Megan's Megacan

Megan's on holiday yet again, which means another special episode with Chef Basti, AKA the flaneur of Flughafenstrasse. This week, the AfD's email accounts got hacked and it turns out some of them might be a bit racist — how could we have known? Also, Germany's Gen Z takes to the streets in solidarity with their comrades in France, online gamblers could beat the house after all, and Ba...

Germany is reeling from its biggest spy scandal in about two hours as yet another former agent turned "security consultant" skips off with some secret files, while also plotting to kidnap children with a steak heiress. Meanwhile, the CDU pretends it definitely didn't help the AfD in Saxony-Anhalt, and even tries to make out it was die Linke, while die Linke sues two cabinet ministers...

Die Linke win in Berlin by trying to make the city affordable, and the CDU and the media decide they must be antisemitic. Meanwhile, the AfD win yet again and the CDU disappear completely on the Baltic coast, like a dying whale sinking into the sea. Megan and Konrad pick the bones out of the carcass of another normal weekend in German politics. Also, judges and prosecutors say the government needs...

September is upon us, Megan's back in school, the megacans are turning yellow, and the slow wheel of history is gently tipping towards fascism. This week, the Megacanners are joined by friend of the pod and host of the Bupkes, Noach Głuchowicz, to talk about the elections in Saxony-Anhalt, an intervention from a Kabarettist, and the disenfranchised people of Berlin — as well as Noach's fas...

This episode was first released on September 12, 2025 A special episode this week, as the Megacanners are joined by journalist Wael Eskandar to talk about his journey from asking permission from the cops to buy an ice cream on Hermannplatz to watching them brutalize protesters with impunity on a weekly basis. Well done, Kai Wegner. — If only there was some kind of catastrophic lesson in German his...

The Megacanners are on holiday, so here's another chance to listen to one of our best episodes of the past year - our collab with the Bupkes! This week, the Megacanners are joined by Noach Gɫuchowicz of the Bupkes podcast for a special collab episode! Noach explains Berlin's anti-antisemitism fiscal misappropriation scandal (AKA Germans explaining to Jews what Jews are supposed to be). The...

Megan's off on holiday, so as a special treat Konrad is joined by ex-chef, thwarted drone pilot, occasional traffic law violator, and shrewd political analyst Basti Knight. Over bottles of arguably the worst and second-worst beers produced in Germany, they discuss the fall of Jens Spahn to a surrogacy scandal, the federal police's new Minority Report powers, Germany's obsession with ta...

This week, Megan dissects everything that's wrong (and right) with Germany's weird, segregated education system, while Konrad worries whether this is the right time to gut Germany's freedom of information act. Also, Merz's government maintains a slightly strained relationship with the German constitution: Instead of banning the AfD, it wants to ban the bit about expropriating paras...

This week, Megan and Konrad prove they are fully integrated in German society by showing too much interest in the government's pension plan reforms. Honestly, they'll be leaving passive-aggressive notes in your Briefkasten next. Meanwhile, it looks like the Bundestag wants to catch up with the rest of Europe when it comes to organ donations, a very generous energy company decides it won&#3...

Germany's teenagers once again prove that the spirit of protest and class struggle isn't quite dead yet, by making personal grooming advice for Friedrich Merz go viral. But should we get rid of Section 188 of the German Criminal Code, and how come we even know the numbers of sections of the German Criminal Code? Plus, Konrad reports back from the Creative Bureaucracy Festival, Germany'...

This week, Megan and Konrad are gently corrected on their sugar tax coverage, an alleged former member of the RAF forgets to get rid of her kalashnikov before the police knock on her door 30 years later, why the AfD actually doesn't rule the East, Friedrich Merz can't read the room, especially if the room is full of trade unionists, and Megan has more to say about this silly whale rescue p...

The German state continues to show that it's learned so much from its history by equating direct action groups with terrorists and as the Ulm 5 went on trial in Stuttgart — for a couple ofminutes anyway. Then, Friedrich Merz located his backbone against Donald Trump, who took the criticism on board with his customary grace — plus, more health care reforms, and some millionaires have put a whal...

This week, the Megacanners wear the boring old German news as a nice comfort blanket against impending Armageddon: There's 66 new proposals to fix Germany's over-expensive healthcare system, why prediction markets are a pox on democracy, and the tale of Sad Timmy the Unnecessarily Anthropomorphized Whale — plus: What is Berlin good at? It ain't the flippin Olympics, that's for sure...

Ocean's 11, the Louvre jewellery thieves, those naughty kids who nicked that massive gold coin from the Museuminsel - everyoneloves a good heist, so the Megacanners are psyched to have the editors of Berlin's newest English-language news outlet on the show. Ruthie and Peter talk about why the city needs worker-owned media. Plus, the Collien Fernandes story, the Berlin police raid an anarch...

It's an evil brew of news to get through this week, so ladles and bowls at the ready, everyone. The Megacanners rattle throughGermany's petrol prices, because we must feed our cars, the tightest of elections in Baden-Württemberg, where the CDU man was a bit creepy, ploughshares get made into swords in Wedding, wolf-hunting is back, and time for a raccoon bounty. Fire away! Megan's Mega...

Film festivals, security conferences, Germans sliding immaculately along icy tubes —  this fortnight has been a delirious concatenation of gala events, each one more problematic than the last. But then there's also been the usual background noise of terrible things happening in the world — so thank god for the Megacans. Germans betraying the people of Afghanistan all over again, and the Berlin...

Yes! This week, the Megacanners are joined by Noach Gɫuchowicz of the Bupkes podcast for a special collab episode! Noach explains Berlin's anti-antisemitism fiscal misappropriation scandal (AKA Germans explaining to Jews what Jews are supposed to be). There's also Germany's obsession with having a reason for its state — because German people always need a reason — plus winter joy as a...

It's an extra specially depressing show this week as the Megacanners are joined by Mohammad Etebari, Iranian in Berlin. Mo explains what it was like growing up in a theocratic police state and what it's been like being an Iranian outside Iran these last of couple of weeks. Mass murder on the streets, torture, an internet blackout — and what European countries could be doing about it. Erm,...

Who knew that the end of the world would come at 9:30 on a Wednesday morning? Not Berlin Mayor Kai Wegner, who was finetuning his backhand as the lights went out in Zehlendorf. But is the city prepared for disaster? And is Germany's critical infrastructure safe from random acts of arson? Ah, double-fault, I'm afraid. But surely at least the country has enough prosecutors to do a proper inv...

As the winter solstice closes in, the Megacanners convene one more time to round up what became one slinky rodent of a year in German politics: Alice and Elon got a room (boke), Merz broke a taboo, the CDU failed to commemorate the one member of its party who had a spine, Baerbock and Habeck swept off over the horizon, and Megan got to keep her passport. Thanks to all who listened this year, and a...

To make up for the wee hiatus, Megan and Konrad are back with a bumper episode. Could Merz's coalition collapse over a rebellion from the cool kids from the Junge Union? (spoiler: No) Could Germany's school students stop the government from forcing  through military service? (spoiler: No, again). Plus the Megacanners are joined by special guest Nadja Vancauwenberghe, veteran Berlin journal...

Friedrich Merz has come up with a cunning plan to combat the AfD — but could it be the same plan centrist politicians been trying for the last 50 million fucking years? Meanwhile, one minister accidentally grows a conscience, and is immediately punished by his fellow Christian Democrats. But still, good news as Berlin's government is forced to prepare the city for climate disaster, and is it reall...

Recording in front of a live studio audience on October 17th 2025 at Podfest Berlin, Megan and Konrad are joined by not one but three special guests. Nessa Finnegan provides an update on the activities of the Irish Bloc, at least the ones who haven't been prosecuted or deported or punched by the police yet, energy transition expert Izzy Choksey explains all the profoundly sensible things the g...

The Megacanners return much chagrined this week, obliged as they are to retract last week's delusional good news. It turnsout that Merz's government is addicted to exporting arms into genocide zones after all. Still, there's slightly better news about dual nationality, thoroughly depressing news about unemployment benefit reforms, and devastating news for the great Berlin tradition of...

A bewildering grab bag of news this week as Megan and Konrad whip through two weeks of German politics while staying heroically sober thanks to some cracking 0.0 Radler. Annalena Baerbock changes her tune at the UN, the AfD's Maximilian Krah makes the case for diversity in the workplace at the trial of his old friend and business partner the Chinese spy, Germany finally fills up its supreme co...