I’m really sorry, I know many of you responded to the last Acast survey, and thank you very much for that.
I am sorry to bug you again, but can I beg a boon? Could you nip along to survey.acast.com and take 5 minutes to fill it out? They share the results with me and it’s really useful and interesting.
There is also a draw for £200 worth of Amazon vouchers to boot.
Thank you very much in advance for those of you who can find the time.
The History of England and the Anglo Saxon England podcasts
have joined a network - called Agora. It's early days, but we are a marketplace of like minded, independent podcasters, who want to work together to create and share new ideas, and introduce listeners to new podcasts. We even have a website - Agorapodcastnetwork; and a Facebook site. So all come along and see what we've got.
Each month or so we'll probably pick one of our number to tell you more about. This month's podcast is The History of China podcast, by Chris Stewart - click on the link to see the website and find out more. Chris is essentially working through the entire history of China chronologically - 5,000 years in 30 minute chunks! An amazing story of course, so go and have a look and, I'm sure Chris would love to hear what you think. Unless you don't like it of course.
Hello everyone. I hope that Christmas shaped up as well as you hoped...everything went very well here you'll be glad to know, including the addition of a good 4 lbs to date which I could ill afford anyway. Finding it increasingly difficult to get into the shed...
Anyway, since everything is more complicated with 2 podcasts, I thought I should do a schedule every quarter. And so that's exactly what I have done. Here it is. Applause, please.
Um, from now on you will see that under 'Index' on the RH side, there is 'The Latest Schedule'. I'll keep that up to date as I go. If I remember. Which I may or may not.
Have fun.
The History of England is having a facelift - and this is the new logo. Quite possibly this will irritate you all, given that people don't like changes, but you see when I originally started I never imagined for a moment that anyone would listen, and so spent precisely 2 minutes choosing the image. I'd rather have one that I own, and so this is what Emily Harris came up with. Sorry about that!
ALSO I will be changing the theme music; the same theme music I use for the History of Anglo Saxon England. This I have been lucky enough to talk my mate Davie into producing something for me. Thank you Davie, I love it. It’s a folk song that inspired Led Zep to create Black Mountain Side, and since I love Led Zep almost as much as I love Douglas Adams, it’s a great choice. Should any of you, reasonably close to the south of England, want to hear some really good guitar playing to help charity, then follow this link to Seven Songs on Facebook.
I'll make the switch for the next episode - which will be next Sunday (22nd November), and be called 'Bloodshed'. As opposed to David's shed. Arf, and if you will, arf.
The Anglo Saxon England Podcast
I have to say there's been a mixed response so far, to be brutal. A few folks have poured their despair over me that I should go back to the dear old Anglo Saxons just as we were about to embark on the Wars of the Roses.
Well look, fear not, seriously. I will not desert you, it has just caused a small hiccup in the progress of the main series. But you must indulge me - I couldn't leave those original episodes as they were.
Anyway, episodes are going up, just click on the logo and go and have a look!
PLUS I have to organise some sort of schedule between the two. So here's a table as an attempt to take up up to Christmas.
| Episode | |||
| The History of England | Anglo Saxon England | ||
| 11-Oct | 162 | ||
| 18-Oct | 163 | ||
| 25-Oct | 4 | Adventus Saxonum | |
| 01-Nov | 164 | ||
| 08-Nov | Not a sausage | ||
| 15-Nov | Not a sausage | ||
| 22-Nov | 5 | Building a new world | |
| 29-Nov | 165 | ||
| 06-Dec | 166 | 6 | Founding kingdoms |
| 13-Dec | 167 | ||
| 20-Dec | 7 | The Life and Times | |
Hi Everyone
We have winners!
Of the Bronze Mount - Cool Breeze Music
Of the Silver Penny - Robert Baird
Congratulations both! Drop me a line with your postal address and we will send you your wonderful prize.
Thanks as ever to Rob for his support and generous donation of the prizes.
Hello Everyone
I promised faithfully to tell you something of the results of the History of England Survey - so here we go with a few snippets! First of all, it's obviously impossible to cover everything, or even very much; but thanks to all of the 389 of you who responded, not least for the casual wit that runs throughout!
David, thanks for the England clarification. It's a bummer when you get those Englands mixed up...
And the winner is....Robert Smart (applause). Congratulations, Robert, come on down and collect your prize - or at least drop me an email of where we can send it!
I thought it'd be interesting to show you all who got listed in listeners top three podcasts. I have taken out THOE...since it's quite possibly what reserachers might call self selecting! What I've done is take every podcast that got 2 or more votes in any of the top 3; and I weighted them (3 points for first choice, 2 for second, 1 for third). And here's how it looks:
| # | Podcast Title |
| 1 | The History of Rome |
| 2 | Revolutions |
| 3 | History of English |
| 4 | Dan Carlin's Hardcore History |
| 5 | In Our Time |
| 6 | Rex Factor |
| 7 | British History Podcast |
| 8 | The Bugle |
| 9 | Stuff You Missed in History Class |
| 10 | Kermode and Mayo Film Review |
| 11 | This American Life |
| 12 | BBC History Extra |
| 13 | History of Byzantium |
| 14 | History of China |
| 15 | When Diplomacy Fails |
| 16 | History of WWII |
| 17 | Star Talk Radio |
| 18 | Radiolab |
| 19 | Skeptics Guide to the Universe |
| 20 | Wait Wait Don't Tell Me! |
| 21 | BBC Friday night comedy |
| 22 | History of the Crusades |
| 23 | Voices of the First World War |
| 24 | Binge Thinking History |
| 25 | Freakonomics |
| 26 | 12 Byzantine Rulers |
| 27 | History of Philosophy with No Gaps |
| 28 | Talking History |
| 29 | The Ancient World |
| 30 | The Infinite Monkey Cage |
| 31 | 99% Invisible |
| 32 | EconTalk |
| 33 | History of the Papacy |
| 34 | Norman centuries |
| 35 | The Egyptian History Podcast |
No great surprises there I guess...though interesting to see quite a connection between science podcasts and history podcasts
I expected we'd be moderately long in the tooth...50% of us are over 45, if that counts as long in the tooth. But quite and even spread between 18 and 65 it has to be said.
49% of you are from the USA; 27% from the UK. Quite interesting that half of the English people put England, the other half UK...hmm...then there's 7% from each of Oz and Canada, and then a load of othere exotic places - Denmark, The Netherlands, Finland (hello Jarmo), Germany, Wales, Scotland, Ireland. Even Olivier from France. I burn with shame, Olivier, I burn.
I then had a dig into where you came from in THOE's larger centres...in Australia, quite a lot of you from Victoria - is that significant Aussies?
No great theme in Canada - Steve, all the way up there in the Yukon...how's the weather? I burn with envy - it's crowded over here in little England, REALLY crowded. No great theme in the UK I have to say; maybe a bit southern softie? But plenty from God's Own County. One fellow Leicestershire bod - but someone else who is a Tigers fan. TIGERS!!!
As for the US of A...well you come from 41 states, which is quite wide-flung I thought. Leading state if California with 15%, but Texas, not far behind!
Well, the chart's below. And blow me down and knock me over with a feather, the winner if the forgotten period of English history, the good old Anglo Saxons. Whoo hoo! And the blessed Tudors pushed into 3rd place...hurrah! But disappointed by the Civil War, though.
Rob, or Lord Marcovan, is a coin collector from, well, somewhere out west depending on where you start. The good Lord has suggested a giveaway for the History of England - very generous of him it is too.
So the rules are:
You have to post a comment on this post - it could be anything: a comment, a suggestion to improve the podcast (don't speak so fast for example), or a subject you'd like me to cover or a question.
What could be simpler? Thanks Rob.
Here are the coins that Rob is offering to you all:
And finally here's Rob's original post, so you know the background !
Hello, David and fellow listeners! This is Rob in the USA. Happy Holidays and greetings from the Golden Isles of Georgia! I haven't listened to this episode yet- I'm still back a ways and haven't caught up. I'm still a relatively new listener. Anyway, David, you'd earlier put out a call for some listener podcast contributions and such, but I believe it fell flat. I for one don't have the necessary technical skill to contribute in that way. But here's what I propose to do... I'm a coin guy, you see (longtime collector and part time dealer). And I love old English coins. So I thought I'd pledge a giveaway of some fun old coins. Nothing super valuable, mind you- I haven't got the money to offer up a nice gold sovereign or Anglo Saxon penny, though I do periodically get inexpensive medieval coins. What I propose is this. Just for fun, I hereby pledge to donate a small group of five old coins, as a promotional giveaway to some lucky History Of England podcast listener. If David would see fit to make a short announcement in a future episode, and challenge all listeners to "stand and deliver"- in other words, stand up and be counted by posting a comment- then I'll take a random number generator and select a winner from amongst those who commented. (In other words, the digital equivalent of drawing a name from a hat). I can then send the coins to the winner, once I've been provided a shipping address. (Alternately, I could ship them to David and he could mail them from the UK, but I'm perfectly willing to save him the hassle and ship direct from this side of the pond.) I enjoy podcasts like this immensely- they make my dull overnight shifts more tolerable. So what say ye all? Want to win some coins? Just add a comment or do whatever it is David decides to announce. I stand by, ready to donate them. Don't forget his PayPal donation link, too. I've been too cheap to use it thus far, so let this be my first modest contribution. If the response is good, then hey- who knows- maybe I'll do it again later, with an even older and better coin or two! DISCLAIMER: David had no prior notice of me offering this. I'm going under my own initiative, here. If he decides for whatever reason that such a giveaway would cause problems for him, then it's off. But otherwise, it could be fun, eh?
Shed based History enthusiast, allotment owner, dog walker
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