My podcasts (January 2025)

Podcasts have become extremely popular in recent years allowing people to make podcasting their day job which is a far cry from when I first started listening to them in 2006.

I have written about podcasts a few times since then and I did a list of everything that I subscribe to in 2019. It is time for an update.

Looking back at that 2019 list there are a few podcasts that have been cancelled and which I miss greatly; these include Digital Planet, Material World and Stuart Maconie's Freak Zone. There are also several that I have fallen out of love with, hence the need for a new list.

I am not going to go through everyone of them, you can see what they are, but I will say something about some of the new ones.

The FT news briefing is my attempt to listen to financial news that focuses on the finance and leaves the political stuff to other shows. I gave up on all of the BBC finance shows for that reason and while it is far from perfect the FT news, being American based, is at least fairly neutral about UK.

Here Comes The Guillotine is funny chat with a twist of politics and I like that it is very Scottish with a strong dollop of Irish. The different perspective makes it more interesting.

Happy Heat Pump is new and has yet really to find its feet. I expect to be getting a heat pump in the not to distant future and I was hoping that this would help me with the various choices (water or air to water or air) but it, so far, added more complexity, e.g. solar panels and batteries, to what was already a difficult decision.

Trashfuture is an intelligent look at the world today through justifiable cynical eyes and is delivered with humour. I've been to see live recordings, twice.

The World This Week is another attempt to get away from the dreadfulness of BBC and covers the political news with a French perspective.

 

Cory Doctorow's podcast is cantered on his many books, fact and fiction, both of which have a heavy technical content which suits me.

Limelight is a BBC drama podcast. BBC seems not what to do with podcasts and it is unclear how they choose what to release as full podcasts, as podcasts that you can only subscribe to on BBC Sounds and which are just drama shows on BBC Sounds. I like the flexibility of podcasts (e.g. no 30 day limit for listening) and wish BBC would release more drama that way.

Moral Maze is there because sometimes we have Humanists debates on the same topics. It usually a pretty poor discussion and it drives me mad. I should stop.

The Political Fourcast is another BBC alternative, this time UK politics from Channel Four.

99% Invisible is a gem. It talks about design in a way that entertains and informs in equal measure. Unmissable.

No Gods No Mayors and Well There's Your Problem are adjacent to Trashfuture but lack its precise direction. If I walked less and so had less time to listen to podcasts then I would probably drop these.

The War on Cars does what is says on the tin. It is American where the car problem is even greater but the problems and solutions they discuss apply to us too.

Page 94 is a Private Eye fill-in between the print issues and is excellent.

It's Bloody Complicated is a political discussion from Compass, an organisation that I belonged to for a while. Not particularly original or challenging but it is good to hear something from the centre-left.

BBC Best of Today stopped before I could unsubscribe and is only here because of the special Christmas programmes where they have guest editors. If it every comes back properly then I will unsubscribe.

Trash Talk and Uncensored are comedy podcasts by well known comedians who manage to make some good political points along the way.

Michael Spicer No Room is a topical sketch show which manages to stand head and shoulders above the many other topical sketch shows. There has been one full series and a couple of once-offs. I am hoping for a lot more.

Trashfuture live (24 Nov 24)

Thanks to my sons' insistence, I have been listening to the Trashfuture podcast for a little while now and also thanks to them I went to see them live for a second time. And as with last November, the whole family was there to celebrate our eldest son's birthday.

But first we had to have a pizza and Franco Manca in The Cut did the job. It's far from the most exciting menu in the world but we have simple tastes and we went for options 1, 2 (twice) and 3. We are easy to please!

Between The Bridges is an odd venue, little more than a marquee with benches, and the being a liminal area between inside and outside meant that it was okay, and necessary, to keep your coat on. On a more positive note, they sold reasonable beer.

At the previous Trashfuture live event the main man, Riley (far left), was sick and November had to lead the show and this time she was ill and another podcast stalwart, Devon, had to fill in. In other words, the people in the poster were not those presenting the show but that is just a statement for the record, it made no material difference.

For almost ninety minutes Riley led us through the Boris Johnson magus opus Unleashed. The Trashfuture crowd are intelligent, which is rather the point of the podcast, and this was an analytical takedown of Johnson as well as a funny one. Two big points were that Johnson used the book to hit back at everyone who every slighted him and all the things that went wrong were someone else's fault even if that fault amounted to not stopping him from being stupid.

Of course there was a great deal more to the discussion than that and the observations and jokes came thick and fast, so much so that it warrants a second listen and I am hoping, as I did last year, that the live event comes out as a free episode.

Trashfuture live (28 Nov 23)

It has been ten years (!!) since I last wrote about podcasts which, given how much time I spend listening to them, is probably a mistake.

My regular walks, c20km a day on average, are spent listening to them or to BBC radio drama and I subscribe to podcast on news, science, comedy, politics, drama, technology and design. At any one time I generally have about thirty waiting to be listened to.

I got into Trashfuture both of whom are paid subscribers; I am not and I just get the weekly free episode. 

Trashfuture calls itself a "podcast about business success and making yourself smarter with the continued psychic trauma of capitalism", which it is. The format is a team discussion on current affairs that skilfully and entertainingly combines an intelligent and knowledgeable analysis of the failings of capitalism with some decent jokes; the adage a spoonful of sugar comes to mind.

Occasionally the Trashfuture do live shows and when one coincided with a son's birthday it was quickly agreed rhat the whole family would attend.

Being a family meeting meant going for a walk, Rower Bridge to Waterloo, and being a birthday meant going to Pizza Express.

Our progress towards Between The Bridges on Southbank was hampered by some event connected with Albania's independence day which is one reason that we were sat towards the back of a packed marquee. I did have time to buy a decent beer for a not frighteningly expensive £7.2.

I had been to many recordings of TV and radio shows and was interested to see how a podcast would differ. As expected from listening to the show for a while, recording it live made little difference, e.g. there were no retakes and no additional material that would disappear on the cutting room floor. What was different was that the four of them (the fifth was ill) sat in a line across the stage, so that we could see them all which is not the natural arrangement for a discussion and there were times when they spoke over each other a little.

The topic of the discussion was Nadine Doris' new book The Plot. One of the team, Alice, had drawn the short straw and had read it and she took us through both the content and the style with the other responding with analysis and humour. It was very like a normal show and so delivered on my expectations.

They talked for about an hour then the conversation reached a natural end and we all applauded enthusiastically before heading back out into the cold night.

I hope they pick this episode as a free one so that I can listen to it again.

Forgiving Ibsen's Ghosts

In addition to going to the theatre regularly I also listen to the BBC Radio Drama of the Week podcast which picks just one play each week from the many broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and 4.

As luck would have it, a recent choice was Ibsen's Ghosts in a production taken directly from the West End. I had not enjoyed a recent staging of the play but was prepared to give the radio version a chance, and I am glad that I did.

One of the features of Ghosts is that there is next to no physical action, apart from a few exits and entrances, so it is an obvious choice for the radio. In fact I think that it worked better as a radio play and hearing it through earphones made it even more intense.

I do not know whether it was a second watching/listening of the play, this adaptation or because it was on the radio rather than the stage but I picked up a lot more of the fine details of the story this time and that certainly helped me to appreciate it.

And because this was radio there was no interval. The stage version that I saw had an interval and I though that it broke the flow of the play but the stage version that this radio play was based on does not have an interval.

I would still not go as far as to say that Ibsen's Ghosts is a classic, or even that it is a favourite of mine, but this radio version did a lot to improve its reputation in my eyes and I might even go and see it on stage again.

Favourite podcasts

Podcasts are one of my main sources of information these days mainly thanks to my iPod touch and the daily commute to the office. These are some of my favourites.


Africa gets so little coverage in the mainstream media that I rely on Africa Today to fill in the gaps.

Unfortunately many of the news stories are bad at the moment with coup d'etats, missing presidents and serious violence (i.e. dozens killed) in places like Niger, Sudan, Nigeria, Madagascar, Zimbabwe and Guinea Bissau.

These are all big stories but they barely scratch the surface of the main news channels. Africa is not unique in this respect; anybody know how/if the recent elections in Ukraine were resolved?

The news may be bad but we still ought to hear it.


Composer of the Week is a cultural gem.

As you may have guessed, each week the programme/podcast looks at the works and life of a composer. For the more prolific and important composers, e.g. Bach, then the programme may look at only part of their life.

When broadcast, the programme is five hours long but recording rights on the music mean that this is cut down to just over an hour but that is still plenty to both learn about the composers life and to hear how this is reflected in their work.

I like the fact too that the composers do not just come from the familiar classic canon, e.g. Bach, but also ventures in to the world of music for films and the theatre. Sondheim was a recent subject.


A History of the World in 100 Objects is the BBC's flagship history series covering, as it says, the entire history of the world.

I'm not a history buff by any means but I find this programme gripping.

The main reason for this is that it is a true history of the world, rather than just a part of it, and it jumps around the globe to explain to us either how ideas were formed in different places at the same time (e.g. the formation of cities) or how they spread from one area to another (e.g. pots were invented in Japan).

The concept of telling this story through objects works well too as it gives a specific focus to each programme that allows it to cover both the detail of the object and the generality of the world in which it was made.

I know too little of the history of the world (outside of the UK) and this is a welcome gap-filler.


I started my working life as a computer programmer and have retained an interest in technology ever since even though it no longer plays an important part in what I do.

I loved my time at IBM and love the technology they produce. The IBM Developerworks podcast keeps me up to date not just with IBM's own technologies but also the increasingly important open source products (Linux etc.).

The format is normally pretty simple with the presenter, Scott Laningham, talking to an IBM engineer or, often more interestingly, an IBM customer. It's this simplicity and Scott's intelligent questioning that makes the programme work for me.


There are several science programmes on the various BBC channels and I listen to quite a few of them but Material World is easily the best.

The reason for this is that the science is simply a little harder; it covers quite complex issues, from how cells mutate to forecasting earthquakes, in a lot of detail so that you really learn something.

Key to making this work is Quentin Cooper who has a phenomenal understanding of all the sciences and the presenter's skill of extracting information from guests and delivering it in an entertaining way.

He also includes a lot of humour which is just about sufficiently above the cheesy level to make the effort worthwhile.


I first came across Robert Elms when he was a regular of Loose Ends many moons again and I found him pretentious and boring. And the odd travel programme that I caught him on after that did little to dispel that opinion.

Now, almost thirty years later, maturity has won through and his Radio London programme is an entertaining feast of information on London's culture and history.

You could be for mistaking this as another plug-my-book programme and while there are elements of that the talks come across as accidentally being on the same subject of a new book rather than the book itself being the centre of attention.

Robert Elms adds significantly to these stories of London through his obvious knowledge of and passion for the subject.


For pure thought provoking talks it is hard to beat the Royal Society of Arts (RSA). The RSA hosts many talks at its central London offices and many of these are made available as podcasts.

The format of each talk is broadly similar with one of more speakers introducing the topic for around half an hour and then fielding questions from the audience for another half an hour or so.

The success factors here are choice of topics and the quality of the speakers.

It's hard to pin down common themes because of the breadth of topics covered but you can get some idea of what the talks are like from some recent titles; The Future for the Arts, The Robin Hood Tax and Visions of the Good Society.


Laurie Taylor is another product of Loose Ends and carried the same baggage of pretentiousness and pomposity that prevented me from discovering his programme on social history until relatively recently.

As with many of my favourite podcasts, it covers territory that I am not familiar with and that is one of its attractions.

Each week Laurie digs out two recent papers that have caught his eye and invites the authors to introduce them to his audience while gently nudging them along and probing them for more information.

The style is conversational but not deferential and the authors are allowed to explain their research in some comfort but cannot get away with poor arguments and unjustified conclusions.


I listen to lots of business programmes because the subject interests me and also I need to know this stuff for work. If I'm having a conversation with a director of, say, a telecoms company then it is very useful to understand what is going on in that industry.

Most of the business programmes just deliver facts, e.g. the latest oil price, and while that is useful it does not get under the skin of business in a way that enables you to understand it better.

The Bottom Line gives these insights through discussions with three industry leaders each week with the incomparable Evan Davis who has grown nicely from knowledgeable economics nerd to a formidable interviewer.

As with Laurie Taylor, the style is relaxing and informal but any trickery from the guests is quickly spotted and stamped on.

Desert Island Discs with Kirsty Young

The list of podcats that I listen to is fairly stable but does get updated from time-to-time, such as with the recent addition of Danny Bakers BBC Radio 5 show, Robert Elms' BBC London show and the removal of the too voluminous and not quite interesting enough LSE events.

The latest change is the welcome arrival of Desert Island Discs, a mainstay of the BBC Radio 4 schedule for over sixty years. I have listened to it quite a lot but in recent years the timings have not suited my lifestyle so it has slipped me by.

But from today it is available as a podcast so once again I can savour this audible treat. And what an episode to start with, the iconic Morrisey.

Danny Baker back on Radio 5

It is great to see Danny Baker back where he belongs on the Radio 5 live Saturday morning show with his unique mix of football and comedy. Where else could you learn about a football fan who had two season tickets, one for himself and one for his flask?!

The BBC has also had the good sense to podcast the show, minus the news and weather spots, to give us an hour and a half of good entertainment which is perfect for the Monday morning commute.

This restores the natural justice since the lamented demise of the All Day Breakfast Show, Danny's podcast only programme from a couple of years ago where I was a proud member of the Elite Premium Guard, or some other such nonsense.

All I need to do now is get Danny to publicly demolish Kingsmeadow and his show will be perfect.

New Apple software saves time!

I am only just starting to get to grips with the latest version (3.0) of the software for the Apple iPhone and iPod touch but I am already seriously impressed.

Things like the large keyboard on all applications are cool and useful but what I really like are the changes made to the music player, after all listening to podcasts is the main use I make of my iPods.

At a Gurteen Knowledge Cafe in April this year I made the comment that one of the advantages of using audio to transfer knowledge is that you can play it at different speeds to suit the immediate need. Apple listened.

The symbol below the time remaining in this picture says that I am listening to the podcast at 2x speed. This may sound silly but it works very well.

The speeding up (or down) is done with software so you do not get the Pinky and Perky effect when playing speech fast, though it does make rather a mess of The Archers theme tune!

I listened to several podcasts at 2x speed on the journey back from Sheffield on Friday and it was a great experience. I was able to listen to a lot more that I would otherwise have been able to and the enhanced pace of the programmes made them more compelling.

I did a few timing checks and it looks as though the 2x speed is a guide rather than a promise. Most of the 30 minute programmes that I listened to were reduced to 20 minutes. That's not 2x but it is still a serious time saving.

I have around 60 unlistened to podcasts at the moment but now that does not seem such a daunting number.

The Now Show, 23 April 2009

The umpteenth (i.e. 26th) series of The Now Show ended this week and I was in the audience for the recording; the second show that I had seen this series.

The logistics were much as before, though a school meeting meant travelling to Oxford Circus on the train from Kingston rather than the tube from Richmond, and after dinner in Pizza Express we found ourselves around 40th in the queue for the show and were then well placed in the waiting room for front row seats, which we got.

We prefer to sit right of centre as that is where most of the action is.

Hugh Dennis is roughly in the middle of the stage with Steve Punt to the right and Mitch Benn goes further right still when he plays his three songs and does his various character voices.

Left from Hugh you have Jon Holmes and Laura Shavin who speak a lot less.

No Marcus Brigstocke this week but he was ably replaced by Lloyd Langford who was very funny on and off script.

Anybody who has head The Now Show knows what to expect and they duly delivered. We had topical jokes on the budget and some of this series' running jokes, e.g. kids being amazed by the bleeding obvious.

Also as usual, the live show is around 50 minutes and this gets edited down to 30 for broadcast. I think that the BBC is missing a trick here and I would love to see the full show being podcast. Material World used the lack of time constraints to have a longer podcast recently and I see no reason why The Now Show should not do the same.

One of the loudest cheers of the evening went to Laura Shavin who had to read out a long and complicated Chemistry question from an old exam.

This gives me a good excuse, not that I really need one, to include a close-up of Laura (having failed to do so two weeks ago).

She was some distance away and obviously I could not use a flash during the recording but I am pleased with the camera's ability to sense the light, zoom digitally and allow for my shaking.

There was no audience question this week, instead we were offered the chance to display our audio talents to the world.

Only one person rose to the challenge seriously and you may hear him gargle "Rule Britannia" for about a second when the show is broadcast. In order to do this, he had to sign a page long contract to give the BBC full rights to use the recording of his gargling! Jon Holmes read the full contract in amazement and then Steve Punt pointed out that Jon's contract had all the same clauses in it!

The rest of settled for submitting amusing but impracticable entries and three (of four) of ours were read out so we will be listening to the broadcast version to see if any made it through the editing process. The claimed talents were to do an very quick summary of Alistair Darling's budget ("We're doomed!"), play the Welsh Harp to concert standards (sadly not brought with us) and to be a Wookie who can do Mitch Benn impressions. The last one made Mitch Benn laugh anyway.

The evening ended nicely with a quick word with Mitch Benn and his wife following my chance encounter with Mitch earlier this week.

I have also had chance encounters with Steve Punt (John Lewis in Kingston) and Hugh Dennis (outside Television Centre when I was queueing for Two Pints ...) so either I am a lucky guy or it is all down to effective stalking!

My podcasts (April 2009)

I usually download the latest iTunes software as it becomes available but then do not play around with any new features so I have no idea how long I have been able to display my podcasts like this.

I like this style as it makes it easy to see how many and which sorts of podcasts I listen to. It also clearly shows a not unexpected fondness for BBC programs.




This is how I categorise what I listen to:

• Fun (11) Archers, Armstrong and Miller, The Bugle, Composer of the Week, Dave Weekly Vodcast, David Mitchell's SoapBox, Friday Night Comedy, Marvel Podcasts, Car Pool, Stephen Fry's PODGRAMS, Stuart Maconie's Freak Zone,
  
• Current Affairs (8) Analysis, Crossing Continents, Demos Project, From Our Own Correspondent, John Pienaar's Political Review, RSA Events, This Week in Africa, Weekly Westminster Review,
• Science and Nature (7) Discovery, Farming Today, Material World, One Planet, Machine of the Week, Science in Action, TED Talks,
  
• Business (6) The Bottom Line, Harvard Business IdeaCast, Harvard Business Video IdeaCast, Money Box, World of Business, The Systems Thinking Review,
  
• Information Technology (5) Click On, Digital Planet, IBM developerWorks, IBM Institute for Business Value, Ideas from IBM,
  
• Social Sciences (3) In our Time, More or Less, Thinking Allowed,

Luckily not all of these podcasts are broadcast at the same time (i.e. most of them have breaks) so keeping on top of my listening schedule is just about possible, provided I do plenty of walking and/or commuting!

Listening to more podcasts

The list of podcasts that I listen to regularly is still growing in both number and variety. These are some of the newer ones.

The Bugle from Times Online reunites two comedians who have worked together on several projects, Andy Zaltzman a regular on The Now Show and John Oliver who is part of the team on the Daily Show. They have a semi-scripted conversation on the week's news that is in a familiar satirical style.

I've never got on with Laurie Taylor when he was a regular on Stop the Week (that was some years ago) and have tended to avoid his other programmes as a result. But I was tempted to listen to Thinking Allowed as I wanted to know more about social sciences. It still grates a little at times but it tells me things I did not know and I am grateful for that.

Timeghost (translate it to German) is another comedy from Times Online. It starts Alan Armstrong and Ben Miller, too many credits to mention, as Craig Children and Martin Baine-Jones the pretend Times Online's arts critics, playing the windsock to the cultural wind. What this really means is that two fine comedians who know each other very well talk in an amusing way and we are allowed to eavesdrop.

The final one is Farming Today, which does exactly what it says on the tin. As with Thinking Allowed, this broadens my knowledge into realms that I do not normally venture in to. Farming Today also covers topics that impact all of us, such as the food we eat, the environment that we live in and the changing climate.

These podcasts contribute to a virtuous circle that also includes my iPods and long walks that often terminate at one of the local pubs. I think that I will go for one now!

Swaddling Songs by Mellow Candle

Swaddling Songs by Mellow Candle is a lovely English prog-folk album from 1972, surely the best year for albums ever!

Mellow Candle sit nicely alongside bands like Stackridge and Fairport Convention but, inexplicably, failed to emulate their success at the time.

I discovered Swaddling Songs through the podcast of Stuart Maconie's Freak Zone which is worth listening to just for the amazingly bizarre music that it introduces you to, such as Turkish psychedelia.

Swaddling Songs is available from Esoteric Recordings which is building up an excellent prog-rock catalogue and has just acquired the rights to a large number of Hawkwind albums.

The Archers is now available as a podcast!

The excellent range of BBC Radio 4 podcasts now includes The Archers, which surely is why podcasting was invented in the first place! No longer do I have to try and piece together the story from the odd fragment of programs caught at odd times on odd days. Now the episodes are delivered to my iPod Nano (I use my iPod Shuffle for music) six times a week and I can listen to them when I please, which is normally when everybody else has gone to bed and I am doing something brainless on the PC. Thanks you BBC!

My podcasts

My travel patterns have changed with my new project and instead of commuting for a couple of hours every day I am now making fewer longer journeys by plane.

This has changed the way that I consume podcasts as they now pile up waiting for the next flight. As a result my original iPod Shuffle is not really appropriate (it has no menu) so I have treated myself to a new iPod Nano. I'll keep the Shuffle for music and use the Nano exclusively for podcasts.


The consulting related podcasts that I subscribe to currently are; Digital Planet (BBC), IBM Developer Works, HBR IdeaCast, From our own correspondent (BBC), IBM Innovation podcasts, IBM Institute for Business Value, In our time with Melvyn Bragg (BBC) and Peter Day’s World of Business (BBC).

The Candyman still can (everyday)

Working away in Finland I missed the launch of the new All Day Breakfast Show from Danny Baker and crew. Luckily it's a podcast and not a radio show and so I am able to catch up with the missed episodes.

And as the show is daily I am able to arrive at work with a smile on my face every day. It also means that I have to be careful about laughing out loud on the tube.

The new shows are being recorded in central London in this rather uninspiring building which is just down the road from where I work.

Oh, and it's still funnier than Melvyn Bragg.

The Candyman can

Most of the podcasts that I listen to are educational but I do like to mix in some comedy too and, for example, have been downloading The Now Show for over a year. So I was rather pleased to see a Danny Baker podcast listed on iTunes a couple of weeks back and it's now part of my regular listening.

The format is much the same as his long running radio show, which is long running for a good reason. The phone calls are a little surreal as, obviously, they have to be arranged beforehand so that the caller knows when the show is to be recorded. It still works though and it's well worth a listen.

I almost laughed out loud on the tube as we passed through Knightsbridge this morning as this rather excellent email was read out on the show:

"I found the podcast on iTunes and thought that I would give it a go as a former fan of the Danny & Danny show on Radio 5 (shame on the BBC for ending that) and listened to it on the way to work this morning between Melvyn Bragg's "In our time" on anaesthetics and a timesonline MBA podcast on globalisation. The breakfast show was definitely the funniest of the three and I'll be back for more!"
Matthew

I've appeared in all sorts of media over the years but this is the first time that I've been in somebody else's podcast!

Podcasts

Podcasts, like blogs, have now become a major source of news and information for me, so much so that I rarely read newspapers and magazines these days. I subscribe to several podcasts on iTunes and listen to them when travelling to/from work, which is two hours each way at the moment giving me plenty of time for listening!

I tend to listen to podcasts on technology, current affairs and social history.

IBM is a good source of podcasts on technology and on its impact on business and the ones that I am subscribed to currently are IBM Global Innovation Outlook, IBM developerWorks, IBM Innovations, IBM Institute for Business Value: Insights and Perspectives, and ShortCuts.

The BBC is where I get most of my other podcasts from and I am listening to From Our Own Correspondent, In business, In our time (pictured), and The Now Show.

Also worth a mention are the excellent TEDTalks. The conference speakers are top-notch, e.g. Al Gore, Richard Dawkins and, er, Bono. They generally address big issues, like the climate crisis or urban regeneration, but some are also very funny so be careful when listening to these on the train. I liked Al Gore's description of how his life has changed as having spent eight years travelling on Air Force Two he now has to take his shoes off to get on a plane!

Musical journeys

It's two years now since I got my iPod Shuffle and I don't know how I managed without it! My journey to/from work each day takes about 75 minutes and this is now the main time that I listen to music and catch up with my favourite podcasts.

My regular podcasts are all from BBC Radio 4, and they are In Our Time, From Our Own Correspondent, In Business and The Now Show.

I can now listen to my new albums several times to get to know them and the ones currently on my iPod are the latest ones from Jarvis Cocker, Neil Young, Rammstein and the Sensational Alex Harvey Band. I fill the iPod up with old favourites and at the moment I am listening again to Kingdom Come (pictured), Bjork, Placebo, Rainbow, Sparks and various others.

I always listen to my music in shuffle mode which means that 1) if it's a new album then I don't know which track I am listening to and 2) the tracks on an album get played a different number of times. I have evolved a practise which may seem a little anal but which works well for me. Once I have listened to a track from a new album 5 times, or from an old album 2 times, I remove it from the iPod and I add another album once there is space for it. This means that some tracks stay on there for several weeks before they get their 5th/2nd play which leads to a wide variety of music on the iPod but all of it specifically selected at some point.