The Gallimaufry

Send us your messages or topic ideas. War. War never changes, but the reasons do! And while it may sound strange anyway to start one over fancying another person's bit of land for yourself, there are even more absurd reasons! Gunning down pigs and dogs, non-vegan gun cartridges, overpriced bakeries... there are certainly some interesting stories here that go to show precisely why we have the...

Send us your messages or topic ideas. Nowadays it's a given that the earth sits orbiting the sun, but not always! For centuries, in fact you could say not that long ago, we thought the earth was the centre of the universe. I mean why not? We're God's chosen or something right? So to make this a reality lots of people came up with complicated systems to explain it, that didn't r...

Send us your messages or topic ideas. Ah the life of a spy. Fast cars, strange gadgets, glamorous women and....er corpses. Well one corpse to be precise. Hear the unbelievable and outrageous tale of Operation Mincemeat, the successful plan to disguise the Invasion of Sicily from Adolf and his gang, all using a phoney set of orders planted on a soldiers body.  And it was basically lifted straight f...

Send us your messages or topic ideas. Bones, broomsticks, japes and jack o' lanterns, Halloween is a day packed with fright and fun, but where did it all come from? Is it just another phoney day ripe for corporations to profit off? Or does it in fact have a long, rich and mildly complicated history stretching back centuries in the British and Irish isles? No clues there...Anyway join us on a...

Send us your messages or topic ideas. From voluminous tomes to last night's takeaway, the printing press was responsible for making the printed word accessible for everyone. It helped challenge ideas, spread knowledge and enable the fast production of everyones favourite dirty magazines. What's not to love? But where did it come from and who invented it? Was it the man from Mainz or perh...

Send us your messages or topic ideas. Hold your noses this one's going to be a whopper as we delve into the murky depths of the Victorian Thames, which handily doubled as a mass sewer for all the city's waste. This all changed on one fatefully hot summer in 1858 when boiling faeces forced Parliament to act before their nostrils exploded. They passed a bill in just 18 days to build thousa...

Send us your messages or topic ideas. Years before a wall went up in Germany's capital, it took centre stage at the birth of the cold war. The city was in ruins, starving and subjected to the subjugation of its conquerors, but it was about to get a lot worse. In 1948, following political squabbles gone array,  the Soviet blockade of Berlin began cutting off the city from the West. What follow...

Send us your messages or topic ideas. The discovery of radio waves was a seismic event in scientific history, it opened a whole new range of communication possibilities....even if the many individuals across the world who researched and developed the concept couldn't actually see a use for their work. Thanks to their discoveries, you are able to happily turn on the radio every morning for you...

Send us your messages or topic ideas. Political manoeuvring , experiments in eugenics, substance abuse...the third Olympiad of 1904 in St Louis really had it all. And we haven't even mentioned the bricklaying marathon runner getting a lift halfway through the race! Find out more about this bizarre and astounding event that forever etched itself onto the athletic history books, perhaps not nec...

Send us your messages or topic ideas. No this isn't the story about a delicious chocolate bar, this is the story of the most famous mutiny in British naval history. A tale of betrayal, madness, sexual slavery and murder. Who needs Netflix when you've got sailors?

Send us your messages or topic ideas. Coffee, Java, a cup of mud, the elixir of life....it has many names to many people. No matter where you are in the world, it's something we all enjoy to get us through the day. If there's one drink that can lay claim to being the worlds favourite, it's this one.  Who would have thought a simple fruit found on the slopes of Ethiopian hills by a g...

Send us your messages or topic ideas. Ah, Christmas—the lights, the carols, the traumatising goat men. It's that time of year again so, in the spirit of giving, we have a special bonus episode of The Gallimaufry for you all. Join us as we discuss the origins of Christmas and discover how many of the old traditions are a lot more modern than you might think. From Pagans to Romans to Victorians...

Send us your messages or topic ideas. Did you know a polar bear used to call the tower of London home? Or that the Holy Roman Emperor loved a a good lion? From the playthings of the elite, sprung centres of learning and conservation that would come to be the modern zoos we know today...But hold your horses, cause there's an elephant in the room. Quite literally. Zoo's have a much darker...

Send us your messages or topic ideas. When we think of pirates, a few things spring to mind. Blackbeard, Treasure Island, a bedraggled Johnny Depp. For centuries in Europe though, the image of a pirate was far more terrifying, because it came in the form of a Barbary Corsair from North Africa.  Listen to Episode 2 to learn about their exploits that spanned centuries and the surprising fact that qu...

Send us your messages or topic ideas. In our very first episode we explore the origins of the world's first successful national health service, The NHS. Still beloved and admired 70 years on, we take a look at what helped inspire it and who the people were that made it happen.