London by Lockdown

London by Lockdown

A podcast about falling in love with a new city in the middle of a pandemic; remaining curious and open in strange and chaotic times; and about making it work.

Episodes

July 7, 2022 57 mins

In this episode, hear about why we left, how we left, our last two London adventures, and the toll London took on Craig’s mental health.

If you go to England, you bound to turn mad

— Olive Senior ‘I’m quite alright with that’ (Not Quite Right For Us)

 

My images of London are illusions.

My two years i...

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Hear about Shona’s da’s story; learn about the highland clearances, the 10-pound poms, and how people fashion intimate connections and meaning in countries far from their place of birth; and travel through 400 years of UK Departures and Arrivals. (Two years ago today, the UK locked down.)

 

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February 20, 2022 25 mins

A fete in a cemetery, a tiny underground mail train, and a museum in a shopping centre. Come and celebrate everything that’s NOT the British Museum.

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Nunhead Cemetery Open Day

Bug hunts, whittling workshops, crypt tours, a petting zoo, ice cream — a ‘typical...

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October 11, 2021 24 mins

The idea of travel brings with it the promise of exotic places filled with interesting people, and images of glittering beaches and crystal clear water, or adventure, relaxation, or even a family holiday. But that’s for those who are able to come and go as they please: one person’s exploration is another’s exploitation. For many, ‘travel’ has been ‘not quite right&r...

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June 30, 2021 21 mins

Love touches us all at some point — from dependable familial bonds to the warm comfort of childhood pets, from the heady perfume of romance to the cherished appreciation of community, culture, country. The physical and emotional connections transcend barriers, cross generations and borders. And yet, love can sometimes be ‘not quite right’, taking where it should be giving, causing de...

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April 23, 2021 15 mins

A series of hard-hitting tidbits about London life, including an insight into the cultural icon that is Henry Hoover.

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The pandemic isn’t linear or coherent. I started writing an article about my claustrophobic thoughts about an unknown lockdown. A city that once paid no attention is now all ears, in the wake of sirens marking time — as the only time stamp they move through the streets faster...

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March 7, 2021 34 mins

As a community and a nation we can’t know where we are, where we’re going, or where we could be if our map is faulty, incomplete or badly drawn. We also miss out on great stories. In this episode authors Jacqueline Roy, SI Martin and Nicola Williams expertly guide us through Britain’s past and present. So come celebrate the UK’s diverse and brilliant Black British voices with us.

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January 24, 2021 44 mins

This episode looks at Aboriginal resistance and activism in London and England — as told by First Nations people. As non-Indigenous people born on the Australian continent, Craig acknowledges he was born on Ngunnawal Country, and Shona acknowledges she was born on the land of the Kulin Nation.

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Every January Australia finds itself running headlong down a steep hill towards the 26th. We’re in ...

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December 24, 2020 14 mins

It’s almost the end of 2020. As a special gift for getting through a hard year, in this bonus episode we share one of our all time favourite pieces of radio, and a holiday classic: ‘Xmas in Merimbula’ by Kayla (then aged 8).

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Some 30 years ago, aged 17, I first heard The Pogues’ ‘Fairytale of New York’ and fell in love with the city, the band and the song — and a...

November 23, 2020 25 mins

When a 1979 BBC documentary titled "Who is Poly Styrene?" introduces us to the punk singer’s work, we become utterly fascinated. With help from Poly’s daughter Celeste Bell, musician Rhoda Dakar and archival audio from Poly herself, this episode explores why her work looks, feels and sounds so relevant today.

I know your antiseptic, your deodorant smells nice I’d like to get to know you, you’re deep frozen ...

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November 10, 2020 18 mins

In this episode we talk about what it's like to be in work, to be out of work, and what it’s like looking for work in a pandemic.

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I’m a workaholic.

In 2015 I forgot how to swallow.

Every time I ate, it felt like a bit of food lodged in my throat. It was intermittent at first; then it would happen a couple if times during a meal; then it was every time I swallowed, and no matter how much wa...

September 21, 2020 4 mins

What’s it like to be twelve and in lockdown

In this short bonus episode our niece Kayla has recorded her reflections on the ways Covid-19 has impacted on her and her friends.

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We love everything about our nieces and nephew: their creativity, their questions, the songs they sing, the art they make... Every time we video call Tom and Sadie, Tom needs proof that if it’s day there, then it&rsquo...

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August 28, 2020 18 mins

This episode uncovers lost rivers, a smelly ogre and a magical reawakening.

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Once upon a time there was a river...
I love rivers. The Birrarung (Yarra) in Naarm (Melbourne); the Murrumbidgee skirting Canberra; how the Maiwar (Brisbane River) psychologically and spiritually dominates the city of Meanjin (Brisbane) like no other river I’ve encountered; the powerful convergence of the Derbarl Yerrigan...

July 31, 2020 32 mins

From my home to yours.

In this episode author, travel podcaster and poet Maame Blue drops by to chat about London, Naarm (Melbourne), travel and... oh yeah, her debut novel "Bad Love" (Jacaranda Books).

"I’m not a romantic. I don’t know how to tell those kinds of stories, the ones filled with magic and laughter and a purple hue. Romance has never connected with me in that way. But love — hard, bad, rough love &m...

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July 15, 2020 11 mins

How much Iso birthday fun can two people have?

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I arrived four weeks early: induced, tiny, underfed. My ‘origin story’, according to my parents: when the doctors heard my heartbeat weakening, they induced; once born, they used tissue-sized nappies. Details are thin on the ground, but I’m the eldest, so I imagine my parents were really stressed and probably didn’t have all the info...

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June 15, 2020 12 mins

In this episode we see if Craig can make a new friend during lockdown.

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Between mid 1990 and early 1991 I had a recurring dream (Grades 11 & 12 at Lake Ginninderra College). I’m sitting in the shallows of a lake... I’m unnerved because a near drowning a few years earlier means I don’t swim. Thunder, lighting and wind convulse the water into a wave that propels me from the land. I&rs...

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May 27, 2020 11 mins

In this episode we turn our attention to those everyday sounds we often overlook: the creaks, the squeaks, the buzzes and the pops that we build our daily soundtracks around without necessarily noticing.

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Whenever travelling in a new place it’s easy for our attention to be hijacked by the grandiose: the British Museum, Tower of London, Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, Tower Bridge. End to end, our flat ...

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May 15, 2020 17 mins

In this episode we learn about the place we now call home.

“In the beginning there was a river. The river became a road and the road branched out to the whole world. And because the road was once a river it was always hungry.”

So eloquent is the opening to Ben Okri’s The Famished Road (one of my all-time favourite novels), that those three sentences, drifting as they do between histories and worlds, truths and f...

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May 8, 2020 10 mins

In this episode your intrepid lockdown travellers tackle the big food questions.

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What are Romanesco broccoli and celeriac and what do you do with them?
What’s the great “jollof rice controversy”?
How hot is too hot for a vindaloo?
Shouldn’t we all eat cheese scones every day?
Are vegetarian Scotch eggs worth it?

Thanks
Opening & Closing Credits by Unregistered Master Builder
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May 1, 2020 9 mins

In this episode we reflect on a confusing couple of weeks and try to make sense of events that almost don't make any sense at all.

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During February and March we were house hunting. My memories of those confused weeks are thin — I’d just arrived from the other side of the world, and as much as I search for a linear and coherent story, none exists. I remember having to shake off claustrophobic ...

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