Russia if you’re listening (ABC). ‘The Night at the Wine Rooms’ is the final episode of the series, this time featuring our very own Dolly Downer . This series seemed to run out of puff a little after the Mueller Report, but the new series sounds good – talking about Russia’s attempts to shape political reality over the last decade, not just the last few years. I’m not sure when it starts again.
Conversations (ABC) Richard Fidler’s interview The ‘Angel of Death’ of Sydney’s Underworld with historian Leigh Straw is a good one. She has specialized in Sydney true-crime in the late 19th-early 20th century, and her most recent book is about The ‘Angel of Death’ underworld figure Dulcie Markham, whose lovers kept dying.
BBC World – Outlook The Amateur Sleuth and the Lost Babies. Another middle-of-the-night program, this time about amateur historian Catherine Corless who uncovered the truth about the Mothers and Babies home in Tuam, Ireland, where hundreds of children disappeared without trace and where a septic tank in the back yard revealed many human remains. There has since been an enquiry and apology.
In Bed With an Assassin tells the story of Jason P. Howell, a photographer who specialized in conflict zones, who falls in love with a Colombian woman. He gradually realized that she was deeply involved with the paramilitary forces. He has to readjust his moral compass in his response to what he learns about her activities.
99% Invisible The Tunnel is about a tunnel built underneath the Mexican border, connecting the small Mexican town of Agua Prieta and Douglas Arizona on the other side. Sophisticated in its construction, it was used for smuggling drugs and was a prototype for other such tunnels built by the Sinaloa Cartel crossing the border. (Actually, the website link is so informative that you don’t really need to listen to the podcast!)
The Resident Judge of Port Phillip 