Lives Less Ordinary

Latest episodes

• The missionary linguist who lost his faith

  October 26, 2026 · 40 min

  Dan Everett travelled to the Amazon to convert the Piraha people. It didn’t go to plan. Dan was a young Christian missionary, and his talent for linguistics put him on a mission to convert a small indigenous group called the Piraha in…

• Why didn't they tell me I was black? Part 2

  October 19, 2026 · 38 min

  It took years for Lacey Tezino to discover the truth about her parents – what she found out would upturn everything she thought she knew about her own identity. When Lacey left her rural Texan hometown and went to university in…

• Why didn't they tell me I was black? Part 1

  October 12, 2026 · 40 min

  Lacey Tezino grew up in rural Texas in a white family, and was told her Hawaiian mother died when she was a baby. But none of this was true. Lacey was born in the US city of Houston, raised by her single dad who ran a bar there, and whom…

• Forget Cool Runnings: Inside the real Jamaican bobsled team

  October 5, 2026 · 40 min

  Ex army officer Devon Harris was part of the historic Olympic bobsleigh team that inspired the film Cool Runnings, but Hollywood only got half the story. Devon grew up in a tough area of Kingston, Jamaica, called Olympic Gardens. He…

• My mother made me ill for years until a doctor unmasked her

  September 28, 2026 · 41 min

  Nina Blom's early years were plagued by mysterious, serious illnesses. Growing up in the Netherlands in the 1970s and 80s, Nina seemed at first to be a typical child, playing with dolls and enjoying singing and dancing. But soon, her…

Full episode archive on Apple Podcasts →