PODCASTS THE BEST AUDIO SHOWS TO LISTEN TO THIS WEEK

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HAPPY PLACE Cheer up with this!

Each week Fearne Cotton (right) asks famous guests to tell her what happiness means to them. Cotton is no bulldog interviewer but she has twinkle in spades and gets the best from her interviewees, even when she’s talking to them on the phone from under her duvet. Kick off with the recent episode with Ricky Gervais, who mouths off about the narcissism of social media.

HISTORY OF IDEAS Cerebral stuff

Talking Politics is, drum roll please, my favourite podcast. This new spin-off series, presented by academic David Runciman, explores ideas that have changed history. It’s proper brain exercise. But Runciman assumes no former knowledge and his love of tomes such as Hobbes’s Leviathan proves infectious. I can think of no better guide than him.

NO REALLY, I’M FINE Tales from the front line of hardship

It’s an odd time to be a sentient human being. On this weekly podcast, ordinary people who have had a rough time with their mental health talk candidly about what they’ve gone through. Interviews are sensitive, intimate and often deeply moving. Begin with the episode on surviving Covid-19 as a single parent for its conversation with a father who had a breakdown in Scotland after his marriage foundered and he was left homeless.

EASY PEASY QUARANTINI Can you find love in the middle of a pandemic?

Housemates Tash and Caitlyn are plucky women in their 30s who are riding out the pandemic together. They are also single and keen not to be. On this new podcast they romp through the weirdness of looking for love in the age of coronavirus. They cover everything from boomerang exes and guys with puppies to Skype dates (these turn out to be awkward but less expensive and time-consuming than real-life dates).