Writing a novel where you’re setting it: My time at Cliveden

Tags

BBC, Books, Hilda Matheson, History, Nancy Astor, Podcast

I’ve been woefully quiet on this blog lately.

Part of that is because I’m using my writing time to write my first novel. First?! Ha! That implies there’ll be more.

It’s on the origin story of the BBC (podcast on that here), and a bit part in that is Nancy Astor. I’m more focused on her secretary, Hilda Matheson, who left Astor (begrudgingly – Astor had to pretty much sack her to make her go) to work for the fledgeling BBC, rising to become the Beeb’s first Director of Talks.

Matheson was the highest-ranking female boss of the company/corporation, and helped invent talk radio as we know it – the ‘Radio 4’ style of clever/interesting/diverse people informing/educating/entertaining. Before her, there were rather dry lectures, but she opened it to include debate and added a conversational style, plus her connections brought Britain’s celebrities of the day to the mic – George Bernard Shaw, H.G. Wells, Virginia Woolf (Matheson’s own love rival, for the affections of poet Vita Sackville-West). Matheson also worked for MI5 in both World Wars, hired by Lawrence of Arabia during the first one.

I know, right?! What a character. You start writing about the BBC and you end up writing about gay affairs and spying. But then you research Matheson’s pre-BBC boss, Lady Astor… and boy oh boy, keep pulling on that thread.

Nancy Astor, MP, Viscountess, Lady Astor – collector of titles. I don’t know how I’d address her. I’d just curtsy.

Nancy Astor was the first MP to take her seat in the House of Commons, so that’s the chapter of the book I’ve chosen to introduce Matheson and Astor. Nancy was an American divorcee, and you may have seen her name in countless quotes, part of a decades-long mud-slinging roast battle with Winston Churchill. eg.

Astor: “Sir, if you were my husband, I’d poison your tea.”

Churchill: “Madam, if you were my wife, I’d drink it.”

After Nancy Astor’s triumphant maiden speech at the Commons (largely to boos, which was not the done thing for maiden speeches), Churchill was heard to say, “I feel as if a woman has just entered my bathroom and I had nothing to defend myself with, not even a sponge.” Astor apparently replied: “Mr Churchill, you are not handsome enough to have worries of that kind.”

Yet before her parliamentary career, Churchill was a friend to Nancy Astor, joining her lavish parties at her vast country home of Cliveden. After she became an MP – only because her husband rose to the House of Lords (he didn’t want to, and hoped Nancy would only babysit his seat while he got the law changed to return to the Commons) – many politicians snubbed her. Churchill was notoriously cruel with it. When he saw her in a Commons corridor, he’d talk loudly about venereal disease and the like, just to embarrass her.

So while the first Astor/Matheson scene in my novel has them at Westminster, I wanted their second chapter to be at Cliveden, the sprawling estate that Nancy loathed, that her husband inherited from his father William Astor.

I’m en route to a stand-up gig tonight, so pulled into a motorway services to do some writing on the novel. Then realised: I’m not that far from Cliveden…

“I think I’m outside Cliveden” is not what my T-shirt says.

…Cliveden is now a hotel, but the National Trust operate the estate. I sought a tour, and rounded the corner of the house to see a gaggle of tour guides all having their training. What’s the collective noun? A question of tour guides? A gift shop of tour guides? Anyway, there are no tours while the hotel finds its feet again post-lockdown. I left them to their training – early, given there aren’t any till 2022 – and explored the grounds.

It’s not the first time I’ve written part of a book in the place it’s set (although you’ll notice so far I’ve not done much sitting and writing; just some mooching around – still, all helps). When I wrote Hark! The Biography of Christmas, I wrote the chapter on Bracebridge Hall – fictitious English manor house, described by US writer Washington Irving in 1821 as the scene of lost old English Christmases, log fires, carriage rides, games etc – in the same manor house it was based on, Aston Hall near Birmingham. Irving visited Aston Hall as a guest of the Watt family (the lightbulb guy), and was so inspired by their Christmas celebrations that he exaggerated and fictionalised it in his book, which in turn inspired Dickens to write about old Christmas too.

Like Cliveden, Aston Hall is now a place to visit rather than a private property, so I worked on the chapter about its history while sitting in Aston Hall’s very modern cafe – but with a lovely view of the old house, and having just enjoyed an enlightening tour of it.

It really helps get under the skin of what you’re writing if you can visit your setting, let alone be writing about it while you’re there. I’ve read a handful of books and accounts of Cliveden and the Astors, but to visit it and see its scale was quite another thing.

The hotel was for guests only, but I popped my head around the door and glanced at the Cliveden’s entrance hall. It’s not changed much. This was it 100 years ago – the scene that would have greeted Winston Churchill, George Bernard Shaw, and various visiting US presidents:

I popped in here today. Looks exactly the same, only in colour – reds and dark browns. This was it 100 years ago.

The chapel was open for non-hotel guests like me. It used to be a tearoom in the 1800s, but the Astors turned it into a chapel, not for Sunday worship for somewhere to be buried. It’s quite something:

Chapel. Formerly a tearoom.

Nancy Astor was a complex character – heralded as the first female MP to take her seat in Parliament, but better known for what she was anti than what she was pro. Anti-semitic, anti-Catholic, anti-communist – she backed Hitler through the 1930s, and the ‘Cliveden set’ was an upper-class group of appeasement, Nazi-sympathetic toffs who chose the wrong side of history. Nancy regretted her views in 1939, and spent the war trying to atone for her earlier views, helping children and families, just as she had set out to do in Parliament from 1919 onwards – only now she was turning cartwheels and turning her homes into hospitals.

(Some of the above Astor info is from the excellent podcast Gallus Girls and Wayward Women – a great listen.)

Anyway, enough blogging – back to the novel-writing, before I forget all that inspiration and start to write about Lady Astor and Matheson just having a chat in a shop or something. I hope to discover Lady Astor holidayed in Hawaii and had some key plot points happen there – I fancy a trip further afield to write where I’m setting my book…

Nancy Astor and Hilda Matheson are fascinating characters, and I can’t wait to get into them in the novel. If I ever finish it, I’ll let you know all about it here.

In the meantime, my podcast The British Broadcasting Century is telling the BBC origin story – and we’ll get to Hilda Matheson on there… in about 50 episodes time.

Gertrude Donisthorpe: Britain’s first DJ… and one of the world’s first female broadcasters

Tags

BBC, Broadcasting, History, Podcast

Google Gertrude Donisthorpe. I hope you find something.

Because when I just tried it, this is what came up for Britain’s first DJ (in 1917), and one of the world’s first female broadcasters…

…Not a lot. A podcast about her that I’ve just uploaded. An article in the Catholic Herald about her presenting a robe. A TV listing from 1969, when she was interviewed about her work as a radio pioneer. Then it’s genealogy sites for someone completely different.

Yet Gertrude Donisthorpe, one of the first female broadcasters in the world, was arguably the first DJ in Britain, albeit, to begin with, with an audience of just one: her husband.

To redress the balance, here’s a little bit about her, that I discovered researching my podcast The British Broadcasting Century. You can hear much of this on this episode, all about Gertrude Donisthorpe: the Annie Nightingale of 1917.

Gertrude was married to Captain Horace Donisthorpe, and the duo were early radio pioneers. It seems to have been Horace’s enthusiasm, but he quickly swept up Gertrude in too.

In World War I, wireless telegraphy (essentially Morse code) was more common than its upstart younger sibling wireless telephony (ie. speech and, when technology allowed, music). Wireless operators needed training up before heading to the front, so that was Captain Donisthorpe’s job, based near Worcester. Valve radios at the time were very expensive but tricky to operate, so part of his challenge was teaching new recruits how to care for them without breaking them.

After hours, the Donisthorpes would cycle to a nearby field and set up either side of it – to experiment with what this new wireless radio telephony could do. She would speak into a transmitter; he would try and pick up her signals via a receiver across the field. When they couldn’t hear anything, they’d cycle to each other to say so – often missing each other (they really should have set a rule where only one person does the cycling and the other stays put).

She had a test phrase that she’d say, over and over: “A wonderful bird is the pelican, its beak can hold more than its belly can.” One of the first factoids, there you go Steve Wright.

Gertrude would do most of the speaking, and even introduce and play a few gramophone records. So in my mind, that makes her Britain’s first DJ – to an audience of one, across a field, who she’d then cycle to. It was like a meet-and-greet, or an early badly-attended version of the Radio 1 Roadshow.

On Leslie Baily’s Scrapbook for 1917 radio programme in 1967, Gertrude said: “My first broadcast was from a bell tent in a field near Worcester. My part in this experiment was strictly unofficial. I sat on a sugar-box in front of a transmitter, which would now be considered a museum piece. It had a bath of oil for cooling the one and only valve. At first we simply had conversations between two stations, about a mile apart.”

“If I heard nothing, I would take my pushbike and pedal to the other station, where I would often find that my husband had gone on his bike to my base, by a different route! Still, we did quite often make contact over the wireless, and I suppose my husband got quite a lot of technical knowledge from these experiments. Later we broadcast gramophone records, and recitations to amuse the troops at training centres, at Malvern and Droitwich. This was also strictly unofficial!”

As the experiments continued, the Donisthorpes played a few wireless concerts, three evenings a week, for the local military camps. So the audience increased. It’s unknown who spoke for those concerts, but my best guess would be that Gertrude still did much of the talking, as Horace’s interest was in how it sounded: her the presenter, him the producer. Their musical transmissions could be heard in Droitwich, Malvern and Norton. Throughout, they were experimenting, tweaking and trying to perfect the art and engineering behind this early broadcasting – ‘broadcasting’ as a word was yet to come in, for another five years.

Radio at this point was intended to be point-to-point communication, a way of sending and receiving a message between two people. The Marconi Company saw their future in charging for these messages. It was only the technology’s Achilles’ heel – that the transmissions were ‘leaky’, that others could ‘listen in’ – that meant that broadcasting was accidentally invented. Christmas Eve 1906 was the first radio entertainment broadcast for wider listeners, given by Reginald Fessenden (hear more about it on the first episode of our podcast) to ships near Brant Rock, Massachusetts.

A few years after the Donisthorpes, radio amateurs were entranced by experimental transmissions from Marconi’s Chelmsford workshop. To begin with they were recitations of railway timetables, till the ‘listeners-in’ asked for more entertaining tests to take place. Perhaps a newspaper, then maybe a song or two. That would require more nuanced microphones and ultimately more powerful transmitters – but Marconi engineers like Captain H.J. Round and William Ditcham were eager to try.

After a few false starts – including an opera broadcast from Dame Nellie Melba that was so successful that the British government banned radio broadcasts for fear of interfering with military communications – 1922 saw Britain’s first regular broadcast service, when Marconi’s was granted a licence to keep the moaning radio hams quiet. Captain Peter Eckersley was in charge, and when he seized the mic one day and was effortlessly entertaining, radio caught on in a big way. Hear more of his early broadcasts here. Eckersley’s genius and the ambition of his radio rival Arthur Burrows led to the establishment of the BBC; Eckersley became Chief Engineer, Burrows became Director of Programmes.

As for the Donisthorpes, Horace dabbled with the idea of broadcasting the closing night of a West End musical, just as the BBC was forming in the summer of 1922. It was to be based on the popular trend of listening to live performances via home telephone (the Electrophone), that had been popular since 1895. Alas Donisthorpe’s negotiations came to nothing. The BBC formed without him and he joined Marconi’s. He gave the occasional guest talk on the BBC in the late 1920s, on ‘wireless and the sea’ and the effects of an eclipse on radio transmission.

Gertrude was a guest on In Town To-night, a popular radio talkshow (the Graham Norton Show of 1934). In 1953 she contributed to Those Radio Times for the Light Programme, alongside Beryl Reid and Max Bygraves. (Bygraves incidentally is the performer who’s nearest the same age as the BBC – he was born just a few weeks before the first BBC broadcast.)

She gave one TV interview that I know of, for a 1969 BBC2 programme on the wireless entertainments that pre-dated broadcasting, called Yesterday’s Witness: Breaking the Silence. It’s not on iPlayer or Youtube… yet.

As for other early female broadcasters, 1910 saw radio hams such as Mrs M.J. Glass of San Jose and Olive Heartburg of New York. Perhaps the world’s first female DJ was Sybil Herrold in San Jose, who introduced records from 1912 on her husband Charles Herrold’s experimental radio station. The brilliantly named Nancy Clancy was a 16-year-old announcer on WAHG in New York in 1924. On this side of the Atlantic, the early BBC included Cecil Dixon as our first radio ‘Auntie’, broadcasting for children, while Helena Millais was arguably Britain’s first broadcast comedian (here’s a video in which I introduce a recording of her act). Pioneers such as Elise Sprott and Hilda Matheson are BBC names I can’t wait to tell people about on the podcast.

I’m grateful to Dr Elizabeth Bruton, curator of Technology and Engineering at the Science Museum, for furnishing me with the Donisthorpes’ full names (Horace’s is a beaut: Captain Horace St John de Alva Donisthorpe. There aren’t many of those nowadays).

I’m glad she’s helped set the record straight on Gertrude Anne Andrews, who was born 1895 and died 1980, just as Gertrude set records straight, then played them, 105 years ago. I hope the next time I google her, the name of Britain’s first DJ will be broadcast a little more widely.

The British Broadcasting Century Podcast is available from all good podcast outlets.

Father’s Day: What links JFK + Pirate Radio?

Tags

jfk, music, pirate radio, Podcast, radio

Here’s a charming photo I’d never seen before this week: JFK claps along as his children dance in the Oval Office.

I found it while researching for my new radio history podcast: The British Broadcasting Century. (Your ears on it would be most welcome, whether on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Podbean, or other.)

But what could link this family moment in America’s highest office with old British radio?

The answer is well-known to true radio fans (‘anoraks’ – nicknamed after the anorak-wearing fans who’d visit the pirate radio ships. Pirate DJ Andy Archer came up with the name, and I might just be getting him on the podcast soon…).

The first British pirate radio station was set up by Ronan O’Rahilly in 1964, in frustration at a limited radio industry. The only audible stations at the time were the monopolistic BBC, or Radio Luxembourg with their pay-to-play model (record companies sponsored shows to get their artists airplay). 7 million would regularly listen to O’Rahilly’s station. But first it needed a name – both his offshore radio station, and the boat that hosted it off the Suffolk coast.

The above picture gave him the answer.

Two years earlier, O’Rahilly had seen this photo in Life Magazine: A young Caroline Kennedy dancing in her president dad’s office. The playful disruption of government, he called it.

That was just what his new pirate station sought to do. So he named his boat and his station after the girl. Years later in tribute, Radio Jackie would take their name similarly, but after Caroline’s mum, Jackie Kennedy.

We’ll tell some of this story on the 5th episode of the podcast, ‘Arthur Burrows: 1920’s All-Request Pirate’. There’s also an exclusive guest in another pirate radio legend, Emperor Rosko, who also appeared on Radio 1’s first line-up.

Researching, presenting and producing the British Broadcasting Century podcast in lockdown has been a challenge while home-schooling two children. We’ve had some hard days (both wife and wifi went downhill at similar times; both are gladly improving).

Looking at that picture of JFK and his dancing children reminded me that when you work from home – as he did, as I do, as many of us do now – you need to expect frequent visits from the youngsters, and be glad of them.

Caroline (and JFK Jr, also in the pic) playfully disrupted authority, as Radio Caroline then did. There was a time for business, but a time for dancing.

On Father’s Day, I’ll be glad that my children crash the office as much as they do, interrupting the workload with play, dance or wifi queries. I’m no president nor any great authority, but I can have a tendency to think my work matters more than it probably does – especially when it’s this podcast, which barely qualifies as work.

I don’t know how long lockdown will last. I don’t know how long my podcast will last. I do know it takes a lot longer to research, record and edit while school is happening across the room. But bring on the dancing…

If the President could find time to clap along, so will I.

‘The British Broadcasting Century with Paul Kerensa’ is free from all good podcast providers, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify + Podbean. Listen and subscribe now.

My new podcast: The British Broadcasting Century… Subscribe now!

Tags

BBC, Broadcasting, History, Podcast, radio

https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-qx928-deb1a0

Been a while, podpals!

This is a blatant plea to come and join my new podcast, The British Broadcasting Century. I’ll be geeking out about the origins of the BBC, radio and life as we know it, for a dozen or so episodes (in series 1; then who knows how many thereafter).

This is an extended trailer, with a few bonus clips just for being loyal podcastees here on A Paul Kerensa Podcast/The Heptagon Club.

But to catch the new one, you’ll need to subscribe to it, over at https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-british-broadcasting-century-with-paul-kerensa/id1516471271

and find us on Facebook.com/BBCentury

Stay safe & keep listening…

My new Audible Original Podcast: Christmas What The Fa-La-La-La-La… How it happened, what’s in it, etc

Tags

Audible, Christmas, Comedy, Entertainment, Podcast

If you haven’t been paying attention… I love Christmas. Although weirdly, I’ve only just realised that this year. Ask me last year, and I’d’ve said, TBH, I’m more just interested in it… but this year, I’ve spilled over into fully loving the weird festivity.

The book Hark! The Biography of Christmas came out in 2017. New for 2019 is the Audible podcast, Christmas: What The Fa-La-La-La-La. If you’re with Audible already, click that link and have a listen! If you’re not with Audible, there’s a free trial here, and as soon as you’re in, you get access to all their podcasts, from me, Stephen Fry, Dermot O’Leary, everyone. You can cancel immediately if you like, though make sure you grab a free audiobook first. In a week or two’s time, you might even find the audiobook of Hark! The Biography of Christmas – it should be there shortly.

As for the podcast, here’s what led to it…

I do the Pause For Thought slot on Radio 2 Breakfast Show via a company called TBI Media. They’re fab. They sought ideas for entertaining documentary shows to pitch to Audible, who were looking for non-fiction podcasts. We pitched. They liked it. We did it.

It was a mighty quick turnaround. Kudos to producer Geoff Jein and big boss man Dave Young and bigger boss man Phil Critchlow, and Geoff’s Christmas elf Ollie Seymour, for pulling it all together (like a cracker).

What format then? I was keen on mixing entertaining light chat (that’s Christmassy) with deeper historical sections (that’s also Christmassy), so we settled on the final product – something that got the balance right between fluffy and info-dump. We didn’t want a show that was just two people talking. We wanted guests. We also wanted a bit of depth, so we needed…

A host.

Some guests.

Six Christmas themes, one each episode.

Music.

Games.

For host, we lucked out and got Grace Dent. A brilliant journalist and broadcaster but above all FUN! She’d introduce, I’d be co-host and we’d waffle away about Christmas present (you should have heard the first recording – our opening 2mins became 30mins very quickly), what we do, why we do it, etc.

For the themes, we wanted to build up to Christmas. So Episode 1 features the earliest Christmassy moments – the shops selling Christmas cards, preparations that are out and about, not in the home yet. It gave us a chance to mull on Christmas’ back-story – Yule, Roman Saturnalia, etc, as well as look at the big story of Christmas past.

Episode 2 would then dive into the Nativity, but also other Christmassy stage things – panto, carols and Christmas pop songs. In Episode 3, we’re starting our Christmas shopping and pondering Santa, Father Christmas and St Nick. In Episode 4, it’s time to put the tree up, and bring Christmas into the home – plus a chance to get Dickensian. Episode 5 is all about the food – perfect listening for the week before Christmas, when you’re basting your turkey and eating too many mince pies. Episode 6 then is Christmas Day itself – so that’s Christmas telly, games, the Queen’s Speech… and a bit on Boxing Day and the Twelve Days into New Year.

Sounding a bit info-heavy? Right then. Guests! The finest comedians: Milton Jones, Lucy Porter, Andy Zaltzman on the lapsed Jewish/cricketing Christmas, Aatif Nawaz on his Muslim Christmas (of basically, working, and never putting a tree up). A food expert on the food ep: The One Show’s Angelica Bell, who also won Celebrity Masterchef (judged by our host, Grace Dent). And BBC 6 Music’s Shaun Keaveny brought festive fun to episode 1.

It’s like Noel’s House Party meets BBC4. And look, for a brief moment today, it was beating Gladwell and Mitchell to top Audible’s charts…

To get it, in brief – and, to be honest, gain me a few quid referral fee even if you cancel and never pay anything:

1. Click the link. Arrive at Amazon’s Audible page.

2. Sign up to Audible’s free tiral. Yes, card details needed, but you can unsubscribe after your free trial easily enough, and keep your audiobooks/podcasts. It would auto-renew at £7.99/mth (for that you get a credit for any audiobook – even the epic ones), but you can cancel before that happens and spend ZILCH pounds if preferred.

3. Once you’ve signed up, find the CHRISTMAS: WHAT THE FA-LA-LA-LA-LA? page.

4. Download the app onto your phone for the best experience…

We had fun making it. Hope you have fun listening to it.

Merry listening!

Comedians With Books #2: James Cary, Pierre Hollins, Dan Evans

Tags

Books, Comedy, Entertainment, Podcast

https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-smyti-bff6e1

Comedians With Books returns! With live show #3 around the corner, here’s live show #2 for your ears – or at least the book panel second half, recorded live at The Guildhall at Guildford Fringe Festival.

CWB is an occasional hybrid comedy-night-meets-book-festival, on this episode welcoming funny authors James Cary, Pierre Hollins and Dan Evans, hosted by Paul Kerensa (this is A Paul Kerensa Podcast after all). We get stuck into self-publishing v trad v Unbound, writing for radio, the future of the book industry, and much much more.

Also PK’s requests for beta readers for new short stories… details of Hark! The Biography of Christmas book group notes… new children’s book Joe’s Bros and the Bus that Goes… your feedback for future podcasts/audio versions of PK’s Writing Blog… and much much less.

 

Join Paul’s “A Team” of beta readers for his new book/short stories (and/or feedback about the future of the podcast): https://paulkerensa.com/contact.php

Join Paul’s mailing list: http://eepurl.com/M6Wbr

Book group/small group notes for Hark! The Biography of Christmas: https://www.paulkerensa.com/harknotes.pdf

PK’s Writing Blog: https://kneeldownstandup.wordpress.com

Comedians With Books #3 is live at Guildford’s Star Inn on Tue 8th October 2019, with Dominic Holland, Stevyn Colgan & James Dowdeswell. Tickets: https://www.guildfordfringe.com/events-archive/comedians-with-books-2/

 

+ this podcast’s books:

Joe’s Bros and the Bus That Goes by Paul Kerensa: https://spckpublishing.co.uk/joe-s-bros-and-the-bus-that-goes-pb

The Sacred Art of Joking by James Cary: http://www.jamescary.co.uk/sacred-art-of-joking/

The Karma Farmers by Pierre Hollins: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Karma-Farmers-Pierre-Hollins/dp/191158605X

The Casebook of D.I. Snaith by Dan Evans: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Casebook-D-I-Snaith-Dan-Evans-ebook/dp/B009562YVI

Share this pod / Like / Review / Donate / Thanks!

Comedians With Books #1: Rosie Wilby, Matt Parker, Aidan Goatley

Tags

Books, Comedy, Entertainment, Podcast

 

The all-new PK’s Writing Blog continues below (and above) – right now, here’s a one-off podcast…

https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-yzj2b-b3d6c0

A one-off (or at least very occasional) pop-up podcast with an excerpt from a recent Comedians With Books show, recorded live at The Star Inn with Guildford Fringe. It’s a new thrice-yearly hybrid comedy night meets book festival. This panel discussion features anecdotalist Aidan Goatley, relationship ponderer Rosie Wilby & stand-up mathematician Matt Parker, hosted by El Capitan Paul Kerensa.

Come see the next Comedians With Books live! Mon 8th July 2019 at Guildford’s Guildhall, with James Cary, Pierre Hollins & Dan Evans, hosted again by PK. https://guildfordfringefestival.com/sessions/comedians-with-books/

The next night, Tue 9th July 2019, new theatre compilation show Three Times Tables hits Guildford’s Star Inn: https://guildfordfringefestival.com/sessions/three-times-tables-an-evening-of-new-theatre/

Our 3rd Comedians With Books will be on Tue 8th October 2019, at Guildford’s Star Inn, acts TBC: https://www.guildfordfringe.com/events-archive/comedians-with-books-2/

More of Paul’s gigs: https://www.paulkerensa.com/gigguide.php

And this podcast’s books:

Never Eat the Buffet at a Sex Club by Aidan Goatley: http://www.lulu.com/shop/aidan-goatley/never-eat-the-buffett-at-a-sex-club/paperback/product-23532137.html

Is Monogamy Dead? by Rosie Wilby: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Monogamy-Dead-Rethinking-Relationships-Century/dp/1786154536

Humble Pi by Matt Parker: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Humble-Pi-Comedy-Maths-Errors/dp/0241360234

Hark! The Biography of Christmas by Paul Kerensa: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Hark-Biography-Christmas-Paul-Kerensa/dp/0745980171

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26 Steve Chalke & co – Beyond the Redgrave

Tags

Comedy, Entertainment, Podcast

https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-7xxz3-a4ae6d

Can it be? Our final episode? Yes. Yes it is. Stay subscribed for the future podcast that’s currently percolating, due to replace this within the year. But for now enjoy 7 final conversational titbits from everyone’s favourite 7-sided chat bunker…

– Charity mastermind STEVE CHALKE on his world-record-breaking feud with Sir Steve Redgrave

– BGT semi-finalist NOEL JAMES on televising ‘the frog joke’

– Beatboxing champ GAV TYTE on teaches Paul to beatbox using a bag of cabbage

– Nomadic funnyman TONY VINO on Fijian language problems

– Vicar, author & prop-maker CRIS ROGERS on Butlins’ secret swimming pool

– Presenting guru LEE JACKSON on why short is tough

– Comedic collator SIMON JENKINS on apocalyptic jumble sales

 

Thanks for listening! Look forward to bringing you something new soon…

 

Our Amazon Guests’ List of books remains here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/registry/wishlist/LIDR28M9I9BY/

Donate to the podcast if you’ve liked it here: www.heptagonclub.co.uk

We’re still very ‘like’-able on FB: www.facebook.com/heptagonclub

More of Paul’s latest at www.twitter.com/paulkerensa

Paul’s mailing list is at http://eepurl.com/M6Wbr

Music by Rob Halligan: www.robhalligan.co.uk 

Rate us on iTunes + share and share alike. Mind the closing doors…

25 Christmas Special 2018 – The Nonagon Club!

Tags

Christmas, Entertainment, History, Podcast

https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-p7xa7-a19517

Ho ho whoa! 9 guests?! In a tribute to the 9 Lessons & Carols, Paul our Host of Christmas Past flies his sleigh back through festive history. There are no live guests a-guesting – instead for our penultimate show, we drop in on influential Christmassy words from:

– Astronaut TOM STAFFORD on pranking NASA 

– Private HENRY WILLIAMSON on sharing tobacco

– Writer CHARLES DICKENS on humbuggery

– Writer WASHINGTON IRVING on Christmas the English way

– Devonian clergyman RICHARD SMART on Christmas the man

– Puritan minister HEZEKIAH WOODWARD on Christmas the heresy

– King HENRY III on Christmas the dinner

– Saint HILARY of POITIERS on the first carol

– Charles M Schulz creation LINUS on the true meaning of Christmas

Phew! One more episode to go, for now. Join us in January. Merry Christmas!

Like us on FB: www.facebook.com/heptagonclub

Amazon Guests List – our authors’ books: www.amazon.co.uk/gp/registry/wishlist/LIDR28M9I9BY/

Paul’s new book: https://www.eden.co.uk/shop/what-are-they-doing-down-there-4557544.html

Donate or Patreon here, reduce our debt, keep us podding: www.heptagonclub.co.uk

Rate & review us on iTunes – even if we are ending soon, it’s still nice, cos the episodes will still be here and need your recommending words!

24 Paul Kerensa & co – We’re Not Here Right Now…

Tags

Entertainment, Podcast

https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-pgynq-9fd27e

A stopgap podcast, to report on our temporary absence (due to a busy month), then our permanent absence (to follow early next year after a two-episode send-off). A couple more episodes will follow, then, well, the future’s bright – but it may, alas, not be heptagon-shaped.

An update is contained herein, plus snippets of guests from our fnar-fnale to come in January.

Like us on FB: www.facebook.com/heptagonclub

Amazon Guests List – our authors’ books: www.amazon.co.uk/gp/registry/wishlist/LIDR28M9I9BY/

Paul’s new book: https://www.eden.co.uk/shop/what-are-they-doing-down-there-4557544.html

Donate or Patreon here, reduce our debt, keep us podding: www.heptagonclub.co.uk

Rate & review us on iTunes – even if we are ending soon, it’s still nice, cos the episodes will stick around…

23 Noel James & co – Rhodes? Where we’re going…

Tags

Entertainment, Podcast

https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-u7um6-9c6e61

Britain’s Got Talent, Storm Troopers, beatboxing, comedy, Rhodes… Welcome to October’s pod-party. Mingle with the likes of this lot…

 

– Comedian NOEL JAMES

– Other comedian TONY VINO

– Other other comedian NATHAN RAMSDEN-LOCK

– Storm Trooper/Vicar CRIS ROGERS

– Ship of Fools founder SIMON JENKINS

– Beatboxing tutor GAV TYTE

– Songster & biscuit fiend PAUL BELL  

 

…Your ‘Bring A Bottle’ contribution is to visit their websites, so seek ’em out online, and while you’re there…

 

Like us on FB: www.facebook.com/heptagonclub

Amazon Guests List – our authors’ books: www.amazon.co.uk/gp/registry/wishlist/LIDR28M9I9BY/

Paul’s new book: https://www.eden.co.uk/shop/what-are-they-doing-down-there-4557544.html

Donate or Patreon here, reduce our debt, keep us podding: www.heptagonclub.co.uk

Rate & review us on iTunes + it helps us find people (or you could just tell strangers in the street, but rating and reviewing is less weird…)

22 Rob Parsons & co – Happy Creative New Year!

Tags

Entertainment, Podcast

https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-2e6b4-99bad6

It’s Creative New Year! Time for new projects and new products, including books, CDs, beatboxing tutorials and just good advice from these 7 wonders of the world…

 

– Care For The Family head honcho and author ROB PARSONS, OBE

– As oh-so-recently seen on This Morning, beatboxing vicar GAV TYTE

– Author and parenting guru KATHARINE HILL

– Songster & biscuit fiend PAUL BELL

– Comedian NATHAN RAMSDEN-LOCK

– Presenting expert LEE JACKSON

– Car Share writer, creator and creative genius TIM REID

 

 

Like us on FB: www.facebook.com/heptagonclub

Amazon Guests List – our authors’ books: www.amazon.co.uk/gp/registry/wishlist/LIDR28M9I9BY/

Paul’s new book: https://www.eden.co.uk/shop/what-are-they-doing-down-there-4557544.html

Donate or Patreon here, reduce our debt, keep us podding: www.heptagonclub.co.uk

Rate us on iTunes + it’s good to share…