The Grand Thunk

We natter about the newest James Bond and whether it feels more feminist that previous Bonds while Alex has been reading Tomorrow Sex Will Be Good Again, a nuanced breakdown of sex, consent, vulnerability and feminism. We talk about the politics of Sebastian Faulks’ recent announcement that he won’t be describing the physical characteristics of women any more for fear of offending. We get down to the real, gritty questions, such as ‘What really is a shapely breast?’ before moving onto the lighter fare of care homes in the pandemic, through Channel 4 film, Help, starring Jodie Comer.

We are an accessible podcast so find transcripts on our linktree in our instagram bio @thegrandthunk. Follow us on social media @thegrandthunk or email us - [email protected]. We’d love to hear from you! Subscribe, rate, review and tell all your friends.

See below for a full list of what we discuss:

Tomorrow Sex Will Be Good Again by Katherine Angel

James Bond: No Time To Die

No Time To Die by Billie Eilish

Happier Than Ever by Billie Eilish

S Club 7

American Idiot by Green Day

Sebastian Faulks

Bernadine Evaristo

Dawn French

Help on Channel 4

Together on BBC 2

Being Mortal by Atul Gawande

The Great British Bake Off

The Grand Thunk, the podcast in which Alex Blanchard and Rhiannon Kearns discuss the books they've been reading, the films and TV shows they've been watching and the podcasts they've been listening to!

Alex reminds us of the importance of time and using it in a worthy manner with Seneca’s On the Shortness of Life. Rhiannon has been entertained by the bureaucratic fireworks of Joe Lycett but is less convinced by Sally Rooney's much awaited novel, Beautiful World, Where Are You. Alex has been gripped, truly, by Caroline O’Donoghue’s novel Promising Young Women whilst Rhiannon was touched by the poignancy of The Starling. And finally, Alex delivers a hopeful Halloween watchlist, for anyone wanting to join in with Halloween without being scared.

We are an accessible podcast so find transcripts on our linktree in our instagram bio @thegrandthunk. Follow us on social media @thegrandthunk or email us - [email protected]. We’d love to hear from you! Subscribe, rate, review and tell all your friends.

See below for a full list of what we discuss:

Beautiful World, Where Are You by Sally Rooney

On The Shortness of Life by Seneca

Promising Young Women by Caroline O’Donoghue

Lord of the Rings

Promising Young Woman

The Bold Type on Netflix

Parsnips, Buttered by Joe Lycett

The Starling on Netflix

The Cabin in the Woods

Severance

Little Shop of Horrors

The Rocky Horror Picture Show

Extra-Ordinary

The Team That Invented the Birth-Control Pill https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/10/the-team-that-invented-the-birth-control-pill/380684/

The Grand Thunk, the podcast in which Alex Blanchard and Rhiannon Kearns discuss the books they've been reading, the films and TV shows they've been watching and the podcasts they've been listening to!

We are so excited to announce that we will be reading Happy Hour: A Novel by Marlowe Granados for our first *LIVE* book club on Friday 12th November at 7.30pm (UK time). We are also so proud to collaborate with Verso Books to give you, our lovely listeners, a discount on Happy Hour when you sign up to the event. Please message us or email us to book your place in our book club and receive the discount link!

In this episode, we chat about the caustic and toxic relationship between mother and daughter, reality and memory in Avni Doshi’s Burnt Sugar. We also explore escaping from abusive relationships in Netflix’s new hit show Maid.

We are an accessible podcast so find transcripts on our linktree in our instagram bio @thegrandthunk. Follow us on social media @thegrandthunk or email us - [email protected]. We’d love to hear from you! Subscribe, rate, review and tell all your friends.

See below for a full list of what we discuss:

Happy Hour: A Novel by Marlowe Granados 

Verso Books

Derry Girls

Sex Education

Perks of Being a Wallflower by  Stephen Chbosky

Booksmart directed by Olivia Wilde

Video essay by @featuresandfictions

Hocus Pocus

The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina on Netflix

Sabrina, The Teenage Witch on Amazon Prime

Maid on Netflix

Room by Emma Donoghue

Maid on Netflix

Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay and a Mother’s Will to Survive by Stephanie Land

Burnt Sugar by Avni Doshi

My Animals and Other Family by Clare Balding

The Grand Thunk, the podcast in which Alex Blanchard and Rhiannon Kearns discuss the books they've been reading, the films and TV shows they've been watching and the podcasts they've been listening to!

We have a hard-hitting intro that dives straight into the pressing issues of the day: petrol shortages, the weather and the importance of windows. Alex has been racing through Sex Education and throughly enjoying Season Three’s developments. Rhiannon has continued with the Connor Swindells theme by watching Vigil and divulging a taste of the tension that that show evokes. Alex has been reading Zadie Smith’s Grand Union, a collection of short ‘pieces’, while Rhiannon has been loving Elizabeth Day’s Magpie.

We are an accessible podcast so find transcripts on our linktree in our instagram bio @thegrandthunk. Follow us on social media @thegrandthunk or email us - [email protected]. We’d love to hear from you! Subscribe, rate, review and tell all your friends.

See below for a full list of what we discuss:

The Great British Bake Off

Sex Education on Netflix

Vigil on BBC One

Magpie by Elizabeth Day

The Party by Elizabeth Day

How To Fail with Elizabeth Day

The High Low ‘A Pop-Culture special feat. Rob Kardashian with author Elizabeth Day’

Grand Union by Zadie Smith

Pocahontas

Game of Thrones

Friends

David Attenborough

The Grand Thunk, the podcast in which Alex Blanchard and Rhiannon Kearns discuss the books they've been reading, the films and TV shows they've been watching and the podcasts they've been listening to!

A snappy and varied episode today as Rhiannon gives a rave review of murder thriller ‘How to Kill Your Family’ by Bella Mackie. Alex has been syphoning articles from Emma Gannon’s newsletter and Rhiannon has been raging at Laurence Fox’s Twitter. Alex deconstructs the Moulin Rouge and Cruella and Rhiannon has been rating supes, otherwise known as superheroes. Plus some nourishment for struggling creatives in the form of Amie McNee.

We are an accessible podcast so find transcripts on our linktree in our instagram bio @thegrandthunk. Follow us on social media @thegrandthunk or email us - [email protected]. We’d love to hear from you! Subscribe, rate, review and tell all your friends.

See below for a full list of what we discuss:

The Great British Bake Off

How to Kill Your Family by Bella Mackie

Killing Eve

Emma Gannon - Olive, The Multi-Hyphen Method,  Newsletter - the Hyphen

Bella Mackie Article - https://www.vogue.co.uk/arts-and-lifestyle/article/bella-mackie-novel

Productivity Dysmorphia - https://www.refinery29.com/en-gb/2021/09/10640493/what-is-productivity-dysmorphia

Sally Rooney Article - https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/sally-rooney-i-m-really-paranoid-about-my-personal-life-i-feel-self-conscious-1.4655068?s=03#.YTOoBdb8TE4.twitter

Haley McGee

Lawrence Fox

Sentimental Garbage  - Caroline O’Donoghue

Moulin Rouge

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

Cruella

The Boys on Amazon Prime

Amie McNee - For the Procrastinator and For the Burnt-Out Artist, Podcast- Unpublished. @inspiredtowrite

The Grand Thunk, the podcast in which Alex Blanchard and Rhiannon Kearns discuss the books they've been reading, the films and TV shows they've been watching and the podcasts they've been listening to!

Listen to the end for a very exciting announcement! Back in full flow, we discuss a hilarious new podcast, our speculations on the Met Gala, our thoughts on the infamous Pumpkin Spice Latte, as well as releasing an exclusive preview into Alex’s masterpiece and what might have been our jingle. We have a couple of Guilty Pleasures lined up to recommend as well as a very serious discussion about the Texan abortion laws. We have lots of articles to recommend on this subject which give insight into these laws and their ramifications.

We are an accessible podcast so find transcripts on our linktree in our instagram bio @thegrandthunk. Follow us on social media @thegrandthunk or email us - [email protected]. We’d love to hear from you!

Subscribe, rate, review and tell all your friends.

See below for a full list of what we discuss:

Shagged, Married, Annoyed Podcast

Oceans 8, Oceans 11, Oceans 12, Oceans 13

Met Gala: Emma Radacanu, Carey Mulligan, Kim Kardashian, Alexandria Ocazio-Cortez.

Titting About by Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders

Married At First Sight

Love Is Blind

Shadow and Bone, Siege and Storm, Ruin and Rising by Leigh Bardugo

Six of Crows and Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo

King of Scars and Rule of Wolves by Leigh Bardugo

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/01/health/texas-abortion-law-facts.html by Roni Caryn Rabin in The New York Times

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/05/religious-right-real-origins-107133/ By Randall Balmer in Politico Magazine

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/caitlin-moran-the-texas-abortion-ban-is-just-plain-wrong-3l82btz62  By Caitlin Moran in The Times

Sabrina on Netflix

Emily in Paris on Netflix

Cruella on Disney+

The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (Freaky Friday, Just My Luck)

Crossroads

The Grand Thunk, the podcast in which Alex Blanchard and Rhiannon Kearns discuss the books they've been reading, the films and TV shows they've been watching and the podcasts they've been listening to!

Today we speak to the author of What Red Was, Rosie Price, about her writing practice, her favourite books and T.V. shows as well as her guiltiest pleasure and her next novel! We discuss getting into the writing mood, the links between yoga and writing, nervous pooing, as well as the moral incentive behind watching Love Island. We had so much fun and we highly recommend her novel What Red Was!

CW: Sexual assault.

Solace Women’s Aid, Rape Crisis and Mind are all organisations we would point you towards if you are in need of support.

We are an accessible podcast so find transcripts on our linktree in our instagram bio @thegrandthunk. Follow us on social media @thegrandthunk or email us - [email protected]. We’d love to hear from you! Subscribe, rate, review and tell all your friends.

See below for a full list of what we discuss:

What Red Was by Rosie Price

The Wire created by David Simon

The Sopranos created by David Chase

Peaky Blinders created by Steven Knight

Promising Young Woman written and directed by Emerald Fennell

Elle directed by Paul Verhoeven and written by David Birke

The Body Keeps The Score by Bessel van der Kolk

Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers by Robert M. Sapolsky

Sally Rooney

Love Island

In the year to the end of March 2020, 58,856 cases of rape were recorded by police forces in England and Wales. These led to just 2,102 prosecutions, compared with 3,043 in the previous 12 months. Victims' commissioner Dame Vera Baird said in her annual report that the level of prosecutions has got so low that "what we are witnessing is the de-criminalisation of rape". https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-48095118

The Grand Thunk, the podcast in which Alex Blanchard and Rhiannon Kearns discuss the books they've been reading, the films and TV shows they've been watching and the podcasts they've been listening to!

It’s MotherThunking Season 3! We’re so happy to be back with you all with all our delicious news and recommendations collected in our hiatus. Rhiannon encountered a rogue priest and we mull over the need for male writers to include shapely, heaving breasts in every scene featuring a woman. We discuss the big events in the media over the past month, including Afghanistan, the Olympics, incels and of course, the man with a box on his head on the A37. And we have some stunning books for those of you interested in feminism, Ireland and grief.

We are an accessible podcast so find transcripts on our linktree in our instagram bio @thegrandthunk. Follow us on social media @thegrandthunk or email us - [email protected]. We’d love to hear from you! Subscribe, rate, review and tell all your friends.

See below for a full list of what we discuss:

The Last Wish (The Witcher) by Andrzej Sapkowski

Choose Love

Does Anyone Have the Right to Sex by Amia Srinivasan in the London Review of Books https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v40/n06/amia-srinivasan/does-anyone-have-the-right-to-sex

Incels Aren’t a Punchline https://novaramedia.com/2021/08/18/incels-arent-a-punchline-its-high-time-we-took-them-seriously/?fbclid=IwAR1_XqAZlXESpaqKJtUQphutbYrex-EDpEDuncFUa7YcsU4xP1_trkhp3GM

Pieces of Britney by Pandora Sykes on BBC 4 Sounds

The Wheel

This Way Up on Channel 4 by Aisling Bea

Scenes of a Graphic Nature by Caroline O’Donoghue

Ellipsis by Isabelle Farrah

Hannah Gadsby

The Female Persuasion by Meg Wolitzer

Sunset by Jessie Cave

The Grand Thunk, the podcast in which Alex Blanchard and Rhiannon Kearns discuss the books they've been reading, the films and TV shows they've been watching and the podcasts they've been listening to!

It’s the end of Season 2 and to send us on our merry way, Alex has a big list of her favourite books on discount from Verso Books and Pluto Press. Rhiannon has been asking the big question of ‘Who Am I?’ this week and finding out with the help of a couple of quizzes. She has also been loving Billie Piper’s Desert Island Disc and discovering Billie’s past as a child star. Meanwhile, Alex has dived headlong into The Bodyguard and is in love. Rhiannon is debating her commitment to Love Island whilst Alex recounts her enjoyment of last year’s Too Hot To Handle. And finally, both Alex and Rhiannon have been misjudging books by their covers with Clare Chambers’ Small Pleasures.

We are an accessible podcast so find transcripts on our linktree in our instagram bio @thegrandthunk. Follow us on social media @thegrandthunk or email us - [email protected]. We’d love to hear from you! Subscribe, rate, review and tell all your friends.

See below for a full list of what we discuss:

16 Personalities Test

Verso Books:

A Kick in the Belly by Stella Dadzie

The Verso Book of Feminism, edited by Jessie Kindig

Burn It Down! edited by Breanne Fahs

Hostile Environment by Maya Goodfellow

Revolting Prostitutes by Molly Smith and Juno Mac

Pluto Press:

Feminism, Interrupted by Lola Olufemi

To Exist is to Resist edited by Akwugo Emejulu, Francesca Sobande

bell hooks

Desert Island Discs - Billie Piper

I Hate Suzie

Yerma

Dr Who

Framing Britney Spears by The New York Times

Pieces of Britney with Pandora Sykes - BBC

The Bodyguard on Netflix

Together on BBC iPlayer

Love Island

Too Hot to Handle

Shadow and Bone

Rocketman

Game of Thrones

Small Pleasure by Clare Chambers

The Euros

Flora Anderson @videoflone

Sunset by Jessie Cave

Time on BBC

The Grand Thunk, the podcast in which Alex Blanchard and Rhiannon Kearns discuss the books they've been reading, the films and TV shows they've been watching and the podcasts they've been listening to!

Alex has been relishing the opening of galleries and has been to not one but two exhibitions of Rodin. She’s also been splurging in Waterstones on young adult novels, including a tarot mystery with Caroline O’Donoghue, the first novel in the Shadow and Bone series and a novel that the bookseller described as a ‘Brokeback Mountain with zombies’. What more could you ask for?! Meanwhile, Rhiannon has been devouring the touching comedy, ‘Feel Good’ by Mae Martin, adoring the funny and realistic representation of addiction and romance. She also tells us about ‘The Beekeeper of Sinjar’, a heartbreaking read about a beekeeper’s heroic mission to find the Iraqi women taken by Daesh. Finally, Alex lightens the tone asking Rhiannon about the 16 Personalities Test. Who doesn’t love a quiz to find out your true self?  

We are an accessible podcast so find transcripts on our linktree in our instagram bio @thegrandthunk. Follow us on social media @thegrandthunk or email us - [email protected]. We’d love to hear from you! Subscribe, rate, review and tell all your friends.

See below for a full list of what we discuss:

Rodin in the Tate Modern

The Victoria and Albert Museum - Cast Courts

Monument to Emily Georgiana, Lady Winchilsea 

Covid Sniffer Dogs - https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/12/science/covid-sniffing-dogs.html 

Sherpa on Netflix

All Our Hidden Gifts by Caroline O’Donoghue

Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo 

Shadow and Bone on Netflix

Wranglestone by Darren Charlton

Feel Good by Mae Martin and Joe Hampson

The Beekeeper of Aleppo by Christy Lefteri

The Beekeeper of Sinjar: Rescuing the Stolen Women of Iraq by Dunya Mikhail 

16 Personalities Test