Awwwwwww, GEEK OUT!

Le geek, c'est chic.

Which is Mistress-La-Spliffe shorthand for 'I've become a fucking podcast addict.' Can't be stopped. I'm that sort of boring learner who was always pulling in the big marks in uni without being all that competent - the sort who can sit there and listen, maybe read from time to time, and learn all she has to learn to get the fuckin' As that way. All of which means I am prime podcast country and they have settled me like crazy. I fuckin' love them. Listen to them an hour a day whilst trekking to work and back, and even at work if all I'm doing is transcribing, and I swear to you no subject is too boring that I can't listen to a nice podcast about it.

The CBC, Canada's national broadcaster, has some nice ones. So does the ABC, Australia's national broadcaster, which have the added benefit of getting me used to that ridiculous accent in people other than my own sweet darling F-word, who would be my own sweet darling no matter what retarded accent he talked with - even if he talked like me, who easily has the single most retarded accent in the Anglophone world. Think one of the whores from Fargo who's been living with an Australian for a few years in a Francophone country, and you've just about got the sheer fucking ugliness of it. God, am I ever glad I don't have to listen to my own voice during sex. It must be fucking atrocious.

Anyhoo, yesterday I heard an absolutely lovely one from the IIASA that I must reccommend from heterodox economist Ha-Joon Chang. Don't be scared by the 'economist'. It's a lovely talk that cuts through all the political cant about free-trade-good this and protectionism-bad that - far more of a historical than numerical focus, as it was a talk given to a bunch of non-economists. Go on. Give it a listen. For nothing else, then for Ha-Joon Chang's adorable accent. I could listen to Koreans speak English all day. Fuck the French and the Queen and Southern Belles and everybody else who's supposed to be all cute when they talk English. The Korean accent easily beats them all, both for clarity and prettiness.