Long Story Short

Season two of Long Story Short is sooooooooo close – but in the meantime, check out this episode from a series Adam and Eugene made for Stuff a few years back, called Out of My Mind. Each episode of this series is one person who has struggled with their mental health, talking openly about their lived experience and their path to recovery. This episode is called Angels and Demons, and the voice you’ll hear is Egan Bidois, who was institutionalised after seeing and hearing things that no one else could perceive; but who then found a remarkable way to navigate the world – and thrive.This is the last of three “inter-season” bonus eps.The first episode of Season Two of Long Story Short is coming very very soon!* Content warning: Strong language; discussion of suicide.* If you want to talk to a trained counsellor, call or text for free to 1737.

The countdown to new Long Story Short eps continues, but in the meantime Eugene and Adam caught up with Dame Juliet Gerrard, former chief science adviser to PM Jacinda Ardern (as well as two other PMs called Chris). We first met Dame Juliet when doing interviews for the podcast Quarantine Nation, about NZ’s experience of the Covid pandemic. She was a great interview subject back then, so when we heard she’d written a whole book about her time advising the government on matters scientific, we had to read it, and then after reading it we had to talk to her. Luckily, we hit record, so now you can listen to that conversation.Links to stuff in the episode- Dame Juliet’s book: https://aucklanduniversitypress.co.nz/front-row-seat/- Stuck: How Vaccine Rumours Start and Why They Don’t Go Away: global.oup.com/academic/product/stuck-9780190077242- You Are Here: A Field Guide for Navigating Polarized Speech, Conspiracy Theories, and Our Polluted Media Landscape: https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262361378/you-are-here/Other Long Story Short LinksSign up for our free newsletter: https://lss-newsletter.netlify.app/Follow us on Instagram: @lsspodcastnzBecome a supporter: lsspodcast.com

We’re busy making season two of Long Story Short, but in the meantime, check out this episode from a series we made a few years back when we were working at Stuff, called True Story. This episode was called The Great Macron War, and it’s a story about language, online feuds and dirty deeds done in the dead of the night. Thanks to Stuff for letting us showcase this from their amazing podcast archives, and if you want to hear more of the True Story series, go to https://www.stuff.co.nz/truestory. We have a couple more treats coming up on this feed, then in late October, Long Story Short’s Season Two begins!

The disappearance of Olivia Hope and Ben Smart from a party on New Year's Eve, 1997, sparked one of New Zealand's biggest and most controversial police investigations.Their bodies were never found, but detectives believe they found the killer: Scott Watson.In part one of this two-part series, Eugene Bingham and Adam Dudding examine the critical evidence – hairs from a tiger-print blanket, hotly disputed eyewitness accounts, and the hunt for a mysterious missing ketch.

In 1967, a film was released that was so shocking, so arousing, and so full of rude words that the NZ censor banned men and women from sitting together when watching it.Adam Dudding and Eugene Bingham get out the popcorn and investigate what happened when the movie of James Joyce’s high-art novel Ulysses arrived downunder. It's tale of pearl-clutching, patriarchy and a punch-up in a projector-room.(Content warning: there are, unavoidably, quite a few rude words)

In June 2018, a man dressed in black was shot in the neck and left bleeding on a manicured lawn in the quiet town of Goochland, Virginia. His passport revealed he had travelled almost 18,000km from Auckland, New Zealand.Why did gamer Troy Skinner fly across the globe armed with a hunting knife, pepper spray, and duct tape? And what was he planning once he got there?Adam Dudding and Eugene Bingham unravel a bizarre tale of online obsession and legal loopholes.

Michael October, aka Mikaere Oketopa, has been in jail for years for a crime that he swears he didn't commit. Then one night, in a whirlwind of bomb threats, pizza deliveries and rioting skinheads, a group of inmates make demands that will change the trajectory of Oketopa's life.In part two of this two-part series, Adam Dudding and Eugene Bingham trace the long and frustrating campaign of Mikaere Oketopa and his supporters to prove his innocence.

After a 22-year-old woman is found murdered in the grounds of a school, police swiftly ID three key suspects.There’s just one problem: one of them says he was fast asleep on the other side of town at the time of the killing. And his co-accused swear they never met him. So why was Michael October (also known as Mikaere Oketopa) jailed all the same?In part one of this two-part series, Adam Dudding and Eugene Bingham kick the tyres of a baffling and disturbing murder investigation.