StoryCo

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  How One Journalist Exposed a $7 Billion Theft & Jailed a Prime Minister | Clare Rewcastle Brown 17.09.2026 36min

  Clare Rewcastle Brown on the 1MDB scandal, vexatious lawsuits, and why one blog brought down a government.Episode OverviewSome $7 billion was stolen in the 1MDB scandal. It cost $8 billion to cover it up. Clare Rewcastle Brown uncovered it from a spare room, with a blog and a shortwave radio and no newsroom behind her. When the Malaysian government hired a $15 million PR firm to destroy her reputation, she exposed the PR firm and had it shut down. When London's top libel firms sent legal letters, she didn't reply. The prime minister who orchestrated the theft is now in prison.Rewcastle Brown grew up in Borneo, watched the rainforest she remembered become palm oil plantation, and started writing about it. What she found ran through Goldman Sachs, the Wolf of Wall Street, a Kuwaiti emirate, and the global financial system. In this conversation she explains how half a million leaked emails cracked the story, why corruption is almost always in plain sight, how London's libel laws protect the corrupt rather than the journalism that exposes them, and what it means to be called a persistent pest by one of the men she put in jail.The libel system section is the best account of how the law has been weaponised against public interest journalism. And the moment she says she's not interested in the prime minister's prison sentence but in the consequences for the people of Borneo is the one that stays.Link to her most recent book - https://saqibooks.com/books/the-westbourne-press/the-china-contract/?utm_source=storyco&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=storycopodcast Chapters(00:00) Cold open: $7 billion stolen, $8 billion to cover it up(01:00) Intro: blog, shortwave radio, no newsroom, brought down a government(02:00) Tell me a story: the call from Kuwait and the final jigsaw piece(04:00) Borneo childhood: the Amazon of the East and what happened to it(06:00) The greenwash conference in 2006 and the palm oil plantation(07:00) Mafia corruption at the highest levels of the state(08:00) Why a single blog was enough(09:00) The truth has immense power, even in a post-truth era(11:00) The $15 million PR campaign and why she exposed the PR firm instead(13:00) Why mainstream newsrooms couldn't touch the story(15:00) Six libel firms pre-publication(16:00) Anti-SLAPP laws and who the libel system actually protects(19:00) The legal bluff: why she didn't reply(21:00) Najib Razak, Jho Low, and the sidekick everyone knows(22:00) The Wolf of Wall Street, the PM's wife, Jho Low in the launch photos(23:00) Corruption is almost always in plain sight(25:00) Half a million emails and how the story broke(26:00) Not interested in the PM in jail: the consequences for Borneo(28:00) Epstein, 1MDB, and the overlap she kept bumping into(29:00) Persistence pays: a persistent pest(31:00) Sarawak Report and journalists in danger worldwide(34:00) Public interest journalism needs to be protected by law"You can be up against the most powerful people, with enormous support to disguise and push back, but when people read the truth, it resonates." — Clare Rewcastle BrownAbout the GuestClare Rewcastle Brown is an investigative journalist and founder of Sarawak Report, the blog that exposed the 1MDB scandal. Her reporting contributed to the defeat and imprisonment of Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak. She has been sued, surveilled, threatened, and convicted in absentia in Malaysia. Her book on the cover-up period of 1MDB is out now.Listen ElsewhereAPPLE : https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/storyco/id1886770413YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/@StoryCoPodcastLINKTREE: https://linktr.ee/storycopodCreditsStoryCo is a TellTale Industries production.Host: James Kirkham.Guest: Clare Rewcastle Brown.Executive Producer: Jago Lee.Producer: Nelly Batt.Editor: Nelly Batt.Recorded at TYX Studios, King's Cross.Theme: Doubt Point.Special thanks: Craig Heptinstall, Jack Freegard
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  Operation Mincemeat, Agent Zigzag, and The Spy Nobody Knows Yet | Ben Macintyre 10.09.2026 45min

  Ben Macintyre on Operation Mincemeat, Agent Zigzag, and the strangest book he has ever written.Episode OverviewIn 1943, British intelligence floated a dead body off the coast of Spain with letters from an officer who had never existed. The Germans believed it. In 1941, a professional safe-cracker parachuted into Britain by the Nazis immediately switched sides. In 1979, a senior KGB officer in Tehran agreed to spy for Britain because he wanted erectile dysfunction medication the West didn't actually have.Ben Macintyre has spent 30 years telling these stories for The Times and in bestselling books that became films, a TV series, and a West End musical. In this conversation he covers the Cambridge spy recruiter who nearly made him an intelligence officer, why he prefers bad men doing good things to heroes, the chain from Ian Fleming's imagination to a real wartime deception to a Broadway singalong, and the new book Redwood, completely unknown until now, about the KGB spy whose private problem changed the shape of the modern Middle East.The Cambridge tap-on-the-shoulder opener is exactly who Macintyre is. The Operation Mincemeat section is the best account of how fiction becomes reality becomes fiction again. And the Redwood reveal at the end is the most genuinely surprising thing this show has aired.Chapters(00:00) Cold open: the tap on the shoulder and the strangest book he has ever written(01:00) Intro: Agent Zigzag, Mincemeat, A Spy Among Friends(02:00) Tell me a story: Cambridge, Major Halliday, sandals(04:00) Why the Oxbridge club was a systemic failure for British intelligence(05:00) Oxford historian father and the narrative verve that matters(07:00) Columbia journalism school and the foreign correspondent years(08:00) The gold dust question: what did it smell like?(09:00) Journalism in crisis and why people are starting to pay again(13:00) Paraguay, the lost German tribe, Nietzsche's sister(15:00) Why intelligence history has better sources than any other period(16:00) Agent Zigzag: the four-foot archive and the double defector(19:00) Why secret files are more honest than public ones(21:00) The anti-Bond: bad men, twisted timber, no heroes(24:00) Operation Mincemeat: homeless man, false identity, Spanish spy(26:00) Ian Fleming's idea, Duff Cooper's novel, the Broadway singalong(29:00) Rogue Heroes and letting go of the story(31:00) The Iranian Embassy Siege and the first breaking news(33:00) Why the gunmen weren't Islamic radicals(36:00) Redwood: the new book, completely secret(37:00) A KGB officer, Tehran, and erectile dysfunction(39:00) Vitamin tablets and secret Biro prescriptions(40:00) What Redwood revealed: the Soviet plan to topple the Ayatollah(41:00) The CIA, the Iranians, and the world we still live in(43:00) Rewriting the final chapter after an Israeli airstrike killed the charactersAbout the GuestBen Macintyre is a columnist and associate editor at The Times and the bestselling author of Agent Zigzag, Operation Mincemeat, A Spy Among Friends, The Spy and the Traitor, and Rogue Heroes. His books have been adapted into films, a BBC drama series, and a West End musical. His new book, Redwood, publishes this year.Listen ElsewhereAPPLE : https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/storyco/id1886770413YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/@StoryCoPodcastLINKTREE: https://linktr.ee/storycopodCreditsStoryCo is a TellTale Industries production.Host: James Kirkham.Guest: Ben Macintyre.Producer: Jago Lee.Assistant Producer: Nelly Batt.Editor: Nelly Batt.Recorded at TYX Studios, King's Cross.Theme: Doubt Point.Special thanks: Craig Heptinstall, Jack Freegard, Tyler Newton, Isa Gibson.
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  The War Zone Journalist Who Exposed The Global Mafia | Misha Glenny 03.09.2026 51min

  Misha Glenny on war zones, McMafia, and why this is the time of monsters.Episode OverviewIn 1994, Misha Glenny drove across Sarajevo Airport under sniper fire. A bullet entered his car, passed through the drive shaft, and exited the other side. He didn't panic. He traced the bullet's path with the detached curiosity of someone who had been doing this for years.Glenny made his name covering the fall of communism and the Yugoslav Wars for the Guardian and the BBC, then spent years tracing the globalisation of organised crime for McMafia. He has just taken over In Our Time from Melvyn Bragg. In this conversation he covers the three moments when new technology met political revolution and ended in catastrophic violence, why Starlink is Musk's real business, how the Austrian army decoupled from Microsoft, and why organized crime adapted to Ukraine faster than any government.The Sarajevo opening is the best this show has had. The McMafia section on what criminals understand that governments don't is the most practically useful. The In Our Time section at the end, on being the representative of the listener rather than a demonstration of your own cleverness, is the one that stays with you longest.Chapters(00:00) Cold open: a bullet through the drive shaft in Sarajevo(01:00) Intro: Yugoslavia, McMafia, In Our Time(02:00) Tell me a story: Sarajevo Airport 1994(05:00) Staying calm: the only rule in a war zone(06:00) Reporting what you know versus what you think(08:00) Camera phones and politicians denying what everyone can see(09:00) Fake news is not new: the problem is scale(10:00) Three technology revolutions, three waves of catastrophic violence(13:00) Doom scrolling and the false promise of connection(15:00) Musk, Starlink, and controlling global communications(19:00) The Austrian army decouples from Microsoft(21:00) 1989 and peak optimism(25:00) Yugoslavia: where the optimism died(26:00) Gramsci: the time of monsters(28:00) Hybrid warfare: cheap disinformation, North Macedonia teenagers for cash(29:00) McMafia: how Yugoslavia globalized organized crime(31:00) Brazil, favelas, AK47s, talking your way through(33:00) The Serbian checkpoint: Politika and Serbo-Croat saved two lives(36:00) What organized crime understands that governments don't(40:00) Odessa closes: 4,000 men a month smuggled across the border(42:00) Take back control and Make America Great Again(44:00) The Chilean referendum and the word yes(46:00) In Our Time: taking over from Melvyn Bragg(48:00) You are the representative of the listener(49:00) Archaea: the third branch of life nobody knew about until 1977About the GuestMisha Glenny is a journalist, author, and broadcaster. He covered the fall of communism and the Yugoslav Wars for the Guardian and the BBC, and his book McMafia traced the globalization of organized crime and was adapted into a BBC drama. He ran the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna and this year took over In Our Time on BBC Radio 4 from Melvyn Bragg.Listen ElsewhereAPPLE : https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/storyco/id1886770413YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/@StoryCoPodcastLINKTREE: https://linktr.ee/storycopodCreditsStoryCo is a TellTale Industries production.Host: James Kirkham.Guest: Misha Glenny.Producer: Jago Lee.Assistant Producer: Nelly Batt.Editor: Nelly Batt.Recorded at TYX Studios, King's Cross.Theme: Doubt Point.Special thanks: Craig Heptinstall, Jack Freegard, Tyler Newton, Isa Gibson.
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  Vertical Drama's Dirty Secrets | Thalia Kent Egan 27.08.2026 38min

  Thalia Kent Egan on vertical drama, AI theft, and why filmmaking shouldn't be brutal.Episode OverviewThalia Kent Egan was commissioned to write a 90-page vertical drama script. She was told she would direct it, that the company wanted bold storytelling, real actors, heartbeat moments. Then they went quiet. When she followed up, they replied to say they had already released it as an AI-generated project using her script without telling her.Thalia studied languages at Oxford, did a directing master's at Goldsmiths, and has spent over a year inside the vertical drama world. She is one of the few people working in the format who will say clearly what it is: a tech industry making content for commercial gain, with a bingo card of tropes, racist casting, exploitative storylines, and crews paid below proper rates. She is also one of the few people trying to change it from within, and one of the most thoughtful observers of what the format is actually doing to audiences.This conversation earns its runtime at every turn. The opening story is the sharpest possible account of where the industry is heading. The bingo card section is the funniest. The observation that the phone screen creates a cult fandom around actors that AI cannot replicate is the most interesting. And the Garden of Eden feature she has been developing since her year abroad in France is the best note to end on.Chapters(00:00) Cold open: brutal sets, the world built by men, AI takes over(01:00) Intro: Oxford, Goldsmiths, vertical drama director(02:00) Tell me a story: the script they commissioned, the AI release she never knew about(05:00) Oxford languages, Berlin and Paris, why film was always the destination(06:00) Goldsmiths: finding her people, a year of practical filmmaking(07:00) Communal directing: deconstructing the hierarchy(08:00) What vertical drama actually is(09:00) Six to nine days to shoot a feature film's worth of content(11:00) "All you have to do is direct"(12:00) Intimacy coordination and fitting two people into a tight vertical shot(15:00) Constraints, creativity, and being a square peg(16:00) Quiet time, freeform pages, writing on the tube(18:00) The bingo card: drugged women, mafia bosses, tropes that never change(20:00) Why vertical drama is always about rich people and luxury(21:00) The phone as private screen(23:00) Racism, straight-written queer storylines, who is funding this(25:00) Actor fandom: intimacy creates cult followings AI cannot replicate(27:00) Marketing budgets four to five times larger than production(28:00) AI: keep its dirty mitts off the creative process(29:00) 14 of the top 20 vertical dramas already AI-generated(32:00) Better budgets, risk-taking stories, what a good version looks like(35:00) The feature: Garden of Eden, Adam as abuser, Eve escaping toward a queer communal world"Filmmaking shouldn't be like a brutal process. There's no point focusing on egos." — Thalia Kent EganAbout the GuestThalia Kent Egan studied French and German at Oxford and completed a directing master's at Goldsmiths. She has been directing and producing vertical drama for over a year while developing her own short films and photography work. She is also a trained intimacy coordinator. Her feature film is in development. She is on Instagram and Substack as Dolly Kentigan.Listen ElsewhereAPPLE : https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/storyco/id1886770413YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/@StoryCoPodcastLINKTREE: https://linktr.ee/storycopodCreditsStoryCo is a TellTale Industries production.Host: James Kirkham.Guest: Thalia Kent Egan.Producer: Jago Lee.Assistant Producer: Nelly Batt.Editor: Nelly Batt.Recorded at TYX Studios, King's Cross.Theme: Doubt Point.Special thanks: Craig Heptinstall, Jack Freegard, Tyler Newton, Isa Gibson.
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  No Such Thing as Bad Bacteria? A Microbiologist Explains | Dr Gab Astorga 20.08.2026 39min

  Dr. Gab Astorga on microbial genomics, hiding the vegetables, and why science is not finished until it's communicated.Episode OverviewDr. Gab Astorga opens with the story of how tuberculosis invented the cowboy hat, which led to American culture, which led to Beyoncé's Cowboy Carter. It is exactly who he is and exactly what this conversation delivers for the next 40 minutes.Gab grew up in the Philippines, moved to the UK at two, spent his childhood unable to communicate, hid in libraries and art rooms, got a PhD in microbial genomics, built a following of over half a million people explaining the invisible world, and was diagnosed with ADHD in the final year of his doctorate. He calls his method edutainment and describes it as hiding the vegetables: start with something flashy and fun, then slip in the physics, the chemistry, the biology underpinning it, then return to the fun. It is, by every measure, working.This conversation covers bacterial genomes, the gut health industry's predatory relationship with people who lack the knowledge to push back, the difference between misinformation and disinformation, and why being queer made him a better scientist. The ADHD section is the most personal. The Stetson story is the best opener this show has had.Chapters(00:00) Cold open: disease, American culture, Cowboy Carter by Beyoncé(01:00) Intro: microbial genomics, half a million followers, TikTok Creator of the Year(02:00) Tell me a story: John B. Stetson, tuberculosis, the cowboy hat(04:00) Born in the Philippines, moved at two: communication as the first obstacle(05:00) COVID, a phone on a windowsill, and talking to numbers(06:00) Misinformation versus disinformation: one is on purpose(08:00) Vaccine hesitancy since the 1600s(09:00) The edutainment method: hiding the vegetables(12:00) Bacterial genomes: the instruction manual inside every living thing(13:00) The gut microbiome: trillions of microorganisms and what they do(14:00) Good and bad bacteria: why the framing is wrong(17:00) Gut health products and who they prey on(18:00) The One Health concept(19:00) COVID as a lesson: rapid response to hantavirus and measles(22:00) "Science is not finished until it's communicated"(23:00) Being queer made him a better scientist(26:00) AI in science: useful for the laborious, dangerous for the creative(28:00) ADHD diagnosis in year four of the PhD(30:00) The grieving period: checklists, alarms, forgetting to eat and sleep(32:00) Life on hard mode: immigrant, queer, neurodivergent(34:00) The gut health podcast problem: 14 harmful claims per episode(35:00) Opinion dressed as fact and who needs to be held accountable(37:00) Five-year-old Gab, 80-year-old Gab, and the joy of right now"If you can't see people who are like you, how can you visualize yourself in a place of research, in a place that's creative?" — Dr. Gab AstorgaAbout the GuestDr. Gab Astorga is a microbiologist and science communicator with a PhD in microbial genomics. He reaches over half a million people across TikTok and Instagram, was named TikTok's Book Learning Creator of the Year, and works with researchers, politicians, and companies to make accurate scientific information accessible.Listen ElsewhereAPPLE : https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/storyco/id1886770413YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/@StoryCoPodcastLINKTREE: https://linktr.ee/storycopodCreditsStoryCo is a TellTale Industries production.Host: James Kirkham.Guest: Dr. Gab Astorga.Producer: Jago Lee.Assistant Producer: Nelly Batt.Editor: Nelly Batt.Recorded at TYX Studios, King's Cross.Theme: Doubt Point.Special thanks: Craig Heptinstall, Jack Freegard, Tyler Newton, Isa Gibson.
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  Why The 1970s Paranormal Star Gave It All Up To Become A Healer | Matthew Manning 13.08.2026 45min

  Matthew Manning on poltergeists, laboratory healing, and why he gave up fame at the height of it.Episode OverviewWhen Matthew Manning was 11, objects began moving around his Cambridge home. His father, an architect, ruled out every logical explanation one by one. The police sergeant he reported it to turned out to have a personal passion for ghost hunting and knew exactly who to call: a professor of genetics at Trinity College, Cambridge, who lived five miles away and was the world's leading expert on poltergeist activity.That was 1967. By his early 20s Manning had been tested by a Nobel Prize-winning physicist in Toronto, influenced cancer cells and blood cells in sealed laboratory flasks under controlled conditions, and sold over a million copies of his first book. Then he went to India, didn't find a guru, climbed to 12,000 feet in the Himalayas, and came home having decided to spend the rest of his life healing instead.This is one of the strangest and most quietly compelling conversations this show has produced. Manning is not a performer. He describes bunk beds moving in a school dormitory with the same register as someone describing a delayed train. The laboratory results section, blood cells lasting four times longer with his hands present, is the best argument in the episode for taking the question seriously. And his observation that the thirst for something spiritual is stronger now than at any point in his 50 years of work lands at exactly the right moment.Chapters(00:00) Cold open: automatic writing, cancer cells, a performing monkey(01:00) Intro: poltergeist, Nobel physicist, 50 years of healing(02:00) Tell me a story: Japan 1976 and the turning point(04:00) Walking away from fame at the height of it(05:00) India, no guru, and 12,000 feet in the Himalayas(06:00) The Presence at Nakurnd: two paths(07:00) University of California: enzymes, frogs' nerves, cancer cells(09:00) The Barcelona department store blackout(11:00) Distance, Faraday cages, and results that got stronger(14:00) Cambridge 1967: the poltergeist begins(17:00) Poltergeist Over England and the father who had read it(18:00) The police sergeant who loved ghost hunting(19:00) Professor George Owen: geneticist, five miles away(21:00) Boarding school: bunk beds and dinner plates from nowhere(25:00) Automatic writing: the hand that went down by itself(26:00) Automatic drawing: Picasso, Munnings, fooling art experts(30:00) Science isn't equipped yet, but it will be(33:00) The price of unchosen fame(35:00) Blood cells in saline: four times longer(37:00) Love as the scientific parallel(38:00) Toronto, Josephson, and the oldest part of the brain(40:00) Ancient ability, not futuristic(41:00) McCartney, Gallagher, and the songs that write themselves(43:00) 90,000 followers and a world looking for something spiritual"When something happens in a test tube, you can't say that is the result of faith, placebo, or psychological factors." — Matthew ManningAbout the GuestMatthew Manning is a British healer and author who first came to public attention in the early 1970s. His first book The Link, published at 19, sold over a million copies globally. He has been tested in controlled laboratory conditions at the University of California, London University, and the University of Toronto, where his work was observed by Nobel Prize-winning physicist Brian Josephson. He has practiced as a healer for nearly 50 years.Listen ElsewhereAPPLE : https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/storyco/id1886770413YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/@StoryCoPodcastLINKTREE: https://linktr.ee/storycopodCreditsStoryCo is a TellTale Industries production.Host: James Kirkham.Guest: Matthew Manning.Producer: Jago Lee.Assistant Producer: Nelly Batt.Editor: Nelly Batt.Recorded at TYX Studios, King's Cross.Theme: Doubt Point.Special thanks: Craig Heptinstall, Jack Freegard, Tyler Newton, Isa Gibson.
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  She Endured Eight Years of Coercive Control. Here's How She Wrote Her Way Out | Ros Barber 06.08.2026 53min

  SummaryRos Barber on coercive control, the Shakespeare authorship question, and why writing is a survival mechanism.Episode OverviewRos Barber was six months pregnant when she learned the insurance software her husband had been contracted to deliver didn't exist. She stayed up 36 hours, learned C++ from scratch, delivered the system, went into premature labor, and came home from the hospital to make the client's tweaks while her baby was still in an incubator. Her husband watched movies on the sofa. That was year one of eight.Barber is a Desmond Elliott Prize-winning novelist, a poet, a former mainframe programmer, and the person who standardized the baby change sign across a continent. She knew she was a writer at four. What the coercive control took from her was eight years of output. What she has been doing since is getting it back: a novel written in iambic pentameter in the voice of Christopher Marlowe, a female pirate epic her agent calls Booker-worthy, and a Substack memoir that went viral because hundreds of women recognized the exact words her ex had used.This is the most emotionally complete conversation this show has had. The opening story earns every second. The food apartheid section, a stepfather who had Kellogg's and gold-top while four children had Wavy Line cornflakes and margarine, is the best account of how low self-esteem gets installed in a person. And the hotel window moment at 34, where she calculated whether the drop was high enough, is delivered with the same precision and dark humor that runs through everything she writes.Chapters(00:00) Cold open: Marlowe, Shakespeare, who gets to tell the story(02:00) Tell me a story: six months pregnant, 36 hours straight, C++ from scratch(05:00) Year one: the baby in the incubator and the wrong answer(07:00) Punished for saying what she felt: writing as the only safe outlet(09:00) Teaching herself to read with tracing paper before school(11:00) Biology degree, £40 from writing, the pivot to programming(13:00) 40 men in suits, one woman in a holey jumper: the only name called(16:00) The people who love us write the first false biography of us(19:00) The Marlowe Papers: a PhD, a funding crisis, calling on Marlowe's ghost(23:00) The agent who said it had no commercial potential(24:00) Read in a weekend, deal in five days(26:00) The female pirate epic: Mary Read, the only pirate who got there herself(29:00) Serializing on Substack in Dickens mode(32:00) Open misogyny as a public service(36:00) Food apartheid: Kellogg's for him, Wavy Line for four kids(40:00) It was money: working it out at a crepe stall(43:00) The death threat: if you leave me, you won't live very long(44:00) The hotel window at 34(47:00) Writing about it for the first time(48:00) Were we married to the same person?(50:00) Nobody Knew I Was in an Abusive Marriage Including Me(52:00) The memoir: childhood, coercive control, growth on the other side"I feel the need to share this story because I haven't, and I have been silenced, and it feels important." — Ros BarberAbout the GuestRos Barber is a novelist, poet, and memoirist. Her novel The Marlowe Papers, written in iambic pentameter, won the Desmond Elliott Prize and the Jerwood Fiction Uncovered Prize. She has lectured at Goldsmiths and the University of Sussex, and writes on Substack where her memoir-in-progress and essays on coercive control have found thousands of readers. Her female pirate epic is currently being serialized on Substack.Listen ElsewhereAPPLE : https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/storyco/id1886770413YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/@StoryCoPodcastLINKTREE: https://linktr.ee/storycopodCreditsStoryCo is a TellTale Industries production.Host: James Kirkham.Guest: Ros Barber.Producer: Jago Lee.Assistant Producer: Nelly Batt.Editor: Nelly Batt.Recorded at TYX Studios, King's Cross.Theme: Doubt Point.Special thanks: Craig Heptinstall, Jack Freegard, Tyler Newton, Isa Gibson.
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  The Football Shirt Is The Most Political Object In The World | Joey D'Urso 30.07.2026 49min

  SummaryJoey D'Urso on dirty money, soft power, and why the shirt on your back says more about the world than you think.Episode OverviewA Schalke shirt is thirty years of Germany's addiction to Russian gas. A Colombian yellow kit became a factional political weapon in a single election. Joey D'Urso spent years as a political journalist at the BBC before the editor of The Athletic asked if he liked football, and everything changed.His book More Than a Shirt was a Guardian and Waterstones Book of the Year. His investigations into Premier League gambling sponsorships were cited in Parliament. In this conversation he takes a Schalke shirt into the studio and traces the geopolitical story of Europe and Russia over three decades, explains why the Colombian yellow went from unifying symbol to factional weapon, and argues that state ownership is the thing that worries him most about the game's future.He also makes the case that the Premier League is one of the only genuinely meritocratic institutions left in Britain, that the non-league boom is one of the most positive stories nobody is covering, and that football is now the last truly universal thing in a fragmented world. The man in Istanbul who lost three months' wages on a Paul Pogba fan token is the most human detail in the episode.Chapters(00:00) Cold open: the Schalke shirt, Gazprom, football as political object(02:00) Tell me a story: Jimmy Glass and the greatest goalkeeper goal in history(03:00) Politics was always in football: from Mussolini to Qatar(05:00) Westminster, Brexit, BuzzFeed, and getting sacked on Zoom(06:00) The Athletic: shady gambling sponsors in the Premier League(07:00) Called to give evidence in Parliament(12:00) Medellín, Escobar, and why dictators want football clubs(13:00) The Colombian yellow: from national symbol to factional weapon(15:00) 3pm kickoffs and the Industrial Revolution(20:00) Football as the last universal thing(21:00) VAR and the stolen moment of joy(23:00) Schalke and Gazprom: the shirt that mapped the war(25:00) Blue stickers over the Gazprom logo(26:00) Newcastle, Saudi Arabia, and asking fans to care(31:00) State ownership and the inflationary spiral(32:00) Football as one of the only meritocratic things left in Britain(35:00) The non-league boom: a completely different sport(39:00) The man in Istanbul who lost three months' wages on a Pogba token(40:00) Hydration breaks and destroying football's sustained tension(44:00) Saudi Arabia 2034: real culture, propaganda vehicle(48:00) Substack, the second book, a cabin in Scotland"Football reflects people's politics back at them. I don't think it changes people's politics in a huge way, but it shows you exactly what's there." — Joey D'UrsoAbout the GuestJoey D'Urso is an investigative journalist and author who covers football, politics, and money. He began his career at the BBC covering Westminster and Brexit before joining The Athletic, where his investigations into Premier League gambling sponsorships were cited in Parliament. His debut book More Than a Shirt was a Guardian and Waterstones Book of the Year. He writes a weekly newsletter on Substack and is currently completing his second book.Listen ElsewhereAPPLE : https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/storyco/id1886770413YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/@StoryCoPodcastLINKTREE: https://linktr.ee/storycopodCreditsStoryCo is a TellTale Industries production.Host: James Kirkham.Guest: Joey D'Urso.Producer: Jago Lee.Assistant Producer: Nelly Batt.Editor: Nelly Batt.Recorded at TYX Studios, King's Cross.Theme: Doubt Point.Special thanks: Craig Heptinstall, Jack Freegard, Tyler Newton, Isa Gibson.
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  The $450 Million Lie: How the Art Market Manufactures Value | Ben Lewis 23.07.2026 47min

  SummaryBen Lewis on the art market, the Salvator Mundi, and why the most beautiful objects are used for the ugliest purposes.Episode OverviewIn 2005, a painting sold at auction for $1,000. In 2017, the same painting sold to the ruler of Saudi Arabia for $450 million. Christie's marketed it as a Leonardo da Vinci. It probably isn't. Nobody can prove it either way because most of the original surface is gone. That is not why it sold for $450 million.Ben Lewis is an art historian and investigative journalist who has spent his career reading the art market like a forensic investigator. What he found is a largely unregulated parallel financial system in which narrative manufactures value, forgers get hired as restorers, and the mechanics that made Damien Hirst worth hundreds of millions are the same mechanics that gave us crypto, NFTs, and meme stocks.Chapters(00:00) Cold open: the most beautiful objects used for the ugliest purposes(01:00) Intro: art historian, investigative journalist, MTV(02:00) Tell me a story: The Great Contemporary Art Bubble for the BBC(03:00) The leaked inventory: 200 unsold Damien Hirsts worth £100 million(04:00) Setting the journalistic trap(06:00) Going viral two weeks before the auction(07:00) Zero impact. Succalia.(09:00) How value is actually decided: curators backing horses(10:00) From art history to MTV: the transformation from cheerleader to cynic(11:00) The visuals at The Fridge in Brixton in 1989(13:00) The Gursky lookalike contest and the Channel 4 commission(14:00) Art Safari: Cattelan, Murakami, Barney before they were household names(16:00) The market goes crazy: $30 million for a Lichtenstein in 2006(17:00) The art market as a canary in the coalmine(19:00) When art history became the art market(20:00) Style as brand, brand as machine: the Hirst spot paintings(22:00) The late 19th century boom: record prices, worthless by 1910(23:00) The Salvator Mundi: $1,000 in 2005, $450 million in 2017(24:00) The family in Baton Rouge who got $700(25:00) Christie's visited and walked past it(27:00) Restoration, forgery, and where the lines blur(29:00) Was it ever a Leonardo? Is it still a Leonardo?(30:00) Why the Saudis bought it: pivoting from oil, building museums(31:00) Forging provenance: you don't just forge the picture(33:00) The Charles I stamp in Moscow: the evidence the protagonists missed(35:00) Fake versus forgery: a genuinely difficult distinction(37:00) The book: four years on Federico Joni(38:00) Doorstepping Joni: caught in the act, photo book produced(39:00) "Would you consider working for us as a restorer?"(41:00) Joni appointed head of the Siena art school by the socialists(42:00) The art market as template: NFTs and meme stocks learned from it(43:00) The April Fool's NFT(44:00) The contemporary market is crashing: 20% a year for three years(46:00) The tsunami of revisionism is coming for blue chip work too(47:00) AI and the search for originalityAbout the GuestBen Lewis is an art historian, investigative journalist, and documentary maker. He made The Great Contemporary Art Bubble for the BBC, created the Art Safari series for BBC Four, and spent a decade inside MTV before turning his attention to the art market. His book The Last Leonardo investigates the Salvator Mundi. He is currently completing a book about the 19th century Sienese forger Federico Joni.Listen ElsewhereAPPLE : https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/storyco/id1886770413YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/@StoryCoPodcastLINKTREE: https://linktr.ee/storycopodCreditsStoryCo is a TellTale Industries production.Host: James Kirkham.Guest: Ben Lewis.Producer: Jago Lee.Assistant Producer: Nelly Batt.Editor: Nelly Batt.Recorded at TYX Studios, King's Cross.Theme: Doubt Point.Special thanks: Craig Heptinstall, Jack Freegard, Tyler Newton, Isa Gibson.
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  This Museum Boss Took a Francis Bacon to the Pub | Jago Cooper 16.07.2026 50min

  SummaryJago Cooper on living art, the Easter Island myth, and why things are better storytellers than people.Episode OverviewWhat if artworks aren't objects but living entities? Jago Cooper, Executive Director of the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, made headlines when he became the first museum director in the world to change his institution's governance structure so that every artwork is treated as a living being, and every staff member's job is to give those entities their best lives. Yes, including taking a Francis Bacon painting to the pub.In this episode, Jago sits down with James Kirkham to explain why museums have got it wrong for centuries, how a childhood digging up artefacts in Gloucestershire shapes his radical approach today, and what happened when he dismantled one of history's most enduring environmental collapse myths: the story of Easter Island.This is a conversation about what happens when you stop seeing art as property and start seeing it as a relationship. One you can trust with your deepest secrets.Chapters(00:00) Introduction: artworks as living entities(00:49) Jago Cooper's background(01:40) The 2009 Copenhagen climate speech that changed everything(03:30) Why climate storytelling needs a rewrite(04:50) Digging up fields in Gloucestershire: Jago's childhood(06:50) Archaeology and art: there's no difference(10:50) Why museums feel unwelcoming(12:20) Inside the British Museum: what's broken(13:50) The Sainsbury Centre's radical concept(15:20) No hierarchies, just emotional connection(21:00) "Artworks are living entities": the governance change(23:00) Staff reaction: "So basically, museums are like zoos?"(27:00) The museum as a creative agency and media company(28:50) Francis Bacon goes to the pub on day release(34:00) Programming around life's biggest questions(38:00) The Easter Island myth, dismantled(41:00) Public backlash and not reading the comments(44:00) How to curate a big question exhibition(48:00) Next: what is the meaning of life, and how do we find love?"Artworks are actually living entities. I mean literally." — Jago CooperAbout the GuestJago Cooper is Executive Director of the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts at the University of East Anglia. Previously curator of the Americas at the British Museum, he has made archaeology documentaries for the BBC and conducted fieldwork across the Caribbean, the Pacific, and Latin America. His work on Rapa Nui challenged the dominant Easter Island collapse narrative. He is a professor of both art and archaeology.Listen ElsewhereAPPLE : https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/storyco/id1886770413YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/@StoryCoPodcastLINKTREE: https://linktr.ee/storycopodCreditsStoryCo is a TellTale Industries production.Host: James Kirkham.Guest: Jago Cooper.Producer: Jago Lee.Assistant Producer: Nelly Batt.Editor: Nelly Batt.Recorded at TYX Studios, King's Cross.Theme: Doubt Point.Special thanks: Craig Heptinstall, Jack Freegard, Tyler Newton, Isa Gibson.
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  Pompeii Wasn't Just a Disaster - It Was a City Full of Life | Dr Jess Venner 09.07.2026 43min

  SummaryDr. Jess Venner on Pompeii, the ordinary people history forgot, and why resilience is a better story than disaster.Jess Venner grew up in Hainault on the end of the Central Line, at a school in special measures, having never heard of classics. She is now a research fellow at Oxford, and her book The Lost Voices of Pompeii reconstructs the final day of seven ordinary Pompeiians: a pub landlord, a female entrepreneur, a slave. Not emperors or generals, but the people the ancient world made deliberately invisible.She got there by quitting her marketing job overnight, funding her own sabbatical from savings, and doing a master's on her lunch breaks in instalments. Her method is critical fabulation: take the material evidence as far as it will go, apply common sense, and stop the moment it runs out. This is one of the most enjoyable conversations the show has had, from how a book idea actually arrives, to a disaster porn argument that lands hard, to the Hampton Court visitors who said they never thought a place like that was for them.Chapters(00:00) Cold open: resilience, and something she couldn't believe she'd found(01:00) Hainault, a marketing degree, the overnight resignation(03:00) The Devil Wears Prada, discovering Rome, a master's on lunch breaks(06:00) Access, classics, and the prejudice that perpetuates(07:00) Oxford, and The Lost Voices of Pompeii(09:00) Critical fabulation: reconstructing the invisible(11:00) Petronas the slave and the fish scales in the market(18:00) The forum, Vesuvius, and a calling(20:00) Nine visits in a year and the felt-tip map(22:00) Euxinus, the phoenix, and rebuilding after the earthquake(24:00) Julia Felix: female entrepreneur after the earthquake(26:00) An educational platform for people who weren't invited in(27:00) AI as a tool, not a replacement(29:00) Disaster porn and why we are trained to seek it(31:00) Humanising disaster: friends, family, dogs, and the refugees nobody mentions(34:00) Who painted the picture? Whose stories get told(35:00) Treasure hunting, smashed frescoes, and what got thrown away(37:00) The Leverhulme fellowship, and sitting on information like Smaug(40:00) Hampton Court: "I didn't think this place was for me"(42:00) Tactile memory, and why we never dream of our phones"I wanted to tell a story of resilience and innovation in Pompeii, and show it differently." - Dr. Jess VennerAbout the GuestDr. Jess Venner is an ancient historian and archaeologist, and a Leverhulme Early Career Research Fellow at Oxford University. Her book The Lost Voices of Pompeii reconstructs the final day of seven ordinary Pompeiians using the method of critical fabulation. She studied at Birkbeck and the University of Birmingham, spent a year at the British School at Rome, and specialises in urban agriculture and ordinary life in Pompeii. Her channel Life In The Past Lane has amassed hundreds of thousands of followers across TikTok and Instagram.Listen ElsewhereAPPLE: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/storyco/id1886770413YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/@StoryCoPodcastLINKTREE: https://linktr.ee/storycopodCreditsStoryCo is a TellTale Industries production. Host: James Kirkham. Guest: Dr. Jess Venner. Producer: Jago Lee. Assistant Producer: Nelly Batt. Editor: Nelly Batt. Recorded at TYX Studios, King's Cross. Theme: Doubt Point. Special thanks: Craig Heptinstall, Jack Freegard, Thailah Newton, Isa Gibson.
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  One Photograph Unravels Ireland's Forgotten Story | Emma Dabiri 02.07.2026 46min

  SummaryEmma Dabiri on hair, history, and why the Black/white binary is a design choice, not a fact of life.Episode OverviewEmma Dabiri wrote a book about hair. Except it wasn't about hair. Don't Touch My Hair used braiding as a trapdoor into 6,000 years of African philosophy, pre-colonial constructions of time, and the question of who gets to name things, and what happens to the things that get named wrong.That argument has driven every book she has written since. The new one, Born to Be Blue, begins with a discovery in the Irish language: that people racialized as Black were traditionally called not Black but blue, after the iridescence of light on a dark surface. Chapters(00:00) Cold open: ADHD, Irish words for Black and white, planetary consciousness(01:00) Intro: Dublin in the '80s and taking the pen back(02:00) Tell me a story: Irish grandparents on a Tobago beach(04:00) The grandfather who never approved, the family she never met(05:00) Born in Dublin, Atlanta, the Deep South(06:00) Coming back to Ireland: "go back to where you come from"(07:30) Discovering how Irish she was by leaving(08:30) Irishness as an anchor: MBEs and why she could never go home(09:00) Atlanta wealth, then Dublin during the heroin epidemic(10:00) Always reading from a very young age(11:00) The Victorian arcade bookshop: radical literature by accident(13:00) Seven schools, hating school, a very ADHD profile(14:30) Instability and nothing feeling safe or certain(16:00) University in African studies: the first time learning worked(17:00) The ADHD diagnosis(18:30) The ADHD tax: life admin, spreadsheets, posting letters(19:00) Raptures of joy from music, feeling things overwhelmingly(20:00) Knowing things were true that other people couldn't hear yet(22:00) Finding her people in London(23:00) Alignment and attracting what you should have(24:00) Don't Touch My Hair: smuggling philosophy through hair(25:00) Cartesian binaries and the world organised into oppositions(26:00) Divisiveness, social media, and the same problem(27:30) Hair as a populist entry point for African philosophy(28:30) The chapter on time: what does "too time-consuming" actually mean?(29:00) Pre-colonial Yoruba time versus post-industrial capitalism(31:00) Braiding, intimacy, and a day organised around what needs doing(32:00) The connective tissue across all three books(33:00) Solutions suppressed as primitive that contain the answers(34:00) Irish language, Yoruba philosophy, rehabilitating Irishness(35:00) Blindboy and recognising neurodivergence(36:00) The new book: saying less, what stays with people(37:00) Substack: testing ideas before the printed page(38:30) Why social media killed good faith debate(39:30) Early Twitter: Spike Lee, bell hooks, when it felt like a club(41:00) When conversations get monetised: competition replaces collaboration(42:00) Born to Be Blue: the Irish language word for people racialized as Black(43:00) Blue and bright: both words describe a relationship to the cosmos(44:00) The memoir, the dissident thinkers, the blue concept(45:00) Blue and bright are not opposites. They share the moon and the sun.About the GuestEmma Dabiri is a writer, academic, and broadcaster of Irish-Nigerian heritage. She is currently completing her fourth book, Born to Be Blue, due October 2026. She writes on Substack and has contributed to the Guardian, the Times, and the BBC.Listen ElsewhereAPPLE : https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/storyco/id1886770413YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/@StoryCoPodcastLINKTREE: https://linktr.ee/storycopodCreditsStoryCo is a TellTale Industries production.Host: James Kirkham.Guest: Emma Dabiri.Producer: Jago Lee.Assistant Producer: Nelly Batt.Editor: Nelly Batt.Recorded at TYX Studios, King's Cross.Theme: Doubt Point.Special thanks: Craig Heptinstall, Jack Freegard, Tyler Newton, Isa Gibson.
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  Why Hollywood is broken | Leaving Las Vegas Director Mike Figgis 25.06.2026 55min

  SummaryMike Figgis on Leaving Las Vegas, Timecode, and why the best creative work comes from stripping everything back.Episode OverviewMike Figgis shot Leaving Las Vegas in three weeks on Super 16 with a skeleton crew and no permits on the Las Vegas Strip. Nicolas Cage won the Oscar. The film cost almost nothing. That was the point.Figgis has been making this argument for 50 years, from trumpet in Bryan Ferry's pre-Roxy band in Newcastle, to getting booed off stage in Hamburg by a diehard blues crowd, to Timecode, his real-time four-screen film written on music paper as a 95-bar string quartet. This is a wide conversation that earns every turn. The story of the first Roxy Music rehearsal, Figgis standing in the room thinking it would never work, sets up everything that follows about being wrong in interesting directions. The worst test screening in Hollywood history, which left him sitting next to Richard Gere feeling oddly happy, is one of the best anecdotes this show has had. And the Coppola story at the end, one small camera following $120 million of someone else's vision, lands the argument the episode has been building toward: the people who invent the system are sometimes the last ones to escape it.Chapters(00:00) Cold open: does the world need a Beatles biopic?(02:00) Get Back and the creative power of nothing happening(05:00) Meeting Lennon in a Notting Hill macrobiotic restaurant(07:00) Newcastle, Bryan Ferry, and The Gas Board(09:30) Trumpet to impress his dad, guitar for the girls(11:00) The Gas Board falls apart(12:00) The first Roxy rehearsal and why Figgis didn't rate it(13:30) Bridge to film: late '60s London explosion(14:00) The Arts Lab: all art is one thing(15:30) Free music and "just listen, man"(17:00) Experimental theater: booed off stage in Hamburg(19:00) Failure as second nature(20:00) The worst test screening ever(22:00) Theater into film: actors on stage and screen simultaneously(24:00) Hollywood, the social contract, and being "cocky, arrogant, naive"(25:00) Leaving Las Vegas: Super 16, three weeks, casting by personal contact(27:00) Camera as creative control(29:00) Boy porn camera tech vs. Bergman's locked-off face(30:00) The Figgis box: constraint as method(32:00) Timecode: four screens, no edit, real time(34:00) Writing the script as a string quartet on music paper(36:00) Salma Hayek doing other people's makeup in the toilet(37:00) Four earthquakes and actors watching their own film the same day(40:00) Marina Abramović: switch to your left hand(41:00) Live mixing Timecode at the NFT(43:00) "AI is as clever as Hollywood — not clever enough"(45:00) Advice to young filmmakers: don't wait for the Netflix lifeboat(47:00) Paul Auster on the attrition rate(48:00) Megalopolis documentary: one camera, no plan(52:00) "You invented this system — and now it's smothering you""AI is as clever as Hollywood, but that's not clever enough." — Mike FiggisAbout the GuestMike Figgis is a British filmmaker, composer, and writer. His films include Stormy Monday, Internal Affairs, Leaving Las Vegas (two Academy Award nominations), Liebestrahl, One Night Stand, and Timecode. He has composed scores for his own films and others, worked in experimental theater with The People Show for ten years, and most recently directed a documentary following Francis Ford Coppola during the making of Megalopolis. He is currently developing a film shot in Korea and Japan.Listen ElsewhereAPPLE : https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/storyco/id1886770413YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/@StoryCoPodcastLINKTREE: https://linktr.ee/storycopodCreditsStoryCo is a TellTale Industries production.Host: James Kirkham.Guest: Mike Figgis.Producer: Jago Lee.Assistant Producer: Nelly Batt.Editor: Zak Klein.Recorded at TYX Studios, King's Cross.Theme: Doubt Point.Special thanks: Craig Heptinstall, Jack Freegard, Tyler Newton, Isa Gibson.
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  Have We Lost The Art of Desire? | Rowan Pelling, The Erotic Review 18.06.2026 49min

  Rowan Pelling on the Erotic Review, the death of the tease, and why desire needs saving from pornography.Episode OverviewRowan Pelling founded the Erotic Review on a single bet: that the sexiest organ is the brain.The young are having less sex than any previous generation on record. Pornography is free, instant, and infinite. The tease has disappeared. The accidental workplace romance, the fumbled first kiss, the slow build that nobody was filming, none of it exists in the same way anymore. And Pelling, who has been writing about desire, intimacy, and the culture of eroticism since she was 13 and writing her own problem pages, has a great deal to say about where it went and whether it can come back.This is a wide-ranging conversation that earns its runtime at every turn. What follows covers the Navy ship that subscribed, the '90s lads' mag world Pelling loved for its craft and its excess, the memoir she has been writing for 20 years, and the case for a ministry of sex, which she has offered to run. James Kirkham gets her to slow down on the things that matter: what was actually lost when the tease disappeared and why the inability to make mistakes is the thing that worries her most about young people right now."If men and women are constantly at loggerheads and frightened, there's not gonna be another generation." — Rowan PellingChapters(00:00) Cold open: British hypocrisy about sex(01:00) Intro: the Erotic Review, desire, and pornography(02:00) Tell me a story: Hazel, Betty Boothroyd, and Gerald's subscription(04:30) What the Erotic Review was and what it looked like(06:00) The magazine as flirtation device: for couples, not hiding(08:00) HMS Something: the Navy ship that subscribed(09:30) Richard Desmond's fury and why tone was everything(10:00) Puritans vs Cavaliers: why this could only work in Britain(12:00) What readers were actually paying for(13:00) The decline: fewer sexual incidents, Gen Z, digital natives(15:00) The amateur fumble and why no one could record it(17:00) Erotic glamour: what "it" actually is(19:00) Growing up in a pub, older men, and saying yes(22:00) Dubrovnik, war zones, and the theory of the open yes(23:00) The barmaid at heart: listening, flirting, holding the room(24:30) Steering drunks and Tories: the pub as training ground(25:00) The Amorous: women first and the MeToo near-miss(27:00) Physical magazines and the gravitational pull of the real(29:00) Problem pages at 13 and a third-class degree(30:00) GQ, the lads' mag era, and Loaded as genius(32:00) Raising sons: porn, consent, and the word on the necklace(36:00) Dating apps and the disappearing workplace romance(38:00) Young men, the manosphere, and the ones she actually knows(41:00) The inability to make mistakes: fumbling as a feature(42:00) The memoir: 20 years percolating, Britain and sex(44:00) The tease as a lost art: erotica vs porn culture(45:00) Strictly Come Dancing and vertical desire(46:00) Living at home, no privacy, and the death of the house party(47:00) A summer of love and a ministry of sexAbout the GuestRowan Pelling was the founding editor of the Erotic Review, which she grew from a newsletter to a 30,000-reader magazine. She has judged the Booker Prize, won the Funny Woman Award, written for the Telegraph for many years, and later founded The Amorous. She is currently working on a memoir about Britain and sex, and writes regularly on desire, intimacy, and the culture of eroticism.Listen ElsewhereAPPLE : https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/storyco/id1886770413YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/@StoryCoPodcastLINKTREE: https://linktr.ee/storycopodCreditsStoryCo is a TellTale Industries production.Host: James Kirkham.Guest: Rowan Pelling.Producer: Jago Lee.Assistant Producer: Nelly Batt.Editor: Emma Gifford.Recorded at TYX Studios, King's Cross.Theme: Doubt Point.Special thanks: Craig Heptinstall, Jack Freegard, Tyler Newton, Isa Gibson.
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  She Can Make You Confess to Murder | Julia Shaw 11.06.2026 50min

  SummaryJulia Shaw on false memory, green crime, and why AI is both the problem and the solution.Episode OverviewJulia Shaw once implanted a false memory of a violent crime in a volunteer's mind using three conversations and a few leading questions. The volunteer described it in vivid detail three weeks later. That was her PhD. Now she says we have built the same machine and put it in everyone's pocket.Shaw is a criminal psychologist whose research is used by police forces, war crimes investigators, and the International Criminal Court. She founded an AI reporting tool now used by the Bar Council. She wrote a book applying true crime storytelling to environmental destruction. And she is about to spend a summer inside an AI governance residency asking how these systems get built safely.This conversation moves across a lot of ground and earns all of it. The false memory implantation study is the sharpest opening this show has had. The argument that AI hallucinates for the same reason humans confabulate is genuinely clarifying. The bit where Shaw explains why London's air is the cleanest it has been in centuries, and why no one knows, is the kind of thing that makes you want to look it up the moment the episode ends. And her case for optimism, that despondency is the one emotional response that achieves nothing and that she personally knows the people building these tools, is harder to argue with than you might expect.Chapters(00:00) Opening: the false memory machine in your pocket(00:55) Intro: criminal psychologist, memory scientist, green crime author(01:50) The implantation study(04:00) Why our brains prefer stories to accuracy(06:30) Memory, courtrooms, and the cognitive interview(08:15) AI hallucinations and human confabulation(09:35) AI as the ultimate false memory machine(11:30) Witness statements and AI smoothing(13:00) The allergic reaction to AI content(16:30) The positive case: AI as therapist at 3am(18:30) Talk to Spot: the chatbot that replaced the cognitive interview(23:15) Why Shaw stays optimistic(25:00) Meta, frat boys, and why AI founders are different(28:50) Aphantasia: Shaw can't picture anything(31:00) Memory, brands, and the aftermath economy(35:00) Green crime: true crime storytelling for the planet(38:00) The categorisation problem: "it's about the trees, though"(41:00) London's air and the victories we forget(43:30) Space satellites and environmental crime(47:55) What's next: AI governance and the residency"AI is the ultimate false memory machine, because what it can do is personalise everything to you." — Julia ShawAbout the GuestJulia Shaw is a criminal psychologist, scientist, and author whose research on false memory has been used by police forces, the International Criminal Court, and war crimes investigators. Her books include The Memory Illusion, Evil: The Science Behind Humanity's Dark Side, and Green Crime: Inside the Minds of the People Destroying the Planet and How to Stop Them. She is the founder of Spot, an AI-powered reporting tool used by the Bar Council of England and Wales, and is currently embedded in an AI governance residency in London.Listen ElsewhereAPPLE : https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/storyco/id1886770413YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/@StoryCoPodcastLINKTREE: https://linktr.ee/storycopodCreditsStoryCo is a TellTale Industries production.Host: James Kirkham.Guest: Julia Shaw.Producer: Jago Lee.Assistant Producer: Nelly Batt.Editor: Emma Gifford.Recorded at TYX Studios, King's Cross.Theme: Doubt Point.Special thanks: Craig Heptinstall, Jack Freegard, Tyler Newton, Isa Gibson.#crime #psychology #ai #false #memory #storyco
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  Who gets paid when a story travels? | Richard Welsh 04.06.2026 49min

  Summary Richard Welsh on COPA90, Decent Partners, and why AI is a translation tool, not a threat.Episode Overview Richard Welsh beat David Beckham's team to a YouTube channel with no rights and no leverage, just a deep understanding of how networks actually work.What followed was 20 years of arriving early to every platform shift: Bebo, MySpace, YouTube Originals, Web3, and now AI. Welsh has called the current AI moment the largest creative value extraction in human history: every model trained on human intelligence, packaged by a corporation, rented back to the people who generated it. His company, Decent Partners, is the attempt to build something structurally different: a network that routes value back through the people who made the work, rather than the companies that own the infrastructure.This is a long conversation that moves fast. Welsh is someone who thinks in systems, rivers, sediment, network effects, and James Kirkham gets him to slow down and show the working. The Advent calendar story at the start is one of the best career origin stories this show has aired. The AI framing at the end reframes the debate without dismissing the risk. The bit in the middle, Welsh nearly advising KSI to dial it back, is the most instructive 90 seconds on the difference between platform experience and platform understanding.Chapters (00:00) The gut bacteria story (01:45) Intro: COPA90 and creative value extraction (04:30) The Advent calendar: getting into Hat Trick at 19 (08:15) Development, TV, and how ideas actually happened (11:00) Bebo: the platform the adults didn't understand (15:30) COPA90: pitching against Beckham with no rights (20:30) KSI and the advice Welsh is glad he didn't land (23:00) Bitcoin, digital scarcity, and Web3 (29:00) Tether, TrumpCoin, and the pattern behind the noise (33:30) Everything is a story, and Bitcoin proved it (36:00) Decent Partners: currency, credit, context (42:00) AI as aggregated human intelligence (47:00) Resilience over towers"The intelligence is ours. There's nothing artificial or alien about it : it's just our intelligence that in aggregate creates this incredible translation tool." — Richard WelshAbout the Guest Richard Welsh co-founded COPA90, the YouTube-native football channel that beat established rights-holders to one of the platform's earliest funded slots. He has worked in development at Hat Trick, RDF, Endemol, and Studio Lambert, and has won awards for Who Killed Summer and You, Me & the Apocalypse. He is the founder of Decent Partners, a network-native company building tools that distribute credit, payment, and knowledge through the communities that generate them.Listen Elsewhere APPLE : https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/storyco/id1886770413YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/@StoryCoPodcastLINKTREE:⁠https://linktr.ee/storycopod⁠Credits StoryCo is a TellTale Industries production. Host: James Kirkham. Guest: Richard Welsh. Producer: Jago Lee. Assistant Producer: Nelly Batt. Editor: Emma Gifford.Recorded at TYX Studios, King's Cross. Theme: Doubt Point.Special thanks: Craig Heptinstall, Jack Freegard, Tyler Newton, Isa Gibson.
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  Community is the Whole Business Model | Wez Saunders, Defected Records 28.05.2026 44min

  Summary A cold email, a chest-infection phone call, a buyout, and 951 sold-out shows since 2021. The CEO of Defected Records on what holds the centre.Episode OverviewWez Saunders cold-emailed Simon Dunmore in 2013. Two days after a meeting in which Dunmore said he could sell a pen, Wez was home with a chest infection when Dunmore called. He took the club promotions job. Four years later he ran Defected.In an hour with James Kirkham, Wez traces the line from a dropped Sony Walkman tuned to Kiss FM, through twelve years on the fast track at Deutsche Bank, to the summer of 2008 when his brother was diagnosed with leukemia and died in 23 days. He explains the £265 first quarterly paycheck from his first label that forced him to build an ecosystem rather than one imprint. He walks through the management buyout that made him chairman as well as CEO, the ninety-page manifesto he wrote for staff, and the pendulum metaphor he uses to keep house music's centre still while its edges swing. Then come the numbers: since 2021, Defected has put on 1,033 events outside Ibiza and 951 of them have sold out, against a live scene squeezed by inflation, war in Ukraine, and venue closures. He covers the fifty-plus-show virtual festival run during COVID that reached tens of millions, why a market that has gone from 100,000 songs a day to 140,000 makes brand and provenance matter more not less, and why bands like Jamie Webster and The Lathums may be the early signal of an AI-era backlash. The through-line he keeps coming back to is one word: community.Chapters(00:00) Cold open and intro(01:30) Tell me a story: Kiss FM, decks at fourteen, blagging gigs(05:30) Married at 22, Deutsche Bank, brother dies in 23 days(07:00) Endemic Digital, £265 and an ecosystem of labels\(09:30) Cold email to Simon Dunmore: sell me this pen(11:30) The phone call in bed: club promotions to MD(14:30) COVID and the virtual festival born on a Sunday WhatsApp(17:30) The management buyout: from licensee to CEO and chairman(22:30) Cola, streaming and why Defected stopped licensing out(27:30) 1,033 events, 951 sold out, the squeezed live scene(35:00) The ninety-page manifesto and the pendulum(38:30) AI, 140,000 songs a day and a bands renaissance"Since 2021 we've put on 1,033 events that are not Ibiza. 951 of them have sold out." — Wes SaundersAbout the guestWez Saunders is the CEO and chairman of Defected Records, the independent dance label founded by Simon Dunmore in 1999. He spent twelve years in finance, joining Bankers Trust in 1999 and rising on a fast track at Deutsche Bank, before leaving on his thirtieth birthday to acquire Endemic Digital and re-enter music. He joined Defected in 2014 as club promotions manager after cold-emailing Simon Dunmore, became managing director within four years, led the company through COVID with a fifty-plus-show virtual festival run that reached tens of millions, and led the management buyout that made him chairman as well as CEO. Defected and its sister brand Glitterbox have put on 1,033 events outside Ibiza since 2021, of which 951 sold out, and now move roughly a million tickets a year.Listen elsewhereApple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/storyco/id1886770413YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@StoryCoPodcastWebsite: https://www.storyco.siteFollow: @StoryCoPodcastCreditsHost: James KirkhamGuest: Wez SaundersProducer: Jago LeeAssistant Producer: Nelly BattEditor: Ryan O'MeeraMusic: Doubt PointRecorded at TYX Studios, Kings Cross, London
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  Ted Talk From The Toilet | Ryan Hopkins 21.05.2026 47min

  Ryan Hopkins filmed his first TEDx talk from a toilet cubicle, ran a hundred episodes of Toilet Break Wellbeing on LinkedIn and turned the script into an Amazon No. 1 business book. Three years before any of that he was a former rugby player with a broken leg, an eating disorder, and a Halifax bank clerk who found himself unable to speak across the counter.In an hour with James Kirkham, Ryan draws the line the wellness industry refuses to draw: wellness is a $9.2 trillion industry trying to sell you a hot stone massage; wellbeing is your subjective satisfaction with your life, and the two are not the same thing. He explains why an Oxford Wellbeing Research review found that eleven of thirteen workplace wellbeing interventions worsened wellbeing in the short term, and why a stress-management webinar inside a 49-hour week shines a light on the problem and does nothing to fix it. He covers his rugby injury and the bulimia that followed, the one-way flight to Argentina with £600 from a sold Vauxhall Tigra, the Ecuadorian hostel he helped build on the side of a mountain, the wildcard slot onto the Deloitte grad scheme, the LinkedIn show Toilet Break Wellbeing that ran a hundred episodes and became 52 Weeks of Wellbeing, the Wetherspoons table in Putney (212, by the water) where the book got written, the fintech where he cut five hours a week off the average work week and saved 2.4 million hours, the NatWest project with JAAQ that correlates with a 6.9% drop in mental health absence, why bricklayers are the best meditators in the world, what 'orthosomnia' is doing to your sleep, and Rory Sutherland's argument that an office needs a library space and a pub space and nothing else. He ends on the call he used to make to his nan every day at 12:15.Chapters (00:00) Cold open and intro (02:00) Tell me a story: the book that started on a toilet (06:30) Rugby, debt and a one-way ticket to Argentina (09:30) Bulimia, a Halifax bank counter and the call to mum (12:30) Oxford Brookes, the Deloitte wildcard and the work (16:00) Wellbeing is the output of good work, not an event (19:00) Wellness vs wellbeing: the $9.2 trillion confusion (23:00) Why bricklayers are the best meditators in the world (24:30) Sleep apps, orthosomnia and the wellness paradox (27:30) Healthi: putting a number on the value of looking after people (36:00) Calling Nan at 12:15 (38:00) Library space and pub space: what work looks like after the laptop"Everything I do is to help people not end up where I did, and if they do, to know they're not alone." — Ryan HopkinsAbout the guest Ryan Hopkins is a workplace wellbeing specialist, a TEDx Shoreditch speaker, and the Amazon No. 1 bestselling author of 52 Weeks of Wellbeing (Kogan Page). He started his working life as a trainee electrician, came back through Oxford Brookes after a year travelling through South America, joined Deloitte as a wildcard grad, led wellbeing at Sainsbury's Tech, and returned to Deloitte to build out its wellbeing consultancy with the World Business Council for Sustainable Development. He is now the founder of Healthi, a corporate health platform that quantifies the impact of an organisation's healthcare spend, with pilots launching in the UK, UAE and US.Listen elsewhere Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/storyco/id1886770413 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@StoryCoPodcast Website: https://www.storyco.site Follow: @StoryCoPodcastCredits Host: James Kirkham Guest: Ryan Hopkins Producer: Jago Lee Assistant Producer: Nelly Batt Editor: Ryan O'Meera Music: Doubt Point Recorded at TYX Studios, Kings Cross, London
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  The Bald Yorkshireman in the Bath | Joe Fattorini & Mel Jappy | StoryCo 14.05.2026 54min

  Joe Fattorini sat in a bath of red wine in the Atacama Desert, filmed himself talking to camera and uploaded the clip to YouTube. Years later the producer Mel Jappy found it, four-by-three and badly cropped, and built The Wine Show around him.In an hour with James Kirkham, Joe and Mel walk through how a show ostensibly about wine ended up in 110 countries and in front of hundreds of millions of viewers by refusing to be about wine. The first rule Mel set Joe: never talk about anything you cannot taste in the glass. The second, when pitching: three sentences only — a question, two numbers, a visual image. They cover the Argentina episode about Malbec they were filming the day the Trump administration announced its Muslim ban, and the producer who burst into tears on a vineyard wall; the Georgian supra, a dinner whose name means tablecloth because the food is meant to hide the cloth; the Moldova shoot where a Red Army parade gatecrashed a piece to camera and a bear of a man told the crew, on the lens, to be quiet; Hermann Göring's wine collection in a Chișinău cellar; Howard Gossage's 1962 Paul Masson ad copy ("cheaper than cars, quieter than hi-fis, tastier than stamps") that Joe still considers the best wine ad ever written; The Picnic Society's 1801 rule of six bottles a head; and the 1791 Vin de Constance, dropped in Constantia and sieved before it reached the glass, that Napoleon drank on Saint Helena in the year Mozart died.Chapters(00:00) Cold open and intro(01:30) Tell me a story: a bath of red wine in the Atacama(05:00) Pitching a show that should not work(08:00) Finding Joe at the bottom of a YouTube recommendation column(14:00) Cheese, not snobbery: why most people think they don't know wine(19:00) Ego in a box and the wrong-size trousers(24:00) The drunken monkey, the pheasant slippers and the show's real fans(30:00) Evergreen by design: would you make it the same today(32:00) Argentina, Georgia, Moldova — the day the show wasn't the show(44:00) Three sentences to pitch: the producer's rules that travel(53:00) The 1791 Vin de Constance: Napoleon's wine, Mozart's year"The wine show is not about wine. It's about great stories." — Mel JappyAbout the guestsMel Jappy is a BAFTA-nominated executive producer with nine years at the BBC and credits including Who Do You Think You Are? and Heston Blumenthal: In Search of Perfection. She trained as a solicitor, came into television as a MasterChef contestant, and created and produced The Wine Show. Joe Fattorini is a philosophy graduate, was wine correspondent for The Herald for fourteen years, an International Wine Challenge Personality of the Year, and the presenter The Guardian once called "the Attenborough of Oddbins."Listen elsewhereApple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/storyco/id1886770413YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@StoryCoPodcastWebsite: https://www.storyco.siteFollow: @StoryCoPodcastCreditsHost: James KirkhamGuests: Joe Fattorini and Mel JappyProducer: Jago LeeAssistant Producer: Nelly BattEditor: Ryan O'MeeraMusic: Doubt PointRecorded at TYX Studios, Kings Cross, London
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  The Headhunter Turned Therapist | Kathleen Saxton 07.05.2026 56min

  Kathleen Saxton was repossessed out of her family home at 11. By 40 she was running C-suite headhunting at The Lighthouse Company. She trained as a psychotherapist along the way and now argues boards have governance for cash, finance and risk, and none at all for behaviour.In an hour with James Kirkham she walks through the memoir she wrote on domestic abuse and the lawyer she hired to defend it; the flute teacher Norman Blow who took her on after she got a clean note out of the mouthpiece on her second try; the safe-cracking interview method she used to read C-suite candidates at Lighthouse; the candidate's story that pushed her to enrol at Regent's University; what private equity buyers and founders are actually doing to each other after the deal closes; "human remains" wellbeing post-COVID, and the executive whose chair refused him half an hour off a board to dial into a friend's funeral; AI as triage versus AI as treatment; what covert narcissism actually looks like, the dark tetrad, and the moment her ex-fiancé asked if she was wearing that to the wedding; lobbying the BACP and UKCP to add narcissism as a search specialism; the difference between what UK and US guests will say on tape; and the Felix Dennis answer she keeps thinking about.Chapters :(00:00) Cold open and intro (01:30) The memoir her lawyer warned her not to publish (03:30) Repossessed at 11: shame, sofas and two gerbils (07:30) Sweet tooth and 'don't be a Coca-Cola bottle' (10:30) Cracking the safe: how she read C-suite candidates (14:00) The interview that sent her to train as a therapist (21:00) Founders, private equity and the wellbeing mask (25:30) AI in therapy and in the boardroom (30:30) No governance for behaviour (33:00) Narcissism: grandiose, covert and the dark tetrad (39:30) Writing the book and training other therapists (47:30) What's next: live radio, a documentary, accessibility"I can't bear the thought that someone can't be helped." — Kathleen SaxtonMentioned in this episodeMy Parent the Peacock — Kathleen Saxton (book, on narcissistic parents)Endless — Kathleen Saxton (forthcoming memoir)DSM-5 — American Psychiatric Association (the diagnostic manual Kathleen references on cluster B and the nine narcissism traits)Billions — Showtime (the Wendy character as house psychologist)Stacey Dooley Sleeps Over — BBC (cited as the format Kathleen would borrow for a narcissism documentary)This Morning — ITV (Kathleen's regular phone-in slot)The Lighthouse Company — C-suite executive search firm Kathleen foundedPsyched Ventures — Kathleen's clinical-psychology-into-business ventureSky, Global, Omnicom — Kathleen's prior media and advertising postsRegent's University, London — where she trained as a psychotherapistThe Priory — psychiatric placement during trainingBACP and UKCP — UK psychotherapy accrediting bodies; Kathleen successfully lobbied for narcissism as a search specialismFelix Dennis — publisher; the "I forgot to get married" anecdoteBruce Daisley — interviewer in the Dennis storyMatt Shetna — co-founder with Kathleen of Advertising Week EuropeRonnie Scott's, London — venue of the Dennis interviewCambridge Analytica — referenced via the whistleblower lawyer Kathleen hiredAbout Kathleen Saxton Kathleen Saxton spent three decades at Sky, Global and Omnicom and founded the C-suite headhunters The Lighthouse Company. She is a qualified psychotherapist with rooms in London and New York and a co-founder of Psyched Ventures. My Parent the Peacock hit Amazon category number one. Endless is forthcoming.Listen elsewhere Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/storyco/id1886770413 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@StoryCoPodcast Website: https://www.storyco.site Follow: @StoryCoPodcastCredits Host: James Kirkham Guest: Kathleen Saxton Producer: Jago Lee Assistant Producer: Nelly Batt Editor: Ryan O'Meera Music: Doubt Point Recorded at TYX Studios, Kings Cross, London