John Simpson's World Podcast

On his way through the Amazon, seven days from even the tiniest village, John ends up getting shipwrecked, circled by a hungry jaguar, harpooning monkeys for dinner, dicing with piranhas, sipping hallucinogenic drugs from a cauldron and encountering a six foot goldfish wearing a hat and sunglasses (this was, unsurprisingly, as a direct result of imbibing what was in the cauldron). John's stories of the Amazon are legendary and he's managed to persuade the BBC, who are apparently reluctant to let him die on their watch, to let him return to the Amazon very soon. Yikes.

On this episode we cover:

What John was doing in the Amazon in the first place

In 1992 being very close to getting some kind of international agreements to stop global warming

Because of the US that ceased to exist

Travelling through the farthest reaches of the westernmost amazon

7 days traveling down the Envira river

Harpooning a monkey for dinner

Eating monkeys, snakes and caimans

What monkey tastes like

Hard to eat something like looks like a roasted baby (!)

Being 'burned to buggery'

A sinking boat

Things that bite and chew and electrocute

Shipwrecked in the middle of nowhere

Being circled by a hungry jaguar

Being 7 days travel from the nearest tiny settlement

Being the first white man seen by the tribe

Swapping mirrors and beads with the Ashaninka

John necking hallucinogenic drugs from a cauldron

A taste 'worse than bat urine'

Making friends with a six foot goldfish in a hat

Is John really returning to the Amazon to bring back the really good drugs…?

Going back - is everyone going to be in Manchester United shirts

The forest is now under real threat

Struggling to get the BBC to agree to his return

The BBC worrying he'll 'hand in his lunch pail' (aka die) on the way

The BBC being worried that if John dies the Daily Mail will have a field day

Growing a beard especially for the trip

The problem of seaweed in Mexico and parts of the Caribbean

John will still be going on a small boa, up the same river and facing the same dangers

John being up for absolutely anything

Is there anything John wouldn't do…?

(note he wouldn't kill anyone but he does have a story about how he once came close to it in Afghanistan)

Assuming Britain makes the leap… what's next for the UK and for Europe? Will the US help us out? Will the Chinese take an interest? And WTF is happening in France…? With over 53 years as a foreign reporter (including many spent as 'the BBC Common Market Correspondent') John Simpson has an idea or two about what we might be facing. On this unmissable episode John and producer Lisa Francesca Nand debate the reasons behind the vote to leave and delve into the possibilities that might befall both the EU and Britain if/when we leave our biggest neighbouring trading block.

On this episode we cover

Does John mind being called veteran

Veteran is better than 'venerable'

The three Vs of getting old

The UK being in a bit of a civil war state since the referendum

Like Cromwell fighting Charles I

John being the 'BBC Common Market Correspondent' in the 70s

General de Gaulle blocking Britain from joining

Being involved from the start would have been a better fit

Lisa having enjoyed being part of Europe

John hating the idea of Visas in Europe

Being a Brit first, a European second

Focusing on advantages and disadvantages of leaving

But this means we have ignored the rest of Europe

John's experience as a correspondent in Brussels

How we always stood on the edges of the EU

The UK hankering after a lost world position

We saw in the referendum how much support there was leaving

John being ambivalent about leaving

But caring about our standards of living falling

Very few people researched trade agreements, laws and their benefits

'The metropolitan elite'

People that come to London are not all posh

John being an ex-Cambridge elite

How John thinks everything Lisa says is true (yay!)

We have a representative democracy

In 2016 we allowed people to take the decisions for themselves

People were lied to

The divisions of our society

The result being as a result of austerity and government cuts

Will life get better for the people who felt marginalised?

The people that in favour agree life is going to be rougher

What's next for France?

The French being the mirror image opposite of us

14.33 – 14.48 edit stop for water break!

The French revolution sanctifying violence

French protests being entirely different to British

France is not collapsing

Workers rights in France being very strong

John missing Paris but Paris being stuck in the 50s in many ways

Will the EU weaken after we leave?

John thinking it was a mistake pushing for an ever closer union

The UK were the strong person of Europe

We had a seat at the table

Travellers in the Third Reich and how we slept walk into Nazi Germany

Are we too sleepwalking into something that is more sinister?

John reporting on the National Front in France

What's really next for Europe

A quite uncomfortable closer relationship to the US to survive

The Chinese won't take any great interest in us

Britain will drift for quite a long time

Once again John nail's it with his experienced view on what is happening in the world, this time in Russia. Is Russia the superpower they want us to believe they are? Why did the US play such a foolish game after the collapse of communism? Do we need to be worried about Putin and indeed his increasingly cosy relationship with China? What IS it with those semi-naked horse photos? Should Boris Johnson pose semi-naked on a horse? And crucially, could John Simpson have Vladimir Putin in a fight?

On this episode we cover:

How we were conditioned for so many decades to think of Russia as a great superpower

And an alternative system to ours

The system collapsed without real industrial growth

We now have a much smaller version

Still the biggest country in the world

But it's lost a lot of the rich and productive parts

A president who seemed at first to want to join with western countries

The US played a very foolish game after the collapse of communism

Instead of reaching out the hand of friendship they played the winner

Putin realised the Russian people like to think they're as strong as before

The entire economy is only the size of Australia's

It doesn't spend all that much more on armed forces than Britain does

It's a big, lumbering deeply inefficient society with pretentions to grandeur

Very clever diplomatic footwork to give misleading impressions

Vladimir Putin is 'renting out the place to China'

Turning Russia into China's small time bodyguard figure

China has the economy, Russian has the armed forces

It's not what the majority of Russians would want

But it's hard to get through to Russians

The negative stereotypical image of a Russian abroad

How Russians in Russia are very different

But still gloomy looking

How much John loves Russia and Russian people

Russians being wonderfully warm and affectionate beneath the gloom

Russian people have soul

John meeting Putin several times

The impression is tha Putin suffer from little man syndrome

…A former spook with a dislike of Western values

…but None of this is true!

Putin being surprisingly warm and friendly

Putin watching the BBC a lot to improve his English

Putin being a John Simpson fan!

Very very charming

John meeting Gaddafi and Saddam

Gaddafi being 'just a nutter'

Nutters can be quite exciting

Is Putin dangerous?

He can be deeply disruptive

Putin idea of none of the dangers that face our planet

How the finger on the button/ambitious plan to rule the world Putin doesn't really exist

Although it's not a bad idea to be a bit nervous of Putin

John asking Putin's chief of security how many of their journalists can end up dead

The job of a foreign correspondent being to ask hard questions

Could John Simpson have Putin in a fight

John's learning to box as a child

Putin semi-naked on a horse

The real message Putin wants to show the world

How UK politics would be a lot more fun if Boris Johnson got his kit off on a horse

Are the Russians fiddling with our politics?

Putin wants to weaken the West

The mixture of enormous wealth (china) and considerable cunning (Russia) is something we will have to face up to soon

Could the China/Russia relationship be beneficial to us?

How we are stuck with the old 'we've got to have an enemy' and need to move beyond that

John's passion for translating Chinese poetry

Funny Chinese food products and 'fried cock'

Ultimately we're seeing Putin's long term attraction to voters is finally going down

But does this mean he will do something silly to reverse this…?

If you've found yourself wondering WTF is going on in the USA – which we're pretty sure the whole world has – this episode is for you. With over 53 years of political reporting behind him John gives us his unique take on American politics from the 60s until today and the explains the reasons behind the success of Trump. Along with producer Lisa Francesca Nand, John talks about presidents past and present, news reporting, perceived BBC bias, Brexit, immigrants, guns, the electoral college system, Facebook fiddling and above all why we should sod Make America Great Again and instead Make America Cool Again. You heard it here first.

On this episode we cover:

One man giving some people a voice

The weird US constitution and electoral college system

A strange vengeance about the Trump administration

John being covering US politics since the Kennedy days

The US was run by a section of society – more open than British society then

People who thought differently were silenced

Covering the 1964 election with President Johnson and Barry Goldwater

The Republican party allowing Goldwater to go forward because they knew they couldn't win

Ronald Regan allowing the rich to get richer with fewer taxes

The divisions between rich and poor being far higher now than the 1980s

A side effect of this being a bitterness in American society

It is THIS that has lead to Trump's success

Trump's 'ineffable' tweets from his lonely bedroom

A multi millionaire how has screwed plenty of little people over the decades pretending he's standing up to the little man

The excitement of seeing a president say the sort of thing some people who are thinking

How do Trump and Farage convince people they're on their side?

People want to be convinced

Grabbing women by the pussy

The religious right being among Trump's strongest supporters

The confusing contrasts of the US

Britain having nothing to pat itself on the back for at present

President Regan scrapping the law that broadcasting had to be balanced

The subsequent rise of the shock jock

The chances of Trump winning the elections of November 2020

Whether the electoral college system will change

Most political scientist in the US feeling it doesn't change the popular will

Social media and Facebook being used by nefarious organisations

John being a product of the 'intellectual elite'

Being the BBC's longest serving journalist, probably

Does the BBC really strive to make things balanced?

Do the BBC have an internal bias?

How the BBC balancing the argument in the referendum had the opposite effect

People allowed to broadcast outright lies

The BBC's strict fact checking process

Listen up Daily Mail – there is no official editorial line to toe at the BBC

John feeling the BBC has to fight against an institutional timidity

The importance of diversity in recruiting

How casting the same white, middle aged, privately educated men ain't helpful

Lisa getting John sacked

The other things going on in the US

How a controversial figure like Trump generates alternative views on the other side

People who have never had a voice before on both sides

The sons and daughters of immigrants and even immigrants now speaking out

The US being a great society

How Lisa wants to 'Make America Cool Again'

Who would want to share a bed with Trump?

John's liberating first visit to the US in the 60s

Returning to England 'like catching a sailing ship back to the middle ages'

Nowadays Britain and Europe being far ahead of the US in many ways

How can you buy automatic weapons over the counter?

Seen the US move from the most advanced society in the West to an old-fashioned regressive society

Britain isn't perfect, but you cant buy sub machine guns over the counter

Our message to the USA

Let's Make America Cool Again

Have we reached a crisis point in the race to save the planet from doom? And do we only have, as Prince Charles said, 18 months to save the human race? Whilst we've all been busy talking about Brexit, Trump and China have we let it get too late to do something about the disastrous decline of the planet? On this episode John Simpson and his producer Lisa Francesca Nand talk big government initiatives, debauched heatwaves and question whether we really do have 18 months to save us all from disaster.

On this episode we cover:

Prince Charles saying we have 18 months to save the human race

Wondering if we actually have less than that

John's crazy trip through Peru

Being too busy talking about Brexit, Trump and China that we have taken our eyes off the ball

We are facing absolute disaster

Being worried for his 13 year old son and a future of 'horrible decline and despair'

Pressure needing to be put on our political leaders

Calls by the Green Party for greater initiatives

Big government initiatives needed

John Simpson being mistaken for David Attenborough (pisses John off) has David Attenborough had plastic surgery…? (no we don't really think so…)

But does have bow-legs

The gathering of commonwealth leaders in the next 18 months

Trump being pathetic when it comes to climate change

'Short-termism killing us' in democracies

Being too late for ordinary methods

We need to demonstrate in the streets

Whether John will demonstrate in the streets

Would his BBC contract permit him to…?

Reporting on the 2003 Iraq protests

There ain't going to be an afterwards if we don't watch it

Justifying flying around the world

Stopping eating meat

Public opinion shifting

People travelling more than ever

John's travelling

Flying going to have to cost more

Train travel being expensive and out of reach of most families

Travel spreading love – cheesy but true!

Temperatures rising in the UK

London going to have the temperature of Barcelona

British resorts becoming more attractive

The heat wave of 2018 being rather debauched

Is the message getting through

M&S food being covered in plastic

Morrison's stopping plastic wrapping on fruit and veg

Change will happen for commercial reasons

Generations gone by being better than us

John thinking we have less than 18 months to save the planet

Sea levels rising

Cities like New York, LA, London will be increasingly under threat

Indonesia, Malaysia, part of the African literal will be a matter of life and death

John not being much of a Trump fan…

Not liking deliberate lying and falsehoods

Parallels between Germany in the 1930s

The general public sleepwalking into Nazi Germany

Why is John Simpson is doing a podcast? Why he is not doing it with the BBC? On this episode John (and producer Lisa Francesca Nand) introduce the podcast, what topics we're going to cover in Season 1, some of the amazing guests we have lined up for Season 2, namedrop everyone John's met from Castro to Saddam Hussein and have the pleasure of hearing John say naughty words he can't usually get away with (don't listen with small children in ear shot). Welcome to John Simpson's World! You're going to love it.

On this episode we cover:

Why is John Simpson is doing a podcast? Why he is not doing it with the BBC?

The relief of being able to say what he really thinks

The guests we have lined up for season 2

What he feels about George Galloway

Not wanting to tell Fidel Castro to shut up

John Simpson doesn't say 'f*ck' on the BBC (aha but he does on this podcast…)

The incredible historical figures he has met – Saddam, Gaddafi and more

The weird quirks of working for the BBC

Is it irresponsible to send a man in his 70s into a war zone

Whether John would ever get on the front page of the Daily Mail #compoface

The Americans dropping bombs on him

Going to the Pentagon to threaten to sue them

What to expect from this season:

18 months to save the planet

What's really happening in America

What's really happening in Russia

What happens with Europe after Britain goes out the EU

John's much-anticipated return to the deepest darkest Amazon