Woman's Hour - Women gambling, Male friendships, Anna Fedorova, Catherine Mayer, Sheep shearing and Beige flags

Episode Date: September 24, 2022

The number of women gambling is expected to rise as the cost of living crisis continues. Hear Jo’s story of what happened when she became addicted to gambling, and advice on the warning signs and how to get help from the chief executive of GambleAware Zoe Osmond. When Max Dickins needed to find himself a best man, he realised that he had no male friends. When he discovered that this is something lots of men go through, he decided to write a book with hints and tips for men, as well as what they can learn from the women in their lives about how to keep friendships.As the war in Ukraine goes on, musicians are providing hope and peace for Ukrainians. Piano soloist Anna Fedorova explains what she’s achieved through the power of music alongside the Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra.The royal family is going to have a new, slimmer, shape in future. Royal biographer Catherine Mayer tells Emma what this means for Prince Andrew in particular, as well as the future of the monarchy under King Charles. Sheep shearer Marie Prebble tells us how she set a brand new women’s world record for sheep shearing – which involved months of training, and eight hours straight of holding wriggling sheep. Caitlin McPhail and Helen Thorn discuss dating in the modern world – including the small signs on online dating profiles that show someone’s a little bit boring, and how to let your true personality shine on dating platforms. Presenter: Anita Rani Producer: Lottie Garton

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. I'm Natalia Melman-Petrozzella, and from the BBC, this is Extreme Peak Danger. The most beautiful mountain in the world. If you die on the mountain, you stay on the mountain. This is the story of what happened when 11 climbers died on one of the world's deadliest mountains, K2, and of the risks we'll take to feel truly alive. If I tell all the details, you won't believe it anymore. Extreme, peak danger. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, I'm Anita Rani and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Welcome to Weekend Woman's Hour, a selection of the best bits from the week just gone. On today's programme, the Ukrainian pianist using her musical talents to spread hope in the midst of war. The man who suddenly realised when he needed to find a best man that he had no male friends. Got a piece of paper out and a pen, made a list of the candidates I consider and I realised I work with most of these men

and the rest of them I haven't spoken to in some cases for one, two, three years and I thought, oh my gosh, where have all my friends gone? And then when I did a bit of light googling, I realised tons of men have this problem. The royal biographer who sees the new queen consort as a gritty feminist and the markers to look out for on dating sites that tell you when someone's a bit boring.

Hating coriander, whether you have an opinion on like pineapple on pizza or not, saying you're fluent in sarcasm, looking for someone with a strong flirt to roast ratio, references to like really mainstream sitcoms. All that and lots more. So grab a drink and settle in. First, a new study by the charity Gamble Aware shows that the cost of living crisis could trigger an increase in women gambling. Gamble Aware are starting a campaign to target women and break the stigma that prevents them from seeking support. Emma was joined by their chief executive Zoe

Osmond to explain why this is a serious issue. The rise in the cost of living that's obviously increasing month by month alongside a growth in the number of women gambling online is sort of creating a perfect storm and our research has showed that one in four women who gamble expect to gamble more to pay the household bills, and one in 10 are already turning to gambling to pay the bills. So that's obviously a stark warning sign, particularly as we sort of encroach upon the winter of what looks like to be discontent.

And we need to make more women aware of the risks of gambling. And in terms of the idea of paying bills and the cost of living being as part of a perfect storm, why are women, do you think, being lured towards this? Is there something about the way the gambling is now happening that's more appealing? Well, we know that women's gambling is sort of portrayed or presented to them as a sort of innocent, fun, playful activity, more of a game rather than gambling. And in fact, there's a common misconception amongst women that they're gambling and that that gambling is coming with risk.

Secondly, we know that there's a huge amount of advertising targeted at women. Women are more exposed to more ads than men per week. And thirdly, because of this sort of move to online where there's the accessibility of your sort of opportunity to gamble as a means of escape from daily life and also concerns and stress and anxiety of daily life. If you are already perhaps on that road or people to do with you are, women to do with you are. And we know, you know, of course, the majority of gamblers are men. But as you're talking about the increasing numbers of women, what about the roads for help? Where can you go for help?

What we're very keen to do is sort of break down the stigma. We know that about 49% of women are ashamed to talk about their gambling. So just as a first step to actually open up, have conversations with their friends, family, not to make it a hidden, something that they do on the side or feel guilty about. And then in terms of where to go for help, I mean, a number of amazing resources, including going to our website, begamblerware.org, which will list them all, plus tips and advice,

or call the National Gambling Helpline on 0808 8020 133, because they're available, help 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and it's free. Are we seeing a difference in the motivation then that I mentioned about making ends meet, bills? Is that not the same as men? Well, women have much more in the traditional construct, a sort of a sense of duty and responsibility in terms of managing the household bills, not across the board, but for the large majority,

coupled with the fact that, you know, a lot of them are balancing sort balancing both domestic caring responsibilities as a mother, a parent, and also working lives. So they have quite a lot that they've got to juggle. And often for them, gambling is a means of escape, which of itself is not an issue. It's more the concerns than making sure that they're aware that it's a risky activity. And they need to look out for those warning signs, which are essentially sort of losing track of time, spending too much money, or at the very worst stage, keep it hidden from others. Hence, they need to be a bit more open about it.

Let's just talk to Jo, who's on the line. Stay with me, Zoe. She describes herself as gamble-free for a year. Jo, good morning. Good morning. Thanks for being with us. How did it start for you? So basically, it was seven years ago.

I put a one-off bet on the football. I've never done that before. It won my bet. And I thought, oh, it made me feel really good. I thought I was quite good at it. So I looked around on the site and I found the slot machines. And once I started playing those, that's when it really pulled me in. I was hooked on them.

I quickly started losing money and then I was chasing it because I couldn't accept the fact that I hadn't won. I got myself into so much debt. I isolated myself from friends and family the guilt I felt was awful I hated myself How much, do you know how much debt you got into? I think I got into, it was over 50 grand Right, so a serious amount

Yeah, a pretty huge amount, yeah and then I got so bad I did feel suicidal um and then I didn't really know at the time that he'd turn to because I didn't know that gambling was you know could be an addiction or so what I did is I started looking online and I come across Gordon Moody and they took me onto their rehabilitation retreat program which was for women this one and and got me back you know on the road to recovery because of all the stress from the gambling my hair started to fall out so I had to shave that off I actually had alopecia caused from stress so that triggered me back into gambling and before I knew it I was full-blown gambling again getting myself into more debt then I had to contact Gordon Moody again and luckily they took me back onto their program and I've now you know I'm

gamble free for one year so I'm pretty happy about that. I mean it sounds incredibly difficult to to be able to stay gamble free how do you think you've done it? I think for me it's talking is talking, talking about how I'm feeling. I've got safety nets in place so if I do feel like I want to gamble, I block gambling transactions from my bank and I've registered with GamStop. So yeah, now I'm aware of what triggers me, it's easier for me to manage. How have your family been about this?

I've been one of the lucky ones, to be honest. My family has been very supportive, which is obviously very helpful. I mean, I had to give my mum full control of my finances at one point. I didn't even have my bank card. I had to ask for money. What has happened with the debt? Well, I'm pleased to say I've paid off all my debt now with the help of my family, not as in paying it for me, but helping me manage my money.

Okay, because I mean, that's the other side of this, getting away from gambling, but then what you do with what you've created while you've been doing it. And the shame associated with that. You know, a lot of women in this study talking about the shame that stops them then from getting help. Yeah, of course. I mean, I was very ashamed of myself. I was embarrassed. In the beginning, I didn't want to tell anybody.

So I hated myself. But, you know, this is one of the reasons that this campaign is amazing. We want to show people that there is no, you don't need to be ashamed, you know, and reaching out for help is the best thing that you can do. Jo there talking to Emma about being gamble free for a year, and you can find links for help and support with gambling problems and addictions on our website. Now do the men in your life have any friends? The reason I ask is because a 2019 YouGov survey found that one in five men have no close friends twice the proportion than for women. Well Max Dickens is a comedian and playwright and author of Billy No Mates, How I Realised Men Have a Friendship Problem.

He joined Emma to talk about this issue and told her how he first realised he had no male friends. I went to a jeweller's in Hatton Garden with a female friend of mine and she said afterwards, when we were having a glass of wine, who are you going to have as best man? And my mind went blank, went home that night, got a piece of paper out and a pen, made a list of the candidates I consider and I realised I work with most of these men and the rest of them I haven't spoken to in some cases for one, two, three years and I thought, oh my gosh, where have all my friends gone?

And then when I did a bit of light Googling, I realised tons of men have this problem and in fact, since they started measuring this stuff, social scientists in the early 70s, men have had less friends, especially less close friends than women. And it gets worse as men get older to the point that if you look at bereavement, if you look at divorce, if you look at retirement, men suffer worse mental and physical health outcomes than women because of that isolation. So this stuff compounds over time. What did you do about it? Well, there are loads of things I tried to do. But essentially, the first thing I tried to do What did you do about it? friendships so I used to have all my friendships defined entirely through the prism of humor and banter and that would put this moat of aggression around me I try to communicate affection to friends to tell them I like them for a change uh try to be vulnerable these things but also the

other that was maybe one angle the other angle I looked at is trying to consider maybe what are differences between male and female friendship and And when you understand that, you start doing slightly different things. So I spoke to the world expert on friendship, this guy called Dr. Robin Dunbar. He's an evolutionary anthropologist. And he said to me, essentially, female friendships, and this is a generalization, tend to be face-to-face, based around talk.

There's quite a lot of emotional disclosure. Women will often say they have one best friend that they often know more closely often than their romantic partner men's friendships tend to be side by side based around sharing activities together and often in groups so if you want to keep your friendships going as you get older and you turn 30 40 50 it's about making sure you keep those activities those structures in your life where male friendship tends to thrive so a real simple thing I did for one example was I started running a five-a-side football league fortnightly and organised that. And we went to the pub afterwards.

A real simple thing made a massive difference. And were you aware also that can sometimes happen in relationships and saying here, of course, in heterosexual relationships, that a lot of the social work was being done in your life by your female partner. Yeah, absolutely. So Naomi's probably listening to this and I probably lent on her a lot. So I think men often treat the women in their lives as like the HR department. They sort of organise the friendships. Men will rely on their partner for their social group.

I heard a great line from a stand-up called John Mulaney this weekend. He said, men don't have friends. they have wives who have friends who have husbands. And I think it's often because we're not socialised to do that social work, that work of checking in with people, organising meet-ups, sending cards, all that small bits of effort that go into maintaining and creating bonds. I think we're less socialised to do. And I certainly reflected on that in myself. And I know it's true of a lot of my male friends as well. Yeah, well, there's a message here from Jane.

He says, I've been married 23 years to a very genial and friendly man. However, he has no friends. My only conclusion is that men are from Mars and women are from Venus. How the hell this will work as we approach impending retirement remains to be seen. I'll be in touch again soon. That's a are from Venus. How the hell this will work as we approach impending retirement remains to be seen. I'll be in touch again soon. That's a promise from Jane. But there are quite

few women getting in touch saying they are worried about this. So that, you know, women are worrying about all sorts of other things. They're quite angry a lot of the time about other things, but they're also taking this on. Do you think it is something that men need to take more responsibility for? Absolutely. They need to own their social world a lot more. So they often rely on hubs, like their workplace, as we just had in that example there, their wife, their wife, the Rotary Club up the road,

they need to take responsibility for it. And it doesn't have to be that complicated. I spoke to someone in researching this book. He had great male friendships. And I said to him, you him, what's your secret? He says, well, my friends call me the Sherpa, as in like those people that carry everything up the mountain for everyone. Because you organise everything. But if you didn't organise everything, we'd never get together.

So I thought it was a great way to think about it. Be the Sherpa. The best way to have a friend is be a friend. It's pretty simple stuff, but generally men don't put the effort in. We sit in this holding pattern with our male friends friends waiting for the other person to make the move or just rely as we've explored on our partner's social world and this puts a lot of pressure I think not only in terms of organizing everything but if men don't have avenues to talk about the bigger stuff to talk about things maybe they're less likely to share with their partner or or or even

just to share the burden i think it's important men have these relationships because again it's it's just another inequity in male and female although again there's there's you know more messages to trevor's point who talked about you know my other half doesn't seem to want them or need them lucy says have you considered the fact many men might not actually want them my husband prefers not to have any. As a woman, I've never had really close female friends. I don't feel I've missed out. I'm very self-sufficient.

I find females quite shallow, annoying, and a bit cloying, says Lucy, listening. But I mean, we sort of covered the fact that you can accept that. Although perhaps there's an argument there to say, why has that become the norm? And why is that a view? Because we also know how much this can affect men in a good way if they change their mind or get

something to change their mind if something opens them up but I wanted to read you this from someone who just described themselves as M who says thank you for covering this topic this is slightly different I'm a husband and father of two children I'd love to maintain more male friends but I'm too busy my work isn't too bad but I have to do so much aside from that. Parenting, housework, husbanding. I think much more is expected of men compared to previous generations. While there's much that is good in this, it does make it hard to keep up friendships in any meaningful way. And added to this, my few close friends are dispersed around the UK.

I don't have a group. Forming one doesn't work because we all just have too much to do. I'm not in a great place. My marriage is touch and go and I just don't have time to go to the pub. I don't really see it getting any better. Well, thanks for sharing that. And look, one of the hardest things with friendships as you get older is the availability of time. And that affects both women and men. But clearly, it's very difficult to do it. It's especially difficult for men, I think, if your relationships are more time-intensive in terms of sharing activities, going to the pub.

So there's no one great solution there. If I had any advice, it would be, can you fit in some meetings that are much shorter around sharing coffees or sharing cups of tea, phone calls, in order to fit things into your schedule a lot better. But it definitely is harder. And I think to kind of talk to something that's been coming in on the messages is maybe we think of close friendship, for want of a better phrase, in quite female terms these

days. It's about emotional disclosure and intimacy looking as it being about talk, whereas a lot of male intimacy is based around, it's a very active form of intimacy and I think we can sometimes ignore close male friendship that is there but it's maybe not shown up some of these bits of research you shared at the beginning of our of our conversation today so I think it's important to notice it when it's there as well as wanting to improve conversations I want to bust a myth if I may, which is that it's really hard to meet up with people, you know, in this day and age.

It can be, you know, especially if you're at that point of your life where you're doing lots of different things, if you have got children. And I sometimes feel, you know, it's like trying to piece together a map with your friends. And I have seen some of the men in my life just give up if the first time they try and bring together a group or more than one person just doesn't well we can't do it yeah well i mean it's like peace negotiations

sometimes with my friends trying to get everybody in you know not that it has to be a big group i'm not somebody who has a big group i've got i'm often in twos and threes yeah but you do just have to persevere there's a sort of understanding on that have you found that as a difference yeah absolutely um and men can be quite hard work when organized stuff i've certainly learned if i had three rules when i was going through this it was show up when you're asked go first when you're not and keep going even when it's hard um and i think i think that's uh really important i should say though that friendship is harder than it's ever been i think the world is not built for friendship anymore because of this lack of time, because of so much is mediated through social

media, digital world, consuming content, however you want to phrase that. So we have less and less of a landing spot for our friendships. And there used to be what sociologists call third spaces. So a work is one space, home is another. There's a lot of third spaces, whether that be a church or a coffee shop or a gym or a park where we get together and socialising was easy and we go in groups and we meet people. Those places have disappeared or we're showing up to them less. And therefore, it's a lot more pressure on us to do the organising and for people to reciprocate. So in a sense, it's no wonder it's so hard. Well, lots of you got in touch with this.

Gavin on Twitter said, never heard myself described so accurately on the radio before. And an email from Rina in Rickmansworth said, my husband is quite an introvert and much prefers female friends. However, one of his passions is music. Over the past couple of years, he reconnected with two of his bandmates from secondary school through social media and music. I know my husband said he's not bothered about having friends, but I know he loves his guys a lot. Now, this week, the Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky told the UN General Assembly Russia has sparked catastrophic turbulence for the world with its illegal war. On the same day, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced military reservists are to be sent to Ukraine to reinforce his troops after major combat setbacks this month. Now the Ukrainian culture minister has said that culture can be the soft power that heals wounds. But how true is that? One woman who should know is the concert pianist and member of the Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra, Hanna Fedorova. She spoke to Emma about what it was like when Ukraine was first invaded. Well, of course, since February, all our lives are turned upside down.

And the very first days when the war started, I was in Amsterdam, thankfully, together with my parents, who in general lived in Kiev until then. But just a week before the war started, I managed to get them out of the country and they were with me but we were absolutely paralyzed just looking in disbelief and complete horror in what is happening in our country and also in our city and after a few days from this paralyzed state I went into a very active state because i wanted to do something

because as an artist as musician there are things that are possible to be done and i started together with some other musicians organized the benefit concerts for ukraine and the first one which we did was in the concert gibao in amsterdam which was sold out in about one day matter of hours raised over 100 000 euros and brought together a lot of people in the netherlands and across the world because this concert was also broadcasted and i know that even some people in ukraine while they were bombed and sitting in the bomb shelters or basements, they actually were watching the live broadcast from this concert. And it brought a lot of comfort to them and support and hope. And of course, also a lot of tears and very strong emotions.

I can only imagine how strong those emotions are and have continued to be. And this particular orchestra, the Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra, is made up of 75 Ukrainian musicians. You've come together, but all had to flee the war. Yes, yes and no. So this project started, I think, also in March

and was initiated by Metropolitan Opera Director Peter Gelb and his wife, Caroline Wilson, who was the conductor of the orchestra. And she's actually half Ukrainian. She has Ukrainian origins. And she had this idea to create an orchestra

from Ukrainian refugees, or in general, Ukrainian musicians, and make a tour, the concert tour with these Ukrainian musicians. And I was invited to be a soloist at the performances. We had 13 performances all over Europe and the United States with this project. And that's incredible how they were able to organize this tour in just two and a half months, because usually the tour of such scale is

organised over three years or so. And you as a concert pianist playing in these conditions with the stories that were surrounding you I understand two sisters for instance from the orchestra had a father fighting on the front line how was it to play? It was amazing in many ways. It was very powerful. It was very emotional. We felt every concert that it's not just playing music, but it's basically what we are doing is important for the whole world, important for Ukraine. We are bringing people together in awareness about what is happening,

that something has to be done. the Ukrainian people have to be supported, that Ukrainian culture and Ukrainian artists are, they were all on stage playing incredibly beautiful with so much soul and feeling that one cannot imagine. Every concert there were tears from all sides, from the side of the audience, from the musicians which were backstage, musicians in the orchestra. And yes, I was very privileged to be part of this because this was bigger than probably anything I ever was participating in. Today you're talking to us from South Korea, I understand, where you're taking part in a concert in the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea. You're there to perform Rachmaninoff's second piano concerto.

In fact, your performance of that piece from 2013 has been watched over 36 million times on YouTube. Let's just hear an excerpt of you playing that. Beautiful to be able to hear some of that. And I know your new album has performances of that concerto and Rachmaninoff's Fourth. Obviously, the war in Ukraine is creating a lot of anti-Russian sentiment the world over. Why is it important to you to continue to play the work of Russian composers like Rachmaninoff and also bring that complexity of, against, if you like, everything, a blanket black and white view of what is Russian? Yes, well, the thing is that a lot of Russian composers, such as Rachmaninoff, Shostakovich, Tchaikovsky, they were also all victims of Russian government, of what was Russian society, what was happening in the country at that time. flee Russia in 1917 when the revolution happened because it was impossible and dangerous to stay

in this new world which was created by the revolution. Shostakovich, he lived in Russia, but he was fighting and speaking out through his music. Basically, everything he was writing was expressing his frustration, his fear, his anxiety. And that was the way of his to fight against the regime at that time. And the documentary about the Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra that Anna performs with is on tonight, BBC2 at 7.35, or you can catch up on iPlayer. Still to come on the programme, how to make your dating profile more exciting and less beige. And the woman who set the female world record for sheep shearing. Remember, you can enjoy Woman's Hour any hour of the day.

If you can't join us live at 10am during the week, you'll find us on BBC Sounds. Now, earlier this week, we heard that King Charles is reportedly planning a less expensive coronation ceremony than his mother's and a slimmed down working monarchy as an acknowledgement of Britain's cost of living crisis. Prince Andrew is one of those who is not expected to resume royal duties under the new king. The Duke of York as he's also known stepped down as a working royal in 2019 after a Newsnight interview that addressed

his relationship with the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. In January he was stripped of his military patronages and use of the HRH title and in March he paid a financial settlement to Virginia Jeffrey who had accused him of sexual assault, a claim he denies. Emma spoke about this to Catherine Mayer, a royal biographer and co-founder of the Women's Equality Party. She asked her what role might there be for Prince Andrew in this new slimmed-down royal family? No role. There should be absolutely zero role for him. The idea of the slimmed-down monarchy is old news, in fact, but it's acquired a new urgency. So I actually wrote about the plans, Charles's plans for a slimmed-down monarchy back in 2015. And this is something that, you know, the monarchy only survives by adapting and mirroring people's expectations of it.

And it was always going to be something that required change, that required slimming down if it is to survive. And I, unlike many commentators over the past week, would question that altogether. And one of the reasons for that was, in fact, seeing Andrew in those ceremonies, seeing his prominent role. It was very painful for victims, but it also underlined the institutional problem that the monarchy had had in dealing with the Andrew problem, which was hardly a new problem. There was always a question of finding something for him to do. Royals typically can't do paid jobs because that seemed to come into conflict with

the royal role. So they go into the military. And then after they come out of the military, what do you do with them? There's only so much ribbon cutting, only so many patronages, only so much that looks meaningful. And if the monarchy looks bloated, that's never going to be popular, but that is then particularly difficult at a time of a cost of living crisis. But you add to that then the scandals and also the fracturing of the family in the past years. And the issue around Andrew, it's not just that Andrew associated with Jeffrey Epstein and with Ghislaine Maxwell. It's that the institution of monarchy gave him cover to continue to perform his royal role well after those scandals were known.

Yes, I mean, we talked about the fact he paid a settlement to Virginia Dufresne, ending in that civil case against him earlier this year. He also said he never intended to malign Ms Dufresne's character. He's always denied allegations that he sexually abused her. And he also said he recognised that she had suffered both as an established victim of abuse and as a result of unfair public attacks and the duke also pledged to demonstrate his regret for association with the sex offender jeffrey epstein are those things i mean have they happened are those things in place to to try to

come back to life public life or do you think that that's completely done and when we reflect as it now seems to be more people perhaps feel they can some of the discomfort there was in seeing him again despite those statements and those clarifications do you think that there is there's anything to be to be learned from that or how it will be under Charles? I think if there had been any genuine contrition on Andrew's part, he would have expressed it in his famous car crash interview with Emily Maitlis, where she even gave him a last chance, is there anything he hadn't said, and he didn't express that. But I think also there is this point that there are already too many working royals, but there aren't the right working royals. So Charles has two problems here. In losing Harry and Meghan, he lost two people who are really the only two people among the ranks of adult royals who connected with younger demographics and also with people of colour. So bringing Andrew

back into the royal fold would hardly help any of that. And I mean, of course, the role of the Queen Consort, we know we don't have a Queen anymore, but is a hugely important role in terms of women and how Prince, King Charles, excuse me, will be defined in his reign and what he will show that he cares about. One of the things that's been interesting about the past week is, of course, it was a week that introduced Charles as king to people, even though they knew him as prince. It introduced Camilla in this new role of queen consort, which of course is a silent role. And Charles himself is saying he's going to be more silent, but both of them have been activists. That's much better known about Charles

than it is about Camilla. But I've had a lot of dealings with Camilla, not as, I mean, as a royal biographer, but also through feminism. One of the things that's really not very well known about her is that she engages with the much, or has engaged, with the much grittier areas of feminism. So she is a president of the WOW Foundation. She has spoken out... The women of the world, in case people don't know. Yeah, and has spoken out on things such as female genital mutilation and on violence against women and girls.

In September 2020, sorry, October 2021, I heard her give really the grittiest speech I've ever heard a royal make, which was to the launch of an affiliated festival to wow the shameless festival where she talked. It was in the wake of Sarah Everard's murder. And she talked about women being raped and murdered. And she talked about this as a problem of structural violence. This is not something you expect to hear people in the monarchy articulating. It was very welcome. But I also remember standing there thinking about, you know, it was during the Epstein scandal, and thinking also, you know, it's one of the weird contradictions of the monarchy is that for many people, it irretrievably stands for inequality. And yet both Charles and Camilla in their own way

have worked for equality. For many people that can never be meaningful, but it's nevertheless they have this body of work behind them. So it's an interesting contradiction there. Well, coming away from your role as a royal biographer, you also shed light during this period of mourning. We've been going through, of course, it's been national now, it moves to the private stage with the royal family. You've pointed the attention to the National Covid Memorial Wall, which is in London on the route,

which did make up the famous queue to see the Queen lying in state. It's a wall of hearts, if people don't know it, representing those who lost their lives to Covid. Why did you want to talk about this specifically? The funny thing is, I didn't mean to talk about it. I was on television commentating over live footage coming in and I was punched in the solar plexus because I had not known that the queue would be starting at the memorial wall. And my husband, Andy, was one of the first people to die of COVID in this country, and his heart is on that memorial wall. And what I saw from the live footage was that the cameras were facing not towards the wall, not taking in the 220,000 hearts on the wall, each one inscribed with somebody lost to COVID. But they were

pointing away towards Westminster, which felt that wall is sacred to the COVID bereaved. And many of the COVID bereaved have felt where the Queen did such a good job of articulating our grief and acknowledging our grief and our loss in a way that government certainly never did felt erased during the memorials the memorialization the celebrations for the queen in ways that shouldn't have happened because the thing about public grief is public grief was for the queen a lot of us felt very sad I I knew her, but lots of people who didn't know her felt very sad about it. But it also reflects and amplifies your own loss and your own loss feeds back into it. And the Covid bereaved are always overlooked. And, you know, people are always telling us it's time. It's time to move on.

I think that's a decision for the grieving, don't you? What would you say? Because I know you've looked at grief, you've written a book about that as well. What would you say needs to happen that hasn't happened there? I'm not trying to dictate, but you know, what could be done? Well, the Covid wall was a perfect example of this in the sense that, I mean, I had a wonderful gold bracelet that gave me access to all of these areas during the week of mourning for the Queen. But the Covid bereaved were themselves being turned away by guards. When I did use my press access to go down there, I discovered that... Are you talking about during the queue time? During the queue. Okay. Yeah. And I discovered that press were actually leaning

their equipment against the wall, leaning themselves against the wall. And when I said to them they should be turning their cameras towards the wall, they said, but this is nothing to do with the Queen. And that's my point is, if you have a period of national mourning, yes, it was for the Queen. But the Queen's death came in this period of huge national loss. Not just the COVID bereaved, but you know, all the turbulences that there have been. This has not been an easy news cycle and people lose people close to them every single day. There were funerals cancelled because of the Queen's death. So all of that, it is a function of public mourning to take those things in and acknowledge them and embrace those people grieving, not to lean against their wall as if it's not there. Geoffrey. In March this year, Prince Andrew paid a settlement to Virginia Geoffrey, ending the civil case brought against him. He also said he never intended to malign Miss Geoffrey's character, and he recognised she had suffered both as an established victim of abuse and as a result

of unfair public attacks. The Duke also pledged to demonstrate his regret for his association with the sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Now, have you ever broken a record? Well, my two worlds collided this week as we took a trip to the countryside to a sheep farm in Kent to meet Marie Preble, who set a new world record in sheep shearing. She sheared over 46 sheep every hour for eight hours straight. Well, Marie joins me on Friday and I asked her what her exact record was. I sheared 370 ewes, so that's the adult sheep, in eight hours. Why did you decide

to do this? I was very aware that there wasn't an existing record for women's shearing for eight hours for ewes. So the opportunity was there and I've had, luckily enough, I've had the right people around me to support me through the process. And it's just been a personal journey of pushing my comfort zones and the stretch zone, as they say, you know, just having to improve my technique with shearing and then build my confidence in terms of, I was very aware that there was other more experienced and more capable women shearers out there than me, but actually to set myself up for this challenge, which was a big step up from what I'm used to. I have been shearing for 10 years, but not done very much in that time. So I'm a farmer primarily and shearing is generally fitting around that. So I've really devoted the last couple of years to spending more time off the farm and advancing my skills with shearing. So yeah, it was a great opportunity to be able to set the first women's

eight hour year record. Yeah. Congratulations. Tell me about the training. So I was training from just after Christmas. So that involved being in the gym every day, really a lot of mobility. I probably could have done with some of the flexibility or your last call I just mentioned there. Yeah, a lot of mobility to open up, open up the shoulders and then some strength training, because obviously it is a skill that demands quite a lot of mobility to open up open up the shoulders and then some strength training um because obviously it is a skill that demands quite a lot of strength you're you're you know on a daily basis you know moving a lot of sheep around which is could be 60 to 90 over 100 kilos per sheep um and so obviously strength is part of that but yeah technique is is the main main part

of it so it's definitely something that women can do as well as men so let's talk let's talk about where your sheep sharing journey began you grew up on a farm how many generations so my family have actually been on this farm since 1760 so we go back quite a long time and we did used to own the farm but now we're tenants of the ministry of defense so the farm was actually compulsory purchased by the mod uh for the second world war so now we're now we're tenants of our own farm essentially but yeah we've been here a long time and i'm just the the latest in a long line of sheep farmers in kent and you're all very hands-on yeah definitely i mean it is a practical job and it's the only way i'd want it to be really i mean there is a lot of office work as you understand like in terms of just managing the business but but definitely it's a practical

job and that's why i love doing it. I mean, I went to university, I studied environmental sciences, but I was quite quickly aware that an office job probably wouldn't keep me active and it's just a fantastic way of life as much as anything else. And it is a way of life, isn't it? Because, you know, I'm lucky enough to spend a lot of time on farms up and down the country and you say it's an office job, but it's not just an office job. It's all day, every day, out in the office with the animals, on the land. There is no stopping.

Definitely. And you have to be all things. You need to be sort of a vet. You need to be an agronomist. There's so many different facets to farming, which is why I love the challenge of it. So yeah, coming back from university and just learning the basics of, you know, how to drive a tractor. And shearing came in sort of after a couple of years of being on the farm. I probably must have seen the contractors come to the farm and shear our sheep and probably asked to have a go. And at some stage, you know, got the bug for it. And I decided to go to New Zealand to learn to do, you know, I did a course out there. How was that?

2012. I mean, they kind of dwarf, they dwarf our farms out there, especially sheep farms. Yeah, certainly like massive stations with tens of thousands of animals on each station. So my 300 or sheep here, yeah, 230 acres and I've got 400 ewes and then another sort of 600 lambs. And, you know, so we're running about a thousand sheep. But yeah, that's just the day-to-day the day-to-day job of shearing and then you know there's a competitive side of it as well which is quite quite a cool thing to be part of and how many women in that competitive side um there are more and more definitely and there's women's competition so within within shearing it's

quite an amazing sort of unique um sport in the sense that you're actually competing alongside men. So you compete in your grade. So from the juniors, intermediates, seniors to open, you're basically competing alongside men, which is fairly unique in sport, really. So you're competing according to grade, your grade and not just your gender. But there are women's competitions as well, just just in terms of sort of raising the profile of women cheering, which is great, you know, just to get that exposure and show that there are women doing the job sort of day in, day out. And I'm just one of many, really. And it is not easy. You make it look easy, but it is not easy.

It's a wiggly animal that you have to keep still whilst you're doing it. And the fleece has to come off in one. So what kind of, do you get yourself into a certain kind of zone when you're doing it? Yeah, definitely. I mean, you are dealing with a live animal, so there's certain elements of it you can't control. But the more you do and the more skilled and practice you become

with that job, the easier it does get. So it maybe does look easy, but I think when you're starting it, it doesn't feel it. And it's something that you keep improving on. So, yeah, you do actually get into a bit of a zone and certainly for the record like the mental preparation was as much as the physical preparation for me so I actually find cheering quite a mindful kind of practice like it's such a repetitive thing and you're always trying to do a really good job by the animals

so welfare is such an important priority for us when we're handling the animals and yeah to try and do it as calmly and efficiently as possible is always the aim. Do you know there's someone who's already training to try and beat your record? It's not me. It's not me, by the way. I'm not making announcements. I would love it if it were you.

If we got the opportunity to have a women's hour shearing day out to the farm, I would be all up for that. Yeah, that would be amazing. There are other women's records out there so to be clear there's already several women's lamb records and a nine hour you record um set by by kiwi shira so there's definitely a woman's woman trying to attempt the eight hour lamb record in in february this year so it's just a really exciting time you know there's a lot of the men's records have been done several times and this is just like an emerging emerging category really like we're just going to see more and more I think so if I've done anything to inspire someone to have a go and

and tackle what I my challenge then then that's amazing that's really satisfying oh you really have you've inspired so many just listening to you this morning and I actually um googled you last night to watch a bit of the last five minutes and it was emotional watching it how was it for you after eight hours when everybody started applauding knowing that you'd yeah there's certainly a lot of emotion involved like in the run-up to it you kind of have to zone out from all of that and just be very much focused like I was just focused on the job I had to do essentially. And even on the day, it's amazing. All those people were there,

but I was really just, all I could hear was Stuart Connor's voice, who was the man that when you see me sharing, he was my timekeeper. So he's a world record holder himself and he's the one there with the time. He knows exactly what rate I should be going at. And all the guys in the pen were just so encouraging.

So apart from that, I didn't really, wasn't so aware of everything that was going on around me so until I stood up at the end and actually saw my family and friends like in front of me cheering me on it yeah definitely you're definitely allow the emotion in at the end but until you finish the job you know that's just your head's down your mind's your mind's focused on the job. And I asked you on Friday to share with me your super skills and my goodness, what a talented bunch you are. We got an email from Mary who said, When I was at school in the 1970s, all our books had to be covered in brown paper or left over wallpaper. As a result, my niche skill was the ability to cover a book neatly in less than a minute.

Sadly, they don't seem to require book covering in schools anymore. So my superpower lies dormant. Resurrect it. That's what I say, Mary. Get bookbinding. Jan also emailed to say, I don't consider that I have any real outstanding gifts, but as a retired teacher of English, I'm pretty hot at spelling. Jan, that's super cool. Now, we've all heard the term red flags, those little things about a person that mean danger. But what about beige flags? This was a term coined by Caitlin McPhail and means little signs, in this case on dating profiles, that mean a person is a bit boring or beige. Caitlin herself

and comedian Helen Thorne joined Emma to talk about their top tips for online dating and their own beige flag experiences. Caitlin started by listing hers. A lot of it is just stuff that comes up all the time when you're swiping through whichever app that you're on and you can start to see a lot of patterns. So things like hating coriander, whether you have an opinion on like pineapple on pizza or not, saying you're fluent in sarcasm, looking for someone with a strong flirt to roast ratio, references to like really mainstream sitcoms. It's all just like very generic, I've found. And pictures with puppies. Yeah. So like using puppies as your personality.

Okay. There were some puppies as your personality. Okay. There were some great lines in that. I feel like you're a veteran, are you? How long have you been on dating apps? Too long. Yeah, on and off for the last probably seven years. I got back on maybe like a year ago after a hiatus and was just like, oh, it's exactly the same as when I left. And this video of you explaining what some of these beige flags are, I mean, really, they're the trends you spotted across these apps. Ran true with a lot of people. It's safe to say it's, I mean, I don't know how many views it's at now, but it's gone viral. You've been appointed, as I say, the CEO of the beige flag.

But why did you feel like you wanted to share this? There was like a trend a little while ago of like people sharing what their red flags were on dating apps and I just feel like red flags have kind of been done to death now like we all can really like identify them pretty quickly there's been a lot of discourse about it but I was like no one is talking about like or calling out everyone for using the same prompt answers or like the same boring photos that don't really say anything about you uh I'd already been kind of whinging about it to my friends before this and then had kind of come up with the term beige flags feels like it's red flags but just boring like and yeah it just went nuts let me bring in Helen I know Caitlin

you're in Australia but we've got some of the nods coming here in the UK studio from Helen. Can you relate? Oh, absolutely. There is no originality on the dating apps anymore. Everything is like looking for my partner in crime and all these sort of things. And the pineapple and pizza thing drives me insane.

And also sometimes- People having an opinion. Yeah, they're just like, yeah, change my mind about pineapple and a pineapple on pizza. Pineapple on pizza. So do I. I'm not changing your mind about that. Grow up.

And what I find is that there's no effort. There's like, I'm here, aren't I? I'm a bloke. You know, here I am with a penis. Take me. And I just think that the effort is so little. And it might be that there is this culture of it. It's very much deliveroo dating.

When we're talking about this, are you talking about how men present themselves? Yeah, absolutely. Do you think women are more dynamic? Oh, absolutely. When I've had dates, especially with some kind of forward thinking younger men, I'm like, can I have a look what it's like to be on the other side? And women put in lovely clothes. They've made an effort. They show a variety of photos.

But most of the men, you know, it's when they've like a photo of them at the football stadium holding a beer. I'm like, who are you trying to attract here? Are you trying to get a buddy? Or do you want to have an exciting date with a woman? And what I find is what you were saying about puppies versus personality. When people say my interests are cycling, I said, no, that's a mode of transport. That's not an interest. And just like five photos of them in Lycra bibs, I'm like, goodbye, Gary. Yeah, so it's just so underwhelming, the level of effort on these dating apps. And I mean, you know, it is Fifty Shades of Beige. Maybe that's the book you should write, Caitlin.

But yeah, it's so, so exhausting. And also then the chat. So the first, your shop window, of course, is your photos. And then there's the chat and the descriptions. And it takes a lot of effort just to sort of find. I did a sort of a survey last night. About 100, about one in 100, you go, yeah, he might be interesting. Is this just a failure of marketing, though?

Because that's what apps are. They are having to put yourself in a shop window. Caitlin, to come back to you, you know, for instance, there's a message here. Absolutely nothing wrong with being or being perceived as boring. Calling people boring, it sounds too much like you're at school to you two here. Everyone is interesting if you take the time to get to know them. I'm not entirely sure that's true. It's not nice to call people boring, especially people you barely know.

Is it that people are just bad at marketing themselves, which is what you've got to be able to do in this? Because one of the other beige flags that came up from one of our listeners was, I think this is about, well, there's two. When men talk about their height in their biog and also if they talk about liking drinking Stella, other beer brands are available. But maybe you're just bad at selling yourself, Caitlin. Yeah, I definitely think in a lot of cases that is actually what's going on uh and also i think it's also a bit embarrassing to just like fully put yourself out there online these days like to people you essentially don't know uh so you just end up with a lot of people kind of playing it really safe and like also playing to like the biggest target market, but they're not necessarily like, you're not going to attract people that are actually compatible

with you by doing that. You're just trying to attract like a quantity of matches because it's all generic things that like so many people, like, like if you refer to friends, like so many people watch friends, the TV show, whereas, you know, you're just so much more likely to find someone that's a bit more of a match for you if you're putting what you're actually like out there. But I think, yeah, it's just a marketing skill is what I usually see it as. And I will say I have not just seen it in men because I review profiles now. Your new line. All over. Yeah. And no one is safe.

No gender, age. Yeah, I was going to say. Sexuality is safe. There will be some women who will also, I mean, some of what you're saying, it's trying to go away from the generic. And there will be women who also go for the generic in there. But for you now, Helen, at this particular stage you are with dating, you're not looking for what you were looking for necessarily when you were younger as well. Yeah, absolutely. I'm a woman in my 40s. I own my own house. I've got my own children. I'm successful. I've had excellent friends. And you have to be exceptional if you're going to take my time away from all those other people. And I don't have time. I have two nights

a week where I've got a free night where I'm not looking after my kids. I'm not going to spend time getting to know somebody or hoping that they get more interesting. I used to have a two gin and tonic rule that if they got any more interesting after two gin and tonics, then it was probably worth my while. But most of the time, no. And I think it's good to know who you are. And I must admit, when I started out, I was really vulnerable.

I'd come out of a tricky divorce and I was like, oh my God, a guy likes me. Oh, wow. He was nice to me. And now I've realized that's just not enough. No, you want some game. Is your profile amazing? Are there anything, you know, can you give us an insight? What does it say?

What about what do I say? Yeah. How are you not beige on this? Because you don't come across beige in the way that we're talking. But how do you sell yourself? No, I'm kind of playful. I talk about being silly. You know, I like, you know, I like dancing in the kitchen. I like eating pizza in bed. I don't care if people fart. I just want to be myself.

So that's on your profile. You don't care if people... No, that'll be in the chat. Oh, in the chat. I'm trying to help her. If people are listening thinking I need to de- think you know I I'm a big fan of being silly um you know make me a good carbonara you know like you know I don't know I think you you just have to say who you are I'm I'm great at parties I bring the party things like that uh and I'm confident and I will not accept any touring I might be suspicious if someone says I bring the party can I just say that but anyway Caitlin it's about how you sell yourself we've got a message here saying we have

a male friend who laughs that all the female dating photos are the same jumping up with your arms in the air does that sound familiar change the photo share it with millions what do you make of that is that a trend uh women jumping around looking happy there's definitely a lot of like selfies and like just before you go out with your friends kind of thing. I don't know, I'm in my 20s, so it might be a little bit different depending on age. But I usually, the advice I give to people is to try and like keep your photos a really good mix of like all the different aspects of your life, like try and tell a visual story of what you're about through your photos. It may require a little bit more effort than a lot of people are currently willing to put in, but I think it pays off by giving off a better idea visually of what you're like.

Caitlin, well, you've got this new line. Good luck with it. I think it's going to be incredibly lucrative at some point. Caitlin McPhail, thank you very much for that. Helen, I've got a couple of messages I really wanted to read to you before our conversation on this. It's not over because I feel it's going to carry on, but there's two here. One on Twitter says, yes, beige is fine when shopping, perhaps at John Lewis again, other stores available, but dating should be like entering an exotic bazaar with all kinds of shiny and fascinating

trinkets. And another one, oh Lordy, where do you start? Men, I find, are useless on dating apps. Men holding big fish, big flipping deal. Men who write, ask me anything in their biog, flipping lazy. Men who look like they should be on Crimewatch, they're the ones who want a supermodel girlfriend and so many more. Best wishes, Lynn. Excellent. Absolutely. She absolutely nails it. I like, one

guy once said, what was it? I want an older woman who's rich with a heart condition. I mean, yeah, swoon. Thanks Casanova. So yeah, I think up your game, lads. That would be my message to the men out there on Dating Game. Caitlin and Helen talking to Emma there and loads of you continue to get in touch with your beige flags.

Here are just a few. No drama is a beige flag to me. Having their graduation photo as their first photo. Oh, that's a definite no-no. Manholding fish. Hmm. Hobbies include Netflix. Typical Sunday includes a hike followed by a roast.

Agree with most of those. However, the last one, who doesn't love a hike followed by a roast? Finally, this email from Chris that demonstrates it's not just men. I am sick and tired of seeing women posting photos of their dogs alongside their own. And in some cases, there are even more photos of the dogs than themselves. Well, as a dog owner myself, Chris,

I'm just going to take a sharp intake of breath and leave it at that. That's it from me. Don't forget to join Woman's Hour from 10am on Monday morning. Emma Barnett will have a specially selected cost of living panel to take us through the latest changes. It includes a financial journalist, a business owner and the head of citizens advice in Gateshead. So if you have any questions, get ready with them. That's Monday from 10am. Enjoy the rest of your weekend. I'm Sarah Trelevan, 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. Available now.