Radio Gorgeous

  Author of the Week: Rose Boyt Hows Your Father Rose Boyt initially wrote Hows Your Father while her own father, Lucian Freud, was alive but rewrote it after his death. Hows Your Father is the rollicking tale of four generations of a Hackney family as they lurch through a life of fierce love, drugs,…

  CENSORED CONTAINS SEX & OLD PEOPLE Sex Expert advice from Emma Ziff: 15.25 Josephine and Donna review their week: Josephine explains why herding cats is a world easier than escorting 25 OAP’s on a trip to France but there were some benefits in older admirers. Donna celebrates her husband’s birthday with breakfast cocktails and…

Dusty Springfield – An Intimate Portrait by Karen Bartlett  Born to seemingly conventional parents – accountant father and Irish housewife mother – Dusty also seemed quite conventional and unremarkable until at 16 she transformed her look and launched herself on the world with determined, blond ambition. She was a pioneer of so much we now…

  Lynn Barber,  A Curious Career Lynn Barber,  A Curious Career  or How to become a legendary ‘celebrity’ interviewer by Lynn Barber: poke your nose into everyone’s business – the seamier the better, be seduced by a conman (as chronicled in the film An Education), sleep your way through Oxford, write about every sexual fetish…

GORGEOUS GOSSIP Josephine & Donna’s Week A Flower & an Earl : 00.28 Pauline Giles founder of Bosom Buddies: 10.25 Josephine and Donna review their week: Josephine scared the pants off Charles Spencer, 9th Earl Spencer and Donna – after cooing to our canine producer Kissie Moo – proves a crap car owner and gardener…

Author of the Week: Jane Green’s Saving Grace First off: hats off to Jane Green for giving in and owning her curly hair – we salute you! Jane Green, along with Helen Fielding, is credited with giving birth to chick lit, however, both Jane and her work now have more depth. Donna surprised her with…

Rula Lenska on GORGEOUS LIVES  “All my life I have run into excitement, danger and discovery.” Legendary red head, beauty and talented British born of aristocratic Polish descent actress and West London denizen tells Josephine about her most dangerous role: Celebrity Big Brother! Josephine is now addicted to Rock Follies and Donna is the only one…

Author of the Week: Penny Hancock, A Trick of the Mind What would you do if you came to think you caused someone a disfiguring accident? That is the starting point for Penny Hancock’s latest “domestic noir” novel. She and Donna cover other topics like the menopausal mother and the agoraphobic father figure as architypes….

    Deeply sceptical about hippie mumbo jumbo in general and psychics in particular, Elizabeth Kinder was given a reading with the world-renowned clairvoyant, Julie Burgess Wells as a gift from a friend.  When it transpired that Julie correctly predicted events in her life, she rang her friend and accused her of providing information. The…

  Author of the Week: Tessa Boase: The Housekeeper’s Tale Subtitled, The Women Who Really Ran the English Country House, journalist and author Tessa Boase discovered that, in fact, the butler didn’t do it. She plowed through bundles of letters, diaries and household accounts to reveal a full picture of these grand houses and the…

    HOW TO ACADEMY LONDON It’s back to school time and while we’re self-confessed know it alls, we don’t actually know how to do everything. The How To Academy, on the other hand, does! Whatever you’re interested in, they have an expert to tell you how it’s done, whether it’s understanding art, investing or…

The Perfume Society Jo Fairley Beauty genius and uber entrepreneur, Jo Fairley – we are forever grateful for the The Beauty Bible and Green & Black’s chocolate – has a new venture: The Perfume Society. Scent unlocks our deepest memories but how to choose a new perfume? Why not sidestep the “guerilly-spritzing” at the counter…

    Julie Cohen Author Julie Cohen originally came to these shores seeking fairies. She and Donna discuss Arthur Conan Doyle and other fairie facts as well as her suspenseful and romantic latest novel, Where Love Lies. The young woman at the center of her tale is a wife and by choice, not a mother….

Josephine talks to YOUNG FEMINIST Charlie Brades Also, Can we have it all? Do we even want it? Josephine and Donna discuss Nathalie Loiseau’s new book: Choissez Tout! She is under the impression that women, in trying to be the perfect wives and mothers, are holding back their careers. Stop helicoptering, enough with the breast…

SHARON CORR After a spectacularly successful fifteen-year stint with her brother and sisters in the Corrs – the band’s unique brand of Celtic rock sold over 45 million albums world wide – violinist and singer Sharon Corr stepped into the spotlight in her own right  with a blossoming solo career and a musical renaissance.  Celebrating…

Susan Osman Interfaith Minister Susan Osman, former BBC presenter and Chinese State Radio maverick, is now an interfaith minister. She explains exactly what this means as well as the extraordinary moment when she understood that she had a calling. She talks about her work as a spiritual counsellor and healer. www.rainbowsendfoundation.co.uk

Sharron Lowe The Mind Makeover Sharron gives us 3 tips on how to live our lives to the full and stop the fear and procrastination. Sharron  advises blue chip corporates workers how to make changes to the way we they think her book applies her methods to help normal women like us.  Sharron believes that…

Emma Bridgwater From the simple idea of wanting to create the perfect bowl and mug for her mum’s dresser, Emma Bridgewater built the pottery empire she always dreamed of. The colourful, cheerful and practical ceramics have the same design she drew 30 years ago in her Brixton squat. She’s come a long way since then…

Freak Out! is exactly what Pauline Butcher did not do when she arrived to take dictation at Frank Zappa’s London hotel room in her Biba outfit and straightened hair in 1967. This chance meeting resulted in her becoming Frank Zappa’s live in secretary in California. She tells the tale of her time at The Ranch…

Birds with Bottle Josephine and Donna were so eager to get to the booze, they didn’t even bother to gossip! The lovely ladies from Birds with Bottle Mel Jones MW and Sandra Clement are passionate about wine and food & wine matching but hate all the poncy stuff that seems to come with wine education….