ShortHand: The Black Death

From the BBC and Westminster Cathedral to Penguin paperbacks, typeface creator Eric Gill was once lauded as the eccentric genius behind some of Britain’s most iconic visual landmarks. But behind the scenes, he was also a sex-mad monster who shamelessly abused his own daughters within the rural Catholic artisanal communes where he lived and worked…And the art world covered it all up for decades. TL;DR – Did you know one of the UK’s most celebrated sculptors and graphic designers was actually a notorious nonce? Neither did we.--Patreon - Ad-free & Bonus EpisodesYouTube - Full-length Video EpisodesTikTok / Instagram

To some paedophile catchers like Chris Hansen are online superheroes, protecting children and putting predators behind bars. To others they're vigilantes who enforce their own form of justice while putting people in danger. But do they have a place in the system? This week Hannah and Suruthi are jumping into the murky waters of self styled sting operations, hidden cameras, and entrapment to find out.--Patreon - Ad-free & Bonus EpisodesYouTube - Full-length Video EpisodesTikTok / Instagram

Fetal abduction is incredibly rare, so it’s no surprise that it wasn’t top of the list of possible motives when a heavily pregnant 22-year-old Rebecca Park first went missing. Yet when looking back over the countless livestreams and interviews given by Rebecca’s biological mother, Cortney Bartholomew, along with Bartholomew’s husband, Bradley, the pieces quickly fall into place — a mother jealous of her own child and willing to kill her for her baby.Join us in the concluding episode of our deep dive into the murder of Rebecca Park and her unborn child, as we comb through hours of bizarre Facebook livestreams and police interviews to try and piece together not just what happened on the day Rebecca and her unborn baby were killed, but also what on earth her killers were trying to achieve and the pathetic tale they tried to tell the authorities.--Patreon - Ad-free & Bonus EpisodesYouTube - Full-length Video EpisodesTikTok / Instagram

From Belladonna eye drops to literally eating arsenic, human vanity has taken us to some pretty dark places in our quest to look drop dead gorgeous…But would you risk your life for the perfect makeover?In this week’s ShortHand, we’re looking at the toxic history of beauty hacks – and trust us, you do not wanna try these at home.--Patreon - Ad-free & Bonus EpisodesYouTube - Full-length Video EpisodesTikTok / Instagram

This week, we’re taking you back to 1974 for a rollocking royal story that The Crown won’t tell you - the time a young Princess Anne was almost kidnapped by a gun-toting loner outside Buckingham Palace, in a shower of bullets and stiff upper lips.The Anne-cident changed royal security protocols forever. But would The Firm be changing their ways? Not bloody likely.Featuring an ex-boxer vigilante, a somersaulting princess and an outrageous extortion plot, you don’t wanna miss this one.--Patreon - Ad-free & Bonus EpisodesYouTube - Full-length Video EpisodesTikTok / Instagram

Families are complicated, but when Rebecca Park went missing while heavily pregnant with the child of her mother’s ex-boyfriend, it raised eyebrows. Rebecca disappeared on the 3rd November 2025 after going to visit her biological mother Cortney Batholomew. In the weeks and months that followed a web of lies, inheritance and manipulation bubbled to the surface through Facebook livestreams and cryptic interviews with police. Join us in part one of a two part series on the murder of Rebecca Park and her unborn child, as we try to untangle a generationally complex web of deceit.--Patreon - Ad-free & Bonus EpisodesYouTube - Full-length Video EpisodesTikTok / Instagram

In just seven years, the bubonic plague killed half of all Europeans – more than 50 million people. We look at its surprising origins on the Mongolian battlefield (where diseased bodies were literally catapulted at the enemy); its unstoppable spread through a terrified Europe; and how it turned cultural, religious and social life in the 14th century completely upside down.--Patreon - Ad-free & Bonus EpisodesYouTube - Full-length Video EpisodesTikTok / Instagram

When Julian Assange created WikiLeaks in 2006, it was the aim of rooting out corruption and improving transparency. And its successes were unprecedented, exposing hard-kept, dirty secrets from the very highest levels of power.But somewhere along the way, something happened. And whether it was Assange’s ego that brought him down – or the institutions he had so royally pissed off – isn’t totally clear. H&S try to find the truth about the world’s most famous truth-teller.--Patreon - Ad-free & Bonus EpisodesYouTube - Full-length Video EpisodesTikTok / Instagram

Did Lindsay Clancy kill her children? Despite what was portrayed online, this was not the question at the heart of a trial which has gripped a nation. Both the defence and the prosecution agreed, that tragically, the 36-year-old was indeed the the person who took the lives of the Clancy Children. The question was why? Was Lindsay Clancy insane and did that lead to a momentary lapse of control in which her actions felt justified? Or were the murders the result of a cold and calculated decision?This was what the jury was tasked with deciding, and is the focus of part two in our deep drive into the tragic killings of Cora, Dawson, and Callan Clancy.--Patreon - Ad-free & Bonus EpisodesYouTube - Full-length Video EpisodesTikTok / Instagram

Jeanne D’Arc – the teenage girl guided by saintly voices to command actual French armies into actual military victories – is one of history’s best-known names. Not bad for a 13-year-old.But that's not all. This week, we take a speedy look through the bloody, Game-of-Thrones-topping madness that is the Hundred Years’ War, meet a mad king that’s convinced he’s made of glass, and find out how one girl changed the entire course of world history.