Cursed Objects

Swear Down!

Kasia and Dan explore the crisis in British swearing through Robert Peston’s very cursed book ‘WTF’. What does it say about our society that a leading political pundit sells his books through expletives? And with groans of despair viscerally being felt across the UK whenever someone calls Matt Hancock a ‘cockwomble’, what has become of swearing as a once transgressive art form? It’s a wild ride into Westminster’s ‘chumocracy’, the publishing industry’s sweary self-help books that atomise your depression and captisalise on a 'punk' ethos, and the most groan-worthy recesses of Internet forums.

 

If you're enjoying Cursed Objects, please support our Patreon, for regular bonus episodes: patreon.com/cursedobjects. And very soon: CURSED OBJECTS STICKERS.

You can also follow us on twitter and instagram @CursedObjectsUK.

Theme music and production: Mr Beatnick

Artwork: Archie Bashford

BONUS episode - Herbal Tea Advent Calendar

What happens to the space-time continuum if you open an advent calendar in April? What are the healing properties of "different flavours of damp twig"? This week, Kasia and Dan are exploring the quasi-mystical powers of herbal tea, via an out-of-time advert calendar covered in a thick layer of dust. We talk about measuring the passage of time with hot drinks, about Kasia's relationship with the Polish diaspora in the UK, about folk culture, identity and assimilation, about foraging, about herbal remedies, and about our estranged relationships with the land.

FULL EPISODE HERE >> ONLY £4 A MONTH TO LISTEN AND SUPPORT YR FAV CULTURAL HISTORIANS AND GET A *FREE* CURSED OBJECTS STICKER PACK https://www.patreon.com/posts/73409944

Theme music and production: Mr Beatnick

Artwork: Archie Bashford

Me and USSR and Everyone We Know

Go east! Kasia and Dan tackle a satirical boardgame about queuing in Cold War-era Poland and go deep into 'Ostalgie' -- how do people remember the Soviet era, especially people who don't actually remember the Soviet era? Pioneers, communist pickles and coffee made from acorns all feature, along with 'Good Bye, Lenin!' and an immersive theatrical experience in a Lithuanian nuclear bunker.

Here is Svetlana Boym's essay, 'Nostalgia and its Discontents'.

If you're enjoying Cursed Objects, please support our Patreon, for regular bonus episodes: patreon.com/cursedobjects. And very soon: CURSED OBJECTS STICKERS.

You can also follow us on twitter and instagram @CursedObjectsUK.

Theme music and production: Mr Beatnick

Artwork: Archie Bashford

Cursed and Blessed Ghosts of Christmas Past - ft. Archie Bashford and Mr Beatnick

IT'S CUUUUUURSEDMAAAAAAAS! We're having a work Christmas party and you're all invited -- we've got some festive VKs and gingerbread milk stout, and we're going to finally determine who's been naughty and who's been nice - with help from Gary Barlow, our designer Archie and our producer Nick Wilson. Along with some dangerous live DIY we have tales of bleeding eyes (aka when Dan became Jesus), the survival of hard currency via Chocolate Oranges, Guy Ritchie characters, Franciscan monks and fake-northern monks, and some feral behaviour around ham - a drunk history ft. three bald kings and one sentimental Xmas fairy.

If you can, please SIGN UP for our Patreon for only £4 a month here: https://www.patreon.com/cursedobjects

Theme music and production: Mr Beatnick

Artwork: Archie Bashford

Abject Pumpkinism

It's spooky season, it's harvest season, it's pumpkin season, it's nesting season, it's hygge season, it's cuffing season, it's christian girl autumn -- but where do all these labels and ideas come from?? As the nights draw in, Dan and Kasia ask how we got from the ancient Celtic pagan festival of Samhain - where the boundary between the mortal world and the Otherworld opened to allow the dead to walk amongst us - to Halloween Nike Air Max 90s and pumpkin-spiced-latte candles? And why are kids in urban primary schools taught quite so many songs about the importance of the harvest??

If you can, please SIGN UP for our Patreon for only £4 a month here: https://www.patreon.com/cursedobjects

Theme music and production: Mr Beatnick

Artwork: Archie Bashford

 

*UNLOCKED* The Walter Benjamin Escape Town

FROM PATREON TO MAIN FEED: it's a Hot Geist Summer episode where Kasia and Dan take a cursed journey into the darkest parts of the experience economy... from yuppie ballpit bars and escape rooms in Shoreditch, to the commodification and historicisation of the Holocaust, it's a wild ride with the spiritual godfather of Cursed Objects on his 130th birthday.

If you can, please SIGN UP for our Patreon for only £4 a month here: https://www.patreon.com/cursedobjects

Theme music and production: Mr Beatnick

Artwork: Archie Bashford

*PREVIEW* - Marmalade Sandwiches and National Mourning

We've done our duties Paddington, now take us to straight to hell (boy).

Two weeks of pent-up angst, hilarity and bewilderment comes out in a wild ride through Britain's "period of national mourning". 

What on earth is a 'national mood', what are its rituals, who invented them and when? What do these offerings - these marmalade totems - reveal about British sentiment and sentimentality? What does it say about the UK that foodbanks will close down as a mark of respect to a dead monarch? When are we all aware of our 'place in history'? Where were you when the Queen died / while we were getting high on marmalade sandwiches?

FULL EPISODE HERE, ONLY £4 A MONTH TO LISTEN AND SUPPORT YR FAV CULTURAL HISTORIANS https://www.patreon.com/posts/73409944

Theme music and production: Mr Beatnick

Artwork: Archie Bashford

There Goes The Neighbourhood ft. Les Back

Postcode paraphernalia – check! Neighbourhood nationalism – check! Commodified cities? All here. We are very excited to be joined by iconic sociologist Les Back as he reflects on his much beloved, but equally cursed, House of Catford bottle opener. When did we start wearing I Love *insert misc. borough* branded t-shirts? How do we tell the difference between grassroots projects, and the property developers that try to sell us profitable images of gentrified districts? Dan, Kasia and Les go on a journey through Slewisham, The Cronx, and Pecknarm to find out.

For more info: follow us on twitter and instagram @CursedObjectsUK, email us at CursedObjectsPod@gmail.com, or join our Patreon: patreon.com/cursedobjects 

Theme music and production: Mr Beatnick

Artwork: Archie Bashford

Lost in the Supermarket - Bags for Life and Loyalty Fobs

Nectar selectors and club card members: where do your loyalty cards lie? This week, Dan and Kasia are discussing how supermarkets became so all-powerful that they can "campaign" on political and environmental issues (slash greenwash cynically) and the state can only follow their lead.

Also, why are full shelves in the supermarket oddly soothing when you have a hangover, and why empty shelves tell a story of social collapse? Do loyalty fobs promise a Fully Automated Luxury Future? What exactly are they doing with all our grocery data? Would Gordon Brown back the introduction of ID fobs?

 

If you're enjoying Cursed Objects, please support our Patreon for £4 a month - and get access to regular bonus episodes: patreon.com/cursedobjects. You can also follow us on twitter and instagram @CursedObjectsUK.

Theme music and production: Mr Beatnick

Artwork: Archie Bashford

*PREVIEW* - The Cybergoth International: day-glo ties, Gen Z and youth subcultures

This week, we're asking what Gen Z kids mean when they say "My aesthetic is looking like a terrible 90s market stall in Camden Town!"? (NB this may not be a direct quotation, but close enough.) Kasia and Dan take us on a wild journey through 'cybergoth internationalism', fluokids, retro culture, futurism and modernity, chaotic teenage ideas of cool and the death (or not!) of youth subcultures.

Full episode available on Patreon.com/cursedobjects

Theme music and production: Mr Beatnick

Artwork: Archie Bashford

*UNLOCKED* Summer of strikes / when the lights go out

FROM PATREON TO MAIN FEED: Are we heading for a 'summer of discontent'? Are we going 'back to the 1970s'? Three day week and a four-day bender? What really happened when the lights went out? Why do we cast particular eras as 'dark ages' or periods of decline, and who does it serve when we do so? Why were the 70s such an excellent time for white utility candles?

This week, Kasia and Dan try and unpick the myths and moral panics from the realities: that the 70s were a decade of decline, social breakdown and perpetual unrest -- rubbish in the streets, blackouts, shortages and strikes. Has that decade shaped everything to do with work and politics ever since?

Theme music and production: Mr Beatnick

Artwork: Archie Bashford

 

*PREVIEW* - The Walter Benjamin Escape Town

Celebrating Walter Benjamin's 130th birthday with a truly cursed journey into the darkest end of the experience economy... from yuppie ballpit bars in Shoreditch to the commodification of the Holocaust, it's a wild ride with the spiritual godfather of Cursed Objects.

Theme music and production: Mr Beatnick

Artwork: Archie Bashford

Bulldog Power Energy Drink

Health warning!!! Kasia and Dan are cracking through the radioactive, ever-expanding global energy drinks market LIVE ON AIR... From patriotic energy drinks brought to you by Albion's sovereign bulldog, to middle-class FBPE Euroshopper cans... what unites jocks, bros/bruhs, ravers, skaters, bungee jumpers, construction workers who actually have to get up early and work really hard, coders, gamers and goths? A big dose of sugar and a big dose of caffeine, that's what. How did a love of energy drinks come to stand for an entire (male, young, online) sub-culture? Why is their catchphrase "heart attack on blokes"? And which Japanese philosopher is the sharpest energy drink guru?

If you're enjoying Cursed Objects, you can get regular bonus episodes on our Patreon: patreon.com/cursedobjects. You can also follow us on twitter and instagram @CursedObjectsUK.

Theme music and production: Mr Beatnick

Artwork: Archie Bashford

*PREVIEW* Summer of strikes / when the lights go out

Are we heading for a 'summer of discontent'? Are we going 'back to the 1970s'? Three day week and a four-day bender? What really happened when the lights went out? Why do we cast particular eras as 'dark ages' or periods of decline, and who does it serve when we do so? Why were the 70s such an excellent time for white utility candles?

This week, Kasia and Dan try and unpick the myths and moral panics from the realities: that the 70s were a decade of decline, social breakdown and perpetual unrest -- rubbish in the streets, blackouts, shortages and strikes. Has that decade shaped everything to do with work and politics ever since?

FULL EPISODE is available exclusively to Patreon subscribers here:
https://www.patreon.com/posts/68680196 

Theme music and production: Mr Beatnick

Artwork: Archie Bashford

 

 

 

A Jubilee Catastrophe

We’re BACK following two Patreon-only episodes – and we are celebrating! Bunting? Check. Tables? Check. Unelected head of state who costs the British taxpayer £67 million a year? CHECK. That’s right – this week we are discussing HM The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee. The resources for which the Government have spent big money for you to download. All this fuss has got us wondering - is coronation chicken a good thing? Does bunting have a latent revolutionary potential? And, is the monarchy an important question for the left?

If you've enjoyed Cursed Objects so far, please support our Patreon - regular bonus episodes coming after S2 finishes: patreon.com/cursedobjects. You can also follow us on twitter and instagram @CursedObjectsUK.

Theme music and production: Mr Beatnick

Artwork: Archie Bashford

*PREVIEW* - The secular church of the NHS

Crayons out for universal health care! Stay home, protect the NHS, make a sign to put in your window, clap for your doctors and nurses, give them all a badge - but don't bother with a pay rise. This week, Kasia and Dan delve into the deep passions, protective instincts, personal pathos and politics swirling around every British resident's relationship with the National Health Service, the only acceptable face of the state - but one increasingly covered in bandages?

FULL EPISODE is available exclusively to Patreon subscribers here:

https://www.patreon.com/posts/bonus-episode-of-66778799

Theme music and production: Mr Beatnick

Artwork: Archie Bashford

*PREVIEW* - Magna Carta dart board aka Mythic Albion

Welcome all free-born Englishmen, sovereign citizens, rebel barons and new patrons! On this first of what will now be regular Patreon-only episodes - we're talking about myths of Englishness, why the state has such a fragile ego, a Covid-denying soft play centre called Cirq-D-Play, and why everyone is obsessed with an 807-year-old legal document that had to be rewritten several times and was then scrapped anyway.

 

FULL EPISODE is available exclusively to Patreon subscribers here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/65903988 

 

Theme music and production: Mr Beatnick

 

Artwork: Archie Bashford

Gay Flags and Lavender Scares ft. Huw Lemmey

Series 2 ends with a bang, and some serious vexillology: talking homonationalism, gay villages, the commercialisation of Pride, the history of criminalisation of LGBTQ people, the Gay End of History, and this flag - The Pink Jack, with legendary writer and podcaster, Bad Gays' Huw Lemmey.

Bad Gays: A Homosexual History is published by Verso on 31 May 2022 and you can (and should) pre-order it RIGHT NOW.

Huw Lemmey's Utopian Drivel Substack is here.

The Bad Gays podcast, which Huw hosts with Ben Miller, is here.

 

If you've enjoyed Cursed Objects so far, please support our Patreon - regular bonus episodes coming after S2 finishes: patreon.com/cursedobjects. You can also follow us on twitter and instagram @CursedObjectsUK.

Theme music and production: Mr Beatnick

Artwork: Archie Bashford

Alien Eggs, UFOs and Conspiracy Theories for the End of History

U-F-Whoa! It's the penultimate episode of Series 2, and this week Dan and Kasia consider the Wyrd 1990s, bedding down in Area 51 with Mulder and Scully (and their mates from the Judeo-Masonic-Bolshevik NWO) to ask why alien conspiracies thrived in mainstream pop culture immediately after the end of the Cold War. Was this catharsis as the threat of nuclear annihilation receded? Or just a silly distraction in a godless universe? Why do conspiracy theories appeal to people in the first place? Also featuring crop circles, Corbyn conspiracies, yer man Senator McCarthy and S Club 7's visit to the Bermuda Triangle.

 

If you're enjoying Cursed Objects, please support our Patreon - regular bonus episodes coming after S2 finishes: patreon.com/cursedobjects. You can also follow us on twitter and instagram @CursedObjectsUK.

Theme music and production: Mr Beatnick

Artwork: Archie Bashford

Canary Wharf, grime and the docks

'Wall Street's Guantanamo' or 'our Statue of Liberty'? This week Dan and Kasia grapple with a series of very large cursed objects, the sky-scraping glass-and-steel totems to finance capitalism in London's former docklands. There is discussion of the east London grime scene, hostile architecture, Stuart Hall, dystopian privatised public spaces, and how buildings can embody the spirit of the age.

If you're enjoying Cursed Objects, please support our Patreon - regular bonus episodes coming after S2 finishes: patreon.com/cursedobjects. You can also follow us on twitter and instagram @CursedObjectsUK.

Theme music and production: Mr Beatnick

Artwork: Archie Bashford