The Modern Mann

Patricia never knew her birth parents. And she didn’t care to: adopted by a white family in Toronto, she felt awkward and embarrassed when people perceived her as Korean. But, in her twenties, at the insistence of family and friends, she began a journey of discovery to uncover her roots: a bumpy ride that would take her to the other side of the world, into the arms of dubious private investigators...

Smuggling marijuana from Thailand to Alaska; trading illicit fuel in Nigeria; evading the law in France - Robert Stone did it all. From one small fishing boat in the Bahamas he built up a veritable fleet of vessels - including a 6000-tonne oil tanker - devoted to his businesses empire. In this incredible interview with Olly, Robert reveals what it was like to be making a million dollars per month,...

Stu Otten was raised on a tough Liverpool estate, where drug-taking was rife, and established crime families enacted violent retribution. Aged 17, he became a bar-room bouncer - and soon found himself dealing drugs, protecting human traffickers, and defending his territory in a turbulent turf war. In this raw, insightful interview, Stu reveals to Olly the self-loathing, drug-induced hallucinations...

Dr Stuart Farrimond was a disillusioned Junior Doctor. Night-shifts, the grim reality of hospital life and emotional exhaustion were all taking their toll - but he was in denial about what might be killing him. In this extraordinary interview with Olly, he explains how an eating disorder and an unexpected diagnosis derailed his career and his marriage - but also how, in the most desperate of circu...

Lexi struggled to ‘read’ faces. She walked on her toes. She craved routine. She didn’t like her food to touch on a plate, and she was sensitive to light and sound.  But, until she was 27, she didn’t know she was autistic.  Lexi only took a test when - as a paramedic, grappling with erratic shifts and sleep disturbance - she sought help with anxiety and depression.  In this candid conversation with...

Extreme highs, extreme lows, and a bungled bank robbery Radcliffe Royds had it all - a private education; a job in the City; a wife and kids. So, how did he find himself robbing a bank with a banana, high on crack cocaine, whilst living in a skip in Soho? In this incredible interview, he tells Olly his outrageous story. It's a tale of extreme highs and lows, brutal honesty and dark humour. This in...

Sue Beere’s husband, John, was jailed for his role in a £53 million drug-smuggling plot.  He’s spent time in a maximum-security prison. He’s lost two appeals. But Sue has never doubted his innocence. Alongside charity Appeal, Sue continues to campaign for his conviction to be quashed - and for all the ‘Freshwater Five’ implicated in the alleged cocaine conspiracy to be exonerated.  In this compell...

Raising $1m in venture capital whilst still at Uni; starting a business seemed like child's play for James Routledge. His start-up attracted 50m page views per month, and his investors believed he could be the next Mark Zuckerberg. Except, beneath the surface, he felt stressed, isolated and alone - and his business was burning £30,000 per month. In this honest and compelling interview with Olly, h...

Yorkshire couple Matthew Glover and Jane Land created Veganuary at their kitchen table.  Inspired by Movember, their concept of challenging the nation to try veganism for a month gained incredible momentum via social media, and became a global organisation.  But, along the way, it drained their finances, crashed their servers, and ate up their Christmasses... In this interview with Olly, the husba...

Olly, Alix and Ollie are under the mistletoe for our annual festive ding-dong, with sensational live music, a feelgood Christmas task, and a bucketload of obscene toys. Deck the Halls! First up, Ollie Peart reports back on his mission to unite to match up the world’s Mann-fans with skills and needs in his philanthrotainment-bashing charity concept, The Modern 2023 Skill-a-thon. Jingle your bells a...

Caz Jaine faced danger, isolation and even assault when she took a foreign office role in Basra during the ‘reconstruction’ phase of the Iraq war.  But she thrived on the adrenalin of conflict zones - and was even diagnosed with ‘post-traumatic development’... As she explains to Olly in this wide-ranging conversation, her subsequent experiences as a Police emergency call handler led her to broaden...

After twenty years, Kamran Ashraf is still seeking justice. Wrongfully sent to prison by the Post Office, he and his family are one of 700 subpostmasters and sub postmistresses that were convicted on false evidence - provided by a broken computer system known as Horizon. Three years after our original interview, we discover what happened next. Was his appeal successful? And what will it take to se...

Britain’s shoplifters fear David McKelvey. His companies, TM Eye and My Local Bobby, have brought over 1,200 private prosecutions - and never lost a case.  Commandeering a commercial force of savvy ex-coppers, David pursues thieves the Police usually let go with a caution - guys who steal steaks from Waitrose and flog them to restaurants, and housewives hawking fake handbags on Facebook.  In this...

Tom Price and Stuart Goldsmith return to the show to compare notes with Olly on raising their now seven-and-a-half year-old boys. Can they now swear freely in front of their kids? How best to deal with ‘8pm extension negotiations’ at bedtime? And how should one answer the ‘Is Santa real?’ question? Plus, how to use ‘Frozen 2’ as a teaching device, the pitfalls of monitoring WhatsApp messages, and...

Since encountering a grass snake at the age of eight, Dr Rhys Jones has felt a profound connection with reptiles. He has rescued them, toured the country with them and even studied them at Cardiff University; an achievement that seemed impossible when he graduated from school with just 3 O Levels - and undiagnosed dyslexia. In this adventure-packed chat with Olly, Rhys reveals how his snake-charmi...

Booze, drugs and music are deeply intertwined - from the beers given to bands in their ‘riders’ to the excessive consumption facilitated by festivals and after-show parties. For music promoter Chris De Banks, consuming up to thirty pints a day had become typical behaviour. In the fug of his addiction, he lost jobs, friends and self-respect. Following rehab in 2016, he founded Not Saints, the UK’s...

Elaine Gregersen was 24 weeks pregnant when her waters broke. Having endured sickness throughout her high-risk pregnancy, she and husband Mark had not suspected anything sinister was happening when she appeared to be suffering from bladder weakness too.  After a traumatic 24 hours in the maternity ward, the Gregersens were faced with the reality that their twin boys, Henry and Blake, were unlikely...

Imagine delegating your decisions to a group of people online, some of whom are total strangers. Imagine sharing the most intimate parts of your life in order to get their approval. Imagine answering your personal problems in the same way a bank asks its shareholders to vote on corporate outcomes. This is the life chosen by Mike Merrill. Since 2008 - when he created 100,000 shares of himself and s...

Rosie Hodsdon was struggling to make ends meet on a pHD stipend. Then she hit Record and began to make sex videos from her student flat, indulging her fetish for kink. As she explains to Olly in this intimate conversation, her sexy side-hustle introduced her to a range of peccadillos, including ‘Giantess’ porn and ‘sploshing’ - and even led her to be invited to join the cast of a professional adul...

Ian Mudge was a teenage punk, whose exploits included chucking chairs out of a train window.  He became a teacher, whose unconventional methods and connection with kids saw him rise through the ranks, becoming Headteacher of a Pupil Referral Unit - responsible for educating some of Britain’s most challenging children, many with histories of violence and abuse. As he explains to Olly in this lively...

Ketamine and magic mushrooms are notorious for their damaging side-effects, including paranoia, depression and other ‘bad trips’. But the process of carefully administering small amounts of these drugs - so-called ‘microdosing’ - is now gaining traction both recreationally and in medical settings. In this episode, Olly meets NHS worker Nathan*, who credits his psilocybin experiments with improving...

Olly, Alix and Ollie gather round the podcasting chimney for a festive knees-up, with musical guest Ashley Singh and entrepreneur Jules Parker. There are yuletide songs, holiday films, a ‘Christmas collab’ - and, of course, the LEGENDARY XXXMas Foxhole Christmas Quiz. Ho ho ho! First up, Ollie Peart has bought his one year-old child a skateboard, so can he be trusted to go into business with fabul...

Neil 'Sam' Samworth spent 11 years as a prison officer at HMP Manchester - better known as Strangeways, one of Britain’s most notorious jails. Building rapport with the men incarcerated there, he prided himself on de-escalating violent and threatening situations; an approach becoming increasingly impossible as the prison service churns through staff. In this interview with Olly, he confronts corru...

Vanessa Potter lost her sight in just 72 hours - the result of a rare condition that doctors struggled to diagnose.  In this interview with Olly, she recalls how it felt to experience the rapid deterioration of her vision and simultaneous paralysis; why her two young children aided her recovery; and explains how the process helped pivot her career… Vanessa co-founded the ParkBathe project. Her boo...

Medically assisted dying is legal in Canada, where over 10,000 people end their lives through euthanasia each year, and over 80% of applications are approved. Robin Farr, from Calgary, watched as her Dad, Mike, developed a rare lung disease that limited his breathing, massively impacting his quality of life. Then he decided to make use of the MAiD (Medical Assistance in Dying) laws. In this honest...