Best Ed Gillespie Podcasts (2024)

1
The Great Humbling S6E2: Remember, Remember! 57:01

8m ago57:01

57:01

Remember, remember, the 5th of November,Gunpowder, treason and plot.I see no reasonWhy gunpowder treasonShould ever be forgot. This episode starts with the traditional nursery rhyme commemorating the events of 5 November, 1605, when Catholic plotters attempted to blow up the British parliament. While we’re on the theme of memory and maps, a reminde…

1
The Great Humbling S6E1: When the S**t Hits the Roomba 51:47

7d ago51:47

51:47

“Maybe what we’re looking for is fewer robot vacuum cleaners and more compost toilets.” We stumble into a new series of The Great Humbling with an episode that revolves around s**t and technology. This is also our first video episode, so you can watch our beardy faces on Substack or YouTube. Shownotes * Ed’s been reading The Monkey Wrench Gang by E…

1
The Times Into Which We Were Born (Solo Show) 1:08:56

14d ago1:08:56

1:08:56

Midway through last month’s North American tour, the filmmaker Katie Teague sat me down to record an interview. Sometimes an interview happens at just the right moment, when all the work you’re carrying is on the top of your tongue. That’s what happened here – so with Katie’s permission, we’re releasing an audio version of her edit of what I told h…

1
The Gifts in the Ruins with Dr Ashley Colby 1:02:33

3M ago1:02:33

1:02:33

In this episode, my guest is Dr Ashley Colby for a joint episode with her Doomer Optimism podcast. Ashley is hosting a weekend retreat around my work in Chicago as part of next month’s North American tour. * Read more & register for the Chicago Retreat: https://bit.ly/dougald-retreat * The rest of the American tour: https://dougald.nu/america/ Than…

1
Taking Beauty Seriously with Caroline Ross 46:10

6M ago46:10

46:10

As the fifth season of The Great Humbling came to an end, we recognised that what we’ve been doing is letting you listen in on a conversation that we would want to have anyway – and this inspired us to expand the podcast, to bring you overheard conversations with other friends, co-conspirators and people who get us thinking. We’re calling this Home…

1
The Great Humbling S5E8: 'State of the Humbling' 55:42

8M ago55:42

55:42

The end of this fifth series of The Great Humbling finds us looking back over the loose ends from earlier episodes, exploring the wider field of “Humility Studies” and asking who exactly we think we’re talking to, anyway? We start with Ed reporting back from The Fête of Britain, the inaugural festival of the Hard Art collective, which took place in…

1
The Great Humbling S5E7: 'Founders Confessions' 58:18

9M ago58:18

58:18

In our latest episode, Ed and Dougald compare notes on the experience of being founders – or co-founders – of organisations. What did we learn along the way? And what do humble forms of leadership look like? We were recording on Shrove Tuesday, so the episode kicks off with a discussion of seasonal customs, including the Swedish semla… On a recent …

1
The Great Humbling S5E6: 'The Low Agreements' 53:28

9M ago53:28

53:28

This is the episode where we finally left Skype, which we’ve for some reason been using to record these conversations for four and a half series. Switching off the lights as we go, Ed wonders about other examples of old systems and technologies that are still in use, such as Windows Submarine. Dougald reports back on his trip to Gothenburg – and ma…

1
The Great Humbling S5E5: 'Make Populism Good Again?' 54:26

10M ago54:26

54:26

Here's a rundown of references from this episode... Leah Rampy, Earth & Soul: Reconnecting Amid Climate Chaos Bill Drummond, 45 David Mitchell, Unruly David Graeber & David Wengrow, The Dawn of Everything Jay LeSoleil, 'Green' Elites vs Green Left Populism Avtryck/Imprint – a documentary from the Swedish Transition Towns movement Chris Smaje (from …

1
The Great Humbling S5E4: 'The Forever Project' 42:10

11M ago42:10

42:10

Our final episode of 2023 finds Dougald already in his Christmas jumper, as the tiredness of a busy year catches up with the pair of us. Ed opens a window on Sophie Howarth’s Lighting the Dark: An Advent Calendar. We share the Benjamin Zephaniah poems that have been going round in our heads, since the news of his death was announced, ‘To Do Wid Me’…

1
The Great Humbling S5E3: 'We Used to Have Fun' 52:52

11M ago52:52

52:52

We take a different route into our conversation this time around, in what turns out to be the first in a two-parter woven around John Higgs’s book, The KLF: Chaos, Magic & the Band Who Burned a Million Pounds, which Ed has been reading. It’s the kind of book that detonates in the mind, sparking a million connections. First, though, we start out tal…

1
The Great Humbling S5E2: 'Words in Wartime' 59:42

12M ago59:42

59:42

We recorded this episode on Dougald’s birthday – and Ed starts with the image of him wearing Anna’s family’s Coyote coat, triggering unsettling flashbacks to the QAnon shaman, who is apparently now running for Congress. Welcome to the dark weirdness of 2023. Ed quotes from Paul Mason’s ‘Gaza: Time for Restraint’, a story brought to our attention by…

1
The Great Humbling S5E1: 'The Ruined Church' 54:52

1y ago54:52

54:52

Welcome back to Season 5 of The Great Humbling! Here are some show notes... The Regrowing a Living Culture series at a school called HOME starts on 7 & 8 November. Ed has been reading Dougie Strang’s book, The Bone Cave. Dougald mentions the cluster of authors who were part of the first decade of Dark Mountain who are stepping out with books of the…

1
The Great Humbling: Live at Norwich Arts Centre 1:15:22

1y ago1:15:22

1:15:22

In February this year, we took The Great Humbling into a new format, a live conversation on stage at Norwich Arts Centre as part of the UK tour that Dougald made to launch his book, At Work in the Ruins. It's taken us rather a long time to get the recording edited, but here it is at last. For this live show, Ed and Dougald were joined by two specia…

1
The Great Humbling S4E8: 'We Need to Talk About George' 1:02:14

2y ago1:02:14

1:02:14

We reach the end of Season 4 of The Great Humbling, though Ed and Dougald start the show with an invitation to a one-off live recording of a special episode with guests Rupert Read and Charlotte Du Cann for those who can join us in Norwich on 20 February. As always, we start off by talking about what we've been reading, listening to, watching, imbi…

1
The Great Humbling S4E7: 'The Missing Episode' 50:51

2y ago50:51

50:51

So, here's what happened – after a long break, we sat down in early October to record the seventh episode of this series, but life got in the way and by the time we got around to editing it six weeks later, the world had changed so much that it felt like a historical document. Britain has (yet) another prime minister, Sweden has a government over w…

1
The Great Humbling S4E6: 'Nice to meet you' 54:59

2+ y ago54:59

54:59

After twenty-nine episodes recorded through screens and cameras, Ed and Dougald find themselves meeting for the first time and sit down for a conversation beside the mill pond in Loddon, in the garden of the Mill of Impermanence. We hear the unlikely tale of how Dougald found Ed’s fiftieth birthday present, a copy of Uriah Heep’s fifth album, The M…

1
The Great Humbling S4E5: 'Belief' 49:12

2+ y ago49:12

49:12

Dougald poses a big question for this episode: what do we believe in? Ed responds playfully and paradoxically with ‘self-delusion’, citing Robert Trivers work on self-deceit that includes gay pornography and erection-o-meters. And lasers. Here's his RSA talk. Dougald talks about the formative influence of spending the first two-and-a-bit years of h…

1
The Great Humbling S4E4: 'Are we going to talk about Ukraine?' 51:29

2+ y ago51:29

51:29

We started this podcast in the early weeks of the pandemic, talking about the stories circling around it. A crisis had come out of the corner of almost everyone's field of vision and became, within weeks, the only thing in the news. Two years on, something similar has happened, so we arrived at this episode wondering whether or not to talk about Uk…

1
The Great Humbling S4E3: "Remapping Lava" 1:01:04

3y ago1:01:04

1:01:04

We’ve been listening back to the first episode we made, almost two years ago, in the early weeks of the time of Covid. Maybe it’s the influence of revisiting those early episodes, or maybe it has to do with Dougald turning up to our January recording with a glass of bubbly in hand, but we find ourselves ranging freely – and at some length – in this…

1
The Great Humbling S4E2: "The Commonplace" 35:17

3y ago35:17

35:17

This episode starts with a little reflection on our new more-or-less monthly schedule, and in the course of this episode, we talk about a few other podcasts: Ingrid Rieser's Forest of Thought Per Johansson & Eric Schüldt's Swedish-language Myter och mysterier Ed's other podcast, Jon Richardson & the Futurenauts The Sacred, a podcast from the think …

1
The Great Humbling S4E1: 'Confessions' 37:09

3y ago37:09

37:09

The Great Humbling is back for a fourth series of conversations between Dougald Hine and Ed Gillespie, now as part of the wider patchwork of Homeward Bound. Our theme for this first episode is confessions, but we start by looking back over the summer that's gone. Ed offers us Carol Campayne's seasonal map of responsible leadership with questions th…

1
The Great Humbling S3E8: 'Now...breathe!' 53:43

3+ y ago53:43

53:43

We begin with some listener feedback from last week’s ‘Get on your knees!’ about prayer… Before Dougald introduces our final instruction of the workout… Now Breathe! We talk about the beautiful, simple pleasures of a degree of lockdown emergence, how Build Back Better went from a call for a radical progressive alliance to seize the moment of the pa…

1
The Great Humbling S3E7: 'Get on your knees!' 46:46

3+ y ago46:46

46:46

Ed talks about Martin Shaw’s new book ‘Smokehole - looking to the wild in the time of the spyglass’ and the line ‘The mess out there is because of a mess in here’ Dougald discusses the difference between privilege, entitlement and the ‘work that is mine to do’ and references Alastair McIntosh’s four questions: "Does what I do feed the hungry?" "Is …

1
The Great Humbling S3E6: 'Small yourself up!' 47:47

3+ y ago47:47

47:47

Dougald references a long essay by David Cayley, ‘Gaia and the path of the Earth’ and Bruno Latour’s book, Facing Gaia, contradictions ‘must be endured and sustained, not resolved or overcome’ and Vanessa Andreotti on ‘layering’ Ed talks about his first paddle upstream from the Mill and introduces this week’s instruction: ‘Small yourself up’?! via …

1
The Great Humbling S3E5: 'See Double!' 41:42

3+ y ago41:42

41:42

Dougald realises how his work these days has come to orbit around the future and discovers he’s accidentally became a futurist Ed shares his journey to accidental, reluctant, futurism Then Dougald introduces this week’s instruction is ‘See Double!’ Ed talks about Double Vision or Diplopia - the simultaneous perception of two images of a single obje…

1
The Great Humbling S3E4: 'Do shrooms!' 48:46

3+ y ago48:46

48:46

Dougald shares Lucille Clifton’s poem ‘Blessing the boats’ And this week’s instruction is – ‘Do Shrooms!’ Ed introduces one of the inspirations for the episode Merlin Sheldrake’s book, ‘Entangled Life - How fungi make our worlds, change our minds and shape our futures’ Dougald talks about his fly agaric birthday cake. For his fifth birthday. And th…

1
The Great Humbling S3E3: 'Be like water!' 44:54

3+ y ago44:54

44:54

Dougald talks about Campfire Convention https://campfireconvention.uk/ Ed introduces this week’s ‘New Move’ instruction: Be Like Water Dougald tells a story about meeting Cindy Crabb on a North Sea ferry and receiving her zine, later compiled as the Encyclopedia of Doris, a review at Zine Nation says ‘it’s not an overstatement to say that it’s one …

1
The Great Humbling S3E2: 'Move your ass!' 43:41

3+ y ago43:41

43:41

Let’s get ready to humble! This episode’s instruction is ‘Move Your Ass!’ and Dougald finds himself saying words that have literally never come out of his mouth Dougald talks about finding a place to call HOME. Ed talks about moving to a three hundred year old wooden Norfolk water Mill and horse skull floors. As always we explore the etymology: ‘Mo…

1
The Great Humbling S3E1: 'Keep it foolish!' 43:04

3+ y ago43:04

43:04

Welcome to series three of the Great Humbling – ‘New Moves’. And given that we’re returning on the 1st of April, which is obviously no accident, your first move is… Keep It Foolish! “A deliberately non-sensical parting farewell, popularised in the TV programme 'Nathan Barley'. It approximately means 'see you later' and 'don't take life too seriousl…

1
The Great Humbling S2E8: 'State of Limbo' 53:37

4y ago53:37

53:37

We start with a reference to Kenny Rogers to ‘see what condition our condition is in? Then in the context of the US election this clip: https://twitter.com/aoc/status/1158569576168402945?s=21 from Professor Eddie Glaude of African American studies at Princeton ‘White Americans confronting the danger of their innocence’ Dougald talks about Alan Garn…

1
The Great Humbling S2E7: 'State of Jeopardy' 51:25

4y ago51:25

51:25

In the week before the US election we finally do an episode where we talk about American politics and how it fits into this larger conversation about what it means if we’re living in a time of great humbling. ‘Jeopardy’ was originally used in the 14th century in chess and other games to denote a problem, or a position in which the chances of winnin…

1
The Great Humbling S2E6: 'State of Play' 45:57

4y ago45:57

45:57

Do grown-ups play? What’s been playing on our minds this week? Ed talks about the House of Beautiful Business - ‘The Great Wave’, hislove letter to the ocean (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5MvdgAZThw&feature=youtu.be) and ‘Wild Solo’...and their playful silent hour farewell...the embodiment of playfulness...mime, secret notes, hugs, smiling with…

1
The Great Humbling S2E5: 'State of Anger' 43:53

4y ago43:53

43:53

“If you’re not angry, you’re not paying attention” Dougald pays to get emails from a very angry man – Mic Wright’s Substack, Conquest of the Useless (which he picked up via Chris T-T’s The Border Crossing newsletter) Ed shares his ‘Twitter Hate-storm’ story! (https://mashable.com/article/covert-photos-strangers-going-viral-twitter/?europe=true) Fro…

1
The Great Humbling S2E4: 'State of Tension' 44:34

4y ago44:34

44:34

Here we are in a state of tension… What have we been reading? ‘The Precipice - Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity by Toby Ord: https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/the-precipice-9781526600219/ Revisiting The Road by Cormac McCarthy Paul Behren's brilliant The Best of Times / the Worst of Times Balance these with voices that straddle different sca…

1
The Great Humbling S2E3: 'State of Panic' 43:55

4y ago43:55

43:55

We start as is traditional with what's been getting us thinking this week... Ed talks about the film My Octopus Teacher and Nick Cohen in the Observer on ‘Sweden as the right’s fantasy land’. This leads us onto some memorable Swedish expressions: ‘there is no cow on the ice’ (= don’t panic!); ‘Now you’ve really shat in the blue cupboard’ (another S…

1
The Great Humbling S2E2 'State of Grace' 46:47

4y ago46:47

46:47

We start with Adam Ramsay, ‘Queer Eye’, Jordan Peterson and the Battle for Depressed Men – https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/queer-eye-jordan-peterson-and-the-battle-for-depressed-men/ Do we really have to choose between Carl Jung and archetypal psychology on the one side and Antonio Gramsci and the analysis of hegemony on the other side? We reflect…

1
The Great Humbling S2E1: 'State of Alert' 46:09

4y ago46:09

46:09

We call these conversations the Great Humbling because we start from a sense that this is a time of being humbled, brought down to earth, and we want to ask what happens if we approach the moment we’re in on those terms? In this second season each week we’ll be taking a state of mind that seems to be part of the mix of being alive just now. So this…

1
The Great Humbling Season 2 Trailer 2:40

4y ago2:40

2:40

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.homewardbound.orgBy Dougald Hine

1
Can you solve the honeybee riddle? | Dan Finkel 4:58

4y ago4:58

4:58

You're a biologist on a mission to keep the rare honeybee Apis Trifecta from going extinct. The last 60 bees of the species are in your terrarium. You've already constructed wire frames of the appropriate size and shape. Now you need to turn them into working beehives by filling every hex with wax. Can you help the bees create producing hives? Dan …

1
Ethical dilemma: The burger murders | George Siedel and Christine Ladwig 5:25

4y ago5:25

5:25

You founded a company that manufactures meatless burgers that are sold in stores worldwide. But you've recently received awful news: three people in one city died after eating your burgers. A criminal has injected poison into your product! The deaths are headline news and sales have plummeted. How do you deal with the crisis? George Siedel and Chri…

1
No one can figure out how eels have sex | Lucy Cooke 5:42

4y ago5:42

5:42

From Ancient Greece to the 20th century, Aristotle, Freud, and numerous other scholars were all looking for the same thing: eel testicles. Freshwater eels could be found in rivers across Europe, but no one had ever seen them mate and no researcher could find eel eggs or identify their reproductive organs. So how do eels reproduce, and where do they…

1
How do our brains process speech? | Gareth Gaskell 4:21

4+ y ago4:21

4:21

The average 20-year-old knows between 27,000 and 52,000 different words. Spoken out loud, most of these words last less than a second. With every word, the brain has a quick decision to make: which of those thousands of options matches the signal? And about 98% of the time, the brain chooses the correct word. How is this possible? Gareth Gaskell di…

1
The myth of Jason, Medea, and the Golden Fleece | Iseult Gillespie 4:29

4+ y ago4:29

4:29

In Colchis, the hide of a mystical flying ram hangs from the tallest oak, guarded by a dragon who never sleeps. The only way Jason can pry it from King Aeetes' clutches and win back his promised throne is by facing three perilous tasks— without the help of the Argonauts. Unbeknownst to the king, his daughter Medea was plotting something. Iseult Gil…

1
The rise and fall of the Celtic warriors | Philip Freeman 4:51

4+ y ago4:51

4:51

One summer evening in 335 BCE, Alexander the Great was resting by the Danube River when a band of strangers approached his camp. Alexander had never seen anything like these tall, fierce-looking warriors with huge golden neck rings and colorful cloaks. They were Keltoi or Celts— a collection of independent tribes spread across Europe. Philip Freema…

Podcasts Worth a Listen

Ed Gillespie Podcasts

Podcasts Worth a Listen

Quick Reference Guide