community.   Wellness by Dr. Natalia — a physician-led integrative and concierge medical practice in Shreveport focused on longevity, regenerative medicine, aesthetics, and whole-person wellness. Learn more at www.LuraguizMD.com   Uprising Addiction Center — helping individuals and families find lasting recovery through compassionate, evidence-based addiction treatment focused on healing the whole person. Learn more at www.UprisingCenter.com   LearningRx Shreveport — empowering children and adults by strengthening cognitive skills needed to learn, focus, read, and succeed with confidence. Learn more at www.LearningRx.com/Shreveport   We're grateful for businesses and organizations that believe in strengthening people, families, and our community.  

“Recorded from Woolwich, on the other side of the river Thames. The sound of the factory, along with planes coming and going from City airport, boats and the river all mixed together to form a drone like wall of sound.”

He's the London serial killer you may never have even known existed - from the late 1950's to the mid 1960's, West London was shocked by the deaths of several sex workers, who were found stripped, strangled, and their bodies dumped unceremoniously, like pieces of rubbish. It's widely considered to be the UK's most prolific series of unsolved serial killings, claiming more victims than his similar namesake the previous century, and in a joint 8 part series between myself, and the award nominated Murder Mile podcast, myself and Mike will examine the case in full detail, sifting through misinformation, lies, rumour - and perhaps even downright corruption.The True Crime Enthusiast and Murder Mile have brought you so far the accounts of eight dead women – Elizabeth Figg, Gwyneth Rees, Hannah Tailford, Irene Lockwood, Helen Barthelemy, Mary Fleming, Margaret McGowan and Bridie O'Hara - who were found dead around the river Thames and in residential areas of the surrounding districts over a six year period from 1959 to 1965 – with police considering:Was there another Ripper on the loose?We have heard the full story of the investigation into the murders, what certainly connected the latter four of these, and the tales of a number of suspects for the crimes - I stress suspects - for only one person was ever charged with any of the linked killings - as you'll have heard.But - for the final time, join the Enthusiast and Mike, your tour guide for Murder Mile, as we sit down unscripted, unedited - togetrher, and Undress - Undressing - Jack The StripperThe episode contains details and descriptions of crimes and events, including descriptions of a sexual nature, that some listeners may find disturbing or distressing, so discretion is advised whilst listening in. Music used in this episode: "The Descent" by Kevin Macleod. All music used is sourced from https://filmmusic.io/ and used under an Attribution Licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) Clever Trevor – Ian DuryShort Change Hero - The HeavyThe True Crime Enthusiast's Fundraiser For Macmillan Cancer Support References - available upon request. Follow/Contact/Support The True Crime Enthusiast PodcastFacebookFacebook Discussion GroupTwitterInstagramYoutubeWebsiteTTCE MerchandisePatreon Page Remembering Elizabeth, Gwyneth, Hannah, Irene, Helen, Mary, Margaret and Bridie Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

If you enjoy this episode, we're sure you will enjoy more content like this on The Occult Rejects.  In fact, we have curated playlists on occult topics like grimoires, esoteric concepts and phenomena, occult history, analyzing true crime and cults with an occult lens, Para politics, and occultism in music. 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Trinity Press International, 1996. Key use: Essential source for early Christian architectural adaptation, especially the shift from domestic and semi-domestic gathering spaces toward more specialized Christian buildings. White's work is useful for showing that early Christian architecture develops inside a broader Roman social and architectural world, not in isolation.White, L. Michael. The Social Origins of Christian Architecture, Volume II: Texts and Monuments for the Christian Domus Ecclesiae in Its Environment. Trinity Press International, 1997. Key use: Companion volume for the textual and archaeological evidence behind the domus ecclesiae, early meeting spaces, and the built environment of pre-Constantinian Christianity.Yale University Art Gallery. “Christian Building.” Dura-Europos: Excavating Antiquity. Key use: Strong anchor for the Dura-Europos Christian building and its wall paintings. Yale notes that the Christian paintings were uncovered in 1932 and that Clark Hopkins described the murals as preserved from more than three-quarters of a century before Constantine recognized Christianity in 312.Yale News. “House Call: A New Study Rethinks Early Christian Landmark.” 2024. Key use: Useful cautionary source for not oversimplifying Dura-Europos as merely a domestic “house church.” The report highlights recent scholarship reexamining how domestic the Dura Christian building really was and why its architectural classification needs care.Smarthistory. “Dura-Europos.” Key use: Accessible overview of Dura-Europos as a multicultural Roman frontier site, including the adapted Christian building used as a meeting place and baptistery in the first half of the third century.Peppard, Michael. The World's Oldest Church: Bible, Art, and Ritual at Dura-Europos, Syria. Yale University Press, 2016. Key use: Major source for the Dura-Europos Christian building, its baptistery, biblical imagery, ritual use, and the danger of reading the site too simply through later church categories.Snyder, Graydon F. Ante Pacem: Archaeological Evidence of Church Life Before Constantine. Mercer University Press, revised edition, 2003. Key use: Important archaeological source for Christian life before Constantine, especially material evidence for worship, burial, symbols, and everyday Christian practice before public imperial privilege. Mercer University Press identifies the book as focused on archaeological evidence of church life before Constantine.Jensen, Robin M. Baptismal Imagery in Early Christianity: Ritual, Visual, and Theological Dimensions. Baker Academic, 2012. Key use: Core source for baptismal images, ritual meaning, water, initiation, death and rebirth, and the way visual programs frame baptismal practice.Jensen, Robin M. Understanding Early Christian Art. Routledge, 2000. Key use: Early Christian visual culture, catacomb imagery, baptismal scenes, Good Shepherd imagery, Jonah, Daniel, Lazarus, and the visual language of salvation and resurrection.Ferguson, Everett. Baptism in the Early Church: History, Theology, and Liturgy in the First Five Centuries. Eerdmans, 2009. Key use: Major historical and theological source for baptismal practice, initiation, immersion, anointing, catechesis, and the development of baptismal rites.Johnson, Maxwell E. The Rites of Christian Initiation: Their Evolution and Interpretation. Liturgical Press. Key use: Development of initiation rites, catechumenate, baptism, post-baptismal rites, and how Christian initiation becomes structured over time.Spinks, Bryan D. Early and Medieval Rituals and Theologies of Baptism: From the New Testament to the Council of Trent. Ashgate, 2006. Key use: Long-range ritual and theological development of baptism, useful for tracking how early baptismal space later becomes more formalized.Britannica. “Catacomb.” Key use: Baseline definition of catacombs as subterranean cemeteries composed of galleries or passages with recesses for tombs; useful for correcting the popular misconception that catacombs were primarily secret churches rather than burial landscapes.Stevenson, James. The Catacombs: Rediscovered Monuments of Early Christianity. Thames & Hudson, 1978. Key use: Classic overview of Roman catacombs, burial architecture, inscriptions, symbols, and early Christian memory.Rutgers, Leonard V. Subterranean Rome: In Search of the Roots of Christianity in the Catacombs of the Eternal City. Peeters, 2000. Key use: Catacombs as archaeological and social evidence, including burial practice, community identity, and the relationship between Jews, Christians, and Roman funerary culture.Fiocchi Nicolai, Vincenzo, Fabrizio Bisconti, and Danilo Mazzoleni. The Christian Catacombs of Rome: History, Decoration, Inscriptions. Schnell & Steiner, 2002. Key use: Detailed treatment of catacomb history, inscriptions, burial spaces, and visual programs.Brown, Peter. The Cult of the Saints: Its Rise and Function in Latin Christianity. University of Chicago Press, enlarged edition. Key use: Essential source for the holy dead, saint veneration, relics, tombs, pilgrimage, and the way corporeal remains became central to Christian religious life. The University of Chicago Press describes Brown's work as exploring how worship of saints and their corporeal remains became central to religious life in Western Europe.Brown, Peter. The Body and Society: Men, Women, and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity. Columbia University Press, 1988. Key use: Christian body theology, asceticism, holiness, discipline, and why the body is so central to late antique Christian imagination.Yasin, Ann Marie. Saints and Church Spaces in the Late Antique Mediterranean: Architecture, Cult, and Community. Cambridge University Press, 2009. Key use: Churches, saints, relics, cult practice, community identity, and how sacred spaces are organized around holy bodies and memory.Grabar, André. Martyrium: Recherches sur le culte des reliques et l'art chrétien antique. Key use: Classic work on martyr shrines, relic cult, and the relationship between architecture, art, and the holy dead.van Gennep, Arnold. The Rites of Passage. Key use: Separation, liminality, and incorporation. Crucial for baptism, catechumenate, thresholds, initiation, and the movement from outsider to insider.Turner, Victor. The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure. Key use: Liminality, threshold states, ritual transition, and communitas. Useful for baptism, catacomb descent, martyr devotion, and controlled access.Kilde, Jeanne Halgren. Sacred Power, Sacred Space: An Introduction to Christian Architecture and Worship. Oxford University Press, 2008. Key use: Christian buildings as arrangements of power, worship, divine presence, and embodied access. Useful for thresholds, sanctuary divisions, nave, altar, and congregation.Kieckhefer, Richard. Theology in Stone: Church Architecture from Byzantium to Berkeley. Oxford University Press, 2004. Key use: Church architecture as theology made spatial. Useful for altar, pulpit, nave, threshold, symbolic layout, and worship practice.Krautheimer, Richard. Early Christian and Byzantine Architecture. Yale University Press / Pelican History of Art. Key use: Classic architectural history for early Christian and Byzantine buildings, including the shift from pre-Constantinian spaces to basilicas, baptisteries, martyr shrines, and later monumental forms.Mathews, Thomas F. The Clash of Gods: A Reinterpretation of Early Christian Art. Princeton University Press, 1993. Key use: Early Christian imagery, visual conflict, ritual meaning, and the development of Christian art within the Roman world.Elsner, Jaś. Imperial Rome and Christian Triumph: The Art of the Roman Empire AD 100–450. Oxford University Press, 1998. Key use: Roman visual culture, Christian adaptation, imperial imagery, and the shift into Christian public art and architecture.MacMullen, Ramsay. Christianizing the Roman Empire: A.D. 100–400. Yale University Press, 1984. Key use: Social and historical context for Christian expansion before and after Constantine, useful for understanding how Christian space changes as Christianity grows.Mango, Cyril. Byzantine Architecture. Key use: LonAlso want to remind people about the website, if you're into reading we have tons of information by multiple contributors, and we got t-shirts up on the site if you're interested. Fun fact, the art is all based on the eyeball. A

A teenager hurtles from the balcony of a luxury apartment complex into the Thames. That unexplained death animates the newest book from one of America's great nonfiction writers, Patrick Radden Keefe. Patrick joins Harry to unspool the story's web of shady characters, complacent police, and desperate parents. The two delve into the transformation of London into a playground for the extremely and unscrupulously wealthy—like Russian oligarchs—that made the fatal fall possible and draw out the way Trump is overseeing a similar shift in the United States. And Harry digs into Patrick's approach to writing, including how his law degree informs his precise, almost prosecutorial reporting. Mentioned in this episode: London Falling: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/704979/london-falling-by-patrick-radden-keefe/  Patrick's reporting: https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/patrick-radden-keefe Patrick's story about Trump, Mark Burnett, and the Apprentice: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/01/07/how-mark-burnett-resurrected-donald-trump-as-an-icon-of-american-success Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

He's the London serial killer you may never have even known existed - from the late 1950's to the mid 1960's, West London was shocked by the deaths of several sex workers, who were found stripped, strangled, and their bodies dumped unceremoniously, like pieces of rubbish. It's widely considered to be the UK's most prolific series of unsolved serial killings, claiming more victims than his similar namesake the previous century, and in a joint 8 part series between myself, and the award nominated Murder Mile podcast, myself and Mike will examine the case in full detail, sifting through misinformation, lies, rumour - and perhaps even downright corruption.The True Crime Enthusiast and Murder Mile have brought you so far the accounts of eight dead women – Elizabeth Figg, Gwyneth Rees, Hannah Tailford, Irene Lockwood, Helen Barthelemy, Mary Fleming, Margaret McGowan and Bridie O'Hara - who were found dead around the river Thames and in residential areas of the surrounding districts over a six year period from 1959 to 1965 – with police considering:Was there another Ripper on the loose?We have heard the full story of the investigation into the murders - were they even all connected? What certainly connected the latter four of these, and the possibility - was the Stripper seen - twice, and in the final part of Undressing - Jack The Stripper, i bring you a series of suspects for the crimes.I stress suspects - for only one person was ever charged with any of the linked killings - as you'll hear.Join myself on The True Crime Enthusiast for parts 1 to 4, and Mike over on Murder Mile for parts A to D, as we are Undressing - 'Jack The Stripper'The episode contains details and descriptions of crimes and events, including descriptions of a sexual nature, that some listeners may find disturbing or distressing, so discretion is advised whilst listening in. Music used in this episode: "The Descent" by Kevin Macleod. All music used is sourced from https://filmmusic.io/ and used under an Attribution Licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) Clever Trevor – Ian DuryShort Change Hero - The HeavyThe True Crime Enthusiast's Fundraiser For Macmillan Cancer Support References - available upon request. Follow/Contact/Support The True Crime Enthusiast PodcastFacebookFacebook Discussion GroupTwitterInstagramYoutubeWebsiteTTCE MerchandisePatreon Page Remembering Elizabeth, Gwyneth, Hannah, Irene, Helen, Mary, Margaret and Bridie Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

(1/3) The Great Game. Gaius and Germanicus debate in their favorite wine bar by the Thames, in Londinium, Spring 92 AD. Germanicus compares 19th-century British strategy to modern American policy, noting both pursued a 78-year containment of Russia. Britain's efforts from 1830 to 1908 involved "wasteful wars" in places like Afghanistan and the Crimea to block Russian expansion in Eurasia. This strategy eventually backfired; by weakening Russia and later alienating Japan, Britain suffered a massive military humiliation at Singapore in 1942, leading to the empire's collapse. The United States has followed a near-identical timeline since 1947, which Germanicus argues has driven Russia and China into a close alliance while making an enemy of Iran. He concludes that the U.S. is currently at a 1930s-style "inflection point," having lost its global reputation and "mojo." Survival now requires acknowledging this reality rather than clinging to a "godlike" view of military power. (1/3)1904

(2/3) The Self-Dealing Emperor. Gaius and Germanicus debate in their favorite wine bar by the Thames, in Londinium, Spring 92 AD. The Roman emperor system, initiated by Augustus, was fundamentally built on "self-dealing," where the ruler acted as the "single decider" of wealth, contracts, and appointments to maintain control. By the time of Domitian, this corruption was an automated "machine." Germanicus contends that modern American venality has reached an "order of magnitude" that dwarfs historical examples like the Gilded Age or the corruption of the 1920s. He describes a "self-licking ice cream cone" of corruption where the powerful are no longer ashamed but use their influence to suppress critics. Because the current system is "rotten throughout," there is no internal pathway for reform. Instead, Germanicus predicts that only a "giant reckoning"—similar to the collapse of the Roman Empire—could force change, necessitating a new source of universal moral authority. (2/3)NERO

(3/3) Athens Supreme, Sparta Discredited. Gaius and Germanicus debate in their favorite wine bar by the Thames, in Londinium, Spring 92 AD. The two examine how historical narratives are "plundered" by powers seeking to legitimate their own agendas. Germanicus highlights how the British Empire elevated Athens as an enlightened, cosmopolitan model to burnish its own imperial propaganda, while dismissing Sparta as a collection of "mindless automatons." This binary view ignores historical complexity and is used to disparage modern Greece for failing to meet these idealized ancient standards. In contrast, Rome's reputation remains "classically burnished" because its "heroic militarism" is easily transformed into cliches by modern leaders. Ultimately, Greek civilization has been reduced to "emptied symbols" that serve the "narcissistic identity" of current powers. The speakers conclude that Greece is "encumbered" by philosophy, making it harder to simplify into the heroic cliches that have preserved Rome's legacy. (3/3)19009:13 PMClaude responded: Thanks, J.Thanks, J. Glad it landed right. Ready whenever the next batch comes in.You said: SOONSOON9:13 PMClaude responded: Standing by.Standing by.

In a sun-drenched Londinium wine bar overlooking the calm Thames, Gaius and Germanicus engage in a spirited debate before an audience of retired centurions from the Eighth Legion. The discussion centers on the "Roman way of war"—characterized by relentless engineering, abundant resources, and the demand for total victory—contrasted against the declining American military reputation. Germanicus identifies seven historical pillars of American power, such as total mobilization and superior technology, which he argues have eroded over the last fifty years. Citing failures in Korea, Vietnam, and more recently in Ukraine and Iran, the speakers suggest that the United States has transitioned from a "redeemer nation" into a state struggling with ineffective, marginal conflicts. The centurions, professional combatants who once fought alongside former gladiators, listen intently as Gaius compares the Roman spirit to the aggressive naval strategies of the Second World War. (1/3)1940 HO CHI MINH

In their final discourse by the Thames, Gaius and Germanicus explore the inescapable cultural legacy of Rome, noting its presence in modern architecture, law, and even the worship services of the New Testament. Gaius posits that Rome is "everywhere," from the basilica-style churches of Connecticut to the very temperament of Western business. Germanicus offers a provocative thesis: as modern elites deconstruct Christian traditions, the United States is returning to a "traditional Roman coloration" defined by pre-Christian ruthlessness and a focus on raw power. This secular shift mirrors ancient Roman pragmatism, where the "hand on the shoulder" of moral constraint is replaced by a focus on ideology and statecraft. As the orchestra gathers and the centurions finish their third cups of wine, the speakers reflect on a world that is becoming "more Roman than ever," where power precedes all other human concerns. (3/3)1849 CESARE MACCARRI.

Patrick Radden Keefe, a staff writer at the New Yorker and the author of “Say Nothing” and “Empire of Pain,” sits down with Lawfare Associate Editor Peter Beck to discuss his most recent book, “London Falling.” The two talk about Radden Keefe's investigation of a London teenager's fatal plunge into the Thames, the United Kingdom's acquiescence to foreign influence, and his process in writing about the book.To receive ad-free podcasts, become a Lawfare Material Supporter at www.patreon.com/lawfare. You can also support Lawfare by making a one-time donation at https://givebutter.com/lawfare-institute.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.