I generally listen to BBC radio programmes downloaded via get_iplayer on my iphone, a mix of podcasts and "recorded" programmes, I've always just created a playlist, syncd it to my iphone and played the playlist, however today I just couldn't:

Playlist: 198 tracks
Imported into iTunes: 198 tracks
Sync'd to iPhone: 132 tracks

After some investigation it turns out that the missing 66 tracks are podcasts and podcasts are disabled in iTunes. I enable podcasts and retry and now it says "podcast app is not installed on your iPhone, you will not be able to play podcasts"

This has never happened before, I have no idea what's happened or where to start looking. iTunes v 11.1.3.8 and iOS 7.0.3

Any help appreciated