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Have you missed the biggest news of the week? Olly Mann and The Week’s writers and editors talk about under-reported stories with long-term consequences
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Amazing stories, emerging trends, and sex advice - with Olly Mann, Alix Fox and Ollie Peart. 'Best Interview Podcast', British Podcast Awards. New episodes monthly, on the 10th. Get in touch or buy us a beer at https://modernmann.co.uk.
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Best Daily Podcast (British Podcast Awards 2023 nominee). Ten minute daily episodes bringing you curious moments from this day in history, with Olly Mann, Rebecca Messina and Arion McNicoll: The Retrospectors. It's history, but not as you know it! New eps Mon-Wed; reruns Thurs/Fri; Sunday exclusives at Patreon.com/Retrospectors and for Apple Subscribers.
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Helen Zaltzman & Olly Mann answer the world's questions
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Helen Zaltzman and Olly Mann of Answer Me This!, Pete Donaldson of The Football Ramble and Chris Skinner, producer of The Bugle, look back over the first decade of podcasting. They share their experiences, give advice on getting started and answer the most important question of all — can you make a living from podcasts? Hosted at the Apple Store, Regent Street in London.
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Why has France arrested the head of a social network? Will cannabis ever be legal in Britain? And have government spending cuts led to worse art? Olly Mann and The Week delve behind the headlines and debate what really matters from the past seven days. With Rebecca Messina, Jamie Timson and Suchandrika Chakrabarti Image: Nadine Rupp / Getty Images…
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When 90 Irish nobles, led by the Earl of Tyrconnell and the Earl of Tyrone, fled for Normandy in the dead of night on 4th September, 1607, their intentions were not entirely clear. Their escape, which became known as the ‘Flight of the Earls’, was mainly a bid for freedom from the tightening grip of English Protestant rule - but did they intend to …
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In today’s episode Arion, Rebecca and Olly look into the founding of the massive multinational e-commerce company eBay. On the day it went live it was named AuctionWeb, and was just one project among many being built by its creator, Pierre Omidyar. In fact, a significant part of the site was dedicated to information about Ebola, which happened to b…
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Millperra, a quiet suburb in southwest Sydney, is now best known for a tragic event that took place on 2nd September, 1984: a violent shootout between two biker gangs, the Comancheros and the Bandidos, which became known as the ‘Father’s Day Massacre’. As 19 armed Comancheros ambushed the Bandidos in a car park during a motorcycle swap meet, the si…
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Scratch mittens, strained relationships and GP-sanctioned fingering Nine years ago, comedians Stuart Goldsmith and Tom Price joined Olly to discuss their impending fatherhood. What impact will it have on their respective relationships? Why does society appear to offer such a lack of support to men embarking upon their first baby? Do men need to kno…
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Rerun: After the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Soviets and Americans agreed to install a ‘hot line’ between their Presidents. On 30th August, 1963, a 10,000 mile transatlantic Washington-Moscow cable went live from the Pentagon to Red Square. In the public imagination (in part thanks to Kubrik’s ‘Dr Strangelove’), it remains a red telephone - but it is…
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When Silicon Valley entrepreneurs Reed Hastings and Mark Randolph registered the website that would become Netflix on 29th August, 1997, they named it ‘Kibble’ after a previous idea they had for a dogfood company. But their new concept - mailing DVDs out in the post - would become one of the big success stories of the dotcom era. To test the model,…
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Larry Donovan made headlines by jumping off the Brooklyn Bridge on 28th August, 1886: a daring feat that earned him the name of the ‘Champion Jumper of the World’ and a reputation for daredevil jumps that ultimately led to his early death. Donovan, who worked for the Police Gazette, an early men's magazine filled with sensational stories, prepared …
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The awesome, brutal power of the Krakatoa eruption, which had the explosive force of a 200-megatonne bomb, killed more than 36,000 people and cooled the entire Earth by an average of 0.6°C. Curiously, Krakatoa is not the most powerful volcanic eruption in history, but it is perhaps the most famous because it became one of the first global catastrop…
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394. Orangutan diplomacy, floating turbines and EU travel
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Are Malaysian apes now working for the palm-oil industry? Will floating wind farms boost green power? And how will new checks affect European holidays? Olly Mann and The Week delve behind the headlines and debate what really matters from the past seven days. With Mariana Vieira, Jess Hullinger and Leaf Arbuthnot Credit: Anup Shah / Getty Images…
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Rerun: Howard Hawks’ film noir ‘The Big Sleep’ finally hit cinemas on 23rd August, 1946, after extra crowd-pleasing repartee had been inserted, featuring real life couple Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. But more flirtation meant less exposition - making the plot of the detective story notoriously difficult to follow, even to the extent that the …
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Rerun: The world’s first notable air raid occurred on 22nd August, 1849, when the Austrian Army attacked Venice using a fleet of 200 miniature hot air balloons, each delivering a 33lb pound bomb. Following a disastrous first attempt - when the balloons blew back on to their own men - this time the Austrians equipped each balloon with a long copper …
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The creation of Haiti was the culmination of a slave revolt that began on a stormy night in the dense woods of Bois Caïman in Saint-Domingue, on 21st September, 1791, when a Voodoo ceremony led by the Jamaican-born priest Dutty Boukman called upon the enslaved Africans to reject their masters and embrace freedom in a bloody uprising. Saint-Domingue…
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Winston Churchill had only been Prime Minister for three months when, on 20th August, 1940, he delivered ‘The Few’ - one of his most iconic speeches - in the House of Commons. Arion, Rebecca and Olly consider how and why Churchill’s paean to the courage of RAF pilots during the Battle of Britain has been so well-remembered - albeit mainly for a quo…
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A whopping 40,000 spectators gathered at Burkhart Hill in Dayton, Ohio, to witness the first-ever All American Soapbox Derby on August 19th, 1934. Hundreds of kids, aged 10 to 15, raced in homemade cars built from recycled materials and old pram and bike wheels, all powered solely by gravity. The event originated in 1933 when young William Condit a…
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393. The Taliban, the grid and judging the judges
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What's happened to Afghanistan in three years of Taliban rule? Is the UK energy network about to get an upgrade? And why are sporting judges under so much scrutiny? Olly Mann and The Week delve behind the headlines and debate what really matters from the past seven days. With Rebecca Messina, Gary Caffell and Emma Smith Photo: Mohsen Karimi / AFP /…
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Rerun: Conjoined teenagers Chang and Eng Bunker began their world tour in Boston, Massachusetts on 16th August, 1829. ‘Discovered’ by Scotsman Robert Hunter in Siam (now Thailand), the boys inspired the term ‘Siamese Twins’, despite being ethnically Chinese. Chang was a heavy drinker, and Eng was a teetotaller - yet they shared a liver. They had fa…
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Rerun: Camp Siegfried hosted a ‘Nazi Camp Fete’ for 40,000 attendees on 15th August, 1938. The Summer resort, on Yaphank, Long Island, was the epicentre of the German-American Bund: an organisation devoted to establishing a Nazi stronghold across the United States. Alongside campfire building and swimming lessons, young attendees were taught to emu…
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The Stanford Prison Experiment, created by Philip Zimbardo, began on 14th August, 1971. 24 male college students volunteered to be assigned roles as either ‘guard’ or ‘prisoner’ in a mock jail: the ‘prisoners’ were ‘arrested’ by real cops outside their family homes and marched down to a Police Station before being transferred to their imitation inc…
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The ‘mock’ battle of Manila took place on 13th August, 1898, when the Spanish Army attempted to save face by staging a low-impact fight with the Americans, handing over the territory of the Philippines without seeming weak. The pseudo engagement aimed for a bloodless resolution, but unintentional shots fired from both sides disrupted the facade. Ho…
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Isaac Singer's iteration of a mechanised sewing machine received US Patent Number 8294 on 12th August, 1851. By refining an existing design by Elias Howe, and improving it with a straight-line shuttle and straight needle, Singer’s prototype produced 900 stitches a minute, compared to 40 stitches by hand, drastically reducing the time it took to mak…
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Playing with knives, navigating the ‘Dad Race’ at Sports Day, and getting a ‘backstreet assessment’ for dyslexia are on the conversational menu as comedians Tom Price and Stuart Goldsmith reunite with fellow father Olly Mann to discuss the pleasures and pains of parenthood. Now aged 8, their boys are dealing with TikTok addiction, grappling with th…
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392. Undersea threats, tax reform and prisons
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Could seaborne sabotage bring down the internet? Will Labour dare to replace the council tax? And how can we help ex-prisoners find a home? Olly Mann and The Week delve behind the headlines and debate what really matters from the past seven days. With Holden Frith, Julia Macfarlane and Irenie Forshaw. Image: David Oller / Europa Press / Getty Image…
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Rerun: Black Rock - a 200-yard strip of pebbly beach in Brighton - was first set aside for naked bathers on 9th August, 1979. It came after a campaign by the Central Council For British Naturism, who had previously petitioned 140 local authorities. When Conservative councillor Eileen Jakes responded positively to the call, she was accused of pander…
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