How To Academy Podcast

Amy Jeffs brings legends of the medieval world to life through art, music, and the written word. Her debut book Storyland retold Britain's myths of origin for modern audiences, captivating us with stories of heroes and adventure from the Middle Ages. The sequel, Wild, transports us into the wilderness, giving voice to marginalised and forgotten figures - women, outcasts, monsters - and reveals Amy's own journeys across the rugged landscapes of the British isles. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Irvine Welsh, the Scottish novelist, shares his wild and varied life experiences. His fiction includes bizarre scenarios like God turning men into flies. He previews his highly acclaimed CRIME trilogy. The episode contains lots of swearing and offers a beeped version on the website.

In anticipation of our next in-person live event with Steven Pinker in conversation with Richard Dawkins, we wanted to share a previous appearance from 2019, in conversation with actor and broadcaster Stephen Fry. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A few weeks before Christmas, Clover Stroud’s sister Nell Gifford, founder of Gifford’s Circus, died of breast cancer, aged forty-six. Just days before, she had been given years to live. Nell’s sudden death split Clover's life apart. Clover charts her fearless passage through the first year after her sister's death.This is the story of what life feels like when death interrupts it, and about bearing the unbearable and describing an experience that seems beyond words.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Dr Gabor Maté will return in-person to How To Academy next month. In anticipation, we're sharing our podcast interview recorded on his last visit in 2019. Find out how you can join us at Gabor's next talk at howtoacademy.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

60s Britain produced not only the most biggest band in the history of music, but the most successful movie character of all time.In this episode of the podcast, cultural historian and novelist John Higgs investigates how and why the Beatles and James Bond defined our aspirations and fantasies, and the role they continue to play in shaping British identity. Why did the Beatles really split up? Is Daniel Craig's James Bond "superwoke"? And how did these twin icons of British culture change the way we think about ourselves? John answers all these questions and more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Backed by the latest scientific research and her own clinical work, Dr Ellen Vora offers a fresh, much needed look at mental health, offering actionable strategies for managing our moods.Dr Vora challenges the conventional view of anxiety as a mental disorder, suggesting instead that much of what we call anxiety begins in the body. Rather than our troubled thoughts creating physical symptoms, she argues that many types of anxiety are the result of states of imbalance in our bodies, whether blood sugar crashes, caffeine highs or sleep deprivation.Her clinical observation shows this type of anxiety is far more preventable than we may realise, responding almost immediately to straightforward adjustments to diet and lifestyle. And other forms of anxiety, when listened to and honoured instead of suppressed, can be seen as a course correction to help nudge us back to a more balanced life. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The creator of the wildly successful running app Zombies, Run! and a columnist for the prestigious videogame industry magazine EDGE, Adrian Hon makes games that make real world activities more rewarding and fun.He joins the podcast not to celebrate the gamification of real world activities, but warn us against the abuse of these techniques -- from corporations using games to exploit and control their workers to governments gamifying the rights of and privileges of their citizens.And not all gamification is imposed upon us by authorities. From terror attacks to far right conspiracy theories, elements of gamification have spread into political extremism with horrifying and tragic consequences. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

One of Britain's most acclaimed visual artists, Cornelia Parker's sculptures challenge our sense of what an artwork can be.Both an eminent theoretical physicist and a bestselling author, Carlo Rovelli has not only advanced humanity's understanding of its place in the cosmos but made the revelations of physics intelligible to the rest of us, in books such as The Fabric of Reality, The Order of Time, and his latest, Helgoland, This episode of the podcast brings the two together with science filmmaker David Malone for a journey into the hidden depths of reality. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In conversations about the role of Big Tech in the spread of misinformation and propaganda, YouTube rarely receives the same attention as Facebook, Twitter, and its parent company Google. But alongside the cat videos and video game streamers, counteless extremists have found a found on the platform - and their actions sometimes have real-world, life-and-death consequences.In this episode of the podcast, Bloomberg News journalist Mark Bergen tells the story of YouTube: how it upended traditional media, created stars of everyday people, and grew into a ruthless advertising conglomerate with little regard for its impact beyond the bottom line. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices