Standard Issue Podcast

Journalist Hazel Davis got on the phone to Dr Kat Arney to talk about Rebel Cell: Cancer, Evolution and the Science of Life, Kat's book – out now – about the big bug in the system of life and how we get cancer because we can't not get it. They also chat cancer and Covid-19, Tasmanian devils, clams, Maud Slye and LOADS of mice. https://www.rebelcellbook.com/ Support this show http://supporter.acast...

With the ever-pressing situation of refugees back in the headlines, Mickey gets on the phone to Ethiopia to talk refugees, camps and coronavirus, and how women and girls are particularly affected, with Betelhem Mengistu, a Community Wellbeing Initiative Co-ordinator for the International Rescue Committee. Hannah's been on the blower to Baltimore to chat to Kate Reed Petty about her amazing debut n...

Playwright and lawyer Rachel Mariner joins Mickey to talk about her new play, Recovering Misogynist, which you can stream courtesy of the Cambridge Junction (until Aug 26). They chat about everything from feeling sorry for Harvey Weinstein to Mary Beard, from an incredibly surprising blind date to the Kardashians, from sacrificial old goats to the orange dicksplash in the White House.  Diverse as...

In this week's Chops, Hannah chats to author Kerry Hudson about her autobiographical book Lowborn: Growing Up, Getting Away and Returning to Britain's Poorest Towns, which is now out in paperback. They chat about how class politics has changed post Brexit. why the middle-class view of growing up poor is often wildly inaccurate and that thorniest of words, "privilege". Have at it. Support this show...

Hannah and Mick are joined by excellent comedians Sophie Duker and Thanyia Moore for our second gig via the wonder of Zoom. Chat is wildly varied, taking in feet, anal hygiene for cats, true love for Michaela Coel, why powerful women get labelled as 'difficult', dungarees, silver wolves, woke foxes, the mum perspective, and the evergreen nature of fart jokes.  Support this show http://supporter.ac...

Glorious Rock Bottom is straight-talking journalist and author Bryony Gordon’s candid and compelling sobriety memoir. In this chat with our Jen, Bryony explains what made her realise her drinking was a problem, what it means to be an alcoholic, how she learned to tell the stigma around alcoholism to jog on, expectation vs reality when it comes to AA, why we need to take responsibility for our own...

Fancy a weekend in front of the telly? Yeah, you do. So let us offer some suggestions in August's Outside The Box, where we chat Mrs America, There She Goes, Perry Mason and The Plot Against America. Open snacks on three, two... Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/standardissuespodcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit me...

Everyone agrees that intimacy coordinators are a good idea, but what do they actually do? This week, Mick chats to Ita O’Brien about her work, including in Michaela Coel’s I May Destroy You, to find out more. We're also catching up with Jen on maternity leave to see how she and Lyra are doing. In Dunleavy Does Disaster we watch The Last Sharknado because, well because one of you asked us to. Er, t...

In this week's Chops, Jen chats to Prof Linda Scott, internationally-renowned expert on women's economic development and author of hit new book The Double X Economy. They chat about women's spending power, who advertising is really aimed at and if the gender pay gap isn't all a massive ploy to keep mothers at home. Tuck in! Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/standardissuespodcast. Hosted...

Our resident film buff Yosra Osman shares her pick this week. Find out why Barry Jenkins' 2016 Oscar-winner Moonlight is (one of) her favourite(s), what Hannah and Mick make of it and just how much Yosra loves Janelle Monáe. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/standardissuespodcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaph...

Lessons from history, the life-changing power of confidence, lots of Scotch and a 90s revival all play big roles in this week’s podzine. Annabel Bligh of The Conversation UK and The Anthill Podcast tells Mickey about new podcast series Recovery, a fascinating six-parter looking at key crises through history, and society’s subsequent recovery, to see if any parallels can be drawn with what’s happen...

We've some big hitters from the world of feminism for you in this week's podcast. You are welcome. First up, Mickey chats to Woman's Hour's Jenni Murray about fat shaming, changing attitudes and her new book Fat Cow, Fat Chance. Hannah talks to Labour MP and woman of action Stella Creasy about why she's working to make misogyny a hate crime. In DDD, we're less than rapturous about the Rapture as w...

Journalist and documentary maker Jenny Kleeman talks to Mickey about her astonishing debut non-fiction, Sex Robots & Vegan Meat. Five years in the writing, Jenny delves into new innovations in technology on the frontiers of sex, food, birth and death that will, in the future, change the way we live (and die) forever. They talk about the impact these technologies will have on women, which tends to...

Period blood, poos stuck in windows, sex robots and death machines: squeamishness be damned in this week’s episode. Journalist and documentary maker Jenny Kleeman tells Mickey about her debut book, Sex Robots & Vegan Meat, a fascinating, terrifying and darkly funny look at technological innovations currently in the pipeline that could potentially change how we live (and die) forever.  Hannah catch...

Lucy Nichol takes the Chops reins this week. Society loves to stigmatise, but more often than not, the whole story isn't in the public domain. Lucy talks to a woman who had her children taken into care. They chat about her very personal story, about how things went wrong, the assumptions we make about motherhood and mental health, and what it all meant for her and her (now back together again) fam...

Sold on the idea of watching things filmed in lockdown yet? We weren't immediately, but in this month's Outside The Box, we talk about the roaring success of Talking Heads and the stupid fun of Staged. Plus we're chatting The Salisbury Poisonings, The Sinner, Athlete A, Roll Red Roll and What We Do In The Shadows. And there's early thoughts on Mrs America, which we'll cover in full next month. Alo...

Lockdown and social distancing may have stopped our gigcasts, but that doesn't mean we can't try our best to replicate them for you*. So, as we had planned to go to Brighton this summer, we've instead made Brighton come to us in the form of excellent comedians Zoe Lyons and Jen Brister. We chat hardcore running, excessive drinking, using the toilet as an office and having a breakdown in the Co-op....

Terri White's debut book, Coming Undone, A Memoir, is an extraordinary piece of writing that deals with child abuse, alcoholism, mental breakdown and much more. She and Mick talk about all of that and also about kids growing up in poverty and how that’s still a reality now, why trauma shouldn’t be couched in euphemisms and metaphors, how Terri's view of success has altered, and why the fuck she de...

Angry at the world? You probably should be. But, as Ashley 'Dotty' Charles tells us in this week's Chops, if you don't pick your battles, you can't win the war. The broadcaster and writer tells Jen about her excellent (and much-needed) new book Outraged: Why Everyone is Shouting and No One is Talking, about the difference between productive and not-at-all-helpful indignation, and how some people h...

Steven Spielberg's 1975 classic Jaws is our Mick's pick for this episode of Flicking. She and Hannah are joined by film buff Yosra Osman to talk the joys of Bruce the big fish, definitions of manhood, pissed-up stars, an iconic score and that speech. Because everyone's seen Jaws. Right, Yosra? Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/standardissuespodcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privac...

Disability activist Gem Turner has been shielding, and she talks to Hannah about what that means, whether she feels ready to go back into the real world and what the last few months have taught her about how this Government views disabled people. Award-winning journalist and editor-in-chief of Empire magazine Terri White chats to Mickey about her beautiful, hard-hitting memoir Coming Undone, an ex...

June is Gypsy, Roma and Traveller History Month, which exists to raise awareness about these communities within the UK. That’s 300,000 people, and sadly, if not unsurprisingly, they’re facing racism on an individual and systemic level every day. And so Mickey caught up with Josie O Driscoll, director of GATE Herts and founder of Report Racism GRT, and Professor Margaret Greenfields, professor of S...

We love women, we love history, we love a whole lot of women's history. So, the good news is, in this week's podcast, Mickey chats to a Standard Issue fave, writer Anneka Harry about her new book Gender Rebels, which celebrates the diverse, defiant and daring women who changed the rules, and their identities, to get shit done. Broadcaster Sue Elliott-Nicholls has, like all of us, been Zooming and...

Everybody loves a bit of history, right? Even if it's just that it gives us a break from living through it. In this week's Chops, Hannah chats to Rachel Crossley from the East End Women's Museum about how it came into being (and is that a yarn, believe us), its celebration of the Equal Pay Act, how you can help collect stories that reflect the diversity of East London and what the future holds for...

Fancy a strangely uplifting listen about funerals? Well, Mick catches up with Poppy Mardall, founder of Poppy’s Funerals, to find out about funerals in the time of coronavirus and lockdown, how people are adapting and creating new rituals to say goodbye, and how it might have changed the landscape forever.  Given leaving the house is now a real possibility again, we’re having to think about gettin...