Best Vincent / Dinsdale Podcasts (2025)

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Has the Famous Lost Legion Been Found? 17:15

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5M ago17:15

17:15

Legio IX Hispana, the famous Roman 'Lost Legion', disappeared from historical records around 120 AD, and ever since, there have been many theories about where, how and why they disappeared. But maybe, just maybe, we now know the truth. South Mimms University's archaeology department has found something very, very interesting under its High Street. …

1
The Soul, Salvation and the Singularity 16:29

5M ago16:29

16:29

The coming together of the human mind and the digital mind is known as The Singularity, when we become one with computers. Many of the tech oligarchs desire to live forever and believe that uploading their brains and minds to the digital realm as a way of achieving it. It's all part of what's called Transhumanism: augmenting humanity through techno…

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Smoking Seagulls and the Law of Unintended Consequences 16:31

1+ y ago16:31

16:31

The law of unintended consequences applies in some surprising ways, like when you study the behaviour of the super-rich and it leads to getting seagulls hooked on tobacco. It's strange, but true. And quite amusing. The only university that makes you chuckle AND learn at the same time.By Vincent / Dinsdale

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Why Bad Ideas Can Be Good For You 23:50

1+ y ago23:50

23:50

When everyone is telling you that your idea is a bad one, should you keep pursuing it? Most people would think not, but as this short drama shows, sometimes it can be good for you and lead to a better idea. It's counter-intuitive but worth thinking about. Mario writes popular musicals but has a passion for turning The Exorcist into a musical. Bad i…

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If Trump isn't Jesus, is he Santa Claus? 21:35

1+ y ago21:35

21:35

Some people believe that Donald Trump is either the Second Coming of Jesus or a Jesus-like figure worthy of worship. What if he's actually Santa Claus? There's research that shows how some children, when they stop believing in Santa, experience an emotional gap in their lives so they're always seeking a new magical figure to believe in - and along …

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Petrol, Diesel, Electric - What's Next for Cars? 19:41

1+ y ago19:41

19:41

Cars are a conundrum. They're vital but polluting. Even electric cars aren't that great for the environment. Is there another way? At South Mimms we're experimenting with a new kind of power source - and it's as old as time. Don't worry, it's not a wind-up! The only university that makes you chuckle AND learn at the same time.…

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Everybody Loves Cats 20:41

1+ y ago20:41

20:41

When an ailing art museum needs to refresh its image to try and attract more visitors, a German industrialist comes up with an interesting way to get global attention – and it’s all about cats! Which puts the cats amongst the intellectual pigeons. You’ll never see an art gallery in the same way again. The only university that makes you chuckle AND …

1
Close Encounters of the South Mimms Kind 22:56

2y ago22:56

22:56

It's happened! First Contact! And in South Mimms! Only, the aliens haven't done their research very well and emerge speaking a language only a select few understand. It could have been a 'War of the Worlds' scenario, but it turned out to be a strange encounter that is both revealing and enchanting. The only university that makes you chuckle AND lea…

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The Truth about Roswell 24:10

2y ago24:10

24:10

Strange sightings of possible extraterrestrial craft at Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947 kicked off the whole UFO craze not just in the United States, but the entire world. And it's STILL going on. Was it hysteria or evidence that our planet is being observed by aliens? Or was it a navigational error? Were the aliens actually heading for Roswell Farm n…

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The AI Frankenstein Made of Lego! 20:48

2y ago20:48

20:48

Everyone is trying to get on the Artificial Intelligence bandwagon. But creating a Frankenstein monster out of Lego, giving it an AI powered brain, and then bringing it to life in a storm is probably going too far. Especially when the 'monster' turns out to be... a budding Romantic poet. Madness in the wilds of South Mimms, Hertfordshire, England. …

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When the Gods Gave Sisyphus a Leaf Blower 18:45

2y ago18:45

18:45

The Myth of Sisyphus is the ultimate description of futility. Endlessly rolling a rock up a mountain, only for it to roll back down again. One scholar believes that the modern equivalent is the humble - and annoyingly ubiquitous - leaf blower. Blow leaves from here... to there... only for them to blow back again. Is it the perfect metaphor for mode…

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Interview with a Werewolf 21:27

2+ y ago21:27

21:27

There are lycanthropes living amongst us, quietly, carefully, controlling their reactions to the movements of the moon. And there's one in the South Mimms Zoo who just wants a quiet life. But the Zoo is thinking about highlighting its collection of weird wildlife to raise its profile and reduce its reliance on visits by annoying schoolchildren. Mig…

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How Ron DeSantis Sparked a Fig Leaf Revival 19:45

2+ y ago19:45

19:45

The Florida teacher who got fired for showing her class a picture of Michelangelo's David was the first sign of a revival in 'fig leaves'. Not since the Victorian era has the demand for fig leaves - actual and virtual - been so strong, and one South Mimms entrepreneur is cashing in on the big cover up. And there's one twist which will leave Mr. DeS…

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What Happens When You Teach an Animal About Death 16:55

2+ y ago16:55

16:55

Animals understand death, but they don't KNOW that they're going to die. Only humans really understand that they are mortal. But what would happen if you managed to teach an animal about the true nature of their mortality? The consequences might be bad. When one intelligent chimp called Gloria gets 'death wisdom' then all hell breaks loose. The onl…

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Avant Garde or Deliberately Bad? Music Beyond the Limits of Taste 18:14

2+ y ago18:14

18:14

Avant Garde music is notoriously difficult to like. But some people say they do. What if we made music that was so bad that it turned out to be amazingly popular amongst the chattering classes? It worked for Stravinsky and The Rite of Spring' (which is actually quite good really). Our Music Department has a technique that deliberately offends the e…

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Why You Should Look at Queues and Queuing in a Totally New Way 20:22

2+ y ago20:22

20:22

Queues are a part of all our lives. We hate them. We try and avoid them. But there's no escape. So, why not understand how they work and how, every so often, they can lead to an encounter that can change your life. Our Queuing Studies Course, aptly called 'Queuing for Godot', is a great way of changing your mind about queues. The only university th…

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Why Studying Probability Will Get You into Trouble, Probably 20:29

2+ y ago20:29

20:29

When our Mathematics department got together with our Astronomy department and got funding from a new Las Vegas based 'college' - the results were... troubling. The odds on compromising our intellectual credentials were high. The only university that makes you chuckle AND learn at the same time.By Vincent / Dinsdale

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Would Putin use a killer care-home robot to eliminate an old opponent? 20:27

2+ y ago20:27

20:27

He might. And it's possible. More and more robots are being used to care for old people. They use AI to act as companions as well as remind old people to take their medications. So, it's perfectly possible that Putin - notorious for poisoning or defenestrating his opponents - would send a killer robot to eliminate a dissident. We play out the scena…

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What are the Two Most Important Football Matches Ever Played? 16:35

3y ago16:35

16:35

Depending on your team or nationalilty, you might pick any number of vital and exciting matches from the past. But there are two which define how football evolved to become the world's most popular - and probably richest - sport. And they took place at the end of 1862 and the beginning of 1863. They defined the modern rules of the game and forced a…

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Can Chat GPT Defend Itself Against Charges of Being a Plagiarism Engine? 15:13

3y ago15:13

15:13

Why bother writing our own introduction: we’ll get Chat GPT to do it. It’s almost right. “In this podcast, the host defends ChatGPT against accusations of being a plagiarism tool. The host explains that ChatGPT is a language model developed by Open AI and is trained on a massive amount of text data from the internet. The model generates text based …

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When a man believes he's made of glass, life gets fragile 21:01

3y ago21:01

21:01

Our latest offering from the SMU Playhouse is a short play about a man who believes he's made of glass. And it's not so strange an obsession. Since the advent of domestic glass in the late Middle Ages, many men (and they're usually men) have come to believe that they are made of glass and insist on being carried about protected by hay or other soft…

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Malta 1919: The Longest Breath 23:25

3y ago23:25

23:25

A family story that evolved into a chilling myth and an empty old house, that's the start of an investigation into how the Spanish Flu pandemic made its mark on both Malta and one man's imagination. The only university that makes you chuckle AND learn at the same time.By Vincent / Refalo

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This is why today's politicians are so dumb! 17:33

3y ago17:33

17:33

The media keeps telling us that politicians are getting dumb and dumber all the time. But perhaps there's a strategy behind that stupidity and ignorance. Maybe it's fake. Maybe it's a clever tactic to get brainy people into power using the votes of... people so tired of ordinary politics they vote for candidates who seem to speak their mind. We unc…

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Are Two Minds better Than None? 19:32

3y ago19:32

19:32

Produced by the SMU Playhouse team, 'Are Two Minds Better Than None' is a short, powerful play about mind-uploading. It's the ambition of various tech billionaires (like Elon Musk) to upload their minds to a computer in a bid to achieve immortality. Is it viable? Will it work? What happens when the physical mind is replicated in digital software an…

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A Short Walk with a Modern Knocker-Upper 14:19

3y ago14:19

14:19

Having trouble getting up in the mornings even though you have an alarm clock, a phone, and maybe even a dawn simulator? All you need is a Knocker-Upper. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, Knocker-Uppers walked the streets tapping on clients' windows to get them up for work in (mainly) working class districts near to factories. One of our academ…

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I DID Get to Where I Am Today by Watching Reginald Perrin! 18:54

3y ago18:54

18:54

Classic 70's sitcom, The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin, lampooned the world of work and corporate culture. It had a BIG effect on one teenager who resolved to fight against the all-pervading work culture of the modern world. The latest trend for Quiet Quitting and the accelerating Great Resignation might be a sign that Reggie Perrin was right al…

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A short but amusing visit to The Hair Shirt Shop 13:11

3y ago13:11

13:11

We visit a small but significant business in South Mimms, a shop that makes and sells hair shirts for people seeking to do penance for their sins with some discreet mortification. It's a strange place but the logic of the service - especially if you're seeking to emulate the saints and sinners of the past and use physical pain to assuage your sins …

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What Every Writer Needs to Learn 21:03

3+ y ago21:03

21:03

It's simple: every writer has to learn how to deal with rejection. It's the staple of their lives. It recurs alomst every day. So, get used to it! The only university that makes you chuckle AND learn at the same time.By Vincent / Dinsdale

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Watergate's Five O'Clock Shadow: The Truth About the Missing Minutes in Nixon's Tapes 23:12

3+ y ago23:12

23:12

When White House aide, Alexander Butterfield, revealed the existence of recording devices in the White House during the Watergate hearings in 1973, Nixon's fate was sealed. And the missing eighteen and a half minutes in the tapes (once they'd been reluctantly handed over) cast a shadow over the President's character. It ultimate led to his resignat…

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It's time to put the Metaverse on trial 24:18

3+ y ago24:18

24:18

Zuckerberg is betting big on the Metaverse, but is the hype based on an illusion? In fact, is the Metaverse an illusion altogether? What do we do when something bad happens in the Metaverse? Is it real enough to lead to court? Or if not, then can anything real happen while you're wearing a VR headset? This is the story of the first time the Metaver…

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Gangsters, Pimps, and Degenerates: The Maltese in 20th Century Britain 23:07

3+ y ago23:07

23:07

For generations of Brits the image of the Maltese was a contested one. By the 1980s Malta had emerged as a leading tourist destination and millions of Brits flocked to an island they associated with an heroic seige during the Second World War which led to the bestowal of the George Cross to all is people. But, there was a dark side too. The Maltese…

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Can technology help you have difficult conversations? 17:49

3+ y ago17:49

17:49

Having a difficult conversation - about a job or a relationship or a death in the family - can be very hard. Wouldn't it be good if you can use a robot powered by Artificial Intelligence to practice the conversation you know you need to have? The robot would be programmed with specific information about you and the person you need to talk to. Then …

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A Great White Whale of a Hoax 16:48

3+ y ago16:48

16:48

MOBY DICK is a notoriously hard book to read all the way through. That's what most people say (especially in school). That's why one English Lit professor had some fun with a 'missing chapter' from the novel back in the 1970s. It's all about the monstrous farts that whales can produce. It caused quite a controversy. We look back at the scandal to s…

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Why cash is truly private and digital money isn't 15:56

3+ y ago15:56

15:56

Every time you make a digital payment, you leave an indelible record. When you use cash, it's totally private. With central banks all over the world considering creating digital forms of the leading currencies, what are the (mostly comic but still alarming) implications? Could Prohibition come back and be enforced every time you try and spend your …

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The team that created the 'Corinthian Spirit' 17:09

3+ y ago17:09

17:09

The 'Corinthian Spirit' is (was) all about being proud to be an amateur (someone who did great things for the sake of it rather than money) and committed to 'fair play' and a 'level playing field.' We tell the story of how two amateur football teams embodied those ideas and inspired professional teams all over the world. Specifically, Corinthians P…

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Can babies be poets? 20:04

3+ y ago20:04

20:04

Poetry is all about the sound of words. That's why Homer's epic verses are meant to be read aloud. Poetry recitals are gaining in popularity. Audiences love the sound of words and sentences performed with feeling and power. At South Mimms we're encouraging Slam Poets to strut their rhymes in public. We're also deploying gerund-breaking technology (…

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Are NFT's investments in nothing? 15:17

3+ y ago15:17

15:17

Non-Fungible Tokens clearly exist. People pay good money for them. Real money. But what are they really? Tokens that give you rights to an artwork or a video or a cartoon? Maybe. Perhaps. Probably not. A lot of people say they know, but few really do. So, we got two AI presenters to interrogate our expert in Existential Investing and the outcome wa…

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Is being interested the key to a long life? 18:32

3+ y ago18:32

18:32

Our unique Department of Interesting Studies might sound like it's got a vague brief, but it's actually looking at a human quality which is vital to both physical and mental health: the state of being interested. Our department head introduces her Uncle Cyril, who's 104 and still interested in... everything. Inspiring. Illuminating. Interesting. Th…

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Is it time to abolish meetings altogether? 19:05

3+ y ago19:05

19:05

We revisit our Department of Corporate Development to discover a revolutionary new way to cancel all those useless meetings and cut to the chase. It saves time, money, and means you can ditch those highly paid CEO's who don't do much anyway. The only university that makes you chuckle AND learn at the same time.…

1
All Dogs Live Forever 21:15

3+ y ago21:15

21:15

Billionaires might try to extend their lives and live forever, but their money is being wasted. Ask any dog. They know the secret of living free from fear - ignore your mortality. In this short play, we eavesdrop as one billionaire wakes from his digitally supported sleep to find that he is 500 years old... and there's nothing left to spend his ric…

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Would you bring your childhood imaginary friend back to life? 23:44

3+ y ago23:44

23:44

Many children have imaginary friends. They bring comfort and help kids overcome loneliness. As kids grow and make real friends, the voices in their heads fade. But what if you could bring your imaginary friend back to life? When one podcast host agreed to use digital technology to recreate his... it didn't turn out well. The only university that ma…

1
The Hair of the Pig: Would you regenerate your hair on an animal? 15:07

3+ y ago15:07

15:07

The hair regeneration industry is a multi-billion dollar enterprise, and some researchers are using stem cells to grow human hair and restore the fortunes of balding men. We talk to one entrepreneur who's taking it step further (some say a step too far) by transplanting cells into animals. 'Curly' the pig boasts a full body of his hair. The consequ…

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Who is the Irish football player who saved Barcelona from extinction? 19:39

4y ago19:39

19:39

Our Soccer Studies experts, Jerry and Marty, delive into the little known but significant story of Paddy O'Connell, an Irish football player and manager, who helped set up La Liga in Spain, and saved Barcelona from certain extinction over 80 years ago. Without him there'd be no Nou Camp or Messi in a Barca shirt or multiple trophies on the world st…

1
Is the Arsenal Stadium Mystery the best soccer movie ever made? 23:23

4y ago23:23

23:23

Made in 1939, The Arsenal Stadium Mystery is a strange, eccentric, and compelling movie with perhaps the best football sequences ever filmed. It even includes 'acting' from the actual Arsenal manager of the time, George Allison. Our Soccer Studies experts, Jerry and Marty, discuss why begrudgingly they have to admire the film. And, even though they…

1
What happens when an anthropologist goes cruising 17:35

4y ago17:35

17:35

Our Anthropology Dept. decided to study cruises and cruising to see if there was a distinct society onboard some of the world's most popular ships. Recorded on Cunard's ocean liner, Queen Mary 2, in the midst of the turbulent North Sea, the attraction of cruising is revealed to be a very primal one. You'll never see cruising in the same light again…

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Can too much Wellness lead to Burnout? 17:48

4y ago17:48

17:48

Everywhere you look (and listen) there's stuff about 'Wellness' and many large corporates are mandating Wellness programs and activities to 'help nurture' their people. But do most of us have time for Wellness in our already busy lives? And is it leading to even higher levels of Burnout? Are corporate Wellness efforts just window-dressing? The only…

1
The Secrets of the Dashwood Club: SMU's very own Frat House 18:03

4y ago18:03

18:03

Fraternities, sororities, dining clubs like the Bullingdon at Oxford, are an essential part of academic life, and at SMU we have our very own secret society, The Dashwood Club. Join us on an exclusive tour of a very odd place. The only university that makes you chuckle AND learn at the same time.By Vincent / Dinsdale

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Are the Conspiracy Theories THE Conspiracy? 16:22

4y ago16:22

16:22

The world is awash with conspiracy theories. Everywhere you turn someone knows of a secret plot to undermine everything in the service of dark, dark forces. But, perhaps, all those conspiracies and conspiracists ARE the conspiracy! The only university that makes you chuckle AND learn at the same time.…

1
True Mindfulness is Watching Football 16:23

4y ago16:23

16:23

The best place to achieve true mindfulness is at a football match. Not watching it on TV, but BEING THERE! It's the only time your inner 'commentator' stops chattering and criticising everything you do. Our Mindfulness expert finds a way to record his inner voice and gets a strange surprise. The only university that makes you chuckle AND learn at t…

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The True Story Behind a Bad Football Movie 11:41

4y ago11:41

11:41

Inspired by a true story, the 1981 movie, 'Escape to Victory' mangled history to get some football greats onto the screen with Sylvester Stallone who could not play the game with any skill or grace. Find out the truth behind the fiction. The only university that makes you chuckle AND learn at the same time.…