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Received yesterday — 13 December 2025

Kevin McCloud: ‘We measure the value of a home by the number of toilets it has – which is bonkers’

13 December 2025 at 14:00

The Grand Designs presenter and co-host of Tim & Kev’s Big Design Adventure on living with bats, the most important room in a house and eating fermented shark

There’s an aphorism that Australians only want to talk about two things – sport and real estate. Do you think we talk too much about real estate?

In my experience, Australians never talk about real estate but the Australian media talks about it all the time. It’s a little bit like politics in the UK, where the right wing occupy a tiny minority and yet they’re all over the BBC. The media will always pick up on something they think should be the topic of national conversation because it sells newspapers. But in my dealings with Australians, I find I talk about pretty well every other subject. There is something very exciting about Australia’s can-do attitude. The British national default is to say, “Maybe, I don’t know – ask me in six months”. We’re very good at circumlocuting an issue. But the moment I get off the plane in Australia, it is, “What can we do?” I love the optimism of Australia.

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© Photograph: Jessica Hromas/The Guardian

© Photograph: Jessica Hromas/The Guardian

© Photograph: Jessica Hromas/The Guardian

Comedian Robin Ince quits Radio 4 show, claiming BBC found his views ‘problematic’

13 December 2025 at 09:15

Ince says he resigned as co-host of Infinite Monkey Cage because of what he described as his lack of ‘obedience’

The comedian and author Robin Ince has resigned from his role as co-host of the long-running BBC Radio 4 podcast The Infinite Monkey Cage after a fallout with BBC executives over “problematic” opinions and what he described as a lack of “obedience”.

Ince, who has co-presented the popular science show alongside Prof Brian Cox for 16 years, posted on social media that his personal views, aired outside the BBC, “have been considered problematic for some time” and he “felt he had no choice but to resign”.

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© Photograph: Keith Morris/Hay Ffotos/Alamy

© Photograph: Keith Morris/Hay Ffotos/Alamy

© Photograph: Keith Morris/Hay Ffotos/Alamy

The Katie Miller Podcast: an aggressively vibeless curriculum for the Maga mom

13 December 2025 at 08:00

The wife of the Trump adviser aims to entice conservative women into Maga – but like much of the rest of the movement, her sales pitch is fundamentally lacking

When Katie Miller, the wife of Donald Trump’s powerful adviser Stephen Miller, interviewed Pete Hegseth on her podcast last week, she didn’t ask him about whether the war secretary had ordered the US military to kill the shipwrecked survivors of an airstrike. She didn’t ask him about the settlement he paid a woman who accused him of sexually assaulting her. Nor did she ask about allegations of alcohol abuse, or the accusation that he had made his ex-wife so terrified that she hid in a closet.

Instead, when Hegseth and his wife, Jennifer Rauchet, appeared on the Katie Miller Podcast, the titular host asked questions like: “If you could write one Hegseth family rule on that whiteboard, what is that?”

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© Composite: Guardian Design/Screenshot via The Katie Miller Podcast

© Composite: Guardian Design/Screenshot via The Katie Miller Podcast

© Composite: Guardian Design/Screenshot via The Katie Miller Podcast

Received before yesterday

‘It becomes like Zoolander’: the podcast making you think differently about clothes

11 December 2025 at 05:00

Avery Trufelman is the New York-based radio producer behind Articles of Interest, a fashion podcast that has non-fashion people gripped in their millions

Did you know that the zipper only came about because a Swedish-born engineer named Gideon Sundback fell in love with a factory owner’s daughter? Or that it took longer for it to be developed than it took for the Wright brothers to invent the aeroplane? You probably know that pockets have become a symbol of gender privilege – but were you aware that in the 18th century, women’s pockets were big enough to hold tools for writing, a small diary and a snack for later? Perhaps most surprising is that layering, which has made Uniqlo one of the biggest brands in the world, was in effect invented in the 1940s by a man named Georges Doriot, who was also famous for inventing venture capital.

All these nuggets and more are included in Articles of Interest, a podcast by 34-year-old Avery Trufelman. Listeners tune in for the smarts but also her disarming sense of fun. Not to mention her low, husky voice, which seems made for podcasting. “I don’t take care of it, if that’s what you’re asking,” she says over video call from her apartment in New York.

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© Photograph: Tif Ng

© Photograph: Tif Ng

© Photograph: Tif Ng

Tell us your favourite new podcast of 2025

10 December 2025 at 05:07

We would like to hear about your favourite new podcast you’ve been listening to this year and why

We would like to hear about your favourite new podcast you’ve been listening to in 2025 and why. Let us know and we’ll run a selection of your recommendations. Tell us your favourite using the form below.

If you’re having trouble using the form click here. Read terms of service here and privacy policy here.

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© Photograph: Antonio Guillem Fernández/Alamy

© Photograph: Antonio Guillem Fernández/Alamy

© Photograph: Antonio Guillem Fernández/Alamy

‘After almost destroying the world, our families are friends’: the thrilling podcast from JFK and Khrushchev’s relatives

9 December 2025 at 07:57

Their relatives might have been on opposite sides of near-nuclear war, but the US and Soviet leader’s descendants have teamed up for an intimate BBC podcast. They talk humanity, hate – and why Trump is a ‘very limited’ man

In October 1962, the world came closer to destruction than at any other point in modern times. After a US surveillance plane discovered that Soviet nuclear missile sites were being built in Cuba, less than 100 miles from the US mainland, President John F Kennedy responded by ordering the US Navy’s Sixth Fleet to impose a naval blockade around the island. Almost two weeks of impossible tension followed.

The threat was clear. If Kennedy, or his Soviet counterpart, Nikita Khrushchev, fired on their enemy, a chain reaction of global nuclear strikes and counterstrikes would have followed, plunging humanity into all-out ruination.

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© Photograph: INTERFOTO/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: INTERFOTO/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: INTERFOTO/AFP/Getty Images

Conan O’Brien serves up a Beatles geekfest: best podcasts of the week

The big-name US talkshow host goes all Fab Four superfan in this historical take on the lives of John, Paul, George and Ringo. Plus, Naomi Fry delivers a rich deep dive into The Doors’ legacy

The popular show’s two-part special on the Fab Four has, bizarrely, prompted its Beatles sceptic co-host Dominic Sandbrook to refuse to appear. But his mega-starry replacement is Conan O’Brien, in for an engaging chat with Tom Holland through the career of John, Paul, George and Ringo. Their USP? Says Holland: “We’re a history podcast rather than a music podcast so we need to make the case that the Beatles are significant historically.” Alexi Duggins
Widely available

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© Photograph: PR

© Photograph: PR

© Photograph: PR

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