The summer has slapped us in the face like a big sunflower of joy, the birds are singing, sensibly-tested Berliners have returned to their favourite dingy bars, and school children are doing wholesome teutonic end-of-term hikes in the forest. Meanwhile ministers can't remember if they copied their PhDs or not, and there's an election in Saxony-Anhalt to look forward to. Now all you have to do is get through the chemical fumes of that first sip of megacan. Stay Super Happy!
Jun 05, 2021•42 min
Dieselgate, Wirecard, Heckler & Koch - Germany has one of the weakest whistleblower protection laws in the developed world – but not for long, thanks to campaigners like Veronika Nad. Veronika comes on the show to explain why the German government is slowing everything down - again - and what it's like trying to get the European Union to listen to you. PS: Also, there's a small correction on the story involving the date of Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia's death: Veronika says this...
May 23, 2021•45 min•Season 1Ep. 77
For the first time in over a year, the megacanners have a guest! Fresh from a vaccine jab and a nasal swab, the Wandering Barman himself Chris Davis joins Megan and Konrad for a Gentleman Jack and Coke – truly, the Burger King of cocktails. Chris explains what it was like for performing artists facing an existential crisis during a pandemic, Megan explains why Merkel is wrong about vaccine waivers. Konrad mainly sort of chips in when he can think of something to say. Cheers!
May 08, 2021•45 min•Season 1Ep. 76
This week, Germany's party of stability and continuity finally ends three years of in-fighting by picking a chancellor candidate no one likes, while the Greens keep cool and pick Annalena Baerbock. Plus Merkel has to defend lobbying in China for a bunch of criminal fraudsters. Megan and Konrad drink some Johnnie and Ginger. "Es geht alles schief!"
Apr 24, 2021•40 min•Season 1Ep. 76
This week, finally some justice for Berlin's oppressed landlords, as the constitutional court reins in the unfettered greed of tenants who won't give them their last fucking tin of beans. Meanwhile, two leaders bash the hell out of each other as conservative politicians prove once again how mature they are, and Merkel takes over the country while everyone's distracted by the shit show in her party. And: Does Jack Daniels really count as whisky? Consider the conundrum solved.
Apr 22, 2021•36 min•Season 1Ep. 75
Another week, another week of vaccine chaos and COVID dread. Only this time it's Easter week, so at least there's chocolate animals. So many questions: Why didn't Megan get inoculated after all? Is German society ready to accept Syrian refugees in the Bundestag? And is Horst Seehofer ready to grow up? It's Johnnie Walker Red all round! Drink up!
Apr 03, 2021•34 min
Another week of vaccine failure and lockdown fatigue? Not on this show! Not when there's a ship stuck in a canal. This week, the Megacanners veer off course thanks to the sudden gust of wind of more interesting and tangible news elsewhere. Konrad gets to talk about his cargo ship adventures, Megan gets to have a jab, Merkel does a u-turn, and we all get to appreciate Tempelhof Airport. Thanks for vodka, Fürst Uranov!
Mar 29, 2021•34 min
Germany's 2021 election orgy has started with some tender caressing for the Greens and the SPD. The CDU and the AfD, meanwhile, must search their blackened souls to find favour with voters. Then Megan and Konrad ask what happened to all those far-right extremists in the military - they've probably all been tracked down and sent to prison by now - Hurrah! Everything will be fine again now.
Mar 20, 2021•35 min
Some CDU politicians have got caught making extra money off the pandemic, prompting criticism from other CDU politicians who used to make extra money off arms companies. Meanwhile, it turns out that Julian Reichelt, AKA the tumor on the colon of the gutter press, is in fact a big bully. Time for some bourbon and coke - but press your thumbs for Megan's black belt in speaking German.
Mar 12, 2021•33 min
Germany's many governments have come up with a five-point plan for the loosening of coronavirus rules. It means we can start having pedicures before heading to the garden centre to pick up those blooming crocus bulbs. But why is Germany so bad at vaccinating people? And how come the AfD won a day in court? And there's a chat about gin. Make it happen!
Mar 06, 2021•38 min
Berlin's rent cap is a year old, so has it worked? Megan and Konrad apply their usual laser-like statistical analysis to the property market data, forensically dissecting the complex legal situation. Meanwhile a Nazi concentration camp guard has been flown from the US to Germany, but is not going to be prosecuted, and Konrad drinks a Johnnie Walker for main and a Jack Daniels for afters. It's DAS NEWS!
Feb 23, 2021•43 min
Megan's on the wagon, but this show is called Megan's Megacan. That means that -- for the sake of artistic integrity -- Konrad has no choice but to drink two megacans as he navigates the choppy waters of the German News. This week, lockdown update, Berlin's weird neutrality law, and abusing politicians. Es ist News Zeit!
Feb 12, 2021•35 min
The state of Hesse is home to Kristina Hänel, the newly-named Walter Lübcke School, and Apfelwein - three good reasons to do a Hessen Special. Konrad reports on the end of another Nazi trial, Megan catches up with the cosmic mystery that is the continued existence of Paragraph 219A in German law, and they both drink fancy cider from a snazzy black can. Prost!
Jan 30, 2021•42 min
It's over. A yearlong ordeal has come to an end as the CDU finally picks a new leader, in the comforting shape of Armin Laschet of North Rhine-Westphalia. We can all rest. And yet even that could not dent the self-confidence of second-time loser Friedrich Merz. The Andes Pact lives on. Cheers.
Jan 17, 2021•32 min
Right, everyone --- Megan has a few things she would like to talk about. Most of them involve the Berlin education department's pandemic response, which some people would argue has been a little bit on the erratic side. The combined force of Captain Morgan & Cola and oatmeal cookies slow her down only marginally, so sit back, crack open a megacan, and don't mention Sandra Sch....
Jan 09, 2021•33 min
It's the last day of 2020, and here's the last Megacan of the year, in which Megan and Konrad crack open the Captain Morgans and Johnnie and Gingers one more time and hurtle headlong through a year of upheaval and calamity. Never has the phrase Happy New Year been so pregnant with meaning ... Auld Lang Syne indeed - and thanks to all our special guests: Joel Dullroy, Nicholas Potter, Maisie Hitchcock, and Mareike!
Dec 30, 2020•1 hr 1 min
Germany is deep into the Yuletide season lockdown, and a lonely Christmas is on the horizon - and yet the German population will start getting vaccinated ZWISCHEN DEN JAHREN. But who gets to go first? Definitely not Konrad, because sitting in your pyjamas all day eating coconut macaroons and drinking Jim Beam with Lime is not considered an essential occupation. Go figure.
Dec 19, 2020•30 min
Teaching is hard enough as it is, but try doing it in a major European capital with a virus decimating the population. This week, Konrad lounges around like a work-shy fop eating sweetmeats while two weary Berlin teachers report from the city's classrooms, where society are being held together. It's time for a G&T, with special guest Mareike!
Dec 05, 2020•38 min
There's a pandemic, everyone's facing a grim and lonely holiday season, and now the weather is rubbish too. There's only one megacan suitable for the situation - good old Johnnie & Ginger. On this week's show - a saga in Saxony at the Karl May Museum, another trial involving a Nazi called Stephan, and no you're not allowed Böller either?
Nov 28, 2020•36 min
Captain Morgan, we've done you a disservice, sir. Rum is nice after all. Especially in a lovely Mojito, the perfect drink for a damp mid-November. In the news, the blurred lines between COVID protesters and neo-Nazis and the cops, what it's like teaching in a pandemic, and did systemic racism nearly stop us getting a COVID vaccine? Crack the barrel, captain, Aharr!
Nov 14, 2020•27 min
This week: A new lockdown brings new lockdown protests, the Bundeswehr loses guns, and the CDU leadership contest is going on longer than the US election count. We're back!
Nov 07, 2020•41 min
What's on the news this week? Covid again? And Nazis? Oh great, just what we need. Better have a cocktail in a can.
Oct 02, 2020•33 min
- Kollegah - Fler - Haftbefehl - Bushido - Olexesh - Capital Bra - What the hell are you on about? You're babbling, man, you're babbling. - No I'm not! They're all famous German rappers - and on this week's show the megacanners find out how to tell them apart! It's totally Lila.
Sep 19, 2020•40 min
Cocktails all round as megacan connoisseur Nicholas Potter joins Megan and Konrad for a chat about rubbing Leipzigers up the wrong way, and an update on how the German judicial system is botching up another Nazi trial.
Sep 12, 2020•43 min
There's a new Megacan in the can, and it's a special one. Konrad was in Norway. While he was gone, some people with reality issues attempted a coup in Germany - but to take a break from discussing the dissolution of democracy by Nazis and YouTube, we discuss a new movie about end of the world anxiety. It involves yoghurt accidents.
Sep 05, 2020•47 min
On this week's show, teachers are not happy with Berlin's education minister, the states are not happy with Horst Seehofer, and how the Nazis fucked up a whole generation post-war German children - but at least the laptop-pilfering wild boar is still alive.
Aug 15, 2020•33 min
On this week's Megacan, we're back to new hygienic schools, another piece of Berlin is sacrificed to the god of property, and there's a river of fools across Berlin. Also it's hot.
Aug 07, 2020•39 min
This week, Konrad explains what he saw and heard at the trials of Bruno D., former guard at the Stutthof concentration camp, and Stephan B., would-be far-right terrorist of Halle.
Jul 24, 2020•36 min
No Megan's Megacan this week we're afraid - instead here's an extended interview from Konrad's (AKA Ben's) upcoming film about collapse, called "We're All Going To Die". It's a talk from October 2019 with conservation biologist Guy McPherson, who says human life will be extinct by 2026. He hopes he's wrong, obviously, but that's not the point. The point is, what do you do with that knowledge?
Jun 28, 2020•1 hr 26 min
On this week's show, corona in Neukölln, a good old CDU corruption scandal, we wonder why Trump has decided to weaken the US militarily, and a murder in the Tiergarten.
Jun 20, 2020•36 min
