Woman's Hour - Food writer Jack Monroe

Episode Date: June 11, 2019

Food writer and anti-poverty campaigner Jack Monroe’s new book ‘Tin Can Cook’ is filled with recipes made from tinned ingredients that can be bought from corner shops and supermarkets. An outspoken voice on poverty in the UK – her mission is to help people eat delicious food on a tight budget. She joins Jane in the studio to Cook the Perfect…Cannellini Beurre Blanc.Today Radio 1 Newsbeat will be broadcasting a 15 minute radio special about sex abuse in the music industry and the young female music fans and musicians being taken advantage of. We hear clips of young women talking about what they’ve suffered and a record company exec on what his label is trying to do about it. And to discuss the extent and nature of the problem, why it’s happening despite #metoo, and what needs to be done, Naomi Pohl, Deputy General Secretary of the Musicians’ Union discusses.Have we been doing pelvic floor exercises wrong? Can you ever do too many? And when should you really start doing them? We try to get to the bottom of the pelvic floor… We talk to Louise Kenyon, a Pilates instructor and Jane Simpson, a Continence Nurse Specialist who has written The Pelvic Floor Bible.Ugandan writer Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi discusses her new book Manchester Happened, a collection of short stories including 'Let's Tell This Story Properly', which won the Commonwealth Short Story prize. Presenter: Jane Garvey Producer: Kirsty StarkeyInterviewed Guest: Jack Monroe Interviewed Guest: Naomi Pohl Interviewed Guest: Louise Kenyon Interviewed Guest: Jane Simpson Interviewed Guest: Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi

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BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hi, this is Jane Garvey. This is the Woman's Hour podcast. It's Tuesday the 11th of June 2019. On Woman's Hour today, you can hear from the Ugandan writer Jennifer Nansubuga Mukumbi. She has a very highly acclaimed collection of short stories out now called Manchester Happened.

And you'll hear too about sexual abuse in the British music industry. And we try to find out exactly how you should do pelvic floor exercises. Whether we completely nailed that one, I don't know. But one of the participants is still here in the podcast lounge, so we can always return to that subject. Jennifer is still here as well. So there'll be more from her because a lot of you enjoyed what she had to say in the programme. So more from Jennifer at the end of this podcast. But we start with our first guest this morning, the cook and anti-poverty campaigner, Jack Munro.

Her new book is called Tin Can Cook, and basically it's stuffed full of recipes made from tinned ingredients. Now, she says that her mission is to help people on a budget eat really tasty, delicious food. Yes, it is, yeah. What do you want to know about it? Well, why cans? I mean, obviously, I think you say that actually they're just as nutritious,

the ingredients are fine, they're not bad for you in any way, shape or form. You also say they're cheaper. Now, cans can be cheaper, though not always, we've discovered. Yeah, it depends on what you're buying in tins as to whether or not it's cheaper than fresh produce. But one of the benefits of buying things in cans is they're easier to store. So if you're in a situation where maybe you don't have freezer space to store limitless amounts of frozen vegetables

or if you've been hauling out for the apocalypse or whatever then you're listen we've discussed that on the show and it's a thing it is most definitely a thing people are very careful about that yeah yeah but tin cans are nutritious but my main driver behind writing this book was that for quite some time a few years ago i was a food user. And food banks are something that are on the increase year on year in this country, and more and more people are forced to rely on them, otherwise they're at risk of going hungry. And I wanted to create a book of really simple recipes

that I would have found useful at that time. It's not just a book for food bank users, though. It's got quite attraction in like the camping community or among people with disabilities who may find it difficult to chop fruit and vegetables or to like use a lot of energy to cook so it's it's sort of a multi-functional simple cookbook you are making um i didn't do it justice when i said something with cannellini beans it's got a much much posher title what is it um it something with cannellini beans. It's got a much, much posher title. What is it? It's a cannellini bean beurre blanc.

And that sounds quite fancy. But I put it in sort of, I put it in this book sort of as a bit of a hurdle of my own to get over. I was raised working class by an Irish mum and a Cypriot dad. So we had very plain, basic food in my childhood. And then as an adult and as a food writer, I would come across recipes for beurre blanc, and I'd think, it's not food for someone like me. I don't even know what it means, actually.

It's like a butter and wine reduction, basically. It's like a classic French recipe. Even the word reduction, I was like, well, what does that mean? What does it mean? It just means a sauce that you've sort of reduced and made less of a sauce. By heating for a period of time. So the liquid content evaporates and it just makes something more sort of thick and more reduced.

And I started to think, well, maybe my own attitude to food was like reverse classist. Maybe I thought that there were some things that i shouldn't have or shouldn't be cooking or shouldn't be attempting so i decided to give it a go and then put it in my tin can cookbook just to really irritate people let's get started then because you're going to make this for my mid-morning snack excellent which i'm hugely looking forward to pasta as a mid-morning snack yeah very good things i need to build myself up you can't be too careful oh well the apocalypse might be coming, according to you anyway. Well, absolutely. I don't want to scare people.

No, no, no. I don't want to be one of these end is nigh people. I've left my sandwich board at home. I just want to make some pasta on woman's hour, if that's all right. The ingredients are very simple. A tin of cannellini beans. You've got some pasta as well. Any shape? Yeah, any shape of pasta.

Although, there's a fantastic book called The Geometry of Pasta cannellini beans, you've got some pasta as well. Any shape? Yeah, any shape of pasta. Although there's a fantastic book called The Geometry of Pasta by a guy called Jacob Kennedy and a designer, Kaz Hildebrand, who talks about that there is a perfect shape of pasta for every kind of pasta dish. So I looked through his book to find what the perfect shape of pasta would be for a cannellini bean beurre blanc and he recommended for anything with big beans conchigli because it's the shell-shaped pasta and it literally cups a little bean in every single mouthful and so the pasta sort of forms

around the bean like a snug little cocoon you get a little bit of sauce in there and it's absolutely perfect so this is my very basic budget cookbook, but it's got ideas about itself. Stick the pasta in the pan, and let's get going with this. So you put the pasta, obviously you cook pasta in the normal way, and do you add the beans at the same time? I'm going to stick the beans in at the same time, because then they go really nice and soft and creamy. So stick them both in the pan of water.

Ooh, satisfying sound there. And the other ingredients are the kind of things that, well, you tell me, does the average person, perhaps on a low income, have other ingredients that you're about to use in their cupboard? I mean, what would you say about that? Well, the good thing about this recipe is you can pretty much use what you've got. So I've got white wine vinegar, but you could use any kind of vinegar okay i've got white wine which are specially brought for this but your recipe also works with cider um if you've got cider in the house or you can leave it out all together

and just stick a bit of extra vinegar in so it's a sort of whatever you've got to hand i've got butter but you could use oil so you can there are so many variables to cook this dish that it is as long as you've got basically some acid, some booze, some fat and some flavour, you can make it. And is this a main meal? Yeah, I had it for my dinner last night, road testing it for this, and I went to bed and slept for eight hours. It's a very good main meal.

It's satisfying. But do you need greens with it to really justify it or add a little bit of what would you say? I mean as a mother I would say that a side of greens with your meal is always a good thing to have but I don't have any here. That doesn't matter, I'm not criticising you. Tell us a bit about

your current, your state of mind if you don't mind me asking because you've been very very public about alcohol, about acknowledging that you had a problem with it and about packing it in how is all that going um it's going absolutely fine i mean i managed to get here with um an entire bottle of an entire small bottle of white wine and not swig it on the tube well that was actually sort of honestly why i asked you um because it's pretty hard to avoid alcohol in your line of work, isn't it? Yes, it is. Well, it is and it isn't. I mean, I used to cook with alcohol in my recipes quite a lot

simply because I had it laying about. And now it's something that I have to deliberately go out and get. And I had a difficult conversation with the managers of all my local corner shops a few months back and I just said, look, do not serve me booze. I'm an alcoholic. I'm trying to recover. i'm putting myself through a 12-step program don't serve me whatsoever which means that now i have to walk for about a mile to buy a tiny 200 mil bus and a wine to go and do woman's acts i go in and lee the guy at the corner shop is like no he told me not

serve you and i'm like i'm going on the BBC. This is legit. I know, this is legit. It's for this recipe. And he's like, no, come on. It's OK. That's a really interesting insight into the measures you felt you had to take to tell the people who in the past would have sold you alcohol that they just shouldn't.

Yeah, that they just shouldn't. I went through a point of I put a note on the inside of my passport page, so on the facing page of the photograph. So if I get to the point where I'm at the checkout with my ID, they say, have you got any ID? It's got a note stuck to it with a sharpie saying, do not serve me, I'm an alcoholic. And that worked.

It was embarrassing. Like the two times I tried it, it was really embarrassing. But that embarrassment was enough that I didn't do it again. But I'm now in a place where I'm absolutely fine. I can go to parties where other people are drinking and I'm not complacent about it, but I seem to have come out the other side of it. There's a fantastic smell.

I have to say it is largely that of cooking alcohol wafting across the studio now, I've got to be honest. Tell me a little bit about... I was thinking about my own food bank donations and, you know, the terrible truth is, Jack, I don't always remember to give. And sometimes I just don't give, even though, honestly, I haven't forgotten. And also, and I'm outing myself here, I guess, sometimes I'm conscious that when I give,

I give food to the food bank that I wouldn't buy for my own household. Ah. Well, what, yeah, you tell me, what am I doing here? You are breaking my cardinal rule of food bank giving. Go on. Which is that you should donate the same things that you would buy for yourself. I'm not, I don't think you're wrong.

But that said, any donation is going to make a difference. And if you are honestly in a position where the only additional things you can stretch to is the Sainsbury's budget Sainsbury's sorry it's supermarket budget ranges other supermarkets are available um it's the budget ranges at the supermarket then giving that 30p box of cornflakes is better than giving nothing at all so although my personal um feeling on it is that you should donate the same quality of produce that you would have yourself

if you're not in a position to do that then giving anything is better than giving nothing and if you can give sanitary products toilet roll and sun cream this time of year because sun cream is extortionately expensive and i know that food banks are grateful for donations of things like that as well that's a good point. And I know that your book has been made available, hasn't it, via the Trussell Trust, is that correct? Yeah, I did a crowdfunder because I wanted to get one copy of Tin Can Cook into every food bank in Britain

so that they could photocopy it. And it's been neatly designed so that it photocopies as an A4 page. I said, you can photocopy it, you know, it's not copyright laws, just photocopy it and hand the recipes out to food bank users. And the general public went one better and have crowdfunded enough for 10,000 copies, which is a couple of hundred to every food bank in the UK. And people have been just handing them out to their clients.

And the feedback I've had from food bank users and from the volunteers who run them has been astounding and really overwhelming. Because this really is what I wanted this book to do, is to go into the hands of the people who need it the most. And it's doing well. Good, I'm glad to hear it. And just very briefly, because I honestly didn't think about this

until I looked at the book. Stewing steak, if you've got a tin of stewing steak, you say you can effectively get rid of what can be a somewhat gloopy sauce and then do something with the meat. Yeah, it's just slow-cooked meat. It depends on what you're doing with it. If you want to make, like, a ragout, so you just add the stewing steak with some of the gravy,

so a can of tomatoes, a slosh of red wine, a bit of garlic or onion, and you've got basically the equivalent of any slow-cooked nonnas bolognese out there, but knocks up in 15 minutes flat. But that's, to me, I'm quite methodical in how I approach my recipes. So I bought loads of different cans of stewed steak and rinsed the gravy off and then weighed what was left to see which was the best value brand of stewed steak, which can was mostly steak, which can was mostly steak

and which can was mostly gravy but it is something that I would have previously associated with my mum's dinners, we'd have stewed steak and mash and a pile of boiled greens and as a child I didn't want to touch it but as an adult I'm like that's some good quality stuff right there

Jack thank you very much No worries. Any thoughts on that? At BBC Women's Hour on Twitter. We should say, of course, the recipe's on the website, bbc.co.uk slash Women's Hour. And a bit later on, we'll find out exactly what that cannellini bean beurre blanc. Blanc beurre? Beurre blanc. Beurre blanc.

Thank you. Tastes like. That'll be a bit later on. Now, you're listening to Women's Hour. Good morning to you. R. Kelly appeared in court this week to face 11 new charges of sexual assault and abuse, all of which he denies. We know, too, that the singer-songwriter Ryan Adams

has been accused of psychologically abusing his former wife throughout their marriage. He also denies those allegations. He's also being investigated following claims that he sent sexually explicit messages to an underage teenager. Again, he denies those allegations. Little doubt that abuse, that allegations of sexual abuse,

are very much a part of the contemporary music industry. I think many people listening would say, well, tell me something I didn't know. They've probably always been these sorts of things going on in music. But it's interesting that when Me Too is really surrounding the film industry, so many conversations about that, music has been somewhat left out of exactly that conversation. So on Newsbeat on Radio 1 today, there's going to be a report on sexual abuse in the British music industry.

They've been hearing from female fans and musicians who say that they've been sexually abused by bands and by the people who work for them. I'll talk in a moment to Naomi Pohl, who's Deputy General Secretary of the Musicians' Union. First, here is the Newsbeat reporter Will Chalk. He's speaking to a woman who says that she was raped by someone still in the music industry. I started a friendship with him when I was like 14. And how old was he? No one knows. There were rumours he was over 30 was like 14. And how old was he? No one knows. There were rumours he was over 30 at this point. So he'd be texting me throughout the day,

what are you doing today? I'd say nothing. And then it would suddenly be like, oh, I'm going to a show tonight. Are you going? And if I'd say no, I haven't got the money. It was straight away. I'll take you. I'll get you backstage. There was always something to get me there. One night he messaged me and asked if I wanted to go for a drink. So we ended up in a local pub. This is four years later, so I was 18 at this point. But I was starting to feel really sick and drunk. And the next thing I know, I'm back at his house. And I basically kind of remember waking up at the end, like laying on the side of his bed with him having sex with me. I remember pushing him off, and again, big period of black,

and he was just... I remember him just towering over me. I mean, I'm crying at this point, and he just kept going, kept going, and then I remember just having this realisation of just, oh, my God, this is happening. What about the music industry and the way it works led to what happened to you because it's an easy way to pick on people you see it everywhere there's always a group of people who are factuated with this band and they go to every show and they're easily led and it's an easy praying ground for these people to find people that want that little bit more. They want that backstage pass.

They want to meet the band. They want to get in for free. And it's easy for these people in the music industry to say, well, if you do this for me, then I'll give it to you. And some people, they have that mindset that if you say no, they feel like they deserve it anyway. You know, say, for example, you got free entry to a show, they would expect something back and if you

were going to say no they're going to get it anyway it's it's just how people with power work and how do you feel seeing him still working in the industry now disgusted there's absolutely nothing stopping him from doing it again absolutely nothing He knows he's got away with it multiple times and the fact that he still has this platform that he can get to people that are vulnerable, it's heartbreaking. It's absolutely heartbreaking. If anything, I wouldn't be surprised if it happened again.

Well, that's the voice of one young woman who was a music fan, a fan of a band when all that happened to her. This is the voice of Janine Shillstone. She's a singer in a band called Vukovie, and she talked to Will Chalk about how women in the industry face the problem as well. Back past the dressing rooms, we can bump into Janine from Vukovie. You guys have just had a ton of play on Radio 1. You guys have a song basically all about. Yeah, in the industry he was like quite high up so like you would just i wouldn't see him he would test the water with all these you know get girls backstage

and test the water with with other girls and you know just got to the point where he tested the water with me i'm not saying he done anything wrong like as in i didn't get to that point but i knew what was happening and i was just like yeah you're i know what you're doing like yes that's quite pathetic like i mean i always i never forget this i always remember one thing he said to me and he went do you even know i'm like i will ruin you that's just stuck with me um we've heard from fans who say they've been abused right but you're saying from within the industry you hear about it yeah I do have a couple of people girls that I know that have had horrific like horrific things happen it blows my

mind these are people in bands yeah people people in the industry like horrific and it's horrible because a girl shouldn't be told well you just have to adapt and you just have to accept it that's the way it is it shouldn't be like that but it has been like that for so long but I do I honestly do I feel like now things are starting to sort of change a bit I think it's getting better I really do think it is getting better well let's hope so that's Janine Shillstone um Naomi Pohl Deputy General Secretary of the Musicians Union Naomi um we've heard there from a young woman who was a fan and we've heard from somebody in the business as a musician. This is pretty alarming stuff, isn't it?

Really alarming, yeah. And unfortunately, I've heard quite a few stories along those lines, people coming to us through... We started when the Me Too movement kind of kicked off and we knew that it was possible we were going to have stories surfacing from the music industry. We started a service called Safe Space. So any member of the Musicians' Union or anyone who's actually not a musician

but working in the music industry, and fans as well, actually, I'd say, could come to us for confidential advice if they'd had a bad experience. And the idea for us was really to try and build up a picture of how big the problem is. Yeah, but how long ago was this that you first began to even acknowledge the existence of a problem that, as I said at the beginning, has surely been there forever? Oh, yeah, I think, you know, it took a really high profile case like the Harvey Weinstein case to actually get people talking. And I think we are beginning to see a culture change. But we're talking about wholesale cultural change in the music industry. And that's not something

that's going to happen overnight. We started talking about it a couple of years ago. But change is, it's really slow. We've made some really good progress. We've got a code of practice now, which a lot of the trade bodies have signed up to, example the bpi have signed up to it and they represent record labels but that has to filter down over time to record labels who um you know there's some big labels there's some very small labels that are run by a man and his dog you know and it takes a lot of time for the culture change to to sort of drip down except that our listeners are going to be screaming at the radio you don't need a code of practice you don't need a culture change not to sexually abuse people.

Absolutely, I know. And of course we would like to live in a world where those kind of things don't happen. But we are where we are. We are where we are. And the problem with the music industry is it's a freelance workforce. There's a real imbalance of power, as you've mentioned. You know, it's artists and fans,

but also artists who find themselves vulnerable because they've got someone at a major label offering them a deal that could change their lives. So there's lots of imbalances of power, and they're quite extreme. There's late-night working, there's alcohol and drugs being freely available at festivals and gigs. There's work, kind of staying available at festivals and gigs. There's work kind of staying overnight in tents and tour buses, hotel rooms. What's been really shocking for me is

that we've had reports from all sorts of different workplaces in the music industry and actually places you wouldn't expect, for example, orchestras. Well, that doesn't surprise me, actually. So why would we imagine that the classical music world would be any different? Because power and everything else is still at play there, aren't they? Absolutely. But I think people think of kind of sex, drugs and rock and roll. They think more of the rock and pop world, really, when they think about this sort of behaviour. when I was 18 went onto a tour bus of a band that I was absolutely obsessed with. My boyfriend wasn't allowed to come on the tour bus with me. They tried to persuade me to take my top off. They had a bag of cocaine there and a bottle of champagne and they were telling me how expensive the champagne was. And I was kind of lucky, I suppose, that I didn't really...

What way were you lucky? Go on. I was lucky in that I didn't really go along with it and I actually managed to get off the tour bus and my boyfriend was standing outside. By the way, didn't that put you lucky? Go on. I was lucky in that I didn't really go along with it and I actually managed to get off the tour bus and my boyfriend was standing outside. By the way, didn't that put you off? You work for the Musicians' Union. Oh, yeah. But it's only in recent years that I've reflected on that.

You've even thought about it. I realised actually how close I came to having a really terrible experience. So it does ring true with me. And, you know, as I say, I've received over 100 reports from people who've had much more recent events happen and where things haven't, you know, they haven't had such a happy ending. And we've got to do something about it. And I am determined to keep the conversation going. Good for you. I just want to bring in another short clip.

This is Will Chalk talking to Dexter Hubbard, who is a record label executive. And Will is asking him here what is being done by his label to look after fans. I think everybody just has to have honest conversations about what is expected of people's behaviour. We underline the importance of standards they need to set themselves, for themselves as well as kind of us as a label. It's like an ongoing conversation that we have from prior to them being signed and as they kind of develop has this changed though because someone might be listening to this thinking well hold on you say it's expected of bands to behave in a certain way and that's but if it's been expected of bands for years to behave in that way and bands still have been abusing that power is it enough are you doing anything different now i think as

an issue it has obviously come to the forefront in recent years. The conversation is more upfront about it. Issues are dealt with head on. There is no attempt to not confront it. And I think that is what has changed. Say, for argument's sake, I have been abused by someone in a band a few years ago. I might find what you're saying well, well meaning. If you kind of boil it down, we're just having a few more conversations about it.

I might find that, you know, that's not good enough, that's not enough, the issues at the forefront. Yeah, I don't think it's as casual and haphazard as that. Like, it's a very serious issue. I mean, what would you suggest? I mean, we'd certainly listen to people who are survivors and have that on board, because I think it's always good to have open dialogue. This is kind of why I've said to do this interview.

I think it's important, but not every case is the same. But it does need to be taken very seriously, and I do think that is what we're doing. Jack's just doing a bit of foodtelling with our cannellini beans. Do apologise for that. A bit of... Was that a cooker noise? I think you might have heard a bit of cooker noise in the corner of the studio.

That was a man called Dexter Hubbard from Fearless Records. Very quickly, Naomi, if you have been the victim of something like this, sexual abuse, in the music industry, whether it was last year or 25 years ago, what do you do? Who do you speak to other than the police, obviously, if it's a criminal matter? Well, there's an organisation called Rape Crisis

who are incredibly supportive. You can go to them in confidence. They won't force you to report to the police if you don't want to. They'll give you some confidential advice. If you're working within the music industry, then I've mentioned our Safe Space service, which is available to anybody. And we will try and give some advice and we will investigate if we get multiple complaints about the same person as well. But as you said, you are optimistic that at least this conversation is now starting to happen and behaviour might be on the cusp of real change. Well, one thing I haven't mentioned is

that actually it's still a really male dominated industry and festival lineups were 77% all male acts last year. So I think that's beginning to change and there are programmes to try and improve that and make the lineups 50-50. And I think that will make a real difference as well, just having more women working in the industry. Thank you very much indeed for talking to us this morning. Appreciate it. Naomi Pohl, who's from the Musicians' Union. And if you've had any experience,

then you can always tell us, of course, via email, bbc.co.uk slash womanshour. If something happened to you connected to the music industry or perhaps to a friend or somebody else you know, you can tell us about that. And there's more, of course, on Radio 1's Newsbeat programme today, 12.45 on Radio 1. Now, we are planning a series on Women's Hour about abortion and we want your stories about abortion. Why did you have an abortion? How did you feel about it at the time? What do you think about it now? Again, please email us via that website I mentioned.

And tomorrow in Kenya, sexual activity between same-sex couples is illegal. So what is life like for gay women in Kenya right now? And on Thursday, we're going to be talking about Killing Eve. It's a hit TV show, of course, about two women utterly obsessed with each other. Is that new or has that always been a trope, as we like to say on Radio 4, across all sorts of different forms of creativity? So that's on Thursday of this week. Now to an item that arguably is peak woman's hour, pelvic floor exercises and how to do them properly. Naomi, you've had a couple of kids, haven't you? I have indeed.

Jack Munro is also, do you do pelvic floors? No, I do not. Well, you're about to start, love. So earlier in the year, Jane Simpson is a continence nurse specialist and she has written the Pelvic Floor Bible. She's with me now. Jemison is a continence nurse specialist and she has written the Pelvic Floor Bible. She's with me now. Also here today is Louise Kenyon, who's a Pilates instructor. And Louise, you contacted the programme because, as I was about to say earlier in the year,

a physiotherapist called Elaine Miller described how to do pelvic floor exercises to Jenny on Woman's Hour. So we're just going to hear a bit of that and then we'll hear why you didn't think Elaine's method was quite right. But it's lots of grey areas here. Here is Elaine Miller, first of all. To get the muscles to work, you have to first of all sort out your breath. They move up and down as you breathe. So if you sigh out, it's much easier to get your pelvic floor to contract. So first of all, take a deep breath in and then sigh out and then imagine that you're trying to hold in a fart. There's lots of evidence that this is the best command. This is science. What you feel in your bum is a squeeze and a lift when you imagine that you're trying to hold something in and that's your work on your pelvic floor. So we would get you to take a deep breath in, sigh out, squeeze and lift and hold it for a count of 10 seconds. But you've got to keep breathing at

the same time and that's the tricky bit. And then you have to do 10 quick flicks. So that's like a quick contraction and then relax. And you do 10 of those in a row because your pelvic floor has to have strength to so that you can hold on if you're needing to go for a pee and there's nowhere to go but it also has to contract quickly if you laugh or cough or sneeze to support the neck of your bladder. Right and to any male listeners who are heading for the biscuit barrel thinking this has got nothing to do with them you need to do pelvic floor exercises too so we'll explain why in a moment. That was Elaine Miller.

Louise, you emailed the programme after hearing that, didn't you? That's right. Now, why? Well, I mean, I don't think that it's entirely wrong. I don't think there necessarily is a right and wrong. What concerned me is that the use of certain words and certain language might not be appropriate for some people and the condition of their pelvic floor.

We try in our work to avoid using words with too much force because people tend to over-exert. What do you mean, your world? Do you mean the world of...? In my work, in the studio where I work, as a Pilates teacher, we try and use soft words, soft language, a lot of imagery to avoid force because what tends to happen if you use words, soft language, a lot of imagery to avoid force. Because what tends to happen if you use words like clench, squeeze, grip, hold, hold in, people tend to overexert.

And that can often have a detrimental effect. What will that do? On the muscles. It can weaken the muscles. If we hold and clench and contract muscles for too long a time and regularly and often, that becomes a holding pattern that can actually weaken the pelvic floor as I know Jane will agree with me. Well Jane first of all let's go back to absolute basics here why does everyone need to do pelvic floor exercises? Well we've all got a pelvic floor men and women alike and over the last 25 years I've treated 12,000 patients and seen 35,000 people one in three women have pelvic floor dysfunction I think a lot of us are going to the gym we're doing a lot of HIIT we're doing a lot

of high impact aerobics and so we're going to get weaker pelvic floor muscles younger and we're going to live longer and we're going to spend a third of our life in the menopause when your oestrogen levels drop and so it's really important that we all do our pelvic floor exercises because what will happen if we don't well how many of you um when you sneeze might leak a little bit of urine or even worse are desperate for a pee on your doorstep putting trying to get the key in the door how many of you listening and thinking to yourselves yep that's me key me, key in the door, I'm dying for the loo. It can affect your bowels. It can certainly affect your sex life.

So I think, you know, for all of us, a strong pelvic floor is important. We're very keen on all our other muscles being strong, so why not our pelvic floor? Increasingly, actually, I'm hearing radio ads for incontinence pads for men. There appears now to be, I mean, they've clearly always had the problem,

but now there's a much wider acknowledgement that it happens to men as well. Yeah I think there's a lot more prostate as radical prostatectomy certainly which is the thing that causes more incontinence in men and I think it's of course men are living longer so as the aging population but that's a different story to to this one and it's interesting I see men who are having radical prostate surgery, and they come to see me, and they are right on it. They're going to do their pelvic floor exercises before the surgery, they're going to do it after, they do not want to have incontinence. But postnatal women and postmenopausal women, we just don't have that philosophy that we need to, because if you do it, you can get i mean but better at sex is a slightly

more encouraging way to do it than stopping leaking urine you know what i mean i do indeed both are important well yeah but how would it benefit the the average sex life to have a better pelvic floor well i think if your pelvic floor is what an average sex life is by the way i don't know i mean it helps orgasms it depends how often you're doing it. It gives you a stronger orgasm. It makes the blood flow better to that area. So I think if you're not doing it because you're leaking when you sneeze, do it to help your orgasms and your sex life.

Okay. You actually both agree rather more than, frankly, I might have hoped. We do. Sorry to disappoint. There's nothing wrong with a good old ding-dong about pelvic floor exercises first thing in the morning. So let's get from you both then your definitive guide to a pelvic floor exercise, which all of us in the room,

including Stephen, our fire officer, can now attempt to do. So I'm going to ask you to kick off, if you don't mind, Jane. OK, so I think if you sit on a hard surface... Well, I'm doing that now, yeah. ..leaning slightly forward, hands on thighs... Jack Munro's taking part as well. I mean, poor old Jack doesn't have a vulval area, so we'll just say sitting slightly forward, hands on your thighs...

That's Stephen. That's Stephen the fireman. I'm lost by my chance, I did. I do apologise. Vulval pride is in full operation. Vulval pride on the chair. And then try and lift your anus and your vaginal muscles away from the chair. Squeeze, lift and hold.

I'm squeezing, lifting and holding. This is not what I expected. Have you eaten the cannellini beans yet? And then certainly after five seconds, try and relax. I think 10 seconds is pushing it with a lot of people particularly if you have got a slight weakness of the muscle you know 10 seconds of holding is a long time and actually we could become quite worrying so five and if you can't manage that i'm a great fan of tools and gadgets so find something that you can use whether it's

vaginal weights whether it's vaginal weightinal weights? Electrical stimulation. I do. I've got them in the green room. They're in the green room, sorry to say. Or the little LV device. Whatever it is that pushes your button. There's apps, there's all sorts of stuff. So if you just can't get it or do it, as you can see, I'm quite passionate about this subject. And you're absolutely right to be.

You find something that helps you. Yeah, OK. You can't disagree with... Well, you don't disagree with any of that, do you? I don't disagree. I think there are many different ways. And I think, you know, there is no one size fits all way of doing this. What I would try and do is maybe first just just try and recognise how aware you are of your pelvic floor, you know, and to do this, to figure out whether you're able to release as well as contract and that's really important

so i'd go um perhaps in a similar kind of way to think of four points pubic bone tailbone sit bone to sit bone and then east to west north to south see if you can just really gently draw in and lift and then release and just establishes the problem that you can't release or that um you know you can't contract the muscle in the first place. That's just one way of looking at it. There are many different ways. All this and can a lady be blank for blank still to come. Louise, thank you very much.

Thank you for emailing the programme in the first place. Thanks to you as well, Jane, for coming in. We do welcome that. If there's something you hear on the programme and you think, no, actually, no, I don't agree or I'm not sure that's quite right or I could lend something to that conversation, let us know and we can involve you. Thank you both very much. Now, Jennifer Nansubuga-Makumbi is here. Welcome to the programme, Jennifer. Thank you, Jane.

Your new book is called Manchester Happened, and it's a collection of short stories. You are a Ugandan writer, although you've lived in Manchester now for quite some time. How long have you been in Manchester? Since 2001, so I've been here for almost 18 years. Right, and your short story, Let's Tell This Story Properly, is award-winning. It won the Commonwealth Short Story Prize. You've also written a very successful novel called Kintu. That was about Uganda, wasn't it, and set in Uganda?

It was set in Uganda, and it goes back to the 1700s, so that was very, very Ugandan. But this book is, well, you're between two worlds, aren't you? And why did you decide to write these short stories set in both Uganda and in Manchester? Those are stories that happened to me when I came here. Chintu I brought with me from Africa to write here. But those short stories happened here. And I wanted to tell Ugandans about the world, that their family, friends, the people they know who live in Britain, what kind of world they occupy when they're out here.

But also what happens to us when we go back home, how they see us and how they react to us. How do they see go back home how they see us and how they react to us how do they see you back home um they for example when i go home my mom uh tends to say to my siblings oh the british one is back keep time because ugandans wouldn't normally concern themselves yeah but also calling me british because i keep time yeah that is you know yes. But also, you know, I would go to a market and people would suss me out immediately and someone would say,

oh, Mzungu, come over here. And I'd switch to Ugandan and say, no, no, no, no, I'm Ugandan because that's the best way to overcharge you by calling you Mzungu. I see, okay. Yeah, they can make a quick profit on a naive British person.

Yes. We're going to hear a reading from from one of your short stories, which is about working in a job that you did yourself for quite some time as a security officer. It was at Manchester Airport, wasn't it? Yes, it was. Now, am I right in saying that a lot of Ugandans, and I'm talking about middle-class Ugandans who have lived a middle-class life in Uganda and have a degree or two in the factories or the supermarket or in care work or in the airport and by the way by the time I got to work at the airport I had done all the other jobs. You've been a care worker had you? Yes I have. What was that like? Shocking. Was it really? The first time I did it I think I left at six in the morning, went and sat outside at a bus stop and I just burst out and cried and thought, why didn't I buy a return ticket?

What was so terrible about it? Well, first of all, I didn't know that old people are separated from their families and put in homes on their own. Now, because we have a very low life expectancy in Uganda, old people are gold, you know. Yeah. We worship them. Really looked after. We worship them. So that was a shocker.

But also the things that I saw, you know, how as a human being you can be put away because you're no longer productive, because you can no longer cope with being alive, and how we were looking after them and what we were doing, that shocked me. I wonder whether you... Would you write about that particular part of your British experience?

No. No? No, because those people need their respect. I think that aspect of respect, that I could go into their rooms and wake them up and say, you've got to do this, you've got to do that. And it was very invasive that I think I should not write about it. Right. You're quite right. It's a very, very intimate thing to do. It's very intimate. Okay. We're not actually here to talk about that, although it is absolutely fascinating.

Your book, the short stories, let's hear the extract. This is about a character called Poonah and she is working at Manchester airport and she's effectively, she's patting people down. She's doing the security checks. Here we go. As soon as Poonah started rubbing her arms, the passenger went frolicsome. Ooh, haven't been touched in years. Poonah kept a straight face. She found a mobile phone in the passenger's trousers and told her, This is what set the machine off. She put the phone in the machine to be x-rayed. After the search, she handed the phone back to the passenger and wished her a good flight. The woman leaned in and whispered, I have heard that you blacks are

good at this sort of thing, but I had no idea. By the time Puna recovered, the passenger had gone. Alison was thieving. She whispered, I bet she left that phone in her pocket on purpose. I bet she wanted to be frisked. It's so interesting writing as you do about that job. Because I said to you earlier that I always thought I was always searched in a kind of counterintuitive way because they pick on me as an unlikely person. Therefore, they pick on me. And you said everyone says that. And yours is the most common story i mean i've never heard anybody say i've been picked upon because i look non-threatening i thought that is brilliant

i'm convinced that is why i'm picked on perhaps not okay um do people do some people really behave like that and actually want to be frisked? Are you certain of that? Well, in that case, first of all, the part that I wrote about in my book actually happened. And they were not the most shocking ones. They are the ones that I thought people would believe. I see. But yes, sometimes you patted somebody down and they looked so satisfied at the end of it. And you're like, how terrible, you know.

Wow. It is absolutely incredible. You write about some aspects of life that I suspect, well, certainly I wouldn't be able to write about, but the racism between Afro-Caribbean people and African people. You really, you acknowledge that and you talk about it, don't you? Yes, it's one of the things that perhaps we Africans are not prepared for. Often you think, okay, if white people are going to do this, you know, they're different, but not fellow blacks, but until you realize, actually, we're of different cultures,

you know. It's something that when Africans see Afro-Caribbean people, they're like, yes! You know, they're like us. You know, it was very difficult, especially in the 50s and 60s and 70s. It's improved a lot because now there's this idea of the black nation and it includes everybody everywhere in the world.

And I suspect perhaps there are also Africans who are not nice to Afro-Caribbean people. But you will understand, Jennifer, these are not observations that people like me could make. They have to come from you and from your own experience and the experience of the people you've talked to. Yes. And yeah, I wouldn't even advise you to talk about it because it's one of those things that we look at as in-house squabbling, that we are both in a world that is not very kind to us, but one feels that, you know, at least I'm not you, you know. And then we find little ways in which we are different because that's what humans do.

We look for difference and then decide, okay, I'm better because I'm not like that. And so there are those aspects that are within the community itself. But I've been told that, for example, in the past, you know, a Caribbean woman marrying an African man would have problems within her community. You know, why would you do that? You know, but now the world is changing. So my husband is of Afro-Caribbean, you know. But you still find it, for example, in his grandfather's generation.

She was absolutely shocked when she met me, even though she's as dark as I am, you know. Did she say anything? No, when we met she turned and faced the other way really it was that harsh but for some reason i just looked at my husband and was okay because he had already he'd warned you he'd warned me that but um actually within the Caribbean community, they're actually very sympathetic to that kind of behavior

because those are people who inherited a kind of plantation history where the darker you were, the farther you were away from the house. And you worked in the harsh plantations. But if you're light skinned, then you walked in the house. Wow, this is a very vicious hierarchy. It is. So for Caribbean people, when they meet someone like that, they say, oh, we know where she's coming from. We know what she's suffered. She hasn't learned. And that helped me understand, you know.

But yeah, there are those differences. And in a way, as I was saying, Africans are to blame because we come with this sense, oh, they're just like us. No, they're not. They're culturally different. And when they react culturally different, we think, oh, how can you? You know.

But it's until you meet an African who was born here and they are also, you know, being what we call funny and you realise, okay. Okay, this is serious. What you write about is, that's why I enjoyed the book so much, actually, I think,

because it just told me so much I could never have known without, I entered a world of which I knew nothing. But you're now in Manchester. Manchester is your world. Yes. What will you write next? What will you write about? So my next character, the book I'm working on now, is a South African-born man.

He was, no, actually he's Ugandan-born, but his parents were South Africans. So the dad was white South African, but mother was a black South African. And during apartheid, they couldn't have a relationship together. So they flew and came to Uganda. He was born in Uganda, but they died. And the grandparents in South Africa come and collect him and find he looks white visibly. And they decided to whiten him in culture as well. And they bring him to Britain. Big mistake. Well, I'll tell you what that's there's a book i'll investigate um jennifer

looking forward to it thank you very much um now um you've been good enough to stay louise so thank you for doing that louise is the the listener who emailed in pilates teacher who emailed in about pelvic floors can i just put some of the emails we've had to you about this this is a it's been a fast it's been a fascinating morning put some of the emails we've had to you about this? Please do. It's been a fascinating morning for all sorts of reasons. We've really covered some ground. The cannellini bean, by the way, that casserole, we've all had a bit. It was pretty tasty, wasn't it, Jennifer?

It was wonderful. Yeah, it was very tasty indeed. So back to pelvic floors, she says, as though the whole things are linked logically. A listener says, I've been treated for the last two years for an overactive pelvic floor this is new to me um in fact i'm still waiting to see my consultant to get an mri result through but i was first seen over two years ago with symptoms of spasms felt like i was sitting on a ball is that what what is this you just sit in a little bit closer to your microphone yeah i mean you know one of the problems that we see in our studio, a really frequent problem is the muscles are too tight, that there's too much holding.

And that's kind of a point I was trying to get across a little bit in the programme that, you know, that the instruction and information that's often given out, you know, the kind of conventional way is to hold, to lift, to squeeze. And what that often does is encourage people to overly work the pelvic floor. And a really common problem is they can't relax the pelvic floor. And, you know, as a result of that, you end up with all kinds of problems. So you can do, you can do. So, you know, what we work with people a lot in doing is learning how to release and relax. And also initially learning to recognize whether or not you have that issue. Are you able to lift? Are you able to release? And it's the quality of the movement. It's the quality of the lift and release that's really important. And it takes practice, I suspect.

It takes a lot of practice. Anonymous says, not just prostate in men, blood pressure as well. The diuretics cause havoc. Yes, I can believe it. Yeah. Diuretics are the medication that you take for high blood pressure. Diuretics to help you wee. Yeah, but you're weeing more than you might want to.

Shelley says, on the subject of how to do pelvic floor exercises, I read recently you should imagine you're in a bath of eels and don't want to get in. And don't want any to get in. Works for me. Well, each to their own. Well, quite. Who wants eels in? I mean, I think the point of that, though, Jane,

is that, you know, different visual images, different cues, different ways work for different people. And, you know, part of what we do is to find the way that works best for the person that's in front of you. Can I just put an email from Becky? I think some brands of incontinence pads, I don't want to dob this particular brand in, although everybody knows this one,

the listener says they have a lot to answer for in terms of normalising weak pelvic floor. A bit of wee here and there can turn into something more serious if left and not treated. I've been amazed by the impact of hypopressive exercises on the pelvic floor, a totally different way of approaching training. Itopressive exercises on the pelvic floor a totally different way of approaching training it works on retraining the pelvic floor to act as it should subconsciously

um what about that um i think yeah i mean nobody should have to wear incontinence pads and no one should take it as a given absolutely absolutely not you know it might was you know it might come to that for some people that might you know be the way that it goes but nobody should it goes. But nobody should assume that that's how it has to be. And as I said, there are lots of different ways that you can use thought, feeling, visual concepts, all kinds of ways to try and learn to manage your pelvic floor, to strengthen it and to understand it, really. I just want to finally end, because there's no better way than to end with a sex tip from a James Bond book brought to us by a listener called Penny who says, for the first time

I've heard somebody suggest that pelvic floor exercises can be good for your sex life. What she failed to mention is that during the exercise, is that doing the exercises during sex can be appreciated by a male partner. A trick I learnt from a James Bond book I read in my teens.

I guess it follows that sex is good for your pelvic floor since an orgasm exercises the same muscles, right? I don't know. Well, yeah, I'd say so, probably. So do your pelvic floor exercises during sex. Yeah. Okay, well, Penny read that in a James Bond book, so it must be sound advice.

Thank you, Dr Ian Fleming, sexual advisor to women in the 21st century. Thanks to everybody for your patience. And it's been one of those programmes today. I've enjoyed it. I don't know whether anybody else has. We'll be back tomorrow. Jenny here from 10 o'clock and the podcast, of course, available when it suits you. I'm Simon Mundy, host of Don't Tell Me the Score,

the podcast that uses sport to explore life's bigger questions covering topics like resilience tribalism and fear with people like this we keep talking about fear and to me i always want to bring it back to are you actually in danger that's alex honnold star of the oscar-winning film free solo in which he climbed a 3 000 foot sheer cliff without ropes so So, I mean, a lot of those, you know, social anxiety things, and certainly I've had a lot of issues with talking to attractive people in my life. I'm like, oh no, like I could never do that. And it certainly feels like you're going to die,

but realistically you're not going to die. And that's all practice too. Have a listen to Don't Tell Me The Score, full of useful everyday tips from incredible people on BBC Sounds. I'm Sarah Treleaven, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started, like, warning everybody.

Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story, settle in.

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