You're listening to a Mother and Mere podcast.
Welcome to mum mea out loud What women are actually talking about on Monday, the fifteenth of September. I am Jesse Stevens.
I'm me and Friedman because hollywaen Right is sick.
I'm Amelia Last.
And here's what's on our agenda for today. The assassination of Charlie Kirk in broad daylight, the aftermath and what it all means.
Plus Prince Harry went back to the UK last week and it has changed everything.
And what is a mayor walk? And can doing one transform my mood? But first we have to talk about Charlie Kirk. I just want to obviously start by saying how horrifying it was to hear, and a lot of out louders will have seen or will have had people in their household, friends and family and kids who saw the whole footage of a thirty one year old man being a sated in front of thousands of people in broad daylight while he was talking on a college campus.
And I didn't actually know who Charlie Kirk was, and so I was trying to I felt like I was playing catch up because I was like, what just happened?
Who is this guy?
And my teenagers were like, you don't know who Charlie Kirk is?
Oh?
Yeah, No.
He was very familiar to young people because he was all over TikTok and had started this movement where he sort of goes on college campuses and debates people. But I didn't know who he was, and so all I was reeling from was the shock. And my kids friends were messaging them telling them to be careful on social media because some of their friends had seen the full video. I've got friends with primary school age children who saw it because within you know, seemingly minutes of the attack,
it was circulating everywhere. Every second reel you would see on TikTok and every second Instagram post was this incredibly violent footage of a man being murdered.
Essentially, how did you guys feel when you heard?
Well?
I think I had two reactions. It was really upsetting to think about this man who has two young children being killed and seeing that footage is something that is really hard to take. But then the second thing that was why it really hit me is because it's an act of political violence. And remember when Trump was almost assassinated a year ago, there was an attempt on his life.
When I heard that news, I burst into tears because there's something so uniquely disturbing about the idea of someone being killed for what they say, and it makes us all feel unsafe.
I think I agree with you. I found it really shocking. I found the way that the events transpired sort of in real time from the other side of the world, quite unusual, in that we had the President of the United States declaring him dead before anyone else knew that was the case. We'd seen the footage, people didn't know if he died or not.
And then by the time I came to the story, it was all you must have been up earlier than I was here.
You did know who Charlie Kirk was.
Yeah, I was very familiar with Charlie Kirk. He's been all over my Instagram and TikTok for twelve months. As you say, he's thirty one. He's widely credited as the guy who is very much responsible for getting the younger vote to galvanize around Trump. There is a very convincing argument that Trump would not have been elected if it weren't for child.
I did not know that he was that significant.
Yeah, and so Charlie Kirk, just to give you a little bit more background, he was not simply a conservative influencer, like he was in with Donald Trump and in with Donald Trump's family. So do you remember the false reports about eating family pets Haitians eating family pets around the time of one of the debates.
Yea.
The dog.
Yes, So Charlie Kirk was instrumental in perpetuating that myth, Like he was so on the Internet that he had the power to basically go, this is the story we're going to tell, and he handle he was.
Which was a completely untrue.
Story, completely untrue. So he basically had a handle on the young conservative movement and in terms of getting Trump in office in both twenty sixteen and twenty twenty four, there's a through line with Charlie Kirk, like he started up in twenty twelve and was like, let's make conservative politics cool again. Let's go and own the Libs. And he was able to galvanize this whole generation of people
and be like, we're for real American values. Hahna. Social media in a way that was very new, and this debate platform that we were talking about a few months ago he popularized that lately. Yes, he was the guy. That's what Turning Point USA is, which he co founded. It was about educating young people on conservative values.
So can I ask, because you say that he's been in your algorithm for a year now, I guess that's because you're watching these videos. That's why he keeps popping up. And what is it about him that inspired such strong connections?
I would always stop because I found it so infuriating. And it was because it was like he thought that because he spoke really fast and used lots of words in the same vein as someone like Ben Shapiro, who is the facts, don't care about your feelings conservative guy, that he was owning someone and showing out the hypocrisy and the weakness of their argument. But really he was just talking really really loud over the top of people. To me, it was such an indictment on the state
of debate. Like, I found it incredibly depressing. But he also came up in a lot of conversations I have with friends because every now and then they'd go, ah, did he kind of make a good point about this thing? Because he could be very, very persuasive, but he was arguing for really dangerous, really upsetting political views. The idea that he would be assassinated for speaking, you know, his beliefs was just I can't think of another word other
than shocking. And a lot of people felt the need to say this, but like, I don't think I've ever agreed with a word that Charlie Kirk has said, and I've actually seen a lot of them. But that doesn't mean that political violence or that someone losing their life for what they're saying is allowed. And I think I found it. There were two sides. There was the holding him up as a martyr, and then there was barely
the news had dropped. I don't even think his kids would have barely known what had happened to him yet, and there was glee. It was such a uniquely Internet moment.
What made me so shocked was the butt I disagree with you. I don't think there was two sides. I think there was probably three, because there was the people who were just like, this is just terrible, and I would put myself in that camp.
I think those people didn't post, well.
No, but why do you have to post? This is what made me feel so heartsick. Apart from the human heartsick story of a father with two children, age one and three, and a wife who it's unclear whether she was there or she wasn't there, but it doesn't matter. It's been televised globally essentially via the internet. Firstly, why does everybody have to come on social media and make
a statement like what is that about? Secondly, the people who come on and say this is bad, but I didn't agree with what he said, or but sometimes violence is necessary. I saw some people say but sometimes violence is necessary. These are respectable mainstream commentators. You know why when is violence necessary?
You Know what I notice more than anything this weekend is that there's something really interesting about who people are talking to. The extremes are talking to each other, and if you're not exposed to one extreme, it looks like someone is staring at the sky, shaking their fist, saying something that doesn't make sense. It's like, why is the butt necessary? The reason why people went that way is because on the other side you saw the reaction of
conservatives in the US. It was as though this man was some kind of messiah, and he was someone who lacked empathy throughout his life, and he was someone who defended gun ownership, and he was someone who had said, we're going to have a few regret.
About if this matters.
Can we just agree that we don't kill people if we disagree with what they stand for, or what they say, or what they believe. My exhaustion and my despair at the last few days has been, you know exactly what's going to happen. Some people are going to celebrate it, then there's going to be opinions written, and then there'll be backlash to the opinions and hot takes of hot takes, and everyone will try to cancel each other if you
say something, what should you say? And it's like, firstly, you don't need to say anything, and secondly, you can just say this is tragic. Can we all agree that we don't kill people that we disagree with.
This reminds me a little bit mea of when school shootings happen and we're told that we're not allowed to politicize them. And now it's not the time to talk about gun control because that would be somehow desecrating the memory of these children who were gunned down by weapons that should never have been available to ordinary citizens.
Do you know what I've also thought about so much is that this culture And we've noticed as people who've been online for you know, getting close to two decades now and writing opinion at the beginning, you know, in the twenty tens, early twenty tens, people would say I disagree with you. You know, there would be opinion sites and
other people would have opinions. It then became over the last sort of five to ten years, you need to delete it, take it down, apologize for what you said, because this feeling of having an opinion out there that you didn't agree with became so intolerable to a generation. And it was part of cancel culture as well. Right, So someone said something you didn't agree with. It's not I disagree with this person and you debate them or
you choose not to engage with them anymore. It's they need to be punished, they need to be canceled or wiped out.
But that's coming from both sides of me. I agree, I agree this is Happeningvative forces in the US are gathering to make lists of everyone who said things about this. I agree, they didn't think.
Were And to me, it's not a left and right. To me, it's our culture. Well, of the Internet of if I disagree.
With you, you.
Can't exist, and that is a through line to assosciation, which is terrifying.
I don't know. I think that they might be disparate issues, because what I worry about is we look at this and go, oh, it's it's left and right. It's the progressives on the internet have lost their mind. Hang on, we know very little about the person who did this. One man shot that bullet, and he will have had a motive and an upbringing and was very pro guns and all of that. And I do not like holding a whole political spectrum to account for an act of
very specific political violence. You're allowed to go online and criticize someone, absolutely, go for it. I mean, Charlie Kirk did that, as was he's right. But political violence, we know begets political violence. I think that's what's scary.
And I think that you said something before, Jesse, that we need to talk more about, which is that this was a very online event. And Mia, you directed my attention to an Instagram post from doctor Raymond Nichols. He wrote, you were never meant to witness someone's final breath and then laugh at a TikTok. You weren't built for that. Your soul wasn't designed to hold that kind of weight and then move on like it's nothing.
I think that part of the shock. This sounds sort of ridiculous, but I thought about how many videos had popped up of Charlie Kirk, and often I watched the whole thing. I was trying to understand it. That man's face had become very familiar to me. To watch that man die was an incredibly confronting thing because of the level of familiarity I suppose so many of us had, and the reaction. You can look at the reaction from all sides. I heard some journalists talking about it, and
journalists knew him as a man. They'd sat with him, and they traveled with him, and he was a flesh and blood person who some people liked, some people didn't. And the fact that even after he died, it was like for some people that wasn't an I just went the man isn't breathing anymore.
Yeah, Like, don't you think that's a result of dehumanizing people in the first place.
Yeah. And in terms of the political violence, begetting political violence, people are scared.
I think it's also about the fact that people are.
Scared, terrified. I mean if I was getting up on stage and that sounds ridiculous, but I think that the media class is kind of having this moment of if we live in a culture where you can't sit on stage and say what you think, we'll.
Look at Salmon Rushti.
Yeah, it wasn't that long ago that someone tried to murder him.
But also the building up of him as a martyr, which is happening right now. I mean people are scared, Like ordinary Americans who don't speak into microphones for a living are scared because when you build someone up as a martyr and then you say that the martyr has been killed, it leaves you to wonder what actions will be taken as a result of that.
Yeah, and to your point before, Amelia, about this happening across the spectrum. Three months ago, Melissa Hortman, who was a Democrat and her husband was shot and killed in their home. Now President Donald Trump refused to say her name. In the past, when Jay k was assassinated, when Martin Luther King was assassinated, there was at least this sense of like we can stand here as a political class, hold hands and say we disavow this across the spectrum,
this does not happen. But now you get the but what about thing because a moment like this happens and you have Elon Musk right, the left is the party of murder. Like that's just not I agreeful.
And I think back to what you said Jesse before about there were two groups of people. This all comes down to the algorithm and the internet. I think that the reason it can feel so demoralizing being online and make you despair is that you do only see the extremes and they are not symbolic of how most people feel about anything.
And the problem was, we see the extremes. We saw this happen, and maybe that's why it was such a big deal. Do you think, because in some ways this feels like a bigger deal than when the Trump assassination attempt happen.
The reason I heard someone say that it felt like a bigger deal, and I'm not American and I wouldn't know, but maybe you can speak to this, Amelia, is that there is a tragically a blueprint for attempted assassinations or assassinations of American presidents. You know, there was JFK, there was the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan, the attempted assassination of Trump. That's why it was like, it was shocking,
but it wasn't surprising, the attempted assassination of Trump. Charlie Kirk, As far as I understand, Jesse, he wasn't a political candidate.
He didn't hold office.
He had no actual impact on the leavers of government, unlike someone say, even Anelon Musk, who was actually in there doing things.
At the behatal.
He was powerful, but he was influential exactly. He was influential. And the people that said this is what made my blood curdle is that the people who were like, sometimes violence is necessary, and I'm like, what, so, it's necessary if you disagree with the person. But then if someone uses that justification because they disagree with you to be violent against you, Suddenly, oh no, it's only necessary when I disagree with the person's views, and that that's not a democracy.
That's You've christiz for me as to why this is such a big deal. Why we're talking about this on a Monday when it happened on a Thursday on the other side of the world, And it's because he was famous and was killed because of his words. He wasn't in office, he didn't have actions to criticize or condemn. He just had words.
This is why we protest, and this is why we speak, and this is why we debate, and we do all of those things. And in the course of a debate, you can entirely lack empathy. And I want to sort of acknowledge space for that, because Charlie Kirk did dehumanize a lot of people, he did hurt a lot of people. But just because he lacked empathy doesn't mean that in the wake of his death we need to like, that's not how I.
Know unless you believe that words of violence. And then the logic all through line is that, well, if someone's been violent to me with their words, I can be violent to them with a gun.
And that's a terrifying.
Reality in a moment, how Harry's trip to the UK has suddenly changed everything. The Duchess of Sussex's jams have been arriving on us doorsteps this week and last week.
I have an unpopular opinion. I think they're too cheap.
How much are they They're nine dollars and I think, yeah, I think it's seven dollars postage.
But like with all this fuss, I reckon.
I mean, I wouldn't have bought them, but I think she could have sold them for like thirty dollars.
I completely agree. Agree, is there expensive postage?
Seven dollars?
Apparently there was some twine and some dried lavender on it, so.
Okay, that was just a little bit.
It makes it film mass produced. I completely agree. And I don't know if you heard this or even if it made it into the cup for Friday's episode, but you know, we spoke to a tower card reader on Friday and one of our questions was whether Holly will ever get her hands on a jam.
I think there's a lot of it available now.
I don't know how hard she get in Australia Maya, and she said she will get the jam, but maybe not the jam.
That she wanted. It might be, which isn't that how life goes? So this is not about the jam. Prince Harry's had a really good couple of days. Let me explain. He took a thirty six hour trip to Kiev in Ukraine over the weekend and he was promoting his Invictus Games foundation there, but Before that, he went to the.
UK for a few days and had a balloon animal sword fight with a small child.
Oh so sel photos. He went, He visited sick children, He got out and about in the community. He was smiling, he was laughing. The UK press called it old Harry is back again, because you know, he's only been to the UK recently for lawsuits and has looked very dow funerals and funerals.
So was he in the UK as part of an Invictus Games thing too, I'm just wondering.
No, it was essentially a little unofficial royal visit. So he went in part because he really wanted to meet with his dad and it was unclear whether he was going to And if you recall last week on the show, I cited some reporting that said that his dad was not going to meet with him. And the reason why his dad was not going to meet with him is because his other son, William has absolutely next this. He says he's not allowed to meet with Harry. It's sort
of the same as Prince Andrew. Once you're out, you're out, you can't be let back in. He said unforgivable things about Kate. He implied that Kate was racist about his children's skin color.
And that she was cold.
I've got a lot of sympathy for this idea because can you imagine, given that so many private conversations were relaid both in the Netflix documentary that harn Meghan did and in Spare his memoir, like even meeting with Charles, I think trust would be very much in tatters.
Yeah, and you know, I don't think it's unusual when there are two children to sort of play off each other to their parents. I remember once you and me were talking about how fun it is to complain about our sibling to our parents and then to see whether or not they agree with you.
And complain to our sibling about our parents exactly.
So all of this has said that he didn't know whether he was going to get to meet with him. Well, guess what. Charles was coming down to London from Balmoral for his weekly cancer treatment and he met with Harry. This is a huge deal. They have not met since February twenty twenty four.
Do we know where they met?
They met at Clarence House's house and the perhaps were tipped off by the Palace to show Harry driving.
In in his range.
Driver now apparently they really pulled out all the stops. Harry has a beloved chocolate biscuit cake that Charles made sure was laid out for him. Clearly this was a real attempt by both sides to repair things.
So the queen had this tradition of afternoon tea diplomacy where if she really wanted something or she really wanted someone to make them feel special, she would lay on the full English afternoon tea with the proper sandwiches. And she loved a bit of cake. So there was this special cake that she would have, this chocolate biscuit cake, which is quite as really good does and Harry loves it.
So there was a lot of people were saying, well, when Harry goes, if he gets the chocolate biscuit cake that is like the real symbol of an olive branch, except in chocolate cake.
Form, and he got it tasty. So the question is why. The question is why Charles went against the heir to the throne and his eldest son's stated wish to meet with his Maverick younger son, who has also not said very nice things about him in the past. So why did Charles do this? Mea what's your theory.
I had no theories. There's two that are going around. There's a newsletter call the Royalists that I read by a royal reporter called Tom Sykes, which I'm getting so much value out of.
He has said that.
The media is very focused on the split between Charles and Harry, but what no one's really noticed is the split between Charles and William. And he said that's the big story because Charles believes that William is lazy, essentially because he does not have nearly as many public engagements. So even though Charles has been having cancer treatment for the past twelve months, he's done one hundred and seventy
five engagements. But William has been very clear about family first and wellness first, and Charles is of the queen thinking, which is duty first. You never put anything above your duty as a royal.
And by the way, there's another dynamic land on top of that, which is that William thinks he's going to modernize the monarchy and he gets so fed up with how Charles is very stuffy and he likes wearing his uniforms, and he thinks this is all like very old fashioned, and he thinks that putting his family first is showing that he's doing a lot to modernize the monarchy.
He's like, let's make the monarchy cool again.
So do you think that maybe Harry and Charles had a little bit of a bitch about William.
I think Charles would have probably been more discreet than that, because you know, you don't trust.
Harry, right, yeah, but you know with your mum you like, yeah, no, you don't go full into it. You see how fire you kind of go. How's William? Oh? Has he been working hard?
Oh?
It's not a lot of engagements.
That's true, And it's funny when Harry was in London last week, suddenly Kate and William filled their diary with some more engagements.
Did you read the profile in the Guardian about the interview that he interviewed?
And so he took a Guardian journalist with him on this trip to Ukraine, which is really interesting. He's got two new media advisors. What did you think of that.
Interviewinating so number one with the Guardian, which they even say at the side of the article, this is a really weird choice to have the Guardian go with him, because the Guardian is a very openly Republican media outlets.
So is he he hates the monarchy too.
And then the second thing that's interesting about him going to Ukraine. This is his second trip to Ukraine since Russia's invasion, William has not been at all. William is desperate to go, but because he's the heir to the throne, they've said that it's not safe for him to go.
So there's been reporting that he was incredibly rankled by the fact that Harry gets to go and show his valor and his bravery stepping through the bombed out buildings, and William just has to hang around on the Estonian border with Russia because he's not allowed to go into Ukraine.
I thought this was I thought of all the things Harry and he's Montecito home with his la wife and.
All of that.
I just thought of all the things he could do. He doesn't need to be in Ukraine, like he doesn't does no. I know he's got the Invictors games, but I actually really respect his commitment to that cause. And I read about him and he had this great quote about like nobody should feel embarrassed or ashamed about their disabilities, and it's about flipping from sympathy to admiration and respect, like it's just a cause that's so consistent with him
and his life and his military experience. And I just read that and I got to the end and went, yeah, people really respect you because you kind of do know what you're talking about, and you've chosen this cause and stick with it.
He also gave a million pounds to a charity in the UK, and a lot of people thought this was a little bit ghosh to give this amount of money. But then Americans pointed out, who were very comfortable talking about money, that William's Earthshot Prize, which also gives a cash prize out to people, isn't even funded by William. It's funded by private donors. So in other words, Harry is putting his money where his mouth is in a way that William is not.
I can see how galling it would be for William because Harry, and this is why the Queen was so uneasy and vetoed Harry and Meghan's request to be part time royals, because when you're half in, half out, he gets to come and do these quasi royal tours. It looks like a royal walks like a royal smells like a royal but isn't officially royal, So that helps him make commercial deals back in America because he's this pretend royal, but he's not governed by any of the limitations of
being royal. So, for example, William can't go and do what he does in Ukraine because it's too much of a security risk.
Right and yet Megan, on the shortbread biscuits that went out in the US this week, apparently on the packaging, it says, these remind me of my time living in the UK when I used to have tea and biscuits. And you know, she's playing off this idea that these are the biscuits that she probably hate at Buckingham Palace.
Speaking of Megan, she has given Harry some very good advice that came through in the Guardian interview. So Harry only mentions her once, but says that she tells him that telling the truth is the most efficient way to leave. I love that and now he lives by that.
I think that's brilliant.
I think it's brilliant. She's so wise, our Meghan, and I thought I could do it a little of that.
Remember when she said she didn't google him before they were sorry the Guardian article. Did you read it, Jessea, Yeah, I forget. So he is really.
At pains in that to say, yes, I missed the UK, but I also love my life in the US. And people have been saying that he's been looking very miserable lately, so maybe he's unhappy, but he was really at pains to paint his life in the US is one that he's very fulfilled in. Do you feel like that was doth protest too much? Or did it feel convincing to you?
Totally convincing, totally convincing that he is not to love and that they kind of said, oh, you know, you whinge and yeah, someone who's always got something to complain about. But he was saying everything I've spoken about is just getting my version of what was already on the record out there. It was a rite of reply and now I've said it. He does seem happy, he does seem light.
But here is where we need to move into rampant speculation and mea, I want your thoughts on this. He clearly wants in on some kind of royal or quasi royal existence. He's been missing the shaking of hands and the jousting with sick kids, and he wants some of that.
He wants to be on the balcony.
It's not clear Meghan wants that. In fact, I would say that Megan feels much more comfortable doing exactly what she's doing, which is pursuing a more traditional American or Hollywood conception of celebrity. Or you do the TV shows and then you sell associated branded products. These two intentions are in conflict with each other.
Disagree because I think that what makes Meghan, the only thing that makes Meghan different from any other influencer is the Dutchess part. So they need the royal adjacency to make money in the US and to retain their power, and their income is directly linked to that royal adjacency. If they're just Harry and Meghan, well you know, then they're the same as like poshen Becks or any old famous albeit world famous couple. There were two things in
that interview that really jumped out at me. The first was when he said the next year is all about my father. I'm like, okay, well, Charles is sicker than we thought. And the second thing was the last line where the journalist talked about how popular he is in Ukraine, and because there's so many people who've got disabilities in Ukraine who've been injured in the war, he's hugely famous because of his Invictors games work right, and so he
was like mobbed in Ukraine. And the journalist recounted to Harry that he'd asked one of the people, why do you like him so much? And they said, oh, it's just dis great royal. But he seems to do things his own way. And when he said that to Harry, Harry said, you know who else did their things their
own way? My mum. And I was like, oh, the feeling that William and Harry must have in who has claimed to Diana's legacy, because Harry has written so much about his devastation and Diana and Diana and he is like her in a lot of way, and William hasn't. And there's this idea that somehow William wasn't affected by her loss and isn't still affected by her loss, just because he doesn't emote in that kind of American way.
You'd have to say that William, and I guess he could, but that's not really the vibe of the monarch and future monarch.
It's such a funny and U forbidding family. There was some other news last week. Paul Barrow, Diana's former butler. He wrote something about the last days of Queen Elizabeth's life and he had some inside sources there. And apparently she didn't even tell her family that she being diagnosed with cancer. She told her ladies in waiting, and she told people around her, but she was concerned that as she told the family, they'd say, you got to get off the throne and we're going to put in a
regency ruling until you pass. And I just can't imagine being in a family where you have to decide if it's strategically okay for you to mention that you're dying. MM after the.
Break, why you need to start going on mayor walks? And I'm going to reveal who at this table is an absolute expert in them.
Do you want daily outloud access? Why wouldn't you?
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If you're feeling a bit flat, bit isolated, bit lonely. A woman named Anna Syrian wants you to try what she has termed the mayor walk. The writer she has a substat called ambitious Softy says what she does is she walks into the hub of her local neighborhood. So think your local cafe, right, and she sets a challenge for herself to embody the energy of a small town mayor. Right, what does that look like? You have to assume everyone is happy to see you. You have to make eye
contact with all dogs and all babies. You must carry a warmth and lightness out in the community for specifically ten to twenty minutes.
She's said, right, that amount of time is doable.
Is your limit?
Yeah?
She says this is the best way that she's managed to make connections in her small community. Amelia, would you say you have mayor energy?
Absolutely not. I think I have spoken on this podcast about how my neighbors in my apartment building complain to the strata that I was not friendly enough.
But that is I feel like something what happened to me?
But that is I think why I adore this. It's a challenge, like even to do it for ten to twenty minutes. It's scared me a little bit, and that's how I know I must do it. So I tried it this morning. I got on the bus and I said good morning to the bus driver and then he said something unintelligible back to me. But I felt like I'd set off on the right foot and I'm going to try this. I think it's fantastic.
Can you try it in your own house?
I think the home could do with some maor energy because you maya to call you out, you have mad small town mayor energy in the office.
Oh yeah.
So what happens is this is how I imagine it going. You get in the lift, you take a deep breath, you close your eyes, you have a moment, you go turn on the math, and then you walk out of the lift. And because you happen to own this business, you don't get to walk in like a MILLIONA and I do where we put our heads down and hide in the barthroend. You've got to have some kind of present and you walk in and you have your queen wave that you do to people. Yes, and they.
Don't got queen waves.
Oh sorry, you're shaking hands.
You're not actually shaking people's heads and wave that's what you're doing.
And then you're going you have your prepared small talk, you start touching people's clothes questionable.
Maybe whether that's my version of over the.
Wave yep, And then you just go, how's your weekend?
Da?
Da da, And you are like this this socialite that turns it on ten to twenty minutes. And then you go and hide in your office and when you see me, you're like high like because you know you don't have to go full mayor on me. But not the mayor view to other people. I think that people who own businesses, wow, have to turn on the.
Mayor, do you know?
And also people who work in the service industry. Oh when when you're in any way customer facing and you've just nailed why I'm so tired, Because I've often said when I'm at work, I feel the responsibility to walk the floor so people can see me. I've got to be interested in everyone, and I genuinely am.
You must embrace babies. If there's a baby in the office, it is like you must hold the baby. Make a fast.
When you're the mayor or the owner of a business, you know that people's interactions with you carry weight, and if you are in a bad mood or distracted or absent or whatever, they can take that personally in a way that they might not if you're a regular coworker.
Yes, exactly.
It's like being in front of house.
Yeah, it's almost like being a little bit famous, right, because everyone knows who you are, even if you don't know who they are yet, because it might be their first day, right, and like you haven't met them before, but you've got to give them a memorable experience because the mayor.
This reminds me that I had a boss at a magazine I used to work out who was quite famous, and he's not an a winter or famous, but he's up there for journalists. And his strategy was he would walk around the office once a day, and you knew that he'd come and see you, and you kind of wanted to prepare for it by putting something on your desk to start the conversation, because the one thing you
couldn't be was boring. So you might put a book on your desk, or you might put a new snack or some kind of offering to the boss on his male walk so that when he came round to see you you had something to riff on, and then you'd make that connection as he went on his walk.
That's genius, because I think people can become very anxious when they have to talk to the mayor, because I think it's not just business owners, but it's also managers.
I remember when.
My boss used to come into my office when I worked in magazines. I would always have like sporting equipment, not actual sport equipment, but like there'd be an umbrella that he would pretend was a golf club, or they'd be like a ball that he could like throw in the garbage bin, and that sort of facilitated his mayoral experience.
I have found that I've gone a bit full mayor when I'm with Luna throughout the commit Like when I was just on my own, I could just walk through and be anonymous or whatever. But when I'm with Luna, I almost want to present the world as this open, exciting everyone's our friend, and I turn into a different version of myself because I want to model what a kind, good, engaged person looks like, which is entirely performative, Like I've got to go all right, let's put on my acting hat.
So The other day, I took Leona. It was a really cold day. We were hanging out the morning. We walked past this guy I see all the time. I say high to him, who is currently homeless, and we stopped and I went, would you like a coffee? Let's go and get this maun of coffee loner, and I thought, and that was for Luna, Like I'd like to believe that I'm a kind person. But I went, Luna needs
to see her mum being a mayor. And so when on board it, she tried to steal the bickie off the top and I went, no, no, no, that's not good form, Luna, we're being the mayor, went and gave it to him, and I was like, this is how I should behave every single day, Like it makes you feel so good about yourself because you're connected with the community.
All the studies show that happiness comes from interactions that you have with acquaintances or strangers. Yeah, the friendships and the relationships, those are the draining ones.
That's why so many of us suffered during COVID drive because we didn't have we were deprived of those interactions. Do you remember when we were finally let out of our houses and we would have these long conversations with strangers in like queues or on buses. I think it's so interesting this idea of a mayor walk because a mayor is different to a royal and different to a celebrity. Because a mayor is accessible and a mayor is relatable and accountable.
And of service.
You're of service.
So I also think I think this is why I hate having birthday parties, because you have to put on your mayor hand. Oh and the thing about this that I loved was I've got ten to twenty minutes, maybe twelve minutes in me a full mayor mode.
You're right hosting a party, you have to be a mayor.
I hate because the thing is I have a birthday party and you invite all your friends there, and I'm like, I can't do three.
Do you know what it's worth? Kids' birthday parties where you're unclear on the name of any of the people you've invited to know, how can you be the mayor.
When you don't know people's name and it just goes on and on. It's like, I feel as though you do ten minutes, you set it up, and then everyone else you know what you need a sub in mayor. You need to then go here's a baton. Now you be the mayor, because I can't.
Suspect I've got it.
My best tip for mayor's if you find yourself in a mayor situation.
Great to see you.
Great to see you.
Not nice to meet you because maybe you've met before and you've forgotten.
Really, it's great to see you.
See do you think this whole conversation people have thought we're talking about the male horse, female horse? Is it a female horse?
My biggest takeaway is that mea thinks an umbrella is sporting equipment. Before we go, I have gone full domestic goddess and I want to share it with you. I know how to make a scone according to the Country Women's Association, as you know, are the experts on this.
Did you do a course?
A course this weekend? Sorry, of course she does.
Such unusual things, Amelia.
This weekend I had a friend visiting from the US and she has a baby and is very frazzled, and I was trying to think of what's a really Australian thing we can do that's not cliched, And it so happened that in my neighborhood. There was a Country Women's Association course on how to make the perfect scone, and I thought, that's the most Australian thing I can.
Know, Amelia. It's very with love Megan of you.
I think it's when you just say course, how long?
Like?
Is it a weekly thing?
Oh? Did you have? It was a very rigorous three hours and we had to get involved with the making of the scones. But I learned a lot of really fascinating things.
Okay, please please tell us I do love U scne?
Can I just put that out of there?
Love us gone? Did you bring any I did not because I ate them all. We made pumpkin. We made a savory SCN with cheese and olive. The best cheese mixer of SCN is parmesan and cheddar half half, and we made a regular SCN. And then we made a lemonade scan which I'm going to make with my kids because they're really easy.
Have you heard a lemonade? S gone?
It's just lemonade, flour and cream.
Really yummy.
I thought you put cream on a SCN, not in a skin.
You can make it in the scon So the main thing I want to leave you with because the big, big thing she said about how to make the perfect scne is you do not twist. Let me explain. When you are cutting the scon out of your dough, there's a temptation, there's a temptation to twist the cutter into the dough.
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's what I do with Plato.
You must never twist. It inhibits the skon's ability to rise, and to me, it's full potential.
Jesse, you can't inhibit the scone.
Never twist, Never twist.
I'm undermining as a foundation needs to be free.
Okay, do you have any other questions for.
Me in terms of the tray, Like how close are we're putting the scones together?
Good question. They should not be touching. This is a common misconception of fact. I heard from someone in the office here who thought that you were meant to sort of have them lightly kiss each other. No, I thought they can in.
A miss and tray me.
Oh, you've really upset everyone. Now you're not going to be invited back. I think that Amelia and Brent Holly's Brent who won the scone competition's gone off. Yeah, I think that there should be a competition, except.
It's just no, I'm going to win because I'm going to leave you with a couple more tips. Keep everything cold so you don't need to sift flower, which is great because I never truly understood how to sift flower.
I never understood the purpose.
I didn't know that the purpose is so you don't have lumpskys well anyway, keep it in the freezer and you never have to sift together again. Keep your flower in the freezer. And another thing is that when you've made the scones and you've put them on the baking tray, whipping into the fridge for a little bit, then turn the oven on so they get a little bit of a chill before you get them in the ovens.
Few more steps and I'm happy.
The final tip that I want to leave you with, and this is important, you cannot overmix. It's a lazy girl taking exercise, which is also.
The role apparently doves for cookies. Yeah you want to. I think that maybe you're not meant to with cookies. You're like, they're really good when you take them, go.
What a bit rubbery?
Yeah, it just doesn't let them rise and then cream and jam. I want to see if we have thoughts on what goes first.
Okay, I think jam goes first.
I would think cream and then jam as the top er off for us.
So it turns out that the reason why people are even putting jam on top is because of Instagram. Like this is like like it's always been understood you're meant to put the jam on first and then the cream. This is a cwa's doctrine, and I am inclined to believe them on everything, including scones. But they speculate that because we now want to make everything pretty for social media, that's why there's been this pernicious shift towards putting the jam on top of it. It's like porn. It's like porn.
Be honest, I don't be food porn, but like the reason that there are certain things that you see in porn, like no pubic care, is because it looks better on camera.
That's so much like nouns.
It's like, Scott, I don't know what the CWA would endorse that, but let's let's run with it.
Maybe they of course for that, Probably not they probably they don't.
A big thank you to all of you the out loud. It's fun. It's been so much fun that might come by. We might we might even invite you for listening to today's show and our fabulous team.
For me interrupting you.
No, not really. Look, I've missed your energy. I've missed your mayor energy. You're well behaved today, you were, you were prepared.
My best foot forward.
You've got a good energy. You're allowed back. Friends, don't forget you. You think I should keep in you just keep interrupting, don't you.
One at a time, you compared SCons to porn. I don't think that's her being on good behavior.
You can watch us on YouTube. Have you've been watching us on YouTube?
Man?
I have?
Actually, how do we look? I've got some notes? No, you look great.
Thank you will be back in your ears.
Tomorrow before we go, though. If you're feeling that pressure of the end of the year, and I know it's coming, you might enjoined last Wednesday's episode. It's related. We talked about the great lock in. This is a phrase I'm using all the time now, and I used it with my babysitter and she was so impressed that I knew this phrase. So listen to that. And here's a little taste of it.
Lucking guys, Stacy, are you locking in?
Can I lock it out? Get me out, leave me on the outside. I just feel like this is like New Year's Resolutions rebranded, except we have to do them every quarter, and I'm just like, I've failed already ten days.
Into the month. I don't want to do it. I don't want to do it. But how fundamentally resent having to think about the year in terms of quarters? I am an accountant, Yes, Amelia?
How about like, are you going to run a marathon? Are you training for?
Yeah?
You know that, Jesse. That's so funny that you asked me that. I am just trying to go to exercise classes and stay silent during them. That's just my goal here. It was really interesting chat. And we'll pop a link to that episode in the show notes. I guarantee you will be using it a lot. Bye bye.
Shout out to any Mum and MAA subscribers listening. If you love the show and you want to support us, subscribing to Mom and Maa is the very best way to do so. There's a link in the episode description