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I was delighted to talk to the historian Helen Castor (who writes The H Files by Helen Castor) about her new book The Eagle and the Hart. I found that book compulsive, and this is one of my favourite interviews so far. We covered so much: Dickens, Melville, Diana Wynne Jones, Hilary Mantel, whether Edward III is to blame for the Wars of the Roses, why Bolingbroke did the right thing, the Paston Letters, whether we should dig up old tombs for research, leaving academia, Elizabeth I, and, of course, lots of Shakespeare. There is a full transcript below.Henry: Is there anything that we fundamentally know about this episode in history that Shakespeare didn't know?Helen: That's an extremely good question, and I'm tempted now to say no.Helen told me what is hardest to imagine about life in the fourteenth century.I think it's relatively easy to imagine a small community or even a city, because we can imagine lots of human beings together, but how relationships between human beings happen at a distance, not just in terms of writing a letter to someone you know, but how a very effective power structure happens across hundreds of miles in the absence of those things is the thing that has always absolutely fascinated me about the late Middle Ages. I think that's because it's hard, for me at least, to imagine.Good news to any publishers reading this. Helen is ready and willing to produce a complete edition of the Paston Letters. They were a bestseller when they were published a hundred years ago, but we are crying out for a complete edition in modern English.Henry: If someone wants to read the Paston Letters, but they don't want to read Middle English, weird spelling, et cetera, is there a good edition that they can use?Helen: Yes, there is an Oxford World's Classic. They're all selected. There isn't a complete edition in modern spelling. If any publishers are listening, I would love to do one. Henry: Yes, let's have it.Helen: Let's have it. I would really, really love to do that.Full TranscriptHenry: Today I am talking to the historian, Helen Castor. Helen is a former fellow of Sydney Sussex College in Cambridge. She has written several books of history. She is now a public historian, and of course, she has a Substack. The H Files by Helen CastorWe are going to talk mostly about her book, The Eagle and the Hart, which is all about Richard II and Henry IV. I found this book compulsive, so I hope you will read it too. Helen, welcome.Helen: Thank you very much for having me, Henry.Henry: You recently read Bleak House.Helen: I did.Henry: What did you think?Helen: I absolutely loved it. It was a long time since I'd read any Dickens. I read quite a lot when I was young. I read quite a lot of everything when I was young and have fallen off that reader's perch, much to my shame. The first page, that description of the London fog, the London courts, and I thought, "Why have I not been doing it for all these years?"Then I remembered, as so often with Dickens, the bits I love and the bits I'm less fond of, the sentimentality, the grotesquerie I'm less fond of, but the humour and the writing. There was one bit that I have not been able to read then or any of the times I've tried since without physically sobbing. It's a long time since a book has done that to me. I don't want to spoil it for anyone who hasn't read it, but--Henry: I'm sure I know what you mean. That's quite a sentimental passage.Helen: It is, but not sentimental in the way that I find myself objecting to. I think I really respond viscerally to this sentimentalising of some of his young women characters. I find that really off-putting, but I think now I'm a parent, and particularly I'm a parent of a boy [laughter]. I think it's that sense of a child being completely alone with no one to look after them, and then finding some people, but too late for a happy ending.Henry: Too late.Helen: Yes.Henry: You've been reading other classic novels, I think, Moby Dick?Helen: I'm in the middle of Moby Dick as we speak. I'm going very slowly, partly because I'm trying to savour every sentence. I love the sentence so much as a form. Melville is just astonishing, and also very, very funny in a way I hadn't expected to keep laughing out loud, sometimes because there is such humour in a sentence.Sometimes I'm just laughing because the sentence itself seems to have such audacity and that willingness to go places with sentences that sometimes I feel we've lost in the sort of sense of rules-based sentences instead of just sticking a semicolon and keep going. Why not, because it's so gorgeous and full of the joy of language at that point? Anyway, I'm ranting now, but--Henry: No, I think a lot of rules were instituted in the early 20th century that said you can and cannot do all these things, and writers before that point had not often followed those rules. I think what it has led to is that writers now, they can't really control a long sentence, in the sense that Melville and Dickens will do a long sentence, and it is a syntactically coherent thing, even though it's 60, 70 longer words. It's not just lots of stuff, and then, and then. The whole thing has got a beautiful structure that makes sense as a unit. That's just not obvious in a lot of writing now.Helen: I think that's exactly right. Partly, I've been reading some of the Melville out loud, and having just got onto the classification of whales, you can see I'm going very slowly. Those sentences, which are so long, but it's exactly that. If you read them out loud, and you follow the sense, and the punctuation, however irregular it might be in modern terms, gives you the breathing, you just flow on it, and the excitement of that, even or perhaps especially when one is talking about the classification of whales. Just joyful.Henry: Will we be seeing more very long sentences in your next book?Helen: I think I have to get a bit better at it. The habit that I was conscious of anyway, but became acutely so when I had to read my own audiobook for the first time is that I think I write in a very visual way. That is how I read because mostly it's silent.I discovered or rediscovered that often what I do when I want to write a very long sentence is I start the sentence and then I put a diversion or extra information within em dashes in the middle of the sentence. That works on the page because you can see spatially. I love that way of reading, I love seeing words in space.A lot of different kinds of text, both prose and poetry, I read in space like that. If you're reading to be heard, then the difficulty of breaking into a sentence with, whether it's brackets or em dashes or whatever, and then rejoining the sentence further down has its own challenges. Perhaps I ought to try and do less of that and experiment more with a Melvillian Dickensian onward flow. I don't know what my editor will think.Henry: What has brought you back to reading novels like this?Helen: I was wondering that this morning, actually, because I'm very aware having joined Substack, and of course, your Substack is one of the ones that is leading me further in this direction, very inspiringly, is discovering that lots of other people are reading and reading long novels now too. It reminded me of that thing that anyone with children will know that you have a baby and you call it something that you think only you have thought of, and then four years later, you call and you discover half the class is called that name. You wonder what was in the water that led everybody in that direction.I've just seen someone tweet this morning about how inspired they are by the builder next door who, on the scaffolding, is blasting the audiobook Middlemarch to the whole neighborhood.Henry: Oh my god. Amazing.Helen: It's really happening. Insofar as I can work out what led me as opposed to following a group, which clearly I am in some sense, I think the world at the moment is so disquieting, and depressing, and unnerving, that I think for me, there was a wish to escape into another world and another world that would be very immersive, not removed from this world completely. One that is very recognizably human.I think when I was younger, when I was in my teens and 20s, I loved reading science fiction and fantasy before it was such a genre as it is now. I'm a huge fan of Diana Wynne Jones and people like that.Henry: Oh, my god, same. Which one is your favorite?Helen: Oh, that is an impossible question to answer, partly because I want to go back and read a lot of them. Actually, I've got something next to me, just to get some obscurity points. I want to go back to Everard's Ride because there is a story in here that is based on the King's square. I don't know if I'm saying that right, but early 15th century, the story of the imprisoned King of Scotland when he was in prison in England. That one's in my head.The Dalemark Quartet I love because of the sort of medieval, but then I love the ones that are pure, more science fantasy. Which is your favorite? Which should I go back to first?Henry: I haven't read them all because I only started a couple of years ago. I just read Deep Secret, and I thought that was really excellent. I was in Bristol when I read it quite unwittingly. That was wonderful.Helen: Surrounded by Diana Wynne Jones' land. I only discovered many years into an obsession that just meant that I would read every new one while there were still new ones coming out. I sat next to Colin Burrow at a dinner in--Henry: Oh my god.Helen: I did sort of know that he was her son, but monstered him for the whole time, the whole course of sitting together, because I couldn't quite imagine her in a domestic setting, if you like, because she came up with all these extraordinary worlds. I think in days gone by, I went into more obviously imaginary worlds. I think coming back to it now, I wanted something big and something that I really could disappear into. I've been told to read Bleak House for so many decades and felt so ashamed I hadn't. Having done that, I thought, "Well, the whale."Henry: Have you read Diana Wynne Jones' husband's books, John Burrow? Because that's more in your field.Helen: It is, although I'm ashamed to say how badly read I am in medieval literary scholarship. It's weird how these academic silos can operate, shouldn't, probably don't for many, many people. I always feel I'm on horribly thin ground, thin ice when I start talking about medieval literature because I know how much scholarship is out there, and I know how much I haven't read. I must put John Burrow on my list as well.Henry: He's very readable. He's excellent.Helen: I think I can imagine, but I must go into it.Henry: Also, his books are refreshingly short. Your husband is a poet, so there's a lot of literature in your life at the moment.Helen: There is. When we met, which was 10 years ago-- Again, I don't think of myself as knowledgeable about poetry in general, but what was wonderful was discovering how much we had in common in the writing process and how much I could learn from him. To me, one of the things that has always been extremely important in my writing is the sentence, the sound of a sentence, the rhythm of a sentence folded into a paragraph.I find it extremely hard to move on from a paragraph if it's not sitting right yet. The sitting right is as much to do with sound and rhythm as it is to do with content. The content has to be right. It means I'm a nightmare to edit because once I do move on from a paragraph, I think it's finished. Obviously, my editor might beg to differ.I'm very grateful to Thomas Penn, who's also a wonderful historian, who's my editor on this last book, for being so patient with my recalcitrance as an editee. Talking to my husband about words in space on the page, about the rhythm, about the sound, about how he goes about writing has been so valuable and illuminating.I hope that the reading I've been doing, the other thing I should say about going back to big 19th-century novels is that, of course, I had the enormous privilege and learning curve of being part of a Booker jury panel three years ago. That too was an enormous kick in terms of reading and thinking about reading because my co-judges were such phenomenal reading company, and I learned such a lot that year.I feel not only I hope growing as a historian, but I am really, really focusing on writing, reading, being forced out of my bunker where writing is all on the page, starting to think about sound more, think about hearing more, because I think more and more, we are reading that way as a culture, it seems to me, the growth of audiobooks. My mother is adjusting to audiobooks now, and it's so interesting to listen to her as a lifelong, voracious reader, adjusting to what it is to experience a book through sound rather than on the page. I just think it's all fascinating, and I'm trying to learn as I write.Henry: I've been experimenting with audiobooks, because I felt like I had to, and I sort of typically hate audio anything. Jonathan Swift is very good, and so is Diana Wynne Jones.Helen: Interesting. Those two specifically. Is there something that connects the two of them, or are they separately good?Henry: I think they both wrote in a plain, colloquial style. It was very capable of being quite intellectual and had capacity for ideas. Diana Wynne Jones certainly took care about the way it sounded because she read so much to her own children, and that was really when she first read all the children's classics. She had developed for many years an understanding of what would sound good when it was read to a child, I think.Helen: And so that's the voice in her head.Henry: Indeed. As you read her essays, she talks about living with her Welsh grandfather for a year. He was intoning in the chapel, and she sort of comes out of this culture as well.Helen: Then Swift, a much more oral culture.Henry: Swift, of course, is in a very print-heavy culture because he's in London in 1710. We've got coffee houses and all the examiner, and the spectator, and all these people scribbling about each other. I think he was very insistent on what he called proper words in proper places. He became famous for that plain style. It's very carefully done, and you can't go wrong reading that out loud. He's very considerate of the reader that you won't suddenly go, "Oh, I'm in the middle of this huge parenthesis. I don't know how--" As you were saying, Swift-- he would be very deliberate about the placement of everything.Helen: A lot of that has to do with rhythm.Henry: Yes.Helen: Doesn't it? I suppose what I'm wondering, being very ignorant about the 18th century is, in a print-saturated culture, but still one where literacy was less universal than now, are we to assume that that print-saturated culture also incorporated reading out loud —Henry: Yes, exactly so. Exactly so. If you are at home, letters are read out loud. This obviously gives the novelists great opportunities to write letters that have to sort of work both ways. Novels are read out loud. This goes on into the 19th century. Dickens had many illiterate fans who knew his work through it being read to them. Charles Darwin's wife read him novels. When he says, "I love novels," what he means is, "I love it when my wife reads me a novel." [laughs]You're absolutely right. A good part of your audience would come from those listening as well as those reading it.Helen: Maybe we're getting back towards a new version of that with audiobooks expanding in their reach.Henry: I don't know. I saw some interesting stuff. I can't remember who was saying this. Someone was saying, "It's not an oral culture if you're watching short videos. That's a different sort of culture." I think, for us, we can say, "Oh yes, we're like Jonathan Swift," but for the culture at large, I don't know. It is an interesting mixed picture at the moment.Helen: Yes, history never repeats, but we should be wary of writing off any part of culture to do with words.Henry: I think so. If people are reporting builders irritating the neighbourhood with George Eliot, then it's a very mixed picture, right?Helen: It is.Henry: Last literary question. Hilary Mantel has been a big influence on you. What have you taken from her?Helen: That's quite a hard question to answer because I feel I just sit at her feet in awe. If I could point to anything in my writing that could live up to her, I would be very happy. The word that's coming into my head when you phrase the question in that way, I suppose, might be an absolute commitment to precision. Precision in language matters to me so much. Her thought and her writing of whatever kind seems to me to be so precise.Listening to interviews with her is such an outrageous experience because these beautifully, entirely formed sentences come out of her mouth as though that's how thought and language work. They don't for me. [chuckles] I'm talking about her in the present tense because I didn't know her, but I find it hard to imagine that she's not out there somewhere.Henry: She liked ghosts. She might be with us.Helen: She might. I would like to think that. Her writing of whatever genre always seems to me to have that precision, and it's precision of language that mirrors precision of thought, including the ability to imagine herself into somebody else's mind. That's, I suppose, my project as a historian. I'm always trying to experience a lost world through the eyes of a lost person or people, which, of course, when you put it like that, is an impossible task, but she makes it seem possible for her anyway and that's the road I'm attempting to travel one way or another.Henry: What is it about the 14th and 15th centuries that is hardest for us to imagine?Helen: I think this speaks to something else that Hilary Mantel does so extraordinarily well, which is to show us entire human beings who live and breathe and think and feel just as we do in as complex and contradictory and three-dimensional a way as we do, and yet who live in a world that is stripped of so many of the things that we take so much for granted that we find it, I think, hard to imagine how one could function without them.What I've always loved about the late Middle Ages, as a political historian, which is what I think of myself as, is that it has in England such a complex and sophisticated system of government, but one that operates so overwhelmingly through human beings, rather than impersonal, institutionalized, technological structures.You have a king who is the fount of all authority, exercising an extraordinary degree of control over a whole country, but without telephones, without motorized transport, without a professional police service, without a standing army. If we strip away from our understanding of government, all those things, then how on earth does society happen, does rule happen, does government happen?I think it's relatively easy to imagine a small community or even a city, because we can imagine lots of human beings together, but how relationships between human beings happen at a distance, not just in terms of writing a letter to someone you know, but how a very effective power structure happens across hundreds of miles in the absence of those things is the thing that has always absolutely fascinated me about the late Middle Ages. I think that's because it's hard, for me at least, to imagine.Henry: Good. You went to the RSC to watch The Henriad in 2013.Helen: I did.Henry: Is Shakespeare a big influence on this book? How did that affect you?Helen: I suppose this is a long story because Richard II and The Henriad have been-- there is Richard II. Richard II is part of The Henriad, isn't it?Henry: Yes.Helen: Richard II. Henry, see, this is-Henry: The two Henry IVs.Helen: -I'm not Shakespearean. I am. [laughs]Henry: No, it's Richard II, the two Henry IVs, and Henry V. Because, of course, Henry Bolingbroke is in Richard II, and it--Helen: Yes, although I never think of him as really the same person as Henry IV in the Henry IV plays, because he changes so dramatically between the two.Henry: Very often, they have a young actor and an old actor, and of course, in real life, that's insane, right?Helen: It's absolutely insane. I always separate Henry IV, parts I and II, and Henry V off from Richard II because it feels to me as though they operate in rather different worlds, which they do in lots of ways. My story with the Henry ad, now that we've established that I actually know what we're talking about, goes back to when I was in my teens and Kenneth Branagh was playing Henry V in Stratford. I grew up very near Stratford.At 15, 16, watching the young Branagh play Henry V was mind-blowing. I went a whole number of times because, in those days, I don't know how it is now, but you could go and get standing tickets for a fiver on the day. More often than not, if there were spare seats, you would get moved into some extraordinary stall seats at-- I was about to say halftime, I'm a football fan, at the interval.Henry V was the play I knew best for a long time, but at the same time, I'd studied Richard II at school. The Henry IV plays are the ones I know least well. I'm interested now to reflect on the fact that they are the ones that depart most from history. I wonder whether that's why I find them hardest to love, because I'm always coming to the plays from the history. Richard II and Henry V actually have a lot to show us about those kings. They bear very close relationships with a lot of the contemporary chronicles, whereas the Henry IV ones is Shakespeare doing his own thing much more.Particularly, as you've just said, making Henry IV way too old, and/or depending which angle we're looking at it from, making Hotspur way too young, the real Hotspur was three years older than Henry IV. If you want to make Hotspur and how-- your young Turks, you have to make Henry IV old and grey and weary with Northumberland.Back in 2013, the really intense experience I had was being asked to go for a day to join the RSC company on a school trip to Westminster Hall and Westminster Abbey at the beginning of their rehearsal process, so when David Tennant was playing Richard II and Greg Doran was directing. That was absolutely fascinating. I'd been thinking about Richard and Henry for a very long time. Obviously, I was a long way away from writing the book I've just written.Talking to actors is an extraordinary thing for a historian because, of course, to them, these are living characters. They want to know what's in their character's mind. They want to know, quite rightly, the chronological progression of their character's thought. That is something that's become more and more and more and more important to me.The longer I go on writing history, the more intensely attached I am to the need for chronology because if it hasn't happened to your protagonist yet, what are you doing with it? Your protagonist doesn't yet know. We don't know. It's very dramatically clear to us at the moment that we don't know what's happening tomorrow. Any number of outrageous and unpredictable things might happen tomorrow.The same certainly was true in Richard II's reign, goes on being true in Henry IV's reign. That experience, in the wake of which I then went to see Henry IV, parts 1 and 2 in Stratford, was really thought-provoking. The extent to which, even though I'd been working on this period for a long time, and had taught this period, I still was struggling to answer some of those questions.Then I'd just had the similarly amazing experience of having a meeting with the Richard II cast and director at the Bridge Theatre before the Nicholas Heitner production with Jonathan Bailey as Richard went on stage. That was actually towards the end of their rehearsal process. I was so struck that the actor playing Bolingbroke in this production and the actor playing Bolingbroke in the production back in 2013 both asked the same excellent first question, which is so hard for a historian to answer, which is at what point does Bolingbroke decide that he's coming back to claim the crown, not just the Duchy of Lancaster?That is a key question for Bolingbroke in Richard II. Does he already know when he decides he's going to break his exile and come back? Is he challenging for the crown straight away, or is he just coming back for his rightful inheritance with the Duchy of Lancaster? That is the million-dollar question when you're writing about Bolingbroke in 1399.It's not possible to answer with a smoking gun. We don't have a letter or a diary entry from Henry Bolingbroke as he's about to step on board ship in Boulogne saying, "I'm saying I'm coming back for the Duchy of Lancaster." The unfolding logic of his situation is that if he's going to come back at all, he's going to have to claim the crown. When he admits that to himself, and when he admits that to anybody else, are questions we can argue about.It was so interesting to me that that's the question that Shakespeare's Richard II throws up for his Bolingbroke just as much as it does for the historical one.Henry: Is there anything that we fundamentally know about this episode in history that Shakespeare didn't know?Helen: That's an extremely good question, and I'm tempted now to say no.Henry: When I left your book, the one thing I thought was that in Shakespeare, the nobles turn against Richard because of his excesses. Obviously, he really dramatizes that around the death of Gaunt. From your book, you may disagree with this, I came away thinking, well, the nobles wanted more power all the time. They may not have wanted the king's power, but there was this constant thing of the nobles feeling like they were owed more authority.Helen: I think the nobles always want more power because they are ambitious, competitive men within a political structure that rewards ambition and competition. The crucial thing for them is that they can only safely pursue ambition and competition if they know that the structure they're competing within will hold.The thing that keeps that structure rooted and solidly in place is the crown and the things that the crown is there to uphold, namely, particularly, the rule of law because if the rule of law starts to crumble, then the risk is that the whole structure collapses into anarchy. Within anarchy, then a powerful man cannot safely compete for more power because an even more powerful man might be about to roll into his estates and take them over. There have to be rules. There has to be fair competition. The referee is there on a football pitch for a reason.The king, in some senses, whether you want to see him as the keystone in an arch that supports a building or whether he's a referee on a football pitch, there are reasons why powerful men need rules because rules uphold their power. What goes wrong with Richard is that instead of seeing that he and the nobles have a common interest in keeping this structure standing, and that actually he can become more powerful if he works with and through the nobles, he sees them as a threat to him.He's attempting to establish a power structure that will not be beholden to them. In so doing, he becomes a threat to them. This structure that is supposed to stand as one mutually supportive thing is beginning to tear itself apart. That is why Richard's treatment of Bolingbroke becomes such a crucial catalyst, because what Richard does to Bolingbroke is unlawful in a very real and very technical sense. Bolingbroke has not been convicted of any crime. He's not been properly tried. There's been this trial by combat, the duel with Mowbray, but it hasn't stopped arbitrarily, and an arbitrary punishment visited upon both of them. They're both being exiled without having been found guilty, without the judgment of God speaking through this duel.Richard then promises that Bolingbroke can have his inheritance, even though he's in exile. As soon as Gaunt dies, Richard says, "No, I'm having it." Now, all of that is unlawful treatment of Bolingbroke, but because Bolingbroke is the most powerful nobleman in the country, it is also a warning and a threat to every other member of the political classes that if the king takes against you, then his arbitrary will can override the law.That diagnosis is there in Shakespeare. It's the Duke of York, who in reality was just a completely hopeless, wet figure, but he says, and I've got it written down, keep it beside me.Henry: Very nice.Helen: Kind of ridiculous, but here it is. York says to Richard, "Take Herford's rights away and take from time his charters and his customary rights. Let not tomorrow then ensue today. Be not thyself, for how art thou a king, but by fair sequence and succession?" In other words, if you interfere with, and I know you've written about time in these plays, it's absolutely crucial.Part of the process of time in these plays is that the rules play out over time. Any one individual king must not break those rules so that the expected process of succession over time can take place. York's warning comes true, that Richard is unseating himself by seeking to unseat Bolingbroke from his inheritance.Henry: We give Shakespeare good marks as a historian.Helen: In this play, yes, absolutely. The things he tinkers with in Richard II are minor plot points. He compresses time in order to get it all on stage in a plausible sequence of events. He compresses two queens into one, given that Richard was married to, by the time he fell, a nine-year-old who he'd married when he was six. It's harder to have a six-year-old making speeches on stage, so he puts the two queens into one.Henry: You don't want to pay another actor.Helen: Exactly.Henry: It's expensive.Helen: You don't want children and animals on stage. Although there is a wonderful account of a production of Richard II on stage in the West End in 1901, with the Australian actor Oscar Asche in it, playing Bolingbroke. The duel scene, he had full armour and a horse, opening night. It was a different horse from the one he rehearsed with. He gives an account in his autobiography of this horse rearing and him somersaulting heroically off the horse.Henry: Oh my god.Helen: The curtain having to come down and then it going back up again to tumultuous applause. You think, "Oscar, I'm wondering whether you're over-egging this pudding." Anyway, I give Shakespeare very good marks in Richard II, not really in the Henry IV plays, but gets back on track.Henry: The Henry IV plays are so good, we're forgiven. Was Richard II a prototype Henry VIII?Helen: Yes. Although, of course, history doesn't work forwards like that. I always worry about being a historian, talking about prototypes, if you see what I mean, but--Henry: No, this is just some podcast, so we don't have to be too strict. He's over-mighty, his sense of his relationship to God. There are issues in parliament about, "How much can the Pope tell us what to do?" There are certain things that seem to be inherent in the way the British state conceives of itself at this point that become problematic in another way.Helen: Is this pushing it too far to say Richard is a second son who ends up being the lone precious heir to the throne who must be wrapped in cotton wool to ensure that his unique God-given authority is protected? Also describes Henry VIII.Henry: They both like fancy clothes.Helen: Both like fancy clothes. Charles I is also a second son who has to step up.Henry: With wonderful cuffs and collars. He's another big dresser.Helen: And great patrons of art. I think we're developing new historical--Henry: No, I think there's a whole thing here.Helen: I think there is. What Henry does, of course, in rather different, because a lot has changed thanks to the Wars of the Roses, the power of the nobility to stand up independently of the crown is significantly lessened by the political effects of the Wars of the Roses, not at least that a lot of them have had their heads cut off, or died in battle, and the Tudors are busy making sure that they remain in the newly subjected place that they find themselves in.Henry then finds to go back to Hilary Mantel, a very, very able political servant who works out how to use parliament for him in rejecting those extra English powers that might restrain him. I do always wonder what Richard thought he was going to do if he'd succeeded in becoming Holy Roman Emperor, which I take very seriously as a proposition from Richard.Most other historians, because it's so patently ridiculous, if you look at it from a European perspective, have just said, "Oh, he got this idea that he wanted to become Holy Roman Emperor," but, of course, it was never going to happen. In Richard's mind, I think it was extremely real. Whether he really would have tried to give the English crown to Rutland, his favorite by the end of the reign, while he went off in glory to be crowned by the Pope, I don't know what was in his head. The difference with Henry is that the ambitions he eventually conceives are very England-focused, and so he can make them happen.Henry: Is there some sort of argument that, if the king hadn't won the Wars of the Roses, and the nobility had flourished, and their sons hadn't been killed, the reformation would have just been much harder to pull off here?[silence]Helen: I wonder what that would have looked like, because in a sense, the king was always going to win the Wars of the Roses, in the sense that you have to have a king. The minute you had someone left standing after that mess, that protracted mess, if he knew what he was doing, and there are arguments about the extent to which Henry VII knew what he was doing, or was doing something very different, whether or not he knew it was different, but there was always going to be an opportunity for a king to assert himself after that.Particularly, the extent to which the lesser landowners, the gentry had realized they couldn't just rely on the nobility to protect them anymore. They couldn't just follow their lord into battle and abdicate responsibility.Henry: Okay.Helen: That's an interesting--Henry: How much should we blame Edward III for all of this?Helen: For living too long and having too many sons?Henry: My argument against Edward is the Hundred Years' War, it doesn't actually go that well by the end of his reign, and it's cost too much money. Too many dukes with too much power. It's not that he had too many sons, he elevates them all and creates this insane situation. The war itself starts to tip the balance between the king and parliament, and so now you've got it from the dukes, and from the other side, and he just didn't manage the succession at all.Even though his son has died, and it really needs some kind of-- He allowed. He should have known that he was allowing a vacuum to open up where there's competition from the nobles, and from parliament, and the finances are a mess, and this war isn't there. It's just… he just leaves a disaster, doesn't he?Helen: I think I'd want to reframe that a little bit. Perhaps, I'm too much the king's friend. I think the political, and in some senses, existential dilemma for a medieval king is that the best of all possible worlds is what Edward achieves in the 1340s and the 1350s, which is, fight a war for reasons that your subjects recognize as in the common interest, in the national interest. Fight it over there so that the lands that are being devastated and the villages and towns that are being burned are not yours. Bring back lots of plunder. Everybody's getting richer and feeling very victorious.You can harness parliament. When things are going well, a medieval king and a parliament are not rivals for power. An English king working with parliament is more powerful than an English king trying to work without parliament. If things are going well, he gets more money, he can pass laws, he can enforce his will more effectively. It's win-win-win if you're ticking all those boxes.As you're pointing out, the worst of all possible worlds is to be fighting a war that's going badly. To fight a war is a big risk because either you're going to end up winning and everything's great, or if it's going badly, then you'd rather be at peace. Of course, you're not necessarily in a position to negotiate peace, depending on the terms of the war you've established.Similarly, with sons, you want heirs. You want to know the succession is safe. I think Edward's younger sons would argue with you about setting up very powerful dukes because the younger ones really-- York and Gloucester, Edmund of Langley and Thomas of Woodstock, really didn't have much in the way of an estate given to them at all, and always felt very hard done by about that. John of Gaunt is set up very well because he's married off to the heir of the Duke of Lancaster who's handily died, leaving only daughters.Henry: That's the problem, isn't it, creating that sort of impact? John of Gaunt is far too rich and powerful.Helen: You say that, except he's unfeasibly loyal. Without Gaunt, disaster happens much, much, much earlier. Gaunt is putting all those resources into the project of propping up the English state and the English crown for way longer than Richard deserves, given that Richard's trying to murder him half the time in the 1380s.Henry: [laughs] For sure. No, I agree with you there, but from Edward III's point of view, it's a mistake to make one very powerful son another quite powerful son next to-- We still see this playing out in royal family dynamics.Helen: This is the problem. What is the perfect scenario in a hereditary system where you need an heir and a spare, but even there, the spare, if he doesn't get to be the heir, is often very disgruntled. [laughs] If he does get to be the heir, as we've just said, turns out to be overconvinced of his own-Henry: Oh, indeed, yes.Helen: -specialness. Then, if you have too many spares, you run into a different kind of problem. Equally, if you don't have a hereditary system, then you have an almighty battle, as the Anglo-Saxons often did, about who's actually going to get the crown in the next generation. It's a very tricky--Henry: Is England just inherently unstable? We've got the Black Death, France is going to be a problem, whatever happens. Who is really going to come to a good fiscal position in this situation? It's no one's fault. It's just there wasn't another way out.Helen: You could say that England's remarkably-- See, I'm just playing devil's advocate the whole time.Henry: No, good.Helen: You could say England is remarkably stable in the sense that England is very unusually centralized for a medieval state at this point. It's centralized in a way that works because it's small enough to govern. It's, broadly speaking, an island. You've got to deal with the Scotts border, but it's a relatively short border. Yes, you have powerful nobles, but they are powerful nobles who, by this stage, are locked into the state. They're locked into a unified system of law. The common law rules everyone. Everyone looks to Westminster.It's very different from what the King of France has been having to face, which has been having to push his authority outward from the Île-de-France, reconquer bits of France that the English have had for a long time, impose his authority over other princes of the realm in a context where there are different laws, there are different customs, there are different languages. You could say that France is in a much more difficult and unstable situation.Of course, what we see as the tide of the war turns again in the early 15th century is precisely that France collapses into civil war, and the English can make hay again in that situation. If Henry V had not died too young with not enough sons in 1423, and particularly, if he'd left a son who grew up to be any use at all, as opposed to absolutely none-- what am I saying? I'm saying that the structure of government in England could work astonishingly well given the luck of the right man at the helm. The right man at the helm had to understand his responsibilities at home, and he had to be capable of prosecuting a successful war abroad because that is how this state works best.As you've just pointed out, prosecuting a successful war abroad is an inherently unstable scenario because no war is ever going to go in your direction the entire time. That's what Richard, who has no interest in war at all is discovering, because once the tide of war is lapping at your own shores, instead of all happening over there, it's a very, very different prospect in terms of persuading parliament to pay for it, quite understandably.You talk about the Black Death. One of the extraordinary things is looking at England in 1348, 1349, when the Black Death hits. Probably, something approaching half the population dies in 18 months. If you're looking at the progress of the war, you barely notice it happened at all. What does the government do? It snaps into action and implements a maximum wage immediately, in case [chuckles] these uppity laborers start noticing there are fewer of them, and they can ask for more money.The amount of control, at that stage at least, that the government has over a country going through an extraordinary set of challenges is quite remarkable, really.Henry: Did Bolingbroke do the right thing?Helen: I think Bolingbroke did the only possible thing, which, in some senses, equates to the right thing. If he had not come back, he would not only have been abandoning his own family, his dynasty, his inheritance, everything he'd been brought up to believe was his responsibility, but also abandoning England to what was pretty much by that stage, clearly, a situation of tyranny.The big argument is always, well, we can identify a tyrant, we have a definition of tyranny. That is, if a legitimate king rules in the common interest and according to the law, then a tyrant rules not in the common interest, and not according to the law. But then the thing that the political theorists argue about is whether or not you can actively resist a tyrant, or whether you have to wait for God to act.Then, the question is, "Might God be acting through me if I'm Bolingbroke?" That's what Bolingbroke has to hope, because if he doesn't do what he does in 1399, he is abandoning everything his whole life has been devoted to maintaining and taking responsibility for. It's quite hard to see where England would then end up, other than with somebody else trying to challenge Richard in the way that Henry does.Henry: Why was he anointed with Thomas Becket's oil?Helen: Because Richard had found it in the tower, [chuckles] and was making great play of the claims that were made for Thomas. This is one of the interesting things about Richard. He is simultaneously very interested in history, and interested in his place in history, his place in the lineage of English kings, going all the way back, particularly to the confessor to whom he looks as not only a patron saint, but as in some sense, a point of identification.He's also seeking to stop time at himself. He doesn't like to think about the future beyond himself. He doesn't show any interest in fathering an heir. His will is all about how to make permanent the judgments that he's made on his nobles. It's not about realistically what's going to happen after his death.In the course of his interest in history, he has found this vial of oil in the tower somewhere in a locked drawer with a note that says, "The Virgin gave this to Thomas Becket, and whoever is anointed with this oil shall win all his battles and shall lead England to greatness," et cetera. Richard has tried to have himself re-anointed, and even his patsy Archbishop of Canterbury that he's put in place after exiling the original one who'd stood up to him a bit.Even the new Archbishop of Canterbury says, "Sire, anointing doesn't really work like that. I'm afraid we can't do it twice." Richard has been wearing this vial round his neck in an attempt to claim that he is not only the successor to the confessor, but he is now the inheritor of this holy oil. The French king has had a holy oil for a very long time in the Cathedral of Reims, which was supposedly given to Clovis, the first king of France, by an angel, et cetera.Richard, who is always very keen on emulating, or paralleling the crown of France, is very, very keen on this. If you were Henry coming in 1399 saying, "No, God has spoken through me. The country has rallied to me. I am now the rightful king of England. We won't look too closely at my justifications for that," and you are appropriating the ceremonial of the crown, you are having yourself crowned in Westminster Abbey on the 13th of October, which is the feast day of the confessor, you are handed that opportunity to use the symbolism of this oil that Richard has just unearthed, and was trying to claim for himself. You can then say, "No, I am the first king crowned with this oil," and you're showing it to the French ambassadors and so on.If we are to believe the chroniclers, it starts making his hair fall out, which might be a contrary sign from God. It's a situation where you are usurping the throne, and what is questionable is your right to be there. Then, any symbolic prop you can get, you're going to lean on as hard as you can.Henry: A few general questions to close. Should we be more willing to open up old tombs?Helen: Yes. [laughs]Henry: Good. [laughs]Helen: I'm afraid, for me, historical curiosity is-- Our forebears in the 18th and 19th century had very few qualms at all. One of the things I love about the endless series of scholarly antiquarian articles that are-- or not so scholarly, in some cases, that are written about all the various tomb openings that went on in the 18th and 19th century, I do love the moments, where just occasionally, they end up saying, "Do you know what, lads? Maybe we shouldn't do this bit." [chuckles]They get right to the brink with a couple of tombs and say, "Oh, do you know what? This one hasn't been disturbed since 1260, whatever. Maybe we won't. We'll put it back." Mostly, they just crowbar the lid off and see what they can find, which one might regret in terms of what we might now find with greater scientific know-how, and et cetera. Equally, we don't do that kind of thing anymore unless we're digging up a car park. We're not finding things out anyway. I just love the information that comes out, so yes, for me.Henry: Dig up more tombs.Helen: Yes.Henry: What is it that you love about the Paston Letters?Helen: More or less everything. I love the language. I love the way that, even though most of them are dictated to scribes, but you can hear the dictation. You can hear individual voices. Everything we were saying about sentences. You can hear the rhythm. You can hear the speech patterns. I'm no linguistic expert, but I love seeing the different forms of spelling and how that plays out on the page.I love how recognizable they are as a family. I love the fact that we hear women's voices in a way that we very rarely do in the public records. The government which is mainly what we have to work with. I love Margaret Paston, who arrives at 18 as a new bride, and becomes the matriarch of the family. I love her relationship with her two eldest boys, John and John, and their father, John.I do wish they hadn't done that because it doesn't help those of us who are trying to write about them. I love the view you get of late medieval of 15th-century politics from the point of view of a family trying to survive it. The fact that you get tiny drops in letters that are also about shopping, or also about your sisters fall in love with someone unsuitable. Unsuitable only, I hasten to add, because he's the family bailiff, not because he isn't a wonderful and extremely able man. They all know those two things. It's just that he's a family bailiff, and therefore, not socially acceptable.I love that experience of being immersed in the world of a 15th-century gentry family, so politically involved, but not powerful enough to protect themselves, who can protect themselves in the Wars of the Roses in any case.Henry: If someone wants to read the Paston Letters, but they don't want to read Middle English, weird spelling, et cetera, is there a good edition that they can use?Helen: Yes, there is an Oxford World's Classic. They're all selected. There isn't a complete edition in modern spelling. If any publishers are listening, I would love to do one. [chuckles]Henry: Yes, let's have it.Helen: Let's have it. I would really, really love to do that. There are some very good selections. Richard Barber did one many years ago, and, of course, self-advertising. There is also my book, now more than 20 years old, about the Paston family, where I was trying to put in as much of the letters as I could. I wanted to weave the voices through. Yes, please go and read the Paston Letters in selections, in whatever form you can get them, and let's start lobbying for a complete modernized Paston.Henry: That's right. Why did you leave academia? Because you did it before it was cool.Helen: [laughs] That's very kind of you to say. My academic life was, and is very important to me, and I hate saying this now, because the academic world is so difficult now. I ended up in it almost by accident, which is a terrible thing to say now, people having to-- I never intended to be an academic. My parents were academics, and I felt I'd seen enough and wasn't sure I wanted to do that.I couldn't bear to give up history, and put in a PhD application to work with Christine Carpenter, who'd been the most inspiring supervisor when I was an undergraduate, got the place, thought, "Right, I'm just going to do a PhD." Of course, once you're doing a PhD, and everyone you know is starting to apply for early career jobs, which weren't even called early career jobs in those days, because it was a million years ago.I applied for a research fellowship, was lucky enough to get it, and then applied for a teaching job, utterly convinced, and being told by the people around me that I stood no chance of getting it, because I was way too junior, and breezed through the whole process, because I knew I wasn't going to get it, and then turned up looking for someone very junior.I got this wonderful teaching job at Sidney Sussex in Cambridge and spent eight years there, learned so much, loved working with the students. I was working very closely with the students in various ways, but I wasn't-- I'm such a slow writer, and a writer that needs to be immersed in what I was doing, and I just wasn't managing to write, and also not managing to write in the way I wanted to write, because I was becoming clearer and clearer about the fact that I wanted to write narrative history.Certainly, at that point, it felt as though writing narrative history for a general audience and being an early career academic didn't go so easily together. I think lots of people are now showing how possible it is, but I wasn't convinced I could do it. Then, sorry, this is a very long answer to what's [crosstalk] your question.Henry: That's good.Helen: I also had my son, and my then partner was teaching at a very different university, I mean, geographically different, and we were living in a third place, and trying to put a baby into that geographical [chuckles] setup was not going to work. I thought, "Well, now or never, I'll write a proposal for a book, a narrative, a book for a general readership, a narrative book about the Paxton family, because that's what I really want to write, and I'll see if I can find an agent, and I'll see if I," and I did.I found the most wonderful agent, with whose help I wrote a huge proposal, and got a deal for it two weeks before my son was due. At that point, I thought, "Okay, if I don't jump now, now or never, the stars are aligned." I've been a freelance medieval historian ever since then, touching every wood I can find as it continues to be possible. I am very grateful for those years in Cambridge. They were the making of me in terms of training and in terms of teaching.I certainly think without teaching for those years, I wouldn't be anywhere near as good a writer, because you learn such a lot from talking to, and reading what students produce.Henry: How do you choose your subjects now? How do you choose what to write about?Helen: I follow my nose, really. It's not very scientific.Henry: Why should it be?Helen: Thank you. The book, bizarrely, the book that felt most contingent, was the one I wrote after the Paston book, because I knew I'd written about the Pastons in my PhD, and then again more of it in the monograph that was based on my PhD. I knew having written about the Pastons in a very academic, analytical way, contributing to my analysis of 15th-century politics. I knew I wanted to put them at the center and write about them. That was my beginning point.The big question was what to do next, and I was a bit bamboozled for a while. The next book I ended up writing was She-Wolves, which is probably, until now, my best-known book. It was the one that felt most uncertain to me, while I was putting it together, and that really started from having one scene in my head, and it's the scene with which the book opens. It's the scene of the young Edward VI in 1553, Henry VIII's only son, dying at the age of 15.Suddenly, me suddenly realizing that wherever you looked on the Tudor family tree at that point, there were only women left. The whole question of whether a woman could rule was going to have to be answered in some way at that point, and because I'm a medievalist, that made me start thinking backwards, and so I ended up choosing some medieval queens to write about, because they've got their hands on power one way or another.Until very close to finishing it, I was worried that it wouldn't hang together as a book, and the irony is that it's the one that people seem to have taken to most. The next book after that grew out of that one, because I found myself going around talking about She-Wolves, and saying repeatedly, "The problem these queens faced was that they couldn't lead an army on the battlefield."Women couldn't do that. The only medieval woman who did that was Joan of Arc, and look what happened to her. Gradually, I realized that I didn't really know what had happened to her. I mean, I did know what--Henry: Yes, indeed.Helen: I decided that I really wanted to write about her, so I did that. Then, having done that, and having then written a very short book about Elizabeth I, that I was asked to write for Penguin Monarchs, I realized I'd been haunted all this time by Richard and Henry, who I'd been thinking about and working on since the very beginning of my PhD, but I finally felt, perhaps, ready to have a go at them properly.It's all been pretty organic apart from She-Wolves, which was the big, "What am I writing about next?" That took shape slowly and gradually. Now, I'm going to write about Elizabeth I properly in a-Henry: Oh, exciting.Helen: -full-scale book, and I decided that, anyway, before I wrote this last one, but I-- It feels even righter now, because I Am Richard II, Know Ye Not That, feels even more intensely relevant having now written about Richard and Henry, and I'm quite intimidated because Elizabeth is quite intimidating, but I think it's good, related by your subjects.[laughter]Henry: Have you read the Elizabeth Jenkins biography?Helen: Many, many years ago. It's on my shelf here.Henry: Oh, good.Helen: In fact, so it's one of the things I will be going back to. Why do you ask particularly? I need--Henry: I'm a big Elizabeth Jenkins fan, and I like that book particularly.Helen: Wonderful. Well, I will be redoubled in my enthusiasm.Henry: I look forward to seeing what you say about it. What did you learn from Christine Carpenter?Helen: Ooh. Just as precision was the word that came into my head when you asked me about Hilary Mantel, the word that comes into my head when you ask about Christine is rigor. I think she is the most rigorous historical thinker that I have ever had the privilege of working with and talking to. I am never not on my toes when I am writing for, talking to, reading Christine. That was an experience that started from the first day I walked into her room for my first supervision in 1987.It was really that rigor that started opening up the medieval world to me, asking questions that at that stage I couldn't answer at all, but suddenly, made everything go into technicolor. Really, from the perspective that I had been failing to ask the most basic questions. I would sometimes have students say to me, "Oh, I didn't say that, because I thought it was too basic."I have always said, "No, there is no question that is too basic." Because what Christine started opening up for me was how does medieval government work? What are you talking about? There is the king at Westminster. There is that family there in Northumberland. What relates the two of them? How does this work? Think about it structurally. Think about it in human terms, but also in political structural terms, and then convince me that you understand how this all goes together. I try never to lose that.Henry: Helen Castor, thank you very much.Helen: Thank you so much. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.commonreader.co.uk/subscribe

• The Spirit In The Ceiling • The Wild Carnival Ride • Get ‘Er Done NOW! CALLERS: • Woman Still Entangled With Past Life Man • Candice Practically Living On The Other Side Of Life   My Shows May Also Feature Private And On Air Reading Comments & Testimonials And In Each Dear Venus Show Big MOJOS Are Thrown To You, The Listeners

Jen and Noam spend her birthday breaking down an extremely chaotic week in news. We discuss the new Alex Thompson and Jake Tapper book about Biden, the botched release of the Epstein Files, the Tate Brothers returning to the US, and the blowup at the White House between Zelensky and Trump and Vance. At the end of the episode we give an ode to the S2E7 episode of Severance, which is just a beautiful example of visual storytelling while advancing the plot. We will be back on Twitch this week, discussing all of the TV we've been watching over the past few weeks. Click below to subscribe!  https://www.twitch.tv/ambitiousxover 

Join us for the origin story of top private investigator, Cordelia Gray. It's An Unsuitable Job for a Woman by P.D. James.No spoilers- we do not reveal whodunnit.Mystery Business centres on the curious case of Bob Barrett.TV Tattle is all things '90s as with the Helen Baxendale versionof the book.We also discuss ironed pants, questionable pub orders and woollen tracksuits.Mystery MentionsOut of Bounds - Val McDermidThe Lady Killer- Masako TogawaNext book for 24th February: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Mic Drop by Sharna JacksonTV Tattle:⁠⁠⁠⁠Luther- Series 1, Episode 1In the mood for more mystery? Check out our other P.D. James episodes: ⁠Death Comes to Pemberley (Season 2) and⁠The Skull Beneath the Skin (Season 4)Follow us on Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@missingsalmoncase⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Share with a friend: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Unsolved Case of the Missing Salmon⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Send us a message: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠missingsalmoncase@gmail.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠This podcast is created, produced and edited by Maddy Berry and Hannah Knight. Our music is sourced from Melody Loops and composed by Geoff Harvey.

From bizarre job requirements to downright horrible bosses, sometimes our jobs just don't fit. In this week's episode, both our storytellers share stories about what happens when work doesn't work. Part 1: When fertility research scientist Sarah Adelman gets a job at a sperm bank, she's apparently the only one who finds it funny. Part 2: In her new job at a neuroscience lab, Anna Zhukovskaya's boss starts to pick on her. Sarah Adelman is a born and bred New Yorker, former fertility research scientist, and stand up comedian. She performs regularly at all the top NYC comedy clubs and independent shows, can be seen on two episodes of HBO Game Theory and has over 35,000 followers across her platforms . Her content has been featured on The Today Show, NBC News, Meta, the 92nd Street Y, and more. Sarah graduated Cum Laude from Dartmouth College in 2019 and earned her Masters of Public Health from Columbia University in 2021. She trained as a research scientist in NYC where she studied fertility and ran human subjects trials at a sperm bank. Her one hour comedy solo show, EGG, brings audiences through her hilarious and heartfelt coming-of-age journey to her present-day career in science, the day-to-day of studying male reproduction, why she started comedy, and culminates in an earth-shattering clash of her two worlds. EGG premires in June 2024. Anna Zhukovskaya is a neuroscientist studying the role of somatosensation in social behavior and its effects on stress. She is currently doing a postdoc in the Abdus-Sabor lab in Columbia University's Zuckerman Institute. She did her PhD at the Princeton Neuroscience Institute in Ilana Witten's lab. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Your garden's shadows can actually be stunning, vibrant spaces! In this episode, I chat with Susanna Grant, author of Shade and founder of the London-based shady plant shop, LINDA. Susanna joins me to discuss shade-loving plants and how to bring life and vibrancy to those darker corners of our gardens. About Susanna Grant Susanna Grant is founder of Linda, a garden designer, planting specialist and writer, author of Shade (Quarto). She organises the Spring Plant Fair at The Garden Museum, and The Autumn Plant Fair at Arnold Circus where she is a volunteer and a trustee. Links Susanna Grant on Instagram @hellotherelinda  Shade: Work with the light, grow the right plants, bring dark corners to life by Susanna Grant Other episodes if you liked this one: 236: Mosses - This week, my guest is Dr Neil Bell, bryologist at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh and author of The Hidden World of Mosses, which takes a look into the minute and fascinating world of bryophytes. If you've ever wanted to know how these plants live and reproduce, whether you can cultivate moss indoors or outdoors, what that green stuff is you find on the surface of potted plant's compost and whether you should take it off, the environmental and habitat value of mosses and how they are affected by the moon, listen on… 23: Ivy With Fibrex Nurseries - Key talking points covered are; Growing ivy as a houseplant, Ideal growing conditions for ivy indoors, Ideal growing conditions for ivy outdoors, Different growth habits and the suitability of certain species for certain garden situations, Fast and slow growing varieties, Pruning, Benefits to wildlife, Unsuitable situations for ivy,    Please support the podcast on Patreon

Welcome to another episode of The Last Show on Earth!If there was a huge asteroid hurtling toward Earth threatening to destroy life as we know it and you could see one more show before you die, what would it be? It can be anything you want - a show you've seen before, one that you wish you'd seen, or something you've made up entirely. What would be YOUR Last Show on Earth? This is the podcast in which we ask a special guest the big, BIG question that nobody ever needed (or indeed) bothered to ask. Our guest this time around is award winning playwright and director Terry Johnson.Terry began his theatre career as an actor before becoming a dramatist and a director and has written many very successful plays including Hysteria, Insignificance, Unsuitable for Adults, Hitchcock Blonde, Prism and Dead Funny and has directed shows such as One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, Death of a Salesman, Oh What A Lovely War and Uncle Vanya. He has also worked in television and film and has won numerous awards for his work including Evening Standard Awards, Critic's Circle Awards, several Oliviers and he even bagged a Tony for Best Director in 2010 for La Cage Aux Folles! His Last Show choice is unexpected and truly epic...Links:Scofield speechhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_kiITHGEM8Interviewhttps://theartsdesk.com/theatre/bald-blondes-what-makes-terry-johnson-tickJerusalem Reviewhttps://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/sep/15/jerusalem-by-alan-moore-reviewJerusalem wikihttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerusalem_(Moore_novel)Alan Moore wikihttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_MooreKen Campbell wikihttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_CampbellGame for a Laughhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dPIlUNu9x0Jefferey Bernard is Unwell - full showhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6cYbZe1WYUHosted by John Owen-Jones and Alistair BrammerMusic written by John Owen-Jones & Alistair BrammerMusic performed by John Owen-Jones, Alistair Brammer and John QuirkRecorded & edited by John Owen-Jones and Alistair BrammerA 2024 John Owen-Jones Associates Productionwww.johnowenjones.com/podcast Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Children in this region are reportedly being "warehoused" by the State as the appropriate care isn't in place. A new report compiled by the Child Law Project entitled 'Falling Through the Cracks' has shone a light on the failings of child protection in Ireland, identifying shortages in both foster and residential care placements and labelling the HSE's response to children with issues such as mental health as "dismal". It's led to calls for a new national strategy on child protection involving a new placement model of high support for children with complex needs as well as those at risk of exploitation or trafficking. Executive Director of the Child Law Project and Adjunct Professor of Law at University of Galway School of Law Dr Carol Coulter claims vulnerable children are being placed in entirely unsuitable settings in many case.

The Mohua Show is a weekly podcast about everything from business, technology to art and lifestyle, But done and spoken ईमानदारी सेConnect with UsMohua Chinappa: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mohua-chinappa/The Mohua Show: https://www.themohuashow.com/Connect with the GuestAekta Kapoor:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/aekta-kapoor/Follow UsYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheMohuaShowInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/themohuashow/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/themohuashow/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/themohuashowFor any other queries EMAILhello@themohuashow.comEpisode Summary: In this heartfelt episode, we dive deep into Aekta's transformative life journey, from the emotional highs and lows of love, marriage, and self-discovery to her passion for women's empowerment and peacebuilding in South Asia. Featured in the Amazon Prime docudrama ‘The Unsuitable Girl', Aekta shares the emotional challenges of revisiting her past for the documentary, including her first marriage and how she found true love later in life. The documentary has deeply impacted women worldwide, inspiring them to find courage in their own personal stories, and Aekta reflects on the profound connections made through sharing her truth.Beyond her personal story, Aekta speaks about Hundred Parts: A Woman's Search for God in the City, her spiritual memoir that grew from blog entries about finding God in everyday life. She explains how her experiences shaped her outlook on faith, resilience, and motherhood.Aekta also discusses her work with eShe magazine, where she continues to advocate for women's rights and peace in South Asia through panel discussions and thought-provoking articles. Her passion for open communication and building self-awareness within relationships offers listeners powerful insights on navigating complex emotions with grace and love.Chapters:00:00 - Highlight01:42 - Introduction02:34 - Inspiration Behind eShe05:57 - What it Takes to Build eShe08:34 - Impactful Real-Life Stories13:05 - Menstruation Taboos in Society17:05 - Initiatives in South Asia19:33 - Work in Fashion Journalism21:37 - An Unsuitable Girl 25:04 - Books By Aekta Kapoor26:42 - Family Communications29:08 - Future Plans for eShe30:00 - Advice to Young WomenDisclaimerThe views expressed by our guests are their own. We do not endorse and are not responsible for any views expressed by our guests on our podcast and its associated platforms.TheMohuaShow #MohuaChinappa ##WomenEmpowerment #UnsuitableGirl #SpiritualJourney #FamilyConnections #eSheMagazine #Peacebuilding #SelfDiscovery #InspiringWomen#Podcast #PodcastEpisode Thanks for Listening!

Officials declare Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall conditions "unsuitable" and order its closure. OC Supervisor Andrew Do directed taxpayer funds to a nonprofit for work the county says was never done. Erik & Lyle Menendez's family call for resentencing. Plus, more. Support The L.A. Report by donating at LAist.com/join and by visiting https://laist.com.Support the show: https://laist.com

Kelsey Swanson samples a steamy scene from her latest release, A MOST UNSUITABLE LOVER, and shares how the story is inspired by her own childhood illness as well as the Scottish history she studied in college. Plus, we talk about the joy of epilogues and finding new layers to favorite tropes!   JUMP TO YOUR FAVORITE PART 00:00 Introduction to the Historical Romance Sampler Podcast 00:41 Meet Kelsey Swanson: Author Introduction 02:04 Reading from 'A Most Unsuitable Lover' 15:52 Steamy Scene Analysis and Author Insights 16:39 Exploring Themes and Stereotypes in Historical Romance 20:20 Character-Driven Writing and Creative Process 25:11 Love It or Leave It: Fun Segment 29:13 Where to Find Kelsey's Books 30:22 Conclusion and Farewell   Find out more about KELSEY SWANSON: https://authorkelseyswanson.my.canva.site   HRS is an affiliate of Libro.fm! Sign up for a new monthly membership and get three audiobooks for the price of one with code HISTORICAL! (As an affiliate, HRS may earn a portion of your purchase, for which we thank you!) Sign up here: https://tidd.ly/3WrMY0w   Find out more about your host Katherine Grant: Instagram (@katherine_grant_romance) TikTok (@katherinegrantromance) Facebook (@Katherinegrantromanceauthor) Goodreads (https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/19872840.Katherine_Grant) Bookbub (https://www.bookbub.com/authors/katherine-grant)    Follow HRS on social media! TikTok (@historicalromancesampler) Instagram (@historicalromancesampler)

The decision to accommodate up to 27 International Protection Applicants at a West Clare B&B has been slammed by a Clare TD. It comes as the owner of the Central in Kilrush has signed a one-year contract with the International Protection Accommodation Services. The Department of Integration says the majority of residents will be new arrivals and won't be eligible to work for six months, but that those who have found work are making a positive contribution, particularly in areas of skill shortages. Kilrush Independent Deputy Violet-Anne Wynne though, believes the move will put considerable strain on local resources.

Only with power can dreams be made real. Only with this podcast can we tell you about wishing for the Auto-Face, persisting in a fool resistance, fighting in the book store, confusing opponents by betraying our class, normalizing the battle gauntlet, girding for battle, becoming a thrall of the church, jokerfying yet another would-be ally, living for this, wiping a brain after defilement, switching to demon dialect, biting from the fruit of the tree of knowledge, leaving things undone, and reading from the brain that was reading The Scriptures of Germonique. Unsuitable facts had to be deleted from history. 00:00 Repeated Master | 02:44 Intro | 04:39 Monastery Vaults, Third Level | 17:56 Monastery Vaults, , First Level | 35:59 Orbonne Monastery - Outside | 46:00 The Bible Or The Necronomicon | 58:52 Real Net | 01:02:03 Outro Get more Retrograde Amnesia: Support us on Patreon at patreon.com/retroam. Join the community and get early access, ad-free episodes, bonus episodes, miniseries, and access to the RealNet. To see an up to date listing of all our premium offerings, go to www.patreon.com/retroam/collections. Twitter: @retroamnesiapod YouTube: www.youtube.com/@RetrogradeAmnesia E-Mail: podcast@retrogradeamnesia.com Website: www.retrogradeamnesia.com  

Davvero le donne hanno viaggiato meno degli uomini nel corso dei secoli? Quando comincia il viaggio al femminile? Chi parte, quali sono le destinazioni prescelte, quando inizia il processo di democratizzazione del viaggio? Ecco alcune delle domande a cui cercherà di rispondere questo Laser di Franco Brevini. Coinvolgendo due specialisti come Luca Clerici dell'Università di Milano e Ricciarda Ricorda dell'Università Ca' Foscari di Venezia, verranno affrontati anche i temi scottanti legati alle questioni di genere. Quali sono le differenze tra le relazioni di viaggio degli uomini e quelle delle donne? Esiste un etimo inconfondibilmente femminile, un quid caratteristico della scrittura di tutte le viaggiatrici o della maggior parte di esse? Quanto dipende invece dalle sensibilità individuali, dal livello sociale, dall'educazione più o meno cosmopolita e dalle matrici ideologiche e culturali di ciascuna di loro?

Eleanor Medhurst joins us today to talk about Unsuitable: A History of Lesbian Fashion (Hurst & Company, 2024). Clothes are integral to lesbian history. Lesbians, in turn, are integral to the history of fashion. The way that we dress can help us to present who we are to the world, or it can help us to hide ourselves. It can align us with a community or make us stand out from the crowd. For lesbians, fashion can have innumerable meanings - yet "lesbian fashion" is rarely considered, the main association between lesbians and their clothes being of un-fashionability.  In Unsuitable, Eleanor Medhurst explores the history of lesbian fashion, a field that has been overwhelmingly ignored within both fashion and queer histories. Unsuitable uncovers the relationships between lesbians and their clothes as well as their fashionable details, from top hats to violet tiaras. It spans centuries and continents: Anne Lister of nineteenth century Yorkshire and "Paris Lesbos" of the 1920s, butch/femme bar culture of the 1950s and lesbian activists in the '80s. It celebrates Black lesbian histories, trans lesbian histories, and histories of gender-nonconformity. The lesbian past is slippery; it has often deliberately been hidden, altered or left unrecorded. This book lights it up and shares it with the world, adorned in all its finery. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Eleanor Medhurst joins us today to talk about Unsuitable: A History of Lesbian Fashion (Hurst & Company, 2024). Clothes are integral to lesbian history. Lesbians, in turn, are integral to the history of fashion. The way that we dress can help us to present who we are to the world, or it can help us to hide ourselves. It can align us with a community or make us stand out from the crowd. For lesbians, fashion can have innumerable meanings - yet "lesbian fashion" is rarely considered, the main association between lesbians and their clothes being of un-fashionability.  In Unsuitable, Eleanor Medhurst explores the history of lesbian fashion, a field that has been overwhelmingly ignored within both fashion and queer histories. Unsuitable uncovers the relationships between lesbians and their clothes as well as their fashionable details, from top hats to violet tiaras. It spans centuries and continents: Anne Lister of nineteenth century Yorkshire and "Paris Lesbos" of the 1920s, butch/femme bar culture of the 1950s and lesbian activists in the '80s. It celebrates Black lesbian histories, trans lesbian histories, and histories of gender-nonconformity. The lesbian past is slippery; it has often deliberately been hidden, altered or left unrecorded. This book lights it up and shares it with the world, adorned in all its finery. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history

Eleanor Medhurst joins us today to talk about Unsuitable: A History of Lesbian Fashion (Hurst & Company, 2024). Clothes are integral to lesbian history. Lesbians, in turn, are integral to the history of fashion. The way that we dress can help us to present who we are to the world, or it can help us to hide ourselves. It can align us with a community or make us stand out from the crowd. For lesbians, fashion can have innumerable meanings - yet "lesbian fashion" is rarely considered, the main association between lesbians and their clothes being of un-fashionability.  In Unsuitable, Eleanor Medhurst explores the history of lesbian fashion, a field that has been overwhelmingly ignored within both fashion and queer histories. Unsuitable uncovers the relationships between lesbians and their clothes as well as their fashionable details, from top hats to violet tiaras. It spans centuries and continents: Anne Lister of nineteenth century Yorkshire and "Paris Lesbos" of the 1920s, butch/femme bar culture of the 1950s and lesbian activists in the '80s. It celebrates Black lesbian histories, trans lesbian histories, and histories of gender-nonconformity. The lesbian past is slippery; it has often deliberately been hidden, altered or left unrecorded. This book lights it up and shares it with the world, adorned in all its finery. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/gender-studies

Eleanor Medhurst joins us today to talk about Unsuitable: A History of Lesbian Fashion (Hurst & Company, 2024). Clothes are integral to lesbian history. Lesbians, in turn, are integral to the history of fashion. The way that we dress can help us to present who we are to the world, or it can help us to hide ourselves. It can align us with a community or make us stand out from the crowd. For lesbians, fashion can have innumerable meanings - yet "lesbian fashion" is rarely considered, the main association between lesbians and their clothes being of un-fashionability.  In Unsuitable, Eleanor Medhurst explores the history of lesbian fashion, a field that has been overwhelmingly ignored within both fashion and queer histories. Unsuitable uncovers the relationships between lesbians and their clothes as well as their fashionable details, from top hats to violet tiaras. It spans centuries and continents: Anne Lister of nineteenth century Yorkshire and "Paris Lesbos" of the 1920s, butch/femme bar culture of the 1950s and lesbian activists in the '80s. It celebrates Black lesbian histories, trans lesbian histories, and histories of gender-nonconformity. The lesbian past is slippery; it has often deliberately been hidden, altered or left unrecorded. This book lights it up and shares it with the world, adorned in all its finery. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sociology

Eleanor Medhurst joins us today to talk about Unsuitable: A History of Lesbian Fashion (Hurst & Company, 2024). Clothes are integral to lesbian history. Lesbians, in turn, are integral to the history of fashion. The way that we dress can help us to present who we are to the world, or it can help us to hide ourselves. It can align us with a community or make us stand out from the crowd. For lesbians, fashion can have innumerable meanings - yet "lesbian fashion" is rarely considered, the main association between lesbians and their clothes being of un-fashionability.  In Unsuitable, Eleanor Medhurst explores the history of lesbian fashion, a field that has been overwhelmingly ignored within both fashion and queer histories. Unsuitable uncovers the relationships between lesbians and their clothes as well as their fashionable details, from top hats to violet tiaras. It spans centuries and continents: Anne Lister of nineteenth century Yorkshire and "Paris Lesbos" of the 1920s, butch/femme bar culture of the 1950s and lesbian activists in the '80s. It celebrates Black lesbian histories, trans lesbian histories, and histories of gender-nonconformity. The lesbian past is slippery; it has often deliberately been hidden, altered or left unrecorded. This book lights it up and shares it with the world, adorned in all its finery. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/lgbtq-studies

Eleanor Medhurst joins us today to talk about Unsuitable: A History of Lesbian Fashion (Hurst & Company, 2024). Clothes are integral to lesbian history. Lesbians, in turn, are integral to the history of fashion. The way that we dress can help us to present who we are to the world, or it can help us to hide ourselves. It can align us with a community or make us stand out from the crowd. For lesbians, fashion can have innumerable meanings - yet "lesbian fashion" is rarely considered, the main association between lesbians and their clothes being of un-fashionability.  In Unsuitable, Eleanor Medhurst explores the history of lesbian fashion, a field that has been overwhelmingly ignored within both fashion and queer histories. Unsuitable uncovers the relationships between lesbians and their clothes as well as their fashionable details, from top hats to violet tiaras. It spans centuries and continents: Anne Lister of nineteenth century Yorkshire and "Paris Lesbos" of the 1920s, butch/femme bar culture of the 1950s and lesbian activists in the '80s. It celebrates Black lesbian histories, trans lesbian histories, and histories of gender-nonconformity. The lesbian past is slippery; it has often deliberately been hidden, altered or left unrecorded. This book lights it up and shares it with the world, adorned in all its finery. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture

Eleanor Medhurst joins us today to talk about Unsuitable: A History of Lesbian Fashion (Hurst & Company, 2024). Clothes are integral to lesbian history. Lesbians, in turn, are integral to the history of fashion. The way that we dress can help us to present who we are to the world, or it can help us to hide ourselves. It can align us with a community or make us stand out from the crowd. For lesbians, fashion can have innumerable meanings - yet "lesbian fashion" is rarely considered, the main association between lesbians and their clothes being of un-fashionability.  In Unsuitable, Eleanor Medhurst explores the history of lesbian fashion, a field that has been overwhelmingly ignored within both fashion and queer histories. Unsuitable uncovers the relationships between lesbians and their clothes as well as their fashionable details, from top hats to violet tiaras. It spans centuries and continents: Anne Lister of nineteenth century Yorkshire and "Paris Lesbos" of the 1920s, butch/femme bar culture of the 1950s and lesbian activists in the '80s. It celebrates Black lesbian histories, trans lesbian histories, and histories of gender-nonconformity. The lesbian past is slippery; it has often deliberately been hidden, altered or left unrecorded. This book lights it up and shares it with the world, adorned in all its finery. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/book-of-the-day

An eminent scientist hires Detective Cordelia Gray to discover why his son committed suicide --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/ang189/support

Melissa has an octopus and her friends have some other unusual pets.

After 11 seasons, 127 episodes, and 99 interviews with single Christians, Unsuitable is evolving. I use the word "evolve" very intentionally here. While we will be operating under a new name and fresh branding, our beating heart will remain the same. All existing episodes will stay up and available. If you're following us on your fav podcast app, you won't have to re-follow us when we re-launch. We will continue to center single folks creating community in their actual lives. We will also center queer folks and others whose stories and wisdom have not been cherished by the white evangelical church. We will also no longer be an exclusively Christian podcast, as we believe there are glimmers of God's goodness everywhere. And it's often those who have been cast aside by institutions like the church who have the clearest vision for creating spaces of inclusion and belonging.Exciting changes are coming in just a few short weeks. However, this is a sort of ending. To honor what we've built over the past five years and thank our faithful listeners, I've written y'all a love letter. You know I think the world of you, so sit back and relax as I attempt to put my feelings into words. To all my Unsuitable pals, stay tuned for what's coming up. I'm never not grateful for you. Thank you for listening, whether you are new to these parts or you've been following us for years. We truly appreciate how you've hung with us as we've grown and particularly as I've come out. You are open and curious and always prove me right when I believe the very best about you. You can follow along with what's coming up on my Instagram @ maryb.safrit, or by getting on the email list at marybsafrit.com/links. Cannot wait to share what's next for Unsuitable.Support the show

€28 million spent on school prefabs in 2022, with the same cost expected by the government for next year. But are prefabs suitable for learning environments? We discussed this with Aodhan O'Riordan, the Labour Party's Education spokesperson.

We ran our metal detector over this week's rugged rock and roll terrain and dug deep when it beeped. Among those prime locations … … the secret of Top Gear's golden age. … is Bob Dylan a “cold weather concept”? … why Holger Czukay's ‘Movies' is a pivotal record. … Daryl Hall's restraining order on John Oates: inter-band fall-out scales brave new heights. … the ground-breaking ingredient in ‘He's Gonna Step On You Again' by John Kongos. … why Joni Mitchell, Lee Perry and Pink Floyd were early pioneers of sampling. … the night some loon climbed the scaffolding above the E Street Band. … pre-McLaren theft of the Burundi Beat. … the irksome mob rule of the internet: “all bands are now sacred and anyone who says different is a heretic”. … when an album cover is a “lifestyle statement”. … plus birthday guests Kevin Walsh and Simon Poulter and best of this year's rock books.Subscribe to Word In Your Ear on Patreon for early - and ad-free! - access to all of our content: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We ran our metal detector over this week's rugged rock and roll terrain and dug deep when it beeped. Among those prime locations … … the secret of Top Gear's golden age. … is Bob Dylan a “cold weather concept”? … why Holger Czukay's ‘Movies' is a pivotal record. … Daryl Hall's restraining order on John Oates: inter-band fall-out scales brave new heights. … the ground-breaking ingredient in ‘He's Gonna Step On You Again' by John Kongos. … why Joni Mitchell, Lee Perry and Pink Floyd were early pioneers of sampling. … the night some loon climbed the scaffolding above the E Street Band. … pre-McLaren theft of the Burundi Beat. … the irksome mob rule of the internet: “all bands are now sacred and anyone who says different is a heretic”. … when an album cover is a “lifestyle statement”. … plus birthday guests Kevin Walsh and Simon Poulter and best of this year's rock books.Subscribe to Word In Your Ear on Patreon for early - and ad-free! - access to all of our content: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We ran our metal detector over this week's rugged rock and roll terrain and dug deep when it beeped. Among those prime locations … … the secret of Top Gear's golden age. … is Bob Dylan a “cold weather concept”? … why Holger Czukay's ‘Movies' is a pivotal record. … Daryl Hall's restraining order on John Oates: inter-band fall-out scales brave new heights. … the ground-breaking ingredient in ‘He's Gonna Step On You Again' by John Kongos. … why Joni Mitchell, Lee Perry and Pink Floyd were early pioneers of sampling. … the night some loon climbed the scaffolding above the E Street Band. … pre-McLaren theft of the Burundi Beat. … the irksome mob rule of the internet: “all bands are now sacred and anyone who says different is a heretic”. … when an album cover is a “lifestyle statement”. … plus birthday guests Kevin Walsh and Simon Poulter and best of this year's rock books.Subscribe to Word In Your Ear on Patreon for early - and ad-free! - access to all of our content: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

[@ 4 min] We go ‘Inside the Huddle' with John Brancy in London, where he's reprising his role as the Artisan & Collector in George Benjamin's “Picture a Day Like This”. He tells us how that role was customized to his freakish abilities and why we shouldn't limit ourselves to just one way of singing… [@ 35 min] And then… Lisette Oropesa, who makes her Lyric Opera debut next month in “Daughter of the Regiment”, takes a ‘Free Throw' on the *other* Donizetti role that brought her career to international attention… [@ 45 min] Plus, in the ‘Two Minute Drill'… What year is it? According to a North Carolina classical radio station, it's 1950... GET YOUR VOICE HEARD operaboxscore.com facebook.com/obschi1 @operaboxscore IG operaboxscore

When you turn on your taps, the last thing you want to see is murky, discoloured water. But poor water quality is the reality for many communities across the province. One affected community is Irishtown-Summerside, on the north shore of the Bay of Islands. Peter Parsons is the mayor.

In this episode, Carole and I discussThe link between grief and hospitality The secret behind our 3 am come to Jesus moments The spiritual dimensions of food Grief, food, and other distractions: how to navigate healthy coping mechanismsSocial reentry through food: connecting with others in our grief Who our “stretcher people” are—and how to find them A divorce survivor and late-in-life thriver, Carole welcomed a new adventure as an "Accidental Author" with her debut book, "I Don't Know Who I Am Anymore."Exploring the intersection of grief and faith, Carole wonders aloud about whether this "God-Man, Jesus," remains relevant when loss, disappointment and heartache arrive unannounced. After a long list of careers (including owning a "rose-covered cottage cooking school," ) Carole enjoys writing into retirement with the adulations of nine grandchildren who still think she's really cool. She would heartily request that you not inform them otherwise.You can follow Carole on Instagram @caroleholiday. Get in touch with her by visiting her website, caroleholiday.com. Her book, I Don't Know Who I Am Anymore, is available wherever you buy books. The Tiny Brand experience is a done-for-you collaboration, a silver platter of fonts, colors, and design elements tailored for you and your business delivered within a quick turnaround of just 48 hours. If beautiful branding done by someone who just gets you is your vibe, you need to work with Karla at The Inspired Foundry / get a Tiny Brand. Use INSPIREDMARYB to get $50 off your Tiny Brand! Head to www.yourtinybrand.com for all the details. Liquid I.V. is the category-winning hydration brand fueling your well-being, and their Hydration Multiplier is the one product you're missing in your daily routine. Get 20% off when you go to LIQUID IV DOT COM and use code UNSUITABLE at checkout. That's 20% off ANYTHING you order when you shop better hydration today using promo code UNSUITABLE at LIQUID IV DOT COM. Alright, now let's dive into today's episode! This episode is jammed packed; unfortunately, a lot of wisdom didn't make the final cut. Don't worry though, you can join our Patreon community to get the full episode and to be a part of a community where your voice matters! We hope to see you there!Liquid IV Use my special link https://zen.ai/unsuitablewithmarybsafrit2 to save 20% off anything you order.Tiny Brand The Tiny Brand Experience is a done-for-you brand collaboration designed just for your business.Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.Support the show

In this episode, you'll hear Katie and I talk about The God moment / Carrie Bradshaw moment that turned Katie towards her calling How to invest in and bet on yourself—even on a budget (read: student loans!)All things creative entrepreneurship: how to take your ideas seriously, create a plan, and build sustainably And so much more!Katie Ellis is the Ceramicist & Founder of Dear Gloria. Katie has worked in ceramics for the last 20 years in various capacities from teaching, to working for other artists, to creating her own work. In 2020, with a renewed appreciation for creating a sense of home and permanence in New York City during the pandemic, she started Dear Gloria, a business centered on all things handmade for the home made by NYC artists. A natural connector and curator, Dear Gloria brings together her love for making functional dishes for the home and her natural affinity for connecting people to each other and artists to new audiences. Katie holds a B.A. in Art, Business, and Community Development from Covenant College on Lookout Mountain, Georgia, and an M.S. in Arts and Cultural Management from Pratt Institute in New York City. You can follow @deargloria.home on Instagram for updates on markets, events, and the upcoming launch of their online shop in November. Podcasting is a great way to connect with your audience and get your message out to the world. But it can be overwhelming to start and sustain one. I've been running this podcast for the past 5 years, and I'm here to help you strategically launch your podcast and create a sustainable system that works for you. Sign up for your free thirty-minute intro call by filling out the interest form at marybsafrit.com/coaching. Alright, let's get to today's episode. If you're ready to look totally hot online -- plus, like, show up as the expert you are and all that -- I challenge you to find faster, more affordable, custom branding strategically designed by a professional. Stand out with branding that actually represents the magic of what you do and get a Tiny Brand! We at Unsuitable used Karla for our upcoming rebrand in September and I have to tell you she nailed it. Not only was she super fun to work with, we were over the moon with how perfectly she captured our brand. It feels exactly like us and we can't wait to share it with you. The Tiny Brand experience is a done-for-you collaboration, a silver platter of fonts, colors, and design elements tailored for you and your business delivered within a quick turnaround of just 48 hours. If beautiful branding done by someone who just *gets* you is your vibe, you need to work with Karla at The Inspired Foundry / get a Tiny Brand. Use INSPIREDMARYB to get $50 off your Tiny Brand! Head to www.yourtinybrand.com for all the details. Liquid I.V. is the category-winning hydration brand fueling your well-being, and their Hydration Multiplier is the one product you're missing in your daily routine. Get 20% off when you goLiquid IV Use my special link https://zen.ai/unsuitablewithmarybsafrit2 to save 20% off anything you order.Tiny Brand The Tiny Brand Experience is a done-for-you brand collaboration designed just for your business.Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.Support the show

In this episode, you'll hear Kaitlyn and I talk about: How spiritual formation impacts political engagement—and why this is gets more human, accessible, and impactful on the local level. Why self-sufficiency is a myth--for individuals and families and all people. The ways collective engagement beats isolation, even within family units. And why reciprocity is crucial within church communities, especially across diverse backgrounds and life stages.  Before we dive in, give me 15 seconds to tell you about how you can get your hands on some fun podcast bonuses. Kaitlyn Schiess is a writer, speaker, and theologian. She is the author of The Liturgy of Politics: Spiritual Formation for the Sake of Our Neighbor and is a regular cohost on the Holy Post podcast. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, Christianity Today, Christ and Pop Culture, Relevant, and Sojourners. She has a Masters of Theology from Dallas Theological Seminare and is currently a doctoral student in political theology at Duke Divinity School. She lives in Durham, North Carolina. You can follow Kaitlyn on Instagram and Twitter @kaitlynschiess. Snag your copy of her book, The Ballot and The Bible, wherever you buy books--and make sure to rate and review! This episode is jammed packed; unfortunately, a lot of wisdom didn't make the final cut. Don't worry though, you can join our Patreon community to get the full episode and to be a part of a community where your voice matters! We hope to see you there! Liquid I.V. is the category-winning hydration brand fueling your well-being, and their Hydration Multiplier is the one product you're missing in your daily routine. I love using Liquid I.V. regularly and when feeling extra parched, brain foggy, or under the weather. It's seriously a life saver when it comes to recovery. I just mix a stick of it into some water, my favorite flavor is Lemon Lime, by the way, and I feel more refreshed and rejuvenated. One stick of Liquid I.V. in 16 ounces of water hydrates you 2x faster and more efficiently than water alone. Get 20% off when you go to LIQUID IV DOT COM and use code UNSUITABLE at checkout. That's 20% off ANYTHING you order when you shop better hydration today using promo code UNSUITABLE at LIQUID IV DOT COM. Podcasting is a great way to connect with your audience and get your message out to the world. But it can be overwhelming to start and sustain one. I've been running this podcast for the past 5 years, and I'm here to help you strategically launch your podcast and create a sustainable system that works for you. Sign up for your free thirty-minute intro call by filling out the interest form at marybsafrit.com/coaching.Liquid IV Use my special link https://zen.ai/unsuitablewithmarybsafrit2 to save 20% off anything you order.Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.Support the show

In this episode, Beth and I talk about: Identifying the pain points of exclusion—and how to get serious about including and being led by singles in the church. Barriers to single leadership—unpacking the biases, assumptions, and misunderstandings about singles. The lonely church: why we need to deliberately create an atmosphere of kindness, connecting people, saying hello and then some. Beth is a passionate advocate for inclusion within the church community. As the Communications Director at UK-based charity Single Friendly Church, Beth works tirelessly to create welcoming spaces where single individuals of all backgrounds are valued and embraced. With a heart that beats for unity, she's dedicated to breaking barriers and ensuring every church becomes a place of belonging. You can follow Single Friendly Church on Instagram @singlefriendlychurch. Check out their resources at singlefriendlychurch.com. "God told me we should go out." This is one of the many sayings complicating Christian Dating Culture. That's why Landen Swain wrote the best-seller Detox Christian Dating, which gets down into the nitty-gritty of what actually makes dating as a Christian complicated and provides insight on how to make Christian Dating Culture healthier. Order Detox Christian Dating on Amazon today. Liquid I.V. is the category-winning hydration brand fueling your well-being, and their Hydration Multiplier is the one product you're missing in your daily routine. I love using Liquid I.V. regularly and when feeling extra parched, brain foggy, or under the weather. It's seriously a lifesaver when it comes to recovery. I just mix a stick of it into some water, My favorite flavor is Lemon Lime, by the way, and I feel more refreshed and rejuvenated. One stick of Liquid I.V. in 16 ounces of water hydrates you 2x faster and more efficiently than water alone. Get 20% off when you go to LIQUIDIV.com and use code UNSUITABLE at checkout. That's 20% off ANYTHING you order when you shop for better hydration today using promo code UNSUITABLE at LIQUIDIV.com.This episode is jam-packed; unfortunately, a lot of wisdom didn't make the final cut. Don't worry though, you can join our Patreon community to get the full episode and to be a part of a community where your voice matters! We hope to see you there!Liquid IV Use my special link https://zen.ai/unsuitablewithmarybsafrit2 to save 20% off anything you order.Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.Support the show

In this episode, you'll hear Moriah talk about The importance of finding spaces where you don't need to explain your identity to peopleWhy everyone should be doing identity development workThe ‘second puberty' of coming out as an adult How to find *your* people within the queer communityAll things self compassion, grace, and time when it comes to coming out later in lifeMoriah is a therapist-in-training who specializes in working with the LGBTQIA+ community, especially in the areas of trauma, identity development, and identity integration. She utilizes a relational psychodynamic approach to therapy, along with feminist psychology and LGBTQIA+ affirming psychology. She is a psych assistant at Woven Trauma Therapy. You can follow Moriah on Instagram @mconantpsychology. If you're ready to look totally hot online -- plus, like, show up as the expert you are and all that -- I challenge you to find faster, more affordable, custom branding strategically designed by a professional. Stand out with branding that actually represents the magic of what you do and get a Tiny Brand! We at Unsuitable used Karla for our upcoming rebrand in September and I have to tell you she nailed it. Not only was she super fun to work with, we were over the moon with how perfectly she captured our brand. It feels exactly like us and we can't wait to share it with you. The Tiny Brand experience is a done-for-you collaboration, a silver platter of fonts, colors, and design elements tailored for you and your business delivered within a quick turnaround of just 48 hours. If beautiful branding done by someone who just *gets* you is your vibe, you need to work with Karla at The Inspired Foundry / get a Tiny Brand. Use INSPIREDMARYB to get $50 off your Tiny Brand! Head to www.yourtinybrand.com for all the details. Affiliate link: https://marybsafrit--theinspiredfoundry.thrivecart.com/your-tiny-brand-and-logos/Podcasting is a great way to connect with your audience and get your message out to the world. But it can be overwhelming to start and sustain one. I've been running this podcast for the past 5 years, and I'm here to help you strategically launch your podcast and create a sustainable system that works for you. Sign up for your free thirty-minute intro call by filling out the interest form at marybsafrit.com/coaching. Alright, let's get to today's episode. Liquid I.V. is the category-winning hydration brand fueling your well-being, and their Hydration Multiplier is the one product you're missing in your daily routine. Get 20% off when you go to LIQUID IV DOT COM and use code UNSUITABLE at checkout. That's 20% off ANYTHING you order when you shop better hydration today using promo code UNSUITABLE at LIQUID IV DOT COM. Alright, now let's dive into today's episode! Liquid IV Use my special link https://zen.ai/unsuitablewithmarybsafrit2 to save 20% off anything you order.Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.Support the show

AEK Athens achieved a magnificent victory in a match that was forbidden for cardiac patients, managing to qualify for the Champions League playoffs. - Μεγαλειώδη νίκη σε έναν αγώνα απαγορευτικό για καρδιακούς πέτυχε η ΑΕΚ, καταφέρνοντας να πάρει την πρόκριση στα πλέι οφ του Τσάμπιονς Λιγκ.

Thinking in English Proofreading! - https://twbrock.co.uk/proofreading/ Book a Consultation to Help You Get Started With Applications or Documents - https://calendly.com/twbrock/application-consultation?month=2023-07 ------  With the Women's World Cup taking place right now in Australia and New Zealand, I thought it would be interesting to take a look at the history of women's football. From its early history to a time when women's football was more popular the men's sport, to being banned across the world… it is a fascinating story! TRANSCRIPT - https://thinkinginenglish.blog/2023/07/31/255-the-history-of-womens-football-english-vocabulary-lesson/ ------ My Links  ⁠⁠7 Day FREE CONVERSATION CLUB TRIAL - https://www.patreon.com/thinkinginenglish ⁠⁠⁠⁠ Take a Class with Thinking in English! (Use code TRIAL50 for 50% off) - https://thinkinginenglish.link/⁠⁠ ENGLISH CLASSES - https://thinkinginenglish.link/  ⁠Buy Me a Coffee - https://www.buymeacoffee.com/dashboard⁠ NEW YOUTUBE Channel!!! - https://www.youtube.com/@thinkinginenglishpodcast  INSTAGRAM - thinkinginenglishpodcast (https://www.instagram.com/thinkinginenglishpodcast/)   Blog - thinkinginenglish.blog ------  Vocabulary Association football (n) - Also known as soccer, the most widely played form of football with specific rules established by the Football Association (FA). Spectator (n) - People who watch a sports event or performance. Prejudice (n) - Preconceived opinions or attitudes towards a certain group or individual. Newspaper coverage (n) - Reporting or news articles published in newspapers. To found (n) – to bring something into existence. Professional (adj) - used to describe someone who does a job that people usually do as a hobby. Unsuitable (adj) - Not appropriate or fitting for a particular purpose or situation. To overshadow (v) - to make something seem less important. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/thinking-english/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/thinking-english/support

Season 10 is here!Next week, aka July 11, we are officially launching season 10 of the Unsuitable podcast! We are stoked to be in the double digits and even more stoked to share what we've been cooking up for ya.  For our tenth season, we've decided to get super practical. In each episode, we'll interview an expert who happens to be single and Christian about one nitty gritty facet of single life. To name just a few, you'll hear about solo traveling, spiritual direction, getting the most out of therapy, and more.You can follow the podcast on Instagram at unsuitablepodcast and you can follow me on Instagram and Tiktok at maryb.safrit to stay up to date on all things Unsuitable!Support the show

Welcome to a special between-the-seasons episode of Unsuitable. Y'all loved Jason's episode from Season 8 so much we are releasing the extended cut for ya!In this episode, Jason and I cover: navigating relational boundaries as a single pastorwhat we miss when we require pastors to be marriedhow our assumptions create barriers in our friendshipsand why equating marriage with righteousness doesn't workJason Adam Miller is the founder and lead pastor of South Bend City Church, an eclectic Christian community known for its thoughtful teaching, inclusive vision, and commitment to its city context. An advocate for artists and peacemakers, his work beyond South Bend focuses on cultural headwaters and conflict zones, where he serves an international constituency of leaders. He holds a master's degree in theology from the University of Notre Dame.You can follow Jason on Instagram @jasonadammiller, or head to his website jasonadammiller.com. If you want to hear more from South Bend City Church, check out their podcast wherever you listen. Singles find themselves in a lot of awkward situations at church. When you take The Single Christian Derptitude test, choose your knee-jerk reaction to each prompt and learn your social superpower. Think of it like an aptitude test... for all the weird things people say to singles at church. Take this fun, free quiz at marybsafrit.com.Support the show

California board shuts down two LA County juvenile halls; L.A. City Council accepts donation of robot dog for LAPD;  Netflix starts to enforce its crackdown on password sharing. Support The L.A. Report by donating now at LAist.com/joinSupport the show: https://laist.com

MaryB. Safrit is an author, producer, and singles coach passionate about closing the gap between what the church offers and what single Christians need. Her book, The Single Christian's Church Survival Guide: How to Navigate Church Culture and Conversations Without Losing Your Mind, is available on Amazon. You can listen to Unsuitable with MaryB. Safrit wherever you get your podcasts. Follow her on Instagram and TikTok @maryb.safrit. Check out more writings, resources, and freebies at marybsafrit.com.  Links: My Friend's Wedding WDWTB --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/beknown/support

In today's episode, you'll hear Meg and I talk about: why church folks need to let go of our need to appear righteousrefocusing how we use our privilegewhat aspiring allies to the LGBTQ+ community need to know when starting that journeyhow to not pass on false gospels and despairand the barriers queer people face when trying to stay with JesusMeg Baatz is the co-founder of Kaleidoscope, a New York–based organization helping provide LGBTQ+ people with tangible expressions of Jesus. Meg is a bridge-builder and ministry educator whose desire is to see people grow personally and engage locally in diverse communities – particularly at the intersection of sexuality, gender, and spiritual life with Jesus. Prior to launching Kaleidoscope, Meg spent 6 years educating ministry leaders on enhancing LGBTQ+ inclusion and care. Meg holds a degree in Social Work from Colorado State University.You can follow Kaleidoscope on Instagram and TikTok @kaleidoscope.usa. Check out the all the links to the amazing resources Meg talked about and that coupon code. You can follow Meg on Instagram @megbaatz/@kaleidomeg This episode is jammed packed and unfortunately, a lot of wisdom didn't make the final cut. Don't worry though, you can join our Patreon community to get the full episode and to be a part of a community where your voice matters! We hope to see you there!We Don't Want The Bouquet is a guide designed to help single Christians survive wedding season. It's short. It's snappy. And most importantly, it means you don't have to walk through all this alone.If you're a single Christian tired of plodding through wedding prep all by your onesie, this guide is for you. Head to marybsafrit.com/shop and get your copy today. This is for any ministry leaders and/or their colleagues or spouses. For this podcast's listeners, we'll offer $30 off coupon UNSUITABLE to save on your registration. https://kaleidoscopeusa.regfox.com/safe-pastor-iUnderstanding My Story PDFkaleidoscopeusa.org/storypdfSupport the show

In this episode, host Kelly Wolfe is joined by author, singles coach, and host of the Unsuitable Podcast, MaryB. Safrit, to discuss:the dominant narratives singles tell the Church about what it means to be a single Christian in the American/Western church (and who is left out when we limit our thinking to one kind of single Christian)dominant narratives the Church tells singles about themselves, God, their sin & need for constant accountability/supervision (what Kelly calls "roommate theology"), marriage, parenthood, sanctification, and wisdomways that single Christians can do internal work to wrestle with and ultimate shed, call out, and refuse to participate in messaging and narratives that either no longer serve them or are actively harmful, and more.Additional Resources and Links mentioned in this episode:Unsuitable with MaryB. Safrit Podcast, Season 9, Episode 1 where Kelly joined MaryB.'s podcast to discuss gender roles, purity culture, therapy, changing desires, and faith evolutions. (Available wherever you listen to podcasts; link goes to show site.)Singles Coaching Interest Form (fill this out for a free 60-minute introductory coaching call); Singles Coaching websiteMaryB's Book: The Single Christian's Church Survival Guide: How to Navigate Church Culture and Conversations Without Losing Your MindFrom the Let It Matter Blog: Kelly's journey of being consciously uncoupled and child-free https://letitmatter.com/blog/f/consciously-uncoupled-child-freeGUEST BIO: MaryB. Safrit is an author, producer, and singles coach passionate about closing the gap between what the church offers and what single Christians need. Her book, The Single Christian's Church Survival Guide: How to Navigate Church Culture and Conversations Without Losing Your Mind, is available on Amazon. You can listen to Unsuitable with MaryB. Safrit wherever you get your podcasts. Follow her on Instagram and TikTok @maryb.safrit. Check out more writings, resources, and freebies at marybsafrit.com.

You'll sleep peacefully and dream of flowing meadows and green rivers after we reveal the shocking analysis of this unrelenting nightmare!Join us in the Beer Thursday Facebook group and on Instagram!For complete show notes, go to Shayne.Fun/bt. Follow Beer Thursday on Instagram so you can enjoy Jay's brilliant beer photography and join the convo next time we go live! Please support us on the Beer Thursday Patreon page! The first 19 Great Human Beings will get access to the Beer Thursday Facebook group at the $5 level.Never miss an episode and help us take you to the top with us by subscribing and leaving a 5-Star review on your favorite podcasting app:Apple PodcastsListen on Amazon MusicSpotifyStitcherGoogle PodcastsiHeartRadioSupport the show

Investing is crucial to increasing your wealth and achieving your goals, one of which is financial freedom. Jared Asch is the founder and managing partner of Capstone Government Affairs, a full-service consulting firm with a nationwide reach. He is a recognized leader in his field and specializes in building partnerships and guiding his clients through state and local governments' complex procurement, legislative and regulatory processes. Jared's clients work in a wide variety of industries. His specialty is opening doors and closing deals. In this episode, Jared shares essential information on how to find investors and build long-term relationships with them. In addition, we'll go over how to determine if an investor is right for you.   HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE EPISODE 1. Jared's Journey into real estate 00:00 - 2:55 2. Connection building skills 2:55 - 4:08 3. What to focus on in a conversation with an investor 4:08 - 6:18 4. Unsuitable investor 6:18 - 10:15 5. Experience of providing capital preservation 10:15 - 12:21 6. Follow-up process with investors 12:21 - 15:50 7. How to build and keep long-term relationships 15:50 - 17:55 8. Concerns about the market 17:55 - 20:35 9. Advice for passive real estate investors 20:35 - 22:10 10. Crown Capital's plans for 2023 22:10 - 23:17   CONNECT WITH THE GUEST LinkedIn- linkedin.com/in/jaredasch Website- https://www.capstonegov.com   CONNECT WITH THE HOST Website- https://upstreaminvestor.com/ Facebook- https://www.facebook.com/TwoSmartAssets/ Instagram- https://www.instagram.com/upstreaminvestor/ Twitter- https://twitter.com/twosmartassets LinkedIn- https://www.linkedin.com/company/two-smart-assets/   -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Listen, like, subscribe, and comment!

Liz and Nic have been hooked by the latest revelations from Prince Harry, and it's reminded Liz of her own troubled sibling relationship. Nic's not had a great start to 2023 but she's still adamant it's going to be her year. The pair look back on the fabulous life and even more fabulous character of the late Dame Vivienne Westwood, and Liz has made a decision, no more dating men that aren't good enough!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Georgina Godwin speaks to sports journalist and academic Carrie Dunn about her new book ‘Unsuitable for Females', which tells the story of the Lionesses and the inspiring yet troubled history of women's football in England.

In this episode, you'll hear about:untangling cultural Christian expectations how to treat singles as whole peopleallowing for all feelings in singlenesswhich kinds of relationships deserve more attention (and why)and so much more!Today is an extra special episode of Unsuitable, because you're going to get to hear from two guests at once! Audrey Elledge lives in New York, where she works at SparkNotes and serves at Church of the City New York. Elledge is the recipient of the Academy of American Poets Prize and the Virginia Beall Ball Prize. Born and raised in Louisiana, Elizabeth Moore now lives in New York, where she works at Penguin Random House and serves with the Church of the City New York creative team. We're talking to both of them at once because they co-authored a book that releases today called Liturgies for Hope. You can listen to Audrey's playlist "Sermons in Stones" on Spotify. You can follow Elizabeth on Instagram @elizabethjmoore and Audrey on Twitter @audreymae17. Their book, Liturgies for Hope, is available wherever you buy books. You can listen to Audrey's playlist "Sermons in Stones" on Spotify. This episode is jammed packed and unfortunately a lot wisdom didn't make the final cut. Don't worry though, you can join our Patreon community to get the full episode! We hope to see you there!Think coaching could be for you, fill out the interest form here!Support the show

Listen to Mari Anne talk about her philosophy and pragmatic approach to building and leading successful, resilient teams in today's new, ever-changing workplace.

After the divorce of Charles and Diana, much of the blame was placed on Charles' affair with Camilla Parker-Bowles… and following Diana's death, for many that blame became outright hatred. And yet in 2005 Charles and Camilla married with the blessing of the whole family, and in 2022 the Queen announced that following his coronation, Camilla will be known as Queen. Has Camilla been the focus of The Firm's smartest PR campaign yet?Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy