Richard Baker is one of Australia’s most decorated investigative journalists. He has five Walkley Awards and 15 Melbourne Press Club Quill Awards. Embracing the medium of podcasts, his last two series won global and national awards.

In 2016, he created and co-hosted a major investigative podcast series called Phoebe’s Fall, which led to legislative changes in Victoria, Australia. The series attracted millions of downloads, and won a Gold Medal award at the NYE Festivals in 2017.

Richard’s second podcast series, Wrong Skin  won the Australian Podcast of the Year in 2019!

In Richard's wider work, he has covered topics ranging from international corruption, crime, drugs in sport, the justice system, politics, and sexual abuse. 

This year Richard released a podcast series entitled “The Last Voyage of the Pong Su”, which (unfortunately for Richard) collided his path with Ben and Tim! It’s an action movie podcast…. And it’s available now!

Intelligence Summary (INTSUM)

• 00:00. Ben’s excellent research skills

About Richard 

https://www.theage.com.au/by/richard-baker-hve6o

The Last Voyage of the PONG SU

https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/the-last-voyage-of-the-pong-su/id1481166968

Music

As always music by: The Externals. 'US Radio' (available on spotify)

In this RV, Tim and Ben reflect back on the recent interviews with Jim Molan, Sam Penny and Jack Moshovis.  In the course of this, Ben tries to remember when the MV Tampa incident occurred and provides some reflections from his perspective as a troop commander during this operation, following which Tim and Ben offer some extremely shallowly-researched thoughts on boredom.  

Per convention, they also use the RV to field some great questions from listeners, starting with more attacks on Ben’s dress and bearing, this time from a previous platoon sergeant who is extremely disappointed to note Ben’s slip in grooming standards since leaving the military.  They also debate whether 'work-life balance’ is actually achievable, and Tim challenges us to swap the word ‘busy’ with ‘focused’ in our lexicon. 

And finally, Ben continues his very average track record of mispronunciation while trying to name-drop academics (for note, the researcher he was struggling to remember was Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (pronounced ‘cheek-sent-me-high’) who pioneered the concept of ‘flow’) and reflects on how enjoyable it is to interrupt Tim in the middle of a ‘pomodoro’. 

Enjoy the RV and - as always - we wish you luck in filling your own Unforgiving60s with some quality distance run. Just get started!

**Music by our great friends at The Externals (available on Spotify)

Jack Moshovis was always mechanically minded. He used to look up at aeroplanes with fascination as a kid and ponder who built and maintained them and, indeed, how they flew. He always had some sort of a project going in his younger years and unsurprisingly after finishing high school he got an apprenticeship working as a mechanic on Air Force aircraft … learning his craft on high performance military lead-in fighter aircraft.

Fast forward a few years, Jack got an opportunity to be in the business of aviation. He committed to being a business owner. So what do you do when you come to work and the hangar is cleaned out by your business partner- including everything in the fridge!?

You start again!

Jack has worked with the Red Bull Air Race World Champion- Matt Hall. In fact Matt Hall described Jack as ‘a life saver’. Of course we talk with Jack about Matt and the Red Bull Air Race.

And then you fall in love …. with a high performance aircraft. You hug it every day- literally. And when the Company comes up for sale. But you don’t have the money. What do you do?

Jack explains what he did. 

He now owns MX Aircraft. 

This is a great chat with a great bloke!

Let’s get on with the show!

Intelligence Summary (INTSUM)

00:00-  Let’s start with Amateur Hour!

02:15-  How it started…. The meeting and the history

06:00- What the reward is…

06:25- Jack’s favourite thing to work on

08:20- Jack and World Champion Matt Hall…. Matt described Jack as ‘a life saver’

11:50- How technical is Matt Hall?

13:50- Jack on The Red Bull Air Race

15:10- On his first failure, regret and let down... and what you do about it

19:10- The MX high performance aerobatic aircraft

20:15- Why you hug an aircraft as a mechanic!

21:00- ‘One day I’m going to own you’- Jack M

24:00- The MX types….

26:25- The teething problems (fatalities!) …. & what Jack did.

33:12- Tim’s aerobatic proficiency! And what this amateur has flown!

36:45- Sales and marketing

37:50- Quick Questions/ Quick Answers  ….. to Jack

• How important is family?

Website and Links

http://www.mxaircraft.com

Rob Holland and his MX Aircraft:

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aviffV06Ek8

Music

As always…. Courtesy of 'The Externals' …. Available on Spotify

Sam Penny is a father, cheesemonger, civil engineer and endurance athlete who is currently training to conduct a DOUBLE crossing of the English Channel.  Looking at his physical accomplishments – which in addition to Channel crossings, include the conduct of a Backyard Ultra running race and swimming a mile in ice water - you could be forgiven for thinking that he’s some kind of superhuman.  But, as we find out in this interview, Sam is a refreshingly normal guy who likes to set lofty goals and then work towards them - one step (or stroke!) at a time.

In this discussion, we find out how Sam does this, as well as how he deals with the physical and mental discomfort associated with endurance feats of this kind. We also learn about his greatest fear and how he overcomes this through a deliberate action plan, and ponder why the cheese is so good in Vanuatu.

Just count to 10!

Enjoy the show!

Intelligence Summary (INTSUM)

2:07            The excellence of cheese in Vanuatu

4:30            Sam’s early athletic career, including his triathlon days and the dangers of a life of complacency

7:30            How Sam got into swimming and ocean racing

9:20            Sam’s early fascination with swimming the English Channel

10:00          Preparation for the channel swim

13:00          How modern life breeds complacency and takes away our ability to dream

15:30          Sam discusses goal setting, both long- and short-term

17:45          What does a training program for a double English Channel crossing look like?

19:40          Shutting off your mind during long distance swimming

22:40          “I didn’t come this far only to come this far”- Tom Brady

23:40          Last One Standing – Sam does a Backyard Ultra

29:30          The mental barrier of crossing the channel and how Sam overcame this

31:10          Ben asks the big questions – in a double crossing, is it compulsory to tumble-turn at France?!

33:25          Sam talks his goal time for the double crossing

35:32          How do you rest when swimming for the best part of a full day?

38:30          Chats from the Chest Fridge – why Sam sits in a converted freezer full of ice water

41:30          Controlling breathing in ice-cold water

43:07          The Ice Mile – the most stupid thing Sam has ever done

52:07          Sam talks heart rate – and reveals his very impressive resting heart rate!

55:30          Sam’s shark attack action plan

1:00:30       Sam’s definition of happiness

Website

https://www.sampenny.com/

General Jim Molan, AO, DSC is a former soldier, diplomat, author and speaker. We explore all things from why 'Andrew' is called 'Jim' through to winning the war in Iraq, border security and national energy policy.

Of course we go low-brow too!

Jim has unfinished business in Australian politics. He explains why!

Unbeknownst to Jim, we personally selected 'General Jim's' close protection team leader in 2004.... and we have some inside information on General Jim! We share it too!

As always we continue to show learned insubordination to our highest ranking former military officer!

PS: Apologies for the audio quality ..... as you know we suck at podcasting! 

Intelligence Summary (INTSUM)

• 3:45. Speaking Tok Pisin! Papua New Guinean 'Tok Ples'. A Young Jim in the Pacific Islands Regiment.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Molan

https://twitter.com/jimmolan?lang=en

Music By:  The Externals    (as always!!!!)...... check them out on Spotify

As the RV concept hits the meteoric height of double figures, Ben and Tim talk about their interviews with Susan Saleeba and Chris Collard, reflecting on topics ranging from gentle African words to getting punched in the head by a world champion. 

They then field a number of fantastic listener questions, which sees the conversation switching from a discussion of arrogance and sociopathy straight to pondering who was the GOAT (greatest of all time) servant leader! 

Ben also speaks to some of his unfortunate historical fashion choices, including addressing allegations that he used to get around in a leather vest and a Mustang, while Tim talks about failure, foibles and regrets.

Amongst all this, the boys discuss a great new method of passing a little piece of goodwill to someone, through Phil Hayes-St Clair’s Be in Motion project.

And, in a departure from the normal The Externals outro music, Ben and Tim finish this RV with a very special recital of Banjo Patterson’s The Man From Snowy River from recent guest and all-round good guy Sans Tattoo.

*****

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www.unforgiving60.com