Howzat? 5.1 / 6

Whatever a podcast is (nobody really knows, do they?), Sketchplanations – a show that explains things via the visual medium of cartoons [read: sketches] – seems to offer it in bucketloads. 

The format? Well, it’s not rocket science, however, if it was, it would aptly be explained neatly in a lovely little sketch. Fuel goes in, lots of flames, blah blah blah.  

In it, friends chat through some things and we all marvel about how incredible the world is. Presenter Rob Bell, inventor – and first ever winner of the UK Apprentice – Tom Pellereau, and the creator of Sketchplanations, Jono Hey, dive deeply into a variety of wizened analogies, offering a layman POV with the occasional specialist on to bring order to proceedings.

Which brings us onto this episode, featuring the incomparable botanist James Wong who is the botanic equivalent to Professor Brian Cox, except without that dreadful faux-Manc accent. Here, James waxes lyrical about a number of discussion points, including ‘The Hungry Gap’ (the time in the year in which food isn’t that easy to come by), ‘Phoenix Trees’ (proper hard trees), a ‘Nurse Log’ (a proper hard tree that’s fallen down), and the idea that having house plants is good for you. 

Sure, James sounds like he’s being interviewed in the hollow of a proper hard tree – the acoustics are dreadful – but his insights into a world unoften explored are genuinely fascinating and well worth the listen.   

Oh, and listen to pt 1 first, natch. 

LS