Podcasts, Radio, TV, Books, Cycling, Photography and More
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Edison Research Top 25 UK Podcasts – Q4 2025
Edison Research has just published their Top 25 Podcasts in the UK for Q4 2025. As ever, this chart is based on recall from 2,000 online interviews with weekly podcast listeners in the UK. As ever, I’m going to take the long view on this and show how the chart has changed over time. This…
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iGizmo
Dennis Publishing has just started “the WORLD’S FIRST fully interactive digital magazine dedicated to bringing you the very latest and best in consumer technology.” The second issue is out this week. It’s called iGIZMO, and it’s dreadful. Dennis has previously had success with a magazine called Monkey which is a similarly interactive title aimed at…
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The Orphanage
I went to see The Orphanage today, and I’ll get onto that shortly. But first, can I just highlight what a joyless experience Cineworld made it for me. It began when I phoned the cinema’s automated ticket booking line. As is the way with these things, it’s all voice activated these days, which invariably means…
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Heston Blumenthal
Channel 4 outbid the BBC for Heston Blumenthal. He’s said to have been offered £1m – twice what he’s been getting from the BBC. Channel 4’s really short of cash. Can you see something wrong here?
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Sky And The Champions’ League
Media Guardian are reporting that Sky has won the majority of the Champions’ League games for the three years beginning in 2009. It’s thought that they offered more than £240m representing nearly a 50% increase over what they had previously paid. For that sum, they get all the games bar one – a single Wednesday…
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China
So China’s been busily blocking the BBC, YouTube, Yahoo, The Guardian and other sites following the unrest in Tibet. This all bodes well for the Olympics doesn’t it?
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Hugh Laurie “Snubbed”
Note: I wrote this a couple of days ago, but managed to forget to hit the publish button. If you look around on Google News today, you’ll see a few stories about Hugh Laurie: Laurie ‘snubbed’ after US success BBC News, UK – 1 hour ago Actor Hugh Laurie has said Britain has turned its…
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Wired – Good News/Bad News
Condé Nast is looking to launch a UK edition of Wired magazine according to Media Week (free registration required). Wired, of course, did once before launch a UK edition that sadly closed a couple of years later. But that pre-dates Condé Nast’s ownership and now they’re again readying a UK version. Great! But then I…
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ITV1 In Half-Decent Drama Shock
That title’s probably a little unfair, as there are occasionally – very occasionally – some decent dramas on ITV1, but they can be a little scarce and take some hunting down. It’s also possible that Rock Rivals is the best thing since sliced-bread, but given that it comes from the production company who I like…
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Who Should Be Taken Off Air
The comments are a fun read…
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Making Your Stuff iPhone Compatable
In the past I’ve had a bit of a go at websites rushing to produce iPhone friendly versions of themselves. This might be in some part because I’m not an Apple evangelist like so many tech people (I have an iPod, but that’s it, and I think iTunes is a truly awful piece of bloatware).…
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These Boots Are Made For Walking
Look – we all know the fashion business is nonsense. But if there’s one recent trend that’s really annoyed me, for no good reason, it’s the sudden desire for Ugg boots. These Australian made pieces of footwear are, in themselves, perfectly fine (the fact that “Ugg” has been adopted as a trade name, when in…
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Tricks of the Mind
I tend to avoid cash-in books to accompany popular TV series; you won’t catch me buying the complete Little Britain Scripts or whatever (OK, so Little Britain is well past its sell-by date). But I’ve always been intrigued by Derren Brown. It’s true that his last special – The System – I found to be…
Hadrian’s Wall
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