The Shift with Sam Baker

This episode first aired last autumn, but I'm replaying it now because last week Lyse won The Women's Prize for Non-Fiction for her remarkable people's history of Afghanistan, The Finest Hotel in Kabul...

My guest today is the BBC’s Chief International Correspondent, Lyse Doucet.

Since starting work at the corporation almost forty years ago, Lyse has covered all the major wars in the Middle East, reporting from Afghanistan Iraq Iran Jordan Israel Pakistan Egypt Libya and most recently Gaza. And that’s before we get started on the rest of the world. Sudan. The tsunami in Indonesia. And you may well remember her reporting on the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 from a rooftop in Kyiv.

When we spoke Lyse had recently made it back to Canada via the Egypt/Gaza border, before heading to the UK to promote her first book, The Finest Hotel in Kabul, a quietly devastating, utterly humane look at a history of the people of Afghanistan, told through the staff of the Intercontinental in Kabul where Lyse has been staying since 1988. When she first checked in, the day after her 30th birthday, the man on reception asked her how long she’d be staying, she guessed six weeks… she’s been there on and off ever since.

Lyse joined me for a fascinating free range conversation about her extraordinary life and career. We talked about finding her north star, why gender is irrelevant when it comes to reporting war, what nobody tells you about kindness, the moment she realised her job was going to come first in her life, the power and importance of female friendship in a war zone and why even sometimes reporters have to look away.

* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including The Finest Hotel in Kabul by Lyse Doucet as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by Sam Baker.

* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

• The Shift is created, hosted and produced by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Audio Productions.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

My guest today is the woman who put Cleanse & Polish cleanser and muslin cloths in bathroom cabinets all over the country, Liz Earle.

Back in the 1980s, Liz started her career as a beauty editor, before going on to found a skincare empire that started with the aforementioned Cleanse & Polish - and grew beyond her wildest expectations. 

In her own words, she then spent 15 years ‘travelling the world selling face cream’.

Then a period of intense personal upheaval in her 40s led to a total rethink. She was one of the first women in the public eye to challenge the narrative on menopause (or in fact talk about it at all) and is now a trusted authority on wellbeing. 

Her last book, A Better second half topped the Sunday Times bestseller lists and now she’s followed that up with How To Age, an authoritative look at the science of ageing and how to do it better. And there is no better advert for the art of ageing well than Liz herself. Who is now 63 but has a biological age of - wait for it - 39.

Liz joined me to discuss Surviving her 40s shitshow and How learning about Mitochondria changed her approach to her health, why sunlight gets a bad rap and why biohacking isn’t just for techbros. We also discussed HRT, the supplements you really do need and, hello research community! Women are not just small men!

* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including How To Age by Liz Earle as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by Sam Baker.

* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

• The Shift is created, hosted and produced by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Audio Productions.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

My guest this week is a historian columnist television presenter and vocal advocate for better sex for women!

I first encountered Dr Kate Lister when I stumbled across her brilliant instagram account @whoresofyore, along with half a million others. 

In a world where even back in the late 20-teens where we thought the work was, if not done, then at least going in the right direction - laughs hollowly - it was still radical for someone to stand up and say that women demanding better sex didn’t arrive with the 21st century. It has, as Kate has dedicated her life to proving, been a very long fight indeed.

Kate is the host of the award winning history podcast Betwixt The Sheets, she writes a weekly column in i-news and has appeared on countless history programmes including House Through Time and Victorian Murder Club with Lucy Worsley.

Kate’s brilliant new book Flick - a history of female pleasure - takes us from Mesopotamia to trad wives by way of orgasms, oral sex, masturbation, frigidity, sexual fluidity and much more. It is a 300 page battle cry against the idea that when it comes to sex women want to just ‘lie back and think of England’

Kate joined me to talk about sex as the great leveller, slut shaming, virginity and how sex has been used for millennia to control women. We also discussed her perimenopausal period hell, why midlife women could benefit from pleasure education, the price of doing all the emotional labour in the bedroom and why she wouldn’t recommend putting vaginal oestrogen cream on your face!

* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including Flick by Dr Kate Lister as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by Sam Baker.

* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

• The Shift is created, hosted and produced by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Audio Productions.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

My guest this week is Maria Semple the author of one of my favourite books of all time, Where’d you go bernadette,.

Once encountered, Bernadette Fox is never forgotten. I wasn’t alone, Bernadette was translated into 40 languages, sold over 200k copies in the UK alone, was shortlisted for the Women’s Prize and was made into a movie starring Cate Blanchett.

Maria, who was previously a TV writer for Saturday Night Live and Arrested Development, amongst others, has written two other novels, and is now back with a fourth, Go Gentle. Already an Oprah Bookclub pick, it’s A story of midlife transformation, mothers, daughters, art theft, stoicism and Upper West side covens! Yes, you heard that right.

Like all her books, Go Gentle is stuffed full of home truths and big ideas, and it’s riotously snortingly funny. 

I met Maria on a flying visit to the UK at her publisher’s office overlooking the thames to talk about midlife’s dirty little secret, the freedom she found post-divorce, the joy of not having to ask permission and doing a geographical. We also discussed why midlife is a time of metabolisation (is that a word?) How stoicism kept her sane when her coping mechanisms packed up and why her favourite company is other women.

* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including Go Gentle by Maria Semple as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by Sam Baker.

* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

• The Shift is created, hosted and produced by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Audio Productions.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today’s episode will take you ricocheting back to the 90s - in all the ways.

Canadian singer, songwriter, photographer and producer Melissa Auf der Maur is best known as the bassist of Hole throughout the  mid/late 90s, and consequently had a front row seat at the pillorying of Hole’s legendary front woman Courtney Love. As she puts it, ‘I watched society burn a woman at the stake’.

For a few years, she was at the heart of two of the era’s biggest bands - moving from Hole to the Smashing Pumpkins - before releasing several solo albums. In 2007 she was named one of the 100 Greatest women in rock and roll, then she stepped away from the music scene when she had her daughter. 

It’s those years, the ‘fever dream of the 90s’ that Melissa revisits in her memoir, Even The Good Girls Will Cry - which takes us on a journey through the good, the bad and the ugly of what it meant to be a woman making music in the 90s. It will take you back, it will give you chills. It will make you cringe, it will make you rage.

Melissa joined me from upstate new york to talk about her big midlife resurrection. what it cost to revisit those years of glamour and destruction, falling back in love with music in her 50s, discovering her redhead superpower, being an annoying mother, re-establishing joyful sisterhood with Courtney and reclaiming the innocence of the girl who started it all. As Melissa puts it, The Shift is real!

* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, including Even The Good Girls Will Cry by Melissa Auf der Maur as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by Sam Baker.

* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

• The Shift is created, hosted and produced by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Audio Productions.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices