LRN No.17: early hours and Woman's Hours
Plus: channelling Sly Stallone
Apologies if the scrawls in this particular Little Red Notebook are harder to decipher than usual: I had three hours’ sleep last night. I’m writing this on Thursday evening, after my first ever stint presenting Woman’s Hour on BBC Radio 4. My alarm was set for 5.45am, but my brain decided the right time to get up and go was 1.45am.
It was a lot of fun. I got to talk about tattoos and porn, Alfred Hitchcock and Tippi Hedren, and also - this was right up my street - the Alabama supreme court ruling that means embryos are legally treated as children in the state. IVF treatment has ground to a halt in Alabama, because no clinic wants to be held responsible for the death of a child when they dispose of embryos that won’t be implanted. I spoke to a mother who is trying to transport her embryos out of the state - but knows she could be charged with child neglect or worse if anything happens to them in transit.
Strong coffee and lively guests meant the hour flew by. You can check out the episode here.
By the time this lands in your inboxes, I will be on my way to Philadelphia to do some reporting for a couple of long form articles/make like Rocky on the steps of the Museum of Art.
It’s 13 days until The Price of Life is in bookshops - but plenty of tasters are being released into the world over the next couple of weeks. There will be extracts in the Daily Mail on this Saturday, the Mail on Sunday this Sunday, and the Guardian on Saturday 9th March.
And I’m delighted to say it’s going to be Book of the Week on BBC Radio 4 next week - you can catch it every weekday from 9.45am, or whenever you like on BBC Sounds.
Things that have caught my eyes and ears:
Was agape at the wonder of Mat Collishaw’s Petrichor exhibition at Kew Gardens (I promise, I am not on the Kew Gardens payroll - I just love it very much)
Can’t stop thinking about this piece by Tracy King, about what she learned when she tracked down the boys - now men - who were accused of murdering her father
Watched The Greatest Night in Pop, the story of how ‘We are the World’ - one of the most successful yet most awful songs in pop music - came to be recorded in 1985. I love that Prince never showed up to the studio
Tried very hard to limit the number of times I listen to Warpaint’s new single, Common Blue, because I don’t want to wear it out, but it is my jam of all jams at the moment