List Envy

Guest

Karl Hodge

University Course Director, and former tech journalist, currently researching VR and narrative.

twitter.com

Time-travel films are often about fixing the big things, so says this week’s guest, Karl Hodge, but time-travel romance films address the small things that keep us awake at night.

Mark and Karl begin by looking at some of Christopher Nolan’s work, from Memento to Tenet, and trying to figure out whether they qualify as time-travel films.

Groundhog Day

This early time-loop film has not only spawned films in a similar vein, it’s effectively become its own genre, spanning TV and film.

Back to the Future

Yes there may be better films in the trilogy, but Mark picked the first because, well, it’s the first, but also because it has some unique romantic, and anti-romantic plot dynamics.

The Time Traveler’s Wife

Karl chose this 2009 film, adapted from the book, partly as it countered his worry that it wouldn’t match up to the wildly popular source material. Its placement in Karl’s list obviously puts paid to that.

About Time

As much as it is a Richard Curtis film with all the trappings of a Richard Curtis film, this ranked highly in Mark’s list because of its sweetness. But it does have some holes, as the pair explore.

Kate & Leopold

Karl picked this fish-out-of-water story as a bit of an undiscovered gem. You could do worse than pick up a pint of a frozen dairy product and enjoy this sweet film.

Safety Not Guaranteed

Mark Duplass and Aubrey Plaza star in this as-yet-unseen-by-Mark pick, but the good news is Karl has seen it and can totally vouch for it.

The Lake House

While time-travel feels like a character in most of the pair’s picks, this film from 2006 takes a more subdued approach, focusing on the conflict the distance in time creates.

Happy Accidents

Mark’s final pick is from 2000, in which a woman meets a man from 470 years in the future. It’s one that had passed Karl by, so consider the homework set!

Time After Time

Also known as Time Freak, Karl’s final pick teaches us that any film or TV show called Time After Time – whether that’s its original name or not – is worth checking out. This one is particularly worth checking out as it focuses, not on the needs of the time-traveller, but on the chaos that can be left in the wake of someone without regard for proper time-travel etiquette.

Links

Support the podcast

Guest

Karl Hodge

University Course Director, and former tech journalist, currently researching VR and narrative.

twitter.com

Time-travel films are often about fixing the big things, so says this week’s guest, Karl Hodge, but time-travel romance films address the small things that keep us awake at night.

Mark and Karl begin by looking at some of Christopher Nolan’s work, from Memento to Tenet , and trying to figure out whether they qualify as time-travel films.

Groundhog Day

This early time-loop film has not only spawned films in a similar vein, it’s effectively become its own genre, spanning TV and film.

Back to the Future

Yes there may be better films in the trilogy, but Mark picked the first because, well, it’s the first, but also because it has some unique romantic, and anti-romantic plot dynamics.

The Time Traveler’s Wife

Karl chose this 2009 film, adapted from the book, partly as it countered his worry that it wouldn’t match up to the wildly popular source material. Its placement in Karl’s list obviously puts paid to that.

About Time

As much as it is a Richard Curtis film with all the trappings of a Richard Curtis film, this ranked highly in Mark’s list because of its sweetness. But it does have some holes, as the pair explore.

Kate & Leopold

Karl picked this fish-out-of-water story as a bit of an undiscovered gem. You could do worse than pick up a pint of a frozen dairy product and enjoy this sweet film.

Safety Not Guaranteed

Mark Duplass and Aubrey Plaza star in this as-yet-unseen-by-Mark pick, but the good news is Karl has seen it and can totally vouch for it.

The Lake House

While time-travel feels like a character in most of the pair’s picks, this film from 2006 takes a more subdued approach, focusing on the conflict the distance in time creates.

Happy Accidents

Mark’s final pick is from 2000, in which a woman meets a man from 470 years in the future. It’s one that had passed Karl by, so consider the homework set!

Time After Time

Also known as Time Freak , Karl’s final pick teaches us that any film or TV show called Time After Time – whether that’s its original name or not – is worth checking out. This one is particularly worth checking out as it focuses, not on the needs of the time-traveller, but on the chaos that can be left in the wake of someone without regard for proper time-travel etiquette.

Links

Support the podcast

Guest

Rusty Nails

Musician, DJ, producer, dreamer! One third of Titans of Doom.

Rusty Nails | Free Listening on SoundCloud

twitter.com

This week’s guest is musician, DJ and producer Kevin Kerr, and on the list is top people from Birmingham in the UK, or as we have them, Brummies.

Benjamin Zephaniah

Kevin’s first pick is the poet and performer who might be best known to non-UK listeners as the priest in Peaky Blinders, but Benjamin’s words have touched both he and Mark, which is why he features highly on both of their lists.

Stewart Lee

Mark’s pick was instrumental in British comedy from the 90s onwards, and remains one of the UK’s most well-respected stand-ups. It also gave the pair the opportunity to reminisce about an obscure and overlooked TV gem, called Time Trumpet.

Tony Iommi

If Mark had allowed Kevin to pick Black Sabbath as a whole, then perhaps he would’ve, but as that would cause incalculable damage to the podcast format, he picked this superhuman heavy metal legend.

John Cadbury

What better Brummie could Mark choose than the inventor of chocolate, and the father of the inventors of Bournville (sort of)?… even if Mark never got to go to Cadbury World, the closest thing that passes for a theme park in Birmingham.

Mike Skinner

Kevin reopens old wounds for Mark with this pick, the front man – or only man? – of the Streets, and one of Mark’s mortal enemies (although Mike wouldn’t know it). Can Mark keep a clean streak and knock Mike off the final list?

John Oliver

Arguably one of the most successful Brits working in the US today, Mark’s pick is a surprise-Brummie. Host of Last Week Tonight, and former guest-host of The Daily Show, former co-host of the Bugle podcast, former Smurf, and current Zazu… you get it.

Pat Malloy

Originally from Galway in Ireland, Pat moved to Spark Hill in Birmingham, and was the linchpin of Irish music within the centre of the city. He makes Kevin’s list by virtue of the quiet influence he exercised throughout the community.

Janice Connolly

Janice’s character Barbara Nice has made it to national TV on multiple occasions, and she is a mainstay of the Birmingham comedy scene.

Joe Lycett

Kevin’s choice is people’s champion, regular Channel 4 panel-show contributor, hilarious stand-up comic and extremely local-to-Mark-boy, Joe Lycett.

Honourable mentions

Alan Napier

Julie Walters

Rob Halford

Jamelia

Moeen Ali

Barbara Cartland

Arthur Darvill

Fred Dinenage

More of Rusty Nails

Follow @RustyNailsBeats on Twitter and listen to Titans of Doom’s latest single, Rise Up, in aid of the Northfield Community Partnership food bank.

Go further

Gary Sambrook eats big dinners

Links

Support the podcast

Guest

Rusty Nails

Musician, DJ, producer, dreamer! One third of Titans of Doom.

Rusty Nails | Free Listening on SoundCloud

twitter.com

This week’s guest is musician, DJ and producer Kevin Kerr, and on the list is top people from Birmingham in the UK, or as we have them, Brummies.

Benjamin Zephaniah

Kevin’s first pick is the poet and performer who might be best known to non-UK listeners as the priest in Peaky Blinders, but Benjamin’s words have touched both he and Mark, which is why he features highly on both of their lists.

Stewart Lee

Mark’s pick was instrumental in British comedy from the 90s onwards, and remains one of the UK’s most well-respected stand-ups. It also gave the pair the opportunity to reminisce about an obscure and overlooked TV gem, called Time Trumpet.

Tony Iommi

If Mark had allowed Kevin to pick Black Sabbath as a whole, then perhaps he would’ve, but as that would cause incalculable damage to the podcast format, he picked this superhuman heavy metal legend.

John Cadbury

What better Brummie could Mark choose than the inventor of chocolate, and the father of the inventors of Bournville (sort of)?… even if Mark never got to go to Cadbury World, the closest thing that passes for a theme park in Birmingham.

Mike Skinner

Kevin reopens old wounds for Mark with this pick, the front man – or only man? – of the Streets, and one of Mark’s mortal enemies (although Mike wouldn’t know it). Can Mark keep a clean streak and knock Mike off the final list?

John Oliver

Arguably one of the most successful Brits working in the US today, Mark’s pick is a surprise-Brummie. Host of Last Week Tonight , and former guest-host of The Daily Show , former co-host of the Bugle podcast, former Smurf, and current Zazu… you get it.

Pat Malloy

Originally from Galway in Ireland, Pat moved to Spark Hill in Birmingham, and was the linchpin of Irish music within the centre of the city. He makes Kevin’s list by virtue of the quiet influence he exercised throughout the community.

Janice Connolly

Janice’s character Barbara Nice has made it to national TV on multiple occasions, and she is a mainstay of the Birmingham comedy scene.

Joe Lycett

Kevin’s choice is people’s champion, regular Channel 4 panel-show contributor, hilarious stand-up comic and extremely local-to-Mark-boy, Joe Lycett.

Honourable mentions

Alan Napier

Julie Walters

Rob Halford

Jamelia

Moeen Ali

Barbara Cartland

Arthur Darvill

Fred Dinenage

More of Rusty Nails

Follow @RustyNailsBeats on Twitter and listen to Titans of Doom’s latest single, Rise Up , in aid of the Northfield Community Partnership food bank.

Go further

Gary Sambrook eats big dinners

Links

Support the podcast

Guest

Liam Barrington-Bush

Helping keep neighbourhoods undesirable. Hip-hop. Anarchism. Community is the answer.

twitter.com

more like people

» Anarchists in the Boardroom | more like people

This week’s guest is Liam Barrington-Bush, a Bristol-based activist who helps organisations think more like people, and has loads of real-world experience of how people can govern themselves, build their own systems, and get closer to achieving what they want, without having those systems handed down to them.

After years of community activism and disillusionment with political systems, Liam discovered that people were capable of remarkable things when they weren’t being told what to do. Mark and Liam discuss the way the Internet has enabled or changed activism, but allowing information to spread to places that wouldn’t ordinarily be affected or invested. They also examine what happens after the dust has settled.

Argentine Occupy Factory movement

In the early 2000s, the Argentine economy tanked, and capital fled, so a number of factory workers began to challenge the notion of why they needed bosses in the first place, forming democratic assemblies to determine how to run the factories and even what they should produce.

Indignados movement

Following mass unemployment in Spain, a group of bloggers put together a manifesto calling for a demonstration. Thousands turned up, making camp in a Madrid square, and refusing to leave. The protests turned into a political movement with the English-translated name of “We Can”.

People’s uprising in Oaxaca, Mexico

In 2006, a teachers’ strike was exacerbated by the Mexican government dropping tear gas from helicopters onto the strikers. Although public will wasn’t initially behind the teachers, protests began to form in reaction to the government’s heavy-handed approach. Protesters eventually ousted the police and military forces from the city of Oaxaca, built their own barricades against the country’s military, and started holding twice-daily community assemblies.

Singing Revolution

In the mid 1980s, the then USSR was relaxing its laws on free speech in the hopes of quelling unrest. Meanwhile in Estonia, fear and anger over the dumping of phosphorite led to protests in which people would gather and sing Estonian protest songs. The movement spread to other baltic countries, until 1991, when Estonia regained its independence from Russia.

Sweets Way regeneration

In 2015, Liam was involved with a community in Barnet, London, who were fighting eviction and forced relocation to housing outside of the city. Once evicted, property developers who owned the buildings would make the flats unliveable, by destroying fixtures and fittings, so as a group, the remaining residents decided to occupy and rebuild the homes, together, as a way of demonstrating that these properties were still fit for purpose. Within days, people who’d been forced to relocate banded with the current residents, community members and squatters, using whatever they had to hand to give the properties the attention they needed and maintain dozens of them as homes for over 7 months.

Inner-London squatting in the 70s

At the height of housing shortages in the 70s, over thirty thousand people were living in squats in London, which led to the formation of the Advisory Service for Squatters which published the Squatter’s Handbook, and were instrumental in the Sweets Way occupation.

Rojava devolution

From his Turkish prison, guerrilla Marxist and Kurdish freedom fighter Abdullah Öcalan began reading writings on communalism by New Yorker Murray Bookchin, and developing a model for building a free society for the Kurdish people, which involves making decisions as close to the ground as possible, and has led to greater empowerment of women, a focus on environmentalism, and transformations in the justice system.

Even in the midst of a warzone in Northeast Syria, hundreds of thousands of Kurds (and other regional residents) have managed to practice a direct and localised form of democracy for several years, while being at the forefront of the succesful fight against ISIS’ advances in the region.

Sous les pavés, la plage!

In May 1968, protests at a Paris university led to its shutdown, with students refusing to leave, and as the conflict escalated, the French government responded with aggression. Sympathy with the protesters spread, leading to workers striking in solidarity, calls for a new government, and the fleeing of then President Charles de Gaulle. A full-on revolution was prevented after the government collapsed, and the message, translated into English as “under the paving stones, the beach!” became emblematic of the protests, as people tore up the paving slabs to find sand beneath.

Viome factory occupation

After a factory in Thessaloniki, Greece, was set to fold following the bosses’ desertion in the wake of the financial crisis, the workers took it over, and renamed it to Viome, b...

Guest

Liam Barrington-Bush

Helping keep neighbourhoods undesirable. Hip-hop. Anarchism. Community is the answer.

twitter.com

more like people » Anarchists in the Boardroom | more like people

This week’s guest is Liam Barrington-Bush, a Bristol-based activist who helps organisations think more like people, and has loads of real-world experience of how people can govern themselves, build their own systems, and get closer to achieving what they want, without having those systems handed down to them.

After years of community activism and disillusionment with political systems, Liam discovered that people were capable of remarkable things when they weren’t being told what to do. Mark and Liam discuss the way the Internet has enabled or changed activism, but allowing information to spread to places that wouldn’t ordinarily be affected or invested. They also examine what happens after the dust has settled.

Argentine Occupy Factory movement

In the early 2000s, the Argentine economy tanked, and capital fled, so a number of factory workers began to challenge the notion of why they needed bosses in the first place, forming democratic assemblies to determine how to run the factories and even what they should produce.

Indignados movement

Following mass unemployment in Spain, a group of bloggers put together a manifesto calling for a demonstration. Thousands turned up, making camp in a Madrid square, and refusing to leave. The protests turned into a political movement with the English-translated name of “We Can”.

People’s uprising in Oaxaca, Mexico

In 2006, a teachers’ strike was exacerbated by the Mexican government dropping tear gas from helicopters onto the strikers. Although public will wasn’t initially behind the teachers, protests began to form in reaction to the government’s heavy-handed approach. Protesters eventually ousted the police and military forces from the city of Oaxaca, built their own barricades against the country’s military, and started holding twice-daily community assemblies.

Singing Revolution

In the mid 1980s, the then USSR was relaxing its laws on free speech in the hopes of quelling unrest. Meanwhile in Estonia, fear and anger over the dumping of phosphorite led to protests in which people would gather and sing Estonian protest songs. The movement spread to other baltic countries, until 1991, when Estonia regained its independence from Russia.

Sweets Way regeneration

In 2015, Liam was involved with a community in Barnet, London, who were fighting eviction and forced relocation to housing outside of the city. Once evicted, property developers who owned the buildings would make the flats unliveable, by destroying fixtures and fittings, so as a group, the remaining residents decided to occupy and rebuild the homes, together, as a way of demonstrating that these properties were still fit for purpose. Within days, people who’d been forced to relocate banded with the current residents, community members and squatters, using whatever they had to hand to give the properties the attention they needed and maintain dozens of them as homes for over 7 months.

Inner-London squatting in the 70s

At the height of housing shortages in the 70s, over thirty thousand people were living in squats in London, which led to the formation of the Advisory Service for Squatters which published the Squatter’s Handbook , and were instrumental in the Sweets Way occupation.

Rojava devolution

From his Turkish prison, guerrilla Marxist and Kurdish freedom fighter Abdullah Öcalan began reading writings on communalism by New Yorker Murray Bookchin, and developing a model for building a free society for the Kurdish people, which involves making decisions as close to the ground as possible, and has led to greater empowerment of women, a focus on environmentalism, and transformations in the justice system.

Even in the midst of a warzone in Northeast Syria, hundreds of thousands of Kurds (and other regional residents) have managed to practice a direct and localised form of democracy for several years, while being at the forefront of the succesful fight against ISIS’ advances in the region.

Sous les pavés, la plage!

In May 1968, protests at a Paris university led to its shutdown, with students refusing to leave, and as the conflict escalated, the French government responded with aggression. Sympathy with the protesters spread, leading to workers striking in solidarity, calls for a new government, and the fleeing of then President Charles de Gaulle. A full-on revolution was prevented after the government collapsed, and the message, translated into English as “under the paving stones, the beach!” became emblematic of the protests, as people tore up the paving slabs to find sand beneath.

Viome factory occupation

After a factory in Thessaloniki, Greece, was set to fold following the bosses’ desertion in the wake of the financial crisis, the workers took it over, and renamed it to Viome, bringing in some of the people who’d help reform the factories in Buenos Aires. The people fought off attacks from the returning factory owners and the local community rallied around them. As a result, they transformed the output of the factory from toxic adhesives to affordable, eco-friendly household cleaning products.

Rage Against the Machine for Christmas #1

Following years of ITV shows deciding what should be the UK’s Christmas #1 — back when that felt important — a Facebook campaign was setup to encourage people to buy or download Rage Against the Machine’s 1991 hit Killing in the Name , so that it could beat the then X Factor winner Joe McElderry’s single The Climb. In some ways this was a spiritual successor to 2005’s story of Nizlopi whose JCB Song was, contrary to Mark’s memory, kept from the top slot by that year’s X Factor winner.

Honourable mentions

Mass trespass of Kinder Scout

Toppling of Edward Colston’s statue

More of Liam Barrington-Bush

Follow Liam on Twitter @hackofalltrades, and check out his website.

Go further

David Graeber, anthropologist, anarchist activist, and author

Accidental Anarchist, a film by Carne Ross

Teaching Rebellion

Anarchists in the Boardroom, Liam’s book

Links

Support the podcast

Guest

Nicholas Bond

Creator of the Retrogame Deconstruction Zone, focusing on early 1982.

twitter.com

Retrogame Deconstruction Zone

Today Mark is talking the golden age of arcade games, which ran from 1979 til around 1983. Mark and Nick start with their own childhood arcade memories, and Mark gets quizzical about the American quarter as a “unit of fun”. As this was recorded during the Quarantimes, conversation inevitably turned to the decline in in-person entertainment like arcades and cinemas.

Pac-Man

Nick’s first pick is the 800lb gorilla in the arcade, a game in which many other video game historians aren’t in love. Nick tells Mark about how he discovered a later-in-life love for the game, and gives a little behind-the-scenes colour on the game’s nascent AI.

Space Invaders

Mark’s first pick is almost the quintessential video game, but this iconic selection raises complex feelings in our listmate, due to its incredibly repetitive nature.

Defender

You can write a book on how many different strategies that can be used to play this 1981 shooter. It would go on to influence a great number of side-scrolling shooters in arcades and in the home.

Pole Position

Mark remembers sitting in a Pole Position cabinet, many years after the game has passed its peak, but this simple prototypical racer was a firm favourite and lived long into the 90s.

Mario Bros

Rather than picking its predecessor Donkey Kong, Nick elected to go with the beautiful, joyous Mario Bros. Can you believe Mark has never played a Mario platformer? Sacrilege.

Paperboy

From back when the pinnacle of video game destruction involved knocking over someone’s garden furniture or perhaps smashing in a window, Paperboy is Mark’s third pick

Galaga

At a time when many arcade games introduced random elements to make them operate a little more like slot machines, Galaga gave players the chance to learn and improve with each new pass.

Asteroids

Mark’s final pick is a classic to those who remember it, but hasn’t perhaps been passed down through the generations like some of the others discussed. The physics in the game are pretty impressive, and it does give us the chance to learn a little more about vector graphics.

Robotron 2048

Nick describes this as possibly being the single best action game of its era, but the maximalist explosions bely the deep strategical nature of the game. It was an early innovator in that it employed two joysticks: one for moving, and another for firing.

Honourable mentions

Berzerk

Qbert

More on Nicholas Bond

Nick blogs at the Retrogame Deconstruction Zone, and you can find him on Twitter @MrVGBrow.

More links

High Score documentary series on Netflix

Psygnosis (the video game publisher with the owl logo Mark was trying to think of)

10 hours of arcade noise

Masters of Doom

Podcast My Startup

Links

Support the podcast

Follow Mark on Twitter

Find more shows from the Outpost

Guest

Nicholas Bond

Creator of the Retrogame Deconstruction Zone, focusing on early 1982.

twitter.com

Retrogame Deconstruction Zone

Today Mark is talking the golden age of arcade games, which ran from 1979 til around 1983. Mark and Nick start with their own childhood arcade memories, and Mark gets quizzical about the American quarter as a “unit of fun”. As this was recorded during the Quarantimes, conversation inevitably turned to the decline in in-person entertainment like arcades and cinemas.

Pac-Man

Nick’s first pick is the 800lb gorilla in the arcade, a game in which many other video game historians aren’t in love. Nick tells Mark about how he discovered a later-in-life love for the game, and gives a little behind-the-scenes colour on the game’s nascent AI.

Space Invaders

Mark’s first pick is almost the quintessential video game, but this iconic selection raises complex feelings in our listmate, due to its incredibly repetitive nature.

Defender

You can write a book on how many different strategies that can be used to play this 1981 shooter. It would go on to influence a great number of side-scrolling shooters in arcades and in the home.

Pole Position

Mark remembers sitting in a Pole Position cabinet, many years after the game has passed its peak, but this simple prototypical racer was a firm favourite and lived long into the 90s.

Mario Bros

Rather than picking its predecessor Donkey Kong , Nick elected to go with the beautiful, joyous Mario Bros. Can you believe Mark has never played a Mario platformer? Sacrilege.

Paperboy

From back when the pinnacle of video game destruction involved knocking over someone’s garden furniture or perhaps smashing in a window, Paperboy is Mark’s third pick

Galaga

At a time when many arcade games introduced random elements to make them operate a little more like slot machines, Galaga gave players the chance to learn and improve with each new pass.

Asteroids

Mark’s final pick is a classic to those who remember it, but hasn’t perhaps been passed down through the generations like some of the others discussed. The physics in the game are pretty impressive, and it does give us the chance to learn a little more about vector graphics.

Robotron 2048

Nick describes this as possibly being the single best action game of its era, but the maximalist explosions bely the deep strategical nature of the game. It was an early innovator in that it employed two joysticks: one for moving, and another for firing.

Honourable mentions

Berzerk

Qbert

More on Nicholas Bond

Nick blogs at the Retrogame Deconstruction Zone, and you can find him on Twitter @MrVGBrow.

More links

High Score documentary series on Netflix

Psygnosis (the video game publisher with the owl logo Mark was trying to think of)

10 hours of arcade noise

Masters of Doom

Podcast My Startup

Links

Support the podcast

Follow Mark on Twitter

Find more shows from the Outpost

Guests

Catherine Turner

Cat presents Cat’s Cabinet of Curiosities with Tom Clabon, a show about conspiracy theories, cults, cryptozoology, crime and conundrums.

Cat's Cabinet of Curiosities

Cat's Cabinet of Curiosities (@catscabinet_pod) | Twitter

Tom Clabon

Co-producer of Cat’s Cabinet of Curiosities. general comedy/films/music person.

Tom Clabon (@tom_clabon) | Twitter

Mark is joined once more by Cat Turner and Tom Clabon to swap spooky stories. If you haven’t already checked out part one, you can do so now.

The call is coming from inside the house

Turns out this old teenage favourite – that feels like it could only happen in the 90s – may be based on some true events.

The Boston Dynamics robot fights back

Corridor Digital presented this video to the world, which shows a Boston Dynamics robot finally rising up against its human oppressors. It was of course later revealed to be a very good fake. Or was it? Yes, yes it was. OR WAS IT? Yep.

Petscop

Petscop is a supposedly haunted Playstation game from the late 90s or early 2000s, whose gameplay is chronicled on YouTube. Either that, or it’s a creepypasta ARG.

The Young Ones’ fifth housemate

If you remember this anarchic comedy from the 80s, you might not be aware that there existed, in a few shots, a creepy-looking silent housemate sat in a corner with hair over their face and hands on their knees. Little would the show’s directors know that twenty-some years later this would become a symbol of absolute terror.

Links

Support the podcast

Listen to Cat's Cabinet of Curisoities

Follow Mark on Twitter

Find more shows from the Outpost

The Beware of the Leopard Christmas special

Guests

Catherine Turner

Cat presents Cat’s Cabinet of Curiosities with Tom Clabon, a show about conspiracy theories, cults, cryptozoology, crime and conundrums.

Cat's Cabinet of Curiosities

Cat's Cabinet of Curiosities (@catscabinet_pod) | Twitter

Tom Clabon

Co-producer of Cat’s Cabinet of Curiosities. general comedy/films/music person.

Tom Clabon (@tom_clabon) | Twitter

Mark is joined once more by Cat Turner and Tom Clabon to swap spooky stories. If you haven’t already checked out part one, you can do so now.

The call is coming from inside the house

Turns out this old teenage favourite – that feels like it could only happen in the 90s – may be based on some true events.

The Boston Dynamics robot fights back

Corridor Digital presented this video to the world, which shows a Boston Dynamics robot finally rising up against its human oppressors. It was of course later revealed to be a very good fake. Or was it? Yes, yes it was. OR WAS IT? Yep.

Petscop

Petscop is a supposedly haunted Playstation game from the late 90s or early 2000s, whose gameplay is chronicled on YouTube. Either that, or it’s a creepypasta ARG.

The Young Ones’ fifth housemate

If you remember this anarchic comedy from the 80s, you might not be aware that there existed, in a few shots, a creepy-looking silent housemate sat in a corner with hair over their face and hands on their knees. Little would the show’s directors know that twenty-some years later this would become a symbol of absolute terror.

Links

Support the podcast

Listen to Cat’s Cabinet of Curisoities

Follow Mark on Twitter

Find more shows from the Outpost

The Beware of the Leopard Christmas special