Global Roaming with Geraldine Doogue and Hamish Macdonald

Christopher Nolan's blockbuster adaptation of The Odyssey has become far more than a film. It's sparked fierce arguments about race, masculinity, Western civilisation, Christianity, leadership, and the culture wars.
Geraldine Doogue and Hamish Macdonald are joined by Quillette founder Claire Lehmann to unpack why Nolan's retelling has generated such intense debate. From Elon Musk's criticism of the film to disputes over casting choices, they explore what today's political battles are revealing about how we interpret ancient stories.
Is Nolan preserving a foundational text of the Western canon for a new generation, or reshaping it through modern values? And why has a 3,000-year-old myth suddenly become a flashpoint in 2026?
Along the way, they debate whether Odysseus has been stripped of his complexity, whether the film reflects Christian ideas of guilt rather than ancient Greek values, and what the story may tell us about leadership, social cohesion, and fears of civilisational decline.
Guests: Claire Lehmann, founder of Quillette
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Reform party leader Nigel Farage has survived scandals, electoral defeats, and years of attacks from Britain's political establishment.
But could he be unseated by a man dressed as a Darth Vader rip-off, in a by-election he called himself?
Michael Crick is a veteran UK broadcaster, and author of One Party After Another: The Disruptive Life of Nigel Farage. He claims that even a Farage victory doesn't leave the Reform party in an enviable position.
Nigel Farage still has to face down a parliamentary inquiry, coordinated voting campaigns, and continued questions about millions of pounds received as gifts from wealthy political donors. 
Geraldine Doogue and Latika Bourke join Michael Crick to examine what's really happening inside Reform UK, why Count Binface has become an unexpected factor in the contest, and whether Britain's voters are becoming more resistant to populist leaders.
Plus, will the newly crowned Prime Minister Andy Burnham be able to curb Nigel Farage's rise? And what does it mean for the future of the UK when parties all across the political sphere are relying on nostalgia for their messaging?
Guest: Michael Crick, author of One Party After Another: The Disruptive Life of Nigel Farage.
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AI is everywhere. Governments are racing to regulate it, companies are pouring hundreds of billions into it, and workers are wondering what it means for their jobs.
But what if the AI revolution isn't inevitable?
Technology commentator and science fiction writer Cory Doctorow joins Global Roaming to argue that today's AI boom looks a lot like a financial bubble, and the world could look very different once it pops.
Despite the massive amounts of money pumped into companies like Anthropic and OpenAI, the question remains whether or not these companies can deliver consistent profit, especially when undercut by Chinese AI models made for a fraction of the price. 
So if these companies collapse, what would that do to a technology that claims to change the face of the earth?
In this conversation with Kylie Morris and Latika Bourke, Cory Doctorow provides an image of what a more equitable AI future might look like, a future in which the AI giants are gone, but the investment into data centres and Large Language Models remain. 
Plus: what Australia's push into AI means for digital sovereignty, and why dependence on foreign technology could become a bigger national challenge than AI itself.

A prominent Russian billionaire has publicly raised concerns about the direction of the war in Ukraine. Some observers see it as evidence that support for Vladimir Putin is beginning to crack.
But the West is misreading the situation, according to veteran Russian journalist and political analyst Konstantin von Eggert.
He argues Russia's problems run far deeper than Putin himself, that oligarchs wield far less power than outsiders imagine, and that signs of frustration inside the country do not amount to a meaningful challenge to the Kremlin.
And a post-Putin Russia may not be any better, as the collapse of Putin's corrupt regime could simply pave the way for another nationalist, expansionist regime.
What's needed, according to Eggert, is a serious re-evaluation from the Russian people. One that may not come unless Russia suffers a resounding, sudden military defeat. 
In this conversation with Geraldine Doogue and Latika Bourke, Eggert explains why he believes Russia faces a profound moral crisis, what it would actually take to threaten Putin's grip on power, whether Donald Trump's evolving position on Ukraine matters, and why a post-Putin Russia may not look the way many in the West hope.
Featured: Konstantin von Eggert, journalist and political analyst, Deutsche Welle.
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Nicaragua's President Daniel Ortega has declared there will be no more elections. The frail 80 year-old former Sandinista guerrilla seized power in 1979, was voted out, clawed his way back in 2006, then jailed opponents, banned parties and had security forces shoot dead hundreds of protesters. He has since installed his wife Rosario as co-president and moved to scrap the vote for good.
Former Australian diplomat and Managing Editor of International Intrigue, Jeremy Dicker,  joins hosts Hamish McDonald and Geraldine Doogue to explain why Ortega is betting Washington won't bother stopping him.
Plus, Is Australia trapped between two artificial-intelligence superpowers? A cheap new Chinese system, Kimi K3, is reportedly matching the best American models at a fraction of the cost.
Have American export controls on advanced chips backfired, forcing China to build faster and cheaper artificial intelligence? 
Guest: Jeremy Dicker, Managing Editor of International Intrigue and former diplomat
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Find all the episodes of Global Roaming now via the ABC Listen App or wherever you get your podcasts.