Introducing: the Focal Talk podcast (episode 1 out now)

[Callum Todd]

Introducing: the Focal Talk podcast.

Hosted by myself and Paul Anderson, this podcast will be a monthly release discussing all the latest news and events in the Countdown community: online, on TV, and at in-person events.

We will be joined by guests from within the community each month. For episode 1, we have FOCAL chair Jeff Clayton and (spoiler alert!) newly-crowned Countdown series 81 champion James Haughton.

Each episode will be released in an uncut long play, and a shorter abridged version.

Episode 1 uncut (2 hours 33 minutes)
Episode 1 abridged (67 minutes)

Any feedback is welcomed. Either contact me or Paul directly if you know us well, add a comment here, or ping an e-mail over to focaltalkpodcast@gmail.com

Hope you all enjoy it!

[L'oisleatch McGraw]

The name of the Podcast is weird.
"Focal Talk", you would expect it to be purely in-person events.
But if it is going to include TV stuff and Apterous stuff too, you should consider something less niche, like "Countdownery" "Apto-goss", "The 'downcast" etc.

[Callum Todd]

The name was the topic of much deliberation! I initially had it as 'The FOCAL podcast' because that's how it was initially envisioned. However, once it came to making it we realised we were discussing more than just FOCAL, so a new name was needed. But I was very against using anything that sounded too much like a brand name (such as 'the downcast') as it made it sound more like a manufactured product than the authentic conversation it is meant to be. We also couldn't really use something like 'The Countdown Podcast' or 'Countdownery' as it made it sound (to my ears) directly affiliated to the TV show, which naturally it isn't. So when 'Focal Talk' was suggested, I was very happy with that. It has more of a ring to it than 'The Focal Podcast', without being too brand-y, and has a nice play on the phrase 'folk'll talk'.

tl;dr: yeah it's weird but it's the least weird name we could come up with that wasn't outright wrong or cheesy.

[James S Roper]

Honestly, I don't think the downcast has much of a brand name tied to it, yes it's a play on words but it doesn't imply it's official. I quite like it actually.

[L'oisleatch McGraw]

The "Folk'll talk" pun... that's clever.
A good argument for keeping the awful name, if ye do insist on keeping it.

Anyway, enough moaning. Episode 1 (abridged of course) was very entertaining, and you're not half as shit as they say. Paul's great, but I would prefer your presenting style.

[Carl Harrison]

I enjoyed listening to this. I found the most interesting was James Haughton's interview, and suspect for many people (like me) who haven't been to any Focal events it will be most interesting to hear about the TV show experiences (as presumably everyone listening will be very familiar with the TV show, less so with the Focal scene), even if Focal/Apterous etc is a secondary thing to talk about.

But a very good start - thanks guys, keep it going!

[Paul Anderson]

I'm on the fence with the name. Yes, it was the best of a bad bunch so we went for it, however, I'm a fan of The Downcast.
If you have any suggestions, send them to focaltalkpodcast@gmail.com (obvs before we change the email)

[Gavin Chipper]

I've just listened to the full version of this. While I thought it was interesting in parts, I think it perhaps lacked direction, and the conversation with James Haughton seemed to drag at points, with it seeming to turn into a round by round discussion of some of his games at one point. I'll probably stick to the abridged ones in future! But with this lockdown, who knows?

And why didn't we get a demonstration of Callum's rapping?

[Paul Anderson]

You did, right at the very end. You must have stopped listening too early!

Thanks for the feedback, hopefully we addressed your concerns in subsequent episodes