Refreshing Pod - Edinburgh's Christmas 2025 (BTS)

The Holidays Are Coming ... Johnny continues the festive feels with a behind the scenes look at Edinburgh's Christmas 2025.

Edinburgh’s Christmas is back with festive fun for all the family, open now and running until 4th January 2026.

We've been blessed with having Dani Rae (nicknamed the chief Elf by Johnny) chatting Christmas, and how the wonderful city of Edinburgh celebrates it.

Dani has spoken to Johnny every year since 2022, and as usual she lets you in on a few secrets for 2025.

Edinburgh's Christmas is the ultimate destination for festive family fun this winter. Edinburgh is transformed, the city centre has festive fun for all the family, including traditional Christmas Markets, funfair rides, spectacular live outdoor events, the amazing Santa Stories, delicious food and drink, plus so much more.

If you've been in the past you'll know how good it is, and if not add it onto your bucket list.

Get all the BTS gossip from the big boss (yes Dani is the person who can actually tell Santa what to do) ahead of your visit.

Merry Christmas

Find out more, and get involved this Christmas

Online: https://edwinterfest.com/edinburgh-christmas

Insta: edinburghschristmas

X: @EdXmas

Refreshing Pod is a magazine style podcast, giving you ideas, interviews, big name guests, and guaranteed laughs along the way, with new content every month, now in it's 9th series.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Refreshing Pod - Paul Kelly (KellyBronze Turkeys)

The Holidays Are Coming ... and Johnny has his Santa suit on to Refresh Christmas.

First off Johnny talks Turkeys with Paul Kelly.

• Free-range KellyBronze turkeys are “the Rolls-Royce of turkey” - The Times.
• The Daily Telegraph proclaims the KellyBronze turkeys to be “The Sought-after turkey” for Christmas.
• Forbes - Turkey 'breeder-in-chief'

Paul loves his Turkeys, and has decades of experience making Christmas extra special.

After studying Poultry Science at University in the 1980s, Paul came up with the idea of branching out into breeding the original bronze turkey that originated in Mexico, to differentiate Kelly Turkeys from the crowd. The following year, Derek (Paul's Dad) travelled the country buying up the last remaining flocks of pure bronze turkeys.

Named for its unusual colour, the feathers of bronze turkeys are a shimmering green-bronze, often appearing metallic in sunlight. They are slower grown than white turkeys, and have a distinctive gamey flavour and moist meat with a firm texture. Each bird is grown to full maturity, wild in woodlands through three seasons until dry plucked and hung and prepared. The big break for Kelly Turkeys came in 1989 via Delia Smith. Delia visited the family farm and the KellyBronze turkey became the bird of choice in her new book, ‘Delia’s Christmas.’ Suddenly butchers were being asked by their customers for KellyBronze turkeys and were phoning in their droves — the Kellys had successfully re-established the market for bronze turkeys. The rest is history.

Paul counts Jamie Oliver as a person who works for him, and a host of famous celebrity friends who love the meat his farm produces.

In between a busy working life, Paul found time to claim two Guinness World records for both plucking (2008) and carving a turkey (2009) a record that still stands.

The KellyBronze was the first ever turkey to receive 3 gold stars in the Great Taste Awards, dive in and find out more.

Be warned this short interview will make you feel peckish.

How to order your Turkey for this Christmas or Thanksgiving!

Online: www.kellybronze.co.uk

Insta: kellybronze

Watch Paul's carving masterclass on ITV's 'This Morning' last year:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eShMUda1eyE

Paul's 2025 Forbes interview:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/chloesorvino/2025/11/16/the-rolls-royce-of-turkey-is-coming-to-america/?utm_source=ForbesMainIG&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=ForbesMainIG

Refreshing Pod is a magazine style podcast, giving you ideas, interviews, big name guests, and guaranteed laughs along the way, with new content every month, now in it's 9th series.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Refreshing Pod - Lockerbie Remembered

21st December 1988, 19:03:00.

38 minutes after take-off, Pan Am Flight 103, on route from London to New York, explodes at 31,000 feet over Lockerbie, Scotland.

259 people on board the flight (243 passengers and 16 crew members) plus 11 people on the ground die as a result of the explosion.

There were victims from 21 different countries.

The Lockerbie Bombing was the biggest terrorist attack against the United States before September 11th 2001. The bomb blast broke the plane into thousands of pieces

that landed in an area covering roughly 850 square miles. To this day, it’s the biggest crime scene in the UK, and the 2nd biggest to take place in Europe.

Questions around the plane bombing, and justice for the 270 people who died as a result of the attack, have continued for the near-four decades since it occurred.

Johnny speaks to Michelle Ciulla Lipkin & Kara Weitz who both lost family members that night.

Michelle & Kara speak in depth sharing memories, love, grief, the vpaf 103 legacy award, the 6 main goals of the organisation. Plus the actions taken (and still needed) to seek the truth about the tragedy and how they keep the memory of all the victims in connection with Pan Am 103 alive.

The interview is filled with love, laughter and above all memories of those lost in the sky, and how the people of Lockerbie showed love and support whilst dealing with their own tragedy, that devastated a small town, and community.

Find out more about the the group of family members and friends of those whose lives ended when a terrorist bomb exploded on Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland on December 21, 1988. Copy and paste the link below.

Online: www.victimsofpanamflight103.org

The organisation are committed to seeking the truth about this tragedy and keeping the memory of our loved ones alive.

Watch all episodes of 'The Bombing Of Pan Am 103' on BBC iPlayer

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0029db1/episodes/player

Lorraine Kelly (now a UK household name, but at the time of Lockerbie, Lorraine was a junior reporter for TV-am). Lorraine covered the disaster from the very beginning, and only recently made a return trip to the town. To watch her 2023 documentary 'Return To Lockerbie' meeting residents, and families connected both sides of the Atlantic. You can watch it via ITVX.

https://www.itv.com/watch/return-to-lockerbie-with-lorraine-kelly/10a4931/10a4931a0001

For information on the 2026 trail of Abu Agila Mas'ud Kheir Al-Marimi, click below.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2e1rk90v8o

Masud has denied priming the explosive device which brought down Pan Am 103. The trial is set to get under way next April.

Refreshing Podcast season 8, episode 11 in made in memory of all 270 victims lost on the night of December 21st 1988, and continuous strength shown.

We'd like to thank everyone involved in making this podcast possible, both in the USA, and Lockerbie.

Refreshing Pod is a magazine style podcast, giving you ideas, interviews, big name guests, and guaranteed laughs along the way, with new content every month, now in it's 8th series.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.