Explore every episode of the podcast Experience: Analysing Newsmakers
| Title | Pub. Date | Duration | |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Gorilla in the Room | Attentional blindness, a livestreamed execution and ADHD at work | 13 Oct 2026 | 01:01:01 | |
The Concept of the Week is attentional blindness. In the famous experiment, people counting basketball passes fail to notice a man in a gorilla suit walking through the middle of the game. Peter's explanation: the brain builds a picture of reality, and the thing you are not attending to is simply never painted in. Hilary suspects a man ran the study, because every woman already knows a man can stare into a fridge and not see the butter. Peter's view is that most of academic psychology is taking what people already knew and giving it a name. Before that, Hilary is saving The Traitors for a birthday binge, a bit of deferred gratification. Peter thinks the show is Wink Murder for grown ups and that real life has better liars. And Oscar the cat wants out, cat flap or no cat flap. The first headline: the Pentagon says the firing squad execution of Nidal Hasan, the army major who killed 13 people at Fort Hood in 2009, will be livestreamed. Hilary feels disgust rather than sadness and wants to know why. Peter's first feeling is fear. He hears echoes of the way states have always punished crimes against the state, and asks whether it is cruel and unusual. They talk about why people are drawn to the horrific, the last public execution in America 90 years ago, and Peter's view that the administration is deliberately playing to the worst in us. Then a detour through democracy as the least bad system, the ancient Greeks choosing leaders by lot, algorithms that only tell us what we already think, and Nietzsche on fighting monsters. The second headline is Shannon Burns, a technology executive on £220,000 a year who has won a disability discrimination claim over her ADHD, in a case the headlines reduced to falling asleep in a sauna. Peter says plainly that his view of ADHD is disputed by many psychiatrists and psychologists. He sees attention as something all of us manage, some more scattergun and some more laser like, and not as an illness some people have. Hilary pushes back hard: without a diagnosis, how does anyone get the help, or the adjustments at work, they need? Peter is clear that people are struggling and need help, just the right help. His proposals start with education: start the school day later and teach children how to focus before you teach them the times tables. The new government review led by Peter Fonagy comes up too. The final headline is the orange plague, a two and a half metre statue of a naked Donald Trump in 23 carat gold leaf, which stood outside the European Parliament in Strasbourg. Hilary laughed, then wondered whether this is really where we are now. Michelle Obama's "when they go low, we go high" feels like another era. Peter thinks ridicule might do what argument has not. He also has an art installation of his own in mind, involving robot lawnmowers and lances. The Triple T: look again. When you are sure something is not there, your keys, an error, a gorilla, stop and look from a different angle. Not seeing it is not evidence that it is not there. A note before you listen. This episode discusses a planned execution and its livestreaming, mass shootings, public executions and beheading videos, and ADHD, mental health diagnosis and discrimination at work. If ADHD affects you or someone you work with. ADHD UK has information and support, and Acas explains your rights on disability discrimination at work, including reasonable adjustments. Mentioned in this episode
Experience is hosted by Hilary Jeffs and Professor Peter Kinderman, and produced by James Jones at Granary Digital. Get in touch at hello@experiencepodco.com. | |||
| You Are Not the Main Story | The spotlight effect, a plague scare and Japan's older prisoners | 07 Oct 2026 | 00:34:08 | |
The Concept of the Week is the spotlight effect. Do something embarrassing and it feels as if everyone is watching, when most people barely noticed. Peter puts it down to being self focused, which we need to be to get through the day, and Hilary has a line she uses on her teenagers: you are not the main story of anyone else's movie. Her husband once got stung by a bee in a bank queue and made no sound at all. Peter once came to a halt at a crossroads in a small French town, could not get his feet out of his cycling pedals, and fell over to a ripple of applause from two cafes. Before that, a progress report on Black Bag, Luke Kennard's Booker shortlisted novel. Hilary listened to the audiobook in the car with one of her teenagers, forgot that it gets a bit raunchy in places, and turned into a 1950s housewife. Peter is about as far through and enjoying it. The first headline: a laboratory technician at the anti-plague research institute in Irkutsk has died of a suspected pneumonic plague infection, and about 200 of her contacts have been under observation. Peter is not a microbiologist, and says so. If he were in Andy Burnham's chair he would want a briefing twice a day until somebody knew what was going on. The reassurance is that plague is bacterial, so it can be treated with antibiotics, and Hilary has read that it does not pass easily from person to person. Then the bigger question: could we lock down again? Peter thinks the lockdown was horrible and far better than the alternative. Hilary thinks the decisions came too late and in the wrong order. They agree on one thing: follow the advice of people who know what they are talking about. The Met Office has asked everyone to calm down about an El Niño winter from hell, and the British carry on talking about the weather anyway. Peter's explanation: we are animals living in an environment, and the weather is the one thing two strangers in a cafe know they share. Then crime. There is less of it when the weather is bad, and Peter's theory is practical. Hanging around an alley with a knife on a warm summer night is a pleasant enough job; in November it is not. Hilary remembers the one time she was nearly mugged, on a sunny day in Washington. On the way out of the weather: how often Christmas is really white, the eleven days Britain lost in 1752, and the leap second that may have to be taken away rather than added. The final headline is Japan, where more than 100,000 people are now over 100 and some older people are reported to be committing small crimes so that they are sent to prison, where they are fed and looked after. Hilary went round care homes for her dad and was appalled; Peter went round them doing research and vowed to avoid them. He finds the story very sad, and wants to know whether it is a trend or an anecdote: ask the chief sociologist for the numbers before you act. It leads him to a wider worry about how a civilised society looks after its old, and to people who feel they are a burden on their family. Hilary gives a shout out to anyone who did not have good parents to look after. The Triple T is the antidote to the spotlight effect. Next time you do something embarrassing, ask what you would do if it were someone else. You would glance over, maybe have a chuckle, and get on with your day. That is probably what everyone else is doing. A note before you listen. This episode discusses the death of a laboratory worker from a suspected infection, a near mugging at knifepoint, and older people who feel a burden to their families, including in the context of assisted dying. If you need to talk. Samaritans are on 116 123, day and night, free from any phone. Age UK's Advice Line is on 0800 678 1602 for older people and their families. Mentioned in this episode
Experience is hosted by Hilary Jeffs and Professor Peter Kinderman, and produced by James Jones at Granary Digital. Get in touch at hello@experiencepodco.com. | |||
| They Can Do Nothing Wrong | The halo effect, Ed Miliband and Burnham on beer at the football | 29 Sep 2026 | 00:40:54 | |
The Concept of the Week is the halo effect. Once you think well of someone, their mistakes get explained away and their strengths get all the credit. Peter calls it a heuristic, and a sloppy way of thinking that everyone falls into from time to time. His rule: very good people can do bad things, and when they do, call them out. It turns up all week, starting with Ed Miliband's street interview with the TikTok creator Feroz Khan in New York. Peter is sure it was not impromptu. Hilary is less sure it was scripted. Before the news, a progress report on Black Bag, Luke Kennard's Booker shortlisted novel. Hilary is listening to the author read it and is now hooked; Peter has been defeated by the audiobook app. She likes it because it is not full of visual imagery, which brings her to aphantasia. Hilary cannot see pictures in her mind's eye, and only found out a few years ago that other people really can. Peter can turn a Rubik's cube over in his head but does not see it either, and his own belief, which he is careful to call a belief, is that nobody really does. Hilary would like to settle it in a brain scanner. The first headline: couples who divorced in 2025 had been married for a median of 13 years, the longest since records began in 1963. Is it the cost of splitting up, or is marriage guidance working? Peter's answer is less romantic. People marry later and live together first, and older, wiser couples who have tested the arrangement stay married for longer. He thinks divorce being easier also makes it less urgent. Hilary would rather believe couples are getting the help they need, and Peter offers her the choice from Life of Pi: pick the story you prefer. Andy Carroll has written in his autobiography about being sexually assaulted in his own home by a celebrity friend, who was later jailed. Hilary remembers how long it took boys abused in youth football to find the words for what had happened to them, and talks about bringing up sons who would have those words if they ever needed them. Peter's view is that people who speak out should be praised, celebrated and protected, and that once we understand what has happened to someone, their distress stops looking like something wrong inside them. The final headline: Prime Minister Andy Burnham says the 1985 ban on drinking in view of the pitch at men's football is discrimination, when fans can drink at cricket, at rugby, and now at the Women's Super League. Hilary calls it fanism and thinks four decades is long enough to try something different. Peter is not having it. The alcohol ban, all-seater grounds and policing are why football changed, he says, so why undo them? What evidence is there that alcohol has a different effect on the brain than it did forty years ago? Hilary raises the research linking big matches to domestic abuse. And Peter's verdict is the halo effect in reverse: he really likes Andy Burnham, and he does not think this is a good idea. Peter's advice for the world borrows Ed Miliband's: do what you believe to be right, once you have weighed it up properly. It is what he used to say to clients who wanted him to decide for them. Then the Triple T: toss a coin. Set up the choice, heads one way and tails the other, and while it is in the air, ask yourself which way you want it to land. At that moment, you know. His third tip, take tips with a pinch of salt, comes free. A note before you listen. This episode discusses Andy Carroll's account of being sexually assaulted, the abuse of boys in youth football, and the link between big sporting events and domestic abuse. If you have been affected. SurvivorsUK supports men and non-binary people who have been sexually abused. The 24/7 Rape and Sexual Abuse Support Line, run by Rape Crisis England and Wales, is on 0808 500 2222 for anyone aged 16 or over. The National Domestic Abuse Helpline is on 0808 2000 247, day and night. Mentioned in this episode
Experience is hosted by Hilary Jeffs and Professor Peter Kinderman, and produced by James Jones at Granary Digital. Get in touch at hello@experiencepodco.com. | |||
| Make the First Move | The bystander effect, AI-mageddon and Burnham meets Trump | 23 Sep 2026 | 00:47:33 | |
The Concept of the Week is the bystander effect: the more people watching something go wrong, the less likely any one of them is to step in. Peter traces it from the Kitty Genovese story through the staged subway experiments to the advice he was given as a new lecturer. If the fire alarm goes off, every student in the room will wait to see what you do, so leave the bloody room. Hilary has a Brighton story about a homeless woman punched in the face and a crowd that did not look. The finding that follows is the useful one: people are waiting for a cue, and if somebody steps forward, the chances are the rest will follow. Then AI-mageddon. Trump told the UN that artificial intelligence should be called super intelligence and that the United States will not accept a global system to regulate it. Hilary listened to Rory Stewart and Yuval Noah Harari on the Aztecs and found herself psychologically inert. Peter's answer is about regulation, tigers and fences: if you were rich enough to keep a menagerie, you would spend some of the money on the enclosure. He has been reading about Lavender, the Israeli military's AI targeting system, and the operators who described their role as pressing yes. Hilary brings the 2023 mammography study in which radiologists went along with a wrong AI suggestion most of the time, and Peter matches it with a mental health tribunal chair who told him the panel had never once disagreed with the psychiatrist. No AI required. Peter's way through the doom is Descartes by way of a video game. If it turned out you were a character in somebody else's game, what should you do? Play it to the best of your ability. Terrible situations do not change the job, which is to take what you know and make the best possible decision. He has a plan for Russian paratroopers landing near Manchester Airport, and he would rather people other than Donald Trump decided how AI is regulated. Andy Burnham met Trump for the first time at the UN General Assembly. Peter's advice for negotiating with him: when he says something outrageous, say yes, then bury it in the long grass, because he will not remember and he is mostly interested in how he looks on television. Hilary rates Mark Carney as the first leader to get the measure of the man, and both admire the American TV pool for pulling coverage after CNN was thrown out. Which prompts the question Peter answers with unusual honesty: do you always stand up to a bully? No. He was once thumped in the street in Leeds, and his rule now is to read the situation and pick, and sometimes that means running away. Finally, the new right to two weeks' bereavement leave, unpaid, for the loss of a partner, parent, adult child or sibling, and for pregnancy loss before 24 weeks, from April 2027. Hilary is dismayed it needed a law at all. Peter puts it alongside AI and migration: as a species we are plenty rich enough, and the problem is only ever how it is shared out. The Triple T is make the first move. On the tube, in a bar, in the office: somebody has to go first, and it might as well be you. Peter's dating algorithm, aim high and work down, gets a swift rebuttal from Hilary about who actually punches up. A note before you listen. Peter briefly describes being physically assaulted. The episode also discusses bereavement, pregnancy loss, and AI used to select military targets. Mentioned in this episode
Experience is hosted by Hilary Jeffs and Professor Peter Kinderman, and produced by James Jones at Granary Digital. Get in touch at hello@experiencepodco.com. | |||
| I Want To Live In The Real World | Reform's £72m, assisted dying and Miliband's settlement ban | 15 Sep 2026 | 00:46:06 | |
The Concept of the Week is motivated reasoning: judging an argument by whether it gets you the answer you already wanted. Peter's version is unsparing. His well motivated donation is a bid to improve the life of the nation, hers is shameless self promotion. His climate pledge is aspirational, hers is a downright lie. People do it all the time, and the week's three headlines are three chances to catch yourself at it. Two crypto billionaires have given Reform UK 72 million pounds in two days. Ben Delo gave 36 million on the Friday, and Christopher Harborne matched it to the pound on the Saturday, saying in the Telegraph that Delo had warned him it was coming and his competitive instinct did the rest. Both say they expect nothing back. Peter does not believe them, and Hilary pushes him on whether people can be rehabilitated. He says yes, absolutely, and that giving large sums to a political party is not how it is done. That turns into the best passage in the episode, on what competitiveness is actually for. Compete with your friends over pot plants and you all end up with better pot plants. Decide that you need to beat them and the whole thing becomes a zero sum game, where your win requires my loss. Peter's argument is that a good deal of right wing politics runs on the second kind, and that people who describe themselves as wealth creators are usually moving money rather than making it. Then the assisted dying bill, defeated in the Commons on Friday by sixteen votes, 286 to 270. Peter supports the principle and says so plainly, including for himself. He also thinks the Royal College of Psychiatrists has it about right, and that palliative care being less than perfect is a reason to be careful. The part that troubles him most is the one nobody legislates for: elderly people who say they do not want to be a burden to their children, and how much that would weigh on a decision that is supposed to be freely made. Finally, the settlement measures. Ed Miliband banned imports from illegal West Bank settlements while talking about being a proud Jew, and the Chief Rabbi called it a dark day for British Jews. Peter's point is that the line the government drew is the right one and it should hold it: this is not a boycott of Israel, it is a ban on goods from illegally occupied land. He has a story from outside a Marks and Spencer fifteen years ago about what happens when that line gets blurred. A note before you listen. The middle of this episode is about assisted dying, terminal illness, palliative care and bereavement. Both hosts speak about people close to them. Mentioned in this episode
Experience is hosted by Hilary Jeffs and Professor Peter Kinderman, and produced by James Jones at Granary Digital. Get in touch at hello@experiencepodco.com. | |||
| Repeat A Lie Often Enough | the AfD landslide, violence in A&E, and AI's invented facts | 08 Sep 2026 | 00:50:45 | |
The Concept of the Week is the illusory truth effect. Repeat a lie often enough, Peter says, and it stops being something you have heard and becomes something you know. The news then obliges with three demonstrations. The AfD has won Saxony-Anhalt with 44 per cent of the vote and 39 of the 83 seats, three short of a majority, on a turnout of 76 per cent. They more than doubled their share in five years and the CDU lost more than half of its own. Hilary and Peter go at what was sold to get there: nostalgia for the East German regime, a manifesto line about how children should be taught, and a traditional family message Peter reads as code for undermining everybody else's. He is blunt about where this has gone before. Which takes them to Galton, who coined the word eugenics, walked around Britain ticking off women he judged attractive, and invented statistical tools we still use every day. And to the paper in Stephen Jay Gould's book where a man packed shot into the skulls of black people and white people and shook them until the numbers came out the way he wanted. Then the second headline. 96 per cent of emergency department staff have faced violence or aggression at work and only 4 per cent always feel safe. Hilary reads the timing of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine's report as a deliberate play to set the agenda before a BBC investigation landed. Peter asks who benefits from an underfunded health service and is cynical about the answer. He also takes apart Hilary's use of the word simply, and later pulls her up for saying that gangs are taking over the country, which they are not, and which is about as close as this programme gets to a fight. Third, John Healey's first big speech as Chancellor, and what a Chancellor can actually change. Peter's answer involves six thousand civil servants and some very good computers. The Triple T is go and look for the evidence, and Peter arrives with the receipts. ChatGPT told him about a Victorian mercury fountain in St Peter's Square lit by gas lamps. He asked for a source. It said it had made the whole thing up. Mentioned in this episode
Experience is hosted by Hilary Jeffs and Professor Peter Kinderman, and produced by James Jones at Granary Digital. Get in touch at hello@experiencepodco.com. | |||
| I Just Handed In My Lanyard | Starmer's exit, gravitas, and the war on Black Friday | 03 Sep 2026 | 01:04:03 | |
Peter has retired. Not from being a psychologist, but from the university, and the Concept of the Week is the term for precisely that. Role exit. The original paper says you should mark the moment with some sort of ceremony. Peter handed in his lanyard and went. Which turns out to be this week's story twice over. Keir Starmer stood down as an MP on 1 September, an hour before Andy Burnham's first big speech as Prime Minister. Vengeance, or a man who has simply changed his mind? Peter makes the case that a u-turn and an open mind look identical from the outside, and that if you want leaders with no emotions and no second thoughts, you need a different species running the country. Then Hilary, whose actual job is teaching people how to hold a room, takes apart Burnham against Kemi Badenoch at the despatch box and asks Peter the question he says has been held against him his entire career. What is gravitas, and can you get it if you have not got it? And France has gone to war on Black Friday. Not the sales, the words. Peter, a behavioural psychologist, points out that banning a word is close to the least effective thing you could possibly do, and that Wales worked out the answer years ago. The Triple T comes from the new Prime Minister, and it is two words long. Mentioned in this episode
Experience is hosted by Hilary Jeffs and Professor Peter Kinderman, and produced by James Jones at Granary Digital. Get in touch at hello@experiencepodco.com. Full show notes and transcript: https://www.experiencepodco.com/episodes/ep7-i-just-handed-in-my-lanyard.html | |||
| Treat 'Em Mean, Keep 'Em Scrolling | Meta on trial, named storms and the weekend at 100 | 25 Aug 2026 | 00:49:57 | |
Peter opens with the Concept of the Week and it turns out to explain almost everything else in the episode. Variable ratio reinforcement is why the fox keeps coming back to Peter's garden, why the fruit machine keeps taking your pound, and why you keep scrolling. Reward someone every time and they stop caring. Reward them never and they leave. Reward them roughly one time in three and they cannot put it down. The people building these systems know this. Then three stories that all turn out to be about the same thing: who gets to decide what holds your attention. The Met Office is running a competition with Aardman to name a storm after Shaun the Sheep or his cousin Timmy. Peter explains why a silly name is doing serious work, and makes the case for naming heatwaves after the companies that caused them. The two day weekend turns a hundred. Henry Ford gave it to his workers in 1926, having already doubled their pay, and not entirely out of kindness. Bertrand Russell thought we should have gone much further. Peter, a socialist with a lathe and a beehive, agrees. And in a courtroom in Oakland, twenty nine US states are taking Meta to trial over exactly the mechanism Peter described in the first five minutes. Timestamps
Mentioned in this episode
Experience is hosted by Hilary Jeffs and Professor Peter Kinderman, and produced by James Jones at Granary Digital. Get in touch at hello@experiencepodco.com. Full show notes and transcript: https://www.experiencepodco.com/episodes/ep6-treat-em-mean-keep-em-scrolling.html | |||
| It's More Complicated Than the Headline | public shaming, an eclipse and Count Binface | 18 Aug 2026 | 00:42:50 | |
This week runs from the heavy to the daft. We start with the emergency alert and the wildfire risk behind it, which leads Peter into the Concept of the Week. Then the hard part: the death of Professor Jason Arday, the Cambridge academic who faced a sustained campaign of online abuse, and what public shaming actually does to a person. We talk proportionality, the presumption of innocence that social media has quietly erased, and why a pile-on so often says more about the people holding the torches than the person they are aimed at. After that we lighten up, with why a partial eclipse left Peter cold while eclipse-chasers cross the planet for the full thing, and Count Binface giving Nigel Farage a run for his money in Clacton. This episode discusses a recent death, online abuse and mental health. Please take care if that is difficult for you.
INUS, from the philosopher J.L. Mackie, which is a formal way of saying that causes are almost always more tangled than they look. A fire needs a spark, but the spark could have been a match, a lighter or a dropped cigarette, and no single one of them is the whole story. It is a useful lens for everything from why a wildfire took hold to why the far right gains ground: there is rarely one simple cause, however much a headline wants there to be.
Wait a second before you respond. It sounds almost too obvious to say, but most of the harm we do, and most of the nonsense we spread, comes from reacting to a headline as though we already know the whole story. There is nearly always a backstory, a complication, a perspective you have not heard. So let investigations run their course, let the facts arrive, and above all do not send the tweet. It will almost certainly be wrong. | IF YOU HAVE BEEN AFFECTED If you have been affected by any of the issues discussed on our podcast, please contact your doctor, local support services, or your emergency services if in crisis. If you are in the UK, this website will signpost you to other mental health services: https://www.meandmymind.nhs.uk/getting-help/mental-health-websites/ | LIKED THIS ONE? Please leave us a review wherever you are listening. It takes a minute and genuinely helps others find the show. Got a question, a comment, or a topic you would like us to put on the couch? Write to us at hello@experiencepodco.com. New episodes land every Tuesday. Website https://www.experiencepodco.com Full show notes and transcript: https://www.experiencepodco.com/episodes/ep5-its-more-complicated-than-the-headline.html | |||
| Even James Bond Steps on a Banana Skin | results day, disappointment and Freshers' Week | 10 Aug 2026 | 01:03:38 | |
This week is a practical one: a guide to A-level results day and the leap to CONCEPT OF THE WEEK THE TRIPLE T LIKED THIS ONE? Full show notes and transcript: https://www.experiencepodco.com/episodes/ep4-even-james-bond-steps-on-a-banana-skin.html | |||
| There Is No Right Way to Grieve | death rituals, the Bush case and farewell to Bill Oddie | 04 Aug 2026 | 00:44:45 | |
We start light this week, with identity and where you are from: Peter refereeing whether someone from Wilmslow really counts as a Mancunian (his ruling is that if she thinks she is, she is, and it would be rude to say otherwise), and the surprisingly touchy question of what grandparents want to be called. Then the French wildfires take us somewhere bigger: why we find it so hard to care about people who are not born yet. Peter reaches for Camus and lands somewhere useful. You cannot really picture those future generations, so do not try. Ask instead what principles you want to live by now, and make each small decision one you can be proud of. Mia Mottley, the Barbadian Prime Minister, gets a well-earned mention as one of the great communicators on climate. The Robert Bush case, the Hull funeral director jailed for what he did to hundreds of grieving families, leads into why death rituals matter so much, why there is no correct way to grieve, and why remembering that we are mortal can help us live better. Peter tells us about the cemetery chapel project he has just joined. We finish with a tribute to Bill Oddie, who has died at 85. That takes in his openness about depression, Peter’s long argument with the idea of mental illness as a simple brain disease, and the science of laughter, which turns out to be far more about the people around us than the joke itself. Our Concept of the Week is confirmation bias, sharpened by algorithms and chatbots that are only too happy to tell you that you were right. The Triple T is a single question: what do I actually want here? Mia Mottley, Prime Minister of Barbados at the Opening of the #COP26 World Leaders Summit A heads up: this episode covers death, grief and mental illness. Please take care if any of that is difficult for you. LIKED THIS ONE? Please leave us a review wherever you are listening. It takes a minute and it genuinely helps other people find the show. Got a question, a comment, or a story you want us to put on the couch? Write to us at hello@experiencepodco.com. New episodes land every week. Website: https://www.experiencepodco.com Full show notes and transcript: https://www.experiencepodco.com/episodes/ep3-there-is-no-right-way-to-grieve.html | |||
| The Adult in the Room | Ossoff vs Hegseth, Natalie Fleet and Burnham’s Trump problem | 27 Jul 2026 | 00:46:04 | |
This week is all about names, and how much they give away before you have said a word. Peter takes us through what a name signals about class and background, and why a gender-neutral one quietly helps women at the CV stage. Then three headlines: Senator Jon Ossoff questioning Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, a masterclass in staying calm and letting the facts do the damage; Natalie Fleet stepping down as safeguarding minister, and what being "triggered" really means; and Andy Burnham letting Trump use UK bases to strike Iran, which turns into a conversation about standing up to a bully without making everyone else pay for it. New this week: the "clearly, not really" klaxon, for when one of us reaches for a bit too much hyperbole. Thanks to Dylan for spotting the first one. THE TRIPLE T Please leave us a review wherever you are listening. It takes a minute and genuinely helps others find the show. Got a question, a topic, or a "clearly, not really" moment where we got carried away? Write to us at hello@experiencepodco.com. Full show notes and transcript: https://www.experiencepodco.com/episodes/ep2-the-adult-in-the-room.html | |||
| What Number 10 Does to You | Burnham's first day, Kerr's record and the money myth | 20 Jul 2026 | 00:54:14 | |
We recorded this one at nine o'clock on a Monday morning, a few hours before Andy Burnham walked into Number 10 as the country's fifth Prime Minister in five years. So we spent most of it asking what that job actually does to a person: whether you can stay yourself once you are in it, how you build a cabinet that will argue with you rather than nod along, and why so much of the answer sits with the team and the civil service around you. Along the way we get to Josh Kerr's mile world record and whether visualising a result really works, Claudia Winkleman admitting she was too nervous to enjoy her own chat show, FTSE 100 bosses on 130 times the average wage, and the rather uncomfortable evidence about money and happiness. We finish on hope, and why it works better than fear when you are trying to talk to people. CONCEPT OF THE WEEK Mirror neurons. Peter is sceptical that there is one dedicated neuron sitting there copying other people, but the brain scan evidence is solid: watch someone do something and your own brain lights up in ways that echo what they are doing. It is a good part of why humans learn so well by watching, and a reminder that we are social animals whether we like it or not. THE TRIPLE T The 5-4-3-2-1 technique, for when you are stressed or overwhelmed. Sit still and work through your senses. Five things you can see, four you can feel, three you can hear, two you can smell, one you can taste. The point is the attention rather than the senses. We have very little conscious control over our heart rate or our breathing, but we can choose where to point our attention, and doing that on purpose settles everything else down. If you lose your place halfway through, start again at five. That is part of the exercise. LIKED THIS ONE? Please leave us a review wherever you are listening. It takes a minute and it genuinely helps other people find the show. Got a question, a comment, or a story you want us to put on the couch? Write to us at hello@experiencepodco.com. New episodes land every week. Website: https://www.experiencepodco.com Full show notes and transcript: https://www.experiencepodco.com/episodes/ep1-what-number-10-does-to-you.html | |||
| Coming Soon... | 16 Jul 2026 | 00:00:50 | |
A taste of what Experience sounds like: Hilary Jeffs and Peter Kinderman taking a headline and working out what's really driving it. Hilary's from communications, Peter's a clinical psychologist, and they don't always agree, which is the whole point. Links: | |||