Ctrl Alt Delete

This is replay of an episode recorded in early 2020. My guest today is Samatha Clarke, an author and Happiness Consultant. She is a teacher of Guardian Masterclasses and lecturer at The School of Life and expert on work happiness, culture and relationships. Whenever I speak to Sam, she always says something that makes me reflect on my work life. She has given me amazing advice in the past on...

Today's replay episode is the brilliant psychologist Dr Emma Hepburn. She has over 15 years experience of working with and treating mental health difficulties. She is also someone I've followed on Instagram for years ( @thepsychologymum on Instagram). In this episode we talk about her book A Toolkit for Modern Life: 53 Ways to Look After Your Mind ). She shows how we can understand our own brains...

My guest today is the brilliant Sophie Heawood. I've followed Sophie's work for years, I've loved her columns and celebrity interviews in the Guardian, VICE and her brilliant newsletter The Sophist. In this episode, we discuss her first book The Hungover Games, a beautiful funny open-hearted memoir about single motherhood and what to expect when you weren't expecting to be expecting. I read it in...

Hello and welcome back to Ctrl Alt Delete this is a replay of my episode with Financial Times columnist Rana Foroohar from February 2020. She is a writer who investigates how today’s biggest tech companies are hijacking our data, our livelihoods, and our minds. This episode is on her book Don't be Evil and The Case Against Big Tech - aka Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, Google) and how tech has changed...

Hello and welcome back to Ctrl Alt Delete this is a replay of my episode with Oliver Burkeman recorded in October 2021. He is an award-winning feature writer for The Guardian and writes a popular weekly column on psychology called This Column Will Change Your Life. In this episode we discuss his new book Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals, an uplifting, engrossing and deeply realisti...

My guest today is one of my favourite authors, the incredibly inspiring force of nature that is Naomi Alderman! She is the multi-award-winning novelist of Disobedience and The Power. The film adaptation of Disobedience had just come out starring both Rachael McAdams and Rachel Weisz. The Power is one of Obama's favourite books! It's an incredible sci-fi/dystopian novel about gendered violence...

This is a replay of my episode with Sophie Walker from April 2020. Sophie is a feminist activist, author and founding leader of the Women’s Equality Party. In this episode we are chatting about Sophie’s new book 'Five Rules for Rebellion' which is an inspiring, five-step journey to incorporating activism into our daily lives. It features stories of new and seasoned activists – from Amika George to...

Today's guest is one of my favourites Emma Forrest – it is a replay episode that we recorded back in December 2019. She is the author of three novels, an essay collection and the memoir Your Voice In My Head, one of my favourite memoirs on mental health. In this episode we discuss her new novel ROYALS and we chat about her career, creativity, meditation, her writing process and even a little story...

Hello and welcome back to Ctrl Alt Delete podcast! Over a series of three episodes I've been chatting to someone whose work I really admire and enjoy, Natalie Lue, author, podcaster and host of The Baggage Reclaim Sessions. She helps people-pleasers, perfectionists and relationship strugglers become more of who they really are and achieve what they want to achieve. In this episode we are disc...

*This is a SPONSORED episode with Vitality UK* If you're interested in a discussion around health, future of work and hybrid working this is one for you. Today I’m in conversation with Dr Katie Tryon, Behaviour Change Expert and Director of Health Strategy at the health insurer, Vitality UK. Prior to moving into various health roles and moving to Kenya, she trained as a medical doctor at Oxford Un...

This is a replay of an episode from 2020 with brilliant Laura Dockrill, an award-winning author and illustrator. What Have I Done? an incredibly moving and honest memoir on motherhood, mental health and postpartum psychosis. In this episode, we discuss Laura's mental health journey, recovery, what it's like when a raw blog article goes viral, and why this memoir is a love letter to family and frie...

This episode is with Christine Armstrong, author, researcher and speaker on the future of work. She is known to 'blow up the bullshit about working parenting and dig into the truth about what works and what really doesn’t.' You might have read her piece in the Times that went viral called 'why working mums are being sold an impossible dream about work/life balance — and how to set the record strai...

*This is a sponsored episode* Hello and welcome back to Ctrl Alt Delete. Today I have a special episode for you, in partnership with Dell Technologies & Microsoft, who can help you find the right technology and offer advice to help your business grow and succeed – and this conversation is part of their 2022 small business Podference which is a UK podcast-based conference, a place to share advi...

Africa Brooke is a consultant, coach, writer and speaker who specialises in helping many people including public figures. entrepreneurs, teams, and individuals with challenges related to self-censorship and self-sabotage. I really enjoy following Africa’s work, her straightforward (yet compassionate) no BS route to helping people examine what is going on with them, establish boundaries and define...

This is a replay of my episode with the brilliant writer Anna Codrea-Rado from April 2021. She writes about freelancing, business, culture and technology, with a particular focus on work life. I really enjoy her podcast Is This Working on these themes, I especially loved her episode on burnout. In this episode, we discuss her first book, You’re the Business: How To Build a Successful Career W...

Today's replay episode is with Ann Friedman, one half of the popular podcast Call Your Girlfriend and now author of the New York Times Bestselling book Big Friendship, a friendship bible on how to keep each other close. This book is authored by both Ann Friedman and Aminatou Sow, (Aminatou has also been a guest on Ctrl Alt Delete, episode number #183 if you fancy going back and listening) and Big...

This episode is a replay from 2018 with Trinny Woodall, author, fashion advisor and beauty entrepreneur. You may know her from the hugely popular Trinny and Susannah makeover days. Her and Susannah met in 1994 and wrote a weekly fashion column for The Daily Telegraph. This led to the launch of their own fashion-advice business and first book. They were then commissioned by the BBC to host What Not...

This is a replay of my episode with the brilliant Bridgerton author Julia Quinn, recorded in 2021. She is a No.1 New York Times bestselling author of eighteen consecutive NYT bestsellers including Bridgerton. The Duke and I is back in Sunday Times bestseller list in the U.K twenty years after publication and this was of course partly due to the fact that on December 25, 2020, Netflix premiere...

This episode is a replay with the brilliant Alain de Botton. He is a writer of multiple books described as a ‘philosophy of everyday life.’ His first book, Essays in Love,  was published when he was twenty-three and went on to sell millions of copies. He is also the co-founder of The School of Life, one of my favourite platforms, which is an education space dedicated to a new vision of educat...

This is a replay with the amazing Glennon Doyle. We recorded this in the depths of the 2020 lockdown. She is the author of Love Warrior (which was an Oprah Book Club selection), as well as her New York Times bestseller Carry On, Warrior. In this episode, we are discussing her new book "Untamed. Stop pleasing, start living" which then went on to becoming a #1 New York Times bestseller and (a Reese'...

Welcome back to this replay episode of Ctrl Alt Delete. Recorded three(?) years ago, writer Dolly Alderton and I discuss her memoir Everything I Know About Love, writing truthfully, turning thirty and how her life changed when her memoir sky-rocketed her to suddenly being in the public domain. Dolly Alderton is an award-winning journalist, broadcaster and author. I've known Dolly since our freelan...

Welcome back to Ctrl Alt Delete, this is a replay episode with the brilliant Cathy Heller. Cathy is the host of the popular podcast Don’t Keep Your Day Job , now rebranded as The Cathy Heller show which is one of my favourites, it has had over 20 million downloads and she is a great conversation. In this conversation we talk about her book of the same name Don’t Keep Your Day Job which was release...

This is a replay episode from 2021 with the brilliant Cate Sevilla! She is currently editor in chief of Huffington Post UK and author of How to Work Without Losing Your Mind. The book is a relatable and reassuring guide to the messy, stressful and sometimes bizarre side of work that everyone experiences but no one talks about. I loved this book because it’s for people who don’t necessarily want wo...

My guest today is Hashi Mohamed, one of the UK’s leading barristers, a BBC broadcaster and author on social mobility in Britain. His book is out now, called People Like Us. He is one of 12 children, Hashi came to the UK as an unaccompanied child refugee from Kenya in the summer of 1993 when he was just 9 years old. When he arrived he spoke basic English, attended failing school, raised on state be...

My guest today is Tetyana Denford, a Ukrainian-American author, translator, and freelance writer. Her debut novel, Motherland, based on an incredible family secret that was revealed by her maternal grandmother, was longlisted for the Readers Digest Self-Published Book Awards, and has been met with critical global acclaim. She is also the author of a beautiful poetry book series on the topics of ho...