Oldmate and Josh, The Podcast

E108: Nazi Gold

Ep107: Bathurts

But Life Was Good for Me! How do ordinary people help a dictatorship take hold—and still believe they’re the good guys? This week, Oldmate and Josh dig into They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933–45 by Milton Mayer. Drawing on his conversations with ten former Nazi Party members, we explore the excuses, the everyday comforts and the small compromises that helped make the unthinkable feel n...

The world remembers the day. How much do we know about everything that came before it? Oldmate & Josh explore the road to September 11, drawing on Lawrence Wright’s The Looming Tower. From the rise of al-Qaeda to warnings that failed to become action, we follow a story of extremism, institutional failures and information that never reached the people who needed it. We examine the FBI–CIA disconnec...

Ep104: Toddie got lost

Give someone enough power to keep everyone under control. Then hope they’re lovely. This week, Oldmate and Josh unpack Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan: why frightened people surrender freedom for safety, why cooperation gets difficult when nobody trusts anyone, and why “someone needs to take charge” comes with some fairly significant terms and conditions. From everyday rules to government power, we explo...

Michael Jackson almost owned Marvel. Somehow, that’s only the beginning. Oldmate & Josh follow the money through Neverland, shrewd music-catalogue deals and dreams of an entertainment empire—before asking how it all unravelled. Drawing on former adviser Dieter Wiesner’s The Real Story , we put the insider account under the microscope: what stacks up, what remained a dream, and who benefits from te...

Ep101: Tuberculosis


One hundred episodes. Countless rabbit holes, questionable theories and conversations that went wildly beyond the original point. For this milestone celebration, we revisit the moments that shaped Oldmate & Josh , discuss amd honour the listeners who helped carry us here and reveal a few things we’ve been keeping up our sleeves. We’re also looking forward—unpacking potential new shows, strang...

We book holidays as if another location contains a calmer, happier and more interesting version of ourselves. Then we arrive and discover the weather is real, the queues are real—and our personality came through baggage handling completely unharmed. In this episode, Oldmate and Josh unpack Alain de Botton’s The Art of Travel : a philosophical look at why we travel, why the imagined holiday can fee...

We’re one episode away from the big 100! This week, Jack Vaul joins us as we dive into the history of Rockstar Games—from the rise of Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption to the enormous expectations, rumours and eye-watering budget surrounding GTA VI. We talk violence, controversy, gaming culture, billion-dollar development costs and how Rockstar turned digital crime into one of the biggest e...

New FreshFM Saturday morning host Chelsea Finlayson joins Oldmate and Josh for a gloriously rambling get-to-know-you episode. Chelsea talks about breaking into comedy, mastering crowd work, authentic storytelling and finding her voice on radio. Along the way, the conversation wanders through vinyl collecting, Monopoly cheating, shock humour, second-hand treasures, strange health mysteries, neurodi...

Ep97: Chelsea Finlayson, and The Zodiac Killer

This episode was supposed to be about the Banana Wars — a wildly fascinating chapter of history involving empire, corporations, military intervention, and the strange dark comedy of how bananas became tangled up with power. That was the plan. Then special guest Eddi Dąbrowska arrived, brought absolute chaos to the table, and the episode took several sharp turns off the historical highway. So, cave...

What happens when the CIA looks at a cat and thinks, “That could be a spy”? This week on Oldmate & Josh, we dig into Acoustic Kitty — one of the strangest Cold War intelligence projects ever attempted. The idea was simple, if you ignore every obvious problem: surgically turn a cat into a listening device, send it near targets, and let espionage happen. Because apparently microphones, wires, batter...

Dezi Freeman... Criminal mastermind? A convenient suspect? Or a man whose reputation eventually became bigger than the evidence itself? In this episode, Oldmate and Josh unpack the life, crimes, allegations, investigations, and enduring mystery surrounding one of Australia's most controversial criminal figures. We dive into the facts, the rumours, the media narratives, and the questions that conti...

In 1962, at the height of the Cold War, the United States launched a nuclear weapon into space and detonated it 400 kilometres above the Earth. No, seriously. What started as a military experiment became one of the strangest moments in human history. The explosion lit up the Pacific sky, created artificial auroras, disrupted electronics in Hawaii, damaged satellites, and left scientists scrambling...

From Pubs to Private Jets, It started in crowded pubs, pints in hands,, smoke-filled terraces and working-class towns. Today it's a global empire worth billions, watched by hundreds of millions and owned by some of the richest people on Earth. How did English football become the Premier League? What was gained? What was lost? And is the world's most popular football competition still the beautiful...

North Korea is often treated like a punchline — strange haircuts, military parades, and impossible propaganda. But behind the spectacle is one of the most controlled societies on Earth. In this episode, Oldmate & Josh dig into Without You, There Is No Us by Suki Kim, a rare inside account of teaching the sons of North Korea’s elite. What begins as a story about a classroom becomes something much b...

Australia remembers Port Arthur as the massacre that shocked the country and changed gun laws almost overnight. But around that horror grew something else too: a whole ecosystem of rumours, contradictions, “just asking questions” theories, and full-blown conspiracy lore. In this episode, Oldmate & Josh step into the mess carefully — respecting the victims and survivors while also digging into the...

What does a lifetime around conflict, chaos, and the unexplained do to a person? This week on Oldmate & Josh, we sit down with Stephen Lockwood for a raw, funny, and surprisingly deep conversation about his career, the moments that shaped him, and the stories that still stay with him long after the job ended. From high-pressure situations to the strange side of human nature, Stephen shares the...

What happens when war doesn’t end… even after the battlefield goes silent? In this episode, we sit down with Stephen Lockwood to dive into chilling, first-hand accounts of paranormal encounters tied to real military history. From haunted outposts and ghostly soldiers still on patrol, to eerie moments that defy logic and refuse to be explained — these stories blur the line between history and the u...

Ally Dent joins us to unpack the real journey from shaky open mics to confidently owning the room. This isn’t the polished highlight reel—it’s the grind behind it. We get into bombing on stage, learning how to read a crowd, finding your voice, and sticking it out when most people quit. Ally shares what actually changes between your first set and your best one—and why that gap is where comedians ar...

Todd Gray joins us to pull back the curtain on the strange, fast, and fiercely debated world of greyhound racing. From the thrill of the track and the culture around the sport to the criticism, controversy, and the questions a lot of people avoid, this is a conversation that goes well beyond race day. We get into how the industry works, why people defend it so passionately, why others see it as so...

Ally Dent joins Oldmate and Josh to unpack complex PTSD — because apparently plain old trauma wasn’t enough. Based on the book, this episode gets into survival mode, childhood damage, emotional flashbacks, and the darkly funny reality of trying to become a functional adult when your nervous system is still acting like it’s under attack. Instagram: theallydent https://www.instagram.com/theallydent?...