My guest this week is Zing Tsjeng, UK Editor of Broadly and author of Forgotten Women, a four-part series published in 2018 by Octopus Books, covering the lost histories of influential artists, leaders, scientists and writers. I visited her at the Vice offices and we ended up talking about her early love of X-men, the poignancy of an overwrought emo-anthem to naval-gazing noughties teens everywhere, and the striking ability of our fave Dua Lipa – who Zing recently interviewed for British Vogue -- to simplify complex themes into culturally incisive pop songs. 

This week my guest is audio-visual artist Mira Calix who joined me to chat about the influence of Bowie’s multi-disciplinary approach to his work on her own practice, the importance of dance and physical movement to feeling alive, and to give me a parting (very convincing!) analysis of the disquietingly positive reception towards Joe Goldberg in You. 

This week I had the great pleasure of heading East to visit one of my favourite artists, Babak Ganjei. Lots of Babak’s work centres around pop culture from sitcoms, bands, film. In 2014 he sold 6 twigs on eBay for £62 having ensured the prospective buyers that each one had their own personality 'like the Spice Girls' and, more recently, Rough Trade has published a book of film ideas, many of which he pitched to some Hollywood producers who followed him on Twitter after Rob Delaney retweeted him. We chatted about everything from a quite specious claim of a rivalry between Wet Wet Wet and Bros, to finally getting the recognition he deserves from Rough Trade after having been in bands for years, to the impact of Kurt Cobain and Nirvana on pretty much everything.

This week I’m super excited to have got the chance to sit down and chat with Emma Low, the genius behind smash-hit tit pot business Pot Yer Tits Away Luv. Although she does make and sell pre-made pots, her biggest business is in creating hand-made personalised pots, which she moulds from photographs her commissioners send into her. She’s a one-woman show so they’re not easy to come by — I’ve got my notifications on for her next shop update.

We try to start off every conversation point with pop culture, but each time we found ourselves somewhere incredibly different in about 5 minutes flat. A conversation about football turned into one about the communities built by women, and one about her a favourite song morphed into a discussion of performative identity and the male gaze. Oh well!

This week Anna had the great pleasure of meeting the artist, director, writer and actor Adébayo Bolaji at his studio to talk about his first pop culture obsessions, the effects the pivot from walkman to iPod to streaming services has had on the way we find our music, and the expectations placed on teenage boys to keep their inner lives buried, versus the way Ade lives his life now.

This week I had the absolute pleasure of chatting with one of my favourite writers of 2018, Philip Ellis. I started reading his work after a friend sent me one of his articles entitled “If Online Dating Is No Longer Taboo, Why Is Online Friendship?” I not only massively related to what he wrote but also totally fell for the way he wrote it. Since then I’ve made sure to keep an eye out for Philip’s pieces. In this episode, we chat about Star Trek, Cruel Intentions, and the rom-com.

This week Anna sits down with Derek Owusu, the co-host of her favourite literature podcast Mostly Lit and editor of the forthcoming anthology Safe: On Black British Men Reclaiming Space. They get through a lot from the ever-inflating ego of Will Smith, to Derek’s teen obsession with serial killers - so ahead of his time in terms of the true crime craze — and the writers he believes embody the concept of 'cool'.

This week Anna chats with journalist and author Lauren Bravo whose first book, What Would The Spice Girls Do?: How The Girl Power Generation Grew Up felt to Anna like it was written just for her. They talk about their mutual appreciation of the Spice Girls (obvs), Lauren’s teen obsession with The Strokes (shout out Fabrizio), her enduring idea of cool, and our favourite Food Channel shows. 

A few weeks ago, Anna met up with writer and illustrator Natalie Byrne and the co-founders of Break The Habit Press, Becca Souster and Kezia Bayard-White, to talk about Natalie’s book Period, a manual for parents, kids, uterus-owners and non-uterus-owners alike. There’s still so much stigma surrounding menstruation and that’s why this book exists - to dispel myths and to get us talking. It’s safe to say there was absolutely no shortage of talk when these four got together...

This week Anna chats with Musical Director and session drummer William Bowerman. Over the course of his career William has worked with the likes of La Roux, Jason Derulo and Marina and the Diamonds, and for the last three and a half years has been Music Directing and drumming for one of the most successful new pop acts in recent years, Dua Lipa. William was also in two bands Anna really loved growing up, I Was A Cub Scout and Brontide, so they had a *lot* to talk about.