Favourite Podcasts - 25 - Danny Baker

Finally, it is the last of my favourite podcasts, and I have saved the best until last.

Danny Baker is known by most people in the UK, but only truly loved by a few. Many know him as the drinking partner of Chris Evans, many know him as the man from the annoying Daz adverts, many may know him from laddy TV in the 90s.

I know him from doing genuinely creative and innovative radio, from Radio 1, to Radio 5, TalkSport, and now the present day FiveLive. If you ever hear a radio show where the presenter throws out a few topics and gets listeners to phone in with real life funny stories about those topics then it is worth bearing in mind that he created that genre. It may seem an obvious thing to do now, but once it was a brand new idea, and it was Danny Bakers idea.

Of course technology has helped a lot, and played into the hands of Bakers style. Email, Twitter, texts and facebook have all increased the speed of feedback from listeners, closing the feedback loop perfectly and making for fast paced and surprising shows.

Topics are wide ranging, from What sports have you played using improved equipment, to Zombie cars, to moving food, to things that have Just Vanished.

Listening to the podcast is a celebration of the small things in life that could be overlooked, but are actually hilarious, life affirming, or bizarre. You will feel better at the end than when you started.

I could go on, but listening for yourself is the best way to find out more... all I would say is do you want Brown Sauce, Red Sauce, or no sauce at all?

Listen to the podcast on the FiveLive site here.

Favourite Podcasts - 20 - 7 Day Sunday

7 Day Sunday was a show on BBC Radio 5live, presented by Chris Addison, with random visits from Al Murray, Sarah Millican, Andy Zaltzman, Andrew Collins and other occasional guests.

It was the basic BBC model of discussing the weeks news with comedians, but Chris Addison brought a flair to it that other shows in this slot have failed with. He is just astonishingly quick witted, sometimes getting himself in trouble as his wit is quicker than his appropriateness filter!

Sadly this show seems to be on a long break, and I am not sure if it will be back, but it was fun while it lasted.

If it is back then you will find it here.

Favourite Podcasts - 19 - In Our Time

Melvyn Bragg is a national treasure, very few people know such a huge amount about a huge amount of topics, and can speak about them passionately and eloquently.

He can also be a very, very grumpy man.

Which is the combination that can make Radio 4's In Our Time a great listen. Melvyn and three experts in their field talk about a topic. Topics are drawn from history, science, philosophy, culture and religion.

Some of my favourite topics in the last year have been Dave Hume, The Hippocratic Oath, Cogito Urgo Sum, The Moon, and free will.

At it's best the conversation is lively and your head will explode with ideas, Melvyn makes sure that no one contributor dwells on a detail too long, and is not scared to tell them to shut up!

At it's worst it is very dull, but I am not scared to turn it off and delete the episode anymore! A lot is dependent on the topic that week.

Download at the BBC Radio 4 website.

Favourite Podcasts - 4 - Radio 4 Documentary of the week

I wasn't going to put this one in, and that may mean I have to bump another one out later, but today I listened to an episode that made me realise that it had to go back in.

This podcast stream is simply documentaries that have been broadcast on Radio 4, theoretically one a week, but recently there have been some days with 3 new podcasts.

Subjects cover all sorts, technology, science, arts, politics and religion. I probably download one in ten that are published, but that one is usually like finding gold dust, something that broadens the mind and educates in a subject you may not have given much thought to.

This low hit rate made me not have it in my original list, but I listened to an episode today by Naomi Alderman that gripped me and made me think about a subject (9/11 and it's affect of peoples religious views) that I had not really given any thought to.

Find somewhere quiet and listen to it, it's only 15 minutes long, if you don't find it interesting then there might be something else on the feed that you like. Or it might be that I am just a old fuddy-duddy that just likes documentaries.

Listen to the individual episode by Naomi Alderman here, or the podcast feed here.