The growth in podcasts over the past six months or so has been bewildering. Because audio is such a linear medium, there is only a finite amount of podcasts that one can listen. It is much more time-consuming and resource-intensive to browse podcasts than to skim over web pages.

I was won over to podcasts when ABC Radio National started putting a lot of its programming into RSS syndication. But while I listen to a lot of non-commercial radio programming on the MP3 player, the podcasts that I consider my favourites are independent efforts.

I figured it was about time I prepared a list of my Top 10 Favourite Podcasts. One thing you’ll notice is that they are all under half an hour in length per episode. While there are a number of longer programs that I like, I think an hour for a single podcast is too long.

There are no podcasts about cricket on the list for the simple reason that there is one person doing them, and The Net Sessions isn’t quite that good yet

Here’s my list:

1. Digital Flotsam
Truly brilliant. A rich, eclectic mix of music, monologue and comedy. PW Fenton is a blues performer and expert and he presents some great set pieces over a wide range of styles. Some wonderful cover versions too (you haven’t lived till you’ve heard Pink Floyd’s “Comfortably Numb” performed in the style of the Bee Gees’ “Stayin Alive”). I can listen to these over and over again.
Links: Website, Podcast feed, Blog.

2. Caribbean Free Radio
Cool and atmospheric. Georgia Popplewell’s podcast makes you really feel like you’re in Trinidad. And she’s keen on supporting indy music from all across the Caribbean.
Links: Website, Podcast feed, Blog, Photoblog.

3. Radio Curious (KZYX Mendocino County)
I firt stumbled across Radio Curious in June when I spotted a program in the Radio4All podcast listings entitled “Genocide in Darfur”. First thing I heard was the Gene Autryesque theme tune and I thought “What the…” But this is a fascinating interview series which has been conducted by the urbane Barry Vogel for more than a decade. An incredible range of topics, handled in a warm, engaging manner, and masses of archives online which I am yet to explore in any detail.
Links: Website, Podcast feed.

4. Documentary Archive (BBC World Service)
Some outstanding radio documentaries from the BBC World Service dealing with topics from all over the world. Some recent examples include the re-forestation of Iceland, the 60th anniversary of the end of WWII in some Pacific islands, and the debate over the terrorist threat in the Sahara Desert. Longer documentaries are split into half-hourly instalments, which is good.
Links: Website, Podcast feed.

5. From Our Own Correspondent (BBC Radio 4)
Half an hour of talk, without interviews, sound effects or music. Five or six BBC foreign correspondents each week get to chat about a story they’ve been covering or just give a personal account of life in wherever they happened to be posted at the time. Always interesting, sometimes amusing. Hosted by the doyenne of BBC foreign correspondents, Kate Adie.
Links: Website, Podcast feed.

6. The Bike Show (Resonance FM London)
I’m not a cyclist but this program is at its best when host Jack Thurston interviews his guest while both are on a ride somewhere. Here’s the December 27, 2004 program as an example.
Links: Website/blog, Podcast feed.

7. Life Matters (ABC Radio National)

8. The Sports Factor (ABC Radio National)

9. A Klingon Word

10. TUC Radio

11 November 1918: The armistice that brought the Great War to an end. It was meant to be The War to End All Wars, but as we watch the videophone images from Fallujah, we know that this was a forlorn hope. While intolerance, greed and ignorance prevail in the world’s corridors of power, we shall never successfully manage international conflict.

War is a tragedy for all who are touched by it. My father, who passed away earlier this year, never talked about his experiences as an anti-aircraft gunner in New Guinea and Borneo in the Second World War. His younger brother died on the first day of the Battle of El Alamein - an uncle that I never knew. And my maternal grandfather served in Europe during World War One but was discharged on medical grounds before his battalion went on to suffer massive casualties.

On the 86th anniversary of the Armistice, the Guardian, who reported the event in 1918, published the following poem by Wilfred Owen, killed in action a week before the Great War ended:

Strange Meeting

It seemed that out of battle I escaped
Down some profound dull tunnel, long since scooped
Through granites which titanic wars had groined.
Yet also there encumbered sleepers groaned,
Too fast in thought or death to be bestirred.
Then, as I probed them, one sprang up, and stared
With piteous recognition in fixed eyes,
Lifting distressful hands as if to bless.
And by his smile, I knew that sullen hall,
By his dead smile I knew we stood in Hell.
With a thousand pains that vision’s face was grained;
Yet no blood reached there from the upper ground,
And no guns thumped, or down the flues made moan.
“Strange friend,” I said, “here is no cause to mourn.”
“None,” said the other, “save the undone years,
The hopelessness. Whatever hope is yours,
Was my life also; I went hunting wild
After the wildest beauty in the world,
Which lies not calm in eyes, or braided hair,
But mocks the steady running of the hour,
And if it grieves, grieves richlier than here.
For by my glee might many men have laughed,
And of my weeping something had been left,
Which much die now. I mean the truth untold,
The pity of war, the pity war distilled.
Now men will go content with what we spoiled.
Or, discontent, boil bloody, and be spilled.
They will be swift with swiftness of the tigress,
None will break ranks, though nations trek from progress.
Courage was mine, and I had mystery,
Wisdom was mine, and I had mastery;
To miss the march of this retreating world
Into vain citadels that are not walled.
Then, when much blood had clogged their chariot-wheels
I would go up and wash them from sweet wells,
Even with truths that lie too deep for taint.
I would have poured my spirit without stint
But not through wounds; not on the cess of war.
Foreheads of men have bled where no wounds were.
I am the enemy you killed, my friend.
I knew you in this dark; for so you frowned
Yesterday through me as you jabbed and killed.
I parried; but my hands were loath and cold.
Let us sleep now . . .”

A remarkable project by Matt Rubinstein which began on the day of the equinox, September 22. Rubinstein is writing a sonnet about Sydney for each day of the next twelve months, which will be published on the Sydney Morning Herald website.

The link to the home page of the Equinox site, which will contain the current day’s verse and links to all the previous ones, is http://www.smh.com.au/specials/equinox/. See also this background item on the project, and a short video of Rubinstein talking about Equinox.

How the face of the sky changes,
when the darkness roared with tanks in Beslan,
and with a premonition of the end
in that school, in that basketball hoop
trembled explosives, hung by Stalin.

Extract from Yevgeny Yevtushenko’s School in Beslan, which appeared in today’s Guardian.

(The following is a song that I sing to Adara sometimes. Please note that there is a special bonus feature at the end of this presentation.)

I am the Governor of Cauliflower,
I am the Governor of Cauliflower,
I am the Governor of Cauliflower,
Cauliflower Governor am I.

I am the Governor of C0lin Farrell,
I am the Governor of Colin Farrell,
I am the Governor of Colin Farrell,
Colin Farrell Governor am I.

I am the Governor of California,
I am the Governor of California,
I am the Governor of California,
California Governor am I.

(Special bonus feature: The Jessie “The Body” Ventura verse)

Jessie was the Governor of Minnesota,
Jessie was the Governor of Minnesota,
Jessie was the Governor of Minnesota,
Minnesota Governor was he.