The history of the Royal Society - In Our Time special

Fans of BBC's In Our Time are to be alerted and warned. Melvyn Bragg has just started a special series about the history of the Royal Society. Yesterday we got the first issue, today the second has already come around and at this rate one must make sure to trigger download every day in order to not miss out. As we know all too well, BBC podcasts do not last long in their feeds.

And while you are rushing ahead to lay your hands on this special edition of IOT, do not miss out on the latest episode in the regular series. Last Thursday we were treated with an excellent chapter about Mary Wollstonecraft. She was in many ways, of course, the first feminist. Consequently we learn much of her unraveling of women's issues in the eighteenth century.

As interesting as the history is, Wollstonecraft appears from the show as a fascinating multi-faceted figure, I was also struck by how relevant her story is still today. After about 26 minutes on the show, the speakers emphasize how in her time women were always stuck in an eroticized framework. Women were first and foremost about sexuality, anything about women was always also about sexuality. Wollstonecraft is portrayed as the first to demand women be treated as human beings, regardless of their gender, when the subject is not sex. The tone at which this is done is as if this is different today. But I feel we have hardly progressed at this point.

More In Our Time:
The weekly treat,
New season of In Our Time,
St. Thomas Aquinas,
Logical Positivism,
The Sunni - Shia split.

Help a fellow podcast listener

We are looking for a solution to the following problem.

A fellow podcast listener subscribed to the podcast Veertien Achttien and fetches the feed with Juice. On his PC he can listen to the issues of Veertien Achttien, but when he transports the file to his Creative Zen player, the file won't play at all.

Files that come from other feeds do not give this problem. I have run a test with Juice and noticed the file name was extremely long, but renaming the file to something shorter, did not solve the problem. Problem reports on Creative Zen players I have looked up on the web, do not describe similar problems. I have no Creative Zen player to further test it myself, so I turn to you, dear readers.

Does this problem seem familiar to anyone? Does somebody have the same player and does the problem reproduce? If the same feed is read through iTunes and the file copied to the player, do you have the same problem? Any hint is appreciated, please leave comments below. It can be done anonymously.

How the Soviet system imploded - NBIH

A couple of weeks ago, when it was the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, New Books In History had a couple of interviews that shed light on the rapid decline of communist Eastern Europe in 1989. The latest episode of the show had Marshall Poe interview Stephen Kotkin about his take on the communist collapse.

Kotkin's view undermines several of the myths around this sudden turn of events. He does not ascribe the fall of the system to Reagan's superior foreign policy or capitalism simply outspending the communists. Neither does he support the idea that is felt in the former Soviet satellites, that communism was simply shed like a snake skin and the ex-communists maintained power under a nationalist capitalist flag. His approach is that of a thorough analysis of the society under communist rule and his idea is that the system collapsed because of its own weakness.

This turns another myth around, that the unofficial order, the civic society had simply replaced communism as the more legitimate and healthy social fabric. Apart from Poland's Solidarity, there was hardly a civil society to mention. His search light points at the ruling communist establishment. He explains how they knew the system was failing and managed to maintain power with the threat of military intervention from Moscow. And here he actually arrives at something that was mentioned in the other interviews as well: when Gorbachev announced that Moscow was no longer intending to intervene, the floor dropped under the feet of the rulers in Eastern Europe and the establishment simply evaporated.

More NBIH:
Vietnam War perspectives,
1989 - Padraic Kenney,
The Ossie twilight,
The first day of LBJ,
Ayn Rand.

Who knows Russian podcasts?

One of the reader questions that reach me through the blog (comments on the blog, on Facebook, Twitter or through the mail - Anne Frid de Vries AT yahoo DOT co DOT uk) are about podcasts in other languages than those I cover (English, Hebrew, Dutch and German).

One reader, who wished to remain anonymous, asked about podcasts in Russian. Here I cannot help at all. Not only don't I understand Russian, but I cannot read the script either. I could make out the word for podcast ('подкаст') if I absolutely had to, but decided to channel the question through to a number of other readers of the blog, of whom I know they master Russian.

The best I could do was come back with a link to a podcast page in Russian. From here the seekers will have to find their own. Yet, this might exactly be the initial help they needed and so here is my question to you: what other recommendations for Russian or any other language would you have? Thanks in advance.

Using playlists for podcasts

Of course you would want to hear your podcasts in the right order. I have been asked several times by readers of the blog how they can make their player follow the order they need. With regards to university lecture series the issue comes up frequently, but also for other podcasts this is relevant. The lectures do not always come out of the feed in the most logical or in the preferred order. My solution for this is the playlist.

The playlist also addresses another problem than just the order in which the podcasts will be played. Many mp3 players treat podcasts differently from music. After finishing to play a music file, they will by some rule select the next, yet with podcasts they just stop. You will have to select the next podcast you want to hear manually. This can be a bother when your hands are busy or dirty with something else. Most of the time you will know in advance what podcast you'd want to hear next.

This is where the playlist comes in, although unfortunately not all mp3 players allow for podcasts on playlists. I use iPod and for my iPod I can define a playlist in iTunes. In iTunes I right click the iPod and choose New Playlist. A new playlist is created on the iPod and I can give it a new name, for example Podcast Playlist. Now I can drag podcasts to this playlist and they will subsequently be added. After addition, I can also rearrange the order by dragging the podcasts up and down the list. When I play my iPod, I can choose the playlist, start with the first podcast and when this one is finished, the iPod will move on to the next.

If you use another player, consult the user manual for that player to figure out how to create a playlist.

Waiting for Godot - Big Ideas

A reader of the blog contacted me and alerted me to the latest issue of TVO's Big Ideas, she thought might appeal to me and would deserve to be reviewed on Anne is a Man. Before I discuss that lecture, which indeed I enjoyed very much and recommend with pleasure, some words of thanks to my reader and words of encouragement to others.

In spite of the fact I have reviewed Big Ideas already a couple of times, issues that deserve special attention can easily escape me and I am very grateful to readers who let me know their own preferences. I would love to see more of those recommendations arrive. Leave a comment on the blog, or drop me a mail at Anne Frid de Vries (in one word) AT yahoo DOT co DOT uk, or contact me on Facebook, Twitter or StumbleUpon. Let me know in a few lines what podcast or podcast episode you'd want to be mentioned on the blog and I will find a way to do so - maybe a new rubric - readers recommend? We will see. In any case, feel encouraged to take active part in the podcast reviewing. And now to the podcast at hand.

University of Toronto Professor of English, Nick Mount, presented a lengthy exploration of Samuel Beckett's famous work, Waiting for Godot. He weaves into his lecture some history of the reception of the play, some biography of Beckett, some readings from the play and a very compelling explanation of its meaning. I remember reading the play some twenty years ago and going through several stages of revulsion, indignation and acclaim as he describes and felt left with a couple of questions, many of which, at long last got an answer. A podcast not to be missed.

More Big Ideas:
Religion as culture - Camille Paglia,
Christopher Hitchens on the Ten Commandments,
The empire,
Lawrence Freedman - Big Ideas,
New Learning - Don Tapscott on Big Ideas.