Background Briefing: Haircuts and Hate: the rise of Australia’s alt-right. An excellent program. If you thought Pauline Hanson’s little ‘It’s OK to be white’ foray was harmless, listen to this and think again.
Articles of Interest is a podcast about fashion, which doesn’t really sound like me at all, but it’s fascinating. Episode #3 is about pockets and why women don’t have them when men do (it was estimated that a suit had 24 pockets during the 1940s!!!) Episode #6 is about Punk fashion, focussing particularly on Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren. I never really ‘got’ what punk was about, but I think I have a bit more of an idea now.
Revolutions Podcast continues with the Mexican Revolution. Episode 9.08 The Plan of San Luis. Portfirio Diaz won the 1910 election by imprisoning the opposition, an old trick. But the opposition leader, Madero, who went to the US after being released from jail, cooked up the Plan of San Luis, which planned for uprisings all over Mexico as the results of the election were declared invalid. But Diaz got wind of it, arrested the ringleaders and the city uprisings didn’t happen at all. The day was saved by rural rebels, including those led by Pascual Orozco.
Duo Lingo Podcast. Episode 12 Sin verguenza. A woman is determined to expunge every bit of her Peruvian background from her language and identity, only to find that she is seen as a ‘gringa’. She finally can accept her Peruvian identity “without embarrassment”. Dual English and Spanish.
99% Invisible. Episode 325 The Worst Way to Start a City. A fascinating history of the chaotic settler invasion of Oklahoma City on one day in 1889 when they declared the area ‘open’ at 12.00 noon and ‘boomers’ and ‘sooners’ scrambled to claim their spot. Really interesting in comparison with how the ‘unoccupied’ land of Port Phillip was opened up.
In Our Time Frederick Douglass, accompanied by a recent article in the New Yorker on 15 October 2018. But really, sometimes Melvyn Bragg really annoys me, like when he asks the only male on a panel of three about the links between the women’s movement in the 1840s and Frederick Douglass. Sheesh!
The Horror of Delores Roach. Episode 1: All the Gory Details This is made by the same company that produced ‘Sandra’. I generally listen to non-fiction on podcasts, but fiction works really well too. A woman is released from prison after 16 years and returns to her old apartment to find that her former boyfriend and the drug money they had secreted away have both long gone. She’s taken in by Luis, the owner of a empenada joint. I’m hooked!
The Resident Judge of Port Phillip 