Kyiv Circus, Jane Goodall and Japanese bears: looking back on October 2025

In this episode, Delayed Gratification co-editor Rob Orchard is joined by James Montague and Susan Schulman to look back on October 2025 with six months of perspective. It was an era when Venezuela's Maria Corina Machado had not yet felt obliged to hand her Nobel Peace Prize over to Donald Trump, the children of Australia had not had all of their Tiktoks turned off and the residents of Prince Andrew's Road in Hellesdon had not yet requested a name change for their street. The trio return to Susan's extraordinary report on the circus in Kyiv, which has kept going throughout the invasion, and dive into the DG archive to discuss another story of hers from issue 19 of the magazine, about the fight to bring mobile phone reception to DRC. James gives us the inside track on the late, great primatologist Jane Goodall, including her surprising interest in Bigfoot. To read the stories being discussed in this episode in beautiful print, pick up a copy of Delayed Gratification issue 61 or subscribe with a 15 percent discount using code Pod15.