Podcast #019: Privilege in the time of a Pandemic Virus

Michael Palin's plaque on the Sheffield Walk Of Fame, complete with a pair of bare feet standing just below it.

Welcome to Episode 19 of my “Travel Tales From Beyond The Brochure” podcast.

Bit of a a weird podcast this week. It’s also a couple of days late, partly because I kind of didn’t really know what to talk about. I was going to do one on the Outer Hebrides, but I wasn’t feeling inspired to do that right now (I ended up doing that a month later). I’d had a few thoughts over the week as to what to talk about, but even to the point of writing I wasn’t sure, as I didn’t want to record something that came across too pessimistic and depressive.

And something that didn’t make me want to drink all the alcohol I’d bought from the Walkley Beer Shop the previous Thursday.

But then as I was writing it I kind of got a bit too distracted, first by Sheffield (the image for this episode being Michael Palin’s star on the Sheffield ‘Walk of Fame’ – who better to stand in the footsteps of?!), and then by a rant about my mother. The beauty of the way I do my podcasts is that I generally write them out pretty much at the last minute, then record them, so sometimes I don’t know how it will go until I come to write it. Indeed, when I first started writing it out today, I was going to talk about ‘places that I want to go once travel becomes an option again’ – as I say, something hopeful. But that never quite turned out either. This idea became Episode 21, a couple of weeks later.

Instead I ended up talking a bit about privileges in pandemic times, about my privilege, and how it always helps to confront it head on.

Topics discussed in this episode then include:

  • Running, barefoot and without earphones
  • Why I didn’t do Parkrun this week
  • A walk around Sheffield on a quiet Saturday morning
  • Lockdowns, closures, and yoga
  • Emergency beer provision
  • My mother, her 70th birthday, and her casual disregard for social distancing
  • My mother’s concerns about my sex life and my need for a job
  • The future of travel bloggers
  • My privileges, and how privileges in a pandemic become even more obvious
  • My lodger’s health

You can listen via the feed above, or via Spotify, or on your podcast app of choice 🙂 Let me know if it isn’t, by the way, and I’ll see what I can do.

As always, if you have anything to say about the topic, or indeed about my podcasting in general, leave a comment or let me know. There is a Facebook group for my podcast that you’re free to join: Click here!

There are no contributions this week, but kudos to my friend Victoria Pearson for providing my CoronaVirus-ridden introduction.

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