Rats In The Gutter

Vigorous Thai Fingers

13 Apr 2026

Contributed by Lukas

This week the rats acknowledge that they’ve had something of a hiatus, without offering apology. The world is coo coo crazy right now and if the mos...

Throbs and Leaks

23 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The body keeps the score, and this week the rat-bodies are bedraggled, bewitched, bewigged, and decidedly simian. Which is to say, despite recent salm...

Chaste

15 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The spiral continues! Though getting out of bed at the moment feels like the effort equivalent of pulling wooden splinters out of your own sphincter, ...

PEDDLING FICTIONS

09 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

This week the rats are cinephiles and snap review The Moment, which they were lucky enough to see an advance screening of at Avondale’s illustrious ...

Disappointed

02 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

So many things to be disappointed by, so little time. At the top of the list this week is Gaga’s murky position on Israel, because we think the lady...

hypoxia

23 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Soooooooo everything’s totally cool and normal right now aye, like definitely so chill that anxiously masculine influencers are looksmaxing which is...

Faggs Coffee Filters

13 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Oh dear, it looks like we’ve been so desensitized to horror that full disclosure doesn’t mean diddly (doesn’t mean DIDDY) any more. Like, what e...

It Do Be Rdiddled

01 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Welcome back to the gutter where the living ain’t easy and the joys of scraping by are . . . well, few and far between. But like, ‘community’. A...

fetid forever wars

21 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Here we are in the new year, and any hopes of an improvement over the cluster fuck of 2025 are well and truly shot to shit. Because apparently we’re...

Semiotic Wasteland

28 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Wow, what a year this week has been! Just when you think the stink of western madness couldn’t get thicker on the air…it does. But anyone living o...

We Like To Watch

10 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The rats are in mourning this week as Jimmy D, perhaps NZ’s last source of spiritually consistent urban gothic, closes its doors. As longtime fans o...

Negative Space

28 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

It is officially Wicked Season and if you’re not a shrill femme jumping on the Ozian Express and getting your landing strip dyed a pleasing shade of...

Cthulhu Girls Do It Better

14 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

There’s something rotten in the South Pacific (it’s cops, we’re talking about cops). Recent salacious pedo-adjacent revelations in NZ’s law en...

David and Jonathan and Saul

05 Nov 2025

Contributed by Lukas

WARNING—contains a full minute of dead air as Johanna leaves the studio for a spew. A prerequisite of living in the gutter is humility—which, this...

Kish Kash Kosher!

24 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Get ready non-paying listeners (cough; no shade) for a very special and hopefully consistent-hereafter Agony Aunt section in which we answer your quer...

Ghana Boy

19 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Hello there, our beloved and non paying listeners. This week the rats weave and wend their way around a world teetering on total shit fuckery (some wo...

Everything is (not actually) Romantically

10 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Everything is faaaaaaaarked. And yet, the rats are here. Picking the carcass of the west for views and likes. This week, Winnie Peters is a big brown ...

Just a LUSH RAVISHING ARRESTING SHE/HER

02 Oct 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Another day, another National bequeathed nightmare. And yet more fixation on the unbearable incompetence of Nicola Willis. I know I know blaming a sin...

Melbourne vs Auckland

23 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

This week, Melbourne vs Auckland. Which is better? Just kidding; it;’s obviously Melbourne. And yet the rats, being measured journalists, provide a...

Franz Ferdinand

16 Sep 2025

Contributed by Lukas

well well well the rats are back and despite their hiatus they are NOT feeling rested. If anything their personal lives reflect the disarray of global...

Sea Monkeys Pt. 2

28 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

What a time to be alive! The states are stating, the gulags are gulaging, and the labubu continues to rise as a new synthetic super power with total f...

The Fast and the Furious and the Catatonic

22 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

What a world we’re living in! They say god is dead but the rats know our One True Lord and Saviour is convenience, a modus operandi that’s conveni...

Guests Part 1: Sophie Henderson and Matt Whelan

14 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Guests! Give a very warm welcome to our very special guests actor Matt Whelan and writer/actor Sophie Henderson, two of NZ’s finest film and televis...

The Vanishing

08 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Like they’ve never done before (cough) the rats talk about democracy’s failings and how its formal and informal elements need to be kept distinct ...

I DON’T SUBMERGE

03 Aug 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The clubs that raised us! The rats get nostalgic about a time when all venues were open til six AM, where supper clubs could serve you a pre-work nigh...

Irish Torpedo

26 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Okay, so the Katy Perry abuse might’ve crossed over into primal woman-hate; on a local scale we mean. Like, it’s overkill at this point. In this b...

Buffy the Moa Slayer

18 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

For some reason, or perhaps because a show about surviving late-stage capitalism with your friends and sanity intact is relevant now, the rats revisit...

Oft Overlooked

13 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Twinks; what even are they? This is just one of many hard hitting questions the rats tackle in this week’s free to air (fuckin freeloaders) episode....

Goiters Again

10 Jul 2025

Contributed by Lukas

SORRY FOLKS - this ep is coming out about a week late due to a technical errorIf the rising seas don’t vanish Venice then surely Jeff Bezos’ repug...

Fingies Crossed

27 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

This ep is proudly sponsored by One Percent Collective: opc.nz/RATSReality bends, warps, is vulnerable to liberal edits by every twelve year old with ...

Chowder In & Out

21 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The rats have contracted a mental illness whereby they can’t stop name dropping. Symptoms include swapping stories about famous people who may or ma...

Rejuvenated FISSURE

16 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

There seems to be a lot of negative chat re Sabrina Carpenter’s new album cover, and while at least one of the rats thinks Sabrina is the pop world’...

Chris Bishop is Unattractive

05 Jun 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Wow, what a week it’s been. And this is certainly not a valid review because what’s a week, where am I, whose jiz is this and what even IS time? F...

Celestial Mantis

28 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

This week the rats discuss the proverbial (delusional?) lure of escape; whether it be from an alien abduction themed escape room, or between the bars ...

Gay for Pay (Yay)

21 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Twin or tumour, length or girth, polyamory or cheating. The rats are asking hard questions this week and, like most media, reducing the nuances of rea...

Recommended Protein

05 May 2025

Contributed by Lukas

This episode is proudly supported by ReWired.org.nz - a non-judgemental support group for people who want to bring their Party 'n' Play into focus.As ...

Pillow Princess

28 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

This episode is proudly supported by ReWired.org.nz - a non-judgemental support group for people who want to bring their Party 'n' Play into focus.Thi...

Maybe, That’s The Clit

22 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

This episode is proudly supported by ReWired.org.nz - a non-judgemental support group for people who want to bring their Party 'n' Play into focus.Not...

Put It In The Bag

08 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Jubba Hive Rise! This week (under the looming shadow of . . . well, everything right now) the rats find small (guilty) joy in spending absurd amounts ...

Labia to Linoleum

03 Apr 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Johanna is in Melbourne doing the comedy circuit. So begins a month or so of long distance episodes. Kinda like Heloise and Abelard but without the pl...

The Unbearable Vices of Being

26 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Despite there being very little reason to live at the moment, what with the kinds of geopolitical instability unseen in the west since the end of WW2,...

Sabine Returns

13 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Trilling echolalia of the inner chamber, walls slowly closing in, but they’re gilt chintz so we don’t mind. Also fuck Luxon. Hosted on Acast. See ...

BUZZY

07 Mar 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Oscars? Buzzy. Raglan? Buzzy. PR relationships? Buzzy. A tight five? Buzzy. Marmite sandwiches? Buzzy. Davide Seymour’s natal alcohol syndrome? Pric...

LIGHT ON TOX

27 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Absurdity as a radical gesture, refusal to treat the body more specifically the face as a profitable asset, and the unbearable lightness of race. Enjo...

CHARMING THE ADDER

20 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

We’re counting the days until impact with NASA announcing the immanent arrival of a ‘city killer’ asteroid, just as Brian Tamaki is counting the...

I VIBE (so what)

14 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

This country’s going to hell in a diamanté handbag, kinda puts a damper on Pride. So we’re ashamed.Get every episode early and in video, PLUS our...

CANTERBURY CAPRESE

06 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

This week the rats discuss conservative delusion (such as recolonisation), being pet lovers, the unbearable lightness of fanny sweat, Beyonce’s calc...

BIBLICAL TWINKS

02 Feb 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Historical inaccuracies abound! Was David of David and Goliath fame a flamer? Was Jack the Ripper doing Queen Victoria’s bidding? Am I a natural blo...

DIDDY'S LASERS

29 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Welcome to the facelift. A new and improved Rats 2.0 (if you’ve paid for it). The non-pay-wall peasant channel is still as good, but let’s be hone...

ESOTERIC INFLAMMATION

21 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

there’s an ambience of despair this episode. But rats are survivors. Except for countries so poverty stricken people eat them. Like what New Zealand...

LITTLE PEEPS

14 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

With Sam and Johanna away on holiday, here's a bonus episode released last month on our Patreon! Back soon, happy 2025 ratties xxWelcome again behind ...

HEIRONYMOUS KWEEF

24 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Poly-tics - The government is a choad parade of gross incompetence and double chins and we’ve had a guts full! Also merry xmas.Get every episode ear...

RATS RECAP

17 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

LIVE FROM THE BASEMENT THEATRE - This week's episode is coming to you live and rancid in front of an actual audience. As Sam and Johanna catalogue the...

LAND OF THE FAT WHITE C**TS

10 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Rats gets lice. Not these rats. But we’ve heard it’s a thing. The following is a speculative journey on the parasitical nature of politics, religi...

DEFYING FAGGOTRY

03 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Um, this episode is about Wicked. Obviously. Sorry if we’re predictable but that’s on the carnival feeling the gays and the girls get from a big b...

REALITY IS THE GAG

26 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

There’s nothing harder in this volatile climate than getting out of bed in the morning, closely followed by trying to put a coherent label on what k...

BLEEP BLEEP BLOP

19 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Shit’s real, shit’s dark; shit’s real dark. This week the rats talk various radical forms of feminist solidarity, bespoke seventeenth century vi...

TAKE MY HUMP

12 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Sam and Johanna go broad this week! From Auckland new goblin bar to lute wielding exes in press ons to Esther Perel deep romance interrogation ; come ...

DAVID’S GOTTA GO

05 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

the country is being run by sociopaths with micro penises. This week the rats call the corners and their enraged and like-minded peers towards a solut...

KILL THE FAT CONTROLLER

29 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Sam and Johanna are on a political rampage! Spanning the suffrage movement, Gertrude Steins iron reign, and NZ government moving against its own capit...

FIFTY SHADES OF FENTI

22 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

an ambiently bitter episode. includes a review of Ariana Grande’s racial fluidity, a loving rib on theatre, and the usual white-noise you’d expect...

BYO CIGARILLOS GIRLS

16 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Theatre, faggotry, more faggotry, very public meltdowns. Welcome to this week’s intellectually stimulating potpourri of an episode. We speculate on ...

FILLER ON THE ROOF

08 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

ancestry, misogyny, wellness, an oddly earnest hour(ish) of rats this week. Basically the only real journalism left in this country after the budget c...

RATS LIVE . . . AGAIN!

29 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

take a cozy and harrowingly unfiltered 50 min break with a recording of our latest live appearance. If you listen quietly you can hear people leaving ...

FEATURING EMMA GLEASON

03 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

this week we talk to NZ Herald journalist Emma Gleason about life, love, and the dystopian abolishment of truth in a media landscape that has no cente...

ALLEGATIONS

27 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

this week the rats speculate whether a midi allegation has substance or is just the blue-haired posturing of a hysterical plaintiff with a bone to pic...

ELON MUSKS

20 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Nothing spoils the broth quite like remembering that you’re gonna die, though the rats recommend a daily memento mori to avoid delusions of immortal...

CUL DE SAC

13 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The rats are emotionally unstable this week. We think it has something to do with the retrogrades. Enjoy forty-ish minutes of arrested development and...

I CAN SEE YOUR (anal) HALO

06 Aug 2024

Contributed by Lukas

It’s a cruel world but the rats think they’ve got a handle on it. This week they share their dos and donts, exchanging considered perspectives on ...

FRITTER ME THIS!

30 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

this week, let them eat fritters! the rats get nostalgic about fritter festival, which they have never been to. there’s also some light commentary o...

SHOTS FIRED

22 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

this week the rats are fired up about political violence, dead naming Russel Brand, the class warfare that is travel by air, and Brian Tamaki’s big ...

THE SHRILL SHRIEK I SHROKE

16 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Want some tips on how to combat writers block? The luteal phase? Drunk history? Johanna’s specific walk of shame requirements? Samuel’s relaxation...

BLUE HAIRED POLYCULE

07 Jul 2024

Contributed by Lukas

MaXXXine is out! Madam is out! Richard III’s corpse is out (in a carpark)! Sam and Johanna are sick of therapy but they absolutely love Michelle Bra...

SMAUG

30 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Ep description: Our (b)rats are back in the studio and if you thought they were over screaming themselves hoarse over the acid green sensation that is...

SPIRITUAL FECAL SILT

12 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The seasons cleave to Charli XcX and the world is now Brat green! Join Johanna and Sam for a deep dive into THE album of the year (soz Beyonce) with s...

“Some people think global warming is a hoax, perpestrated by the Chinese. But I say, show me the receips! Because why would Xi Xin Ping wanna flood my basement and rust my Bowflex? To what end? Toooo what end?”

05 Jun 2024

Contributed by Lukas

the rats have difficulty centering themselves this week because the world is a gleaming conundrum equal parts pleasure and shiny anguish. So they anch...

GENDER FLUIDS

29 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

is bisexuality a myth? does pussy count as a meal and does it have a smooth finish? this week the rats go deep within themselves to find out where in ...

GENDER NEUTRAL XENO-FLAPS

20 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

This week the rats cusp extracurricular exhaustion and the ambient horror of a world on fire, while also finding time to assess the particular madness...

MULTIPLE NDA’S

11 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

against all legal advice, the rats describe some of their extracurricular activities, which they’re forced to do because podcasting is largely pro b...

HI, GAY

04 May 2024

Contributed by Lukas

After a brief work related hiatus - the rats are back in situ with some juicy and shocking personal revelation’s. No spoilers here - tune in and slu...

STILL-LIFE RATS

20 Apr 2024

Contributed by Lukas

It’s here—the rats live! Effortlessly eclipsing The Eras Tour as the season's most sought-after ticketed event, Cosgrove and Te Kani set Auckland’...

THE SHRILL ART OF FAILURE

24 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

the rats try and have a critical conversation about some frankly profound theatre they recently saw together, and are thwarted by a bug in the system....

AWARDS SEASON

15 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

And so the Oscars are here. It’s difficult to get excited about cinematic glories against the backdrop of genocide and ambient psychological warfare...

KWISATZ HADERACH

07 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Body dysmorphia is as strong a theme this week as it’s ever been. Dune Part Two looms like a mammoth cultural moment. Fifties housewives dropping ta...

FUSCHIA SPACE DEBRIS

02 Mar 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In a fugue state of rap beefs and genocides the rats try and cohere a week of internet, in brief. Notably featuring kosher cocktails, Hamas-friendly a...

CARNIE CONVENTION w/ Eli Matthewson

21 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

This week, the rats invite comedian and fellow carnie/attention whore Eli Matthewson in. They exchange stories of willful self exposures, humiliations...

ROLL THE DICE

11 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

This week in stinking hot Tāmaki, our rats are more delusional than you thought humanly possible! Sam and Johanna dissect various social and personal...

BACK OFF FATTY

02 Feb 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The horrors persist but so do we. This week, the rats wax on about the survivalism of nature’s reviled critters, pariahs such as cockroaches, wasps,...

UNDER ATTACK

27 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Samuel and Johanna are still deep in the northland wilderness which has done wonders for their sense of reality (or lack thereof!) Tune in to this epi...

BUSH PIGS

21 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The rats have gone bush to work on themselves. Critical distance from their natural city habitus gives pause for introspection, a reserve of intellect...

THE FLY LIST ETC

10 Jan 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Happy New Year straight from the gutter! This week, Johanna and Samuel are back with a inappropriate vengeance, speculating wildly on all the essentia...

Another WRAPPED

24 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The year is coming to a close and amidst obligatory family time the rats find a quiet moment to review their year. Join them for an intellectual tour ...

BOKASHI HELL

12 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The rats feel the strain of December when New Zealanders prepare to enter a summer free for all of seasonal binge drinking. How will boycotting McDona...

ENNUI, FANTASY and YOU

05 Dec 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The rats are feeling meh and in their restlessness cavort across topics as diffuse as the visual poetry of Mission Impossible Fallout, Henry Cavill’...

MUSIC (sort of)

30 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The rats look back on the year that was, because Spotify told them to. Join them as they introspect about a trash-fire 12 months that included acciden...

BRAIN DIDDLING

22 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

As we careen headfirst into summer, Auckland’s sweatiest and hottest girls keep it nice and moist—much like their dermis. Our rats wax lyrical abo...

THE WELLNESS EPISODE

16 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

As Samuel visits Johanna’s sickbed (dramatic but real gurls) it’s only fitting that our Rats loosely mull over wellness in a way that is deeply…...

THERAPIZE THIS!

07 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Depression demons, emotional instability, the importance of being pro-Palestine, Taylor Swift and Olivia Rodrigo being the double headed hydra of our ...

BULLET-PROOF PUSSY

05 Nov 2023

Contributed by Lukas

This week, the rats air numerous grievances with their fellow man, with whom they are all kinds of disappointed (as you should be). Topics range from ...

THE ID

25 Oct 2023

Contributed by Lukas

This week the rats are basically scared and confused (and a little horny) from the fumes of a world on fire. It’s two parts vitriol, one part nonsen...