Return Ticket

Tasmanian residents and cartoonists First Dog on the Moon and Jon Kudelka tell everyone they know that Tasmania is awful. The snakes. The weather. The people. But in truth, why does half of Australia want to live there? 

Venice is the anti-tabula rasa. Here, residents and visitors alike must rise up to meet its demands. But you can't help but feel this old and adored city is being crushed under the weight of history, the literal weight of tourists, and the twin pressures of having too much water and then, not enough. So, is the Venice we know slowly dying by a thousand cuts?

The story of the Malaysian capital is a story of resources, from tin, petrol, and palm oil. But if there's one resource to understand the metropolis that is Kuala Lumpur today it's rubber.

It's responsible for the city's art deco architecture, modern multiculturalism, and a roaring global trade. It's no wonder Malaysia still supplies half of the world's natural rubber.

Editor's note 18/11/22: This episode has been revised to include an important reference to Malaysia’s ethnic tensions.

In a city where every flip of the card and roll of the dice could cost you, are the odds ever really in your favour?

Exploring the maths of chance, we ponder: what are the odds of running out of water in Las Vegas? What are the odds of getting married by an Elvis impersonator? And what are the odds of coming home with more than you started with?

Card sharks and the King may have the answers.

Guests:

• Chad Collins, Elvis impersonator and wedding celebrant at the Little Chapel of Hearts, Las Vegas
• Michael Shackleford aka The Wizard of Odds, a former professional actuary who has made a career of analysing casino games
• Giulio Boccaletti, a physicist and climate scientist. He is the author of Water: A Biography

Credits:

• Jonathan Green, presenter 
• Hayley Crane, producer 
• Alan Weedon, producer
• Rhiannon Brown, executive producer 
• Brendan O'Neill, sound engineer

Can it be true that 94 per cent of Parisians live less than five minutes from a bakery? In a country where eating lunch at your desk is illegal, and people-watching at the local boulangerie is a philosophy, what can the rise and fall of bread tell us about Paris and its inhabitants? 

Return Ticket is back with a new season… and we've got questions about travel.

Like what the odds of getting married by an Elvis impersonator in Las Vegas? 

Does bread make Paris or does Paris make bread? 

Why is Kuala Lumpur so rubbery? 

What's making Venice drown?

And is Tasmania really that terrible? 

To find the answers to these questions and more, come with us on little journeys of the mind to destinations familiar and obscure.

First episode out on October 14. 

Tokyo is one of the world’s most densely populated urban areas. So how do they manage the human crush? To answer that you need to look at Japan’s rich design history, and specifically, that design culture’s fondness for simplicity and efficiency.  It’s a hugeness constructed of smallness. A density set against the constant possibility of fragments of calm. In Tokyo, we find beauty in busyness, a place where minimalism soothes the maxi city. A place where mess is more.

The human crush of Mumbai is a sight to behold. Places where tens of millions make the jump from informal to formal space — or vice versa — daily. But there's one thing that unites one of the world's most populated cities — the need for a good feed.

We're going to spend a day in the life of Mumbai via the routes of the city's famed tiffin delivery workers. By, foot, motorcycle, train, or car, a seemingly unimaginable number of home-cooked meals traverse the city in metal tiffins, making their way from home to workplace, or from more industrialised made-to-order hubs.

They’re universes unto themselves. Thailand’s newfound wealth has spurred on the development of Bangkok’s mega-mall. It’s a totalising form of urbanism that helps us understand the tensions of this modern, cosmopolitan capital.  

In this episode, we head to a new mall that’s delivering Vegas Casino camp alongside Michelin Star eateries. IconSiam is multi-billion-dollar development where you can grab cheap street food in a mock Thai village, and then blow a million on a new Rolls Royce.

Welcome to a never-ending story. Beijing's the world's most populous capital city, and it's a place where the trials and tribulations of China's ascendancy are being played out in real-time. So how do you even begin to get into a place as complex and rich as this?

Well… it's time to hop on the bike.

In this episode, we'll be looking at how Beijing's relationship with the bike tells a bigger story about China's development, its current class tensions, and how some locals find sanctuary in an otherwise forbidding environment.