Explore every episode of the podcast More Than Words

🔥 More Than Words – Stage 17: Burns, Baby, Burns 🔥

From saints who sound like cough syrup to Robert Burns nearly becoming Jamaica’s HR nightmare, because Ayrshire’s tourism strategy is apparently “poets, feuds, golf courses, and the occasional Russian warship rusting offshore.

Featuring:

😷 St Quivox: the parish that sounds like medicine you’d take for chest congestion

📜 Robert Burns: rebel poet, excise officer, and part‑time population boom in Ayrshire

🔪 Nether Auchendrane murders: the Sopranos, but with more kilts and fewer cannoli

🏰 Maybole Castle: aristocrats gossiping like Real Housewives of Ayrshire

🍷 Kirkoswald smugglers: brandy, tobacco, and Burns’ drinking buddies immortalised in verse

🏌️ Turnberry: Janey Godley’s own country

📉 Downhill: the hamlet that named itself after your mood on a Monday

🧙 Girvan witches: puffins, whisky, folk festivals… and a brief detour into witch trials

⚓ Lendalfoot: heiresses shoved off cliffs, and a Russian cruiser that gave up

It’s travel with murderous Kennedys, Burns‑mania, aristocratic scandals, puffins, and a Russian warship that ended its career by sulking in an Ayrshire bay. Equal parts poetic, surreal, and suspiciously damp.

🏌️ More Than Words – Episode 16: Clyde and Joy 🏌️

From collapsing car plants to Elvis at Prestwick, because Ayrshire’s tourism strategy is apparently “industrial ruin, golf courses, and a suspicious amount of brandy.”

Featuring: 


🚗 Linwood’s Imp: Hillman no more


🏭 Johnstone’s supermarket museum: hummus with history


🪑 Beith’s furniture empire: from mahogany to missile silos


🥃 Barkip: illicit drinking, fiddles, and the constable keeping time with his boot

🏹 Kilwinning archers: 540 years of shooting wooden birds off clock towers

🤴 Eglinton jousting tournament: the Fyre Festival of medieval chivalry

🏌️ Royal Troon’s Postage Stamp hole: small, vicious, and capable of humiliating Tiger Woods in under 60 seconds

🎸 Prestwick Airport: Elvis touched down for 20 minutes, and Ayrshire built a shrine anyway

It’s collapsing car plants, medieval jousts in the rain, golf courses that bite, and Elvis merch stands. Equal parts scenic, surreal, and suspiciously soggy.

🛳️ More Than Words – Stage 15: Bonnie and Clyde 🛳️

From Viking boat‑hauling to wallabies in the Highlands, because Loch Lomond’s tourism strategy is apparently “confuse everyone, maximise revenue.”

Featuring:

🛶 Vikings dragging longships

💑 Honeymoon Island: medieval IKEA compatibility test

🦘 Wild wallabies … in Scotland

⛪️ Saints getting demoted

🎨 Turkey red dyeing: the Colonel’s secret recipe

📚 Tobias Smollett: 70‑foot monument, zero modern readers

⚓️ Clydebank: where Queen Mary launched the Queen Mary

✈️ Glaswegians foiling terrorists attacks

It’s travel podcasting with longships, marsupials, industrial collapse, and the Ryder Cup somehow making an appearance. Equal parts scenic, surreal, and shipyard tragedy.

⛵️More Than Words – Stage 14: It’s A Hard Loch Life⛵️

Because nothing says “Highland adventure” like failed gold rushes, haunted pubs, and goats still holding grudges from the 18th century.

Featuring:

⚔️ Scotland’s most scenic lost‑property office

🏰Achallader Castle: Highland piñata

💀True Detective: Glen Orchy (pilot)

💰 Tyndrum’s gold saga: 300 years of optimism, spoiler — the rocks won

🚉 Towns with two railway stations, because duplication = progress

🛁 Rob Roy’s outdoor shower

👻 The Drovers Inn: taxidermy greatest‑hits album, with bonus ghosts

💥 Cromwell’s redecorating tips

It’s bogs, ballads, and a suspicious number of railway stations — equal parts folklore, failed enterprise, and surreal comedy.

🏔️ More Than Words - Episode 13: Ridge Magnets 🏔️

Because nothing says “scenic route” like collecting three Ballachulishes, avoiding murderous water horses, and accidentally stumbling into a Red Wedding origin story.

Featuring:

💀 The Glencoe Massacre: Airbnb of Annihilation (0 stars, would not recommend)

🚢 A ferry so vital its breakdown qualifies as a local apocalypse

🎬 Harry Potter waterfalls & Monty Python gorges

👯 Three Sisters (some assembly required)

😈 The Devil’s Staircase: hell of a climb, literally

🗺️ Two villages that are definitely the same place (Google Maps disagrees)

🐴 Loch Linnhe’s water horse: worst pony-trekking franchise ever

It’s travel with geological grandeur — equal parts stunning vistas, historical carnage, and cartographic chaos.

🏔️ More Than Words - Episode 12: Never Say Nevis Again 🏔️

Because nothing says “holiday” like trudging up Britain’s highest mountain through fog, drizzle, and your own questionable life choices.

Featuring:

🧠 The psychology of voluntarily walking into a cloud

🌊 Lochs, locks and lock-ins

🏰 A castle renovation with imported mud

🐶 Cow windpipes as pet food: discuss

🌳 Planking since 1975 - surely a world record

🏔️ Why climbing a “venomous” mountain is a good idea (It isn’t)

It’s travel with altitude — equal parts awe, exhaustion, and soggy triumph.

Stage 11: Log Ness Monster

From opera under the Cypriot stars to murderous Highland folklore — this one’s got everything: monsters, decapitations, ecclesiastical drama, and a Loch that refuses to give up its secrets.

Highlights include:

🎬Mission Impossible: Seat of Judgement

🏰 Urquhart Castle — beautiful, brooding, and 80% souvenir shop

💀 The Well of the Seven Heads (exactly what it says on the tin)

🐉 Nessie — still camera shy after all these years

🙏 Monks, myths, and moral ambiguity in scenic quantities

🚶‍♂️ The Jacobites: failing spectacularly since 1688

It’s legends, lochs and a little light uprising — think VisitScotland meets Black Mirror.

Stage 10: Whisky Business

From suncream and ruins in Paphos to clan feuds and distilleries in the Highlands — this one’s a journey from Mango Margaritas to Mackenzies, with detours for poisoned servants, dragon chases, and the occasional historical fire probably started by a bird.

Highlights include:

🧱 A medieval castle repurposed as a condiment warehouse

💀 A “Tomb of the Kings” containing zero kings

🔥 A feud so petty it ended in arson by jackdaw

🥃 A whisky tasting that almost required a remortgage

🐿️ Red squirrels, oil rigs, and dolphins sharing the same postcode

😈 Devils in skirts

🎶 And a festival finale featuring Ed Sheeran, kilts, and falafels

It’s the Highlands meets holiday hangover — and somehow, it all makes sense.

Stage 9 of More Than Words: “Tainspotting.” 

Because nothing says “Scottish coastal charm” like witch trials and a 3000-acre bombing range.

Featuring:

⛳ A career-best immediately followed by an 18-hole existential crisis

🌿 Gardening: the new contact sport🏰 Dunrobin Castle — Versailles with bagpipes and historical amnesia

🪦 The Duke of Sutherland: statue, scandal, selective explosions

🧙‍♀️ Scotland’s last witch trial (complete with DIY pony transformation)

🛠️ Thomas Telford, the man who looked at hills and said “nah, straight through”

🐺 Wolf Stones, Jurassic coal, and property developments named after swamp

💣 Tain Air Weapons Range — nature reserve by day, Call of Duty map by night

It’s golf, guilt, and Gaelic place-names you can’t pronounce without sounding drunk — all served with whisky, sarcasm, and a side of historical outrage.

Episode 8 of More Than Words: “Stile And Tribulation.”

Featuring:

🏌️‍♂️ The Werther’s Original Trophy

📱 Komoot: an app that hates your shins

🪜 Whaligoe Steps — 330 reasons to skip leg day forever

🐟 Female fish workers tougher than CrossFit instructors

⚔️ Highland Clearances: “progress” with flaming torches

🥇 Knotty: shinty with extra concussion

💰 Helmsdale Gold Rush — the Wild West, but wetter and much shorter

It’s shin trauma, children trying not to be kites, and Victorian cardio hell, all wrapped in rain.

Episode 7 of More Than Words: “I’ve Got A99 Problems (But a Broch Ain’t One)”

Because nothing screams “holiday vibes” like whirlpools, feral cows, and Viking soap operas.

Featuring:



🌪️ The firth of froth


🐄 Feral cattle


🎶 The original “Islands in the Stream”


📸 John o’ Groats: signpost selfies, shattered illusions


🏰 Bucholie Castle: visitors not welcome


🪞 Neolithic eyebrow routines


🚂 A railway only slightly longer than its train


👻 Ghosting: 15th century style


🐟 Fishy Wall Street

It’s history, myth, and sarcastic sightseeing along the Caithness coast.

Episode 6 of More Than Words is here!

Featuring:

🪨 Castle Bloody — less massacre, more Neolithic IKEA

🗿 Giants chucking monoliths at each other

🌉Churchill’s Gap Years

🏰 A laird who demolished a village for a better view

⛪ A chapel built from corned beef tins and an exhaust pipe

⛳ Britain’s most northerly crazy golf course (bring an anorak)

🐎 Children ploughing sand and dressed as Clydesdales

It’s history, trivia, and travel chatter with a tailwind of sarcasm.

Episode 5 is here! ... “Things Can Only Get Wetter.”

Because nothing says “travel podcast” like kelp, 18th century cryptocurrency, and a boiling-water tap with a vendetta.

Featuring:

🔥 Child-proof tech that isn’t middle-aged-man-proof

🐟 Herring history (because nothing screams drama like fish logistics)

🍘 Seaweed — the Bitcoin of the 18th century

🧀 Monks Bear Grylls would salute, assuming he could find them

🦸‍♀️ Ecclesiastical super heroes

🐑 Sheep that prefer Itsu

It’s history, it’s trivia, it’s travel, all soaked in sarcasm.

It's Episode 4 of More Than Words — the podcast where I claim to be traversing Britain, but in reality I’m just sweating on a spin bike.

This week we’re still at sea, so expect:

• Fair Isle’s knitwear empire
• North Ronaldsay’s seaweed‑eating sheep
• Enough lighthouses to keep the Stevenson family in royalties for generations
• Spanish shipwrecks, and
• A golf ball incident that nearly ended this podcast before it even began.

Think National Geographic meets Casualty...

Episode 3 of More Than Words!

This week we sail from Shetland to Orkney ... expect ferries, ponies, giants, Norse feminism, knitwear, and the occasional 7th‑century gang tag.

Think history, humour, and a healthy dose of sarcasm — basically Bill Bryson, if he’d stayed for that sixth pint.

OK, it’s time for the thing absolutely nobody asked for - Episode 2 of my "More Than Words" virtual travelogue.

There'll be history, myth, and place names that make 12-year-olds giggle.

You can also expect:

• Norse parliaments
• Oil-fuelled boomtowns
• Fire festivals,
• A Viking-themed Shetland spinoff

• Rabbits guarding WWII gun batteries

Welcome to Episode 1 of More Than Words!

Expect:

• Towns that sound like IKEA shelving units,
• The Shetland Space Centre,
• Ghostly architects,
• Viking boats, and
• Britain’s most overachieving bus stop

Exploring Britain’s furthest flung places — and the limits of one man’s knees.

“More Than Words” is a podcast chronicling a virtual expedition across Britain’s extremes — from the northernmost village to the southernmost settlement, with stops at the highest peak, the lowest fen, and several places that sound made up.

It’s part fitness challenge, part cultural exploration, and mostly an excuse to talk about obscure trivia, failed resolutions, and the joys of Excel conditional formatting. Expect puns, ghosts, and reflections on the slow collapse of my joints.