Lit Bits

Ep. 4 Lit Bits Goes to the Movies

In which Lit Bits (Adam ‘Lit’ Smyth and James ‘Bits’ Kidd) are joined by film critic and author James Mottram to discuss several matters pertaining to literature and film. We three grapple with, among other things, the strange discourse of The Empire Strikes Back —the life and opinions of Thomas Hanks Esq—the many difficulties involved when translating prose to the cinema—the peculiarities of reading a book while attending the cinema—Mr Thomas Hanks (actor)—the attractions or otherwise of becoming a screenwriter—the curious circumstances that befell Thomas Hanks—as well as more surprising and unexpected adventures, full of learning and good wit.

Ep. 23 Lit Bits on New Year (Mini Lit Bit)

In which Lit Bits (Adam ‘Lit’ Smyth and James ‘Bits’ Kidd) forget old acquaintance in a Soho doorway as a December deluge rains on their parade to make their new year resolutions. More exercise, less saturated fat, and a diet of Jeffrey Archer, EL James and Jon Bon Jovi’s epic poem about a strip club.

Ep. 22 Lit Bits on Walking (Mini Lit Bit)

Walk this way. Talk this way. As Run DMC once said before taking their annual Boxing Day ramble to the pub. Adam 'Lit' Smyth and James 'Bits' Kidd follow suit and do their talking while they’re walking – and vice versa – tumbling out of the French House in Soho, recorder in hand.

Ep. 21 Lit Bits on Celebration (Mini Lit Bit)

In which Adam 'Lit' Smyth and James 'Bit' Kidd don the party hats, parp those funny trumpets and let it all hang out. Or very nearly. This is Lit Bits' way of asking: how do novels, plays and poems celebrate good times (come on).  
 What is Lit Bits? Listen here...
Is humanity way too down with ambivalence to have a good time (come on, let's celebrate)? Are we too sad these days to strut our whatsits? So: Dickens does Christmas. Milton does Shakespeare. Carver does vodka. Gerard Manley Hopkins does the night. Frank O’Hara does love. And Kool and the Gang does … well, exactly what Kool and the Gang should.
Yaa-HOO! Or, if you prefer, Goo-gle. This is your celebration! It might even work with Ask Jeeves (Ask Jeeves that one, kids).
First broadcast on Resonance FM.
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Ep. 19 Lit Bits goes Shopping (Mini Lit Bit)

With Black Friday burning a hole in his tracksuit, James ‘Bits’ Kidd heads for a shopping mall in Poughkeepsie, upstate New York, to blow the entire Lit Bits expense account on a five-speed neck massager.

Ep. 18 Lit Bits on Mistakes (with Liane Strauss)

In which Lit Bits (Adam 'Lit' Smyth and a train-delayed—but eventually present—James 'Bits' Kidd) are joined by poet Liane Strauss to discuss mistakes, slips, wanderings, and things not quite going to plan. A dash of Shakespeare; a shot of Keats; a half-pint tumbler of Wallace Stevens; and a generous lacing of Phil “Errare” Larkin.

Ep. 17 Lit Bits on Fear (Mini Lit Bit)

Lit Bits (Adam ‘Lit’ Smyth and James ‘Bit’ Kidd) ascends to a hidden portal in the London Library and finds not Thetans, but a creepily broken desk. Is this where recalcitrant members go to die?

Ep. 16 Lit Bits on Truth (with Hallie Rubenhold and Alex von Tunzelmann)

In which Lit Bits (Adam ‘Lit’ Smyth and James ‘Bits’ Kidd) – never afraid to tackle the big issues – dons its metaphysical (and metaphorical) wig, takes a deep breath, and plunges into TRUTH in films and books. Joined by historical whizzes Alex von Tunzelmann and Hallie Rubenhold, the pod wrestles with JFK; Margaret Thatcher; Christian Bale; John Keats; The French Revolution; T.S. Eliot; Shakespeare; a couple of llamas; and dear, dear Mel Gibson.

Ep. 15 Lit Bits on Flying (w/ Hallie Rubenhold + Alex von Tunzelmann)

It’s chocks away as Lit Bits (Adam ‘Lit’ Smyth and James ‘Bits’ Kidd) are joined, for five high-altitude minutes, by Alex von Tunzelmann and Hallie Rubenhold, to talk planes and books. Just what do you read during a flight? Why is airplane food so terrible? Why does every movie seem to star Seth Rogan?
And who exactly is Seth Rogan?????
Reading, writing, doomed ambition and all manner of zipless unmentionables.

Ep. 14 Lit Bits on Pubs (Mini Lit Bit)

Lit Bits (Adam ‘Lit’ Smyth and James ‘Bits’ Kidd) pop down the boozer for a quick 0.5. Beginning a seemingly inexhaustible fascination with recording nonsense in boozers, our intrepid pod duo battle their way out of the The Lord John Russell to chat about James Joyce and Geoffrey Chaucer. In the process, they struggle to describe Ulysses’ multi-vocal pub conversations, and scratch their heads about just how many whiskeys Dylan Thomas downed before descending that great beer cellar in the basement.

Ep. 13 Lit Bits vs Larkin, Philip (Mini Lit Bit)

In which Lit Bits (Adam ‘Lit’ Smyth and James ‘Bits’ Kidd) are just raising their socks after another exhausting 45 minutes of sitting on a chair and talking nonsense when they ambush themselves with another poem: this time A Study of Reading Habits by Hull’s very own holding midfielder Philip Larkin. 
‘Get stew. Books are a code of laps.’ Or something very like it.

Ep. 12 Literature & WH Auden (Mini Lit Bit with Dinah Roe)

In which Lit Bits (Adam ‘Lit’ Smyth and James ‘Bits’ Kidd) are just putting their feet up after another exhausting 45 minutes of sitting on a chair and talking nonsense when they are ambushed by Dinah Roe armed with a copy of W.H. Auden’s ‘Musée des Beaux Arts’. How will they fare in this on-the-spot close reading? It’s literary criticism, in the nude. Those of a sensitive literary critical disposition might want to look away…now.
What is Lit Bits? Listen here...
Listen out for the sound of pouring wine. And possibly Wystan H turning in his grave.
About suffering Lit Bits was often wrong. But only epistemologically.
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Ep. 11 Lit Bits on Sheds (Mini Lit Bit)

In which Lit Bits (Adam 'Lit' Smyth and James 'Bits' Kidd) stroll to the bottom of the garden to nose around the woodshed. Sheds! Innocent abodes for gardening equipment? Laboratories of literary invention?

Ep. 10 Lit Bits on Art (with Dinah Roe)

Art! In which Lit Bits (Adam ‘Lit’ Smyth and James ‘Bits’ Kidd) are joined by Dinah Roe and, freshly saddled, bound off in pursuit of enlightenment on the verbal and the visual. We begin with some chatter about the Pre-Raphaelite painters who also designed books and even wrote some poems to go inside them.

Ep. 9 Lit Bits on Computers 2.0 (Mini Lit Bit with James Kidd)

Greetings from the future, pod listeners. Admire our foil suits and chrome helmets. Our touch-screen soap dispensers. Stand well back as James 'Bit' Kidd plugs in, turns on and downloads a hi-tech second mini-pod on literature and computers. John Keats meets Radiohead. Or should that be the other way around? Or should that be the other way around?

Ep. 8 Lit Bits on Computers 1.0 (Mini Lit Bit with Adam Smyth)

Hail! A mini Lit Bits in which—for half of ten minutes—Adam 'Lit' Smyth reflects on what Shakespeare would have made of computer-simulated voice software.

Ep. 7 Lit Bits on Pop Music (with Paul Myerscough)

In which Lit Bits (Adam ‘Lit’ Smyth and James ‘Bits’ Kidd) are joined by man of song Paul Myerscough. After ducking beneath Usher’s Climax, the podsters tap their feet to a merry farrago of (among others) Paul Morley—Kylie Minogue—Christopher Ricks—Ulysses—Bob Dylan—Keats—Shakespeare—and perhaps the greatest of them all, Andrew Ridgeley.
What is Lit Bits? Listen here...
Hear the worst cover of Run DMC - ever (now that’s what I call shit hop). Thrill to the pointiillist synthesiser. And gasp as someone admits to their love for Bon Jovi and Natasha Bedingfield. The only question is: who?
Dancing shoes? We think so.
Paul Myerscough is a Senior Editor at the London Review of Books. As heard on Resonance FM.
Listen to more Lit Bits here.

Ep. 6 Lit Bits on Architecture (with Steve Rose)

In which Lit Bits (Adam ‘Lit’ Smyth and James ‘Bits’ Kidd) are joined by Steve Rose Esq., Guardian film critic and man of buildings. Some 40 minutes of musings on books and buildings —the links and differences— not excluding with some matters concerning to: impossible buildings, the language of architecture and literature, the relationship between reading a book and walking a city, the lusty symbolism of the brick, and how to enter a building.
What is Lit Bits? Listen here...
Other questions include. What exactly is a Rem Koolhaas? What do architects and writers have in common? What happened when Adam went to an exhibition of Joe Orton and Kenneth Halliwell's  defaced library books? How do you preserve buildings and for that matter books? 
One trigger warning alert. There is some discussion of Andrew Motion and a reading of one of his poems, which was projected onto a building in Sheffield. Listener discretion advised. 
The pleasant history then draws to a conclusion. Regrets are few as the fellows depart for an ordinary or inn.
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Ep. 5 Lit Bits on Adverts (with Jonathan Thake)

In which Lit Bits (Adam ‘Lit’ Smyth and James ‘Bits’ Kidd) are joined by advertising wiz, comedy writer, and all-round chap-about-town Jonathan Thake. Our trusty podders saddle their steeds and engage in a veritable canter through the vast wild fields of literature and advertising. Among other oddities they encounter on their questing voyage are: Ben Jonson, Pot Noodle, American Psycho, Heineken, and Andrew Motion. Profit and delight are assured.
What is Lit Bits? Listen here...
Duration: 38.05
Jonathan Thake is a writer for both television and advertising. His first comedy series, The Persuasionists, told the story of a fictional advertising agency, and premiered on BBC2 in 2010. Jonathan also works in advertising, and is best known for the controversial ‘slag of all snacks’ campaign for Pot Noodle.
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Ep. 3 Lit Bits on Food (with Polly Russell)

In which Lit Bits (Adam ‘Lit’ Smyth and James ‘Bits’ Kidd) are joined by Polly Russell. After the introduction to the work—or bill of fare to the feast—containing as much of the background as is necessary or proper to acquaint the listener with in the beginning of this ‘podcast’—discussion turned to such topics as: who reads cookbooks for fun? TV chefs: for or againt? Poems about plums? And how many servants is ideal for the upkeep of a stately house?
What is Lit Bits? Listen here...
Containing scenes of gastronomical felicity in different degrees of life—and various other transactions. Fit for all to consume.
The pod you can eat between meals without ruining your appetite. 
Don't forget to floss after each novel.
Polly Russell is a Curator at the British Library, and co-author of the celebrated The Kitchen Revolution: A Year of Time-and-money-saving Recipes. Polly is also a chef, and has cooked under Joyce Molyneux and at London’s renowned Moro.
Listen to more Lit Bits here.

Ep. 2 Lit Bits on Bad Literature (with James Byrne)

In which Lit Bits (Adam ‘Lit’ Smyth and James ‘Bits’ Kidd) are joined by poet, editor and teacher James Byrne. What is literary badness? Is it just a matter of taste (yeuch)? What makes a bad sentence? What separates goodness and badness? 

Ep. 1 Lit Bits on Football (pilot episode with Joe Brooker)

The Pilot episode. In which Lit Bits (Adam ‘Lit’ Smyth and James ‘Bits’ Kidd) are joined by the scholar's scholar, the pundit's pundit and runner-up in the  East Basingstoke John Lydon lookalike contest (two years running), Professor Joe Brooker. The big team asks the big questions. How is football like literature, and vice versa? What are the canonical soccer texts? Do writers make good footballers, and indeed vice versa? Did Derrida write about football (and vice versa)? And why is 'Peter Crouch is an oxymoron' the greatest poem ever chanted? 

Lit Bits on Lit Bits: What is Lit Bits?

In which Lit Bits (Adam ‘Lit’ Smyth and James ‘Bits’ Kidd) —live from London—empty a full post bag that is filled with a single question. What is Lit Bits? 
The curt answer is: a Bookish Podcast spiced with added guests like Hallie Rubenhold, Alex von Tunzelmann, Laurence Scott, the Doctors Joe Brooker and Dinah Roe, Steve Rose, not to mention the Right Reverend James Mottram. The meandering response takes in a Mr Romney of Massachusetts, a Mr Paul Daniels of the Magic Circle, and plunges us into the nightmarish swamp Adam Smyth’s dream imaginings.