Speak!

What do you think about podcasts? Do you listen to them? Do you subscribe? Any that you'd recommend?

I don't listen to many - most of my offline listening is downloaded radio shows from BBC Sounds, and that's not quite the same thing. But I do try to keep up with the usual suspects (Adam Buxton and Louis Theroux, for example). I've also stumbled across the odd gem - The Old Fools, featuring David Quantick and Ian Martin, is a joyous, if occasionally sweary, gem. But then maybe I like that so much because I am, increasingly, an old fool myself. I am the target market. I am the demographic.

Have you ever tried podcasting yourself? If so, what platforms or technologies have you used? How did you find the experience? Would you recommend it? Do it again? Are you still doing it?

And if all this makes you think, oh god, isn't it enough that he already writes a blog that barely anyone reads, now he wants to launch a podcast that ever fewer people will listen to, well ... the thought has crossed my mind. It probably won't happen - it's a lot more effort than just typing a couple of paragraphs, adding the odd hyperlink and then embedding a YouTube video, after all. And I'm not so great with effort, these days. So, rest easy...

Speaking of embedding a YouTube video, I should probably end with one. What is this blog without a bit of appropriate music, after all? (That's a rhetorical question, though the answer would probably be "Not very much.") Anyway, if the only song you're aware of by Sultans of Ping F.C. is the brilliance of Where's Me Jumper? then I'm about to double your knowledge. You can thank me later.

Just one more thing: having asked for your recommendations it seems only fair to reciprocate. I use AntennaPod to consume anything that I don't already get from BBC Sounds. It's brilliant, free, open source, has no ads and, best of all, doesn't require you to create an account. I don't know if something similar exists in the Apple ecosystem but you can get AntennaPod at Google Play and you should because it's a proper piece of software. Although I appreciate that when I say "...and you should" I sound like Patrick Bateman imploring people to listen to Huey Lewis's lyrics.