x

75% of people globally want unbiased news (Pew Research) but are concerned they're not getting that.

Get balanced coverage with Symby. See how stories are covered across diverse outlets and spot when one side covers a story the other skips.

PODCAST

Dark Histories from the Secret University.

This podcast slithers, oozes, writhes and flickers with all things dark, forbidden, strange and tabooed. It also tries to offer something very new. For over 15 years I lectured at the universities of Cardiff and Durham. It was a great great life. I got paid to write and to think. I got paid to share these passions with some brilliant and unforgettable students. Unfortunately, students now have to pay staggering amounts of money for that privilege. Welcome, then, to the Secret University. Its ideas,

history

All Episodes

00:22:00

T.S. Eliot. Four Quartets. Two: East Coker.

Dark Histories from the Secret University. ·

2023/04/01

As you may know, these four great poems of the twentieth century are in part meditations on time. This second of the set is introduced with stories of World War Two, from my family and that of my remarkable old friend, Elisabeth Hudson. These touch on the story of the extraordinary spy, Christine Granville, showcased recently on Twitter. Holding Elisabeth's original copy of East Coker set me thinking of her holding it in 1940, when it was new, and when her brother was due to become a great

en

00:12:37

T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets. One: Burnt Norton.

Dark Histories from the Secret University. ·

2023/03/19

One of the great poems of the twentieth century, and one which we might call a kind of Anglo-American epic. Starting with Burnt Norton here, from the copy given to me by my great old friend Elisabeth, bought in 1941, and with her til her death in 2008. The great novelist John Fowles offers a nice way into this poem: 'The word is the most imprecise of signs. Only a science-obsessed age could fail to comprehend that this is its great virtue, not its defect.'

en

00:29:01

Introducing The Real Vampires: Live Burial and...

Dark Histories from the Secret University. ·

2023/03/16

Join me for extremes of terror, wonder and hope. This is a colourful glimpse into the world of The Real Vampires, and my personal journeys: through Europe to Greece in 1988; and on into the world of vampires and poltergeists since 2013. I'll be covering these extensively in a new book, We Need to Talk About Ghosts. The photo shows the author in 1988 in Venice, not long returned from Athens and nearby Greek islands. Little did I know at this time that I had been just 50 miles from Vampire

en

00:24:16

THE INTERNATIONAL PAWTRAIT GALLERY: SEVEN GREAT DOGS...

Dark Histories from the Secret University. ·

2023/03/11

Everyone knows that animals bring people together. But how ON EARTH do dogs get back together with lost owners? Join me for a journey of unforgettable wonder, adventure, mystery and love, with seven great dogs - beginning with my mother and Pat, seen here in 1956, on her 21st birthday. You can read many more amazing dog stories in my book, A Singing Mouse at Buckingham Palace. My novel, Kali the Wonder Dog, is a great historic romp through 1930s Britain - highly recommended for anyone who loves

en

00:22:30

Vampotainment in Regency London.

Dark Histories from the Secret University. ·

2023/03/05

What would you get if you spliced together Byron, Polidori, and the celebrity actor T.P. Cooke, the Harrison Ford of Regency theatre, for a musical vampire romp on stage? The answer is: The Vampire, or the Bride of the Isles. Be afraid. For all the wrong reasons.

en

00:29:30

The John Muir Challenge: Episode 3.

Dark Histories from the Secret University. ·

2023/02/25

The challenge is simple: for Muir to carry you away, body and soul, into the wilds, dangers and tumultuous songs of nature in less than half an hour. And this one has a doggie. If the ending of this doesn't make you cry, I won't be your friend anymore.

en

00:29:19

Six Crimson Drops from Real Vampire Country.

Dark Histories from the Secret University. ·

2023/02/18

In the run-up to the long awaited paperback edition of my book, The Real Vampires, six crimson drops here thrust under the microscope - bringing up many wild surprises. What did vampires really eat? What should you do if you woke up in your coffin? How did you make a vampire? How could you stop a vampire? Can you really die of terror? And just what was the unexpected link between Polidori's The Vampyre and Fifty Shades of Grey? No need to tie yourself in knots puzzling that one out: just sit back,

en

00:25:52

John Keats: The Eve of St Agnes.

Dark Histories from the Secret University. ·

2023/01/28

Was there ever any more ravishing poem in all the nineteenth century? Step in with me from the frost and sleet, and behold fair Madeline, like a mermaid in seaweed. This poem could change your life.

en

00:22:46

The John Muir Challenge: Episode Two.

Dark Histories from the Secret University. ·

2023/01/21

Once upon a time there was a strange, wild force of nature. His name was John Muir. Let him carry you away now, into the summer mountains of the Sierra. You'll really believe you are there. Walking boots optional.

en

00:18:01

The John Muir Challenge: Episode One.

Dark Histories from the Secret University. ·

2022/12/31

If anyone can make you happy in less than twenty minutes, it is the utterly magical and irrepressible John Muir: hardier than a wolf, nimbler than a mountain goat, happier than a child. Take the John Muir challenge and see for yourself. You'll really believe you are right there in the Sierra Nevada, summer 1869.

en

00:09:00

T.S. Eliot: The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.

Dark Histories from the Secret University. ·

2022/12/26

T.S. Eliot: The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.

en

00:08:12

Wordsworth in Winter.

Dark Histories from the Secret University. ·

2022/12/24

A Lake District childhood, as recalled by Wordsworth. Hear the ice chiming like a bell, 250 years later.

en

00:25:11

Keith Richards and the Redlands Drugs Trial.

Dark Histories from the Secret University. ·

2022/12/17

From 25 June to 1 July 1967 there occurred perhaps the most explosive and significant seven days in the whole of the 1960s: one week when the Old Guard of the British Establishment tried to take a long overdue revenge on all the forces of youth and change which it could not control. The real story of the Redlands Trial offers a darkly comical glimpse into the fears, repressions and twisted imaginings of the British elite and the respectable middle classes. Join me for a journey back into the Summer

en

00:27:52

The Cottingley Fairy Photographs: a British National...

Dark Histories from the Secret University. ·

2022/12/16

The Cottingley Fairy Photographs were the hoax of the twentieth century. Just how did two young girls in Yorkshire convince Sir Arthur Conan Doyle? And what did the whole long running saga mean to Britain in particular in the decades that followed? We unravel this densely complex story 100 years after Doyle published his strangest book, The Coming of the Fairies. You'll be surprised.

en

00:02:05

The Cottingley Fairy Photographs and the Centenary of...

Dark Histories from the Secret University. ·

2022/12/15

In 1920 two Yorkshire cousins pulled off the hoax of the century. And two years later Arthur Conan Doyle published one of the strangest books of the twentieth century.

en

00:29:08

Blood Drinking at European Executions. Forgotten...

Dark Histories from the Secret University. ·

2022/12/10

Have you ever seen this on period drama? In Austria, Germany and Denmark, people routinely drank hot blood for medicine at beheadings. And in Sweden, things could get worse. One thing we are not taught at school is this: James I refused corpse medicine; Charles II made his own corpse medicine; and Charles I was made into corpse medicine.From my best-selling book, Mummies, Cannibals and Vampires: the History of Corpse Medicine from the Middle Ages to the Falun Gong.

en

00:15:20

Rupert Brooke. Three great forgotten poems.

Dark Histories from the Secret University. ·

2022/12/08

With the exception of poems by my father, the poetry of Rupert Brooke was the first I read avidly, after stumbling on a copy of his works in our school library aged 14 or 15. He is perhaps best known now for war poems and Grantchester, but these three I think are probably his best poems - and give a tantalising flavour of what he might have done, if not cut off by war at just 27.

en

00:27:37

Ghosts of Christmas Present. M.R. James's story,...

Dark Histories from the Secret University. ·

2022/12/07

In this Christmas season Dark Histories will be telling some classic ghost stories, in keeping with tradition; and arguing that some of the very best of this genre are always better heard, than seen. One of my favourites here, which produced some memorable classes back at Durham University, when I ran the MA module, Literature of the Supernatural. Can you guess the point at which several students jumped and squealed?

en

00:10:30

Ghosts of Christmas Present. M.R. James's The...

Dark Histories from the Secret University. ·

2022/12/06

In this Christmas season Dark Histories will be telling some classic ghost stories, in keeping with tradition; and arguing that some of the very best of this genre are always better heard, than seen.

en

00:19:24

Ghosts of Christmas Present. M.R. James's The...

Dark Histories from the Secret University. ·

2022/12/06

In this Christmas season Dark Histories will be telling some classic ghost stories, in keeping with tradition; and arguing that some of the very best of this genre are always better heard, than seen.

en

29 results

Similar Podcasts

The Old Front Line

Paul Reed

Today In History with The Retrospectors

The Retrospectors

جنود خلدهم التاريخ

ALSUMOOD PODCAST

Film History - Daily

Inception Point Ai

Madonna - Audio Biography

Inception Point Ai