Robbie McRobbie – Rugby / Tracy Quan – Columnist / Paul French – Author / Simon Engerer – From Player To Page / Neil Runcieman – View from Ho Chi Minh City

Good morning. Welcome to Monday on Morning Brew. We’ll get things going at 10.10, as usual, with Robbie McRobbie’s executive level rugby report. At 10.40, New York correspondent Tracy Quan will be back with this week’s news and views. At 11.10 we begin another four-part serialisation of one of New York Times best-selling author Paul French’s stories from the ‘Post Magazine’. This week we’re heading back to 1932, to northern China, to a chaotic time when poverty, war, and desperation led to an epidemic of kidnappings by local bandits, eager to secure large ransoms. It was often pretty good business for them. That is, until the snatching of 19 year old English woman, Muriel ’Tinko’ Pawley. This was a big mistake for the bandit leader who thought she’d be easy money, as she was to become his worst nightmare. Paul reads part one of… ‘Carry on Kidnapping’. After 11.30 we’ll welcome Simon Engerer back to the programme. He’s the organiser of ‘From Player To Page’; a competition for students to write a video game script, which we chatted on air about a few months ago. Well, the winners were announced this past weekend. After 12 its time for our first August trip to Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam, to catch up with MB Bureau Chief-at-large, Neil Runcieman. Neil, and Paul (audio only), will also be on Facebook live.