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I've entered my Rashi era. Think about a rashie is that I don't want to be a three year old at a public pool, right, I want to be Kate Bosworth in Blue Crats. Can we remember that now?
Reference Jersey.
I knew you would.
I've got rashi. It's got a full zip and I always wear it like all the wow and just for a little bit of peanut.
And my friend when I used to go to the beach from the other time, she'd always come up to me and just do this bit back up like it was a mistake.
I'm trying to be hot.
Hello, and welcome to MoMA Mia out Loud and to our Friday show where we do not talk about the news. We talk about other things. It's like a whole mental la la laughingers in this situation. Today is Friday, the eleventh of eight, and my name is Hollywayin Wright.
I am Jesse Stevens, and I am Amelia Lester, and Amelia is joining us remotely today. We now have to have that as a caveat ever since when I joined remotely, I swear I'm not plugging a chord in properly, but I guarantee that Amelia's audio is going to be perfect, perfect Amelia.
But if you wonder if why she sounds a bit little different, that's.
Why I'm swathed in sheepskin right audio.
On today's show, are we entering the era of d diagnosis? We're talking about a new book that's changing the way we see what's wrong with us? Also an it girl, a magazine mogul, and a rashie. It could be a reality show, but it's not. It's our recommendations for the week, and a Nicole test, a bingle and multiple viewings of a questionable film that's our best and worse. But first, Amelia Lester.
In case you missed it, A professional golfer Ryan McCormick has taped his mouth and no it wasn't mouth taping for sleep. The American golfer has been had apparently a tough year on the golf circuit. As I think you probably both know, Holly.
And Jesse, I'm very closely following the golf circuit at all times.
Me McCormick classic McCormick behavior.
He knew he was prone to emotional outbursts, so he decided that when things weren't going well, he should preempt that by taping his mouth. Here is Ryan.
I mean, at this point, I've tried about everything.
I've read a lot of books.
I've talked to people just too angry on the golf course.
So I have run out of ideas.
And I thought about the tape thing a couple weeks ago, and unfortunately came down to that today.
I was hoping maybe it would help me. I can't say that it did or didn't.
Golf rage. He's got golf rage and this was his solution.
My god, don't you feel like mouth tape is one of those things where for me, I literally did not know of the concept for the first forty years of my life, and now it's popping up everywhere all the time. Jesse, is there anyone whose mouths you would like to tape?
Yeah? When I saw this story, I immediately put it in our group chat and I said, we should take me a's mouth.
Hut.
I think that could be a good thing for some workplaces. And similarly to McCormick, he was saying he did this as well for his fellow golfers. So I feel like sometimes it's a kind thing for those around us if we know that we've got issues with, say, impulse control, as mea sometimes does.
I feel sorry for Ryan because this is a big thing to do when you know the world's cameras are on you, right, you know everybody's gonna ask you. And I also relate because one of my resting faces is that hold my lips together. And when I'm doing that, I'm sure I'm doing exactly this. I'm like going, don't shay it, don't say it, don't say it. But what don't they make his golf game a bit hard? Don't have you talk in golf?
Yeah, so speaking to your caddy about what club you want for your next hole quite hard. I want the book, a big one for my putter. But I think there's something about sports that you play on your own that screw in your head. Because I loved tennis growing up and I needed tape. I needed two tape.
You were John McEnroe, Tope.
I am John McEnroe. You've nailed it. I need a tape across my mouth and I need a tape between my hand and that racket because the amount of rackets I threw. Oh, I screamed, because it's the frustration when you're in a team, you get to blame it on others. That's why I love this podcast.
Yeah, it's true when we screw it up, you're just like that was definitely holly to me.
It reminds me a little bit also of the way that pimple patches have become so big, and you know, you don't think of mouth tape is something you can wear in public. I'm still figuring out whether pimple patches are something I can wear in public. And sometimes I wear pimple patches to pick up my children from school and they get really angry at me, and they don't understand that this is what Justin Bieber and others have already said as a trend.
You know Dochi, who's a very very cool rapper musician, she wears face tape like as a statement to pull ahead back and like vis face tape on purpose. And when she was asked why, she said, and I apologize in advance to the producers for this, she said, because it's.
We are living in the age of diagnosis, but are we about to enter a new era, one of d diagnosis, where we give some of our pathologies back. This might sound provocative, and it is, but I'm going to put forward the argument that is being made by an Irish physician who specializes in neurology named doctor Suzanne O'Sullivan, and then I'd love to hear your thoughts. O'Sullivan has released a book. If you haven't seen it, you're about to
see it everywhere. It is called The Age of Diagnosis, and she says that the first job of a doctor is to do no harm. She asks, are some diagnoses doing more harm than good? So O'Sullivan writes that we are not getting sicker, we are attributing more to sickness. And medically, when you're getting a diagnosis, it's supposed to lead to something. The problem with over diagnosis, in her view,
is that it can lead to over treatment. We can actively create illness and distress, which potentially wastes limited resources that could be used for those who are in greater neat.
Jesse, can I just ask you that quote that's very makes absolute sense, but just to expand it a bit more. When she says we're not getting sicker, we're attributing more to sickness. That means that if there's a certain behavior or symptom that you're living with, people were always living with it. But now we will say, oh, that's because I'm diagnosed with blah.
Yes, and so we're getting cancers earlier. Pre diabetes is something. We've lowered the threshold for pre diabetes, so more people understand themselves to be living with illness. And I will say there are particular fields where I think there really is a rise. But what she is saying is that broadly, we've medicalized a lot of things for better, and she
says in some cases for worse. So one story she tells is about a woman who was told she had a fifty percent chance of developing Huntington's disease, which is a genetic degenerative disorder. Very quickly, she started to notice the symptoms, cognitive, unusual body movements. Over time it got worse, and finally when she thought, you know, this is as bad as it's going to get, she got tested and she tested negative. She didn't have it, And we underestimate.
This is O'Sullivan's point, what the brain does when given a diagnosis. I saw an example of this on Instagram recently. It was a mum. She's a very kind of famous figure and mum talk and on Instagram and she was doing this thing I think you too will relate where you're cleaning your house and you stop for a minute and you look at something and you kind of drift off into space. And she put this funny video up and said, does anyone relate?
Right?
And I went through the comments and there were comments saying, you've had an absence seizure, this is dissociation. You need to take this video to your doctor. And I thought if I was a doctor and people were coming to me with videos like this, which was fine. She came out of it and everything was fine. Are we just pathologizing quite normal human experiences, Holly? Obviously we're not doctors.
Maya Friedman is a known doctor, but she's not here today, and so any questions people have about their actual health obviously go and see a professional. But having listened to some interviews with O'Sullivan, do you see some of the potential downsides of living in the age of diagnosis?
I do. I listened to an interview with Susann O'Sullivan on Armchair Expert that was really interesting. And it has to be said that she is she's Irish. I don't know why that suddenly somehow makes her seem more is so reasonable to me, But.
She's Irish, does you know what it does?
She's a doctor with an Irish accent, and she is so beautifully nuanced on this Because my first instinct, when Jesse you mentioned a while ago that you really wanted to talk about this on the show, my first instinct is of defensiveness, and I just need to kind of explain why so we can get that out of the way for this conversation, because I'm sure a lot of people listening will feel the same. Very often, when people talk about how we live in an age of overdiagnosis,
they're often talking about kids. They're often talking about parents who are seeking diagnoses for their kids for various things, And there's almost this tone of conversation that, for obvious reasons, really presses buttons in me, which is a suggestion that parents are lazy, looking for shortcuts, want to medicate their
children so they're easier to handle. Just like the identity of somehow having a child with the special conduct that kind of conversation is a real thing, and it exists, and I want us to put that aside for this conversation, right, because that's not really what Susann O'Sullivan is talking about.
She does talk a little bit about childhood diagnosis, but she's talking more specifically about well, all of us, but adults in the purpose of this conversation, who are over diagnosed or seeking diagnosis for things that maybe once we would have just lived with.
Right.
That's kind of the yes, yeah, and whether that's a good thing or not, and pushing back slightly against the mainstream view that of course it's a good thing, because on the surface of it, when you listen to this, you think, well, of course it's a good thing that we now know what the signals the spikes of diabetes might be, and so prediagnosis is great, or that we're catching cancers earlier. We all have people in our lives who are around because they caught cancer earlier, so that
seems really true. Her point about anything negative is kind of saying that it can be debilitating. Am I right? That's kind of what she's saying.
Yes, and can we do anything about it?
Yeah?
What's the purpose of a diagnosis if there's nothing? Her as a doctor can do about it.
Yeah, So she was saying that she thinks a diagnosis is worth seeking if whatever you're living with is debilitating to you, is really affecting your life in a negative way. And that's kind of a bit of a similar prediagnosis that you often talk about addiction. Right, how do you know if you're drinking too much or whatever, is it impacting your life negative way? She sort of says, that
is fair game. But if it's just to explain certain mysteries in your life that then might overtake you, she's saying that's not really a good thing, right, Yes.
And there's another key distinction that I want to bring up that she talks about on that podcast, because I too felt wary about this topic, Holly, for all the reasons that you mentioned, And I think we have to be really careful when talking about it because a lot of people with for instance, long COVID or chronic LME
disease might feel like they're not being believed. She talks about the idea that something can be psychosomatic that doesn't mean that you've made it up or that you're seeking attention. She uses the analogy of when you watch a horror film and your heart starts beating fast. Your heart really is beating fast. You are really also experiencing a sensation of your heart beating fast. That's a psycho somatic reaction. It's not something you're making up or seeking out for attention.
And that was a real a harm moment for me in getting my head around this concept of over diagnosis, because when we talk about something being psychosomatic, it's real. It just means that sometimes a medical doctor might not be the right person to help you with it.
And in fact it's often harder to address or to cure. Because I thought it was the same if I went to a doctor and they said to me that psychosomatic, I would hear you think I'm making this up. And what I loved about O'Sullivan talking about it is that I feel as though we're on the precipice of a lot of research being done in this space. So you know, for example, I am a fainter. I have fainted since I was a kid. I've been looking for a diagnosis
to do with my fainting. I would love a diagnosis so that I can understand it, so that I can explain it to people, so that I can potentially treat it. I've had to go to a cardiologist and have my heart checked in a bunch of things, and that's always good. Want to rule things out. But that's what doctors often do, is they rule things out. Doctors often see patients that have unexplained whatever, like the weird things the human body
does that don't fit into a diagnosis. And when I think about the fainting thing, I go, do I want my pain validated or my fear validated that this thing that happens to me when I'm out in public, when I've hit my head and I've really hurt myself. Sometimes what we can hear when we're not given a diagnosis or a really clear treatment plan is you don't believe my pain, or you're not listening to me. I realized through listening to O'Sullivan that that's not how medicine works.
I think that I had a misunderstanding about how it worked.
We wouldn't you like a cure for your fainting, because I think one of the things about this that's interesting is she sort of talks about how we all want answers, and of course we do, because we've all got to get on with our lives, right, I kind of feel like we don't thrive an uncertain Most of us have a choice to keep going. We've got like soldiering on
isn't a choice, it's reality. We've got to keep working, we've got to keep parenting, we've got to keep caring, we've got to keep you know, doing whatever it is we're doing. So therefore any kind of solution or cure
would be very welcome. And then the other part to this, of course, is that we live in a world where there is a pill or a supplement or a treatment plan for absolutely everything, and so we're also living with a lot of pressure, a lot of industries who are deeply invested in selling us a cure for whatever it
is we've got. And although that sounds cynical, but if I was you, I don't think you're being indulgent to want to know why you keep fainting, considering the risks if you're fainting when you're you know, looking after your child, or as you said, fell and hit your head, wanting a cure for that isn't unreasonable.
But why do I feel like it would be more valid condition if I had a name and there is something in me, and I don't think that that is a fault of the individual or of me. In fact, this is the way the system is set up, right. It's like from every from ndis to access to certain tests, to access to certain treatments. Necessarily, in a lot of ways you need diagnosis in order to be catered to by this system. So I think this has less to do with individuals and more to do with systems.
What this also made me think about is, I'm sure we all know people for whom the connection between mind and body is really strong and visceral. For instance, I'm thinking of a family member of mine who gets stomach issues whenever he's nervous or anxious, and it happens like clockwork, and he's always been like that. And I think it's because for some people, mind and body are more linked than they are for other people. And maybe we should note at this point that this author is a neurologist.
She is a medical doctor. She is not a well I guess by medical doctor, I mean to contrast it with a psychologist. She's not a psychologist, she's not even a psychiatrist. Maybe when you go to the cardiologists about your fainting. You do want the cardiologists to give you an answer. Yeah, maybe the answer is more in the psychosomatical mind realm than it is anything to do with, for instance, your heart. And that's why it can feel so frustrating.
We know that women in particular have been understudied, right in medical terms, and often dismissed, and women are very used to living in like nondescript discomfort, right, we just are without conclusion, just the idea of like, of course it's normal that you should be in agony for several days a month or whatever it is. It's interesting to think that we're pushing that, Like we are now very much pushing that and saying no, we want answers to
these things. Are we wrong to want answers to these things? Isn't that the way it should be? When we are pushing against a sort of a system that has always dismissed our discomfort and pain, it feels to me like it's the wrong way to go to go. Sure, we'll just deal with it.
I'm comfortable with that being complicated a little bit. But I have a friend recent I was having a bunch of really really strange health issues and went to her doctor and asked for a number of tests, and this is becoming increasingly common people asking for tests. They've been empowered, they've done their own research, and you know, maybe they think that their GP won't necessarily understand where they're coming from.
And she has a great GP, and the GP basically said to her, if we run these tests, we'll find things. We will absolutely find things. They're not going to be relevant or helpful. They're not going to be things that we can address. For example, if you were to scan the brain of someone in their sixties or seventies, you might find that there have been mini strokes. There's not really anything you can do about that. And for every test that you do, there is funding to cost money.
There is the psychological impact on the person who hears the result. There's the age of diagnosis and people on the fringes or with maybe not as severe symptoms getting those diagnoses. There are people who really need resources and help who are not being served. And to consider the medical system as something that is finite, like there's a cost to every test, every consultation. And I think that
that's important too, that we've got overdiagnosis. At the same time as underdiagnosis, and that's what's complicated.
And also presumably there's a socioeconomic split in the people who are walking into their doctors and saying I want this test and this test and this test because a they can afford them if they have to, but also they've had the time and resources to go away and do all their research and decide what's wrong with them.
I also think that we think that doctors are magicians onlind readers, and they really aren't. So one thing that I've realized being married to a doctor is that whenever we go anywhere, someone will pull him aside and talk about a rash or some kind of illness or ailment they have and want his answer for what's wrong. And what he typically says is I don't want to engage with you on this right now, A, because rashes are grows and we're eating dinner. But be go owing to
the doctor is a data point for doctors. So if you go to the doctor, you are saying, this rash or this ailment has become so intrusive into my life that I need to do something about it. I need to take this inconvenient step of going to the doctor and explaining it to the doctor and paying the doctor and so on. If you just grab someone who you've met on the street and say, hey, I've got this rash,
can you fix it for me? It's not interfering with your life enough that you've gone to the doctor about it.
And I think that illustrates this idea that like they think that he can just kind of look at them and figure out what's wrong, but he needs the data point of I came to the doctor about this, this is really bothering me now, and that's in itself an indication to him of the pain level, the discomfort level, and then he can act from there, because it's very difficult for them to tell how much pain we're in, what sort of pain we're in. We're very bad at
language to communicate that. We don't have a lot of words to describe pain, and I think that's part of the problem as well.
The bit of this thesis that I find a bit tricky though, is there's an idea out there that because people who have particular conditions can find support online for those conditions. So if you're a woman who's been living with a lot of unexplained symptoms and you suspect you've got some kind of chronic condition, but the doctors keep
dismissing you. When you find a community of other women online who are living with that too, it's incredibly reaffirming, and I would argue in a very good way, certain medical institutions have been dismissing women as hysterical for a long time, right, And I think that there is an enormous amount of support and help to be found in those communities online for people who are living with all kinds of things that may be a difficult to express
in the mainstream, and people are trying different treatments, and that can be consuming and be part of your identity. But the real positive side of that is that you realize that you're not to the point before we made about the prejudices we have about psychosomatic illnesses is you realize that you are not alone, and that is something
that didn't used to happen. And so when O'Sullivan is kind of saying, I don't think that all this focus on non debilitating health conditions is necessarily making us weller, I find that interesting. I don't know how you measure that, because aren't those people who are finding solace online with other people who have their symptoms in a better place than they were before.
And also, we've all seen that look of relief on someone's face when they do get an answer for why they've been feeling a particular way or why they feel like their brain has been letting them down, and we know that that relief is real.
Out louders in a minute. Both Amelia and I have read juicy memoirs and we want to recommend them.
To you.
Out loud as.
We've got a listener dilemma for you, and we need your collective wisdom to help us and our partners ui solve it. So here's the problem. My close not me, not me, This would never be mere. My close group of girlfriends have been getting together for casual dinners for years. We typically rotate houses and everybody brings something to share, appetizers, side seller's, deserts, etc. Recently, I accidentally discovered something that's left me completely mortified. Through a mix up that's a
bit complicated. I found out that my friends have been deliberately trying to prevent me from bringing home cooked food to our gatherings. Okay, maybe it is me. Apparently they think I'm a terrible cook. But have been too nice to tell me. For years, They've been strategically suggesting I bring drinks or store bought items, while privately joking about the disasters I've served them in the past. All this time, I've been happily cooking for these gatherings, completely unaware that
everyone was dreading my contributions. Our next get together is happening next weekend. Should I confront my friends about what I've discovered or pretend I never found out? The question is Amelia and Jesse, what do you do next?
Oh my god, Okay, I'm going to take this on as how what I would do next? Right, I wouldn't be upset that they think I'm a bad cook, upset that they weren't honest with me. I don't like feeling tricks, and I don't.
Think that they were laughing about her behind her bad Yeah.
I don't like that. I just think we can all have a laugh that I'm a bad cook. So if we're gonna talk about how I shouldn't bring my home cooking, but I'll bring a bottle of wine, ha ha, funny love this, but I've got to feel included. I don't like the fact she was left out, Amelia, what do you think?
Oh, you're so right, Jessie. I think that is the worst part of it. The sense of a conspiracy, the group chat that's happening outside of the group chat. That's really the heart of this. And I really want to know. I know she said it's complicated, but I really want to know how she found out. Look, I think she needs to take it to them and say my feelings
a hurt. I think in general, if you've got a close group of friends and your feelings are hurt, life is way too short not to tell your friends that your feelings are hurt and then talk it through.
What I would do next is makes something really disgusting, Take it proudly to the dinner, serve it to all of them, and insist that they all have a bite.
Out loud as what would you do? Please share your thoughts in the mummea out loud Facebook group, and please share any dilemmas that you want our help with, because we love to help.
Vibes ideas Atosphere stopping casual, stopping fun.
This is my best recommendation.
It's Friday and it's been a week, so we want to help you set up your weekend with our very best recommendations.
Jesse, I have a strange recco in that it's not seasonally appropriate. But I'm going away over Easter and I was packing my suitcase and I came across one of my favorite items that I own.
Do you pack your suitcase stays ahead of time?
I do? Even is shit.
You're a lazy girl.
I know I'm a lazy girl, but I can't. My brain can't get around all the things that I need. I've got like a so I have to do a spreadsheet every time I go away because I can't. Yeah, I do a spreadsheet and then I put it in green once. This even pre lunar, No Slena has now that there's so much. This is a month the steaks are higher. So I've spoken on the show about getting a few skin cancers chopped out recently, and I've entered my rashie era.
Oh love a rush.
The thing about a rashie is that I don't want to be a three year old at a public pool, right. I want to be Kate Bosworth in Blue Crash.
Can we remember that? Now? That reference?
Jersey, I knew you would. I want to look like I enter Surfing Championships. Yes, so I have found this rashi and it is called Avali the brand, and it is like a cropped rashi, so it stops just above your belly button, long sleeved, great neckline. It since's in at the waist a little bit, so you've still got shape rather than looking like the three year old in a nappy. It's not cheap. It's eighty five dollars, but
it is made from this special material. It's made from pre and post consumer waste that would otherwise be polluted, so it's sustainable c which I absolutely love, and the quality is ridiculous. I will have it forever. And it's also I was thinking it would be really good if you're pregnant because it kind of just ends above your little bump. You can wear a full piece underneath or whatever. Always have it on. Every time I wear it, I get a compliment.
You know, how are you just saying about making rashi is a bit sexy or a bit nice? Is that I've got rashi? I think it's in peace. You know that brand. Yeah, it's got a full zip and I always wear it like a zip just for a little bit of you know.
And my friend when I used to go to the beach with the other time, she'd always come up to me and just do this bit back up like it was a mistake.
You get some bad I'm trying to be hot.
It's clearly not working. She'd just be like, hey, I dull, I think you've come a bit undone.
Do you know what we have to do is change the name rashi if it's going to be sexy.
Yes, yes, your spot on what do they call it? They call it the green MIDI rashy top. I think the word rashi, I think we can sexify that.
It's very Australian that, yeah, we don't really call them thatwhere else. I'm going to get in trouble because I keep recommending audiobooks and I'm listening to another one. It's because I drive all the time, right, because I drive a lot. Audiobooks are my friend. And I am reading listening to a book at the minute, a memoir by Ioni Sky. Do you know who Ione Sky is?
So?
Ione Sky was an IT girl and nineties it girl in a big way, late eighties early nineties it girl. She was the coolest of the California girl. She is the daughter not that he had anything to do with her when she was young of Donovan Leitch, who is a big sixties star. Her mom was like a real it girl who'd been involved with all these different rock stars. Anyway, So Ione Sky became an actress and she was in Say Anything with John Cusack and these are all movies before your Time and the Rachel.
Papers holding up yeah, the famous one was holding.
Up the tape deck. She lived with Anthony Keats from the Red Hot Chili Peppers when she was sixteen. Right then she marries ad Rock from the Beastie Boys. There's a very famous gen X line who he's like me and IONI goes together like cheese and macaroni. How do you not know this?
I only know the Anthony ketis anyway.
And then nowadays she lives in Australia, is married to Ben Lee. They have children, like there's a hot sheet. This woman has lived a life, right and I don't know.
That ben Lee data clar day, Yes, I know how many different?
How many? It's very exciting. Anyway, I'm interviewing Ione soon for mid and so I'm listening to her audio book and it's a memoir. It's called Say Everything, Play on Say any Thing, And it is so good because she is just putting it all out there and it's got all the juice in there about the famous boyfriends and stuff,
but also a lot more. And the other thing that is so interesting about it, particularly the early years, is you know, we've talked a few times about how maybe we've extended childhood and she was coming of age in Hollywood when like Drew Barrymore was out at nightclubs doing coke when she was like thirteen.
Did you read her memoir back in the day.
I haven't, but I so should have done. Now I'm on a memoir jack through the through which we parent now or see teenagers Now you're constantly just going, how are you doing that when you were this age? This age she was living in la with this in this bohemian world, and then she has no problem with the fact that all her boyfriends are eight years older than her. Like, it's just so interesting. And then she's such a smart woman and a beautiful writer. And anyway, I am loving it.
It's called Say Everything by Ione Sky.
Is she mad at her parents for sort of letting her run a mark or does she see that as cool?
It's neither of those things, just tells it how it is. And then obviously later in life, when she's, you know, like all of us, working out her issues and she goes through lots of different she becomes a Buddhist and she's this and she's that, and she's a very interesting person. You know, that's all part of who she was. But it's not like a raging takedown of that. It's just a kind of this is how it was. And also I love memoirs when it's kind of written as if
you're in the moment. So she's, you know, she's talking about what kind of figure her mother was and the different step dads and this and that, but not with an adult like judgment on it. It's just really good and I'm loving it. And it's also juicy, very juicy.
Oh that sounds so good. I love it. Girls of all varieties. So I will look up that book. I have a memoir too.
He reads this one as well, Amelia.
Yes, his name is Great and Carter, and the book is called When the Going Was Good Great and Carter, Holly, I know you know who he is. I Jesse Nothing Okay, editor of Vanity Fair during its golden era, so he was the editor of that magazine for about twenty five years. He quit in twenty seventeen because Anna Winter cut his budgets back too much, which relatable, and it is full
of gossip. So Vanity Fair was like the magazine to read if you wanted to know about Hollywood, if you wanted to know about fame and how it worked in the nineties and the two thousands. So, for instance, he threw the dinner where Princess Diana wore her famous revenge dress, the black off the shoulder number that might be one of the most famous dresses of all time. He was the first person to make fun of Donald Trump back in the eighties when he was a failed businessman in
New York. And he tells this amazing anecdote, which is he was running a kind of upstart, prank filled magazine at the time called Spy, and they decided to send checks with very small denominations to New York's richest people and.
See if they would cash the check.
So they started off with checks for one dollar and eleven cents and they sent them out to about twenty millionaires and billionaires around New York City. And of course with checks you got to sign them. For those of us who maybe have never cashed a check, you have to sign the back of it yourself, and then you have to take it to the bank to get the money deposited. And of those twenty millionaires and billionaires, about half of them cashed the check for a dollar and
eleven cents. Then they decided, okay, second round. Everyone who cashed that first check got sent a check for sixty four cents, and thirteen people, including Rupert Murdoch, banked the checks. Check was for thirteen cents, and one person cash the check and it was Donald Trump.
That's a great story.
I mean, that's journalism, right, yeah, Watergate. So he was also the first person to ever point out that Donald Trump's fingers are really short. He came up with the phrase short fingered vulgarian. Oh wow, but this is it's not a political book, like despite the I mean, Donald Trump wasn't a political figure at the time. He mentions that Adrian Brody tried to steal a lamp from the Vanity Fair Oscars party once because they had a very
famous Oscars party every year. And Anna Wintall loves to order a rare steak when she goes out and she always calls for the bill before everyone else is finished eating.
Why does that tell me so much? It just tells me everything I need so good.
I wish I could be someone who orders a rare steak. I order my steak medium well. But he's very good at throwing dinner party. So there's also some service journalism in here. News you can use. One tidbit I loved is that he says that in America, when you throw a dinner party, you put husbands and wives or married partners next to each other. In the UK, in Britain, Holly, you'll need to confirm this for me. Apparently you put the married people at the same table, but not seated next to each.
Other, definitely not seated next to each other.
And then in Europe you put them at completely different tables because you know that the best thing about being married is that when you leave the dinner you can gossip about everyone at the dinner and it maximizes your gossip potential. And I just loved that.
That's great.
I love that so much.
What's it called again, Amelia?
When the going was good?
After the break and a cold friend test photo shoots and three trips to the cinema. It is our best and Worst.
One unlimited out loud access. We drop episodes every Tuesday and Thursday exclusively for Mamma Mia subscribers. Follow the link in the show notes to get us in your ears five days a week. And a huge thank you to all our current subscribers. It's time for Best and Worse. It's the part of the show where we, you know, dig a little bit into our personal lives and tell you what's been going on. I'm going to start with you, Jesse Stevens.
My worst is that Mia and I swapped cars for a day because yeah, she needed my boot for something, and I drove her carsh has an electric car. Didn't really know how to drive it, pretended I did.
That's so green of her. I don't think.
You don't even turn it on, like it just knows anyway. So I get into a car and I drive home. And then a little bit later, I'm like, okay, we'll go and swap it back and I get in the car won't turn on.
What is that because you don't know how to?
I thought that.
I feel like looking for bunch presses randomly pushing shit the window That's the.
Thing about a car that doesn't turn on is you don't know when it's broken because you're like, it's not an ignition thing. So then it starts, the brake lights start going, starts coming up with these weird things on the dashboard, and I was like, I'm sure this is just a weird electric car thing. So I take a video send it to me out and she's like, I have simply never seen that before. And I was like, oh no, I've broken the car. So anyway, that had to get Toad that you had to get Maya's car Toe,
I had to get it Toad. They still don't know what's wrong with it. I don't know what I did, But what.
Did you say to it? Jesse mouth tape?
I know. I think that might be why me is not here, because I don't think she doesn't a carp. I don't know how she's getting anywhere.
She doesn't know how to get anywhere because I broke her car. I'm stuck in my house now.
Yeah, and so we've just been doing the show without her because she's stuck at home with no car. I think she's mad at me anywhere. We'll ask her next week. My best though, is also to do with Maya. We did a photo shoot last week. Did you guys do a photo shoot with hair and makeup?
Wasn't involved? Why wasn't I involved?
Well?
Well, well, because Meya and I are models, we always say out yeah. So it was a promo thing for a magazine that's going to come out in a few weeks. But we got our hair and makeup done and we got all like styled and dressed. Maya got like roused on by a stylist because.
I'd love to see that because I've done lots of phototooes in me and not at that level probably, But she hates it. She doesn't like being told what to wear. She doesn't like having her hair and makeup done. I love having my hair and makeup done.
She would pick things and the stylist was like, absolutely not, and I was like, I love this stylist.
Did she do what she was told?
She did what she was told and she ended up looking fabulous. She did anyway. I loved this stylist. I need her in my life.
But did you look amazing too?
Oh?
I loved what. I just walked in and just said, put me in something, and I walked out and it was fantastic.
And I admit that I saw a photo with that.
Oh to tell us, tell us what you think? Ah, do you love it? I cate, I loved your skirt.
Can you just your skirt? Oh?
I wore this really cool. It was a skirt with like a print on it. But the issue was that I think I get nervous knees in photos, which I didn't realize that was an issue I have. But the photographer who's a very famous, like amazing photographer, taught us how to look hot.
What do you do?
Okay, I'm so glad you asked. So you need to lean forward from your ankles right. So apparently what we do, and this is what I do, camera comes out, lean back, loose my neck right, and I look horrible.
Why are we doing that? Why are we leaning back?
And I don't know. What we're meant to do is your calves are meant to hurt, So you lean forward through your calves, so you're looking towards the camera and your chin's out, chins out, nose towards the camera. That's what we're doing. Chin up the way like the bea for everyone.
It's just about service journalism this is very important.
And he just kept saying, shake hat your knees, shake hat your knees. And then I saw the fight days later, I was like, yeah, I did need to shake my knees out. They look nervous. We learned how to be and I can't wait for everyone to say the fighter.
This is really not good news for me, Amelia. What was your worst of the week.
So you know how there are big ticket items that you spend money on that you feel good about, So I'd put buying flight tickets in there. I'd even put buying a sofa in there. Things that you don't feel good about spending a lot of money on dental work of any kind, sorry dentists, but I resent it. I resent every cent that I spend the dentist. And the other thing that I would put in that category is mattresses. Now, Big Mattress is always telling me you got to spend
half your life on a mattress. I know that, but they're so expensive and I don't want to buy one. As a result, I have had a mattress that I think I got from a roommate of mine in two thousand and six that she had purchased from my Kia. Yes, yes, and I think it's probably bad for both my life and my marriage to keep this mattress. And it's come to the point were I need to my new ones. So I know that everyone's buying mattresses online now, but I went into a mattress shop because I'm kind of
old fashioned that way. I just got completely overwhelmed latex versus memory foam. What price you want? You can pretty much pick a mattress at literally any price point. Which size mattress do you get? It's all very confusing. And then I went on Reddit because that's my answer to everything, and in fact, there is a whole Reddit board about mattresses. But that's made me even more confused. Either if you have strong thoughts or mattresses that I should know.
About, I feel very similar to you that I absolutely hate buying them. And I hate to think this, but I should admit this.
How old is mattress?
I think until recently we were sleeping on the mattress that my water's broken, Maida, I think until very recently, and every time you change the sheet, she's just.
Like, oh god, yeah, no, they're not fun. They're not fun to buy and mattresses one of those things you have to do. You go in and you look at the absolute cheapest one. Yeah, if you've got a bit more money in your pocket, you go, well, I'm not going to get the absolute cheapest one, but I'm certainly not going to get the most expensive one. So we just move up a little bit.
It's on the wine list. You get the second cheapest one. Yeah, that's right.
Yeah, I need the chardonnay of mattress position. So, my best I have seen a movie at the cinema three times, and I'm somehow not angry about it. Let me explain what happened. Bridget Jones four.
I really liked it.
May I walked out of that movie. I quite enjoyed it. But you have seen it three times at the movies.
Now here's why. So when the first Bridge Jones came out, I think I overidentified with her a little bit much. I think that everyone started to think that I was Bridget Jones, which, looking back on it, you know, at the time I was flattered. Now I understand that that actually wasn't a compliment that everyone associated me with Bridget Jones. So this movie is coming and people keep saying to me, oh, let's go and see that. You love Bridget Jones twenty
years on and I'd say, yeah, yeah, gah. But then I went to see it with one friend and then another friend said, you went to see Bridget Jones without me, and she was so hurt that I realized that to mend our relationship, I actually would need to go and see it again. So I went to see it with her, and then my mother said to me, you went to see it without it needs But then I went to see it with her, And every time I've just had
to do it for relationship maintenance purposes. But I have to say about this movie that this movie should not have been good. It is Bridget Jones. Fat. No one thought this was going to be good. Here's my pitch for it. I find it an incredibly moving meditation on the complications and heartbreaks of midlife. Have I sold you on this already?
I think you're right. When we were watching it, we went to see it, and may I did love it, but she didn't give it enough of a chance because it does start off with a lot of the usual tropes, but then it actually gets really quite deep.
I cried, It's about life after death. Yeah, it's about the stuff.
It's about Hugh Grant in it, and I'm sorry that man is getting better with age. Three scenes and in one of them he's in a hospital gown. No spoilers, and he still steals the show.
Loved it, Loved it.
Side recommendation on that Hugh Grant on SmartLess Startless. I don't always love SmartLess, but Hugh Grant's interview on SmartLess, I was laughing so loudly I nearly crushed the car. That wasn't good. My worst of the week is rodent related in that you won't be surprised to hear that.
On my front porch in my house, I have a big plastic box like the ones you get from Bunnings that's full of garden stuff because you know, I'm a gardener, as we know, and I go in there all the time to get things like pots and shovels and whatever.
Right soil.
And I went in there the other day and I saw this brown thing like moving really quickly, and I thought it's either a mouse or a rat or a frog. And I slammed the door lid of the box and I ran into and I was like, because I'm not a worse about. I don't mind snakes, I don't mind spiders, I don't mind cockroaches, I don't mind any of that. I'm the person who always gets the huntsmen down, you know, when you've got the spider on the wall, I don't even flinch. But I cannot stand rodents like I cannot
stand them. And I see them. I think they know and they stalk me because when I'm in the city, I see rats all the time. I see them all the time, and I don't think everyone else does. I think I manifest them.
They don't bother me half as much as a side.
Oh my god, I can't be them anyway. So there was a mouse in my porch and I thought, I'm we were going to have to move out of the house, and like maybe never go back.
Got it down.
And then the problem was is Brent, of course had sympathy, but other things to do with his life, because you know, he doesn't live to serve, which is unfortunate. And so he said, I'll get to that later. I'll go in there later and I'll find the mouse. And I went go in there now, and he went and looked, and he said, yeah, definitely a mouse maybe more than one. And then but I can't deal with it now, And I was like, so then I had days where I wanted to do all these things agune, but clearly I
couldn't open the box. I needed to go in and get things out of it. I needed to put things in. I couldn't. So there's just a big past anyway. That was very stressful.
Wit, But is there no resolution to the story?
No, there is a resolution because then I went away for a few days. I've been away for a few days and Brent very proudly sent me a picture of the big box up on its side, all cleared out, and he did it and the composition. I didn't marry him, but maybe I will if he can make the micek go away.
But the question is where did it go?
That's my Roman empire now is where did the mice go?
Be?
Ask questions I can't keillar.
Oh, my college, have you ever considered watching rather tooy just as a kind of immersion exercise? It's really cute?
Oh my god, I can't deal anyway. My best of the week, though, is that the Nicole of my friendship group, one of my great mates, had a big birthday at the weekend of fiftieth. She always organizes all the birthdays and the girl's trips and the nights out and all those things, and all the rest of us are completely flaky and crap. But she obviously couldn't organize her own
fiftieth birthday, so I had to do it. Poor Jesse knows about this because she and Ruth and all everybody have been living through me talking about the group chat dramas the did she like her gift?
Yes?
She did?
Me being the person to organize like the gift and then all the money from all the different bank accounts and then do people like it? Don't they? I'd put one of the wrong people in the group chat who wasn't invited, and they were like, oh, I didn't know there was a dinner on Saturday night, and now I was like, oh, not for you. It was very stressful. However, the reason it was my best of the week is I passed by in a cold test. The dinner went
off just fine. Nothing terrible happened. We did forget to sing Happy Birthday, but we rectified that the next day.
Did you do the seating chat? Holla?
Oh my god, I did not but I should have done. I should have done. And then we had a big family gathering on Sunday and it was one of those lovely, heart filling weekends. But my god, if I never have to organize a social event again, I will be here.
I hate the pressure, I hate the press. Sure of it all going well.
I'm definitely the organizer in my friendship group. And I did organize my own fortieth birthday and it was great.
Oh why would you do that?
You love organizing people and telling them what to do and where to go.
Oh my goodness.
That is all we have time for today, And a massive thank you to you, Amelia for filling in for me this week. It's been a pleasure as always to have you, and to the out louders for being here with us today and all week. We're going to be back in your ears next time next week rather Monday, my God's Friday. My head's fallen off, Jesse, Amelia, take us home.
A big thank you to our team group executive producer Ruth Devine, executive producer Emmeline Gazillis, our.
Audio producer is Leah Porges, our video producer is Josh Green, and our junior content producers, a Coco and a special shout out to Tessa who looked after my son during this record.
Bye out loud as We know you're not quite ready to say goodbye yet, so we thought we'd leave you with a little bit of a tea for a conversation we had on a subscriber episode this week. It was me and Miya and Amelia and we didn't ask us anything, and we covered all kinds of ground, including of course a bit of US politics. Maya and Amelia's friendship story which was beautiful and I.
Have to add that we also talked about whether or not Holly Waynwright is still wearing her shape We're to the Beach.
I think I got a DM about that and I was like, Holly, the people want to know.
It's a great app. There's a link to listen in the show notes.
Shout out to any Mum and mea subscribers listening. If you love the show and you want to support us, subscribing to Mom and Mia is the very best way to do so. There's a link in the episode description