Hello, and welcome to Mama Mirror out Loud. I think you might find you may have already heard. I don't know that we are still the number one podcast in Australia.
Yeah, even with Hamish Nandy back, Hamish Sandy back.
But the world is just churning and this is just a new place. Yes, just where we hang out these days. You might have We've probably bored you with it, but Emma hasn't been on the show, so no, I want to get very, very excited.
I mean, it is our thirty episodes versus therefore, but who's counting. It's a listeners, not episodes. Got it? Got it? Got it? So we're winning. We're winning number one anyway.
I'm Holly Wayne, right, I'm Claire Stevens, and I'm.
M Vernon Claire Stephens. Is something you need to bring to.
The group, there is, guys. I'm in my flop Era and.
I just feel great for being in your flop era.
Thank you so much. Em That actually means a lot. Someone the other day was like, you don't even look that pregnant. I was like, I really needed to hear that.
How pregnant are we now?
I'm twenty eight weeks okay, and yeah, twenty eight weeks.
How many more there is to go?
At least another ten yeah, yeah, at least another three quarters of the way. Yeah, yeah, which which here's a question.
Three quarters two thirds?
Yeah, you do? You do the maths about trimesters? Yeah, doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense, doesn't mat up. I was explaining this to my partner the other day. It's like, oh, first trimester is twelve weeks, okay, well maybe so, then second trimester would end it twenty four weeks. So then third trimester would end it thirty six weeks. Why is there a month to go? Why this is the thing? Pregnancy ain't ain't nine months, it's ten months.
It's ten not fat.
But my flop era. I just feel like I need to be open with the out louders because if they see me out and about, they might notice I'm flopping.
She's not flopping anyway. We're just going to put the she's not flopping aside and let you flop go.
Okay. Number one, I have a skin cancer on my notes. I know that I need to get cut out and the surgery to get it cut out, which I thought would be chill because I'm like, it's a b CC. I'm thirty five. No, they have to cut a huge hole in my face and do a skin grass. Oh my darling, And I just want to know any out louders. We've had stuff like cut out of your face. Any suggestions you have Are they're going to do this after you have the baby?
Yeah?
But not long after?
Oh so you're going to be a new mum of two with a big hole in your correct Oh that does not sound like fun.
I can I go through your like nostril and pull it out from there? Already a hole there.
You should be a doctor. You should.
In that briefing room.
You should have heard my suggestions to the surgeon. He's like, you need to just I was like, I get nosebleeds sometimes and he's like that's unpleathed.
Like that's just the doctors like you should probably get that checked.
Yeah, Like that's another element of my flop ear that's unrelated. My other flop ear element is like my twin sister before me, I've been diagnosed with gestational diabetes.
It's very creepy with it's always the ones who love chocolate and.
If any if you know anything about me, and Jathy, it's that we love our chocolate, we love our snacks.
I can hear out loud and shouting at you because they're going, it's not that.
Don't blame yourself.
And the doctor told me there's nothing I could have done. There you go, but it's really sad.
Oh, I feel really sorry.
I'm hungry and I'm confused and I don't understand food and now I've turned into hollywayin right because everything has to be a protein.
I've been through this sitting next to your sister. So just ask me and I will just say cottage cheese all time.
I don't like cottage cheese.
That's a problem. Yeah, yeah, you know what, I will give you a tin of tuna from my stash.
Really, that's.
Oh, darling.
I'm just I'm just flopping all over the place. So if I you know, if you hear me say something on the podcast we think clear out sentence didn't make sense, you would be right, Oh, you would be right out louders and just thanks for I don't know, thanks for supporting me through my flop era.
Send her a bit of love.
I really appreciate it. And if you're flopping, yeah, we all share.
Welcoming share, we will flop all flop together. Here is what has made our agenda for today. Nicole Kidman has a new career plan and it's quite serious.
Plus there's a new dating questionnaire that is answering all the questions that I need to know. And I've never heard before.
And no one in Vogue has their nails done anymore. And I have a theory about what it means. But first class Stevens, there is absolutely no feeling like the sheene of ick that seems to have settled into your paws and your hair follicles after a full day in the office. And I've always thought this, and I've never I always thought it was just me. I remember it at school as well. By the end of a school day,
you'd be like, oh, why am I shiny? And I agree seel icky, and I'd look at other people and think, no, they still look put together.
You know, it's interesting because you know, on Monday's show we talked about working from home. On yesterday's subscriber episode, Me and Me I had a bit of it about working from home. This could be one of the other things we could put in our requests for flexible working yeah, we could say, don't you want me to look hot at all time? Exactly and feel fresh by the end of the day. Why would somebody think of my hair because.
I feel fresher if I've just been at home. And a content creator named Noah Donlin has gone viral on Instagram and TikTok for sharing a term for this and it perfectly explains it. She calls it office air or the office air theory. So she works as a corporate girlie, I think that's important. It just she's in an office, adult jobs, yep, fluorescent lighting, air conditioning, all of that.
She's going for the corner office and agreed.
With the proof exactly. And one of her most viral videos has the caption, no, you're not ugly, and no, it's not just you. It's office air.
And if you consider that, this is why you're in your flop hair.
It's the bloody office air. It is an office air probably as well is full of viruses. I'd like to pull that out. But she has taken photos of herself. She'll take a photo or a video of herself. At the beginning of the day she turns up for work. Her hair is blow dried to frame, her face, it's up.
Her makeup is perfect, her I makeup is perfect. And then she's like twelve pm and everything has melted like her like your face eats your makeup by that stage, and the hair is all like strandy and it's all oily.
Yeah.
And some of the comments were so good. They were like bright red eyes for no reason. You look at yourself. You whoa, I have an eye infection? Or I look like a sick Victorian child by lunch, very very true. Do you guys have office air issues?
I always feel like I'm coming down with the cold at about three o'clock if I'm in the office or there, about three o'clock of a suddenly like, oh yeah, I'm definitely getting a cold. And then I leave and it wasn't a cold. Or you just have your third coffee and you're like, oh, so true, that's why I need that three people.
You really go outside and you're like, oh exactly.
It's like it's so nice.
Maybe I'm not getting a cold, but every day I think I'm getting a.
Cold about three. It sounds very similar to the boyfriend breath effect. I heard of this. No, so it was these girls on TikTok, who were making these videos saying, why do I always look like crap after I spent
the day with my boyfriend? And it's like these girls who have been in new relationships with their partners and then they video themselves with their boyfriend and it's like him like massaging their head and falling asleep on their shoulder and breathing on their neck, and then they just come away just feeling so gross and.
Greasely letting other people into your physical.
Yeah, but you know who doesn't have office air and agreed.
Oh my gosh. And you know what my theory for that would be. She's not in the bloody office telling everybody else to be in the office. But she is doing a lot of podcasts.
Writer and artist Miranda July. She did All Four.
If you haven't listened to our book club episode about All Fours.
It was a massive book, like.
The year before last, and we did a book Club episode about it in December which was just chaotic. Yeah, it's a great book. She's just amazing. It's a fine book. Yeah, you didn't like it.
She's she's definitely out there. Yeah, she is. She is, and she has a substack and on her substack. She has started a dating service. So what she does is she sends out a question air to all her readers, and if you're looking to date someone, you answer the questions, send it back to her, and she pub as a post so people can reach out to that person. Some of the questions are kind of similar to what I have seen on dating apps, like do you want kids? Do you have pets? How old are you? How would
your best friend describe you? But then I saw some questions that completely blew my mind. What do you like slash dislike about airports and flying? I love that question.
That is such a good question, is insightful? Answer that question, friends, just so we can get to know you all better.
What I so? I love airports. I feel like I'm already on holidays. I love just walking around and looking at things. Things I dislike is always going through security because I've never done the right thing with my liquids ever.
Ever.
What do you like about airport?
I hate airports so much, so much, I have such It's the only place in the whole world I have so much like anxiety about getting in trouble. I never want to be in trouble. I never want to be late. I never want to be the last person on the plane. Traveling with you whole has been such a nightmare for me. See when Hole's like, do you want to share an uber to the airport? No, I do not know, because we're catching that uber like twenty minutes before our fly
takes up. I want to be there an hour before. I have to put an extra time for security because I'm brown, and they're always like if we need a double.
Check back, that's so cool.
I don't like the food that always makes me constipated. There's so many things that's so funny. I really am with you.
I really like airports, although when you travel a lot for work. Last year I traveled a lot for work, some of the shine comes off it. But I really like holiday airports, like when you're going away and then I don't mind getting there early because I want to eat all the things. I want to buy unnecessary items. I want to just walk around.
Being like I'm out of here, like I believe in can't wait anyway. Sorry, we digress, We digress. So these are the kind of questions that she has very insightful. She also has some questions that make the person send in photos. So she's said, let's see a picture of you that you think is maximum flattering, and let's see a nice picture of you that looks more like the way you usually look. I think that is genius.
Now I'm not on the apps, and it's a bit of internet dating right back at the beginning of internet dating world. But do the traditional dating apps do many of them have these kind of like tricksy interesting things or is it all pretty straightforward, like tell me your favorite color.
I don't know so much about you, because I think, for.
Example, that that trick about the photos is excellent because we all want to post the really flattering picture of ourselves, but we also don't want to turn up. I've got feedback from people in my world that like, you don't want to turn up at a date and the first thing you see on their face be like a flicker of.
You don't want to you don't want to catfish, but you want to be able to show them that you have the potential to look for the really hot given the right conditions.
I can healer would say, as I'm starting here with the messy barn, and they're like, but that I can get to here, but I'll be back down here again.
I want you to be upset about that. I think that's genius. Dating apps do have a lot of questions like that, where you now can upload photos and videos and voice notes, which are very important because I find voices very attracted.
They say in their voice, is everyone just trying.
To I'm also so sorry that I sound like that auntie who's like, tell me about what it's like.
The most men just use it to show off their Robert de Niro impression, and they're always so bad. It's so funny. That just reminds me of Barbie and them all singing that song. Literally, do you want to push you?
The issues with dating apps questions is that there's hundreds and hundreds of questions to choose from, so unlike this questionnaire where you have to answer all of her questions, these ones you just pick a choose the ones you like, so you always end up with the profile that is best fitted, that you think is the best version of yourself. The one that men always choose that I hate and no woman ever wants to answer is the two truths and a lie, Oh, because I just want to tell
you stories about their crazy lifestyle. So the two truths, and a lie will be like I fought a gorilla, I fought an alligator, I fought a shark, And then the lie would be like, oh, I nearly thought a shark, but I didn't actually, Oh.
Mad annoying me to Miranda's You Lie World exactly. She also asked them to show a picture of their bed.
Yes, Oh, beds are really important. I have actually a list of questions that I would ask the guys that I at least I would say, okay, number one, do you have navy sheets?
Okay?
Is navy sheets a bad bad? Maybe sheets are always bad because navy sheets are the sheets that they just took from their childhood bedroom. Because as they're growing up and become teenagers, their moms are like, okay, you're becoming a big boy. Now let's remove the cars. Here's some navy sheets, so everyone knows you're still a boy, but you're also becoming a man. And then that guy's like, hell yeah, mom, sheets were life.
And then taking the navy she wear a flat pillow.
This is why a picture of the bed is really taste, because you can't like, you want to see linen, you want to see some white, some textures I want to say to the guy, no pillows, just pillowcases, just pillowcases.
Just you know, when I met Brent, he did have a futon, like it's basically a mattress on the floor, and I remember walking into his bedroom and being like, I could choose for this to me.
Not grown up yet, even though you are nearly.
Forty, or I could choose it to mean traveler, easy going, hasn't invested in settling down. Like yeah, so I think that all these photos they're not necessarily negative positive.
They just tell you something important about them, don't they.
I think she also says, show me the inside of your fridge.
I would hate to show people.
What would I learn about you?
Actually, Lukey used to do that to you, and you and Jesse used to share a house, and when Luca first started dating Jesse, he had a brief social media content series of showing people the inside of your.
Fridge, like empty.
And then there'd be.
A wilted, one green, wilted thing in the crisper drawers.
And that is just you know, when you just at that phase. As asforementioned flop Era, every time I open my fridge, I'm like, something smells.
My fridge is always smelling and I don't know what it is. Something's gone somewhere. Are only truly clean when they're new.
If has that fresh place you imagined you didn't care care about the world, you'd just be like every month, you'd be like.
Screw it, this's but that would be interesting. Actually, I'd like to take a photo of my fridge, send it to someone and be like, can you tell me what's mol something?
You find it app You're like, can you sort out my fridge problem for me? I think we could add a photo. And I know this might be more female skewing, but let's remember we just want to get to know people and who knows what you're into. But a photo of your hair brush is very telling. Oh I'm dating a guy who's bored.
Yeah, so that would.
Be a silly question for him, but like I would be. My hair brush is often just full of my managed hair is gross, and when I've cleaned it and pulled that out stuff, I feel like that woman we talked about last week who has.
That shit together. If my hair brush is clean, I'm feeling good. I feel like for a whole for you, I would ask show me the lap of the person sitting next to you on the train. It's just full of your hair. Oh my god, I thought about you, Sidebar.
Sidebar doesn't approve of the fact that when I come up on the train, I put my makeup on on the train, which I always do. But she said, you do draw the line at hair brushing, don't you, And I was like.
Yeah, so long, you're like elbowing people out of But on Monday morning this week, I was on the early train and I was doing my makeup that I was just pulled my hairbrush.
Out of my back and then I'm like no, I would say, no, I can wait till I get to the office. So I'm growing personating.
I came up with a few questions because I agree am I think that there are some really personalized things that you can ask someone to get a sense of are we compatible And it's very much they like they've got to be tailored to what you value. So what I find hard about meeting new people is I can't ask you if you're funny.
Like or because everyone would say yes.
Yeah, and it's and you need to kind of test the waters. So I think, what do you find funny? Because it's a compilation of people falling over Then don't worry, don't You're so right, We're done. The other one is who is your favorite family member? Who is your least favorite and why? Because I want to hear the weirdness of your family. I need to know how you see other people that even your least favorite family member, that you see some humor in that and your favorite family member,
like why are they? Are they the rogus person in your family? I need some details. Also, what's your take on the Beckham family fuse?
Like, take me a long time to unpack that?
Where do you sit? Explain who you were in kindergarten? Yeah?
I actually thought that one of the good photos to send would be the official an official school primary photos, because you can you can learn a lot about somebody just by looking at that, and.
You can judge what your future kids might look like.
Yeah, I think that's actually I think that's a good one. I reckon, send me a picture of you in the from primary school.
And I have always thought that the older you get, the older you get, I reckon, you get closer to who you were in kindergarten. Maybe, so if you're like, describe who you were in kindergarten. I want the person to be self deprecating. This is an opportunity for fun. This is not like you can be funny here. Yeah, yeah yeah, And it also kind of shows probably who
they're going to become. Finally, a photo of a pair of shoes you like and a photo of a pair of shoes you hate, because I need to know that you know what ugly shoes are.
That oh my god, Bred and I would never have got together. Doesn't own any other kind?
Oh when you when you I remember turning up to dates or somebody be like, oh I'm seeing this. I come meet him and you just take one look at their shoes and go, come on, now, you.
Are a deal break. I have one.
I have one more thing I want to ask from around in julyes. So she says, send this message to your best friend now, and the best friend is and it's basically like described me. But she also says, now send it to your ex, your most recent X, and what do they say about you?
I think the most telling part of that is do you have an ex who will reply exactly?
And I think that's I think that's what that question is getting too, that they don't really want people who have really toxic relationships with their exes, because I've got lots of my divorce friends who go on dates. Say, the biggest red flag is you sit down with a guy and he starts bitching about his ex wife. Yeah, like obediently, the custody, the split, the blah blah blah.
It's just like nah. But I want to know.
If I texted your most recent X and I said three words for family vernon, obviously they'd say hot, Like, I'm pretty sure we would go we're not even counting, not even hating that.
What else? I'm pretty sure he'd be like, who was that again? Or that one who talked about me on the podcast one with that little blog, that little mum and me a blog.
It was so interesting. I reckon last night's dinner. I want to know that, Yep, what did you eat last night?
Mine would be tuna and crackers. Well always, I think I'd failed this question. I'm not getting a date from this question.
Last photo I want to see is your shower shelf. I think there's a lot to be said about that, like pose empty and just like still there is there a rusty razor there?
Like what what's the situation photo of your bathroom.
Do we have a little just sliver half moon sliver of finish soap there, or do.
We have like a fresh sporty wash.
If my husband had had to take a photo of his bathroom at any point, the floor would just be wet, do you know what I mean? Just always wet. The other the final thing that I do think would be very insightful and am I'd love your thoughts on this, asking what's your enneagram and do you agree? Why or why not? Because I think, for example, like you saying what your enniogram is, that's very interesting for somebody to know. But then also you saying, but I'm not murderous, Yeah I'm not.
I'm not ojasent, I'm not jealous.
That would be really helpful.
After the break, Nicole Kidman says she's considering a career pivot and it's quite a serious one. So Kidman, as I like to call Nicole Kidman my friend Kidman. She is on the promo circuit for Margo has money troubles. She is always on the promo circuit for something because the woman works hard. EMM agreed would approve. But she's not just talking about the usual like, oh, I loved
working with my co stars and stuff. She's actually talking about some real things in a lot of the events for this and one of them that she's brought up quite often is about the death of her mom. So she lost her mom, Janelle and Kidman in September twenty
twenty four. She'd already lost her father ten years before that, and she's been talking about how that experience has shifted everything for her, which is obviously incredibly relatable, and that it has encouraged her to add something to her career. She says, it may sound a little weird, but I'm learning to be a death duoler. So that's part of my expansion and one of the things I'll be learning. As my mother was passing, she was lonely and there
was only so much the family could provide. Between my sister and I we have so many children and our careers and our work, and wanting to take care of her because my father wasn't in the world anymore. And that's when I went, I wish there were these people in the world that were there to sit impartially and just provide solace and care. I think this is one
of the most relatable things. Most certainly the most relatable midlife thing Nicole Kidman has ever said, because Kidney gets a lot of sort of crap thrown her away really for looking the way she does, you know, doing anti aging procedures whatever, like are you even aging?
Blah blah blah blah blah.
But one of the things that's so beautiful and vulnerable about what she's sharing there is she's admitting that her and her sister couldn't just drop everything and be there for her mum in her last months, which is very relatable. And also it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter how hard any of us fight aging on the outside, but time is moving and these things are going to happen, and if there's one thing incredibly certain about aging, it she will experience more loss. So I just think it's amazing
she's talking about this. But she went on to talk about what she thinks what death duelers do and why she thinks she'd be a good one. Do you guys know what a death doler does?
There was a death dueler in a recent episode of The Pit, and that storyline got a lot of people talking.
There was a mother who had had cancer for seven years and had little kids, and a woman turns up who happens to be one of the er night shift staff, and she turns up and she is this woman's death Dueller and I thought it was a really powerful representation of what they do, because it's the idea of having someone who's a non medical companion who's providing support but can also provide a whole lot of information and help with admin like they're the people who might know all
about planning a funeral or what kind of wishes you should know in order to feel like you've kind of carried that person's legacy on in the pit. What was really insightful was that the woman who was dying had different wishes to her husband and her family, and a death dueler kind of navigates both is advocating for somebody who might be terminally ill and also trying to negotiate that with the family members, and it is you just
look at it and think we are being confronted. I think with more decision about more decisions about end of life care, the longer we the longer humans live for and having somebody who can help with services and navigating the medical system and social and psychological and spiritual support. I just cannot even imagine how valuable that would be.
Yeah, I first learned about death duelers from that Australian TV show Bump Yes. One of the characters was diagnosed with terminal illness and she had this debt dulla, and it felt like it was just a third part, like kind of like a therapist, where it's someone who cares for you, but they're like so separated from your life. And I think if you have a terminal diagnosis that and you want someone to talk to that's not a
family member who isn't so involved in your life. That storyline just played out so beautifully to me because she seemed like she was just an ongoing therapist. I was just there to listen and provide advice for I think what would be nice to do, but I don't think
we can. Is how our debt deal is meant to work with people who don't have a terminal diagnosis when it's a bit too late, where you like, for example, my grandfather, he was so so old, but then when he got to the hospital, he just felt like he was there for so long, and I feel like that was too short for space to bring someone else in to like help him with that and deal with that, and all the examples of dead dealers I've seen have
been with that person for quite some time. And if I was at an age like that, like in my eighties orline, I don't think i'd like want a dead doler because I think that's confirming something I don't want to be confirmed as yet.
I've read that apparently all the kind of training and conversations that are going into the kind of death dueller community, the idea of having research on what actually supports people and where the gaps are, that they are providing training in hospitals, and that it's kind of more of a symbiotic relationship, which I think is also the case with birth doulers, that they can work really well.
A lot of differtionals ways like paraly Live Care Australia will give like there's lots of practical advice for when you get to that point.
But death.
I interviewed this amazing woman who wasn't a death dueler. She called herself a death walker, Jackie Bailey on mid in the very first season of that and it's one of the most popular episodes we did, which is strange in a way, but she was well. She was one of the people who talked to me about what Nicole Kidman was talking about there, right. I think it was so honest of Kidman to say we knew our mum's
end of life was coming. Because death can of course be horribly sudden and come from nowhere and be shocking for a lot of people that kind of lost. But it can also, to be honest, take quite a long time when you know that a loved one is going to pass, but you don't know when, and there's a
lot to be done during that. And Jackie Bailey made the point in that interview that I thought was so great that you think that everything will stop, because that's the only thing that matters is that you're losing somebody very important to you, and so everything will stop. But the reality of it is that isn't how life works. And she said that's true emotionally as well as practically.
So you know, if you've got a difficult relationship with somebody, with your family member, your parent or whatever, you probably will continue to do that. And so often a dueler or a death walker or a person who's that that intermediate can help with that, but also in the practical sense, if you live a million miles away, if you've got a really busy job, if you've got other caring responsibilities,
those things don't stop. And I think we don't like to ever admit that because we are I think culturally we're obviously very We don't like to talk about death at all. We don't want to admit that it has to fold into everyday life, which in a way it kind of does. But what was really interesting that Kidman went on to say, because obviously she said this once in an interview and everybody said, what are you talking about?
And so then she was at another event she was asked about it again and she said, I find it really fascinating. It's really beautiful, and you have to be a certain personality to be able to do it. But I found I'm actually that personality. It's very important to me. There is always suffering, but there are people there who can help with that, help those final stages be less painful. If you feel the connection in your heart, that's lovely.
So that's what I'm exploring. And I remembered with my conversation with doctor Bailey that I was thinking, well, I wonder what those what that personality would be, because again most of us we're just like, oh, death scary. We rail against it, and you particularly rail against it with someone when it's somebody you love, like you don't want
to talk about it, face it. And some of the things were about compassionate detachment, So you have to if you're brought into that situation, you have to care a great deal and be empathetic, but you can't add weight to the family that you're also grieving or going through drama about it. So you've got to be able to be very compassionate but detached. And not everybody can do that. If you're one of those people that goes around saying you're an EmPATH all the time, you probably can't do that.
You have to have a high threshold for being uncomfortable, because as I said, most people want to turn away from it. But the idea of somebody who might be comfortable, and this might be the kind of person who doesn't rush to fill a silence, who can deal with conflict.
The impartial soul is so basically objectivity is that you need that person who isn't enmeshed in the family to that point of before is that if there's differing needs or wants in the family, somebody who can stand a little bit outside that and be like, Okay, but what this person wants is X, or what might be work better is why? And also having a pretty good intuition because you need to read the room, know when to hold a hand, when to get out of there, when
to all of those things. And I thought that's really interesting because certainly, when I sat with Dr Bailey, her whole energy was very much about not being afraid of that moment.
And I know in my life when I've.
Been in situations with a family member who's passing there, everybody reacts differently in terms of the people who are desperately holding on and the people who can somehow let go.
I don't know I found it really. I know people are.
Like, it's made a lot of headlines about kidman, so has silly like what's she going to do? Like stop making movies and just start turning up at hospitals, Like I don't think that's what she meant. But you know how sometimes someone says a thing that you're like that that's really true.
That part about because.
These are people her and her family, people with money, people with resources, people who can outsource stuff, people who can hire death dollers, all those things. But she obviously still carries some guilt about not being around enough for a mum at the end, which tells you everything really, doesn't it. The other reason why I think it's great that Nicole Kidman is talking about this is because I said before how it's the most relatable midlife things she's done.
It's like she's got she's clearly she's just gone through a divorce, she's lost both her parents. This is one of those moments when everything kind of comes crashing around you, no matter how famous you are. But I know there'll be a lot of out louders listening to this who in stages of grief over people they've lost. And it doesn't matter how old they were. In many ways, it
doesn't matter how ready for it you were. It can be completely sideswiping, and I just you know, I think obviously for us with our hearts, go out to any out louders who that is your experience, and I'm sure you all have some experiences of what this is like, what would be helpful and what wouldn't.
And just on that, like talking wholly about kind of
what ADULA does. I also thought it was interesting the thing that they don't do so that they don't obviously diagnose or recommend starting or stopping medications or treatments that are in administer medication or give advice that I think in terms of the personality that you need to have in order to be a DULA, some people would find that really really difficult because you want to control a situation, or you think that you know best, or that you've
seen it done a certain way before and that was, you know, a healing experience, so you think it should be done that way again. It would be very difficult to kind of hold all your experiences and yet still accept that none of this is your call. You're just there to kind of be a sound bored and to provide a whole lot of information. And death is just nobody, like, we're so sanitized from it and nobody knows that there
is no right or wrong way to navigate it. And so having having that kind of support would be would be incredible. The thing I do think with Nicole Kidman is I think it might be distracting having Nicole Kidman.
Be the death do all.
Yeah, if actually practical dying, and Nicole Kidman turned up, I'd be like, I'm in heabit.
It wasn't be like but wait, I have questions.
It's like my dying wish. May you tell me the GOSSI about Tom Cruise. I recently picked off my gel mail and I haven't replaced them, and.
I'm so glad you brought this up because I was looking at.
And I actually had like a few things to film over the last few days, and just all weekend I walked around in circles being like, you need to get your nails done, and I didn't get them done.
I can never pick them off if I get shellac, you know, which I sometimes do. This isn't like this is just ordinary old nail polish. But I you know, people always say I pick it off. I can't pick it off. I don't know how to, Like, I just can't do that. Maybe I'm getting too good shillak yeah, and then it just starts growing out and drives me crazy.
Mine starts like, oh, mine's stay on for ages, so I can kind of pick it off from the bottom where it's like grown out. But I get my nails done because I bite them so much. And then having nails is like the impetus to not bite, Like if I've got nail polish, I'll be like, no, no, no, come on. We paid good money. But apparently I'm right on trend as always. Because to a substack called the b List by Bella Gerrard, no one in Vogue gets
the nails done anymore. She writes that as she was flipping through Chloe Mirles's first official Vogue issue for spring.
She's the new, like the new Anna wind Tour.
Yes, yes, Anna wind Tour's nemesis. But she noticed something surprising, which was while the cover star has chrome tips, there were short nails with no more than a clear coat in all the Chanelle ads, the Gucci ones, the Door, the Fendi, the Botega one, all the aspirational brand.
Yeah but they were the cover stars.
Yeah, why but short buffed fingernails were also clutching. Do you say meumu? Mumum goes to show why why I don't have fancy nails, mew mew bags and uh and with in a Bolgari is it pod? And with it ad for their rings? So she said it talk until page forty nine to find a gold chip looking through I'm like golda No, she found adulte and gabana model with a slightly elongated, pale pink manny and and then she found a burberyad with some bold silver nail up. Yeah,
I like that, she like. She definitely had a spreadsheet and marked down all these details. But one of the theories positive in the comment section was bear nails a recession indicator.
Oh well, it costs good money to get you.
It is so expensed.
Everyone I know is like, I know someone who can do it, blah blah.
Black market business. But he'll do it around at her house, just have to wear a gas mask.
It's like, okay, maybe, But I also think we have lived with the long talon, the Kardashian talon for a very long time, and the mental load of every time I look at those nails and thinking how does that person put a tampon in? I'm quite happy to say goodbye to that mental load.
Oh me too. It can't be hygienic. I think about that all the time, the things that would get stark. It's not it's not nice essentially, And then you look at someone who has young children, You're like, you're changing nappy and.
With the now they've all got poo inside. You love getting your nails done? You going to the nude Vogue nail No, look, this is my one joy getting my nose. I have really nice, dainty hair.
You really do. We don't talk about this enough. M Vernum's hands. If you're watching on Apple Blender, long fingers and I can't be let down by the nails. You've always got good nice Jewelry was a piano player growing up. She was not allowed to have long nails. Was not allowed to have my nails done. All my friends in high school and black nail polish was a thing. Remember when we had the cracked nail polish.
Oh that was Yeah. I didn't do any of.
That because I was a piano player. And then the minute I finished high school, I was like, screw this piano life. I'm getting long nails. And I've had long nails since.
Are they your real nails?
Are my real nails?
Oh my god.
That's like my daughter because she plays fl and so in the season.
She cannot have long nails, but she.
Like every teammate anti woman well, because they could be weapons on the film. You could take someone's eye out with that. But when I take her to get her nails done sometimes, because you know, I am that mum on the holidays. I'm always amazed at like coffin shape, talon shapes, stiletto shape, square tip, brown tip, like too many.
Choices after the break, our recommendations to get you through what might be a long weekend for you. And if it's not, sorry, I say, chuck a sticky on Monday.
Anyway, Oh my gosh, I've agreed. It's coming here.
I know.
Vibes, ideas, atmosphere, something casual, something fun. This is my best recommendation.
It's Friday, so we want to help set up your weekend with our best recommendations. Holly, you have a book.
I have a book. I have a book on a roll with my books. But this is a book that you a.
Lot about louders will have already read because it's big. If you haven't do yourself a favor. But also I rarely have this, but I'm reading this book being.
Like, why didn't I write this book.
Rebecca Armitage is a Tasmanian journalist. She is really good and she has written a book called Their Apparent. Now a lot of the out louders will have heard of this book because it has been a success. It's her first novel was picked for Reese's Book, Oh, which is no small thing for any author from anywhere, but her debut from Australia is like huge, well done. But the reason I say, oh, I should have written this book is because well, I couldn't have written this book because
Rebecca Armitag did, and she did it so well. It's such a patient but it's basically she's taken all the royal gossip, all the royal intrigue and insights and etiquette because she's reported on the royal family for a long time that lives rent free in my head and has done for decades now, and turned it into a fictionalized
really great story. So the plot of the Heir Apparent is that the so the Prince imagine Prince Harry, but Prince Harry's a woman and she's called Lexi and she after the death of her mother, her parents like very Prince Harry and William. Her dad is the heir to the throne. They get divorced in an acrimonious way. He's been seeing someone else. Her mother dies in an accident,
so she's like orphaned Prince Harry. And when she finishes Uni and it's like, what are you going to do next, she goes, I'm going to run away from all this. I hate all this and she runs off to Tasmania and she becomes a doctor. Oh, Lexi is a doctor in Tasmania and she's living on a vineyard and it's lovely and she's like a shwed royal life and she's like getting around in normal clothes and or whatever. And then and this is not spoilers, this is the setup
for the book. And then her father, the heir to the throne, and her brother, the next inland to the throne, are killed in a skiing accident, and Lexi is now the last one stone.
Oh my gosh, It's like Princess Diaries meets the Kennedy family. Harry meets the Kennedy family, meets Harry, and.
So she goes back to Britain and then the plot unfolds, right, And the thing about it is, so it's this great page ternary row. It's got romance, it's got intrigues, callis and goodies. It's not overtly sexy. It's not I mean there but there are you know, she has sex, but it's not like sexy. But the thing that's great about it is it's a great story, but also it is you can see rebecca armitage knowledge of this family and all the thinly veiled there's like a Prince Andrew kind
of character. There's like a Beatrice and Eugene kind of characters. There's the quick like. It's just so juicy and great but also not you know, the best fiction, and what we write, what I write is generally termed commercial fiction, walks this line between it's juicy, but it's not trashy, do you.
Know what I mean?
And this walks not that there's anything wrong with trashy, but you know what I mean, right, It walks this perfect line of that. It's just like a total page turner with loads of juicy gossip in it, but it's also a beautifully written, crafted book.
I am loving it, and this far from the end.
We're not actually supposed to recommend books till we've absolutely finished on but I'm finished.
I couldn't help it. So the air apparent Rebecca outage. If you haven't already read it, read.
It, am you're next.
Okay, I'm recommending a TV show that has been out for a while, but season four, episode one has just come out. It's a show called From which is on stand. It is so good because I've seen it everywhere as well. It's like, you know what, I'm gonna give this show a go. It is a horror mystery show, like super super horror. So no, little kids don't watch it with them. I get nightmares. But it's basically a show about this community, this mysterious community in somewhere in the United States, when
none of them can escape. So if you're on like a if you're traveling with your family on this road, they'll suddenly be a big tree trunk in the middle of the road and your car has to turn veer off the path, and then you land up in this place and you don't know where you are. Your cell service isn't working, and you just keep going around and around this town and you can't escape, and all the town people are like, there's another one. Let's make a
home for the other ones. And then this sinister shit happens. Sinister stuff happens. They all have a curfew, they all have to be home because then these creatures from the forest come out and stalk them, and they have to be protected in their homes. It is so scary. But one of those shows that's kind of similar to I guess The Walking Dead in the sense that it's created such a cult following, Like now I'm in all the Reddit threads about it and I'm looking up all the
actors from it. It's just one of those really interesting concepts that haven't been done yet. But it's also the type of creative show where you're constantly thinking about it because you're like, I never ever want to be in that situation. Well, hopefully you won't. We about it Google mapp.
Is it more or less scary than Stranger Things?
I would say it's more scary than Stranger Things. Okay, yeah, it's a good barometer, yeah, bometer, But it is really really scary. But it's more like creepy scary, like mystery. And then you're kind of following this community trying to escape the town and they have to like have self appointed doctors and self appointed sheriffs to make it work all well together. It's really interesting, more or less scary than the Last of Us. Oh more scary, oh pretty scary, scary.
Guys, I watched Anything Scary for a while. I think I need something scary. My reco also a book. It's called Broken Country by Claire Leslie Hall. So this is one of those books that I actually have for my reading. I have a spreadsheet where I have all the books that I've read, and then I also have a list of all the books that are on my to be read.
Can I introduce you to good Reads?
Good Reads is a dark place if you're an author. If you're an author, you have to avoid it. But so this is It's one of those books where when I read the synopsis a few times and for some reason it just didn't get me in, and then literally first couple of pages, I'm like, oh no, everyone was right. This is amazing. So it's set in a farming village in Dorset in England, so holy you'd be familiar. I love how I just think anyone from England is.
Far from where I grew up.
No offense, but fine, it's the same country, yeah, different accents. You grew up on a farm, didn't in Manchester.
And it oscillates between nineteen fifty five and nineteen sixty eight, and it starts with us knowing that a farmer is dead. Basically the first few pages you know that someone someone is dead. You don't know who is dead, you don't know who's found them dead. You just know that this person has been shot. And then you kind of get
into the rest of the story. And Beth and Frank are a happily married couple in the thirties living on this far and then one day Beth's brother in law shoots a dog that comes onto their farm and has started attacking the sheep, and he shoots it because he's like, you can't you can't start attacking our animals. And then when they look up, they realize the dog belongs to Gabriel Wolfe, who is the man Beth loved as a teenager who broke her heart as he left.
And the dog. That's great.
So he's there with his son and it's their dog, and so obviously they're like, oh, sorry shooting your dog. But it is the beginning of a very very incredible love story. It's a is it sexy, but it's a love story that feels like a thriller. I cried, I sobbed at the end. Also really interesting commentary on class, which I always love in my British books. When I learned things about like the kind of village community versus
all the posh people who got Oxford. So it's got that whole dynamic and I just gobbled it up really quickly, which is what I need for books at the moment.
You know, sidebar.
I know we don't have a book club anymore. But the next book I'm dying to read when I get a minute is Yesteryear.
Have you heard about that?
Oh, I've heard about The premise is tradwife, influencer wakes up and she's back in.
The old day. So excited that book.
Has has so got me written all over how to get that book into me as quickly as possible?
Can you imagine pitching that book and then just being like his seven million what's a good good idea?
The way he's brought the d I know, so out loud as, we can all read that together.
Yes, I'm sure, I don't know if it's out or coming out.
Or already I think the books.
It's on my TBR list, as they say. Anyway, that's it out loud as.
Maybe you're doing something for ans that data tomorrow. Maybe you're not, but we hope you have a wonderful weekend. Massive thank you to our talented team for putting the show together, and to you Out loud as for being here with us. As always, we will see you on Monday.
Bye bye.
Oh, I'm going to jump back in Easter egg for everybody. Remember the newsletter I do because I put it together.
I love that newsletter.
It drops in your inbox a few times a week these days, but Saturdays we've been doing these questionnais a bit like the daily questionnaires.
We talked about.
Your questions are really good. I think.
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