Mystery on the Rocks

We hurtle towards the present day and the end of this mammoth season as we hit 2018 this week when the poisonings of two Russians, a father and daughter named Sergei and Yulia Skripal, in the Wiltshire town of Salisbury kick off mass panic, the death of a woman entirely unrelated to them whatsoever, a further tensing of international relations with Russia itself, calls to boycott the World Cup AND (in the generation of social media) a slew of memes.And what part could the British weather have played in the whole thing?We take a look as we disorientate ourselves a little bit with both how recent and  distant this feels...

In 2010, Gareth Williams - a mathematician and spy - is found dead in a padlocked duffel bag in a bath tub in an en suite in a British secret service safe house in Pimlico with no fingerprints, not even Gareth's, left on the padlock, bag or bathroom. Loads of theories have come out since but, if we're honest, no real satisfactory explanation for what actually happened.Did Russia attempt to recruit him and he rebuffed them? Was he in possession of British secrets the authorities were worried about him handing over? And, if he was assassinated, why was he left in the flat in such a manner? Equally, if he killed himself, how did he get in the bag and leave no fingerprints?In what is one of our messiest recordings for a while, can we get to the bottom of this strange case and is this the drunkest Sooz has been for a while?

In 2006, British-based Russian author and journalist Alexander Litvinenko is suddenly taken seriously ill. His deterioration is world news, chronicled right up until his death 3 weeks later.Thing is, Litvinenko wasn't only a journalist - he was a former Russian agent. And not only was he a former Russian agent, he was a vocal critic of the Kremlin and of Vladmir Putin, having gone on record accusing Putin of unspeakable crimes.A deliberate assassination, not even disguised as an accident. Is this when the world started waking up to the idea of a new full-blown tyrant?

One of the most seismic events of recent history, conspiracy theories abound as to what "really happened" when planes flew into the World Trade Center (plus Pentagon, and stopped from flying into the Capitol) on September 11, 2001. We take a look at some of them and how, actually, such theories aren't as harmless as some might think.Yeah, as Masud called it - it's the Big One.Sooz has been waiting for this since we started the podcast. So excited that she didn't notice until too late that her headphones weren't plugged in, meaning this is a rip of the Zoom audio. That wouldn't usually be a massive problem except it coincided with the day Chris was having his windows replaced. So forgive any residual noise...

In 1998 a White House intern's life comes crashing down after her affair with the President of the United States is exposed. Worldwide media goes crazy, the President is impeached but ultimately moves on with reputation intact, relative to the intern's in question... Monica Lewinsky.So how did the affair come to light, what were the ramifications and could it possibly have somehow contributed to one of the most Earth-shattering events of the early 21st Century?

This week is a rundown of the events of the final few years of the Cold War, ultimately bringing it to an end.Masud couldn't be with us this week so rather than do a mystery without him (it felt naughty doing one without Sooz a little while ago) we took the opportunity to chronicle something rather momentous in the geopolitics of the 20th Century.Which is what this season is meant to be about of course...Enjoy Sooz and Chris punctuating monumental historical events with their own misinformed childhood memories of it actually happening.