How To Fail With Elizabeth Day - Kirsty Young - ‘The great benefit of age? You give less of a f**k.’

Episode Date: December 11, 2024

When I started How To Fail, I had a list of dream guests. Kirsty Young was on it. Not only because she’s one of the greatest interviewers of all time but also because her style of broadcasting (especially during her time on Desert Island Discs) is the standard I aspire to every week on this podcast. Her intelligence, warmth and ability to listen - both to what is being said and what isn’t - are what mark her apart. It was an honour to be allowed to ask her the questions for a change and a delight to spend time in her company because she’s FUNNY too. Truly, the ideal woman. We talk about her self-stated failure ‘to excite her birth father enough for him to stick around’, her failure as a quiz-show host and her failure to meditate. Along the way, we touch on her experiences interviewing the great and the good…and some who were neither. We talk about her anchoring of the late Queen’s funeral and Kirsty’s ability to sum up the mood of a nation. We discuss step-parenting, the liberation of age, clickbait, living with a chronic illness and why she wishes she’d run off with a Guatemalan tribesman (but settled for love at first sight with her husband, Nick Jones, instead). HOW TO FAIL PRESENTED BY HAYU LIVE TOUR tickets: www.fane.co.uk/how-to-fail Have something to share of your own? I'd love to hear from you! Click here to get in touch: howtofailpod.com Production & Post Production Coordinator: Eric Ryan Studio and Mix Engineer: Matias Torres Sole and John Scott Senior Producer: Selina Ream Executive Producer: Carly Maile Head of Marketing: Kieran Lancini How to Fail is an Elizabeth Day and Sony Music Entertainment Production. Find more great podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts To bring your brand to life in this podcast, email [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This podcast is brought to you by Squarespace. Now, if you're an entrepreneur like me or living the creative freelance life, then Squarespace is the all-in-one platform to help you stand out and succeed online. Whether you're just getting started or nurturing a growing brand, Squarespace makes it easy to create a stunning website and engage with your audience. My website was designed on Squarespace and I found it so user-friendly and easy. And trust me, I am not techy at all. Squarespace supports a design-orientated ethos, so the options are chic and there's plenty of templates to choose from. I felt

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I wanted to mention our subscriber podcast, Failing with Friends, where my guest and I answer your questions and we offer advice on some of your failures too. Here's a bit of Kirsty Young. Things will happen. They have their natural momentum and actually stepping back is not doing a disservice. It's actually accepting the reality of life. Do join in by following the link in the podcast notes and you can send me an email or look out for my call-outs once a month on Instagram for quickfire questions. Thank you so, so much. Okay, deep breath. I'm about to interview one of the greatest interviewers of our time

and a personal heroine. So here goes. Kirsty Young was nicknamed Old Man River at Stirling High School for her deep voice. Little could she have known back then that this voice would become the making of her. She skipped university and took on various jobs including au pair and barmaid. It was while she was knowing back then that this voice would become the making of her. She skipped university and took on various jobs including au pair and barmaid. It was while she was putting pints one night that she got chatting to a customer who worked as a TV sports cameraman and needed a runner. From there she became a continuity announcer on BBC Radio Scotland, beating 700 other applicants to the role. By 1996, she had joined Channel 5 as the

presenter of its flagship news programme, famously becoming the first to perch on a desk rather than sit behind it. But she will be best known to many of you as the presenter of Radio 4's Desert Island Discs between 2006 and 2018, during which she elicited intimate confessions and memorable stories from the likes of Tom Hanks, Yoko Ono and war surgeon David Knott. As an interviewer, she represents everything I aspire to, an empathic, listening curiosity that remains free of judgment and full of humour and understanding. She stepped down from desert island discs for health reasons, but those same peerless

qualities can be enjoyed in abundance on her podcast series Young Again. After interviewing so many interesting people, she says one of her main takeaways is that success comes out of complexity. Kirsty Young, welcome to How to Fail. I am, and now I am speechless. That is such a generous and lovely introduction. Thank you very much. Oh, you are so welcome. Well, I was telling you before we started recording that you are my hero. I know you get that a lot, but I really mean it. I don't. Okay, I really mean it. I don't. Okay, I really mean it. When I started How to Fail, I thought, what is the best radio

program I know? And it was Desert Island Discs presented by you. This entire format is inspired by your introductions and the structure of that program. And my entire interview style, I promise, I aspire to be just a filament of Kirsty Young. Well, I have to, yeah, well, thank you. And that is typically incredibly generous. Although I have to say we all should thank Roy Plumlee because the format is king of Desert Island Discs. That is the thing. And that's why people are subsequently able to take it on. And, you know, it hasn't had very many presenters because nobody really wants to let go of it once they have the job, understandably. It is a superb format and one of the great helpful things about the format is of course the music.

And I described it once, I can't remember, I was talking to somebody about it, and I said it's as though the castaway brings in their own furniture or their own favourite pair of shoes with them. So there's a kind of comfort in being surrounded by things that they love or things that are important to them. So I think the format is the real genius of the whole thing. MS I mean, that's a typically generous thing for you to say, but I agree, it is an incredible format. But I think you had something to do with the popularity of those shows when you were presenting. But I was very interested in that quote that you actually gave on another podcast, Success Comes Out of Complexity. And we're going to come on to your complexity in a moment, but I wonder what success means to you now. You're in your 50s. Has your notion of success changed? Totally. My version of success at 25 is very different from my version of success at 55.

Partly that's because I was in a career and in an environment where I made enough money, I mean not fortunes, but enough money to comfortably think about the other things. I think if you spend your whole life having to think about paying the gas bill and putting food on the table, then you don't have the indulgence about thinking about other things or being able to give up a job in order to engage with the things that I'm engaged with now. But yeah, I feel very, my idea of success now is very different from when I was 25. But I don't regret doing the things in my working life that I did. So what does success represent for you now? What is it?

It's not prioritizing the future over the present. That's it really. That's what it all boils down to, whether that is making an omelette or talking to my student daughter about her first week at university. It's actually here. You're now here. This is what you have. This is the moment you have. actually here. You're now here. This is what you have. This is the moment you have. Don't ruminate. I'm quite a ruminator and try not to plan too much. I mean you definitely get shit done if you're a planner, that's for sure, but the problem is it can be quite difficult for you to be in the thing that you're doing at that moment. There was a period of time where I became a bit unwell and I had to take time away and actually I said to my sister, I was always just kind of passing through my home. I was doing the things I had to do with my children. I hope I was doing all that fine-ish, but I was always on my way somewhere. And now I

spend time where I'm just there. One of the things that I had the joy of doing when I was preparing for this interview was re-listen to many of your interviews. And you said this thing once about the interview being a three-way process. There's you, there's the guest, but there's the audience. And actually I think what is so noticeable about you is your remarkable attunement to the audience. Whether it's asking the question that we want asked when you're presenting Young Again or Desert Island Discs, or whether it's summing up the nation's feeling when Queen Elizabeth died and you broadcast across her funeral. Where do you think this attunement might come from? Have you always felt a connection with what other people or what the community around you might be thinking or feeling? I was brought up with my mother saying to me,

you can talk to anyone. I had the great privilege of being given confidence by my mother, sort of social confidence, which was not really about being gobby or pushy, but it was about feeling that you belonged anywhere that you might turn up. So that was good. That was a kind of thing that was given to me by a great, a great mum who I'm very close to. But I think that idea of tuning into people, I probably learned that over the years of talking to people. I think I probably was not that great at it when I started out and actually became better at it the more I did the job.

As I thought more about what's an interviewer for, why are you talking to this person? And I certainly would say that over the course of the period that I did Desert Islanders, which was a very concentrated, you know, in that program when I was doing it, I think it was 42 programs a year. That's a lot of people you're talking to. And when I would read the notes, and I was lucky enough to have an amazing researcher that I worked with, and I got beautiful notes before an interview, so I would really enjoy learning about them. So it was that by the time you meet them, you know, I would have a, I'd thought about the plan,

I'd thought about the questions, I'd written the introduction, and then you kind of see where it goes. And I suppose I had enough time to think, who is this for? It's not for the person you're interviewing, and it's not for you. It's not a self-aggrandizing thing. Here I am with Tom Hanks. It's really about, I have the privilege of sitting with this person that so many people love. The people who are listening don't, so what do they want from this? So I would always make a plan

and then I would say to my producer, in the end I didn't need to say it, but in the beginning, I'm gonna go, I know I've said these are the questions, but actually I'm gonna go somewhere else. And those are usually the sort of, often the best bits in an interview. And I think something like Queen Elizabeth II's funeral, I think at the point at which, you know, a lot of the times when we make a reasonably good job of something, it's because we meet it at the right time. You know, it's a lot to do with timing

and the good fortune of good timing. And I was very glad that I was given the... And I genuinely did think of it as a privilege, and I don't mean that to sound saccharine, but I definitely did. Nerve-racking, but also a privilege of anchoring the funeral coverage. It was the right time for me to be able to have the confidence to just call it and to say, I call this situation like this. This is what I think it is. You can think whatever you think about it, but they've asked me here to do it and I'm going to call it. And I'm going to say, this is how I define probably professionally how I define this moment that we have all gone through as a nation. That sounds grander than I mean it to, but I kind of think, well,

if they're trusting me with that job, I'm going to do it and I'm going to trust what I think about it and I'm going to say it. And I probably, if I'd done the job 20 years earlier, I wouldn't have had the confidence to do that. MS. Your podcast Young Again is all about what advice you would give your younger self. That's what you ask guests. And you've been asked that yourself and you have said that you would give the advice to be less of a good girl. And I was kind of joking when I said, my mom was horrified that I said that. Yeah, but I think I was quite a good girl. So let me ask you what the naughtiest thing is you've ever done. Oh my God, well, it's not running through the cornfields. I can tell you

that much. That's the thing I always think of. I mean it's probably, you know, what is the naughtiest thing I've ever done? I can say outrageous things to make people laugh and I like to transgress boundaries for humor. I think that's entirely acceptable. My husband is wonderfully unconcerned with the rules. I really admire that in him. I'm not, the joke in our family is that I've been caught for speeding, you know, it's like, and I was doing 34 in a 30, do you know what I mean? So I am relatively well behaved, but that sounds terrible. I wish I wasn't. I wish I said, you know, I went to Guatemala when I was 16 and married a tribesman and we went into it, but I didn't.

I did. And that's not me. Are we the social clip? No context. No context. Yeah, exactly. Please use that. Okay.

But I'm not, I'm not that person. Before we get onto your failures, your husband, Nick Jones, founder of Soho House, a mildly successful individual. Just a little bit, yes. But is it true that you fell in love at first sight? That there was something? We fell for each other. I'm not going to put words in his mouth, but I would definitely say I fell for him the first day I met him, which is not like me. Was not like me. Well, apparently it is like me, but it wasn't up until that point like me. Was not like me. Well apparently it is like me but it wasn't up until that point like me.

I don't know if it was first sight but it was first day. I thought oh there we are. There we are. Goodness me. Fancy that. I'm a little bit self-conscious even saying it because the world is not hearts and roses and flowers and everybody's relationship depends on The world is not hearts and roses and flowers and everybody's relationship depends on so many factors, many of which are outside their control. So it's not like we have this sugar coated relationship at all, but it was definitely the easiest decision I ever made. Your failures, your first one is phenomenal. It is, in your words, failing in exciting the interest of my birth father, enough for him to stick around beyond a few weeks. I mean, not one we've ever had before. Good. I'm glad.

And I salute you for it. Tell me, first of all, why you phrased it in this particular way. Well, you would know this, obviously, as a brilliant writer and broadcaster, that that's important because I was thinking, OK, what am I feeling? It's not obviously there's such a long list to choose from. And I thought, what's my earliest? Because babies are designed for us not to throw them in the bin. You know, that's what they're designed.

They're crying. The fact that they are entirely dependent on the people who brought them into the world to take care of them or they'll die. You know, their huge blinking beautiful eyes, their smooth skin, everything is designed to make us want to be magnetically attached to this thing. Apparently not. Apparently not. And I think that I didn't realize for a long time, because I've always been very deeply cared for and deeply loved by my mother and then cared for very well by my stepdad. It took me a long time to realize the imprint of that thing that had happened and the imprint of that. Essentially,

I mean, it's very uncomfortable to use the word rejection, but of course that's what it is. That sense in which this guy is sort of looking in the cot and like, nah. You know, that's sort of what it feels like really. And it took me a long time to work out that that feeling was woven into other behaviors for me. So it took me a long time to, you know, my story to myself for a long time. And obviously families have their own stories and one absorbs the culture of that is, oh, I got under the wire because I was too young. So I'm fine. I don't even really think about it, which of course is a complete nonsense. Partly through having my own family, but also through just thinking about these things more, being more mature, understanding

your understanding everything has an implication is the idea that somebody else's choices, and of course they are choices, are not made necessarily with the intent of giving you a direct hit that's injurious to you, you are simply collateral damage in that person's self-obsessed decision or journey. But the impact of it is not lessened by the fact that you are just collateral damage in somebody else's messy choices. Yes. Yeah. So there's a lot in it. And it's also a little bit funny. Yeah, I mean, it's a little bit funny, but it is a failure because I didn't do the baby job. There's the transgressive humor. Yes.

And also I imagine when you became a mother, I know that you're also a stepmother. Yeah. But when you became a biological mother, how did that make you feel? Because my mother was always really spectacular. And I mean that word absolutely, at making us feel wanted and valued and precious. But that's only half the story. She could only do as much as she could do. We carry with us other messages. However much that person might try to blank out the other messages, they are still there. And I had never really thought about it properly. You know, I was always, I was in sort of forward propulsion motion. You know, when you're young, you're just busy doing. And then I had my first daughter when I was in

my very early thirties and I was in the bath. And I think Freya was probably about three weeks old. And it was genuinely the first time I had ever shed a tear about the situation and thought, your biological mother went when you were a few weeks old. And I was crying for my mother. I was thinking about what she went through and it really struck me what she went through. It would probably be another 15 years before I started to think about the impact that had had upon me. But at that point, I was thinking about the vulnerability of the mother because you are very dependent on the structure around you that's supporting you. MS I want to come back to the impact on you, but I wonder if you mind my asking what happened? Why did he leave? I

mean, I know you were only a few weeks old, but from what you can piece together since then, he was in the police, wasn't he? EILEEN My mother was in an extremely difficult marriage where she was treated very, very poorly and ended up on her own with two children because she couldn't put up with my biological father's behaviour and he didn't appear to want to be engaged in his two tiny children's lives. I'm gonna leave it at that. Have you ever seen him since or spoken to him? Once. Yes, once when I was 16. it was a brief, brief meeting and a brief conversation. Your mother remarried, John Young.

She did. Your father. Yes. Would I describe your childhood as happy? Yeah. Yeah. I definitely would describe it as happy. I have a brother who was born out of that second marriage of my mother's.

We were brought up very much as a unit of three children. I took on my stepdad's, but I call him my dad's name, and we were brought up as a united family. And I felt very loved, close to both of my siblings. I certainly felt the security of love. There was a lot of love. Yeah. So out of the three of you, you're the one of your siblings who has this public profile. Yes. And has this forward-facing, outward-facing career in many ways. So when you were talking about the imprint that this story left on you, can you see where I'm going? Can you see the COD psychology a mile off? You just serve it up and I'll take it. I've done enough of that in my time.

Is there a line to be drawn between what happened to you and your biological father leaving and wanting to make him aware and the world aware that you were important enough to take notice of? I can only think that there absolutely must be. And at the same time, I am deeply uncomfortable with that as a notion because it is so obvious and so binary. But I think that there are many very interesting jobs in broadcasting. You can be a brilliant producer, you can be a director, you can write,

you can do all the amazing things that people do. I chose something that was in front of the camera or on mic, and why did I choose that? Partly because that's where my capabilities lay, but also I think because I like people to like me. Do you like me? Do you like me now? Am I nice? Is this good enough? It doesn't feel like that. That's not the thing at the front of one's head. It surely is in the mix. I wouldn't say it's simply that because I think I did have the ability to turn a good script and I have a voice that translates well and all of those

things that were part of my character. But there's definitely a bit of do you see me, do you like me, do you like me now? Do you still have that need for people to like you? No. When does it stop? Tell me. I mean, I want the people I like to like me, but I don't care if anyone else likes me. If somebody says, oh, she was shit doing the Queen's funeral. Well, that's okay. That's all right. It's just your opinion is fine. I did the job as well as I could. I did it to limit my capabilities.

I gave it my all and you're totally entitled to your opinion and that's fine. And you can't please everybody. And I think it probably comes with a degree of relaxedness as we get older. And I was watching some, I think it was Jodie Foster. She was talking about being, she's now in her 60s, but she was talking about being in her 50s. And she was saying, you know, in your 50s, you're still relating to the younger, you're still trying to get back to that person who was 35 year old you. She said, in your 60s, you know, that games up. That's you disconnected from that 35 year old. You're not looking back anymore and you're in a different space. And I thought that's, I thought it was wise and interesting. And I think the idea of getting freer as you get older is the great benefit of age.

Yeah. You give less of a fuck. Yes. Have you forgiven your biological father? I think dysfunction, poor behavior, not stepping up in any of its forms comes from whatever that person is dealing with. And I don't know him and I don't know his story because I don't have a relationship with them. It's not something I harbor or feel that there's a score to be settled. It's just what happened. Does that make sense? It makes total sense. It's almost as if to be the one forgiving implies that there's still emotion that is resonant and

active in your life and actually- Yes, exactly. My emotion is about the people who took care of me. Yes. Step parents get a bad press in culture, don't they? I'm a stepmother and I just think it's so unfair. The wicked stepmother in fairy tales. You are a stepmother, but I'm interested in how you feel about that term because obviously you've also experienced the wonder of being raised by John, technically your stepfather, but you refer to him as your father. And so what do you think of step-parenting? Well, I had a complete misunderstanding of step-parenting when Well, I had a complete misunderstanding

of step-parenting when I started doing it. So I met my husband when he was taking care full-time of a three-year-old and a five-year-old. So that was, I met the three of them, like literally three days after I met Nick, he introduced me to his children. Cause he's like, so this is it. He didn't introduce me to them as his girlfriend and at that point actually I wasn't his girlfriend, but that was really smart of him because he's like, this is real. These two things are real.

I mean, by the time we got married, which was a year later, I thought, well, I've got this. I've got this because I'm a stepparent I know how to do that. But of course, it was a totally different situation with all its own variables. I think it takes a lot of time to build that relationship. The children who are in that situation are of course the ones who haven't chosen it. So I think it has to be led by them. And I think you have to be very standy-backy whilst doing all the crap stuff that nobody gets any credit for. Such good advice. I consider myself to be incredibly close to my stepchildren and I have a deep connection with them and a deep love for them both. It's been one of the greatest areas of growth in my life and it is

definitely a cornerstone of my happiness is my relationship with my stepchildren. But it took time. I think there's a thread here between what you were talking about in terms of a feeling of liberation from your past as it pertains to your first failure and that sense of time and growth and building up the hours doing something. And I wonder if you feel that also with your professional life, even though I might still feel nervous and get imposter like thoughts in my head and lacking confidence. Do you still? Yes. But at least now I know that I've done the 10,000 hours. So I can look back at that evidence base and

think, well, I've done all of these interviews and they've gone okay, most of them. So at least I have that. Did you feel that the more hours you accumulated? Yes. Yes. It took a lot longer than I would think. Now when I get asked to do something, you know, if I get asked to make a program, I sort of feel that I've earned my place. And I think also because I didn't have any connection, I didn't know anybody who was a broadcaster. I'd never met anyone who was a broadcaster. Nobody came to speak at our school who'd done that sort of thing. My parents weren't in that world. They didn't know anybody who was. It was an absolute sort of satellite thing. I mean, actually, what's interesting

is at the beginning of my career, the closer I got to the jobs I wanted or started, I thought, yeah, okay, I don't think there's a hidden secret to this. I don't think it's a club I'm not a member of. I seem to be able to do it. I think it took me a very long time though. This episode is brought to you by Manscaped, the global leader in men's grooming tools and hygiene solutions. Attention holiday shoppers, if you're on the hunt for the perfect gifts for dad, brother, husband or significant other, you'll be thrilled to know that Manscaped is now available at Boots UK. And can I just say, they have the best names. There's the Lawn Mower 5.0 Ultra Essentials Kit including a waterproof shaver with SkinSafe technology to help prevent those nicks and

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you know, the first to not sit behind the desk and you had this real growing reputation and you were on air during September the 11th. And then you became a quiz show host. And that's your second failure. For one series only, never to be repeated. Well I went to ITV and I was sort of tempted, I was working for what was at that point, I mean, their viewing figures right now are absolutely fantastic, but at that point was the smallest channel

in British terrestrial television was Channel 5. It was ITN, very reputable news company that made the news for Channel 5. And I was, as the tabloid parlance was poached, I was asked to go and work for ITV. So that was a big step up, much bigger audiences. It was a step up. And that was where I anchored the 9-11 coverage because I was live on air for many, many hours on it. It was a full opening story and I was the news reader who happened to be, you know, wrote it on. So I got the gig and I sat there and did it. The contract was with ITV and not just ITN and so they wanted to use me for other

things and they came at me with ideas and I was young-ish and certainly naive and said, oh yeah, if you want me to do, you know, and it's a nonsense of course, because what I've learned is, and actually for the podcast that I record and I was just, I just recorded yesterday with Gloria Steinem and she's, you know, incredible. One of her amazing bits of wisdom and advice is pursue the thing that you can uniquely do and let other people do the other stuff. I wish I'd known that. When they said to me, we've got a quiz show for you to do. And it was, was really good. It was somebody who just, it was the brilliant producer Paul Smith who had made, who wants to be a do. And it was really good. It was the brilliant producer, Paul Smith, who had made Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, and it was made by a great production

company. So all these people knew what they were doing. I didn't know what I was doing. I don't belong there. It's not my natural sensibility. It's not a program I would watch. And it was not a program I was comfortable presenting. It was just ill-conceived. It was ill-conceived of them to ask me. It was ill-conceived of me to say yes. I think the quiz show was probably not the greatest one. I mean, it only lasted one season. But I think- It's called the people versus. The people versus. I hope you can't Google it. You can't. Oh, sorry.

Oh, shit. Of course, you can Google anything, right? Yeah, I've never, I mean, I could, even thinking about it makes me a little bit. And I worked with really nice people. But I was the rock, I was a square peg in a round hole. And I think it's important to know where your strengths lie and know where they don't lie. And there are people who are brilliant at that. And that's a definite skill and it's a thing and people are good at it and millions of people watch stuff like that and good for everyone, not good for me, not the natural fit. So yeah, the whole thing was a failure in so far as it wasn't commissioned. I was also pregnant and very, I had a lot of morning

sickness when I was pregnant so I didn't feel very well on set and yeah, it was like the whole thing was an absolute write-off. It was a failure. Do you think that there is a power that comes from knowing when to quit? Yes I absolutely think there is and I think it's really good to know the reasons that you're doing something and to know that they're your reasons. You know I think it's easy for a sort of discussion like this to end up sounding very privileged because obviously people have to do the jobs they have to do. Again, it's easy to be glib about these things and talk about knowing your value. But actually those things are important. They are important because they will guide you to the thing you are meant to be doing. They will guide you. And I don't believe

that you have to find your passion. I don't think that's true. Actually, I think very few people find their passion. But I've found something I could do and I was reasonable at and got better at as I went along and I got job satisfaction from and that I felt a sense of validation from and that I have frequently deeply enjoyed. You know, I think young people know that idea of you've got to go and find your passion. It's a high bar. How about finding something you like? Maybe that would be enough. You know, find something you like and see if you can get paid for doing it and try and get better at it. I think those moderate goals are a much better idea. Yes, I love that. It's sort of taking little steps towards something that might end up bigger.

And I'm not saying people aren't passionate. I mean, I've interviewed ballet dancers and painters and particle physicists who are passionate. That's great. But I think it's an enormous expectation to have of the entire population that we're all out there finding our passion. I don't think it's realistic.

This idea of quitting, can you apply it to an interview? Has an interview ever gone so awry that you thought, okay, I need to change tack here or quit it entirely? I'm not a writer, but you know that thing that writers say it's all copy. So I think if you're interviewing somebody and it's going very badly, well, that's the interview. And that's kind of, if you're involved in a car crash of an interview, stick with it. You know what? Because people will quite enjoy watching that. So I would say go with it. I mean, I've had interviews where I've thought people might walk out or people, you know, that's definitely been a thing. Not very often. I was recording an interview for this new series that I'm doing and I was interviewing Malcolm

Gladwell, who I've interviewed before. I did him on Desert Island Discs. I have read, I think, probably all of his books. I regard him, obviously, as a writer, and he is a very, very good writer and a brilliant podcaster. I did the introduction, which I thought was fulsome and praised him as I thought he deserved, asking the first question. And he said, well, a better question might be. And so I actually spent quite a lot of time afterwards thinking about that. And I thought, I think I was too nice. I think I was the good girl. And it annoyed me that on mic I didn't say to him,

I'll tell you what, when you're interviewing me, you can come up with the questions. But as long as I'm interviewing you, this is my job. I should have said that. I didn't say that. I was too polite. I was too nice. LW This is something that I always hate about myself. In the first ever season of How to Fail, when I didn't really know what I was doing and podcasts were still in their infancy, and I interviewed the author Sebastian Fowkes, who I like immensely. Brilliant writer, friend, everything. And I did an introduction and I described his trilogy of war novels as a saga. And he said, when I finished the introduction, which again, like it was very flattering and

praiseworthy and everything, he said, well, it's not really a saga. A saga is an Icelandic series of stories passed down through the, I felt terrible. He's like, do you want to retake that introduction again and rephrase it? And at least I did have the presence of mind say, no, I think it's fine. I'll just leave it there. It's a horrible thing to happen. Well, can we just take a moment for both of us to observe that both of those things happened with men? What I was bugged about was my reaction to it. It wasn't surprised that somebody had tried to big foot me at the start of an interview in a rather sort of unseemly way, but it was that I didn't look him in the eye and say, are we at home to Mr. Misogyny today? Welcome in. You know, that I didn't kind of address it for what

I felt it was. And then he could have said, well, I would have said that to him and we could have had the discussion. Yeah, I wish I hadn't been when that happened. So it's all copy because it will be good for the listener. The listener will enjoy, they might enjoy your discomfort. They'll certainly enjoy watching an interviewee behave badly and it's all copy. That's such a great piece of advice and such a release. So somebody like John McEnroe or Morrissey, both of whom came into the studio for Desert Islanders, and Morrissey, I was amazed that he even turned up because he'd already cancelled ones, and I kept thinking, every question I asked him,

I kept thinking he's gonna get up and walk out. He just had that sort of rusty knife edge aerobat and where anything could have happened. And I thought, well, if he does, will we run it? I don't know, we could probably run that. And I remember deciding, because John McEnroe came into the studio, who I really, I mean, obviously, Revere is a tennis player, but Revere is a broadcaster too. I think he knocked that out the park. So I was really excited about interviewing him and he came and he'd had a really terrible time, a terrible day, he'd had a terrible time in immigration, he'd had a rotten journey to the studio, he'd come straight off a flight. You know, he was having a bad day, we're all allowed those. But he was certainly extremely unfriendly before the microphone went

on and I was sitting there and I had done the job long enough by that point where I thought, oh, OK, let's see, let's go down the ski salt and see where this black run takes us. And then the light went on and he was charm itself. And there was a little bit of me that thought, oh, might have been a better interview feed than as he was before the light, the green light went on. So, yes, I think that is a it's a sort of freeing thing because it's all an encounter. And also, you know, when you're interviewing somebody, you meet them on the day that you meet

them. And in that particular day, who knows? You know, they could have just had a fight with their boyfriend. They could have lost the bid on the property they were after. The sole could have come off the bottom of their shoe and their foot sweat, anything could have happened. So you meet them in that moment. And actually that can, that's a great alchemy for an interview. Hi there, it's Laleh Arakoglu, the host of Condé Nast Travelers podcast, Women Who Travel. I'm here with our executive producer, Stephanie Karayuki. Hi Laleh, so good to be here. Stephanie and I, we've been talking a lot about the new twists and turns the show is taking.

The team has been working really hard at honing in on the heart of the show. Travel stories from women that make you feel something. Stories that change your perspective, that have depth, and sometimes stories that just make you laugh really hard. A big part of Women Who Travel has always been to claim space that has traditionally been taken up by male voices.

And that's still true today. And our mission moving forward with this show is to bring to life the travel experiences that you might not have heard while helping you figure out where to go next. So when you listen to Women Who Travel, you not only support our show, you support the vision behind it

to make travel accessible and exciting for all. New episodes come out every Thursday, so make sure you follow Women Who Travel wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, I'm Edith Bowman, and on my weekly show Soundtrack, I sit down with the world's greatest filmmakers to talk music. Whether it's a director, composer or actor, there's one thing all my guests have in common. They love the opportunity to dive deep into the magical relationship between movies and music. But don't take my word for it. You can probably tell how much in love with movie scars I am and how much more there's

left to be said. So let's definitely do this again. I'd love to do your show again. Thanks, Mr. Spielberg. Soundtracking with Edith Bullman, wherever you get your podcasts. I want to ask you a little bit about newsworthiness because you and I both have training as news journalists. You on TV, I was a print journalist for many years. So there's always an element at the back of my mind thinking of a potential headline or a news story. What's the difference between having a genuine encounter conversationally with someone and

showing them as they truly are or aspiring to do so on that given day and also thinking about news lines and potentially veering into clickbait and have we gone too far down the clickbait route? I think when you're in news you're in the business of top lining everything. What's the top line we can get? You know, and when I listen to brilliant journalists like Nick Robinson or Emma Barnett or whoever do their job, I think, oh great top line, well done you. You've got your top line, world at once, gonna love that. You know, you can see it all. Yes. Well, that's okay. That's not the business I'm in.

I want the listener to get as close to meeting the person as possible because I feel like that's interesting for them. There is obviously a place for the clickbait cobblers and also good strong top news lines and that can be important. But I think there's a thirst for something that is not that and I think people's listening and reading and viewing habits reflect that. Clickbait cobblers is my favourite phrase from this interview. Thank you. That might

be my book title. Yes. Well you've got the joy as I do of having a noun as a surname. So there's just endless amounts of fun. You could have a memoir title there. I hadn't thought of that yet, but I'm sure. Young by age. Final failure. Oh, yes. Is your failure to meditate? I try every day. I remember when I was first sort of suggested that yoga might be a good thing to do along with a huge amount of medication to try yoga to help to

calm down my cortisol, my nervous system and all the things that don't help rheumatological complaints which I have. I found a yoga therapist and I was talking to her, the incredible Jane who's now part of my life and I've been with for five years and practicing yoga which I'm obviously incredibly average at and part of it is meditation. And there was a wonderful moment when Jane said to me, well everybody finds it hard, nobody can really do it. She said the only people who can really do it are the yogis at the foot of the Himalayas who spend seven hours a day. And it's their life's devotion is to do this. And for the rest of us, it's a daily practice to try and get us to come back to it. And as soon as she gave me that wonderful golden key, I thought, well, just keep trying. So every day I try and sometimes

it's a little bit successful. Sometimes it's a total washout. I'm always glad I've had a go at it. Sometimes, rarely, it's a magical thing. And it's also made me, I think, probably a wee bit of a nicer person and better. But I understand that failure is part of it. It's the practice is the thing. It's like, I don't know, I mean, I'm never, I'm never going to be a runner ever. But is it, is it being in it? Is it simply doing it? Is it's, and I think it is that with, and now I'm fine with the fact that I'm really bad at meditation, but it doesn't stop me having a crack at it. And when I do it each day, I don't do it every day, but I try. I really try to

have a few minutes, depending on the amount of time I've got my day, could be five minutes, could be 25 minutes. It just depends. And I'm bad at it. And that's fine because that's sort of the deal. Yes. And I think especially for a high achieving former good girl, as you have described yourself, it is really a learning to sit in mediocrity. Totally. Because you don't get that anywhere else in your life potentially. Yeah. Well, you're a very high achiever though. I mean, you've...

Oh, thank you. Can I quote that as well? Yes, but aren't you? I mean, like your education, everything you've sort of done. I mean, I'm not one of those people. Relentless quest to be loved. Yeah. Is it that? Probably. Yes. Yes. And, but I also fail to meditate every day. So yeah, and it's a relatively recent thing, but it just keep people keep telling you to do it. And you're like, Okay, I understand I should try this. So I try every morning for 10 minutes now.

Yeah. And do you feel a bit better for even trying? I actually do. Yeah. Yes. I always do. I think what it helps and with... And also you can do it anywhere. So the whole kind of nonsense about you could be sitting, your legs crossed, cobblers. You can do it. I've done it in a makeup chair before I've gone on air in front of 20 million people. You can just, you can do it anywhere. Was that before Queen Elizabeth the second funeral? No, that was before the platinum Jubilee and I hadn't been on air for four years. I hadn't done anything. So the BBC asked me to anchor and it was three days of coverage. It was a very big deal,

obviously, Platinum Jubilee, very big deal. The BBC, for television this was. And I said to my husband, I said, it's like, I haven't even done the school run in a fiat Punto for four years and somebody said you want to go around Brands Hatch and a McLaren. I've said, I'm the woman for the job. So I needed to just remind myself. And I, yeah, so when I was in the makeup chair, I just did a little bit of just jot myself down to that. And it was very helpful. You mentioned that you hadn't worked for a while. Yes.

And you mentioned that this meditation is linked to your health stuff. Yeah. And I wonder if I can just ask how you're doing? How are you? Yeah, I'm doing fine. So I have rheumatoid arthritis and fibromyalgia, and those are things that don't go away. So there are sort of things that you have. I mean, so many people have got immune conditions, and I'm one of those people. And I think the thing is, well, I'm very fortunate because I was able to completely reshape my life to make sure that I could take time out to take care of myself, to find the right medication, to find the right lifestyle, to just to support my wellness. And so I did that and I'm very fortunate.

So that's so lucky me. It has at times been very difficult and painful and excruciating and frustrating and all those things. And right now I'm pretty good. I mean, it has little flares and I have to be mindful of that's the sort of pain stuff. But I do things that are important to keep me on an even keel and the thing is with sort of immunosuppressed or rheumatological complaints kind of if you do the same thing all the time it's good for your body so if you stick to very it so so sometimes that's compatible with work and not compatible and sometimes you can't control the stress factors in your life and all that so and it can flare up but generally I would say I'm pretty good and sometimes less good and that's also fine. There are so many other parts of your life that open up if you allow it to and so many different ways and I live

very differently and have a very different attitude and definitely made friends with what I would have perceived previously I think as failure. That's a failure of my body to do. Well it's not. You're just human and something's happened. And find a way, not around it, but with it. Find a way with it is my sort of view of it in my head and my practical view of it. I'm going to do something now that I think you'll hate, which is I'm going to veer into sentimentality and sort of American wellness speak, which is because you were and maybe are someone who is so good at what you do and have built up the hours and work had become so enmeshed, I imagine with your identity as it is for me. When that was no longer an option for you to pursue it in the way that you had been,

do you think that having that removed made you fall more in love with yourself away from your work identity? I mean, I had, and I'm fortunate enough to have an identity as being a mum and a step-mom, and I'm a wife to my husband. But there was definitely a bit of me that thought, so what are you for then? The woman who's lying in her bed and can't get over, or the woman who can't climb the stairs, or the woman who can't drive, or the woman who can't cook. And I learned that very quickly that fell away. And actually very quickly what emerged was a sense that the work absolutely had its place and it was quite far from the centre of me.

And that it was something that I did and something I was fortunate enough to do. You know, a good job is a great thing to have. That's what it is. It's a job. You know, and I'm very aware in talking about that and about the time at which I gave up my job that the great privilege I had was I was able to give up my job without worrying about all the things that most people most of the time have to worry about, which is the rent or the mortgage or the school shoes. I was at a place in my

life where I didn't. And so there's a degree of self-consciousness that comes in talking about it because I'm very, very aware of my own privilege. But the truth is, I realized that actually I was really very able to very quickly detach from my professional self. What a conversation. Thank you so much. Not at all. It's been a pleasure. What are you for? You're for all of us. I don't have the words to express what your work has meant to me personally and how much I look up to you and I cannot thank you enough. Just thank you for being Kirsty Young. That is so lovely and I'm very moved by that.

Oh, Kirsty, thank you. It was so beautiful. Not at all. That was great. What a great interview. Well done, you. So beautiful. That was great. What a great interview. Well done you. Stop. Can I? Okay. Everyone. Did everyone hear that? That is going to be my ringtone. We heartily recommend you follow us to get new episodes as they land on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. Please tell all your friends and your enemies too I'm not fussy. This is an Elizabeth Day and Sony Music Entertainment original podcast. Thank you so much for listening.