The Salt Path Scandal That Blew Up

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Welcome to mummya out loud where women come to debrief. I am Jessie Stevens, I'm mea Friedman, and I'm m van Em And here's what's on our agenda for today, Friday, the eighteenth of July. We couldn't wait until hollywoods back. We tried, We really tried, but we desperately need to unpack the Salt Path memoir controversy. I have gone so deep, my friends.

I have spent I reckon around twenty hours watching two shows last weekend. I was in binge mode and they are my recommendations. Plus we have two bits of podcast news.

And therapy speak, mental health challenges and identity. Does anyone simply have a personality anymore?

But first, in case you missed it, a couple in Taiwan have caused a bit of a stir by hiring pole dancers to perform outside their son's high school graduation ceremony last month. The event took place in mid June, just as students were emerging from the junior high school. Two female dancers began their routine on the street, and then this is very impressive. They moved onto the roofs of some SUVs that were rigged with poles for a

I heard that he was also pulled into it a little bit between.

It gets better because the star of the show was really his mum. She was not only unapologetic, but she choreographed the routine, and she said she wanted an unforgettable gift for her son, and she said a friend paid for a and she wanted it to be a more creative idea than some of the other parents' gifts for their kids. And it was it certainly what the police were called because the crowd gathered and if they're not

This is what happens when you give parents creative freedom to impress the other parents, because that's literally what she was doing, right. She was like, all these other parents get to do something fun for their kid. What's something I can do that shows my skills? And I did see a video of the dance. I didn't see the actual pole dancing, but I saw the dance. It's quite impressive, was it. Yeah, this isn't actually the first pole dancing

Do you think she didn't know that they were sexy dancers? And maybe he thought that it was kind of a kind of legal.

Pulled out, aren't. I mean sometimes Stupa's pole dance, But also there are people who pole dance for sport. I've done pole dancing classes. It's really hard. I think it was maybe not quite an Olympic sport, but I think it was, you know, it's a competitive sport.

I think that we should all light a candle for the pole dancer in this situation, or any kind of exotic dancer who is hired to do a job by people, but the person that it's four hasn't actually opted in. Can you imagine sexily dancing to someone who's clearly deeply uncomfortable and doesn't want to be there. I think that

You're there for that one best man you really really wanted.

It who wanted it a little too much.

In the eighties, people used to send each other gorilla grams as a prank. What's that like? It was someone would turn up in a gorilla suit, usually to your place of business and do I don't know what they would actually do.

This is an actual thing.

Yeah, gorilla grams. They were really big in the eighties, and they would I guess dance. I suppose that it wouldn't wasn't sexual, but it was just kind of what was that person signed were designed to. It's like hiring someone a surprise strooper, but without taking their clothes off there, which is just fur I.

Want to hire you a gorilla for your birthday? Who sings you Happy birthday and.

I want the gorilla to also pole dance.

Oh yes, no, Maya would love that to.

Actually like that?

Is it true that nobody has a personality anymore? This week, freelance writer and author of Girls Newsletter Freyer India published

But maybe you're also late, just because you're useless or selfie, sure, all of those kinds of things.

Maybe maybe, But also you are shy and stare at your feet when people talk to you, not because you are your mother's child, not because you are gentle and sweet, and blush the same way she does. But autism you are the way you are, not because you have a soul, but because of your symptoms and diagnosis. Every heartfelt, annoying, interesting piece of you categorized the fond way your family

I think this is hyperbolic. You can be someone with quirks and very specific characteristics, and you can also have an autism diagnosis like both of those things can be true. And if you do go to a wedding or a funeral, you'll notice that it is not a list of labels. The way that we remember people or characterize people are by their contradictions. That is how it happens. But as with a lot of writing, I think that this writer is reflecting to a phenomenon that's occurring on the Internet.

How much do you think this is about categorizing other people as a way to understand them, and how much she is categorizing ourselves, Like, for example, this idea of narcissist. That's a word. People don't throw it around about themselves, but they certainly throw it around about other people. So you're not just selfish or self absorbed or going through a time of main character energy, You're a narcissist. And in the same way people don't feel anxious, they have anxiety.

Yeah, And there was actually a really interesting data point in that article, which was according to a twenty twenty four survey, seventy two percent of gen Z girls said that mental health challenges are an important part of my identity. And that worried me because I thought, well, it's the only way to have their pain validated. That's what it says, is like I'm pain or I'm feeling distress, and when I have a label, I remember feeling people will take.

Me more stage.

Yeah, people will actually listen to me. And we've always minimized the pain of young girls, so I can understand why that's happening. But that's not a recipe for happiness, I suppose.

But I also feel like when it comes to diagnosis, and I was talking to a friend who works in that social policy space, but I think also when it comes to understanding why a person is as they are, For example, if I had a friend who was diagnosed with depression, Yeah, I think it also allows you, as a friend or as a family member to kind of form some sort of empathy around that rather than just thinking that they are just the way they are, or like putting a label on it, saying that they are

Yeah, they're not going to nap. Yeah.

And what what I've found through, you know, having the absolute privilege of at points in my life sitting down across from a psychologist is is how often they say to me, not that's normal, but they help explain why I might need that nap whatever. What they don't do is tell me I'm abnormal, put a label on it, and kind of go, that's the way you were built. Whereas the thing of like the classic TikTok, which is five things I thought were part of my personality, but

It is both. I think that's exactly right. Having had that exact experience. My first reaction when I was diagnosed and had this label was I mean a million but there was some relief, going, oh, there's a reason for all of these things. But then there's also a sense of oh, I thought I had this unique, quirky personality, but I've just got all these textbook list of symptoms of this really common neurological condition, on neurodivergent condition.

So there was actually a US government study done in twenty twenty one where researchers wanted to figure out what happens to people when they're given a diagnosis, not just medically, but also emotionally, socially, and practically, and they said there were those positive emotions like validation, as in like someone finally believes me, but it also changed people's self identity where they started seeing themselves as their condition.

Yeah. I definitely found that that was something I had to become aware of and then avoid. It's almost like falling in love and you just want to say that person's name all the time, and you feel like you've been giving this roadmap to understanding yourself. But then does start to sound boring when you just keep going, Oh, that's my adhd oh, that's medhd, oh, that's my anxiety.

I think it's an attempt to project order onto chaos as well, right, like, and have a roadmap, and have a roadmap and something as complex as personality and human relationships, like when I met my half brother and he was my mum had him when she was very young, and he was then adopted and he went and moved overseas and I met him when he was in his mid thirties, and having that expl experience exploded my view of what

We are large behavior.

And yes, it's this unexplained and the beauty is in the unexplained.

So do you mean that there were aspects of him that were really similar to you, even though you were not raised together.

Yes, and aspects that weren't exactly so sitting there, he had these certain gestures that he made that my mum said, oh, that was my father. It was like sitting there with my father, right. And then there were experiences he had in his twenties, thoughts or crisis he had that were

It's the getting to know people because I think this also comes up a lot in dating because I feel like when we have all these terms like gas lighting, toxic, it's so easy to chuck that label onto someone because it's much easier to say that instead of saying, oh, they just didn't like me. They were doing like all of these things. And it's even like attachment styles, right, like oh he was just avoidant and I'm anxious, so that's why we don't work out. I think it's like

That's limiting, don't you. Yeah. So I think when it can become a bit of a prison or a cage is when you just think, oh, well, I'll never be able to be on time because I have ADHD, or I'll always interrupt because I have ADHD, and it can become cop out's the wrong word, bet limitation.

Yeah.

The dating example is such a good one because it is such a time, like the creation of a dating profile, where we are forced to use labels. It's like, how do I present myself as a product to be consumed and liked? And you've kind of got to go, well, what are my hobbies? What do I do for a living?

Like?

What are my personality traits? And there was this quote in the essay that said that happiness is about almost actually being able to forget yourself. And in a culture where we're constantly producing.

And being perceived express.

Identity, then we're not able to forget ourselves. We're always in the process of kind of labeling.

It reminded me a little bit about you know how, in the last probably decade maybe less, there've been a whole lot of new names for different types of sexuality, so pan sexual, polysexual, and be sexual, and they all mean slightly different things. Instead of just being able to say, oh,

Yeah, something that can't be like, yeah.

We sort of needing to put all these post it notes on everything and say, oh, it's my this and it's my that.

After reading the sub sac were you able to identify qualities of your personality that you feel like are just your personality?

Oh that's such a good question.

I went really deep on the deaf personality after that because I was like, hang on, what even is personality? And of course it's the five traits that they talk about, and some are more stable than others. But we were talking about this on Parenting Out Loud the other week and I was saying, we're talking about deeply feeling kids.

Because I am the type of person who like constantly uses therapy language in my every day. There's like a celebrity who I find myself quoting every single week. It's Jami mccirk. Yeah, you know, she played Jessa and Girls.

I think I know this quo.

Oh it's so good. So she does like I think once a year she does his big ask Me any Things on Instagram where she puts a question box up and the audience asked her question.

And she's quite candid.

She's so so candid. And one of the questions he got years ago someone wrote in and said any advice for unconfident young girls? And she just replied, I think you guys might be thinking about yourselves too much. And I say that to myself all the time.

Out louders up. Next, does a memoir need to be vigorously fact checked? And whose job is that we discuss the Salt Path controversy. We have been desperate to talk about the Salt Path controversy, and we're gonna wait until Hollywood's back because we would like to put it on the record in this moment that one miss Hollywayn Wright recommended the Salt Path.

Member what Holly recommended?

I listened, Mia Friedman, I listened, and I wrote in my journal Hollywayin Wright just recommended the Salt Path so that I could bring it up today and say, haha, history will not be kind to hollid On No, because yes, this is very controversial. We got too impatient, though, and so today we want to start from the beginning. And I like that Holly has no right of reply.

She's going to reply the match she gets back.

I just know it. So.

The soult Path is a memoir that was published in twenty eighteen and it was written by Rayner Wynn and it has since sold more than two million copies. That is a lot of copies. In twenty twenty four, was turned into a film. The main characters were Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs.

It was white Lotus.

Yeah. It was marketed as unflinchingly true. It tells a story of how Rayner, who was fifty five at the time, and her husband moth Win, lost their home after investing a substantial sum of money in a company owned by a friend that ultimately failed. It was kind of the gray nomad thing right, But it was also playing into something that impacts a lot of people in their fifties

I've never heard of this book, so I've come to this like a lot of people reading about the controversy without any knowledge of the source text. It sounds like the Salt Path. The book was a little bit like Cheryl Strade's Wild Wild, Yes, someone going on is why I didn't hear of it? Someone going on a long walk in nature? Yeap, not by kind of book exactly.

And on top of this, the reason why this book was so impactful is that Moth had been diagnosed with a rare neuro degenerative disease and they decide to then embark on this kind of a name is moth, Well, I think it comes from because his name is Tim, So Tim Moth. I've never heard moth. Yeah, as a little so.

Instead of the nickname being Tim, it's moth like moth, shallow.

Man, endearing pet name. They both decided they were going to walk along the Southwest Coast Path in southwest England. And look, that.

Book's so horrendous. People love.

It's like a self help kind of situation.

I mean, I love to eat pray loves.

So it's like eat pray love except a couple yeah.

Yeah, yeah, on a long walk and this illness and the idea is as well that you know, he's been given certain things to expect from this illness, and the walking really helped and that was part of the story.

My understanding is that the illness, the diagnosis is usually pretty terminal and not something that you can walk off.

No, so you often have a life expectancy of about six to eight years. Okay, now, this is all well and good, except according to an article in The Observer which was published earlier this month, they were never homeless. They did lose one home, but that was a result of embezzling the equivalent of about eighty five thousand Australian dollars. There are also questions about Moth's illness. And that's not even his real name, and Rayner is not her real name.

Wait, so he chose the name Moth.

Well, They're real names are Sally and Tim. Sally and Tim Walker.

That doesn't have the same ren it does it.

I liked the Rainer and the moth that I can kind of forgive in a memoir if you want to have a kind of pen name situation. Yeah, fine, it's probably the other stuff that isn't so forgivable. Look Sally stole that substantial sum of money while working as a bookkeeper in the mid two thousands, but they settled the dispute privately. The details get really weedy here, but long story short, debt collectors took their home and Sally Walker has written a very long blog post where she's confirmed this.

So interestingly, one reason for changing your name is that people can't then google you and find things out about you.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Also, the reason they were ever really homeless is because they did have a property technically in France that they still owned throughout all of this. The Observer then cast outs on Walker's illness. They interviewed multiple medical experts who said that, you know, the average life expectancy is six to eight years, and I think it's now eighteen years later, Tim Walker is still alive. What has Raina Win said? So she's written this big blog post and she says

I want to jump past the publisher and talk about the first right, because a lot of people who read this book, who loved this book, have said, I'm really really upset. We have a similar thing happened many years ago with an author called James Frey who wrote a memoir called A Million Little Pieces. He was not an Oprah's Book Club. It then turned out that his memoir most of it all, I think all of it wasn't true. That was a huge controversy. We've had these before. Helen

Oh, it's totally different. It's totally it's an element of absolute manipulation. And I think that what's an important point to make is that nonfiction is easier to sell. It's easy to market. The reason it's easy to market I was told this. I've written a nonfiction book and a fiction book. Nonfiction people want to interview because story. How many fiction writers, unless they're Leanne Moriarty, do you actually hear? It's really hard to get your fiction book in front of people's eyes.

Because it's like, tell me about this made up story.

It's like yeah, yeah, So if you say this is nonfiction this is a true story, the investment of a reader, and I think that a book is very different to any other type of media because of how long you spend with those people, the details that you absorb, the hope, the connections that you make, and then to find out that isn't true feels like such an enormous betrayal and

Well, I've written a couple of memoirs. I can't remember if I signed anything. I mean, they're always worried about anything legal, so anything where you talk about other people or make claims about other people.

But it's not like they would have sat down with your mum and dad and gone, hey, this story that may have told about being four, was that true?

No, And they don't ask for medical records. No, no, no, because that would be intrusive. Although in the case of something like Bell Gibson, there was a huge amount of backlash and criticism of the publisher, which I think was valid because if you know, in my memoir, I wrote about having a miscarriage, I wrote about anxiety, I wrote about various things, but I didn't write about curing myself of a particular.

I think that's where the difference comes in because this book, although it's a memoir, like labeled as a memoir, it's more like a self help kind of book. Like that book would have had exactly what you said, so many people readers in like a chokehold of going this is the book that is going to help me through like my next stage. And I remember something so different, but I know the exact sense of betrayal because my favorite movie for the longest, longest time was The blind Side. Yeah,

What was it about?

Again, it was about this family, this really successful, rich family in Memphis who adopted a black kid and took them into his family and he became this massive football star. And the blindside was about how he became huge. He went into college and they funded all of that and he was just making a lot of money.

And beautiful success story, beautiful but.

True and how did it come out?

So then after that we found out that the child that the movie was about, Michael Orr, was suing the Touwy family that was Sandra Bullock was suing that family saying that he actually wasn't adopted, he was under a conservatorship and the family was taking all the money that he was making and taking all the money that the movie was made from Hollywood. And it was one of

I read a book when I was a teenager called Forbidden Love, and it was Alakuri a Norma Kouri, and it was about her growing up in Jordan and her best friend Dahlia, who fell in love with like a Christian soldier and ultimately died by an honor killing that her father was responsible for.

She wrote, she told the story of her best friend, yes, he was killed, yes.

And then she moved to the US and it was this phenomenon, this book, right, And then it was actually Australian journalists Malcolm Knox and I think Caroline Overington was really involved in the reporting. Where they went there was something like seventy two factual inaccuracies, really basic stuff like the border of Jordan was wrong, the banknotes were wrong, like all of these kind of and they were like, this is really really strange. And then people within Jordan

I know it's hard to unscramble how you feel about something. But had that been categorized as fiction, you're saying it wouldn't have sold as well. No, but would you have enjoyed reading it as much? Or there's something and new for the blind side? Is there something about knowing that it's true that enhances your enjoyment of a sect?

It totally changed a conversation when you're told it's true one hundred percent, And even with that book, it's also because those code be true.

Stories like honor killings do happen. So I feel like making up a fake story about that and then making so much money and moving to the US when it actually is happening in the world is just another step way too fun.

It's exploiting. It's totally exploiting a culture that you actually have no right to write about. And what's interesting too is a James Fray example. And I believe in this example there's a big question mark about what happens to the money. Yes, because James Frey, I'm pretty sure he's still a pretty rich dude, and a lot of the readers, because this is in the US, readers suit him like individual ratings for life. I want to be compensated.

I think their publishers often allow people to refunds, get refunds, but did you get a refund?

Well, what's funny is you might have a few refunds. Do you know how many people have bought The Salt Path in the last few weeks? Like the book, scan numbers would have just skyrocket and.

Watched the movie.

Yeah, So in terms of the money.

There was an interview with Jillian Anderson. This is before all this came out and people are now going back and looking. When she was promoting the movie, someone said, oh, did you meet Rayner? How did you find her? And Jillian Anderson said, I found her guarded Jerry, Yeah, which was kind of cryptic.

You know who I want to hear from Jason Isaacs because from White Loaders, we all know he's a messy bitch. Yeahs. Friendships are made, friendships are lost.

The dad on White Lotus with his prosthetic penis co moth.

What do you think?

Tell us your opinion before we go into eCos. I wanted to share a low from the week that just passed. We talk a bit about sharing from a scar, not a wound, but I think sometimes there's a bit of utility in examining the wound while it's fresh. And while we were recording Wednesday Show last week, I was going through something privately, and that night I tried to put

It hurt.

But where did the knowing come from? That night, as I laid in bed having taken panadole, which felt like a betrayal of some kind, like I was muting an alarm, I felt lonely. They were gone, disappeared. I'd liked so much knowing that they were there, and I wasn't grieving a baby. I can't imagine losing a baby further along, when they're a tiny thing your body has got to know, as familiar as your own shadow, a companion through everything.

Sweetheart, I'm so sorry that that happened to you, and I'm so glad that you wrote that, because that's beautiful. You've put words around something that so many women have gone through, and so many women will go through, and it's really hard thing to explain, even to partner, even to your closest friends. It's very unique. It's a weird type of grief.

I've spoken to so many women working in this office, like who I've spoken about it, have been at work, been in a meeting, gone to the bathroom, and this kind of private tragedy has occurred, and I thought I knew it was bad. I don't think I ever understood the complicated and like embodied emotion of it. I was, of course, you just frantically google and one of the symptoms that you're losing a pregnancy is grief, like you actually do. It's like your body, like your cells feel

But it was you knew.

I just absolutely absolutely.

Knew, no matter how early it is. And like I so many women get conscious of like throat clearing going and it was early, and I just I can't imagine what it's like. There's no there's no leaderboard of who gets to be the most sad. It's a type of grief that transcends how many weeks.

And I completely understand why people and I so appreciate people before me having talked about it. And even as it was happening, I kind of had a prism through which to understand what was happening because I'd heard other women talk about it, and I understand the vulnerability of being in the moment. Even saying like I'm trying really hard at this thing and it's not working.

Is like do you feel like a failure? Yeah?

Quite shameful, like that I.

Had one job, my body had one job. Yeah.

But then there's this awareness of like the privilege of having fallen pregnant accidentally and having a healthy pregnancy and a healthy baby.

But also knowing that when you talked about your boobs and like you knew. Yeah, Like I think that would just feel like your betrayal.

Yeah, it's like an embodied Like it's such an embodied experience. I suppose to be pregnant and you feel I've heard women talk about body.

Yeah, embodied. It's so visceral, isn't it.

Yeah, And that's why it feels like a loss only you can see because no one else can feel it, and your partner can be. So it's a grief for the partner too, because you're so excited but they didn't know them.

And it's also there's no proof that this person existed, Like, now, how do I honor this person? There's no I haven't even told people that I was pregnant, so how can I.

I kept taking pregnancy tests and there's the saddest image. I said, I said to Luca, this is the saddest

And no one even knows this profound Like I saw you last week and yeah, I didn't know, like this profound thing was happening inside your body and women are extraordinary carry with it and get on with it, because what are the rituals as well? Like what are the rituals for miscarriage? Yeah?

What are you meant to do? Other than go? And I'm sure that they, you know, must get asked this question all the time. But it's like, well, when can I try again? Can I? Yeah? When's it going to happen? Like they I've never felt impatience like this ever, Like it's yeah, it's such a bizarre mix of emotions. And I know that the stats that it's so so common, and there is something comforting in that knowing that it's

This sort of thing. So many outlouders we'll want to reach out to you by DM are in the out Louders group or comments or whatever, and so many people will be moved and grateful and have big feelings. But you'll read what you can. You but you know you just need time to process it all. So in advance, thanks out louders for on Jesse's behalf or your love

Vibes ideas atmosphere, something casual, something fun.

This is my best recommendation. It is Friday, so the show's not over. We want to help set your weekend up with some recommendations. And if you've got to spare ten hours, you don't have to watch all ten hours at once. I did so too much. We spoke about it on Monday's show. Well, we spoke about Lina Dunham, who is the writer, creator and director of this show. It's on Netflix, and Netflix don't space things out, they do let you binge. It's about ten hours worth. Yeah, I would say a little London.

So I'm god actually about because I one hundred percent going to watch.

It's her story. We're talking about memoir, but it's fictionalized memoir, so similar to parts of your book about depression, it can be a way for people to tell an aspect of their story without having to be faithful to every single detail, or like Strife with My story, where it actually gives you a lot more creative license. But anyway, so Lena Dunham, after the success of Girls and everything that happened in America, as we spoke about on Monday and go Back, We've had so many comments of people

Something has shifted with you, Josh Hi, how are you girl?

Are you good? You're unhappy living me. It's the worst thing that everyone's ever done. Change your life. Go to London, seriously, you love London.

You saw a Spice World nine times in the theater.

I could do it. I could go and find my English dream. You know, a state ground starting gardens, good luck, We don't love. I'm talking to a girlfriend about it who said it certainly wouldn't pass the Is it called the.

Bechdel test, I'd say, bechetel.

H d e L. It's a test by a cartoonist called Allison Bechell Look Bechdel. It looks at movies and TV shows and basically says, if the women in every sort of scene are talking about men more their relationships, that just sort of signifies that it's not really about female characters, and this would not pass that because it's very much a rom com. It's about the love story.

It's really funny.

What did you love about it?

I love Okay. Firstly, I loved Will Sharp, who plays the romantic interest. He was in White Loadus season two. Yes, so good looking, he's really really good.

He was married to Aubrey Plaza, Yes.

And White Loats. What I loved about The Human is that it's very summer to Girls. It took me a while, if you're a big Girls fan, to not see this character as Hannah from Girls.

Okay.

I kept thinking they were meant to be the same person and then not. It's like two completely different characters. But it's like Lena Dunham's humor, which is very fast paced, very funny, that you have to constantly play catch up where you're like, oh my god, that was so funny, And then I found myself rewinding things to like rehear them.

I wanted to go back and watch the whole season again, which I never do. Some of the most glorious cameos Naomi Watts. Yes, oh my god, she's In a few episodes, she plays just the most phenomenal character. Jennifer Saunders makes an appearance and Scott the hot priest from Fleabag.

Jessica alba Ura.

Yeah, it's it's amazing. Oh yeah, it made me like him. Rada, I buried the lead. This actually made me like em. Rada plays a knitting influencer model that her ex boyfriend then gets together with, and she was really good.

She was to watch this. That's gonna be my weekend one.

I can't recommend it enough. The other show I watched, which I know I'm not allowed to recommend, well, it's against the rules because it's already been recommended. But I've just discovered Drive to Survive.

Stop is ahead of us on this. She's the person I can talk to.

Well. The good news about that is that if you go back to the beginning like I did, I've just got hours and hours an hour.

You're talking to people who don't even exist.

I know. I'm on out of season three. This is the behind the sense of Formula one. It's become a massive hit with women. Very clever marketing move by f one. Jesse, what are you recommending?

I'm going to recommend a book. It is called The Nightingale by Kristen Hannah. It is not brand new, but I have been for the last few months struggling to get through anything same. I am picking up books that everyone says are amazing, like hits that everyone's talking about, and I'm like, I can't finish this.

I've got a question, when do you make the call to keep pushing through or not? Are you a pusher througher?

I'm a I'll read a chapter and go not for me one chapter, Yeah, but the last few I've read, I've gotten three quarters away through and I'm not actually invested in how.

This finished it.

I'm gonna push it through it even if I hate it. I have to finish it.

Chapter is sure Jesse, Wow, I can tell by the writing and also like how much stock I've got the writer? Yeah, but this a few friends said to me. This is just super super readable, but also top of the New York Times bestseller list. This author has written a few really really good books.

I've heard about it. What's it about? Because I also need a book that's going to push me out of my rut, so.

This will one hundred percent do that. It is set in World War two France, and it follows two sisters and their resistance to the Nazis. That sounds like really heavy, but it's not like I'm just really invested in the day to day lives of these two women. And it's not like hectic historical fiction where it feels dense like it. It's very very readable.

How does it compare to The Safe Keep, because that was the last historical fiction that you I couldn't get through it. You couldn't get through every week raving about.

The Safety Oh I loved the Safe couldn't get through it.

So how does it compare to that?

I would say similar, And I would also put that in the same realm as The Bronze Horseman, which is.

All I loved the Bronze Horsemen. Yeah.

So it's about female war heroes broadly and the stories that we don't hear, and also how everyone's resistance looks different. So these two sisters resist the Nazis in very specific ways that might at point seem small, but are also grounded in like historical accuracy, Like what one of the sisters did is something that was done during the war and made me think about how you know the marches are for the men, the Anzac Day March, but broadly

Okay, I have a movie I want to recommend that I feel like I'll have to really convince you guys to watch. But if Holly was here, should be all around.

Okay, all right, she's probably already saying.

That it's called Heads of State, and it's on Prime Video and it stars Idris Elba, John Cena, yeah, and Preaka Chopra. But oh, I love all of them, all of them. So John Cena plays a Hollywood A list turned US President of the United States.

Oh sounds for me. I love him so much.

He's funny, he's really funny. And Idris Elba plays like a really tough, quiet military guy who's now the Prime Minister of the UK.

It's the Prime Minister, it's the president.

Debute duet do it? Yeah, it's like doctor Dre and your Eminem and we're taking that stage for the first time again.

I'm Eminem. What is it you're walking around thinking you better than nobody else? You are the commander in chief?

You know some DJ in Vegas.

All right, I get it. You don't like my movies. I've never seen your movies. But the universe keeps telling me I look cool with a gun in my head. That's how I go.

They both also start in did you have watch Suicide Squad? No, it's not like a massive, massive movie, but it's like Suicide Squad is like the Nuggo Robbie in that yes, yeah, yeah, So they would start in that together. Everyone really liked

Catch my dad watching at one pm on a Saturday.

Yeah, oh my god, me and your dad.

That's on. My criteria for that is no sex scenes.

There's no sex scenes.

Tick done.

I think there might be one kissing scene. That's all right, that's fine, Okay. I'm also going to break the rules and do one more recommendation. And so you know how, I host The Spill, our daily entertainment podcast. Our little Spill family is growing. We have a new offering called Morning Tea. So you are now going to be getting two episodes of the Spill every day. So Morning Tea gets released at eight am. It's a five minute episode.

I love this wiki.

It's kind of like the quickie bit first entertainment.

But for fluffy things. So I love this because it's interesting that research continues to show that women are increasingly experiencing news a version that they are wanting to turn away from the news. The quickie is a fantastic option for those people who want to get across the news in a non anxious, sensationalist way. But sometimes you just don't want that, or you want that and then you

It's all wonderful And this is all in the spill Feed, All in the spell Feed, host by Ashlandon, who's so brilliant. She knows so much about celebrity and pop culture.

I love her. And the other bit of pod news we had for you is that I know a lot about ladders. Have really loved the six weeks of Parenting out Loud that we've done, Jesse you hosting with Emilia lest Andy Stacy Hicks. We sort of did that as a bit of an experiment and everyone has loved it. Yeah, I love it. It's one of my favorite shows because I'm not on it so I can just listen as a listener. We weren't expecting to carry this show on, so it's taking a little bit of parental leave while

That was such It was so so much fun and it was a lot of parenting podcasts, you know.

Yeah.

I think that our resistance as well was like, we don't want to get on and just talk about our kids and.

Chiefs first, sleeping, life, stage, lifestyle.

Yeah, it's more the conversation that you have, all the things that you read or gravitate to. We wanted it to be thinkier, treat parents like adults instead of like, yeah.

It's not actually about kids, it's about sort of heads out. Yeah, so it's kind of zeitguys, similar to out Loud, but through a parenting lens. It's just so great, and lots of people who aren't parents have said that they really really love it. Anyway, we'll put a link in the show notes if you want to follow that feed and catch up with it.

That's all we have time for today. A big thank you to all of you the out louders for listening to today's show. We will be back in your ears on Monday, and we've got a little present for you because Hollywayne right been on her euro trip, which has been posting a lot about, which has been pissing me off because it looks very warm. Lots of app roles shall be back joining us behind the mic, so meet us there on Monday.

Thank you to our team group executive producer Ruth Divine, our audio producer Leah Porges, video producer Josh Green, and our junior content producers co Co and Tessa. We will be back in your ears on Monday.

And if you want something else to listen to, yesterday's subscriber episode, we tackled a bunch of very juicy dilemmas, from how to deal with a colleague's questionable cooking to a tricky parenting moral dilemma. A link will be in the show notes.

Bye.

Shout out to any Mom and Mia subscribers listening. If you love the show and you want to support us, subscribing to mom and Mia is the very best way to do so. There's a link in the episode description.