What is Your Top 5 Podcasts?

I wanna know what people are listening to/watching on their way to work or during those precious moments when you just get to chill with a coffee. These are my favorite intellectual yet digestible podcasts, in order of preference:

1. Podictionary 

- Charles Hodson's brilliantly traces the history of a word a day in the most engaging manner. It's hard not to be seduced by his subtle humor and beautifully crafted etymological investigation, especially when you take into account the depth of knowledge and the sheer amount of research needed to bring these to our ipod day in day out. For Free! 

A brilliant new feature of this podcast is the fact that you can choose to digest it as word a day or 5 words in succession at the end of each week. Great if you have a short attention span or if you've got a bit more time to kill than usual.

2. Friday Night Comedy from Radio 4 

- To those who are fans of Radio 4's Comedy Night this needs no introduction. If your like me and hardly ever listen to the radio any more in it's previous guises it's great to be able to get all the best bits delivered straight to your ipod and listen at your own pleasure. For those who arn't as familiar it has Sandy Toksvig in the chair of The News Quiz and Steve Punt, Hugh Dennis in control of The Now Show. It's brought to us weekly and is consistently brilliant.

3. Philosophy Bites

- Now heres a tricky one, it so easily could have been at the top of my list if it didn't depend on who Nigel Warburton and David Edmonds get into talk. At it's best it is an outstanding portal into the daunting world of philosophy but on occasions it can quickly meander into a big pile of pointless. My favorite guests have included A.C Grayling and Onora O'neill who both benefitted from Nigel Warburton's interviewing technique. 

It must be noted that the shining glory of this podcast is how Nigel Warburton filters the conversation of his guests, which is often saturated in intellectual jargon, and delivers it to the audience in a more understandable form without being condescending. Quite the feat.

4. Tate Shots

- The only Vodcast to make it into my short list because on the whole im not a fan of using the small screen on my phone, but when your looking into the world of a visual artist it helps to see what they're talking about. 

Being produced by the people at Tate your guaranteed the biggest names in the art world and every once in a while they dig out some real treasures that you might not have Heard of otherwise. Usually lacks a little in content but it can really depend on what your looking for art-wise.

5. Philosophy The Classics

Another one from Nigel Warburton and David Edmunds. This time it's these guys are presenting some of the key figures in western philosophy in their trademark way of presenting heavy weight concepts in a  understandable manner. If you really want the comprehensive guide your best getting the accompanying book, Philosophy The Classics, which is a fantastic read and handy reference tool.

If you'd like to get any of these podcasts or just find out more follow the links above or search for them in your itunes.