A View From A Bridge

The act of pretending can be detrimental and create harm to ourselves and those around us, other times it can be a coping mechanism and a necessary tool to protect ourselves, those close to us and the relationships we wish to maintain. Today’s episode is a collection of stories and observations about... pretending!

• Albert tells us about a weekly predicament of pretending which has become essential to his family's unity. 
• Akin, who is not a fan of spicy chicken wings, tells us about how he compensated for racial stereotypes through other means.
• Sick and tired of queerbaiting, Zooey exclaims his public service announcement; ‘We’re pulling up the drawbridge.’
• A student in Manchester, India, is fearful of nonchalance; the social epidemic which is plaguing our young people.

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Men at work have been romanticised and documented in art, music and literature for millennia, it's about time we feature some of them in a podcast!

• Alistair works in Hyde Park. Whether it's planting rose gardens, or litter picking, he finds solace and calm in his daily routine.
• Mo has been a postman for 17 years, and sees it as his job for life. He lets us into the ups and downs of being a London mail man.
• Andre talks about the stigma attached to homelessness and how he has shrugged off the shame of being a ‘Big Issue’ seller.

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This episode is about moments which have provoked the primal instincts reminding us that we are in fact alive. Everyone listening to this podcast is alive, however what that means is entirely different for each and every one of us- it’s a spectrum. 

• Kae Tempest speaks about embracing themselves, their identity and how that freedom has made them finally feel alive.
• After a fairground ride on the teacups, Junelala found herself faced with existential thoughts on what it means to be alive. 
• During a near fatal car accident, Actress May Elghety saw everything in slow motion and high definition. 
• At a motorway service station on the M6, Craig lets us into his world, and the daily battle he has with life itself. 

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From birth, our bodies are initiated into a complex web of politics, sexuality, hierarchies and trends. 

Today, we feature stories about people’s relationships with their form. People can have ever changing relationships with their bodies, some want to be seen while others are simply wanting to be ignored. 

• Adrain, a professional life model, a job which see’s him posing naked in front of multiple people every day reflects on his career after 25 years in the biz.
• Gwyneth vents about the systemic problems of unrealistic beauty standards, and how they took hold of her relationship with her body and subsequently her life.
• Su talks about how she’s learnt to deal with strangers' relentless comments about her body.
• After years of holding on to thinning hair, Leo made the Bold choice to shave it all off. Life was never the same again.

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Life sometimes throws us circumstances beyond our control, we can’t change the fact that these circumstances exist, but we can have a say in what comes next, and how we approach what we’ve been confronted with. This is an episode about moments in life where the fabric of what we know to be reality is torn, and we are found in a new situation for which we have no prior training.

• Camilla receives a shock diagnosis of stage four cancer at the age of 26, her doctor telling her she has a year to live, at best.
• Elizabeth wanted to be an actor. Now she's a co owner of the toe wrestling federation.
• Jason Williamson, frontman of the punk duo; Sleaford Mods, talks about his shift into sobriety and how the mornings have become his afterlife. 
• When Brexit happened in 2020, Jose thought he was British, but quickly came to realise how Brexit really did mean Brexit.
• Mike, known to many as the musician Perfume Genius, revisits the moment where a rattlesnake cut his dog's life too short.

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Home can be the house you grew up in. The country you were born in. It can be a person, a feeling, or an unidentifiable sense of safety. Sometimes people leave home because it isn’t safe, sometimes they leave to become who they are supposed to be, and sometimes the decision to leave is made for them. The search for safety, or the decision to leave it behind is something that joins all of today's stories.

• Dymtro, a teenager confronted with a decision, after the Russian invasion of his home country, Ukraine.
• Elnaz shares a story about her Mother who, against all odds, took a leap of faith when leaving Iran with her children, to find a new home in the UK.
• Fleeing Singapore, from a life of transphobia, asylum seeker Yuna explores some of the moral complications which this journey to London has opened up.
• Bradley, a university student who has left the comforts of his family home, figures out how to run a washing machine and what it really means to be self-sufficient. 
• Matty, who, with the distance of time, reflects on being made homeless at 15, and the subsequent years that followed

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To be or not to be a parent...That is the question - which everyone in today’s episode has asked themselves. 

• The birth of Alexandra’s first child didn’t go as planned. She tells us about it and why she won’t be doing it again.
• Jonathan, an Oscar nominated documentary maker, thought he was making a film about Vasectamies. It turned out he was starting a worldwide movement.
• Lead singer of the band Franz Ferdinand, Alex Kapranos speaks on having his first child at 50.
• Musician Rebecca Lucy Taylor, otherwise known as Self Esteem, muses on one of nature’s cruelest gender dividers; the body clock.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.