Journey Through Time The History of Reality TV Episode 1: Why We’re Obsessed with the Traitors. Well I’m not- in fact, I think that Traitors is only just reaching Australia now? This episode from October 7 2025 starts with historian David Olusoga talking about why he agreed to appear on the UK version. We tend to think of reality TV as a recent phenomenon, but it actually started with radio in 1947 with Candid Microphone, hosted by Allen Funt. This spawned Candid Camera, which I remember, which was made possible by 16mm cameras. The first ‘fly on the wall documentary’ was An American Family which heralded the convergence of reality TV and documentary. Filming began in 1971 for PBS and it featured the Louds (hah!), a couple with their five children . The 1970s were a period of social experimentation (e.g. the Milgram experiment) and the Louds became the first reality TV stars.
The Global Story I don’t normally list the Global Story episodes that I listen to because they’re often quite topical. However, the episode The US-Saudi Arabia Nuclear Deal: Could it all go wrong? deals with what seems to be the dead-in-the-water nuclear deal that Trump decided to make conditional on Saudi Arabia signing up to the Abraham Accords, which I can’t see happening. However, it goes back in time as well. BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner points out that it was the United States that gave Iran its first nuclear reactor back in 1967. Other Middle East countries are likely to feel miffed: Egypt, Türkiye and UAE don’t have enrichment facilities. The differing fates of Libya and North Korea show the difference between holding a warhead (or 60 warheads) or not.
The episode Is Cuba Waging a ‘campaign of subversion’ against the US? challenges the 100 page report issued by the US. State Department.Michael Bustamante, a professor of history at the University of Miami discusses the report, which sees Cuba as the capital of 21st century capitalism. Although Cuba has a long history of support to left wing and communist movements, especially through the 1966 Tri-Continental Conference (Africa, Latin America, Black nationalism), and even though it has had high level espionage capability in the past, Bustamante does not agree that Cuba is the existential threat to the United States that the report suggests. By the way, I recently saw a good YouTube documentary called Cuba After Castro: The Island in the Crosshairs. It only premiered in June 2026 and it features Miguel Díaz-Canel, Cuba’s first leader born after the Revolution. It goes for about an hour and a half, and it’s really worth watching.
The Resident Judge of Port Phillip 