The Curiosity of a Child

48: 🪙 Tales of treasure. Cocos Island, the Centurion and a Hermit

This episode we go treasure hunting, exploring three stories from around the world focussing on our obsession with greed and wealth.
We sail around the globe the wrong way telling an epic tale of survival, visit a tropical island in search of lost treasure and learn about an unusual hermit. Each story is about more than glittering gold and priceless gems, it’s a tale of the lengths man will go to in the pursuit of fame and fortune.
Anton talks about a German man desperate to discover the lost treasure of Lima on Cocos Island and I use the logs of Guernsey Great Philip Saumarez to recount the epic round world trip of the Centurion in search of Spanish gold! We also meet a hermit with a familiar name but a very unfortunate story.
 
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Bonus: 👵 Re-release: Margaret Ann Neve (fixed!)

I have uploaded the correct audio this time!
In celebration of Margaret Ann Neve’s birthday we’re re-releasing our feature about her 110 year life! It was buried at the end of episode 19 so deserves to be surfaced. Listen to how much Anton has changed in the 2 and a bit years since release then imagine what 110 years of change must have felt like for Margaret. She was the first person recorded to have lived in 3 different centuries and was born and spent most of her life here in Guernsey!

Bonus: 🥔 The Potato Boom!

This feature was researched and written by Anton!
Have you heard of the 1903 Potato boom? No? Neither had we until recently. Join Anton as he tells you all about Archibald Findlay and his amazing potatoes that were reaching prices of £5000 a ton - that’s half a million in today’s money. But are they all they’re cracked up to be?
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47: 👾 Interview with Paul Mayze: Cards, the Universe and Everything

This episode we take a break from talking history and science and interview Paul Mayze MD of Avid Games, the creators of Cards, the Universe and Everything affectionately known as CUE Cards.
CUE Cards is a great fun mobile game that’s chock-full of facts about… well everything! It’s a deck building and battling game where you can learn about everything from Chinese Folklore to the Higgs Boson and Corn Beef Sandwiches to the Macrauchenia!
As soon as Anton and I started playing we knew CUE Cards fitted our podcast and love of learning perfectly so reached out to them and they happily agreed to tell us more.
Paul talks to us about the challenges of creating and maintaining a thriving game and community, the difficulties of balancing trade and game mechanics and the joy of seeing people, particularly families, having fun together. A big thank you to Paul for taking the time to talk to us.
If you enjoy the game please enter Anton’s referral code so you and he get some goodies: W8K-40L-XVK
You can downland CUE Cards from the App Store, Google Play or visit their website: https://www.cardstheuniverseandeverything.com/

46: 🥔 Potato, Potato, Potato, foundation of the modern world

The potato, it’s been with us forever, it’s so mundane and everyday it’s hardly worth thinking about, right? Wrong!
A relatively recent arrival to Europe and much of the world this not so simple vegetable has had a very big impact on the modern world. Easily outstripping the nutritional value of grains and other primary crops it can be argued the modern world - and Europe’s - would not have been possible without it.
We travel from Axomama, an Andean potato goddess, through it’s spread across Europe (correcting several incorrect anecdotes along the way) to modern day China where’s the humble potato is celebrated in song!

45: 🤖 Artificial intelligence, creativity and talking to animals

Artificial intelligence is set to transform the world altering how we work, access content and create. Many visions of AI show it as robotic, machinelike and impersonal but is this really the case? In this first AI revolution it’s creativity and artistic disciplines that are most touched. But can a computer really be creative and what does creativity mean? Trained on our data - our images, writings, stories - they have only ever had an echo of the true experience of feeling sad or the wind in their hair.
We explore this topic, demonstrate how DALL·E works, get creeped out by Bing uncover what animals say, all using AI!

44: ⚛️ Elementary my dear Anton - atoms and elements

Last episode we were dragged down to hell through our naive use of magic and magical elements - this time we break free thanks to the real elements that make our world - the atoms.
Anton and I recreate a Roman casting technique, melting tin in cuttlefish bone moulds to get a closer look at one of the earliest metals humans would have worked.
From our obsession with gold to burning diamonds with giant magnifying glasses we’ve long sought to control, create and transform the world. Beginning with the first nanoseconds of the universe we chart humanity’s understanding of these smallest of building blocks.
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43: 🔮 The History of Magic

Magic has a long and complex history. From the earliest times people have sought to understand and control the world around them. The Babylonians would be guided by celestial movements, the Romans would give young boys a Divine Phallus to ward off the evil eye. We start at the beginning and work our way through magical practice taking in stories of witchcraft, meetings with the devil and the burning of babies. Taking all we learn and armed with a powerful wand, divine protection and a handful of herbs we try our hand at magic and summon a banshee.
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42: 🧒22 Orphans to Save the World - Intelligent Speech 2022

We were honoured to be invited to talk at Intelligent Speech 2022 on the theme of crossings. https://www.intelligentspeechconference.com/
We selected the Balmis expedition - a Spanish attempt to vaccinate their empire from smallpox in the early 1800s but in an age before air travel and refrigeration how do you transfer a delicate vaccine across the world’s oceans? Enter 22 orphans to save the world...
We had a few technical issues during recording but I have tried my best to clean the audio up.

41: 🦜 William Dampier, explorer, pirate, privateer, navigator, and naturalist

Ahoy me hearties, weight anchor and lets be off!
We look at the life of one of the most amazing but forgotten men of the 1600s, William Dampier. Ever curious he was an explorer, navigator, naturalist, writer and so much more. The author of A New Voyage Around the World, his accounts opened the world to the public. Never before had people experienced such exotic locations from their own homes or had such detailed descriptions of the world beyond their shores. From stories of raids on Spanish settlements in the Pacific to first setting step on the shores of Australia his vivid accounts were a world first. He inspired Charles Darwin, Daniel Defoe, Jonathan Swift, Alexander von Humboldt and many more. Sadly his more lawless acts would lead him, in the eyes of some, to be little more than a common pirate but we hope to show you just how wrong this is.