Garlic & Pearls

Labrador Retrievers: Did the British Invent the Perfect Dog?

Fri, 03 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

There are over a million Labradors in the UK, but where did this sturdy marvel of bright countenance and sweet temper originate? Is it really possible to invent a dog? Yes, says Suzanne, though she concedes that the seed of the Labrador breed came from the now extinct Newfoundland St. John's water dog, with his double layer of fur and his webbed feet. Gasp at the breeding achievements of top sportsmen Colonel Peter Hawker and successive Earls of Malmesbury and Dukes of Buccleuch! Thrill at a whole cast of illustrious dogs who either that had their portrait painted or received awards for bravery! Also featured: a British canine scandal, a Nancy Mitford connection and a nail-biting game of 'Guess the Dictator!'

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The Flâneur: Why The French Walk More Slowly Than The British

Fri, 27 Mar 2026 01:00:00 GMT

Monocles and canes at the ready! Muriel traces the 19th-century origins of a familiar and somewhat raffish figure of Frenchness. Part boulevardier, part dandy, part poet, the flâneur is a leisurely observer of the urban landscape. But where did he come from? What is his legacy? And can there be such a thing as a British flâneur?

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Daffodils: The Poetic Icon that Means Booming Business for Britain

Fri, 20 Mar 2026 01:00:00 GMT

Suzanne explores the British adoration of the yellow, trumpet-like, optimistic daffodil, the harbinger of spring. The evocative words of William and Dorothy Wordsworth, poetry and prose, bracket this episode, in which we discover that daffodils are also about economics. The UK cultivates 90% of the global daffodil supply. The numbers are staggering: hundreds of millions of flowers are grown annually and must all be harvested by hand. But how? We also meet a bunch of Victorian daffodil obsessives, from Scottish enthusiast Peter Barr, whose quest for seeds took him, astride a donkey, all over the Pyrenees, where he was mistaken for a bandit; Reverend George Herbert Engleheart, clergyman and father of the modern daffodil; and Quaker plantswoman Sarah Backhouse – aka 'The Genius' – who turned daffodils pink!

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The Café Waiter: Working-class hero? Towering Figure of Haughty Frenchness?

Fri, 13 Mar 2026 01:00:00 GMT

Café waiters are omnipresent in French life and in French culture as a sort of regiment – serried ranks of men in their black-and-white uniform with tremendous esprit de corps. But who are they really, Muriel asks, and how did they become such stock figures of Frenchness, and even objects of study for French philosophy? What makes a good café waiter? Is it to do with natural ability, physical fitness, French reserve, or the joys of performance? What is the etiquette of interacting with a café waiter? And what are the rules of the traditional café waiters race?

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Cagoules: The Great British Cover Up

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 01:00:00 GMT

How to solve a problem like the British weather? It's easy if you invent the right British garment with a French name, whose origins and evolution Suzanne unveils: it's a story of ancient hooded spirits, anoraks, Royal Marines, the great outdoors, textile manufacturing, fashion and practicality, and – in a surprising twist – anti-Republican conspiracies in 1930s France.

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Bad Eggs and Dark Horses: French Baddies in Film!

Fri, 27 Feb 2026 01:00:00 GMT

Muriel unravels the reasons why so many film villains happen to be French. From dissolute sophisticates to duplicitous manipulators and downright sadistic megalomaniacs, what do these colourful imaginary French figures tell us about Frenchness?

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Urchin Rebel Bonds With Wild Kestrel: Ken Loach's Kes – Quintessential British Film

Fri, 20 Feb 2026 00:01:00 GMT

Suzanne explores a masterpiece which is 'like being knocked out' – a cri de coeur about downtrodden youth, devastating tragedy and the tyranny of class. But Ken Loach's Kes is also a dream of escape, wondrous lyrical beauty and the call of the wild. And what of A Kestrel for a Knave, the film's source novel, and its revered author Barry Hines? What do they tell us about how a story rooted in South Yorkshire working-class experience, once told in print and film, gave a whole community their voice and also reached universal resonance?

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A Very French Scandal: Naked Woman at Picnic! Manet’s revolutionary Déjeuner sur l'herbe

Fri, 13 Feb 2026 01:00:00 GMT

Muriel examines a madly famous succès de scandale. What’s going on in Edouard Manet’s 1863 painting of an outdoors scene featuring four people, one of whom is stark naked? Is it a riddle? A transgressive prank? Napoleon III guest stars as the originator of the offbeat Salon des Refusés, and an enigmatic life model breaks the fourth wall.

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The Guinness Book of Records: Superlative feats! Nature's wonders! Fun for dictators!

Fri, 06 Feb 2026 01:00:00 GMT

Suzanne tells Muriel a very British story of surprise global success, which began at a shooting party in 1951 with a dispute over the speed of a golden plover. A dramatic cast of fact finders and record breakers includes Guinness Brewery managing director Sir Hugh Beaver, identical twins of exceptional retentive memory Norris and Ross McWhirter, and Presidents of Turkmenistan Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow and his son Sherdar. What made the Book such a success? What challenges did it face? And where in the world has the highest concentration of white marble buildings?

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The French Wild West: Brittany! Celtic identity, pancakes, memories of Dukes and power!

Fri, 30 Jan 2026 01:00:00 GMT

Why does 'Brittany' (in local dialects Breizh and Bertègn) sound so much like 'Britain'? Because this Western region of France, once known as Armorique, was profoundly shaped by an influx of 5th-century Celt migration from the British Isles. One of the six Celtic nations, it represents an enmeshing of our two cultures and isn't quite part of mainstream France. Muriel narrates the region's turbulent history of annexation by the Kingdom of France through a series of strategic marriages – almost all of them to the same Breton Duchess. Plus mythical tales of drowned cities, a controversial Breton comic-strip heroine, home-grown Breton Cola, and your reminder to eat pancakes for Candlemas, like the French!

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Back of the Net! It's leather, it's round, it's Britain's gift to the world!

Fri, 23 Jan 2026 01:00:00 GMT

Suzanne moves the goalposts and gives football the Garlic & Pearls treatment: it's a story where passions run high, from obsessive devotion to dogged attempts to ban the sport, whether because of its riotous violence of because it's deemed unsuitable for ladies. A cast of colourful characters keep the ball moving: Henry VIII, Mary Queen of Scots, the five-foot-tall Lady Florence Dixie and her husband Lord ABCD, Nettie Honeyball and legendary scorer Lily Parr ... But how did quicksilver come into it? And where was the world's oldest extant football discovered, hinting at protection from witchcraft?

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French Brothels of the Golden Age: Sex, theatricality, escapism!

Fri, 16 Jan 2026 01:00:00 GMT

Oh là là! From the Belle Epoque to the Jazz Age rose famous French brothels such as Le Chabanais, the One Two Two or the Sphynx. This vanished world, its outlandish themed rooms and enigmatic army of female denizens, live on in the iconography that they inspired and that remains forever wedded to French identity. The future Edward VII guest stars as a designer of unusual furniture.

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A Study in Silver: The cryptic British world of precious metals, their hallmarks, assays, and guilds

Fri, 09 Jan 2026 01:00:00 GMT

Suzanne illuminates the origins and meaning of hallmarking, which began in the 13th century under Edward I – aka Edward Longshanks – as part of his wider effort to stabilise the kingdom by means of statutes. Though the French king Louis IX appears as a guest star, this is a case of Britain being far more systematic and precise than France while, in typical British fashion, devising a resilient system capable of evolving through the centuries. Where were the native silver and gold mines of Britain? And did you know that you could have your own hallmark made?

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La dictée: How did a school spelling test become a French obsession and symbol of Frenchness?

Fri, 02 Jan 2026 01:00:00 GMT

Muriel goes back to school to explore how in France the spelling test called la dictée became the backbone of French education. Who introduced it and why? Is it fascistic or democratic? And how did a school exercise become a beloved popular cultural event shared by the nation? It's a very Gallic tale of Republican alphabetisation, unification and nation-building, and Muriel joins in by pitting herself against Emperor Napoleon III in taking on a famously exacting dictée!

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The Christmas Tale Face-Off: A Christmas Carol or Les Misérables?

Thu, 25 Dec 2025 01:00:00 GMT

In our last episode of 2025, Suzanne and Muriel consider soberly which is more atmospheric and replete with the spirit of Christmas - is it Dickens with Michael Caine and a cast of Muppets, or is it a pivotal bit of melodrama in Victor Hugo's social saga?

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The Christmas Drink Face-Off: Indulgent Irish Cream or astringent coupe de champagne?

Wed, 24 Dec 2025 01:00:00 GMT

Cheers! Santé! Suzanne retraces the history of a 1970s Soho brainwave of deliciousness and Muriel obeys the traditional Pavlovian call of Champenois fizz

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The Christmas Telly Face-Off: Reithian British Monument or Gallic social satire?

Tue, 23 Dec 2025 01:00:00 GMT

Suzanne brings a whole lotta Christmas to the table and parses the delights of the double issue of the Radio Times; Muriel unpacks a cult French sitcom about two contrasting lifestyles of the bourgeoisie

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The Christmas Carol Face-Off: Pre-Raphaelite Poetry or Socialist Manifesto?

Fri, 19 Dec 2025 01:00:00 GMT

Suzanne makes a compelling case for the evocative beauty of In the Bleak Midwinter and its landscape imagery infused with spirituality; Muriel wonders how Minuit, Chrétiens, a rousing carol authored by a Socialist firebrand and a stage composer, made it into the French Catholic choral canon.

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The Christmas Treat Face-Off: Quality Street or marrons glacés?

Wed, 17 Dec 2025 01:00:00 GMT

Muriel and Suzanne are swapping seasonal treats: masses of cheerful multicoloured candy vs a handful of meticulously crafted products of the terroir. Both delicious, but what do they say about the British and the French at Christmas?

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The Christmas Chart-Topper Face-Off: Beguiling Pop or Kitsch Cosiness?

Fri, 12 Dec 2025 01:00:00 GMT

Suzanne takes a punt at the 2025 Christmas No1 and crowns 1984 as the very best vintage of British Christmas charts; Muriel explains how and why the French Christmas No1, a 'secular carol' by venerated crooner Tino Rossi, remains unchanged since 1946.

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Metal Detectors: What goes 'beep beep' all over the land and is typically British? The gentle army of treasure seekers hoping to find an Anglo-Saxon hoard!

Fri, 05 Dec 2025 10:40:08 GMT

In which Suzanne unearths the story of a major British hobby and its relationship with landscape and the romance of the past. Why are the British obsessed with metal detecting? What is their Arthurian code of practice? What are portable antiquities? Who are the night hawkers? What does all this reveal about British attitudes to liberty, in stark contrast to France? Includes helpful pointers about buying the best metal detector, and Alexander Graham Bell as an unexpected star of the show!

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French Politicians and Clairvoyants: The French worship Reason and critical thinking, don't they? So why do Presidents (and mayors), who serve the French Republic, love the occult so much?

Fri, 28 Nov 2025 01:00:00 GMT

Muriel tackles an awkward truth: the French may love rigour and rationality – France is the nation of Descartes, after all – but they are also susceptible to the allure of psychics, the alignment of the stars, and angels calling on the phone from beyond. How has this survived the advent of the Enlightenment and the Revolution? And what does it mean in terms of our relationship to super-forecasting and superstition, Suzanne wonders.

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The British Tax Year: The French tax year is aligned on the calendar year, but not the British. Why not? Popes, Catholicism, the Reformation!

Fri, 21 Nov 2025 01:00:00 GMT

In which Suzanne investigates profound differences between our two cultures by asking why the British tax year is not, like in France, aligned onto the calendar year. The answers, which astonish Muriel, are deeply rooted in Britain's relationship to the Continent. It's a story of mathematics and astrology, Popes, bishops and archbishops, Catholicism and the Reformation, and, of course, Acts of Parliament, which opens a vertiginous crack in time. Elizabeth I, John Dee and Isaac Newton all guest star.

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Greatest Play Ever! Britain vs France, part 2. The Bald Prima Donna - Zany Avant-Garde on the Paris Left Bank

Fri, 14 Nov 2025 01:00:00 GMT

In the second half of our theatrical diptych, Muriel tells Suzanne about the 'atomic bomb' of the French theatre, an experimental Absurdist masterpiece by Romanian-French playwright Eugène Ionesco that became a classic of the French stage. It has neither plot nor psychology – only a lot of uneasy comic momentum, poking fun at the bourgeoisie. But how has it lasted so long? And why is it about British people?

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Greatest Play Ever! Britain vs France, part 1. The Mousetrap - Agatha Christie's Not So Cosy West End Whodunnit

Fri, 07 Nov 2025 01:00:00 GMT

Suzanne and Muriel consider the brilliance, longevity and significance of Agatha Christie's murder mystery play The Mousetrap, which has been running since 1952. Set in a country house isolated by bad weather, the play is a model of distinctly British sweet-and-sour eruption of violence in a cosy setting, and replete with red herrings and eccentric characters. The police inspector arrives on skis! It also taps into wider postwar unease: Christie evokes a newly unstable world, a shifting class structure and an air of paranoid watchfulness. But can Muriel and Suzanne guess the culprit? Can you?

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The Paris Catacombs: palace of death, gigantic memento mori and a way of solving the problem of excess bones

Fri, 31 Oct 2025 01:00:00 GMT

It's Halloween and Muriel encourages Suzanne to think about the Gallic bones displayed and staged in the Paris Catacombs in a neo-classical early-19th-century mise-en-scène at once macabre and meditative. We also discover a contemporary underground scene of fun-loving secret explorers and hear about the time Suzanne dug up a medieval monk in Hampshire.

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The Real Making of Britain and France: A myth-busting, panoramic trip through time and space with our guest, the historian Graham Robb!

Fri, 24 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Following on from his book The Discovery of France, Graham Robb has produced another fascinating work of exploration, The Discovery of Britain. Graham's observations are rooted in extensive travel all over both countries on a Victorian invention, the bicycle, reconnecting with old pathways, landscapes and forgotten people. He shares with Suzanne and Muriel what he discovered about nomads and tribes, hedgerows and standing stones, Ptlolemaic maps and the corporal punishment of saints with nettles. How did France gradually colonise itself into a centralised nation? How many beacons were needed to communicate from Cornwall to Sunderland? And what can you learn at ground level about two countries where so much of the past is visible in front of you?

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Rhyming Slang: A distinctly British and creative code that's definitely not 'brown bread'

Fri, 17 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Would you Adam and Eve it? Suzanne tutors her 'old China' Muriel in a coded language that is full of wit, inventions and surprises. Rooted in old street cant and secret words identified in the 1850s, rhyming slang expresses the earthiness and supple playfulness inherent in the ways in which the British use their language. Does a French equivalent exist? And what's rhyming slang for Garlic & Pearls?

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Brigitte Bardot: Top French Icon and The Face of France

Fri, 10 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Where Muriel explains the mythology of the actress, singer, animal activist and all-round contrarian. How did Bardot re-invent French femininity for the 20th century?

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Giant Redwoods in the UK: A story of intrepid botanists and explorers, and a Victorian British craze

Fri, 03 Oct 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Is there a Californian landscape growing in Britain to the tune of half a million Giant Redwoods? Suzanne recounts the 19th-century story of adventurous plant collectors, explains how the seeds they brought home went to create the Victorian British landscape that surrounds us, and imagines a dizzying future, 3,000 years away, where thriving Redwoods reach colossal maturity in the British Isles. Alfred Hitchcock and a man called Sequoia are part of the cast.

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How to Eat Everything in Paris: Our guest, food writer Chris Newens, shares revelatory findings!

Fri, 26 Sep 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Muriel and Suzanne hop around the arrondissements of Paris explored by Chris Newens in his food memoir Moveable Feasts, comparing and contrasting cuisines, history, sociology and atmosphere. They also learn the logistics of making your own Belleville-style doner kebab. And what is the etiquette of eating brunch at a sex club in Pigalle?

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Conkers: from Victorian pastime to urban Battle Royale

Fri, 19 Sep 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Where Suzanne ushers in autumn and educates a baffled Muriel in the great British game of conkers, at once nostalgic, ruthlessly competitive and controversial.

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An Evening with Garlic & Pearls: where Muriel and Suzanne make their first live appearance!

Fri, 12 Sep 2025 00:00:00 GMT

As guests of the Durning Library at the Lambeth Readers and Writers Festival, Muriel and Suzanne discuss Frenchness, Britishness and their podcast adventure.

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French Roundabouts: are they about safety, strategy or symbolism?

Fri, 05 Sep 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Muriel introduces Suzanne to the surprisingly whimsical world of French roundabouts. Why does France have so many? Why are the rules so maddening? And are they eyesores or ornaments?

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Shinty: 'Quite a violent version of hockey'

Fri, 29 Aug 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Camans at the ready! Suzanne and our special guest from the Isle of Skye, the skipper, photographer and shinty player Izzy Law, delve into the origins of the ancient Highland game of shinty or camanachd, evoking close historical ties between Irish and Scottish kingdoms and the hardy nature of a game that was traditionally played as a warm-up before battle between chieftains and clans and also used to settle love rivalries. Today it is a vibrant modern game and the subject of Celtic rock anthems. And, Muriel asks, was it also the inspiration for the fictional game of Quidditch?

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Summer Shorts: The 'Sorry' and 'Pardon' face off

Fri, 22 Aug 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Suzanne and Muriel thread their way through how the British and the French apologise and ask for forgiveness. What does it reveal about attitudes to personal space, guilt and pleasure? Which nation is more courtly? Why do the British say sorry all the time? How aggressive is passive aggression? And who, ultimately, gets it right about manners – Tatler Magazine or the Académie Française? 17th-century moralists and the Japanese also put in an appearance.

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Summer Shorts: The béret and bobble hat face off

Fri, 15 Aug 2025 00:00:00 GMT

In a story of sheep, sailors, Royals, Résistants, football fans and actresses, practicality spars with glamour as Suzanne spots Welsh Monmouth caps in Shakespeare and unfurls 15th- and 16th-century Acts of Parliament that may have conditioned the British to reach for their woolly hats, while Muriel salutes the gigantic headgear of Alpine regiments and the French tête à chapeaux (head for hats). Plus: what happened when President Macron was hijacked by a beret and some singing shepherds.

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Summer Shorts: The high vis jacket and gilet jaune face off

Fri, 08 Aug 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Fluorescent high-vis clothing - beacon of hope or luminous nightmare? Suzanne has embraced high vis as a liberating garment and analyses its uses in preventing harm and in signalling authority. But is the generalised wearing of it in Britain getting out of hand? Muriel looks through the political prism of the gilets jaunes (yellow vests) movement, which in France appropriated the garment and turned it into a banner for the disenfranchised. Surprise guest star: Karl Lagerfeld.

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Club Med: From campsites in Spanish pine groves to Tahitian 'villages' in Morocco, how the French brought their edenic dream holiday to life

Fri, 01 Aug 2025 09:42:06 GMT

Muriel recounts the story of Club Méditerranée, 'the antidote to civilisation' born in traumatised postwar France as a socialist-inflected dream of sporty egalitarianism in the sea and sun, its gradual drift into exoticism leaning into Enlightenment ideas of the state of nature, and its evolution from philanthropic utopia to deluxe multinational business.

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British Camping: How Britain devised a distinctively gruelling kind of holiday which is part dream and part nightmare.

Fri, 25 Jul 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Seasoned camper Suzanne has survived plagues of horseflies and finding ice on the inside of her tent. She revisits memories of the testing, yet strangely enjoyable camping and caravaning trips that the British cherish and retraces the story of the Victorian-Edwardian pioneers to fell in love with camping and rose to the challenge of its practicalities, revealing a surprising backstory of tailoring and American prairies. Scott of the Antarctic guest stars.

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The Revolutionary Calendar: How French utopians tried to recalibrate time and reshape Republican humanity

Fri, 18 Jul 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Muriel takes Suzanne back to a time when a coalition of Enlightenment poets and scientists and radical political reformers drew a line under the Ancien Régime and Christianity and imagined a brand new way of thinking about time and the calendar.

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1217: The French Invasion You Never Knew About (Part 2)

Fri, 11 Jul 2025 00:00:00 GMT

It's D-Day, helmets are glinting and everything hinges on William Marshall – and on formidable Lincolnshire sheriff Nicola de la Haie – as the troops gather on both sides outside Lincoln Castle. Will you, like Suzanne, be heaving a sigh of relief as the covetous French are finally defeated, or bemoan, like Muriel, a tragic missed opportunity?

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1217: The French Invasion You Never Knew About (Part 1)

Fri, 04 Jul 2025 00:00:00 GMT

On the occasion of President Macron's state visit to Britain, Suzanne retraces the background to a momentous clash between France and England – the definitive repelling of the French on 20th May 1217 at the Battle of Lincoln – throwing light on fierce rivalries for succession to the throne of England and for ownership of territories on the Norman side of the Channel, with much switching of allegiance, and on such formidable figures as Philip-Augustus, first to call himself King of France, and William Marshall, former child hostage and greatest English knight.

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Orangina: How a home-grown Algerian drink became a French icon

Fri, 27 Jun 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Muriel takes Suzanne – shaken, not stirred – back to the origins of the odd little yellow bottle, from sun-drenched Algerian orange groves to the smartest Parisian cafés, and into the heart of French escapism

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Pirates: Why the British treasure the Robin Hoods of the seas

Fri, 20 Jun 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Ahoy! Suzanne sails off to the Spanish Main and the Barbary Coast, introducing Muriel to a cast of buccaneers, corsairs and privateers against a shifting background of enterprise, geopolitics - and marine insurance!

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French Theme Parks: Running the Gamut From Fun to Propaganda

Fri, 13 Jun 2025 00:00:00 GMT

What do France's homegrown theme parks tell us about Frenchness? asks Muriel. From the 'ethnographic exhibitions' at the Jardin d'Acclimatation to visionary vulcanologists in the Auvergne and spectacular historical romancing at Le Puy du Fou, controversy looms large!

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Pimms: The journey, joys and jeopardy of the quintessential British summer drink

Fri, 06 Jun 2025 00:00:00 GMT

In time for Wimbledon, Suzanne encourages Muriel to celebrate the British season with a glass of Pimms, and the history, associations and meaning behind it. A tale of gin addiction, oyster houses, fashionable crazes and absurd traditions.

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Identity Cards: A French story of the struggle between liberté and securité

Fri, 30 May 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Why does France have ID cards while Britain does not? Muriel unpacks a national narrative of medieval identity theft, Revolutionary ideals of collective nationhood, policing under the German Occupation and contentious 21st-century bilingualism.

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Bungalows: The perfect British design for living?

Fri, 23 May 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Britain has a lot of bungalows, but why and how did this begin? Suzanne goes enthusiastically utilitarian and modular and introduces Muriel to the history, charm and meaning of this revolutionary one-storey design, associated with the seaside and hygienic living, with pioneering architects and refinements of snobbery, with the temporary and permanent, and with the topical question of how best to house the nation.

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Surrealism: How and why Paris became a vortex for artists unleashing the subconscious

Fri, 16 May 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Muriel surprises Suzanne with an enigmatic tea cup covered in fur – the Surrealist object par excellence. Who was Meret Oppenheim, the woman who made it, and what inspired her? This opens up a story of Parisian Surrealism, when a group of artists explored liminal dream-like inspiration in visual arts, writing and film. Why did this happen in Paris specifically? And why did Surrealism never really take root in Britain?

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Toast: An ode to distinctly British crisp buttered deliciousness – with some true crime thrown in

Fri, 09 May 2025 00:00:00 GMT

We all dream of the perfect piece of hot toast dripping with butter, but is it ever to be had in this world? Suzanne gives Muriel 9-step instructions on how to make it and, by way of Shakespeare and The Wind in the Willows, tells the history of the British quest for perfect toast and the development of toasting forks, toast racks and the toaster. A Frenchman, the chef and inventor Alexis Soyer, is the surprising star of this British story, and 18th-century burglarious felony and a delirious Wikipedia hoax also feature.

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Into the Deep: What draws the French so powerfully to the briny depths?

Fri, 02 May 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Muriel takes Suzanne on a downward journey into the French passion for diving and underwater life. Why was the film The Big Blue such a hit in France? What cult French TV programme about the sea lies beneath it? Why is the oceanographer Jacques Cousteau so revered in France? And deeper still, what iconic submarine novel and archetypal taciturn hero informed it all?

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Jigsaw Puzzles: The amazing British invention that went from geographical 'dissection' to universally popular form of meditation

Fri, 25 Apr 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Suzanne tells Muriel the riveting story of an invention devised in London by one inspired man, in an 18th-century world of map-making, mezzotints and early industrial machinery, and explores what jigsaw puzzles do for us, what they mean, and why they are more popular than ever.

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The Metric System: Born of a perfect storm of Enlightenment and Revolution

Fri, 18 Apr 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Muriel tells Suzanne how the French dream of the metric system became realised when the Enlightenment scientists' desire for reliable measurements met the French Revolutionaries' decision to remodel the nation according to Reason.

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Bluebells: Why does this enchanting native blue flower make the British giddy?

Fri, 11 Apr 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Suzanne explores the complex botanical, mythical and poetic aspects of the British bluebell cult. Hope and death, secrecy and display and even asparagus all come into it, and Tilda Swinton, Diana, Princess of Wales and Margaret Thatcher all guest star.

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Glamour: What – and who – do the French find so bewitching about Britain?

Tue, 08 Apr 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Happy Entente Cordiale! It is, Muriel explains, when at their most conventional that the British are at their most glamorous to French eyes. And we reveal the British winner of the title of Full Cordiale Corker!

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Panache: How a French king's white feather came to define a Gallic core value

Mon, 07 Apr 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Suzanne digs for the roots of French panache, encountering kingly pageantry, Cyrano de Bergerac and the emblem of the cockerel.

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Eccentrics: Why do they grow in Britain and not in France?

Sun, 06 Apr 2025 00:00:00 GMT

It's Muriel's turn to express admiration of the vivid anarchic creativity of British eccentrics, and to ask if there is something in the water.

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Insouciance: What is it and can the British ever achieve it?

Sat, 05 Apr 2025 00:00:00 GMT

Suzanne's first choice of French word du jour. Vanessa Paradis embodies it. A paradox: there is nothing harder to pull off than insouciance, the art of not caring.

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The Theatre of Horrors: How the visceral Grand-Guignol thrilled Paris to the core

Fri, 04 Apr 2025 00:00:00 GMT

In which Muriel tells Suzanne about the rise and fall of the once ultra-fashionable Théâtre du Grand-Guignol, where, not far from the Moulin-Rouge, the fears of the Belle-Epoque and interwar years – from crazed surgeons and escaped lunatics to the Modern Woman wielding sulphuric acid – were staged with an immersive, hallucinatory intensity.

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Trailer: Garlic & Pearls Cordiale Corkers

Sat, 29 Mar 2025 01:00:00 GMT

Great excitement at Garlic & Pearls HQ: the anniversary of the Entente Cordiale between France and Britain is near. To celebrate, Muriel and Suzanne tell each other what they find most intriguing about each other’s culture!

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Rescue Puppies: The whys and wherefores of Britain’s unparalleled devotion to animals

Fri, 28 Mar 2025 01:00:00 GMT

Suzanne reflects on British attitudes to animals, from the Reverend Humphrey Primatt’s ‘animal theology’ to the founding of the RSPCA 200 years ago and later eruptions of violent pro-animal activism.

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The Map of Love: How a modern Frenchwoman from the 17th-century imagined courtship as a hike through an imaginary landscape

Fri, 21 Mar 2025 01:00:00 GMT

In which Muriel introduces Suzanne to a group of brilliant women: the Précieuses, headed by Madeleine de Scudéry. Novelists, scholars and wits, they invented the salons, the art of conversation and a progressive idea of love.

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Harris Tweed: How sturdy wool woven in the outer Hebrides became the very fabric of Britishness

Fri, 14 Mar 2025 01:00:00 GMT

Suzanne gathers a fashionable cast - including Sherlock Holmes, Coco Chanel and Vivienne Westwood – to take Muriel through the warp and weft of Harris tweed's dramatic history. The only fabric still to have its own Act of Parliament, it was a battleground for Gaelic weavers, philanthropic aristocrats and punk fashionistas.

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The Misfortunes of Sophie: A darkly vivid 1850s classic that still shapes and fascinates French children today

Fri, 07 Mar 2025 01:00:00 GMT

Muriel introduces Suzanne to the French equivalent of Alice in Wonderland, a memorably unsettling portrayal of childhood with enduring appeal, that shines a light on past and present ideas about French childrearing.

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Ski Sunday: How the British fell in love with skiing and made it fun

Fri, 28 Feb 2025 01:00:00 GMT

Suzanne remedies Muriel’s ignorance of cult BBC2 programme Ski Sunday and in the process unpacks the British obsession with and transformation of skiing from conveyance into fun downhill-racing activity. Raclette and Arthur Conan Doyle also feature!

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Absinthe: Was the iconic drink of the Belle Epoque enchanting or poisonous?

Fri, 21 Feb 2025 01:00:00 GMT

Over a glass of the legendary green aperitif, Muriel presents Suzanne with the history and myths of absinthe – its rise from local Alpine speciality to the metropolitan tipple of artists and boulevardiers, followed by its dramatic downfall, against a background of social anxiety about degeneracy and violence.

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Valentine’s Day: How French amour courtois turned into Victorian enterprise

Fri, 14 Feb 2025 01:00:00 GMT

On this special day for swains and sweethearts Suzanne leads Muriel down surprising heritage pathways: tracking the relic of St Valentine’s head, wondering why French-style love poetry flourished after Agincourt, and revealing who adorned Victorian Valentine’s cards with dead birds.

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Johnny Hallyday: The French Elvis?

Fri, 07 Feb 2025 01:00:00 GMT

Where Muriel introduces Suzanne to a colossal French star who was the ambassador of American rock in France and became both a national monument and the incarnation of French masculinity.

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The Orsini Bomb: Made in Britain and designed to kill the French Emperor!

Fri, 31 Jan 2025 01:00:00 GMT

Suzanne untangles an astonishing plot to do away with Napoleon III in 1858 Paris. Unfolding in the coffee houses of London and the industrial workshops of Birmingham, it is a riveting tale of Italian nationalists backed by British radicals, all dreaming of the Revolution!

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The Black Polo Neck: French national dress, political uniform, or philosophical flag?

Fri, 24 Jan 2025 01:00:00 GMT

In which Muriel unpacks for Suzanne the various hidden meanings taken on in France by the black polo neck. From Hollywood to the Left Bank, the humble polo neck acts as rallying sign for the counterculture as well as the Establishment, and no Existentialist would be seen without it!

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Wheelie Bins: Blessing or curse?

Fri, 17 Jan 2025 01:00:46 GMT

Allegedly invented by accident in Slough, the army of wheelie bins now lining our streets is the latest iteration of British society’s attempts to manage waste. Suzanne ploughs heroically through centuries of ashpits, dustbins and cesspools, recounting many convulsions of public-spiritedness as she tries to get Muriel to think pragmatically about rubbish.

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The Concierge: The pantomime villain that the French love to hate?

Fri, 10 Jan 2025 01:00:11 GMT

In which Muriel tells Suzanne the story of French concierges – the guardians of French buildings – involving systematic and distinctive urban planning begun in the 1830s, the proliferation of concierge imagery and mythology throughout literature, satirical cartons and vaudeville, and the real-life hardships faced by concierges in the past and in contemporary France.

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Marmalade: Who invented it and how did it become a shortcut for Britishness?

Fri, 03 Jan 2025 01:00:58 GMT

James Bond spread it on his breakfast toast; Paddington and Queen Elizabeth II kept marmalade sandwiches ‘for emergencies’; Scott of the Antarctic took some to the South Pole. Suzanne peels away layers of the history of marmalade as it evolved from dark quince paste to translucent bitter orange jelly and grew into a ubiquitous British export throughout the world, with Dundee as its capital city. And Muriel reveals her own surprising marmalade journey of enlightenment.

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Galette Des Rois: Let them eat cake - for the Epiphany!

Fri, 27 Dec 2024 01:00:44 GMT

Where does the almond-filled ‘galette des rois’ come from? And why have the French clung so tenaciously to it through the centuries? Muriel unveils a seasonal French cake with ancient roots reaching back to Antiquity and many connections to royalty and power. And – not a moment too soon – Suzanne becomes Queen.

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The Christmas Pudding Sandwich: Perfect for Boxing Day!

Thu, 26 Dec 2024 01:00:09 GMT

Suzanne dives into a 1920s compendium of sandwiches by Mary Woodman, retraces sandwich history and ponders the art of Successful Sandwich Making.

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Flaming Boar’s Head Feast: All hail ‘the rarest dish in all the land’!

Wed, 25 Dec 2024 01:00:21 GMT

Suzanne digs up an almost entirely forgotten British Christmas medieval tradition full of pomp and circumstance, including a special carol!

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The Discreet Charm of Presents on Christmas Eve: Scrap the suspense! Presents now!

Tue, 24 Dec 2024 01:00:35 GMT

Muriel tells Suzanne about France’s uncanny parallel universe, where Christmas happens the day before Christmas. But are the French missing out on the art of waiting?

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Crackers: Bang bang! It’s Christmas!

Mon, 23 Dec 2024 01:00:46 GMT

Suzanne dissects the gloriously noisy tradition of the British Christmas cracker. There is a Victorian inventor, also some French bonbons, a diamond ring and plenty of explosions.

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Oysters: It’s Christmas –: bring on the piles of ice-cold raw shellfish!

Sun, 22 Dec 2024 01:00:17 GMT

How did oysters (les huîtres) become enshrined in France as a traditional Christmas food? Muriel investigates.

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France’s Ultimate Christmas Film: Father Christmas is a Git!

Sat, 21 Dec 2024 01:00:36 GMT

Muriel explains the appeal of the ferocious, dark and crude madcap comedy that encapsulates Christmas for the French.

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Panto!: Oh no it isn’t! Oh yes it is!

Fri, 20 Dec 2024 01:00:08 GMT

Where Suzanne opens Muriel’s Continental mind to the summit of British stagecraft – the rich and frivolous tradition of Christmas panto, an exhilarating hodgepodge of mumming, commedia dell’arte, post-Restoration theatre and up-to-the-minute satire.

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Trailer - Garlic & Pearls Christmas Corkers

Tue, 17 Dec 2024 10:25:52 GMT

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The Cockerel’s Cologne: Did the French invent perfume or did perfume invent the French?

Fri, 13 Dec 2024 01:00:03 GMT

Taking as a starting point a highly symbolic empty bottle of Eau de Cologne discovered by Suzanne in Denmark, Muriel explores the ways in which the French took possession of perfume – climate, savoir-faire, aristocratic patronage and the culture of display and seductiveness that developed in the 19th century.

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Bleakness: A dark poetic paradise in the heartland of the Industrial Revolution

Fri, 06 Dec 2024 01:00:04 GMT

By way of Ted Hughes’s Remains of Elmet, Suzanne explores a scarred ancient landscape and brings back to life the ghosts of warring kings, Tudor wool weavers, brigands and Victorian dam builders.

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Le Comic Strip: Girl fights pterodactyl in Belle Epoque Paris!

Fri, 29 Nov 2024 01:00:31 GMT

The French adore comic book series – or bandes dessinées – featuring Asterix and Tintin. But Muriel tells Suzanne about another famous French character, a plucky heroine called Adèle Blanc-Sec, whose surreal fantastical adventures unfurl in 1900 Paris and involve encounters with pre-historic creatures, Babylonian demons and Egyptian mummies.

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My Favourite A Road: Driving by numbers

Fri, 22 Nov 2024 01:00:27 GMT

In which Suzanne explains another British obsession: the decision tree of how to get from A to B by way of A roads. A kinetic tale of Romans, speed, resourcefulness and British modernism.

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Marseille Soap: France’s cleanest national treasure

Fri, 15 Nov 2024 01:00:31 GMT

Muriel examines every facet of Marseille soap from the practical to the mythological, and takes Suzanne on a journey from the boiling vats of the soap factories to the havens of French pharmacies and the heady hinterland of Provence.

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Hassocks: English folk art and cultural identity in stitches

Fri, 08 Nov 2024 10:23:48 GMT

In which Suzanne unfurls a panoramic history of Anglican church kneelers, showing the little embroidered cushions to be an extraordinarily expressive artistic flourishing of the Second Elizabethan Era.

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Donkey Skin: Catherine Deneuve in the weirdest fairy tale you’ve never heard of

Fri, 01 Nov 2024 01:00:00 GMT

In which Muriel tells Suzanne about a favourite children’s film involving dead donkeys, incest and psychedelia, and Suzanne wonders a little at the wisdom of French parents.

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Halloween: Turnips and chisels at the ready – we’re carving a path to the celebration's spooky roots!

Fri, 25 Oct 2024 00:00:36 GMT

As we transition from harvest to winter, Suzanne leads Muriel back into the mists of time and elicits the origins of Halloween: the mumming and guising of Celtic Samhain, a host of Catholic saints, queens and kings, and, of course, witches and witchfinders...

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Playing Cards: The French never miss a trick!

Fri, 18 Oct 2024 00:00:28 GMT

In which Suzanne gives Muriel carte blanche to reveal the French origins of the ‘jeu de cartes’, and Muriel lays all her cards on the table and wonders: were playing cards devised by a French knight as a tribute to his lady? How best to cheat at piquet? Why is it impossible for the ace of spades to look chic?

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Hedgerows: A tale of British countryside, folklore and riots!

Fri, 11 Oct 2024 04:00:19 GMT

Why does Britain have such a staggering amount of hedgerows? Suzanne leads Muriel through a hedge backwards and finds a dazzle of biodiversity and a tormented cast of barons, peasants, Diggers and sheep! Hedgerows: are they a Good Thing or a Bad Thing?

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La Cantine: How does the French Republic create petits gastronomes?

Fri, 04 Oct 2024 04:00:30 GMT

Time for lunch! Muriel takes Suzanne through the workings of French school canteens. What’s on the menu? How does the French Republic make petits gastronomes? And, most importantly, how old does your tumbler say you are?

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Sir Nigel Gresley: All aboard! Full steam ahead with a very British passion!

Fri, 27 Sep 2024 04:00:21 GMT

What drives the British obsession with trains great and small? Suzanne takes Muriel on an epic journey, following the tracks of Sir Nigel Gresley, visionary engineer and duck breeder extraordinaire.

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The Four-Colour Bic Pen: What goes “click” and is mightier than the sword?

Fri, 20 Sep 2024 07:56:10 GMT

The four-colour Bic pen was a revolutionary invention. It’s also an emblem of optimistic Frenchness. Find out why as Muriel unpacks the pen’s origin story and takes Suzanne back to school.

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Pickled Onions: Crossing a culinary chasm

Fri, 06 Sep 2024 15:29:50 GMT

Some might say that the pickled onion is a jewel in the crown of British gastronomy. But where does it come from? Suzanne explains all, including the use of a distinctive piece of British cutlery, and Muriel gets a baptism of fire.

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Garlic & Pearls: What makes the British so British and the French so French?

Fri, 06 Sep 2024 15:29:06 GMT

What makes the British so British and the French so French? Suzanne Raine and Muriel Zagha astonish and entertain each other with a wide array of examples - from everyday objects to eccentric oddities - all in pursuit of the essence of Britishness and Frenchness.

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