The Association for International Broadcastinghave just published their shortlistfor the 2020 AIB Awards– and I am blown away my quirky Mental Ideas Podcast is among 6 shortlisted entries in the Factual Podcast category! The winners will be announced at a virtual event, streamed live by Al Jazeera Nov 13. Thank you to the AIB for this incredible honor! I feel blessed and unbelievably lucky to have got this far.
Oh 2020: what a rollercoaster of highs and lows (mainly lows) you have been! If I hadn’t started the year with bipolar disorder, I’d almost certainly have developed it by now!🤣🤣🤣
Brace yourself for the first episode of my humorous newaudio column,Sharp Pains, which launches onRTHK Radio 3‘s123 ShowSept 29! The series will also feature actorPhilippe Jolyvoicing the part of ‘Daddy’.
I’m also super-excited to be producing & presenting two new podcast series: Writer Unblocked & Hong Kong Marriage Stories. The former is now in production and the latter scheduled for early next year!
In a daze to learn my first (and only) poem,War of Voices, has won a place in the 2020 Proverse Poetry Prizeand will be published inProverse Publishing‘s 2021 anthology next April! Which place (last place?) will be announced at a reception in Hong Kong Nov 19!
My late grandfather, a poet, who also dabbled in banking, would be proud! I’d love to say he was an inspiration but since his legacy is all in Welsh (and it’s a sin to translate Welsh poetry into English) it’s impossible for me to tell if he’s been much of an influence or not.
Thank you, Proverse! You have made a wannabe poet with more issues than Vogue very happy.
This summer I’ve been on a roll and making a lot of dough! Thanks to the amazing team effort of Ying, Moira, Chriz, Raquel, Mercy, Michelle, Emma and Amy, we were able to donate ALL THIS to Hong Kong charity Breadline! (And this was just Week 1…)
The food waste charity, founded by Daisy Tam Diers, does a cracking job of feeding the homeless, elderly, migrants and refugees living well below the breadline on the streets or in shelters. The charity usually relies on food waste donations from cafes and restaurants, but with most operating restricted hours at low capacity, Breadline and other food waste charities have been unable to keep up with demand at a time it has never been higher. So after reading an article in the HKFP, I rallied a few of the neighbors together to see if we could feasibly bake our own to help the charity continue its work during the pandemic.
For the past couple of months we have made this a weekly initiative and we’d love to have your support! If you’re based in Sai Kung/ Clearwater Bay/ Tseung Kwan O and would like to join our Baker’s Dirty Half Dozen, fill in the form below! We’re all novices so don’t let a trivial thing like experience put you off. My first loaf came out of the oven not just burnt, but on fire! It still tasted pretty good though, once I’d given it a good hose down with the fire extinguisher.
We were also able to donate at least 12 shop bought loaves to Feeding Hong Kong, who had received an anonymous tip off about my baking and decided their insurance policy didn’t cover it.
We are now exploring the possibility of setting up an online bakery, Home Kong Kitchen, where you can order home made breads, pastries, muffins and other yummy treats online and we deliver it to your home. We can’t promise it’ll be the best you’ve ever tasted but we can promise every cent we make will be donated to homeless charities. We are also collaborating with local artists to create sustainable bread boxes out of recycled waste with doodled designs and messages of solidarity to our homeless friends.
Big thanks to @SR-FilmFestNYand the judges for recognizing our film. Congratulations to the cast & crew of Lorikfor winning the category! And thanks to all of you who liked and shared my own and Mental Ideas’ posts about the festival on social media!
Crazy is a cheeky little fiesta of madness and the last episode of the first series of Mental IdeasPodcasts so DON’T MISS IT!!! The Mental Ideas Podcast will be back in 2021! You can download all the episodes from this series on RTHK‘s Podcast One platform. Stay tuned for news of spin-off Mental Monologues and the first series’ launch on BBC Sounds!
You can catch me presenting my humorous new audio column on Noreen Mir’s fantabulous 123 Show on RTHK Radio 3 from September 29, 2020! I’m also cranking into production of two new podcasts, Hong Kong Marriage Stories and Writer Unblocked. If you’re interested in taking part as a guest, get in touch!!!
A HUGE thanks to all my mental guests: Mat Ricardo, Christina Yung, Larry Feign, Florence Wong, Ruben M, Josh Walters, Dan Davies, Kiki Wong, Jackie Chan, Philippe Joly, Eugenia Kim, Raffaello Degruttola, Ifat Hyndes, as well as to Nick Samuel for composing the mental music, Angie Mann – and especially to the legendary Noreen Mir for exec producing and all her endless encouragement, guidance and support!!!
Until then amigos, if you can’t stay sane, stay crazy!
I talk dirty. Great big wads of dirty cash! You can’t use banknotes anywhere in Hong Kong since the first wave peaked. Too dirty! Toilet paper is our cleanest currency now…
There’s no show next week as it’s a public holiday in HK but the Mental Ideas Podcast will be back the following Thursday (July 2nd) @2.30pm HKT! Don’t miss Crazy!!!
As well as being the film’s world premiere, there’s a live Q&A on Zoom with the film’s director/lead actor Raffaello Degruttolaand lead actress Emilie Sofie Johannesen. Both are incredible! Transference: A Bipolar Love Storyis one of four films shortlisted in SRFF‘s Narrative Featurecategory that will stream online for 48 hours from June 26 (5pm NYT) to June 28 (5pm NYT). Click on the link below to reserve your place!
On today’s episode – I coin a new catchphrase from an interview with wellness entrepreneur Ifat Hyndes and try it out on a taxi driver. Mat Ricardo talks about the power of acceptance. I say something that is unacceptable in a lunchtime slot on the radio. (Whoops!)
Join me LIVE on RTHK Radio 3 in about… oooh… NOW!!!
On this week’s episode Mat Ricardo reminisces about the time he was starting out as a street performer and a member of the public walked onto his pitch and took a dump. Left to raise the tone (uh-oh…) Trollywood actor Dan Davies gives a moving account of his own experiences with internet trolls. Only he has another word for them… and he uses it a lot…
Catch me LIVE on RTHK Radio 3 in about oooh 2 hours!!! You can now download all the podcasts in this series in one mental place! Check out my new page on the RTHK website by clicking HERE! I’ll be adding more links to this post after the show airs!
