1. Today I turned 40. 2. I sat very near this painting, drink in hand: Female drinker by George Condo 3. And received many excellent cards, messages and notes. I particularly loved the quote on this one. Lunch is where it’s at. Hiccup. #40 #lunch #professionalluncher
1. Today I turned 40. 2. I sat very near this painting, drink in hand: Female drinker by George Condo 3. And received many excellent cards, messages and notes. I particularly loved the quote on this one. Lunch is where it’s at. Hiccup. #40 #lunch #professionalluncher
1. Today I turned 40. 2. I sat very near this painting, drink in hand: Female drinker by George Condo 3. And received many excellent cards, messages and notes. I particularly loved the quote on this one. Lunch is where it’s at. Hiccup. #40 #lunch #professionalluncher
This interview drops tomorrow. It isn’t maternity leave. Not really. It’s service. Maternity Service. Somehow I realised this during the fog of my second tour of duty, that I had fought tooth and nail to experience. And I was weirdly elated. Elated to a) have had an original thought through the sleep deprivation, the love bomb that is our daughter and the relentless abnegation of self. And b) to have snatched the time between naps, feeding, cleaning, doctor visits, nappies and school pick-ups to explore this thought. And write my account of maternity service – live – as it was happening. The result is a book I am really proud (and still rather amazed) exists and lands on shelves on March 13. I have read so many powerful books about motherhood and parenting – esp as host of the mighty @bbcwomanshour – but never one expressly on maternity leave and what actually goes down in this love wilderness: mentally, physically and practically. Maternity service, unlike leave, also never ends. And this framing really helps me dig deep to this day with my mothering of a two and seven year old girl and boy. In the book I also share stories I have already forgotten or unwittingly erased from that period – having already happily let the rose-tinted glasses descend. More to come and to be discussed. But I would bloody love you to pick up a copy via the pre order #linkinbio and to hear your take. Genuinely. Or when it drops next month from your local bookshop if you have one. Rest assured- it’s deliberately short but packs a punch. Here are some parts of the book extract in the @sundaytimesmagazine @thetimes exclusively tomorrow. Big thanks to The Sunday Times for putting maternity leave on the front page. ✍🏼 @laurafpullman 📸 @saneseven 💄 @emmasleon 👖 @kate_barbour #maternity #maternityleave #maternityservice #idea #holdthefrontpage #sundaypaper #sunday #sundaytimes #newbook #bookstagram #preorder #women #newmum #motherhood
This interview drops tomorrow. It isn’t maternity leave. Not really. It’s service. Maternity Service. Somehow I realised this during the fog of my second tour of duty, that I had fought tooth and nail to experience. And I was weirdly elated. Elated to a) have had an original thought through the sleep deprivation, the love bomb that is our daughter and the relentless abnegation of self. And b) to have snatched the time between naps, feeding, cleaning, doctor visits, nappies and school pick-ups to explore this thought. And write my account of maternity service – live – as it was happening. The result is a book I am really proud (and still rather amazed) exists and lands on shelves on March 13. I have read so many powerful books about motherhood and parenting – esp as host of the mighty @bbcwomanshour – but never one expressly on maternity leave and what actually goes down in this love wilderness: mentally, physically and practically. Maternity service, unlike leave, also never ends. And this framing really helps me dig deep to this day with my mothering of a two and seven year old girl and boy. In the book I also share stories I have already forgotten or unwittingly erased from that period – having already happily let the rose-tinted glasses descend. More to come and to be discussed. But I would bloody love you to pick up a copy via the pre order #linkinbio and to hear your take. Genuinely. Or when it drops next month from your local bookshop if you have one. Rest assured- it’s deliberately short but packs a punch. Here are some parts of the book extract in the @sundaytimesmagazine @thetimes exclusively tomorrow. Big thanks to The Sunday Times for putting maternity leave on the front page. ✍🏼 @laurafpullman 📸 @saneseven 💄 @emmasleon 👖 @kate_barbour #maternity #maternityleave #maternityservice #idea #holdthefrontpage #sundaypaper #sunday #sundaytimes #newbook #bookstagram #preorder #women #newmum #motherhood
This interview drops tomorrow. It isn’t maternity leave. Not really. It’s service. Maternity Service. Somehow I realised this during the fog of my second tour of duty, that I had fought tooth and nail to experience. And I was weirdly elated. Elated to a) have had an original thought through the sleep deprivation, the love bomb that is our daughter and the relentless abnegation of self. And b) to have snatched the time between naps, feeding, cleaning, doctor visits, nappies and school pick-ups to explore this thought. And write my account of maternity service – live – as it was happening. The result is a book I am really proud (and still rather amazed) exists and lands on shelves on March 13. I have read so many powerful books about motherhood and parenting – esp as host of the mighty @bbcwomanshour – but never one expressly on maternity leave and what actually goes down in this love wilderness: mentally, physically and practically. Maternity service, unlike leave, also never ends. And this framing really helps me dig deep to this day with my mothering of a two and seven year old girl and boy. In the book I also share stories I have already forgotten or unwittingly erased from that period – having already happily let the rose-tinted glasses descend. More to come and to be discussed. But I would bloody love you to pick up a copy via the pre order #linkinbio and to hear your take. Genuinely. Or when it drops next month from your local bookshop if you have one. Rest assured- it’s deliberately short but packs a punch. Here are some parts of the book extract in the @sundaytimesmagazine @thetimes exclusively tomorrow. Big thanks to The Sunday Times for putting maternity leave on the front page. ✍🏼 @laurafpullman 📸 @saneseven 💄 @emmasleon 👖 @kate_barbour #maternity #maternityleave #maternityservice #idea #holdthefrontpage #sundaypaper #sunday #sundaytimes #newbook #bookstagram #preorder #women #newmum #motherhood
This interview drops tomorrow. It isn’t maternity leave. Not really. It’s service. Maternity Service. Somehow I realised this during the fog of my second tour of duty, that I had fought tooth and nail to experience. And I was weirdly elated. Elated to a) have had an original thought through the sleep deprivation, the love bomb that is our daughter and the relentless abnegation of self. And b) to have snatched the time between naps, feeding, cleaning, doctor visits, nappies and school pick-ups to explore this thought. And write my account of maternity service – live – as it was happening. The result is a book I am really proud (and still rather amazed) exists and lands on shelves on March 13. I have read so many powerful books about motherhood and parenting – esp as host of the mighty @bbcwomanshour – but never one expressly on maternity leave and what actually goes down in this love wilderness: mentally, physically and practically. Maternity service, unlike leave, also never ends. And this framing really helps me dig deep to this day with my mothering of a two and seven year old girl and boy. In the book I also share stories I have already forgotten or unwittingly erased from that period – having already happily let the rose-tinted glasses descend. More to come and to be discussed. But I would bloody love you to pick up a copy via the pre order #linkinbio and to hear your take. Genuinely. Or when it drops next month from your local bookshop if you have one. Rest assured- it’s deliberately short but packs a punch. Here are some parts of the book extract in the @sundaytimesmagazine @thetimes exclusively tomorrow. Big thanks to The Sunday Times for putting maternity leave on the front page. ✍🏼 @laurafpullman 📸 @saneseven 💄 @emmasleon 👖 @kate_barbour #maternity #maternityleave #maternityservice #idea #holdthefrontpage #sundaypaper #sunday #sundaytimes #newbook #bookstagram #preorder #women #newmum #motherhood
“I don’t want to think of myself as associated with somebody like that.” Actor Jesse Eisenberg accuses Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg – who he played in The Social Network – of ‘doing things that are problematic’. Today programme | Listen on BBC Sounds
Peeking out from behind the barnet… it’s only my lovely @bbctodayprogramme co-host for the morning @bbckat – Katya Adler. I knew I’d had a big blow dry last night but the barnet proving a truly excellent curtain in this cheeky selfie. Two tired but happy women at the end of a good radio shift… #soundwomen #radio #studio #behindthescenes #r4today #todayprogramme
Loved this conversation with Jesse Eisenberg. Especially because that’s what it was. A proper conversation. And we talked about what it’s like standing outside of what was your grandparents’ house in Poland, or in Austria in my case, and how you feel, or don’t feel, seeing the place they escaped from during the Nazi era – but millions didn’t. Catch up if you can on today’s episode just after 8.30am on @bbctodayprogramme Oh, and we also talked about Mark Zuckerberg, America and kissing the floor. Not in that order. And no- he’s definitely not on social media. Jesse laughed confirming this – as I double checked with him on the way out of the studio 😜 #jesseeisenberg #arealpain
Exclusive: Jill and Martin Kingston faced a reality no parents should face – their son took his own life in their home after they had enjoyed a perfectly lovely lunch together. They were the ones to find him with a gun near his body, after he suffered a traumatic head wound. Thomas Kingston, the husband of Prince and Princess Michael of Kent’s daughter and the king’s second cousin, Lady Gabriella Windsor, was just 45. His death prompted a warning from a coroner. Today his parents speak for the first time since their son’s death. And they are doing so because they want something to change. Their son, who worked in finance, had been struggling with stress in his job and was prescribed by his GP some sleeping pills and an antidepressant – a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor – known as an SSRI. Tom, as his family refer to him, then returned to the surgery saying they were not making him feel better, and his doctor moved him from sertraline to citalopram, a similar drug. He then stopped taking that one as well. At an inquest, senior coroner Katy Skerrett said Mr Kingston had taken his own life and “was suffering adverse effects of medication he had recently been prescribed.” In a prevention of future deaths report, she said action must be taken over the risk to patients prescribed SSRI medications. And his widow Lady Gabriella said in a statement: “The lack of any evidence of inclination, it seems highly likely to me that he had an adverse reaction to the pills that led him to take his life…If this could happen to Tom, this could happen to anyone.” Current NHS advice says research suggests anti depressants can be helpful for people with moderate or severe depression. You must talk to you doctor before you stop taking anti depressants and it’s important you do not stop taking them suddenly. Jill and Martin are on air now @bbctodayprogramme and catch up at @bbcsounds @bbcradio4 @bbcnews
Exclusive: Jill and Martin Kingston faced a reality no parents should face – their son took his own life in their home after they had enjoyed a perfectly lovely lunch together. They were the ones to find him with a gun near his body, after he suffered a traumatic head wound. Thomas Kingston, the husband of Prince and Princess Michael of Kent’s daughter and the king’s second cousin, Lady Gabriella Windsor, was just 45. His death prompted a warning from a coroner. Today his parents speak for the first time since their son’s death. And they are doing so because they want something to change. Their son, who worked in finance, had been struggling with stress in his job and was prescribed by his GP some sleeping pills and an antidepressant – a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor – known as an SSRI. Tom, as his family refer to him, then returned to the surgery saying they were not making him feel better, and his doctor moved him from sertraline to citalopram, a similar drug. He then stopped taking that one as well. At an inquest, senior coroner Katy Skerrett said Mr Kingston had taken his own life and “was suffering adverse effects of medication he had recently been prescribed.” In a prevention of future deaths report, she said action must be taken over the risk to patients prescribed SSRI medications. And his widow Lady Gabriella said in a statement: “The lack of any evidence of inclination, it seems highly likely to me that he had an adverse reaction to the pills that led him to take his life…If this could happen to Tom, this could happen to anyone.” Current NHS advice says research suggests anti depressants can be helpful for people with moderate or severe depression. You must talk to you doctor before you stop taking anti depressants and it’s important you do not stop taking them suddenly. Jill and Martin are on air now @bbctodayprogramme and catch up at @bbcsounds @bbcradio4 @bbcnews
Exclusive: Jill and Martin Kingston faced a reality no parents should face – their son took his own life in their home after they had enjoyed a perfectly lovely lunch together. They were the ones to find him with a gun near his body, after he suffered a traumatic head wound. Thomas Kingston, the husband of Prince and Princess Michael of Kent’s daughter and the king’s second cousin, Lady Gabriella Windsor, was just 45. His death prompted a warning from a coroner. Today his parents speak for the first time since their son’s death. And they are doing so because they want something to change. Their son, who worked in finance, had been struggling with stress in his job and was prescribed by his GP some sleeping pills and an antidepressant – a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor – known as an SSRI. Tom, as his family refer to him, then returned to the surgery saying they were not making him feel better, and his doctor moved him from sertraline to citalopram, a similar drug. He then stopped taking that one as well. At an inquest, senior coroner Katy Skerrett said Mr Kingston had taken his own life and “was suffering adverse effects of medication he had recently been prescribed.” In a prevention of future deaths report, she said action must be taken over the risk to patients prescribed SSRI medications. And his widow Lady Gabriella said in a statement: “The lack of any evidence of inclination, it seems highly likely to me that he had an adverse reaction to the pills that led him to take his life…If this could happen to Tom, this could happen to anyone.” Current NHS advice says research suggests anti depressants can be helpful for people with moderate or severe depression. You must talk to you doctor before you stop taking anti depressants and it’s important you do not stop taking them suddenly. Jill and Martin are on air now @bbctodayprogramme and catch up at @bbcsounds @bbcradio4 @bbcnews
Exclusive: Jill and Martin Kingston faced a reality no parents should face – their son took his own life in their home after they had enjoyed a perfectly lovely lunch together. They were the ones to find him with a gun near his body, after he suffered a traumatic head wound. Thomas Kingston, the husband of Prince and Princess Michael of Kent’s daughter and the king’s second cousin, Lady Gabriella Windsor, was just 45. His death prompted a warning from a coroner. Today his parents speak for the first time since their son’s death. And they are doing so because they want something to change. Their son, who worked in finance, had been struggling with stress in his job and was prescribed by his GP some sleeping pills and an antidepressant – a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor – known as an SSRI. Tom, as his family refer to him, then returned to the surgery saying they were not making him feel better, and his doctor moved him from sertraline to citalopram, a similar drug. He then stopped taking that one as well. At an inquest, senior coroner Katy Skerrett said Mr Kingston had taken his own life and “was suffering adverse effects of medication he had recently been prescribed.” In a prevention of future deaths report, she said action must be taken over the risk to patients prescribed SSRI medications. And his widow Lady Gabriella said in a statement: “The lack of any evidence of inclination, it seems highly likely to me that he had an adverse reaction to the pills that led him to take his life…If this could happen to Tom, this could happen to anyone.” Current NHS advice says research suggests anti depressants can be helpful for people with moderate or severe depression. You must talk to you doctor before you stop taking anti depressants and it’s important you do not stop taking them suddenly. Jill and Martin are on air now @bbctodayprogramme and catch up at @bbcsounds @bbcradio4 @bbcnews
So many things have changed and yet nothing has changed at all. Taking my home girl @pollypaulettte around London Town today and seeing my boy Big Ben amaze her wonderful daughter – just the way it did me at the same age on a day trip from our home town of Manchester – made me dizzy with happiness, love and nostalgia. I’ve known this woman (but she’ll always be a girl to me) since we were 11 and lived in and out of each other’s homes- renting movies from the local video shop and chatting on the phone all night after a full day at school together. I love her bones and despite her moving to America nearly 20 years ago and us so rarely seeing each other anymore – she’s lost none of that northern soul and droll sense of humour. When we are together – it’s exactly the same as it always was. We just pick right back up. They are the very best type of friends and should be treasured. Paulette is also a talented artist and so it was an extra treat to squeeze in a visit to the exquisite Francis Bacon exhibition at the @nationalportraitgallery – go go go if you can. Totally unique. As was the ambitious outdoor art garden on the embankment. The very best of days with the very best of friends. The effort is always worth it. Memories to forever treasure🙏 #schoolfriends #foreveratourist #london #art #bigben #london #homegirl #manchester #manc #girls #women #friends #friendship #nineties
So many things have changed and yet nothing has changed at all. Taking my home girl @pollypaulettte around London Town today and seeing my boy Big Ben amaze her wonderful daughter – just the way it did me at the same age on a day trip from our home town of Manchester – made me dizzy with happiness, love and nostalgia. I’ve known this woman (but she’ll always be a girl to me) since we were 11 and lived in and out of each other’s homes- renting movies from the local video shop and chatting on the phone all night after a full day at school together. I love her bones and despite her moving to America nearly 20 years ago and us so rarely seeing each other anymore – she’s lost none of that northern soul and droll sense of humour. When we are together – it’s exactly the same as it always was. We just pick right back up. They are the very best type of friends and should be treasured. Paulette is also a talented artist and so it was an extra treat to squeeze in a visit to the exquisite Francis Bacon exhibition at the @nationalportraitgallery – go go go if you can. Totally unique. As was the ambitious outdoor art garden on the embankment. The very best of days with the very best of friends. The effort is always worth it. Memories to forever treasure🙏 #schoolfriends #foreveratourist #london #art #bigben #london #homegirl #manchester #manc #girls #women #friends #friendship #nineties
Today this interview I conducted with Simon Boas, the aid worker who, after receiving a terminal cancer diagnosis, touched many people with his writing on living, was named Interview of the Year on @bbcradio4 This was decided by the most important people I always think of when I am on air: our listeners. It turned out to be Simon’s last broadcast interview. And I will be forever grateful he spared the precious time and energy to talk to me and our @bbctodayprogramme listeners. I had wanted him to come on the programme ever since I started reading his columns about how to live a meaningful life penned in his local paper, the Jersey Evening Post @jepnews . And I was thrilled when he said yes. His words about life moved me and many, many others. I shall remember and treasure our conversation for the rest of my days. When his book, A Beginner’s Guide To Dying, was published posthumously a few months later, I had the pleasure of speaking to Simon’s devoted wife, best friend and by this point, widow, Aurelie. Equally as inspiring but still in the throes of grief, it was also a very special and humane exchange. This week she was informed that @bbcradio4 listeners had voted for this interview to be the network’s interview of the year and was very pleased about it. She had also told me a few months ago, how happy Simon had been to be able to manage to talk to me and our listeners. Wherever you are Simon , thank you 🙏 and for also reminding me of this quote: “The growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.” George Eliot, Middlemarch. Thank you to my diligent and caring producer @catrin_manel 🙏 And thank you to @bbcradio4 listeners for this very lovely #boxingday surprise – which comes at the end of my first six months hosting the @bbctodayprogramme 🙏. It’s been quite the start…. #simonboas #wisdom #life #dying #perspective #gratitude #cancer #death #health #journalism #interview #broadcast
“What does being friendly mean? We’re not mates in a pub. Can you commit to something?” @emmabarnett presses Reform UK leader Nigel Farage on what he would like to see in a relationship between the EU and UK post-Brexit. Today programme | Listen on BBC Sounds
An invitation for you… on International Women’s Day no less. Would you like to join me and the one and only Kirsty Young at the Southbank Centre next month for a Saturday evening I promise you won’t forget? There will be laughter – much of it wry I imagine. And more. Much more. Tickets have just gone on sale and I would love to share this conversation with you. Plus as an interviewer, I am flipping thrilled that Kirsty has agreed to interview me. About the wilderness; the love jungle that is maternity leave and would be much better framed at maternity service – something we shall unpack. I wrote my new book, coming out on March 13, live, during my latest tour of duty on my Maternity Service. I wanted to capture how I felt and the things I thought while living in this parallel universe – before I forgot them once more and rewrote the reality – smoothing out the edges – for good or bad. I wanted to be a faithful correspondent of a time we are programmed not to remember accurately. On the conversational menu: Existential crisis Slipped discs Social desperation Explosive love Explosive nappies Deadening boredom Litter picking fantasies Black polo necks Not necessarily in that order. Just search ‘maternity service’ @southbankcentre and it should come up. And will share link in bio and stories. Hope to see you there 💪 and perhaps bring a woman or man who got you through your maternity leave. (And more non London events coming…I promise). https://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/whats-on/emma-barnett-maternity-service/ #maternityservice #internationalwomensday #maternityleave #babies #motherhood #matrescence @penguinfigtree @penguinukbooks
“I’m really grateful that conversation affected people like that.” @emmabarnett reacts to #R4Today’s interview with aid worker Simon Boas winning Feedback’s interview of the year.
🎄Here’s a VERY special festive message from just a few of the faces behind the microphones at Radio 4!☃️ We hope you have a special holiday season and thank you for helping make BBC Radio 4 the most listened to speech radio station in the UK!
“We need this in weeks.” Met Police commissioner Sir Mark Rowley tells @emmabarnett civil servants have ‘dragged their feet’ over new rules that would allow police to sack alleged rapists and sexual predators from working in the force. Today programme | Listen on BBC Sounds
Hello Florence! A happy member of our colouring crew- who live right across the U.K. and around the world 💪 Merry Christmas to you and all of you kind enough to have bought one of our local colouring books for yourself or someone you love during this festive time. Enjoy and do tag your creations @colouryourstreets – we can’t wait to see and share… 🖍️ 🎄 🖍️ #christmas #christmasgifts #festive #colouringbook #colouring #colourin #local #dulwich #eastdulwich #london #southeastlondon #stocking
We had some time yesterday with the kids…it was cold and miserable outside so we sat down for 2 hours and all had a go at colouring in. Jeremy went for #ealing town hall. It’s not finished yet but he really enjoyed the focus. He hasn’t been able to get the kids to sit still for that long for quite some time – it turns out that joining in the activity fully, helped them engage fully too – they loved doing their colouring…Will share that too. @ealingcouncil @ealinglivingmagazine @ealing.libraries @keep.kids.busy
