The Tranquillusionists have recently been recommended in Vox, the Financial Times and the Observer! Find them all at theallusionist.org/tranquillusionist.

The beautiful music in this episode was specially composed by Martin Austwick. Martin has made several albums, which you can hear at palebirdmusic.com and if you search for Pale Bird on Spotify.

The Allusionist proper will be back from break in May. If you’re looking for podcasts to take your mind off things, I have two more: Veronica Mars Investigations and Answer Me This, both unrelated to any current events, if you want a temporary escape. And of course all the Radiotopia shows are excellent forms of distraction.

Since my previous dispatch, I have been distracting myself by making banana curry (trust me, it’s nice!) and livetweeting the 1995 BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, which you can catch up with over at twitter.com/VMIpod, and sprouting some peas I planted in some gnocchi packaging that I had to fish out of the bin. I’m far more invested in the growth rate of the peas than I ought to be, but I’ll take companionship where I find it.

Let me know how you’re doing; I’m @allusionistshow on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

- HZ

The Allusionist is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX.