It’s time for Alex’s ridiculously difficult weekly music quiz! Each picture is a clue to one of the five tracks @mollynaylor.bsky.social will meet in Hell. Want the answers? Head to podfollow.com/hellish to listen to the episode!

Winchester Poetry Festival is approaching. online events are so important for accessibility, but they’re also costly to run & we haven’t sold many online tickets yet. Just wanted to shout that our headline events are live-streamed and BSL interpreted! 1/3 www.winchesterpoetryfestival.org/what-s-on

You’ve had a whole day to listen to our episode with @mollynaylor.bsky.social, so no doubt you now want more Molly in your life. So why not try her excellent Making Trouble podcast? This week she talks to Adam Buxton. Go listen, wherever you get your podcasts! shows.acast.com/making-troub...

Writer, podcaster, and self-confessed ‘pie-fingerer’ @mollynaylor.bsky.social gives us the five tracks she’ll meet in Hell! We talked wedding music, directing comedy, flutes in popular music, and the Really Wild Show. Head to podfollow.com/hellish to be taken to the show on your pod app of choice.

100%. If you haven’t seen it, and are in the mood for a Redford, this is the one.

The lady with the birds is Alex’s greatest work yet. I know all the answers and I still don’t know what the bee is for.

We are up for an Independent Podcast Award in the category of ‘The Arts’! This is turning into quite the week for us. We are THRILLED. (Especially as we’re in the company of @folkonfoot.com) independentpodcastawards.com/IPA25/en/pag...

Today we’re thrilled to welcome Alexander Wolfe to Hell! Alexander gives us the five tracks he will meet in Hell, and also talks us through writing music for TV, smelly shoes, his school nickname, and the male mental health crisis. Listen podfollow.com/hellish

It’s a bit galling to hear directors claim that their non political films are actually political because they “broaden empathy.” But empathy towards a man who smashes people’s faces for a living might be different to that of a child being shot at by the IDF.

A useful resource: anthonymoser.github.io/writing/ai/h...

This week @melindasalisbury.com gives us the 5 tracks she’ll meet in Hell! We talked about the terrible job that led to Melinda becoming a bestselling author, why Sweden are good at stuff, and whether or not you can ever really go back. Listen where pods are found or go to podfollow.com/hellish

If you’ve listened to this week’s episode with @jnraeside.bsky.social have heard us talking about the mighty @divinecomedyhq.bsky.social - here’s the result of the only time @danielwhelan.com wrote to someone asking for an autograph. THIS IS NOW TWENTY NINE YEARS OLD.

We are BACK! @jnraeside.bsky.social gives us the 5 tracks she’ll meet in Hell: the music that will torment her in the afterlife! Julia talks about her new paperback, Don’t Make Me Laugh; we coin a new euphemism & we reveal the odd thing Julia had written on her schoolbag. podfollow.com/hellishpod

Want to know who the first guest is without signing up? Don't make me laugh.

We're back on August 18th with a new season. However, Patreon subscribers can hear the extended version of episode one NOW! Head over to patreon.com/hellishpod to sign up, and to find out who we're talking about in this clip!

Okay, deep breath. I need your help. My friend set this up for me because financial stress is making the whole cancer stress a lot worse. www.paypal.com/pools/c/9gAG... If, like me, you don't have money atm, if you have read and enjoyed any of my books, please can you tell people about them?

When’s International Dog Day, that’s what Lola wants to know. #InternationalCatDay

New substack. No paywall. Read Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s sonnets with me clarespoetrycircle.substack.com/p/reading-so...

Remember when 3D TV was going to be the next big thing, and 3D TV channels were launched, and people started buying 3D TVs because it was the norm, and then it all shrivelled because people realised it was a stupid worthless gimmick? AI is the 3D TV of today.

Top Ringo Starr story from the Museum of Swedish Popular Music.

Congratulations, Bloodhound, you are off the artistic roll-call FOREVER.

Currently doing the final editing run on episode 4 of Starship Alexandria, the cosy, nerdy podcast brought to you by @aptshadow.bsky.social and I. I am feeling a little bit nervous about this one going out, truth be told. Previous episodes are here: starshipalexandria.com and all podcast services.

Imagine if airports had one branch of Waterstones in them. Maybe they could get rid of one of the fifteen WH Smith stores they have to make room. Or even better, independent bookstores unique to each airport. But no, for some reason crappy old WH Smith have a monopoly on all travel in the UK.

I love getting these emails from Clare’s Substack, where she takes you through a classic poem. They’re super accessible and make you feel a bit cleverer for having read one. Strong recommend!

"Writing is 99% perspiration and 1% Lynx Africa." - Percy Bysshe Shelley

Hello. I'm doing another raffle. You can win ALL these SIGNED books + £50 to spend on books of your choice. All the money raised is going on books for two wonderful schools. Tickets are just £2 each Details HERE. www.biggreenbookshop.com/stuff-you-mi... PLEASE Repost (ta).

Satan’s legit, though. He’s got us doing podcasts.

Yes I increasingly think it’s going to fail. They can’t find a way to make it profitable or to tell a positive story about it

AI is the new South Sea Bubble. Looking forward to it bringing a whole lot of gullible and greedy politicians down in the very near future.

Riddle us this. What 4 songs from @adamscottglasspool.bsky.social’s Hellish playlist are these pictures naming? If you need a clue (or actually, the answers*) listen to this week’s pod. It. Is. A. Classic. Of. The. Genre. *Knowing the answers might not actually help, as per usual.

Today @adamscottglasspool.bsky.social (host of @whatismusicpod.bsky.social) gives us the five tracks he will meet in Hell! Adam also talked about being both critic and musician, what we do about music we love by people we don’t, and whether or not Charli XCX is serious Listen podfollow.com/hellish

I picked one of these this week and I am very smug about it.

My nephew is leading my family in their first game of DND. He told my mum she could name her character anything she liked. Then he explained she would be playing as wood elf whose background was ‘folk hero’. My mum’s character is now called Paul Simon.

Please could you help me to spread the word about my swashbuckling adventure story with a pirate protagonist, sapphic romance, with a dash of werewolves and vampires? My latest novel THE VENGEANCE is available in all formats geni.us/thevengeance Perfect for escaping the horrors of our time.

new hcss pod! Louis from Rialto on the alternative rock landscape that is Mike's Heritage Chart. plus thoughts on sandwich fillings.

The T&V one is especially devious.

I won the Tadeusz Bradecki Prize for The Modern Fairies! 🥂extremely honoured, especially given the amazing shortlist www.tadeuszbradeckiprize.com/prize-2025

Here’s this week’s guest RAY HEFFERNAN in 1996, with family members and his former songwriting collaborator. Ray co-wrote the first version of ‘Angels’ in Dublin. He told us his story on the latest episode Hellish - listen to our two-part special at podfollow.com/hellish

This week we welcome songwriter Ray Heffernan to Hellish. Ray’s best known for #Angels by #robbiewilliams - he tells how the song came to be written, & how he came to be written out of the story. He gave us clips of the early demos he recorded with Robbie, which you’ll hear at podfollow.com/hellish

Here’s the songs @emmanewman.bsky.social will meet in Hell, as chosen on the new Hellish. Hear the full playlist on Spotify! (We added some of Emma’s podcasts too: a starter pack! And don’t forget to check out her ace new novel, The Vengeance. She read us a bit on the show: podfollow.com/hellish)

I’m reading Exterminate! Regenerate!, John Higgs’s new book about Doctor Who, and it is, as is usual with John Higgs books, great. This quote from Russell T. Davies just made me laugh out loud.

If you’re new to Hellish, you might not know about the evil picture quiz Alex sets each week… The pics represent 4 of the songs @emmanewman.bsky.social will meet in Hell, as featured on this week’s show. Can you guess what they are? podfollow.com/hellish to listen - it’s a classic!

This letter has the best last line.

Amazing. Read this. This is what it is like. Resist AI.

This was a lot of fun to record!

Today’s damned soul is writer @emmanewman.bsky.social, who gives us the five tracks she will meet in Hell! Emma told us about her ace new book, The Vengeance,(Pirates! Vampires! Werewolves!), eighteenth century swear words, AND she gave us an Infernal Playlist for the ages. podfollow.com/hellish

We’re back after a short interruption with a bang. Leoni Jane Kennedy gives us the five tracks she will meet in Hell. Leoni told us about getting the Freddie Mercury scholarship, rocking the Houses of Parliament, and her unusual 15th birthday party. Listen podfollow.com/hellish

“I guess in Canada sometimes blowing a dog whistle just gets you murdered by a pack of wolves.” EXCELLENT.

🎵 I'M K-HOLED OFF MY HEAD, THIS SHIT PUTS RHINOS TO BED🎵