Getting Better Acquainted

General content note for the series: death, dementia, old age, mental health issues In the first full episode of the podcast using content funded by the British Podcast Awards and the Wellcome Trust I talk to fellow Pulse Award recipient and podcaster Penny Bell. We compare notes on documenting a parent living with dementia, and discuss the similarities and differences between our parents' experie...

General content note for the series: death, dementia, old age, mental health issues A document is a piece of evidence; a record; a proof of something. By this definition, we are all living documents, documents that may or may not be lost to history. What parts of us are recorded? What parts of us are seen? We record our lives and the lives of others, using our memory and our technology. We choose...

Later this year I will be launching a Getting Better Acquainted mini series titled ‘Down to a Sunless Sea: Memories of my Dad’ about the my relationship with my dad, my dad's life story and his descent into dementia. The show will be be mixing clips from over 15 hours of interviews that I've done with my dad over the last 10 years with narrations based on these medium pieces: https://medium.com/@g...

After a year on hiatus from Getting Better Acquainted I return for a one-off extra episode to continue the tradition of beginning the new year with a round up of how the last year panned out for me, and because it's 2019 I also consider how the decade has gone for me, and also how I'm feeling about the frying pan and fire of current political events. Getting Better Acquainted is still on hiatus fo...

In this GBA Extra we get even better acquainted with The Family Tree Podcast. I'm joined by Jen Adamthwaite the co-producer/creator of GBA's weird sister podcast to talk about the whys, the hows, the highs and the lows of making the second season of this magical realist podcast drama. THIS EPISODE CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR THE FAMILY TREE. The GBA episode where we talked about The Family Tree Season 1...

In the final (for now) Getting Better Acquainted Extra I continue the tradition of beginning the new year with a round up of how the last year panned out for me, I consider the impact making this show has had on my life, what kinds of things you might find on your GBA feed in the future, and the distance between who I was in 2011 and who I am now in 2019. Getting Better Acquainted is now on hiatus...

I have a complicated relationship with Christmas. It's been as site of both trauma and happiness for me. So in some ways you might say it's odd that since Getting Better Acquainted started in 2011 I've made a Christmas Special every year. Or perhaps it makes sense for me to keep picking at the Christmas scab because we often return to the things that have marked and shaped us. Some of the specials...

In GBA 349 we get better acquainted with Louise. She talks about the round about route her life has taken between when we met at university and now, finding her way to poetry, writing and teaching, her relationship with Wigan where she has lived most of her life, her new music projects, coming back to dance after years away, being a self employed person working in the arts and so much more. Also a...

In GBA 348 we get better acquainted with Charlie. We talk about how it's hard to talk about mental health and suicide attempts, depression, suicidal ideation, accessing mental health services, the downsides of talking about mental health, disability, writing, navigating school, bullying, getting help, and so much more. It’s a serious conversation but also a thoughtful one and it doesn’t just stay...

In GBA 347 we get better acquainted with Tanaka. We talk about making theatre that engages with and challenges harmful versions of masculinity, making work about experiences of rape and sexual assault, engaging with young people about how masculinity is created and framed by culture, the intersection of caring and gender, navigating and expressing emotions and so much more. The topics might make t...

In GBA 346 we get better acquainted with Matt. I visit him at his new venture, Alt-Space, in Morcambe and we talk about how he washed up in this North West seaside town, how the lack of a comedy club in the town inspired him to create an arts venue, community centre and a fringe there, his own work which spans spoken word, theatre and comedy, and lots more. Matt plugs: Alt-space, 21c Yorkshire Str...

In GBA 345 Pt 2 we get even better acquainted with Andrew. In part two of our two part conversation Andrew talks working in music radio, making podcasts before anyone had said the word podcast, the history of podcasting and his place within that history making the show Podcast Squared, talking about the concept of online downloadable radio with the Hanson Brothers and lots more. I talk about some...

In GBA 345 Pt 1 we get even better acquainted with Andrew. In part one of our two part conversation Andrew gets into the history and geography of Maryland USA and we compare our experiences of living in London, moving from country to city, our accents changing and evolving, recording and having conversations and so much more. Part 2 which will come out next Wednesday will get fully into Andrew's p...

In GBA 344 we get even better acquainted with Rita. She talks about how her life has changed since we last recorded a conversation, how trying to work as a freelancer in the arts can affect your mental health, the relationship between trying to make things for yourself and trying to make money to pay rent and bills, her different experiences of day-jobs and so much more. Recorded just before I mov...

In GBA 343 we get better acquainted with Nik. He talks about children's entertainment, making podcasts for children, his journey "off island" from Guernsey - through lots of different jobs and parts of the country - ending up as an audio producer in London, why being a teacher wasn't for him and lots more. Nik makes Nik Lettuce Clubhouse which is a brilliant podcast for children. Before we recorde...

In GBA 342 we get better acquainted with Banke. In a conversation recorded in an Eat at Liverpool Street Station she talks about living in lots of different parts of the world, true storytelling as a way to overcome fear of public speaking, following in her father and grandfather's footsteps and becoming a lawyer, being a middle class black woman from Nigeria living in London and so much more. Ban...

This Getting Better Acquainted Extra is a talk I gave as part of the Maker Sessions at the London Podcast Festival 2018 at King’s Place. The title of the talk was: Passion Projects The blurb was: For better or worse, Dave Pickering has been working on passion projects since he can remember. In 2008, he wrote a drama series for a friend, which was nominated for a Sony Radio Award in 2009. He’s made...

In GBA 341 we get better acquainted with Jonathan. Surrounded by packed boxes in an echoey flat the day before my move began we finally meet each other after years of hearing about each other. Jonathan has worked very with my partner Jen for three years as the class teacher to her teaching assistant for year 6 classes in a primary school. We talk about the way that working with Jen has changed how...

In this last minute GBA Extra Dave takes you on a short tour of a house full of boxes. It's completely live and unedited due to life getting in the way a bit this week. But next week things should be back to normal! I plug: Mansplaining Masculinity: The Book https://unbound.com/books/mansplaining-masculinity/ What About the Men? Mansplaining Masculinity: https://soundcloud.com/standuptragedy/sut-p...

It's another episode of GBA Replayed which showcases some of the conversations recorded in the early years of Getting Better Acquainted. This is the last of a four episode GBA Replayed season replaying some of the live episodes recorded at previous Edinburgh Festival Fringes. The original shownotes: This recording is unedited and posted in a no frills way due to the intensive workload of the festi...

It's another episode of GBA Replayed which showcases some of the conversations recorded in the early years of Getting Better Acquainted. This is the third of a four episode GBA Replayed season replaying some of the live episodes recorded at previous Edinburgh Festival Fringes. Find Tamer here: https://twitter.com/TamerKattan He has a comedy album called Brown Sheep here: https://itunes.apple.com/u...

It's another episode of GBA Replayed which showcases some of the conversations recorded in the early years of Getting Better Acquainted. This is the first of a four episode GBA Replayed season replaying some of the live episodes recorded at previous Edinburgh Festival Fringes. Rosie has turned one of the shows that we talked about into a book: Is Monogamy Dead? Rethinking relationships in the 21st...

It's another episode of GBA Replayed which showcases some of the conversations recorded in the early years of Getting Better Acquainted. This is the first of a four episode GBA Replayed season replaying some of the live episodes recorded at previous Edinburgh Festival Fringes. Fay has show's happening at Edinburgh 2018: The Selkie: A Song of Many Waters: https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/selki...

In GBA 340 we get better acquainted with Graham. He talks about cutting hair at Open Barbers, his new book The Shock Doctrine of the Left and developing London Radical Mindfulness. Which in some ways are all linked together in the deeper personal experiences, concepts and politics that thread the conversation together: change, complex systems, permeability, power, mental health, accessibility, the...

In GBA 339 we get even better acquainted with Lucy. She talks about the process of creating her debut novel One More Chance; the writing process, getting it published and promoting it. She also talks about how skills picked up performing in spoken word Edinburgh Fringe shows have helped with all this, her journey as a writer and novelist, her interest in stories about mermaids, and lots of other t...