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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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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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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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404. Macron in Morocco, avatar therapy and Europe vs the US
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What is France up to in North Africa? Could virtual characters help treat psychosis? And do Americans work harder than Europeans? Olly Mann and The Week delve behind the headlines and debate what really matters from the past seven days. With Rebecca Messina, Irenie Forshaw and Abdulwahab Tahhan. Image credit: Ludovic Marin / AFP / Getty…
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Arion, Rebecca and Olly unearth the origins of iconic board-game Monopoly, marketed across the United States by Parker Brothers on 5th November, 1935. Its roots lay in a game designed by Quaker feminist Lizzie Magie in 1902, intended to illustrate the theories of political economist Henry George. Her concept, called "The Landlord's Game," intended …
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The Fashion Fête, a three-day event at the Ritz Carlton in New York, began on 4th November, 1914, offering New Yorkers their first glimpse of what we would now understand as a fashion show. With Parisian ateliers shut down due to the First World War, the U.S. editor of Vogue, Edna Woolman Chase, had proposed the event as a way to showcase the work …
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Rerun: The first ever emoji set, including the earliest incarnations of 🍷, ❤️, and 💩, was released in Japan on 1st November, 1997. But the only users could send and receive them were owners of a now-forgotten ‘SkyWalker’ handset made by J-Phone. ☹️ Emoji didn’t truly transform written communication in the West until some fourteen years later, when …
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Rerun: One of Giacomo Casanova's most famous deeds was his daring midnight, cross-rooftop escape from the dreaded “The Leads” prison in Venice on the night of October 31st, 1756. Key to his escape plan was a Bible, a large iron bar and an oversized bowl of pasta. In this episode, Arion, Rebecca and Olly discuss why Casanova wasn’t thrilled about be…
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Martians invaded New Jersey on CBS Radio on 30th October, 1938, when Orson Welles' War of the Worlds delighted and confused a generation of Americans. The fictional news bulletins sounded terrifyingly real, and many listeners missed the disclaimer stating it was just a play. But radio was a burgeoning medium, and Americans were still feeling the st…
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The ‘jewel heist of the Century’ occurred at the American Museum of Natural History, New York on 29th October, 1964. Florida surfer ‘Murph the Surf’ and his accomplices, Allan Kuhn and Roger Clark, stole priceless gems, including the Star of India, worth over $3 million today. The lax security at the institution, along with non-functional alarms an…
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Jonathan Swift’s enduring satire Gulliver’s Travels was first published on October 28, 1726 - though the true identity of the book’s author was concealed from readers. A spoof of Daniel Defoe’s popular Robinson Crusoe, the novel bleakly satirised British society, colonialism, and the monarchy, shocking as many readers as it entertained. In this epi…
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Medically assisted dying is legal in Canada, where over 10,000 people end their lives through euthanasia each year, and over 80% of applications are approved. Robin Farr, from Calgary, watched as her Dad, Mike, developed a rare lung disease that limited his breathing, massively impacting his quality of life. Then he decided to make use of the MAiD …
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403. Fungi, women in prison and Facebook AI
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Will fungi get their own kingdom, alongside plants and animals? Do we send too many women to jail? And what is Meta doing with facial recognition? Olly Mann and The Week delve behind the headlines and debate what really matters from the past seven days. With Holden Frith, Rebekah Evans and Suchandrika Chakrabarti Image credit: Shaiith / Getty Image…
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Rerun: The ‘Teapot Dome scandal’ reached its climax when Senator Albert Fall was found guilty of bribery, fined $100,000 and sent to jail on 25th October, 1929. During the Presidency of Warren G Harding, Fall had been offering private companies the chance to drill for oil on state land, without competitive bidding, in return for bags cash. And some…
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rerun: Mr Blobby made his anarchic television debut on 24th October, 1992, in a new segment called “Gotcha” on the hugely popular BBC show Noel’s House Party. The googly eyed, perma-grinning, yellow and pink character was an immediate hit, selling masses of merchandise to British kids and adults alike. At the height of Blobbymania, Mr Blobby releas…
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When Steve Jobs took to the stage in Cupertino on 23rd October, 2001, he unveiled Apple’s first portable device: the iPod. As ever, his pitch was simple and on-point: "1,000 songs in your pocket." But the iPod wasn't Jobs’s creation. Its concept came from Tony Fadell, an amateur DJ who’d grown frustrated by lugging his music collection to gigs. App…
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Arion, Rebecca and Olly investigate the story of Dr. Hawley Crippen, convicted of murdering his wife, music hall performer Cora Crippen, on 22nd October, 1910. Cora’s corpse had been discovered in their Holloway cellar - but homoeopath Crippen had fled to America with his lover Ethel Lenev dressed as a boy. However, the Captain of the SS Montrose b…
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The Battle of Sekigahara, on 21st October, 1600, was the largest in Japanese feudal history, with over 160,000 troops involved. And stakes were high: the victor, Tokugawa Ieyasu, became the Shōgun of Japan, initiating the Edo period; whilst the leader of the losing Western army, Ishida Mitsunari, was beheaded. The battle itself was chaotic, partly …
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Rerun: When Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross failed to reach their celebrity guest, 78 year-old ‘Fawlty Towers’ star Andrew Sachs, they instead left him a series of answerphone messages, joking about sexual encounters with Sachs's granddaughter, Georgina Baillie. The segment aired on Brand’s Radio 2 show on 18th October, 2008, and became the third m…
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402. India vs. Canada, assisted dying and wasted water
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What's at stake as Trudeau takes on Modi? How would assisted dying change Britain? And are we running out of water? Olly Mann and The Week delve behind the headlines and debate what really matters from the past seven days. With Julia Macfarlane, Leaf Arbuthnot and Arion McNicoll Note: this episode includes references to suicide. The Samaritans offe…
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Rerun: The London Beer Flood, which created a 15ft-high wave of booze, and claimed the lives of eight people, began on 17th October, 1814 - when an iron hoop came loose on a giant barrel at Meux’s famous Horse Shoe Brewery. The barrel, in which over a million pints of fermenting porter were brewing, exploded - triggering a chain reaction that effec…
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Wu Zetian became China's first and only female Emperor on 16th October, 655 - cementing an extraordinary rise from Concubine to Secretary to Consort to Queen. On the day of her coronation in 690, a massive earthquake rocked China, a supposed sign of divine disapproval. But Wu flipped the narrative, declaring that the upheaval was a blessing, a symb…
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The Secret of Monkey Island, one of the best loved video games of the point-and-click era, was released on the 15th October, 1990, without, it must be said, a great deal of fanfare. Inspired by the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland and the novel On Stranger Tides by Tim Powers, the game was a swashbuckling piratical adventure which – unus…
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Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, published on 14th October, 1892, was the collection of 12 stories that took his much-loved titular detective from the pages of magazine serials and on to the world’s bookshelves. The inspiration for Holmes, who solves crimes through science rather than chance, came from Dr. Joseph Bell, a prof…
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401. Pig-butchering, copper and mature recruitment
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What can be done about the latest online scam? Could discarded gadgets solve the copper shortage? And will employers hire more over-50s? Olly Mann and The Week delve behind the headlines and debate what really matters from the past seven days. With Harriet Marsden, Gary Caffell and Catriona Stewart Image credit: SOPA / Getty Images…
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Rerun: Virgin Cola, Sir Richard Branson’s ultimately flawed contender in the Cola Wars, was certainly taken seriously by the competition. On 11th October 1994, a pokerfaced Coca-Cola spokesperson told The Independent: “Consumers consistently demonstrate, when given a free choice, that they prefer our product. ”Despite an extensive publicity campaig…
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Sarah McCammon’s upbringing was steeped in evangelical culture—raised as a Charismatic Christian in Kansas City, Missouri, she asked God for salvation at just two years old. Soon she was ‘street witnessing’, trying to convert strangers to her mega-church; praying at family dinners for the salvation of her atheist grandfather; and crediting Jesus fo…
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Rerun: Scent-o-Vision, an in-cinema olfactory experience, was unveiled at the New York World’s Fair on 10th October, 1940. Accompanying a short film ‘My Dream’, its Swiss inventor, Hans Laube, pumped in aromas of rose water, peaches and burning incense for his wowed attendees to sniff. But it would be two decades before the technology was finally p…
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