Standard Issue Podcast

Cecelia Ahern has written a lot of books, and now she's busying herself with producing and screenwriting, too. Fresh from publication of Freckles, her 18th novel, Cecelia joined Jen on the Zoom to chat about finding your tribe, befriending white van drivers, bringing the written word to the screen, and Sister Act – because why not?

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We’re back, baby! Our first gigcast in *checks calendar* a shit-long time and it’s an absolute corker. Obviously. Mickey’s joined by the boss Sarah Millican, journalist and excellent fact-haver Sam Wonfor, and co-host of smash hit podcast Shagged, Married, Annoyed Rosie Ramsey, and the conversation is WIDE RANGING to say the very least.

Cheese, nans, Byker Grove, an innovative way to deal with dust bunnies, being a shit mam, Below Deck, true crime, the boss’s birthday, and bits of the Queen we’ve never thought about before all make the chat. 

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Diana Defries was just 16 when, like thousands of unmarried mothers in the UK between the 1940s and 1970s, she was forced to give her baby up for adoption. The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights has recently announced a new inquiry into these practices, and Diana told Jen about her experience, what an inquiry can achieve, and why the women affected - and their children - deserve and need an apology.

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Get ready to hide under your duvet as we travel deep into THE FEAR for this week’s podzine. Hannah’s been on the Zoom with our pal and psychotherapist Jane Watson to talk fear: where it comes from, how to beat it, when to trust it, and why cotton wool is up there with spiders and falling.

Jen catches up with comedy writer Gabby Hutchinson Crouch to chat about her new book, Wish You Weren’t Here, the liminal spooksville of service stations, the horrors of 2016, and how the death of David Bowie might well have opened the Hellmouth.

Sticking with the spooky theme, we’re watching 1991’s The Addams Family and at the very least having a nice time with the theme tune *click click*. 

The upcoming W Series finale, and a leaked report investigating bullying and harassment in horse racing are keeping Jen busy in Jenny Off The Blocks. And, because there’s nothing more scary than the real world, the team are dealing with 50 shades of shit in the Bush Telegraph. 

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If you’ve been enjoying our working-class content recently – Hannah’s interviews with Sophie Willan and Lynsey Hanley, and our chats about the film Rocks and the documentary Harlan County USA are all well worth your ears – then here's another doozy for you, as Mick chats with writer Natasha Carthew, the founder and director of The Working-Class Writers Festival. 

Natasha’s everything we love: extremely talented, generous, fiercely proud of being working-class, and a force of nature when it comes to getting fair recognition for working-class – and in particular working-class women – writers in fiction, non-fiction, and for telly and stage. 

The Working-Class Writers Festival takes place in real life in and around Bristol, but there are also loads of events that can be attended online. Terri White’s there, Cash Carraway’s there, Val McDermid’s there, Sadie Hasler’s there: it’s going to be brilliant. And what’s more, everything is free. Give the festival a follow @ClassFestival on Twitter or visit bristolideas.co.uk to find out more about the many excellent events taking place October 21 to 24.

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If you've not been watching Back To Life, you're missing out, as you'll learn from our Mickey's chat with its creator and star Daisy Haggard. They chat about research, old-school romance and crisps. Always with the crisps, those two. Meanwhile, Hannah's been on the Zoom with Catherine Cranfield to talk about Flushed, her play about premature ovarian insufficiency and in Jenny Off The Blocks, Jen's shocked - SHOCKED -  by the findings of a new report into why girls are put off sport. There's a bit of Lego sticking in the throat in The Bush Telegraph, not that anyone should be putting Lego in their mouth, to be clear. And there's some tough, tough women in Rated or Dated, as we watch Barbara Kopple 1976's documentary Harlan County USA. All human life is here.

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Been listening to A Home Of Our Own, the Radio 4 series that started this week? You should be. In it, journalist and author Lynsey Hanley explores Britain's broken housing market through the stories of 10 different homes, from all over the UK, and their occupants. Lynsey's the author of two books, Estates: An Intimate History, and Respectable: Crossing the Class Divide, so Hannah got on the Zoom with her to talk about the vanishing dream of getting a foot on the property ladder for many, if not most, under 40s in this country. 

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What the hell happened to evenings? If you want to fill the dark hours with some telly, we're here with some suggestions, including Help, Only Murders In the Building, Mr Mayor, Wolfe and The White Lotus. Plus we're chatting about the sudden surplus of Britney Spears documentaries. 

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The use, or rather mis-use, of non-disclosure agreements is rife in all sorts of nefarious dealings. Zelda Perkins, former assistant to Harvey Weinstein and the first to break her NDA with him, and Julie Macfarlane, a law professor who took on the Anglican Church, want to change that and they chat to Mick about their new campaign, Can’t Buy My Silence. Julie also has a book decoding the well-worn methods used by church, school and state to silence survivors, from first reporting to cross-examination to NDAs, and Going Public: A Survivor's Journey From Grief to Action is available here.

Meanwhile, Jen chats to actor and playwright Merlynn Tong about her adaptation of Antigone, and why she’s written Creon as a woman, while in Jenny Off The Blocks, she’s asking can women have it all, and looking to Premier League referee Mark Clattenburg for the answers. No, really.

In the Bush Telegraph, we’re wondering if flagging down a bus is really the answer to institutionalised sexism in the Metropolitan police. Plus, please imagine our best Blue Steel, as in Rated or Dated we watch cameo-tastic 2001 male model comedy, Zoolander.

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Actor and writer Sarah Solemani has adapted Jo Bloom's novel Ridley Road into a four-part drama for the BBC, which starts tonight. Hannah chats to Sarah about the ups and downs of adapting someone else's work, fascism, anti-semitism, and Psychoville. Because Psychoville.

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