Podcasts about England

A film editor's job is much like the work of a sculptor. You take a massive block of material—raw footage—and with a series of delicate, precise cuts, you shape it into something cohesive, something meaningful. In today's episode, we welcome Michael Trent, a master of cinematic storytelling who has spent his career assembling some of Hollywood's most unforgettable films. From the war-torn beaches of Saving Private Ryan to the eerie corridors of The Hatred, his work is the unseen hand that guides an audience's emotions, turning chaos into art.For Michael Trent, the journey into the editing room began long before he ever set foot in Hollywood. His father, a sound editor in England, introduced him to the craft at an early age. “I was using a Moviola by the time I was ten,” he recalls, describing the tactile magic of celluloid film. But talent alone wasn't enough to break into the industry—his leap from England to Hollywood in 1994 was an act of faith, a cold call to the right person at the right time, proving that the universe often conspires in favor of those who dare.Editing is not merely about cutting and pasting scenes together. It is about rhythm, about knowing when to hold a shot and when to move on. It is the balance between subtlety and impact, between quiet tension and explosive release. “I think a lot of editors cut too much,” Michael Trent shares. “You have to feel the emotion of a scene and let it breathe.” His work on The Hatred is a testament to this philosophy, particularly in its ability to sustain suspense, making audiences feel the presence of something sinister lurking just beyond the frame.One of the most fascinating aspects of his career was working alongside Steven Spielberg. Editing Saving Private Ryan meant moving between locations, from an Irish field to an aerospace museum in England, adapting to whatever environment was necessary. But beyond the logistics, Spielberg's ability to visualize an edit in his head was what amazed Michael Trent the most. “He called in from Japan with an edit suggestion, and when we made the change, it worked perfectly. It was as if he had a video camera inside his mind.”Horror editing, in particular, demands a unique approach. Timing becomes everything—not just in the obvious jump scares, but in the slow-building unease that keeps an audience gripping their seats.A shadow lingering a second too long, a door creaking open just slightly out of sync—these are the choices that make a horror film work. “There's a scene in The Hatred where Alice walks toward the cellar,” Michael Trent explains. “We held the shot longer than usual, just to build that sense of dread.”To be an editor is to be both an artist and a storyteller, sculpting not with clay or paint, but with time itself. The true test of an editor's skill lies not in what they add, but in what they take away. Sometimes, entire scenes—ones that took days to shoot—must be discarded for the sake of pacing and narrative flow. “You have to be ruthless,” Michael Trent says. “If it doesn't serve the story, it has to go.”Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/bulletproof-screenwriting-podcast--2881148/support.

Guardian journalist Luke Harding was thrown out of Russia for exposing uncomfortable truths. Now he takes Matt and Alice behind the headlines of the Skripal attack, exposing how Putin's spy machine really works, and the chilling lengths it went to to threaten his own family.Do you have a suggestion for a scandal you would like us to cover? Or perhaps you have a question you would like to ask our hosts? Email us at britishscandal@wondery.comSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hello Rank Squad!It's Jack's last episode as a Bachelor, and we thought we'd take a look at some transfers to send him off blissfully into wedded life. Liverpool have signed Florian Wirtz, breaking the British Transfer Record in doing so, and we discuss his arrival at Anfield and how he might fit into Arne Slot's Champion Reds next season. That gives us a launchpad to talk about some of the other most expensive transfers in Premier League history, so we rank 2-10 (feels a bit early to judge Wirtz just yet!) in order of the value they provided for their fee and also their transformative impact on their clubs - running through some of the obvious flops, all the way to the deals which are proving worth every penny. There's also time for a little Things We Love, where Jack gives some flowers to Santi Cazorla and Real Oviedo - one of the true feel-good stories of a summer mired in controversy and differing opinions. It's Ranks!  And remember, if you'd like more from the Rank Squad, including extra podcasts every Monday and Friday (including our weekly Postbox taking a look at the whole weekend of football) and access to our brilliant Discord community, then why not join us here on Patreon?

Ben Haines presents reaction to Lee Carsley's England U21 side reaching the Euros final. Nedum Onuoha, Stephen Warnock, and John Murray react to England's win in Bratislava.A brilliant brace from Liverpool's Harvey Elliott saw England run out 2-1 winners against The Netherlands. Hear from the Young Lions' hero on the night, as well as England's U21 manager.Also hear from Nottingham Forest's Elliot Anderson.Timecodes: 00:35 Harvey Elliott post-match 03:40 England through to the final 05:55 Elliott provides star quality 07:45 England have found the formula 11:50 Lee Carsley post-match 15:45 Carsley the "difference maker" 24:35 Elliot Anderson shines 25:40 Anderson post-match 27:45 England favourites?

Was Owen Farrell ever in contention for England's summer tour to Argentina and the US? England head coach Steve Borthwick joins Chris and Danny to reveal all, and to outline what he expects from his young squad over the coming weeks. He also shares his memories of the British and Irish Lions from watching them as a kid to being part of the coaching staff in 2017. And Danny picks out a couple of England players he thinks could make an impact on tour.

England India Daily, 1st Test, Headingley, Review: Daniel Norcross and Ben Jones assess a wild Test match in Leeds that was… actually quite predictable when you break it down day by day. Is this the end of batting first in England? Daniel seems to think so. Joe Root continues to be unnervingly nerveless in run chases. Looking to Edgbaston, how will the bowling lineups look? Will Akash Deep or Arshdeep Singh be called in to bolster the pace attack? Will we see Atkinson return for England or, whisper it, Jofra Archer? For India in general, will Shubman find his voice in the field, and will his troops be able to up their intensity in the field? Support the show with a Nerd Pledge at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠patreon.com/thefinalword⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Check out Noobru to give your brain a boost: 15% off at our link: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠noobru.com/finalword⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Tickets for our Wormsley match, August 18: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠uk.emma-live.com/WormsleyFinal2025⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Subscribe to Wisden and never pay full price for the Almanack again: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.wisdenalmanack.com/subscribe⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Get your big NordVPN discount: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠nordvpn.com/tfw⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Maurice Blackburn Lawyers - fighting for the rights of workers since 1919: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠mauriceblackburn.com.au⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Get 10% off Glenn Maxwell's sunnies: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠t20vision.com/FINALWORD⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Save more, earn more—up to 4.22% AER (variable). Interest rates are tiered, with the top rate for balances over £1M. Each tiered rate applies to the portion within that range. New members get these rates free for 6 months; after that, your Tide plan's rates apply. For full offer T&Cs visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://tide.co/savings⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Claim £100 cash back (on a £5k deposit) at: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://tide.co/offers/tfw⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Find previous episodes at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠finalwordcricket.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Title track by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Urthboy⁠⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Angie and Susie continue the series on the armor of God by digging into Ephesians 6:11 and exploring how to recognize the enemy's schemes. They talk about what it means to actively put on God's armor and how spiritual awareness helps us stand firm.You'll hear practical encouragement for deepening your trust in God as your first line of defense.Ephesians 6:11 (NIV)Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes.https://livesteadyon.com/https://susiecrosby.com/https://www.logos.com/https://enduringword.com/https://www.wordhippo.com/https://www.biblegateway.com/https://www.blueletterbible.org/Wilhelm Michaelis, “Ὁδός, Ὁδηγός, Ὁδηγέω, Μεθοδία, Εἵσοδος, Ἔξοδος, Διέξοδος, Εὐοδόω,” in Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, ed. Gerhard Kittel, Geoffrey W. Bromiley, and Gerhard Friedrich (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1964–), 103.Vine, W. "Wiles - Vine's Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words." Blue Letter Bible. 24 Jun, 1996. Web. 5 Feb, 2025.https://biblehub.com/greek/3180.htmRobert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset, and David Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, vol. 2 (Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1997), 357.Marvin Richardson Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament.+See+on+ch.+4%3a14.+~The+armor+is+a+defen "‌"), vol. 3 (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1887), 406.John D. Barry et al., Faithlife Study Bible.+~Paul%E2%80%99s+use+of+the+Gr "‌") (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2012, 2016), Eph 6:11.Harold W. Hoehner, “Ephesians,” in The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures, ed. J. F. Walvoord and R. B. Zuck, vol. 2 (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1985), 643.Max Turner, “Ephesians,” in New Bible Commentary: 21st Century Edition, ed. D. A. Carson et al., 4th ed. (Leicester, England; Downers Grove, IL: Inter-Varsity Press, 1994), 1243.Richard J. Erickson, “Ephesians,” in Evangelical Commentary on the Bible, vol. 3, Baker Reference Library (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1995), 1032.Theme music:Glimmer by Andy Ellison

Too many women are being told NO to getting hormone replacement therapy (HRT) for their menopause symptoms in midlife.  But the truth is… the benefits of HRT can WAY outweigh the risks for helping you feel like yourself again. The problem?  The massive knowledge gap in hormonal medicine.   That's why this week, I'm joined by the incredible Dr. Louise Newson, a trailblazing general practitioner and menopause specialist who's transforming the conversation around hormone health.  We're diving into the real risks of not prescribing HRT, why hormones can be a game changer for your symptoms, and the surprising link between menopause, migraines, and inflammation.  Dr. Newson is bringing the science and clarity to the HRT convo, and she's here to help you reclaim your voice—and your hormonal health.  Listen here to set the record straight and start advocating for what you truly deserve! Dr. Louise Newson Dr. Louise Newson is a physician, women's hormone specialist, and member of the UK Government's Menopause Taskforce. She's an award-winning doctor, educator, and author, dedicated to raising awareness of women's health in perimenopause and menopause. Dr Louise studied Medicine and Pathology at The University of Manchester in England and worked in hospital medicine before switching to specialize in General Practice and medical writing. IN THIS EPISODE The revolution of bioidentical hormone replacement therapy  Synthetic vs. bioidentical hormones  Advocating for yourself and addressing the conversation of hormone replacement therapy options with your doctor  Individualizing hormone replacement therapies  Hormones for addressing conditions like migraine  How hormones affect women's long-term health  HRT for mitigating inflammation in the entire body  Lifestyle suggestions and habits to promote hormonal balance  QUOTES “Let's just remind ourselves that hormones are an evidence-based treatment and the guidelines are telling us that it has more benefits than risks for the majority of women. Yet… It's only a minority of women in our countries and other countries that are receiving it.”  “It's harrowing what people are being told by their clinicians. And they often just want advice. They don't always want treatment, or they want to know the treatment options available to them in the future. But they're not getting any answers, and I think this is a great disservice to women.”  “I see a lot in the clinic, women who have seen all sorts of specialists, have all sorts of treatments, but no one's spoken about their hormones.” RESOURCES MENTIONED Dr. Louise Newson's Website Dr. Newson's Instagram Dr. Newson's Podcast Get Dr. Newson's FREE Balance App: Your go-to for Menopause Health  Pre-order my new book: The Perimenopause Revolution HERE!  RELATED EPISODES  #647: Hormone Optimization Therapy (HOT) Isn't Your Mom's HRT + It's One Of The Best Strategies For Longevity with Dr. Amy Killen #648: This Changes Everything: The Perimenopause Revolution Every Woman Needs Now #620: What You Need to Know About Premature Menopause, Perimenopause, HRT and Your Options with Dr. Salome Masghati #605: Breaking the HRT Confusion: The Truth Behind Hormone Replacement Therapy for Perimenopausal Women with Karen Martel

Wir beantworten philosophische und praktische Fragen: Ab wann ist man Europäer? Ist Deutschland überall sauber? Wie wählt man das richtige Fahrrad aus? Und wie schafft man es, nach einem Fahrradunfall wieder aufs Rad zu steigen? Außerdem: Podcast-Empfehlungen aus Österreich, unsere Sommer-Events und warum sein nicht gleich werden ist.   Transkript und Vokabelhilfe Werde ein Easy German Mitglied und du bekommst unsere Vokabelhilfe, ein interaktives Transkript und Bonusmaterial zu jeder Episode: easygerman.org/membership   Sponsoren Hier findet ihr unsere Sponsoren und exklusive Angebote: easygerman.org/sponsors   Eure Fragen Isabela aus Brasilien fragt: Ab wann ist man Europäer? Tina fragt: Ist tatsächlich ganz Deutschland so sauber? Andrei aus Russland fragt: Wie wählt man ein Fahrrad aus? Büşra aus der Türkei fragt: Wie kann ich meine Angst überwinden und wieder aufs Rad steigen? Hast du eine Frage an uns? Auf easygerman.fm kannst du uns eine Sprachnachricht schicken.   Follow-up: Podcast-Empfehlungen Erklär mir die Welt Hawi D'Ehre   Follow-up: Die häufigsten Verben bei Easy German sein (Wiktionary) werden (Wiktionary)   Hausmitteilung: Easy German Events & Book Club Diesen Sommer gibt es Easy German Events in Deutschland und in England, bei denen ihr uns treffen könnt. Alle Infos und Tickets gibt es auf easygerman.org/meetups. Und egal, wo ihr lebt: Im Juli lesen wir wieder gemeinsam ein Buch im Easy German Book Club. Wie ihr mitmachen könnt erfahrt ihr auf easygerman.org/bookclub   Wichtige Vokabeln in dieser Episode etwas umtopfen: eine Pflanze aus einem Topf nehmen und in einen anderen Topf mit frischer Erde setzen die Staatsbürgerschaft: rechtliche Zugehörigkeit einer Person zu einem bestimmten Staat etwas überwinden: eine Schwierigkeit oder ein Problem erfolgreich bewältigen das Muskelgedächtnis: Fähigkeit des Körpers, Bewegungsabläufe automatisch auszuführen, weil sie oft geübt wurden fallen: sich nicht mehr aufrecht halten können und nach unten stürzen   Support Easy German and get interactive transcripts, live vocabulary and bonus content: easygerman.org/membership

Jimbo, Duncan Alexander, Charlie Eccleshare and Colin Millar are in the studio with wall-to-wall football to discuss.PSG set up a reunion with Lionel Messi and Inter Miami in the last 16 of the Club World Cup. And Botafogo knock out Atletico Madrid to tee up an all-Brazilian clash with Palmeiras. Jack Lang in LA tells us why Brazilian sides are doing so well at this tournament.Man City face Juventus on Thursday with both sides already through. Are both free-scoring sides back to their best or are they just playing bad teams? And we need to talk about the weather.There are goals galore and family trees rocking in both the Under 19 and Under 21s Euros, where holders England are one game away from the final.Plus why no Lautaro love, CWC sides in the Premier League and the Sampdoria saga.Produced by Charlie Jones.RUNNING ORDER: • PART 1a: Botafogo knock out Atleti, Messi v PSG (05.00)• PART 1b: Let's talk about the weather (07.30) • PART 1c: Jack Lang on Brazilian success (11.30)• PART 2a: Suarez bites Chiellini (21.00)• PART 2b: Man City 6-0 Al Ain (24.00)• PART 2c: Elsewhere in the Club World Cup (30.00)• PART 3a: Drama and goals at the Under 21s and 19s (36.00)• PART 3b: The foreign keeper ban in South Korea (40.00)• PART 3c: The Sampdoria saga (43.00) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Katie Smith is joined by former Wales international Nia Jones and Danny Gabbidon as well as BBC Wales' Alex Richards to assess Wales' chances at Euro 2025.They go back to where it all started, going from not having a full-time coach to reaching the European Championships.And crucially, the team look at how well Wales will be able to compete, with France, England and the Netherlands in their group. 8:10- The Journey Wales' first full-time head coach Jarmo Matikainen 20:30- The impact of Rhian Wilkinson 32:00- The squad 38:00-The Group of Death 43:30-A supporters' view

Eight days to go until the Euros, people! England will kick off their campaign against France on July 5th, so today Chloe and Rachel are putting themselves in Sazzy Wiegs' shoes once more: we're picking our final England starting XI!What's changed? Why do we think – even without Millie Bright – that England have the perfect centre-half combo? And who's in that number 10 role? Plus, Chloe is buzzing for England's first ever meeting with the Reggae Girlz and London City Lionesses are already splashing the cash in the WSL...Join the Official Upfront Euro 2025 Fantasy League here!Please fill out Stak's listener survey! It'll help us learn more about the content you love so we can bring you even more - you'll also be entered into a competition to win one of five PlayStation 5's! Click here: https://bit.ly/staksurvey2025Follow us on X, Instagram, Bluesky and YouTube! Email us show@upfrontpod.com.For ad-free episodes and much more from across our football shows, head over to the Football Ramble Patreon and subscribe: patreon.com/footballramble.**Please take the time to rate us on your podcast app. It means a great deal to the show and will make it easier for other potential listeners to find us. Thanks!** Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today on the Christian History Almanac, we remember the patriarch of one of the Church of England's most influential families. Show Notes: Support 1517 Podcast Network 1517 Podcasts 1517 on Youtube 1517 Podcast Network on Apple Podcasts 1517 Events Schedule 1517 Academy - Free Theological Education What's New from 1517: Preorder Sinner Saint by Luke Kjolhaug: https://shop.1517.org/products/9781964419152-sinner-saint The Impossible Prize: A Theology of Addiction by Donavan Riley: https://shop.1517.org/products/9781962654708-the-impossible-prize Ditching the Checklist by Mark Mattes: https://shop.1517.org/products/9781962654791-ditching-the-checklist Broken Bonds: A Novel of the Reformation, Book 1 of 2 by Amy Mantravadi: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1962654753?ref_=cm_sw_r_cp_ud_dp_FCNEEK60MVNVPCEGKBD8_5&starsLeft=1  More from the hosts: Dan van Voorhis SHOW TRANSCRIPTS are available: https://www.1517.org/podcasts/the-christian-history-almanac CONTACT: CHA@1517.org SUBSCRIBE: Apple Podcasts Spotify Stitcher Overcast Google Play FOLLOW US: Facebook Twitter Audio production by Christopher Gillespie (outerrimterritories.com).

Last time we spoke about Operation Chahar. In July 1937, the tensions between Japan and China erupted into a full-scale conflict, ignited by the Marco Polo Bridge Incident. Following a series of aggressive Japanese military maneuvers, Chiang Kai-shek, then enjoying a brief respite at Kuling, learned of the escalating clashes and prepared for battle. Confident that China was primed for resistance, he rallied his nation, demanding that Japan accept responsibility and respect China's sovereignty. The Japanese launched their offensive, rapidly capturing key positions in Northern China. Notably, fierce battle ensued in Jinghai, where Chinese soldiers, led by Brigade Commander Li Zhiyuan, valiantly defended against overwhelming forces using guerrilla tactics and direct assaults. Their spirit was symbolized by a courageous “death squad” that charged the enemy, inflicting serious casualties despite facing dire odds. As weeks passed, the conflict intensified with brutal assaults on Nankou. Chinese defenses, though valiant, were ultimately overwhelmed, leading to heavy casualties on both sides. Despite losing Nankou, the indomitable Chinese spirit inspired continued resistance against the Japanese invaders, foreshadowing a long, brutal war that would reshape East Asia.   #156 The Battle of Shanghai Part 1: The Beginning of the Battle of Shanghai Welcome to the Fall and Rise of China Podcast, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about the history of Asia? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on history of asia and much more  so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel where I cover the history of China and Japan from the 19th century until the end of the Pacific War. On August 9, a bullet riddled sedan screeched to an abrupt halt at the entrance to the Hongqiao airport along Monument Road. The gruesome scene on the dashboard revealed that one of the victims had died in the car. He had been dragged out and subjected to brutal slashing, kicking, and beating until his body was a mangled mess. Half of his face was missing, and his stomach had been cut open, exposing the sickly pallor of his intestines, faintly glimmering in the night. The other man had managed to escape the vehicle but only got a few paces away before he was gunned down. A short distance away lay a third body, dressed in a Chinese uniform. Investigators swiftly identified the badly mangled body as belonging to 27-year-old Sub-Lieutenant Oyama Isao, while the other deceased Japanese man was his driver, First Class Seaman Saito Yozo. The identity of the Chinese victim remained a mystery. At first glance, the scene appeared to be the aftermath of a straightforward shootout. However, numerous questions lingered: What were the Japanese doing at a military airfield miles from their barracks? Who had fired the first shot, and what had prompted that decision? The Chinese investigators and their Japanese counterparts were at odds over the answers to these questions. As they walked the crime scene, searching for evidence, loud arguments erupted repeatedly. By the time the sun began to rise, they concluded their investigation without reaching any consensus on what had transpired. They climbed into their cars and made their way back to the city. The investigators were acutely aware of the repercussions if they failed to handle their delicate task with the necessary finesse. Despite their hopes for peace, it was evident that Shanghai was a city bracing for war. As they drove through the dimly lit suburbs on their way from Hongqiao back to their downtown offices, their headlights illuminated whitewashed trees, interspersed with sandbag defenses and the silhouettes of solitary Chinese sentries. Officially, these sentries were part of the Peace Preservation Corps,  a paramilitary unit that, due to an international agreement reached a few years earlier, was the only Chinese force allowed to remain in the Shanghai area. In the hours that followed, both sides presented their versions of the incident. According to the Chinese account, the Japanese vehicle attempted to force its way through the airport gate. When members of the Peace Preservation Corps stationed at the entrance signaled for Saito, the driver, to stop, he abruptly turned the car around. Sub-Lieutenant Oyama then fired at the Chinese guards with an automatic pistol. Only then did the Chinese return fire, killing Oyama in a hail of bullets. Saito managed to jump out before he, too, was gunned down. The commander of the Chinese guards told a Western reporter that this wasn't the first time someone Japanese had attempted to enter the airport. Such incidents had occurred repeatedly in the past two months, leading them to believe that the Japanese were “obviously undertaking espionage.” The Japanese account, predictably, placed the blame for the entire incident squarely on China. It asserted that Oyama had been driving along a road bordering the airfield with no intention of entering. Suddenly, the vehicle was stopped and surrounded by Peace Preservation Corps troops, who opened fire with rifles and machine guns without warning. Oyama had no opportunity to return fire. The Japanese statement argued that the two men had every right to use the road, which was part of the International Settlement, and labeled the incident a clear violation of the 1932 peace agreement. “We demand that the Chinese bear responsibility for this illegal act,”. Regardless of either side, it seemed likely to everyone in the region, war would soon engulf Shanghai.  Meanwhile, as the Marco Polo Bridge Incident escalated into a full blown in the far north, General Zhang Fakui was attending a routine training mission at Mount Lu in southeastern Jiangxi. A short and small man, not considered too handsome either, Zhang had earned his place in China's leadership through physical courage, once taking a stand on a bridge and single handedly facing down an enemy army. He was 41 years old in 1937, having spent half his life fighting Warlords, Communists and sometimes even Nationalists. In the recent years he had tossed his lot in with a rebel campaign against Chiang Kai-Shek, who surprisingly went on the forgive him and placed him in charge of anti communist operations in the area due south of Shanghai. However now the enemy seemed to have changed.  As the war spread to Beijing, on July 16th, Zhang was sent to Chiang Kai-Shek's summer residence at Mount Lu alongside 150 members of China's political and military elites. They were all there to brainstorm how to fight the Japanese. Years prior the Generalissimo had made it doctrine to appease the Japanese but now he made grandiose statements such as “this time we must fight to the end”. Afterwards Chiang dealt missions to all his commanders and Zhang Fakui was told to prepare for operations in the Shanghai area.  It had been apparent for weeks that both China and Japan were preparing for war in central China. The Japanese had been diverting naval troops from the north to strengthen their forces in Shanghai, and by early August, they had assembled over 8,000 troops. A few days later, approximately thirty-two naval vessels arrived. On July 31, Chiang declared that “all hope for peace has been lost.” Chiang had been reluctant to commit his best forces to defend northern China, an area he had never truly controlled. In contrast, Shanghai was central to his strategy for the war against Japan. Chiang decided to deploy his finest troops, the 87th and 88th Divisions, which were trained by generals under the guidance of the German advisor von Falkenhausen, who had high hopes for their performance against the Japanese. In doing so, Chiang aimed to demonstrate to both his own people and the wider world that the Chinese could and would resist the invader. Meanwhile, Chiang's spy chief, Dai Li, was busy gathering intelligence on Japanese intentions regarding Shanghai, a challenging task given his focus in recent years. Dai, one of the most sinister figures in modern Chinese history, had devoted far more energy and resources to suppressing the Communists than to countering the Japanese. As a result, by the critical summer of 1937, he had built only a sparse network of agents in “Little Tokyo,” the Hongkou area of Shanghai dominated by Japanese businesses. One agent was a pawnshop owner, while the rest were double agents employed as local staff within the Japanese security apparatus. Unfortunately, they could provide little more than snippets, rumors, and hearsay. While some of this information sounded alarmingly dire, there was almost no actionable intelligence. Chiang did not take the decision to open a new front in Shanghai lightly. Built on both banks of the Huangpu River, the city served as the junction between the Pacific Ocean to the east and the great Yangtze River, which wound thousands of kilometers inland to the west. Shanghai embodied everything that represented modern China, from its industry and labor relations to its connections with the outside world. While foreign diplomatic presence was concentrated in nearby Nanjing, the capital, it was in Shanghai that the foreign community gauged the country's mood. Foreigners in the city's two “concession” areas nthe French Concession and the British-affiliated International Settlement often dismissed towns beyond Shanghai as mere “outstations.” Chiang Kai-shek would throw 650,000 troops into the battle for the city and its environs as well as his modest air force of 200 aircraft. Chiang, whose forces were being advised by German officers led by General Alexander von Falkenhausen, was finally confident that his forces could take on the Japanese. A German officer told a British diplomat, “If the Chinese Army follows the advice of the German advisers, it is capable of driving the Japanese over the Great Wall.”   While Chiang was groping in the dark, deprived of the eyes and ears of an efficient intelligence service, he did have at his disposal an army that was better prepared for battle than it had been in 1932. Stung by the experience of previous conflicts with the Japanese, Chiang had initiated a modernization program aimed at equipping the armed forces not only to suppress Communist rebels but also to confront a modern fighting force equipped with tanks, artillery, and aircraft. He had made progress, but it was insufficient. Serious weaknesses persisted, and now there was no time for any remedial action. While China appeared to be a formidable power in sheer numbers, the figures were misleading. On the eve of war, the Chinese military was comprised of a total of 176 divisions, which were theoretically organized into two brigades of two regiments each. However, only about 20 divisions maintained full peacetime strength of 10,000 soldiers and officers; the rest typically held around 5,000 men. Moreover, Chiang controlled only 31 divisions personally, and he could not count on the loyalty of the others. To successfully resist Japan, Chiang would need to rely not only on his military command skills but also on his ability to forge fragile coalitions among Warlord generals with strong local loyalties. Equipment posed another significant challenge. The modernization drive was not set to complete until late 1938, and the impact of this delay was evident. In every category of weaponry, from rifles to field artillery, the Chinese were outmatched by their Japanese adversaries, both quantitatively and qualitatively. Domestically manufactured artillery pieces had shorter ranges, and substandard steel-making technology caused gun barrels to overheat, increasing the risk of explosions. Some arms even dated back to imperial times. A large proportion of the Chinese infantry had received no proper training in basic tactics, let alone in coordinated operations involving armor and artillery. The chief of the German advisory corps was General Alexander von Falkenhausen, a figure hard to rival in terms of qualifications for the role. Although the 58-year-old's narrow shoulders, curved back, and bald, vulture-like head gave him an unmilitary, almost avian appearance, his exterior belied a tough character. In 1918, he had earned his nation's highest military honor, the Pour le Mérite, while assisting Germany's Ottoman allies against the British in Palestine. Few, if any, German officers knew Asia as well as he did. His experience in the region dated back to the turn of the century. As a young lieutenant in the Third East Asian Infantry Regiment, he participated in the international coalition of colonial powers that quelled the Boxer Rebellion in 1900. A decade later, he traveled through Korea, Manchuria, and northern China with his wife, keenly observing and learning as a curious tourist. From 1912 to 1914, he served as the German Kaiser's military attaché in Tokyo. He was poised to put his extensive knowledge to good use in the months ahead. Chiang believed that Shanghai should be the location of the first battle. This decision was heavily influenced by Falkenhausen and was strategically sound. Chiang Kai-shek could not hope to win a war against Japan unless he could unify the nation behind him, particularly the many fractious warlords who had battled his forces repeatedly over the past decade. Everyone understood that the territory Japan was demanding in the far north did not need to be held for any genuine military necessity; it was land that could be negotiated. The warlords occupying that territory were unpredictable and all too willing to engage in bargaining. In contrast, China's economic heartland held different significance. By choosing to fight for the center of the country and deploying his strongest military units, Chiang Kai-shek signaled to both China's warlords and potential foreign allies that he had a vested interest in the outcome.  There were also several operational reasons for preferring a conflict in the Yangtze River basin over a campaign in northern China. The rivers, lakes, and rice paddies of the Yangtze delta were much better suited for defensive warfare against Japan's mechanized forces than the flat plains of North China. By forcing the Japanese to commit troops to central China, the Nationalists bought themselves the time needed to rally and reinforce their faltering defenses in the north. By initiating hostilities in the Shanghai area, Japan would be forced to divert its attention from the northern front, thereby stalling a potential Japanese advance toward the crucial city of Wuhan. It would also help safeguard potential supply routes from the Soviet Union, the most likely source of material assistance due to Moscow's own animosity toward Japan. It was a clever plan, and surprisingly, the Japanese did not anticipate it. Intelligence officers in Tokyo were convinced that Chiang would send his troops northward instead. Again in late July, Chiang convened his commanders, and here he gave Zhang Fukai more detailed instructions for his operation. Fukai was placed in charge of the right wing of the army which was currently preparing for action in the metropolitan area. Fukai would oversee the forces east of the Huangpu River in the area known as Pudong. Pudong was full of warehouses, factories and rice fields, quite precarious to fight in. Meanwhile General Zhang Zhizhong, a quiet and sickly looking man who had previously led the Central Military Academy was to command the left wing of the Huangpu. All of the officers agreed the plan to force the battle to the Shanghai area was logical as the northern region near Beijing was far too open, giving the advantage to tank warfare, which they could not hope to contest Japan upon. The Shanghai area, full of rivers, creaks and urban environments favored them much more. Zhang Zhizhong seemed an ideal pick to lead troops in downtown Shanghai where most of the fighting would take place. His position of commandant of the military academy allowed him to establish connections with junior officers earmarked for rapid promotion. This meant that he personally knew the generals of both the 87th and 88th Divisions, which were to form the core of Zhang Zhizhong's newly established 9th Army Group and become his primary assets in the early phases of the Shanghai campaign. Moreover, Zhang Zhizhong had the right aggressive instincts. He believed that China's confrontation with Japan had evolved through three stages: in the first stage, the Japanese invaded the northeast in 1931, and China remained passive; in the second stage, during the first battle of Shanghai in 1932, Japan struck, but China fought back. Zhang argued that this would be the third stage, where Japan was preparing to attack, but China would strike first.   It seems that Zhang Zhizhong did not expect to survive this final showdown with his Japanese adversary. He took the fight very personally, even ordering his daughter to interrupt her education in England and return home to serve her country in the war. However, he was not the strong commander he appeared to be, as he was seriously ill. Although he never disclosed the true extent of his condition, it seemed he was on the verge of a physical and mental breakdown after years in high-stress positions. In fact, he had recently taken a leave of absence from his role at the military academy in the spring of 1937. When the war broke out, he was at a hospital in the northern port city of Qingdao, preparing to go abroad for convalescence. He canceled those plans to contribute to the struggle against Japan. When his daughter returned from England and saw him on the eve of battle, she was alarmed by how emaciated he had become. From the outset, doubts about his physical fitness to command loomed large. At 8:30 a.m. on Tuesday, August 10, a group of officers emerged from the Japanese Consulate along the banks of the Huangpu River. This team was a hastily assembled Sino-Japanese joint investigation unit tasked with quickly resolving the shooting incident at the Hongqiao Aerodrome of the previous night. They understood the urgency of reaching an agreement swiftly to prevent any escalation. As they drove to the airport, they passed armed guards of the Chinese Peace Preservation Corps stationed behind sandbag barricades that had been erected only hours earlier. Upon arriving at Hongqiao, the officers walked up and down the scene of the incident under the scorching sun, attempting to piece together a shared understanding of what had transpired. However, this proved to be nearly impossible, as the evidence failed to align into a coherent account acceptable to both parties. The Japanese were unconvinced that any shootout had occurred at all. Oyama, the officer who had been in the car, had left his pistol at the marine headquarters in Hongkou and had been unarmed the night before. They insisted that whoever shot and killed the man in the Chinese uniform could not have been him. By 6:00 pm the investigators returned to the city. Foreign correspondents, eager for information, knew exactly whom to approach. The newly appointed Shanghai Mayor, Yu Hongjun, with a quick wit and proficiency in English, Yu represented the city's cosmopolitan image. However, that evening, he had little to offer the reporters, except for a plea directed at both the Japanese and Chinese factions “Both sides should maintain a calm demeanor to prevent the situation from escalating.” Mayor Yu however was, in fact, at the center of a complex act of deception that nearly succeeded. Nearly eight decades later, Zhang Fakui attributed the incident to members of the 88th Division, led by General Sun Yuanliang. “A small group of Sun Yuanliang's men disguised themselves as members of the Peace Preservation Corps,” Zhang Fakui recounted years later in his old age. “On August 9, 1937, they encountered two Japanese servicemen on the road near the Hongqiao military aerodrome and accused them of forcing their way into the area. A clash ensued, resulting in the deaths of the Japanese soldiers.” This created a delicate dilemma for their superiors. The two dead Japanese soldiers were difficult to explain away. Mayor Yu, likely informed of the predicament by military officials, conferred with Tong Yuanliang, chief of staff of the Songhu Garrison Command, a unit established after the fighting in 1932. Together, they devised a quick and cynical plan to portray the situation as one of self-defense by the Chinese guards. Under their orders, soldiers marched a Chinese death row inmate to the airport gate, dressed him in a paramilitary guard's uniform, and executed him. While this desperate ruse might have worked initially, it quickly unraveled due to the discrepancies raised by the condition of the Chinese body. The Japanese did not believe the story, and the entire plan began to fall apart. Any remaining mutual trust swiftly evaporated. Instead of preventing a confrontation, the cover-up was accelerating the slide into war.  Late on August 10, Mayor Yu sent a secret cable to Nanjing, warning that the Japanese had ominously declared they would not allow the two deaths at the airport to go unpunished. The following day, the Japanese Consul General Okamoto Suemasa paid a visit to the mayor, demanding the complete withdrawal of the Peace Preservation Corps from the Shanghai area and the dismantling of all fortifications established by the corps. For the Chinese, acquiescing to these demands was nearly impossible. From their perspective, it appeared that the Japanese aimed to leave Shanghai defenseless while simultaneously bolstering their own military presence in the city. Twenty vessels, including cruisers and destroyers, sailed up the Huangpu River and docked at wharves near "Little Tokyo." Japanese marines in olive-green uniforms marched ashore down the gangplanks, while women from the local Japanese community, dressed in kimonos, greeted the troops with delighted smiles and bows to the flags of the Rising Sun that proudly adorned the sterns of the battleships. In fact, Japan had planned to deploy additional troops to Shanghai even before the shooting at Hongqiao Aerodrome. This decision was deemed necessary to reinforce the small contingent of 2,500 marines permanently stationed in the city. More troops were required to assist in protecting Japanese nationals who were being hastily evacuated from the larger cities along the Yangtze River. These actions were primarily defensive maneuvers, as the Japanese military seemed hesitant to open a second front in Shanghai, for the same reasons that the Chinese preferred an extension of hostilities to that area. Diverting Japanese troops from the strategically critical north and the Soviet threat across China's border would weaken their position, especially given that urban warfare would diminish the advantages of their technological superiority in tanks and aircraft. While officers in the Japanese Navy believed it was becoming increasingly difficult to prevent the war from spreading to Shanghai, they were willing to give diplomacy one last chance. Conversely, the Japanese Army was eager to wage war in northern China but displayed little inclination to engage in hostilities in Shanghai. Should the situation worsen, the Army preferred to withdraw all Japanese nationals from the city. Ultimately, when it agreed to formulate plans for dispatching an expeditionary force to Shanghai, it did so reluctantly, primarily to avoid accusations of neglecting its responsibilities. Amongst many commanders longing for a swift confrontation with Japan was Zhang Zhizhong. By the end of July, he was growing increasingly impatient, waiting with his troops in the Suzhou area west of Shanghai and questioning whether a unique opportunity was being squandered. On July 30, he sent a telegram to Nanjing requesting permission to strike first. He argued that if Japan were allowed to launch an attack on Shanghai, he would waste valuable time moving his troops from their position more than 50 miles away. Nanjing responded with a promise that his wishes would be fulfilled but urged him to exercise patience: “We should indeed seize the initiative over the enemy, but we must wait until the right opportunity arises. Await further orders.” That opportunity arose on August 11, with the Japanese display of force on the Huangpu River and their public demand for the withdrawal of China's paramilitary police. Japan had sufficiently revealed itself as the aggressor in the eyes of both domestic and international audiences, making it safe for China to take action. At 9:00 p.m. that evening, Zhang Zhizhong received orders from Nanjing to move his troops toward Shanghai. He acted with remarkable speed, capitalizing on the extensive transportation network in the region. The soldiers of the 87th Division quickly boarded 300 trucks that had been prepared in advance. Meanwhile, civilian passengers on trains were unceremoniously ordered off to make room for the 88th Division, which boarded the carriages heading for Shanghai. In total, over 20,000 motivated and well-equipped troops were on their way to battle.  On August 12, representatives from the United Kingdom, France, the United States, Italy, Japan, and China gathered for a joint conference in Shanghai to discuss ceasefire terms. Japan demanded the withdrawal of Chinese troops from Shanghai, while the Chinese representative, Yu Hung-chun, dismissed the Japanese demand, stating that the terms of the ceasefire had already been violated by Japan. The major powers were keen to avoid a repeat of the January 28 Incident, which had significantly disrupted foreign economic activities in Shanghai. Meanwhile, Chinese citizens fervently welcomed the presence of Chinese troops in the city. In Nanjing, Chinese and Japanese representatives convened for the last time in a final effort to negotiate. The Japanese insisted that all Peace Preservation Corps and regular troops be withdrawn from the vicinity of Shanghai. The Chinese, however, deemed the demand for a unilateral withdrawal unacceptable, given that the two nations were already engaged in conflict in North China. Ultimately, Mayor Yu made it clear that the most the Chinese government would concede was that Chinese troops would not fire unless fired upon. Conversely, Japan placed all responsibility on China, citing the deployment of Chinese troops around Shanghai as the cause of the escalating tensions. Negotiations proved impossible, leaving no alternative but for the war to spread into Central China. On that same morning of Thursday, August 12, residents near Shanghai's North Train Station, also known as Zhabei Station, just a few blocks from "Little Tokyo," awoke to an unusual sight: thousands of soldiers dressed in the khaki uniforms of the Chinese Nationalists, wearing German-style helmets and carrying stick grenades slung across their chests. “Where do you come from?” the Shanghai citizens asked. “How did you get here so fast?” Zhang Zhizhong issued detailed orders to each unit under his command, instructing the 88th Division specifically to travel by train and deploy in a line from the town of Zhenru to Dachang village, both located a few miles west of Shanghai. Only later was the division supposed to advance toward a position stretching from the Zhabei district to the town of Jiangwan, placing it closer to the city boundaries. Zhang Zhizhong was the embodiment of belligerence, but he faced even more aggressive officers among his ranks. On the morning of August 12, he was approached by Liu Jingchi, the chief of operations at the Songhu Garrison Command. Liu argued that the battle of 1932 had gone poorly for the Chinese because they had hesitated and failed to strike first. This time, he insisted, should be different, and Zhang should order an all-out assault on the Japanese positions that very evening. Zhang countered that he had clear and unmistakable orders from Chiang Kai-shek to let the Japanese fire first, emphasizing the importance of maintaining China's image on the world stage. “That's easy,” Liu retorted. “Once all the units are deployed and ready to attack, we can just change some people into mufti and send them in to fire a few shots. We attack, and simultaneously, we report that the enemy's offensive has begun.” Zhang Zhizhong did not like this idea. “We can't go behind our leader's back like that,” he replied. Zhang Zhizhong's position was far from enviable. Forced to rein in eager and capable officers, he found himself acting against his own personal desires. Ultimately, he decided to seek the freedom to act as he saw fit. In a secret cable to Nanjing, he requested permission to launch an all-out attack on the Japanese positions in Shanghai the following day, Friday, August 13. He argued that this was a unique opportunity to capitalize on the momentum created by the movement of troops; any further delay would only lead to stagnation. He proposed a coordinated assault that would also involve the Chinese Air Force. However, the reply from Chiang Kai-shek was brief and unwavering: “Await further orders.” Even as Chiang's troops poured into Shanghai, Chinese and Japanese officials continued their discussions. Ostensibly, this was in hopes of reaching a last-minute solution, but in reality, it was a performance. Both sides wanted to claim the moral high ground in a battle that now seemed inevitable. They understood that whoever openly declared an end to negotiations would automatically be perceived as the aggressor. During talks at the Shanghai Municipal Council, Japanese Consul General Okamoto argued that if China truly wanted peace, it would have withdrawn its troops to a position that would prevent clashes. Mayor Yu responded by highlighting the increasing presence of Japanese forces in the city. “Under such circumstances, China must adopt such measures as necessary for self-defense,” he stated. Late on August 13, 1937, Chiang Kai-shek instructed his forces to defend Shanghai, commanding them to "divert the enemy at sea, secure the coast, and resist landings."  I would like to take this time to remind you all that this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Please go subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry after that, give my personal channel a look over at The Pacific War Channel at Youtube, it would mean a lot to me. In July 1937, tensions between Japan and China escalated into war following the Marco Polo Bridge Incident. Confident in his country's resolve, Chiang Kai-shek rallied the Chinese against Japanese aggression. On August 9, a deadly confrontation at Hongqiao Airport resulted in the deaths of Japanese soldiers, igniting further hostilities. As both sides blamed each other, the atmosphere became tense. Ultimately, negotiations failed, and the stage was set for a brutal conflict in Shanghai, marking the beginning of a long and devastating war.

‘A beautiful novel full of life-affirming wonder and imagination' Benedict Cumberbatch Matt Haig is one of Britain's most celebrated authors, best known for his internationally bestselling novel The Midnight Library and the critically acclaimed memoir Reasons to Stay Alive. Matt's newest novel, The Life Impossible, which became an instant Sunday Times bestseller, follows retired maths teacher Grace Winters who leaves her mundane bungalow in England for Ibiza, where she embarks on a journey to uncover the mysteries of her friend's life and death. Full of surprises and adventure, The Life Impossible is a story about hope and the promise of a new beginning. To celebrate the publication of the paperback edition of the novel, Matt will come to the Intelligence Squared stage to talk about the themes of his book and his writing career so far. --- This is the first instalment of a two-part episode. If you'd like to become a Member and get access to all our full ad free conversations, plus all of our Members-only content, just visit intelligencesquared.com/membership to find out more. For £4.99 per month you'll also receive: - Full-length and ad-free Intelligence Squared episodes, wherever you get your podcasts - Bonus Intelligence Squared podcasts, curated feeds and members exclusive series - 15% discount on livestreams and in-person tickets for all Intelligence Squared events  ...  Or Subscribe on Apple for £4.99: - Full-length and ad-free Intelligence Squared podcasts - Bonus Intelligence Squared podcasts, curated feeds and members exclusive series … Already a subscriber? Thank you for supporting our mission to foster honest debate and compelling conversations! Visit intelligencesquared.com to explore all your benefits including ad-free podcasts, exclusive bonus content and early access. … Subscribe to our newsletter here to hear about our latest events, discounts and much more. https://www.intelligencesquared.com/newsletter-signup/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The second mailbag episode of the summer is here! Hear Dr. Alexandra's advice for three listeners from around the world, with three relationship dilemmas: the first is a fellow “Alexandra” who lives in England and is struggling with her blended family. Next, we hear from a listener in Hawaii who is trying to make a difficult decision about their relationship. Finally, Dr. Alexandra answers a question from a listener in the UK who is ready to have a baby…but her boyfriend is not. Listen to hear Dr. Alexandra's guidance and submit your own question by following the link below."Your Anxiety Toolkit" on MasterClass: www.masterclass.com/youranxietytoolkitOrder Dr. Alexandra's book, Love Every DaySubscribe to Dr. Alexandra's NewsletterSubmit a Listener Question

It's Tuesday, June 24th, A.D. 2025. This is The Worldview in 5 Minutes heard on 140 radio stations and at www.TheWorldview.com.  I'm Adam McManus. (Adam@TheWorldview.com) By Kevin Swanson and Adam McManus Syrian suicide bomber A suicide bomber entered an Orthodox Church in Damascus, Syria on Sunday killing 22 people and wounding at least 63 others, reports ABC News. The ISIS terrorist group has claimed responsibility. No increased nuclear radiation levels after U.S. bombing in Iran The International Atomic Energy Agency reports no increase in off-site radiation levels at the three Iranian sites bombed by the United States and Israel. The neighboring Kuwait government has also confirmed that “no abnormal radiation levels have been detected in any of the member states.” The whereabouts of 400 kilograms of highly enriched Uranium in Iran is still a mystery. Israel bombed Iran's Evin Prison Israel continues its bombardment on Iran, including a bombing of the notorious Evin prison, where a number of Christians are held, and have been tortured over the last several decades. Trump: Israel & Iran agreed to cease-fire to end “12-Day War” On Monday, President Donald Trump announced that Israel and Iran had agreed to a cease-fire, declaring an end to what he referred to as “The 12 Day War,” reports The Epoch Times. In a Truth Social Post, Trump wrote,  “It has been fully agreed by and between Israel and Iran that there will be a Complete and Total CEASEFIRE … for 12 hours, at which point the War will be considered ENDED!” Both sides will wind down their final military operations within 12 hours, beginning what Trump expects to be “PEACEFUL and RESPECTFUL” on both sides. The conflict will be declared over within 24 hours. However, The New York Times indicated that there is no confirmation yet from Israel and Iran. Russia bombed Ukraine with 16 missiles and 352 drones The Russian army unleashed a heavy bombardment on Kiev, Ukraine yesterday involving 352 drones and 16 missiles, reports Reuters. At least 10 Ukrainians died in the attack. This follows another attack last week which killed 28 people.  Zelensky assassination plot foiled Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was the target of an assassination plot to be carried out by a Polish elderly man who had first been recruited by the Soviet Union decades ago, reports Newsweek. The man was activated to take out Zelensky at Poland's Rzeszów–Jasionka Airport using either a first-person view drone or a sniper rifle. The would-be assassin was a firm believer in Soviet ideology. The assassination plot was foiled by a joint effort of Ukraine's SBU, the main internal security agency, and the Polish internal security service known as ABW. Americans less isolationist Americans are moving away from isolationism according to a recent survey by the Ronald Reagan Institute. In the last three years, Americans who believe the United States should be more engaged in international events has seen a 24% increase. Specifically, 69% of Republicans, 64% of Democrats, and 73% of MAGA/Trump Republicans want to see more engagement internationally. A supermajority of Americans – 84% -- state their support for preventing the Islamic Republic from gaining access to nuclear weapons. Only 57% of Americans would agree with the statement that “the United States is better served by withdrawing from international events and focusing on problems here at home.” The major shift in American opinions on this has occurred since the November election.  Russia economy expanded by 4.3% last year Despite international pressures, the Russian economy expanded by 4.3% last year. This compares to a 1.1% bump for the United Kingdom, and a 2.8% bump for the U.S. economy last year. Supreme Court temporarily allows deportations to third countries In a 6-3 decision on Monday, the Supreme Court temporarily lifted a lower court order blocking the Trump administration from deporting illegal immigrants to so-called third countries to which they have no connection, reports The Epoch Times. The unsigned order came in the case known as Department of Homeland Security v. D.V.D. Michigan church shooting prevented   A heavily-armed man attempted a massacre at the Wayne, Michigan Crosspointe Community Church, reports CBS News. Thankfully, he didn't make it into the building. A parishioner rammed him with his truck, and the security team engaged him in the parking lot.  The suspect was pronounced dead when police arrived on the scene. One security guard took a shot in the leg. Based on national news sources, there are 1-2 church shootings per year in this country. That's 1 out of 380,000 churches.  Psalm 27:1-2 is always the right mindset. It says, “The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; Of whom shall I be afraid?  When the wicked came against me to eat up my flesh, my enemies and foes, they stumbled and fell.” Ohio pro-life legislators want to protect babies from conception Several Ohio legislators are floating a bill that outlaws the willful murder of a child from the point of conception. The "Ohio Prenatal Equal Protection Act,” introduced by state Representatives Levi Dean and Johnathan Newman, would overturn the 2023 referendum amendment that legalized abortion in Ohio.  In Psalm 22, the psalmist confesses, “You … took me out of the womb; You made me trust while on my mother's breasts. I was cast upon You from birth. from my mother's womb You have been my God.”  Older Americans more likely to have Biblical worldview George Barna's 2025 American Worldview Inventory report has been released and he concludes that only 1% of adults under 30 have a Biblical worldview. That compares with 5% for adults over 50, and 8% for adults over 65. Also, 69% of young Gen Z Americans believe abortion is morally acceptable. That's up from 60% for the Gen X and Boomer generations. Then, 73% of Gen Zers agree that sex outside of marriage is okay.  That's up from 59% with the Boomer Generation.  Fifth Circuit deems Louisiana Ten Commandments law unconstitutional The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned Louisiana's law requiring the posting of The Ten Commandments in public schools, reports Courthouse News Service. The Louisiana law required schools which receive public funding to post a framed copy of The 10 Commandments in the classrooms. Observatory identified and photographed 10 million galaxies The Rubin Observatory, located in South America's Andes Mountain, has completed its first 10 hours of operation and identified 2,104 new asteroids never seen before, and photographed 10 million galaxies, reports the BBC. The observatory features a 28-foot telescope and an ultra-wide, ultra-high definition camera.  Sperm donor passed cancer gene to 67 children In other science news, a sperm donor in Europe has passed a cancer gene on to 67 children. Already, at least ten of the children have signs of cancer, all of them born between 2008 and 2015. The case was discussed at the annual conference of the European Society of Human Genetics. Dr. Edwige Kasper, a specialist in genetic predisposition to cancer at the Rouen University Hospital in Rouen, France, said, “The variant would have been practically undetectable in 2008 when the individual started to donate sperm.” U.S. housing prices spike Housing prices in the U.S. are still reaching record highs. The median price of homes sold last month was $423,000, up 1.3% from May of 2024. 7 Worldview listeners gave $2,828.30  to fund our annual budget And finally, toward our final $123,500 goal by Monday, June 30th to fully fund The Worldview annual budget for our 6-member team, 7 listeners stepped up to the plate. Our thanks to Nathan in Cleveland, Tennessee who gave $25, N.B. in Ripon, North Yorkshire, England who gave $30, and Logan and Bianca in Manzini, Eswatini, Africa who gave $70. And we're grateful to God for Gloria in  Westminster, Colorado who gave $103.30, Payton in Georgetown, Texas who pledged $50/month for 12 months for a gift of $600, Amy in Eldorado, Wisconsin who gave $1,000, and Pamela in Sierra Madre, California who also gave $1,000. Those 7 Worldview listeners gave a total of $2,828.30. Ready for our new grand total? Drum roll please.  (Drum roll sound effect) $65,401.55 (People clapping and cheering sound effect)  Still need to raise $58,098.45!  Looking for 9 Super Donors! That means by this coming Monday, June 30th, we need to raise a whopping $58,098.45 in just 7 days.  Oh my!  I've got butterflies in my stomach. Is there 1 businessperson who could donate $10,000?  3 businesspeople who could give $5,000?  5 businesspeople who could contribute $2,500? If so, those donations would total $37,500. Then we would need another 8 people to pledge $100/month for 12 months for a gift of $1,200.  And another 16 people to pledge $50/month for 12 months for a gift of $600? Please, go to TheWorldview.com and click on Give on the top right.  If you want to make it a monthly pledge, click on the recurring tab. If everybody does something – no matter how big or small – we will knock this relatively modest budget out of the park. Attention donors from this year: Send email urging others to donate! Lastly, I would love to feature a 2-3 sentence email from those who have already given this year, whose names I will not cite, with your encouragement for your fellow listeners to consider a last minute gift.  Just include your city and state send it to Adam@TheWorldview.com Speak from your heart about why you gave and why you would urge others to join you to fund The Worldview in 5 Minutes. Close And that's The Worldview on this Tuesday, June 24th, in the year of our Lord 2025.  Follow us on X or subscribe for free by Spotify, Amazon Music, or by iTunes or email to our unique Christian newscast at www.TheWorldview.com.  Plus, you can get the Generations app through Google Play or The App Store. I'm Adam McManus (Adam@TheWorldview.com). Seize the day for Jesus Christ.

One in three adult pornography users are exposed to violent or abusive content online, with the majority backing new legislation to prevent publication of harmful content. That's according to a survey out today from the British Board of Film Classification. It's also the first meeting today of the Independent Pornography Review Taskforce led by the Conservative peer Baroness Gabby Bertin. Four months on from the publication of her government commissioned review into the challenge of regulating online pornography, Baroness Bertin joins Clare McDonnell in the studio to discuss what's been happening. Health Secretary Wes Streeting has said 'we must act now' as he announced a national investigation into maternity care in England. The inquiry, which will look at the ten worst-performing services in the country, as well as the entire maternity system, is designed to be a rapid review reporting by December this year. Families say they feel let down by a system that's supposed to care them and midwives have told us they dread going in to work because of pressures and lack of resources. So will this investigation bring about the lasting change that parents and professionals so badly want? Clare hears from BBC Investigative Journalist Divya Talwar and Clare Walton, chief executive of the Royal College of Midwives.Cheetahs are the fastest land animals in the world with speeds of around 70 miles per hour. Over the past 100 years, the cheetah population has drastically reduced by 90 per cent and it's estimated that there are less than 7,000 animals still left. Clare speaks to Dr Laurie Marker, who has made it her mission to ensure their survival. She's the executive director of the Cheetah Conservation Fund based in Namibia. The bullet bra has made a recent return to the catwalk and to the cover of British Vogue, where singer Dua Lipa can be seen sporting a blush satin Miu Miu creation in the July issue. But will the silhouette, once favoured by Marilyn Monroe and Madonna, cut through to the high street? And what does that mean for the comfortable t-shirt bras that have been going strong since lockdown? Julia Hobbs, British Vogue's contributing senior fashion features editor has recently road-tested the bullet bra. She joins Clare to discuss the experience, along with Karolina Laskowska, a lingerie designer and the director of The Underpinnings Museum. Presenter: Clare McDonnell Producer: Andrea Kidd

Henry's joint coronation with his wife, Catherine of Aragon, marked the start of a 38 year rule, during which England experienced political, religious, and dynastic changes that dramatically altered the landscape of English ...

Sarah Clarkson is a second-generation homeschooling mom who lives in Oxford, England with her Dutch husband, Thomas, and their 4 children. In this episode, Sarah shares with us about her new book, Reclaiming Quiet: Cultivating a Life of Holy Attention, and invites us to consider how we can take hold of the kind of inner quiet that ushers us into the presence of our Creator right in the middle of our demanding homeschool days.Grab your copy of Reclaiming Quiet here!You can find the complete show notes for this episode at homeschoolcompass.com/podcast.We'd love to connect with you outside your podcast player!Follow the Homeschool Compass on Instagram or FacebookDownload Christianbook's new free printable homeschool plannerBrowse our book listsThank you for leaving The Homeschool Compass Podcast a rating and a review in your podcast player! It helps new homeschool families find these encouraging conversations. We so appreciate you.

England India Daily, 1st Test, Headingley Day 5: England do it! They pull off the 10th-highest chase in history. A lacklustre India provided only scant challenges, as an England batting lineup, turbo-charged by Ben Duckett, put India to the sword. What does this mean for India? A “Bumrah Test” is lost, and Guatam Gambhir is now 3 wins, 7 losses, 1 draw in tests. India are the first team in first class cricket history to lose a game having made five centuries. How did they muck this up? Cameron Ponsonby is joined by Daniel Norcross. Support the show with a Nerd Pledge at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠patreon.com/thefinalword⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Check out Noobru to give your brain a boost: 15% off at our link: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠noobru.com/finalword⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Tickets for our Wormsley match, August 18: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠uk.emma-live.com/WormsleyFinal2025⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Subscribe to Wisden and never pay full price for the Almanack again: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.wisdenalmanack.com/subscribe⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Get your big NordVPN discount: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠nordvpn.com/tfw⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Maurice Blackburn Lawyers - fighting for the rights of workers since 1919: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠mauriceblackburn.com.au⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Get 10% off Glenn Maxwell's sunnies: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠t20vision.com/FINALWORD⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Save more, earn more—up to 4.22% AER (variable). Interest rates are tiered, with the top rate for balances over £1M. Each tiered rate applies to the portion within that range. New members get these rates free for 6 months; after that, your Tide plan's rates apply. For full offer T&Cs visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://tide.co/savings⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Claim £100 cash back (on a £5k deposit) at: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://tide.co/offers/tfw⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Find previous episodes at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠finalwordcricket.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Title track by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Urthboy⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Want the episodes ad free AND extra content from Mel and the guests, PLUS everything from the Kathy Burke archive? 6 Feet Under gets knee deep in all your cracking correspondence. Head to wheretheresawilltheresawake.com to subscribe. AND If you've got a story for us, send it over to mel@deathpodcast.co.uk Joining Mel this week is the HOLY Reverand Richard Coles - writer, radio presenter and Church of England priest. Romeo Beckham, Dumbledore and Gangrene. Dig where the sh*t is! A Sony Music Entertainment production. Find more great podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

My awkward moment at Coors Field. The worst driver just got her license in South Korea. Wiener war - Hormel says Johnsonville stole recipes, trade secrets in lawsuit. Gravy wrestling in England. A professional girlfriend makes $1,300 per date with men. - I think I could do something similar. Travis Hunter officially signed his four-year, $46.65 million fully guaranteed contract with the Jacksonville Jaguars.

28 Years Later: Episode 350 - We but our boots on the ground and return to infected England as we review the latest in the "28" series with Danny Boyle and Alex Garlands latest rage-infected-horror-fest "28 Years Later" on Normies Like Us! Thank you so much for listening, Normies! Insta: @NormiesLikeUs https://www.instagram.com/normieslikeus/ @jacob https://www.instagram.com/jacob/ @MikeHasInsta https://www.instagram.com/mikehasinsta/ https://letterboxd.com/BabblingBrooksy/ https://letterboxd.com/hobbes72/ https://letterboxd.com/mikejromans/

Jonathan Agnew presents reaction from Headingley where England win late on in a dramatic day of Test cricket.Hear analysis of the day's play from former England captains Michael Vaughan & Sir Alastair Cook, as well as Andy Zaltzman.England captain Ben Stokes reflects on the momentous win, and century-hitter Ben Duckett gives his thoughts on the game. Plus, India captain Shubman Gill looks back on his first Test as captain.Former England coach, and now Nottinghamshire head coach, Peter Moores about the rise of Ben Duckett. And, should Test cricket be cut down to four days?

I'd never met a "Positive Energy Coach" before our guest today, but if they're all like her: They radiate happiness and energy that is kind of infectious.   Welcome to the Just Dumb Enough Podcast. A show that acknowledges no one is always an expert, by dispelling misconceptions with real experts.   My guest today is Deborah Mallow. This living ray of sunshine wants us to all be as happy as possible. As a positive energy coach, Deborah always has a smile and a warm outlook, even when we are both suffering from allergies like we were during the interview. ( Https://Www.TheDailyDecisions.Com )  ( https://a.co/d/6JPohmo take you to: Www.Amazon.Com "6 Steps To Fewer Days That Suck: Ditch Unhealthy Habits, Unzip A Happier You" )  Let's smile more than ever!  I know more than anyone how hard it is to be kind towards yourself, but the outcome is just so worth the effort.    In ranking news... June is nearly over, and the global ranks have not changed:  1. The United States, with Florida, California, and Wisconsin at the top.  2. England of the United Kingdom, just barely over Scotland.  3. Canada, with Ontario just barely ahead of British Columbia.  4. Australia, with Queensland and Victoria tied.  5. New Zealand, just ahead of the Netherlands and Denmark.  That's it for this week! Have a great week, a great weekend, and I'll see you all back here next week for another new episode!  Until the next episode, pretty please do all the things to help the show: rate, review, like, and subscribe.  Reach out to DumbEnoughPodcast@Gmail.Com or on any social media if you want to reach me personally.  Most importantly, Stay Dumb!  #Podcast #Education #Happiness #Selflove 

On this day in Tudor history, 25th June 1601, Peregrine Bertie, 13th Baron Willoughby, died of fever at Berwick-upon-Tweed. Born in exile during the reign of Mary I, Bertie was the son of Katherine Willoughby, Duchess of Suffolk and widow of Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk. A soldier, a diplomat, and a loyal servant to Elizabeth I, Bertie led troops in the Netherlands, fought at the Battle of Zutphen, and helped defend England during the time of the Spanish Armada. In this podcast, I look at the life and legacy of this often-overlooked Tudor figure, from his birth abroad to his final days at the Anglo-Scottish border. #TudorHistory #PeregrineBertie #AnneBoleynFiles #TudorSoldier #ElizabethanEra #OnThisDay #HistoryVideo #ClaireRidgway

Stephen Ridley comes from a small village in South Yorkshire, England, with a population of just 40 people. He began playing the piano at the tender age of two. Following the death of his father when he was a teenager, his family was plunged into deep poverty, a circumstance that profoundly shaped his drive. Despite these challenges, he excelled academically, graduating from Durham University with a triple first-class honors degree in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics. This led to a prestigious and financially rewarding job at a world-renowned investment bank. However, the security of his banking career came at a great personal cost, leaving him feeling numb and miserable. In a defining moment of clarity, he walked out of his job for good. Just 30 minutes later, he bought a £100 piano from a thrift store, pulled it onto a London street, and began to play. The spontaneous performance drew smiling crowds, and for the first time in years, he felt a sense of joy and purpose. This single act of rebellion launched an incredible international music career. Ridley went from playing on the street to performing in over 60 countries. His unique journey has seen him play for world leaders, at exclusive events like the Monaco Grand Prix, and alongside A-list artists on superyachts and in palaces. He has also shared his music in children's hospitals, orphanages, and shanty towns, and performed at the largest outdoor concert in Uzbekistan's history. Beyond his live performances, Stephen is passionate about making music accessible to everyone. He founded an online piano academy to help students worldwide experience the power and joy of music. Translating his passion into a thriving enterprise, his courses have generated over $60 million in sales, empowering countless others to find their own connection to the piano. For More Info: https://RidleyAcademy.com https://instagram.com/stephenridley/

In March and April 2009, a man's dismembered remains were scattered across two counties in England. The “jigsaw man,” as the media called the victim, was identified as 49-year-old Jeffrey Howe. The main suspect was his roommate and “best friend,” Stephen Marshall. Join Mike and Gibby as they discuss Stephen Marshall. Jeffrey Howe thought he was helping out Stephen Marshall and his girlfriend, Sarah Bush, by allowing them both to stay in his home. But Jeffrey soon realized he had made a mistake because the pair ate up his food and contributed little. Jeffrey Howe would never get the chance to kick them out.You can help support the show at patreon.com/truecrimeallthetimeVisit the show's website at truecrimeallthetime.com for contact, merchandise, and donation informationAn Emash Digital productionSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Unpacking the mystery behind reported phone calls detailing a supposed car crash that led investigators to solve a months-old missing person case, the A3 Ghost Crash. Ad-free episodes, bonus content, & more: http://www.redwebpod.com On a cold winter night in 2002, several people called the police in Surrey, England, to report witnessing the same accident - a car had veered off the road. Upon investigation, police did find a car - one that had been missing for five months, but no trace of any accident on that night. Was this a case of a paranormal encounter or a strange coincidence? Today, we're discussing the A3 Ghost Crash. Our sponsors: Rocket Money - Download the Rocket Money app and enter our show name - Red Web - in the survey so they know we sent you! SelectQuote - Go to http://selectquote.com/redweb to get the right life insurance for less and save more than fifty percent. Mint Mobile - Visit https://mintmobile.com/redweb for a new customer offer and your 3-month Unlimited wireless plan for just 15 bucks a month. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week on Blocked and Reported, Katie is joined by writer, podcaster, and feminist activist Julie Bindel to discuss the rapid decline of the trans movement, the UK's new abortion law, the “grooming gang” scandal, and Julie's new book, Lesbians: Where Are We Now?What to Know About United States v. Skrmetti - The New York TimesU.S. v. Skrmetti: How the Transgender Rights Movement Bet on the Supreme Court and Lost - The New York TimesMPs vote to decriminalise abortion for women in England and WalesThe grooming gang scandal isn't over - UnHerd This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.blockedandreported.org/subscribe

For those who haven't heard the announcement I posted, songs from this point on will sometimes be split among multiple episodes, so this is the second part of a two-episode look at the song “Who Knows Where The Time Goes?” by Fairport Convention, and the intertwining careers of Joe Boyd, Sandy Denny, and Richard Thompson. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a forty-one-minute bonus episode available, on Judy Collins’ version of this song. Tilt Araiza has assisted invaluably by editing, and will hopefully be doing so from now on. Check out Tilt's irregular podcasts at http://www.podnose.com/jaffa-cakes-for-proust and http://sitcomclub.com/ Erratum For about an hour this was uploaded with the wrong Elton John clip in place of “Saturday Sun”. This has now been fixed. Resources Because of the increasing problems with Mixcloud’s restrictions, I have decided to start sharing streaming playlists of the songs used in episodes instead of Mixcloud ones. This Tunemymusic link will let you listen to the playlist I created on your streaming platform of choice — however please note that not all the songs excerpted are currently available on streaming. The songs missing from the Tidal version are “Shanten Bells” by the Ian Campbell Folk Group, “Tom’s Gone to Hilo” by A.L. Lloyd, two by Paul McNeill and Linda Peters, three by Elton John & Linda Peters, “What Will I Do With Tomorrow” by Sandy Denny and “You Never Know” by Charlie Drake, but the other fifty-nine are there. Other songs may be missing from other services. The main books I used on Fairport Convention as a whole were Patrick Humphries' Meet On The Ledge, Clinton Heylin's What We Did Instead of Holidays, and Kevan Furbank's Fairport Convention on Track. Rob Young's Electric Eden is the most important book on the British folk-rock movement. Information on Richard Thompson comes from Patrick Humphries' Richard Thompson: Strange Affair and Thompson's own autobiography Beeswing.  Information on Sandy Denny comes from Clinton Heylin's No More Sad Refrains and Mick Houghton's I've Always Kept a Unicorn. I also used Joe Boyd's autobiography White Bicycles and Chris Blackwell's The Islander.  And this three-CD set is the best introduction to Fairport's music currently in print. Transcript Before we begin, this episode contains reference to alcohol and cocaine abuse and medical neglect leading to death. It also starts with some discussion of the fatal car accident that ended last episode. There’s also some mention of child neglect and spousal violence. If that’s likely to upset you, you might want to skip this episode or read the transcript. One of the inspirations for this podcast when I started it back in 2018 was a project by Richard Thompson, which appears (like many things in Thompson’s life) to have started out of sheer bloody-mindedness. In 1999 Playboy magazine asked various people to list their “songs of the Millennium”, and most of them, understanding the brief, chose a handful of songs from the latter half of the twentieth century. But Thompson determined that he was going to list his favourite songs *of the millennium*. He didn’t quite manage that, but he did cover seven hundred and forty years, and when Playboy chose not to publish it, he decided to turn it into a touring show, in which he covered all his favourite songs from “Sumer Is Icumen In” from 1260: [Excerpt: Richard Thompson, “Sumer is Icumen In”] Through numerous traditional folk songs, union songs like “Blackleg Miner”, pieces by early-modern composers, Victorian and Edwardian music hall songs, and songs by the Beatles, the Ink Spots, the Kinks, and the Who, all the way to “Oops! I Did It Again”: [Excerpt: Richard Thompson, “Oops! I Did it Again”] And to finish the show, and to show how all this music actually ties together, he would play what he described as a “medieval tune from Brittany”, “Marry, Ageyn Hic Hev Donne Yt”: [Excerpt: Richard Thompson, “Marry, Ageyn Hic Hev Donne Yt”] We have said many times in this podcast that there is no first anything, but there’s a reason that Liege and Lief, Fairport Convention’s third album of 1969, and the album other than Unhalfbricking on which their reputation largely rests, was advertised with the slogan “The first (literally) British folk rock album ever”. Folk-rock, as the term had come to be known, and as it is still usually used today, had very little to do with traditional folk music. Rather, the records of bands like The Byrds or Simon and Garfunkel were essentially taking the sounds of British beat groups of the early sixties, particularly the Searchers, and applying those sounds to material by contemporary singer-songwriters. People like Paul Simon and Bob Dylan had come up through folk clubs, and their songs were called folk music because of that, but they weren’t what folk music had meant up to that point — songs that had been collected after being handed down through the folk process, changed by each individual singer, with no single identifiable author. They were authored songs by very idiosyncratic writers. But over their last few albums, Fairport Convention had done one or two tracks per album that weren’t like that, that were instead recordings of traditional folk songs, but arranged with rock instrumentation. They were not necessarily the first band to try traditional folk music with electric instruments — around the same time that Fairport started experimenting with the idea, so did an Irish band named Sweeney’s Men, who brought in a young electric guitarist named Henry McCullough briefly. But they do seem to have been the first to have fully embraced the idea. They had done so to an extent with “A Sailor’s Life” on Unhalfbricking, but now they were going to go much further: [Excerpt: Fairport Convention, “Matty Groves” (from about 4:30)] There had been some doubt as to whether Fairport Convention would even continue to exist — by the time Unhalfbricking, their second album of the year, was released, they had been through the terrible car accident that had killed Martin Lamble, the band’s drummer, and Jeannie Franklyn, Richard Thompson’s girlfriend. Most of the rest of the band had been seriously injured, and they had made a conscious decision not to discuss the future of the band until they were all out of hospital. Ashley Hutchings was hospitalised the longest, and Simon Nicol, Richard Thompson, and Sandy Denny, the other three surviving members of the band, flew over to LA with their producer and manager, Joe Boyd, to recuperate there and get to know the American music scene. When they came back, the group all met up in the flat belonging to Denny’s boyfriend Trevor Lucas, and decided that they were going to continue the band. They made a few decisions then — they needed a new drummer, and as well as a drummer they wanted to get in Dave Swarbrick. Swarbrick had played violin on several tracks on Unhalfbricking as a session player, and they had all been thrilled to work with him. Swarbrick was one of the most experienced musicians on the British folk circuit. He had started out in the fifties playing guitar with Beryl Marriott’s Ceilidh Band before switching to fiddle, and in 1963, long before Fairport had formed, he had already appeared on TV with the Ian Campbell Folk Group, led by Ian Campbell, the father of Ali and Robin Campbell, later of UB40: [Excerpt: The Ian Campbell Folk Group, “Shanten Bells (medley on Hullaballoo!)”] He’d sung with Ewan MacColl and A.L. Lloyd: [Excerpt: A.L. Lloyd, “Tom’s Gone to Hilo” ] And he’d formed his hugely successful duo with Martin Carthy, releasing records like “Byker Hill” which are often considered among the best British folk music of all time: [Excerpt: Martin Carthy and Dave Swarbrick, “Byker Hill”] By the time Fairport had invited him to play on Unhalfbricking, Swarbrick had already performed on twenty albums as a core band member, plus dozens more EPs, singles, and odd tracks on compilations. They had no reason to think they could actually get him to join their band. But they had three advantages. The first was that Swarbrick was sick of the traditional folk scene at the time, saying later “I didn’t like seven-eighths of the people involved in it, and it was extremely opportune to leave. I was suddenly presented with the possibilities of exploring the dramatic content of the songs to the full.” The second was that he was hugely excited to be playing with Richard Thompson, who was one of the most innovative guitarists of his generation, and Martin Carthy remembers him raving about Thompson after their initial sessions. (Carthy himself was and is no slouch on the guitar of course, and there was even talk of getting him to join the band at this point, though they decided against it — much to the relief of rhythm guitarist Simon Nicol, who is a perfectly fine player himself but didn’t want to be outclassed by *two* of the best guitarists in Britain at the same time). And the third was that Joe Boyd told him that Fairport were doing so well — they had a single just about to hit the charts with “Si Tu Dois Partir” — that he would only have to play a dozen gigs with Fairport in order to retire. As it turned out, Swarbrick would play with the group for a decade, and would never retire — I saw him on his last tour in 2015, only eight months before he died. The drummer the group picked was also a far more experienced musician than any of the rest, though in a very different genre. Dave Mattacks had no knowledge at all of the kind of music they played, having previously been a player in dance bands. When asked by Hutchings if he wanted to join the band, Mattacks’ response was “I don’t know anything about the music. I don’t understand it… I can’t tell one tune from another, they all sound the same… but if you want me to join the group, fine, because I really like it. I’m enjoying myself musically.” Mattacks brought a new level of professionalism to the band, thanks to his different background. Nicol said of him later “He was dilligent, clean, used to taking three white shirts to a gig… The application he could bring to his playing was amazing. With us, you only played well when you were feeling well.” This distinction applied to his playing as well. Nicol would later describe the difference between Mattacks’ drumming and Lamble’s by saying “Martin’s strength was as an imaginative drummer. DM came in with a strongly developed sense of rhythm, through keeping a big band of drunken saxophone players in order. A great time-keeper.” With this new line-up and a new sense of purpose, the group did as many of their contemporaries were doing and “got their heads together in the country”. Joe Boyd rented the group a mansion, Farley House, in Farley Chamberlayne, Hampshire, and they stayed there together for three months. At the start, the group seem to have thought that they were going to make another record like Unhalfbricking, with some originals, some songs by American songwriters, and a few traditional songs. Even after their stay in Farley Chamberlayne, in fact, they recorded a few of the American songs they’d rehearsed at the start of the process, Richard Farina’s “Quiet Joys of Brotherhood” and Bob Dylan and Roger McGuinn’s “Ballad of Easy Rider”: [Excerpt: Fairport Convention, “Ballad of Easy Rider”] Indeed, the whole idea of “getting our heads together in the country” (as the cliche quickly became in the late sixties as half of the bands in Britain went through much the same kind of process as Fairport were doing — but usually for reasons more to do with drug burnout or trend following than recovering from serious life-changing trauma) seems to have been inspired by Bob Dylan and the Band getting together in Big Pink. But very quickly they decided to follow the lead of Ashley Hutchings, who had had something of a Damascene conversion to the cause of traditional English folk music. They were listening mostly to Music From Big Pink by the Band, and to the first album by Sweeney’s Men: [Excerpt: Sweeney’s Men, “The Handsome Cabin Boy”] And they decided that they were going to make something that was as English as those records were North American and Irish (though in the event there were also a few Scottish songs included on the record). Hutchings in particular was becoming something of a scholar of traditional music, regularly visiting Cecil Sharp House and having long conversations with A.L. Lloyd, discovering versions of different traditional songs he’d never encountered before. This was both amusing and bemusing Sandy Denny, who had joined a rock group in part to get away from traditional music; but she was comfortable singing the material, and knew a lot of it and could make a lot of suggestions herself. Swarbrick obviously knew the repertoire intimately, and Nicol was amenable, while Mattacks was utterly clueless about the folk tradition at this point but knew this was the music he wanted to make. Thompson knew very little about traditional music, and of all the band members except Denny he was the one who has shown the least interest in the genre in his subsequent career — but as we heard at the beginning, showing the least interest in the genre is a relative thing, and while Thompson was not hugely familiar with the genre, he *was* able to work with it, and was also more than capable of writing songs that fit in with the genre. Of the eleven songs on the album, which was titled Liege and Lief (which means, roughly, Lord and Loyalty), there were no cover versions of singer-songwriters. Eight were traditional songs, and three were originals, all written in the style of traditional songs. The album opened with “Come All Ye”, an introduction written by Denny and Hutchings (the only time the two would ever write together): [Excerpt: Fairport Convention, “Come All Ye”] The other two originals were songs where Thompson had written new lyrics to traditional melodies. On “Crazy Man Michael”, Swarbrick had said to Thompson that the tune to which he had set his new words was weaker than the lyrics, to which Thompson had replied that if Swarbrick felt that way he should feel free to write a new melody. He did, and it became the first of the small number of Thompson/Swarbrick collaborations: [Excerpt: Fairport Convention, “Crazy Man Michael”] Thompson and Swarbrick would become a brief songwriting team, but as much as anything else it was down to proximity — the two respected each other as musicians, but never got on very well. In 1981 Swarbrick would say “Richard and I never got on in the early days of FC… we thought we did, but we never did. We composed some bloody good songs together, but it was purely on a basis of “you write that and I’ll write this, and we’ll put it together.” But we never sat down and had real good chats.” The third original on the album, and by far the most affecting, is another song where Thompson put lyrics to a traditional tune. In this case he thought he was putting the lyrics to the tune of “Willie O'Winsbury”, but he was basing it on a recording by Sweeney’s Men. The problem was that Sweeney’s Men had accidentally sung the lyrics of “Willie O'Winsbury'” to the tune of a totally different song, “Fause Foodrage”: [Excerpt: Sweeney’s Men, “Willie O’Winsbury”] Thompson took that melody, and set to it lyrics about loss and separation. Thompson has never been one to discuss the meanings of his lyrics in any great detail, and in the case of this one has said “I really don't know what it means. This song came out of a dream, and I pretty much wrote it as I dreamt it (it was the sixties), and didn't spend very long analyzing it. So interpret as you wish – or replace with your own lines.” But in the context of the traffic accident that had killed his tailor girlfriend and a bandmate, and injured most of his other bandmates, the lyrics about lonely travellers, the winding road, bruised and beaten sons, saying goodbye, and never cutting cloth, seem fairly self-explanatory: [Excerpt: Fairport Convention, “Farewell, Farewell”] The rest of the album, though, was taken up by traditional tunes. There was a long medley of four different fiddle reels; a version of “Reynardine” (a song about a seductive man — or is he a fox? Or perhaps both — which had been recorded by Swarbrick and Carthy on their most recent album); a 19th century song about a deserter saved from the firing squad by Prince Albert; and a long take on “Tam Lin”, one of the most famous pieces in the Scottish folk music canon, a song that has been adapted in different ways by everyone from the experimental noise band Current 93 to the dub poet Benjamin Zephaniah to the comics writer Grant Morrison: [Excerpt: Fairport Convention, “Tam Lin”] And “Matty Groves”, a song about a man killing his cheating wife and her lover, which actually has a surprisingly similar story to that of “1921” from another great concept album from that year, the Who’s Tommy. “Matty Groves” became an excuse for long solos and shows of instrumental virtuosity: [Excerpt: Fairport Convention, “Matty Groves”] The album was recorded in September 1969, after their return from their break in the country and a triumphal performance at the Royal Festival Hall, headlining over fellow Witchseason artists John and Beverly Martyn and Nick Drake. It became a classic of the traditional folk genre — arguably *the* classic of the traditional folk genre. In 2007 BBC Radio 2’s Folk Music Awards gave it an award for most influential folk album of all time, and while such things are hard to measure, I doubt there’s anyone with even the most cursory knowledge of British folk and folk-rock music who would not at least consider that a reasonable claim. But once again, by the time the album came out in November, the band had changed lineups yet again. There was a fundamental split in the band – on one side were Sandy Denny and Richard Thompson, whose stance was, roughly, that Liege and Lief was a great experiment and a fun thing to do once, but really the band had two first-rate songwriters in themselves, and that they should be concentrating on their own new material, not doing these old songs, good as they were. They wanted to take the form of the traditional songs and use that form for new material — they wanted to make British folk-rock, but with the emphasis on the rock side of things. Hutchings, on the other hand, was equally sure that he wanted to make traditional music and go further down the rabbit hole of antiquity. With the zeal of the convert he had gone in a couple of years from being the leader of a band who were labelled “the British Jefferson Airplane” to becoming a serious scholar of traditional folk music. Denny was tired of touring, as well — she wanted to spend more time at home with Trevor Lucas, who was sleeping with other women when she was away and making her insecure. When the time came for the group to go on a tour of Denmark, Denny decided she couldn’t make it, and Hutchings was jubilant — he decided he was going to get A.L. Lloyd into the band in her place and become a *real* folk group. Then Denny reconsidered, and Hutchings was crushed. He realised that while he had always been the leader, he wasn’t going to be able to lead the band any further in the traditionalist direction, and quit the group — but not before he was delegated by the other band members to fire Denny. Until the publication of Richard Thompson’s autobiography in 2022, every book on the group or its members said that Denny quit the band again, which was presumably a polite fiction that the band agreed, but according to Thompson “Before we flew home, we decided to fire Sandy. I don't remember who asked her to leave – it was probably Ashley, who usually did the dirty work. She was reportedly shocked that we would take that step. She may have been fragile beneath the confident facade, but she still knew her worth.” Thompson goes on to explain that the reasons for kicking her out were that “I suppose we felt that in her mind she had already left” and that “We were probably suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, though there wasn't a name for it back then.” They had considered inviting Trevor Lucas to join the band to make Denny more comfortable, but came to the (probably correct) conclusion that while he was someone they got on well with personally, he would be another big ego in a band that already had several, and that being around Denny and Lucas’ volatile relationship would, in Thompson’s phrasing, “have not always given one a feeling of peace and stability.” Hutchings originally decided he was going to join Sweeney’s Men, but that group were falling apart, and their first rehearsal with Hutchings would also be their last as a group, with only Hutchings and guitarist and mandolin player Terry Woods left in the band. They added Woods’ wife Gay, and another couple, Tim Hart and Maddy Prior, and formed a group called Steeleye Span, a name given them by Martin Carthy. That group, like Fairport, went to “get their heads together in the country” for three months and recorded an album of electric versions of traditional songs, Hark the Village Wait, on which Mattacks and another drummer, Gerry Conway, guested as Steeleye Span didn’t at the time have their own drummer: [Excerpt: Steeleye Span, “Blackleg Miner”] Steeleye Span would go on to have a moderately successful chart career in the seventies, but by that time most of the original lineup, including Hutchings, had left — Hutchings stayed with them for a few albums, then went on to form the first of a series of bands, all called the Albion Band or variations on that name, which continue to this day. And this is something that needs to be pointed out at this point — it is impossible to follow every single individual in this narrative as they move between bands. There is enough material in the history of the British folk-rock scene that someone could do a 500 Songs-style podcast just on that, and every time someone left Fairport, or Steeleye Span, or the Albion Band, or Matthews’ Southern Comfort, or any of the other bands we have mentioned or will mention, they would go off and form another band which would then fission, and some of its members would often join one of those other bands. There was a point in the mid-1970s where the Albion Band had two original members of Fairport Convention while Fairport Convention had none. So just in order to keep the narrative anything like wieldy, I’m going to keep the narrative concentrated on the two figures from Fairport — Sandy Denny and Richard Thompson — whose work outside the group has had the most influence on the wider world of rock music more broadly, and only deal with the other members when, as they often did, their careers intersected with those two. That doesn’t mean the other members are not themselves hugely important musicians, just that their importance has been primarily to the folk side of the folk-rock genre, and so somewhat outside the scope of this podcast. While Hutchings decided to form a band that would allow him to go deeper and deeper into traditional folk music, Sandy Denny’s next venture was rather different. For a long time she had been writing far more songs than she had ever played for her bandmates, like “Nothing More”, a song that many have suggested is about Thompson: [Excerpt: Fotheringay, “Nothing More”] When Joe Boyd heard that Denny was leaving Fairport Convention, he was at first elated. Fairport’s records were being distributed by A&M in the US at that point, but Island Records was in the process of opening up a new US subsidiary which would then release all future Fairport product — *but*, as far as A&M were concerned, Sandy Denny *was* Fairport Convention. They were only interested in her. Boyd, on the other hand, loved Denny’s work intensely, but from his point of view *Richard Thompson* was Fairport Convention. If he could get Denny signed directly to A&M as a solo artist before Island started its US operations, Witchseason could get a huge advance on her first solo record, while Fairport could continue making records for Island — he’d have two lucrative acts, on different labels. Boyd went over and spoke to A&M and got an agreement in principle that they would give Denny a forty-thousand-dollar advance on her first solo album — twice what they were paying for Fairport albums. The problem was that Denny didn’t want to be a solo act. She wanted to be the lead singer of a band. She gave many reasons for this — the one she gave to many journalists was that she had seen a Judy Collins show and been impressed, but noticed that Collins’ band were definitely a “backing group”, and as she put it “But that's all they were – a backing group. I suddenly thought, If you're playing together on a stage you might as well be TOGETHER.” Most other people in her life, though, say that the main reason for her wanting to be in a band was her desire to be with her boyfriend, Trevor Lucas. Partly this was due to a genuine desire to spend more time with someone with whom she was very much in love, partly it was a fear that he would cheat on her if she was away from him for long periods of time, and part of it seems to have been Lucas’ dislike of being *too* overshadowed by his talented girlfriend — he didn’t mind acknowledging that she was a major talent, but he wanted to be thought of as at least a minor one. So instead of going solo, Denny formed Fotheringay, named after the song she had written for Fairport. This new band consisted at first of Denny on vocals and occasional piano, Lucas on vocals and rhythm guitar, and Lucas’ old Eclection bandmate Gerry Conway on drums. For a lead guitarist, they asked Richard Thompson who the best guitarist in Britain was, and he told them Albert Lee. Lee in turn brought in bass player Pat Donaldson, but this lineup of the band barely survived a fortnight. Lee *was* arguably the best guitarist in Britain, certainly a reasonable candidate if you could ever have a singular best (as indeed was Thompson himself), but he was the best *country* guitarist in Britain, and his style simply didn’t fit with Fotheringay’s folk-influenced songs. He was replaced by American guitarist Jerry Donahue, who was not anything like as proficient as Lee, but who was still very good, and fit the band’s style much better. The new group rehearsed together for a few weeks, did a quick tour, and then went into the recording studio to record their debut, self-titled, album. Joe Boyd produced the album, but admitted himself that he only paid attention to those songs he considered worthwhile — the album contained one song by Lucas, “The Ballad of Ned Kelly”, and two cover versions of American singer-songwriter material with Lucas singing lead. But everyone knew that the songs that actually *mattered* were Sandy Denny’s, and Boyd was far more interested in them, particularly the songs “The Sea” and “The Pond and the Stream”: [Excerpt: Fotheringay, “The Pond and the Stream”] Fotheringay almost immediately hit financial problems, though. While other Witchseason acts were used to touring on the cheap, all packed together in the back of a Transit van with inexpensive equipment, Trevor Lucas had ambitions of being a rock star and wanted to put together a touring production to match, with expensive transport and equipment, including a speaker system that got nicknamed “Stonehenge” — but at the same time, Denny was unhappy being on the road, and didn’t play many gigs. As well as the band itself, the Fotheringay album also featured backing vocals from a couple of other people, including Denny’s friend Linda Peters. Peters was another singer from the folk clubs, and a good one, though less well-known than Denny — at this point she had only released a couple of singles, and those singles seemed to have been as much as anything else released as a novelty. The first of those, a version of Dylan’s “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere” had been released as by “Paul McNeill and Linda Peters”: [Excerpt: Paul McNeill and Linda Peters, “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere”] But their second single, a version of John D. Loudermilk’s “You’re Taking My Bag”, was released on the tiny Page One label, owned by Larry Page, and was released under the name “Paul and Linda”, clearly with the intent of confusing particularly gullible members of the record-buying public into thinking this was the McCartneys: [Excerpt: Paul and Linda, “You’re Taking My Bag”] Peters was though more financially successful than almost anyone else in this story, as she was making a great deal of money as a session singer. She actually did another session involving most of Fotheringay around this time. Witchseason had a number of excellent songwriters on its roster, and had had some success getting covers by people like Judy Collins, but Joe Boyd thought that they might possibly do better at getting cover versions if they were performed in less idiosyncratic arrangements. Donahue, Donaldson, and Conway went into the studio to record backing tracks, and vocals were added by Peters and another session singer, who according to some sources also provided piano. They cut songs by Mike Heron of the Incredible String Band: [Excerpt: Linda Peters, “You Get Brighter”] Ed Carter, formerly of The New Nadir but by this time firmly ensconced in the Beach Boys’ touring band where he would remain for the next quarter-century: [Excerpt: Linda Peters, “I Don’t Mind”] John and Beverly Martyn, and Nick Drake: [Excerpt: Elton John, “Saturday Sun”] There are different lineups of musicians credited for those sessions in different sources, but I tend to believe that it’s mostly Fotheringay for the simple reason that Donahue says it was him, Donaldson and Conway who talked Lucas and Denny into the mistake that destroyed Fotheringay because of these sessions. Fotheringay were in financial trouble already, spending far more money than they were bringing in, but their album made the top twenty and they were getting respect both from critics and from the public — in September, Sandy Denny was voted best British female singer by the readers of Melody Maker in their annual poll, which led to shocked headlines in the tabloids about how this “unknown” could have beaten such big names as Dusty Springfield and Cilla Black. Only a couple of weeks after that, they were due to headline at the Albert Hall. It should have been a triumph. But Donahue, Donaldson, and Conway had asked that singing pianist to be their support act. As Donahue said later “That was a terrible miscast. It was our fault. He asked if [he] could do it. Actually Pat, Gerry and I had to talk Sandy and Trevor into [it]… We'd done these demos and the way he was playing – he was a wonderful piano player – he was sensitive enough. We knew very little about his stage-show. We thought he'd be a really good opener for us.” Unfortunately, Elton John was rather *too* good. As Donahue continued “we had no idea what he had in mind, that he was going to do the most incredible rock & roll show ever. He pretty much blew us off the stage before we even got on the stage.” To make matters worse, Fotheringay’s set, which was mostly comprised of new material, was underrehearsed and sloppy, and from that point on no matter what they did people were counting the hours until the band split up. They struggled along for a while though, and started working on a second record, with Boyd again producing, though as Boyd later said “I probably shouldn't have been producing the record. My lack of respect for the group was clear, and couldn't have helped the atmosphere. We'd put out a record that had sold disappointingly, A&M was unhappy. Sandy's tracks on the first record are among the best things she ever did – the rest of it, who cares? And the artwork, Trevor's sister, was terrible. It would have been one thing if I'd been unhappy with it and it sold, and the group was working all the time, making money, but that wasn't the case … I knew what Sandy was capable of, and it was very upsetting to me.” The record would not be released for thirty-eight years: [Excerpt: Fotheringay, “Wild Mountain Thyme”] Witchseason was going badly into debt. Given all the fissioning of bands that we’ve already been talking about, Boyd had been stretched thin — he produced sixteen albums in 1970, and almost all of them lost money for the company. And he was getting more and more disillusioned with the people he was producing. He loved Beverly Martyn’s work, but had little time for her abusive husband John, who was dominating her recording and life more and more and would soon become a solo artist while making her stay at home (and stealing her ideas without giving her songwriting credit). The Incredible String Band were great, but they had recently converted to Scientology, which Boyd found annoying, and while he was working with all sorts of exciting artists like Vashti Bunyan and Nico, he was finding himself less and less important to the artists he mentored. Fairport Convention were a good example of this. After Denny and Hutchings had left the group, they’d decided to carry on as an electric folk group, performing an equal mix of originals by the Swarbrick and Thompson songwriting team and arrangements of traditional songs. The group were now far enough away from the “British Jefferson Airplane” label that they decided they didn’t need a female vocalist — and more realistically, while they’d been able to replace Judy Dyble, nobody was going to replace Sandy Denny. Though it’s rather surprising when one considers Thompson’s subsequent career that nobody seems to have thought of bringing in Denny’s friend Linda Peters, who was dating Joe Boyd at the time (as Denny had been before she met Lucas) as Denny’s replacement. Instead, they decided that Swarbrick and Thompson were going to share the vocals between them. They did, though, need a bass player to replace Hutchings. Swarbrick wanted to bring in Dave Pegg, with whom he had played in the Ian Campbell Folk Group, but the other band members initially thought the idea was a bad one. At the time, while they respected Swarbrick as a musician, they didn’t think he fully understood rock and roll yet, and they thought the idea of getting in a folkie who had played double bass rather than an electric rock bassist ridiculous. But they auditioned him to mollify Swarbrick, and found that he was exactly what they needed. As Joe Boyd later said “All those bass lines were great, Ashley invented them all, but he never could play them that well. He thought of them, but he was technically not a terrific bass player. He was a very inventive, melodic, bass player, but not a very powerful one technically. But having had the part explained to him once, Pegg was playing it better than Ashley had ever played it… In some rock bands, I think, ultimately, the bands that sound great, you can generally trace it to the bass player… it was at that point they became a great band, when they had Pegg.” The new lineup of Fairport decided to move in together, and found a former pub called the Angel, into which all the band members moved, along with their partners and children (Thompson was the only one who was single at this point) and their roadies. The group lived together quite happily, and one gets the impression that this was the period when they were most comfortable with each other, even though by this point they were a disparate group with disparate tastes, in music as in everything else. Several people have said that the only music all the band members could agree they liked at this point was the first two albums by The Band. With the departure of Hutchings from the band, Swarbrick and Thompson, as the strongest personalities and soloists, became in effect the joint leaders of the group, and they became collaborators as songwriters, trying to write new songs that were inspired by traditional music. Thompson described the process as “let’s take one line of this reel and slow it down and move it up a minor third and see what that does to it; let’s take one line of this ballad and make a whole song out of it. Chopping up the tradition to find new things to do… like a collage.” Generally speaking, Swarbrick and Thompson would sit by the fire and Swarbrick would play a melody he’d been working on, the two would work on it for a while, and Thompson would then go away and write the lyrics. This is how the two came up with songs like the nine-minute “Sloth”, a highlight of the next album, Full House, and one that would remain in Fairport’s live set for much of their career: [Excerpt: Fairport Convention, “Sloth”] “Sloth” was titled that way because Thompson and Swarbrick were working on two tunes, a slow one and a fast one, and they jokingly named them “Sloth” and “Fasth”, but the latter got renamed to “Walk Awhile”, while “Sloth” kept its working title. But by this point, Boyd and Thompson were having a lot of conflict in the studio. Boyd was never the most technical of producers — he was one of those producers whose job is to gently guide the artists in the studio and create a space for the music to flourish, rather than the Joe Meek type with an intimate technical knowledge of the studio — and as the artists he was working with gained confidence in their own work they felt they had less and less need of him. During the making of the Full House album, Thompson and Boyd, according to Boyd, clashed on everything — every time Boyd thought Thompson had done a good solo, Thompson would say to erase it and let him have another go, while every time Boyd thought Thompson could do better, Thompson would say that was the take to keep. One of their biggest clashes was over Thompson’s song “Poor Will and the Jolly Hangman”, which was originally intended for release on the album, and is included in current reissues of it: [Excerpt: Fairport Convention, “Poor Will and the Jolly Hangman”] Thompson had written that song inspired by what he thought was the unjust treatment of Alex Bramham, the driver in Fairport’s fatal car crash, by the courts — Bramham had been given a prison sentence of a few months for dangerous driving, while the group members thought he had not been at fault. Boyd thought it was one of the best things recorded for the album, but Thompson wasn’t happy with his vocal — there was one note at the top of the melody that he couldn’t quite hit — and insisted it be kept off the record, even though that meant it would be a shorter album than normal. He did this at such a late stage that early copies of the album actually had the title printed on the sleeve, but then blacked out. He now says in his autobiography “I could have persevered, double-tracked the voice, warmed up for longer – anything. It was a good track, and the record was lacking without it. When the album was re-released, the track was restored with a more confident vocal, and it has stayed there ever since.” During the sessions for Full House the group also recorded one non-album single, Thompson and Swarbrick’s “Now Be Thankful”: [Excerpt, Fairport Convention, “Now Be Thankful”] The B-side to that was a medley of two traditional tunes plus a Swarbrick original, but was given the deliberately ridiculous title “Sir B. McKenzie’s Daughter’s Lament For The 77th Mounted Lancers Retreat From The Straits Of Loch Knombe, In The Year Of Our Lord 1727, On The Occasion Of The Announcement Of Her Marriage To The Laird Of Kinleakie”: [Excerpt: Fairport Convention, “Sir B. McKenzie’s Daughter’s Lament For The 77th Mounted Lancers Retreat From The Straits Of Loch Knombe, In The Year Of Our Lord 1727, On The Occasion Of The Announcement Of Her Marriage To The Laird Of Kinleakie”] The B. McKenzie in the title was a reference to the comic-strip character Barry McKenzie, a stereotype drunk Australian created for Private Eye magazine by the comedian Barry Humphries (later to become better known for his Dame Edna Everage character) but the title was chosen for one reason only — to get into the Guinness Book of Records for the song with the longest title. Which they did, though they were later displaced by the industrial band Test Dept, and their song “Long Live British Democracy Which Flourishes and Is Constantly Perfected Under the Immaculate Guidance of the Great, Honourable, Generous and Correct Margaret Hilda Thatcher. She Is the Blue Sky in the Hearts of All Nations. Our People Pay Homage and Bow in Deep Respect and Gratitude to Her. The Milk of Human Kindness”. Full House got excellent reviews in the music press, with Rolling Stone saying “The music shows that England has finally gotten her own equivalent to The Band… By calling Fairport an English equivalent of the Band, I meant that they have soaked up enough of the tradition of their countryfolk that it begins to show all over, while they maintain their roots in rock.” Off the back of this, the group went on their first US tour, culminating in a series of shows at the Troubadour in LA, on the same bill as Rick Nelson, which were recorded and later released as a live album: [Excerpt: Fairport Convention, “Sloth (live)”] The Troubadour was one of the hippest venues at the time, and over their residency there the group got seen by many celebrities, some of whom joined them on stage. The first was Linda Ronstadt, who initially demurred, saying she didn’t know any of their songs. On being told they knew all of hers, she joined in with a rendition of “Silver Threads and Golden Needles”. Thompson was later asked to join Ronstadt’s backing band, who would go on to become the Eagles, but he said later of this offer “I would have hated it. I’d have hated being on the road with four or five miserable Americans — they always seem miserable. And if you see them now, they still look miserable on stage — like they don’t want to be there and they don’t like each other.” The group were also joined on stage at the Troubadour on one memorable night by some former bandmates of Pegg’s. Before joining the Ian Campbell Folk Group, Pegg had played around the Birmingham beat scene, and had been in bands with John Bonham and Robert Plant, who turned up to the Troubadour with their Led Zeppelin bandmate Jimmy Page (reports differ on whether the fourth member of Zeppelin, John Paul Jones, also came along). They all got up on stage together and jammed on songs like “Hey Joe”, “Louie Louie”, and various old Elvis tunes. The show was recorded, and the tapes are apparently still in the possession of Joe Boyd, who has said he refuses to release them in case he is murdered by the ghost of Peter Grant. According to Thompson, that night ended in a three-way drinking contest between Pegg, Bonham, and Janis Joplin, and it’s testament to how strong the drinking culture is around Fairport and the British folk scene in general that Pegg outdrank both of them. According to Thompson, Bonham was found naked by a swimming pool two days later, having missed two gigs. For all their hard rock image, Led Zeppelin were admirers of a lot of the British folk and folk-rock scene, and a few months later Sandy Denny would become the only outside vocalist ever to appear on a Led Zeppelin record when she duetted with Plant on “The Battle of Evermore” on the group’s fourth album: [Excerpt: Led Zeppelin, “The Battle of Evermore”] Denny would never actually get paid for her appearance on one of the best-selling albums of all time. That was, incidentally, not the only session that Denny was involved in around this time — she also sang on the soundtrack to a soft porn film titled Swedish Fly Girls, whose soundtrack was produced by Manfred Mann: [Excerpt: Sandy Denny, “What Will I Do With Tomorrow?”] Shortly after Fairport’s trip to America, Joe Boyd decided he was giving up on Witchseason. The company was now losing money, and he was finding himself having to produce work for more and more acts as the various bands fissioned. The only ones he really cared about were Richard Thompson, who he was finding it more and more difficult to work with, Nick Drake, who wanted to do his next album with just an acoustic guitar anyway, Sandy Denny, who he felt was wasting her talents in Fotheringay, and Mike Heron of the Incredible String Band, who was more distant since his conversion to Scientology. Boyd did make some attempts to keep the company going. On a trip to Sweden, he negotiated an agreement with the manager and publisher of a Swedish band whose songs he’d found intriguing, the Hep Stars. Boyd was going to publish their songs in the UK, and in return that publisher, Stig Anderson, would get the rights to Witchseason’s catalogue in Scandinavia — a straight swap, with no money changing hands. But before Boyd could get round to signing the paperwork, he got a better offer from Mo Ostin of Warners — Ostin wanted Boyd to come over to LA and head up Warners’ new film music department. Boyd sold Witchseason to Island Records and moved to LA with his fiancee Linda Peters, spending the next few years working on music for films like Deliverance and A Clockwork Orange, as well as making his own documentary about Jimi Hendrix, and thus missed out on getting the UK publishing rights for ABBA, and all the income that would have brought him, for no money. And it was that decision that led to the breakup of Fotheringay. Just before Christmas 1970, Fotheringay were having a difficult session, recording the track “John the Gun”: [Excerpt: Fotheringay, “John the Gun”] Boyd got frustrated and kicked everyone out of the session, and went for a meal and several drinks with Denny. He kept insisting that she should dump the band and just go solo, and then something happened that the two of them would always describe differently. She asked him if he would continue to produce her records if she went solo, and he said he would. According to Boyd’s recollection of the events, he meant that he would fly back from California at some point to produce her records. According to Denny, he told her that if she went solo he would stay in Britain and not take the job in LA. This miscommunication was only discovered after Denny told the rest of Fotheringay after the Christmas break that she was splitting the band. Jerry Donahue has described that as the worst moment of his life, and Denny felt very guilty about breaking up a band with some of her closest friends in — and then when Boyd went over to the US anyway she felt a profound betrayal. Two days before Fotheringay’s final concert, in January 1971, Sandy Denny signed a solo deal with Island records, but her first solo album would not end up produced by Joe Boyd. Instead, The North Star Grassman and the Ravens was co-produced by Denny, John Wood — the engineer who had worked with Boyd on pretty much everything he’d produced, and Richard Thompson, who had just quit Fairport Convention, though he continued living with them at the Angel, at least until a truck crashed into the building in February 1971, destroying its entire front wall and forcing them to relocate. The songs chosen for The North Star Grassman and the Ravens reflected the kind of choices Denny would make on her future albums, and her eclectic taste in music. There was, of course, the obligatory Dylan cover, and the traditional folk ballad “Blackwaterside”, but there was also a cover version of Brenda Lee’s “Let’s Jump the Broomstick”: [Excerpt: Sandy Denny, “Let’s Jump the Broomstick”] Most of the album, though, was made up of originals about various people in Denny’s life, like “Next Time Around”, about her ex-boyfriend Jackson C Frank: [Excerpt: Sandy Denny, “Next Time Around”] The album made the top forty in the UK — Denny’s only solo album to do so — and led to her once again winning the “best female singer” award in Melody Maker’s readers’ poll that year — the male singer award was won by Rod Stewart. Both Stewart and Denny appeared the next year on the London Symphony Orchestra’s all-star version of The Who’s Tommy, which had originally been intended as a vehicle for Stewart before Roger Daltrey got involved. Stewart’s role was reduced to a single song, “Pinball Wizard”, while Denny sang on “It’s a Boy”: [Excerpt: Sandy Denny, “It’s a Boy”] While Fotheringay had split up, all the band members play on The North Star Grassman and the Ravens. Guitarists Donahue and Lucas only play on a couple of the tracks, with Richard Thompson playing most of the guitar on the record. But Fotheringay’s rhythm section of Pat Donaldson and Gerry Conway play on almost every track. Another musician on the album, Ian Whiteman, would possibly have a profound effect on the future direction of Richard Thompson’s career and life. Whiteman was the former keyboard player for the mod band The Action, having joined them just before they became the blues-rock band Mighty Baby. But Mighty Baby had split up when all of the band except the lead singer had converted to Islam. Richard Thompson was on his own spiritual journey at this point, and became a Sufi – the same branch of Islam as Whiteman – soon after the session, though Thompson has said that his conversion was independent of Whiteman’s. The two did become very close and work together a lot in the mid-seventies though. Thompson had supposedly left Fairport because he was writing material that wasn’t suited to the band, but he spent more than a year after quitting the group working on sessions rather than doing anything with his own material, and these sessions tended to involve the same core group of musicians. One of the more unusual was a folk-rock supergroup called The Bunch, put together by Trevor Lucas. Richard Branson had recently bought a recording studio, and wanted a band to test it out before opening it up for commercial customers, so with this free studio time Lucas decided to record a set of fifties rock and roll covers. He gathered together Thompson, Denny, Whiteman, Ashley Hutchings, Dave Mattacks, Pat Donaldson, Gerry Conway, pianist Tony Cox, the horn section that would later form the core of the Average White Band, and Linda Peters, who had now split up with Joe Boyd and returned to the UK, and who had started dating Thompson. They recorded an album of covers of songs by Jerry Lee Lewis, the Everly Brothers, Johnny Otis and others: [Excerpt: The Bunch, “Willie and the Hand Jive”] The early seventies was a hugely productive time for this group of musicians, as they all continued playing on each other’s projects. One notable album was No Roses by Shirley Collins, which featured Thompson, Mattacks, Whiteman, Simon Nicol, Lal and Mike Waterson, and Ashley Hutchings, who was at that point married to Collins, as well as some more unusual musicians like the free jazz saxophonist Lol Coxhill: [Excerpt: Shirley Collins and the Albion Country Band, “Claudy Banks”] Collins was at the time the most respected female singer in British traditional music, and already had a substantial career including a series of important records made with her sister Dolly, work with guitarists like Davey Graham, and time spent in the 1950s collecting folk songs in the Southern US with her then partner Alan Lomax – according to Collins she did much of the actual work, but Lomax only mentioned her in a single sentence in his book on this work. Some of the same group of musicians went on to work on an album of traditional Morris dancing tunes, titled Morris On, credited to “Ashley Hutchings, Richard Thompson, Dave Mattacks, John Kirkpatrick and Barry Dransfield”, with Collins singing lead on two tracks: [Excerpt: Ashley Hutchings, Richard Thompson, Dave Mattacks, John Kirkpatrick and Barry Dransfield with Shirley Collins, “The Willow Tree”] Thompson thought that that album was the best of the various side projects he was involved in at the time, comparing it favourably to Rock On, which he thought was rather slight, saying later “Conceptually, Fairport, Ashley and myself and Sandy were developing a more fragile style of music that nobody else was particularly interested in, a British Folk Rock idea that had a logical development to it, although we all presented it our own way. Morris On was rather more true to what we were doing. Rock On was rather a retro step. I'm not sure it was lasting enough as a record but Sandy did sing really well on the Buddy Holly songs.” Hutchings used the musicians on No Roses and Morris On as the basis for his band the Albion Band, which continues to this day. Simon Nicol and Dave Mattacks both quit Fairport to join the Albion Band, though Mattacks soon returned. Nicol would not return to Fairport for several years, though, and for a long period in the mid-seventies Fairport Convention had no original members. Unfortunately, while Collins was involved in the Albion Band early on, she and Hutchings ended up divorcing, and the stress from the divorce led to Collins developing spasmodic dysphonia, a stress-related illness which makes it impossible for the sufferer to sing. She did eventually regain her vocal ability, but between 1978 and 2016 she was unable to perform at all, and lost decades of her career. Richard Thompson occasionally performed with the Albion Band early on, but he was getting stretched a little thin with all these sessions. Linda Peters said later of him “When I came back from America, he was working in Sandy’s band, and doing sessions by the score. Always with Pat Donaldson and Dave Mattacks. Richard would turn up with his guitar, one day he went along to do a session with one of those folkie lady singers — and there were Pat and DM. They all cracked. Richard smashed his amp and said “Right! No more sessions!” In 1972 he got round to releasing his first solo album, Henry the Human Fly, which featured guest appearances by Linda Peters and Sandy Denny among others: [Excerpt: Richard Thompson, “The Angels Took My Racehorse Away”] Unfortunately, while that album has later become regarded as one of the classics of its genre, at the time it was absolutely slated by the music press. The review in Melody Maker, for example, read in part “Some of Richard Thompson’s ideas sound great – which is really the saving grace of this album, because most of the music doesn’t. The tragedy is that Thompson’s “British rock music” is such an unconvincing concoction… Even the songs that do integrate rock and traditional styles of electric guitar rhythms and accordion and fiddle decoration – and also include explicit, meaningful lyrics are marred by bottle-up vocals, uninspiring guitar phrases and a general lack of conviction in performance.” Henry the Human Fly was released in the US by Warners, who had a reciprocal licensing deal with Island (and for whom Joe Boyd was working at the time, which may have had something to do with that) but according to Thompson it became the lowest-selling record that Warners ever put out (though I’ve also seen that claim made about Van Dyke Parks’ Song Cycle, another album that has later been rediscovered). Thompson was hugely depressed by this reaction, and blamed his own singing. Happily, though, by this point he and Linda had become a couple — they would marry in 1972 — and they started playing folk clubs as a duo, or sometimes in a trio with Simon Nicol. Thompson was also playing with Sandy Denny’s backing band at this point, and played on every track on her second solo album, Sandy. This album was meant to be her big commercial breakthrough, with a glamorous cover photo by David Bailey, and with a more American sound, including steel guitar by Sneaky Pete Kleinow of the Flying Burrito Brothers (whose overdubs were supervised in LA by Joe Boyd): [Excerpt: Sandy Denny, “Tomorrow is a Long Time”] The album was given a big marketing push by Island, and “Listen, Listen” was made single of the week on the Radio 1 Breakfast show: [Excerpt: Sandy Denny, “Listen, Listen”] But it did even worse than the previous album, sending her into something of a depression. Linda Thompson (as the former Linda Peters now was) said of this period “After the Sandy album, it got her down that her popularity didn't suddenly increase in leaps and bounds, and that was the start of her really fretting about the way her career was going. Things only escalated after that. People like me or Martin Carthy or Norma Waterson would think, ‘What are you on about? This is folk music.'” After Sandy’s release, Denny realised she could no longer afford to tour with a band, and so went back to performing just acoustically or on piano. The only new music to be released by either of these ex-members of Fairport Convention in 1973 was, oddly, on an album by the band they were no longer members of. After Thompson had left Fairport, the group had managed to release two whole albums with the same lineup — Swarbrick, Nicol, Pegg, and Mattacks. But then Nicol and Mattacks had both quit the band to join the Albion Band with their former bandmate Ashley Hutchings, leading to a situation where the Albion Band had two original members of Fairport plus their longtime drummer while Fairport Convention itself had no original members and was down to just Swarbrick and Pegg. Needing to fulfil their contracts, they then recruited three former members of Fotheringay — Lucas on vocals and rhythm guitar, Donahue on lead guitar, and Conway on drums. Conway was only a session player at the time, and Mattacks soon returned to the band, but Lucas and Donahue became full-time members. This new lineup of Fairport Convention released two albums in 1973, widely regarded as the group’s most inconsistent records, and on the title track of the first, “Rosie”, Richard Thompson guested on guitar, with Sandy Denny and Linda Thompson on backing vocals: [Excerpt: Fairport Convention, “Rosie”] Neither Sandy Denny nor Richard Thompson released a record themselves in 1973, but in neither case was this through the artists’ choice. The record industry was changing in the early 1970s, as we’ll see in later episodes, and was less inclined to throw good money after bad in the pursuit of art. Island Records prided itself on being a home for great artists, but it was still a business, and needed to make money. We’ll talk about the OPEC oil crisis and its effect on the music industry much more when the podcast gets to 1973, but in brief, the production of oil by the US peaked in 1970 and started to decrease, leading to them importing more and more oil from the Middle East. As a result of this, oil prices rose slowly between 1971 and 1973, then very quickly towards the end of 1973 as a result of the Arab-Israeli conflict that year. As vinyl is made of oil, suddenly producing records became much more expensive, and in this period a lot of labels decided not to release already-completed albums, until what they hoped would be a brief period of shortages passed. Both Denny and Thompson recorded albums at this point that got put to one side by Island. In the case of Thompson, it was the first album by Richard and Linda as a duo, I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight: [Excerpt: Richard and Linda Thompson, “I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight”] Today, I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight is widely regarded as one of the greatest albums of all time, and as one of the two masterpieces that bookended Richard and Linda’s career as a duo and their marriage. But when they recorded the album, full of Richard’s dark songs, it was the opposite of commercial. Even a song that’s more or less a boy-girl song, like “Has He Got a Friend for Me?” has lyrics like “He wouldn’t notice me passing by/I could be in the gutter, or dangling down from a tree” [Excerpt: Richard and Linda Thompson, “Has He got a Friend For Me?”] While something like “The Calvary Cross” is oblique and haunted, and seems to cast a pall over the entire album: [Excerpt: Richard and Linda Thompson, “The Calvary Cross”] The album itself had been cheap to make — it had been recorded in only a week, with Thompson bringing in musicians he knew well and had worked with a lot previously to cut the tracks as-live in only a handful of takes — but Island didn’t think it was worth releasing. The record stayed on the shelf for nearly a year after recording, until Island got a new head of A&R, Richard Williams. Williams said of the album’s release “Muff Winwood had been doing A&R, but he was more interested in production… I had a conversation with Muff as soon as I got there, and he said there are a few hangovers, some outstanding problems. And one of them was Richard Thompson. He said there’s this album we gave him the money to make — which was I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight — and nobody’s very interested in it. Henry the Human Fly had been a bit of a commercial disappointment, and although Island was altruistic and independent and known for only recording good stuff, success was important… Either a record had to do well or somebody had to believe in it a lot. And it seemed as if neither of those things were true at that point of Richard.” Williams, though, was hugely impressed when he listened to the album. He compared Richard Thompson’s guitar playing to John Coltrane’s sax, and called Thompson “the folk poet of the rainy streets”, but also said “Linda brightened it, made it more commercial. and I thought that “Bright Lights” itself seemed a really commercial song.” The rest of the management at Island got caught up in Williams’ enthusiasm, and even decided to release the title track as a single: [Excerpt: Richard and Linda Thompson, “I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight”] Neither single nor album charted — indeed it would not be until 1991 that Richard Thompson would make a record that made the top forty in the UK — but the album got enough critical respect that Richard and Linda released two albums the year after. The first of these, Hokey Pokey, is a much more upbeat record than their previous one — Richard Thompson has called it “quite a music-hall influenced record” and cited the influence of George Formby and Harry Lauder. For once, the claim of music hall influence is audible in the music. Usually when a British musician is claimed to have a music ha

Today, Iran launches missiles at a US base in Qatar in response to strikes on their nuclear sites. Qatar has confirmed the attack on the US-run Al Udeid base, adding all the missiles were intercepted. The Pentagon has said there is no reports of any US casualties. Adam is joined by John Simpson, BBC world affairs editorAnd, health secretary Wes Streeting has said "we must act now" as he announced a national investigation into maternity care in England. Adam speaks to Suzanne White - head of the medical negligence team at Leigh Day & Michael Buchannan social affairs correspondent.You can now listen to Newscast on a smart speaker. If you want to listen, just say "Ask BBC Sounds to play Newscast”. It works on most smart speakers. You can join our Newscast online community here: https://tinyurl.com/newscastcommunityhereNew episodes released every day. If you're in the UK, for more News and Current Affairs podcasts from the BBC, listen on BBC Sounds: https://bit.ly/3ENLcS1 Newscast brings you daily analysis of the latest political news stories from the BBC. It was presented by Adam Fleming. It was made by Jack Maclaren with Julia Webster and Shiler Mahmoudi. The technical producer was Ben Andrews. The assistant editor is Chris Gray. The senior news editor is Sam Bonham.

Mark Chapman looks ahead to UEFA Women's Euro 2025 through the England lens. He's joined by three Lionesses in Izzy Christiansen, Karen Bardsley and Steph Houghton. Also hear from Aggie Beever-Jones, Maya Le Tissier and Leah Williamson.00:45 Initial feelings going into England's title defence, 01:50 Steph reacts to *that* Bonucci challenge at Soccer Aid, 07:15 Aggie Beever-Jones & Maya Le Tissier INTERVIEW, 09:55 Do England have leaders in the squad? 15:40 Adapting from club style to country style, 21:10 Leah Williamson INTERVIEW, 23:20 Are we seeing a new Leah Williamson? 31:15 Players coming off social media, 34:35 How will Hannah Hampton be feeling? 43:45 Are there enough options in midfield? 47:45 Is forward England's strongest position? 51:15 England face a tough group.BBC Sounds / 5 Sports Extra commentaries: Wed 1700 England v Netherlands in UEFA U21 Championship.

On this week's episode of The One Piece Podcast we go through One Piece Chapter 1152 “A Horrible Day” with Josh McKenzie (OPP contributor and storyboard artist), Vero (OPP contributor and artist) and Delaney Jordan (OPP editor and video essayist)! Next, join Sam and Steve for a double Anime Recap of Episode 1132, “A Pledge to Ginny - Kuma Becomes a Father” and Episode 1133 “To Save His Daughter - Kuma the Timid Pacifist“ We also have our Piece Together segment, where we take your questions, comments, and theories, and a special round of Yaoi Thunderdome! SUBSCRIBE TO US ON PATREON! You can subscribe on Patreon and get access to ad-free episodes and our 800+ episode archive, our exclusive series 4'ced to Watch 4Kids with Steve & Alex, our full-length film OPPJapan, exclusive episodes with our special guests and a lot more. 00:00:00 Introduction 00:10:12 Manga Recap: Chapter 1150;01:39:24 Anime Recap; Episodes 1132 & 1133;02:14:19 Piece Together;02:42:21 Yaoi Thunderdome & To Be Continued…! NEWS & UPDATES Want to know when One Piece is going to end? So does our man in Japan and OPLA live action series advisor Greg Werner! Check out his column “The End of One Piece,” posted exclusively by the OPP! Our video recording of the OPP at City Winery is now LIVE for patrons! You can watch our previous show from April on YouTube here! The OPP is officially British Famous! Read what Zach had to tell the good people of England about One Piece as it lands on BBC iPlayer in “One Piece: From ‘niche within a niche' to global phenomenon” by Samuel Spencer! OPLA! is back for a whole new season! Check out interviews with the cast including Aidan Scott (Helmeppo), Alexander Maniatis (Kuro), Craig Fairbrass (Zeff) and Chioma Umeala (Nojiko)! Don't miss out, subscribe at patreon.com/onepiecepodcast to get the full One Piece Podcast experience!  We have an all new series about the history of 4Kids … as told by the people who were actually there. Check out 4Kids Flashback every Wednesday! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

After rebellion and disappointment, Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell fears he has lost God's favour. The only way to restore it is do his work on earth - the moral reformation of England and Wales. Alice Hunt, Republic, 2024. Martyn Bennet, Oliver Cromwell, 2006. Michael Braddick (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of the English Revolution, 2015. Barry Coward, The Cromwellian Protectorate, 2002. Jonathan Healey, The Blazing World, 2023. Paul Lay, Providence Lost: The Rise and Fall of the English Republic, 2020. Anna Keay, The Restless Republic, 2022. Ian Gentles, The New Model Army: Agent of Revolution, 2022. Carla Gardina Pestana, The English Conquest of Jamaica: Oliver Cromwell's Bid for Empire, 2017. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

#LFC #LiverpoolFC #LiverpoolFootballClub Download SAILY in your app store and use our code bloodred at checkout to get an exclusive 15% off your first purchase. For further details go to https://saily.com/bloodred Milos Kerkez is flying back to England to undergo a medical on Monday ahead of his move to Liverpool. The Reds are set to sign the Hungary international in a £40m deal from AFC Bournemouth. The 21-year-old has been on holiday in Belgrade, but will return to the United Kingdom to put the finishing touches on his move to Merseyside - as first reported by the Athletic - with his transfer set to be announced later this week. Kerkez - who is set to sign a five-year contract - has made no secret of his desire to join Liverpool, while his father and agent, Sebastijan, confirmed the switch was ‘basically a done deal' when appearing alongside his son on Serbian YouTube channel Super Indirektno kod Popa i Milana. Join Joe Rimmer and Theo Squires for the Monday edition of the Blood Red podcast as they discuss the latest Liverpool transfer news. *#BeMoreDan: Fascinating Tales From Liverpool's Incredible History* https://reachsportshop.com/book/lfc-stories/ Download SAILY in your app store and use our code bloodred at checkout to get an exclusive 15% off your first purchase. For further details go to https://saily.com/bloodred Get exclusive Liverpool FC podcasts and video content everyday right here.  Subscribe to the Blood Red Liverpool FC YouTube Channel and watch daily live shows HERE: https://bit.ly/3OkL9iT Listen and subscribe to the Blood Red Podcast for all your latest Liverpool FC content via Apple and Spotify: APPLE: https://bit.ly/3HfBvKq SPOTIFY: https://bit.ly/3SdsjeH Join our Blood Red podcast group on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1656599847979758/ Visit the Liverpool ECHO website: https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/all-about/liverpool-fc Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/LivEchoLFC Follow us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LiverpoolEchoLFC Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bloodred_lfc Follow us on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@bloodred_lfc Subscribe to us on Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/bloodredliverpoolfc Download our Liverpool FC app for free: Apple - https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/lfc-echo/id1255495425Android - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mirror.liverpoolfc Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Before she became known as “The She-Wolf of France,” Isabella was a princess sent to unite two warring kingdoms through marriage. But her husband, King Edward II of England, didn't get the same memo. From day one, it's clear he's more interested in the cute men at court than his queen – or his crown. As Edward's reckless choices endanger the English throne and strain relations with France, Isabella will have to decide if she'll remain a loyal queen – or take matters into her own hands.Be the first to know about Wondery's newest podcasts, curated recommendations, and more! Sign up now at https://wondery.fm/wonderynewsletterListen to Even The Royals on the Wondery App or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen early and ad-free on Wondery+. Join Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Start your free trial by visiting wondery.com/links/even-the-royals/ now.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Two heavy suitcases were left on a quiet bridge in Bristol, England. Inside? Dismembered bodies—neatly packed and headless. This is the true story of Albert and Paul, a kind-hearted couple from London, and the man they trusted—Yostin Mosquera. He was a guest. A porn star. And ultimately, their killer.SUPPORT THIS PODCAST:  https://linktr.ee/twistedtraveltruecrimepodcast⁠MONTHLY:Patreon: ⁠https://patreon.com/user?u=42048051&utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator&utm_content=join_link⁠Spotify:⁠https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/twisted-travel-and-true-c?ref=radiopublic⁠ONE TIME:Venmo:⁠⁠https://venmo.com/code?user_id=3248826752172032881⁠⁠Paypal:⁠⁠https://www.paypal.me/twistedtravelandTC⁠⁠Social Media Links:⁠https://linktr.ee/twistedtraveltruecrimepodcast⁠⁠https://www.facebook.com/twistedtravelandtruecrime⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/twistedtravelandtrue_crime⁠⁠https://www.tiktok.com/@twistedtravelandtruecrim?lang=en⁠Gmail:  ⁠twistedtravelandtruecrime@gmail.com

In this week's MBA Admissions podcast we began by discussing some of the recent activity on LiveWire, which includes a little movement on wait lists. We then continued our discussion on the recent U.S. Government decisions as they pertain to international MBA students; visa interviews are now available again. No doubt this whole situation is causing great anxiety. Graham highlighted Clear Admit's new summer series of webinars, which focuses on top MBA programs' admissions essays, which will be attended by more than 20 of the top MBA programs. Signups are here: https://bit.ly/mbaessay0725 Graham then noted two new articles, posted on Clear Admit, regarding Chicago / Booth. The first addresses a generous donation for their health care focus, the second addresses an entrepreneurial contest which awarded more than $2 million to the top 10 finalists. Graham also highlighted three admissions tips that focus on addressing gaps in unemployment, and two “myth busters” that dispel the notions that you need to have experience in finance or consulting to apply for a top MBA, or that you need perfect test scores for the very top MBA programs. We continue our new series of Adcom Q&As, which is a yearly series where we interview the admissions leaders at all the top MBA programs; this week we have Q&As from Washington / Foster, Cambridge / Judge, and Michigan State / Broad. Finally, Graham highlighted two Real Humans alumni spotlights, alums from Emory / Goizueta working at BCG, and Duke / Fuqua working at Accenture. For this week, for the candidate profile review portion of the show, Alex selected two ApplyWire entries and one DecisionWire entry. This week's first MBA admissions candidate has two years of work experience to date and is originally from Japan. They have yet to complete the GMAT test. This week's second MBA candidate has five years of experience with a GRE of 326. We believe their overall profile is very strong, but we discussed the merits of retaking the GRE. The final MBA candidate is deciding between London Business School and INSEAD. This episode was recorded in Paris, France and Cornwall, England. It was produced and engineered by the fabulous Dennis Crowley in Philadelphia, USA. Thanks to all of you who've been joining us and please remember to rate and review this show wherever you listen!

Dublin was a sea of red and the lads are back dissecting the start to the 2025 Lions Tour as Argentina shock the tourists in Dublin, the Lions' first tour-opening loss since 1971. Jim, Goodey and special guest Bernard Jackman break down where it went wrong despite dominant stats, from lineout woes and tippy-tappy rugby to Farrell's punchy post-match comments. There's chat on subs, back-row balance issues, and whether we'll see Old Testament Faz emerge this week. Plus, big praise for Argentina, chaos in the England v France B-team clash, and the debut of “Keyboard Captains” as we read out some of the week's fan comments. Settle in and make sure you're subscribed on Spotify. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On this New Movie Monday we return back to an England overrun by the Rage Virus Plague. We discuss the newest addition to the franchise and mythology since 28 Days Later, the new evolution and super powers of the Rage Virus Zombies, and the many versions of family in the Apocalypse. This is a huge movie that shoves in a lot of ideas and even some insane camp. Make sure you see this one on the biggest screen possible! Synopsis: A group of survivors of the rage virus live on a small island. When one of the group leaves the island on a mission into the mainland, he discovers secrets, wonders, and horrors that have mutated not only the infected but other survivors.  Starring: Jodie Comer, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Ralph Fiennes, Alfie Williams, Jack O'Connell Written by Alex Garland Directed by Danny Boyle  Help us make our first feature length Messed Up Movie: https://www.misfitparade.com/mrcreamjeans Support the show on the Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/messedupmoviespod Watch our newest short film Sugar Tits Now! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sz7leFqqo4g  

Full Text of ReadingsMonday of the Twelfth Week in Ordinary Time Lectionary: 371The Saint of the day is Saint John FisherSaint John Fisher's Story John Fisher is usually associated with Erasmus, Thomas More, and other Renaissance humanists. His life therefore, did not have the external simplicity found in the lives of some saints. Rather, he was a man of learning, associated with the intellectuals and political leaders of his day. He was interested in the contemporary culture and eventually became chancellor at Cambridge. He had been made a bishop at 35, and one of his interests was raising the standard of preaching in England. Fisher himself was an accomplished preacher and writer. His sermons on the penitential psalms were reprinted seven times before his death. With the coming of Lutheranism, he was drawn into controversy. His eight books against heresy gave him a leading position among European theologians. In 1521, Fisher was asked to study the question of King Henry VIII's marriage to Catherine of Aragon, his brother's widow. He incurred Henry's anger by defending the validity of the king's marriage with Catherine, and later by rejecting Henry's claim to be the supreme head of the Church of England. In an attempt to be rid of him, Henry first had Fisher accused of not reporting all the “revelations” of the nun of Kent, Elizabeth Barton. In feeble health, Fisher was summoned to take the oath to the new Act of Succession. He and Thomas More refused to do so because the Act presumed the legality of Henry's divorce and his claim to be head of the English Church. They were sent to the Tower of London, where Fisher remained 14 months without trial. Finally both men were sentenced to life imprisonment and loss of goods. When the two were called to further interrogations, they remained silent. On the supposition that he was speaking privately as a priest, Fisher was tricked into declaring again that the king was not supreme head of the church in England. The king, further angered that the pope had made John Fisher a cardinal, had him brought to trial on the charge of high treason. He was condemned and executed, his body left to lie all day on the scaffold and his head hung on London Bridge. More was executed two weeks later. John Fisher’s liturgical feast is celebrated on June 22. Reflection Today many questions are raised about Christians' and priests' active involvement in social issues. John Fisher remained faithful to his calling as a priest and bishop. He strongly upheld the teachings of the Church; the very cause of his martyrdom was his loyalty to Rome. He was involved in the cultural enrichment circles as well as in the political struggles of his time. This involvement caused him to question the moral conduct of the leadership of his country. “The Church has the right, indeed the duty, to proclaim justice on the social, national and international level, and to denounce instances of injustice, when the fundamental rights of man and his very salvation demand it” (Justice in the World, 1971 Synod of Bishops). Saint of the Day, Copyright Franciscan Media

Former world champion Barry Jones joins Buncey to unpack a busy weekend in boxing. They chat Canelo vs. Crawford as their promotional tour has kicked off ahead of their September fight. Eddie Hearn gives his take on Galal Yafai's first professional loss, and Tiah-Mai Ayton, one of England's most talked-about prospects, reflects on her dramatic debut. And there may be a bit of Jake Paul chat.

Reaction Monday is off and running for SDH AMAbe Gordon from 929TheGame leads off with Atlanta united in a double matchweek (for now)We look at the action in the Club World Cup- scores, brackets, and permutations for the knockoutsHour 2 has SoccerForUSPod's Bart Keeler breaking down the USMNT win over Haiti leading into the quarters plus an ATLUTD injury concern and the cards and calls from the weekend that may have raised eyebrowsPlus, ownership news in England and the latest from the rest of the sport

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Welcome back to 'Don't Cut Your Own Bangs!'    In this lively and heartfelt episode, Danielle Ireland chats with Ashlyn Thompson from the Parent Empowerment Network. Ashlyn shares her journey from growing her nonprofit organization to the emotional rollercoaster of her daughter's complex medical journey.    Get ready to explore how pain can be an unexpected teacher, the magic of community support, and why tapping into creativity can be your secret weapon against anxiety. Filled with laughs, valuable insights, and touching moments, this episode is a treasure trove of wisdom and joy. Tune in and enjoy the ride!   00:00 Introduction and Guest Overview 00:20 Ashlyn Thompson's Journey and Nonprofit Growth 01:10 The Importance of Community and Support 01:37 Embracing Big Feelings and Finding Joy 02:52 Welcoming Ashlyn Back and Discussing Growth 05:44 Navigating Pain and Empowerment 09:51 The Power of Perspective and Decision Making 14:27 Balancing Life and Nonprofit Work 21:21 The Role of Pain as a Teacher 30:48 Finding Comfort in Movement and Nature 33:09 Returning to Basics 33:35 Reflecting on Past Decisions 35:20 The Role of Pain and Fear 38:20 Parent Empowerment Network 44:25 Creativity as a Lifeline 49:21 Embracing Emotions 53:07 Don't Cut Your Own Bangs Moment 01:01:20 Conclusion and Resources   Ashlyn Thompson interview links Ashlyn Thompson, a passionate advocate and storyteller, is co-founder of the Parent Empowerment Network, a nonprofit providing emotional and mental health support to parents navigating pediatric medical complexities. She also co-hosts theEmpowered by Hope podcast, which equips parents with practical tools, resources, and a strong sense of community—delivered with a heavy dose of humor and hope to empower them as their child's best advocate. Ashlyn's fire for advocacy was ignited by her daughter Emery, who was born with bladder exstrophy. After Emery nearly died following a major surgery at just seven weeks old, Ashlyn became a fierce voice for patient safety. Unwilling to accept the limitations of domestic medical care, she discovered a surgical option in the U.K. that wasn't available in the U.S. at the time. In early 2023, Emery became the first American to undergo this procedure—and thanks to Ashlyn's relentless advocacy, that surgery is now available in America. When she's not advocating or recording podcasts, Ashlyn moonlights as a budding driveway chalk artist, chaos coordinator for her spirited family, and an avid nature lover. Chocolate is her daily vitamin, ADHD is her superpower, spiders and small talk are her sworn enemies, and she firmly believes laughter and boldness are two of a parent's greatest tools.   Parent Empowerment Network:  The Parent Empowerment Network exists to support, encourage, and educate parents of children with medical complexities—empowering them with community, knowledge, and confidence to be their child's fiercest advocate. www.ParentEmpowermentNetwork.org Empowered by Hope podcast on all major podcast streaming platforms: https://parentempowermentnetwork.org/podcast/   Social Media:  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/people/Parent-Empowerment-Network/100083218456295/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/parentempowermentnetwork/   She is Charlotte book by co-founder, Emily Whiting:https://parentempowermentnetwork.org/she-is-charlotte-book/ DANIELLE IRELAND, LCSW I greatly appreciate your support and engagement as part of the Don't Cut Your Own Bangs community. Feel free to reach out with questions, comments, or anything you'd like to share. You can connect with me at any of the links below.   Website: https://danielleireland.com/   The Treasured Journal: https://danielleireland.com/journal   Substack: https://danielleireland.substack.com/   Blog: https://danielleireland.com/blog/   Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/danielleireland_lcsw   Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/danielleireland.LCSW   Podcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@danielleireland8218/featured “Don't Cut Your Own Bangs” is about creating a community around, and familiarity with, the messy middle—that uncertain and often chaotic and uncomfortable time in the middle of a process or journey. The messy middle is replete with ambiguity and challenges, but it's also where the hard and rewarding work happens.   Transcript [00:00:00] Danielle: Hello. Hello, this is Danielle Ireland and you are watching or listening to Don't Cut Your Own Bangs. I am so excited to be back in the interview seat. We've done some solo cast. It's been a blast. But Ashlyn Thompson is here with me today, and we just wrapped an incredible conversation. Ashlyn came on as a guest to talk about her work with Charlotte's Hope Foundation a couple of years ago. [00:00:26] She was about ready to embark right in the interview we were, she was. Days away from embarking on a trip to the UK for her daughter having a surgery with the only surgeon in the world who performed the specific type of surgery that her daughter needed. Her daughter's made a full recovery. It's a beautiful story we're gonna get into in this episode, but what I'm truly, if you could imagine even beyond that beautiful story, what I'm so excited to introduce to you and to that I was so grateful to witness and learn from. [00:00:53] Is that Ashlyn has grown her nonprofit organization, not no money in organization, but yes, a nonprofit organization that at the time, two years ago when we last checked in with her, was called Charlotte's Hope Foundation. It has grown. It's expanded, and it's evolved, and it's now the Parent Empowerment Network. [00:01:10] She and her co-founder also have a podcast for that same work, and what I love about the work that they do. They create community connection space and resources for parents and families raising children or any provider helping a child navigate medical complexities. And that sounds like such a hard and heavy and challenging topic. [00:01:33] And it is. But what Ashlyn embodies is. The work that I really wanted to bring to this season and this new phase of don't cut your own bangs, which I want big feelings to feel less scary. I want approaching them to feel possible. And then with that in mind, wherever possible, as much as possible, finding lightness, levity, and joy. [00:01:54] However we can do it. And I'm telling you, in this episode we did that. We accomplished that. We talk about important things, we talk about heavy things, and Ashland is vulnerable in a way that is inviting. But also something we can all learn from. And through the specificity of her life experience and what she's learned, there are universal nuggets that we can all find value in. [00:02:17] I know I did, and this was such a beautiful place to share, and we laughed. We had joy, we smiled . I hope that this topic invites you and encourages you to lean in and tune in because there are so many great nuggets of this. Thank you for being here, and I can't wait for you to sit back, relax, and enjoy. [00:02:38] Ashlyn Thompson [00:02:39] Hi. Yes, I know. Big jumps for both of us. I know. I feel like we're, it does feel like a lifetime ago. It I mean, in many ways it is. It's like we're, I mean, I'm still, me and all the key players are still playing. Right. But it does feel like a different life in a way. And I, with that in mind, I just wanna officially welcome you back. [00:02:55] Yes. Welcome. Ashlyn Thompson. Oh, thank. Don't cut your own bangs. I am so excited that you're here for many reasons, but the thing I'm most excited about is I think that. Building something or starting something creates a certain amount of effort and energy. Sustaining something, growing with it, breathing new life into it, that's a different part of a different element of a creative process. [00:03:17] And that's something I think specifically I'm really excited to talk to you about because you're parent Empowerment Network, which has it, it exists to support, encourage and educate parents and caregivers of children with medical complexities. And that was, it already was in existence when we, right, when we recorded the first time. [00:03:34] But it has grown. Grown. I went to a gala, people, she's throwing a gala fundraiser for her for her network. And so, I mean, I wanna hear about all the twists and all the developments of that, but more specifically the context I wanna provide for us and for this conversation. The thing that I'm really excited about, , and why I feel really passionate about bringing this to video. [00:03:57] Is that I want to help make big feelings feel less scary. Yeah. And I want to make, approaching them feel possible. And then with that in mind as much and as often as possible, laugh as much as possible. Amen. And so, right? So like, you are swimming in the trenches with people and even in your own life with people who are holding and making space for heavy things. [00:04:23] Yes. And yet there is a bright smile on your face. There's a twinkle in your eye. You laugh and you smile. And I wanna, and I don't know how to articulate what that is, but I want to, I wanna, that's something I wanna make space for in this conversation too. So it's important and it's big and it's emotional for sure, but also like, let's allow levity too. [00:04:42] Absolutely. I am so excited to be continuing our conversation, and I'm also really happy to know that. The person who's sitting here with you today is very much a different person from two years ago. And I feel like I have gone through multiple versions of myself just in the past two years. And that's one of the things that I truly celebrate about, not just the journey of parent empowerment network, but I think just growing and evolving as a human spirit, experiencing this life is recognizing that I say this phrase to only certain people, but I act, I feel compelled to share it now. [00:05:26] I feel like I have died a thousand times. And greeted so many versions of myself. But every time I rise into that extroversion and realize who I am, I like that person more and more. And. I feel like one of my greatest accomplishments just this past year has been truly settling into a, knowing a deep belief that life is meant to grow through, not go through. [00:05:58] And that change, that pivot of how I see the next big thing that comes up has been such a grounding force for me and has really helped me feel like I'm actually sitting in the driver's seat of my car. I don't know what I'm going to pass as I'm on this highway. In life. And sometimes life yanks me off on an exit I didn't plan. [00:06:23] And those exit ramps are typically the next lesson. But I'm grateful to be at a point where I can now see the next really hard thing emerging and not wanna hit reverse. Wow. Wow. Not that I like it all the time. No, God. But I can appreciate that this isn't out to crush me. This isn't here to take me down like I used to feel. [00:06:53] , Wow. There's a lot to unpack there for. Thank you so much for sharing that, but also not going in reverse. I wanna make a mental note, not going in reverse. The next version of me, I like better, and this is not here to crush me. Right. The, there's something, I got chills. I got full body chills when you, the la with the last thing that you said, because when I'm working with clients, there is this element and this is something. [00:07:18] I promise I'll come back to that original point there. There's an element of the work that I do where, and I'm sure you get this in your own way too, with like hearing stories from families who are holding really hard and heavy things. I think when I meet people for the first time, a common response is, wow, I don't know how you do what you do, or I don't know how you listen to that all day. [00:07:36] Or Oh man, and I think, yes, sure. There, there are certainly days and clients or moments where those stories are making space for people's big, heavy, painful experiences. Right. Is can be a lot at times. Far less anymore. But I think more than anything the va like, I feel so lucky to have the experience a hundred maybe even thousands of times over hurt people's pain. [00:08:03] And I know what pain sounds like. Yes. And there are different types and one thing that I absolutely believe to be true is that our pain is not personal. Our story is personal, right? But pain is not personal. And the events of our life, even things that happen to us, it's, there's it's almost shifting out of a, and I hope I can say this within the context that, that is heard with love. [00:08:27] But shifting out of a victim mentality right into it. Because being victimized or being stricken with grief or holding something hard like that is absolutely real. And also knowing that this is happening to me, but this is not gosh, what are the words I'm trying to find. It, what I'm hearing is you recognize how hard this is. [00:08:51] Whatever that insert blank. I recognize how hard this is, and I'm not going to make this pain so precious that I don't also see it as temporary. Yes, exactly. But there's something, so I think there's something really powerful and there's so much nuance to that because I certainly don't want to, people can be victimized, but the victim mentality is one of, in my professional experience it's one of the more challenging headspace to, for someone to walk out of. [00:09:21] Agree. It's really hard. Exactly. It shrinks your world. So, so much. That's well said. And we experience that very often. We really fo I mean we say all the time, you know, we are non diagnosis specific, non prognosis specific with the families that we work with, and we focus on the parents or the parent role, which could be performed by a sibling, a grandparent, a friend, an adopt, a lot of different people, but. [00:09:51] What we really found early in our journey and what helped us evolve into parent empowerment network was that recognition that, like you pointed out, pain is not it's not customized to your experience. The feeling, the emotional and physical experience relationship with pain is common through all of us, and it actually is a way that we can connect with each other when we recognize that. [00:10:18] When we stop comparing one another's pains. Now, don't get me wrong, if your kid got a bump on the head versus your kid needs a, you know, brain surgery. Right. Those are different. Yes. Very different. Yes. But most of the time we're not dealing with that. And what we have found is that when somebody is in that victim mentality, which is understandable, I think that's a, very important aspect to acknowledge when you're feeling like a victim, why is this happening to me? Or why is this happening to my child? Because I'll be the first to say, it's never okay when your child is hurting or sick or in harm's way or worse. I will never be okay with it. But when we say stuck in a victim mentality, our ability to problem solve goes from about here to here. [00:11:08] Yeah. And then your child is really the one who suffers. And I hate, it's a hard truth. But we have to face that truth because when we can help a parent start to find glimmers of hope, start to see that there's a way to build on quality of life rather than cure. Then you start to see this new version emerge where they are truly, you know, empowered advocates for their child. [00:11:45] There's something that I heard in what you said too, that a lot of times when I'm working with clients who are maybe knee deep in anxiety or depression, for example. I think why can be a powerful question, but I think a misplaced why is a really exactly damaging question. Like, why me? Why them? [00:12:02] Why this, why now? Because those are questions you can't answer that only lead to a defeating answer. Exactly. And usually another question or shame, but what I'm hearing a lot in when you. When you can kind of broaden your focus and sort of release that constriction from why you then can open yourself up to a different type of question. [00:12:23] How can I, exactly. How can I get through today? How can I get through this moment? What is needed most of me now? What do I need now? Right. And those types of the what and the how. Who do I need to show up for? Is it me? Right. Is it them? Who do I need to ask for help? Who has information that I need? [00:12:43] Those types of questions don't eliminate the pain, but it broadens the scope Yes. Of, of your field of vision. And I know that though, like, 'cause you are here in many ways. Oh, I hope it's okay to use this term. But I hope that you're here as an expert and you're also the executive Hope director of of the power impairment network. [00:13:05] And I think a lot of times. What we would imagine as the worst possible case scenario. Like the worst thing we could imagine would be something happening to our kids. This has been your lived experience. This has been your business partner's lived experience. And for, even though you have a podcast as well, where you really create a space and content and a community that helps people with that very specific set of circumstances, that Right. [00:13:33] I would imagine it's like. The best and worst club to be a part of. So we always say, we're so sorry you're in this club. Yes. But we're so glad you found us. Yes. Like it's the yes, we're really sorry, but at the same time, like, welcome home, welcome. And so I think a lot of the, a lot of the people who tune in to don't cut your own bang, I don't know how many would have this specific life experience. [00:13:57] Right. And if you do, oh my gosh, what a gorgeous resource you have in Ashlyn. Oh, thank you. And the Parent empowerment network and their podcast. But I do think that even in something like this, in within the specificity of everything you're saying, there is such a broad truth that I think we can all access and find value in. [00:14:16] And, yeah. So just thank you for all of that. And I want to, okay. I wanna shift a little bit to the growth of the parent Empowerment network. Right. Because, so when I originally started this podcast, what I was, what I really motivated me, one was I was terrified of becoming a therapist and having worked as a creative, and I just wanted to surround myself with other people who, who were building things, right? So that I could sort of sneak in my own needy questions. Like, how did you do it? How did you figure it out? What happened when you were scared? Like, what happened when your computer crashed? Oh my gosh. And you went from newly building something to, you have really grown. [00:14:53] Yes. You have really grown. And I wanna know having experienced the, you know, the gala that Right. That you that you threw that was so lovely. I wanna know . What led to the growth over the last two years? Because you're still momming, you're still life. Yeah. Your daughter is still being you. [00:15:08] I mean, like your life is still life and Yes. Life is still lifeing. How, in the midst of your lifeing, how have you also continued to grow this? And I really wanna know like what fueled your fire. And just tell me more about that story please. Yes, absolutely. So at the beginning of this, you know, when we started talking, you were very talking about how I'm sitting here smiling and I mean, I am fully, I am genuinely full of joy in this moment. [00:15:35] And I think I know actually that comes from being in something like we have with Parent Empowerment Network, which has been truly its own huge like business, right? We are called a nonprofit, but let me tell you, I mean, it is straight up business. [00:15:57] Is what it is in a lot of ways, and. That's the worst possible name for a tax category. It totally is. Because it's so confusing. Nonprofit doesn't mean no money. Right. Exactly. It's so confusing. We do not exist for free. Is great an idea as that sounds. I want that to be the slogan for every nonprofit. [00:16:16] I just, 'cause we don't exist for free. Right. You know the whole, you get what you pay for. It's, yeah. That's a whole other conversation. We're not gonna spend too much time there today. We should have a part two then. There we go. I'm okay with that. All right. So for that, what I think the biggest lesson that has. [00:16:33] Emerged from this journey just since we were, you know, you and I were talking a couple years ago when we were actually still called Charlotte's Hope Foundation. Yes. Which was our initial name. Yes. Because we had an idea for something that was this big at the beginning. And the name Charlotte's Hope Foundation fit that in theory. [00:16:52] But the thing I'm most proud of my, of Emily Whiting, who's my co-founder, fellow mom, fellow sister, fellow savior, at times the best thing we have done is allowed ourselves permission to grow and shrink as needed. And that's what we've done throughout this journey. It has not been a step process. [00:17:15] There have been countless times where we have grown two or three steps, been bigger, you know, working with international teams of surgeons, pulling together collaborations that have never been done, and then. There have been times where we have pulled back and we haven't released an episode for six weeks. [00:17:33] We have had maybe two or three social posts because our lives were on fire or just demanded all our attention, but it didn't mean we had to stop. I need to, oh my gosh. I don't know how many of you listening or watching can relate to that. I, there is a relationship I have with the expansion and contraction of output where if I'm not putting something out, producing something, making something that it really does a number on my sense of self worth. Right. And self esteem. And that is something that I'm still actively healing and repairing, because I definitely know the facts. I know. The really bumper stickery, self helpy sounding talk. [00:18:26] And I believe it. It's not that I, I don't hear it and think like, yeah. Right. It's just that there's a more practiced version of me, right. That has just had more at bats operating in a certain way. And then life in many ways rewards you for that. In theory. In theory. And I don't mean the like the laurels, like you get the the kudos pat on the back accolades but there is a cost, right? [00:18:47] There is a cost. And I think, in the I this past year I wrote a children's book called Wrestling a Walrus. And this the act of writing this book was something that I didn't realize that in the contraction, or even like in the I love the visual of the caterpillar becoming the butterfly. [00:19:09] 'Cause there's a two week process where the caterpillar is literally, we talk about the messy middle in this podcast and think, thank you Brene Brown, wherever you are for creating language and context for us for this very conversation. 'cause so much of this is inspired by that, but that gooey, mushy middle where it's not a butterfly, it's literally goo and it's Exactly, and it, and, but in that place, there is magic happening there. [00:19:33] Even if it, even though it looks like a pile of shit, right. Like, it's, there's magic happening there. I'll say the impetus or the inspiration, the. It was tough moments with my daughter, moments where I didn't feel like I was doing anything. Right. It like hitting the wrecking ball of, you know, being a parent of a toddler and a parent of an infant like that was, there's not enough grace in any space to help you go through that without serious, you know, support. [00:20:02] There were, I had some victim mentality at that point in time, even, and all things can be true at once. But all of that was what I experienced before I had the idea to write the book. And had I not had that experience, I wouldn't have been able to do that. Exactly. I don't think it would've been the same. [00:20:16] And [00:20:16] , and I promise this whole podcast isn't an ad for the book, but like, I really believe in this damn book and I love it so much. And I love that you talk about that expansion and contraction for yourself. And that you doesn't, it doesn't mean you have to stop. 'cause I think a big reason why I maybe avoided picking up the torch again and doing this podcast like I left it for so long, or I abandoned it for so long, or can I still do it right? [00:20:41] Like all of that stuff. And then yeah it. Yeah. Doubt doesn't mean you're done. No. And taking a pause doesn't mean you're stopping forever. But yeah. I mean, you can't just exhale forever. You can't just output like you eventually have to breathe in. Exactly. And that relationship is very necessary. [00:21:00] And so, I mean, everything you're saying is exactly what I need. Thank you. Thank you. You're welcome. You're welcome. And it, that lesson doesn't come easily. Nope. But I think another element of that, you know, building off of what you were just talking about, pain and discomfort and naturally shying away from it. [00:21:21] I challenge anybody in life to just take a moment to consider pain as a potential teacher, as a professor, rather than pain as an enemy, or pain as a destroyer. Right. If you ask yourself. Why does this feel painful? Because how many times do we all experience in our life something that really gets under our skin, but whether it's a spouse or it's a friend or a coworker and they seem totally unfazed by it, [00:21:56] and that used to be something that bothered me. I was kinda like what's, am I ever sensitive? Or like, what is my thing? And I grew up always hearing, not necessarily even from my parents, but I feel like. Teacher schools and saved by the bell commercials about find what you love in life and you'll never work a day in your life. [00:22:16] And that was great in theory, but I'm a very eclectic person. Yep. I love a lot. And all I was getting was a lot of burnout. That's also like saying like, love your kids and you'll never have a hard day with them in your life. You're like, no bs. No. I love my kids. But like, you know, oh my gosh, kids are the greatest, hardest thing of life. [00:22:33] Right. Right. But I think the same is true. Like , I never stopped loving this. Right. But I don't always have control over the life around. Right. But it's a, I think allowing things to be a part of you, not all of you, is really important. Yeah. And I think it's so easy to define ourselves by that output. [00:22:53] For me and Emily, the word is often it's impact. Are we actually making an impact? And the thing that helped us. Become okay with hitting the pause button when we needed to, and not officially throwing in the towel. Don't get me wrong, there were conversations about it, but we were always very honest with each other and we held each other accountable that if you are feeling like this is not jiving with your life, if it's not jiving with you personally, or it's not good for your family at this moment, let's hit the pause button and talk about it. [00:23:26] But realizing that if we only help each other while working on this, Emily and I, that's helping our kids, that's helping our families. And there's a domino effect from that goes from that. And if that's all we ever do, what's bad about that? You said something that I, it still stuck with me and it will probably be the title of this episode. [00:23:49] Pain is a Professor. Yes, it is. And I wanna go back to that because something that I talk about in my sessions a lot is that your emotions never lie to you. Now your thoughts are very different. Yes. Your thoughts can go a, now granted, we need to think critical thinking is important. [00:24:04] We probably need more critical thinking, but thoughts happen to us all day, every day, constantly. Right. I don't remember what the statistic is. I think we have roughly like eight thoughts a minute, something like that. I'm surprised it's not . Maybe that's just a DH adhd. And that could be too, like, yeah, there, maybe there's a spectrum. [00:24:18] Maybe it's eight to 80 thoughts a minute. Give or take. Give or take a hundred. But so thoughts happen to us now. We can certainly consciously choose what to focus on and what we think. But thinking happens, the emotions are in response to what we're thinking and believing. Exactly. And they never lie. [00:24:35] Right. And I But something you said like pain as a professor. And I like the thought that emotions are energy in motion. Yes. And they always have something for you to learn. There's something for every emotion. There is something it wants you to know. Right. And when you're not feeling good are we have more pain receptors in our body, unfortunately. [00:24:55] We have more pain receptors in our body than we do pleasure receptors. Like, and so when pain is activated, it just has a firmer grip. There's something that Martha Beck talks about that I love. It's called the, I think she calls it the Viper in the box of puppies. So if you were to imagine like, and enough said, right. [00:25:10] Done. You get it. But you hand, if I handed you a box full of like 15 adorable, gorgeous little puppies, I mean, it's, they're the most abundant, silly, loving, fuzzy source of love, safety, pleasure. I could really go for that right now. I mean, would it, that should be a, I'm hoping there's one hiding around somewhere. [00:25:28] We have a surprise for you, but if I were to then put a Viper in or a cobra in your box of puppies. All you're gonna see is the threat. Exactly. All you're gonna see is the threat. And I think in life, it's like we pop mo most of us more often than not, are probably living in lives with a lot of puppies. [00:25:48] But the viper, the threat is what consumes Oh yeah. So much energy and attention and shifting your focus from one to the other is easier said than done. And I wanna talk to you specifically about how you have found meaning or, and I, when I say success, I don't mean it in like a bullet point sense, but right. [00:26:12] Where you have found access to, you know, the viper, you know, or the cobra, you know, the box of puppies. Right. How you access that. I can certainly share how I have, but my emotions, I. I've learned in time. I don't always know exactly what they're telling me in the beginning, but I trust them enough to know that it's something. [00:26:36] And so the first place I try to access, if I'm not dissociating or avoiding, is to sit with it. Yeah. So usually it's like, I'm I'll just dissociate in my fantasy book or rewatching parks and recreation for the MPH teeth bajillion time. You know, it's just always a Sure bet. Yeah. It's just, it's hard for, life can only be so hard with Leslie Nope and little Sebastian, you know? [00:26:57] So anyway. But I wanna know where you find yourself in that shift. Yeah. Yeah. So you've got my head's like turning, I'm also still picturing puppies to be honest. That's okay. So I actually, I feel like I wanna give an example of something that I experienced last year, so two years ago. [00:27:11] It's crazy to think two years ago I went on this crazy journey to England. I went to London to take my daughter, who was not quite two years old yet to have a surgery over there for her ultra rare condition that was not available in the States. And I had talked to everybody in the States, of course, that had any knowledge about it and all they could tell me was, we don't really know anything about it. [00:27:35] We don't do it here. Kind of you're on your own, go for it. Or don't, we can't say that we would support you. All that matters is I went for it. And fortunately it did end up being the right decision, but I also knew that it could not be the right decision. And what I found on that experience was that I was originally desperate for picking the right way in life to move forward, that I could not make a decision. [00:28:06] I could not possibly move forward unless I was a hundred percent sure. But guess what? Life isn't real big on giving you a guarantee. Yeah. Guarantees with anything. And I think where I, that's where I started to learn that I don't have to have the answers to move forward. I can be looking at that box and I can see, oh my gosh, this could go terribly wrong. [00:28:34] But I think living with a hopeful mindset is something that allows me to keep my eye on that viper and then still interact with the puppies over here. My eye is still trained on it, but what I found is a peace in making my decision. And it was a, that feeling, that gut feeling. You know, it, I, it doesn't matter what you've gone through in life. [00:28:58] I can't believe that there's anybody out there who hasn't just had that. I call it just that knowing in your gut, it's a physical experience and that is something. That has helped me move forward in life. Because here's the thing, guys, nobody can ever stay truly still. And that's where a lot of our pain and discomfort comes from, is fighting moving forward without certainty. [00:29:23] Oh, let's pause right there. Oh my gosh. So there's something that Dr. Becky Kennedy who she has the good, she wrote the book Good Inside, and she's got her own beautiful podcast and work and content. She does. She really she focuses on kids, but she's really working on parents relationship with their inner child and by extension their parenting. [00:29:43] But she talks about something called, I've called it the Gap, but she calls it the learning space. So with kids, most of their frustration, tension and meltdowns happen between meeting a moment or. A moment arising and knowing how to meet the moment. And that learning space is usually the gap in knowing or understanding of this is what's arisen and I don't know how to meet this moment. [00:30:04] Right? And then if their context or their ability to meet it, if the moment exceeds their ability that's usually when there's a lot of pain or big feelings. Right. And I think with adults, that's usually where I see self-doubt, rumination anxiety, self-destructive tendencies. [00:30:23] Come in and you're right. You're, I love that you said we're never really still, I mean, one that's just true based on science and physics. We're never still that's actually one of the, like, there's like two necessary components, maybe three to being a living, being or a living entity. [00:30:36] I think, what is it? Movement, cell division, reproduction, and, I don't know, something else. Hey, anyone here pop off in the comments if you're a science boss, please gold star for you. Please. But but yeah, we're never truly still. And so even when you feel stagnant and stuck and even hearing you say that I'm actually processing in real time, one of the things that I have done that I, I discovered by accident, but probably because my body knew better than my mind did. [00:31:04] I would, it often does. I would take my feelings on walks. I would, I talked about that movement is essential if you are literally feeling stuck. I tell, that's what I tell everybody. Anytime they're spiraling. Which it's understandable. Go for a walk. Even if it is five minutes, walk up and down your stairs. [00:31:22] Or at the least one of my favorite things thank you Instagram reels for sucking up so much of my life at times in the hospital, but sometimes, but it's, sometimes it's, it is the perfect escape. It's okay to let the pressure off of ourselves. But there was this one that I saw it was this therapist who was like in her seventies and she was in Ireland and she's walking around in like this, you know, the quintessential Ireland landscape. [00:31:47] And she said, I tell all of my clients when you have a problem or a worry or something that's making you feel like you need to hurry, walk outside where you can see the sky and look up. Because the moment you remove a ceiling from your view, from your your line of sight, your mind opens with it. [00:32:08] And possibilities grow. And I have experienced that so often. And you think about it where you, when you're in a confined space. It only adds to those feelings of I'm stuck or I'm out of options, or I can't deal with this. But when you go outside and the world is just showing you how big it is and how small you are, there's actually a ton of comfort in that. [00:32:35] There's, I've also read and heard that there's something about the way that our eyes sort of gently move and follow and track side to side. Yeah. The movement around us that activates a similar calming sensation that our body experiences in REM sleep. Because if you're tracking a bird or tracking a squirrel, or just simply seeing like the trees and movement, track your kids. [00:32:55] Right. That'll keep you, your eyes all over the place. Girl. But like, 'cause right now we're facing a computer screen and we're in, we're under lights. Like, it's a very I mean, it's a lovely container, but it's a sterile container by comparison of being outside. And I Right. I do think that sometimes, like, like Lifeing. [00:33:11] It can be hard, and I never wanna oversimplify holding the challenges and moving through the challenges. Right. And yet I think sometimes when something feels overly, when something feels complex and impossible, it's almo. I, my instinct is to abandon the basics. And that is always the place to start. [00:33:32] That's always the place to start, is to go back to the basics. [00:33:35] Knowing what you know now what. Do you think the version of you, I wrote down three years ago, but I wanna go back to two years ago bef, like as you were navigating all the travel plans and the decision to go to the UK for your daughter's surgery, what do you think that version of Ashlyn needed to hear or needed to know? [00:33:55] And then the follow up question to that, after you answers, do you think she would've believed you? [00:33:59] It's really funny that you're asking this question because I actually had a conversation yesterday with a neighbor's daughter who is a film student, and this question has actually been going through my mind a lot lately about, I wonder where my life would be if I'd known this in my early thirties, if I'd known, or if I had known this in my twenties. [00:34:23] And I kept kind of going backwards like, I didn't know this then. Oh maybe if I'd known this. And I kept just, like I said, looking back and then what I realized is. It's so important that I didn't know those things because I had to experience them with the challenges. I had to climb the mountains for the first time to really understand the importance of gaining those skills for myself. So I actually think that Ashlyn, a couple years ago, I may have wanted to hear, I, what I wanted to hear was, you're making the right decision. I wanted to be validated by doctors, by people who I typically refer to as the ones who have the alphabet after their name. [00:35:06] Can somebody please just tell me, check, you know, you're making the right choice. Or this is what I would do if it were my child. And I wanted it so desperately that I, it did almost prevent me from going. But I am blessed that because of other experiences before that, right where pain had started to evolve into a guide for my life, a way of understanding what is most important to me. [00:35:37] It clarifies a lot. Exactly. Because often, you know, pain and fear are often about things we can't control, right? And what it showed me was that I don't need guaranteed outcomes to be able to sleep at night. I know that if I don't give it everything, including the kitchen sink, I won't be able to sleep at night. [00:36:03] I won't be able to look at Emery when she's an adult and tell her. We tried absolutely everything we could to give you the best quality of life, and that's what I needed to be able to give her. In order for me to feel good about the mom I am. And that's what was most important to me at that time. [00:36:23] So it sounds like maybe you trust in your ability to meet the moment enough that you don't think you would've gone back and told yourself anything? No, I think, and that's something that, like I said, I'd been thinking about a lot, like how many times if I'd only known this, if I if I'd only held my boundaries or if, or you know, these standards or, you know, all the things I could have done differently. [00:36:48] But as I said at the beginning of this, I feel like I have lived a thousand lives and become. A thousand new versions of myself, but you don't become your next self without going through something that carves away at you to reveal it. We don't grow through the easy no we stay stagnant. And besides small talk, my biggest fear in life is staying stagnant. [00:37:20] God, can we just let go of small talk? Oh my gosh. We all have a weather app and we all know the traffic patterns at this point. Like, do you know what's so funny about the weather app? I'm gonna use it every day. I treat my husband like the weather app, and we have an Alexa, like in, literally, like, I'll ask him what the temperature is and he'll be like. [00:37:41] Alexa. I just, oh my goodness. It's like those basic the basic like things of moving through life. I don't know why. It's like I've, I have this like faux that's of publicist. I'm like, I don't know what I'm, so what's the weather? I can't look out the window. I can't ask my own Alexa. [00:37:56] I always think, I think it's, I think it's more like, I think it's fair to acknowledge those as high. There's higher priorities that take up front of mind space. That's right. That's right. Things' so focused on the big things. Right? Yes. It's okay. We're not meant to like, you know, and I think that's another, that's one point I feel really compelled to bring up in this conversation based on all these things we've talked about, you know? [00:38:20] Yes. thank you for the chance to share what Parent Empowerment Network does, and the Empowered By Hope podcast is about addressing the real hard, the messy like, because as far as we're concerned, like once you get the news, your child is not okay. You're living in the messy middle from there on out. [00:38:36] And it can make you, or it can break you. And we're there to tell everybody, we promise this will make you. Even with worst case scenario, and that's a bold statement, but, you know, but it's one you've lived and I exactly. And I've seen countless others live, right? But I think it's so important that everybody, you know, I guess my dream would be if everybody could just realize we are not meant to carry pain and hardship and struggle by ourselves. [00:39:07] That's really what Parent Empowerment Network does. That's really what our podcast does, is it directly says to everybody who gets a chance to interact with us or who we have the honor to meet with. It just says, Hey, you are not expected to hold this alone. You know, put some of that on our plate. [00:39:24] Let's hold it together because it'll be better for everybody. It's not just you is like, again, that's what frees you from a victim mentality. You are not the only one who's ever experienced this. Right. You are not the only one who has suffered this way. And in by no means it's not to minimize. [00:39:40] Right. Exactly. It's not belittling it, it's not, it's definitely not dismissing it. But it's meant to serve as a lighthouse. Right. Our stories are unique. Yes, of course. And so that's, and I think that's what is endlessly, I will never be bored having an in-depth. Not small talk with the love of God, but like, I will never I will be endlessly fascinated by other people. [00:40:01] Because the stories are unique. Yeah. But there is a common thread that we can all see ourselves in or relate to. That, it's so enriching. Yeah. It's almost like, maybe because it's spring and, but I'm thinking it's like the pain is like the compost. Yeah. Something has to die in rotten decay in order to nurture something new. To grow. Yep. Exactly. And I, and that pain serves as fur. It's fertilizing the new, the next round of growth. Right. Yeah. It's not making anything vanish or destroying it, it's just, but it has to break down to build back up. I think that's why mosaics are my favorite type of art. [00:40:39] Yeah. I have such a strong connection to any piece that I see that's made up of a mosaic. And I remember that coming true for me when my dad had his massive stroke and. You know, he was completely debilitated, couldn't speak for himself, couldn't move his own body. He lived like that almost two years. But I remember getting really close to a couple key therapists in his life. [00:41:04] And I remember just after he passed, I got them both a small gift. It was these little mosaic art pieces for them. And I said, when I saw those, I knew that this was the right thing because you didn't see my dad as a destroyed person. You saw him as for the broken pieces. He was that to be put back, to be put together into something that was new and beautiful on its own. [00:41:33] And that's what I feel like pain has the ability to do for all of us. It's okay. And I to acknowledge that you are broken. But it's also just as important to acknowledge that you can be remade into something. You, the old you is gone. You know, when we go through something awful hard, unimaginable it's really easy to think that I will feel this way forever. There is a finality that we attach to painful experiences and it takes often somebody from the outside to gently help us realize that's not reality. I often, when I'm in that transition and I'm not aware or I'm just not ready to admit there are either, there's usually it's I there's usually things I wanna carry along with me. [00:42:28] Yep. It's like. Like an old dingy snugly blanket or like a stuffed animal that like has like holes worn in and like an eyes popped off. It's just but I when I've gone through those transitions, it's saying goodbye to maybe friendships that aren't serving me. [00:42:42] Yep. Or titles, roles levels of output expectations, stories, ways of being and the way, and to go back to pain as a professor, which is going to be the title. That it's only when I try to take the old way of being or the old relationship that is no longer serving into my new now reality. [00:43:04] When it feels anything other than good. Yeah. That's information exactly that it's showing me something and. That curiosity over constriction can also for me look like curiosity over criticism. And because that criticism is usually either dialed inward, what's wrong with me? Right. Or what's wrong with them? [00:43:25] Versus , what is happening Exactly. What's going on? What is this showing me? And I would say probably saying goodbye to relationships or friendships has probably been the hardest. Yeah. The hard, because there is this idea that I'm like if I like it, and it's like in a possessive way. [00:43:42] It's, if I like you forever. And I, and of course that is true. I mean, it, there's nobody who's been in my life that's added value that I don't appreciate. Right. But but I think that the shedding. Yeah. It's like I, I want the next thing, but I also don't wanna let the old thing go. [00:43:56] Right. And so it's, I think I've spent a lot of time and energy trying to like, pull that thing with me. Whatever it is and whatever that stage. But I think that there's when you can fully embrace, 'cause what I'm hearing from you is when you can fully embrace I am different now. [00:44:11] Yep. This is different. This mosaic. I'm not, I may not be able to carry water like I was as a vase. Right. But I'm gonna look really great as this. Yeah. And the other thing I wanna shift to before, before I get to your, don't cut your own bangs question. What I wanna ask you, you've mentioned art a couple of different times. [00:44:28] And this is to, to reference Dr. Martha Beck again. She has done a lot of incredible work in the last couple years where a way to. Step out of anxiety is not to try to access calm. 'cause we talked about going for a walk, right? So, because as much as I love these big conversations, it can be sometimes like, what is something tangible I can actually hold onto? [00:44:53] So walking with something we talked about community and connection with something else we talked about, but Art, I wanna talk about that for a moment because that is what my book was for me. Yeah. It was I created something that only that felt like it was to serve me. The process of interacting with that idea was so delightful and so delicious and so fun that I was like, I feel like I'm just the luckiest person that like this is, oh wow, I get to play with this thing. [00:45:21] Yeah. And it wants to play with me. And I don't feel that all the time. Like sometimes it's origami or doodling or coloring with my daughter. But to go back to Dr. Martha Beck's work that the opposite of anxiety is not calm, it's creativity. Oh, I love that. And you have by default really spoken through, like just healing through creating. [00:45:43] Oh, absolutely. And also there's something about, 'cause calm, there's something about calm that like, we must be still, and granted I love meditation, but like, I must be still, I must be calm. But when you are holding something that is buzzing and shaking or heavy or hot, like just some emotions are hot, like you, it's like you wanna move it through your hands or your words or your body and make something, right. [00:46:06] And you made me, she made me this bracelet before we started this episode. So like, it feels like you have a relationship with creativity too. A hundred percent. Creativity is a lifeline. And I feel like, and the most chaotic moments of my life have been the least I'm my least creative and I think it's a really. [00:46:29] Valuable, tangible thing for anybody to take from this conversation is if you are feeling out of control, lean into something as simple as I'm obsessed with those adult, you know, like the coloring books. Yes. You know, for adults to have like tons of different like lines all over the place that you have to be like really specific to keep the marker in there. [00:46:51] It can't, I do get a little bugged when it like bleeds over to the next section, but, , it's okay. I know I'm working through my, , my stressors at that moment. But yes, giving yourself a creative outlet, it's like taking a big drink of water after you've been exercising and you are so parched. [00:47:07] And I also agree that , calm sounds great in theory, but for me I feel like the more important, like the word that's become more important or I'm better able to. Absorb is the idea of am I grounded? Are my feet touching the ground? I can still have a lot going on, but when I'm like rising higher, you know, off the ground, 'cause like, I'm like a bird at this point, just flapping my arms so fast, right. [00:47:35] That I'm actually taking flight. I'm not in my best head space, but when I can just take a moment to literally just ground myself, make sure that my feet are, whether it's in the grass or sit down like this. And a conversation with a friend, somebody who really knows you is a great moment for that. [00:47:53] It's a great way to remind you who you are is somebody else. Sometimes I talk all the time about the value of when you can connect with somebody who feels with you, not just for you. Oh my gosh. It makes the world so much lighter and goodness. I mean, huh. That's probably if I could have answered the question I asked you a little bit ago, what's something that you could have if I could have told my former therapist self, like when I very when I first started, you're there to hold space for people to feel and feel with them. [00:48:23] Right. Exactly. You're not there. It's sacred. Yeah. It's there's nothing, one, it's like, there's nothing I can tell someone who's deeply in pain that they're actually gonna No. , That's, the words are just like, right. It's just noise. Yeah. And not to take anything. I'm sure I have clients who have been impacted by words. [00:48:40] But having a safe space to feel your feelings free of judgment. Is one of the reasons why I love journaling so much, but also doing that in communion Yeah. With another human right who expects nothing of you. I love Elizabeth Gilbert has language I love, like there's no precious outcome. [00:48:57] Like I can, that I can sit and have space with you or I can make plans with you or be, and there's no precious outcome. You don't have to perform for me. Right. You don't have to be anything for me. Like we can just be that is what a gift. Yes, that is. I just want to, this conversation has inspired way too many thoughts, but in the best way. [00:49:15] But something that hit me and then I think we could absolutely move on to Yeah. This the cut your bangs question. But what I've realized even in our conversation is that logic is not loud . our emotions are loud and they get louder and louder. The more we. Push them back the more we ignore them. [00:49:36] Think of your kids until they, when they need your attention. Because they deserve your attention. They do. The best thing we can do is acknowledge those emotions and just, even if it's as simple as, it's totally understandable. I feel this way right now. That is such a freeing sentence. Of course, I feel this way right now. [00:49:58] That was some serious shit that I just went through. Yeah . of course, I feel, and it doesn't have to make sense when those feelings hit the timing a lot of times feelings for me, I've found won't hit until I'm in a safe space much further down the road. Yes. And it's like being T-boned, like yes, totally out of the blue. [00:50:19] But that's also what happens to kids when they have tantrums. Ah, yeah. They'll hold. And then when they're finally either home at the end of the day or something, when the container is so full and they're finally in a place where they feel safe, they'll erupt over an orange peel not being peeled correctly. [00:50:32] Or , or a banana not being peeled correctly. Oh gosh. And it's not that, don't even start me on string cheese. God. Oh God. Parenting is fun. The best, but No, but you're right. Sometimes, I think that's probably why I cry almost with like every movie and TV show I watch. [00:50:47] Yeah. Because the emotions are just always right there and I just need a place to let it trickle out. Right. And that's okay. And I think, but just not judging ourselves for feelings. And then I think once we give that space or the feelings, the sooner we can do that, the sooner that logic, you know, like you, you mentioned multiple times, I know this, then you give logic. [00:51:13] The space that it needs to speak to you in a calm and quiet manner that you can actually trust. And that's where I think that those gut feelings truly come from. Those inner knowings are, when you've allowed space for the emotions first, given them their due. So then the logic can start to talk to you because it's never going to yell for your attention. [00:51:35] No. And I think we want it to, but that's not the way it works. And that's okay. A lot of times things make sense in hindsight, oh gosh, hindsight's 2020. Always. South Park has a great episode. If people if you have just like a dark sense of humor and you wanna laugh at, there's a character called Captain Hindsight and it's really funny. [00:51:54] . So yeah, a lot of times things don't make sense until we're. A little bit more removed from them. Yep. And some what I have found to be helpful, I've noticed you using your hands. Yeah. And I find when I am, when my mind is really active and I need it to stop or slow down or I just i'll sometimes even throw my hands up. Yeah. And I'll say, and even saying. I'm feeling something and just to myself in my kitchen. 'cause I'm almost always , because I work from home, I'm either like in my office or in my kitchen, like I'm feeling something. As soon as you did that, it's gonna show on video. [00:52:25] I like saw from the corner of my eye myself, naturally going, whew. Yeah. Just sound like inhale. Exhale. Yes. It's like something is being felt. Something's happening. I don't know what it is, but something's happening. And I think, in a lot of ways too, like that's how we have these internal smoke signals. [00:52:42] Yeah. And it's the same way, like your smoke detector in your house doesn't know the difference between burnt toast and something on fire, right? But it will beep when it senses. Yeah. When it senses something. And so my body is like sensing something. Is this a threat? [00:52:56] Are we safe? Yes, we're safe. Oh, we're likely. We just needed water. We're just dehydrated. Uhhuh. Or we just, yeah. So any number of things. But that was so good. Thank you. And yes, I would love, love, love to know your don't cut your own bang moment. And for anybody who is new to the podcast, 'cause I think there are some new people here. [00:53:15] Thank you for being here. Don't cut Your own bang moment is a moment where you went all in on something like cutting your own bangs, you grabbed some scissors, you watched a YouTube video, you're like, I got this. And you go, and then, oh no, this wasn't what I thought it would be. But the value in a don't Cut Your own Bang moment is not only that we can share in the silliness of humanity and mistakes, but also like maybe we learn something from it. [00:53:42] So, Ashlyn? Yes. I would love to hear your Don't cut your own bang moment. Oh my goodness. I think that there's probably a plethora of them. Oh, of course. And, let's see here. I'm even, I tried to have one prepared, and then I got excited about the rest of our conversation. Oh my gosh. Don't worry. So, okay I'll share one. [00:53:58] So what's a good, don't a good, oh. I invited my husband to record a podcast with me because I thought it would just be, , fun to bring him back on. And what I realized was I didn't prepare him for it at all. I just set up lights and set up a camera and asked him to sit. And he was so, visibly like he was trying, he was sitting, he was trying. [00:54:23] But I could just tell, again, something's happening. And I could tell he was a little uncomfortable and a little stiff. And I kept, because our eyes look out. My first assumption is, what's wrong out there? And I was like, what are you okay? What's wrong? And he he was , I don't really know what I'm supposed to be doing. [00:54:41] And then I was like. Oh, no, it was snip the bangs. I didn't provide any context. I didn't give him any preparation for what we'd be talking about, why we'd be talking like he had no context. And the whole setup is different, uhhuh. And it was such a humbling, settling moment of context. [00:55:04] It's I'm writing something right now about this idea of play. I'm a freedom loving, freedom seeking play hungry, greedy person right now. I want more play. I could never get enough. But what makes play feel fun and safe is to understand the context. Yeah. , There's rules in a game. [00:55:20] Otherwise, what is it? And I, my first instinct is to buck. Rules. I don't like ingredient lists. I don't like recipes. I just wanna feel my way through it. But, if you wanna make a beautiful croissant, you can't just feel your way through that. There's a very exacting way to do it. And so, it, it was such a one, I'm endlessly grateful for him and his patients with me. [00:55:40] I'm grateful that , our dynamics not new, so he probably knew what was going on, but just did yeah he's pretty sweet that way. But I, it was such a refresher that , if I wanna create a space and container to play safely with people Yeah. I need to give them the context. Absolutely. And it doesn't matter how long I've known someone, how well I know someone. [00:55:59] I laughed at myself because I, the part of the reason why it feels funny to me, but in like a humbling way. I thought the problem was him for like the first 15 minutes. I was like, what dude? Relax. I was like, what? Is he doing it right? [00:56:12] Yeah. like come on. And I was like. Oh no. Context. Zero. Oh my goodness. So that was a great one. Thank you. Okay, I'm gonna do mine in like short seconds because this one just hap this that inspired me perfectly. So my 8-year-old son and I are both going to the same therapist right now. [00:56:30] I'm a believer everybody should have at least an annual checkup with a therapist, but that's a great endorsement. Everyone should have an you annual checkup. You welcome, reach out to Danielle, she's fantastic. If you live in Indiana, by all means. If not, we'll help you find someone. Yes. And also order the book. [00:56:44] Yes, order the book. Get resting the wall risk. Get treasured. Yes. But go on please. So anyway one, one of the things that my I, the reason I love the person we're working with is because she's the first therapist I've worked with when it comes to, with my kids, she actually tells me what I can work on rather than just , you're doing the best you can and like you just love 'em. [00:57:03] And like, yes, I know, but that is not helping me. And so one of the things that got pointed out to me. Was so Cole , has very low frustration tolerance, like more so than is necessarily healthy for an 8-year-old. And of course with all the trauma with our his sister, our journey, it's understandable. [00:57:22] So we're working on that. What she kindly pointed out to me was, okay, we could work on his, but do you also realize that your tolerance for acceptable emotions is about this big? Oh, she's , therapist, be therapist Uhhuh. She's , but there's like a whole lot more emo like, she's , it's like a whole rainbow. [00:57:42] We need a whole arc for acceptable emotions. She's so you need to stop making it your responsibility to control which emotions he experiences. And it's up to you to provide the solid ground for him no matter which emotion comes up for him. And I will say that has changed my parenting in the last week. [00:58:04] More than maybe anything has like faster than anything. Because all of a sudden I'm like, of course it's acceptable that his sister just made him extremely mad. Of course it's understandable that he's jealous or sad or excited or whatever the feeling is, but it also doesn't define him as right or wrong, what emotions he's experiencing in that moment. [00:58:28] And the big thing was the realization that every emotion he experiences is not a direct reflection of who I am as a parent. No. Because that was what I needed to let go of that any emotion that is considered negative that my child has doesn't mean. That I'm doing a bad job as a parent. Oh my God. [00:58:49] That is one. What a beautiful. Don't cut. Thank you. With Dr. Sarah. Yes. Thank you, Dr. Sarah. You'd be therapizing all up in that session. That was so good. And it's the, that to me is a great example that hard truths can always be delivered with kindness. Yeah. But I think the big important thing there is you had the right context. [00:59:12] Exactly. You went to her for that information. Right. It wasn't like someone on the street. But the thing that we can't give someone what we don't have. Exactly. And I actually think that what you just said, if there was ever an endorsement for what. Self-care actually is not the commoditized, right. [00:59:29] Faux sense of, I'm gonna create a problem and I'm going to prescribe collagen. Did you know that the reason why, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah is these things that you need to buy and, oh, my program for blah, blah, blah, blah. And I'm gonna, I have all that stuff. I'm not I'm wanna, I wanna keep it in perspective. [00:59:45] I am drinking the same Kool-Aid 'cause I'm getting sent the same algorithm ads that we're all getting sent. Like I'm doing colostrum now. I don't even know. Like, I just, because I was like, my gut might grow up I own, but anyway but I think self-care and the best possible context is when you nurture. [01:00:03] And heal yourself. It becomes the medicine. Yes. Yes. And the offering for the other people in your life that you love most. It's like as you increase your own palette of what you're able to allow yourself to experience, you're then also able to see it in your son and give it to him. That is so beautiful and it's hard. [01:00:26] Sometimes, but it's some God that a well timed, articulated loving truth like that can change your life. Yeah. That is amazing. Thank you. I don't know, we can't top that. That was good. We're good. That was real good. Ashlyn Thompson, thank you so much for coming back and we're going to have you back. [01:00:43] You have to come back. Yes. And you're coming over to Empowered by Hope very soon. I would love that so much. And Yes. And so all of the ways, if you or anyone you know in your life has been impacted by a little one with complex me complex medical issues and you want some support, you want some information, you want some resources. [01:01:01] The link in the show notes will have every way that you can connect with Ashlyn, her business partner, and what was formally Charlotte's Hope Foundation, what is now the Parent Empowerment Network. Pick up all the books, all the resources, everything I talked about too for my stuff is also in there. [01:01:16] But , it's all linked for you there. So I hope that you get what you need and. Thanks so much, . Oh my gosh. [01:01:21] If you've ever wanted to pick up journaling,

Our seventh Lang Fairy Tale is one a short one but a good one: Why The Sea Is Salt - a quest for earthly happiness through the power of cured meats, seasoning, and a magical hand-mill that can make anything. Just don't ask us where the Old Man came from, or what happened to him... If you are unfamiliar with the Lang Fairy Tales, these seminal collections were assembled between 1889 and 1913 by a married couple, folklorists and translators Nora and Andrew Lang, with most of the work done to compile them completed by Nora, also known as Leonora Blanche Alleyne.Assembled and published in 12 colour-coded "Fairy Books," the corpus the Langs put together included 798 fairy tales from across cultures, many of which had never before been translated into English.They were amongst the most influential books of their time, changing the course of children's literature - although they're hardly just for children, and often deal with quite challenging concepts.Today, purchasing a complete set of the Lang Fairy Books in good condition costs over £4,000 ($5,000+).Thankfully, the collections are all out of copyright, meaning that we can now tell these stories, in podcast form, many for the first time, and share them with a global audience, for free.Our plan is to release the stories between main series of Three Ravens, performing them straight (though with plenty of silly voices) letting the tales speak for themselves in all their madcap, sharp-edged, often quite bizarre glory.The only edits we have made are to amend some culturally-insensitive epithets, which typically pertain to ethnicity, with any such edits made by Eleanor Conlon.Three Ravens is an English Myth and Folklore podcast hosted by award-winning writers Martin Vaux and Eleanor Conlon.Released on Mondays, each weekly episode focuses on one of England's 39 historic counties, exploring the history, folklore and traditions of the area, from ghosts and mermaids to mythical monsters, half-forgotten heroes, bloody legends, and much, much more. Then, and most importantly, the pair take turns to tell a new version of an ancient story from that county - all before discussing what that tale might mean, where it might have come from, and the truths it reveals about England's hidden past...Bonus Episodes are released on Thursdays plus Local Legends episodes on Saturdays - interviews with acclaimed authors, folklorists, podcasters and historians with unique perspectives on that week's county.With a range of exclusive content on Patreon, too, including audio ghost tours, the Three Ravens Newsletter, and monthly Three Ravens Film Club episodes about folk horror films from across the decades, why not join us around the campfire and listen in?Learn more at www.threeravenspodcast.com, join our Patreon at www.patreon.com/threeravenspodcast, and find links to our social media channels here: https://linktr.ee/threeravenspodcast Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On March 21, 2002, John Darwin left his home to go kayaking along the shoreline in Seaton Carew, England, and vanished. Just two months later he was declared dead. Five years later a stunning development occurred which gave the investigation new life.For bonus episodes and outtakes visit: patreon.com/generationwhyListen ad free with Wondery+. Join Wondery+ for exclusives, binges, early access, and ad free listening. Available in the Wondery App. https://wondery.app.link/generationwhy.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of Mercia played an important role in the development of England. Although it was sandwiched between the other Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of Northumbria and Wessex, unlike those two places, it lacks a great historical chronicle. And, according to Max Adams, this means it's been somewhat overlooked in the story of the birth of the Anglo-Saxon state. Talking to David Musgrove, Max explains why we ought to know more about Mercia. (Ad) Max Adams is the author of The Mercian Chronicles: King Offa and the Birth of the Anglo-Saxon State, AD 630–918 (Bloomsbury, 2025). Buy it now from Waterstones: https://go.skimresources.com?id=71026X1535947&xcust=historyextra-social-histboty&xs=1&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.waterstones.com%2Fbook%2Fthe-mercian-chronicles%2Fmax-adams%2F9781838933258. The HistoryExtra podcast is produced by the team behind BBC History Magazine. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices