5 Podcasts I Love

I first started listening to podcasts not long before I had the idea for Straight from the Lungs in mid-2016. I think podcasting is an amazingly creative and versatile format for educating people and telling stories. Here are 5 podcasts I love and why I love them (including a few honourable mentions).


99% Invisible

This design and architecture podcast hosted by Roman Mars answers questions about aspects of everyday life that we tend not to notice: what makes a good flag? when was the curb drop invented? what's a Norman Door? 99% Invisible was the first podcast I listened to and its style heavily influenced Straight from the Lungs. I loved how Roman began to tell a story and then someone else would start talking and take over; that opened my eyes to how flexible the medium of podcasting could be to tell stories involving multiple people, especially if they're not together in person.



Unlike Nick Talbot I've only ever climbed Mount Snowden in Wales. Even then I nearly fainted at the top! Christopher Sleight takes me on jounreys reaching the highest heights, lowest depths, and everything in between in this wonderful podcast. I mentioned Mountain in my treatment routine because if I listen to a podcast during my evening physiotherapy, it's usually this. I sometimes like to binge a podcast but I've been savouring Mountain for a while because there's only 20 episodes.


Short Cuts

Brief encounters, true stories, radio adventures, and found sound. In each episode, Josie Long helps to share stories on a certain theme, but the stories in that episode can vary so much, as you hear from all different types of people. I find Short Cuts perfect to listen to whilst walking somewhere. I was inspired by one of the stories in series 6, told by Daniel Tammet about reciting Pi to 22,514 decimal places, and decided to animate it.


Small Town Dicks

Hosted by Zibby Allen and Yeardley Smith (the voice of Lisa Simpson), Small Town Dicks explores criminal cases from small town USA with the detectives that investigated them. I've never previously had any interest in true crime stories, but Small Town Dicks got me hooked due to the insight one can find about the criminal world and the investigating methods used to shut it down. Sometimes covering cases of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse, this one isn't really suitable for younger listeners (obviously).


Project SSA

This serial podcast gets weirder and weirder as the episodes go on, but in the very best way. I was totally hooked from the first episode and binged it over a couple of days. Rob Alderman and Dan Buck answered an advert online that turned into a very peculiar quest that sees them learning more than ever about the world on their doorstep.


Honourable Mentions