Another of our weekend bonus editions… When author Jon Ronson’s son texted him from a supposed party in a medieval castle (?) and said it was getting “very weird”, Jon had no idea that it would open the door into some of the strangest reaches of the manosphere. In the resulting book The Castle, he meets a fantasist who thinks he’s the new Hugh Hefner; a man who cranks out far-right rage videos that he doesn’t even believe just because the algorithm drives him to it; and a dad whose “fun” family videos ended up with him being denounced online as an abuser. Is social media unmooring modern men from reality… or are they heading that way anyway? And is writing books like this Jon’s own way escaping the “world of male nothingness”? 

• Buy The Castle through our affiliate bookshop and you’ll help fund Oh God What Now by earning us a small commission for every sale. Bookshop.org’s fees help support independent bookshops too.

• Questions for But Your Emails? Thoughts? Comments? Email us at [email protected]. 

• Find out if you’re owed on car finance at refundclub.co.uk/OGWN  

• Refund Club is a trading style of Sandsford Law Limited, authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA no. 8008114). Checking is free. A fee is payable only if your claim is successful. Eligibility: car finance taken out in the UK between 2007 and 2021. The average claim is around £829 per agreement; this is an average and not a guarantee of the amount you will receive. You can also claim yourself for free by contacting your lender or the Financial Ombudsman Service. refundclub.co.uk/OGWN

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Presented by Andrew Harrison. Audio Production by Tom Taylor. Art direction: James Parrett. Theme tune by Tom Taylor and Simon Williams. Managing Editor: Jacob Jarvis. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. OH GOD, WHAT NOW? is a Podmasters production.

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Andy Burnham wants to change who holds the power in Britain, taking the levers of government out of Whitehall’s hands. Plenty of his predecessors have tried – and failed – to make their vision stick. So, can the PM’s model survive contact with reality? Veteran journalist Phil Tinline joins us to weigh in. 

Plus: poor old Tommy Robinson is apparently skint, de-banked and has “nothing to hide”. So how did a brand-new Channel 4 investigation allegedly find a live bank account, a Portuguese shell company and £250,000-worth of questions? And in the Extra Bit... does nicking a pint glass make you a criminal or just British?

• Read Phil’s piece in Prospect Magazine, Andy Burnham’s theory of power.

• Questions for But Your Emails? Thoughts? Comments? Email us at [email protected]. 

ESCAPE ROUTES

• Ros has been watching the third series of Colin from Accounts on BBC iPlayer

• Jason immersed himself in tunes and pints of ale at the annual Faversham Hop Festival

• Phil has been listening to Bassvictim, the Polish rap, electroclash duo

• Zoë went to the screening of Sky’s upcoming docudrama, The Wargame – WHICH SHE’S IN!

• Listen to Terror Century, The Bunker’s three-part mini-series marking the 25th anniversary of 9/11

• Find out if you’re owed on car finance at refundclub.co.uk/OGWN  

• Refund Club is a trading style of Sandsford Law Limited, authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA no. 8008114). Checking is free. A fee is payable only if your claim is successful. Eligibility: car finance taken out in the UK between 2007 and 2021. The average claim is around £829 per agreement; this is an average and not a guarantee of the amount you will receive. You can also claim yourself for free by contacting your lender or the Financial Ombudsman Service. refundclub.co.uk/OGWN

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Presented by Zoë Grünewald with Jason Hazeley, Ros Taylor and Phil Tinline. Produced by James Liddell. Audio Production by Tom Taylor. Art direction: James Parrett. Theme tune by Tom Taylor and Simon Williams. Managing Editor: Jacob Jarvis. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. OH GOD, WHAT NOW? is a Podmasters production.

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Nigel Farage’s family has even urged him to “pack it in” and “walk away” amid recent scandals. Can he and his party survive the latest scrutiny? The beleaguered Reform leader tried to appear unruffled at his party conference after a bombshell Channel 4 documentary raised fresh questions about foreign donations. What will come next? Plus: masked anti-migrant protestors took to the streets of Dover and Portsmouth over the weekend trying to take the law into their own hands. Is the rule of the mob on the rise?

ESCAPE ROUTES

• Rachel was reminded of Frank Turner’s ability to transcend divides after her husband watched him perform live at the Moseley Folk & Arts Festival

• Raf finally went to the West End to watch the satirical World War 2 musical Operation Mincemeat

• Jonn has been bingeing the brand-new third season of the BBC’s smash-hit Vigil

• Seth went to the UK’s “biggest sauna” – the Royal Albert Hall – to watch BBC Proms

• Questions for But Your Emails? Thoughts? Comments? Email us at [email protected]. 

• Find out if you’re owed on car finance at refundclub.co.uk/OGWN

• Refund Club is a trading style of Sandsford Law Limited, authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA no. 8008114). Checking is free. A fee is payable only if your claim is successful. Eligibility: car finance taken out in the UK between 2007 and 2021. The average claim is around £829 per agreement; this is an average and not a guarantee of the amount you will receive. You can also claim yourself for free by contacting your lender or the Financial Ombudsman Service. refundclub.co.uk/OGWN

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Presented by Seth Thévoz with Jonn Elledge, Rachel Cunliffe and Rafael Behr. Produced by James Liddell. Audio Production by Tom Taylor. Art direction: James Parrett. Theme tune by Tom Taylor and Simon Williams. Managing Editor: Jacob Jarvis. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. OH GOD, WHAT NOW? is a Podmasters production.

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Weekend bonus episode… Britain still mired in Brexit, Europe divided, economic stagnation in the West and Donald Trump’s disastrous culture wars and actual wars. Are they all just a blip in human history or does the West’s decline mark the beginning of a new world order? What if that future belongs to rising powers of the East – China and India?

That’s the premise of Sir Vince Cable’s new book, Eclipsing the West: China, India and the Forging of a New World. The former Liberal Democrat leader talks to Rafael Behr about how China and India are increasingly shaping the world – and where (and if) Britain fits in. 

• Buy Vince’s book Eclipsing the West: China, India and the forging of a new world from our affiliate bookshop and you’ll help fund the podcast by earning us a small commission for every sale. Bookshop.org’s fees help support independent bookshops too.

• Questions for But Your Emails? Thoughts? Comments? Email us at [email protected]. 

www.patreon.com/ohgodwhatnow

Written and presented by Rafael Behr. Produced by James Liddell. Audio Production by Tom Taylor. Art direction: James Parrett. Theme tune by Tom Taylor and Simon Williams. Managing Editor: Jacob Jarvis. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. OH GOD, WHAT NOW? is a Podmasters production.

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Fast reaction with News Statesman’s associate political editor Rachel Cunliffe and Jacob Jarvis. Nigel Farage and Reform are facing another crisis after two – now former – senior officials were filmed in an undercover sting appearing to plot how to circumvent electoral law to bag a £500,000 foreign donation… Reform says it’s all a “hoax”, predictably… Can Reform weather the storm? Is Farage totally done for? And what might happen next?

• Find out if you’re owed on car finance at refundclub.co.uk/OGWN

• Refund Club is a trading style of Sandsford Law Limited, authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA no. 8008114). Checking is free. A fee is payable only if your claim is successful. Eligibility: car finance taken out in the UK between 2007 and 2021. The average claim is around £829 per agreement; this is an average and not a guarantee of the amount you will receive. You can also claim yourself for free by contacting your lender or the Financial Ombudsman Service. refundclub.co.uk/OGWN

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Presented by Jacob Jarvis with Rachel Cunliffe. Produced by James Liddell. Audio Production by Chris Jones. Art direction: James Parrett. Theme tune by Tom Taylor and Simon Williams. Managing Editor: Jacob Jarvis. OH GOD, WHAT NOW? is a Podmasters production.

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Facebook owners Meta hit the headlines with an $18bn settlement in the US over accusations that its products had harmed kids. But was the bill really so onerous, or just the price of keeping Zuckerberg out of the witness box? Special guest Baroness Beeban Kidron OBE – activist, digital rights champion and former film director – talks us through the reality of the fight to protect kids online; whether Britain’s digital curfews for teens will work; and the dirty digital deals done behind doors to protect Big Tech.

Plus, Andy Burnham promised more problem solving than point-scoring in his Prime Minister's Questions debut… and it lasted about five minutes. How did the PM shape up – and was it the baptism of fire we expected?

And in the Extra Bit: Will your mind really “flood with ideas” if you stop listening to podcasts, as one Guardian writer suggests? Our panel weighs in. 

• Buy Beeban’s book Users: How Big Tech Took Control and How to Fight Back from our affiliate bookshop and you’ll help fund the podcast by earning us a small commission for every sale. Bookshop.org’s fees help support independent bookshops too.

• Questions for But Your Emails? Thoughts? Comments? Email us at [email protected]. 

ESCAPE ROUTES

• James saw the animated legal comedy Coyote vs Acme and read Jon Ronson’s latest, The Castle: Adventures in a World of Unravelling Men.

• Jason also watched Coyote vs Acme and read 31 Inventions that Built Our World by OGWN regular Jonn Elledge.

• Beeban watched Arsenal scrape a win against Aston Villa and is re-reading Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita.

• Andrew went to Krankenhaus Festival in Cumbria and saw Sea Power, Pictish Trail and Smote, and spotted Green MP Hannah Spencer. He’s also been bingeing the TV series Lanterns.

• Find out if you’re owed on car finance at refundclub.co.uk/OGWN

• Refund Club is a trading style of Sandsford Law Limited, authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA no. 8008114). Checking is free. A fee is payable only if your claim is successful. Eligibility: car finance taken out in the UK between 2007 and 2021. The average claim is around £829 per agreement; this is an average and not a guarantee of the amount you will receive. You can also claim yourself for free by contacting your lender or the Financial Ombudsman Service. refundclub.co.uk/OGWN.

www.patreon.com/ohgodwhatnow

Presented by Group Editor Andrew Harrison with James Ball, Jason Hazeley and Beeban Kidron. Produced by James Liddell. Audio production: Chris Jones. Art direction: James Parrett. Theme tune by Tom Taylor and Simon Williams. Managing Editor: Jacob Jarvis. OH GOD, WHAT NOW? is a Podmasters production.

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Andy Burnham is feeling a sudden wave of the back-to-school blues. Not only did Keir Starmer tactlessly decide to quit Parliament just before his first Commons speech, but a long list of challenges is also piling up in the PM’s in-tray. So, what’s causing Burnham the biggest headaches? Is the Burnham bounce finally over? And what happens next?

Plus: Badenoch reshuffles her shadow cabinet, Iceland rejects the EU and Trump tries to rename yet more geographical features… and questions Britain’s claim to the Falklands.

•  Listen as Gavin Esler explores the breakneck evolution of military technology in This Is Not A Drill’s brand new four-part mini-series

• Questions for But Your Emails? Thoughts? Comments? Email us at [email protected]. 

• Find out if you’re owed on car finance at refundclub.co.uk/OGWN

• Refund Club is a trading style of Sandsford Law Limited, authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA no. 8008114). Checking is free. A fee is payable only if your claim is successful. Eligibility: car finance taken out in the UK between 2007 and 2021. The average claim is around £829 per agreement; this is an average and not a guarantee of the amount you will receive. You can also claim yourself for free by contacting your lender or the Financial Ombudsman Service.

ESCAPE ROUTES

• Marie read Ursula K. Le Guin’s sci-fi novella Paradises Lost

• Hannah has been bingeing Season 5 of Couples Therapy, which has just landed on BBC iPlayer

• Ros went to the cinema twice, first to see Pedro Almodóvar’s Bitter Christmas and then De Gaulle: Résistance, a biopic on the great Gallic general

• Matt has been reading Running Through Sand: An Ageing Comedian’s Ill-Thought-Out Ultra in the Sahara by Paul Tonkinson

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Presented by Matt Green with Hannah Fearn, Ros Taylor and Marie Le Conte. Produced by James Liddell. Audio production: Robin Leeburn. Art direction: James Parrett. Theme tune: Tom Taylor and Simon Williams. Managing Editor: Jacob Jarvis. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison OH GOD, WHAT NOW? is a Podmasters production.

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The first of our occasional weekend bonus episodes… Bewildered by the tangled stories of Putin’s war on Ukraine, Trump’s incomprehensible loyalty to the Russian tyrant, and Russia’s interference in British politics? The Guardian’s foreign correspondent Luke Harding ties all the threads together in his riveting new book Betrayed: Trump, Putin And The New Age Of Conquest – laying bare how thoroughly Putin played Trump and the enormity of what has happened to our old world of rules.  

He talks to Andrew Harrison about the big picture that daily news misses, the return of Great Power politics, and whether Donald Trump really is a Russian asset.  

• Buy Luke’s book Betrayal: Trump, Putin and The New Age of Conquest from our affiliate bookshop and you’ll help fund the podcast by earning us a small commission for every sale. Bookshop.org’s fees help support independent bookshops too. 

• Questions for But Your Emails? Thoughts? Comments? Email us at [email protected].  

• Photo: Trump greets Putin on the tarmac in Anchorage, Alaska on August 15 2025. (Photo by Kremlin Press Service / Handout/Anadolu via Getty Images) 

Support us on Patreon - www.patreon.com/ohgodwhatnow 

Written and presented by Group Editor Andrew Harrison. Produced by James Liddell. Audio Production by Tom Taylor. Art direction: James Parrett. Theme tune by Tom Taylor and Simon Williams. Managing Editor: Jacob Jarvis. OH GOD, WHAT NOW? is a Podmasters production. 

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Good news for newsrooms: Harry and Meghan are back in Britain and editors are beside themselves. We might say we don’t care about “Reverse Megxit” but why does the clickrate say otherwise? Plus: Giftgate was only two years ago, but MPs are still accepting freebies. They’ve taken almost £400,000 of hospitality this year alone – including tickets to Harry Styles and the F1. But is that necessarily so bad? Are freebies a serious conflict of interest or do we just want politicians to live in a hair shirt? And in the Extra Bit: people are queuing to take photos at beauty spots – are we all just compliant sheep who need to get over our strangling cultural traditions?

• Get up to £350 off the Eight Sleep Pod 5 here with the code OGWN

• Questions for But Your Emails? Thoughts? Comments? Email us at [email protected]. 

ESCAPE ROUTES

• Marie went to watch Tony, the biopic about the late rockstar chef-turned-broadcaster Anthony Bourdain

• Seth watched 60’s crime thriller Cash on Demand – like a “noirish bank heist version” of Dickens ’ A Christmas Carol

• Rachel hasn’t been able to put down Jon Ronson’s new book The Castle: Adventures in a World of Unravelling Men

• Ros has begun watching supernatural French drama Sea Shadows (or Rivages in French)

www.patreon.com/ohgodwhatnow

Presented by Ros Taylor with Marie Le Conte, Rachel Cunliffe and Seth Thévoz. Produced by James Liddell. Audio Production by Tom Taylor. Art direction: James Parrett. Theme tune by Tom Taylor and Simon Williams. Managing Editor: Jacob Jarvis. OH GOD, WHAT NOW? is a Podmasters production.

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Is communism having a mini revival? Marxist critiques and socialist ideas are becoming the in thing with Gen Z, while Donald Trump is harking back to the Red Scare of his youth to attack the Democrats. Is it anything more than a resurrected bogeyman for the right? Man of the left, veteran journalist and friend of the pod Paul Mason joins the panel to discuss Reds: A Global History of Communism, his sweeping new history of the movement. Plus: Andy Burnham heads to Ukraine with missile plans in hand, Reform’s bullshit policy of the week and much, much more.  

• Questions for But Your Emails? Thoughts? Comments? Email us at [email protected]. 

• Buy Paul’s book Reds: A Global History of Communism from our affiliate bookshop and you’ll help fund the podcast by earning us a small commission for every sale. Bookshop.org’s fees help support independent bookshops too.

ESCAPE ROUTES

• Zoë has started watching award-winning medical drama The Pitt

• Jonn has been watching the BBC murder mystery Ludwig

• Paul went to watch Adrian Lester star as the titular character in Cyrano de Bergerac at the Noël Coward Theatre in London’s West End

• Andrew has been bingeing the late ’70s British fantasy TV hit Sapphire and Steel

www.patreon.com/ohgodwhatnow

Presented by Group Editor Andrew Harrison with Zoë Grünewald, Jonn Elledge and Paul Mason. Produced by James Liddell. Audio Production by Tom Taylor. Art direction: James Parrett. Theme tune by Tom Taylor and Simon Williams. Managing Editor: Jacob Jarvis. OH GOD, WHAT NOW? is a Podmasters production.

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