Plague Remedy Podcast

07/05/2026

Just what it says on the tin! Excuse us while we remodel. We'll be back soon.

And, oh yeah, listen to the end of the annoucement for new theme song.

Podcast Episode · Plague Remedy Podcast · 7 May · 5min

06/05/2026

21/04/2026

🎙️ New episode out now!

LINK IN COMMENTS

This week, we're joined by Dr Alex Davis — senior lecturer in English at the University of St Andrews and an expert on Shakespeare and the literature of the 16th and 17th centuries.

We talk about...

How Shakespeare learned to write, the grammar school education that shaped his language

150 ways to say "thank you for your letter"

Why Shakespeare's villains are really great debaters
And why the Bard still squats on Alex's life "like a bald buzzing toad"

This is the first of what we hope to be many episodes that give listeners access to perspectives on different writers. (Along with our usual author interviews, of course!)

🎧 Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

15/04/2026

🎙️ NEW EPISODE: Grief Like Weather

LINK IN COMMENTS

I bit late this week, due to a technical glitch but...

How do we talk about loss without falling into clichés? This week, we sit down with novelist Stephen Policoff to discuss his moving memoir, 'A Ribbon for Your Hair.' A man who lost his wife to cancer and then his daughter to the rare genetic disease Niemann-Pick Type C (NPC).

"It's hard sometimes for me to hold onto the happy memories without going off into the sad ones, but... those are the things that really keep me going." — Stephen Policoff

🎧 Listen now on your favorite podcast app!

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10/04/2026

If I can pause my usual stream of nonsense, I have been thinking about witnessing 9/11 and its aftermath. I didn't see the planes into the towers, but I did see the first building fall, and I ran from it.
Since then, I have not heard of a bombing without thinking about all the poor schmucks and jamooks going about their own business.

After 9/11, people turned to poetry, art, and New Yorkers who had seen everything were stunned into politeness, for a while. Among the poems circulating at the time was W H. Auden's September 1, 1939. It was amazing to read a line:

'The unmentionable order of death/ Offends the September night.'

You could smell the destruction for months - a mixture of carcinogens and bodies.

But what I have been thinking about lately is the second stanza. There's been this talk of Western Civilisation and how it must be preserved lately, especially by people bombing schools and hospitals.

So, I took a photo of the verse and the link to the entire poem in the comments.