the culture crunch

Peaky Blinders made Birmingham’s gangs famous worldwide. Historian Carl Chinn says the real story looks very different.

Carl is the great-grandson of a real Peaky Blinder, the son and grandson of illegal bookmakers from Sparkbrook and a former Professor of Community History at the University of Birmingham. He’s written over thirty books on the city’s working class and now hosts the podcast Our Lives, Our Stories.

In this conversation we cover:

- Growing up in a bookmaking family when cash betting was still illegal

- The line his great-uncles used to get him to university

- Why a razor blade in a flat cap doesn’t hold up and what the original Peaky Blinders wore instead- Why he thinks the Robin Hood image of the gangster is wrong

- What the BBC told him about his accent and what it cost him

Chapters

00:00 Growing up in a bookmaking family

06:09 The relative who sent him to university

11:24 Becoming a social historian

19:18 The real Peaky Blinders

28:07 Birmingham beyond the gangsters

30:53 Our Lives, Our Stories and the “class traitor” worry

33:08 The closing question and the cost of an accent

Carl’s podcast:  https://www.youtube.com/@OurLivesOurStories

If you want more conversations on the cultural ideas shaping our world, subscribe to the channel and on Substack. Be sure to like and comment too.

From a young age, men are socialised to view emotional intimacy as a liability and internalise their struggles.

But what happens when the "stoic mask" stops working? In this episode of the culture crunch, Jindy Mann dissects the origins of male isolation, how industrial culture shaped modern masculinity and why breaking character is often the first step towards genuine connection.

Timestamps:

00:00 - The Stoic Mask & Breaking Points

01:04 - Growing Up with Cultural Stoicism

02:16 - Losing my Father at 13

02:57 - The Copenhagen Hotel Room

04:09 - The Phone Call That Changed Everything

05:30 - White-Collar Corporate Culture & Isolation

07:16 - Where Have All The Flowers Gone?

09:41 - Media Stereotypes vs. Real Male Experience

10:31 - How Boys Are Socialised to Reject Intimacy

11:44 - Industrialisation and "The Machine Body"

12:52 - Creating the "Perfect Man for Capitalism"

14:04 - How Men’s Circles Actually Work16:05 - The Power of Just Asking

17:00 - "It's Great to Know I'm Not Alone"

19:00 - What Triggers Men to Seek Community?

21:28 - Navigating Algorithmic Noise & Culture

24:53 - The Fixation on the Manosphere

We think we know Orwell - Big Brother, surveillance, dystopia. But what if we've been looking at the wrong warning?

Professor Nathan Waddell explains what we're actually missing about Orwell in 2026.

In this conversation, we explore:

- Why Orwell cared about the everyday (boiled cabbage, grimed walls, physical discomfort).

- How our "frictionless" digital world makes us more vulnerable to manipulation.

- Why Notes on Nationalism might be more relevant than 1984 right now.

- Where we've dangerously oversimplified "Orwellian".

- What Orwell would make of our black mirror reality.

Professor Nathan Waddell is one of the UK's leading voices on George Orwell and author of "A Bright Cold Day: The Wonder of George Orwell."

This is the first in a new series of conversations exploring the cultural trends shaping our world - the shifts you sense but haven't seen explained.

Timestamps:

00:00 Introduction

00:54 The Orwellian Shorthand

02:04 Beyond the "Big Two": Why Animal Farm and 1984 dominate

03:52 The "Daily Orwell": How he leaned against a wall

06:27 Entry Points: Which Orwell book should you read first?

10:00 The Condensed Life: Orwell’s 20-year career

11:29 Friction vs Frictionless Worlds: What did Orwell think

17:12 Orwell's Relevance Today: Parallels with 1930s

22:19 The Orwell Playbook: Using essays to spot modern deception

26:29 Black Mirror Reality: Would Orwell be surprised by 2026?

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📚 Nathan's website: ⁠https://drnjwaddell.co.uk/⁠

🎙️Nathan's podcast: ⁠https://drnjwaddell.co.uk/reading-orwell⁠

✍️ Read the culture crunch: ⁠https://theculturecrunch.substack.com/⁠

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About the culture crunch:

Investigating the cultural trends shaping our world. Shifts you sense but haven't yet seen explained. Subscribe for more conversations with people obsessed with ideas that matter.