Phil has just returned from a week Northern Ireland - a place where he worked during ‘the Troubles’. It prompted him to think about the peace process there, today’s fashionable support for the pro-IRA (and allegedly pro Hezbollah) band called Kneecap, and why history tends to be kind to extremists.

Then Sam Kelly joins from America to discuss his fantastic, often scandalous and sometimes very funny book on why drugs explain all human history. It’s a little tongue in cheek but it reveals so many terrific new angles on some of the most celebrated figures of all time - from Alexander the Great through George Washington to Queen Victoria!

Sam’s book is available here...

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Human-Histor...

Several Australia listeners have asked for a full list of where Phil is speaking there in October. And so here are six opportunities to see him and say ‘G’Day’.

1) Perth 9 October...

Was Australia Always the Good Guy in 1945? With Phil Craig

https://www.trybooking.com/events/landing/1379337

2) Melbourne with Prof Clare Wright 10 October...

Phil Craig in conversation with Clare Wright.

https://www.trybooking.com/events/landing/1424756

3) Day Long conference in Melbourne 11 October...

Fighting to the Finish: Australia in 1945 – Strategy, Victory and Legacy – MHHV

https://www.mhhv.org.au/event/fighting-to-the-finish-australia-in-1945-strategy-victory-and-legacy/

4) Sydney with Chris Masters 12 October

Author Talk: 1945 The Reckoning - Phil Craig

https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/author-talk-1945-the-reckoning-phil-craig-tickets-1248763849289

5) Sydney with Michaela Kalowski 12 October...

Author Talk and Book Launch - Phil Craig ‘1945: The Reckoning’

https://events.humanitix.com/author-talk-and-book-launch-phil-craig-1945-the-reckoning

6) Canberra with Christine Helliwell 15 October...

Marking the end of the Second World War | Australian War Memorial

https://www.awm.gov.au/the-end-of-the-second-world-war

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Is there a peace process underway between Prince Harry and his father? Recent photographs suggest that there is. But inside the feuding royal households, just who is backing peace and who isn’t? And what will Meghan and Catherine think about it? Phil has been working his contacts to find out more.

Then Phil returns to WW2 with a completely new angle on a story he knows very well - the Battle of Britain.

Victoria Taylor has produced a new account that highlights the German experience of the battle, and it reveals some fascinating new stories about the all important summer of 1940 when the destiny of the world truly hung in the balance.

There’s also information and extracts from Phil’s new book here..

https://sites.google.com/view/1945the...

You can order the book now on Amazon UK and Amazon India, Australia and New Zealand...

https://www.amazon.co.uk/1945-Reckoni...

**We now have a Thank You button (next to the ’three dots’) for small donations that help support our work**

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THE SCANDAL MONGERS PODCAST is also available to watch on Youtube...

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Phil is a self confessed ‘cricket tragic’ and he’s not the only one. This week Tim Wigmore joins him to reveal the real story of Test cricket - the international version of the game. It’s a tale packed with moments of great sporting endeavour, triumphs and disasters, human courage…and a lot of scandal.

You can buy Tim’s book here...

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Test-Cricket-Definitive-History-Today/dp/1529428610

There’s also information and extracts from Phil’s new book here..

https://sites.google.com/view/1945the...

You can order the book now on Amazon UK and Amazon India, Australia and New Zealand...

https://www.amazon.co.uk/1945-Reckoni...

**We now have a Thank You button (next to the ’three dots’) for small donations that help support our work**

Looking for the perfect gift for a special scandalous someone - or someone you’d like to get scandalous with? We’re here to help...

https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/ScandalM....

*** If you enjoy our work please consider clicking the YouTube subscribe button, even if you listen to us on an audio app. It will help our brand to grow and our content to reach new ears.

THE SCANDAL MONGERS PODCAST is also available to watch on Youtube...

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The Scandal Mongers...

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Phil returns to the secret side of WW2 with the incredible story of Elzbieta Zawacka, the WW2 female resistance fighter known as Agent Zo. As writer Clare Mulley explains, she was the only woman to reach London from Warsaw during the Second World War as an emissary of the Polish Home Army command, and then in Britain she became the only woman to join the Polish elite Special Forces, known as the 'Silent Unseen'. She was secretly trained in the British countryside, and then the only female member of these SOE affiliated forces to be parachuted back behind enemy lines to Nazi-occupied Poland. There, whilst being hunted by the Gestapo who arrested her entire family, she took a leading role in the Warsaw Uprising and the liberation of Poland.

After the war she was demobbed as one of the most highly decorated women in Polish history. Yet the Soviet-backed post-war Communist regime not only imprisoned her, but also ensured that her remarkable story remained hidden for over forty years.

You can buy Claire's book here...

https://www.amazon.com/Agent-Zo-Fearless-Resistance-Elzbieta/dp/1399601067

There’s also information and extracts from Phil’s new book here...

https://sites.google.com/view/1945thereckoning/home

You can order his book now on Amazon UK and Amazon Australia, India and NZ - and it is available all around the world as an e-book and an audio book...

https://www.amazon.co.uk/1945-Reckoning-Empire-Struggle-World/dp/139971449X/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=#

***We now have a Thank You button (next to the ’three dots’) for small donations that help support our work***

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https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/ScandalMongers...

*** If you enjoy our work please consider clicking the YouTube subscribe button, even if you listen to us on an audio app. It will help our brand to grow and our content to reach new ears.

THE SCANDAL MONGERS PODCAST is also available to watch on YouTube...

https://www.youtube.com/@thescandalmongerspodcast

The Scandal Mongers...

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Phil Craig...

https://x.com/philmcraig

You can get in touch with the show via...

[email protected]

(place 'Scandal Mongers' in the heading)

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This week we look - for the first time - at a novel and Phil is joined by writer Gill Hornby.

The Elopement is the third book in a trilogy exploring the world of Jane Austen’s family and the first in the series - Miss Austen - was recently turned into a much praised drama series by the BBC and PBS. 

Gill research into the world that Jane Austen memorably described has been described as painstaking and emotionally accurate, and her books have even drawn comparisons with Austen’s own writing for their wit, sense of observation…and pointed social commentary, especially about the status of women in Regency England.  

You can buy the book at our own bookshop - along with thousands of others.

The Elopement a book by Gill Hornby.

uk.bookshop.org

There’s also information and extracts from Phil’s new book here 

1945 The Reckoning

sites.google.com

You can order the book now on Amazon UK and Amazon India, Australia and New Zealand

https://www.amazon.co.uk/1945-Reckoning-Empire-Struggle-World/dp/139971449X/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=#

***We now have a Thank You button (next to the ’three dots’) for small donations that help support our work***

Looking for the perfect gift for a special scandalous someone - or someone you’d like to get scandalous with? We’re here to help...

https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/ScandalMongers...

*** If you enjoy our work please consider clicking the YouTube subscribe button, even if you listen to us on an audio app. It will help our brand to grow and our content to reach new ears.

THE SCANDAL MONGERS PODCAST is also available to watch on YouTube...

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The Scandal Mongers...

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Phil Craig...

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You can get in touch with the show via...

[email protected]

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Mok O’`Keeffe returns as co-host and, together with Phil, explores the complex subject of privacy with Tiffany Jenkins, whose new book Strangers and Intimates makes the case that we need to restore the idea of a truly private life back to the heart of our society.

So when does the right to know over-rule our right to privacy?

Ranging from the Reformation through Victorian melodramas and the struggles of Monica Lewinsky in the 1990s, then coming right up to date with the ‘privacy for me, exposure for thee’ mantra of the celebrity tell-all (such as Meghan and Harry with Oprah Winfrey), this is a fascinating and wide ranging conversation.

You can buy Tiffany's book here at our own bookshop...

https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/strangers-and-intimates-rise-and-fall-of-private-life-the-tiffany-jenkins/7458523?aid=12054&ean=9781529034165&

There’s also information and extracts from Phil’s new book here...

https://sites.google.com/view/1945thereckoning/home

You can order the book now on Amazon UK - and it will be available all around the world as an e-book and an audio book...

https://www.amazon.co.uk/1945-Reckoning-Empire-Struggle-World/dp/139971449X/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=#

***We now have a Thank You button (next to the ’three dots’) for small donations that help support our work***

Looking for the perfect gift for a special scandalous someone - or someone you’d like to get scandalous with? We’re here to help...

https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/ScandalMongers...

*** If you enjoy our work please consider clicking the YouTube subscribe button, even if you listen to us on an audio app. It will help our brand to grow and our content to reach new ears.

THE SCANDAL MONGERS PODCAST is also available to watch on YouTube...

https://www.youtube.com/@thescandalmongerspodcast

The Scandal Mongers...

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Phil Craig...

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You can get in touch with the show via...

[email protected]

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Phil is joined again by the lawyer David Hooper, who has a new edition of his book Buying Silence coming out.

David is one of the world’s great campaigners for open, affordable justice and a fierce opponent of the practice - common in London - of the legal suppression of free speech. He acted for Vanity Fair in its long and bitter case against Mohamed Al Fayed, in the notorious Boris Berezovsky affair and in many other cases where money and power combine to suppress fair criticism and comment.

Mixing colourful and often funny anecdotes of his legal battles with a clarion call for a new and better system, David is a most entertaining guest.

You can buy his book at our own bookshop...

https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/buying-silence-how-oligarchs-corporations-and-plutocrats-use-the-law-to-gag-their-critics-david-hooper/7539510?aid=12054&ean=9781785908316

There’s also information and extracts from Phil’s new book here...

https://sites.google.com/view/1945thereckoning/home

You can order his book now on Amazon UK and Amazon India, Australia and New Zealand...

https://www.amazon.co.uk/1945-Reckoning-Empire-Struggle-World/dp/139971449X/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=#

***We now have a Thank You button (next to the ’three dots’) for small donations that help support our work***

Looking for the perfect gift for a special scandalous someone - or someone you’d like to get scandalous with? We’re here to help...

https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/ScandalMongers

*** If you enjoy our work please consider clicking the YouTube subscribe button, even if you listen to us on an audio app. It will help our brand to grow and our content to reach new ears.

THE SCANDAL MONGERS PODCAST is also available to watch on YouTube...

https://www.youtube.com/@thescandalmongerspodcast

The Scandal Mongers...

https://x.com/mongerspodcast

Phil Craig...

https://x.com/philmcraig

You can get in touch with the show via...

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Phil is joined by campaigner and writer Julie Bindel, the first person to investigate the grooming gang scandal that has so shocked Britain over the last two decades, and which seems to be continuing. A lesbian rights activist and life long campaigner against violence aimed at women and girls, Julie expected that politicians and state agencies would react quickly the the fact that gangs -mostly of men of Pakistani origin - were targeting, abusing and even ending the life of vulnerable children on a huge scale. But instead she ran into opposition and criticism.

This is a story about people desperately wanting to look the other way, make excuses and dismiss a class of teenage girls, girls generally from the fringes of society (the kind she came into politics to help). Julie has been part of it right from the start and is still pressing for the accountability and openness that has been lacking for so long.

You can buy her latest book at our own bookshop...

Lesbians: Where are we now? a book by Julie Bindel...

https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/lesbians-where-are-we-now-julie-bindel/7790288?aid=12054&ean=9781800754270&

There’s also information and extracts from Phil’s new book here...

https://sites.google.com/view/1945thereckoning/home

You can order the book now on Amazon UK and Amazon India, Australia and New Zealand...

https://www.amazon.co.uk/1945-Reckoning-Empire-Struggle-World/dp/139971449X/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=#

***We now have a Thank You button (next to the ’three dots’) for small donations that help support our work***

Looking for the perfect gift for a special scandalous someone - or someone you’d like to get scandalous with? We’re here to help...

https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/ScandalMongers

*** If you enjoy our work please consider clicking the YouTube subscribe button, even if you listen to us on an audio app. It will help our brand to grow and our content to reach new ears.

THE SCANDAL MONGERS PODCAST is also available to watch on YouTube...

https://www.youtube.com/@thescandalmongerspodcast

The Scandal Mongers...

https://x.com/mongerspodcast

Phil Craig...

https://x.com/philmcraig

You can get in touch with the show via...

[email protected]

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Our friend Gerald Posner returns to bring his unique insight into the story BEHIND the election of a new Pope - the overlapping financial and sexual scandals that have plagued the Vatican for many decades. Gerald explains why is has proved so hard to reform a famously opaque (and sometimes corrupt) institution - and how a Pope can pursue and punish senior officials caught with their hands in the till. Did you know that the Vatican has a legal system of its own, and a prison?

But before that Phil reflects on an extraordinary week of royal news - with a toe-curling but fascinating interview from Meghan, which seemed calculated to stir up old animosities at the Palace, William basking in praise for his recent diplomatic efforts, and yet more talk of a possible reconciliation with Harry. But - with all her talk of ‘slaying dragons' - is Meghan the one standing in the way of that now?

You can buy Gerald’s book on the Vatican here at our own bookshop...

https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/god-s-bankers-a-history-of-money-and-power-at-the-vatican-gerald-posner/3501574?aid=12054&ean=9781416576594

There’s also information and extracts from Phil’s new book here...

https://sites.google.com/view/1945thereckoning/home

You can pre-order the book now on Amazon UK - and it will be available all around the world as an e-book and an audio book...

https://www.amazon.co.uk/1945-Reckoning-Empire-Struggle-World/dp/139971449X/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=#

***We now have a Thank You button (next to the ’three dots’) for small donations that help support our work***

Looking for the perfect gift for a special scandalous someone - or someone you’d like to get scandalous with? We’re here to help...

https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/ScandalMongers

*** If you enjoy our work please consider clicking the YouTube subscribe button, even if you listen to us on an audio app. It will help our brand to grow and our content to reach new ears.

THE SCANDAL MONGERS PODCAST is also available to watch on YouTube...

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpiDbLiwypTLqMaKnNfxcTA

The Scandal Mongers...

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Phil Craig...

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You can get in touch with the show via...

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This week we enter the demi-monde of the belle epoch to explore the strange and scandalous story of Absinthe, with writer Nina Studer.

By the time it was banned in 1915, the famous 'green fairy' had become the green peril, feared for its connection with declining birth rates and its apparent capacity to induce degeneration, madness, and murderous rage in its consumers. As one of history’s most notorious drinks, absinthe has been the subject of endless myth, scandal, and controversy. Just what we love on here.

So how does the secret history of drinking help us understand the past? And will any green liquids be consumed during the podcast?

You can buy her book here...

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Hour-Absinthe-Notorious-Intoxicating-Histories/dp/0228022207

There’s also information and extracts from Phil’s new book here...

https://sites.google.com/view/1945thereckoning/home

You can pre-order the book now on Amazon UK - and it will be available all around the world as an e-book and an audio book...

https://www.amazon.co.uk/1945-Reckoning-Empire-Struggle-World/dp/139971449X/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=#

***We now have a Thank You button (next to the ’three dots’) for small donations that help support our work***

Looking for the perfect gift for a special scandalous someone - or someone you’d like to get scandalous with? We’re here to help...

https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/ScandalMongers

*** If you enjoy our work please consider clicking the YouTube subscribe button, even if you listen to us on an audio app. It will help our brand to grow and our content to reach new ears.

THE SCANDAL MONGERS PODCAST is also available to watch on YouTube...

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpiDbLiwypTLqMaKnNfxcTA

The Scandal Mongers...

https://x.com/mongerspodcast

Phil Craig...

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You can get in touch with the show via...

[email protected]

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