エピソード

  • The Christmas Telly Face-Off: Reithian British Monument or Gallic social satire?

    The Christmas Telly Face-Off: Reithian British Monument or Gallic social satire?
    2025/12/23

    Suzanne brings a whole lotta Christmas to the table and parses the delights of the double issue of the Radio Times; Muriel unpacks a cult French sitcom about two contrasting lifestyles of the bourgeoisie


    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
    続きを読む 一部表示
    51 分
  • The Christmas Carol Face-Off: Pre-Raphaelite Poetry or Socialist Manifesto?

    The Christmas Carol Face-Off: Pre-Raphaelite Poetry or Socialist Manifesto?
    2025/12/19

    Suzanne makes a compelling case for the evocative beauty of In the Bleak Midwinter and its landscape imagery infused with spirituality; Muriel wonders how Minuit, Chrétiens, a rousing carol authored by a Socialist firebrand and a stage composer, made it into the French Catholic choral canon.


    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
    続きを読む 一部表示
    28 分
  • The Christmas Treat Face-Off: Quality Street or marrons glacés?

    The Christmas Treat Face-Off: Quality Street or marrons glacés?
    2025/12/17

    Muriel and Suzanne are swapping seasonal treats: masses of cheerful multicoloured candy vs a handful of meticulously crafted products of the terroir. Both delicious, but what do they say about the British and the French at Christmas?


    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
    続きを読む 一部表示
    43 分
  • The Christmas Chart-Topper Face-Off: Beguiling Pop or Kitsch Cosiness?

    The Christmas Chart-Topper Face-Off: Beguiling Pop or Kitsch Cosiness?
    2025/12/12
    Suzanne takes a punt at the 2025 Christmas No1 and crowns 1984 as the very best vintage of British Christmas charts; Muriel explains how and why the French Christmas No1, a 'secular carol' by venerated crooner Tino Rossi, remains unchanged since 1946.

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
    続きを読む 一部表示
    41 分
  • Metal Detectors: What goes 'beep beep' all over the land and is typically British? The gentle army of treasure seekers hoping to find an Anglo-Saxon hoard!

    Metal Detectors: What goes 'beep beep' all over the land and is typically British? The gentle army of treasure seekers hoping to find an Anglo-Saxon hoard!
    2025/12/05
    In which Suzanne unearths the story of a major British hobby and its relationship with landscape and the romance of the past. Why are the British obsessed with metal detecting? What is their Arthurian code of practice? What are portable antiquities? Who are the night hawkers? What does all this reveal about British attitudes to liberty, in stark contrast to France? Includes helpful pointers about buying the best metal detector, and Alexander Graham Bell as an unexpected star of the show!

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
    続きを読む 一部表示
    1 時間 3 分
  • French Politicians and Clairvoyants: The French worship Reason and critical thinking, don't they? So why do Presidents (and mayors), who serve the French Republic, love the occult so much?

    French Politicians and Clairvoyants: The French worship Reason and critical thinking, don't they? So why do Presidents (and mayors), who serve the French Republic, love the occult so much?
    2025/11/28

    Muriel tackles an awkward truth: the French may love rigour and rationality – France is the nation of Descartes, after all – but they are also susceptible to the allure of psychics, the alignment of the stars, and angels calling on the phone from beyond. How has this survived the advent of the Enlightenment and the Revolution? And what does it mean in terms of our relationship to super-forecasting and superstition, Suzanne wonders.


    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
    続きを読む 一部表示
    53 分
  • The British Tax Year: The French tax year is aligned on the calendar year, but not the British. Why not? Popes, Catholicism, the Reformation!

    The British Tax Year: The French tax year is aligned on the calendar year, but not the British. Why not? Popes, Catholicism, the Reformation!
    2025/11/21
    In which Suzanne investigates profound differences between our two cultures by asking why the British tax year is not, like in France, aligned onto the calendar year. The answers, which astonish Muriel, are deeply rooted in Britain's relationship to the Continent. It's a story of mathematics and astrology, Popes, bishops and archbishops, Catholicism and the Reformation, and, of course, Acts of Parliament, which opens a vertiginous crack in time. Elizabeth I, John Dee and Isaac Newton all guest star.

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
    続きを読む 一部表示
    57 分
  • Greatest Play Ever! Britain vs France, part 2. The Bald Prima Donna - Zany Avant-Garde on the Paris Left Bank

    Greatest Play Ever! Britain vs France, part 2. The Bald Prima Donna - Zany Avant-Garde on the Paris Left Bank
    2025/11/14
    In the second half of our theatrical diptych, Muriel tells Suzanne about the 'atomic bomb' of the French theatre, an experimental Absurdist masterpiece by Romanian-French playwright Eugène Ionesco that became a classic of the French stage. It has neither plot nor psychology – only a lot of uneasy comic momentum, poking fun at the bourgeoisie. But how has it lasted so long? And why is it about British people?

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
    続きを読む 一部表示
    52 分