Episodes

  • The Christmas Drink Face-Off: Indulgent Irish Cream or astringent coupe de champagne?

    The Christmas Drink Face-Off: Indulgent Irish Cream or astringent coupe de champagne?
    Dec 24 2025

    Cheers! Santé! Suzanne retraces the history of a 1970s Soho brainwave of deliciousness and Muriel obeys the traditional Pavlovian call of Champenois fizz


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    42 mins
  • The Christmas Telly Face-Off: Reithian British Monument or Gallic social satire?

    The Christmas Telly Face-Off: Reithian British Monument or Gallic social satire?
    Dec 23 2025

    Suzanne brings a whole lotta Christmas to the table and parses the delights of the double issue of the Radio Times; Muriel unpacks a cult French sitcom about two contrasting lifestyles of the bourgeoisie


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    51 mins
  • The Christmas Carol Face-Off: Pre-Raphaelite Poetry or Socialist Manifesto?

    The Christmas Carol Face-Off: Pre-Raphaelite Poetry or Socialist Manifesto?
    Dec 19 2025

    Suzanne makes a compelling case for the evocative beauty of In the Bleak Midwinter and its landscape imagery infused with spirituality; Muriel wonders how Minuit, Chrétiens, a rousing carol authored by a Socialist firebrand and a stage composer, made it into the French Catholic choral canon.


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    28 mins
  • The Christmas Treat Face-Off: Quality Street or marrons glacés?

    The Christmas Treat Face-Off: Quality Street or marrons glacés?
    Dec 17 2025

    Muriel and Suzanne are swapping seasonal treats: masses of cheerful multicoloured candy vs a handful of meticulously crafted products of the terroir. Both delicious, but what do they say about the British and the French at Christmas?


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    43 mins
  • The Christmas Chart-Topper Face-Off: Beguiling Pop or Kitsch Cosiness?

    The Christmas Chart-Topper Face-Off: Beguiling Pop or Kitsch Cosiness?
    Dec 12 2025
    Suzanne takes a punt at the 2025 Christmas No1 and crowns 1984 as the very best vintage of British Christmas charts; Muriel explains how and why the French Christmas No1, a 'secular carol' by venerated crooner Tino Rossi, remains unchanged since 1946.

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    41 mins
  • Metal Detectors: What goes 'beep beep' all over the land and is typically British? The gentle army of treasure seekers hoping to find an Anglo-Saxon hoard!

    Metal Detectors: What goes 'beep beep' all over the land and is typically British? The gentle army of treasure seekers hoping to find an Anglo-Saxon hoard!
    Dec 5 2025
    In which Suzanne unearths the story of a major British hobby and its relationship with landscape and the romance of the past. Why are the British obsessed with metal detecting? What is their Arthurian code of practice? What are portable antiquities? Who are the night hawkers? What does all this reveal about British attitudes to liberty, in stark contrast to France? Includes helpful pointers about buying the best metal detector, and Alexander Graham Bell as an unexpected star of the show!

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    1 hr and 3 mins
  • French Politicians and Clairvoyants: The French worship Reason and critical thinking, don't they? So why do Presidents (and mayors), who serve the French Republic, love the occult so much?

    French Politicians and Clairvoyants: The French worship Reason and critical thinking, don't they? So why do Presidents (and mayors), who serve the French Republic, love the occult so much?
    Nov 28 2025

    Muriel tackles an awkward truth: the French may love rigour and rationality – France is the nation of Descartes, after all – but they are also susceptible to the allure of psychics, the alignment of the stars, and angels calling on the phone from beyond. How has this survived the advent of the Enlightenment and the Revolution? And what does it mean in terms of our relationship to super-forecasting and superstition, Suzanne wonders.


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    53 mins
  • The British Tax Year: The French tax year is aligned on the calendar year, but not the British. Why not? Popes, Catholicism, the Reformation!

    The British Tax Year: The French tax year is aligned on the calendar year, but not the British. Why not? Popes, Catholicism, the Reformation!
    Nov 21 2025
    In which Suzanne investigates profound differences between our two cultures by asking why the British tax year is not, like in France, aligned onto the calendar year. The answers, which astonish Muriel, are deeply rooted in Britain's relationship to the Continent. It's a story of mathematics and astrology, Popes, bishops and archbishops, Catholicism and the Reformation, and, of course, Acts of Parliament, which opens a vertiginous crack in time. Elizabeth I, John Dee and Isaac Newton all guest star.

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    57 mins