Standard Issue Podcast

Home is the focus of this week’s Chops, in which Mick chats with Kieran Yates, journalist, broadcaster and author of new book, All The Houses I’ve Ever Lived In: Finding Home in a System That Fails Us. 

We all move from place to place, finding and writing the stories that make us who we are, and Kieran knows more than most about moving, displacement, housing and home, having lived in 20 different houses by the time she was 25, navigating the chaos of a housing system often not fit for purpose. As a result All The Houses… is part-memoir, part indictment of our current political climate and part celebration of the things that make a home. 

Kieran and Mick chat depressing stats around housing, mould, gnomes, activism, the joy and hope of community action, and how we’re all in this together. All The Houses I’ve Ever Lived In is published by Simon & Schuster on April 27 and available for preorder now.

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Another Mickey Flicking pick, another comedy. But come on now, surely there’ll be no complaints when it’s Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright’s 2004 zom-rom-com, Shaun of the Dead? Aka Spaced with zombies? That’s just one of the questions answered by Yosra and Hannah, as the conversation covers scares, terrible friends, apocalypse plans, and drunkenly ripping your shirt off on the streets of your hometown.

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We could all do with a little refresher in adulting from time to time, says Sarah Knight, author of the multi-million selling No F*cks Given Guides. Sarah’s back on the podzine this week, to talk about the latest in the series, Grow The F*ck Up, as well as giving Jen a few pointers on where grown-ups go wrong, why self-awareness can be a real drag but is absolutely crucial, and how to ask for what we want.

Hannah's chatting to Davinia Hamilton and Marta Vella, the Maltese actors and writers behind Blanket Ban, a play about Malta's total ban on abortion, which opens at the Southwark Playhouse on 25 April.

In JOTB, Jen's asking how on earth it can be possible that women’s football isn’t cool enough, as she talks all things international. And it’s mashed potato and strong nana game at the ready in Rated or Dated, as Mick takes us to her leader, Steven Spielberg, to revisit UFO blockbuster Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Is it out of this world? Find out.

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Believability underpins our political, legal, and judicial systems – it’s key to who we trust to make laws, enforce laws and administer justice to those who breach them. And yet our own individual subconscious (and conscious) biases heavily dictate who we choose to believe. 

Writer, activist and teacher Dina Nayeri experienced how where you are in the social hierarchy can change how believable others find you first hand, when she and her family fled Iran for the US as refugees. Her new book, Who Gets Believed? When the Truth Isn’t Enough, examines what constitutes believability in our culture. 

In this week’s Chops, Dina chats to Jen about why women traditionally fare badly on the believability scale, why culture can have a huge impact on how we perceive the truthfulness of others, and how that can impact particularly badly for those seeking asylum in other countries.

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We bloody love Zoe Lyons. She's funny, she's honest and she gives great interviews. So, in this week's podcast, Mick grabbed some time with the comedian to talk about midlife crises, jokes as a defence mechanism and lifting weights. Jen's having a chat with Liv Hennessy and Lisa Spirling, writer and director of the new play Vardy v Rooney: The Wagatha Christie Trial. And there's more celebrity trials ahoy in BT, as Hannah takes a look at Paltrow v Man who can't enjoy a wine tasting anymore. There's golf and Wimbledon chat in Jenny of The Blocks, and in RoD we're watching 1998's The Butcher Boy. Did we like it? Well... 

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Ugly: Giving Us Back Our Beauty Standards, the new book from award-winning journalist, beauty editor and broadcaster Anita Bhagwandas, explores how (and, crucially, why) the Eurocentric beauty ideal thrust upon us by capitalism, white supremacy and classism is making so many people – women in particular – feel shit.

In this Chops, Anita chats with our Mick about the view behind the curtain, the stolen powers driving accepted beauty standards – and why we don’t have to, and indeed shouldn’t, accept them. 

Ugly is published by Blink and is out now.

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Beaches are nice, eh? Green spaces are nice, eh? Looking at places generally not covered in shit is nice, eh? They are, and in this week’s podzine, Jen’s chatting to Nicky Green, CEO of the Two Minute Foundation, about how we can all do our bit to keep Britain tidy (remember that?) in a teeny-tiny amount of time. 

Hannah’s been talking to Lucy O’Brien, author of many music books about brilliant women. They cover a whole load of ground about being a woman in the music business, but focus on Karen Carpenter, an incredible musician whose tragedy tends to overshadow her achievements, as detailed in Lucy’s latest book, Lead Sister: The Story of Karen Carpenter. 

This week’s Rated or Dated is a particularly interesting and complicated slice of history, with added Katharine Hepburn, Spencer Tracy and Sidney Poitier, as we watch 1967/8’s Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner. Make another pie would you, Tillie? 

And where’s Mick? Well, you might find her in a feather boa, sambuca in hand, being loud near Rolex wearers in York. Sorrywhatnow? The Bush Telegraph should put you straight. 

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Chief fire officer, Big Issue ambassador, psychologist, author, champion of dogs – there are legion reasons Dr Sabrina Cohen-Hatton is one of our favourite guests. And now she’s gone and penned a book that’s bang up Standard Issue’s alley. The Gender Bias: The Barriers That Hold Women Back and How to Break Them explores the serious amount of glass – ceilings, cliffs, breadlines – thwarting women’s potential and delaying equality being reached. So our Mick got on the Zoom to chat to Sab about gender bias, women biased against women, the modesty trap and the glass case of emotion trapping women. And dogs. There’s quite a lot of dog chat.

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Only a few sleeps until Succession, so in the meanwhile we've been gorging on a lot of documentaries, including We Need to Talk About Cosby, Wild Isles, Paula, Kathy Burke: Growing Up and Finding Michael. Still time for a bit of drama as Hannah and Mick chat about the last three episodes of The Last Of Us, Jen talks Fleishman Is In Trouble and we all have thoughts on Unforgotten's fifth series.

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We're full of life advice in this week’s podzine. First up, Mick chats to Helen Wills, mum of teenagers and host of the Teenage Kicks podcast, about navigating the teenage years as a parent, letting go of control, and what we can learn from the adolescents in our lives.

If you’ve ever wondered what happens if someone dies without family or money to deal with the aftermath, Evie King has written a book about exactly this, Ashes to Admin: Takes from the Caseload of a Council Funeral Officer. She chats to Hannah about the practicalities of planning a funeral and why it’s good to keep death at the back of our mind.

In Jenny Off The Blocks, Jen’s chatting equal prize money, stupid stories, and alpine excellence, and for god’s sake don’t say his name three times – we’re watching 1988’s Beetlejuice in Rated or Dated.

Meanwhile there’s #Patygate, policing, and period pains in the Bush Telegraph – but does it taste of metal?

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