HOPECAST

We’re all *very* excited. Nick is excited about the return of Abba! Yassir is excited to be in London! Oliver is excited for the leaves falling! Matthew is excited about toothpaste tablets! Paul is excited about hitting peak middle age! Change is on our minds this episode. The seasons are changing, the world is changing, and our lives are changing. With all that change, how do we stay connected? W...

If you're a podcast nerd, you'll love this one! The rest of you...see you next week :) Anders is thinking about starting a podcast of his own, so he emailed Paul some questions about how to do a podcast. Paul is bad with emails but good with a microphone so he recorded his answers and we thought....hmmmm would others find this interesting too? We cover questions like: - What are your podcasting pe...

This episode we’re doing whatever the fuck we want so we spend a whole 9 minutes discussing our favourite cuss words before wandering into conversations exploring the multiverse and topics like abortion, euphoria and the wiggly path between life and death. Of course we do. And we have questions! How can we better understand people who disagree with us without demonising them? Why do we have to lea...

Anders is returning to Sweden as a podcasting superstar. Matthew is heading to Berlin on a whim. Nick is enjoying the feeling of community as people come together again to meditate in person.  Paul is stressing about having too much of a social life and feeling guilty that he wouldn’t hate another mini lockdown. Welcome to HOPECAST! We had some really interesting feedback on our last episode,...

XTRAcast is back and Anders is here to answer the important question on everyone’s minds: “when do you put your Christmas tree up?” - it’s a HOPECAST exclusive! Paul is confused after our last episode so he steps into the confessional booth with Anders and talks about judgement and shame. According to the media we’re supposed to be slutty and fun and have no boundaries, but is that ok? Anders neve...

Episode 11 starts as an intimate threesome and builds to a spicy foursome and we go OFF. Nick needs the listeners to help him manifest a new home. Get on the case folks! Matthew has been on a gardening course but what’s his place in the garden of the world? Paul saw - and recommends - Constellations if you get the chance to see it in London. Oliver is going to be doing virtual reality meditation v...

Hello world! XTRAcast is our in-between-shows episode where we reflect on the themes that came up in the last one. Sort of. In this episode, Yassir and Matt live their best good cop / bad cop fantasy by shining the spotlight on Paul for a change. The other hosts have questions, and after five minutes of stalling for time an uncomfortable, sweaty-palmed Paul has a go at answering them. Questions li...

We made it to double digits! The Sexy Six, as we now refer to ourselves, are back together for the first time since Episode 1 and we have lots to talk about, like how Nick’s recent holiday to Greece became an exercise in coping with mental calamity. We reflect on living illegally under homophobic laws and how we find our way out of shame; and we share our favourite bits from the first ten episodes...

Hello world! XTRAcast is our in-between-shows episode where we reflect on the themes that came up in the last one. Usually. As will be revealed, we didn’t quite achieve that this week but thankfully we had in the HOPECAST vaults an unpublished chat with Matt (in a hat!) We chat about making friends as a queer person, building self esteem, how to express the masculine and feminine inside us and hel...

The HOPECAST Hosts must have been excited to see each other as we didn’t stop talking after saying hello, which means this episode starts at “how are you?” and takes us to some very interesting places covering the spectrum of birth, death and marriage. We talk about how to flirt - and how not to - in different languages. Anders shares his favourite Swedish pick-up line: “hello biscuit, are you dro...

What's up fellow kids? Join us on this brand new XTRAcast where the HOPECAST youngsters Matt & Anders discuss twunks, otters and daddies (oh my). We talk about our changing bodies, advice for people who don't enjoy working out and whether it's useful or not to belong to a 'gay tribe'. Tea is spilled. And we have questions! - Where's the stuff for the quiet gays? - What age is too old to be a t...

The HOPECASTERS are back and we’re recording on a Friday night which adds an element of excitement (aka giggling) to this broad ranging episode covering everything from body to soul. Our hopeful thoughts of summer turn to musings on how we feel about getting our bodies out and how they have changed over time. Spoiler: decline and decay. And we have questions! Could Nick still fit into a 30 year ol...

Pride is a tough topic for Oliver. From a young age, he felt the pressure of being the third Oliver James, feeling like he had to represent the family by holding the name. When he came out, he questioned whether he could do that any more. His father disowned him and said the rest of his family would never accept him. “My first pride event was right after my father disowned me….I was mourning my mo...

It’s Pride Month! Yaaaaassss queen! Werrrrrrrk! Etc. In this episode we celebrate Matt’s return to the London stage as Ella Veryde! She has groupies and we are among them. The boys talk about Pride Month and share our thoughts on: Our disdain for brands that stick a dodgy rainbow on their logo for the month Why we should keep the sex in Pride What we do when there’s racism and classism in ‘mainstr...

Hello world! XTRAcast is our in-between-shows episode where we reflect on the themes that came up in the last one, but this one is different. After performing in the final of Tia Kofi’s Sync or Sing in London last Friday, Matthew and his friends left the biggest gay nightclub in the country, excited after an amazing night. Within minutes, they experienced verbal and physical homophobic attacks fro...

We’re excited that Oliver is off on vacation to San Francisco but Anders has a cautionary tale to share. Paul fancies himself as a Bender Defender despite being a lover not a fighter, leading us into a discussion on violence, masculinity and queerness. A ‘What Would Buddha Do’ question on finding meaning at work opens a conversation on the seduction of success and how we might move from traditiona...

Hello world! XTRAcast is our in-between-shows episode where we reflect on the themes that came up in the last one. Our show on milestone moments gave Anders “all the feels” so we talked about his own coming out story and what it’s like to grow up gay in a religious, conservative community. Spoiler: it’s hard . Anders lived under the heavy burden of ‘hate the sin but love the sinner’ but at 18, aft...

Our HOPECAST hosts go deep this week! We start this episode by reading more of your fabulous comments and compliments, leading us into a discussion about why it’s hard to take a compliment. Can we make it easier to take a big one? We do appreciate your generous feedback. Keep it coming! A ‘ What Would Buddha Do ’ question from listener Craig about big birthdays gets us reflecting on our own milest...

This mini episode was recorded during a thunderstorm, with Matt half in drag and Nick with his top off. We started talking about miracles and ended on sex. It was very HOPECAST . Matt & Nick have a gorgeous free-range conversation where they talk about… The miraculous manifestation of HOPECAST. Different doorways to spirituality. Retreats, Rebirth and Ayahuasca. Where fish go to discover water...

As we’re a podcast in the Spirituality category, we thought it was time to dive deep into the topic, starting by taking a “How Spiritual Are You” test. Which of our hosts was top and who was bottom? The results are controversial! As part of our wide-ranging discussion we cover questions like: Can trees talk? Does dreaming of planes always mean doom? Will we all end up as guardian angels (and would...

To a backdrop of blue sky and birdsong, HOPECAST Host Yassir reflects on family, coming out, identity and truth. Yassir’s presence is powerful, beautiful and full of hope so we knew everyone should immediately stop what they were doing and listen to his voice uninterrupted. There is so much truth in here we should really rename it TRUTHCAST . The Truth of Yassir includes: The tension between uniqu...

When HOPECAST Host Anders described himself as ‘ a ghost operating a meat monster ’, we knew everyone should immediately stop what they were doing and listen to his voice uninterrupted. There is so much wisdom in here we should really rename it WISDOMCAST . The Wisdom of Anders includes: How does being brought up in the church affect our bodies? What happens when we don’t listen to the body’s warn...

We’re all in long term relationships with our bodies, but if they treated us the way we treat them, honey... there’d be words . On this HOPECAST our hosts dive deep into the theme of bodies and how we learn to love them, or not. We ask: If your body was a song, book or movie what would it be? What would your body say about you in couples therapy? How can we be better at caring for these weird and...

...no really, we want to know! So we took our own Matt and Nick back in time to 1991 and sat them in the HOPECAST STAR TEST chair (google it). You’ll find out answers to questions like: Why did you take the path you did? What is normal and abnormal in your world? Are you good at flirting? Who would you choose as your sugar daddy? What does your god look like? How many of their answers were similar...

Welcome to a brand new HOPECAST! The hosts are all enjoying their new found podcast fame and fortune. Who bought a yacht already? Who has been recognised in the street? Answers within. Speaking of answers within, we’re launching a fab new section in this episode called WHAT WOULD BUDDHA DO? Do you have a problem that can only be solved with ageless wisdom? Well you’re in the right place. Find out...