Episode 112 · every other Tuesday · Dublin

The interview about the version that did not work.

Ninety minutes with architects, showrunners, brewers, bridge engineers and one competitive whistler — always about the draft they threw away, never about the launch.

Start with episode 112

The premise

Nobody tells you about the second draft

Every craft interview you have ever heard follows the same arc: the idea, the struggle, the triumph, the plug. This show cuts the first and the last. Guests bring one thing they made that failed, or nearly did, and we spend an hour and a half on it — the meeting where it went wrong, the thing they defended for too long, what it cost. It is recorded in one take with no pre-interview, which means the awkward pauses stay in. Since 2021 we have made 112 of these, and the most-downloaded one is still a structural engineer describing a footbridge that was fine and felt wrong.

Two microphones on a table in a small carpeted studio

Recent episodes

112 — The footbridge that was fine and felt wrong

New

Priya Nandakumar, structural engineer · 1h 38m

On the difference between a structure passing every calculation and a structure people trust with their feet, and the eighteen months spent proving it.

111 — Cutting the film we spent a year on

Colm Beirne, documentary editor · 1h 21m

It had a subject, a grant and 190 hours of footage. It did not have a spine. What happened next.

110 — A brewery that scaled too fast on purpose

Nadia Haddad, brewer · 1h 44m

Doubling capacity before the demand existed. Why they would do it again, and the two years in between.

109 — The show that got a season two nobody wanted

Anon

Anonymous showrunner · 1h 09m

A rare anonymous episode, with the employer named only in the parts they cleared.

108 — Rebuilding a typeface from a photograph

Wesley Okonkwo, type designer · 1h 33m

Four years, one blurry 1954 shopfront, and the argument about how much invention is allowed.

Supported this season by

What listeners say

“It is the only interview show where the host will sit in a fifteen-second silence and let the guest finish thinking. I have started doing that in meetings.”
Iona F. · Listener since ep. 12
“I run a two-person studio and episode 110 talked me out of a decision that would have ended us. That is a strange thing to say about a podcast.”
Dermot A. · Studio owner, Cork
“Ninety minutes is too long and I listen to every one of them.”
Sasha V. · Listener

Pitch a guest

Including yourself. The only rule is that there is a specific thing that did not work and you are willing to talk about it in detail. Publicists welcome; press releases ignored.

This form needs a runtime to be wired before it can send.

Show notes by email

Every other Tuesday: the episode, the transcript link, and the two things the guest said off-mic that they were happy for us to print.

Connect a runtime to start collecting subscribers.