Always Take Notes

Simon and Rachel speak with Jay Rayner, the restaurant critic of the Observer. After studying politics at Leeds University, where he edited the student newspaper, Jay entered national newspaper journalism, winning Young Journalist of the Year at the British Press Awards in 1992. The restaurant critic of the Observer since 1999, Jay has also worked extensively in television, including as a judge on Masterchef, and written several books. Jay talked about how, in his view, there is no such thing as “food writing” (just writing that happens to be about food), his lesser-known stint as a novelist and his celebrated hatchet job on Le Cinq, a Michelin-starred restaurant in Paris. You can find us online at alwaystakenotes.com, on Twitter @takenotesalways, and on Facebook at facebook.com/alwaystakenotes. Our crowdfunding page is patreon.com/alwaystakenotes. Always Take Notes is presented by Simon Akam and Rachel Lloyd and produced by Nicola Kean. Our social media is managed by Eoin Redahan, our music is by Jessica Da

2020 sees a new co-host join Always Take Notes - Rachel Lloyd, assistant editor for Books and Arts at The Economist. In this episode Simon and Rachel speak with Alexandra Pringle, the editor-in-chief of Bloomsbury Publishing. Alexandra began her career at Art Monthly, before joining the pioneering feminist press Virago in 1978, where she edited the Modern Classics series before becoming editorial director. After stints at Hamish Hamilton and as a literary agent, Alexandra joined Bloomsbury in 1999. Alexandra talked about the importance of finding the right agent, how the industry has changed over the course of her career and the impact of Pottermania on Bloomsbury.  You can find us online at alwaystakenotes.com, on Twitter @takenotesalways, and on Facebook at facebook.com/alwaystakenotes. Our crowdfunding page is patreon.com/alwaystakenotes. Always Take Notes is presented by Simon Akam and Rachel Lloyd and produced by Nicola Kean. Our social media is managed by Eoin Redahan, our music is by Jessica Dannheiss

Simon and Eleanor speak with Charles Moore, who was handpicked by Margaret Thatcher to write her authorised biography – he has just published his third and final volume, Herself Alone. Prior to writing about Mrs Thatcher, Charles was editor of the Spectator between 1984 and 1990, and editor of the Daily Telegraph between 1995 and 2003. Charles spoke about editing Boris Johnson's copy, his one journalistic regret, and his heated tête-à-têtes with Margaret Thatcher. You can find us online at alwaystakenotes.com, on Twitter @takenotesalways, and on Facebook at facebook.com/alwaystakenotes. Our crowdfunding page is patreon.com/alwaystakenotes. Always Take Notes is presented by Eleanor Halls and Simon Akam, and produced by Nicola Kean. Our music is by Jessica Dannheisser and our logo was designed by James Edgar. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Simon speaks with freelance journalist Tanya Gold, who has written for a broad range of publications in both the UK and the US. Tanya discussed her investigation into anti-semitism in the Labour Party for the American magazine Harper's, her experience at the centre of a Twitter storm earlier this year after she criticised Nike's plus-sized mannequins, her decision 15 years ago to first write about her struggles with alcohol, and her plans for a potential book on that subject. https://harpers.org/archive/2018/10/among-britains-anti-semites/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/life/obese-mannequins-selling-women-dangerous-lie/ https://www.theguardian.com/global/2019/sep/22/how-to-survive-a-twitter-storm-tanya-gold-fat-shaming https://www.theguardian.com/society/2004/jul/07/drugsandalcohol You can find us online at alwaystakenotes.com, on Twitter @takenotesalways, and on Facebook at facebook.com/alwaystakenotes. Our crowdfunding page is patreon.com/alwaystakenotes. Always Take Notes is presented by Eleanor H

In this episode, Eleanor spoke with The Telegraph's chief film critic Robbie Collin, who joined the paper in 2011. Robbie discussed starting his career at News of the World and his most formative films, the difficulties of seeing so many films in one week, his trickiest interviews, and his infamous encounter with actor Joaquin Phoenix. You can find us online at alwaystakenotes.com, on Twitter @takenotesalways, and on Facebook at facebook.com/alwaystakenotes. Our crowdfunding page is patreon.com/alwaystakenotes. Always Take Notes is presented by Eleanor Halls and Simon Akam, and produced by Nicola Kean. Our music is by Jessica Dannheisser and our logo was designed by James Edgar. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In this episode, Eleanor spoke with editor-in-chief of ES Magazine Laura Weir, who after a stint at Elle and The Sunday Times, was headhunted from Vogue in 2016 to head up the redesign of the weekly magazine published by London's Evening Standard newspaper. Laura discussed the new direction in which she has taken ES Magazine, what makes a quintessential ES Magazine story, the difficulties that come with writing a weekly column, and the problem with today's pitching standards. You can find us online at alwaystakenotes.com, on Twitter @takenotesalways, and on Facebook at facebook.com/alwaystakenotes. Our crowdfunding page is patreon.com/alwaystakenotes. Always Take Notes is presented by Eleanor Halls and Simon Akam, and produced by Nicola Kean. Our music is by Jessica Dannheisser and our logo was designed by James Edgar. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Simon and Eleanor speak with Simon Robinson, global managing editor at Thomson Reuters. Simon joined the news service in 2010 and ran investigations and enterprise reporting in Europe, Middle East and Africa for six years, editing major series on Iran, Russia and migration. Between 2017 and 2019 he was regional editor for EMEA, running Reuters' biggest region. Between 1995 and 2010, Simon was a correspondent and then editor for Time magazine, reporting from more than 50 countries. Simon spoke about what the work of a newswire involves and how it has changed, his own career progression from starting out in Australia to foreign correspondency, and the changing aspirations of the journalists he manages. You can find us online at alwaystakenotes.com, on Twitter @takenotesalways, and on Facebook at facebook.com/alwaystakenotes. Our crowdfunding page is patreon.com/alwaystakenotes. Always Take Notes is presented by Eleanor Halls and Simon Akam, and produced by Nicola Kean. Our music is by Jessica Dannheisser and o

Simon speaks with Anna Davis, founder and director of Curtis Brown's creative writing school, which launched in 2011. Anna worked for Curtis Brown for more than a decade as a literary agent before setting up Curtis Brown Creative. Previously she was a lecturer on Manchester University’s MA in novel writing. She is also a former Guardian columnist, and the author of five novels, published around the world in 20 languages: The Dinner, Melting, Cheet, The Shoe Queen and, most recently, The Jewel Box. Anna talked to Simon about how Curtis Brown Creative differs to university writing courses, her entry into the publishing world and how to write a novel. You can find us online at alwaystakenotes.com, on Twitter @takenotesalways, and on Facebook at facebook.com/alwaystakenotes. Our crowdfunding page is patreon.com/alwaystakenotes. Always Take Notes is presented by Eleanor Halls and Simon Akam, and produced by Nicola Kean. Our music is by Jessica Dannheisser and our logo was designed by James Edgar. Learn more about

Simon speaks with Ferdinand Addis, the author of Rome: Eternal City, a narrative history of Rome which spans 3,000 years over some 650 pages. Ferdinand read Classics at university before embarking on a career as a journalist and author. He wrote three short books for the publisher Michael O'Mara before moving on to his epic biography of Rome, which was published last year. He is now working on a history of Roman Britain. Ferdinand spoke about the origins of his interest in Rome, gave a robust defence of the classics, and discussed whether ‘popular historian’ is a useful term. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Rome-Eternal-City-Ferdinand-Addis/dp/1781851883 You can find us online at alwaystakenotes.com, on Twitter @takenotesalways, and on Facebook at facebook.com/alwaystakenotes. Our crowdfunding page is patreon.com/alwaystakenotes. Always Take Notes is presented by Eleanor Halls and Simon Akam, and produced by Nicola Kean. Our music is by Jessica Dannheisser and our logo was designed by James Edgar. Learn more ab

Simon speaks with Canadian magazine writer May Jeong, who spent five years reporting on Afghanistan, and is best known for her months-long investigation in to the bombing of the Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) hospital in Kunduz for The Intercept. This story won her the 2017 South Asian Journalists Association’s Daniel Pearl Award for Outstanding Report on South Asia, as well as the Prix Bayeux Calvados Award for War Correspondents in the Young Reporter category. May's work has also appeared in other publications including the New York Times, Harper's and the London Review of Books. In this episode, May talked about why she decided to cover conflict, her preference for magazine over newspaper journalism, and her latest venture into writing fiction. You can find us online at alwaystakenotes.com, on Twitter @takenotesalways, and on Facebook at facebook.com/alwaystakenotes. Our crowdfunding page is patreon.com/alwaystakenotes. Always Take Notes is presented by Eleanor Halls and Simon Akam, and produced by Nicola

Simon speaks with Jeffrey Archer, a novelist whose books have sold more than 275 million copies worldwide. Archer wrote his first novel aged 34, when a failed business deal left him heavy in debt. His third novel, Kane and Abel, sold over a million copies in its first week of release in 1979. He has now written more than 20 novels, alongside short stories, a play and non-fiction, and is published in 97 countries and more than 33 languages. Archer was deputy chairman of the Conservative Party in the 1980s and in 1999 stood as the  Conservative candidate for mayor of London. In November that year, he withdrew his candidacy, having been charged with perjury and conspiracy to pervert the course of justice. He served two years in prison. Archer spoke about the experience of life as a best-selling author, how he combines a rigorous writing routine with lack of pre-planning of plot, and his relationships with publishers and editors. You can find us online at alwaystakenotes.com, on Twitter @takenotesalways, and on

Eleanor and Simon speak with Zahra Hankir, journalist and editor of Our Women on the Ground, an anthology of essays from Arab women reporting from the Arab world, published this month by Penguin. Zahra spoke about her personal connection as an Arab woman to these journalists, their stories and their work. She discussed the difficulties of compiling and editing an anthology broaching delicate political topics that could prove dangerous to their writers. She also talked about whether she ever worries about feeling professionally pigeonholed by her heritage and "specialist subject". You can find us online at alwaystakenotes.com, on Twitter @takenotesalways, and on Facebook at facebook.com/alwaystakenotes. Our crowdfunding page is patreon.com/alwaystakenotes. Always Take Notes is presented by Eleanor Halls and Simon Akam, and produced by Nicola Kean. Our music is by Jessica Dannheisser and our logo was designed by James Edgar. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Eleanor speaks with Jamie Glazebrook, the executive producer of hit BBC series Peaky Blinders, whose fifth series will air later this year. Peaky Blinders, which has won a slew of television awards, follows the exploits of the eponymous Birmingham-based gang in the years after the First World War. Jamie discussed whether we have reached peak TV, the influence of the streaming giants and whether the TV and film industry still has a class problem. Jamie himself has developed and produced television in the UK since the nineties – working for many leading production companies including Talkback, Tiger Aspect and HatTrick. His credits include The 11'O Clock Show, High Spirits with Shirley Ghostman, and BAFTA-nominated The IT Crowd. You can find us online at alwaystakenotes.com, on Twitter @takenotesalways, and on Facebook at facebook.com/alwaystakenotes. Our crowdfunding page is patreon.com/alwaystakenotes. Always Take Notes is presented by Eleanor Halls and Simon Akam, and produced by Nicola Kean. Our music is b

Eleanor and Simon speak with Ruth Padel, who is a poet, novelist, critic and Professor of Poetry at King’s College London. Ruth spoke about her verse biography of her great-great-grandfather Charles Darwin, as well as her upcoming verse biography of Beethoven, Beethoven Variations. Ruth also discussed her brief tenure as Professor of Poetry at Oxford in 2009, and her view on the new generation of Instagram poets. You can find us online at alwaystakenotes.com, on Twitter @takenotesalways, and on Facebook at facebook.com/alwaystakenotes. Our crowdfunding page is patreon.com/alwaystakenotes. Always Take Notes is presented by Eleanor Halls and Simon Akam, and produced by Nicola Kean. Zahra Hankir is our communities editor. Our music is by Jessica Dannheisser and our logo was designed by James Edgar. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Simon speaks to James Graham, one of Britain's best known contemporary playwrights who has also written widely for film and television. James' first award was the Pearson Playwriting Bursary in 2006. His big break came when his 2012 play This House, written for the National Theatre and set in the British parliament in the 1970s, enjoyed a sell out run and garnered widespread critical acclaim. His subsequent work includes the 2017 play Ink, about the early days of Rupert Murdoch, and this year's film Brexit: An Uncivil War, which was broadcast on Channel 4 and HBO and starred Benedict Cumberbatch. James spoke about how he broke into writing for the theatre and later television, his methods for researching and creating drama based on both recent and historical political events, and the economics of the business. You can find us online at alwaystakenotes.com, on Twitter @takenotesalways, and on Facebook at facebook.com/alwaystakenotes. Our crowdfunding page is patreon.com/alwaystakenotes. Always Take Notes is p

Simon speaks to Christina Lamb, one of Britain’s leading foreign correspondents who has documented conflict across the world, from Afghanistan to Rwanda. Currently chief foreign correspondent for the Sunday Times, Christina discussed balancing her war reporting duties with her work as an author, including writing I Am Malala and her most recent book Our Bodies, Their Battlefields, about women in war. She also talked about getting arrested and deported in Pakistan while reporting for the Financial Times, and the impact her work has had on her mental health. http://christinalamb.net/articles/it-was-what-we-feared.html http://christinalamb.net/articles/yazidis.html You can find us online at alwaystakenotes.com, on Twitter @takenotesalways, and on Facebook at facebook.com/alwaystakenotes. Our crowdfunding page is patreon.com/alwaystakenotes. Always Take Notes is presented by Eleanor Halls and Simon Akam, and produced by Nicola Kean. Zahra Hankir is our communities editor. Our music is by Jessica Dannheisser an

Simon and Eleanor speak to Jon Lee Anderson, a staff writer at the New Yorker magazine and veteran war correspondent. Jon Lee began his career in the early 1980s, reporting on Central America. As a New Yorker staff writer since 1998, he has reported from Syria, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Somalia, Liberia and many other countries. Jon Lee spoke about about the myths and realities of conflict journalism, the time he discovered the hidden grave of Marxist revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara, and the experience of profiling Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1998/10/19/the-dictator-2 https://www.amazon.co.uk/Che-Guevara-Revolutionary-Jon-Anderson/dp/0553406647 You can find us online at alwaystakenotes.com, on Twitter @takenotesalways, and on Facebook at facebook.com/alwaystakenotes. Our crowdfunding page is patreon.com/alwaystakenotes. Always Take Notes is presented by Eleanor Halls and Simon Akam, and produced by Nicola Kean. Zahra Hankir is our communities editor. Ou

Simon speaks with Anna Codrea-Rado, a freelance journalist who has written for titles including the New York Times and Wired, and who now advocates for better conditions for freelancers, through her #FairPayForFreelancers campaign, her popular newsletter The Professional Freelancer, and FJ&Co, a platform that provides tools and resources and organises events. Alongside discussing her campaigning, Anna, who studied journalism at Columbia in New York, talks about the potential pitfalls of journalism degrees, including the way they can contribute to elitism within the industry. She also discusses the pressure she felt to become a "real journalist" while working on an alumni magazine, before she became staff at the Guardian and then VICE, and her own later moves to establish herself as a freelancer. https://twitter.com/annacod?lang=en https://twitter.com/fjandco https://theprofessionalfreelancer.substack.com/ You can find us online at alwaystakenotes.com, on Twitter @takenotesalways, and on Facebook at facebo

Simon and Eleanor speak to British magazine writer Ed Caesar, who was recently made a contributing writer at the New Yorker and whose work has also appeared in the New York Times Magazine, the Atlantic, Wired, GQ and numerous other publications. Ed talked about his early career at the Independent, his decision to go freelance, breaking into the American market and the challenges of balancing his writing work and travel with his domestic commitments. He also discussed why he chooses not to live in London. https://edcaesar.co.uk/2011/05/04/isner-mahut-endless-tennis-gq/ https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/06/01/house-of-secrets https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/13/magazine/uss-wasp-lost-world-war-ii-aircraft-carrier.html You can find us online at alwaystakenotes.com, on Twitter @takenotesalways, and on Facebook at facebook.com/alwaystakenotes. Our crowdfunding page is patreon.com/alwaystakenotes. Always Take Notes is presented by Eleanor Halls and Simon Akam, and produced by Nicola Kean. Zahra Hankir is

Simon and Eleanor speak to Ann Goldstein, who translated Elena Ferrante's phenomenally successful Neapolitan novels (My Brilliant Friend and its three sequels) out of Italian and into English. Ann also had a long and distinguished career as an editor at the New Yorker, where she rose to become head of the copy department. Ann spoke about the process of literary translation, the challenges of working with a writer whose identity she did not know, and also how the world of magazines has changed since she began her working life in the 1970s. You can find us online at alwaystakenotes.com, on Twitter @takenotesalways, and on Facebook at facebook.com/alwaystakenotes. Our crowdfunding page is patreon.com/alwaystakenotes. Always Take Notes is presented by Eleanor Halls and Simon Akam, and produced by Nicola Kean. Zahra Hankir is our communities editor. Our music is by Jessica Dannheisser and our logo was designed by James Edgar. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices