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Episode 248

Before the noise and chaos, there was simply a boy called Richard.

Born in 1958 in Harlow, Essex, he grew up in a house full of drama — his parents were teachers of it. Voices, characters and imagination were normal life, and he learned early that attention wasn’t something you waited for. You grabbed it.

At school he pushed limits, chasing laughter that felt slightly dangerous. Not neat jokes, but reactions — big ones. When he reached the University of Manchester in the late 1970s, Britain’s comedy scene was ready to change, and Rik didn’t tell jokes so much as launch himself at them, turning his body and face into the punchline.

People didn’t know exactly what it was yet.

They just knew it wasn’t ordinary.

And that was the beginning of Rik Mayall.

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Episode 247

Before treaties were signed and borders were fixed on maps, power in Aotearoa was measured in mana — authority earned, defended, and sometimes taken by force. Few figures embodied that struggle more clearly than Hōne Heke.

Born into a high-ranking Ngāpuhi family in the early nineteenth century, Hōne Heke came of age during a time of enormous change. Muskets were reshaping warfare, missionaries were reshaping belief, and the British Empire was beginning to reshape the future of Māori land and leadership. Heke was intelligent, restless, and deeply political. He understood the new world arriving on New Zealand’s shores better than many of the men who claimed to rule it.

To some, he was a rebel. To others, a patriot. Hōne Heke believed that sovereignty — real power — was slipping away from Māori chiefs under British control. His response was symbolic, dramatic, and unforgettable: the repeated cutting down of the flagstaff at Kororāreka. Each strike was a message, not just of resistance, but of warning.

This is the story of a man who challenged an empire, not because he rejected change, but because he refused submission. A leader driven by pride, principle, and an unshakable belief in Māori authority — and one of the first to test the limits of British power in New Zealand.

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Episode 246

Before the trophies, before the songs, before the stadiums learned his name, there is a man standing by a river.

No crowd. No noise. Just water moving slowly through Pau Grande, dragonflies cutting the air, and a fishing line held loose in his hands. He isn’t thinking about tactics or titles. He isn’t thinking about history. He’s thinking about nothing at all — and that’s exactly the point.

Mané Garrincha never set out to be a legend. He didn’t chase greatness, didn’t organise his life around ambition, didn’t seem especially interested in where football might take him. The game came to him, not the other way around — and when it did, it bent itself to his shape, his rhythm, his strange, beautiful way of moving through the world.

This is not just the story of one of the greatest footballers who ever lived. It’s the story of joy without calculation, of genius without intention, of a man who could make millions happy while never quite understanding why.

This is the story of Mané Garrincha — the little bird who taught football how to dance.

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Insta@justpassingthroughpodcast
Contact:justpassingthroughpodcast@gmail.com