Just a quick note to tell everyone that the site has been updated to a Wordpress blog today. It’s not as beautiful and slick as the one I designed by hand (yeah right!) but I think I got it where I wanted it, or close enough.

So the forums are still there, but you can also comment directly on the site much more easily if you so wish. The podcast’s RSS feed hasn’t moved, so no need to worry about that. And it is going to be a lot easier to manage; I wonder why I haven’t done this earlier. (”probably because you’re an idiot”… Ok I know, don’t say it!)

Summer one on one
An epic “new world vs old world” confrontation makes the august edition of The Phileas Club a memorable one. With only two panelists this time, Scott Johnson (from Utah, US) gets a chance to show the world his serious side when we tackle topics like the Russia / Georgia issue, the Beijing Olympics, the deaths of French soldiers in Afghanistan and more. They also talk about the Mormon “condition”, drug enhanced cyber athletes and kids with a heightened sense of smell.

To find out more about Scott, visit Myextralife.com where you will find his webcomic and many podcasts. And if you want to help The Phileas Club out, you can Digg us or review our show on iTunes. Lastly, I (Patrick) recently started a blog you might be interested in.

Enjoy the show, and see you in september.

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After a few months of waiting, Digg.com finally validated our show. At last…

So I guess the news is that the digg button is now on the page; you can click it if you are a digg user and you want to help us out. Every little bit helps, thanks!

For the month of july 2008, we welcome Jeff from the US and Turki from Saudi Arabia. We talk about the Union for the Mediteranean, Obama’s world tour, Bill Gates and his evil ways, as well as cool nerds who dress funny, TV shows causing divorces and more!

As always, if you want to see and hear more of our guests, here are the links:
- Jeff’s Totally Rad Show will give you all the geek news you need.
- Turki’s A Saudi Life will tell you about the arab world from an arab perspective.
- And go to Frenchspin.com for all my silly podcasts and projects (and twitter!)

So thanks again to our wonderful panelists, and thank all of you for listening! We’ll talk again in a few weeks.

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Hot weather, cool show.

This month we get a bit more laid back episode with Mohamed from Qatar and Jim from the US as well as myself (from France) of course, and we have a fascinating conversation about rising oil prices, Irish voters, alcohol free sundays, 700.000 year old velociraptors building huts and more!

If you’re interested in learning more about Jim, you can find his podcast right here:
- The Clip Show
And the gaming show that Mohamed recommended is here:
- Noob Toob
I want to thank Jim and Mohamed again for coming on the show, and I wish you all a wonderful month.

See you in July!

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A Saudi, an Armenian, an American and a Frenchman walk into a skype call…

This month we get our share of testosterone with an all male cast. Turki from Saudi Arabia, Artur from Armenia, Randy from Texas and myself, Patrick from France, bring up difficult stories and fun facts from around the world with a healthy amount of discussion.
We talk about the crisis in Burma, Hezbollah in Beirut and Israel’s 60 years, but we also bring you stories of people dining at gunpoint, mining resources out of the moon and more.

And if you want to hear more from our panelists, you will find these fine gentlemen on the web here:
- Turki’s A Saudi Life blog and podcast.
- Artur’s Armenian Observer blog.
- Randy’s The Instance video game podcast.
Big thanks also go to Chloe for her help on preparing the show.

Enjoy!

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We have received quite a few emails commenting and supporting the show and I wanted to thank everyone for taking the time to write in. Mark wrote a very nice message telling me how he’s never sure he can really trust the regular news outlets. I don’t know that we are any more trustworthy, but he adds: “hearing different points of view on the same topic from people who live in different countries and getting their views on the same issue from different sources will be quite illuminating”, which is exactly what we are striving for.
So thank you Mark for your kind words, and I hope all of you will enjoy our future shows.

Also, the Digg podcast submission button is not working yet because the Digg guys need a bit of time to review the show and confirm it doesn’t include offensive content. I will update this when it works, but in the meantime you can always review us on iTunes!

Show one is in the bag

After a few weeks of struggle, angst and anticipation, our first show is finally out. We hope you enjoy listening as much as we did recording.
For the month of April 2008, we welcome Gita from London (UK) and Rachel from Round Rock (TX, USA) to join Patrick from France. We talk about the big issues like the Chinese Olympics, the food crisis or the US elections of course, but we also tackle topics like presidents’ sexy wives dressed in old queen dresses, teen TV stars showing half a back, tugging icebergs into London, and British party members getting fined for saying first names, among many other serious and interesting things.
Enjoy!

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Ok, so what is this show about?

The Phileas Club is a monthly audio podcast about world news and events, but with a twist:

For each show, we bring in panelists from all over the world to tell you what’s been making the headlines in their own country, both in local and international news. Getting their reports side by side will help you put those views of the world in sharp contrast with one another, and let you compare how different stories are viewed and reported on by different people, countries and cultures. Ultimately, we hope to learn a bit more about our neighbors in the small village that is now our world, and to help people understand one another a little bit better. And maybe we can even have a bit of fun in the process, because we think life is just too short to be monotonous and boring all the time.

So get in the Phileas Mood by taking the time to smile to the person sitting next to you every once in a while, and tune back in a couple of days for our first episode.

To find out more about the show and hosts, please explore the links on the menu bar to the right, and particularly our “About the show” page.

With love,
Patrick