Weeks late, the mid-2025 series finally draws to a close. Our special guest today is Scottish author and social researcher David F Porteous, and we cover a lot of different topics.
In this episode we talk about K-pop and plate tectonics, the naming of cats, Oasis and AC/DC, the trickiness of venomous snakes and drug-addled spiders, Donald Trump’s visit to the UK, defamation, the nature of community, Nepal’s Gen Z protests — and we even get our Barlows confused.
This episode was recorded back on Friday 19 September, which explains some of the date references.
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Episode Links
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The official website of Scottish Author David F Porteous
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Author. Podcaster. Social researcher. Karaoke superstar. New novel ‘The Wicker Man Preservation Society’ is out 21 June 21.
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[25 September 2025] Stewart Lee returns to the show, to join Armando in discussing 'hurty words'.
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The Edinburgh Festival Fringe, often referred to as the Edinburgh Fringe or simply the Fringe, is the world’s largest performing arts festival. In 2025, it ran for 25 days, selling over 2.6 million tickets, and featured 53,942 performances of 3,893 shows across 301 venues, with participants from 68 countries.
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Oasis are [sic] an English rock band formed in Manchester in 1991
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AC/DC are an Australian rock band formed in Sydney in 1973. Their music has been variously described as hard rock, blues rock and heavy metal, although the band calls it simply "rock and roll".
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On 29 July 2023, Erin Trudi Patterson intentionally poisoned four of her relatives with highly toxic death cap mushrooms, resulting in the death of three, and serious injury to a fourth. The poisonings took place during a lunch at Patterson's home in Leongatha, Victoria, Australia.
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Drunk Women Solving Crime is a true crime podcast with a twist… of lime. Join writer/comedian hosts Hannah George and Taylor Glenn as they welcome top guests from comedians to crime writers to test out their drunk detective skills.
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As of 2025, there are 3,971 known snake species worldwide, with around 600 venomous species. This is an overview of the snakes that pose a significant health risk to humans, through snakebites or other physical trauma.
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The common death adder (Acanthophis antarcticus) is a species of death adder native to Australia. It is one of the most venomous land snakes in Australia and globally.
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The Irukandji jellyfish (/ˌɪrəˈkændʒi/ IRR-ə-KAN-jee) are any of several similar, extremely venomous species of rare box jellyfish. With a very small adult size of about a cubic centimetre (1 cm3 or 0.061 in3), they are both one of the smallest and one of the most venomous jellyfish in the world.
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[18 September 2025] Donald Trump has accused an Australian journalist of "hurting Australia" after he was asked about his business deals while in office.
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Segway Inc. is a Chinese owned, formerly American manufacturer of two-wheeled personal transporters, chiefly through its Segway PT and Segway miniPro product lines. Founded by inventor Dean Kamen in 1999, the company's name is a homophone of the word "segue".
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In September 2025, large-scale anti-corruption protests and demonstrations took place across Nepal, predominantly organized by Generation Z students and young citizens. Also known as "the Gen Z protests", they began following a nationwide ban on numerous social media platforms, and they incorporated the public's frustration with corruption and display of wealth by government officials and their families, as well as allegations of mismanagement of public funds.
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[17 September 2025] Nepal's Gen Z protesters brought down a government in under 48 hours – but the victory has come at a heavy price.
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"Relax" is the debut single by English new wave band Frankie Goes to Hollywood, released in the United Kingdom by ZTT Records in 1983. Produced by Trevor Horn and featuring the band along with other musicians, entered the UK Top 75 singles chart in November 1983 but did not crack the Top 40 until early January 1984.
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The official video for Frankie Goes To Hollywood's 'Relax'.
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Trevor Charles Horn (born 15 July 1949) is an English record producer and musician. His influence on pop and electronic music in the 1980s was such that he has been called "the man who invented the eighties".
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Playlist of the full concert.
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Barlow is one of the United Kingdom's most successful songwriters, having written fifteen number-one singles (twelve with Take That, two solo, one with the Robbie Williams song "Candy") and twenty-four top-ten hits.
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Subduction is a geological process in which the oceanic lithosphere and some continental lithosphere is recycled into the Earth's mantle at the convergent boundaries between tectonic plates. Where one tectonic plate converges with a second plate, the heavier plate dives beneath the other and sinks into the mantle. A region where this process occurs is known as a subduction zone, and its surface expression is known as an arc-trench complex. The process of subduction has created most of the Earth's continental crust.
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Plate tectonics (from Latin tectonicus, from Ancient Greek τεκτονικός (tektonikós) 'pertaining to building') is the scientific theory that Earth's lithosphere comprises a number of large tectonic plates, which have been slowly moving since 3–4 billion years ago. The model builds on the concept of continental drift, an idea developed during the first decades of the 20th century.
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At 05:12 AM Pacific Standard Time on Wednesday, April 18, 1906, the coast of Northern California was struck by a major earthquake with an estimated moment magnitude of 7.9 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of XI (Extreme). High-intensity shaking was felt from Eureka on the North Coast to the Salinas Valley, an agricultural region to the south of the San Francisco Bay Area.
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On March 11, 2011, a major nuclear accident started at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Ōkuma, Fukushima, Japan. The direct cause was the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, which resulted in electrical grid failure and damaged nearly all of the power plant's backup energy sources. The subsequent inability to sufficiently cool reactors after shutdown compromised containment and resulted in the release of radioactive contaminants into the surrounding environment.
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[24 January 2024] The owner of Hinkley Point C has blamed inflation, Covid and Brexit as it announced the nuclear power plant project could be delayed by a further four years, and cost £2.3bn more.
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[22 July 2025] The cost of building the Sizewell C nuclear power plant in Suffolk has jumped to £38bn, adding £1 a month to household energy bills for at least a decade.
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Thorium-based nuclear power generation is fueled primarily by the nuclear fission of the isotope uranium-233 produced from the fertile element thorium. A thorium fuel cycle can offer several potential advantages over a uranium fuel cycle—including the much greater abundance of thorium found on Earth, superior physical and nuclear fuel properties, and reduced nuclear waste production.
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[4 March 2025] EDF says it has "recently become aware of a new type of acoustic fish deterrent system that could be installed and operated in a way likely to be safe and effective in the waters of the Severn".
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It turns out there is an entire science dedicated to animal musicality. Multiple studies over the past few decades have confirmed that animal behavior is affected by music. One study revealed that many animals have preferences for different types of music and that different behaviors in response to music depend upon the species.
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A NASA tech briefing “Using Spider-Web Patterns To Determine Toxicity” was published in April 1995. The work was done by researchers at Marshall Space Flight Center to see how various substances — including caffeine — affect spider web patterns.
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Kenneth "Ken" Barlow is a fictional character from the British ITV soap opera Coronation Street, played by William Roache. He was created by Tony Warren as one of Coronation Street's original characters and December 2020 marked Ken's 60th anniversary onscreen.
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Plave (Korean: 플레이브; stylized in all caps) is a South Korean virtual boy band formed by Vlast. The group consists of five members: Yejun, Noah, Bamby, Eunho, and Hamin.
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[19 September 2025] A court in South Korea has ordered a social media user to pay 500,000 won ($360; £265) for defaming a K-pop boyband - whose members are virtual characters.
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[5 September 2020] Duncan Bendall said his ex-wife Fiona, 42, pushed him out of the firm after their marriage collapsed.
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In an interview prompted by the 2010 episode, Bertrand appeared to admit that he was not the vocalist [for "Ça plane pour moi"] but in a follow-up interview the next day he denied this, saying he was being ironic and had been trapped, and threatening legal action. This echoed a similar incident in the 1990s when Bertrand seemed to tell journalist Gilles Verlant that he was not the singer before quickly retracting. Since 2010, Bertrand has consistently said that he is the performer on the original recording, and this remains the position in law.
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Josie and the Pussycats (formatted as Josie and the Pussy Cats in the opening titles) is an American animated television series based upon the Archie Comics comic book series of the same name created by Dan DeCarlo.
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[25 October 2014] Graham Norton chats to Benedict Cumberbatch about him not being able to say "Penguins".
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Sherlock is a British mystery crime drama television series based on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes detective stories. Created by Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss, the show starred Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock Holmes and Martin Freeman as Doctor John Watson.
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CONVERSATION TOPICS: Joanna Forbes, Peter Viertel, and one person who chooses to remain anonymous.
THREE TRIGGER WORDS: Bernard Walsh, Paul Williams, and Peter Lieverdink.
WE WILL, WE WILL JUDGE YOU, part of Another Untitled Music Podcast: Bic Smith, Gavin Costello, stabfish, and one person who chooses to remain anonymous.
ONE TRIGGER WORD: Andrew Best, Ashley Walsh, Bic Smith, David Porteous, Frank Filippone, Jamie Morrison, Jim Campbell, Kym Yeap, Mark Newton, Michael, Mindy Johnson, Miriam Faye, Nicole Coombe, Oliver Townshend, Peter Blakeley, Peter McCrudden, Peter Wickins, Ric Hayman, Stephen Collins, Tom Carding, and one person who chooses to remain anonymous.
PERSONALISED VIDEO MESSAGE: Briala Bowmer.
PERSONALISED AUDIO MESSAGE: Kimberley Heitman, KO Hall, and Matt Arkell.
FOOT SOLDIERS FOR MEDIA FREEDOM who gave a SLIGHTLY LESS BASIC TIP: Andrew B, Craig Askings, Errol Cavit, James Henstridge, Lindsay, Lucas James, Peter Blakeley, and one person who chooses to remain anonymous.
MEDIA FREEDOM CITIZENS who contributed a BASIC TIP: None this time, which is curious.
And another seven people who chose to have no reward at all, even though some of them were the most generous of all. Thank you all so much. You know who you are.
Series Credits
- The 9pm Edict theme by mansardian via The Freesound Project.
- Edict fanfare by neonaeon, via The Freesound Project.
- Elephant Stamp theme by Joshua Mehlman.