by Henry VIII sets up a home podcast and discovers that broadcasting his own voice now requires considerably more personal effort than it once did
I once had scribes record my every word for posterity, a small army of clerks transcribing everything I said whether or not it was worth preserving. Starting my own podcast required me to personally purchase a microphone, learn an editing application, and figure out why the recording kept picking up my own fridge.
The Equipment
Dev helped me select a microphone online, a process involving considerably more technical comparison than I expected, terms like polar pattern and phantom power discussed with genuine seriousness by strangers in online reviews, and I purchased one recommended repeatedly as beginner friendly, a label I chose to accept without argument.
The Fridge Problem
My first three recording attempts were ruined entirely by a low, persistent hum I eventually traced to my own kitchen fridge, positioned, I discovered, considerably closer to my recording setup than I had ever previously considered relevant to anything, and I have since recorded every episode with the fridge unplugged for the duration, a small daily sacrifice for the sake of clean audio.
The Editing Software
Editing the recording required software that initially defeated me entirely, waveforms and cross-fades discussed in tutorials with a confidence I did not share, and I spent an entire evening removing a single cough from episode one with the same painstaking, obsessive focus I once brought to negotiating a considerably more consequential treaty.
The First Guest
My first guest, a fellow comedian named Priya, arrived to find my entire flat rearranged around cushions and blankets draped over furniture in an attempt to dampen echo, a setup she described, kindly but accurately, as looking like a genuine hostage situation, and the recording nonetheless produced our best conversation of the entire process.
The Publishing
Uploading the finished episode required creating accounts across several platforms, each with slightly different technical requirements, and I felt a genuine surge of pride watching the episode appear publicly, available now to anyone in the world who wished to hear me discuss, at considerable and unstructured length, my own opinions on modern London.
The Verdict
Episode one has, as of writing, been downloaded eleven times, a figure I have chosen to regard as a promising start rather than a modest one. I once had scribes preserve my words automatically for the whole of history. I now do it myself, one unplugged fridge at a time, and I find the whole process considerably more satisfying for having earned it personally.
Episode Two
Episode one has, as of writing, been downloaded eleven times, a figure I choose to regard as a promising start. I once had scribes preserve my words automatically for the whole of history. I now do it myself, one unplugged fridge at a time, and find the effort makes it considerably more satisfying.
The unplugged fridge saga sits nicely beside Henry VIII, Secretly a Musician. Further reading on the wider chaos of modern Britain: Meta’s promise that its AI agents will eventually explain where the money went, the original account of my own return to Britain, the proper London pub where history finally sat down for a pint.
