these weird isles

Glastonbury is the capital of These Weird Isles. Forget the Festival, wander into town. It is the epicentre of the age old longing for some half hidden Celtic twilight, a nostalgia for a time that never was, a home of sorcerers, eccentrics, tarot readers and crystal magic. If towns are rock bands, Glastonbury is Hawkwind.

The Potteries was once the centre of the ceramics industry in Britain. But the industry in this country was slow to produce porcelain, the secret of which was first discovered in Dresden by an incarcerated alchemist and trickster.

Rambling through a churchyard in Amersham to see the grave of Arthur Machen I discover the resting place of Ruth Ellis, the last woman to be executed in the UK. A small amount of digging reveals the prosecution was led by a Buddhist, the same barrister who represented the Crown in the trials of Derek Bentley and also of Timothy Evans, both hanged, and both later declared innocent and whose unfortu...

Suffolk is a county of clouds, and on the coast, in a holiday chalet in Kessingland, we struggle to remember codes, and are not easily calmed by the decor. to get in touch via email: use 'these weird isles' as one word, then add @gmail.com

These Weird Isles - the second of two podcasts in which I explore Japan - islands as weird as the UK . I discover a space at the centre of the Japanese belief system and reflect on how the Japanese must perceive the British.

The first of a two part interlude - Those Weird Isles: Japan. Next time - Kyoto.

The South Downs is a one hundred mile long ridge of chalk laid down in the cretaceous period. Chalk is the remains of single celled creatures that drifted through the oceans around 140 to 66 million years ago. It makes up most of south east England and is a relatively young rock, but travel north and west and the geology of the UK gets much older. The science of geology deals with these huge time...

This is the 'Happy Valley' of Sgt Catherine Cawood, and the home of the Cragg Valley Coiners. Ted Hughes, Poet Laureate was born here, his wife, Sylvia Plath, is buried here. We stayed in a converted piggery on a hilltop, where jackdaws tapped at the window and the fog sealed us off from the world outside. Spoiler alert: a glimpse of the end of Series 3 is given away here.

A misguided attempt to record on site, an 'outside broadcast' which degenerates into a pub crawl. I'm joined by Caerleon resident and local historian Will O'Connell, a man whose knowledge of Caerleon he doesn't share with us here. Most of this podcast takes place in the Roman fortress town in south Wales. It's a fascinating place, but we spent most of our time in the pub. You'll learn nothing.

A trip to East Anglia, to the Fens and to Norfolk in search of finger in the ear folk singers, Brexit country and a vision of the future when the floods come and the UK becomes a minor archipelago, its lowlands lost and forgotten under the North Sea. (I drove east, not west, from Cardiff. This mistake was not deliberate. I am an idiot).

The dubious story of the Neanderthal brothers of Tregaron and the role of the equally reclusive cyberneticist Stafford Beer in world events.

George Orwell on Jura writing 1984, smoking roll ups and trying to shake off tuberculosis.

William Hershel, professional musician, amateur astronomer, discoverer of Uranus, built a telescope in Slough so huge it remained the biggest in the world for fifty years.

Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein in Bath. Jane Austen lived there a few years before. Could the two have crossed paths?

The Cornish pastiche: Tintagel, a castle on a rocky outcrop, is this Camelot? No, it's not.

The Omphalos, Sandycove, near Dublin is a Martello tower and the setting of the opening chapters of James Joyce's Ulysses. 'Omphalos' is the Greek for 'navel', the centre of the ancient world. Ulysses is a navel novel.

Reg Presley, suddenly rich from the proceeds of a hit song, devotes his money and time to uncovering the secrets of the Warminster Triangle: UFOs, crop circles and the changing shape of planet Earth. Reg is voiced by Long John Silver.

Kathleen Schlesinger, born in Holywood, Belfast, in 1862, was a music archaeologist who published a major study of the ancient Greek wind instrument, the aulos. Her fascination with tuning systems led to lifelong collaboration with Australian microtonal composer Elsie Hamilton. Thanks to Kate Bowan for sending me a copy of her article 'Living Between Worlds Ancient and Modern'.

Silbury Hill - the largest man made mound in Europe, built around the same time as the Great Pyramids, sits on the side of the A4 in Wiltshire. It's a sombre dome, a green whale, an alien submarine. Is it a monument to the Great Goddess? A watchtower? A swollen node on a ley line? No, it's a big cake.

A cuttlefish squirts sepia ink and creates a pseudomorph of itself to divert predators. With a little more know-how it could manufacture 3d sepia images of Weston's Grand Pier, its Big Wheel or Helicopter Museum.

Acton, London W3, where I discovered Welsh writer Arthur Machen in the library, slightly dishevelled, jacket all ripped.

Goat's Hole Cave, Paviland, on the Gower peninsular, south Wales, is the site of a prehistoric ceremonial burial, one of the oldest in Europe and earliest evidence of modern humans on these islands. There are many such caves nearby, eerie, ancient dwelling places, described by the painter Ceri Richards as 'black apples of Gower'.

In Cambridge, looking for the Wittgenstein Archive, we find a brick wall, a skip and a white slip-on shoe.

In Dundee the boots of a seven foot giant stomp up the street. 'Where is my creator?' it howls. Mary Shelley hides behind the settee.

Completed in 1828, the statue of Henry Dundas, Viscount Melville, dominates St Andrew Square. In 1846, Frederick Douglass, author, statesman, anti-slavery campaigner, visited Edinburgh. He would have seen that statue - but was he aware of Dundas’ role in delaying abolition? Do residents or visitors of the city realise Dundas amendment to William Wilberforce’s act led to the enslavement of a furthe...