Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Co-founder of lastminute.com, the online last-minute travel and leisure site.
On the island
Eight records
Get HappyFavourite
I watch them whenever I was sick or just skiving school. And my particular favourite was a not very good movie called Summer Stock with Judy Garland in it ... And the number get happy. Well, I defy anyone not to make themselves feel happy after listening to this.
It's my mum's, one of my mum's favourite records ... and I can hear her singing it and doing the ironing or chopping things up or putting on makeup and it makes me quite teary even to think about it.
This is really kind of a teenage years song ... she really belts it out and I think this is a great number.
Record number four is definitely Oxford. A couple of guys formed a band there called Groove Armada ... And this really makes me think about all the times we should have been studying ancient modern history, but we're running around the fields dancing with our hands in the air.
Number five is particularly important because my boyfriend at the time had been in Jamaica for a month and I hadn't seen him and it had been quite tough. But when he came back, he came back in spectacular style ... we played a lot of ska music and this is one of those tunes.
I definitely associate with long car journeys when I was little. I think it would normally get to the first Lila Lai if we were driving to Wales from Oxford and I'd be asking if we were there yet ... But I really associate it with again sort of happy times when I was little.
Joan Sutherland & Luciano Pavarotti
I love La Traviata. And I listened to it with my mum on the sofa when I was probably about seven and a half, and we read the words and listened to the music, and it blew me away.
My last record would keep me company on my desert island ... most nights out end up back in my flat with me being very bossy about what music we can listen to and it normally starts with Billie Jean because it's just so great to dance to.
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:29How do parents do that, Martha? How do they instill that kind of self-confidence in you?
I think it's a combination of things. Firstly, just a huge amount of love and laughter at home. Always very, very lucky. And I think also the privilege of a great education and their own slight zaniness.
Presenter asks
2:35Someone said she, or did you say it yourself, always had a driving ambition to be famous and widely adored. True or false?
I think everyone wants to be widely adored, don't they? Be famous, I'm not sure. Perhaps in the abstract, but certainly not through Lastminute.com. That was a complete surprise ... I never anticipated that it would become such an enormous thing.
Presenter asks
2:44But the reality is it hurts, doesn't it? [being vilified in the press]
Well, I know it does. No, it it does hurt, but it's it also did still feel quite surreal and quite abstract. And I'd look at the stuff and it didn't often seem to be really about me. It was more about a sort of context and so on. So, of course, it does hurt, but I think it's just about keeping it in perspective.
The keepsakes
The book
Leo Tolstoy
I remember my dad reading me chunks of it when I was little and crying, and it's not often you see a parent crying when they read to you, so that's pretty powerful.
The luxury
I've recently started to love karaoke, even though I'm a terrible singer. And I figure it would have double benefits, because not only would my appalling singing maybe attract attention, but also I could practise and improve and have a lot of fun.
Presenter asks
5:33But why didn't you see it as an idea? What did you think was wrong with it? [when Brent first suggested lastminute.com]
I think I just didn't quite understand how technology would make it a lot simpler because the idea of it is very complicated. It's a big ambitious vision to be able to sort out your leisure non-working time all in one place, all on one site.
Presenter asks
16:06Were you hugely disappointed? Was the family disappointed? [with getting a 2-2 degree at Oxford]
I must have been really disappointed. I can't really remember it being the end of the world, but I'm sure it probably was. I just pretended it wasn't. I never felt as though anybody in my family was cross with me or disappointed. I think they just felt for me because they knew that I would have been upset.
Presenter asks
26:08So if it's going to get so exciting, Martha, why do you want to leave? [lastminute.com]
Well I think it's better to go um when they might miss you as opposed to when they're kicking pushing you out the door. But also because it's always been part of the plan. I still feel as though I got to prove some things to myself and I'd like to feel as though if it was just my neck on the line um what would I do and how would I behave?
“I can honestly say, I think my father would have fallen off his chair with horror if I'd said I was going to go and be a banker, rather than I was going to go and work in television or start a business or something.”
“I think that lot of people I think go through a big transition when they go from school to university perhaps. I think that I definitely changed most when I swapped schools and came to London and was in the middle of the capital and fending for myself”
“1% of my job was doing PR. 99% was growing a business and managing the people and doing the operations, the marketing and not the glamorous stuff.”