If I Speak - 111: Do we need more women mentors?

Episode Date: May 5, 2026

Ash and Moya are reunited and ready to answer a mystery question, inspired by Lena Dunham’s memoir Famesick: do we need more women mentors? Plus: a homesick ex-pat struggling to stay in contact with his family. Come to see us at Crossed Wires in Sheffield on 4th July! Tickets available now: https://crossedwires.live Send us your dilemmas: [e-mail] Music by Matt Huxley.

I'm not alone anymore. You know what? You were never alone. I was always with you in spirit, Moira. What I am is in comparison, exceedingly pale and looking very cortisoly compared to your beautiful radiance. Look, the reason why we need you stressed is because if you got any buffer, this, this friendship, this dynamic wouldn't work. I would just be like, what a bitch. What a bitch. Wait, wait. Tell the listeners what happened to you after you got to Thailand, what you noticed. Firstly, I'm back, whether it's by popular demand or not.

I'm back on the pod. I'm back in Blighty and actually feeling really good about work, like felt really happy to come back. It's not just me that's filled with the joys of spring. So when my partner came home, he was so delighted by everything that he was spamming the house group chat with like he saw a squirrel on our road and he was like look at this it's so beautiful oh my god tottenham is glorious um so i think that's a good thing that's a good thing when like you're happy to come home like you're not dreading coming home but like you also you didn't overstay your welcome in the place that you were like we weren't sick of it in any way we were just excited to be

back so i have been away i was in melbourne for a week and then i was in thailand for like three and a half weeks. And I didn't realize how much stress had wormed its way into my body. Like obviously cognitively I knew, oh, I am stressed. But what I didn't know is that cortisol had sort of puffed up my face to the size of a good year blimp. And so when I was in Thailand for the first week, I was just watching it shrink. And I was like, oh, goddamn.

I actually want to, this isn't one of my questions, but obviously you'll put it. back in Tottenham, you're like, Tottenham's amazing, but Tottenham the team. The only story. For killing my like, you know, hard won serenity. I've been waiting for you to get back because the only football storyline that has filtered through to my little brain this season has been the relegation battle. And I need to know, I watch Tottenham fans on TikTok now. Yeah.

Talking about the experiences. I'm like, what's going on? What's going to happen to Tottenham? area I think I think that like I hope that Lincoln City is is ready for us everyone keeps going about Lincoln City why is everyone obsessed with Lincoln City we're coming it was sort of the mean one it was sort of and also there was like a chant which is like Lincoln away ole oh le like because you kind of have to integrate this into some sense of humor otherwise like we are just all going to jump off the

bridge it's so bad it's so bad and like I think for me, one of the worst things is that it has not in any way inspired sort of like espree decor like in the club and amongst the players. Instead, when we thought Shavi Simmons might have an ACL tear, we were like, why don't we test this by making you run a lot? And so like, now he's injured right before the World Cup. And he's like, I fucking hate this club, which I think is just like, I think it's better in a way to make some peace with being relegated now. and go, how do we keep our best players so that we can be promoted within one season rather than being like,

what if we just kill all of them? Yeah. Like, what if we just kill all of them? And sour, the relationships are the ones who are left. Obviously, relegation is hell for any premiership team. However, I'm sort of like, the Amazon series will be amazing. And will it not be fun going to a lot of English town? and small cities that you never would have gone to otherwise.

I actually think that I'm going to try and go to loads of away games next season because I think I believe that suffering builds a character. Except like the arc for Tottenham is like suffering builds character. Yeah, I was going to say suffering builds character. Suffering builds characters. It's just like the same loop suffering builds character. And I think that it's important to stand. and by your most toxic relationship in your life

in the most brutal and hard times. It's just a great storyline. Like one thing you can say is it's a great storyline. Although Arsenal bottling it consistently is also very interesting. Genuinely, I want Arsenal to bottle it more than I want us not to be relegated. The Sharden Brahe is stronger. I actually have real questions for you. I relate to Thailand, obviously.

But I did, I needed to ask Art Tottenham. I knew on behalf of all our listeners. I knew that we'd all be waiting. Okay. Number one question. Obviously, Thailand was peppered with great moments. However, I want to know the most surprisingly great moment. Surprisingly great moment.

Okay, well, I'm going to hold one of the thoughts because I want to talk about it in detail in the next episode of the pod. So I'm going to leave that one to the side. I think actually it was like our first beach trip, right? So we were going from Piquette the island to like a little island off the south coast called Cohe. And we're like, okay, we're going to like get a long tailboat, which is one of those like really long ones with the prow that sticks up and sort of like long rudder that goes into the water. And the dude's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, let's go. And I don't know why.

I think maybe because it was high tide. It was like, oh my God, we're going to capsize and die. So I'm like clinging on and like saying. like the mariner's prayer like you know for those in peril on the sea and you know my partner's like oh hey this is great because that's the only one which you can stay off thoughts of his own mortality and like you're getting like just like completely like dashed in the face with you know sea water the whole time and i had a great time i had a great time like there was something about being like immersed in this like very bodily fear where i was like it's actually kind of fun so that was great

The other thing was we went to this island called Co-Payam, which is not the same as Copanian, it's Co-Payam, and it's just off the coast where Ranong is. And there was a lot that was surprising about it. Like one is like there's a massive Burmese influence around that part of Thailand because it's so close to the border with Myanmar. And then the other thing is that there's a community of people called the Mokken people who are like they call themselves sea gypsies and just like learning about that culture

was really, really great. So that was cool. I mean like everything was in a way surprising like the expectations I came with were well I know the food's going to be great because I've already been here and I know that it's easy to have a nice time but other than that I had like zero expectations so everything was a pleasant surprise. Did you like Melbourne? This isn't one of my questions. I did. I did actually like Melbourne. I think that like it was so Melbourne is a city I can totally see why people move there from the UK because it's like London but sunny and everyone's friendly like it doesn't feel massively different but you do have this thing of like the colonialismality of being there feels really weird and like what I mean by that is like we were flying from Perth to Melbourne and you look down and there's like all

of this forest, right? You know when you look down and forest is almost like a black green? Yeah. And then carved out of it were all these squares of like yellow in grass for arable farmland. And you could sort of see it as this like scar on the landscape of like imposing

European model of farming on this land and there's like an unnaturalness about it that you can see from the sky. And I'm not saying that the rolling green fields of England are natural. That came from cutting down our ancient woodland. But there was something about it which is like oh it that it shouldn't it shouldn't look like this and like you'd be in melbourne and

like it'd be really sunny and then there'd be a rainstorm which wasn't like a tropical rainstorm it was like freezing rain and coming down in sheets and you'd just go oh we are on a totally different continent like we are on a totally different continent which is like conditioned by nature in a completely different way and yet what's been built here is like a european slash american city you're the second person to say to me they felt this surprising colonial overtone in Melbourne and that's actually why they ultimately left. Really? Yeah, yeah. There was another person who was talking to me about it and saying it, they loved it so much, but that comfort that they felt was uncanny and they felt a great deal of guilt because of it. I think it basically is underpinned by the same thing that you're saying.

It was, it was, it was, so I was there to speak at a conference and you do a land acknowledgement when you open a panel. And, you know, I'm sort of, I'm quite ambivalent about the value of land acknowledgements, particularly when attempts to sort of redress the political inequalities faced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, like, they lost the referendum.

And yet you've got this sort of like very symbolic, ritualised thing. But I'm a guest in your country, I'm going to do the thing. And one of the things that I was talking about when I was doing my land acknowledgement, because I didn't just want to like zip through the thing. It's like you have to say something you mean in my view for it to have some meaning.

As I said like, you know, I am here as an English person and I'm looking at the consequences of English colonialismality here. And an Aboriginal person in the audience was like, it's okay, you're brown. And I like made a joke about it. And I was like, what? But that wasn't actually like it was a very nice and generous thing for them to say. but I was like, no. That's not how it works. It's not how it works.

It's still English. The brownness. I'm still fucking English. Yeah, I was like, it is, you know, let me feel some of the weight of English history here. Because we deserve it. It's that I think that's a very telling exchange that it's okay, your brown is an approach that racial hierarchy or racial classification has come to like, it's eclipsed all other. ways of understanding, you know, like colonialism, class position, subjectivity, I guess. So it's just like race blots out everything.

If you're brown, you're down. If you're brown, you're down. If you're brown, you down. And look, I think from like a coalition building perspective, I'm like, hell yeah. Yeah, let's get political blackness back. Hell, they hate that. Everyone hates that. But I think just from a like, no, I think it's okay to understand myself as an English person in this context.

I think that's all right. And we will all be rabidly waiting for Simon Brown's next new book about this, which I'm very excited for. Anyway, next question. Oh, I had two other questions. I wasn't to ask about my. My other questions were, what was your trip's soundtrack? Ooh.

I did not listen to very much music at all. Actually, I really wasn't listening to music. I was reading a lot. Oh, what was your trip? Books track then. I think the best thing that I read when I was in Thailand was Pachinko, which I've been meaning to read for ages. And I really, really liked it until the final few chapters which brought, so it's basically

the story of a family of Korean migrants in Japan, and it gets closer to the present day. And it suffered from, like, one of the things that I complain about in a little life, which is when you pile suffering upon suffering, I start finding it funny. Not because the suffering is in itself funny, but I'm just like, ah, these guys can't catch a break. And so, you know, by the minute,

you know, the slutty stepdaughter gets her comeuppance by dying of AIDS. I was like, come on, guys. Come on. Not the, not pulling out the AIDS. Yeah, I was just like, but the thing is, is that the suffering up to that point,

I was really emotionally invested in. But it was just, too like it was just the sort of like repetitiveness of like catastrophe in every generation which starts to read funny to me which is weird because I do know people where that is their lives like catastrophe and catastrophe and catastrophe and catastrophe but when you read in a book it becomes unreal there's this there's you're the scenes in the daily life as well where you hear people talking like I put that what they'd done in a book yeah it'd be cliche yeah yeah um my last question was who

is a character from this trip that you'll always remember? Who's a character from this trip? Can't say your husband. No, I mean, wish I could forget him. No. I'm trying to think about a character. You know what? It's maybe like a cast of characters.

So there's this place on Copayam, which is a beach bar, but it's entirely made of driftwood. and they've built it over 20 years to look like a pirate ship and it is the most like wibbly windy place ever like you're just going through all these like new like wooden passageways and it emerges like on a different level and it's like you know multiple floors and it's run by these like you know Thai hippies who were so excited about me being South Asian like I walked in

they did not give a fuck about my husband they were like namaste and I was like yeah man and like all of them looked like tie jack sparrows like they all looked like tie jack sparrows who were just like they were just like funny dudes they were like clearly like you know they'd constructed

a business and a form of employment around the kind of life they wanted to live and they were fucking great they were great loved the hippies at hippie bar may we all follow that example okay that is 73 questions minus 70 over Ash's back.

It's time to get down to business. And by business, I mean a mystery question from our producer, chow. Okay, I have my phone ready. Not going to show that to camera, actually. I have my phone ready to be pinged. It should be on loud. We're waiting for a ping. There was a ping, but it didn't actually ping loudly, so oh well.

But I have one. This is a perfect question Because I Yesterday on my bike home Idley was like I don't want to listen to music I'll listen I don't want to listen to a podcast And then what came up on my

Listening app FamSick by Lena Dunham So the question is Lena Dunham says her relationship With the girl's showrunner Jenny Connor Was one of the most significant in her life Do we need more women mentors and have you ever had one or been one?

Ooh. Do we need more women mentors? Why don't you start because... So Jenny Connor for the uninitiated was the person that Lena Dunham was paired up with to write girls. So Lena Dunham is this precocious 24 year old and HBO are like, we like you,

we want you to do a pilot but we're going to pair you up with a supervisor and she had a cast of people to choose her supervisor from but the first call was Jenny Connor and Jenny Connor was a 38 year old divorced mum of two very beautiful, well-connected friends with Judge Appetal who also became Lena Dunham's second mentor I guess and Jenny and her

formed first a working partnership then a very close friendship then it went to acquaintanceship as Lena got, so Lena gets all these illnesses. She gets sicker and sicker. And Jenny has sort of, I don't know if this is uncharitable to say, it feels like in the book,

and this is from Lena Dunham's perspective, that Jenny had like attached her wagon to Lena. At one point I think she says something like, how am I going to pay for my kids to go to school when Lena's talking about quitting something? And she's not a parasite or anything like that. She very much feeds into girls.

She writes some of the best lines. She hugely shapes Lena's vision. She understands her. She really is a partner. But their relationship as it goes on, Lena is very codependent. She's very needy, very clingy. Jenny is older.

This girl is obviously someone that she can hit it big with, but there's a tension there. She wants space. And as the relationship goes on and Lena gets sicker and, you know, falls into pill addiction, then it strains and cracks.

And there is a point. where I don't know if remember this but when someone a woman on who was working on girls accused another person on girls of sexually assaulting her and Lena Dunham and Jenny Connor put out a joint statement which said we stand by the man essentially and Lena says it's the worst mistake she's ever made but she also says Jenny wrote it and that Lena was high on pills and just signed it off in this book so she kind of like takes accountability but also shifts blame at the same time And eventually the relationship with Jenny falls apart and they go to like couples therapy

together. And they sort of just are like, okay, it's over. You know, they dissolve their production company. And Jenny says to her, I know you're going to write about this, but please just wait of it. Please just wait a bit. I know you're going to write about this, but please just wait. And Lena did wait to fairness.

She waited like seven years to do it. Anyway, that's the Jenny Corner story. So the mentorship became very entwined. and I've been thinking about mentorship recently because I've been thinking about how it's possible for women to have women mentors when there is such competition placed upon us and how the people who I've seen as mentors

even if I haven't called them that have all been men. Yeah. They've all been men and I feel and I have I would say tried to mentor at least one young woman but I definitely fell off that because of their need and just like the level of there was an inability of my part to detach and they just were making decisions over and over again where I was like this is so stressful to watch you don't take my advice kind of that vibe and so I was just like well I'm not doing this anymore I'm not doing this um and so I think

there's a lot of, I think the problem with it being like women and women mentors, and I'm sure there's going to be people who be writing and I hope they do about the amazing mentorships they've had with other women. But there's a lot of factors that I think complicate that when you are young women, especially if it's a woman in your field. I know another person who's men, who has now surpassed their mentor in seniority in success. I put that in quotes because obviously it's subjective, but in professional success essentially in Ascension. And the mentor is now sort of the mentee almost, which is an interesting dynamic. And I think it's, I don't know. I'm just sure what you think, because I know you've had, obviously, a male mentor

since you were like 18. And I, do we need more women mentors? There's a lot of factors that play in there also women being positions of power in the first place. I think, I think this is the thing, which is when I was listening to the question, I go, oh, when I think about women in my life, both professionally and interpersonally, women have been my partners, but which I mean like genuinely, like we're partners in trying to do this thing. And it's not always been easy, it's not always been straightforward.

But I don't think that there was a sense of rivalry. I don't think there was a sense of, well, that there can only be one lady. like where there's been conflicts it's basically been there's really different communication styles and the strain that comes from like you've got to be everyone's mummy right when you sort of take some of that out on each other right the stress that you're both under you take that out each other a bit but those relationships have actually been and actually dealing with some of that conflict has been some of the most important learning that.

experiences for me and like like professionally developing ever so wasn't a sense of rivalry there definitely was some conflict but like good things happened because of it and then when I think about like who my soulmate is I think about my best mate right I think about my best mate and I just go like you know ah like whatever souls are made of like yours and mine is the same like all of that kind of shit. But outside of education and also outside of my book being edited, and I wouldn't necessarily describe that as a mentoring experience. It was definitely a really important experience in a relationship, but I don't think it's quite the same as mentoring because it's not about guiding you into who you want to be in life in this broad sense. It's like guiding you into like,

how do you make this book the best possible book? And that's sort of a different thing. All my mentors have been men. All of them have been. And I think that's maybe because of an absence of women in power. And, you know, the interesting thing here is that when I think about the most obvious mentoring relationship in my life, which is like slowly achieved more and more parity, which is, like, me and Aaron Bistani is that there wasn't a massive difference in power necessarily,

but there is a difference in age. And so when we first meet, I'm 18 and he's 25 or 26. And that means that even though there isn't a professional hierarchy between us at that point, that difference in age and that ability to be like, okay, this looks this way to you because of the position that you're in and the age that you are, but it's going to look different. as you get older, like, that's inherently sort of a mentoring thing. And I think you can bring gender into it in terms of, like, that's the pre-me-to left, which sort of means that there is

more of an unquestioned, like, male dominance at that time, which, like, does shift, like, kind of after 2015 a bit. Like, there is a bit more of a reckoning. But I also don't think that you can separate that from some of the changes that Navarra was part of creating. Like Navarra was part of creating a sort of new cedar of like intellectual leadership, not necessarily political leadership, which included women, like women of colour. And also built up new people who even though they didn't necessarily stay with Navarra and stay in that space, like have a sort of like seniority. and a status because like Navarra could be a bit of a training ground for them.

So I think that like reflected the time that we were in. I did have though. I don't know if I should tell this story, but maybe it's been long enough for me to tell this story. I'm not going to say who it is on the pod, but somebody, a woman, offered to mental me in the most patronizing, condescending, offensive way possible.

I'd found this person annoying in their interactions with me for a while. Like I remember as a bit critical of something that they'd written and they messaged me saying that they felt that they were the nerdy kid at high school and I was the cool girl pouring orange juice into their backpack. And I was like, you're in your 30s. Why are you using a school metaphor? And you're not American. We don't go to high school.

need to know who this is. And like sort of messaging me with that where I was just like, okay, you feel a sense of threat from me and you're trying to make that my problem and it's not. And we've talked about the self-infantilization of women a lot and I just, I cannot stand someone when they are like in their 30s and established in their career using an American high school metaphor for something. I just think that's so revealing of. the sort of stuntedness that's in their sense of self.

And then a while later they messaged me and they went, I think you're really underrated as a writer. So if you'd like me to mentor you, I'm here. And I was just like, actually, I don't feel underrated as a writer. I feel rated as I ought to be. Yeah. And I don't want to write like you. Anyway, so that's the one offer of like mentorship that I've had from a woman.

And I'm sure that there are some people listening who would say, ooh, Ash's internalised misogyny is like showing here. And I'm not, I'm not denying that there might be an aspect of that in here. But now that you know who the person is, I think that maybe I'm justified in finding them annoying and that the attempt to impose a mentor-menti relationship on me was an attempt to juniorize me. It was definitely an attempt to neutralise, for sure. neutralise the threat.

And I think that I'm trying to like think about the men who have mentored me. They've all been white men. I think that's very important. Some of the, I think there's been two standout ones. And what, yeah, there's been two standouts. I wouldn't even say they'd call themselves my mentors. But when I think of mentors, I'm like, those people have shaped me and honed me and pushed me and advised me in the way that can only be described as prolonging. the mentorship.

And I think there's something here about one, the fields we work in and the women that would be available to do mentorship, the scarcity of women who would relate to us, but also would we want to be mentored by the women who relate to us, in whether that's, you know, gender class, ethnic, yeah, gender, of course, ethnicity, because a lot of women who succeed in British journalism don't share my political persuasions. They don't have careers that I particularly want.

That doesn't mean they're not successful, but they're like very mainstream broadcast, legacy media. I fucking love a startup. I love the sort of like thrust and pull of that. I feel like there's so much we to learn there. And that they don't tend to be involved in that. The women that I have worked with in startup cultures have all been my peers, I would say.

So there isn't, it was, you know, like Galdon was very much people leading each other and working as we go along. Because you can't really form a mental relationship there because even when you have a boss, your boss is still working out to the same degree. It's like scrappy, DIY. So there's that aspect of like, there's just a porosity of people that you could actually, they would actually fit the bill of mentoring. The other aspect is as you talk about threat.

And I think it's 10. that white men have sort of put themselves in mentorship roles for me and that I've accepted them because there is not the same threat. I don't pose a threat to them in a way that I would to other women in this field. And that doesn't go for all women. There's a lot of journalists that, you know, I have very good relationships with who have the same similar profile as me or share some characteristics with me. But especially in the pundit years, there was real competition between sort of like talking heads even if you didn't talk about it and you'd be pitted against each other even if you weren't told even if you directly didn't feel that you still got the feeling

of like everyone's replaceable yeah uh and once you get into the broadcast space the cut and thrust of competition is so crazy um you know everyone's fighting for that stupid guardian piece everyone's fighting to have a slot in this paper everyone wants this job because there's a scarcity of jobs and the premium jobs are you know that's one of the reasons i don't like the space so much because I think it's really boring and limited and you have to jump through certain, certain, very boring, constrained hoops about what journalism is and what purpose it serves

and it's very egotistic. And so there's, like, thinking of people who do, you know, mentor in that space and the middle managers at, like, the BBC, there are a lot of people working in news at the BBC in senior positions who've stayed there, not because they're good, but because they're mediocre and can kiss ass really well.

Whereas a lot of the talented people leave. So why would you want to be mentored by someone who isn't very good at their job in these institutions and the start of people are moving around all the time and are very busy. I get so many requests for people to give me feedback or ask for advice

and I want to help them. I simply do not have an hour in the day in which I can actually do that. I think some of the busiest people and the people that I'd most want to be mentored by if you put them on a table, they're not going to mentor me. They don't have the time.

And then you look at the most powerful sort of like women, like Cheryl Sandberg, and you look at how power corrupts them the same way it corrupts men. In the book Careless People, there is an allegation that Cheryl Sandberg was doing things sexually with her juniors, junior women assistants.

I mean, I think like on that, like, there are women who've given me guidance, but it's not been the same as like an ongoing mentor relationship. It's been we have a moment or a conversation or a few conversations where I'm like, fuck, I just need to like download everything from your brain. and put it into mine. And so one of the women where that's happened

and I've tried to take everything they've said and in lots of ways like I really want to emulate is Naomi Klein. I look at Naomi Klein and I look at her approach to writing and I look at the political place that she sits in and I go, that's what I want to do, right? I want to Naomi Klein the Ting. And every time we've had an interaction,

she's been like incredibly like generous, like intellectually and stuff and you just sort of like squeeze. but then another person I feel that way about is Gary Young, right? Like, and I go like, it's a bit different because he obviously like cut his teeth in like newspaper reporting. That's a particular discipline and that you can see how that forms the bedrock of the kind of analysis that he does. But when I go the way in which you write and the sort of curiosity that you bring, like, I want to do that. And so any time I get with Gary Young, I'm just like, tell me your ways, like, you know, share your stories. And then there was another thing which happened in Australia,

which is I met these two people who were running the organisation that put on the conference. And in terms of, you know, they're like 10 years older or something like that and 10 years more experienced in building left-wing organisations. And we had this really amazing dinner where I was just like, oh, here are all the problems that Navarre encounters and like, you know, we're trying to do this thing. and like we're not quite pulling it off and like speaking to people who are like 10 years ahead

in running left wing organizations and then being like, okay, these are ordinary problems. Like I individualize the problems to like the sort of like unique dysfunction that we have and they're like no, these are like really normal problems and running an organization. There are simple solutions and here are the ones that we used and being like, sure, you know,

if I'd read any of the management books that my partner leaves out for me, you know, maybe I would have known that. but but a lot of he does he loves a management strategy he that's one thing you've told me by him management strategy so is my boss um but like a lot of the time i read it and i don't necessarily understand how to apply it like it's in a language where i go i don't know what this means for us but having had that conversation and that couple of hours of someone saying like this is how this relates to this and this how this like relates to that i go well that is a form of mentoring like it is a form of mentoring that like

I've been able to go all right here are the things that we really need to bring back and like you know one of the people was a guy the other one was a woman I just I don't want to be like a I don't see gender person but like you know obviously we all see gender and there's like all kinds of like

internalised misogyny and like internalised patriarchy in terms of how you relate to people but like I wonder if it's meaningful that the people who've had the most like long-term mentoring relationships with me have been men from working class backgrounds.

That is interesting. I think, first of all, I'd love special ones to write in about their mentor relationships and in their different professions because I think journalism is a very, I wouldn't say unique at all, but I think it's obviously very specific. And another thing I'm thinking about with mentoring is time.

I know one person who's got a mentor relationship where their mentor, they were freelance, their mentor was also freelance. So they have time to accept this mental relationship where they just work in the same field but they're not together all the time. Whereas when I think about my mental relationships, I've been in full-time work my whole life.

As well as, actually, I've had like six months freelance, but like mainly full-time work. I've always had a pay-A-E job. It's going to be like P-A-Y-E-Gurly. P-A-Y-E-Gurly. And so funny, my friends forget every time. The other day, they were like, I know, because I was listening to the,

podcast where Sean tried to claim you as a freelancer. I'm not a freelance. I've never, I've been a freelancer for like very small period. I always have a full time job. I'm far too scared of the economy to not have a full time job. Anyway, so my relationships like outside of that, how would I form a mentor, how do I have time for mentoring outside of it? So it's very telling that both my mentors or the people that I think of as my mentors have been people I work with. And because I also think that's how the relationship is probably most effective. Someone that sees you regularly, as you say, is probably a few years older, has seen it before, worked in different places, can give you advice.

I do think that it doesn't have to be, but in my experience, there should be an organicness to the way this relationship forms because it has to be someone that you sort of instinctively respect, want to impress, trust, but also who listens to you and doesn't take you just as like a junior, who doesn't patronise you and pushes you and is invested in you, but can detach. Like my problem when mentoring is like not being able to detach and be like this person is their own human being and they will follow their own path. I can only give advice and help them, but it's not my job to fix or shape or pan out their life for them.

But that is a sort of, I think that's a tension to manage rather than one that you can actually get rid of, which is mentoring works where like you do have a vision for what kind of person the mentee can become. And you're bringing your own values to it, right? Like you're bringing your own sense of like what it means to be a good person or the characteristics that you admire or aspire to and like obviously you're projecting that onto somebody and that is the name of the game. And then there is also this thing that you have to do

which is allow them to be their own person. And I just think that that's, that is what it is. And you kind of can't get away from that bit of projecting. Like I was having a rant to my partner yesterday because I was feeling frustrated that somebody wasn't taking my advice and I was like, they should fucking take my advice because like I'm the blueprint for the thing that they fucking want

so they should fucking take my advice and then I took it too far and I said and you know what everybody should take my advice. Well that's fundamentally one of our core beliefs is it not? I took it way too far where I was like Everyone on the planet, she'd take my advice and like, everything would be so much less fucked up. And he said, perhaps not unreasonably, that that would be super fucked up. And like, not everyone can be the same person.

Why don't we just try it? Why don't we just try it? Just try it. We tried. So we're asking for. We tried the world. Not taking my advice. So why do we?

Just a little astrotarianism, I think. Just a smidge. Can't spell fascism without ash You actually so can I've just got Oh okay But but do you know what I mean There is that thing

Like you know that very intense projection and that like very strong sense Of what the right thing to do is And like or not just the right thing to do But the right way to be Like you can also have a very strong sense That you need to be curious And you need to stay curious

Like, you know, you can hold that as like an ideological position. And I suppose, like, maybe looking back on it, I've tried to mental people, but I've maybe not been like super consistent about it. And now I'm thinking about how my role at Navarra might be shifting. Maybe there are elements of mentorship in that, but I'm like, not doing it. I'm not actually doing it. But like, maybe that's something that's got to coming down the line. I want to ask this, like, back to you, which is, you know,

You have a position of seniority, like, in your job. You've had success in not just the current job that you have, but, like, in other things that you've then decided that you don't want to do. Like, like, punditry, right? Successful pundit who was like, I don't want this. Like, I don't want this. I was a minor pundit who decided they didn't want it. Like, I wasn't that successful.

Nah, I think that, like, the sky was kind of your limit. Oh. sky was my limit. They blacklisted me, remember? When did they blacklist you? Well, I empty-chaired Jake Wallace-Simon's, and I was never invited back because I didn't, I hadn't looked properly at the guest list, and I was on,

and it was just before Christmas. And I was like, I won't appear with this man. Like, I'm not going to insist he's removed because I think that's wrong, but I'm not going to appear with him and legitimize the fact that he is printing full-on genocide denial. This was three months before he resigned as the editor of the Jewish Chronicle, because of printing fabrications, which he claimed, I must say,

he claimed he was completely unaware of I have to let for legal reasons. But I am to share him. And I was never invited back, even though several producers were like, we totally understand. Yeah. I was not, I was not invited back.

That was, so sky was the limit. Sky was the limit. But like, I think it was. I think that like, you know, had you wanted to,

like, you could, like, really easily ended up, like, doing what I do. But I think it's totally legitimate to not, want that. The question that I have for you is do you see mentoring as something that,

I don't know, is naturally going to follow from the kind of seniority that you've embraced? And if so, what kind of mentoring would it be? And who would you want to mentor? Like, what kind of person? I mean, yeah, 100%. I think within my work already, there is a lot of sort of guiding and advising and doing a holistic approach. Although, I don't think I'd want to say yet that I mentor anyone at work. That would be for them to say not me. And also, I'm still learning on the job. Like I've been in management for just a year now.

And even though I think it develops in a very fast lick. And I love it some days and really sick of it other days. But I think that's true of everyone in every role ever. I'm still very young. There's still a lot for me to learn. So I love teaching. I've always thought teaching was going to be. somewhere in the future. I do see teaching as something that's in my future and I think mentoring

is there. But in terms of the kind of people I want to mentor, I do have this pipe dream of setting up some sort of organisation that does train young journalists from marginalised backgrounds, as uncool as that may be. And I'd want to take in, you know, not just ethnicity, but also class as well. because that is the glaring thing in every media organisation I've worked in. And one person or two people is not enough, especially in a startup to change that. Because when you are looking at journalists from, you know, underrepresented backgrounds, you, by the time you're even, you know, when you've got a role open, so many of them do not have the skills to even apply.

for the role to even get in the room or be considered because there is also it's a real class element like there is a journalism is the language of journalism and the culture is totally middle class totally middle class there is and I say this as a middle class person with sharp elbows right like there is like a middle class person with sharp elbows thing right which is like you're very good at putting yourself in situations where you get the opportunity that on some level you feel entitled to. And basically a lot of working class journalists just like don't do that. Like they don't see it in that way.

This is true of all organisations as well. Like I keep seeing grant programs for like theatre and, you know, books, etc. And the prizes again and again that are meant to get underrepresented groups in will go to brown and black people of middle class backgrounds who actually already have loads of experience in this space and have all these bylines and actually have had loads of opportunities, but they see themselves because of the squeeze on both living costs and opportunities as the people who fit the bill. And because they speak the language and because they actually have the credentials,

they just get awarded this because it is easier fundamentally for them to come in and do what the sort of programme is meant to deliver. And it's completely at odds with what the supposed aims, but it's what's happening again and again. And I feel really disgusted with that. get why people are doing it because of the lack of self-awareness like if I applied for you know like the Joseph Roundtree Foundation I think it would be an absolute travesty but probably technically could but there is also another thing and like thinking about funders in particular

and like big liberal funders is that they really fucking love like DEI so like there's a lot of like quite frankly like shit organizations that can hoover up a lot of money because when it comes to their interactions with the funders, they put women of color, like, right at the front. And that can disguise the lack of politics and the lack of strategy that's behind it. And I think that if we're going to talk about under-representation, we also have to be honest about bad representation. And we have to be honest about the ways in which representation politics has embedded, like, like, bullshit, like, total fucking bullshit. And, like, I'm not going to name any of the organizations that I have in my mind, but you know who you are and I know

you know who you are. Because it's like it's it's it's a form of fraud where you let the sort of identity element do all the political heavy lifting. And there's like there's fucking nothing to back it up. And so I think when I think about like, okay, what kind of mentorship like would I want to do? To be honest, race and gender are wholly secondary to class. and politics. And I think like, you know, those two things where it's like, I want there to be many, many more, like, political thought leaders from working class backgrounds and I don't want them to be Marxists.

Like, those two things are equally important to me. And obviously you have to see class, like, as being inflected by race, like, particularly in this country, like, those two things. things like aren't separate and when I'm saying class I don't mean white working class I just mean that I've seen the way in which the language of DEI has obscured class and obscured politics and I just go like what's the purpose of any organization that I want to build it's it's role in class conflict is the inherent purpose of it yeah and I think I think I probably would want like the triple yoke in like a journalism organization but when I think about it most of all

the other aspect to it is I whoever would be signed up to whatever project it is and my little dream is like having a small regular like quarterly print thing that people that I take a selection like five or so young trainee journalists and we just really work on like a really good long form article or like a feature and then that goes in this little print thing and then we send it out every month and it's not a big thing. It's not trying to change the world, but I'm totally training up cohorts of journalists. Because the thing is there is such a lack of

training and I'd want to work them fucking hard. I want to teach them that what you actually need is willingness, malleability, curiosity, like people who actually want to be journalists. I'm not talking about just writing a blog or getting mad when someone edits

you because you're saying like my being edited is actually offensive and racist because like I think a lot of people have taken that on that like being edited is bad, no. And if you want to work in journalism or work with me, you have to work hard. That is one thing that I do really care about. And I see it from all stripes, all genders, all ethnicities. This fear of being uncomfortable is now translating in the workplace as not working harder thing you profess to love. And that doesn't mean you have to burn yourself out the way I do. I don't expect you to have the eyebags. But I do expect

you to within the hours of nine to five and sorry for sound like a Tory, but to work hard and like to really care about your job and to do the best possible you can do and be willing to learn because that is what is going to make you in 10 years so proud and also so many skills. The people I see succeeding in the organisation of the work and the ones who are willing to listen and learn and then they go and fly. Like there's people that I work with now who when they first started, you know, you'd be editing which is like total rewrites, you'd be constantly giving notes. Now I just sit and let them do their thing because they're so good at it. And they've take, it's like, sorry to quote Picasso as a fight, or quote the Picasso analogy even because

they hate Picasso, but it is learn to draw, then you can go fuck it up in your own way. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I think, I think on the hard work thing is that it's not actually conservative. There's a great Soviet tradition of valorizing hard work. Bring back staccanoism is what I say. It'll give you so much pride. Anyway, we've got to do a dilemma because I've got there's one very, very quick thought before we move on to the dilemma. is that I'm actually thinking about, my partner is really, really good at hiring, right? Hired the best wife.

But no, like, he's really good at hiring. He takes a lot of time over it. And there's an interesting thing that I've seen play out with one person in particular, which is someone started out as a hire and, like, very much his mentee. And part of the dynamic was, I think this person felt quite politically inexperienced.

And though they're like, quite different, like, you know, in terms of like gender and whatever, they're so similar in other ways. And like when you see them like meet up at the pub, it's like, you know, when two dogs who know each other see each other at the park and they're like, they're like that. They really mirror each other and they have this like very similar sense of like enthusiasm and possibility.

And the thing that actually made my partner want to hire this, this person. Like gender and stuff were secondary. I think like class was definitely in there, but that sort of like sense of like enthusiasm and possibility. And I guess I can and like an understanding of the politics of what they're trying to do. Over time, they became like partners in the project. And now my partner's like taking a bit of a step back from it.

Still involved. And this person is like basically the boss of it. And they're still very close. And like that evolution of their relationship like hasn't always been straightforward. and I think that it's hard to break out of that sense of like, well, you're always in charge because you started out as my mentor. But it's an example of doing it really, really well. And so to look back to the original question about like, you know, women mentors

is that I think that if I'm building a left organization, like gender is really secondary to the other kinds of things that you've got to have in common. like the other like quality traits that cannot be boiled down to or like reduced to an identity position. And I think that it's interesting to me that the most successful example of mentorship I can think of is like it built up, you know, someone who is not a man into like a position of power and influence on the left, but wasn't really thinking about gender at all. A salient thought Shall we have some more salient thoughts And just answer a dilemma Yeah, yeah

This is, I'm in Big Trouble If You're in Big Trouble Send your dilemmas to If I speak at Navaramedia.com If I speak at Navaramedia.com I'm going to read this out. Yeah, yeah. This is a nice dilemma. This is a sweet one.

And this is someone from my past. Holla, Ashtamoya. I have to start my problem With a solution that usually works for me. When I'm sad, lonely, angry, having a crap day at work or battling a hangover, you two have been a trusted source of fun and intrigue. As a hook special one, I just want to say a massive thank you for all the episodes. Although if I could offer one small piece of feedback, how about two episodes a week? Absolutely not happening, I'm so sorry.

No, it's not happening. Oh, it's hard enough to do one. My problem may seem simple, but I want to share it anyway. I work overseas for long periods, and since travel is my main passion, it's a huge benefit. I love my job and get to meet people from all walks of life. which as a social butterfly is another big tick. However, here's the issue. When I'm overseas, I really miss my family and friends.

Recently, I've become an uncle three times over, and I suppose many would say I've got a bad case of homesickness. As a 30-year-old man, I feel a strange sense of shame about that, especially since this career is my own choice. While I'm away, I tend to limit communication because it can make me feel worse, but then I feel like I'm missing out on important moments and updates. I come home as often as I can, usually three or four times a year, but as soon as I've caught up with everyone and the kids have seen the cool traveling uncle,

normal life resumes. Then I find myself wishing my holiday away and looking forward to work again. I worry it's more about the shift in lifestyle. The quiet country life just doesn't suit my extroverted personality. Do you have any advice on coping with homesickness rather than taking the typical ignore approach? Or am I destined to be a country bumpkin? P.S. I went to school with Moyer! And I'm super proud of everything you've achieved.

Love the pod and can't wait to hear your advice. A day one special. one. They're asking if there's a reference to the bomb, they won't read out and they're like, I hope we remember. Of course I remember. Are you kidding? I remember. Okay. This is a really interesting one. It's a sweet but short interesting one. It is interesting. I would say special one. I don't think your problem is homesickness. Your problem is guilt around individuating from your family. Ash, go on. So, it's, I understand how this feels because even though geographically I live very close to my family,

I often feel this sense of guilt that I'm not doing enough. And also at the same time, this desire to separate and this fear of being like enveloped and suffocated by family life. And then I feel guilty because I feel that way and then I put more distance and then I feel guilty about that and around it, around and around we go. And essentially, I think what you're feeling, and maybe this comes as part of a dynamic with your family, or maybe this is just how you feel about it, is that I think on some level you feel like I've abandoned and rejected my family and my place of origin. And then when I'm put in contact with that, either by going home and visiting or by keeping in touch, I feel a sense of guilt and shame that I want to escape. And I think that you've got to do something which I'm trying to do, right?

And it's very much a work in progress, which is the first thing is go, this is what it means to be like an adult, right? Like you have to decide for yourself the kind of life that's going to make you happy. And for some people, that's proximate to family life, whether geographically or emotionally, and for others, it involves various forms of like distance and difference, right? And I think that you've got to really accept what your choices are and not feel guilty about it, because it doesn't sound like your family or your friends are chastising you in any way for the choices that you've made. I sort of get the sense that this is how you feel

about it. I think that you need to get your head around the idea that no one's trying to pull you back into a different kind of life. Like, it's not, you're not destined to be a country bumpkin, right? You being at home and like, you know, playing with nieces and or nephews is not a sort of trap, right? Like, if you're there and you're loving and you enjoy it, it doesn't mean that you've got to do anything. Like you're doing the thing that you're meant to do by having that kind of contact and that kind of time. I actually think that you will shift how you feel by being more in contact while you're away. And you can do it in your way. Like you can just do like, you know, my partner does this with his brother and his, you know, his sister-in-law and his niece,

which is they just do like random face times. like you know and suddenly you can hear like you know blaring from the phone screen and the dog is barking in the background and it's just a way of like you're not actually talking about anything a lot of the time it's just like hello oh you're eating some spaghetti oh the dog's knocked over the kid like it's just sort of that and it's like it's interesting to me how unencumbered by guilt and shame my partner is in relation to his family and I think that's because actually like his parents raised them with very few expectations so there isn't that sense of like internalised guilt from like in some way feeling that you didn't fulfill them. And like I know that that's something that I should do more of and it could resolve my guilt. And I'm trying and I think you should try two special one. I don't know much wanted to add because I thought that was very insightful except obviously I come from a similar background and have similar feelings as the special one. And I think there's an element here where you know we have very

big loving families who are very close-knit in the countryside. And there isn't, I don't, I don't know if this is true for the special one as well, but they, I don't feel a pressure from my family to be part of that. And that in itself makes me feel guilty and a bit sad, like, they don't need me. So when I go back, there's a thing of like, I should involve myself, I should do this and that. There's always whichever way you look at it, it's like, you know, I've abandoned them. And, but then also the flip side of that is, I'm going to be alone and they'll all be together in the future at some point because I have chosen to go off and be on my own. Whereas I would say the majority of my family have made their way back to the same place,

which is rural England. And even when they moved away, they came back when they have families. My mum did that with me as well. You know, she came back with me and my sister. We were raised in this huge crucible of family love. And it is very close in it. And they all have these. Crucible of family love.

They all have these like big water. WhatsApp groups and things where everyone's like texting all the time. And my, our little pocket of family is quite different. Like my mum and my sister and me, we are in contact. My mum and I are in contact daily. I'm making more of an effort to be in contact with the other people that I find that I feel really important in the family. But I'm bad at it.

And I'm bad at it because I do feel guilty. I feel guilty and I feel like I've separated myself. And sometimes that gulf feels, as you say, almost this, the guilt is so much it's too big to look at, but also you're afraid of being sucked back in. even if being stuck by home would be a beautiful thing. Like I see the updates that my aunt sends me about, you know, my second cousins and they're so fun. And I'm like, oh, I wish I was going to the football.

I wish I was watching them horse riding. But I'm not. I feel like I haven't earned the right to do that. There's a feeling here of like not being, not having done the work to earn the right to be part of that family life. And I think that's something that plays into it as well when you come from these big, close-knit countryside families where everyone is so entwined in their lives and always culling around for a cup of tea and you just pop in you know you come back you come back

and you're like hey i'm here now and there's there's something there about sort of like the guilt and the ego of like you're not a main character in these people lives yeah and the thing is is that when i think about my cool traveling uncles like they're just cool traveling uncles like you know their their presence was all the more exciting because of their absence and so I think how you're viewing yourself in this dynamic is perhaps not how your niece's nephews are. Like I can't speak for siblings and parents because obviously like there are more expectations

and you know sometimes there can be a little bit of like and everyone loves to moan, everyone loves to moan like you actually do an important job if they're moaning about you behind your back because in the place we come from it's actually very important that someone is a sacrificial lamb for a bit of moaning every now and then. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And even though my family are very geographically close, the same is true. But it's special and it sounds like you're living your life in a beautiful way. And the guilt you feel about that is probably internal rather than external pressure. And I would examine why you feel guilty about having struck out because I think Ash is right. Talk to your family more when you're away and you'll feel better. We have to wrap this up. Goodbye.

This time, not for a month. Not for a month. All right, see you next week. Bye. Bye.