Download audio file (Edition-19_-Coffeecast.mp3)

The Third Wave of Coffee is pouring its way in to Hackney. Cafes such as the Penny University, Mouse & De Lotz and the Counter Cafe pride themselves in their artisan beverages, meticulously measuring the temperature of the milk and the pressure of their carefully groundbeans. But while this demand for the artisan cup might be a 21st-century phenomenon, coffee has a role in Hackney life that goes back to the age of the Enlightenment. Dr Matt Green takes us into the world of the 18th-century Hackney coffee house, a bustling social space but also a hub of news information. The substance they drank may have been served from cauldrons and tasted like soot, but this was the place for journalists to find stories on finance or religious dissent.

Ernesto Illy once said that it takes 55 prime beans to make the perfect espresso. The Hackney Podcast's resident philosopher Dr James Wilson ponders the question of taste, and what we might learn from both Illy and Scottish Enlightenment writer David Hume. Climpson & Sons of Broadway Market are clearly serious about their bean varietals; they even roast their own. We go behind the scenes to watch the process, and learn the art of latte preparation from staff at Wilton Way, Lemon Monkey and the Hackney Pearl. Meanwhile, two long-time residents of the borough remember the arrival in London during the 1950s of the Italian espresso bar, natural habitat to the British beatnik.

Our coffeecast ends with a specially recorded song by Rob Gallagher, former front man of Galliano. Also heard throughout the programme is Matthew Herbert's An Empire of Coffee, from the album Plat du Jour (Accidental Records), a project which tackles the "growing obsession with the international language of food and how almost every choice we are being asked to make about what we eat is laced with deadly compromises".

Historian: Dr Matt Green
Philosopher: Dr James Wilson
Bean roaster: Danny Davies of Climpson and Sons
Actor: Jonathan Hansler
Coffee shops featured: Climpson and Sons, Dalston Cafe, Hackney Pearl, Hoxton Cafe, Kingfisher Cafe, Lemon Monkey, Leos, Paulas, Towpath, Wilton Way
Interviews collected by Andrew Dickson, Joanna Lemonier, Felix Carey and Francesca Panetta
Producers: Felix Carey and Francesca Panetta
Music by Matthew Herbert, Rob Gallagher and Felix Carey

Download audio file (Edition-18_-Night.mp3)

"Night in London is a brief period of infinite possibility" wrote the journalist and travel writer HV Morton in the 1920s, and nowhere is this truer than in Hackney, which from doors open till dawn chorus becomes an asphalt jungle for revellers, criminals, artists, lovers, all night eateries and taxi drivers.

In the latest and most extensive in a series of themed editions, the Hackney Podcast brings you a night in the life of this 24-hour borough through the words of its inhabitants, as we meet Mare Street's moonlight bookseller, skirt the edges of a Dalston stabbing, rescue a lost and disillusioned party-goer, feast on a Turkish spread at Somine, trail a Homerton rubbish truck, and greet dawn with the street traders of Broadway Market. Along the way we hear readings from HV Morton and commentary from Night Haunts author Sukhdev Sandhu, helping to reveal some of the strange allurement of the dark unknown.

Interviews: Francesca Panetta, Andrew Dickson, Elisha Sessions, Gregg Morgan
Readings: Frank Burnet
Music: Felix Carey, Bryan Kerr, Ruaridh Law, Shane Solanki
Sound and Mix: Felix Carey
Producer: Francesca Panetta

Hackney depends on buses. With no tubes, they're how we get around. But what do you do while you're on the bus? Read, eye up the guy opposite? Is it a space for reflection? Or just irritation? Hackney's bus riders tell us. We hear from Alfie Dennen about his Bus-Tops project, from Anthony Morris the bus mechanic who keeps the wheels turning behind the scenes and from driver Pauline Jacobs and passenger Carole Allen who helped deliver a baby on the 394 last year. Plus bus-themed performances from poet Michael Rosen and musician Earl Zinger.

Download audio file (Edition-17_-Buses.mp3)

In this programme we trace the shifting guises of the Hackney Empire - from music hall to bingo hall, from television studio to wrestling venue, to its current incarnation as a home for populist theatre and comedy. Elisha Sessions and Francesca Panetta follow a group of local Hackney Empire aficionados who call themselves The Elders as they prepare to say goodbye to another era in the theatre's history. The gang of mates who ran the Empire since its resurrection in the mid-1980s have been shown the door, and as a new chief exec reconsiders the theatre's "business model" the Elders want to know what happens next.

Theatre and cinema historian Ken Roe takes us through the extraordinary journey of this Victorian gem, along with New Variety impresario Roland Muldoon, who re-opened the Empire as a performance space and spearheaded its recent refurbishment. The theatre's new chief executive Claire Middleton tells us her plans to reduce the £1.5m deficit, while Diane Abbot MP voices her concerns for shutting it next year, letting a theatre go dark, she says, means there is a possibility it won't open again. One of the casualties of the theatre's closure, director of programming Frank Sweeney talks about filling the theatre 1,800 seats every night and we hear from panto pasha Susie McKenna about this winter's production of Aladdin with Clive Rowe.

Download audio file (Edition-16_-The-Empire.mp3)

Photographer Stephen Gill talks to Francesca Panetta about his particular fascination with Hackney Wick, an area he has documented over the last eight years in noisy images ranging from the backs of advertising boards to the banks of the River Lea.  A Series of Disappointments brings together discarded betting slips picked up from the floors of Hackney's bookies over a period of six weeks, and which for Stephen portray fragments of human emotion.  Inside these shops we hear from the punters themselves, before questioning the Mayor of Hackney, Jules Pipe, about his campaign to reduce the concentration of betting shops in the borough.

Next, we turn to one of London's latest crazes - secret dining. Springing up all over the capital are "pop up restaurants", run by everyone from keen amateurs to award-winning chefs. Blake Pudding from the London Review of Breakfasts takes us to the Bruncheon Club to sample their Eggs Royale.  But will the yoke consistency be up to the LRB's high standards?  Is a duck egg Hollandaise advisable?  And what's in it for the keen couple who invite six strangers into their home every month?

We finish with a bat walk in Hackney Marshes. Perhaps an unlikely activity for a Friday night in a borough more famous for its nightlife than its wildlife, but equipped with bat detector and microphone Ellen Otzen seeks out our enigmatic furry-eared friends as they hoover up insects among the black poplars of the River Lea.  Ecologist Alison Fure explains how they use high frequency signals not only to navigate but to communicate with other bats and even express emotion.

Download audio file (Edition-15_-Bookies-Brunch-and-Bats.mp3)

This Sony Award-winning programme looks at water and how it fits into the lives of people in Hackney. Author and psycho-geographer Iain Sinclair follows the route of Hackney Brook, a subterranean ghost river which runs from Highbury to Hackney Wick and still makes its presence felt in ways both immediate and oblique. Then to Clissold Leisure Centre for Wet Sounds, a new music event in which electro-acoustic composers Francisco Lopez, Stefano Tedesco, Tom Haines and Leafcutter John serenade their floating audience through speakers both above and below the water.

Moving on to London Fields Lido, architectural historian Simon Inglis explains how swimming pools in Hackney have their roots in the wash houses set up by 19th-century philanthropists in the battle against cholera.  And we hear from the people who work and live on Hackney's waterways today.

Interviews: Francesca Panetta, Jason Phipps
Sound and additional music: Felix Carey
Producers: Francesca Panetta, Felix Carey

Download audio file (Edition-14_-Water.mp3)

Francesca Panetta meets the dogs and dogwalkers of London Fields, London Review of Breakfasts editor Malcolm Eggs goes in search of the Magic 9 ingredients at Stoke Newington Farmers Market, and we visit the Dalston Mill, modelled on environmental artist Agnes Denes’s New York work of 1982, and providing a rural retreat on some disused railway line in Dalston. Plus a report from the Drawing Room's recent season of events celebrating the work of experimental English composer Cornelius Cardew, whose graphic score for Treatise will be on display from November.

Download audio file (Edition-13_-Cornelius-Cardew-mushroom-sandwiches-and-the-Dalston-Mill.mp3)

Francesca Panetta joins John Hopkins - the Olympic Delivery Authority’s Project Sponsor for Parklands and Public Realm - for a tour of the site in East London.  This will be London's first major park since Victorian times, and is intended as a contemporary take on the great British landscape and garden tradition.  The 100 hectare parkland will accomodate an 80,000 capacity stadium, a velodrome, a Zaha Hadid-designed aquatic centre and a media centre for 20,000 journalists.  How sustainable is the development and what will be its legacy for Hackney?

Download audio file (Edition-12_-Olympic-Park-Tour.mp3)

Recorded at London Fields between 04:00 and 04:30 on Thursday 21st May. 

London Fields East Side from 00:00 to 03:32, Lansdown Drive (crows) from 03:32 to 04:10. 

Edits in the recording are indicated by tape generated sounds at 02:27 and 03:32.

Download audio file (Edition-11_-Birdsong.mp3)

Buzzing, maddening, chaotic, dirty, dangerous and fun is how locals describe this section of the A10 between Old Street and Dalston Junction.  Hackney poet Shane Solanki has written us a song all about the Kingsland Road, starting a bit further north, up in Stamford Hill.  We meet some of the stall holders at Kingsland Waste street market to find out what drags them out of bed even on the bleakest and rainiest Saturday mornings. Then it's down to Crooked Billet Yard to meet Oliver Bulleid of Cox Bulleid Architects for a tour of their Shoreditch Prototype House - a model for low energy living in dense urban environments.

To end, photographer Briony Campbell on her current project documenting the street's nightlife - she takes us to meet the proprietors of Abel’s Social Club, Passing Clouds, Stoke Newington International Airport, and Visions Video Bar.

Download audio file (Edition-10_-Kingsland-Road.mp3)