I'm pleased to say that I'm returning to The Alan Titchmarsh Show every Thursday this series as their resident tech expert. You can catch my items at 1545 each week on ITV.
The 'Olly Mann Diet'
I've lost a fair bit of weight this year, and loads of people keep asking me how I've done it (the simple answer: eat less bad stuff), so I've written a column for Telegraph Men about it here, if that sort of thing floats your boat.
Interviewing Richard Park on LBC
It's not every day you get to interview your bosses boss! But that's just what I did on air this morning at 2am following the passing of Lord Attenborough at the age of 90. Richard Park joined me on LBC to discuss Dickie's life and legacy. You can hear the interview here.
Talking gadgets on 'Steve Wright in the Afternoon'
I joined Steve and the gang on 28th July to chat about tablet sales overtaking PCs, the tenth anniversary of TomTom, and some Summery apps. You can hear the slot on the BBC website here.
Podcasting, 10 Years On
Following the transmission of our Radio 4 documentary, Helen and I were invited to join a Radio Academy panel at the Apple Store on Regent Street on 25 June entitled 'Podcasting, 10 Years On'. We were joined on stage by The Bugle's producer Chris Skinner and The Football Ramble / Absolute's Pete Donaldson, and chatted for about an hour about why we got into podcasting, how it's helped our careers, and where we see the medium going in 2015. The event is available as a podcast from iTunes or you can watch it on YouTube.
The Media Podcast, episode one - presented by me
Good news for anyone who mourns the death of The Guardian's excellent Media Talk podcast (R.I.P. - they axed it last week): producer Matt Hill is continuing to make a fortnightly media review show. Yes, Media Talk has been re-born as... The Media Podcast. Creative title, eh? Anyway, I was thrilled to be asked to host the very first edition.
* Update: I am now the permanent presenter of the show! You can listen each fortnight on Audioboom or iTunes.
Hosting Q+As at Soho House
This month I've had the pleasure of hosting two Q&As for Soho House: one with Yahoo's European CEO Dawn Airey, at Little House Mayfair, and the other with boy-genius Nick D'Aloisio, the founder of Summly, at Shoreditch House. After the interviews Dawn had to rush off to meet David Cameron at No.10, and Nick had to go home and revise for his A-Levels! I thoroughly enjoyed meeting them both.
Our Radio 4 show about podcasting
Podcasting: The First Ten Years is a two-part documentary Helen and I have made with Trevor Dann for BBC Radio 4.
Part I goes out on Friday 4th April at 11am; Part II the following Friday at 11am. Afterwards it will be on iPlayer here. It's been chosen as Critic's Choice in The Times, Sunday Times, The Guardian Guide, The Independent on Sunday, Radio Times, The Observer and the Daily Mail.
As the title would suggest, it's a look back at how the world of podcasting has developed since Ben Hammersley first coined the word 'podcast' a decade ago, and our guests include Marc Maron, Adam Curry, Richard Herring, Keith and The Girl, Nate Lanxon (Wired), Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Kranor (Welcome To Night Vale), Mignon Fogarty (Grammar Girl), John Oliver and Andy Zaltzman, Ewan Spence (ESC Insight), Jemima Kiss (Guardian), Betty InTheSky (Betty In The Sky With A Suitcase), Pete Donaldson (The Football Ramble) and Theresa Thorn (One Bad Mother).
Our guest appearance on Richard Herring's chat show
Helen and I popped along to the Leicester Square Theatre last week to guest on Richard Herring's Leicester Square Theatre Podcast, and the results have just come out online.
In the course of our hour-long chat, we discuss the benefits of time-travelling genitalia, what happens when you fall in love with someone in an oil painting, and how to get sacked from the Lorraine show. We also talk, in some graphic detail, about bumming, for which I can only apologise.
You can download the episode here: Audio (free) ● iTunes ● Video (£3.50)
The chaps at Go Faster Stripe have also uploaded a trailer of the video to Vimeo:
My new job on LBC
I am thrilled to announce I am the new permanent overnight presenter on LBC 97.3, taking over from Duncan Barkes who now will host 10pm-1am. I can't wait to get cracking talking to Londoners about the stories that matter to them. You can hear me each weeknight from 1am. More details here.
Update, 1 Feb: LBC is going to go national! In ten days' time we become 'Leading Britain's Conversation' and my show will be available each night on DAB as well as online, on TV and FM.
Presenting the BAFTA podcast
This month I took over presenting duties on the excellent BAFTA Guru podcast, which is aimed at aspiring producers and filmmakers. The October episode focuses around the 4th annual screenwriting season, and features a round-up of the year's best lecturers, including David Goyer (Dark Knight Trilogy) Hossein Amini (Drive) Susannah Grant (Erin Brockovich), Tony Gilroy (The Bourne Series) and Richard Curtis (Love Actually), plus me chatting with some of the industry insiders who made up the audience at the BFI, to get their tips for breaking into the UK film industry.
Am I the new Richard Whiteley?
I spent a very exciting day today at BBC Elstree Studios - the very same studio they shot The Muppet Show, no less - hosting a new gameshow pilot for format creation company Boxatricks, founded by the clever chaps what did Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. I'm not allowed to tell you much more about it, except to say that I had a whale of a time and of course I hope it gets commissioned! Watch this space...
iPhone 5S and 5C launch - ITV Daybreak
There's a new iPhone out today - well, two, actually - so today I got the call to come on to Daybreak and explain exactly why it is that despite technology journalists and speculators complaining about the lack of innovation in the new handsets, Apple devotees were still prepared to queue in the rain for two days to get one...
My new weekly column for Telegraph Men
Telegraph Men has launched, and with it my new weekly column. So far I've written about giving up coffee and Peter Andre's new fragrance, but in future weeks I'll inevitably turn my attention to technology too, and whatever else is on my mind. You can read the archive here.
New voiceover showreel
I'm pleased to say I have joined the excellent London Voiceover agency. If you’ve ever wanted to hear me do an ad for Go Cat, well now you can. Callooh callay. Here’s my reel:
I'm a Top 20 recording artist... eat that, failed musicians!
The sun was out this Summer, and accordingly, so was our Summer ‘album’, Answer Me This! Holiday (due to a quirk of iTunes catergorization, non-Audiobook spoken word downloads – even if they feature just one hour-long track – are still classified as ‘Music’, and therefore eligible for the Album chart).
It’s an hour of us chatting through vacation-related questions from our audience, covering all bases from Brits abroad to the Spanish Steps to Legoland, and you can buy it for £2.49 here. I think it’s a decent product, and I love that we’ve hit upon a way to monetise the podcast without having to charge for the podcast itself (we still put out forty episodes a year for free, just as we always have, but now do a couple of albums too). We’ll probably sell as many copies of it as of the book we wrote, which took rather longer to do… win win.
But the best thing of all is that, upon the day of release, enough of our lovely listeners bought it for it to crack the Top 20 Album chart. Which means I am, officially, a Top 20 recording artist. Eat that, failed musicians!