Ctrl Alt Delete

Dawn O'Porter is a novelist, columnist and broadcaster who lives in Los Angeles with her husband Chris, two songs, cat Lilu and dog Potato. She has made numerous documentaries about all sorts of things: polygamy, childbirth, Geisha, body image, breast cancer and even the movie Dirty Dancing. She is the critically acclaimed author of Paper Aeroplanes and Goose and The Sunday Times Bestseller The Cows.

Dawn helped launch ‘Help Refugees’ in 2015, a charity that sends urgent care to refugees across Europe. She is also the host of ‘Get It On’, a weekly podcast where she interviews interesting people about why they wear what they wear.

The Cows is a powerful novel about three women – judging each other, but also themselves. In all the noise of modern life, they need to find their own voice. Tara, Cam and Stella are strangers living their own lives as best they can – though when society’s screaming you should live life one way, it can be hard to like what you see in the mirror.

When an extraordinary event ties invisible bonds of friendship between them, one woman’s catastrophe becomes another’s inspiration, and a life lesson to all. The book is all about how it’s sometimes OK to not follow the herd.

In this episode we talk about writing novels, motherhood, growing up, the power of quitting and the importance of knowing yourself the best out of everyone.

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Gina Martin is a writer and activist in London and currently campaigning to change the law around "upskirting", the act of someone taking a photo up someone's skirt.

Gina recently partnered with Refinery 29 UK and created the hashtag #stopskirtingtheissue. In a nutshell, Gina was watching The Killers perform at a music festival last summer, when two guys kept hitting on her and wouldn't take no for an answer. After this happened and after she told the police, she later learned that taking pictures up skirts is not legally classed as a sexual offence under UK law.

Taken from Refinery29UK: "Martin threw herself into research and found out that there is no specific legislation against upskirting. Upskirting is already illegal in Scotland after the law was changed by the Sexual Offences (Scotland) Act 2009. But, under the Sexual Offences Act 2003—a law which pertains to the whole UK—upskirting is not considered a sexual offence."

In this episode we discuss how to start a campaign from scratch, the power spreading the word on social media, small acts of activism and how the people around you really matter.

A favourite quote from this episode: “I can sound pushy, I can sound bossy, I can sound like I’m being cheeky, but at the end of the day I’m trying to change the law.”

If you were inspired by this episode PLEASE do sign the petition to make this illegal under the Sexual Offences Act of 2003: https://www.thepetitionsite.com/en-gb/takeaction/887/239/401/

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I know I say “exciting episode” every week but this really is. I’ve been a huge fan of Greta Gerwig for years. I fell in love with her in the film Frances Ha, 20th Century Women, Mistress America and her brilliant supporting role in Jackie. Now she's nominated for an Oscar for her amazing directorial debut called Ladybird. I saw Ladybird last year at a special press screening and cried and laughed and loved it. Universal then asked if I wanted to interview Greta for my podcast and honestly, I nearly cried again when I got the email. I love her! Ladybird is a comedy-drama written and directed by Greta with a seriously amazing cast: Saoirse Ronan, Laurie Metcalf, Timothée Chalamet, Beanie Feldstein. Set in Sacramento, California, it is a coming-of-age story of a high-school senior played by Saoirse and her turbulent relationship with her mother. The story of female friendship is also really lovely throughout.

Go and see LADYBIRD! It’s out in the UK now.

Favourite quotes from the episode:

“I do not want to perpetuate the myth that I’m a superior being. I do not have gifts outside of the realm of a normal ability to work. I’m super distractible, I can be really lazy."

“The older you get, the better you feel.”

"I'm not on social media. I was told ‘You have to get on Twitter for your career’."

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Emily Hill is journalist and author of Bad Romance. In 2016, she was the commissioning editor at The Spectator. Last August, she was responsible for the magazine’s first ever all-female cover. She has written comment for The Guardian, books reviews for the New Statesman and features for the Mail on Sunday, as well as gathering gossip for the Evening Standard and profiling cult figures for Dazed & Confused. Emily is also a collage artist and she gave me a beautiful collage when we met to record the podcast!

This is going live around Valentine's Day and I wanted to dedicate it to talking about being single and what that means right now. Bridget Jones seems outdated and a bit patronising at times, and she ends up with the man in the end, like most literature and film.

Emily's book Bad Romance is dark, funny and feminist debut short story collection and I totally loved it. They tell of defiant single women in all shapes and sizes - of career girls, sisters, mothers and lovers, battling through sleepless nights, never-ending parties, grotesque flat shares and office nightmares.

These are super-short stories, ideal for anyone on the run who wants to be distracted from the daily commute by plunging into a vivid fictional world. This is a collection made for snatched moments – to be flicked through between deadlines, scrolled through in the bus queue on the screen of a smartphone, devoured along with lunch. Or, like a classic bedtime story, finished in that precious time between putting on pyjamas and collapsing into sleep. Each comic vignette may be read fast but will linger long in the mind.

This is a book for fans of Roald Dahl, Saki, Fleabag and Sex in the City.

We talk about writing, getting your confidence back (Emily was rejected by lots of literary agents at the beginning) and why getting married or getting engaged aren't necessarily the only big achievements that need celebrating, lots of other parts of our lives deserve parties too.

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Welcome to a bonus episode of Ctrl Alt Delete, recorded live at the Soho Hotel after a screening of Home Again, a film with the amazing Reese Witherspoon playing the main character Alice Kinney. Recently separated from her husband, (played by Michael Sheen), Alice decides to start over by moving back to her hometown of Los Angeles with her two young daughters. During a night out on her 40th birthday, Alice meets three aspiring filmmakers who happen to be in need of a place to live. Alice agrees to let the guys stay in her guesthouse temporarily, but the arrangement ends up unfolding in unexpected ways. Alice's unlikely new family and new romance comes to a crashing halt when her ex-husband shows up, suitcase in hand. It's the perfect escapism film, to watch with mates and have a night-in. I also loved how unexpectedly funny it is.

The film was written and directed by Hallie Meyers-Shyer and produced by Nancy Meyers (who directed The Holiday and The Intern, both so good). The film is a modern romantic comedy about love, friendship, and the families we create - themes I wanted to explore further on the podcast.

So after the screening, I interviewed my friend and author Kate Leaver, who's book The Friendship Cure comes out in March. She moved from Sydney to London post-break up and knows a lot about friendship, so I wanted to theme this episode around moving away from home, moving to a new place and starting afresh. Thank you to Sony Pictures Home Entertainment for making this live recording happen, and just so you know, the DVD and Blu Ray of Home Again is available now, from Feb 5th! Thank you also to the brilliant Shola Aleje who produced this live episode.

*This episode is sponsored by Sony Pictures at Home*.

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Jayne Hardy is the Founder and CEO of The Blurt Foundation – a Social Enterprise dedicated to helping those affected by depression. She lost most of her twenties to depression. At the height of her illness she was unable to work, leave the house or even undertake the most basic acts of self-care – in her book she talks about how she lost a tooth because she didn’t feel worthy enough to clean them. She has spoken, and written, about her experiences of depression and self-care, on BBC Radio 2, at TEDxBrum, and in publications such as Huffington Post, Grazia, Virgin.com, to name a few - and now her book is out called The Self-Care Project. She won the TalkTalk Digital Hero Award in 2011, and in 2014 was included in Marketing Magazine’s list of Top 10 Digital Mavericks. Jayne has been mentioned as one of 19 inspirational women leading the way in mental health by Rethink as part of their International Women’s Day celebrations. In 2016, Jayne led the viral #whatyoudontsee Social Media campaign.

Hope you find this episode informative - I definitely did talking to Jayne. We talk about self-care, how it can be other word of ‘recovery’ when you are ill. We talk about how to help friends who might be pushing you away, the loneliness epidemic, how to be kinder to yourself, and how dismissing the ~self-care trend~ as being fluffy and self-indulgent is kind of missing the point.

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Jojo Moyes is a novelist, best known for her bestselling book Me Before You. Jojo has been a full time novelist since 2002, before that she was a journalist for 10 years. Her first book Sheltering Rain was published in 2002 Since then she has written a further eleven novels, all of which have been widely critically acclaimed. Jojo has won the Romantic Novelist’s Award twice, and Me Before You has been nominated for Book of the Year at the UK Galaxy Book Awards. Me Before You has since gone on to sell over 8 million copies worldwide. The film adaptation of Me Before You starring Sam Claflin (The Hunger Games) and Emilia Clarke (Game of Thrones) was released in June 2016 and was a huge box-office success. The screenplay was written by Jojo. We spoke about dealing with rejected manuscripts, changing jobs, her new book Still Me, the power of listening to feedback and the excitement of being on a film set when you wrote the main characters.

Favourite quotes from this episode:

“My publishing career was in such a perilous state at that point I just wanted a book that sold enough for me to keep going as a writer.”

“You can only do so much as an author, so much of it depends on timing, it depends on retailers, it depends on whether people like the cover, it can be a million different factors that you have no control over.”

“It’s not about how you fail, it’s about how you respond to that failure.”

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Lucy Sheridan is the World's first and only "Comparison Coach". She came on the podcast last year to talk about a book she co-authored with fellow lifecoach Jo Westwood. This time, we discuss the dreaded act on social media comparison in all it's ugliness.

Lucy is a Hay House author and life coach who specialises in her helping her clients get over the compare and despair that can be heightened via social media. She uses the #comparisonfree hashtag online spreading awareness of how to find the tools to live a comparison free life. She coaches her clients with unique, specialist coaching experiences and events. The Times' calls Lucy "one of the UK's most successful coaches", she was also recently listed in the Sunday Times Style in an article called "Meet The New Wellbeing Coaches", and she’s been featured on Oprah's 'Life Class' series multiple times.

I wanted to release this episode about comparison around Christmas time as I think it's a time when we have more time to play around online and maybe part of that means looking at what other people are doing, imagining their perfect lives and scrutinising ourselves. In this episode Lucy and I discuss what our own personal comparison triggers are, what to do when *you're* the trigger for someone else's comparison, online mental health, and setting your own personal and professional boundaries. I’m proud to be sharing this very honest episode on comparison, and I hope you enjoy it! 

You can find Lucy Sheridan here http://www.proofcoaching.com/ or on Instagram @lucysheridan.

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Tom Chatfield is a leading writer, thinker and speak on technology and digital culture. We sat on a panel together a few years back and I loved what he had to say. He’s consulted for firms ranging from Google, Coca Cola to Time Out, he is interested in improving our experiences of digital culture, with a special interest in A.I., the psychology of human-machine interactions and the ethics of tech.

He’s a TED Global speaker (with ver 1 million of his talk “7 Ways Games Reward the Brain”) and a prolific author. Tom’s 7th book CRITICAL THINKING has just come out with Sage publishing and it's a brilliant book full of tools on how to think more clearly in this age of digital overwhelm. He is a columnist for BBC’s worldwide technology site and BBC Future and guest lectures at universities in the UK and all over Europe. He has written for the Financial Times, Guardian, Observer, Independent, Sunday Times, New Statesman, New Scientist and Wired. He took his doctorate at St John’s College, Oxford, and was named one of the world’s 100 leading thinkers by think tank LSDP. He knows his stuff. We talk about the word ‘expert’ and what that actually means, how to sniff out bullshit online, the future of tech and how to deal with incessant emails. Hope you enjoy this one.

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