31st December 2025

31st December 2025

The final episode before a well-earned break takes us to a New Year’s Eve dinner at the Ingunandon, Crystal Palace, as the year closes where it began: talking nonsense with purpose. We reflect on a full year of daily episodes, unexpected stories, strange history, and the relentless grind of turning up every single day. Mungo delivers the usual boring old stuff - a fitting end.

30th December 2025

Grigori Rasputin’s rise from Siberian mystic to royal powerbroker is explored as we trace how he gained influence over Russia’s last imperial family. This episode covers his reputation for healing, rumours of excess and manipulation, repeated assassination attempts, and the violent night that finally ended his grip on the Romanovs. A factual look at how Rasputin became one of history’s most notorious and misunderstood figures.

29th December 2025

Michael Schumacher’s devastating skiing accident is revisited as we look at what happened in the French Alps in 2013, the severity of his head injuries, and how the crash abruptly ended one of the greatest careers in Formula One history. This episode covers the immediate aftermath, the medical response, the intense privacy surrounding his recovery, and how Schumacher’s legacy continues to shape F1 long after the accident that changed everything.

28th December 2025

A bizarre case of 12 chickens found dead takes a strange scientific turn when the frozen bodies appeared to breathe fire. This episode explains what actually happened, how gases produced during decomposition can ignite, why freezing preserved the effect, and how the incident spread as a viral mystery. A grounded look at the science behind one of the internet’s strangest animal stories.

27th December 2025

Mehmet Ali Ağca’s attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II is examined as we trace how the Turkish gunman opened fire in Vatican City in 1981. This episode looks at Ağca’s background, claims of militant training, the shooting in St Peter’s Square, and the international investigations that followed. A factual breakdown of one of the most shocking attacks on a religious leader in modern history, and the unanswered questions that still surround the man who pulled the trigger.