#23 If the World Were Made of Candy

Episode twenty-three of The World's Most Boring Podcast - Bore Me to Sleep is called If the World Were Made of Candy, and it is exactly as uneventful as it sounds. Over the course of this episode, we explore in painstaking and thoroughly unhurried detail what a world made of candy might actually look like - the geology, the weather, the architecture, the oceans, the fauna, and the quiet daily life of people who live in houses made of shortbread and walk on peppermint roads. We cover the history of gummy bears and Hans Riegel's Haribo, the invention of cotton candy by a dentist at the nineteen-oh-four World's Fair in St. Louis, the surprisingly ancient origins of candy in Egypt, India and China, the real chocolate town of Hershey in Pennsylvania, the structural properties of liquorice as a building material, Napoleon Bonaparte's fondness for liquorice, the tectonic plates of a rock candy world, caramel oceans, icing sugar snow, marzipan towns, and the fundamental civilisational problem of living in a house you are also tempted to eat. There is also a digression about a failed attempt at making fudge, some thoughts on the Cologne Cathedral and six hundred and thirty-two years of patience, and a brief but sincere meditation on vernacular architecture in a world where your building materials taste like fruit. Nothing is resolved. Nothing needs to be. This podcast is proudly, thoroughly, deliberately boring. It is designed for people who fall asleep to talk radio, people who enjoy monotone narration about meaningless topics, people who want something calm and gentle and completely safe to drift off to. It is also ideal for anyone searching for sleep meditation alternatives, sleep stories for adults, bedtime podcasts, or relaxing podcasts for sleep that do not involve guided breathing exercises or someone telling you to relax your shoulders. We know your shoulders. We trust your shoulders. We are not going to mention your shoulders again. If you have been searching for a boring podcast to fall asleep to, a sleep podcast without music, a talking podcast for sleep, or simply something deeply unimportant to listen to at the end of the day, you have found the right place. The World's Most Boring Podcast - Bore Me to Sleep releases new episodes regularly, each one on a topic that promises very little and delivers exactly that. We currently have thirty-nine subscribers, which is a number we are quietly proud of. If you would like to become the fortieth, you are warmly encouraged to subscribe. If you have a topic suggestion, a question, or simply something you would like to say to a podcast that will not judge you for saying it, you can write to us at [email protected]. We will read it. We will respond eventually. In the meantime, sweet dreams - and we mean that more literally than usual this week.