Alexandra Tolstoy returns to the podcast with a special live episode, recorded at a school. She discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.
Natalie Kyriacou discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.
Natalie Kyriacou OAM is an award-winning environmentalist, writer, professional public speaker and charity director with a passion to spark curiosity about the natural world. She was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia and the Forbes 30 Under 30 honour for her services to wildlife and environmental conservation in 2018 and was recognised as one of The Australian’s Top 100 Innovators in 2022. She is a Board Director at the Foundation for National Parks and Wildlife and CARE Australia, the Founder and Chair of My Green World, a UNESCO Green Citizens Pathfinder, and an Australian Delegate and Climate Justice Lead at the W20. She was the United Nations Environment Programme’s Young Champions of the Earth finalist for her innovation in wildlife and environmental conservation and is LinkedIn’s Top Green Voice. Her new book is Nature’s Last Dance.
Danny Bate discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.
Danny Bate is a linguist, writer, broadcaster and podcaster who is fascinated by the study of historical languages and etymology. He took his BA and MPhil degrees from the University of York and the University of Cambridge respectively, and his PhD in linguistics from the University of Edinburgh. His new book is Why Q Needs U.
The alphabet is a product of migration, born out of a meeting of different peoples and their languages
Our letters started out as depictions of things (body parts, animals, everyday objects)
English’s letters are connected via a big family tree to many other scripts, including many that seem ‘alien’ to its readers (e.g. Arabic, Hebrew)
There isn’t universal one way to create writing, you pick which aspects of language (words, syllables, consonants) as a primary base
English and related alphabets aren’t phonetically accurate (and that’s okay)
Even when spelling diverges from a strict letter-to-sound ratio, new principles and processes can emerge
Deepa Anappara discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.
Deepa Anappara’s debut novel, Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line, was named as one of the best books of the year by the New York Times, Washington Post, Time, Guardian and NPR. It won the Edgar Award for Best Novel, was longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction, and shortlisted for the JCB Prize for Indian literature. It has been translated into over twenty languages. Anappara is the co-editor of Letters to a Writer of Color, a collection of personal essays on fiction, race, and culture. The Last of Earth is her second novel.
Regius Professor of Moral and Pastoral Theology at The University of Oxford, Photographed at Christ Church College. 19/6/20. Photo Tom Pilston.
Nigel Biggar discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.
Nigel Biggar is Emeritus Regius Professor in the University of Oxford and Fellow of Christ Church. He founded in Oxford the MacDonald Institute for the study of Ethics and Empire. He is now a Fellow of St Cross College Oxford, and an author, lecturer and broadcaster throughout the English-speaking world. After many acclaimed academic books, he wrote and published the bestselling Colonialism. His new book is The New Dark Age: Why Liberals Must Win The Culture Wars.
Jane Dougherty discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.
Jane Dougherty, of Irish origin, grew up in Yorkshire and now lives in France. She began writing by coming up with short stories and a YA series for her teenage children. Her first novel was published by an American publisher Musa in 2014. Since then, her poetry and short stories have been published online, in anthologies and magazines. She has been nominated twice for the Pushcart Prize and has published three poetry pamphlets. The Darkest Tide was published by Northodox Press in 2025. Pasiphae is out now.
1. Being There, Jerzy Kozinski: movie and book – so this is a great example of late/last great art – Peter Sellers was very attached to the story and was determined to make the movie, so he had do more pink panthers for the studio to back him.
2. Lifeguards / Swim Teachers – under-appreciated, under-sexed, underpaid its one of the hardest jobs out there – sitting in a chair dreaming, not doing anything, but people always take it for granted – it’s nothing job but highly trained, loads of responsibility – get paid the same as shelf stacker in a supermarket
3. 40 – So we’re always told that 40 is the new 30 etc – but it’s a dangerous, difficult age, one of the most common life periods for people to break down, particularly male suicide – it’s a weird time for guys, putting on weight, feeling slower, losing muscle mass, losing hair, suddenly feeling less ‘potent’ or over the hill, and its the turning point towards older age.
4. When Biographies Become Biopics: Will Self said writers reading biographies of other writers is basically lit-porn – so we get caught up in a life narrative that often informs the work but steers us away from the original. for example, one of my favourite movies is Love Is The Devil, a movie about Francis Bacon’s relationship with George Dyer.
5. Real Dictators podcast – This is my go to ‘easy’ listening podcast, particularly when really ill I can just leave it on in the background and absorb. It’s narrated by the inimitable Paul McGann of the McGann Brothers. The style is relatively sensational, like a thriller novel, but actually very thoroughly researched, so they have expert talking heads discussing the countries involved. It’s very dark material overall, but I feel it’s good to know the background history of the 20th and 21st centuries, our Western democratic complicities and compromises where we can afford the choices to make a stand or do nothing and let bad things happen–for a variety of reasons – as it happens…
6. Charity shops… the ultimate form of social progression. In London charity shops are a mecca for the undiscerning buyer- you discover things you would never actively seek out in your Westfields etc. particularly for clothes, move beyond jeans, buy trousers, get designer stuff without the hassle of browsing, find great books, CDs are cheaper than downloads, even cool vinyl. Where we are sometimes going wrong is that certain chains overprice items, seeing designer labels and placing them alongside the pricing models of Vinted et al – this defeats the purpose of accessible culture.
Erin Somers discusses with Ivan six things which should be better known.
Erin Somers is a reporter and news editor at Publishers Lunch. Her first novel, Stay Up with Hugo Bestwas a Vogue Best Book of the Year in 2019. Her writing has appeared in the New Yorker, Paris Review, New York Times Book Review, New Republic, New York Magazine, Atlantic, Esquire, GQ, Best American Short Stories and many other publications. She has been the recipient of an Emerging Writer Fellowship from the NYC Centre for Fiction, a fellowship from the Millay Colony, and was a 2020 finalist for a National Magazine Award. She lives in New York’s Hudson Valley with her family. Her new novel is The Ten Year Affair.
Tharik Hussain, who previously appeared on the podcast in 2022, discusses with Ivan six further things which should be better known.
Tharik Hussain is an award-winning author and journalist specialising in global Muslim heritage and culture. He has written for newspapers such as The Times, Guardian and Telegraph, magazines such as National Geographic Traveler, and broadcast media such as Al Jazeera and the BBC. For the latter, he produced award-winning radio program America’s Mosques. Tharik has written or contributed to travel books on areas including the Middle East, Southeast Asia and Europe, and his book on Islam in the Western Balkans, Minarets in the Mountains, was longlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize, shortlisted for the Stanford Dolman Travel Book of the Year, and won the Adele Evans Award. His new book is Muslim Europe.
Better Known 