Send us a text In J.B Priestley's An Inspector Calls, we encounter the unfortunate "Eva Smith/Daisy Renton", a young woman whose misfortunte is exacerbated by encounters with members of one wealthy family, The Birlings. In this 2 part episode, I talk about the factors that might have affected the life of a real life Daisy Renton, from Trade Unions, the role of education in improving lives, to the rampant poverty of the tails end of the Edwardian era. I also talk about contraception, and the risks one took when trying to avoid, pregnancy, or terminate a pregnancy if one occurred and how all these factors could have come together to create a polycrisis, multiple, connected crises which in the end, were insurmountable. Support the show Thank you for listening, if you enjoyed it- please leave a review, share with your network and help us spread the word.…

Send us a text A dead girl in the mortuary, an engagement party and an all-knowing Inspector. J.B. Priestley’s play “An Inspector Calls gives us food for thought as we are invited to consider the circumstances leading to the death of one Eva Smith, also known as Daisy Renton. In this episode I consider the different factors which might have led Eva to her dead by suicide- if that indeed it was. I examine the role of trade unions, education, poverty among the working class and contraception, tying to answer the question, what happened to Daisy, and why? This is a two part episode. Support the show Thank you for listening, if you enjoyed it- please leave a review, share with your network and help us spread the word.…

Send us a text In today’s episode, using the example of Da’Naia Jackson, ex-wife of disgraced love guru Derrick Jaxn, and now a speaker in her own right, and our book for today, Mon Mari, by Maud Ventura, I examine what it means to love someone more than you love yourself. How does it affect you to give more than you are getting back, to throw yourself wholeheartedly into something that is only giving back the bare minimum? As someone who has an ambivalent stance on love and marriage, eyeing the venerated institution with suspicion, I think I am often callous in my approach to the women who do want this love, but in this episode, I took the time to take off my comfy slippers, and put on the stiletto heels of a woman who wants to get and keep a man, the lover girl whose man is her world, and I found that perhaps, we have more in common than we realise. Support the show Thank you for listening, if you enjoyed it- please leave a review, share with your network and help us spread the word.…

Send us a text In today’s episode, using the example of Da’Naia Jackson, ex-wife of disgraced love guru Derrick Jaxn, and now a speaker in her own right, and our book for today, Mon Mari, by Maud Ventura, I examine what it means to love someone more than you love yourself. How does it affect you to give more than you are getting back, to throw yourself wholeheartedly into something that is only giving back the bare minimum? As someone who has an ambivalent stance on love and marriage, eyeing the venerated institution with suspicion, I think I am often callous in my approach to the women who do want this love, but in this episode, I took the time to take off my comfy slippers, and put on the stiletto heels of a woman who wants to get and keep a man, the lover girl whose man is her world, and I found that perhaps, we have more in common than we realise. Support the show Thank you for listening, if you enjoyed it- please leave a review, share with your network and help us spread the word.…

Send us a text Another day, another episode, in this Valentine's Day Extravaganza, and today, we are talking about Limerence and unhealthy iterations of love. What's wrong with wanting to love and be loved? Nothing, as long as it's not all in your head. Among lonely people, there is often a trend to get caught up in the dream of love, instead of the actual reality. Sometimes, the dream takes over, and leads us down some troubling pathways. Loneliness is part of the human condition, and with modernisation, we have all the appearance of being connected, while the reality is significantly different. A Victorian age poet predicted such a world, in the poem, "The Lady of Shalott", in which a lovely young woman is stuck in a tower, watching people's lives through a mirror. She has not contact with them, and her loneliness grows as she watches them move on, grow, get married. Sound familiar? Well, it should. Such a set up is exactly right for loneliness to take over, and for Limerence, the state of being caught up in obsession over a runaway crush to take over. In this episode I talk about the Lady of Shalott, and my own experiences of Limerence, and why reality is much better. Support the show Thank you for listening, if you enjoyed it- please leave a review, share with your network and help us spread the word.…

Send us a text How does love grow? Is it possible to find love where you were not looking? What if you were tricked into getting maarried, would you let that stop you from being happy? In A Strangeness In My Mind, Orhan Pamuk lays before us a puzzle, asks us what sort of people we are, and whether we would let circumstances stand in the way of our happiness. Happy Valentines Day! Support the show Thank you for listening, if you enjoyed it- please leave a review, share with your network and help us spread the word.…

Send us a text "What do you like about me, that I like about myself? Do you notice when I make an effort? Do you care? Welcome to Day 2 of our Valentine's Week special, talking about love, from different angles, through different books. In today's episode of there'sabookforthat podcast, I talk about the importance of valuing each other's efforts in relationships. Love is such an interesting subject to talk about because it is so important for so many of us, to the extent that there is a whole commercial day of guilt and longing set aside to make those in love feel bad for not showing it, and those not in love, long for someone to spend the day with. Love’s great, and yet for a lot of people, if statistics, social media, TV and talking to people, be believed, love proves elusive time and time again, and if not elusive, disappointing. I want to take a different approach today, looking at why it’s so easy for us to be disappointed in love, all the ways in which we may be setting ourselves up to fail, in romantic contexts and otherwise. To do this, we will be looking at a tiny part of the book, The Colour Purple, by Alice Walker. Support the show Thank you for listening, if you enjoyed it- please leave a review, share with your network and help us spread the word.…

Send us a text In the first episode of our Valentine's Day Week series, I read from Love and Marriage by the Prophet, hoping to glean some wisdom to share at this time when love, apparently, rules the airwaves. What does it mean to love, how can we best go about it? Join me everyday this week as we delve into this subject. Support the show Thank you for listening, if you enjoyed it- please leave a review, share with your network and help us spread the word.…

Send us a text In today's episode, I talk about our parasocial relationships, taking Wislawa Szymborska's poem, "The end and the beginning" as the point of departure. I talk about how we should perhaps make the choice to be intentional about loving, or caring about strangers, as an act of resistance, an act of awareness. We owe strangers our very lives, for they make our lives possible, and instead of running away from this reality, we should try and be worthy of each other, even if we do not know each other. Support the show Thank you for listening, if you enjoyed it- please leave a review, share with your network and help us spread the word.…

Send us a text Love is a wonderful thing, but who is worthy of it. What if you could simply make a wish, and bypass all the requirements? In today's episode, I take a sharp left, with talk of sexual assault woven into the narrative. If that's not for you, join us next week. Support the show Thank you for listening, if you enjoyed it- please leave a review, share with your network and help us spread the word.…

Send us a text How far would you go to be part of a group? What would you do to fit in? Would you commit crimes to get ahead, and encourage others around you to do so too? In one way or another, senior staff at Enron were actively involved, or complicit in crimes. In this episode, we analyse the Enron story through the lense of the Emperor's new clothes by Hans Christian Andersen, and Psychological studies into the phenomenon of conformity. Support the show Thank you for listening, if you enjoyed it- please leave a review, share with your network and help us spread the word.…

Send us a text As Palestine burns, there are many powerful voices who support this conflict. They have their reasons. Time will tell if they were justified. There are many who disagree who think that the collective punishment, displacements, and genocide of an entrapped, colonised population is wrong. There are also those who hold their ground, in the middle where it seems safe, where they can hide, hedge their bets, and wait for the winners and losers to be declared. This might seem like a winning strategy, to be silent and wait, not reveal too much, claim ignorance. Not take sides. But it is an act of cowardice. And in a world in which popular opinion is a driving force, silence, it is in fact acquiescence. Support the show Thank you for listening, if you enjoyed it- please leave a review, share with your network and help us spread the word.…