Better Than Yesterday with Osher Günsberg

As comedian and radio legend Merrick Watts prepares for his Grapes Of Mirth festival in Tasmania, I thought it would be a good time to look back at a couple of interesting things that we learned about Merrick from the times I've spoken with him over the years.
You'll hear about his unique approach to resilience, his thoughts on parenting, and the really interesting way that he revived a 2000 year old Roman drink for modern tastes. There is so much more to Merrick than his resume. He's a fascinating man, and I hope you enjoy these highlights from our conversations.
LINKS
More on Merrick's Grapes Of Mirth
More on Posca
Listen to past episodes featuring Merrick Watts here and here
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Get Osher's latest book "So What? Now What?" here
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See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What if I told you that the secret to happiness was to pay more attention to the times when life absolutely sucks? How can that make sense?
Everything I scroll past berates me with a message about finding happiness, treating myself, pushing me to constantly be seek out the good at all costs. While it’s absolutely important to discover and nurture those things that make life pleasurable and even tolerable, my guest today argues that we also need to also sit with and even embrace misery to truly appreciate what makes life great.
Eamon Evans is a prolific author, writing 15 books on everything from sport to crime, urban legends and great Aussie scandals. His latest book, The Importance of Being Miserable: A Short History of Human Happiness, and Why Sometimes It's Good to Feel Bad, challenges the notion that life should always be good, happy and sparkly; and suggests that negative emotions have been historically important, and still are.

Today, Eamon unpacks the fantasy we’ve been sold over the years - that happiness is something you can achieve, lock in, and never lose, and argues that, ironically, chasing it might actually be what’s making us miserable. Fear not, Eamon is hilarious and delivers his message in a coating of laughter and delicious irony - so he’s able to get the idea across incredibly well.
He's even written a book about it, "The Importance of Being Miserable".
Now that I think about it, the title of the book might just be the closest thing that's ever got me to understanding why Morrissey exists.
LINKS
Grab a copy of Eamon's book The Importance of Being Miserable
Watch episodes of Better Than Yesterday on YouTube
Sign up to the Better Than Yesterday newsletter
Watch full stories recorded live at Story Club on YouTube
Get tickets for our next Story Club show
Get Osher's latest book "So What? Now What?" here
Send a pic of what you're looking at to [email protected]
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When I open my phone, it explodes in a cascade of fear, fury and furphies. That content does exactly what it is designed to do—leave me spinning in a tizz of powerlessness and desperation.
Besides just turning my phone off, I think I have found something that makes that feeling less intense, and instead gives me the feeling that I am actually doing something that will make a difference.
LINKS
Watch episodes of Better Than Yesterday on YouTube
Sign up to the Better Than Yesterday newsletter
Watch full stories recorded live at Story Club on YouTube
Get tickets for our next Story Club show
Get Osher's latest book "So What? Now What?" here
Send a pic of what you're looking at to [email protected]
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The man, the music legend - Diesel (aka Mark Lizotte) is my guest the week as he prepares to tour the nation for his By Request tour. It's a wide-ranging conversation about creativity, addiction, community - even sleep hygiene - and why songs become emotional time machines. It's a conversation about music, ageing, purpose, and finding connection in a modern world that keeps pulling us apart.
Heads up - if you'd like to skip straight to the Diesel chat, head to 16:07.
LINKS
Catch Diesel on tour - info and tix @ dieselmusic.com.au
Watch episodes of Better Than Yesterday on YouTube
Sign up to the Better Than Yesterday newsletter
Watch full stories recorded live at Story Club on YouTube
Get tickets for our next Story Club show
Get Osher's new book "So What? Now What?" here
Send a pic of what you're looking at to [email protected]
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Today is January 26th.
If you’ve listened to the show for a while you’ll probably have an idea about where I view the significance of this day. If there’s one thing I wish for 2026, it’s that two things can be true at the same time. It is vitally important to celebrate a national identity, the story which binds us together as a community.
The current day we’re celebrating this concept causes a great deal of pain to a significant number of people in our country. I’m not putting forward at all that we sholdn’t celebrate who we are as a nation, far from it - i think it’s incredibly important to be proud of who we are, what we’ve become and also to recognise where we’ve come from. We can do that in a way which unites us.
The current way we’re going about it doesn’t really do the job. What kind of community do we want? A community divided along ideological lines so stark that we may as well be separate communities? Or a community united by values which we consider at the core of our national identity, and those ideological lines branch from there, as a way to put those values into action in our daily lives?
For context, today we’re revisiting one of my favourite people in the world - the incredible Stan Grant.
LINKS:
Listen to the full interview with Stan from 2021 here
Listen to my other chat with Stan from 2019 here
Watch episodes of Better Than Yesterday on YouTube
Watch Story Club on YouTube and grab tickets to Story Club's next show
My books So What? Now What? and Back After The Break are available here
Send a pic of what you're looking at to [email protected]
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.