Fresh from the tennis at Eastbourne, Alice and Josie are joined by bestselling author Erin Kelly for a summer special. She talks glossy-mag capers, getting drunk for free five nights a week in nineties London, and writing The Poison Tree in six months once motherhood made freelancing impossible. Plus her new novel The Night Stairs, a chilling tale of fainting, hysteria and secrets at a Yorkshire Moors convent school.

And her bits: a nameplate necklace from her mum that made her cry, a silver-and-onyx ring worn smooth since the sixties, an Italian gold cross that captures her love-hate relationship with Catholicism, a bead bracelet made by her thirteen-year-old, and — for the self-confessed Tudor geek — a replica Anne Boleyn necklace, with an E instead of a B. Find Erin on Instagram @erinjelly, www.erinkelly.co.uk and on Substack @mserinkelly

To view our guests' special bits, please follow us on Instagram @showusyourbitspodcast

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The entrepreneur who solved the problem of non-biodegradable balloons, CEO and co-founder of Bioloon, Charlotte Melia joins us from the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity to tell the astounding story of her discovery.

Her story starts with humble beginnings on the Isle of Wight. As a child she dreamed of becoming an actress, but after returning from a theatre tour pregnant, she realised she couldn't fulfil that dream and be a mum. Instead, she started a children's party company as a side hustle, dressing up as princesses at weekends. It quickly took off and, by 2018, Dazzle & Fizz had become the go-to company for ultra-high-net-worth individuals, royals and A-listers, with offices in London, New York and Saudi Arabia.

She shares some hair-raising stories from parties for the ultra-rich, including transforming The Dorchester ballroom into New York City for two-year-old twins. The average spend on a three-year-old's birthday party? £55,000.

Although fiercely environmentally conscious—banning single-use plastics long before it was fashionable, upcycling sets and redistributing food waste—Charlotte says party balloons remained a huge problem. With thousands being used and discarded after just a few hours, she became increasingly troubled by their environmental impact.

The latex balloons she bought claimed they would biodegrade as quickly as an oak leaf. Charlotte jokes that, despite only getting a double B in science, even she knew something didn't add up. After conducting some "cowboy science" of her own, she discovered they definitely weren't biodegrading.

Digging deeper, she uncovered years of greenwashing and found research proving latex balloons don't biodegrade as claimed. Instead, they contribute to microplastic pollution and are responsible for the deaths of around one million seabirds and 100,000 turtles every year.

Determined to find a solution, one of Charlotte's shareholders introduced her to Professor Jason Hallett at Imperial College London, who suggested funding a PhD student to develop an alternative to vulcanised latex.

With her party business losing 95 per cent of its revenue during Covid, while raising a son with special needs and going through a divorce, Charlotte risked the last of her money to fund researcher Juliana Cumming. Three years later came the call she'd been waiting for: Juliana had found the winning formula.

The result is a material that is both biocompatible and biodegradable, with the potential to replace vulcanised latex across the $40 billion industry—from balloons and gloves to medical devices and condoms.

Charlotte also shares the three objects that matter most to her: Rabbit, the soft toy she's slept with since birth; her well-travelled passport, which represents the freedom and purpose she finds in exploring the world; and Terrance, a small turtle attached to her backpack that reminds her every day why she's doing this work.

Her life hack? Turning her stubbornness into her superpower and swapping her morning coffee for functional mushrooms.

What a remarkable woman.

Find out more about Bioloon at @wearebioloon on Instagram and connect with Charlotte on LinkedIn at @charlottemelia.

To view our guests' special bits, please follow us on Instagram @showusyourbitspodcast

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From Jilly Cooper to Take That what do they have in common? This week’s guest, international bestselling author, entrepreneur and inveterate traveller Tasmina Perry. Long before the bestselling novels and publishing success, Tasmina was a bored trainee lawyer, working in a hot dog caravan at Granada Studio Tours, dreaming of becoming a journalist. Then one day she spotted a group of young dancers outside — “the red shoes”, as she describes them, dancing around in cycling shorts and bright red shoes and decided to pluck up the courage to ask if she could interview them. The nearest boy said yes. His name was Rob. The band was Take That. And Rob was Robbie Williams. That very first interview helped take Tammy from trainee lawyer and hot dog seller to a writer at More magazine, launching the journalism career that would eventually lead her to becoming editor. In this episode, Tammy also takes us behind the scenes of her glamorous new novel, Seven Nights in St Tropez, the ultimate summer page-turner, and reveals why she couldn’t bear to say goodbye to one of her favourite characters, the formidable paparazzi boss Mimi. From luxury mansions to the seedy underbelly of the yacht scene on the French Riviera, she explains how her love of travel inspires her writing, and why creating a vivid sense of place is at the heart of every book she writes. Tammy shares how a honeymoon search for the perfect beach read sparked the idea for Daddy’s Girls, the novel that became her breakthrough international bestseller, and why she later took another leap of faith by leaving traditional publishing behind to launch her own independent imprint. As always, the conversation is brought to life through four treasured possessions: a dazzling brooch gifted to her by her great inspiration and guiding light, Jilly Cooper, shortly before Jilly died; framed handwritten lyrics from her teenage hero Lloyd Cole; a photograph of Sherpa Tenzing summiting Everest; and a gold swan gifted by her husband, reminding her of the magazine where their love story began. Jilly’s encouragement and belief in her had a huge impact on Tammy, inspiring her to keep writing and trust in her own voice. It’s a conversation about creativity, reinvention, friendship, entrepreneurship and the power of simply asking the question: why not you? Tasmina’s message is simple: opportunities are everywhere, most people are kinder than you think and extraordinary things can happen when you’re brave enough to ask. Find Tasmina at tasminaperry.com and @tasminaperry on Instagram.

To view our guests' special bits, please follow us on Instagram @showusyourbitspodcast

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