Garlic & Pearls (Ad-free)
Suzanne and Muriel examine a series of very different things – from a film to a kitchen utensil, a model train to a bar of soap – that define British or French attitudes, each explaining her cultural background to the other and trying to get to the essence of what makes the British British and the French French.
Pub Quizzes: The Nation's Favourite 'Brit of Fun'!
Biros at the ready as Suzanne takes Muriel on a tour of a very British obsession: the pub quiz. Did it begin on a mythical night in Yorkshire in 1946? Is it one of the primary ways in which the British relate to each other socially? And if so, why? Can the Zoom quiz be credited for keeping the natio...
The Institut Français du Royaume-Uni: Britain's Official Portal into French Culture!
With French historian Charlotte Faucher as her guide, Muriel explores the madly ornamental pink-brick Art Deco wonder that is the French Cultural Institute in South Kensington. Though the building dates from 1939, the idea of setting up a French Institute in Britain as a gateway to a better understa...
The Letter J: The Mind-Blowing Creation Story of a British Sound
This episode, full of suspense and mystery, is brought to you by the letter J! In the English language, the letter and its distinctive sound are deployed in their glory, whereas the French soften the letter J (as in je or bijou). The letter's story, which comes to full expression in 1629, is bound w...
Paris The Great Paris Flood of 1910: The City of Light vs Nature!
In 1910, Paris was an ultra-modern electrified metropolis at the height of its confidence, insouciance and triumphant glamour. Then came the winter rains, and the Seine began inexorably to rise, causing chaos and devastation. Parisians living near the river soon found themselves getting about the st...
Bell Ringing: Unique Performing Art and England's 'Loud Noise to the Glory of God'!
Starting with the glorious 1934 novel The Nine Tailors by queen of crime Dorothy L. Sayers, set in the mystical, liminal landscape of the Fens and in the haunting world of ancient bell ringing, Suzanne explores the English art of campanology. Ringing in rounds requires intense mental and physical di...
What We Get Wrong About France, With Debora Robertson, Expat Extraordinaire
Suzanne and Muriel welcome as a special guest the food writer and journalist Debora Robertson. a perceptive observer of French village life in the South-West – and the French psyche – in her Substack, Lickedspoon. She describes what it's like to be an exotic Brit in the French countryside ...
Zebra Crossings: Freedom, Safety and British Science in Black and White!
How, wonders Suzanne, did Britain come to gift the Big Z to the entire world? And how did Britain become a place where pedestrians can expect, in most cases, to find a crossing in the right place? The presence of zebra crossings is the fruit of a long evolution involving bitter parliamentary debates...