In this episode, Dara shares thoughts and reactions to the recent Tourette's Syndrome N-word debacle at the BAFTA awards. Rather than simply weighing in with his own perspective, he referred to Higher Learning, the Black culture podcast that he was sure would address the issue squarely and fairly. Whatever about the offence given, the discourse around both racism and Tourette's, and the N-word itself, the BBC emerged from the affair with very little credit.

The idea of objectification and being denied a complex full-bodied humanity ties in well with an article by a 15-year-old girl in which she lays out in stark terms the online landscape of sexism and misogyny that young women of her age are subjected to, both virtually and in the flesh. It has Dara recalling his recent episode on the Epstein files and the language he used as a teenage boy to describe and decry his female peers. He contextualises that before considering the current landscape and its impact on how adolescent boys regard girls. Is it possible the solution lies not with censorship or restricted access, but with older men cleaning house?

Ailie Nic an tSaoir, AKA alimcforever, the brilliant media and political analyst who posts excoriating viral videos on all things relating to institutional corruption and moral failure, had something very specific and typically well-researched to say about men who post unsolicited sexual messages at women online, and her own experience of dealing with same. Funny, sharp, and absolutely on point, she argues a disconnected life awaits those men who don't understand that women are more than their curves and orifices.

Guardian article on online misogyny experienced by teenage girls: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/feb/23/15-year-old-girl-misogyny-social-media-online-abuse

Alimcforever instagram profile: https://www.instagram.com/alimcforever/

Higher Learning podcast reaction to n-word BAFTAs controversy: https://www.theringer.com/podcasts/higher-learning-van-lathan-rachel-lindsay/2026/02/24/the-n-word-at-the-baftas-producing-r-kelly-and-gavin-newsom-backlash-fair-or-unfair

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In this episode, Dara revisits the careers and acting talent of two very special American actors - the very recently deceased Robert Duvall and Tom Noonan. Duvall had an amazingly long career from his breakthrough role in 1962's To Kill a Mockingbird, through the New Hollywood 70s and right on to this current decade. He was a performer of effortless and natural charm who was a master of quiet, deceptively unmannered acting.

Tom Noonan was much less of a mainstream star but no less an accomplished actor. He was utterly unique and idiosyncratic, almost impossible to pin down. An actor who always made unusual choices while fully inhabiting the characters he played, Dara recalls almost meeting him while in New York over twenty years ago. Alas, it was not to be.

Another Hollywood figure of less obvious renown also passed away this week. He was more accustomed to being behind the camera than in front of it, but his particular body of work was much less seen than those of Duvall or Noonan.

Dara shares his latest thoughts on the human condition before giving his unhappy review of Bradley Cooper's third directorial feature - Is This Thing On?

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In this episode, Dara is reflecting on ageing and mortality as he responds to his father's current health battles. His father, who has dementia, is in a particularly vulnerable state at the moment and though he is confident the situation is only temporary, Dara knows it is an undeniable sign of the direction of travel that will only end in one place.

Avoiding an overindulgence of morbid wallowing, Dara engages with his response to what's going on and how it is stirring things up in his psychic basement. He references the old Marvel comics that are strewn around the surfaces of the home studio and which were recently exhumed from a watery cellar in his parents' house. Careworn and damp, they reflect something of the memories and images that have been rising to the surface in Dara's mind. But he's not quite ready to go there yet.

Also, training the new dog, conversations by the shoreline, and sweaty bladders!

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With the latest release of Jeffrey Epstein files, Dara feels he wants to weigh in on the latest revelations and the famous people implicated. What can be so powerful to cause people to utterly disregard the female victims of Epstein's trafficking operation? Is it a comment on the high society movers and shakers, or on the young women much further down the food chain? Or both?

Dara revisits his adolescence and honestly recalls the way he and his male friends used to categorise their female peers - the ubiquitous labels were very few and brutally unsophisticated. He mitigates their use by allowing for gross immaturity and broadly speaking, the sexual cluelessness of he and his pals. Over a few short years both sides of the gender aisle benefitted from a reasonable amount of growing up.

So if Dara and other boys like him could turn the corner before they left school, why were the men (and women) in Epstein's sphere of influence so singularly unable to do so? It has much more to do with power than sex.

The best kind of dogs have so much more to offer us than the human kind.

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In this episode, Dara reviews Hamnet and Train Dreams, two very successful films in which nature is integral to the experiences of the protagonists. Jessie Buckley lights up Hamnet as a child of nature, and in Train Dreams, Joel Edgerton's solitary logman carries with him an ineffable sadness and sense of guilt as he chops his way through North American forests in the first half of the twentieth century.

Both stories depict nature and the natural world as vast, unknowable entities that nonetheless have immeasurable repercussions when they are not given due respect and care. Both are stories from the past with resonant lessons for the modern moment. Warming to that theme, Dara considers the oppositionality of nature to modernity and the unsustainable aspect of cities that never stop expanding, becoming metaphors for capitalism itself.

Dara identifies a suspiciousness of nature in the comments of certain movie critics when they were reviewing Hamnet. Highly critical of their response, he recognises this as a New World anti-savage position, something that speaks to the fear of modernisation and civility being defied. He names some films that confront this tension head on, including two Australian classics - Wake in Fright and Picnic at Hanging Rock.

2016 ClearOut piece on the natural life: https://theclearout.com/advice-for-the-young-and-impressionable/its-only-natural/

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In this episode, Dara reckons with the endless repetitions and circuits of day-to-day living - how can they be imbued with meaning? Or do we remain passive and wait for meaning to be conferred from outside? And can meaning really be found in the morning cup of coffee, or the daily stroll in the woods?

Dara worries about the distorting effect of meeting the world via online spaces. The performative, curated, and orchestrated nature of so much content is not to be trusted, he argues. He compares two very different pieces of content, one utterly contrived and manipulative, the other produced and structured, but absolutely natural.

The place of the natural is central to Dara's conception of being well. He adds to that the idea not of being happy, but of being satisfied with different elements in one's life. He positions satisfaction as being akin to acceptance of imperfection and therefore a more attainable goal than the mythical 'happiness'.

Nully the puppy is beside the microphone for the first part of the show, but is discreetly confined to quarters not long after. A more natural arrangement!

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To kick off a new year of the podcast, Dara looks back at his viewing pleasure and displeasure of 2025 and drops some top tens for your consideration. Beginning with a wrap-up of last year's Oscar-winning and nominated titles, he goes on to list his favourite films of 2025, as well as his top films outside that group. There are some obvious choices there as well as a couple of surprises.

Dara includes a list of movies that he was catching up on from the last few years that he considers worthy of inclusion - these are nice ones that could well have passed you by. Rewatched movies and classics is the other main list, and there are some absolute crackers on it. Oh, and of course time is made to name the duds of last year. A quick round-up of TV, good and bad, brings things to a close.

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It's the 2025 Christmas special! Dara presents his new seasonal story, hot off the press! In 'Early Service', an exhausted daughter sits down with her philandering father for their annual Christmas night out. Can they survive their oppositional tendencies? Will something magical help them transcend their differences? Why does the holiday mean such different things to each of them?

Good news for lovers of the ClearOut Christmas concert - Chiara is back! Forced out through illness the previous two years, she makes a most welcome return and succeeds in making Dara's singing sound slightly less clunky than when he is left to his own devices. Three Christmas favourites are given a serviceable run.

Happy Christmas and thanks for listening!

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In this episode it is Dara's great pleasure to sit down and have a long overdue chat with his great friend and former college buddy, Aengus Devine. Aengus is a gifted musician, singer and songwriter, and has sustained a long career as a professional musician. At the end of their long and winding conversation, Aengus plays his lovely new Christmas single 'God Save Christmas'.

Before that, the conversation stays firmly in the world of music, with thoughts on 50s rock and roll and its influence on The Beatles and The Rolling Stones; the dubious impression of being seen in public carrying a Barry Manilow album; why Pet Sounds is no Sgt. Pepper's; actors who were also singers; separating art from the artist; favourite Christmas songs and much more.

Dara takes a quiet moment at the start of the episode to briefly share his thoughts on two shocking incidents that occurred over the weekend - the terror attack on a Jewish Hanukkah gathering in Bondi Beach in Sydney, and the killing in their home of the American film director Rob Reiner and his wife Michele.

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In this episode, Dara is wondering if the spirit of the season is upon you, or if you're still waiting for that festive feeling to announce itself. The price of beef isn't helping much. Nor is the price of Christmas trees, for that matter! And why does his daughter have so much to do?

Ignoring those sources of exhaustion and exasperation, Dara launches into a sheaf of Christmas poems from both sides of the Atlantic. Christmases exotic and local, Christmases lonely and loving, Christmases urban and rural, they're all represented. Just don't tell Dara that you knew what a 'garrigue' was!

Christmas poems from PoetryFoundation.org: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/collections/101692/christmas-poems

Christmas Crackers: https://www.candlestickpress.co.uk/pamphlet/christmas-crackers-ten-poems-to-surprise-and-delight/

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