You're listening to a MoMA Mia podcast.
Mama Mea acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters that this podcast is recorded on Hello, and welcome to Mama Mia out Loud and to our Friday's show where we take a bit of a break from the news cycle and breath out Today. Friends, is Friday, the seventh of June. I'm Holly Wainwright, And if you missed Monday's show, you'll miss us talking about why it really is finally time to cancel Brad Pitt And this one got quite
a lot of opinions going. Should we raise the age of social media access to sixty?
I'm mea Friedman And on Wednesday we talked about rodent boyfriends and also the difference between female and male billionaires, and we also had a bit of a dispute about that. Listen to those episodes via a link in our show notes.
And I'm Burnham. I'm filling in for Jesse again today. You can always hear me on this Bill Entertainment Daily pickhause.
An on today's show, is Everybody Beautiful? A mass experiment in the MoMA Mea office certainly suggests that they don't feel it. Also thanks to watch and read and do this weekend, which include a very sweary puppet, a viral book, and a self helpy app. And Best and Worse, which include a very embarrassing partner wagging work and MEA's new boss, but first, Mia Friedman.
In case you missed it, Independent MPs want to fine businesses twenty five thousand dollars if they don't accept cash from their customers in a bid to stop the move to going fully cashless. Except they're not going to pay that twenty five thousand dollar fine in cash would be my bet. Former National ZMP Andrew g on Monday introduced a private member's bill that would require businesses to offer cash as a form of payment. Some starts to make
you feel smart. In two thousand and seven, about seventy percent of all trans actions were made with cash, but this is now fallen to thirteen percent. Wow.
So thirteen percent of anything you buy or pay for is cash.
Yeow. So banks and large retailers have been given until October by the Competition Watchdog to find a way to ensure the continued movement of cash around the country. I don't know why they need to, Like, can't you just get money out of an ATM, you don't need a credit card necessarily. Why do we need cash? Apart from buskers who I honestly feel so upset for the.
Time of them have their tap on little thing.
Now, yeah, that's true, some of them do have any I mean even at lemonade stands.
Apparently, why do we need cash? Like, what's the reason for this? Why do they want it?
The arguments in favor of having cash are that it is often favored by older people, people who don't want to keep their money in banks. They might want to keep it I don't know, under their bed or in their pocket. And also I can't remember the third thing.
But no, it's about privacy. So some people don't feel comfortable with the level of surveillance that comes with paying for everything. To this day, I'm not saying that's true, but it's like, if you pay for everything with a card, then everything you do can be tracked, right, Whereas if you get money out of the bank and then you just spend that money, it can't be traced. That's the whole point of cash, and that's why that's used in more sinister ways. But like a lot of people are
uncomfortable with the level of surveillance that comes with cash. Yeah, And the other reason is rural areas, places that don't always have such stable Internet connections all of that kind of stuff. They want people to still be able to operate in cash. It's very true.
I mean, we saw what happened when there was optist blackout last year and people couldn't buy their coffee. It was devastating. No, but people often don't have cash. The only time I use cash now, I've realized, is when I go to my alterationist because she doesn't accept cards or any kind of FPOs, which is a nightmare. So literally the only time I go to the bank is when I have to get my clothes altered.
I live in the regions obviously, and our local service
station servo. I remember once their like digital stuff was down and I didn't have cash, so I couldn't get any petrol, and she said, always have a fifty in your wallet because and she was saying that joining the bushfires in our neighborhood, which was very badly affected by that terrible summer of bushfires, and all the services went out, all the internet services went out, and so many people who were trying to get away, would go to the servo wanted petrol, but they couldn't pay for it, and
so she was saying, you know, they were asking can I just have it for free? And she was like, well, I can't just give you all that.
That's really interesting and they say them so in case of emergency. Future terrorism will be about internet going down and then we won't be able to pay for anything. Do you even know what cash is?
Not?
Really? I haven't owned a wallet in probably ten years. I have never used cash. I remember one time, I think it was last year, where my card expired so it wasn't working, and I walked over to my mum's work because I was like, you need to give me your card and she was like, why didn't you just use cash? And I'm like, I don't know how to do that, Like I physically don't know who will take it, because I've never seen anyone take cash. Like I don't like own cash. I don't have any cash on me ever.
I got really really irritated by my coworkers this week. Oh God, that's it. That's the segment. That's all I've got today, that's all we've got time for today. It was about a story that ran on Mama Mia written by Jemma Bath, who you might have heard on Monday's show filling in for our Jesse, and it was about something quite specific that I think is actually about something much broader. The story that Jemma wrote was called Dan
photographed sixty women in the Mama Mea office. We all said the same thing, and it was about the day or days as it turned out, that all of Mamma MIA's editorial team got their pictures taken. It was for new headshots. And as I'm sure you can understand from the term headshots, they're like the pictures that get taken that then go at the top of all the little articles so you can see the people who wrote them. They might be used in professional decks on LinkedIn their
life crusted. Yes you look serious, So there you're like professional headshots. And although I know that not every body's job requires them to have their picture taken like that, think about sort of formal photograph situations like maybe you're in a wedding party, maybe you're at somebody's birthday, maybe it's the girl's weekend away.
Going on a dating app.
Going on a dating app, you need the yeah, all of those kind of things, think about all of those times. Here's Jem talking about the article.
The idea for this article was sparked by my own headshot session with Dan, actually, because while I was in the room with him, he was directing me to, you know, lift my chin and look this way, and I made a comment like off the calf of oh yes, because I don't want to double chin, and he kind of sighed and was like, oh, yeah, I've heard that one before.
And when I prompted him, he said most of the people were most of the women that had come into that room today had also said that remark, and we'd all also talked about our wrinkles and our hair sitting
the wrong way. And I did a bit of an impromptu interview with him while getting my photo taken, and I realized just how much we all bloody hate ourselves or how we look at least, and the men in our office, apparently we're in and out of that photo shoot in two minutes, didn't care at all about the photos, barely looked at them. And then the women on average were getting sixty to eighty shots per person. And then the number one thing we would all say to Dan,
was it's not you, it's me. You know that trope that we're all, you know, people pleasers, and it's not Dan's fault. We are all just not good enough. I include myself in that, because when Dan showed me the photos, all I could see was the bad stuff. I looked a little bit fatter, a little bit rinklier than I felt, and I thought my smile was too big. And then when I left the room, I started observing my colleagues and there were hair straighteners out all over the office.
Everyone was touching up full faces of makeup that they don't usually have. We're all spending ages kind of fixing.
Ourselves for our turn.
So I knew that there was a story in it, but I didn't realize how hard it was going to be to actually get people to participate. No one wanted to share their headshot with me. I had to basically corner people in the office. They all had horrible things to say about themselves, really mean things, and this from people that I perceived to be really confident and really
outwardly happy in their own skin. I had positive comments from probably two people really who enjoyed the experience, But then I had other colleagues saying things like their photos were never going to see the light of day, another one who said that they had a hair appointment especially for it, but they were just trying to pick the
least bad shot. I'd love to say that there was a silver lining good ending to this story, but basically my findings were that even in twenty twenty four, we are picking apart our own appearances in agonizing detail, and the beauty tropes that we've been marinating in have just as much of a stranglehold on us as ever. So a bit of a downer for your Friday, But after writing this story, I'm trying to be a bit kinder to myself because I looked at my colleagues headshots and
I thought they were all beautiful. So hopefully calling all of this out will make us realize what we're doing and we can all just be a little bit better, because we can't be this hung up on a headshot.
And my first I heard on the grapevine you were one of the most time maintenance of all of the headshotters. Tell me what happened with you in these photos.
I love getting my photo taken, Yeah, I love it. I love the whole experience of it.
It.
Firstly, I'm not one of those people who's like, oh yeah, I just like threw something on and went to out my friend. I put like effort in. I put my makeup on, did my hair, and chose my outfit. Even though my shirt had a hole in it was fine. I just loved the experience of just like being there, being in front of the camera doing like a little quirky thing.
I just love it.
And I think it's because I don't get it in my everyday life as much as much as other people. And I think it all boils down to not having a partner, Like there's no one in my life who would just candidly ever take a photo of me.
So why did you have to have two photo shoots for this?
Because I loved it so much.
Oh it wasn't because you hated your picture.
And there was a deeper meaning. So from since I was younger, I don't like seeing my photos through someone else's lens. So for me, it's not really the act of taking the photo, it's the editing that happens after it. I remember when I was around sixteen, I went to one of my friend's birthday parties, and it was like
one of those big sixteen. She had a professional photographer and I saw the photos on the camera and then she posted them all on her Facebook page and tagged us all in it, and they were the edited versions. And I saw that my skin was lightened in the edited versions. What And I immediately went, I look so good, Like I look really good. And from then all my Instagram photos, i'd always lighten my skin a little bit
when I edit it. And then I went through this whole thing, I was like, this is a bit fucked up what I'm doing. So now I always think, like, I just don't like someone editing my own photo. So that's where I whenever to play.
So do you mean like, because the way that this works is the obvios. The photographer in the room takes like lots of pictures then whittles them down to like a few pictures. I mean, I don't know if this is exactly how this works, but it's often how it works. And then you go, I like that one, not that one. You're like, you want to edit them down?
Yeah, oh, I'll just like save the raw version. I don't like my photos to be edited, right.
Like you mean retouched.
That's what I edited, retouched like brighton. I don't like any like hues like.
That, and that's why.
That's the reason why otherwise a whole actual taking photo experiences I love.
So you were so you got your picture taken twice because you liked it so much and you like the picture that you've got in.
The end, Yeah, I love the picture, but I also wanted something different because I was like, this is a fun experience. I'll do it again, and I got the girls in the office to do my makeup, hairto.
You're a freak, I say that with all my love. No, you're an outlier, is what I mean. Because that's unusual. Right, Most people hate getting their photo taken, including me. When I was listening to Jemma talk about it and reading her article, I was like, why is this a surprise?
She nailed it. And when I was thinking about why it is, it's because having your photo taken is a very vulnerable moment, because you are submitting, consciously or unconsciously to measuring yourself next to the beauty standard that there is for women. And guess what, not a single one of us, even Margo Robbie, matches up to that standard
meets that standard. That's because that standard is so unrealistic, it's so face tuned, it's so you know, retouched, whatever you want to call it, it actually isn't a human person. So I think that there is a vulnerability in that, and there's also a you know you're going to fail going in like it's a test that you cannot win.
Do you really think that all of us, all ages, shape sizes, all the different things, we are all trying to be Margo Robbie in her head?
No, no, no, I don't mean Margaret. I mean that even Margot Robbie feels that way. I don't mean that we're all trying to look like Margot Robbie.
But I mean that when I say that, I mean, well that beautiful.
We're all trying to look like a beauty standard that is overwhelmingly light skinned, thin, young, flawless, big lips, all these different features, trying to look like that. But then, why don't you like pictures of yourself? I don't mean every single one of those things, But for you, what do you see when you look at a picture of yourself? Did you enjoy having your photo taken?
I don't love.
Having my photo taken, although I don't hate it because it's part of my job and it happens a lot, right, which I know it sounds like a bit wanky, but it's true. Like we've got our pictures taken for the show, we get our pictures taken for a portrait, we get our pictures taken to promote the show on social every day. So I have become much less precious about it. I used to be spos They much more precious about it.
Because one of the reasons why I found this really interesting that Jemma found that all these women hated looking at pictures of themselves and thought they looked awful is I was surprised for the same reason that she was. I know, you say you're not, and I'm sure you're right, because to my mind, we've lived for however long now
in this much more body confident culture. So all these young, mostly young women who are out there, they're mostly younger millennials or Gen Z's, they are much more visible than we ever were at that age because they take pictures of themselves endlessly. Everything you do, you're having your picture taken.
Right, Why do they then do with those people exactly what I.
Mean well, but no they don't. These girls don't do that at all, but they do get editorial approval of those pictures, do you know what I mean? Like selfie culture and growing up in selfie culture means that you get to choose which pictures you put up, right, So that's the difference. But they are much more photographed and
visible than we ever were growing up. They're much more familiar with their faces, their angles, what they like, what they don't like, and so I find that really interesting because I thought that they would be much more comfortable with the process.
When someone takes your picture, it's not in your control. And that's the thing that m says, Like I often look at the pictures that women I know post of themselves, and to me, what they think reflects them or what they want to reflect them doesn't look to me like the them that I know. And I've heard other people say that about me. Sometimes the way you want to be perceived or the way you think you look is
different to how other people see you. But to me, what you said just then whole is at the crux of this, because I think it is a very specific trap that we are now in. We're being punished twice in many ways because the whole body positivity movement and this idea of everybody is beautiful and beauty. You know, you're beautiful and everybody's beautiful, and you're beautiful without makeup,
and you're beautiful when you're old. And that scene in the Barbie movie where Mico Robbie of all people, looks at that old lady at the bus stop and goes, you're so beautiful.
I know it. That's bullshit.
No, it's not bullshit. Do you know why it's bullshit? Because it is gaslighting us that we live, we marinate in a sea of beauty standards for women, and that to say that that's not the case is deliver us.
But we're also like posting these same photos on our Instagram. So you're saying, like the photos that you post of yourself on your Instagram, you don't think any of them you look really good in.
Show me the proof that everybody's beautiful. Show me how society confirms that.
What that idea is that everybody's beautiful as bullshit. Is buying into something that's being pushed on us about what beauty is, and what we all actually know is that everybody is beautiful, Like you know very well that when you love someone and you like someone, they are more
beautiful to you. What the whole point of that thing of Barbie looking at the older lady with the wrinkles and going you're beautiful is deliberately subversive because they are like your grandparent with their wrinkly skin and their creepy hands, is beautiful to you because you know who they are. So I think if we're pushing back on the everyone is beautiful idea, then we're buying into the narrow beauty standard that only belongs to point zero nine of the population.
I just feel like it's tricking us. And I agree with what you're saying, like people who society doesn't confirm is a beautiful a beautiful to me. But then what does that mean as the person who your child might think is beautiful, or your partner or your friend or
your dog. If every message that you get from the rest of society in every waking moment of your life is that you are not beautiful because you do not conform to this beauty standard that is impossible for any woman to conform to you, right, it then just means that you're failing twice because you feel bad about it that you're not meeting the beauty standard, and then you're told no, but actually you are beautiful. It's like, well,
but why should I believe you? How can I believe you that I'm beautiful?
I don't think it's that deep.
I honestly think, like, sometimes I just feel really good, so I want to post a photo on Instagram so my ex boyfriend will see it sesars for the every day for the rest of his life. I honestly think I look at photos of myself on my Instagram more than any other person because I just want to see it from other people's perspective. I'm like, yep, that personal think I look good. Yep, that personal think.
I look good.
I don't think it's that deep of me going beautiful not beautiful.
So you really only consider what you look like through the lens of what other people think you look like.
Yeah on Instagram. Yeah, But if I'm taking like a professional shot and I'm posting it myself, sometimes I'm like, no, I want to look like how I feel like. I want people to perceive me.
But when you look in the mirror, do you go I'm beautiful? No?
Who does that That's what I mean.
If the body positivity movement, of which I'm a big supporter and proponent, but if it's been so effective and done so much for women, why are we all having more surgery than we all ever have? Why we face tuning and filtering and doing all of those things for our photos.
Why just because I see myself and I'm not saying I'm beautiful doesn't mean I'm also saying I'm ugly. I'm just like seeing myself and I'm.
Like, okay, you're neutral.
I'm neutral. It's like I'm just posting photos and I enjoy my life.
That's exactly what, how where we should be. Because the reason that, no, she's not that unusual. I think that, Like the reason why that article irritated me so much was the notion that all these smart young women that I work with, not just young women, all these smart women that I work with are wasting so much and like, put your makeup on, walk in, smile at the camera, and walk sucking.
Out and get on the way.
Right. Don't blame the player, blame the game. But you're you're making the political personal. You're saying all you need to do is stop wasting time. Instead of going hang on the systems.
How do we change the system. The way we change the system is to stop buying into the idea that there's only this tiny, tiny little square of beauty and all the rest of us live outside it. The way to change the system is to say, sorry, there's all kinds of beautiful, and you might be selling us one theory about it, and we'll in twit to a point. We are all beautiful, and all those women are and I mean you can go and put your lippy on
and everything. I'm not suggesting that you just roll in out of bed, because we're all trying to project an image of ourselves, particularly in a professional situation, that we're comfortable with. But the idea that it's such an awful, agonizing, painful process, I'm guilty of it too, for sure. But it's that thing of every time I'm with my friends and we have our picture taken because it's somebody's fiftieth or it's somebody's you know, whatever event, someone will always
say I don't want to go on the end. I don't want people to see my arm. I don't want people to see my stomach. I don't want people to have my thing, and we all, as Jemma says in this story, are in such a cycle of self hatred. The answer to it is not to let go of the idea of beautiful. The answer to it is to expand the idea of beautiful.
It's time for some recommendations and things to get stuck into on the weekend. I'm going to go first because I haven't spoken enough today. You can hear my voices giving out.
I love a viral book.
It's hard to get me to read a novel, but if someone says everybody's talking about it, then I will.
It's a book called All Fours.
By Miranda July. I've heard of her, but I've not read her work before. She's a New York Times bestselling author, and she's written other books called The First Bad Man is apparently her most favorite one. But it is about a woman up ending her life, a woman in midlife. She's a semi famous artist. You never really get to the bottom of what she's famous for. But she announces her plan to drive cross country from LA to New
York for work and just to see some friends. And then she decides to just exit the freeway and she just stays where she is for two weeks and what happens to her there and then what happens afterwards. It's about perimenopause, it's about sex, it's about relationships, it's about a particular time in life. It is so so good.
Great, what's your echo?
I am recommending an app it's called DAILI oh that I want you both to download after this episode. It's a self care app. So it's basically.
About us downloaded after being recommended on this podcast. She's none of them.
I think that thinks we need help.
You need you need this app. It's basically just like a kind of productivity, but it's also a life tracker app. I use it and it's helped my depression so much. It's literally like a diary entry, so he says, as a diary entry used to track my sleep, my menstrual cycle. You put in your daily habit and you tick them off as you go every day, and sometimes when it gets really bad, it's like really specific, like have you
showered today? Literally, and then you can also put in how well you slept last night, what time you went to bed, and then would help. It helps because it helps you formulate patterns of behavior and it gives you the statistics. So for example, last night, I slept terribly, and I put in my app I step terribly, and it's like, oh, just sing, you also slept really badly on this day and this day, and then the next
day you're also really anxious. So I went into my calendar and I was like, what happened on these days? And I was like, oh, I was feeling in for out loud. So it helps you track all those things. I know that two days before my period. For the past six months, I'm always really angry as a base level of motion. So it kind of helps you, like see that beforehand. So when you're feeling that, you kind
of know and put like words to it. So good Daleio you downloaded on Apple or Google Play if you have an Android.
Somebody is tracking that shit, I know, but you need.
People put all that shit on their Instagram. Anyway, she just said it on a podcast.
I'm recommending a show on Netflix called Eric. Now, if Jesse was here, she might say to me, is this one of your ship recommendations? And look, it's not, but it won't be for everybody.
Because it's dark.
Yes, it has Benedict cumberbatchanette who obviously is fantastic. It is dark, though right it won't be for everybody. What it's about is it's a drama, and it's about a couple who are played by Benedict Comberbatch and Gabby Hoffman, and they are both fantastic who are kind of at each other. It's the eighties. They're living in New York. He is the creator and head puppeteer on a show
that's basically Sesame Street. It's not that it's called Good Morning Sunshine or Hello Sunshine or something, so you see behind the scenes of how that works. But when he goes home, him and his wife argue like cat and dog. He drinks a lot, et cetera. One day, their little boy goes missing on the way to school, and it's about what happens after that.
What are you doing?
What?
Edgars trimes, I'm working up a new puppet.
But we can get him on the show that a girl will see.
You'll know how much we wanted to come home really crazy.
He's the monster that every child wants when they are lost and need to be found.
This is Abig's idea.
I want to make it real. I'm out yeah, you would definitely be out. But it's amazing because what happens is, so the little boy used to go to work with his dad and he had started sketching and drawing his own puppet that he was going to be on this show. And Cumberbatch's character starts losing it, obviously because he's in a state about trying to find his son and decides he's got to create this poppet and put it on
the show and it will bring his son home. But because at the same time he's having a mental breakdown because his son's missing and he's drinking straight vodka all day, this puppet kind of comes to life and appears to him. So it's really weird. It's really interesting. It's one of the most original shows I've seen. Along the side, you've got the investigation of, obviously, what happens to the Sun.
It's very like New York eighties. Brent and I just kept saying to each other that nobody seems very bothered that this kid's gone missing. The parents do, obviously, but it's like there was a period in American history where kids were on the side of milk cartons and the missing kids, whether it was as common as the media reported it to be or not is a bit disp you did, but it was a think and it's set in that time and it's just a really original, weird,
button pushing show. Come for Batch is amazing. Gabby Hoffman is amazing.
Like her she's I remember her from Transparent if you were. Do you know this is number one in Netflix and lots of countries around the world and it is actually written by Abby Morgan who wrote The Split, and I'm a massive fan of hers.
Really original, just very different, very so we're really enjoying it. But as I say, it might give you a nightmas.
Out loud as.
If you want to listen to us every day of the week, you can get access to exclusive segments on Tuesdays and Thursdays by becoming a Mum and mea subscriber. Follow the link in the show notes to subscribe and support us. And a big thank you to all our current subscribers.
It is time for best and Worst of the week, miya.
So my worst of the week is something that happened first on Sex and the City or was made famous and just like that. Actually the last season, do you remember when Charlotte had a flash period when she was wearing the white Oh.
Yes, I had a bloody flashing period.
Yeah, because I'm meant to be in menopause. I got home and had blood all down the back of.
My trucks, and I'm always like, don't people feel it?
I don't know why I didn't feel it and no one said anything. And I'm now so embarrassed because I was like walking around.
I would be so freaked out if that happened now because I'm not having periods anymore. I know that would freak me out.
I know it was not ideal.
I've had it.
Happen to three women. I know three women which happened to them in public, and they were like, it's embarrassing because i feel like I've just got my period for the first time, Like I'm a correct a year old girl.
You're like, I'm fifty two. How have I still got like blood on my clothes? Anyway, So that was my worst. My best is that we announced last week and new CEO for Mom and Me, which is very exp for people who might not know. I'm not the CEO of MoMA Mia. I'm a co founder. My husband until last week was the CEO. He's my co founder, and we've been looking for a new CEO for quite some time. Jason stepped up into a exec chairman role. We appointed
Nat Harvey. She's amazing. She came from Channel seven. She was the national sales director there. She's been here for a few months in a different role and she has been handed the reins and I'm very excited.
She your boss. You a great question.
We're kind of each other's bosses because Jason and I know still own the company and are responsible for it, but I'm running things past her and it's really interesting. It's like it's a really she's got to put her stamp on things. I'm like, how do you want to do this? And how do you want to do that? And I'm just thrilled also that I don't always have to sort of be because Jace was never the face of the company. That sort of more fell to me, and I never wanted to be that. I just want
to be able to do my thing. So I'm very excited. She's got so much energy, she's cool. Yeah, she's terrific. I think she's maybe forty, so I'm older than her.
She's my boss.
I'm kind of her boss, but I just love being told what to do, so I'm very excited. I can tell you what you can. I always listen to you go.
My worst was recently I turned twenty.
Eighth man and is that satin return or is that twenty seven? It's sat in return? I thought, so, oh, you better put that in your freaking tracking oup. My saturn returning throwing up my life.
I think it's between twenty and one fire for the whole year.
Just force quits.
It is the first birthday of mine where I felt like I can't be excited for wall. It's a great day what it is. Firstly, the biggest thing, which I don't know why I have an issue with, was no one.
Got me a birthday cake.
Oh, I didn't have a single birthday cake on my birthday, and.
I love doing what your mother doing to me.
On I had a dinner with my friends, my parents, and few other friends, a few different celebrations. Not one cake, not one cake inside, and I was more embarrassed that I didn't have a cake. And I was kind of like annoyed at my friends and family for not telling me they weren't bringing a cake so I could bring my own cake.
My mother in law baked her own cake for her birth day.
I would have done that. I just assumed someone would tell me.
She said, I felt like cake, so I made one. I was like, oh, I'm so sorry. She goes, no, No, that's not She's much better cook than any of us.
She's taking it better than I take you are.
You're feeling bad about twenty eight? Is that what you're telling me?
Yeah, I'm feeling bad about being twenty eight. I feel like it's also when you're single alone, it feels like I'm forcing people to celebrate me.
Like I'm the ones of friends and you've got a lovely close family.
One I had to like book the dinner. I'm the one who had to like tell people you created this day to come have dinner to celebrate me. It's so weird. I feel so weird about it.
So because your parents don't organize it, your partner doesn't organize it. All the guys that you're dating don't organize.
It, not one of them, and I've been with one for like a month now. I like to come on. So I'm like, is this why I need to be in a relationship? Because I just maybe I'll do it for the birthday next year and then but yeah, anyway, that makes your cake. Anyway, My best is straight after my birthday, literally the day after I got the flu, and I got a week off.
God, you must love your job.
I do tell it's my favorite thing. Ever when fill in hosts bitch about work and since they're going like you.
Have nothing to do with it. I was sick, so I had the flu.
So it's better that having the flu than coming to work.
No no, no, no, wait to be human. Because as podcast hosts, and because I host a daily podcast, I physically couldn't come into work because firstly, you have to sound good and I sounded dreadful. Plus I didn't want to get anyone else sick, so I can't work from home in my job. Technically I could really wanted to try, but I didn't want to try it there. It was a first.
Go on, not what we're doing a podcast with your boss at all.
I'm feeling great right now.
Not our heroes wear cakes and some of us wear masks.
It was the first time I've ever taken sick leave I think in years, and I made the decision.
I'll just check, you can check.
I made the decision. I put my foot down. I was like, I'm going to get one hundred percent better before I go into work.
It's called rest.
I've never done this before, but resting when you're on well is the best experience. I came back into work. You need to try. You need to get sick and try it. I came back into I can take over the way you go home. You get me sick again, I will gladly take sick leave again. I will gladly take work off again, and you'll.
Have to find another I cannot wait for the fallout from that conversation. My worst. We've kind of touched on this on the show before, but the arrogance of voice notes. My god, you people, not you people. There's someone in my life at the moment who keeps sending me voice notes.
I don't like that, and they do They not know you get paid to do this voice notes for free.
This is like, it's not a hey, I just want to tell you about something that's happened in my life. They're trying to get something done, and every time I open my thing there's a freaking voice note there. And I'm doing things. I'm busy, I'm trying to multitask, and I have to to listen to this thing. Go and find my bag, find my bloody AirPods, make sure they're connected. Spend like no, send me a text message like a proper human, just saying hey, is this day okay?
Like, yes it is.
I don't want to hear your voice. Not the arrogance of thinking like people loved to bitch about phones. I'd rather she just called me. Just call me and we'll sort it out and put the phone down. Move on. You know what I mean.
I feel like you're.
Saying two different completely, Like what's the difference between a phone call and a voice note?
Because I have to, like, well, a I get to choose whether or not I answer the phone, and on the phone we can have this thing called synchronous. Is that what we're calling it? Synchronous synchronous communication where we can solve an issue there and then I'm doing another thing, or I'm getting my coffee or I'm working and I see I've got a voice note for this person. I have to stop my life listen to the voice note.
That is it different to a text because they're both asynchronous For.
It, I don't need to put my ear buds in and stop what I'm doing?
Extra thing, isn't it? But most voice transcribe it for you because you can read faster than we can listen.
Yes, maybe they're taking the piss out of your job and they're like, look, I can do it too.
No they're not. They're just being lazy and going I don't want to type.
No, it's doing that's saying sorry, I've sent a long email. I didn't have time to write a short one to be like that. Yes, so I can't be bothered to text, so I'm just gonna but I do it in the cart, which is also.
Really pay voice notes. Don't leave me a voice notes. I love you, but don't I get the point If it's the catch up, you know when we talked about it, when someone's like, here's what's going on in my life, and I can choose when to listen to it. But if we're actually trying to organize something, no, don't do it. Okay, the arrogance of voice notes, that's my worst, my best.
This is just a Brent appreciate ocean moment. Right last Friday night, in the town I live in, every year they have this little festival and it's like a speech festival. It's called a night and anyone can enter. Everyone can do a five minute speech like a public speaking yeah, and it can be about anything, but it can't be longer than five minutes, which is great.
I love that idea.
And you have to do PowerPoint slides and there are this many of them and they move quickly and it's great during that you're so you go and they split it up so it's not too boring, and there's wine and there's noodles and you know, and basically you Sait and I watched us talk about like everything from design to ADHD. The ADHD speech was great. It was called do I have ADHD? Or Am I an Asshole? Was fantastic.
Now that makes sense because I thought you were at a school speech night and you sent me a slide a photo of that slide Do I have ADHD? Or Am I an Asshole?
And I'm like, well that seems little school and they like travel and this and that, you know, design things that people are into seaweed. Brent did one, because Brent always does. He did one about air guitar. And there is a little known thing about Brent because I do not advertise this for very obvious reasons.
I think you should that.
When I first met Brent, which is nearly twenty years ago, on our very first date, he told me that he had entered a professional air guitar competition before and that he was joking, and I went, lol, except I didn't say that, because we didn't say that. Then you genuinely like, actually, she said horror, horror, horror, a pirate. But he wasn't joking. And one of his hobbies for the first couple of years of our relationship was entering professional air guitar competitions
and I had to go and watch. You probably don't know this, but there's a worldwide air guitar championship in Finland every year. I didn't know, and Australia sends one person, Brent. It wasn't Brent. He never made it to the finals. He's very upset. He's a competitors held in camera every year. Big deal, right Anyway, I have always been deeply ashamed about this about my Brent, because he's a great guy. But I'm like, that's the most mortifying shit. No one
needs to know about that. And then on Friday night he gave a speech for five minutes in front of all these people that we know and many that we don't, about his professional air guitar career, and then at the end of it, he did thirty seconds of a guitar.
I love him.
And what I realized, which I have realized obviously over the course of our relationship, is that although it's mortifying to me because I'm much more interested in my own self image than he is, one of the very best things about Brent and people like Brent is being cool is so far down his list of priorities. It isn't there right. He just is like, I like doing this. Who gives a shit, I'm doing it, And it's one of the things that actually makes him a really excellent person.
He doesn't pretend to be someone he isn't. He doesn't like.
Very attractive quality.
He's very who he is, and sometimes who he is is really embarrassing, but hey, that's life. And so I watched him do it, and instead of dying, which I thought I was going to, I was like, do I really have to come? And then I was like, no, support him supporting me or supports you. I actually had like tears of laughter, enjoy running down my face, and I was like, look at that freaking idiot. Go I love him.
I thought he was great. Can I be honest like I thought he was great? And I was like, I think it's a risky you posted it because a lot of single women follow you.
I don't think so, A lot a lot of women just gave me this anyway, that's my best for the week. I loved it. That is all we Oh, it's not all we have time for.
We also are going to tell you what else we've got on our podcast this week. Because we all freelance, freestyle, side hustle on other shows, we all cheat on this one. On No Filter this week, I interviewed Raina Cohen and we discussed the idea of what if our friends are our soulmates? It's really interesting. It's about the idea of prioritizing friendships over having a partner. And you should have had a significant other who was a friend or going to have your birthday cakere you?
Should you need a comment?
Yeah?
Who did you talk to me?
I talked to Katherine May, who is an author, a British author who I love because she wrote a book called Wintering that went really nuts. Joining me I'm always speaking about that. It was about rest and burnout. So you would have liked to m company at this episode, but no, it was about burnout. And she has a very clear way of defining burnout, which is what happens to you when you consistently deprioritize your own needs. And a lot of midlife women obviously are doing that. They're caring,
they're working, they're caring, they're working. And then she has this sort of radical point that all the things we're told to do to cure it slow down. Dahl basically, you know, meditate, you do this, and that is almost impossible when you've got a lot of responsibilities and was almost certainly like designed by a guy. She was like she once went on this meditation retreat and the guy who was leading it was like, so three times a day, just take your half an hour and she's like.
What are you doing?
Who's looking after your children? Like what's going anyway? So it's a really really great episode, if I say so myself, but that's not because of me, it's kind of hers. Great Catherine may burnout. What did you do this week?
This week, I did a lot of things. I wasn't resting this week, just so you know, Just so you know, we talked all about a lot of things on the spill. It's obviously a daily podcast, but one of my favorite episodes we did was earlier in the week. We talked about Northwest as Simba in the Lion King thirtieth Reunion thirtieth Concerts, Northwest being Kim Kardashian west Child.
A lot of snarky tone about that poor kid.
No, you don't feel bad.
It's not her fault. It is her fault.
I'm sorry from what I heard on this bill. Kim got her her own like she was in the proper Broadway production of The Linking Right, which I've seen many times. The costumes are amazing. Hudson was in there, it was huge, but she got a special costume designed for Northwest, so Northwest looked like she was in a completely different show.
Every other costume I mean, crikey, but this is this North's fault. Anyway.
Anyway, we talked about and we talked about Northwest, the biggest ever baby out there right now, She's not even trying to hide it. And the secondhand embarrassment I got from her performance.
That is all we have time for today. I think we've talked a lot for Friday. It's been very fun. Thank you to you and for filling in for Jesse. You've been great. Thank you.
No, I'm going to log this in my app tonight.
Take it rost day off.
Oh my god. Thank you to our team that is the amazing Emma Ling Gazillous, the assistant producer Charlie Blackman, audio producer Leah Porges, and our brand manager Kerry Scott Jackson. We'll see you all next week. Goodbye bye. You're beautiful. Have I told you lately? You're beautiful? Mea, You're so beautiful. Shout out to any Mama Mia subscribers listening. If you love the show and you want to support us, subscribing to Momma Mia is the very best way to do it.
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