From My Mate Bought A Toaster to Crowdscience, Backlisted and Job Centre: This week’s top podcasts 

From Alex Horne on My Mate Bought A Toaster to Crowdscience, Backlisted and Jacob Hawley’s no-nonsense Job Centre, this week’s top podcasts

My Mate Bought A Toaster 

What does your Amazon purchase history say about you? An uncomfortable amount, it turns out. In this weekly podcast Tom Price asks guests to submit their Amazon accounts to his ruthless judgement. 

Tom Price scrolls back years, uncovering the stories behind objects like puzzles for children uninterested in puzzles (Alex Horne, whose purchases also include, erm, Mein Kampf)

He scrolls back years, uncovering the stories behind objects as varied as a cat pooper scooper (one of Suzi Ruffell’s purchases) and puzzles for children uninterested in puzzles (Alex Horne, whose purchases also include, erm, Mein Kampf).

Crowdscience 

Children tend to go through a phase when they ask bamboozling questions no adult can answer. This fun BBC science podcast takes up the challenge. On each half-hour episode the team answers questions posed by the show’s (grown-up) listeners. 

Should we trust DNA tests? Why isn’t it possible to tickle oneself? What is empathy? The podcast has the waspish precision of Radio 4’s More Or Less but is even dorkier. It’s a real joy.

 

Backlisted

This is one of the best literary podcasts around. Hosts Andy Miller and John Mitchinson talk about a book they love with guests. The presenters are formidably well read but they’re not annoying about it. 

Some of the books they pick are well known (Beloved by Toni Morrison, Great Expectations by Dickens), but there are also plenty of novels in the mix that I’d never heard of. It’s intelligent and also really amusing. Top marks.

 

Job Centre 

In Jacob Hawley’s no-nonsense weekly podcast he explores how the job market in Britain is coping with the Covid-19 crisis and considers what challenges lie ahead. The podcast brings together a reliably unexpected mix of interviewees – teachers, carers, Deliveroo cyclists. 

Start with the episode about a Hamilton actor who is candid about the eeriness of being in his profession when the theatres are shut

Start with the episode about a Hamilton actor who is candid about the eeriness of being in his profession when the theatres are shut 

Start with the episode about a Hamilton actor who is candid about the eeriness of being in his profession when the theatres are shut.

Read more at DailyMail.co.uk