Shows
Cursed ObjectsThe Princess Diana Memorial Beanie BabyNot the Queen of Hearts! Greetings, England's roses, and welcome back to the People's Podcast - this week, it's the original parasocial relationship: ROYALTY.
Kasia is being pursued by a stream of Lady Di-themed cursed objects, and with Dan explores the universe of royal tat, Diana standom, 90s tabloids and the media hysteria around her death and funeral, when Britain discovered EMOTIONS and behaved like honking loons. Some younger listeners may not realise that in the days before TikTok and BBC News 24, commemorative plates were the primary means of news dissemination, and mass-produced soft toys could be a...
2025-11-2750 min
Cursed ObjectsArt, Swings and Industry - King's Cross Magical History Tour"Escape to the King's Cross Riviera," said the sign on the construction hoardings - so we did! And it forced us to ask questions like: 'What if you threw a major urban regeneration zone and lots of people came, but then they wanted a branch of All Bar One when they got there?'
In this brand new episode, Kasia and Dan are on an Outside Broadcast Adventure (OBA), captured live during the heart of the London summer in King's Cross, one of the capital's Regeneration Ground Zeroes, a bouji office and leisure district that has been...
2025-11-1112 min
Cursed ObjectsBelfast Pubs, Punk and Gentrification ft. Fearghus RoulstonWe are back with another brand new episode, another very special guest, the brilliant Fearghus Roulston, and another fascinating assembly of some very Cursed Objects subjects – histories of conflict, conviviality, getting pissed, listening to punk and misremembering our own lives and favourite counter-cultural spaces.
Fearghus wants to make it clear he is not a “Punkademic”, but that it’s fine if other people are. Drawing on his fascinating oral history work on the Belfast punk scene, we start with a pack of cards, a set of pubs, and the internationalism of the Titanic Museum. We discuss gentrification and touri...
2025-10-2356 min
Cursed ObjectsSo Scandilous - Fermenting Revolution in the KitchenThis week, Dan and Kasia forage for meaning in the fertile terrain of culinary "movements", globalisation, multiculturalism and identity, megabucks fine dining, and the desperate search for authenticity in food.
Earlier in the summer, Dan was sent to Oslo - for work, not as punishment - to explore 20 years of New Nordic Cuisine, a hugely ambitious attempt by 10 Scandinavian chefs to overhaul the way we think about, source, cook, serve and eat our dinner. How did they get on? What was wrong with Old Nordic Cuisine - a bit too elk-y? What do pansies taste like? Has...
2025-10-0916 min
Cursed ObjectsBaby on Board! Ft. Charlotte Lydia Riley“I have been objectified as a vehicle”. We are delighted to welcome back our most-returning guest, as the brilliant historian and author Charlotte Lydia Riley talks us through the cursed world of being pregnant in public; about the way pregnant women – and, in different ways, mothers! – are treated by a frequently confused society. Why is there so much twee culture surrounding pregnancy, and how has it become so common to infantilise expectant mothers? And what is the role of the pin badge, as a way of announcing who we are?
This takes us into discussing public information films, g...
2025-09-2558 min
Cursed ObjectsThe Rollneck of ContritionSit down please. We have something very serious to tell you. We have made a severe and continuous lapse in our judgement. We are sorry if you feel offended, for some reason. We are sorry if you feel like you've been scammed - please believe that that was never our intention. WE'RE SORRY, OKAY!!!!
After a summer taking some time to reflect on our mistakes and do the work, we are so back - talking public apology videos, Dapper Laughs, public accountability, crocodile tears, Blue Peter, Boris Johnson and why wearing a rollneck might be a sign...
2025-09-1156 min
Cursed ObjectsWar, Memory and Tat, LIVE - with Dr Charlotte Lydia Riley, Luke Turner and Kate ClementsComing to you LIVE from the Cursed Objects in Museum Shops exhibition, with three very special guests: Dr Charlotte Lydia Riley, Luke Turner and Kate Clements.
It's another lively live show, exploring war museums and their merch from several angles. How do war museums navigate ‘selling’ histories of death and destruction to their visitors? What can replica First World War trench whistles and Panzerfaust soft toys tell us about the changing relationship between the museum, its shop and its visitors? And what happens when museum shops themselves become sites of conflict, as in the recent ‘culture wars’ over the N...
2025-06-2358 min
Cursed ObjectsMillennium Tat: New Labour and the Neoliberal Gift-Shop
Coming to you LIVE... we are joined by two very special friends of the pod – artist Darren Cullen (aka Spelling Mistakes Cost Lives) and journalist and author Imogen West-Knights – as they explore the spirit of the millennium via the museum gift shop.
New Labour were great proponents of the culture industries, and made admission to the UK’s national museums free in 2001. Did this and grand projects like the Millennium Dome change our relationship with museums? The podcast also explores how the contents of the museum gift shop have changed in the 21st century – and what this might te...
2025-06-1148 min
Cursed ObjectsLive show #2: Exhibitionary complexBack by popular demand, our second-ever live show!!
Dr Kasia Tee and Dan Hancox take you behind the scenes of their recently opened exhibition ‘Cursed Objects in Museum Shops’ at the Peltz Gallery. What does the history of neon signs, Hokusai's The Great Wave off Kanagawa and Lewis Chessmen socks have in common? As ever, expect the answer to be how life under late capitalism is producing some highly questionable tat.
Sound production by the amazing Jade Bailey.
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If you missed this event, don't worry - we have two more coming up...
2025-05-1354 min
Cursed ObjectsCursed Objects in Museum Shops - live exhibition extravaganzaTo celebrate the launch of our first ever IRL exhibition, Cursed Objects in Museum Shops (2 May-26 June), we have several events coming in May and June. All of them are FREE, all are at Birkbeck Uni, 5 mins from Euston/King's Cross, but booking a place is essential - for full details, see our vibey new website, cursedobjects.co.uk
Exhibition private view - Thu 1 May, 6-8pm
Book your place here.
Cursed Objects Live #2 - Thu 8 May, 7-8.30pm
Back by popular demand, this is our second-ever live show, for Birkbeck's Arts...
2025-04-2814 min
Cursed ObjectsBig in JapanThe Simpsons are going to (have just been to) Japan! And they’re here to tell you about what they did on their holidays – to discuss sustainable Japanese craft techniques, heated toilet seats, and a proliferation of cheap disposable plastic. Here are some of our key findings:
Don’t mistreat the indigo vats.
Japanese culture is trending.
£4 bowls of ramen! (Four pounds Jeremy, that’s insane.)
You can find William Morris paper cups in the 100Yen store.
A good loquat is hard to find.
Kasia wants to meet everyone’s siblings.
HUGE NEWS: Cursed Objects in Museum Shops, our f...
2025-04-1050 min
Cursed ObjectsYESisode - Yoko Ono fridge magnetYES you can! SI se puede! Say YES to adventures. Say YES to life. Say YES to your boss (however dumb and awful their suggestion!). This week, Kasia and Dan are taking on 21st century positivity culture, YES men and women, Dice men, negative Nancies, toxic white-collar culture, wellness gurus, FOMO, JOMO, YOLO and YOKO (Ono). When did it become culturally hegemonic that you have to say yes to everything? Smile through the pain baby!
""“You miss 100% of the shots you don't take.” - Wayne Gretzky" - Michael Scott" - Dan and Kasia"
Sign...
2025-02-2150 min
Cursed ObjectsStraight off the Dome ft. Imogen West-KnightsRoll-up, roll-up for the biggest tent of all! We’re launching into 2025 with a very special guest, Imogen West-Knights, and an absolutely vast cursed object, containing lots of smaller ones. That’s right, we’re turning the clock back a full quarter of a century to revisit the universal mockery, dodgy sponsors, New Labour hubris, sweet childhood memories, general hilarity, bomb threats and national self-loathing that all came messily, hilariously together to fill the Millennium Dome.
At the time, it was viewed as the white elephant that would stomp over all other white elephants, the most embarrassing of poli...
2025-01-2359 min
Cursed ObjectsCursed Objects on Location! At a Haunted Seaside HotelIt's a Spooky Christmas special! This week's Cursed Objects is a little bit less Stuart Hall, and a little bit more Derek Acorah, with an episode recorded on location in St Leonards, from the musty heart of a crumbling royal seaside hotel, ft. spluttering pipes, ancient heaters that smell of burning dust, random insects, rotting sash windows, damp everywhere and a fascinating history. Queen Victoria herself signed the visitors’ book, as Princess of Prussia, no less.
Dan and Kasia lean into the weird muzak and faded 1920s glamour and ask, what the hell is going on on th...
2024-12-2718 min
Cursed ObjectsHappy Trad-mas ft. Mr Beatnick and Archie BashfordBack by popular demand, it's our annual Christmas party! And this year we’re wrestling with TRADITION.
Are you making a list, and checking it twice – just as you always do? Have you demanded figgy pudding from your local landowner – and threatened violence if you don’t get some? Are you hanging up your stockings on the wall with Noddy Holder? What traditions define your Christmas? We’ve got Christmas tree gherkins, obscene Christmas jumpers, schmaltzy John Lewis adverts, and pop songs that make your ears bleed.
It truly is the most cursed time of the year!
2024-12-171h 14
Cursed ObjectsUNLOCKED - Magna Darta dart boardFrom Patreon to main feed: Welcome all free-born Englishmen, sovereign citizens, rebel barons and new patrons! We're talking about myths of Englishness, why the state has such a fragile ego, a Covid-denying soft play centre called Cirq-D-Play, and why everyone is obsessed with an 807-year-old legal document that had to be rewritten several times and was then scrapped anyway.
Theme music and production: Mr Beatnick
Artwork: Archie Bashford
2024-11-291h 02
Cursed ObjectsSubversive CoffeeThis week, it's a deep dive into a steaming mug of cawfee. Hot java. A cup of Joe. Black gold. This is an episode about "the abominable, heathen-ish liquor" they tried to ban (they really did), and the array of wild political, social, cultural and moral meanings that have been attached to it over the centuries. What is a "sober intoxicant", what do genuine psychonauts make of it, and in what ways is coffee ‘more than a drink’, from its colonial history, to 17th century coffee houses, to its social role today?
And then there's this incredibly curs...
2024-11-1414 min
Cursed ObjectsMultitudes - Live From the Crowd! Ft. Hettie O’BrienAs a Cursed Objects bonus, without an actual cursed object, we present a live recording of Dan in conversation about his brand new book Multitudes: How Crowds Made the Modern World, recorded with friend of the pod, the brilliant journalist Hettie O’Brien at Burley Fisher Books in London on 30 October 2024.
Multitudes is out now, you can buy it here, or read various extracts and crowds-related articles on Dan’s substack here.
Hettie’s book Diminishing Returns will be published in 2026, and until then, you can read her incredible long reads and other journalism here at The...
2024-10-3117 min
Cursed ObjectsEvery Breath You Take ft. Dr Alice BellAir isn't an object, right? Wrong. This week, climate comms expert and historian Dr Alice Bell makes Dan and Kasia think hard about ephemerality via a jam jar of polluted air, captured 'fresh' from the Euston Road in north London. In doing so they explore the history of the climate crisis – where it came from, who covered it up, and when people started noticing we were ruining the only planet we have.
Alice leads us through fog, smog and fumes, answering questions like: why were London’s famous “pea-soupers” yellow-tinged (like yellow split-peas), rather than green-tinged? Why was coal...
2024-10-171h 08
Cursed ObjectsKill the Boss in Your HeadIs there actually any moral value to hard work? From the Dignity of Labour to CEO Mindset, Girlbossing and Instagram Hustle propaganda, our entire culture is full of messages that working hard and 'loving what you do' will make you a good person. Aspiring idlers Kasia and Dan are here to tell you why that's wrong.
Prompted in part by the Wellcome Collection's new 'Hard Graft' exhibition, we discuss bullshit jobs, proper binmen, modern slavery, and the horrifying frequency with which people are injured, maimed and killed in their line of work, from children in 19th century c...
2024-10-0314 min
Cursed ObjectsCrap Towns and Caffs (not Cafes) ft. Isaac RangaswamiThe early 2000s were a fever dream: why was pop culture so mean? Specifically, why was it acceptable to write off entire cities - and the people within them - as crap? This is the question posed by our special guest Isaac Rangaswami, journalist, writer and brains behind Instagram sensation Caffs not Cafes. Isaac’s object is the wildly popular 2003 book Crap Towns, something about half of Britain received that year as a Christmas stocking filler.
How did something so cursed - so unpleasant - end up as a national publishing sensation? Were our brains all fried by...
2024-09-1946 min
Cursed ObjectsAirbnb: Prints of ThievesThey are marketed as democratised holiday rentals, where you get an ‘authentic’ experience by literally living in someone's home - so why are Airbnb’s full of crap, generic art? The answer is obvious (predatory venture capitalism), but the effect is cursed in uniquely jarring ways.
Welcome back from your summer holidays - to a new season of Cursed Objects! This week Kasia and Dan explore the geographically and culturally bewildering experience of looking at a monochrome, wraparound canvas print of the Manhattan skyline, in a professionally managed Airbnb located miles from New York. What does it mean to...
2024-09-0418 min
Cursed ObjectsRacist Mugs and Legitimate Concerns with LabourIf smart, humane, pro-migration Ed Miliband really hated Labour’s infamous ‘Controls On Immigration’ coffee mug – both of his parents were Jews who escaped the Nazis and found refuge in Britain – then why did he let it happen on his watch? Why is there so much cowardice, ignorance and fiction at the heart of our immigration conversation? Why does Labour have such a toxic relationship with migrants, given that most people with migration in their recent family histories (like Dan and Kasia, indeed) are expected to vote for them?
Where does the notion come from that in order to ‘...
2024-07-2522 min
Cursed ObjectsThe Museum of Neoliberalism ft. Darren CullenHow do you start collecting objects for a cursed museum? Kasia and Dan spend all of their money in the gift shop of the Museum of Neoliberalism (well, it wouldn’t be a Museum of Neoliberalism if you left with more money than you entered with). They find a world curated by Darren Cullen - artist, activist and collector of some of the most mundanely dystopian objects imaginable. They discover corporate sponsored scout badges, chainsaws for kids and an Amazon employee’s bottle of piss. How can you represent an ideology like neoliberalism that has such far-reaching but poorly under...
2024-07-1050 min
Cursed ObjectsCursed Objects, Live! #1 Notes from the museum shopTroubling war merch, Van Gogh bucket hats, Soviet space dogs and the scourge of ‘world’ history - Kasia and Dan stage their first-ever live show to celebrate 100,000 downloads! They tell a sell-out crowd about some of their favourite cursed objects from museum shops, plus some of their favorites from the podcast. And we heard from YOU - via audience questions! Including: Why are museum shops all so same-y? Can you ever sell ‘respectful’ merch? And why is glasses cleaner one of the most successful products sold in Italian museum shops?
For first news and first dibs on tickets...
2024-06-2815 min
Cursed ObjectsBone music, Soviet outlaws and X-ray rock ‘n’ roll ft. Stephen CoatesA record etched onto an x-ray of a (probably, now) dead Soviet citizen’s head. That is the uniquely cursed object Stephen Coates came across in a Russian flea market in 2014.
Weird, eerie, and almost polyphonic in quality, these DIY records captivated him and sparked a mission to find the bootleggers who had risked up to *five years* in a gulag for their love of music. How did they turn x-rays into subversive ‘rib music’? And what can a flimsy bit of plastic show us about subcultural life in the USSR?
Stephen Coates hosts t...
2024-06-1356 min
Cursed ObjectsThe Unstoppable Many vs. The Immovable Few (Emergy P for the Snappy G)Oh god, not another one! When BREAKING NEWS bursts through the wall, we spring, gently and apologetically, into action, with a (cough) emergency p for the snappy g. That’s right guys, we’ve got a bootleg Keir Starmer mug and we’re not afraid to do a podcast about it.
Real change. Change you can believe in. Change for you, change for me, change for the entire human race. This week we are talking about campaign slogans, and the surprisingly long and contested history of “for the many, not the few”. Who is the ‘many’ in this sentence...
2024-05-3022 min
Cursed ObjectsBlack Frankenstein and White Corporate Diversity ft. Anamik SahaWhat if there was an object so cursed that it was never even made? This week we are joined by culture studies don Prof Anamik Saha to discuss anti-racism, racism and corporate diversity in pop culture - via Agatha Christie, Yellowface, American Fiction and One Day - woke agendas and cultural elites, colourblind casting, sensitivity readers and cultural consultants. What does diversity and anti-racism really mean in publishing, TV, film and music – and when is it just for show, or to assuage white guilt? What happens when a long-dominant culture is dramatically challenged, as happened in the aftermath of th...
2024-05-1651 min
Cursed ObjectsHipster Analysis
Were you into Cursed Objects before it was cool? Like Grandpa Simpson remembering the war, this week Dan and Kasia are holding a seance for those perennial whipping boys and girls, the hipsters – and recalling the green remembered hills of artisan beards, cereal cafes and small-batch trucker hats. Kicking off with a revisit to seminal, frequently painful 2005 sitcom Nathan Barley, we ask whether it is possible to make a defence of hipsters? Isn’t it a better world when people are enthusiastically pursuing their own mad little niches and styles – even if their moustaches look a bit daft? Why do hip...
2024-05-0216 min
Cursed ObjectsWalk the (thin blue) line ft. Melayna LambThe police just follow the law, right!? Our guest Melayna Lamb thinks we need to flip this thinking around - and see the police as a law unto themselves. Using the example of the very cursed ‘thin blue line’ police badge, Melayna challenges the police’s foundational idea that they are the ‘thin blue line between order and chaos’. What happens if - as we have seen on multiple occasions - it is the police who are a danger to the public and not the other way around. Expect discussions of the worst police merch you’ve ever seen, 90s sitcom The...
2024-04-181h 00
Cursed ObjectsA Sack of Wet EggsHow do you like your eggs in the morning? Hopefully not wet?? It’s Easter, so in the spirit of bringing you some seasonal #content, Kasia and Dan explore what came to be known as ‘wet egg discourse’ via a Morrisons food-to-go container of six hard-boiled eggs.
Is it ever appropriate to eat an egg on a train? Why are eggs eaten around the beginning of spring? Why are there so many phrases and idioms that reference eggs? How much is the most expensive Fabergé egg on the market? And why is Frank from Always Sunny in Philade...
2024-04-0415 min
Cursed ObjectsAgainst Landlords ft. Nick BanoForget everything you thought you knew about the housing crisis! This week we have a very special guest, housing lawyer Nick Bano, with a hugely enlightening and at times shocking lesson in just how we got into this mess. Drawing on his searing new book Against Landlords, Nick argues that the YIMBY / NIMBY argument is distracting us from the real problem - landlordism (even if we build more bloody houses, who will be able to buy them??)
What does Enoch Powell's 'Rivers of Blood' speech tell us about the long history of racism in the private rented...
2024-03-2152 min
Cursed ObjectsHey QT!Kasia and Dan are earning their lunch. And it’s a big, steaming bowl of cuteness! They go to the Somerset House ‘Cute’ exhibition to unravel how this seemingly benign cultural phenomenon has come to infect our brains with adorable kittens and kawaii.
Often seen as infantile and saccharine - can cuteness be emancipatory or is it an escape from the grim reality of the world? What does it mean for accountability when you turn yourself into a ‘smol bean’? Who or what is behind the ‘cute’ disciples who preach the Hello Kitty gospel on internet forums and instagram...
2024-03-0711 min
Cursed ObjectsMajor Jugs and Starmer Flip-FlopsThis week, Dan and Kasia are getting into a submersible and heading into the dark blue depths, poking around the extremely cursed domain of Britain's unnatural party of government, THE CONSERVATIVE AND UNIONIST PARTY. The Tories. The true Blues. That lot.
Specifically, we're talking Tory merch. Just what the hell is going on in the Tories' online shop, who is all this crap for, and what does it tell us about the British right in 2024? Who are the Tory faithful, and what stories do they want to tell about themselves? Why did any of them 'TRUSS' in Li...
2024-02-2253 min
Cursed ObjectsYou're Beautiful (no matter what they say)We're baaaack! And we're feeling FIT, while also reassuring you that it's what's inside that counts.
Kasia and Dan return with a new series, where today we're talking about the beauty industry, vanity and gender, and - following a Cursed Objects outing to the Wellcome Collection's new exhibition The Cult of Beauty - early modern German wife-prettying windmill technology.
From the masterful make-up artists of Glow Up: Britain's Next Make-Up Star to the hall of rubbish mirrors of the Palace of Versailles, this episode has it all. We also hear about the beauty industry exhibits i...
2024-02-0909 min
Cursed ObjectsHaunted Dickensian Christmas ft. Mr. Beatnick and Archie BashfordIt's a classic Haunted Dickensian Cursed Objects Office Christmas Party! If you think Halloween is the spookiest time of year - you’re dead wrong.
We’re gathering round the metaphorical office photocopier to delve into the pagan origins of festive ghost stories. What can a mysterious RNLI lifeboat poster in Kasia’s hallway tell us about the ‘happy ghosts’ found in the haunted house that is Cursed Objects HQ?
And no festive season would be complete without a slightly tipsy guide to hauntology. Did Burial create it in a south London branch of McDonald's, or are its...
2023-12-1253 min
Cursed ObjectsAbolish Restaurants!Service! This week, we are hovering around ‘the pass’, checking our plating is okay, and asking how a simple labour-saving device, a coffee shop palette knife, caused Kasia so much angst and strife – “like a dagger to my heart”? Maybe it’s because of the uniquely painful and exhausting nature of working in food and drink service.
Kasia and Dan discuss the legendary pamphlet Abolish Restaurants, the politics of tipping, the way food TV and memoirs (even the sainted Anthony Bourdain!) valorise a macho, masochistic attitude to epically long shifts in the kitchen, and the objects which symbolise th...
2023-11-2824 min
Cursed ObjectsBed, bugs, and hedgehogsMice, lice, moths…and prehistoric-looking ‘weta’ grasshoppers. We are in the grips of a pest control moral panic. Could the humble hedgehog be the solution to the bedbug APOCALYPSE that newspapers keep telling us is wracking London?
From Ancient Greek prayers for worms to eat someone else's crops, to lousy experiences of the Spanish Civil War, and ‘squander bugs’ that undermine the wartime economy, pests have always plagued civilisation. So why is everyone obsessed with them right now? It’s a creepy, crawly episode of Cursed Objects, featuring Bill Spikes, a lil' cuddly hedgehog toy from the Charles Dick...
2023-11-2050 min
Cursed ObjectsDetectorists vs Time TeamRecorded on a hungover rainy Sunday, it's a history-on-TV episode, and it's an episode about HISTORY IN THE FIELD. Literally in the field, or rather in a field: metal detecting, archeology, and a little bit of mudlarking on the side. Don't we all want to find some buried treasure?
This week, Dan and Kasia talk about the sweet and gently profound Mackenzie Crook sitcom Detectorists, and what a powerful case it makes for 'ordinary civilians' doing grassroots history as a hobby. Maybe we all have a Saxon burial ground underneath our feet? Isn't that a thrilling thought...
2023-10-3016 min
Cursed ObjectsBeans Clock - 50th Episode ExtravaganzaIt's our 50th episode! Sort of. There's an asterisk. But it's sort of our 50th episode!
To mark the occasion, Dan and Kasia are tackling their own logo, the Cursed Objects avatar and icon: the beans clock. They take on the politics of time, and discuss the use of the clock to discipline people into docile worker-drones. They learn the helpful unit of time measurement "pissing-while" and why some people thought the clock was "the devil's mill".
Other vital questions: Why did Hugo Chavez put the clocks back by 30 minutes as an anti-imperialist gesture? What...
2023-10-161h 08
Cursed ObjectsPyramid Schemes and Revolutions ft. Jack ShenkerWhat happens when a revolution dies? Jack Shenker witnessed firsthand the phenomenal Egyptian strike waves of the late 2000s that led to the toppling of the Mubarak regime, reporting from Tahrir Square and the towns and factories beyond - in 2016 publishing The Egyptians. This episode, our very special guest brings in a mug from the April 6th Youth Movement, once among the leaders of the revolution and now outlawed by the state and designated a terrorist symbol - the first time our cursed object has had to be smuggled across borders. Reliving Jack's experiences of revolutionary promise, collapse and...
2023-09-181h 01
Cursed ObjectsRainy Empire Island ft. Charlotte Lydia RileyWelcome to a new series of Cursed Objects! For the first episode back, very special guest historian Charlotte Lydia Riley brings in a souvenir mug commemorating the British Empire Exhibition of 1924 – where the very normal exhibits included a working coalmine, a model of the Prince of Wales sculpted out of butter, and… actual human beings brought back from the colonies to the metropole. Charlotte explains how groups like the Union of African Students pushed back, and the imperial undertones of Winnie the Pooh and Adrian Mole. We discuss Charlotte’s brilliant new book Imperial Island, about empire in the 20th cent...
2023-09-051h 04
Cursed ObjectsCursed Summer Sessions: The Revolutionary Potential of Antiques RoadshowFor the next Patreon-only Cursed Summer Session, Dan and Kasia get stuck into a decades-old British institution, with a TV review of Antiques Roadshow - comparing the huge gulf between the show in 1990 and 2023. Is it the most suffocating, reactionary show on TV? Twee middle-class commodity fetishism?
Or is there more to it than that - couldn't this also be a democratic goldmine, a forum for grassroots, participatory material history for the masses? What kind of objects need to appear on Antiques Roadshow to make it something more than Tory heritage industry fluff?
*** For the f...
2023-08-2507 min
Cursed ObjectsStill Trippin’ on These ShroomsSit up straight, hippies! Kasia and Dan have some questions for you, and it's high time you answered. Where did all this magic mushroom merch come from? What makes tye-die and flares swing in and out of fashion? What is the thread between psychedelia in 1960s pop culture and medieval dance manias? What does Camden market have to do with all this? Are drugs still winning the war on drugs? And most infuriatingly of all, how is there so much cowardice, hypocrisy and bullshit in British discourse around drug policies that we are now behind even the United States?
2023-07-3120 min
Cursed ObjectsJamie’s Cursed Cookin’ - ft. Jonathan Nunn and BizPukka! We’re dancing in the moonlight with the king of the English culinary world, Jamie Oliver. How did someone so cringe achieve such dizzying levels of fame and power? How did he end up being an unofficial advisor to Tonty Blair? Special guests Jonathan Nunn and Biz take us through Jamie’s Naked Chef years, the Downing Street years and the Jerk Rice years, via the extremely cursed Cookin’: Music To Cook By compilation CD. From New Labour and school dinners to the notorious Lamb Curry Song (complete with dodgy Jamaican accent), it’s a wild ride with the world...
2023-07-101h 04
Cursed ObjectsThe Work Of Toblerone In The Age Of Mechanical ReproductionCome fly away with us and Alain de Botton (sorry but he's coming too), and take a trip on Venga Airways - but we're not leaving the ground: you're trapped with us in the departure lounge, for ever. Are airports the most cursed spaces in the modern world? Liminal spaces between nations and cultures, a surveilled, high-security purgatory, with access to Oliver Bonas. Why the hell are Gen Z *choosing* to hang out there, for fun? And are personalised gifts like our Cursed Objects Toblerone the last gasp of late-period consumer capitalism?
FULL EPISODE HERE >> ONLY £4 A M...
2023-06-2611 min
Cursed ObjectsMilking ItIt's a source of strength, life, sickness, disgust, delight and deep nausea. It's fraught with climate controversy and tensions over rights, care, state power, social democracy, misogyny and outrageous colonial history. Where did we learn that strong kids drink milk? Why is the Laughing Cow not laughing anymore? Why have neo-Nazis adopted it as a weird signifier of their racism? And what does the rise and rise of oat milk - with its cringe hipster tweevertising - tell us about late capitalism?
Also - why not join our Patreon? ONLY £4 A MONTH TO SUPPORT YR FAV CULTURAL HI...
2023-06-1358 min
Cursed ObjectsDeath to False Metal! H&M Guns ’n’ Roses baby grow
Oh so you're 6 months old and you say you're a true Guns 'n' Roses fan? Name their top 3 albums then! Coming to you live from the furious and cathartic heart of the moshpit, this week Dan and Kasia take on the golden age of RAWK, homemade metal 'battle jackets', music fandom and nerdery, masculinity, authenticity and the long history of rock 'selling out'. What happens when a music and fashion sub-culture moves on from its golden era - what is left in its wake? And why are metallers so obsessed with fortified wine?
FULL EPISODE HERE >> ONLY £4 A MONTH TO LI...
2023-05-2308 min
Cursed ObjectsElf Bars For DaysSmoking is almost too on-the-nose a subject for Cursed Objects. But vapes - candy-coloured, daftly-named, targeted at children, making wads of $$$ for the same tobacco companies - vapes are perfect. How are these cursed little dummies - cheap plastic disposable tat, destined for landfill - marketed? Why did fags disappear from the movies? How has Big Tobacco adapted to bans on its lobbying, advertising and product placement?
In 1974, 45% of British adults smoked. People smoked not just in restaurants and pubs, but on the tube, and in hospitals. Those numbers have fallen to 13% today - a huge social...
2023-05-091h 05
Cursed ObjectsWhere were you when.. (ROYAL EDITION)The desire to feel like you are 'part of history' can turn even the most ardent republican into a flag-waving monarchist shill. So why are we all so desperate to tell subsequent generations that we were 'there' and how does this urge corrode politics? Just in time for the King's Coronation, from our Patreon to main feed, we explore the period of national mourning we recorded in September 2022 following the Queen's death. 9 months have passed, but many of the themes explored in this episode are timeless..
FOR PART ONE OF THE EPISODE, SIGN UP FOR O...
2023-05-0552 min
Cursed ObjectsChairman MeowKasia and Dan address their toughest question yet: are cats left wing? Springing from a shared love of feline friends, they trace the history of cat-obsessed activists and intellectuals through Kasia's cat The Professor's very gross lost claw. Why did the left choose to welcome these ruthless killers into their homes? Are cats incapable of love, or is that a myth spread by 'Big Bird’? And they trawl the digital recesses of blog sites (so you don’t have to) to test if cat memes will turn you into a libertarian or communist. They also read Leigh Claire La Berge's bril...
2023-04-1911 min
Cursed ObjectsBONUS episode - In the Guantánamo Bay Gift Shop
There is a gift shop in Guantánamo Bay. That’s it. That’s the episode. From ‘mindfulness’ mugs to lip balms, Kasia and Dan explore the extremely cursed Guantánamo merchandise and everyday objects on offer - alongside ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ like waterboarding, and the kidnapping of foreign nationals for long-term detention without charge. From their use of euphemistic language, to the geography and history of this highly secretive US naval base, still squatting on Cuban soil – this is part history lesson, part fury at the continuing injustices committed in the name of the war on terror and 'all our freedoms'.
...
2023-04-0530 min
Cursed ObjectsMaking a Meal of It - ft. Lucy DearloveA plain ham sandwich, a bottle of still water and a pack of ready salted crisps – it's a meal (deal) fit for a King, and a Cursed Objects x Lecker collab! This week, legends in their own lunchtimes Kasia, Dan and special guest Lucy Dearlove delve into claggy sandwiches, terrible sushi and supermarket psychology and ask: what the hell is going on in Britain that our most well-known high street chemist changed the way we eat lunch?
What do your meal deal choices say about you, and what’s the most cursed meal deal of all? How have...
2023-03-2157 min
Cursed ObjectsBONUS episode - The One With The Long 90sCould we BE any more cursed? This week, Dan and Kasia talk about the strange, mutant afterlife of Friends, the world's least cool situation comedy. On the agenda, such questions as: has some kind of Friends merchandise atom bomb been detonated in recent years? What does the show tell us about the politics and culture of the 1990s - and why is that decade so 'long'? Why are tweens in Britain in 2023 wearing Central Perk t-shirts and 'We Were On A Break' socks? What kind of comfort is it that we find in lightweight sitcoms - "playing in the...
2023-03-0916 min
Cursed ObjectsSwear Down!Kasia and Dan explore the crisis in British swearing through Robert Peston’s very cursed book ‘WTF’. What does it say about our society that a leading political pundit sells his books through expletives? And with groans of despair viscerally being felt across the UK whenever someone calls Matt Hancock a ‘cockwomble’, what has become of swearing as a once transgressive art form? It’s a wild ride into Westminster’s ‘chumocracy’, the publishing industry’s sweary self-help books that atomise your depression and captisalise on a 'punk' ethos, and the most groan-worthy recesses of Internet forums.
If you're enjoy...
2023-02-2155 min
Cursed ObjectsBONUS episode - Herbal Tea Advent CalendarWhat happens to the space-time continuum if you open an advent calendar in April? What are the healing properties of "different flavours of damp twig"? This week, Kasia and Dan are exploring the quasi-mystical powers of herbal tea, via an out-of-time advert calendar covered in a thick layer of dust. We talk about measuring the passage of time with hot drinks, about Kasia's relationship with the Polish diaspora in the UK, about folk culture, identity and assimilation, about foraging, about herbal remedies, and about our estranged relationships with the land.
FULL EPISODE HERE >> ONLY £4 A MONTH TO L...
2023-01-3009 min
Cursed ObjectsMe and USSR and Everyone We KnowGo east! Kasia and Dan tackle a satirical boardgame about queuing in Cold War-era Poland and go deep into 'Ostalgie' -- how do people remember the Soviet era, especially people who don't actually remember the Soviet era? Pioneers, communist pickles and coffee made from acorns all feature, along with 'Good Bye, Lenin!' and an immersive theatrical experience in a Lithuanian nuclear bunker.
Here is Svetlana Boym's essay, 'Nostalgia and its Discontents'.
If you're enjoying Cursed Objects, please support our Patreon, for regular bonus episodes: patreon.com/cursedobjects. And very soon: CURSED OBJECTS STICKERS.
2023-01-1759 min
Cursed ObjectsCursed and Blessed Ghosts of Christmas Past - ft. Archie Bashford and Mr BeatnickIT'S CUUUUUURSEDMAAAAAAAS! We're having a work Christmas party and you're all invited -- we've got some festive VKs and gingerbread milk stout, and we're going to finally determine who's been naughty and who's been nice - with help from Gary Barlow, our designer Archie and our producer Nick Wilson. Along with some dangerous live DIY we have tales of bleeding eyes (aka when Dan became Jesus), the survival of hard currency via Chocolate Oranges, Guy Ritchie characters, Franciscan monks and fake-northern monks, and some feral behaviour around ham - a drunk history ft. three bald kings and one sentimental...
2022-12-151h 13
Cursed ObjectsAbject PumpkinismIt's spooky season, it's harvest season, it's pumpkin season, it's nesting season, it's hygge season, it's cuffing season, it's christian girl autumn -- but where do all these labels and ideas come from?? As the nights draw in, Dan and Kasia ask how we got from the ancient Celtic pagan festival of Samhain - where the boundary between the mortal world and the Otherworld opened to allow the dead to walk amongst us - to Halloween Nike Air Max 90s and pumpkin-spiced-latte candles? And why are kids in urban primary schools taught quite so many songs about the importance...
2022-11-211h 03
Cursed Objects*UNLOCKED* The Walter Benjamin Escape TownFROM PATREON TO MAIN FEED: it's a Hot Geist Summer episode where Kasia and Dan take a cursed journey into the darkest parts of the experience economy... from yuppie ballpit bars and escape rooms in Shoreditch, to the commodification and historicisation of the Holocaust, it's a wild ride with the spiritual godfather of Cursed Objects on his 130th birthday.
If you can, please SIGN UP for our Patreon for only £4 a month here: https://www.patreon.com/cursedobjects
Theme music and production: Mr Beatnick
Artwork: Archie Bashford
2022-11-0955 min
Cursed Objects*PREVIEW* - Marmalade Sandwiches and National MourningWe've done our duties Paddington, now take us to straight to hell (boy).
Two weeks of pent-up angst, hilarity and bewilderment comes out in a wild ride through Britain's "period of national mourning".
What on earth is a 'national mood', what are its rituals, who invented them and when? What do these offerings - these marmalade totems - reveal about British sentiment and sentimentality? What does it say about the UK that foodbanks will close down as a mark of respect to a dead monarch? When are we all aware of our 'place in history'? W...
2022-10-1709 min
Cursed ObjectsThere Goes The Neighbourhood ft. Les BackPostcode paraphernalia – check! Neighbourhood nationalism – check! Commodified cities? All here. We are very excited to be joined by iconic sociologist Les Back as he reflects on his much beloved, but equally cursed, House of Catford bottle opener. When did we start wearing I Love *insert misc. borough* branded t-shirts? How do we tell the difference between grassroots projects, and the property developers that try to sell us profitable images of gentrified districts? Dan, Kasia and Les go on a journey through Slewisham, The Cronx, and Pecknarm to find out.
For more info: follow us on twitter and instagr...
2022-10-051h 11
Cursed ObjectsLost in the Supermarket - Bags for Life and Loyalty FobsNectar selectors and club card members: where do your loyalty cards lie? This week, Dan and Kasia are discussing how supermarkets became so all-powerful that they can "campaign" on political and environmental issues (slash greenwash cynically) and the state can only follow their lead.
Also, why are full shelves in the supermarket oddly soothing when you have a hangover, and why empty shelves tell a story of social collapse? Do loyalty fobs promise a Fully Automated Luxury Future? What exactly are they doing with all our grocery data? Would Gordon Brown back the introduction of ID fobs?
2022-09-121h 01
Cursed Objects*PREVIEW* - The Cybergoth International: day-glo ties, Gen Z and youth subculturesThis week, we're asking what Gen Z kids mean when they say "My aesthetic is looking like a terrible 90s market stall in Camden Town!"? (NB this may not be a direct quotation, but close enough.) Kasia and Dan take us on a wild journey through 'cybergoth internationalism', fluokids, retro culture, futurism and modernity, chaotic teenage ideas of cool and the death (or not!) of youth subcultures.
Full episode available on Patreon.com/cursedobjects
Theme music and production: Mr Beatnick
Artwork: Archie Bashford
2022-09-0114 min
Cursed Objects*UNLOCKED* Summer of strikes / when the lights go out
FROM PATREON TO MAIN FEED: Are we heading for a 'summer of discontent'? Are we going 'back to the 1970s'? Three day week and a four-day bender? What really happened when the lights went out? Why do we cast particular eras as 'dark ages' or periods of decline, and who does it serve when we do so? Why were the 70s such an excellent time for white utility candles?
This week, Kasia and Dan try and unpick the myths and moral panics from the realities: that the 70s were a decade of decline, social breakdown and perpetual...
2022-08-171h 05
Cursed Objects*PREVIEW* - The Walter Benjamin Escape TownCelebrating Walter Benjamin's 130th birthday with a truly cursed journey into the darkest end of the experience economy... from yuppie ballpit bars in Shoreditch to the commodification of the Holocaust, it's a wild ride with the spiritual godfather of Cursed Objects.
Theme music and production: Mr Beatnick
Artwork: Archie Bashford
2022-08-0104 min
Cursed ObjectsBulldog Power Energy DrinkHealth warning!!! Kasia and Dan are cracking through the radioactive, ever-expanding global energy drinks market LIVE ON AIR... From patriotic energy drinks brought to you by Albion's sovereign bulldog, to middle-class FBPE Euroshopper cans... what unites jocks, bros/bruhs, ravers, skaters, bungee jumpers, construction workers who actually have to get up early and work really hard, coders, gamers and goths? A big dose of sugar and a big dose of caffeine, that's what. How did a love of energy drinks come to stand for an entire (male, young, online) sub-culture? Why is their catchphrase "heart attack on blokes"? And...
2022-07-181h 06Cursed Objects*PREVIEW* Summer of strikes / when the lights go out
Are we heading for a 'summer of discontent'? Are we going 'back to the 1970s'? Three day week and a four-day bender? What really happened when the lights went out? Why do we cast particular eras as 'dark ages' or periods of decline, and who does it serve when we do so? Why were the 70s such an excellent time for white utility candles?
This week, Kasia and Dan try and unpick the myths and moral panics from the realities: that the 70s were a decade of decline, social breakdown and perpetual unrest -- rubbish in the...
2022-07-0612 min
Cursed ObjectsA Jubilee CatastropheWe’re BACK following two Patreon-only episodes – and we are celebrating! Bunting? Check. Tables? Check. Unelected head of state who costs the British taxpayer £67 million a year? CHECK. That’s right – this week we are discussing HM The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee. The resources for which the Government have spent big money for you to download. All this fuss has got us wondering - is coronation chicken a good thing? Does bunting have a latent revolutionary potential? And, is the monarchy an important question for the left?
If you've enjoyed Cursed Objects so far, please support our...
2022-06-151h 08
Cursed Objects*PREVIEW* - The secular church of the NHSCrayons out for universal health care! Stay home, protect the NHS, make a sign to put in your window, clap for your doctors and nurses, give them all a badge - but don't bother with a pay rise. This week, Kasia and Dan delve into the deep passions, protective instincts, personal pathos and politics swirling around every British resident's relationship with the National Health Service, the only acceptable face of the state - but one increasingly covered in bandages?
FULL EPISODE is available exclusively to Patreon subscribers here:
https://www.patreon.com/posts/bonus-episode-of-66778799
2022-05-2304 min
Cursed Objects*PREVIEW* - Magna Carta dart board aka Mythic Albion
Welcome all free-born Englishmen, sovereign citizens, rebel barons and new patrons! On this first of what will now be regular Patreon-only episodes - we're talking about myths of Englishness, why the state has such a fragile ego, a Covid-denying soft play centre called Cirq-D-Play, and why everyone is obsessed with an 807-year-old legal document that had to be rewritten several times and was then scrapped anyway.
FULL EPISODE is available exclusively to Patreon subscribers here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/65903988
Theme music and production: Mr Beatnick
Artwork: Archie Bashford
2022-05-0305 min
Cursed ObjectsGay Flags and Lavender Scares ft. Huw LemmeySeries 2 ends with a bang, and some serious vexillology: talking homonationalism, gay villages, the commercialisation of Pride, the history of criminalisation of LGBTQ people, the Gay End of History, and this flag - The Pink Jack, with legendary writer and podcaster, Bad Gays' Huw Lemmey.
Bad Gays: A Homosexual History is published by Verso on 31 May 2022 and you can (and should) pre-order it RIGHT NOW.
Huw Lemmey's Utopian Drivel Substack is here.
The Bad Gays podcast, which Huw hosts with Ben Miller, is here.
If you've enjoyed Cursed Objects s...
2022-04-111h 10
Cursed ObjectsAlien Eggs, UFOs and Conspiracy Theories for the End of HistoryU-F-Whoa! It's the penultimate episode of Series 2, and this week Dan and Kasia consider the Wyrd 1990s, bedding down in Area 51 with Mulder and Scully (and their mates from the Judeo-Masonic-Bolshevik NWO) to ask why alien conspiracies thrived in mainstream pop culture immediately after the end of the Cold War. Was this catharsis as the threat of nuclear annihilation receded? Or just a silly distraction in a godless universe? Why do conspiracy theories appeal to people in the first place? Also featuring crop circles, Corbyn conspiracies, yer man Senator McCarthy and S Club 7's visit to the Bermuda Triangle.
2022-04-041h 02
Cursed ObjectsCanary Wharf, grime and the docks'Wall Street's Guantanamo' or 'our Statue of Liberty'? This week Dan and Kasia grapple with a series of very large cursed objects, the sky-scraping glass-and-steel totems to finance capitalism in London's former docklands. There is discussion of the east London grime scene, hostile architecture, Stuart Hall, dystopian privatised public spaces, and how buildings can embody the spirit of the age.
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 Beatni...
2022-03-281h 03
Cursed ObjectsManly Gifts for the Man In Your LifeIt'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'.
2022-03-211h 04
Cursed ObjectsBrand 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...
2022-03-1454 min
Cursed ObjectsAbigail’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/cu...
2022-03-071h 00
Cursed ObjectsVan Gogh ”Earaser” - ft. Alice ProcterArt 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 enjoy...
2022-03-031h 05
Cursed ObjectsSUPPORT THE UCU STRIKEThis 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
2022-02-2104 min
Cursed ObjectsMystical algorithmsWhen 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 yo...
2022-02-1458 min
Cursed ObjectsCeleb CASH-IN!! Unofficial Fearne Cotton biographyCelebrity 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...
2022-02-0750 min
Cursed ObjectsSexy Putin CalendarIf 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/c...
2022-01-3159 min
Cursed ObjectsCursed Objects - Series 2 TrailerA 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 @Curse...
2022-01-2401 min
Cursed ObjectsCursed Snacks - Omi-Christmas SpecialDeck 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/cur...
2021-12-201h 11
The Night Terrors PodcastThe Monkey's Paw Part III byBe careful what you wish for..it might come back..
This is the final part of the three part classic. Thank you as always for tuning in. If you haven't already, be sure to subscribe and leave us a five star review. If your listening app doesn't let you review, share us with a friend. We love our listeners and every little bit of your help keeps us going.
Music - Myuu - Disintegrating
https://soundcloud.com/myuu/disintegrating
Dark Project by ESN Productions
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
2021-11-1212 min
The Night Terrors PodcastThe Monkey's Paw: Part II by W.W. JacobsBe careful what you wish for..
This is part 2 of the three part classic. Part 3 will be e releasing Friday. Thank you as always for tuning in. If you haven't already, be sure to subscribe and leave us a five star review. If your listening app doesn't let you review, share us with a friend. We love our listeners and every little bit of your help keeps us going.
#creepypasta #classichorror #horror #monkeyspaw #cursedobjects
Be sure to come say hi at our website! To hear more creepy content from independent writers throughout the...
2021-11-1008 min
The Night Terrors PodcastThe Monkey's Paw: Part I by W.W. JacobsBe careful what you wish for..
This is part I of the three part classic. Part 2 will be coming out on Wednesday, with the finale releasing Friday.
Thank you as always for tuning in. If you haven't already, be sure to subscribe and leave us a five star review. If your listening app doesn't let you review, share us with a friend. We love our listeners and every little bit of your help keeps us going.
#creepypasta #classichorror #horror #monkeyspaw #cursedobjects
Be sure to come say hi at our website! To hear...
2021-11-0813 min
Mysteries and MonstersMysteries and Monsters: Episode 149 Cursed Objects with J W OckerOn this final episode of the spooky season , author J W Ocker joins me to lift the lid on some notorious cursed objects from around the world which he's covered in his new book, Cursed Objects.
Jason tells us how his journey into this subject saw him purchase his very own cursed object to get him into the mindset of what owning one would do to his belief that there are no such things as demonic inanimate possessions and how he tracked one down from Ebay.
We look at the infamous Dybbuk Box, a modern creation or...
2021-10-281h 19
Cursed ObjectsInspire A GenerationSeries 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/curs...
2021-06-021h 05
Cursed ObjectsHoly 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...
2021-05-2653 min
Cursed ObjectsRainbow Rhythms and Neoliberal BluesKasia 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
2021-05-1954 min
Cursed ObjectsWe Are Your FriendsKasia 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
2021-05-121h 00
Cursed ObjectsWhy 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
Th...
2021-05-051h 05
Cursed ObjectsDystopian Soft PlayIt'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.
2021-04-2855 min
Cursed ObjectsCurry-Flavour Instant Ramen From GdanskJoin 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
2021-04-2158 min
Cursed ObjectsThe Case of the DVD Box SetDan 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
2021-04-141h 05
Cursed ObjectsBe Sad and Shut UpThis 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
2021-04-071h 00
Cursed ObjectsHouseplants 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
2021-04-061h 00
Cursed ObjectsWelcome to Cursed Objects!Introducing a new podcast about big ideas, weird history, and pop culture - and tat. Come and meet hosts Dr Kasia Tee and Dan Hancox in the gift shop if you want a fight. Series 1 begins very soon!
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
2021-03-0900 min
Wyrd RealitiesSn 1 Ep 4 [WyrdRealities] Very Wyrd Haunted & Cursed ObjectsOne very unusual phenomena of the paranormal world is that of the haunted object. Join hosts Gracie and Hadley as they discuss cursed or haunted paintings, statues, mirrors, and more. #CatskillsCrone #Murderchair #darkmirrors #cursedpaintings #cursedobjects #haunteditems
2021-01-3043 min