My Top 10 Podcasts

For the uninitiated, podcasts are a real hidden gem and what’s more, the vast majority of them are free to download. If you have an Apple device, you can download them directly from the iTunes store over a wi-fi connection, or you can download to iTunes and sync your device. I’m not sure if other smartphone devices such as Blackberries, Android and Windows 7 handsets allow downloads over the air, but you can sync via your computer once you have downloaded. Finally, for users of generic mp3 players you can download them directly as an mp3 file and then transfer.

Podcasts are great if like me, you have a lengthy commute to work and like to be able to control the content you listen to. I’ve tried loads of podcasts out over the last few years and I would say that the two best content providers are the BBC and The Guardian, who dominate my top 10 list.

The only difficulty I find with podcasts, is the notification method that lets you know when a new one is available. If you’re opening up iTunes every day, this will download new episodes for you but if like me you download them direct to your device, there is no in-built method that notifies you. I get round this by using an RSS reader (‘RSS Runner’ - free from the Apple app store). Every podcast homepage has an RSS feed which you can track on your RSS reader to notify you when new episodes are there. I hope this is something that Apple fix with iOS5 but I’m not holding my breath.

Anyway, on with the Top 10 list...

1. Football Weekly from the Guardian
Presented by James ‘Channel 4 Football Italia’ Richardson, this twice weekly podcast is excellent. It focuses on the Premiership, La Liga and Serie A. There are more occasional roundups of the Bundesliga and Ligue1 then once a while you get something on the Eredivise, the MLS and the Brazilian league. The one league that is continually over-looked and pretty much sneered at is the SPL!

What sets this pod apart are the pundits who are basically football writers from The Guardian. Barry Glendenning is a great foil for Jimbo, while Sean Ingle provides excellent analysis with a heavy reliance on stats and betting odds. The highlight of the pod usually comes with the regular La Liga round up from Spanish based sports journalist, Sid Lowe whose knowledge of Spanish football is superb and if you’re lucky, you’ll hear his dog Estella barking in the background if he’s phoning from home, but more often than not he will be at Barcelona or Madrid’s training ground where he does translation work and writes for various Spanish, English and International newspapers and magazines.

The best part for me though, is James Richardson who holds the whole thing together with such professionalism – why he is not presenting the likes of Match of the Day is a mystery. His puns in the introduction are worth downloading the pod on their own, but what I look forward to is his Serie A analysis which shows he still has a deep and up to date understanding of Italian football and culture.

The pod is recorded on a Monday and a Thursday afternoon and is usually available at tea-time that day from the iTunes store. Monday’s show goes through the weekend just gone and analyses the results, whereas the Thursday show will look forward to the approaching weekend of football. There’s loads more things I could say about this podcast, but the best thing to do is to try it for yourself once the season re-starts as it’s on it’s summer holiday just now!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/series/footballweekly

2. Tech Weekly from The Guardian

Presented by Aleks Krotowski with support from regulars Jemima Kiss and Charles Arthur this weekly 30 min technology round up is better than the two main rivals as I see it – Wired Magazine podcast and Click from the BBC (formerly Digital Planet). They cover all aspects of technology from new hardware, software issues to do with social media and operating systems and also the wider economic, social and political impacts of technology. Charles Arthur has a great knack of explaining complex tech issues in an easy to understand way. Thoroughly recommend this even if you’re not a big techy person!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/series/techweekly


3. The Media Show from the BBC
Presented by jouralist and former TV executive Steve Hewlett, featuring the latest stories and opinion from the fast-changing world of media in all its forms - print, television, radio, online and telecommunications, this is a lift from the show that goes out live on Radio 4 on Wednesday’s at 1.30pm. I really like Steve Hewlett’s presenting and interviewing style – he really grills people, especially those from the BBC almost as if he has to go further to prove his impartiality. He verges on being a bit of a cheeky sod sometimes, but I really like the way he challenges people during interviews. Great round up of all the issues going on in the media today

http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/media

4. Making History from the BBC
Presented by Vanessa Collingridge, Making History explores ordinary people's links with the past. Again, this is a lift from the Radio 4 programme that is broadcast on Tuesday at 3pm for 26 weeks a year in two series. I really like this podcast not only because as a History graduate I enjoy the subject, but just because of the wide variety of topics that it covers and the quality of the analysis and the guests on the show. I think people would enjoy this whether they are history buffs or not.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/mhistory

5. Football Daily from Radio 5 Live
While Football Weekly from the Guardian is head and shoulders above all other football podcasts, I still like listening to this which is basically edited content from all the days football stories covered on Five Live and put out every day. It is presented variously by Mark Pougatch, Colin Murray, Eleanor Oldroyd and Mark Chapman with analysis from Robbie Savage, Graham Taylor, Chris Waddle and Ian McGarry. It is UK focussed, primarily on English football but there is more coverage of Scottish football than the Guardian so that is a good thing about it. The bit I look forward to is when you are treated to the match reports from Stuart Hall which his Wikipedia entry describe as, “unique, scattered with allusions to the works of Shakespeare and all manner of linguistic tricks.”

http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/5lfd

6. In Our Time from the BBC
Presented by Melvyn Bragg, the podcast describes itself as a discussion of the history of ideas. Melvyn Bragg and guests cover all sorts of topics spanning philosophy, science, literature, religion and the influence these ideas have on us today. Melvyn Bragg is a well known writer and presenter, and I just enjoy the way he keeps the subject moving, often interrupting eminent historians and philosophers to get them to ‘move along’ with the subject. Every episode is always very compelling listening. Again, as with many of the BBC podcasts this is a lift from the show that goes out on Radio 4 every Thursday at 9am / 9.30pm

http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/iot

7. First Ministers Questions from the Scottish Government
OK, it’s a bit sad listening to FMQs, but Alex Salmond has great oratory skills and his put-downs of Tavish Scott, Ian Gray and Mike Rrrrrrrumbles are worth downloading this. The Scottish Government uploaded the audio to iTunes up until the end of the last session of the parliament – website here (http://www.scotland.gov.uk/News/This-Week/Broadcast/Podcast/FMQs) but it looks like they have stopped doing this with the audio and video being made available online via Holyrood TV but not as a podcast format, which is a shame. Anyway, for now you can access it via the link below.

http://www.holyrood.tv/library.asp?iPid=3§ion=30&title=First%20Minister%27s%20Questions

8. Prime Minister’s Questions from the Guardian
Hopefully we all know what PMQs are. I always like a bit of Punch and Judy politics and PMQs never fails to entertain. There doesn’t seem to be a 100% reliable source for the podcast, but the best one I have found is from the Guardian

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/page/2008/jan/18/2

9. Desert Island Discs from the BBC
A lift from the BBC Radio 4 show which has been going since 1942 and is broadcast on a Sunday morning at 11.15am, Kirsty Young asks castaways to choose eight records, a book and a luxury to take with them to the mythical desert island. In the podcast version, the tracks are shortened for rights reasons, but I like the show more for the story behind the celebrity being interviewed. Kirsty Young has a really clever interviewing style which puts people at ease but at the same time, asks people questions that get the listener behind the public persona of the celebrity in question. These podcasts are a great listen and what’s more the BBC has opened up the archive stretching back to 1942. I think on iTunes you can go back to 1997 for the podcast version at the time of writing. I have got through about 40 of these now from the likes of Billy Connelly to Steve Coogan.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/did

10. Friday Night Comedy from the BBC
This is a lift from the 6.30pm comedy slot on Radio 4 from Friday evenings. Half of the year it is The Now Show which is an off the wall look at the weeks news stories with Hugh Dennis and Steve Punt and the other half of the year it is The News Quiz presented by Sandy Toksvig. Whatever it is, you’re always guaranteed a good laugh and something to cheer you up.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/fricomedy


Other podcasts worthy of note...

1. Click from the BBC World Service
http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/digitalp
2. Men’s Hour from Five Live
http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/menshour
3. Comedy of the Week from the BBC
http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/comedy
4. File on 4 from the BBC
http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/fileon4
5. Medical Matters from the BBC
http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/medmatters
6. Start the Week with Andrew Marr from the BBC
http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/stw
7. Kermode and Mayo’s film reviews from Five Live
http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/kermode
8. Stuff You Missed in History Class
http://history.howstuffworks.com/stuff-you-missed-in-history-class-podcast.htm
9. 10 O’Clock Live from Channel 4
http://www.channel4.com/programmes/10-oclock-live/articles/10-oclock-live-weekly-podcast
10. The Game from The Times
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/thegame_podcasts/
11. The Football Ramble (independent)
http://www.thefootballramble.com/
12. BBC History Magazine
http://www.historyextra.com/podcast-page
13. Money Box from the BBC
http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/moneybox

Private Eye Profile on East Kilbride MP, Michael McCann

The New Boys and Girls. No.20 – Michael McCann
(Copyright, Private Eye No. 1290)

Michael McCann was a union official during the Thatcher years. He joined the Labour party in 1987 while working as a civil servant in his home town of East Kilbride. He was elected to South Lanarkshire Council in 1999, and became deputy leader in 2007. This solid training should have prepared the East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow MP for the cut-and-thrust of national politics. But alas!

Since replacing his friend and mentor, the former Defence Minister Adam Ingram – for whom he was once election agent – McCann has looked anything but solid, buffeted by questions about his long and sometimes controversial friendship with a wealthy local property developer and Labour donor, James Kean.

McCann now refuses to speak to his local rag, the East Kilbride News, because of its “biased” coverage of his bitterly fought election campaign. The fact that McCann’s Tory opponent, Graham Simpson, is a fellow ward councillor who works as a sub-editor in the Glasgow office of the Sun apparently convinced him that a right wing conspiracy is afoot.

“This has been the dirtiest election campaign ever,” McCann harrumphed shortly after the general election. “The Tory candidate, a Sun journalist, supported by the SNP, has attempted to smear my good name. Sadly, their descent into the political gutter was seized upon by Rupert Murdoch’s attack dogs and the East Kilbride News. Character assassination is now the order of the day!”

What has most infuriated McCann, however, is a series of articles about his position in the local authority’s planning committee and his close association with James Kean, who has been behind a number of controversial projects in the town. Both the MP and the property developer have sought advice from m’learned friends following a BBC Scotland investigation into Kean’s plans to sell land for a new Tesco development. What is not disputed is BBC Scotland’s claim that as a councillor, “McCann supported numerous applications from Mr Kean’s companies as they came through committee, never declaring an interest”.

After McCann’s election to parliament, the BBC obtained a letter he had written to Scottish Enterprise indicating a close interest in its proposal to sell some land in his constituency to Asda. The Scottish Enterprise scheme was up against an application involving Tesco, on land which is mostly owned by McCann’s old pal.

Political opponents believe McCann should have declared an interest when presiding over planning matters involving Kean. He was cleared by the Standards Commission. However, McCann’s election HQ was housed in the St James Retail Centre – owned by and named after James Kean. McCann insisted that his campaign to have a pharmacy and bus station located at the same Kean-owned retail centre had nothing to do with their friendship.

He described another article, published last December, which carried an accurate account of his parliamentary expenses claims - £12,133 from May to the end of August – as “a full-blown attack and me and my family”. He has since submitted two separate complaints to the Press Complaints Commission, which are still pending. Commenting on the figures published by the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, McCann said, “I already list my expenses on my website but it’s absolutely appropriate that everything paid to MPs is in the public domain.”

But it seems McCann has been selective about the expenses he has published on his website. There is no mention, for example, of the £499.99 he spent on a TV for his constituency office, or the claim he made for parking charges outside his constituency office.

Before the general election Gordon Brown warned Labour candidates it was not acceptable to “take on two jobs”, but after the election last May it took McCann until mid-September to resign his post at South Lanarkshire Council, during which time he collected £5,500 from the local authority to top up his parliamentary salary of £65,738.

There’s also the small matter of his constituency office secretary. “In the last parliament MPs were rightly criticised for hiring members of their family who didn’t do any work,” he says on his website. “I have hired my wife Tracy because I know she will work hard and do a great job. She has a massive amount of experience in both the public and private sector and is great with the public and she is the only person I know who will type letters at half-past-ten at night.” Nice work if the happy couple can get it!