No Ordinary Monday

Melanie Marshall spent over 20 years as a BBC foreign news journalist and war correspondent, covering the most volatile conflict zones on the planet. This is part two of her conversation on No Ordinary Monday, and this is where she shares her No Ordinary Monday story. Afghanistan. 2012. Melanie and her team are unembedded, crisscrossing the country in low profile vehicles, operating in 10-minute w...

Melanie Marshall spent over 20 years as a BBC foreign news journalist and war correspondent, covering the most volatile conflict zones on the planet. Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Tunisia, Honduras. Her job was to get the team in, get the story out, and get everyone home safely. No playbook. Just problem solving under pressure, sometimes under fire. What most people don't see when they turn on the new...

What does it take to get a foreign spy to help another country? According to Robin Dreeke, it has nothing to do with pressure, leverage or manipulation. It comes down to one thing, making the other person feel genuinely understood.   Robin spent 22 years inside the FBI, eventually leading theBureau's elite Counterintelligence Behavioral Analysis Program. His primary mission was recruiting fore...

From elite special operations soldier and Iraq War veteran to one of Africa's most respected voices in wildlife conservation, Damien Mander's story is not what you'd expect, and that's exactly what makes it worth hearing. Damien spent a decade in Australia's special operations units, including clearance diver selection, sniper training, and three years on active deployment...

Guest : Briana Evigan. Actress (Step Up 2, Step Up 3D, S. Darko), Founder of Abundant Village, Humanitarian & Conservation Advocate Briana Evigan spent years doing what most actors only dream of. The Step Up franchise, billboards across LA, film after film. But the pace caught up with her, and behind the success was burnout, loneliness, and the creeping feeling that none of it was enough. A tr...

A theme park owner in Stockholm points to a cramped patch of land, boxed in by towers, tracks, and buildings, and asks an almost impossible question: could you build a roller coaster here? Wooden roller coaster designer Korey Kiepert says yes. That single decision sets off a chain of engineering, creativity, and careful risk management, leading to a ride that weaves over, under, and through an alr...

What happens when a scientific expedition in the Red Sea is suddenly boarded by an unidentified, armed group? In this episode, adventurer, photographer and documentary producer Ulrika Larsson shares her experience working on a marine science expedition near the Yemeni coast. She relives the moment the encounter escalated into a tense, hours-long ordeal, with passports confiscated and crew members...

Bomb disposal expert and former British Army engineer Ben Remfrey joins No Ordinary Monday to share what it is really like working in landmine clearance and explosive ordnance disposal in war zones around the world.  During the first Gulf War, Ben was deployed to Kuwait to deal with the deadly aftermath of the conflict. Oil fields burned for months, unexploded munitions littered the ground, and an...

What is burlesque really? And what does it take to build a career as a professional performer? In this episode of No Ordinary Monday , Chris sits down with legendary burlesque performer Angie Pontani to explore the craft, history, and discipline behind one of the most misunderstood art forms in entertainment. Angie explains how a burlesque routine comes together, from music and costume design to t...

What does a 4% chance of death really mean? In Part Two of this conversation, volcanologist Nico Fournier takes us inside the risk calculations behind the Whakaari / White Island eruption recovery operation in New Zealand. When scientists estimated a 4-6% probability that someone could die during a three-hour mission on the island, the question shifted from “Is it safe?” to something far harder: I...

A phone call at 2:11 p.m. shattered a quiet Monday: Whakaari had erupted with tourists on the crater floor. From that moment, we step into a week where science, instinct, and grief collided—and where a volcanologist had to help decide whether recovery teams could return to an active volcano while families waited for news. We sit down with Nico Fournier, the volcanologist who became the connective...

This is a bonus clip from this week’s episode with magician Sean Borland. During our conversation, I asked Sean whether he’d be willing to demonstrate one of his mind-reading illusions live on the show. What followed was a classic “book test” — eight books to choose from, hundreds of pages, complete freedom of choice… and a single word. I chose a book. Then a page. Then a word. Sean tried to guess...

Candlelight. A creaking old house on a South African nature reserve. Wind outside, silence within. We sit down with world-touring magician Sean Borland to unpack the seance that electrified a room, the billionaire who dared him to go bigger, and the exact moment he chose to walk away from a career most performers only dream of. Sean’s path wasn’t luck alone. He left a safe job, trained ten hours a...

A backpack full of rushes, a late‑night detour, and a cab ride that felt like forever. That near‑disaster on a dog‑trick commercial wasn’t just a wild production tale for Ben Stein; it became a mirror for the life he was building and the future he actually wanted. We bring you inside the highs and hazards of production and advertising, from public‑access beginnings and the award‑winning Paperclips...

A brother’s warning over the radio. An 80‑metre abseil into darkness. A cone splits, lava surges, and the exact spot rigged with rope is swallowed in seconds. That’s the moment Aldo Kane, former Royal Marines sniper, expedition leader, and on-screen explorer, decided not to commit to the drop inside Nyiragongo's crater, a call that almost certainly saved his life. We unpack that decision and...

A fear of death can quietly shape an entire life. For Danni Petkovic , that fear was physical and relentless — years of death anxiety, intrusive thoughts, and a nervous system locked into survival mode at the mere idea of mortality. Everything changed when her brother was diagnosed with a terminal brain tumour. What followed was an intimate education in dying: navigating prognosis, care, logistics...

Bush Flying in Indonesia: From IT Desk to Remote Mountain Airstrips A tidy flat, a good salary, a steady routine — and a growing knot of anxiety. That was Matt Dearden’s life before he walked away from IT and flew halfway across the world to become a bush pilot in Indonesia . In this episode of No Ordinary Monday , Matt takes us inside the reality of remote aviation , flying for Susi Air across on...

A backpack floats in brown water. The ward is a tent. The air is forty degrees. And still, patients keep coming. We open the year with Dr Lakshmi Jain of Médecins Sans Frontières, who takes us from NHS corridors to a flooded field hospital in South Sudan, where logistics, infection control and compassion collide in the harshest conditions. With planes grounded and supplies tight, she shows how med...

What are the 3 most dangerous countries to visit for a backpacking trip? And how can you get in? Former CIA Counter-Terrorism Analyst Brent Giannotta joins the show to share his expertise. Carl and Ben also pepper him with every CIA movie reference and conspiracy theory they can muster. Please follow Brent and subscribe to his Substack! Some of the Topics Covered: -Most Dangerous Places to Backpac...

A storm hits ten hours after the helicopter drop, tents bow under the wind, and the generators choke on spindrift—yet the drill keeps turning. That’s the edge-of-the-map reality behind a rare ship‑to‑helicopter ice core mission to West Antarctica, where we joined glaciologist Dr Peter Neff to chase air bubbles that hold the clearest record of our past atmosphere. We dig into why tiny pockets of an...

What happens when a seasoned therapist loses his footing and chooses to walk straight into the world’s darkest rooms? We sit down with Dr Chad Scott, a psychologist, prison therapist, and author, to trace a journey from illness and anxiety to a practice he calls reflective dark tourism—visiting sites of profound suffering with reverence to learn how to live. Chad takes us through the steps into an...

A phone call, a private jet, and a destination so secret no one would say it out loud—then a palatial compound, an accidental insult to a billionaire, forced vodka shots, a stage sinking into a swimming pool, and Andrea Bocelli arriving by helicopter. That’s only one chapter in conductor Robert Emery’s wildly unconventional career, and somehow it’s not even the most meaningful part. We start by de...

What happens when a Secret Service interrogator plays Two Truths and a Lie with us on mic? We invited special agent and polygraph examiner Brad Beeler to stress‑test our storytelling and, more importantly, to reveal how professionals separate sharp detail from slick delivery. Three claims hit the table—a shoot in Antarctica, a cheetah lick in Namibia, and a bumblebee suit on a neuroscience series—...

What does it really take to open a locked human safe? Not pressure. Not tricks. Presence. Retired US Secret Service special agent Brad Beeler joins me to unpack the art and science of getting to the truth when everything rides on a single expression or a mistimed pause. From presidential protection to high-stakes interviews, Brad shows how tactical empathy, careful prep, and an unwavering poker fa...

Headlights in the distance. Two elderly evacuees in the cab. A van bogged down a kilometre from the Russian border. That single night becomes the turning point for Tenby Powell, a former soldier and business leader who now runs one of the few foreign‑flagged humanitarian teams still operating on Ukraine’s front line. We sit down with Tenby to unpack what aid work looks like when drones own the sky...