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Garlic & Pearls

Garlic & Pearls

By: Muriel Zagha and Suzanne Raine
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About this listen

 Suzanne and Muriel examine a series of very different things – from a film to a kitchen utensil, a model train to a bar of soap – that define British or French attitudes, each explaining her cultural background to the other and trying to get to the essence of what makes the British British and the French French.

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Muriel Zagha and Suzanne Raine Social Sciences
Episodes
  • The French Wild West: Brittany! Celtic identity, pancakes, memories of Dukes and power!

    The French Wild West: Brittany! Celtic identity, pancakes, memories of Dukes and power!
    Jan 30 2026
    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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    53 mins
  • Back of the Net! It's leather, it's round, it's Britain's gift to the world!

    Back of the Net! It's leather, it's round, it's Britain's gift to the world!
    Jan 23 2026
    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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    52 mins
  • French Brothels of the Golden Age: Sex, theatricality, escapism!

    French Brothels of the Golden Age: Sex, theatricality, escapism!
    Jan 16 2026

    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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    1 hr and 5 mins
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