Podcasts about Wild Swans

Skip the Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. Your host is Paul Marden.If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, and all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue or visit our website SkiptheQueue.fm.If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review, it really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter  or Bluesky for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned in this podcast.Competition ends on 5th March 2025. The winner will be contacted via Bluesky. Show references: https://www.birminghammuseums.org.uk/https://www.linkedin.com/in/zakmensah/Zak Mensah is the co-CEO of Birmingham Museums Trust. He is passionate about helping their service make an impact by focusing on the needs of over 1 million visitors. He is encouraging the organization to adopt a "digital by default" approach. Zak's mission is to ensure that their people, skills, and services remain adaptable to the rapidly changing landscape of the cultural sector. He is exploring new ways of doing things, including innovative business models, partnerships, and arts-related KPIs, while sharing as much as possible publicly.With a background in staff development and digital, Zak has been involved with the web since the late 90s and has seen its influence grow in all aspects of life. Prior to joining the arts sector in 2013, he helped small businesses, charities, Jisc, universities, and the Heritage Lottery Fund "do" digital well.Zak also runs his own consultancy to promote positive change and keep his skills sharp. His goal is to make a ruckus. https://www.vam.ac.uk/https://www.linkedin.com/in/amyakino-wittering/Amy Akino-Wittering is Head of Operations and Commercial at Young V&A, which opened July 2023 and recently won Art Fund Museum of the Year and Kids in Museums, Family Friendly Museum of the Year awardsResponsible for the general management of Young V&A she directly manages the visitor experience and teams, catering contract, volunteering and back of house operations, collaborating closely with central V&A colleagues to deliver operations and income for Young V&A. Previously Amy worked at V&A South Kensington as Senior Visitor Experience Manager-Sales and was on the opening project team leading on visitor experience and retail at Pitzhanger Manor & Gallery.She started her career at Imperial War Museums working across sites from assistant to management roles in Retail and Admissions and systems management.  https://www.hampshireculture.org.uk/​​https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-sapwell-b3b2a281/Paul Sapwell has been Chief Executive at independent arts and culture charity Hampshire Cultural Trust since 2018, having joined the trust in 2016 as Chief Operating Officer following an early career primarily in hospitality and leisure. Paul is a passionate believer in the transformative power that cultural experiences can have on the wellbeing of individuals and communities, and a prominent advocate for the role of commercial growth, underpinned by a flexible, entrepreneurial team culture, in sustaining museum and arts organisations. Transcription: Paul Marden: The museums and culture sector are facing unprecedented headwinds. Static or reducing funding from local government, fewer grants from trusts and foundations, all while dealing with increased people costs. The continued headwinds from cost of living crisis. But this sector continues to deliver more with less and support the cultural life of our country. Paul Marden: Welcome to Skip the Queue. I'm your host, Paul Marden and in today's episode recorded the Science Museum at the Association of Cultural Enterprises View from the Top event. I'm joined by Amy Akino-Wittering, Head of Operations and Commercial at Young V&A. Zak Mensah, Co CEO of Birmingham Museums Trust, and Paul Sapwell, CEO of Hampshire Cultural Trust. Paul Marden: And we're going to talk about how the cultural sector can innovate in order to thrive. Anyone that's listened to the podcast before will know. And this is the nervous bit. Paul Marden: We always start with an icebreaker question which my lovely guests victims have not been prepared for. So, Zak, I'm afraid you go first, my friends. So if you were a cartoon character, which cartoon character would you be? Zak Mensah: That's easy. I think I would be the thing that gets chased by the. Is it the wild Cody who runs around all his home? But I'd be the. What's the little, the stupid Roadrunner. Yeah, so I would be Roadrunner because you constantly are literally running 100 miles an hour and then a giant piano lands on you at 4:00 on a Friday afternoon, but you respawn on the Monday and you start all over again. Pretty much feels like me. Paul Marden: I love that. I love that. Amy, you're next. Let's think of all of the inventions over the last hundred years that were offered. Flying cars, those sorts of things. What is the one thing were promised that you really miss and think we really need in our lives? Amy Akino-Wittering: I think a Time Turner, which is basically from Harry Potter. Basically you can just go and do things like six. They do six days all at once. Paul Marden: You can be Hermione if you've got a Time Turner. Amy Akino-Wittering: Yeah, great. Paul Marden: Excellent. I love that, Amy. Thank you. Paul. Paul Sapwell: You said these were going to be under no pressure. I wouldn't have liked. I wouldn't have liked either of those. Paul Marden: Oh, well, you're not going to like this one then. I'm sorry, mate, I'm, I, I live in Hampshire. Paul runs Hampshire Cultural Trust. Paul. Paul Sapwell:  Oh, even better. Paul Marden: Saints or Pompey? Paul Sapwell:  Oh, blimey. Okay, well that's, I'm an Arsenal fan. Paul Marden: So there we go. Paul Sapwell: I couldn't possibly answer Saints or Pompey? I mean, we border both. So I would just be in so much trouble if I pick one or the other. So I can. I've got to get out. Paul Marden: Are you dodging that one? Paul Sapwell: Yeah. I thought you might watch Arsenal regularly. Paul Marden: I thought you might. So we are going to start with a question from somebody from the audience, a young man named Gordon. Apparently he might be a millennial. And he says, After 15 years of turmoil, financial crash, austerity, Brexit, Covid, we face continuing cost of living issues, rising national insurance and a Trump presidency. Are we doomed in 2025? Or to put it slightly better, what are the biggest risks for your organisation and the wider sector, and what are you each doing to thrive in the year ahead? And I'm going to start with you, Paul. Paul Sapwell: That's an easy question, isn't it? Paul Marden: You can thank young Gordon. Paul Sapwell: Brilliant Gordon, Yeah. I mean, I think 2025 is going to be an incredibly tricky year, but to sort of look further than that. I'm certainly an optimist, but I think we're in a time of transition, particularly in terms of our sector, in the cultural sector, in terms of what's going to fund us and what's going to sustain us going forward. You know, I think the years of the level. I think a lot of the speakers have touched on it, but the years of the level of public sector funding is, whatever happens with this government and next is going to be going down and we just have to face that. I run an organisation which we started out in 2019. We're about 85% publicly funded. Now we're 34% publicly funded with the same turnover, I hasten to add. Paul Sapwell: And so we've made a good go of it, but I think the headwinds this year are really difficult. That said, I think that we have to be confident investing for the longer term and particularly, obviously, in this conference in areas of commercial growth. I think that, okay, the growth projections have been downgraded. I am confident that we will, as the decade continues, move into a period of growth. And we've got to be looking at the long term rather than the short term. The trick is, of course, not running out of money in the short term. And that's a really difficult place to be. Paul Marden: In the water, just here. Paul Sapwell: I don't have an easy answer to that, but I think fundamentally, you've got to give the customer what they want and the customer is still there. Paul Sapwell: And we have a fantastic product. But we've got to certainly pivot much further towards what customers want commercially, in my view, than putting as much emphasis as probably we did 10 years ago on trying to find more and more public funding, because I think that's going down. Paul Marden: Zak, have you got any thoughts on that? Zak Mensah: Yeah, I mean, in terms of money, just generally people want to back winners. So I think one of the difficult things that internally we can all say it's doom and gloom, because it does feel that doom and gloom. There are definitely days, weeks and months. I think it's right to say that it's doom and gloom. Like you can be optimist but still understand it's difficult time. And I think a lot of our, you know, a lot of our workforces certainly feel that, it can feel very difficult because every year they ask, will they have their job? Right. And that's a really fair question to ask. And we sometimes as leaders kind of say, “Oh, if we can get through the next two years, but two years for normal staff are sometimes a very long time to try and say, “You or may have not have a job to make life through.”Zak Mensah: So I think that's something I always think back in back of my mind. I think a lot of the difficulties, whichever flavour of government is about understanding how to be more savvy, about understanding the trends, about things that are fundable. Because there are lots of things that were funded 10, 20 years ago, that money has dried up. And so we've all got to think about, for example, a lot of people now looking at, well, being a speaker this afternoon was talking about more on EDI, for example, and how younger people certainly are interested in having more of a purpose driven business. Is how for us, we can make sure we're focused on the, what I was called, the user need. So the needs that people use us. Zak Mensah: Because if you can concentrate and focus on what they want, whether it be money, otherwise that ultimately does lead to a business model. Because there's no point saying just because museums and galleries have been around for 100 to 200 years, they have an absolute right to exist. The only way they exist is because every decade or whatever there's another crisis comes along and a group of people, including ourselves here, live in this room, but also listening to this make it happen. Like, we've got to convince councillors, government, businesses to be part of that journey. Because the funny thing I will say is that, you know, at Birmingham Museums, the art gallery was founded in 1885 by industry people. It was industry people that founded it. It was industry people who wanted the city to have great arts. Zak Mensah: And so now we're turning back to those same people and saying, "We need you to now step up and contribute." It doesn't always have to be money. It could be in kind support, could be advocacy. That's the kind of thing that we need to do as leaders right now, in addition to the normal making the money work and stretch as far as we can. Paul Marden: Absolutely. Amy, what are you doing at Young V&A to thrive in the year ahead and face some of these challenges? Amy Akino-Wittering: Yeah, absolutely. So we've now been open for just over two years, so I feel kind of, well, coming up to two years. And so I feel we're kind of in that stage where we kind of opened and sort of just try to make sure that we are operationally savvy. And last year was very much about refining that. And I think this year is very much about what's next and how can we build upon kind of success of opening, looking at ways in which we can innovate through doing new kind of commercial opportunities, but also how can we develop our audiences. And as well as part of kind of the wider V&A, we've got two more sites opening as well. Amy Akino-Wittering: So how as an organisation are we going to work together to kind of be in this new family of sites and work together through there? So I think for us in the kind of coming year is all about, what's next? We've opened the door. We started with a really strong foundation and a really strong vision, but then how can we keep on innovating and keep iterating that to improve? Paul Marden: Excellent. I'm going touch on stuff that Lewis talked about a minute ago. One of his reflections I really liked was thinking about how do we create a space for colleagues to engage with some of these really important issues that have been on the PowerPoints. Zak, maybe you could start. What do you think your organisation can do to act as bottom up catalyst for change as opposed to trying to drive these changes from the top down? Zak Mensah: I think the first thing is about understanding that there are a lot of people who do want to be able to voice their hopes and fears around a whole host of subjects, whether it be specifically around, if you're ethnic minority, about your fear of living in the UK, if you have climate, lots of important subjects people want to talk about. You know, I think certainly internally, and I'll be very clear about this, I think there's a very different view sometimes about the difference between internal and the external voice of the organisation. So what we see a lot of is staff individually believe that as a service there are lots of things we could and should be talking about publicly that may or may not directly align with how as a leader we see it. Zak Mensah: So, you know, there are lots of fights we do get into. We can't get into every single fight. And sometimes there's a real fine balance around what we decide to go for. So if you take during Black Lives Matter example, me and Sarah Shropshire started in November 2020, there was an expectation that immediately we would be like the spokesperson for the whole museum sector about black and brown issues. And like, it's really hard to say, actually. I am not speaking on behalf of every single person in the whole country. I do take it seriously and we set up internally ways people to talk about it, but didn't always feel appropriate. Zak Mensah: And I'll give another example is around, for example, war. Any one time there's something like 15 global conflicts happening and, you know, we talk and go backwards and forwards internally sometimes about, you know, do we talk about them publicly? If we talk about them internally, how we talk about them, do we single one out or do we talk about them all? Are they equal? How do you equally talk about things are very horrific for a number of people?Zak Mensah: And knowing that we've got staff from dozens of countries who all have different views on how their homeland or area they're interested in is impacted. Things are very horrific for a number of people. But I do think that there's always. It's always really tricky because the best conversations and the best conversations need care and a lot of the conversations happen in like, pockets that we have no control over. Zak Mensah: And so it's again, how do you set an environment as a leader that is allowing the bottom up to do their own thing, but in a way that isn't going to be detrimental to the whole workforce? Because I think it is. Again, I mentioned it's been. It's really tricky and that's the simple truth. It is no easy answer to these things because if it was easy, we'd all solved it. Yeah. But acknowledging it there, it's the elephant in the room, I think is really important and growing to be more and more important for us as leaders. Paul Marden: I think Lewis was saying it's really important to know where you stand on issues and it is okay for you to have a stance on issues that says, I'm not going to make a stand on this one issue. I thought that was a really interesting perspective. Imy's talk. I think were talking a lot about the journey of Titanic Belfast, which I love as a museum, to go to a museum that emotionally moved me as much with so very few actual artefacts. I just think it's an amazing storytelling experience. But you talked a little bit about the team and what you do to be able to nurture that team. And one of the things that we're talking about is trying to get 110% out of everybody getting to more with less, getting them to innovate. Paul Marden: How do you balance all of those challenges and not break the people and maintain a 98% retention rate like Titanic does? Paul? Paul Sapwell: Well, maintaining a 98 retention rate, I think fairly unprecedented and huge congratulations. I mean, I think it follows on a bit from what Zak was saying, actually. You know, it's tough, isn't it, being leaders in terms of whether you're making that kind of external message or whether you've got a tough internal message. I mean, I've always taken a stance that you've got to be as transparent as you possibly can be and people will go a long way with you if it doesn't appear that things are being taken in a dark room somewhere. And I think for us, what we've tried to do is to put in the mechanisms for that to happen. I've been really fortunate to work with a fantastic people director, Hampshire Cultural Trust. Paul Sapwell: One of the first things, I think you've also got to make a stance, by the way, on people being important. One of the first things I did as CEO was say we need a people director. It's quite rare in the heritage sector. I came from hospitality, it was the norm. It's an odd thing that people and HR doesn't always sit at the top table. Sometimes it's sort of delegated down in operations or even finance. So I think that's really important and we needed a strategy and part of that is putting in place a lot of the stuff that you talked about of the Titanic, which I think is really impressive. And we're somewhere on that journey, but not quite as far along, but proper employee forums where you listen. Paul Sapwell: I meet with an employee elected employee forum quarterly and talk to them about all issues with nothing off the table. We also have an EDI group with a mix, again, senior leadership on there talking about these issues. And I think that, you know, if there was one thing I would say it's, you're not always going to be able to give easy answers, are you? This year we're being hit with an enormous national insurance hit to the staff costs and that is going to affect pay. I can't pretend that it isn't. And if we're going to not run out of money in the next few years, we're going to have to give less of a pay increase this year than we would like to. Paul Sapwell: But we've been talking about that openly since it hit and I hope that our team will go, will understand, but obviously that doesn't make it, make it easy. And I think the same is true with the issues that you're talking about. You can't take a stance on every single issue that comes through each of these forums every quarter, but you have a conversation about it. And I think that's the most important bit for me. Paul Marden: Amy, I'm going to segue wide away from today's talks. Regular listeners will know that I'm a Trustee of Kids in Museums and I was chatting with my fellow trustees about today's event and we wondered, given the impact of the cultural sector, on the impact that it has on the lives of young people and how there are so many challenges at the moment for disadvantaged young people to engage in the sector. You know, we all know that post Covid, many schools have cut their school visits into museums and galleries. I pick you because Young V&A was the winner of Kids in Museums Family Friendly Awards last year. So let's just start with you and talk about what are the innovative things that you've done to break down barriers to encourage children and families to engage in the museum. Amy Akino-Wittering: Yes, of course. So Young V&A when we kind of opened its entire purpose is about engaging children. It's all about kind of that creative confidence in Generation Alpha. And so the whole museum has been designed with and for young people. So its target audience is between naught to 14 year olds. We spoke with over 22,000 young people in the development of the museum to hear what do they want from it. I think there's a survey which said that 40% of children thought that museums were boring and it weren't places for them. So, well, what can we do as we've got this opportunity to redevelop, to make sure that it is a place that people want to go and enjoy and be themselves. Amy Akino-Wittering: And so that was kind of like the North Star in terms of what every kind of decision in the kind of opening and making and running of Young V&A is really centred around this as well. And so it goes from the aesthetic in terms of the height of things, the bright colours from this swirling staircase that we have at Young V&A, which came from an idea that someone wanted to helter skelter in the space to the tone of voice in our interpretation and also how the objects are displayed. We've got objects from across the V&A, we've got over 2,000 objects. But it's not just the museum as was the Museum of Childhood collection, it's from across all of the different departments of the V&A. And it's been curated with that kind of child centred and child focused way. Amy Akino-Wittering: Co design is also a really kind of core part of it as well. So we kind of co designed with local audiences and children for various design displays and also co curation. So each gallery was co curated between the learning team and the curatorial team as well. And then obviously we've kind of got to actually open the building and have a team to deliver that visitor experience. And again, that is all very much fed through that audience lens. And so we looked at our structures of, you know, what types of people do we want in the space? You know, our core audience are children. We need people who want to engage with that audience. It's a very specific kind of audience, but also we are a hyper local organisation as well and so how can we encourage applicants from the local boroughs? Amy Akino-Wittering: So we drove a very inclusive recruitment process where we basically did a behaviour led process for recruitment, we redid all the job descriptions, went out into our local community, did workshops and CV surgeries and basically just made it as easy as possible for people to apply and get interview. And the kind of core things that were looking at was behaviours. We can teach people how to go on a till or to learn how to do fire evacuations, but actually it's much harder to get people because that's what the job is. You know, the majority, you know, all your visitors will come to a touch point with the front of house team. They are your most important ambassadors. Amy Akino-Wittering: So we need to make sure that we've got the best kind of resources and time and structure in place to support them, to give the best possible experience that we can. So we spent a lot of time doing that. We spent a lot of time as well working Kids in Museums come in and do training about specific family engagement training as well, which has been really beneficial. And then also we really believe that, you know, the customer experience, the visitor experience is directly impacted by the employee experience. You can't expect the team to deliver this amazing, joyful visitor experience if actually they're pretty miserable behind the scenes. So how can we make sure that the structures that we have and the environment that we have is reflective of how we want them to be on the floor as well? Amy Akino-Wittering: So we make sure that we have forums to make sure that, you know, people can have their say. We make sure. So we did this team charter, which was this sort of collaborative effort to see, like, how do you want to feel in the workplace, but also how do you want your visitors to feel? And actually, it was all very similar in terms of the outcomes that came from that kind of exercise. And it's these kind of agreement that we have together to how we're going to work together and those kind of things which we do to ensure. It's that kind of frequent communication and making sure that we're on the same page and it kind of brings that joy which then comes out to the visitors. Amy Akino-Wittering: And that is kind of I think all those things together has all really helped in terms of when someone comes into the space, children, they're front and centre. They really feel like it's a place for them and they've got kind of people around them which really get them and that they will help facilitate their curiosity and things like that. So that's what we've done. Paul Marden: Amazing. Paul, have you got some thoughts? Paul Sapwell: Yeah. I love what you're saying about the visitor. The visitor services guys on the front desk. I mean, they are the most important people, essentially, and that's why I was nodding vigorously. I think that's part of what I was talking about earlier in terms of pivot into more of a commercial view, because a commercial company completely relies on their customer who comes in. And I think my experience of being in an organisation that's moved out of being run predominantly by a council to one that's independent now was, I've got to be honest, at the start, that wasn't how it felt. Paul Sapwell: And actually you could produce big lists of visitor figures, but ultimately, if they went up or down, it didn't really matter because the funding was going to stay the same, whatever, and there would be other metrics, and I think that's the big shift in mentality, because if you don't give the customer what they want, and that means really valuing people on your front line. And, you know, we've had conversations at the Museum Association about it, about how there's almost been that divide in museums between the people who talk to your customers and the museum staff. And I think that's a really. Or people who would see themselves doing proper museum work. And I think that, you know, that's something we've got to. We're moving in the right direction, but we've got to move quicker. Paul Marden: All of our best memories, aren't they, of going to these places are not necessarily about the amazing artefacts, it's the stories that your team tell people when they interact with them. You feel so happy as a result of it. I think of some amazing experiences. Zak, have you got any thoughts on this? Innovative ways in which we make museums family friendly, how we encourage make them more children friendly? Zak Mensah: Well, the first thing is it's something like 50% of people have children. And so knowing that is in the UK is a thing. Just knowing that as a fact. Right. Means that thinking then about families who will come, but also the staff workforce. Because again, like, you know, if your staff, you're your biggest advocates we just talked about is making it friendly for people to have children in the workforce means that most people recommend it and word of mouth is the biggest way that you can influence people and then from that when people come. So we've got nine venues overall pre pandemic, have a million visitors a year. Zak Mensah: We say we're family friendly, but I've got two young children and quite often the experience, not just my place, but other places doesn't actually say match up with that because like just saying to a seven year old, you must love art, doesn't really work, right, if it's Blue. Paul Marden: Can't tell them. You can't just make them like, yeah. Zak Mensah: I can't tell anything because anyone in my family anything. If you convince about bluey=, then you've got another chance. But you know, you've got to think about actually what is their experience going to be. So, you know, have you got picnic area? Have you got toilets? Lots of toilets. Do you allow your staff, for example, in previous roles? We allow people, if they want to do potty training, they could do potty training in the gallery. Because the reality was if they didn't use the potty that they had in their bag, it was going somewhere else. And so I remember watching in horror as someone literally tried to scoop up a child and move their parent out of a gallery to start to go to the toilet. Zak Mensah: And I was like, there was no way they were going to make it out that door. I would love to have that CCTV footage because I bet that was quite interesting. But, you know, it sounds, you know, some sort of flippant and fun. Zak Mensah: But that's the little thing because like all those little things about making it, you know, enjoyable. Because if you can make it enjoyable for the. For the parent or the guardian, you can make it fun for the, you know, for the kids. You know, you have to have sharp crayons and pencils. Whatever it is, like always things that's really kids don't want much. That's the little thing because like all those little things about making it, you know, enjoyable. Right. Like, if you can give them almost that version of experience to make people think it's good. Because I think we sometimes dissociate the child's experience with the fact they're with someone else. So actually you've got to make it good for the people that they're with. And quite often people do it, you know, who take. Zak Mensah: They might take the extended family. So they'll say like, you know, I'll take my niece or whatever, I'm there. And they don't usually actually have to have the children. So sometimes they need help as well, you know, to make sure the experience. Paul Marden: Extra needs to be able to solve the kids' problems. Zak Mensah: Absolutely. So for me it's about making it that friendly from that perspective. So often with school trips, for example, it's how can you make the school trips fun? Because I see quite a lot of kids on school trips that they sort of being marched through and forced to go. So then they're less likely to recommend it to their parents and their parents just like to come. So for me, it's kind of like trying to use that learning visit which often people's first. Most people tell me, I've been to museum as a child and they usually get towards school age, secondary school, and they don't go anymore. Paul Marden: Yes. Zak Mensah: So it's like, how do we make sure that. I don't think as a sector where family friendly enough, other than those people who already are super engaged, they make the kids have fun. I'm probably talking about my trauma now. Paul Marden: Let's return today's speakers. Let's just talk a little bit about Mike's discussion of using behavioural models to influence buying decisions. Yeah. What are the biggest behavioural barriers that you see within your organisation? In terms of visitor experience, from kind of awareness through to decision making, what could you do? What could you change? Zak Mensah: So the first obvious one is a lot of people are terrified of being in spaces because they're not sure how to behave. There's this weird secret code that doesn't. It's not actually written down anywhere that people think the museum experience has got to be quiet, that it's got to be. That you've got to know what you're looking at. It can't just be fun. And actually having. Just having fun is a really important part of what you want to do. So for us, I think the problem is, as well as once you work in the sector, those barriers are invisible because you just work there. You feel comfortable now coming. Yeah. And so the behaviour part is super interesting. And so, for example, it's a phrase I sometimes use around, like. Zak Mensah: It's around this idea of, like, “People like us do things like this”, which I stole from Seth Godin. So, you know, what we did, for example, is w e now don't have staff uniform because we've got quite a diverse. We're dividing diversity in Birmingham and we want people to feel comfortable and recognise people outside the building who then might be going, like, sure, I might. Hoodies, for example. If you wear a hoodie, you might own. The museum's. Not for me, the museums for other people who wear suits, etc. So actually, if they see staffing. Yeah, if they see staff in hoodies or whatever, in hijabs or niqab, whichever outfit they want to wear, then that is a signal about those people are welcome. Zak Mensah: That's one example where that idea came from the team about how we can show and tell and do what we say we're going to do, rather than just saying, “Oh, but we're really friendly museums are great and come in.” Because actually they are intimidating from the outside. They're often intimidating intellectually. Paul Marden: Yep. Zak Mensah: The train, the media, all the time is being really high brow all the time. So it's like actually we. We have to find ways to accept that those barriers exist. And that often means finding people who don't use you to actually tell you that. And we've just finished a citizen's jury, for example, which had almost 30 people who are representative of the city come in and 80% of them at the first meeting said they didn't think the museum is relevant to them. Those are ordinary people who live in the city who. That's 80% of those people. Four in five people don't think the museum is relevant for them, even though we know that we could make it relevant to them. And that was a really sad, shocking figure, but also is motivating. Zak Mensah: And I think our job, you know, as leaders is how do we help people feel inclusive, to be an inclusive space and then like. And go for it. Paul Marden: Excellent. Thank you, Amy. Amy Akino-Wittering: Yeah, I think a lot of what we have done as well is to try and go out of our four walls of Young V&A as well. So we do a lot of kind of community engagement as well through kind of the learning team as well as for volunteering programme. Like we rocked up at stores at Whitechapel Market and kind of saying, “This is our kind of programme”, just chatting with people where they haven't heard of Young V&A even though it's down the road. And so it's like, how can we, yeah, kind of go out and about and also kind of advocate across as well. And then also it's like when people do kind of take that step to actually go onto our site and then come into the building making sure that the visitor experience is as inclusive, as welcoming as possible. Similar. Amy Akino-Wittering: We also just have aprons and they can wear whatever they want underneath and just again, so as people feel relaxed and they feel when our audiences come in, they say, oh yeah, no, that's something that I might wear. Or you know, they just feel more kind of settled and at home. So that's something that's really important that we kind of do as well. Paul Marden: Lovely, Paul. Paul Sapwell: The biggest challenge for us, I mean being a smaller organisation and a brand that isn't known. As well as it could be, I think our biggest challenge now is that customer journey from online through to what you get when you arrive and we're not consistent enough. And I know we'd all talk about this forever but you know, big commercial organisations do this really well. You know, you're going to sell a ticket within a couple of clicks from a social media piece, you're going to get a follow up email that looks exciting and you know, then your product is either going to arrive or you're going to arrive at it and it will be like you thought you were buying. And I'm not sure that we always do that. Paul Sapwell: I've got to be honest and I think to do that you've got to put a lot of investment in it. And that's what we're part of the strategy that we've launched, we launched back in November is about that. Paul Sapwell: And again, that comes back to, you know, commercial mindsets that matters. It matters that we put the right image in whatever way that is to the right customer who we're trying to attract. We've got to understand those customers better and then make sure that's, that's seamless. And, you know, we run 20 venues. They're really different. We've got everything from the Great Hall, Mediaeval Hall in Winchester, which is full of people on from travel trade have come off of cruises and things. And then we've got Milestones Museum in Basingstoke, which is a sort of family living history museum. Paul Sapwell: They don't get any international tourists. So having a really limited pot of marketing to be able to go all these sort of areas is really difficult. But I think that would be the challenge. But thinking about it holistically, really, because it's the same person who clicks on the social media ad to the person who ends up arriving in your venue. And that needs to be really consistent. Yeah, it sounds like cash is the barrier. We're going to try and work with it. But that's the important bit for me. Paul Marden: I'm grinning like the village idiot because this is what I advocate all the time. I'm looking at my marketing friends in the audience who would also share. Share your thoughts on this. We know from the Rubber Cheese survey that it's eight to 10 steps it takes people to checkout. I tried to buy tickets for an aquarium last year and they made me enter a password along with the names and addresses of everybody that was joining me and then told me off three times for getting the password wrong in the checkout process. I had to be really to buy those tickets and. Paul Sapwell: Well, yeah, you touch on. Yeah. I mean, we could have a whole conversation, but no, I mean, we love a complicated ticketing system in the cultural sector, don't we? I mean, with all the right intentions. I mean, even the list in some places of different concessions. I mean, you don't want to go. I think I'm that or I'm that. You know, and it's done with the right intention. But it's an enormous barrier. Paul Marden: Yeah, completely. Paul Sapwell: And you know, we make things so complex and I don't have the fix, but I know we've got to fix it. And that means putting sort of. Again, learn from companies who do this really well rather than. Yeah. Looking for ideas ourselves. Lots of people do it really well out there. That's what we got to do. Paul Marden: Thinking of lots of my team who might think that this is something somebody should solve. Zak Mensah: The fix is simple, isn't it? Because you just said then that there are other people doing it well. What we're not really good at artists actually copying people. Zak Mensah: Like just copy someone else who's done it better than us. It's really. It really does annoy me. Let's just say that what always happens is that we make decisions by committee, don't we? So it would have been two steps, but then someone from marketing said, but you've got to have a newsletter. And someone from another team would say, “You've got to also ask for this. And then you've got to do this. Then you've got to try and get the kids to come for school trip.” Before you know it, people mean well and they've made it really complicated. I think sometimes it's like, actually, let's just do the simplest thing. Let's do all the hard work to remove those barriers and then we can try and flog them stuff when they get there. Paul Marden: So friend of mine, Andy talks a lot about you don't go to a fine dining restaurant and walk up to the maitre d and he says to you, “Would you like a table, by the way, are you going to have dessert? And would you like a coffee? And what are you going to have for your starter main course and dessert? Oh, right, I'll take you to your table.” You have a conversation with people and you lead them and you don't try and pack everything into the very first time you ever talk to the potential client. Zak Mensah: Which is why Greg's does so well. Paul Marden: Yeah, look guys, I could carry on about this conversation, but we are the barrier to everybody getting to their drinks and nibbles and so we've got. Paul Sapwell: Including us. Paul Marden: I know, sorry. We've got a couple of things that I must cover. So we always ask our guests for a book recommendation. It can be a novel, it can be work related. So Zak, would you like to go first with yours? Zak Mensah: Yeah. Turn the ship around! I think it's David Marquet. It's a book about a nuclear submarine commander who basically realises all these stupid rules. And so he just said to everyone, just tell me you intend to. So say to him, I intend to turn the ship left, I intend to take holiday, etc, because he realised that there were so many stupid rules and I think museum will have loads of stupid rules. It's a really good thing. And I know most of you won't read the book because most people say, “Yeah, I'll read it. They don't read it.” There's a 10 minute YouTube video. Surely you can spend 10 minutes of time if you can't be bothered to do that. There is literally a 30 second Wikipedia article about it. But please don't do it. Paul Marden: Zak feels very strongly about this. Paul, your book recommendation, please. Paul Sapwell: Well, last year I read Wild Swans by Jung Chang and I'm trying to find a way of getting into a business conversation. I think there's so much that comes out of that book, but I think, yeah, striving for Utopia is often, you know, the book. Right. Most people in terms of living under communist China and we know we could go on about utopian things that haven't worked, but I think there's, for this conversation, that's perhaps where we need to think, you know, going forward here. There isn't a sort of utopian way that things should be done for our sector. There is, you know, we're making our way here and yeah. Obviously it's a fantastic book. Paul Marden: Excellent. Thank you, Paul. Amy, your recommendation? Amy Akino-Wittering: Yeah, so mine isn't linked to like professional development at all. Mine. Paul Marden: Well, you did have one. Amy Akino-Wittering: Well, I did have one and you were like, no, just go for your favourite one. So I was like, Persuasion by Jane Austen. It's a classic. Paul Marden: We've got, we've got big anniversary at the moment, haven't we? In Chawton where Jane Austen lived has got big thing about 200 years, 250 years? Amy Akino-Wittering: Celebration for the whole year. So I'm gonna go in. Paul Sapwell: Yeah, everyone's trying to get in on this, by the way. I just have to put this out there. You know, she was born in Hampshire. Paul Marden: I know. Paul Sapwell: Born in Hampshire, actually. Born Basingstoke. Paul Marden: I know.Paul Sapwell: Yes. Paul Marden: There's a lot of celebrations for Jane this year. Paul Sapwell: Yeah, everyone's trying. I've seen so many angles for her. Oh, she was here and she went to the toilet. Fair enough. I mean, it's a big celebration. Paul Marden: If you'd like a copy of the book or any of these books, head over to Bluesky and like and repost the show announcement saying, I want Zak, Paul or Amy's book. And the first person to do that will get the book sent to them. Thanks for listening to Skip the Queue. If you've enjoyed this episode, then please leave us a five star review. It really does help more people to find us and remember to follow us on Bluesky , X or Instagram for your chance to win the book. Thank you very much, everybody. Paul Sapwell: Thank you. Amy Akino-Wittering: Thank you. The 2024 Visitor Attraction Website Survey is now LIVE! Dive into groundbreaking benchmarks for the industryGain a better understanding of how to achieve the highest conversion ratesExplore the "why" behind visitor attraction site performanceLearn the impact of website optimisation and visitor engagement on conversion ratesUncover key steps to enhance user experience for greater conversionsDownload the 2024 Rubber Cheese Visitor Attraction Website Survey Report

Follow Fr Alex on X @alexdjfrost order his book here https://www.waterstones.com/book/our-daily-bread/father-alex-frost/alastair-campbell/9780008556556 Follow Paul on X @MrPaulSimpson1 his website is here https://www.paul-simpson.co.uk/ order his book here https://www.amazon.co.uk/Revolutionary-Spirit-Post-Punk-Exorcism-Teardrop/dp/1911036831 Simpson's career begins alongside fellow Liverpool luminaries Ian McCulloch, Bill Drummond, Will Sergeant, Pete Wylie, Pete Burns, and Holly Johnson at the infamous Eric's club, where, in 1976, he finds himself at the birth of the city's second great musical explosion. He co-founds and christens the neo-psychedelic pop group The Teardrop Explodes with Julian Cope but walks out of the band just as they are about to break big and goes to work in a tearoom instead. He then forms The Wild Swans, the indie-band of choice for literary-minded teens in the early 1980s, and Care with Ian Broudie of The Lightning Seeds, sharing a flat with a seventeen-year-old Courtney Love along the way. Marriage, fatherhood, tropical illness, and divorce follow, interspersed with artistic collaborations with Bill Drummond and members of The Brian Jonestown Massacre, among others. Following an onstage reunion with Cope at the Royal Festival Hall, Simpson discovers that seven thousand miles away, in the Philippines, he is considered a musical god. Presidential suites, armed-guards, police escorts you couldn't make it up, and, incredibly, he does' t need to. Revolutionary Spirit is the story of a musician driven by an unerring belief that artistic integrity will bring its own rewards. It concludes with an exorcism of sorts as Simpson finally rids himself of the debilitating demon of psychological depression that has, from the age of nine, run like malware in the background of his life.

Introduced by John Low Narrated by John Kavanagh Read by Jim Norton • Denys Hawthorne Nicholas Boulton • Marcella Riordan William Butler Yeats was born in Dublin in 1865. His father was a lawyer and a well-known portrait painter. Yeats was educated in London and in Dublin, but spent his summers in the west of Ireland in the family's summer house in County Sligo. The young Yeats was active in societies that attempted an Irish literary revival. His early poetry was influenced by John Keats, William Wordsworth, William Blake and many more. His earliest volume of verse was published in 1889. Together with Lady Gregory he founded the Irish Theatre, which was to become the Abbey Theatre, and served as its chief playwright until the movement was joined by John Sing. His plays usually treat Irish legends; they also reflect his fascination with mysticism and spiritualism. After 1910, Yeats's dramatic art took a sharp turn toward a highly poetical, static, and esoteric style. Although a convinced patriot, Yeats deplored the hatred and the bigotry of the Nationalist movement, and his poetry is full of moving protests against it. He was appointed to the Irish Senate in 1922. His poetry, especially the volumes The Wild Swans at Coole (1919), Michael Robartes and the Dancer (1921), The Tower (1928), The Winding Stair and Other Poems (1933), and Last Poems and Plays (1940), made him one of the outstanding and most influential twentieth-century poets writing in English. His recurrent themes are the contrast of art and life, masks, cyclical theories of life (the symbol of the winding stairs), and the ideal of beauty and ceremony contrasting with the hubbub of modern life.

✨Once upon a time, there was a brave little princess who found herself in quite the magical (and slightly messy!) adventure

The best-selling book Wild Swans by Jung Chang contains harrowing accounts of life in China during the 20th Century. It covers the Japanese occupation of Manchuria, the civil war, the establishment of the CCP and the Cultural Revolution. In this podcast, Dr Chang gives a riveting account of how these momentous events impacted her mother and grandmother. She also shares her perspective on the lives of women in today's Chinese society. The presenter is regular host, Duncan Bartlett.

Buenos dias, Matosinhos! Olha o episódio com o tema mais caótico lá atrás. Não sabemos como é que ainda não tínhamos chegado aqui, mas o que importa é que já cá estamos e prontas para tornar isto numa série. Digam-nos os vossos memes portugueses favoritos e se gostariam de ouvir mais episódios destes! Livros mencionados neste episódio: - Mile High & The Right Move, Liz Tomforde (1:28) - The Perfect Find, Tia Williams (2:42 & 12:07) - Autobiografia Não Autorizada 2, Dulce Maria Cardoso (3:07) - Verity, Colleen Hoover (7:03) - Done and Dusted, Lyla Sage (7:18) - Viradas do Avesso, Joana Kabuki (7:48) - The Unhoneymooners, Christina Lauren (9:07) - The Summer of Broken Rules, K. L. Walther (9:15) - Talking at Night, Claire Daverley (10:16) - ‘Tis the Season for Revenge, Morgan Elizabeth (11:30) - What Alice Forgot, Liane Moriarty (13:49) - Cult Classic, Sloane Crosley (14:01) - The Pact, Sharon Bolton (14:47) - Malibu Rising, Taylor Jenkins Reid (15:51) - The Candy House, Jennifer Egan (16:11) - Sinais de Fumo, Alex Couto (16:37) - Bringing Down the Duke (A League of Extraordinary Women #1), Evie Dunmore (18:20) - Babel, R. F. Kuang (19:03 & 27:21) - Small Things Like These, Claire Keegan (20:05) - Filhos da Chuva, Álvaro Curia (20:37) - Pod, Laline Paull (20:46) - How to Kill Your Family, Bella Mackie (22:03) - The Great Believers, Rebecca Makkai (22:10) - Our Wives Under the Sea, Julia Armfield (22:39) - Other People's Clothes, Calla Henkel (23:37) - The Friend Zone, Abby Jimenez (24:05) - You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty, Awaeke Emezi (24:19) - We Have Always Lived in the Castle, Shirley Jackson (25:57) - Educated, Tara Westover (26:14) - Wild Swans, Jung Chan (27:46) - Once More With Feeling, Elisa Sussman (28:31) - Daisy Jones and the Six, Taylor Jenkins Reid (28:48) - Hello Beautiful, Ann Napolitano (30:24) - Book Lovers, Emily Henry (30:28) - Our Stop, Laura Jane Williams (32:14) - Ghosts, Dolly Alderton (32:36) - As Primas, Aurora Venturini (32:50) - Sorrow and Bliss, Meg Mason (34:05) - Snowflake, Louise Nealon (34:09) - Depois a Louca Sou Eu, Tati Bernardi (34:15) ________________ Enviem as vossas questões ou sugestões para livratepodcast@gmail.com. Encontrem-nos nas redes sociais: www.instagram.com/julesdsilva www.instagram.com/ritadanova twitter.com/julesxdasilva twitter.com/ritadanova Identidade visual do podcast: da autoria da talentosa Mariana Cardoso, que podem encontrar em marianarfpcardoso@hotmail.com. Genérico do podcast: criado pelo incrível Vitor Carraca Teixeira, que podem encontrar em www.instagram.com/oputovitor.

One of Australia's most notable and well-loved composers, Elena Kats-Chernin has written for ensembles large and small – from operas and piano concertos to the opening ceremony of the Sydney Olympics in 2000. Her work is a mainstay of performers at home and internationally, and the number of recordings of her works are countless. Not resting on her laurels, she's created a new arrangement of her Ornamental Air for Basset Clarinet, which is to be performed by David Rowden and the Omega Ensemble as part of their upcoming tour Re: Classica. She is also an artistic patron of 2MBS Fine Music Sydney. In her always engaging and infectiously positive manner, Elena takes us on a deep dive into her background and how she brings her compositions to life. Her Clarinet Concerto Ornamental Air (new version) will be performed by David Rowden and the Omega Ensemble in Sydney, Melbourne, Newcastle and Penrith between the 12th and 20th of April.

Paul Simpson's story is one wild ride and it's all revealed in his memoir titled Revolutionary Spirit: A Post-Punk Exorcism. Part memoir, part social history, Revolutionary Spirit is the poignant, often hilarious story of a cult Liverpool musician's scenic route to fame and artistic validation. If Morrissey was the Oscar Wilde of the 1980s indie scene, Simpson was its William Blake, a self destructive genius so lost in mystical visions of a new Arcadia that he couldn't meet the rent. Simpson's career goes back to 1976, when he finds himself at the birth of Liverpool's second great musical explosion. Along the way, he co-founds and christens the neo-psychedelic pop group The Teardrop Explodes, shares a flat with a teenage Courtney Love, and forms The Wild Swans, who burn bright and brief, in the process recording one of the all-time great cult hit singles, ‘Revolutionary Spirit'. Marriage, fatherhood, and tropical illness follow, interspersed with artistic collaborations with Bill Drummond and members of The Brian Jonestown Massacre, among others. Eventually Simpson discovers that seven thousand miles away, in the Philippines, he is considered a musical god. Presidential suites, armed guards, police escorts—you couldn't make it up, and, incredibly, he doesn't need to. Here's here today to tell his story.Purchase a copy of Revolutionary Spirit: A Post-Punk Exorcism Episode Playlist Paul Simpson's official websiteFollow Paul Simpson on XFollow The Wild Swans Facebook---------- BookedOnRock.com The Booked On Rock YouTube Channel Follow The Booked On Rock with Eric Senich:FACEBOOKINSTAGRAMTIKTOKX Find Your Nearest Independent Bookstore Contact The Booked On Rock Podcast: thebookedonrockpodcast@gmail.com The Booked On Rock Music: “Whoosh” by Crowander / “Last Train North” & “No Mercy” by TrackTribe

Paul Simpson's band The Wild Swans burned briefly and brightly in the flourishing Merseyside music scene of the early eighties.  They had one celebrated single in the indie charts but disbanded acrimoniously having failed to replicate the commercial success of their contemporaries like Teardrop Explodes, Echo and the Bunnymen, OMD, China Crisis, Dead Or Alive and  Wah! . They say the best stories can always be found in the corners and around the edges of life and Paul's book 'Revolutionary Spirit - A Post-Punk Exorcism' is a case in point. It's a classic of its kind...highly praised by book critics and musicians such as Will Sergent and Bill Drummond. Which won't come as a surprise to people who know him because Paul's a born storyteller.  'Revolutionary Spirit' tells us what it's really like to be in a band, but it's also an authentic slice of social history of life from a vibrant music scene with a seemingly endless list of larger-than-life characters. And plenty of genuinely laugh-out-loud moments. Paul's tells his story in the new episode of the Misadventures in Music podcast with Ian Prowse and Mick Ord.

We yearned to revisit this story and explore other versions more than a year later- using them as a means to gauge where we are at in our relationships to our lives, and ourselves. We would love to hear in the comments what this story brings up for you.Pour some tea, and burrow in.The magic of a storytelling spell awaits.Links to explore:Daughter of the Forest-Juliet MarillierMartin Shaw's Retelling of "The Six Swans"Jackie Morris-The Wild SwansSerpent Moon Tattoo-Kati Zmenkowski This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit themagichourdreamcast.substack.com

This week Margo and her sister play a bit of a role reversal and Margo is interviewed In the Windowsill! As the creator and host of the podcast, Margo rarely shares intimately about herself but she figured it was time to change that. Margo shares her experience with wire art and the moment a piece of art went from an act of creativity to monetized creativity, working in wholesale, collaborating with artists to create unique retail products, and bridging the gap between creatives and their businesses. She also discusses her love of music, the personal growth she's experienced over the past year, and her current pursuits in silversmithing and jewelry making. With the help of Shelley, Margo explores her insights on reinvention, self-reflection, and her plans for 2024.   Mentioned in this episode: Lynn Whipple's 100 Bad Paintings Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China by Jung Chang The Gown: A Novel of the Royal Wedding by Jennifer Robson   Connect with Margo: www.instagram.com/windowsillchats www.patreon.com/inthewindowsill See full show notes at www.windowsillchats.com/podcast

  https://www.paul-simpson.co.uk/the-wild-swans/ https://www.roughtrade.com/en-gb/product/paul-simpson/revolutionary-spirit-a-post-punk-exorcism-the-teardrop-explodes-care-the-wild-swans-and-beyond Part memoir, part social history, Revolutionary Spirit is the poignant, often hilarious story of a cult Liverpool musician's scenic route to fame and artistic validation, and marks the arrival of an original literary voice. If Morrissey was the Oscar Wilde of the 1980s indie scene, Simpson was its William Blake; a self-destructive genius so lost in mystical visions of a new arcadia that he couldn't meet the rent. Simpson's career begins alongside fellow Liverpool luminaries Ian McCulloch, Bill Drummond, Will Sergeant, Pete Wylie, Pete Burns, and Holly Johnson at the infamous Eric's club, where, in 1976, he finds himself at the birth of the city's second great musical explosion. He co-founds and christens the neo-psychedelic pop group The Teardrop Explodes with Julian Cope but walks out of the band just as they are about to break big and goes to work in a tearoom instead. He then forms The Wild Swans, the indie-band of choice for literary-minded teens in the early 1980s, and Care with Ian Broudie of The Lightning Seeds, sharing a flat with a seventeen-year-old Courtney Love along the way.

An episode from 10/30/23: Tonight, I read a handful of poems about autumn: Laurence Binyon (1869-1943), from “The Burning of the Leaves” Walter Savage Landor (1775-1864), “The leaves are falling; so am I” Louise Glück (1943-2023), “All Hallows” John Keats (1795-1821), from “To Autumn” W. B. Yeats (1865-1939), “The Wild Swans at Coole” Vernon Watkins (1906-1967), from “For a Wine Festival” and from “The Tributary Seasons” Frances Cornford (1886-1960), “All Souls” Edward Thomas (1878-1917), “Digging” Thomas Hardy (1840-1928), “A Sheep Fair” Don't forget to support Human Voices Wake Us ⁠on Substack⁠, where you can also get our newsletter and other extras. You can also support the podcast by ordering any of my books: ⁠Notes from the Grid⁠, ⁠To the House of the Sun⁠, ⁠The Lonely Young & the Lonely Old⁠, and ⁠Bone Antler Stone⁠. Any comments, or suggestions for readings I should make in later episodes, can be emailed to ⁠humanvoiceswakeus1@gmail.com⁠. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/humanvoiceswakeus/support

This week's Suburban Underground episode which is all songs about the North, the South, the East and the West.  This week you will hear such artists as: The Academic, Everclear, Green Day, Hoodoo Gurus, The Wild Swans, Thin Lizzy, Simple Minds, Ronnie Hudson & The Street People, As Tall As Lions, The Wolfgang Press, The Stranglers, Ian Hunter, Kaiser Chiefs, Matt Pond PA, Menswear.   On the Air on Bedford 105.1 FM Radio      *** 5pm Friday ***      *** 10am Sunday ***      *** 8pm Monday *** Stream live at http://209.95.50.189:8178/stream Stream on-demand most recent episodes at https://wbnh1051.podbean.com/category/suburban-underground/ And available on demand on your favorite podcast app! Twitter: @SUBedford1051  ***    Facebook: SuburbanUndergroundRadio   ***    Instagram: SuburbanUnderground   ***    #newwave #altrock #alternativerock #punkrock #indierock

Tonight's bedtime story is The Wild Swans by Hans Christian Andersen. If you like this episode, please remember to follow on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or your favourite podcast app.Interested in more sleepy content or just want to support the show? Join Just Sleep Premium here: https://justsleeppodcast.com/supportAs a Just Sleep Premium member you will receive:The latest episodes ad-free and Intro-free episodesThe entire back catalog of the podcast, ad and intro-freeThe entire audiobook of the Wizard of OzA collection of short fairy tales including Rapunzel and the Frog PrinceThe chance to vote on the next story that you hearThe chance to win readings just for youThanks for your support!Sweet Dreams...Intro Music by the Psychedelic Squirrel Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Recorded by Academy of American Poets staff for Poem-a-Day, a series produced by the Academy of American Poets. Published on May 27, 2023. www.poets.org

On the surface,  "The Wild Swans" is a fairy tale about cursed brothers who are saved by their sister.  This is a common motif. Closer examination led me to consider the creative power of words and of silence, and how we use and are used, by both.I hope you enjoy the story. Support the showEmail Catherine at drcsvehla@mythicmojo.comPost a positive review on apple podcasts! Learn how you can work with Catherine at https://mythicmojo.com

The poor princess was turned into an ugly and dirty girl by her stepmother, which made her father, the king, disgusted with her. She had no choice but to run away from the palace to find her eleven brothers. However, what she didn't know was that her brothers had also been turned into ugly birds by the stepmother. What should they do? Could they defeat the stepmother and turn back to normal? Could they regain the king's love? If you like this story, subscribe to the podcast and share it with your friends to enjoy more free episodes together. We're also looking forward to your valuable reviews ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐, let us know your opinion!

The poor princess was turned into an ugly and dirty girl by her stepmother, which made her father, the king, disgusted with her. She had no choice but to run away from the palace to find her eleven brothers. However, what she didn't know was that her brothers had also been turned into ugly birds by the stepmother. What should they do? Could they defeat the stepmother and turn back to normal? Could they regain the king's love? If you like this story, subscribe to the podcast and share it with your friends to enjoy more free episodes together. We're also looking forward to your valuable reviews ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐, let us know your opinion!

The post The Wild Swans at Coole by W. B. Yeats appeared first on A Mouthful of Air.

Hallmark Playhouse is an American old-time radio dramatic anthology series. It was broadcast on CBS from June 10, 1948, until February 1, 1953, and was described by one author as "a program that consistently produced the highest levels of production quality and value." Beginning on February 8, 1953, the program underwent changes of title, host, and format. It was broadcast as The Hallmark Hall of Fame until March 27, 1955, still on CBS Listen to our radio station Old Time Radio https://link.radioking.com/otradio Listen to other Shows at My Classic Radio https://www.myclassicradio.net/ Remember that times have changed, and some shows might not reflect the standards of today's politically correct society. The shows do not necessarily reflect the views, standards, or beliefs of Entertainment Radio

Hallmark Playhouse is an American old-time radio dramatic anthology series. It was broadcast on CBS from June 10, 1948, until February 1, 1953, and was described by one author as "a program that consistently produced the highest levels of production quality and value." Beginning on February 8, 1953, the program underwent changes of title, host, and format. It was broadcast as The Hallmark Hall of Fame until March 27, 1955, still on CBSListen to our radio station Old Time Radio https://link.radioking.com/otradioListen to other Shows at My Classic Radio https://www.myclassicradio.net/Remember that times have changed, and some shows might not reflect the standards of today's politically correct society. The shows do not necessarily reflect the views, standards, or beliefs of Entertainment Radio

Drew and Cassie begin our journey into The Wild Swans by Hans Christian Andersen with a look at the 1977 anime film from Toei Animation. The anime is a pretty straightforward retelling of Hans Christian Andersen's tale, although it takes several cues from Six Swans by the Brothers Grimm as well. We discuss our experiences with anime, Avatar: The Last Airbender, the incredible sound effects, Eliza's tear friends, swans bartering for goods, and more! Join our community! View all of the benefits of joining our Patreon including the Official Of Slippers and Spindles Book Club, exclusive polls, monthly bookmarks, Zoom hangouts, and more! https://patreon.com/ofslippersandspindles  Visit our our new merch store, Facebook group, Instagram, and more! https://linktr.ee/ofslippersandspindles  We love to hear from you! You can reach us at ofslippersandspindles@gmail.com  Music: Through The Woods by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com  

It's time to tie up one fairy tale and fly into the next one! Drew and Cassie begin by giving their final thoughts on the tale of Rumpelstiltskin, including our ideas on how we would interpret the story ourselves. Then we begin our discussion of The Wild Swans by Hans Christian Andersen, which starts with the story of Six Swans by the Brothers Grimm. We talk through each of these stories and note their differences, and then we finish by revealing the four retellings we will be looking at through December!  Join our community! View all of the benefits of joining our Patreon including the Official Of Slippers and Spindles Book Club, exclusive polls, monthly bookmarks, Zoom hangouts, and more! https://patreon.com/ofslippersandspindles  Visit our our new merch store, Facebook group, Instagram, and more! https://linktr.ee/ofslippersandspindles  We love to hear from you! You can reach us at ofslippersandspindles@gmail.com  Music: Through The Woods by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com  

This episode is called Wild Swans…and is dedicated to a fairytale that many will know…but the power of this episode is not just in the roots of story and myth, but the lives of us two women that are before you now.Grief marks us, in the marking it is wound like. Here lies our information for healing. Universal ways and personal ways that works for us. One thing is common. We are determined to keep going. Resources:Martin Shawhttps://martinshaw.substack.com/https://drmartinshaw.com/Juliet Marillierhttps://www.julietmarillier.com/juliet/The Wild Swans Links:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wild_SwansWomen's reproductive rights: Margaret Sanger was NOT a Eugenisist but women's rights movements did associate themselves early but then distanced themselvesRoe V. Wade is most dangerous to poor women (Ginsberg clip)If/When/How brief - why teaching about reproductive rights needs to stop skipping race and class intersectionalityDonate to National Network of Abortion FundsPlan C Pill dot orgWhite Feminism/Feminism- Inequity:the body is not an apology blog: 4 ways white feminists continue to silence black voiceshttps://www.pbs.org/education/blog/unlearning-history-the-womens-suffrage-movementAudre Lorde on race, class, sex This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit themagichourdreamcast.substack.com

This meditation starts with a reading of the Wild Swans at Coole by WB Yeats as an introduction to the contemplation of “mujo” or impermanence. We then segue into a contemplation of finding our way home in the world.

In which The Narrators Three discuss: Disney and how Roger Rabbit scarred Lin for life, Theme Parks and Chael's childhood fear of Snow White, and Elisa's love of the Wild Swans and other Fairy Tales we wish were included on OUAT. Please note some adult language is used in this episode. Thank you to Laichiruru (twitter.com/laichiruru) for our podcast cover artwork! --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/onceuponarewatch/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/onceuponarewatch/support

Hey folks!  We hope you are enjoy the summer break, wherever you are.This episode is one of EMILY's favourites and features the lovely Liz Weir MBE, telling one of her own lovely tales, based on Irish lore, The Mermaid's Gift.If you want to find out more about Liz Weir then you can visit her website HERE.Our story this episode is a classic fairytale by Hans Christian Andersen - but told with our own Dragonfly Tales flavour.Andersen wrote some of the most well loved fairy tales ever, including The Little Mermaid, The Ugly Duckling and The Tinder Box.  This book, An Illustrated Treasury, is a lovely introduction to his stories.If you would like a SHOUT OUT this season, then you can get in touch with us HERE or in our Dragonfly Tales Podcast Group, telling us your first name, your age and your town.And if you like our podcast, please leave us a review (Apple is great).If you would like to donate a little something towards our podcast, we would be so grateful.  You can donate to Dragonfly Tales Podcast by clicking here: DONATEYou can also follow us on:InstagramFacebook andTwitterThanks for listening! Theme Music by Leo Grazebrook on GarageBandStorytelling and singing by Emily Hanna-Grazebrook and Leo at Dragonfly TalesProduced by Andy GrazebrookArt by Light CreativeSound effects by Zapsplat

Once upon a time, there was a King. He and the Queen had eleven sons and one daughter called Elisa.

Once upon a time, there was a King. He and the Queen had eleven sons and one daughter called Elisa.

Axel und Devid rollen den roten Teppich aus für eine zeitgenössische Komponistin - in Australien bereits ein Star - der sie in Deutschland noch mehr Aufmerksamkeit wünschen.Von Devid Striesow und Axel RanischDirekter Link zur Audiodatei

Ashhabhore Kharat

Ayako Ohtake, a Sydney-based Japanese soprano singer, hosts biweekly music segment called VIVA! Opera for SBS Japanese. - "イライザのアリア"を取り上げます。バレエ音楽から誕生したボカリーズ曲です。

Treasured Australian-American soprano and composer Jane Sheldon talks about transitioning from performer to composer and NOT composing a masterpiece.As both soprano and composer, Jane Sheldon creates and performs exploratory chamber music, and has established an international reputation for highly specialised contemporary opera and art music for voice.  She has worked extensively with composers to create new works for voice. Described as “riveting” (New York Times), Jane's compositions focus on the body in altered or transformative states.Jane Sheldon: https://www.janesheldonsoprano.com/__________– Discussed in this episode –• Wild Swans (2002) – Elena Kats-Chernin: https://open.spotify.com/album/5oWQiWLn6DWgqcQ0yBW5Yd?si=1zDqqrLdRvS1OwybQZYpFg• The Australian Marimba Composition Kit – Claire Edwardes: https://www.australianmusiccentre.com.au/product/the-australian-marimba-composition-kit • Seven Stories: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4v0M8CP-Dc• Australian Piano Quartet: https://australiapianoquartet.com/• Adam Szabo: https://www.adamszabo.com/• Manchester Collective: https://manchestercollective.co.uk/• Sydney Conservatorium of Music Composing Women Program: https://www.sydney.edu.au/music/industry-and-community/community-engagement/composing-women.html• Clara Ianotta: http://claraiannotta.com/• The Howling Girls (2018) – Damien Ricketson: https://www.australianmusiccentre.com.au/work/ricketson-damien-howling-girls• Ekmeles: https://ekmeles.com/• Damien Ricketson: https://curiousnoise.com/• Sydney Observatory Residency (MAAS): https://www.maas.museum/sydney-observatory-residency-program/• Eucalyptusdom: https://www.maas.museum/event/eucalyptusdom/__________Opening music: Heaven Only Empty (2014) – Damien RicketsonClosing music: Light for the First Time (2017) – Bree van ReykThe Offcast is hosted by Claire Edwardes OAM, and produced and edited by Ben Robinson.Ensemble Offspring: https://ensembleoffspring.com/This episode of The Offcast is sponsored by Limelight

Internationally acclaimed for the emotional punch packed into her bold choreography, Meryl Tankard is one of Australia's finest contemporary artists.As a director, choreographer and writer, her work has been staged in Europe, UK, USA, Asia and Australia, and includes co-productions with the Sydney Opera House, a full-length ballet Wild Swans for The Australian Ballet, musicals for Disney on Broadway and Andrew Lloyd Webber on the West End. Meryl created the opening section Deep Sea Dreaming for the Sydney Olympics Games Ceremony 2000 and has been commissioned by some of the world's most dynamic companies including Lyon Ballet and Netherlands Dance Theatre.Beginning her career as a dancer with the Australian Ballet, Meryl went on to become one of Pina Bausch's principal soloists with the ground-breaking Wuppertaler Tanztheater, creating roles in Café Muller, Kontakthof, 1980, Arien, Walzer, Bandoneon etcIn 1989 she founded her own dance company in Canberra, synthesizing a range of influences and styles to create her own unique dance theatre style.As Artistic Director of Adelaide-based Australian Dance Theatre (1993-1999) Meryl transformed the company into a leading International company with her diverse range of full-length works including Furioso, Possessed, Aurora, Rasa, Inuk, Songs with Mara. Since 2000 Meryl has been working as an independent artist and in 2010 began focusing on film direction, graduating from Australian Film Television and Radio School where she made two short films Mad and Moth.Her documentary Michelle's Story, commissioned by ABC TV and 2015 Adelaide Film Festival, won the Adelaide Film Festival Audience Award for Best Short Film and Screen South Australia awards for Best Short Film, Best Documentary and Best Soundtrack.In 2017 Meryl was awarded the prestigious Jim Bettison Helen James Award for her contribution to the community.In 2018 Meryl choreographed Claudel for Theatre de LAthenee in Paris and remounted her acclaimed production Furioso for Sidi Larbi Cherkaouis Royal Ballet of Flanders.For the Adelaide Festival in 2019 Meryl created two works : Two Feet, a full-length solo work for acclaimed Russian ballerina Natalia Osipova, and Zizanie for Restless Dance Theatre (for performers with and without disability)In 2019, Meryl was honoured with an Officer of Australia for her distinguished services to the performing arts.www.meryltankard.comThe STAGES podcast is available to access and subscribe from Whooshkaa, Spotify and Apple podcasts. Or from wherever you access your favourite podcasts. A conversation with creatives about craft and career. Recipient of Best New Podcast at 2019 Australian Podcast Awards. Follow socials on instagram (stagespodcast) and facebook (Stages).www.stagespodcast.com.au

Today's guest is pianist and composer Elena Kats-Chernin! Best known for her opera, Wild Swans, Elena also creates orchestral works, solo pieces, as well as music for various mediums from dance to film. You'll recognize works such as Clocks, Book of Rags, and Orpheus/Odysseus/Poppea. On this episode we talk about focusing on what you will do today instead of what you did yesterday, snippets of old pieces becoming part of something new, and improvising live. We also talk about if tools influence the work, being a working composer, and not reading to save your eyesight.  You can submit your questions to Ben here: https://www.speakpipe.com/BenFolds And check out the YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9ix6szTyjg3vmx1sIj-Vfw See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

这个故事出自安徒生童话，讲的是一个公主拯救十一个被施魔法的哥哥的故事。 This story comes from Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale about a princess who rescues her 11 brothers from a spell cast by an evil queen.

A steampunk'd fairy tale retold for troubled times. Jasmine Arch reads. #Steampunk #Fairytale Gwen C. Katz is an author, artist, and game designer who lives in Pasadena, California with her husband and a revolving door of transient animals. Her first novel, Among the Red Stars, tells the story of Russia's all-female bomber regiment known as the Night Witches. Her short fiction has appeared in venues like Glittership, Vastarien, and We're Here: The Best Queer Speculative Fiction 2020. Jasmine Arch is a narrator, writer, and poet whose brain thrives on chaos and caffeine. She lives in a rural corner of Belgium with four dogs, two elderly horses and a husband who knows better than to distract her when she's writing. Find out more about her and her work at JasmineArch.com. Leopold: Michael Allen Rose Did you know? You can find all our anthologies together here: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09PFD2PCQ

“When I first came to Britain in 1978, I was one of the first people to leave China and come to the West. I wrote about the experience in Wild Swans. And for many years I had nightmares of the horrible things I saw and experienced. Writing Wild Swans made all these nightmares disappear. It was a wonderful process. The writing process turned trauma in memory. I am now able to talk to you about my book, my life, to read it without too much pain. I think this is a luxury people in China still don't have.”Jung Chang is the author of the best-selling books Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China (1991), which the Asian Wall Street Journal called the most read book about China; Mao: The Unknown Story (2005, with Jon Halliday), which was described by Time magazine as “an atom bomb of a book”; and Empress Dowager Cixi: The Concubine Who Launched Modern China (2013), a New York Times “notable book”. Her latest book, Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister: Three Women at the Heart of Twentieth-Century China (2019), is regarded as “another triumph” (Evening Standard London).Her books have been translated into more than 40 languages and sold more than 15 million copies worldwide. She has won many awards, including The NCR Book Award (UK, 1992, the forerunner of the Samuel Johnson Prize), UK Writers' Guild Best Non-Fiction (1992), Fawcett Society Book Award (UK, 1992), Book of the Year (UK, 1993).She has received a number of honorary doctorates from universities in the UK and USA (Buckingham, York, Warwick, Dundee, the Open University, and Bowdoin College, USA). She is an Honorary Fellow of SOAS University of London.Jung Chang was born in Sichuan Province, China, in 1952. During the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) she worked as a peasant, a “barefoot” doctor, a steelworker, and an electrician before becoming an English-language student at Sichuan University. She left China for Britain in 1978 and obtained a PhD in Linguistics in 1982 at the University of York – the first person from Communist China to receive a doctorate from a British university.· www.jungchang.net· www.creativeprocess.info

The Penelope Fitzgerald who wrote The Bookshop, Offshore and The Blue Flower is far too celebrated – as the greatest novelist of her time, according to Julian Barnes, and many others – to be in need of a revival. But as Hermione Lee, her biographer, writes in the introduction to the LRB's new selection of Fitzgerald's writing for the paper, ‘though she started publishing biography and fiction late in life … she was an old hand as a literary journalist.' It is this Fitzgerald, ‘a reviewer, a writer of introductions, a literary judge, and a speaker on panels and at literary festivals', who is the subject of this special event to mark the publication of the LRB's latest Selections volume.Lee is in conversation with Susannah Clapp, who worked on many of her LRB pieces, and has described her as an ideal contributor who needed no ‘handling': ‘She wrote to length, she wrote to time, she wrote without fuss, she wrote a lot' – on subjects ranging from Alain-Fournier to Adrian Mole, Stevie Smith to Wild Swans – ‘always with a steady brilliance.'Introduced by Sam Kinchin-Smith, the LRB's Head of Special Projects. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The fearless author of ‘Wild Swans' speaks to Monocle's Georgina Godwin about her award-winning books and experience growing up inside Mao Zedong's communist China. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In our second episode Elizabeth completely ignores the fact that W. B. Yeats has a full first name, as she is on a nickname-only basis with him.   This episode features cinematographer, music video director, and filmmaker Will DaRosa. Will's rapidly-lengthening resume testifies to his dedication to his craft and his growing reputation as one of the fresh talents to work with on the Los Angeles indie-genre scene. As director/dp, his music videos have aired on MTV and VH1 and been viewed millions of times on Youtube. He is also the co-host/co-creator of 2001 The Podcast, which is available everywhere podcasts can be listened to.    In this episode Will discusses his love for cinema, finding this poem through a Steven Spielberg film, and worrying that maybe as a white man he shouldn't be “that guy” who talks about poetry. There is ample discussion over how popcorn reading in school made Will nervous and Elizabeth feel highly prepared. Also Audrey Hepburn gets a mention.   “This poem is…  it's about humanity. [...] And then you have a robot reading it, there's just something chilling and terrifying about that… you have a robot that nearly is about to cry listening to another robot read a poem written by a human 300 years before it's, I don't know, the ending of that movie is chilling, but this is like a midpoint in the film, and you're really not quite sure. You know the character's journey, what they want, at this point in the film, but when he gets this poem, it kind of breaks his brain a little bit.” - Will DaRosa   Timestamps:  00:00:25 Guest Introduction 00:02:55 Poem Reading (Will) 00:05:32 Author Info 00:07:00 Will's Relationship to the Poem 00:17:03 Pause / Poem Reading (Elizabeth) 00:25:05 Reflection & Offering   Poem & Links: The Stolen Child by W. B. Yeats (© 1890) The Wild Swans at Coole by W. B. Yeats The Lake Isle of Innisfree by W. B. Yeats   Films: Steven Spielberg's AI Ridley Scott's Hannibal   I.O.P. Lexicon: Solemn: (adjective) formal and dignified // not cheerful or smiling; serious.   Where to find Will: @will_darosa  |  Instagram @willdarosa    |  Twitter @2001thepodcast   |  Instagram @2001thepodcast   |  Twitter http://www.willdarosa.com/   Where to find us: @iofferpoetry   |   Instagram  @iofferpoetry   |  Twitter iofferpoetry@gmail.com   Where to find our host Elizabeth: @ellsonelizabeth    |   Twitter   Produced & Edited by John Campione @campiaudio   |   Campiaudio.com campiaudio@gmail.com   Music @zacharymanno | Art @sammycampioneart  

Special guests Naomi's sister Molly May O'Leary and her musical collaborator Fionn Ó hAlmhain visit the podcast to play songs from and discuss their new album, Lambent Flame. It was recorded with the famed Hothouse Flowers singer and multi-instrumentalist Liam Ó Maonlaí over a difficult period when the Covid-19 pandemic shut down much of the music industry. Molly May talks about how she began writing the songs inspired by Irish folklore and fairy traditions, building on her background in poetry. Fionn, a noted uilleann piper and singer with the Irish National Opera, takes us behind the scenes in the studio into the creative process of recording the album in the Dublin mountains. You can find the album at: www.lambentflame.com Songs featured from Lambent Flame, by Molly May O'Leary, Liam Ó Maonlaí, and Fionn Ó hAlmhain: Biddy Early, Fairy Queen, Cinderella, Aisling, Sun Child, California, Thank you Witches, Little Red Riding Hood, The Wild Swans of Coole. You can check out our prior interview with Molly about the 'wise woman of Clare' Biddy Early here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/44962226 Follow us on Facebook and Twitter at @PassportIrish.

“When I first came to Britain in 1978, I was one of the first people to leave China and come to the West. I wrote about the experience in Wild Swans. And for many years I had nightmares of the horrible things I saw and experienced. Writing Wild Swans made all these nightmares disappear. It was a wonderful process. The writing process turned trauma in memory. I am now able to talk to you about my book, my life, to read it without too much pain. I think this is a luxury people in China still don't have.”Jung Chang is the author of the best-selling books Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China (1991), which the Asian Wall Street Journal called the most read book about China; Mao: The Unknown Story (2005, with Jon Halliday), which was described by Time magazine as “an atom bomb of a book”; and Empress Dowager Cixi: The Concubine Who Launched Modern China (2013), a New York Times “notable book”. Her latest book, Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister: Three Women at the Heart of Twentieth-Century China (2019), is regarded as “another triumph” (Evening Standard London).Her books have been translated into more than 40 languages and sold more than 15 million copies worldwide. She has won many awards, including The NCR Book Award (UK, 1992, the forerunner of the Samuel Johnson Prize), UK Writers' Guild Best Non-Fiction (1992), Fawcett Society Book Award (UK, 1992), Book of the Year (UK, 1993).She has received a number of honorary doctorates from universities in the UK and USA (Buckingham, York, Warwick, Dundee, the Open University, and Bowdoin College, USA). She is an Honorary Fellow of SOAS University of London.Jung Chang was born in Sichuan Province, China, in 1952. During the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) she worked as a peasant, a “barefoot” doctor, a steelworker, and an electrician before becoming an English-language student at Sichuan University. She left China for Britain in 1978 and obtained a PhD in Linguistics in 1982 at the University of York – the first person from Communist China to receive a doctorate from a British university.· www.jungchang.net· www.creativeprocess.info

“When I first came to Britain in 1978, I was one of the first people to leave China and come to the West. I wrote about the experience in Wild Swans. And for many years I had nightmares of the horrible things I saw and experienced. Writing Wild Swans made all these nightmares disappear. It was a wonderful process. The writing process turned trauma in memory. I am now able to talk to you about my book, my life, to read it without too much pain. I think this is a luxury people in China still don't have.”Jung Chang is the author of the best-selling books Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China (1991), which the Asian Wall Street Journal called the most read book about China; Mao: The Unknown Story (2005, with Jon Halliday), which was described by Time magazine as “an atom bomb of a book”; and Empress Dowager Cixi: The Concubine Who Launched Modern China (2013), a New York Times “notable book”. Her latest book, Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister: Three Women at the Heart of Twentieth-Century China (2019), is regarded as “another triumph” (Evening Standard London).Her books have been translated into more than 40 languages and sold more than 15 million copies worldwide. She has won many awards, including The NCR Book Award (UK, 1992, the forerunner of the Samuel Johnson Prize), UK Writers' Guild Best Non-Fiction (1992), Fawcett Society Book Award (UK, 1992), Book of the Year (UK, 1993).She has received a number of honorary doctorates from universities in the UK and USA (Buckingham, York, Warwick, Dundee, the Open University, and Bowdoin College, USA). She is an Honorary Fellow of SOAS University of London.Jung Chang was born in Sichuan Province, China, in 1952. During the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) she worked as a peasant, a “barefoot” doctor, a steelworker, and an electrician before becoming an English-language student at Sichuan University. She left China for Britain in 1978 and obtained a PhD in Linguistics in 1982 at the University of York – the first person from Communist China to receive a doctorate from a British university.· www.jungchang.net· www.creativeprocess.info

We are joined by Dr. Jung Chang, author of the best-selling books Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China; Mao: The Unknown Story; and Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister: Three Women at the Heart of Twentieth-Century China. Dr. Chang discusses Wild Swans, a sweeping narrative about three generations of her family across 20th-century China, and the importance of transmitting firsthand historical... Source

In this episode Louisa and The Fantastic Fo talk to Tracy, a mother of two who moved to Hong Kong six years ago as a Finance Director for an international bank. Tracy doesn't hold back as we discuss everything from moving to Hong Kong with kids (and the debentures required) to alternative night-time economies. Plus a very interesting super power....*This episode contains adult themes and language*Notes and links from this episode:Guest Instagram: @tad_lala Recommended book: Wild Swans by Jung ChangYou can follow us on Instagram: @homegrownthepodcast and email us at homegrownthepodcast@gmail.com.