FEATURE:
All Right, AllBright
IN THIS PHOTO: Caitlin Moran is a Trouble Club guest in Manchester in February
Highlights from the Last Four Months with The Trouble Club, And What Events Are Ahead
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MY most recent…
PHOTO CREDIT: Alice Lubbock
feature regarding The Trouble Club was back in June. As I always say, you can become a member by applying here. Go and follow The Trouble Club on Instagram, Twitter and TikTok. There is a lot to pack in from the past four months so I will not spotlight and discuss every event. You can check the schedule out here. One of the biggest developments in the past four months is the fact that The Trouble Club’s Director/CEO, Ellie Newton got married! As we head towards the end of the year, there are some exciting events planned and remaining for 2024. A tantalising one for next year. I have made Caitlin Moran the ‘cover star’ as she has been announced as a guest for February. She will be appearing in Manchester. I shall end with that. I want to highlight a few events that I have been to since July. On 18th July, the legendary Helen Lederer appeared at AllBright for a night of conversation and laughs. It was one of the most energetic and exciting events I have been to for The Trouble Club (“From the iconic Absolutely Fabulous, to Bottom, Happy Families, Naked Video, French and Saunders and Girls on Top, Helen will join us to talk about her phenomenal, rollercoaster of a career!”). She was discussing her book, Not That I'm Bitter: A Truly, Madly, Funny Memoir:
“What was it like as one of a handful of women at the heart of the right-on alternative comedy scene in the 1980s? Piece of cake? Bit of a laugh? Well, yes, and no. It had its ups - but also its downs. Helen Lederer was a regular on the stand-up circuit and new-wave sketch shows in the decade that launched the careers of today's comedy household names and national treasures.
She shared stages with comedy pioneers like Ben Elton and John Hegley, and TV screens with Dawn French, Jennifer Saunders, Harry Enfield, and many others. From the iconic Absolutely Fabulous, to Bottom, Happy Families, Naked Video, French and Saunders and Girls on Top, it is difficult to think of a comedy show that Helen wasn't a part of. From writing radio shows, to performing on the West End her wry, witty perspectives, and her face, are unforgettable. So, plain sailing then? Well, not really.
Not That I'm Bitter, her powerful, frank, moving and characteristically funny memoir, reveals exactly how choppy the waters could be. Even in those ground-breaking, anti-Thatcher days, there was only room at top for so many women. For the rest, it was as much a struggle to be seen and heard in the world of comedy as in any boardroom or workplace, and just as difficult to avoid the predators.
This is more than the story of one decade, however. The child of a Jewish-Czech wartime refugee, Helen Lederer was never part of the mainstream. How do you make humour from a lifelong battle against problems with weight and low-self-esteem? Where are the jokes in addictions to diet-pills and steroid injections? How can laughter defeat the darker moments, like a child's anorexia or PTSD? How do you cope with constant self-sabotage and when, despite enormous success, you still feel like a failure? Helen raises an important and open discussion around mental health alongside the evolved attitudes to women today. There's something in Helen Lederer's life-story that everyone, can relate to”.
IN THIS PHOTO: Ellie Newton with Rosie Holt/PHOTO CREDIT: Alice Lubbock
On 22nd July, the wonderful Rosie Holt (M.P.) appeared. Not that she is a real M.P. It was the wonderful comedic persona that was brought to The Groucho Club. This was another funny and hugely enjoyable event. Even though Holt was running slightly late, she more than made up for that with a whirlwind of comedy and reflection on politics in Britain (“Rosie is best known to her >300k followers for her viral internet ‘interviews’ on Twitter in character as a hapless, desperately loyal Conservative MP. Join us for a night of laughter and tears as we look back at many years of Tory leadership with their greatest troll”). Her must-read book, Why We Were Right is one I would recommend to everyone:
“Rosie Holt, the desperate and loyal Tory MP famous for her viral twitter ‘interviews’, is finally here in book form to celebrate the last 14 years of Conservative government and explain to you, the British public, why the so called “scandals” or “controversial” decisions derided by the left were completely right (and intentional) all along. She’ll make Tories of you all yet.
Having flourished as an MP during the reign of Boris and clung on through to Rishi Sunak’s government, via a short and turbulent detour through the brief fever dream of Liz Truss, Rosie – everyone’s favourite MP – will have you cheering and desperate to ensure the Tories rule for another 14 years. Let’s make Britain great again. (Again.)”.
I have not mentioned The Trouble Club’s Marketing & Events Coordinator, Francesca Edmondson. With Ellie Newton, they are an incredible powerful and inspiring partnership who create these events, book the speakers and venues and get the word out. The social media channels always updated and engaging! It is such a task ensuring that the business grows, stays fresh and reaches people. But they are growing! With events happening in Manchester, there is this new base for those who cannot get down to the London events. There is also a team who film the events and look after the sound. Ensuring that everything is as crisp and professional as possible. It is great to see The Trouble Club going from strength to strength! Back on 24th July at AllBright – my personal favourite venue that The Trouble Club hosts -, I was at The Power of Celebrity with Olivia Petter (“Join us as we meet Olivia to discuss her latest book, her phenomenal articles (which cover everything from Bridgerton sex scenes to Paul Mescal's shorts) and the celebrities that we love to loathe”). Gold Rush is a book I would urge people to buy:
“We give celebrities a power they don’t deserve. Power they haven’t earned. What happens when they exploit it?
Imagine you’ve just spent the night with the most famous man on the planet. Except you don’t quite remember it. That is what happens to Rose, a twenty-something woman who seemingly has everything going for her.
Working for one of the most powerful news outlets in the country, Rose spends her days doing PR for glossy magazines. There are tedious spreadsheets, fashion divas, and many A-list parties. It’s at one of those parties where she meets Milo Jax, the world-famous, globally adored, British pop sensation. An unlikely flirtation turns into an even more unlikely evening and then Rose wakes up, unable to piece it all together. What happens next changes everything.
Gold Rush is a story about consent, celebrity culture, and trying to figure out where women fit in a world that consistently devalues and disrespects their bodies”.
One of the biggest and most-attended events of this year was An Evening with OnlyFans CEO Keily Blair at the Century Club on 13th August. She was dispelling many of the myths around OnlyFans. Blair is a hugely influential and inspiring entrepreneur who was fascinating when she was in conversation earlier in the year. I want to bring in a bit of a recent interview from Financial Times:
“Keily Blair is the chief executive of OnlyFans, an online platform where sex workers, sports stars and celebrities sell subscriptions for access to images and personalised content. It was founded by Tim Stokely and his father Guy in 2016 but sold two years later to Leonid Radvinsky, a Ukrainian-American entrepreneur and owner of porn sites. Blair joined the London-based company in January 2022 as chief strategy and operations officer. She secured the top job in July 2023, taking over from Ami Gan, who had been in post for 18 months. Payments made on the platform, which was founded in 2016, reached $5.6bn in 2022, with more than 3.1mn creators on its books and 238.8mn fans. OnlyFans takes a fifth of payments generated on the site. The company has been scaling up its trust and safety measures, driven in part by the UK’s Online Safety Act, which forces adult sites to verify the age of its users through technologies like facial scanning or by cross-referencing with banks. Blair — who was previously a cyber, privacy and data specialist at law firm Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe, where she had OnlyFans as a client — says that the platform has already done most of the work needed to comply with regulation. In this conversation with FT technology reporter Cristina Criddle, she discusses the negative perceptions of the site, the opportunities for creators who are not sex workers, and the reason OnlyFans will not be available in app stores. Cristina Criddle: Why did you decide to take this role? Keily Blair: I had the advantage of working for the business for a long time before taking on the role. I was its external counsel as well, so I know it quite well. [And] I think this is such a special company in terms of its place in the tech and social media ecosystem. We’re so unusual because we’re a UK tech success story. Whenever I talk about the business, everyone automatically assumes that we’re based in the US. We’re happy to say, actually, we founded it in the UK, we’re still solidly in the UK, that’s where the majority of our exec team lives. We’ve paid out over $15bn to creators since we started, and that’s increasing year on year. We continue to grow. We’ve done the FT’s Fastest-Growing Companies in Europe ranking two years in a row. I think everyone was worried we’d be a pandemic bubble. We’ve proven that’s not the case. The company is also capable of doing so much for creators. That’s what excites me about the job. Also, with my background in cyber and privacy and online safety, there’s a nerdy part of me that really enjoys the challenging landscape that tech companies face at the moment. I think I can help to reduce some of the risk that’s inherent in running a tech business, especially one that is open and honest about allowing adult content. Global reach: a user in Bangkok browses the OnlyFans website. The platform has about 240mn users.
CC: You mentioned that you’re UK-based. Is that your largest market?
KB: Our largest market is the US. We don’t give a breakdown on a country-by-country basis, because creators can be based anywhere and it’s typically not what we do. We pay our corporation tax in the UK. We’ve paid £250mn in tax since we started. In terms of the creator base, it’s a global one of 3mn creators, 2.2mn of whom have been active in the last six months — a good, active user base. Then, in terms of fans, it’s 220mn globally and, of that, 87mn have been active in the last six months. It’s continuing to grow, continuing to be an exciting business. But we were founded in the UK, and we’re not skipping off to Silicon Valley anytime soon.
CC: Is the US somewhere you might consider an IPO one day?
KB: We’re not looking to IPO at the moment. People ask us all the time if we’re on a path to going public. For us, the bigger question is: why would we be on a path to going public? When most people look at an IPO, they’re doing it to raise funds. That’s not so much of an issue for us.
CC: Ami Gan brought you into the business, and I’m sure you worked with her very closely. But now that she’s left to run [advisory firm] Hoxton Projects, is there anything that you’re hoping to do a bit differently?
KB: Differently is always hard in tech because it’s a question of consolidating what we’ve built and, then, thinking about what the future opportunities are. For us, obviously we’re very proud of our adult-content creators, but it’s making sure that we also open up to other creators, so we’re doing new verticals”.
Back at The Groucho Club, I was at The Trial of Ghislaine Maxwell with Lucia Osborne-Crowley (“In November 2021, Ghislaine Maxwell was convicted of five counts of sex-trafficking of minors, and now faces 55 years in prison for the role she played in Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse of four girls. Join us to hear her blistering critique of a criminal justice system ill-equipped to deliver justice for abuse survivors, no matter the outcome”). That was on 22nd August. She was talking about the book, The Lasting Harm: Witnessing the Trial of Ghislaine Maxwell. I was engrossed by everything she said. It was such a revelatory and occasionally shocking discussion:
'I understand – and sympathise with – the feeling you might have that you already know the Jeffrey Epstein story. But I am not here to tell you a story about Jeffrey Epstein, or even Ghislaine Maxwell. I am here to tell you the stories of ten women, many of whom have never spoken at length before, about the real impact of sexual trauma on their lives'
In November 2021, Ghislaine Maxwell was convicted of five counts of sex-trafficking of minors, and now faces twenty years in prison for the role she played in Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse of four girls. The trial was meticulously covered by journalist and legal reporter Lucia Osborne-Crowley, one of the only reporters allowed into the courtroom every day.
The Lasting Harm is her account of that trial, a gripping true crime drama and a blistering critique of a criminal justice system ill-equipped to deliver justice for abuse survivors, no matter the outcome.
Giving voice to four women and their testimonies, and supplemented by exclusive interviews, The Lasting Harm brings this incendiary trial to life, questions our age-old appetite for crime and punishment and offers a new blueprint for meaningful reparative justice”.
I want to skip to Women Who Made Me with Aindrea Emelife (“Our first guest is renowned art curator and historian, Aindrea Emelife. She is currently a Curator of Modern and Contemporary at MOWAA (Museum of West African Art,) and the curator of the Nigeria Pavilion at this years Venice Biennale”). At The London Edition, this was such a compelling evening. I am not an art fan or someone who knows much about it. However, I was interesting when the event was announced. I learned so much. I want to bring in segments from an interview published last year by Interview Magazine. This was the astonishing curator bringing Nigerian art to the Venice Biennale:
“Aindrea Emelife’s 2022’s exhibition Black Venus is a great entry point to the writer and historian’s curatorial philosophy. Black Venus featured the work of 19 international artists who traced the history of black women, exploring the art world, identity and history, while examining where each starts, ends, and converges. It is this type of thinking that flips what we know about art and history on its head, and which Emelife will bring to the 2024 Venice Biennale, where she will be hosting the prestigious festival’s second-ever Nigerian pavilion.
At age 20, Emelife wrote her first column for the Financial Times, in which she argued that “surrealism is so much a part of our visual vocabulary that it is almost overlooked.” She has hardly stopped since. With a degree in Art History from The Courtauld Institute of Art and nearly a decade’s worth of experience, she is part of a very small group of Black women curators in the UK who contextualize and spotlight Black art and Black history. Today, while writing and researching between Europe and Africa, she is the curator of modern and contemporary art at the recently-opened Edo Museum of West African Art (MOWAA) in Benin City, Nigeria, where the famed Benin bronzes now call home after their repatriation late last year.
Earlier this summer, Aindrea and I got together to talk about scouting talent, the origins of her interest in art and history, and how she’ll prepare for next summer’s Venice Biennale.
AINDREA EMELIFE: How are you doing?
DESMOND VINCENT: I’m pretty good. Congratulations on getting to host the Nigerian pavilion for the municipality. I can’t imagine how that feels.
EMELIFE: Yeah, it’s great. It’s a huge undertaking, so I’m trying to make sure that it’s as good as it can be. I’m putting all of my effort and energy and excitement and research into this because it’s extremely important. As you know, there’s not a great legacy of African pavilions at Venice [Biennale]. So there’s a great responsibility to make sure it’s executed at an incredible level and that people can really expand what they think about the continent and in particular, Nigeria. I’m really honored and thrilled and the artists are cooking up something amazing, I’m sure.
PHOTO CREDIT: Jordan Tiberio
VINCENT: How did you select the artists for this particular exhibition?
EMELIFE: So the selection process was quite interesting. There’s a couple of different things that I tried to consider. Firstly, the perception of West African art or Nigerian art is quite singular in many people’s minds. I think they attach the idea of Black figuration and bright colors, which I guess has dominated the market scope. But there’s so much more, so I want to ensure that the list wasn’t a list that people may have predicted based on a singular monolithic idea of what Nigerian art is. So I set out to ensure that sculpture and installation is represented, but also new media and art that ebbs into the world of the technological or digital as well. And things like photography or video are important, because Nigeria’s such a young nation. Over 70% of Nigerians are under 30. Then I also started to think about the cross-generational approach. Obviously there are some younger artists, but there are artists like Ndidi Dike, who have been making work steadily for a long time and is receiving the deserved recognition now, and people like Yinka Shonibare, who has been making work that looks at Nigerian identity in a similar way that I do as a diaspora. Obviously I can’t represent every tribe that exists, but there is an artist from the north, like Fatimah Tuggar. There are obviously Igbo artists, there’s Yoruba artists. I’m both Igbo and Yoruba, so I can be unbiased hopefully, and make sure that there’s a balance. I thought it important for the Venice audience to understand the many different pockets of history and identity in Nigeria as well. And I hope through the writing and through some of the curation that the sort of multifaceted nature of what Nigeria is can be told. One other thing that’s important to notice is that some artists are Nigerian artists, some of them are diaspora artists that also work and interact with Nigeria. And I thought it would be a nice and important contribution to have a mixture of both to show how global we are.
VINCENT: You mentioned how people from the outside view African art as a sort of monolith, as a particular style. Why do you think that is?
EMELIFE: I think that it’s driven a little bit by the market. I think when there’s been many different watershed moments in the last couple of years in terms of the wider world waking up to West African art, and then that sort of knee-jerk reaction then sort of coincided with the rise of, I guess, Black figuration or figurative art. And when that happened, when there was this rise of great artists who were making work in this field, people’s limited knowledge of the artworks allowed them to just typify it by just this one practice. And a lot of people assume that we didn’t have a Modernist period or we weren’t making work in the 60s or the 40s or the 70s, and I think that disjointedness of understanding is one of the reasons. They used to make bronzes, they used to make masks, then, somehow, nothing happened, and then now they’re doing this, which is of course incredibly false. There was this moment when I think everyone thought, “Oh, it’s just pink backgrounds and Black women with Afros.” But there’s so much more.
VINCENT: True. As we were talking about selecting the artists for the Pavilion, I wondered how you scout talent.
EMELIFE: It kind of happens very naturally. I’ve got a lovely network of art historians and artists who are very passionate about this and we have lots of conversations about art we’ve seen, things that we’ve read. What I’m really interested in at the moment is trying to delve into the archives to find the artists that have been lost throughout history, of which there are quite a few. But moving back to the contemporary, you actually don’t need to look that hard. There’s just so many West African artists doing such interesting work. I came across Fatimah Tuggar because she was working on a project in a museum in America, which sent me on a really incredible research journey with Chika Okeke-Agulu, who’s one of the advisors of the museum and who’s been mentoring me a little bit. I discovered how many Nigerian artists are working in different parts of the world, whether it’s France or Vienna or Canada. As a diaspora, I will always think of it as an advantage, not a disadvantage, and it’s an interesting lens to understand two places and see how they are different and how they fuse together. But that being said, it’s really interesting to understand the art scene in Lagos and Benin, which is flourishing at such a massive speed. A lot of people think that cultural infrastructure is state-funded in Nigeria, and it’s not. We just do it on our own backs, mostly. And the fact that everything is thriving, that there are residencies set up by artists, is such a great testament to our optimism, but also our self-sufficiency.
VINCENT: Let’s talk about you for a second. How did you get into art?
EMELIFE: So my parents aren’t arty people. I was a little bit of a black sheep. I always loved art and history from a very young age. I would tell my mother to drag me to museums when I was younger and I found it an interesting way of understanding myself and history. One of the things I was most interested in looking at, ironically given the work I’m doing, was the Benin bronzes, because I was brought up in London. I’d always find it very strange obviously that they were there. I studied art history and was working as an independent curator, and a sort of inner precociousness allowed me to start pitching shows to different museums. And luckily, a few gave me a chance to stage shows, and that sort of allowed me to progress and learn more and build. Then I started doing museum shows at different places. I just finished a show that toured called Black Venus, which was on view at Fotografiska in New York. Then it went to the Museum of African Diaspora in San Francisco, and now it comes in London to Somerset House in July. And that show was looking at the history of the Black women throughout art. Again, I’m very interested in topics that relate to histories that have been underrepresented, so that was a really meaningful show to curate. And now I’m working on this Pavilion and I have joined MOWAA [Edo Museum of Western African Art], which is an incredible opportunity to build an institution from the beginning. I think what we want to do with MOWAA could essentially be a blueprint for museums on the continent. And it’s exciting to be able to transfer my curatorial experience and my art historical knowledge and really shift the needle in terms of how West African art is perceived globally.
VINCENT: I was really curious about the Black Venus project. That was really, really fun to look into. What was the light bulb moment for you?
EMELIFE: Black Venus was something that I’d been thinking about for a long time. It very directly obviously relates to my own identity as a Black woman. My mother told me the story about Hottentot Venus from quite a young age. I was maybe about eight. That story stuck with me for a long time and I became very interested in how Black women have moved throughout the world and been perceived. When I underwent the research for the exhibition, which is still very ongoing as I’m now working on a book about this topic, I came across so many different Black female figures in art history that have been lost. And in doing that, I found it interesting to understand how they were then portrayed either in the contemporary sense by new artists and in the historical sense, often by white male artists. One great example is an artist called Jeanne Duval, who was [Charles] Baudelaire’s mistress, but was painted by a few of the Impressionists. But now contemporary artists like Maud Sulter and Mickalene Thomas and Lorraine O’Grady create new artworks that allow them to reclaim Black female agency by restaging these images, but also painting or drawing or photographing her back into artistry, but by the Black woman gaze.
VINCENT: In your career, what were some early wins that made you feel more confident and realize, “Oh, this is a path I want to go down on?”
EMELIFE: I think a lot of things have been very serendipitous. I was very fixed on being in art history from a very early age. But carving a career as a curator is incredibly difficult. What I try to do is lean into some of my differences. I looked to people like Thelma Golden, Okwui Enwezor. Growing up, there wasn’t great visibility of people that were doing this role. So I think that the confidence to really go for it and sort of carve my own path comes from believing that there is always a different way to perceive things. And luckily, the art world is now very interested in new perspectives, so the timing is brilliant. So now, at this juncture, between trying to present this Black Venus project, and also working towards creating a new museum in Africa and doing a national pavilion, there’s something that runs through all those projects, which is the idea of trying to do something differently and show people that there’s more to art or about Africa than we’ve been told. And in order to find that, we need to prioritize different people telling those stories. Otherwise, we all just get the same history over and over and over again.
VINCENT: What’s been your experience navigating the art world as a Black woman?
EMELIFE: I think the difficulty or advantage is visibility. In the U.K., there’s not a large group of us. As a Black woman curator, I’m instantly identifiable. If I walk into a room and I’m talking to people and they’ve met me, they’ll know I’ve arrived, just by way of scanning. So that means that there’s a lot of pressure, because people will have that memory and will be looking more closely. I think that the interesting point when it comes to perception and trying to be taken seriously is proving that my youth or my womanhood or my Blackness, or all three of those things, is a positive rather than a negative. But at this point, having worked as a curator for quite some time, and because the art world is changing and because people want something different, it’s become much easier. I speak to other academics who have been doing the same work and a few decades ago people were more rigid and they didn’t want to listen. And so I feel very fortunate that the work that I’m looking to do, whether as an artist historian, writing books, or curating new shows, is at least landing on ears that are willing to contemplate and to listen, because that just makes the job more exciting. It’s never been just me, and it’s never been about me. It’s about ensuring that we really harness this as a transformative moment to really understand the world better. We need more artists. We need more writers. We need to sustain this on an infrastructure level, as well as the art that goes onto the walls. So I hope that I can use some of the teething and learning points throughout my career to help and develop the future as well”.
IN THIS PHOTO: Dawn O’Porter
Let’s move to Words, Wit, and Wonder: An Evening with Dawn O'Porter (“Get ready for an unforgettable night as we welcome the acclaimed author, director, and television presenter Dawn O'Porter for an exclusive evening of conversation, storytelling, and inspiration”). On 25th September, O’Porter was interviewed by Gabby Roslin at The Ministry. It was a very warm, sweet, uplifting, funny, frank and love-filled discussion. They were chatting about O’Porter’s new book, Honey Bee:
“From the Sunday Times bestselling author comes a brilliant new contemporary novel about womanhood, winging it, and the wonder of female friendship.
Old friends Renée and Flo couldn’t be more different. Flo wants to be invisible, Renée wants to be a somebody. But old friendships are magnetic. In their early twenties, and on the cusp of the rest of their lives, Renée and Flo both fly home to Guernsey: to the island where it all began.
Back in the place of their youth, yet spreading their wings into adulthood, will they flail and fall? Or will growing up be the making of them?
A coming-of-age story and a love letter to female friendship, Honeybee is about the gloriously messy days of early adulthood.
We’re all just winging it – but women stick together”.
I shall come to present and future events next. Before that, I want to highlight An Evening with Lena Alfi, CEO of Malala Fund (“Over 120 million girls globally are not in education. They are being robbed of the opportunity to become educated. Malala Fund is on a mission to break down the barriers that hold girls back and to champion every girl’s right to 12 years of free, safe, quality education”). The event was held over at 1 Warwick in Soho. I want to move to an interview from a couple of years ago, where Lena Alfi discussed her role with the Malala Fund and the challenges she has faced:
“Please tell us about yourself
My name is Lena Alfi and I am the Chief Development Officer at Malala Fund, where I oversee an amazing team of individuals who help fundraise for girls’ education. Together, we create partnerships with individuals, corporations and foundations who are passionate supporters of seeing all girls learn and lead. I am Syrian, a mother of two, and have a bachelor’s degree in art history and international relations from the University of Southern California and a masters degree in global human development from Georgetown University, I have been working on women and children’s causes for most of my career, something I am very passionate about.
Please tell us more about Malala Fund and the important work you do?
Ensuring every girl can learn for 12 years could unlock up to $30 trillion in global economic growth. Girls with secondary education become women who are more likely to participate on equal terms in the labor force, lead healthier and more productive lives and be decision-makers at home and in their communities. Malala Fund research shows that educating young women can also help prevent wars, improve public health and even help mitigate the effects of climate change. Despite the benefits, more than 130 million girls are out of school. And Malala Fund is working to break down the barriers that hold girls back. Whether it’s tackling child marriage, education funding, discrimination — our team works around the world to challenge systems, policies and practices to help more girls learn. We do this by investing in local education activists, advocating to hold leaders accountable and amplifying girls’ voices.
How does working for Malala Fund relate to you and your personal story?
I started working on education long before I came to Malala Fund. In my previous role with Middle East Children’s Institute, I was working on providing remedial education for Syrian refugees in Jordan. As a Syrian myself, it’s an issue I care about deeply, and I knew that Malala Fund was also working with Syrian refugees in Lebanon and Turkey. But when I learned about Malala Fund’s localized approach to grantmaking, I knew I wanted to work there. Malala Fund knows that there are already remarkable education leaders and activists out there who know their communities best are leading projects to help girls learn. To drive broader change, these individuals need more funding and a stronger network of support. Malala Fund offers just that.
What has been your proudest moment as a woman in your career?
Last week, my 3-year-old son had a few days off from school. While we are only going into the office sporadically, I needed to go in for a meeting. My husband and son were playing and while I was walking out of the house, my son said, “Thanks for going to work mama! I’ll see you later.” Juggling work and two small children can often feel overwhelming. Small moments like this bring me pride because I know that my sons will grow up believing that women can and should do anything they want with their lives. If they choose to work, stay-at-home, or anything in between, women can thrive. And in each instance, they can also be great moms, friends, co-workers, partners, leaders, sisters and daughters.
What has been the most challenging part of your role at Malala Fund?
The most difficult part of my job is changing the narrative on the solutions for girls’ education. There is an outdated idea that to get more girls learning, we need to build more schools and focus on enrolment. But we know that the barriers girls face are much more systemic. To solve the real problems keeping girls out of school, this requires global and national level advocacy. We need leaders around the world to develop and implement policies that better serve girls. We need communities to see the value in girls’ potential. And we need more leaders listening to the voices of the girls they serve”.
IN THIS PHOTO: Charlene Douglas
I will move to five future events. Before that, one tomorrow (16th October) is one I am excited about. Come Closer: An Evening with Intimacy Coach Charlene Douglas is happening at AllBright. There is going to be quite an atmosphere and energy in the air at AllBright. It is going to be a very open discussion that everyone in attendance will be engaged by:
“Let's talk about sex, Baby! Have you ever thought about seeing a therapist but felt hesitant due to concerns about awkwardness or cost? Meet Charlene Douglas: registered couples counsellor and an expert on the totally-bingeworthy series, Married at First Sight UK!
Join us as we sit down with renowned sex and relationship therapist, Charlene, for an intimate evening dedicated to helping you connect more, communicate better, and love more deeply. This event offers a safe, welcoming space to reflect on past experiences that have shaped your sexual world, explore what turns you on (and off), and address communication and sexual health challenges.
Don't miss this exclusive interview, where Charlene will guide you through interactive intimacy tasks designed to give you practical tools to work on at home. Whether you're looking to reignite an old spark or build newfound confidence in the bedroom, this event is your first step toward a fulfilling and healthy sex life”.
Charlene Douglas is going to be talking about her new book, Come Closer: Everything You Ever Wanted to Ask a Sex and Relationship Therapist. I am definitely going to check this book out. One I had not thought about before, the event on Wednesday will provide a lot of useful advice, insight and food for thought:
“Feeling a disconnect in your sex life?
Sex and relationship therapist Charlene Douglas invites you to connect more, communicate better, and love more deeply.
Perhaps you’ve considered seeing a therapist before but you worry it might be awkward or it’s too expensive... Come Closer provides the safe space you need to reflect on the past experiences that may have shaped your sexual world, explore what turns you on and what turns you off, and open up to issues in communication and sexual health.
Charlene draws on real-life case studies from her experience helping individuals and couples to navigate different relationship problems and combines this with interactive intimacy tasks at the end of each chapter to give you something practical to work on.
So whether you’re hoping to reignite an old spark or build a new sense of confidence in the bedroom, take the first step towards a happy and healthy sex life with Come Closer”.
On 31st October, AllBright are hosting Bittersweet Grief with Lotte Bowser exploring Healing Through Heartache. This is an event that you need to attend if you can. It is going to be so emotional and charged! Something personal yet relatable (to some). I am really looking forward to it. I had not heard of Lotte Bowser when the event was announced, though I was instantly compelled to book a ticket:
“When Lotte Bowser lost her partner Ben, miles away from home, she was left grappling with one haunting question: how do you envision a future without the person you love most? In this heartfelt and intimate event, Lotte shares her deeply personal journey through grief, offering insight into how loss and love intertwine.
Through her memoir, Lotte explores the delicate balance between heartache and healing, showing that even in the depths of grief, joy can still find a way. Join us for an evening of reflection, hope, and inspiration as Lotte reminds us that life after loss, while different, can still be beautiful. Join us as we explore the many facets of grief—how it changes us, shapes our relationships, and ultimately helps us find a new path forward.
Whether you're navigating your own journey of loss or supporting someone else through theirs, this event offers valuable insights, shared stories, and the comforting reminder that you are not alone in the experience”.
IN THIS PHOTO: Lottie Bowser with her fiancé Ben at Glastonbury/PHOTO CREDIT: Lottie Bowser
This interview from September is heartbreaking. Lotte Bowser talks of the anger and fury that she felt when her fiancée died. How it has impacted her. Her book is one that you will need to read. She has had to rebuild her life from the ground up:
“Lotte Bowser was 30 when her fiancé, Ben, died. The year was 2020 and so the tragedy was furnished by a thousand others: treatment taken in isolation; last exchanges through layers of PPE; raw grief in lockdown.
In the months afterwards, forced into an alienating new reality, Lotte, now 34, began sharing fragments of her story online.
She typed lengthy Instagram captions to underscore images of herself and Ben bedecked in glitter at Glastonbury and of his proposal in front of Sydney's Harbour bridge on New Year's Eve 2019. Her words documented how it felt to pine, primally, for the person with whom she'd created a world.
It was on the platform, and via her revelations, that she found something she desperately needed – the support of others brutalised by partner loss at a cruel age.
In doing so, the former yoga teacher began to craft a new career as a writer. She's now preparing for the release of her debut book, Bittersweet: a Story of Love and Loss (Little A, £8.99), on 1 October. Within its pages you'll find the tale of Lotte and Ben's relationship, as well as how she radically re-imagined the architecture of her days after he died, including a move from London to Lisbon.
To mark the publication, Women's Health had a conversation with Lotte, which has been condensed for clarity, below. Scroll further down for an extract from the book.
Women's Health: Tell me about the book. Why did you feel compelled to write it; what is it about?
Lotte Bowser: The book is a tribute to my late partner, Ben, who I was with for six years in my twenties and who very tragically died, age 36, of soft tissue sarcoma and Covid 19 in November 2020.
It documents our meeting and the unfolding of our relationship over the course of the four and a half years before he was diagnosed, his subsequent illness and death, and the initial months and year of me trying to recalibrate and rebuild my life in in the wake of the loss. The themes are, I suppose, the enduring and boundless nature of love, grief and death and hope and resilience.
WH: You experienced the death of your partner at such a young age. How did that shape the experience?
LB: I was the first out of my friend group and wider community to experience partner loss, and so I felt incredibly isolated and lonely in my experience. I didn't know which way to turn and no resources spoke to my experience as a younger person. It was incredibly difficult, unexpected territory, and nobody really knew how to receive my grief or how to support me in it, because it was unprecedented. The isolation and the loneliness definitely compounded the pain of Ben's death.
I took to seeking out connections via Instagram, with others who had gone through partner loss and other kinds of losses, to find that shared sense of solidarity.
WH: Of course, it was also the pandemic...
LB: Yes. After Ben died, we went into another four month lockdown. So all of the usual customs and rituals surrounding death, like being in community and having a proper send-off for the person who died, weren't possible.
My friends did their best: we would speak on the phone and via WhatsApp and they'd send care packages, but I was still yearning for that connection with othrs who had been through the same loss.
I remember countless sleepless nights in those early days, gripped by grief and insomnia, scrolling through hashtags like ‘widowhood’ and ‘partner loss’ on Instagram and reaching out to people speaking about these things online.
I'd slide into their direct messages and tell them a little bit about what had happened to me and ask them if they were keen to chat at some at some point. I would go as far as to say that, in those four months in the wake of Ben's death, social media played a big hand in my survival”.
On 7th November, The Great US Election Breakdown with Claudia Williams takes place at Dartmouth House. This is a big night that many people are excited about or really scared. Depending on which way it goes! History could be made is Kamala Harris wins and becomes the first woman President of the United States:
“While a watch party wouldn't quite work given the time difference and the very very drawn out nature of US elections, we've got the next best thing!
Tortoise reporter Claudia Williams will be joining us to break down the campaigns, the results and potentially the winner (if one has been announced and the other candidate hasn't claimed the election was stolen - looking at no one in particular). Whatever happens, join us to unpack one of the biggest elections of 2024.
Claudia joined Tortoise as part of the Sensemaker team, and before that worked at the New York Times and The Week magazine”.
Three more events to go before I wrap up. On 19th November, Inheritocracy & The Bank of Mum and Dad with Dr Eliza Filby takes place at Kindred, Hammersmith. Please, if you have not booked a ticket yet, then make sure that you do. I think that everyone can benefit from the discussion. A subject that most of us can relate to in some form. I am particularly interested in it:
“Who among us freely admits to the levels of financial support they receive from their parents? It’s time we talk about the bank of Mum and Dad or Inheritocracy as Dr Eliza Filby terms it.
Coming to Trouble to discuss her insightful new book, Dr Eliza Filby will be enlightening our members to the >22 interviews she orchestrated with a diverse group of millennials, and just what she found out about today’s wealth and class!
Not only did Eliza discover that the act of ‘leaving a legacy’ is on the rise, with no signs of the inheritance economy abating, and an estimated £5.5 trillion of family wealth set to be transferred in the UK over the next three decades, but today’s millennials are actually poised to become the richest generation in history. And yet, this outcome cannot reach everyone. She will also be speaking to the deep and powerful divide emerging between those who can rely on family financial support and those who can’t.
Join us for an evening with this financial guru, as she talks us through the views of politicians, economists, authors and experts from David Willetts to Otegha Uwagba in order to decipher the most obvious but hidden privilege that defines life in the twenty-first century: inheritance”.
On 26th September, Inheritocracy: It's Time to Talk About the Bank of Mum and Dad was released. This is a book that I will also endeavour to get and read when I can. So many things to ponder and reconsider:
“Many of us grew up believing in a meritocracy, where hard work brings rewards. Go to university, get a job, put in the hours and things will be OK. That’s what we were told – but the reality is that life chances and opportunities are no longer shaped by what we learn or earn but by whether we have access to the Bank of Mum and Dad. We’re living in an inheritocracy, where parental support is what matters most – whether that’s covering the cost of university, stumping up for a house deposit or helping with childcare. And let’s be honest, this isn’t something we like to talk about with our friends, families or as a society. It’s a modern taboo.
In these pages, generational expert Eliza Filby explores the emergence of this inheritocracy through her own life story, revealing how her family’s financial circumstances shaped everything from her education to her dating life, from her career to her class identity. Inheritocracy is a thought-provoking and candid blend of memoir and cultural commentary, told through Eliza’s humorous and insightful voice.
With trillions of pounds set to be passed down the generations over the next two decades, a significant divide is emerging between those who can rely on family wealth and those who can’t. Inheritocracy offers a fresh, captivating and honest look at our recent past and a future that will be shaped – for better or worse – by family fortunes”.
IN THIS PHOTO: Carol Vorderman
Two big events from huge figures in popular culture. I am really looking ahead to seeing Now What? An Evening with Carol Vorderman at The Ministry. It is going to be such a packed event. Vorderman is beloved. An activist and essential voice, this is going to be one of the most popular and extraordinary events in The Trouble Club’s history. Such a fantastic booking:
“Presenting legend turned political heavyweight - the fabulous Carol Vorderman is coming to Trouble! For the last few years Carol's updates on Tory cronyism has been a much needed light in the shadowy darkness. Carol will join us to discuss the tumult of the last few years and her fixes for our broken nation, as laid out in her brilliant new book, Now What? On a Mission to Fix Broken Britain.
‘But what has politics got to do with me?’ I hear you ask. Well, quite a lot really. Whether you like it or not, it affects every single thing in your life from the moment you wake up in the morning until you crawl into bed at night. But some of our political elite make it feel like a club which we have not been invited to join. The privileged few who want to keep it all for the privileged few. I hope this book can explain much, make you laugh out loud and make you realise that together our voices are powerful. Buckle up and come on a political rollercoaster with me – ‘an old bird with an iPhone’.
Born in 1960, Carol Vorderman grew up in a single parent family in poverty in North Wales with her sister, brother and her beloved mum, Jean. After attending a comprehensive school, at 17 years old Carol became one of the first girls from the free school meals scheme in North Wales to study at the University of Cambridge. Since childhood, Carol has had a passion for everything mathematical and her skill with numbers secured her a role on Countdown in 1982, the show that cemented her position as one of the most successful and popular female presenters in British TV history.
Carol currently hosts a weekly radio show on LBC, the Pride of Britain Awards and is known for her political activism. She was awarded an MBE in 2000 for her services to broadcasting”.
If you have not bought her book, Now What?: On a Mission to Fix Broken Britain, then go and grab a copy. She is a fantastic writer. So important! Someone that we need to cherish. I cannot wait to dive inside of this book from someone I have admired since I was a child:
“'I'm just an old bird with an iPhone who's been on the telly for over forty years. Sixty-three and post-menopause, I hate bullies and charlatans, and I don't give a flying fig for what those people say about me.'
Amidst a landscape of economic turmoil, eroding freedoms and deepening societal fractures, one thing is clear: Britain is in a mess. Instead of serving the common good, our politicians seem fixated on personal gain, while certain segments of the media only seek to divide us further. But who is responsible for this descent into chaos? And how can we hold these people to account?
With her characteristic outspokenness and irrepressible sense of humour, Carol Vorderman here reveals the intricate web of influence responsible for our nation's unravelling. Part diary, part political manifesto, this is the story of how an old bird with an iPhone exposed the incompetence and lies of the Tory establishment, and inspired countless others to find their voice and stand up for what they believe in”.
The final event that I want to highlight happens next year. As soon as it was announced, there was a frenzy of interest and joy! Caitlin Moran! I think it was the previous feature or one before that I wrote about The Trouble Club where I mentioned how I would love to see Caitlin Moran booked. I literally had nothing to do with the booking, but it is great that my wish has come true. Caitlin Moran: For the Love of Women takes place on 15th February at Manchester Central Exchange Auditorium. Go and grab your ticket:
“CAITLIN MORAN PEOPLE, CAITLIN MORAN! Wow are we fans of this woman, can you tell? At Trouble we've been devouring her books and articles for years and it's about time she graced the Trouble stage.
Caitlin has hilariously documented the pot-holed road of womanhood from teenage sweat to midlife reinvention. She'll join us at The Trouble Club in Manchester to discuss how she's so brilliantly chronicled the journey and kept us laughing along the way.
We'll also dive into Caitlin's icons from the celebs she adored in her early years to the personal mentors who have shaped her incredible writing career. We'll discuss what kind of support we owe to the next generation and how her icons have changed as the years have progressed. There will also be lots of time for Q&A, so get your questions ready!
Caitlin Moran is an award-winning columnist for the Times and the author of multi-award-winning bestseller How to Be a Woman which has been published in 28 countries, and won the British Book Awards’ Book of the Year 2011. Her two volumes of collected journalism, Moranthology and Moranifesto, were Sunday Times bestsellers, and her novel, How to Build a Girl, debuted at Number One.
This will be our biggest event to date and it's taking place in Manchester, the home of our second Trouble location. Don't worry London members, the event will take place in the afternoon so that you can be back to London on the same day. Or stay, and enjoy the delights of the city”.
You can buy Caitlin Moran’s books here. I am watching the event virtually, as the train fare to and from London would have been too dear. I love Manchester, so I may well change my mind and go up there! In any case, those are some of the events I have attended a few coming up that I would recommend to people. As always, a big thank you to The Trouble Club for all they do. To Ellie, Francesca and everyone involved with bringing these terrific guests to a warm and loving crowd! The members are great. Even though I am one of the few men at the events, I always feel welcomed. I am pleased that the membership is growing and expanding. Who knows which other guests will be booked for next year?! Will there be a Christmas event or a late surprise?! Whatever comes, it is always pleasure to discuss…
THE Trouble Club.