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Podcasts are the place to learn about the things you care about the most, right? This week’s podcast picks are filled with a variety of great lessons.
1. World Of Secrets: Finding Mr Fox
Streaming platform: All streaming platforms
Genre: Documentary
Imagine being in the middle of the ocean on a voyage of a lifetime, where it’s all new and exciting and you’ve been hired to deliver a newly renovated yacht – called the Rich Harvest – to its British owner thousands of miles away in Europe.
You are living the dream of being the captain of your own boat and life, but unfortunately, the crossing is far from straightforward.
But when land finally appears on the horizon and you arrive, to your surprise, the boat is swarming with police who have a search warrant and find more than 1.1 tons of cocaine stashed away – worth about 100 million dollars – and end up in a Cape Verde prison for 10 years for international drug smuggling. How would you feel?
It’s what happened to two Brazilian sailors Daniel and Rodrigo, who were betrayed, afraid, cheated, fooled and stuck in a foreign country. At the time, Brazilian police believed the yacht’s British owner, who was nowhere to be seen, was the mastermind of this operation but hasn’t been held accountable.
Fast forward seven years later, the BBC World Service’s award-winning investigative unit BBC Africa Eye has found him in Norwich and put the allegations to him in season five of World of Secrets: Finding Mr Fox, hosted by BBC News senior reporter and presenter Yemisi Adegoke and journalist Colin Freeman.
World of Secrets: Finding Mr Fox is an immersive and heartbreaking experience and takes you on such a nail-biting ride, that you won’t want to stop listening.
(By Yolanthe Fawehinmi)
2. Club Sandwich
Streaming platform: All streaming platforms
Genre: Culture and society
Big Brother 2023 finalists and couple Henry Southan and Jordan Sangha have launched their brand new podcast Club Sandwich, about sandwiches but isn’t really about them.
In the latest episode, Southan and Sangha first discussed what has “cheesed” them off this week. They also discussed if a burger is really a sandwich – the theme for the episode – Southan’s stag do, their coming out stories in the guise of advice, and also open up about delivery men confrontations.
For Southan and Sangha, a sandwich perfectly captures their amalgamation of cultures – think lobster roll versus a fish finger sandwich. From bringing in sandwiches to the recording to seeking out treasures and the most celebrated sandwiches in the UK, every week, they explore daily life through their obsession with sandwiches.
Whether you’re a food critic like Southan or just love food like Sangha, Club Sandwich is proof that everyone can be an expert when it comes to a sandwich.
3. She Knows Money
Streaming platform: All streaming platforms
Genre: Money
Ahead of the launch of her new book Your Money Life: How to Afford the Future You Want, financial advisor Bola Sol also shared the first episode of her limited podcast series She Knows Money, where financial empowerment meets real talk.
The podcast is where Sol dives deep into the inspiring money journeys of women who have turned their passions into profit, and in the latest episode, she is joined by Priscilla Anyabu, a British-Ugandan model, presenter, and former Love Island star.
Before the pair get into the ebbs and flows of Anyabu’s career journey, Sol, who is also the author of How To Save It: Fix Your Finances, mentions that it’s been 50 years since women could open bank accounts – a crazy fact, which should encourage us all (especially women) to make the most of their financial life.
It’s not always easy talking about yourself and what you’re most proud of – which is something Anyabu admits – before talking about the road to becoming a presenter and the experience versus opportunity pipeline. But being visible and cultivating relationships with the right people to ensure you stay front of mind is key.
They also speak about being comfortable in front of the camera, whether university was for her or not, and Sol talks a bit about allowing your goals to change.
I enjoyed hearing more about how Anyabu navigates the creative industry and builds financial independence. She Knows Money is where financial truth meets power.
(By Yolanthe Fawehinmi)4. Intoxicating History
Streaming platform: All streaming platforms
Genre: Food and drink
In partnership with Acast and sponsored by Taylor’s Port, TellTale Industries has launched a new podcast called Intoxicating History, hosted by journalist and food writer Tom Parker-Bowles and award-winning drinks expert Henry Jeffreys.
In each episode, the pair will explore the sometimes amusing, often dramatic but always intoxicating stories behind the drinks that we know and love today.
From the rise and fall of empires and the birth of the Industrial Revolution, listeners will hear more about history’s great men and women who were all shaped by an unlikely force: alcoholic drinks.The inaugural episode is all about the fascinating story of port wine – a tale of two nations bound together by centuries of trade, taste, and toppling. They explore port’s remarkable journey from humble beginnings to the heights of aristocratic refinement.
Along the way, discover how British palates shaped an entire industry, why Scottish drinkers initially turned up their noses at this noble wine, and how one powerful Marquis’s vendetta against elderberries changed the course of vinous history.I’ve never really thought about the history behind alcohol but Parker-Bowles and Jeffreys serve up the past – with great insight – one drink at a time.Spotlight on…
5. Legacy: Charles Dickens
Streaming platform: All streaming platforms
Genre: History
For many, Charles Dickens is Britain’s best novelist. In this new season of Legacy, the podcast from Wondery and Goalhanger continues to delve into the lives of some of the most famous people and ask whether they have the reputation they deserve.
Ahead of the festive season, a Christmas special has been released to celebrate and reassess the life and times of the “Godfather of Christmas” himself, Charles Dickens, author of Great Expectations, Bleak House, Oliver Twist and A Christmas Carol.
Hosted by writer, broadcaster and journalist Afua Hirsch and author and global historian Peter Frankopan, the pair look into whether he was the man who invented Christmas, a quintessential Victorian, the pillar of 19th-century Englishness, or if the man who brought the streets of London to life for so many of us preferred Paris, or was, as his daughter has said in the past, “No gentleman at all”?
So it’s no surprise that Hirsch and Frankopan decided to start the series with his “Dickensian” childhood.
If you enjoy listening to thorough and detailed accounts of history and the people who contributed to it, then Legacy: Charles Dickens is one for you. The new four-part season launches on December 11, with a special Christmas episode available on December 25.
(By Yolanthe Fawehinmi)
