I've been listening to various podcasts for the past couple of years or so. Some of these have become permanent fixtures, others come and go, and a handful have gone on hiatus.

One podcast that I have only recently added to the rotation deserves special mention: it is the BBC produced In Our Time and it's unlike any other podcast out there, mainly because the host, Melvyn Bragg, is unlike any other radio moderator out there. As the BBC profile describes it, each week “he and his expert guests discuss the history of ideas, and explore subjects in culture and science.” And Bragg must be some kind of monster researcher, because the ambitious scope implied by that description is amply covered by the range of the show's topics. Here's a list of just the current season's episodes:

• The Fisher King
• The Charge of the Light Brigade
• Albert Camus
• The Nicene Creed
• The Four Humours
• The Sassanian Empire
• Genetic Mutation
• The Fibonacci Sequence
• The Prelude
• The Discovery of Oxygen
• Avicenna
• Guilt
• Taste
• The Arabian Nights
• Divine Right of Kings
• Antimatter
• Socrates

Sounds like exciting stuff, eh? Well, Bragg keeps his guests on their toes, not only moving the conversation along the moment it risks getting bogged down in academic minutae, but also occasionally slowing them down to provide the necessary context for the average listener. The result is a show that leaves the listener not only a little bit wiser, but also thouroughly entertained.