My favorite podcasts and videos
I’m writing this to you from my bed, where I have been holed up for the past three days.
No, I don’t have the bat-flu … I have the man flu.
Unfortunately this slight variation in virus delivers 75% less sympathy from my wife:
“Oh, so you’re still negative? It’s just a sniffle then? Can you still take the boys to Scouts tonight?”
Anyway, I’m so high on Sudafed right now that I have no idea whether any of this is making sense (though my editor would argue that’s never really worried me before).
To help pass the time, I’ve been going through a lot of podcasts and watched a lot of dodgy TV (I’m looking at you, Larry Emdur). Here are my top picks:
The Coming Recession – The Economist
You think the last few years were crazy?
Just wait till you see what 2023 has in store for us.
We’re heading into a global economic slowdown, and central banks are raising interest rates.
That’s like handing a marathon runner two shopping bags full of groceries to carry for the last 5 km.
This year’s hikes have added $900 a month to the average $500,000 mortgage.
And there’s more to come.
The Economist produces long, meaty, rigorously researched articles on the world economy. And, while an annual magazine subscription costs more than my first car, their podcasts are free!
Mirror Mirror (Series 2: Love and Hate) – Channel 10
For Christmas this year my nine-year-old son has asked Santa for a book on quantum physics.
Ho! Ho! Ho!-wever, when my wife leaves the room he puts down the book he’s reading, slyly picks up her phone and starts playing some version of Candy Crush.
It’s like the engineers on the other side of the screen are saying, “Hey kid, don’t bother learning all that hard stuff, just come here and press flashing buttons for hours on end.”
If you want to do hard stuff in 2023, you need to watch Todd Sampson’s Mirror Mirror. It’s a frightening doco on the way that screens are rewiring our brains.
Australia’s Health Revolution – SBS
This show is life changing.
Dr Michael Mosley is a very healthy dude and skinny as a rake, yet for the doco he began following an average Aussie diet.
The result?
In just two weeks his blood sugar levels became pre-diabetic and his blood pressure became worryingly high. Australia is one of the fattest nations on earth, and it’s killing us.
Thankfully, Mosley believes you can reverse type 2 diabetes, and in this series he shows you how to do it. As I sniffled through this three-parter it scared the hell out of me. Health is wealth, and there are a lot of poor people eating very rich foods. Cough! Cough!
Tread Your Own Path!