Happy Friday! Just slipping into your feed to let you know that the week is nearly over, and there’s only one more week to go before we have to get through the next week. Oh God. Anyway, needless to say, 2024 is kicking our arses…So what does fun even look like, these days? Sitting in the car outside the house? Going home to get ugly? Rubbing our cracked heels together like decrepit crickets? Sending everyone masses of love… Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Mar 15, 2024•13 min
Ok guys, time to talk about sex. Are we doing it right/enough? Is the sex we’re having good/interesting/naughty enough? Are we good/interesting/naughty enough? And what to do when it feels as though it’s all gone wrong. THE PRESSURE. So we roped in a psychosexual therapist, and not just any psychosexual therapist: Kate Moyle is also the host of The Sexual Wellness Sessions Podcast and she’s written a book called The Science of Sex: Every Question About Your Sex Life Answered. We discuss rhetoric...
Mar 07, 2024•45 min
Happy Friday! Just slipping into your feed to let you know that the week is nearly over, and there’s only one more week to go before we have to get through the next week. Oh God. This week we are asking: are you a kitchen criminal? Do you gouge the butter rather than scrape? Do you try to shove the rubbish down in to the bin again and again in order to avoid taking it out? Do you put the milk bottle back in the fridge with a pointlessly minuscule amount left in it? Time to confess… Learn more ab...
Mar 01, 2024•10 min
You’ve heard of the glass ceiling, of course. You may have bumped your head on it - or even smashed through it. But have you heard of the glass cliff? This is the phenomenon where female leaders are much more likely to be given the opportunity to step into leadership roles within businesses that are already in a prolonged period of poor performance. And therefore, set up for organisational failure. Well, the wondrous Sophie Williams (author of Anti-Racist Ally and Millennial Black) is the global...
Feb 22, 2024•44 min
Happy Friday! Just slipping into your feed to let you know that the week is nearly over, and there’s only one more week to go before we have to get through the next week. Oh God. Recently we asked for your best advice - in just four words. As usual you were amazing: “Arrange your alibi first”, said @samanthaddv, “I charge for that” said @duckettlist, “Try not to worry” said @laura_bradley…Tune in for more... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Feb 16, 2024•12 min
Annabel was talking to a friend the other day who - sounding improbably zen - confessed that she had given up complaining. Not coffee, not booze, not sugar. But complaining. And we could immediately see the point: imagine not relying on all the negativity and panic and self-doubt for conversation? Imagine…So move over manifesting, we’re sharing this hot tip, because we are bottomlessly kind. So kind that we scream at other drivers when we’re in our cars, to keep them safe and alert on the roads....
Feb 08, 2024•26 min
Happy Friday! Just slipping into your feed to let you know that the week is nearly over, and there’s only one more week to go before we have to get through the next week. Oh God. This episode we are all about conversational responses for February. Mostly “No”. But also “Gosh” - for when a response is required but you don’t know what to say. And maybe “I don’t care”. Because, let’s face it… Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Feb 02, 2024•9 min
Our guest this week is a member of the DDC – the Dead Dad Club. Just like us. Sadly, Cariad Lloyd has been a member since she was 15, when her father died suddenly. After years of floundering, she took her grief and turned it into a beautiful living thing – by talking about it on her award-winning podcast Griefcast and writing about it in her wonderful book You Are Not Alone, out in paperback on the 1st February. She talks to people about their experience of grief and death and in doing so, has ...
Jan 25, 2024•48 min
Happy Friday! Just slipping into your feed to let you know that the week is nearly over, and there’s only one more week to go before we have to get through the next week. Oh God. This week we talk about THINGS YOU KNOW IF YOU’RE A GROWN-UP. Like: You should never buy the smallest size you can squeeze into (it is not the victory it once seemed to be); moths and leaks make you panic; something always hurts (knee.. back… soul); fitted sheets are having a laugh and you know more and less at the same...
Jan 19, 2024•12 min
New Year's Resolutions seem to have criticism and judgement woven through them? How can I be better? Do better? How can I improve myself? Eurgh. So instead in 2024 we are going to aim for self-acceptance, rather than self-improvement. Let’s celebrate our bits of disgustingness and our flaws and our failings. In this episode we ask all the deep questions, such as: How often do you wash your bra? When you eat a steak, these days, do you feel like you are a boa constrictor digesting a villager? How...
Jan 11, 2024•30 min
Happy Friday! Just slipping into your feed to let you know that the week is nearly over, and there’s only one more week to go before we have to get through the next week. Oh God. In this weird opening-of-the-year week, we talk about what to say when people ask you about your New Year’s Resolutions. An intolerable question. Perhaps you plan to be slightly worse this year? Become a dark force? A bad omen? Or will you be taking up spiritual veganism? There’s everything to play for. Learn more about...
Jan 05, 2024•9 min
Hi everyone!! We’re coming to you direct from the perineum of the year…So that’s nice…Don’t know what day it is…Don’t know what to eat next but I’m sure we’ll be eating something imminently. We just wanted to pop up and share with you one of our most popular episodes of 2023, clearly because it’s called How To Be Happier. Professor Cassie Holmes is a happiness teacher. At UCLA. To MBAs. She is also an award-winning academic and social psychologist, who, nearly defeated by the grind, decided to l...
Dec 28, 2023•45 min
2023 has been huge for Anna Whitehouse, also known as Mother Pukka. She’s been fighting for flexible working rights for eight years and last week it was announced that her bill will become law in 2024. Her Heart FM radio show is going from strength to strength with over 11 million listeners. She’s also written a pair of books about childcare and flexible working called Divide and Conquer - and the person with whom she wrote these books is her soon-to-be ex-husband. And they are plotting a loving...
Dec 21, 2023•42 min
Does today’s guest really need an introduction? After all, who didn’t watch What Not To Wear in the early Noughties and cry and laugh with the women Trinny and Susannah transformed? Who hasn’t marvelled at the success of her beauty brand Trinny London, and the way she's made Instagram her own? This is a woman who has made a career out of trying to help women feel better about themselves. Over the years, she has learnt to feel fearless - and now she’s written the book on it. We were thrilled that...
Dec 14, 2023•40 min
Happy Friday! Just slipping into your feed to let you know that the week is nearly over, and there’s only one more week to go before we have to get through the next week. Oh God. This week we talk about party season. Are you dreading it? Do you have the energy for it? If so, how? Incidentally we recorded this podcast lying on the floor…nearly there…🤣❤️ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Dec 08, 2023•9 min
Regular listeners of the podcast will know that we absolutely love a book that revolves around women’s stories; that reclaims/wrestles the narrative from the petty patriarchal posturers of history. So we were delighted when Annabelle Hirsch’s 'A History of Women in 101 Objects' landed on our doormats. The book tells stories of female history through ‘things’; through the quiet power of their everyday items: perfumed gloves, thumbscrews, sewing machines, the Brontës’ miniature books, the contrace...
Nov 30, 2023•35 min
Happy Friday! Just slipping into your feed to let you know that the week is nearly over, and there’s only one more week to go before we have to get through the next week. Oh God. This week it’s all about the rookie errors. Yes we are seasoned, experienced, wise, broken in, been around (WILL YOU STOP NOW) but we are still making basic balls ups. Like putting on our coats ten minutes before we leave the house so we end up in a muck sweat, wearing g-strings and being surprised that we spend the who...
Nov 24, 2023•9 min
How to look like a fully-functioning woman? The odds are against us BUT…'tis the season of miracles after all. So, Annabel has a rummage through her drawers to put together a beauty box selection of old favourites and new wonders to try and fix our faces. And bodies. And spirits. Emilie falls in love with Sun Bum’s Glow 30. We get transported back to our late 20s by REN’s Moroccan Rose Otto, and find that every woman needs a bit of Clarins, Charlotte Tilbury and Glossier in her arsenal. There’s ...
Nov 16, 2023•33 min
Happy Friday! Just slipping into your feed to let you know that the week is nearly over, and there’s only one more week to go before we have to get through the next week. Oh God. Ok so Emilie was on the tube when a nice young man politely offered her his seat. IT’S HAPPENING… Annabel got into a swearing match with a much older woman, both from the comfort of their cars. Are you turning into “THAT WOMAN”? The harridan? The banshee? Please send comforting examples…because if we’re not in it togeth...
Nov 10, 2023•9 min
Water. Water is meant to give us good skin, improved mental health and more energy. What does it actually give us? Pee. We all know we’re supposed to get eight hours sleep a night or - they tell us again and again - we may go mad and die. How many of us manage? How many times in the past week, month, year have you woken up at 2am, 3am, 4am and then started the useless, desperate process of trying to get back to sleep? Why is sleep such a scam? It turns out there are a lot of things that are scam...
Nov 02, 2023•23 min
Happy Friday! Just slipping into your feed to let you know that the week is nearly over, and there’s only one more week to go before we have to get through the next week. Oh God. Anyway, it’s spooky season and we imagine some terrifying haunted house scenarios: a room where your WhatsApp groups have all come to life; another room where there’s a party and people keep saying ‘So, tell me about you…’; a hall of mirrors where each one reflects your mother back at you. And she’s always saying someth...
Oct 26, 2023•10 min
Desperate for a little corner of calm that you can tuck yourself into? A mini-escape that is not demanding or exhausting or expensive? We are delighted that this week’s guest has found a way to calm the wild voices in her head… Poetry. Allie Esiri is a poetry anthologist and her wonderful new book 365 Poems for Life harnesses our extraordinary literary resources to offer - if not a solution - then a balm for the soul. Of course, you might be thinking, ‘How is reading a poem a day going to make m...
Oct 18, 2023•39 min
Happy Friday! Just slipping into your feed to let you know that the week is nearly over, and there’s only one more week to go before you have to get through the next week. Oh God. Anyway, this week we decide to become local legends. But how? By wearing cloaks? Adopting a treachery of ravens? Maybe a monkey? Emilie thinks replenishing everyone’s stock of recycling bags would do it. Annabel thinks more majesty is required… Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Oct 12, 2023•10 min
Are you reaching the edge of reason? Do you find yourself shouting at the Today programme, slamming your laptop shut after reading the Sunday papers, cursing wildly at how insane the news cycle is: the politics, the fuckery, the backstabbing, and the actual stabbings. Our next guest is at the frontline of the news – he has to watch everything, listen to everything, talk about everything and try not to shout or lose his mind. We’re not sure how he does it. Hugo Rifkind, writer, broadcaster and al...
Oct 04, 2023•39 min
Happy Friday! Just slipping into your feed to let you know that the week is nearly over, and there’s only one more week to go before you have to get through the next week. Oh God. Anyway, in this episode, we get all nostalgic/nauseous about all the lies we told our parents when we were 15/16. All the shady places we went. The many dodgy vehicles we got into and the European waiters we kissed. How are we still alive? OOF… Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Sep 28, 2023•10 min
This is a very personal conversation with our friend Mandy Saligari where she allows us all the privilege of bearing witness to her experience of a recent stage 4 cancer diagnosis. Longtime listeners of the podcast will know Mandy is someone who we hold in extremely high regard: an addictions therapist, founder of Charter Harley Street, and all-round badass, who has given us and many others life-changing advice over the years. Five weeks ago, she was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma and, las...
Sep 20, 2023•34 min
Happy Friday! Just slipping into your feed to let you know that the week is nearly over, and there’s only one more week to go before you have to get through the next week. Oh God. Anyway, in this episode, Emilie has swapped oppressive cheerfulness for gnawing anxiety and Annabel is trying to cheer her up with three-word happy stories…So you can imagine how that went… Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Sep 14, 2023•9 min
So we recorded this week’s podcast schvitzing in our stupid summer dresses, fretting about what we can bear to put on our bodies for Autumn. It’s like all the ghosts of our fashion past are out there: the return of the Sienna Miller-style coin belt; massive blazers and baggy jeans a la Eternal, as well kitten heels. How do we feel about wearing something with the word ‘kitten’ in it? They say hair is everything but it’s also everywhere - sprouting erratically, so Annabel pays homage to her epila...
Sep 06, 2023•29 min
Sometimes we need reminding that we aren’t failing. The entire fucking system is against us. We have interviewed three brilliant American women who have dedicated their careers to looking at the patriarchy: Ada Calhoun with her Generation X defining book, Why We Can’t Sleep: Women’s New Midlife Crisis. Eve Rodsky’s manifest for female creativity: Find Your Unicorn Space. Elise Loehnen’s primal roar that is On Our Best Behaviour. Presumably you are already angry. Have a listen, get angrier and fe...
Aug 23, 2023•50 min
Hopefully you are fully engaged in a wonderful holiday, spending joyous time immersed in the glorious slipstream of your family dynamics. If so GOOD FOR YOU. If, however, you feel that you are on the brink, near the overwhelm or just unbelievably tired, have we got an episode to you… We’ve gathered together some self-preserving thoughts from therapy titans, Julia Samuel, Mandy Saligari and Sam Akbar, to talk you down off the emotional cliff. Note: these are highlights, not new recordings. PS: Fo...
Aug 16, 2023•48 min