Cursed Objects

Manly Gifts for the Man In Your Life

It's the end of another busy day running the patriarchy. You drop your designer briefcase in the hall, put on your football-shaped slippers, and place your watch on your executive watch stand. Your apartment is filled with many leather-bound books and smells of rich mahogany. There's whisky in the decanter and a ludicrously expensive Lego Millennium Falcon to build. You are modern man incarnate, and these are your man-gifts - and this week, Kasia and Dan are going to find out just what it is that's so cursed about all those gendered gifts for 'the man in your life'.

 

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

Brand Collabs (Travis Scott x McDonalds x Peppa Pig x Colgate x BAE Systems exclusive)

Cursed Objects sells out!! (Not really.) This week, Dan and Kasia investigate why every sinister corporation in the world has started obsessively pursuing 'brand collabs'? Why are we letting multi-billion dollar companies cannibalise the language and practices of creative work? Where is the line between art and commerce, and how do we unpick this stuff without sounding like tedious Bill Hicks-loving 14-year-olds? Also, why won't the corporate world leave rap music alone - and what do they get out of co-opting the "cool" of Black culture?

 

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

Abigail’s Aspic Asparagus Steamer (and other 70s dinner parties)

Class. Gender. Nuclear families. Savoury jelly. Fish paste. National identity. The 1970s. Innovation in post-war capitalist production. AND! Highly specific pieces of kitchen equipment and dinner parties. This week, Dan and Kasia ask: why do we all hate dinner parties? Or rather, why do we all *say* we hate dinner parties, but love having dinner with our friends? Where did all the stigma come from, and what are the most useless niche pieces of kitchen equipment?

 

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

Van Gogh ”Earaser” - ft. Alice Procter

Art and commerce, haunted ears, starving artists and the way galleries fetishise madness to make £££. Welcome back, and welcome to our first ever guest (!), the wonderful Alice Procter. Series 2 returns, the UCU strike is finished, and Kasia, Dan and Alice are DEEP in the politics and economics of the museum gift shop, as well as checking in on how that whole 'decolonising the museum' thing is going.

 

Thanks so much to Alice for joining us - check out her excellent podcast Historical Friction and her legendary Uncomfortable Art Tours.

 

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

SUPPORT THE UCU STRIKE

This week's episode of Cursed Objects has been postponed - because we are supporting the University and College Union (UCU) digital strike. Please consider joining us in donating to the UCU’s strike fund by going to www.ucu.org.uk/fightingfund

We return with Series 2 Episode 4 next Monday -Kasia and Dan x

Mystical algorithms

When did our star signs start running our lives? According to horoscope app Co-Star, it has been downloaded by a quarter of all young women aged 18–25 in the U.S. Even if we are living in a material world, maybe the great horoscope renaissance is offering something that's missing from modern life? Via a cursed Capricorn necklace and some Tik Tok witches, Kasia and Dan tackle the weird, the mystical and the metaphysical, with help from Frankfurt School philosophers Theodore Adorno and Walter Benjamin - who had more to say about horoscopes than you might think.

If you're enjoying Cursed Objects, please support our Patreon - and get access to bonus eps and extra content: patreon.com/cursedobjects. You can also follow us on twitter and instagram @CursedObjectsUK.

Theme music and production: Mr Beatnick

Celeb CASH-IN!! Unofficial Fearne Cotton biography

Celebrity gloss, celebrity GOSS! How do you write a 260-page biography of a young TV presenter who you've never met and never interviewed, and hasn't ever done anything but be on TV? Padding! Baffling, bizarre digressions and weird AF padding. But you've gotta just churn it out in time for Xmas.

Dan and Kasia discuss the cash-in tat produced around 2000s celebrity pop culture, the grim misogyny of that decade, Topshop Metallica T-shirts, 'cool' and 'phoneys', 9/11, TMZ, Closer, Heat and Perez Hilton, and how capitalism tries to imbue mundane individuals with great meaning to sell us crap we don't need.

 

If you're enjoying Cursed Objects, please support our Patreon - and get access to bonus eps and extra content: patreon.com/cursedobjects. You can also follow us on twitter and instagram @CursedObjectsUK.

 

Theme music and production: Mr Beatnick

Artwork: Archie Bashford

Sexy Putin Calendar

If this is indeed a new Cold War, then when did it get so hot in here? Dan and Kasia are back with a bang, launching Series 2 of Cursed Objects with a bit of geopolitical pizzazz - talking leadership cults, "great men of history" and the ironic veneration of dictators. Stalin makes an appearance, and we look at the time Vladimir Putin extolled the virtues of hip-hop for clean living and a greater Russia.

 

If you're enjoying Cursed Objects, please support our Patreon - and get access to bonus eps and extra content: patreon.com/cursedobjects. You can also follow us on twitter and instagram @CursedObjectsUK.

 

Theme music and production: Mr Beatnick

Artwork: Archie Bashford

Cursed Objects - Series 2 Trailer

A sexy Putin calendar. An unauthorised Fearne Cotton biography. A Van Gogh eraser shaped like his dismembered ear. Adorno takes on his horoscope, Stuart Hall takes on Canary Wharf, the 1970s take on dinner parties and the 2020s take on "brand collabs"... guess who just got back today?

That's right! Hosts Dr Kasia Tee and Dan Hancox return on Monday 31 January - and then every Monday for the next 10 weeks - with your favourite podcast about big ideas, weird history, pop culture and tat. 

 

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

Theme music and production: Mr Beatnick

Artwork: Archie Bashford

Cursed Snacks - Omi-Christmas Special

Deck the halls with mince pie-flavoured Wensleydale, Dan and Kasia have both been shopping, opened some disgusting cans of seasonal beer, and are back for a one-off Christmas special! There's pigs-in-blankets everything and dried fruit where it shouldn't be, as we discuss our festive favs, 'premium mediocre', the 17th century roots of the Christmas meal, and the very recent history of gross supermarket product design.

 

Season 2 is coming very soon! For more info: follow us on twitter and instagram @CursedObjectsUK, email us at CursedObjectsPod@gmail.com, or join our Patreon for bonus episodes: patreon.com/cursedobjects

 

Very special festive theme music and production: Mr Beatnick

Artwork: Archie Bashford

Inspire A Generation

Series 1 closes with an Olympian nightmare. Kasia and Dan de-mythologise London 2012: surface-to-air missiles on east London rooftops, cops arresting protesters, VIP lanes on the roads - all in the name of "cheering up the country in hard times". We talk about riots, food banks, authoritarian capitalism, and what the controversial London 2012 Opening Ceremony tells us about national identity. Key object: The 2012 games official mascot – Wenlock Police Officer Figurine.

 

This is the final episode of Series 1!  If you're enjoying Cursed Objects, please support our Patreon to help us make Series 2 as soon as possible: patreon.com/cursedobjects. You can also follow us on twitter and instagram @CursedObjectsUK.

 

Theme music and production: Mr Beatnick

Artwork: Archie Bashford

Holy Toast!

It's Episode 9, and this week Dan and Kasia are looking at the transcendental appeal of cheap religious tat, and the mass reproduction of images. There is faith, forgery, bootlegging and breakfast... and glow-in-the-dark Baby Jesus keyrings. We ask why Topshop went through a phase of selling rosary beads, and why people buy postcards of the Mona Lisa. Moreoever, does the reproduction of art reduce or expand its political power?

Key object: Virgin Mary toast stamp.

 

This is the penultimate episode of Series 1!  If you're enjoying Cursed Objects, do support our Patreon to help us make Series 2 as soon as possible: patreon.com/cursedobjects. You can also follow us on twitter and instagram @CursedObjectsUK.

 

Theme music and production: Mr Beatnick

Artwork: Archie Bashford

Rainbow Rhythms and Neoliberal Blues

Kasia and Dan are struggling to feel ‘mindful’ despite using their fresh-off-Amazon colouring-in wallcharts, puzzles and self-help books. Interrogating the mental health crisis and neoliberalism, they discuss ‘mindfulness’ and the ways that employers and political parties pay lip service to the health of the nation.

Key object: Labour 'colour-in-at-home' postcard.

 

For more: follow us on twitter and instagram @CursedObjectsUK, and if you are enjoying Cursed Objects support our Patreon patreon.com/cursedobjects

 

Theme music and production: Mr Beatnick

Artwork: Archie Bashford

We Are Your Friends

Kasia and Dan dig into the cursed experience of being 'on the apps' - dating apps - and discuss 'tweevertising', why companies are more interested in 'driving engagement' than selling products, and how we came to live in a world where brands want nothing more than to be our mates.

Key object: Hinge bath bomb

 

For more: follow us on twitter and instagram @CursedObjectsUK, and if you are enjoying Cursed Objects support our Patreon patreon.com/cursedobjects

 

Theme music and production: Mr Beatnick

Artwork: Archie Bashford

Why Is The Left So Sad?

Dan and Kasia are having a kickabout and looking into the role of the Spanish Civil War in left-wing mythology. What connects lower league English football with the Spanish Republic of 1931-1939? Why do the International Brigades – the independent fighters who came from across much of Europe to fight against fascism – mean so much to the British Left so long after the war was lost?

Key object: Clapton CFC football shirt

For more: follow us on twitter and instagram @CursedObjectsUK, and if you are enjoying Cursed Objects support our Patreon patreon.com/cursedobjects

 

Theme music and production: Mr Beatnick

Artwork: Archie Bashford

Dystopian Soft Play

It's episode 5, and this week Kasia and Dan are worrying about 'Agamben Toys': dystopian play-things for kids like Playmobil prisons and riot cops with tiny plastic riot shields, guns, mean-looking dogs and roadblock accessories. Why do these objects exist, why do they unsettle adults more than they do kids, and what can they tell us about the Boring Dystopia of the real world? What is the history of toy soldiers and the "pleasure culture of war", and why has Britain always been so obsessed with them both? This week's key object: a Guardia Civil toy soldier.

 

For more: follow us on twitter and instagram @CursedObjectsUK, and join our Patreon for full weekly show notes patreon.com/cursedobjects

 

Theme music and production: Mr Beatnick

Artwork: Archie Bashford

Curry-Flavour Instant Ramen From Gdansk

Join Kasia and Dan as they take a walk down the 'world food aisle' of the Big Sainsburys - delving into the politics of flavour, globalisation, multiculturalism, cultural appropriation and identity, via imported spices and delicious salty snacks. Key object: Polish curry-flavoured instant ramen.

 

For more: follow us on twitter and instagram @CursedObjectsUK, and join our Patreon! patreon.com/cursedobjects

 

Theme music and production: Mr Beatnick

Artwork: Archie Bashford

The Case of the DVD Box Set

Dan and Kasia explore a distant memory – the DVD box set – through the nostalgic, dream-like world of the hit murder mystery Poirot. Get ready for debates on Netflix destroying our brains, poverty in seaside towns, and TV watching as an act of family negotiation. Key object: 28 disc DVD box set of ITV's Poirot

 

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

 

Be Sad and Shut Up

This week Kasia and Dan delve into the concept of 'Austerity Nostalgia'. Why is the Second World War still so important to British culture, over 80 years after it began? This week's Cursed Object: a Keep Calm and Carry On Poster

 

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

 

Houseplants or Revolution?

It's Episode 1! Kasia and Dan explore the muddy world of houseplants – from their colonial histories, to their role as inhibitors of social change. This week's Cursed Object is a Thai Consellation Monstera Deliciosa.

 

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