Episodes
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Top barrister Chris Daw QC talks about how more and more people are being incarcerated with tougher sentences. Being tough on crime is a vote winner – it appeals to our primal urges as well as our sense of schadenfreude – there but for the grace of god go I - punish them! But there’s sufficient evidence that such tough sentences and appalling prison conditions in the US and the UK in particular lead to more crime, making the world a less safe place for you and your family.
Thanks to today's sponsor, VPN Express - sign up with a discount on https://vpnexpress.com/edge
Buy Chris' book and subscribe/follow him here:
Chris Daw QC Links:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Justice-Trial-Radical-Solutions-Breaking/dp/1472977882https://www.youtube.com/c/ChrisDawQChttps://twitter.com/crimlawuk
Andrew Gold Links:
http://youtube.com/andrewgold1http://instagram.com/andrewgold_okhttp://twitter.com/andrewgold_okhttp://patreon.com/andrewgoldhttp://andrewgoldpodcast.com -
Gary Cliffe is one of the 800 survivors of child sexual abuse at the hands of former football coach and paedophilic serial offender Barry Bennell. Bennell terrorised children in the late 80s and 90s, while working with the children coming through the youth academies of Manchester City, Crewe Alexandra and later, Stoke City. Despite suspicions and complaints made about Bennell, he was allowed to continue in his depravity, staying at the homes of the children’s families. His actions quickly turned what should have been a dream for young kids looking to become footballers into a nightmare.
Follow Gary on: https://twitter.com/garycliffe1
Andrew Gold Links:
http://youtube.com/andrewgold1http://instagram.com/andrewgold_okhttp://twitter.com/andrewgold_okhttp://patreon.com/andrewgoldhttp://andrewgoldpodcast.com -
Missing episodes?
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Olivia Jackson is one of the most talented and impressive people I’ve had on the show. She is a South African Muay Thai champion, kickboxer and stunt performer who has worked on huge films like Guardians of the Galaxy. But something happened to Olivia back in 2015 that would change everything for her life going forward.
Find Olivia on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/oliviathebandit
Get your free beer on me here: http://beer52.com/edge
Andrew Gold Links:
http://youtube.com/andrewgold1http://instagram.com/andrewgold_okhttp://twitter.com/andrewgold_okhttp://patreon.com/andrewgoldhttp://andrewgoldpodcast.com -
Today, I talk to Professor Sue Black about how she helped to save Bletchley Park, the home of the codebreakers during the Second World War. She tells some fabulous stories about the people who worked there, and also talks about meeting the Queen and Stephen Fry, and her own tough upbringing, before becoming a celebrated professor at the University of Durham.
Sue Black Links:
Buy Saving Bletchley Park: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Saving-Bletchley-Park-socialmedia-codebreakers/dp/1908717920https://twitter.com/Dr_Blackhttps://www.instagram.com/realdrblack/https://www.facebook.com/RealDrBlack
Andrew Gold Links:
http://youtube.com/andrewgold1http://instagram.com/andrewgold_okhttp://twitter.com/andrewgold_okhttp://patreon.com/andrewgoldhttp://andrewgoldpodcast.com -
Meet Coche Inciarte, the most marvellous and loveliest man, who tells me about what it was like to survive a plane crash and live for 72 days in the most awful conditions imaginable. Eventually, he and his friends had to resort to desperate measures. It's a captivating story of human survival.
Thanks to sound recordist and editor Gonzalo Kaplanski for doing the English voice-over. Find his photography and video work here: https://gonkaplanski.myportfolio.com/
And thank you to the book's brilliant translator John Guiver. You can buy his and Coche's book, Memories of the Andes, here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Memories-Andes-Jos%C3%A9-Coche-Inciarte/dp/1913166333
Also thanks very much to Esther Harris at the Bookollective and Katharine Smith at Heddon Publishing for helping to make this happen.
On the Edge with Andrew Gold Links:
http://youtube.com/andrewgold1http://instagram.com/andrewgold_okhttp://twitter.com/andrewgold_okhttp://patreon.com/andrewgoldhttp://andrewgoldpodcast.com -
British journalist Jenny Kleeman - a mix of Louis Theroux and Margaret Atwood - talks to the On the Edge with Andrew Gold podcast about the near-future of sex, food, birth and death, with some startling, worrying and fascinating science.
Get the bonus content on my YouTube and Patreon pages (links below).
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Jenny Kleeman Links:
https://twitter.com/jennykleeman https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sex-Robots-Vegan-Meat-Adventures/dp/1509894888
On the Edge with Andrew Gold Links:
http://youtube.com/andrewgold1http://instagram.com/andrewgold_okhttp://twitter.com/andrewgold_okhttp://patreon.com/andrewgoldhttp://andrewgoldpodcast.com -
This episode with Philip Nitschke (Dr. Death) is really controversial, because it's with the first doctor to perform an assisted suicide in Australia. He has some interesting things to say, but listener discretion is advised.
Get the bonus content on my YouTube and Patreon pages (links below).
Thanks to the episode's sponsor, the language-learning app Babbel. Sign up using my promo code of EDGE on http://babbel.co.uk/play.
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Philip Nitschke Links:
https://twitter.com/philipnitschke https://www.exitinternational.net/
Andrew Links:http://youtube.com/andrewgold1http://instagram.com/andrewgold_okhttp://twitter.com/andrewgold_okhttp://patreon.com/andrewgoldhttp://andrewgoldpodcast.com -
I asked self-confessed psychopath M.E. Thomas (Confessions of a Sociopath) to celebrate my 50th episode with me. Things get heated!
Thanks to the episode's sponsor, the language-learning app Babbel. Sign up using my promo code of EDGE on http://babbel.co.uk/play.
ME Thomas Links:
Psychopathy Is YouTube videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbzIdxoEI7Y&ab_channel=PsychopathyIsTwitter: https://twitter.com/sociopathworldConfessions of a Sociopath: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0307956644/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN
Andrew Links:
http://youtube.com/andrewgold1http://instagram.com/andrewgold_okhttp://twitter.com/andrewgold_okhttp://patreon.com/andrewgoldhttp://andrewgoldpodcast.com -
Madeleine Black told her story in her book Unbroken, which is now also a podcast. At just 13, she was led drunk to a bedroom in a vacant flat in London by two American 17-year-olds, who raped her.
Thanks to the episode's sponsor, the language-learning app Babbel. Sign up using my promo code of EDGE on http://babbel.co.uk/play.
Madeleine Links:
Unbroken Podcast: https://podfollow.com/1534721507Unbroken Book: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Unbroken-Journey-Shattered-Violence-Survival/dp/1786062763https://twitter.com/madblack65https://instagram.com/madblack65
Andrew Links:
http://youtube.com/andrewgold1http://instagram.com/andrewgold_okhttp://twitter.com/andrewgold_okhttp://patreon.com/andrewgoldhttp://andrewgoldpodcast.com -
Naama Kates is an actress and musician best known for her work with extremists and incels. An incel is an involuntary celibate: men who feel they're physically or mentally too unattractive for women. While many of these men are depressed or lonely, when they come together through online communities, things can get toxic.
Naama Links:
Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/incel/id1469915971
https://twitter.com/naamakates
Andrew Links:
http://youtube.com/andrewgold1
http://instagram.com/andrewgold_ok
http://twitter.com/andrewgold_ok
http://patreon.com/andrewgold
http://andrewgoldpodcast.com
Thanks to the episode's sponsor, the language-learning app Babbel. Sign up using my promo code of EDGE on http://babbel.co.uk/play. -
Today, I’m talking to Telegraph journalist Cara McGoogan, the host and journalist behind acclaimed podcast Bed of Lies.
[By the way, join me in an old 90's-style chat room Thursday 8pm GMT (it's free, and you don't have to sign up): https://discord.gg/RWH7fs6ygb] The series follows the lives of several fairly innocuous and harmless Left-Wing activists in the 80s, 90s and 2000s who fell in love, married and, on occasion, had children with men they had met on the activist scene. They would then go together to marches and rallies against things like animal cruelty or climate change, and other typically socially Leftist causes. It later emerged that the men they had met were undercover police agents acting as spies. Imagine finding out that the love of your life, the father of your children and the person you trusted more than anyone else in the world – that’s all one person by the way, not three - had been living a lie.
Cara Links:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/cjmcgoogan
Telegraph Page: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/authors/cara-mcgoogan/
Bed of Lies: https://podfollow.com/1537575625
Andrew Links:
http://youtube.com/andrewgold1
http://instagram.com/andrewgold_ok
http://twitter.com/andrewgold_ok
http://patreon.com/andrewgold
http://andrewgoldpodcast.com Cara talks to me about her investigation and how it got started, what it was like for these women to have the rug pulled out from under them, having to start again alone. We look at a few individual stories, and chat about the police officers and their motivations in ruining the lives of these women. They spent years pretending to support Left-Wing causes, but had actually been secretly laughing at their partners’ views for years and reporting back to the police. We look at the nature of secret-keeping and what that can do to a person, and hear about how some agents came down with PTSD. We talk about literature a bit and the kind of books, like Russian literature, where there are so many names and nicknames and it’s hard to keep track of the characters. That happens at times in the podcast too - but Cara is very good at reminding us who is who - and the stories are enough to give us an overall sense of what happened to many different women over a number of years. More Cara facts – she is currently writing a coming of age love story about a couple torn apart by depression and addiction, set in the hedonistic world of music. She also has a new podcast about secrets and corruption set to come out later in the year. -
Hey, are you ready for part 2 of my super long interview with the glorious Sadia Hameed. If you haven’t yet heard part 1, it was just a couple of weeks ago, when Sadia told us about how social services in the UK actually helped her family to kidnap her when she was 15, and move her to Pakistan, where they starved and tortured her. They suspected her of sleeping with a white man. She later became a spokesperson for the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain, although she is no longer involved with them, instead working with cases of domestic abuse.
Join us free in the chat room on Thursday at 8pm UK time. You don't have to sign up or download anything - and can use a fake name if you want, to hurl abuse at me! ;) : https://discord.gg/RWH7fs6ygb
Sadia Links
https://twitter.com/sadia936
http://instagram.com/sadia936
Four Freedoms YouTube
Andrew Links
http://youtube.com/andrewgold1
http://instagram.com/andrewgold_ok
http://twitter.com/andrewgold_ok
http://patreon.com/andrewgold
http://andrewgoldpodcast.com This second part is very different. She continues talking a little about her personal situation, and the men who demanded their feet be washed by their wives or sisters…and she speaks beautifully about her long-term partner Jack and a woman called Linda who wanted to adopt her as an adult. After the horrors of the previous episode, it’s a relief to be able to discuss the lights of her life. We then go on to chat about a lot of different things. Having discovered who she is outside of her religious upbringing, Sadia has become worn out by some of the identity politics going on today, and speaks passionately about everything from feminism to trans movements…and she’s got some controversial opinions to share, including the notion that Pakistan has a high rate of trans because parents are so scared of having a gay child. When she criticises some trans people, I hope it’s not lost on any listeners that she first makes an impassioned defence of the majority of trans people who have suffered incalculable harm and, as she says, need and deserve all our support. Only after making that point, does she go on to critique what she perceives to be a faction of people who use their attained victimhood attack and silence others. -
Today I’ve got one of the smartest and most interesting people I’ve ever met on the podcast in the form of Jesse Morton, a former jihadist who now counters violent extremism with his organisation Parallel Networks. Jesse has done some pretty terrible things – he was a Far-Left extremist who became the most prominent white American Jihadist and a recruiter for al-Qaeda. He was also responsible for threatening the South Park creators and forcing them at the last minute to censor their image of the Prophet.
Jesse Links:
https://twitter.com/_jessemorton
https://twitter.com/lighttuponlight
http://pnetworks.org/
Andrew Gold Links:
http://twitter.com/andrewgold_ok
http://instagram.com/andrewgold_ok
http://patreon.com/andrewgold
http://andrewgold.me I was going to put this out earlier, but thought it was a perfect follow-up to last week’s episode with David Robson on the The Intelligence Trap, because Jesse is an example of how an incredibly clever person can make huge mistakes. Of course, we are all part the sum of our experiences, and Jesse was abused by his mother as a child. Jesse talks about how a history of childhood trauma and a victim mentality can be a dangerous thing. Jesse earlier spent time in prison and was in solitary confinement for a year, while reading up in the library on all sorts of fundamentalist material that strengthened his convictions. He has such a long and rich story, so at times, I just wanted to sit back and listen, occasionally steering the conversation this way or that. He’s an intense and cerebral man, and talks with absolute honesty about what he did and why he did it. Takes us into the life of a street preacher and a jihadi whose bomb designs were used by terrorists at the Boston Marathon. It may suit our ideology of good and bad to think of terrorists as either stupid or morally bankrupt, but Jesse talks about the far more nuanced and intricate traits and at play. Those who are highly intelligent but very unsuccessful, he says, try to tear down the world as it is, and rebuild it to suit their talents or purposes, a world where ‘everybody recognises my greatness’. His work focuses on getting inside the minds of the top extremists, and denouncing violence to them. To understand everything about Jesse, we’ll start with his early life and family, before moving onto his beliefs and his work. -
Science writer David Robson talks about his book, The Intelligence Trap. It’s a brilliantly written and researched book about how the cleverest people in the world…are often the ones who make the biggest mistakes. Which is why I never make any errors!
Join me on at 8pm GMT Thursday 18th March 2021 in a free chat room (no sign up etc needed!): https://discord.gg/RWH7fs6ygb
David Robson Links:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-robson-5761791b
twitter.com/d_a_robson
Buy The Intelligence Traphttps://davidrobson.me/
Andrew Gold Links:
http://twitter.com/andrewgold_ok
http://instagram.com/andrewgold_ok
http://patreon.com/andrewgold
http://andrewgold.me
I really learned a lot from the book. It seems that the more intelligent among us – if we define intelligence by IQ and proficiency in certain subjects – are so smart that they’re able to create convincing arguments as to why their beliefs must be correct. It's why some clever people are proponents of flat earth theory, astrology or just basic religious beliefs. David tells some fascinating stories about Einstein and Sherlock writer Arthur Conan Doyle, and talks about how we can focus more on things like wisdom and curiosity to prevent the intelligence trap. We speak about how to argue with someone who has opposing views to us without getting heated or emotional. We look at examining our own cognitive biases, chat about the grisly end to the life of Socrates and think about the pictures of fairies with drawing pins in their navels that Arthur Conan Doyle mistook – using his famed powers of deduction – for belly buttons – showing fairies are born and give birth. David studied maths at Cambridge University, and has written for the BBC, New Scientist, The Atlantic and many other top publications. His book has been acclaimed, and when I mentioned it on Twitter the other day, one of my favourite writers, Will Storr, tweeted his own admiration for it. -
Join us at 7pm on Thursday March 11th 2021 here (it's free, and you don't have to sign up): https://discord.gg/RWH7fs6ygb
Today, I’m speaking with Sadia Hameed, a former spokesperson for the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain who has a quite remarkable story to tell. She holds some strong and damning views, and has a knack for getting them across in a way that is both persuasive and, often, comical. Having grown up in England, Sadia was tricked in her teens into moving to Pakistan, where she was abused, starved and tortured, while her family out there tried to work out whether she had slept with a white man.
Sadia Links
https://twitter.com/sadia936
http://instagram.com/sadia936
Four Freedoms YouTube
Andrew Links
http://youtube.com/andrewgold1
http://instagram.com/andrewgold_ok
http://twitter.com/andrewgold_ok
http://patreon.com/andrewgold
http://andrewgoldpodcast.com
Sadia isn’t just the sum of her experiences. She’s also outspoken on issues such as women’s rights and human rights, while, as you might expect, damning of religious extremism, with a particular focus on Islam. She can’t talk too much about the work she does, but it involves domestic abuse that is often hidden in religion’s guise of righteousness. She talks about what it was actually like to be so hungry that she thought she might die, and gives us an insight into the last few decades in the history of the UK’s south Asian immigration. It appears that what angers her more than anything is a recurring theme on this podcast - the refusal of social justice warriors to look in some of the most obvious places.
Like Yasmine Mohammed, who was on the podcast a few weeks ago, Sadia shakes with rage at so-called progressives who appear to move heaven and earth to help a young white girl in trouble; but who think it’s fine for a young brown girl to be tortured, raped and forced to marry. Most shockingly, she tells of a social services translator who actually warned her parents they should lock her up and send her away before she’s of age. We got on so well in fact, that we ended up speaking for hours. So, I’ve done something I’ve never done on the show which is to split this into two parts, this being the first. And the bonus content for Patrons will be at the end of the second one, which will come out in a couple of weeks. -
Come to my old-fashioned chatroom on Thursday at 8pm GMT (noon in California): https://discord.gg/RWH7fs6ygb. It's free and no need to sign up!
Hello, and welcome to another episode of On the Edge with Andrew Gold. Today, I’m talking – well actually I spoke to him a couple of weeks ago – to comedian Andrew Doyle, who has just released his new book Free Speech. It’s a modern manifesto on why free speech is so important, and how even extremely offensive speech should be protected.
Andrew Doyle Links:
https://twitter.com/andrewdoyle_com
https://twitter.com/TitaniaMcGrath
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Free-Speech-Why-Matters/dp/034913538X
Andrew Gold Links:
http://patreon.com/andrewgold
http://twitter.com/andrewgold_okhttp://instagram.com/andrewgold_ok
It’s a really beautifully written essay, which draws on the history of free speech and how it is being eroded from all sides bit by bit. We’re all aware that history seems to go in cycles and you never know when you’re next going to be under some sort of authoritarian regime. According to Andrew, it rarely comes from the place you expect it, and he believes we’re very much at risk right now from the censors on the Left, although he is politically Left himself.
In his book and on the podcast, Andrew speaks of former essays, such as John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty in 1859, and John Milton’s 1644 Areopagitica. Andrew was also a teacher and writers about all sorts of things, but you may know him as both the creator of fictional angry news reporter Jonathan Pie – although he is not the actor who plays him – and fictional twitter profile Titania McGrath. Titania is a fake creation who tweets to parody the beliefs and actions of critical race theorists or virtue signallers. Her Twitter bio reads: Activist. Healer. Radical intersectionalist poet. Nonwhite. Ecosexual. Pronouns: variable. Selfless and brave. Buy my books. Today, we are going to talk mostly about Andrew and his book. On the day I spoke to him, he had just come under a barrage of abuse from his critics, because he had blocked some of them in anticipation of the book. They believed it was ironic for an author a book on free speech to block those who opposed the book – and Andrew countered that, if they believed that, they had a poor understanding of free speech. Part of free speech is not having to listen to someone. We speak about the pressure of getting all that flack all the time on Twitter – people accusing him of absolutely every form of bigotry. I ask him what it’s like to be a gay man being accused so often of homophobia. And we talk freely about free speech. -
Joshua Baker is simply one of the most impressive journalists out there working today.
-- Join me on Discord Chat Room, free and you don't need to sign up, just follow this link at 8pm GMT on Thursday 25th Feb 2021: https://discord.gg/RWH7fs6ygb --
You may know him for his current podcast series with the BBC, I’m Not a Monster, or his related documentary Return from ISIS. The two follow his attempts to track down and understand Samantha, the woman who took her family to live with ISIS in Syria. If you’ve not yet listened to I’m Not a Monster, do give it a go, it’s incredible from the start. Listening to the first episode, I was walking in the snow in Berlin and it was -15C, and I stayed out longer in such extreme conditions, so I could reach the end of the first episode, that’s how riveting it is.
Joshua Links
I'm not a Monster Podcast: https://podfollow.com/1540251892https://www.instagram.com/joshbakerfilmhttps://www.twitter.com/joshbakerfilm
Andrew Links
http://twitter.com/andrewgold_okhttp://instagram.com/andrewgold_okhttp://youtube.com/andrewgold1http://patreon.com/andrewgoldhttp://andrewgoldpodcast.com
It begins by explaining minute by minute what it was like for Joshua to be attacked and bombed by ISIS, fracturing his back in an explosion that destroyed that left nothing of an entire street. Then, we hear audio footage of a young American boy being taught to assemble and use a suicide bomb. The kid explains how he would lure American soldiers by asking for help, before pulling the string.
Now, I didn’t want to go into too much detail, because I want you to be able to listen to this full podcast without real spoilers, and to be able to then fully enjoy I’m Not a Monster afterwards. I was fascinated by Joshua from a journalistic point of view, because the one thing I always said was that I’ll do anything, and I’ve done stuff over the years in dangerous places – but I would never go near ISIS or anyone who might behead me. It’s just not worth the gain, so we talk a lot in this one about his experience literally being blown up by ISIS and surviving by the skin of his teeth – and then what it means to be doing this kind of journalism.
That said, we do talk a bit towards end about the characters in the series, so I’ll give you a little run down without any spoilers, all stuff you know from the beginning of episode one. Sam is an American mother who took her kids to Syria, and wants to come back. She claims she was tricked into going there by her husband Moussa, but Joshua doesn’t entirely trust her, as her story doesn’t always check out. Joshua does track down a woman called Tsuad who was bought as a slave by Sam and Moussa during their time in Syria – and Tsuad speaks nicely about Sam, so I ask Joshua about that at the end.
There is about nine minutes of bonus chat in this episode for patrons – get that on patreon.com/andrewgold. I’ll try to get Josh to come to my weekly Discord chat room event, they’ve been great so far – just find the link in the show notes. -
Justin Brooks is the co-founder of the California Innocence Project, which is a non-profit that is part of the California Western School of Law in San Diego.
Catch me (plus maybe Justin) on Discord on Thursday 11th Feb at 8pm GMT (Noon in California). Here's the link: https://discord.gg/RWH7fs6ygb
Justin Links:
http://twitter.com/justinobrooks
http://instagram.com/justinobrooks
https://www.facebook.com/pages/category/Public-Figure/Justin-Brooks-160642841283018/
http://californiainnocenceproject.org
Andrew Links:
http://twitter.com/andrewgold_ok
http://instagram.com/andrewgold_ok
http://facebook.com/ontheedgewithandrewgold
http://youtube.com/andrewgold1
http://patreon.com/andrewgold - for bonus content!
They do the most remarkable work, which is to provide pro-bono legal services to exonerate wrongly convicted inmates. I can’t think of much worse than being put in prison for decades, no hope of parole, when you didn’t even commit the crime for which you’re there. It’s a horrible thought that in all probability, there are thousands of people in this situation. So, Justin is one of those people I’m so happy exist.
Justin was recently played by actor Greg Kinnear in the movie Brian Banks about its namesake former American footballer who was wrongfully convicted of rape. We talk about the movie and what it was like being shadowed by a famous movie star, as well as some of the heartbreaking cases and the problems with our legal system. We talk as well about the racial inequality in the US, which is an important topic, especially given that this coming Saturday the 20th February is World Day of Social Justice.
I’ve added a little over ten minutes of bonus content for my Patrons. In it, we talk about silly things like accents, and Justin’s family in Derby and Liverpool, as well as some serious stuff relating to race, impartial news channels and some differences between the UK and the US. Find that on Patreon.com/andrewgold. There’s even a teaser for the bonus material in the outro.
See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
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Nikole Mitchell recently made headlines around the world, when she went from being a Baptist pastor to an OnlyFans stripper, often posing nude for her paying subscribers for photos and also helping them with life coaching. Today, she talks to me about what it was like growing up in a religious Southern Baptist community, how she spent many frustrated years celibate, before taking the plunge and waking up as a new convert to the religion of sexy photos.
Come chat to us on Discord on Thursday 11th Feb at 8pm GMT (Noon CA, 3pm NY, 9pm Germany and ... very early in Australia - sorry!). Free to use, so pop by and just say hi, it'll be my first time on it. Here's the link: https://discord.gg/ztymPF4S5G
Nikole Links:
https://www.facebook.com/nikole.s.mitchell/
https://twitter.com/MitchellNikole
https://www.instagram.com/mitchellnikole
Andrew Links:
http://twitter.com/andrewgold_ok
http://instagram.com/andrewgold_ok
http://facebook.com/ontheedgewithandrewgold
I’ve added a new feature to Patreon.com/andrewgold for bonus content, so additional moments that wouldn’t usually make the cut, often as we’re saying hello or goodbye on the Zoom call. Today, I’ll include the small bonus section, it’s only one minute today but will be longer in future episodes. Just so you know what it’ll be like, so stay after the end for that.
See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
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Nimko Ali is on the show today to talk about Female Genital Mutilation or FGM. I planned this episode to appear now, as I saw it’s International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation on February 6th, and it’s something I wanted learn about. I’d often heard about FGM but didn’t actually know all that much about it. Was it a religious custom or a cultural tradition, or simply a barbaric act carried out on girls by some patriarchal groups. It appears to be the latter.
Nimko Links:
Book - What we're told not to talk about: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Rude-There-Such-Thing-Over-Sharing/dp/024129262X
Five Foundation: https://www.thefivefoundation.org/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/NimkoAli
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nimkoali/
Andrew Links:
Patreon.com/andrewgold
twitter.com/andrewgold_ok
instagram.com/andrewgold_ok
facebook.com/ontheedgewithandrewgold
In any case, Nimko is of Somali heritage and was herself cut as a child. She is the co-founder of the Five Foundation, so make sure to get on there and donate, share and support however you can to help to end FGM. She also has a prestigious OBE, was named in the BBC’s 100 Women, won Red Magazine’s Woman of the Year and won the International Women’s Rights Award at the Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy. I read and loved her book What We’re Told Not To Talk About – link in the show notes. Split into categories labelled periods, orgasms, pregnancy and menopause, it collects haunting and inspirational stories from women around the world. It goes into intense and surprisingly vivid, or disgusting, detail, which is one of the book’s strengths, it’s a lot of fun to read and I found myself both laughing and crying.
We discuss what it was like for Nimko to be cut, and how it affects her life today. And although this is a very serious topic, Nimko is able to talk at times with humour. So, we delve into her previous fancy for English football player Michael Owen and her current interest in Conservative politician Jacob Rees-Mogg, who is a bit of a dark horse to say the least. If you get to the end, Nimko tells the men listening how they can get in touch with her to ask her on a date, because she hasn’t been with someone seriously for five years. - Show more