This week on @garlicandpearls.bsky.social I am (only figuratively) at the wheel, and I lead my copilot @suzanneraine.bsky.social on a dizzying tour of French roundabouts, which are more eccentric than one might think! Tune in! podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/g...

Another Summer Short this week on @garlicandpearls.bsky.social in which I and @suzanneraine.bsky.social ponder the histories and meanings of our respective emblematic headgear. Yes - it’s the béret and bobble hat face-off. podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/g...

Who wears it best? @murielzagha.bsky.social

The shorts have arrived!

Don't go camping in Britain! Try this instead!

Storm Floris is arriving this weekend so for those of you now regretting a decision to have a British camping holiday, @murielzagha.bsky.social outlines the benefits of the obviously preferable Club Med option:

I have been on ONE camping holiday in Britain in all my life. 🤔 Can @suzanneraine.bsky.social entice me back? Tune in and find out.

It's holiday time! And nothing better than a spot of camping, which, as @suzanneraine.bsky.social explains to @murielzagha.bsky.social, was of course invented here. Apple: bit.ly/4f7omTL Spotify: bit.ly/3J3Udsg

Our intrepid reporter, emboldened by her new Garlic & Pearls knowledge, travelled to the other side of the world to find a people even more intent on pickling things than we are.

If it feels like what we all really need is radical change, here's one which was tried earlier but may just work a second time:

This week on @garlicandpearls.bsky.social the concluding part of the 1217 Battle of Lincoln, complete with Louis of France’s last-ditch return with fleet, a retinue of knights and the flamboyant ‘magician pirate’ Eustace the Monk! St Bartholomew appears too! @suzanneraine.bsky.social

Next week President Macron will make a state visit to the U.K. In honour of the occasion, Garlic & Pearls offer a two parter on the real turning point in the relationship between these islands and France @murielzagha.bsky.social Apple: bit.ly/45UHP7x Spotify: bit.ly/44hfpmY

The perfect companion for the heatwave is our illuminating podcast @garlicandpearls.bsky.social where I tell @suzanneraine.bsky.social the pulpy story of ORANGINA: ‘Secouez-moi, secouez-moi!’ podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/o...

A very nice thing. We at @garlicandpearls.bsky.social are honoured and delighted! @suzanneraine.bsky.social

A drink as iconic as Orangina is more than a drink, I tell @suzanneraine.bsky.social in this week’s ep of @garlicandpearls.bsky.social - it’s a carrier of 🇫🇷 identity. Listen to the story of ORANGINA! open.spotify.com/episode/3W5K...

This week, @garlicandpearls.bsky.social is, thrillingly, all about PIRATES (and also maritime insurance)! podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/p...

This week we address the British fascination with pirates. Any guesses who we're describing here? Apple: bit.ly/4lomW9r Spotify: bit.ly/3Gf8Wj4

This week on @garlicandpearls.bsky.social @suzanneraine.bsky.social takes to the high seas with tales of PIRATES and the British obsession with the marine Robin Hoods. Pictured: Blackbeard, John Morgan, Anne Bonny and Mary Read. 🏴‍☠️ podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/p...

Though I was very sad to miss the Garlic and Pearls live ‘Summer Special’, I thoroughly enjoyed this piratical delight, as ‘Captain Pugwash’ was one of the highlights of my early childhood.

Manchester City Police Force with their fleet of Mini Coopers, 1968. (Gamma-Keystone/Getty, @manchestereveningnews.co.uk).

This is a very British carry on.

Ahoy there!

I do not mean to distract anyone from French theme parks, but just wanted to say that I (and friend) are ready for tomorrow’s briny episode of @garlicandpearls.bsky.social , captained by @suzanneraine.bsky.social

Live reporting from the home of the bungalow!

Spotted at Berry Bros: a gin themed window! Perhaps it is time for @murielzagha.bsky.social to march on it after all?

Is Pimm’s still the quintessence of British summer? Should we bring back oyster houses? This and other questions are considered this week on @garlicandpearls.bsky.social Apple: apple.co/3Hw9jX6 Spotify: bit.ly/4jWXpTH

It's: British Summer Time, as @murielzagha.bsky.social observes in this little elegy for a disappearing world: Apple: apple.co/3Hw9jX6 Spotify: bit.ly/4jWXpTH

“Did drivers pay people to calculate an optimal route for them?”

This week on @garlicandpearls.bsky.social I explain to @suzanneraine.bsky.social the history and significance of the French IDENTITY CARD. The medieval identity-theft story of Martin Guerre features, also the uses of anthropometry… Tune in!

Garlic & Pearls take on thorny questions about state power and belonging! @murielzagha.bsky.social @suzanneraine.bsky.social Spotify: spoti.fi/3SpFXMf Apple: bit.ly/43lhvlq

More bungalows please!

This week on @garlicandpearls.bsky.social I take @suzanneraine.bsky.social on a Surrealist trip to 1930s Paris and present her with a cuppa full of fur! Chinese gazelles and Elsa Schiaparelli also feature. Tune in!

@garlicandpearls.bsky.social this week is about TOAST, and @suzanneraine.bsky.social astonishes me with the tale of the Alan McMasters Wikipedia hoax, so successful that (the fictional) McMasters almost ended up featured on a Scottish £50 note. Apple: bit.ly/3RYsfzA Spotify: bit.ly/3GKoZW9

With toast and marmalade! @garlicandpearls.bsky.social @suzanneraine.bsky.social

When I hear the word ‘toast’ I reach for a glass of champagne, but this week on @garlicandpearls.bsky.social I am schooled by @suzanneraine.bsky.social on the history and excellence of crisp buttered 🇬🇧 TOAST - with some true crime thrown in! Join us! Apple: bit.ly/3RYsfzA Spotify: bit.ly/3GKoZW9

It is Friday night. I am sat on a train that has broken down at Crewe. I want some toast.

Toast, the world's most perfect snack, and one the French in their infinite wisdom don't seem to have discovered @murielzagha.bsky.social and @suzanneraine.bsky.social Apple: bit.ly/3RYsfzA Spotify: bit.ly/3GKoZW9

The May blossom is at its finest in Britain's hedgerows. But are they a good thing or a bad thing? And why should you never, ever bring hawthorn blossom into the house? G&P covered these questions a little while ago @murielzagha.bsky.social open.spotify.com/episode/4nXL...

Time to put your phone down, make yourself a cup of tea and move over to the table by the window and get out your 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle @murielzagha.bsky.social @suzanneraine.bsky.social bit.ly/44GdJny bit.ly/3EAiqou

Zut alors! @garlicandpearls.bsky.social LIVE at the Durning Library on 16 June!

And also why France is such an earthly paradise.

One of the most fraught cultural fissures between Britain and France is how we weigh and measure things. @murielzagha.bsky.social explains why the French do it the metric way:

This is the episode which really does explain everything you need to know about why the world is as it is. @murielzagha.bsky.social @suzanneraine.bsky.social Spotify: bit.ly/42NM8PY Apple: bit.ly/4lsqfwW

Hope and death, secrecy and display, coming soon to a secret location near you! @murielzagha.bsky.social @suzanneraine.bsky.social Apple: apple.co/3G60d2m Spotify: spoti.fi/4lIL2g7

Is panache a core French value? And should you be prepared to die for it? @murielzagha.bsky.social says... oh hang on, you have to listen to find out. podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/g...

Tomorrow on @garlicandpearls.bsky.social I am once again astonished by @suzanneraine.bsky.social and her über-French mot du jour. Can you guess what it might be?

Day two of the Cordiale Corkers, and it's @murielzagha.bsky.social's turn to express admiration of the vivid anarchic creativity of British eccentrics, and to ask if there is something in the water? podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/g...

More Entente Cordiale merriment tomorrow on @garlicandpearls.bsky.social as I tell @suzanneraine.bsky.social about something thoroughly British that fascinates the French. Mais qu’est-ce que c’est?

Has the world gone mad? @murielzagha.bsky.social introduces crazed surgeons and escaped lunatics and Modern Women... and @suzanneraine.bsky.social shudders Apple: apple.co/3YkgxTp Spotify: spoti.fi/4i2tVCL

Why do the British give more money to animal charities than anyone other? And why is it necessary? @murielzagha.bsky.social and @suzanneraine.bsky.social look for the answers in some animal theology. Spotify: spoti.fi/4ciMkdd Apple: apple.co/4hNY4FT