26. Parklife

This week's podcast presented us with an unusual challenge: which album by 90s Britpop four-piece Blur should we name it after? Leisure would work. So would The Great Escape. (13 would be silly because this is episode 26, and the less said about The Magic Whip the better.) Anyway, we went with Parklife because, well, we're talking about parks, and all sorts of other ways of having fun in cities. We've been a bit gloomy of late, you see (and little wonder; have you seen the world recently?). So this week, we're talking about fun things. Fun thing number one: Christmas. Stephanie and Jonn discuss going home for the holidays, the sad fate of this year’s Gävle Goat, Manchester's long and noble tradition of terrifying giant Santas, and why it is I insist on going to Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park every year even though it's obviously going to be hell. Fun thing number two: Parks. Peter Watts swings by, to talk about Britain's parks – their origins, social function, and the fact so many of them are now in serious financial difficulty. Fun thing number three: Walks. Regular CityMetric contributor Ed Jefferson joins Jonn to discuss their common, faintly eccentric interest in spending our free time walking for dozens of miles through depressing industrial landscapes for no particular reason. What on earth do they think they are doing? Last but not least, we asked the internet: what are your favourite urban Christmas traditions? The answers may surprise you. No, really. Skylines is the podcast from CityMetric, the New Statesman cities site. It's presented by Jonn Elledge and Stephanie Boland, and is a Roifield Brown production. Skylines is supported by 100 Resilient Cities. Pioneered by the Rockefeller Foundation, 100RC is dedicated to helping cities around the world become more resilient to the physical, social and economic challenges that are a growing part of the 21st century.