Crisis What Crisis? – Détails, épisodes et analyse

After being sentenced to six and a half years for causing grievous bodily harm, a switch flipped for Jon Watts and he began the hard work to turn his life around. This is one of our most important podcasts to date and Jon opens up as never before. I urge you to listen to the full episode but for now, here are Jon’s three crisis comforts.  

Full episode  https://www.crisiswhatcrisis.com/podcasts/celebrity-chef-jon-watts-on-shame-prison-and-rehabilitation/  

Books
Speedy Weeknight Meals (Hardback), published 29/08/2024.
Watts Cooking: Deliciously simple recipes to inspire home cooks, published 02/10/2023.  

Links    
Jon’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jonwatts88/?hl=en  

Stream/buy ‘Allies’ by Some Velvet Morning: https://ampl.ink/qp6bm    
Some Velvet Morning Website: www.somevelvetmorning.co.uk      
Your Daily Practice: Sleep by Myndstream: https://open.spotify.com/track/5OX9XgJufFz9g63o2Dv2i5?si=b2f9397c92084682

Host – Andy Coulson   
CWC team: Jane Sankey, Louise Difford, Mabel Pickering   
With special thanks to Ioana Barbu and the brilliant people at Global      

For all PR and guest approaches please contact – [email protected]     

Jon Watts is a celebrated chef whose astonishing journey has taken him from a Young Offender Institute to working alongside Jamie Oliver and becoming a celebrity chef in his own right with two hit cookbooks.  
At 16, Jon left school with no qualifications.  Out of work, he fell into a gang and petty crime, repeatedly being arrested. At 18, his life took much a darker turn when he was jailed for causing grievous bodily harm – for stabbing another gang member.  
Sentenced to six and a half years, a switch flipped for Jon and he began the hard work to turn his life around. That included confronting the brutal truth of his crime.  
In this revealing, shocking and at times emotional episode Jon opens us as never before, not to excuse his criminal past but instead as an attempt to explain it. And in doing so he hopes to prevent other young people from making the same mistakes as he did.  
One of our most important podcasts to date that offers a new perspective on the seemingly unsolvable problem of knife crime.  
My thanks to Jon for trusting us with his story.    

Books
Speedy Weeknight Meals (Hardback), published 29/08/2024.
Watts Cooking: Deliciously simple recipes to inspire home cooks, published 02/10/2023.  

Links    
Jon’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jonwatts88/?hl=en  
Jon’s website: https://chefjonwatts.com/about/

Stream/buy ‘Allies’ by Some Velvet Morning: https://ampl.ink/qp6bm    
Some Velvet Morning Website: www.somevelvetmorning.co.uk      
Your Daily Practice: Sleep by Myndstream: https://open.spotify.com/track/5OX9XgJufFz9g63o2Dv2i5?si=b2f9397c92084682

Host – Andy Coulson   
CWC team: Jane Sankey, Louise Difford, Mabel Pickering   

With special thanks to Ioana Barbu and the brilliant people at Global      

For all PR and guest approaches please contact – [email protected]   

Ben Goldsmith – the passionate environmentalist and financier who tragically lost his 15-year-old daughter in an accident on a farm in Somerset - shares his three crisis comforts.  

Full episode https://www.crisiswhatcrisis.com/podcasts/ben-goldsmith-on-losing-his-daughter-iris-a-desperate-search-for-meaning-and-how-nature-saved-him/  

Ben’s Crisis Comforts:   

1. Wild swimming. Anywhere I go, I love to swim in wild water. In the sea, swimming in the sea, we all love it, but swimming in rivers, ponds, I find that somehow cleanses me of emotional overload.
2.  Walking in nature. I think we need this every day. If I don’t spend a little bit of time in nature, just for a few moments each day I start to feel short of something. I start to feel anxious.
3. Playing with children. Just rolling around on the floor with children and playing games and you know, just losing yourself in play with children, your own or someone else’s, I think is enormously cathartic. 

Links: 
Ben’s book: God Is An Octopus: https://amzn.to/3Iei6ub 
Ben’s podcast - Rewilding the World with Ben Goldsmith: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/rewilding-the-world-with-ben-goldsmith/id1685196752 
The Iris Project: https://theirisproject.org/ 
Ben’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/BenGoldsmith?s=20  

Stream/buy ‘Allies’ by Some Velvet Morning: https://ampl.ink/qp6bm    
Some Velvet Morning Website: www.somevelvetmorning.co.uk      
Your Daily Practice: Sleep by Myndstream: https://open.spotify.com/track/5OX9XgJufFz9g63o2Dv2i5?si=b2f9397c92084682    

Host – Andy Coulson   
CWC team: Jane Sankey, Louise Difford, Mabel Pickering   
With special thanks to Ioana Barbu and the brilliant people at Global      

For all PR and guest approaches please contact – [email protected]   

The renowned broadcaster and writer Dame Jenni Murray is my guest for Episode 19. For 33 years the brilliant and calm voice of Woman’s Hour, Jenni talks powerfully about the myriad private crises she has faced. Her difficult relationship with her mother led to a lifelong battle with obesity, low self-esteem and, at her most desperate, a call to the Samaritans. In 2006 - the same week that she lost her mother, Jenni was diagnosed with advanced breast cancer resulting in a mastectomy. Jenni, who underwent drastic surgery in 2015 to lose weight, speaks candidly about these and other challenges in her life. And how she got through them and her brilliant book Fat Cow, Fat Chance. Jenni is patron of British research charity Breast Cancer Campaign and the Family Planning Association, Vice president of Parkinson’s UK and a supporter of Humanists UK.

Jenni’s Crisis Cures:
1. Dogs – I could never be without a dog. I love seeing them run around the park enjoying themselves. Then we cuddle up in front of the TV in the evening watching ‘Call My Agent’. I adore them.
2. Reading crime novels – I love reading. Val McDermid & Sarah Paretsky are my two favourites. Sarah didn’t write for a while but now she’s back and Val always has something that keeps you up till 3am because you can’t put it down.
3. New Forest Ice-cream. We often go to Lymington and there’s an ice-cream shop where you can get a fancy cone with two scoops – I always have one vanilla and the other ginger, and that can cheer me up anytime!

Links:
Breast Cancer Now : https://secure.breastcancernow.org/#/
Jenni’s book: https://amzn.to/3ePb9Uh

Host – Andy Coulson
Producer – Louise Difford

Full transcript available here: https://www.crisiswhatcrisis.com/podcasts/dame-jenni-murray-on-fat-shaming-cancer-and-a-call-to-the-samaritans/

Show Notes:
To the millions who tuned into Jenni Murray on Woman’s Hour – she was the consummate professional, completely composed broadcaster. That she was so down at one point that the only way forward for her was to phone the Samaritans was an astonishing and poignant revelation and speaks, I hope, to one of the most resonant lessons from these conversations. That crisis really doesn’t care who you are. Jenni’s frank assessment of her near life-long struggle with obesity alongside the cruel and counter-productive fat-shaming she received - both from strangers and most shockingly from her own mother, was also compelling. Her ability to recognise its impact on her life and yet find forgiveness, demonstrates her extraordinary resilience. Finally, Jenni’s coping mechanism throughout her crises struck a chord with me. That through it all, keeping busy, taking charge of the practical issues ahead, was her key device to avoid the darkness. Another example of that simple idea – focus on the things you can affect – however small and it will ease the anxiety caused by those things that you can’t change.

Stream/Buy ‘Allies’ by Some Velvet Morning: https://ampl.ink/qp6bm

Some Velvet Morning Website: www.somevelvetmorning.co.uk

Our guest for episode 18 is the legendary writer, performer, producer and all-round genius Nile Rodgers. Nile is perhaps best known as the co-creator of Chic and the producer of an incomparable list of classic albums by artists including David Bowie, Madonna and Diana Ross. More recently he’s collaborated with Sam Smith, Disclosure and Daft Punk. All of this resulting in 500million worldwide album sales, 75million singles and multiple Grammy Awards. But Nile’s life, from birth, has seen a litany of crises interwoven with stellar success. An upbringing of continual drama, addictions, grief and cancer are just some of the mountains he’s climbed throughout a truly astonishing 68years. Nile, who is also the creator of the brilliant We Are Family Foundation, talks with captivating candour, humour and passion about his life as a music legend and crisis manager.

Nile’s Crisis Cures:
1. Work: I go to my guitar, my music, my art and look towards my work. I say to myself - I need to get better because this person needs my help. For me having a job to do makes me feel I have to be subordinate to the situation rather than be subordinate to my own ego.
2. Simple exercises: I do simple things to make my body and brain aware. I’ll give you an example – I’m training my left hand to snap my finger.
3. Music: John Coltrane – A Love Supreme. Not even a thought – my go to crisis song since a teenager. It puts me in a space where right away, the world becomes a peaceful place. If they put me in front of a firing squad and asked me for my last cigarette or last meal – I’d be like “No man! Just play the start of Love Supreme and you guys shoot away!”

Links:
We Are Family Foundation: https://www.wearefamilyfoundation.org/
Nile’s book: https://amzn.to/3qzKCx0
Nile’s website: http://www.nilerodgers.com/

Host – Andy Coulson
Producer – Louise Difford

Full transcript available at: https://www.crisiswhatcrisis.com/podcasts/nile-rodgers/

Episode notes:
I’m not entirely sure how to reflect on my conversation with Nile. From the off, it was clear that I was in the presence of greatness. The legendary musical status needs no explanation …. just put his name into Spotify and see what you get. A breath-taking catalogue. But it was Nile’s extraordinary openness – his willingness to share his thoughts on the difficult moments of his life that at times left me open mouthed. That he was doing so whilst living another, painful crisis following his mother’s death, made those reflections all the more powerful. As Nile came to realise during our conversation, he is a crisis manager. But it’s not entirely selfless work. Solving or easing his and others problems is a form of therapy for him – it’s what’s got him through his own challenges too. And there have been plenty. There were so many words of wisdom to remember from this podcast but, for me, Nile’s near life-long credo is the unforgettable winner: He said: “I saw Ben-Hur as a child and will never forget when the commander tells the galley slaves ‘You live to serve the ship. Row well and live.’ And that’s what I do … I row well, live and every day do my best to get the ship to port.”

Stream/Buy ‘Allies’ by Some Velvet Morning: https://ampl.ink/qp6bm
Some Velvet Morning Website: www.somevelvetmorning.co.uk

In this first episode of our third series, we talk to Hemant Oberoi. One of India’s best-known chefs, Hemant has cooked for world leaders, Bollywood and Hollywood stars. He is also a man who, when crisis came to his door at the Taj Hotel in Mumbai, reacted with a level of courage and selflessness that’s almost impossible to comprehend. In our conversation Hemant talks us through what happened in the terror attacks of 2008 – a few days of horror that left hundreds dead and injured. Thanks to the heroics of Hemant and the staff a significant number of guests at the Taj were saved from certain death at the hands of Islamic terrorists. In the process seven of Hemant’s staff were killed. It is only fate that prevented Hemant from being one of them. A visceral story of how crisis can bring out the very best in humanity when confronted with the very worst.

Hemant’s Crisis Cures:
1. Intuition and the gut feelings first. My intuition never fails me. When I don’t follow it, things go wrong for me one way or the other. It’s the gut feeling - I listen to my inner voice and that’s the way.
2. I think one should be a team leader in a different way. You should be like a pyramid in life. Sometimes the top is down and sometimes the bottom is up. That way you can take the load off others in life.
3. Help others as much as you can. Because you never know when you’ll need it.

Links:

Hemant Oberoi Restaurant: https://hemantoberoi.com/

Host – Andy Coulson
Producer – Louise Difford

Full transcript available at: https://www.crisiswhatcrisis.com/podcasts/hemant-oberoi/

Episode notes:

It’s not often that a Hollywood dramatization plays down the real horror of a story. But Hotel Mumbai – the powerful re-telling of the Mumbai attacks – is not a movie that tells the full truth of what happened in November 2008. During my conversation with Hemant he revealed aspects of that nightmarish few days that left me stunned. The film ends movingly with a fictitious character (played brilliantly by Dev Patel) returning exhausted to his relieved family. In reality Hemant did just the same, once he’d secured the safety of his guests. Still wearing his bloodied chef’s outfit, he walked through his front door to find his family, friends and neighbours gathered – not in celebration but for his wake. Unknown to him hours earlier the TV news channels had announced his death. As Hemant says: “I walked in and they thought they had seen a ghost.” A few hours later he was back in the centre of Mumbai, walking through hospitals and morgues trying to account for every member of his staff. Tragically seven of them – including a number of young chefs he considered to be his proteges – were dead. All of them shot attempting to protect hotel guests from the gunmen who unleashed so much havoc and horror across Mumbai. Hemant witnessed some of those murders and narrowly escaped his own execution. Of one of those he found in hospital he says: “He pleaded [with the gunmen] that he was getting married in six months’ time, asking, ‘why are you killing innocent people?’ They shot him point blank. He died in hospital after 8 or 9 days.” The most astonishing aspect of this story is the instinctive behaviour of Hemant and his staff when they found themselves in the midst of the most terrifying crisis. Throughout their ordeal they had repeated opportunities to escape. Hemant gave his team that option, telling them there would be no shame in leaving to be with their families. But they stayed put. As Hemant tells me: “Whatever you do – if you cannot help others, then there’s no point being here. Everything comes back to you in this life. Hell, or heaven is here – it’s not anywhere else.”

Stream/Buy ‘Allies’ by Some Velvet Morning: https://ampl.ink/qp6bm
Some Velvet Morning Website: www.somevelvetmorning.co.uk

In this third series of Crisis What Crisis host Andy Coulson will be joined by guests from all walks of life but all with crisis in common. At the time of recording, we’re once again in the midst of a national lockdown, trying to make sense of an uncertain world but with hope on the horizon. These personal, revealing and sometimes shocking conversations are designed to provide useful guidance and support for anyone facing down their own difficulties.

Wilko Johnson is one of Britain’s most revered rock stars … the Dr Feelgood guitarist who inspired Paul Weller and Joe Strummer. He’s also a man with a unique perspective on mortality as well as music. After an astonishing career (that included a role in Game of Thrones) Wilko was told in 2013 that he had terminal pancreatic cancer and only months to live. He rejected chemotherapy and set about saying goodbye to his fans around the world in the only way he knew how … with a farewell tour and hit album. Towards the end of his last year a fan – who was also a cancer specialist – urged him to seek a second opinion. Wilko had been misdiagnosed and after an 11hour operation was saved. In this bonus episode, Wilko talks with clarity and power about the 12 months he spent believing his death was imminent. A year he describes as both vivid and profound.

Wilko’s Crisis Cures:
1. Not Drinking: Alcohol can turn depression into despair.
2. Moby Dick: I love to read and what a book!
3. Van Morrison: Almost Independence Day from the album Saint Dominic’s Preview. It finishes with this long droning synthesizer note – you hear that and think everything’s going to be alright.

Links:
Wilko’s book: https://amzn.to/3LskQEN
Addenbrooke's Charitable Trust: https://www.act4addenbrookes.org.uk

Host – Andy Coulson
Producer – Louise Difford

Full transcript available at: https://www.crisiswhatcrisis.com/podcasts/wilko-johnson-on-mortality-miracles-and-music/

Episode Notes:
I’ve talked on this podcast with a number of people who’ve faced the prospect of death either in an accident or through illness. But this is the first conversation with someone who knew – with absolute certainty – that their death was imminent. Wilko Johnson’s incredible story would not, as he says himself, get past the scriptwriting stage of any drama. So unbelievable were the chain of events that led him to losing and then regaining his life. The insights that journey afforded Wilko left me mesmerised. “Everyone imagines how they’ll react with a cancer diagnosis,” he told me. “I was absolutely calm. I just thought – Oh! This is how it ends .. For me, the question of mortality was answered. I pitied everyone else walking around fearing death.” Wilko is a man who has lived a rocker’s life … full of the superficial ups and downs of what he calls ‘the biz’. But he’s also a man capable of the most breath-taking insight and it was a privilege to listen to his analysis of a truly unique crisis.

Stream/Buy ‘Allies’ by Some Velvet Morning: https://ampl.ink/qp6bm

Some Velvet Morning Website: www.somevelvetmorning.co.uk

In this bonus episode I talk to the poet, playwright and broadcaster Lemn Sissay, MBE.
Lemn was born in the late 60s to an unmarried Ethiopian woman who was forced to hand him over to social services. Renamed Norman by a social worker of the same name he was fostered by a deeply religious Lancashire family. His mother’s efforts to get him back were ignored and he remained with the same family until the age of 12 when, inexplicably, they handed him back into the care system. Lemn then spent the next eight years being moved around homes, including one that was more like a prison, where he suffered mental and physical abuse and, as a result, a breakdown. Despite all this, his talent for poetry blossomed and by 18 he was on his way to finding himself and his birth mother. At times disturbing but ultimately uplifting, this is a conversation about the power and resilience of human spirit. Lemn, whose brilliant memoir ‘My Name Is Why’ which I urge you to read, is now a passionate campaigner on behalf of children in care. His charity Christmas Dinners each year delivers a festive party for hundreds of care leavers across Britain.

Lemn’s Crisis Cures:

1. Music: It’s a strange thing – it can hook onto a time, a place and an emotion at the same time. It can really lift me emotionally out of crisis, into a smile and deep contemplation. I love to listen to Swan of Lake by Sibelius.
2. Walking: Crisis makes us find good answers to living and then when we don’t have a crisis, we don’t use them! Everything changes in the countryside, nothing stays the same so there’s always new stuff to experience, whereas when you’re in a crisis everything is stuck.
3. Meditation: Again, it’s something that we should all use in our everyday lives. Some people pray but meditation is so important. I use the Calm and Headspace apps.

Links:

The Christmas Dinners: http://thechristmasdinners.org.uk/
My Name is Why: https://amzn.to/3xKq9tB

Host – Andy Coulson
Producer – Louise Difford

Full transcript available here: https://www.crisiswhatcrisis.com/podcasts/lemn-sissay-mbe-on-his-stolen-childhood-a-fight-for-the-truth-and-forgiveness/

Episode Notes:

Five minutes in the company of Lemn Sissay will, I guarantee, leave you energised. To have spent more than an hour chatting with the life force that is Lemn was, therefore, a total privilege. What a man. And what a story. A crisis that began in the days after his birth, when his mother was forced – coerced in fact – to hand him over to Wigan Social Services, and that continued deep into Lemn’s adulthood. At times listening to his crisis story – his crisis saga - I was left speechless. By the sheer heartlessness of the system and the foster family who let him down so tragically. But more by Lemn’s refusal to give in to what would be a totally justified, totally understandable bitterness. As he says: “I had to forgive my foster family, because I had to release myself from the bondage of anger and hatred and bitterness and loss.” Lemn Sissay is a true one-off – a man whose talent for poetry and storytelling should have been smothered, snuffed out by his circumstances. Instead, it survived and thrived to move and motivate so many people across the world. Lemn is in many ways the embodiment of an idea we’ve talked about before on this podcast …. that from crisis often comes something good, powerful and valuable. Enjoy this episode and, if you’re able, please make a donation to Lemn’s brilliant Christmas Dinners charity.

Stream/Buy ‘Allies’ by Some Velvet Morning: https://ampl.ink/qp6bm

Some Velvet Morning Website: www.somevelvetmorning.co.uk

In this final episode of series two I talk to Connie Yates, mother of Charlie Gard who in 2017 was at the centre of a crisis and debate that stretched from the High Court in London, to the Vatican, the White House and into homes across the world. That debate raised issues of medical ethics and the fundamental rights of parents. But for Connie and partner Chris it brought only pain. For the question being asked was the most heart rending imaginable – should their son be kept alive to receive treatment that might extend his life? This is ultimately the story of a mother and father’s unbelievable determination in the face of systemic resistance. From Charlie’s diagnosis to a final court case to decide where he would die, Connie charts the full shocking detail of their fight against Britain’s medical and legal establishment.
This is, of course, ultimately a story that ends in heartbreak. But it’s also a story of hope and of a mother’s fight for control against a tide of unrelenting crisis.
An episode full of lessons and perspective for anyone facing their own challenges.

Links:

Charlie Gard Foundation: https://thecharliegardfoundation.org/

Charlie’s Law: https://services.parliament.uk/bills/2019-21/childrenaccesstotreatment.htm

Host – Andy Coulson
Producer – Louise Difford

Ful transcript available: https://www.crisiswhatcrisis.com/podcasts/connie-yates-on-the-fight-to-save-her-son-charlie-gard-losing-control-and-the-power-of-hope/

Episode notes:

This was our longest episode so far – and for good reason. Connie Yates and her husband Chris are remarkable people. They faced the unimaginable – a devastating diagnosis for their first born. But what singles them out is their determination to fight against the consensus view every step of the way – each step a crisis in its own right. To get their sick son to Great Ormond Street, to refuse to accept that his condition was untreatable, to raise over £1m to fund the treatment in the US and to fight in every court in the land to get him that treatment. And then, when time ran out, to fight in the courts a final time so that Charlie might die at home and in peace. Connie’s background as a carer for disabled children (her Mum remarkably did the same job) clearly gave her a certain perspective. But in the end, it was an inner determination – a stubbornness – that drove Connie to fight against the medical and legal systems. Her greatest frustration came when the courts intervened to stop Charlie from being transferred from one hospital that wanted to end his life to another that wanted to save it. “I had no idea the courts could do that,” she says.
Most of us, thankfully, will not live the heart-breaking crisis that Connie and Chris Yates faced. But in their story there are lessons, I think, for anyone dealing with a crisis. First the power of hope – the fuel for any long running campaign. But also the power and importance of control. Quite often we talk in this podcast about the need to work out what you have control over and what you don’t. No-one would have criticised Connie if she surrendered to the system much earlier in her story. But she did not … instead taking each defeat as a challenge to find another way forward.
As Connie says: “It’s not that I wanted the control, I just wanted the best for my baby.”

Stream/Buy ‘Allies’ by Some Velvet Morning: https://ampl.ink/qp6bm

Some Velvet Morning Website: www.somevelvetmorning.co.uk