059 - HELEN ARNEY - WORLD'S WORST ELEMENT

February 26, 2018

It's time to get out our Bunsen Burners and boil everything down to its most basic constituent parts: if we can work out what the worst element in the world is, perhaps we can uncover the secrets behind all heroic failure?

Joining us this week is breathtakingly smart and multi-talented chanteuse of the science world Helen Arney. Part of the Festival of the Spoken Nerd, Helen has appeared on TV and Radio as both a science communicator, madcap experimenter and dab hand with the ukulele. Together we navigate through the tricky quarries full of Kryptonite (all 22 varieties), sinister red mercury, dull old Boron and the phoenix-like astatine.

058 - FELIX TRENCH - WORLD'S WORST DAY

February 19, 2018

It’s a beautiful day! Our guest this week is the actor Felix Trench, star of the podcast sitcom ‘Wooden Overcoats’ (www.woodenovercoats.com) and history graduate who thumbs through the Worst Foot Chronicles to look for the World’s Worst Day. There are quite a few to choose from… Felix gives us a worldwide tour of the year 1556, Ben harks back to the day the 20th Century began and Barry does a double-take as he discovers his calendar has a February the 30th.

Worst Foot Forward is part of Podnose: www.podnose.com

057 - MATT STELLINGWERF - WORLD'S WORST PUNISHMENT

February 12, 2018

We're joined this week by award-winning Kiwi comic and former criminologist Matt Stellingwerf to cover a seriously grisly topic: the world's worst punishment.

This episode comes with a serious content warning as we delve into the depths of human behaviour to discuss capital punishments with the sort of inventiveness normally reserved for Wallace and Gromit. Our search takes us from medieval Spain to Enlightenment Sweden, with nods to Greek myths, Greek history and depressing American present. You'll learn a lot in here and hopefully come away not too depressed about the nature of humanity...

056b - THE WORLD'S WORST 'BEST OF 2017' EPISODE

February 5, 2018

This week on Worst Foot Forward we are celebrating joining Podnose, the UK’s leading independent entertainment podcasting network. To mark this, we’re looking back over our first year (and a bit) of trivial silliness and awful achievements. We’ve picked out some of our favourite facts and fripperies from episodes 1 to 53, featuring some of our very best guests and very worst worsts, including understudy dogs, delicious seagull wine, Sexy Pac-Man and #goatballs. If you’re a longtime listener or are tuning in for the very first time, this should give you a good idea of the sort of nonsense we peddle week in, week out. Wooden spoons at the ready? Dig in.