You're listening to a MoMA Mia podcast.
Mamma Mia 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 show. Will we take a break from the.
News cycle and breathe out?
I don't know why that's funny. It was the way that Jesse did it.
It was like an anxious and also just under sufferance most because.
I actually don't do it now, no performativeness. Today it's Friday, the twentieth of September, and I am Holly way right.
Oh, it's the anniversary of the first time I gave birth, also known as my eldest son's birthday.
Ah, happy congratulations.
Do you know when you've got a few kids and I'm not good at numbers, and I just can't remember everybody's birthday, But very occasionally there'll be a date and I'll just go, I remember that one. Better call them anyway.
What are you doing tonight with your husband, Jesse? Since you're we're going to Where's Sun? While we're going out to dinner with may Or aren't.
We she booked it? Well that's done, yep. I want to come, Holly, I'm very busy.
On the show today, Tim Minchin regrets one of his most famous songs, and it tells us a lot about where culture has moved to. Also recommendations for the weekend. It includes a book, two TV shows and an album, So we've got all senses covered and sleepovers, dinner with teens, and stomach parasites. Yes, it's best and worst, But first, Mia Friedman, in case.
You missed it, winged eyeliner is the new skinny jean. Let's unpack that sentence, shall we. There's another core piece of the millennial uniform that is now highly unfashionable according to gen Z, who just love trolling their millennial elders. And this just makes me laugh a huge amount because Jesse's looking already uncomfortable because people have just forgotten about us.
Gen X's Holly, and there's a war breaking out between gen Z, who have first mocked the millennials for their skinny jeans, then for their invisible socks, and now it's for their winged eyeliner. For about a year, the Internet's been debating about whether or not winged eyeliner is out of style. Many argued that the makeup trend was timeless, but according to gen z z Z it's officially the skinny jeans of makeup. And we just wanted to say, Jesse, are you okay?
Okay?
Firstly, I don't do wing line because it doesn't suit me as never suited my eyes. But secondly, twenty year olds, I think you do actually need No, I don't. I don't do a wing. I do a bit of eyeliner on the top. I can't to do a wing No, it doesn't work with my eye shape. And this is my whole point about makeup and trends. It's bullshit. And twenty year old need to stop telling me how to do my makeup because your face is different to my face.
They keep yelling about blush placement. I saw gen Z's recently tried to cancel under a concealer.
And I shadow.
That's easy when you're twenty.
That's easy when you have no responsibilities. Try and not sleeping and then not doing under. I can seel like you don't know what my under eyes look like.
I cancel what I shadow a long time ago because it's actually really hard to apply properly. That's why cream I shadow is much better.
I just don't think that was just.
A personal cancelation. Put on whatever you want to.
I don't care where the youth have a hold on what we can and cannot wear. I'm going on strike. No, I will do what needs to be done, because I don't think that if you are not twenty, then you should be taking advice. Like even they're like their blush, you should always put it on your nose, and you should be putting it on your I.
See them put blush on their forehead.
I know there's a lot of blush on the forehead going on. I just want to pull one out for our producer M because our producer and wears wing eye Lina every day and I don't think i've ever seen you without it, M, and you look great with it. It's very much part of your vibe. Are you going to stop wearing.
You wear skinny jeans, so she's feeling.
Particularly stop wearing it because people are pointing and laughing at you in the street.
No, I'm going to keep wearing it because I feel like it's a part of my identity. I just don't know how you can do it, Like I'm in awe of anyone you can skill yeah, if the skill involved, and if I could do it, I would be doing it as a flex every day.
I've been doing it for many years, so I think it just.
Comes with practice. What's the trick. It's a product that I started using. It's just the Mabelene liquid eyeliner. It's really easy to do, but no point recommending that now because it's not call anything. It'll be on sale soon probably. Taylor Swift is very fond of the wing eyeline looks, so you're in good company.
Tim Minchin has some feedback for Tim Minchin. Eight years ago, the writer, comedian, singer, songwriter, satirist wrote a song about George Pelp.
A lot of.
People here, George, I really think your does get on up. We are just want you to come home. Card Pell, I know you're nothing and much fun even so we think you should come Hell.
At the time was accused of child's ex abuse, and he's since been acquitted. But Minchin, known for his satire, wrote the song and it was about inviting Pell to come home and face his accusers, and he raised money. The song was raising money as well to send the alleged victims over to see Pell in Rome. You know co yeah, it was great song.
And also just to clarify, it was the victims of a priest that Hell was supposed to have protected.
Got it, yes, right.
The song was viewed millions of times, and speaking to Good Weekend Talks, Mintionin said.
I've been part of massive public shaming with pell and stuff and stuff. I reflect on now and what are the possible unintended consequences? And now we have ten years of data, twelve years of data, and the unintended consequence is a divided nation. Probably we should be very very careful with public shah as a rule, because how why are you the moral arbiter? Public shaming cannot be the primary mechanism because it will just it'll come for you.
Mention has a new book out, and he has spoken on this interview and across other media about his issues with wokeness, and he has been self critical of his own and this is his words, performative righteousness.
What's his book about?
Is this?
What his book's about?
His book is actually three different addresses he has given to universities and stuff when he's like spoken, so they're like speeches, and I think one of them is about like nine lessons for life, and he's compiled them into this book.
Actually, funnily enough, I watched that on YouTube just the other day. He gave it about ten years ago, and it was really interesting because I've got to give a speech night speech, and I was looking for ideas and it's actually fantastic. Oh, it's still the test of time. We'll pop it in the newsletter this week.
Well, this echoes a conversation I heard recently on No Filter, where you maya interviewed Africa Brook, who wrote a viral open Legs in twenty twenty one titled why I'm leaving the Cult of Wokeness, And while criticizing wokeness isn't necessarily new, what we are seeing more of is self proclaimed lefties or progressives announced that they are leaving the party. Mia, Why do you think that is?
I've left the party because I think that in many ways the left has become. It used to be the right that was very in favor of censorship and silencing people and shutting people down, and they still are, I guess in a way.
They like to burn books and ban them from libraries and take away women's rights, so they do still quite like to cancel things.
Actually, that's true. But what the left does is, to me, cancelation is different to like book banning or anything, because it's cloaked in this fake virtue. Maybe it's real virtue. To me, there's a lot of of tribal virtue signaling and moral purity and saying you're not pure enough, you're
not pure enough. And then eventually, then, as Tim Minchin pointed out, eventually everybody will get canceled because no one is pure enough, right, so there will always be someone that is less privileged than news.
So do you think that that is part of why we're seeing progressives put the hand up and go I'm done with wokeness because it came for everyone eventually. Like because if you see Minchin and he's sort of had that pel moment, and I'm sure he stands by the politics of what he said. It sounds like the platform by which he did it, he's kind of going, oh, I don't know if that was.
He does stand by it, and he said, I wrote that song after making sure I researched the fact that he'd caught all these flights and that he would only been examined by a doctor in the Vatican, so I guess you could say he gave George Pell the benefit of the doubt in some ways, but then it was very much about mocking and ridicule and shaming him. People would say that perhaps he deserved that, and it's certainly
how we all felt then and even perhaps now. But tim Mentioned's point is that by everybody dog piling onto someone who's maybe And again, it's really hard to talk about this without because relating a whole lot of different things, right, because George Pell and all of that, and Harvey Weinstein and all of that, and Luis c. K and all of that. You know, there are allegations and sometimes convictions
of actual crimes. When someone tells a joke that doesn't land, or uses a word that perhaps isn't used anymore because we now understand it to be offensive to a particular group of people. To me, that's very different. That's not actually a crime. That might be a mistake, that might be reckless, that might be careless, that might be insensitive, But often the treatment is flattened and the intention is just completely lost.
Holly, do you think that this is a broader trend? Am I imagining it? Or am I seeing more people who I would think. I mean, I'm a leftier, just am people who are I think I would politically align with being more critical of the left.
Are you saying that?
I think I don't really understand what leaving the Party of Wokeness means. And I understand it in Africa Brooks case. I mean, I love that interview, and I've read a lot a lot that she has written and listened to her a lot. I think she's really interesting. But I think that Wokeness has been built up into a boogeyman that actually it's fake. I don't think it exists. I don't know when you say I've left that party, I don't know what it means. What do you mean I've.
Become increasingly disillusioned? And only because it's become And again it's not everybody who is left leaning. I mean they're talking big generalizations. There's a mean spirited nastiness and a desire to shut people down, even the word cancelation, and silence them and deplatform them if you disagree with them.
And Tim Mention's point is that he says it's not particularly constructive when the left calls anyone they disagree with a fashion yeah or a racist or a homophom or a transpher you can't and some of those people might be. But it's become such a.
Like about leaving behind public shaming, leaving behind sort of flattening, of making every issue entirely binary. It's leaving behind shouting about causes that you don't know enough about on social.
Media, moral police.
Because I think I'd be very happy to leave all that behind, and broadly I have. But I think that the obsession with wokeness comes from the right, particularly in Australia. It's something that the Liberal Party and they love to bang on about because it sounds like big and scary and it's policing and it's stopping us from saying what
we want to say. You'll actually see that in America, it's become very clear that wokeness has been left out of democratic politics in this election that we're looking at. You know that from a lot of progressives in Democrats, they're like, common has left us behind, and we're not talking about identity politics the way that we were four years ago or eight years ago. And I think that's true.
I think one of the problems with the round bashing of it as an eye idea is it looks away from the moment in time from where it came, right like Donald Trump getting elected. And I know we talk way too much about America, but it's a cultural atmosphere that trickled through everywhere. Right Donald Trump getting elected in twenty sixteen really put a lot of people in were terrified. Remember the pussy hats and the resistance and that all that kind of stuff is it felt like a fight
or flight moment and whose side are you on? And are you on the side of rightness or wrongness? And that is always way too simplistic a way to look at politics. But on the other hand, it felt like that.
And if you're a woman who lives in a conservative state in the US, it would absolutely still feel like that the whole What I completely agree with you, so, I mean, so, what I'm trying to get to is the point that when we just broadly criticize wokeness, I think we kind of ignore that it was an extreme reaction to something extreme, do you know what I mean?
I agree, And I think what is unfortunate is that it's ended up eating itself in that there was a situation where there was a man who was elected president who talked about grabbing a woman by the pussy and
all the other awful things that he said. And because the world felt so out of control and we were so viscerally shocked that someone who could say this in twenty sixteen could become president of what purports to be the greatest democracy in the world, that the left was so shocked by that they couldn't do anything about it. So they started trying to control their own tribe, within their own tribe. And that's where this idea of censorship
and moral purity meant. That things got smaller and smaller and smaller. So instead of fighting the big fight, and you know, while everybody was busy canceling someone who they shared, you know, ninety nine percent of the ideology with because they used a word or told about joke or whatever, Meanwhile Roe versus Wade was taken away and the women's right to reproductive choice was taken away. And I understand again where it came from, because it came from feeling
so powerless. I can't control anything in the world, but I can cancel this person who said this bad one.
You've also got to remember that it also coincided with obviously broadly with mass social media. And although we can be very cynical about social media now, for very good reason, it also gave a voice to a whole lot of
people who we never had to listen to before. Right, if you put your mind back to a time when the only media was controlled by big organizations and the gatekeepers of those things were very from a very specific group of people, You've also got to remember that social media is a platform for social activism and cause advancement in lots of ways has been great. Me too would never have happened without it, nor would lots of other
really positive things. So you give a mic to a lot of people who didn't have mics before, and they're going to talk about the things that are important to them. I think we kind of flatten it when we just say it's terrible, don't use social media to express an opinion.
Now, hang on, hang on. But that's not what waitness is. Because everyone's got the right to an opinion, But it's the idea of your opinion shouldn't exist if it's different to mine, and you're a fascist if it's black.
And white thinking.
And I think that it's a definitional issue sometimes because it started off. It was derived from African American vernacular English. It originally meant alertness to racial prejudice and discrimination.
It was a compliment, and it was also is literal.
It's like, yeah, sometimes you need your eyes opened. You can't see what you can't see.
But in terms of what it evolved into, and I do think it evolved, is that it's now considered sort of left wing attitudes or practices that are about opposing social injustice or discrimination, but they're viewed as self righteous or manitious or insincere.
And I actually think it has.
Less to do with Trump and more to do with the Internet, like woke, isn't it Generally it's to do with the two dimensional black and white view of the internet and how most of our sometimes all of our discussions are occurring online. And what I think has happened is that when you're in it, or maybe it's taking a step back, you see that there are a lot of logical fallacies or contradictions, or a lot of hypocrisy within this ideology that you start going this doesn't make sense.
If you're about diversity, yet there isn't allowed to be any diversity of opinion, Then there's hypocrisy there that frustrates people.
But there's no diversity of opinion on the other side either. Have you been on Twitter lately? Oh?
Absolutely.
But the thing is, with all the and Tim Minchin has actually said this, with all the yelling at the right, which I am there, like Trump deserves all the criticism in the world, it doesn't mean that we don't have notes to take.
Is how he's put it.
And I think that progressives are also doing a bit of soul searching because whatever we've been doing for the last decade isn't working. And if you think it is, it's like, just look at the state of things. And we talked yesterday in the subscriber episode about Trump. It briefly came up the Brittany Mahomes and Taylor Swift incident.
I would think that kind of a wo kism mightyology has led us to think that sitting beside someone who likes a social media post by a different presidential candidate is.
Akin to literal evil like and.
That is just that's not exclusive to the left. Plenty of people on the right who think exactly that. Have you seen what Donald Trum's been tweeting about Taylor.
Lot I'm with you, but isn't that just going But they do it too, But they do it mean. But this is my point, right is I agree with both of you entirely about shamy, judgy, pointlessness of infighting and everything. But I think that building wokeness up as the enemy, to me, is a gift to the real enemy. Who are the people want to take us back and take back the progress that women and minority groups have made.
It's a nice easy straw man, in my opinion, to go. Well, there's a lot of young, idealistic people shouting on the internet who have extreme opinions and they are telling other people what to do and calling them out and all the things, and that's the enemy, And in my mind, they're not actually the people we need to have our eyes on.
Yeah, I don't know, because I know what has been most scarring for me is not being called names by people on the right. It's being called names by people on the left. And it's not the actual well, it is the actual names. It goes to character like it goes to your I mean, it's easy to dismiss if someone says you're a fat, dumb blah blah whatever. But when the left says words like racist, homophobe. I'm not
talking particularly about me, but about someone fascist. That's very different to someone just slagging me off, you know what I mean. And that's very different too. If someone says, oh, you're so woke, it can be dismissive, I agree, and it can be weaponary.
They say groomer, you know, to gay people, they say you're a groomer. They is just as divisive.
You do, think you're right?
I think that to unpick wocism and put that to the side, I actually think Africa Brooks said it perfectly on the front cover of her book. She calls it the age of intolerance. And that's both.
That's the issue.
That's the issue, right, it's in my mind that's there because there's.
Not enough diversity of opinion in any political party and any ideology. All of these logical fallacies that we see from like slippery slope stuff to the language that we use. You know, when you see something on social media or you see a trend and you go, this just doesn't feel right, like it just doesn't feel true or whatever,
like you're probably right. So we hear things like silence is violence or believe women, which might actually in some cases be true and in the correct context work, but they don't work in every context, and so there are these sort of sprawling generalizations.
And or an orthodoxy. It's like you have to have all of these beliefs, and if you divert from these orthodox beliefs that someone is a gatekeeper of we will surveil you. We will look at what posts you like, We will check to see what you have or haven't posted, and we will question your humanity and base you those names based on that. And then, yeah, that idea is surveillance and control.
And the danger I suppose is and I think that this exists to some extent for a lot of people, not just if you're in the public eye, but that your whole moral quality or your character is the product of what you've put on social media or something, as though those two things, as though it's an actual avatar
for who you are in real life. And everyone that we we know is complicated, and we all sit at family Christmases beside people who think differently politically to how we do, and I think that's really important, and we kind of talk about that being important, But then, yeah, something happens on social media where it just goes No, I think I know the whole person, or I can sum you up because of what you have or having.
Some of us have just figured out that that's not the right place to have these conversations. Right, So, if I think about myself, obviously I've become increasingly like public I suppose obviously over the past decade as I've used social media. But even when having opinions about these kind of things wasn't part of my job, which it kind of is, we sit here and espouse our opinions about stuff all the time, right, I would definitely have been
much more opinionated on social media one hundred percent. Now these days, I'm incredibly, incredibly unlikely to express a political opinion on Instagram because in my mind it's not the place for it. But sometimes that is very hard, like as in, there are things that you do believe it, very deeply cultural positions that you'd take that would be considered political, that you would like to go, look at this, everybody, this is outrageous, but you know the storm it will cause,
and so you don't write. And there's a lot of thought which I agree with, that actually the bigger the audience you have, and it's not like my audience is massive. But the more cautious you have to be about that, because your influence is enormous, right, as in much bigger than you realize. So I understand that it's a fine line. I mean, I would use for myself an example of
the referendum on the Voice last year. I had really strong opinions about that, and obviously on our podcast, shoving our opinions down people's throat isn't what we do, even though some people might think it is. It's actually not. We're very careful about not doing that. But if I wasn't as aware as I am of how what an unhelpful place that was for conversation, I would have posted about that a lot more, and I would have been
involved in that a lot more. But you knew that by doing it you were leading to a divisive conversation, right, so you pull yourself back.
I don't want no one ever had their mind changed by being shouted at or no.
But did they have, well, but didn't know. I agree with you that no one's ever had then mine changed by being shouted on social media. I agree with that so much, the scolding nature. But have I learnt a lot of things from seeing other people's perspectives on social media that I would never come across in my day to day life. One hundred percent. Yes, have I been exposed to some really interesting ideas that I go. Do
I agree with that? Maybe I agree with a bit of that, but not that on social media.
Absolutely.
Yes. I don't think that we should be suggesting it should just become more to all my tomato plants or your shoes or whatever.
You know.
I think that we've all told ourselves for a while that it was the public square, and what we've realized is it's not the public square.
But away from social media for a second, I want to talk to this idea of wokeness and anti wokeness. We're seeing a massive divide between the ideology of teenage girls and teenage boys, or young girls and young boys, and girls are becoming increasingly left and boys are becoming increasingly right. And I so see those things connected. And anyone who's got a son and a daughter who are teenagers or young adults in their own house, we'll see how that's playing out in real life in many instances.
And I think that when you start shaming people and telling them they are bad and they are homophobic, and they are racist, and they are blah blah because they maybe used a word, or when you're writing them off and trying to make them feel ashamed, that doesn't bring them around. You've always said this about all the studies around obesity, and if you stigmatize someone, that doesn't make them more likely to make a different choice or to lose weight if that's what's required for their health. It
actually will do often the opposite. Yeah, And I look, I think the same for if you shame someone about who.
They are on both sides.
I think if you look at history and how whether it's civil rights or LGBTQI rights, the only way that those things ever happened was because descent was allowed and because different opinions were allowed to float to the surface. So the people who are going this authoritarian tone where we yell at each other and we have groupthink and there are things you can say and that there are things you can't say. That that's a really dangerous history.
I agree in pushing back at that. And Tim Mintion has also talked about the principle of charity, which I'm sure we've talked about on this show before your cousin has a podcast by that name Maya. But the principle of charity is the philosophical concept that when you hear someone else's argument, you give them the benefit of the doubt, essentially, and you assume they're coming from a good place, and
then you go with the argument. But what we're seeing increasingly online I've seen people disagree, and I actually think the disagreement online is fine, but you've just lost me the second that you go, it's laced with ridicule or contempt or something ridiculously personal.
And once you call someone a fascist and say that their position is a moral or immoral, the argument's over. And so often that's what people do, or they say, you need to delete that instead of engaging with the argument. They need to say that argument or that point of view cannot even be in the world because I can't tolerate.
I think whatever happens with this election coming up in the US, I think that will have a bearing whether or not any lessons will learn from twenty sixteen about you speaking well, just speaking across the divide. I mean, I think that's the biggest cultural issue of our time.
But here's the thing. The Democrats are trying to do that. They have literally put Republicans on their payroll. They are literally saying we will put Republicans in our cabinet. They are trying to do that. It's not an issue of left and right. It's not. It's an issue of intolerance and tolerance on both sides. And I think that personally, I think workness died a while ago, and it's an insult.
Now what do you mean by that?
Because I think that that peak woke time was twenty twenty twenty twenty twenty twenty two. Maybe I think that workners died a while ago, and now it's an insult. And personally, I'm not going to let annoying extremists take my leftist values from me just because they might want to weaponize them. Do you know what I mean? Like the idea that somehow you're value use because some people weaponize them and use them against other people, that that
means that your values are wrong. Like I'm not going to let that happen.
Hell, it's time for recommendations, where we're going to tell you, you know, how recommendations were, explain what one needs, closing the names of recommendation I'm going first. You don't need me to tell you this. In Vogue the nineties on Disney Plus, what's the defining publication about fashion The Vogue Vogue Bowls of course, Bogue's biggest forest an went tour.
Oh my god, I'm not taking SSEs all now I'm going to wear them.
In the nineties, everything was changing.
It was a world way too massive, a crazy, amazing, astonishing time.
The nineties terms of fashion industry upside down.
An outstanding doco. If you liked remember the Supermodels doco that I think was on Apple Teby I can't remember. We all love that. This is so much better because it takes all the main characters from the nineties around Anna Wintle, because that's the orbit around which everybody pivots. But there's supermodels, there's designers, there's celebrities like Gwyneth Paltrow and Sarah Jessica Parker.
Is it like, have they cooperated? Yeah, they're in it.
So it's all of those you know, like the format of sitting down and you're at a table or you're in your house, and so all the different locations. And my favorite person is this iconic fashion editor called Carleen de fonzel nerf or something. She's French. She's absolutely bonkers in the best way. She's wearing these leopard boots. She's
probably about seventy five guys. Conington's in it, all the key stylists that were worked at American Vogue and orbited around Anna, and just the things they say, and they talk about the George My Call Freedom video. Okay Moss is in it, cap Moss. Can I just say it's really jarring to hear her talk. Firstly, she sounds like she has the worst smokers coffe you've ever heard, Like she wheezes. You can just she's parted hard about limit
of life because she's so iconic. One of the most interesting choices, and many say the smartest is that she decided a long time ago not to give interviews. This is one of the only interviews I've ever heard her give. She never almost never speaks, never did through the whole nineties, and so she was able to sort of create this air of mystery and iconic status. And oh, it's just so good.
It's fourteen hours long.
I'm up to the third episode. I don't know. Yeah, there's quite a few. There's quite a few hours of it. In the nineties, a lot of it was like a movie.
No.
No, the nineties were long. So I'm up to about episode two or three. But it's glorious.
I am so hair for your recommendation.
Yeah, Holly, what have you got?
I'm cheating. I've got two Okay. The only reason I've got too is because the first one is gonna be real fast, because it's actually you can't explain it right. There is a comedy show on ABC iView at the minute called Guy Montgomery's Spelling Bee. That is, as it sounds, a spelling bee hosted by a Key Week comedian called Gay Montgomery.
Hey, Aaron, how do you spell Australian Broadcasting Corporation ABC. It's more of an acronym than a correct spelling, but I'll accept it because that's precisely with Viewers will find Guy Montgomery's Game on Spelling Bee, the thrilling new show that challenges Australia's beers comedians in the ancient art of spelling. Join myself and Aaron Chin as we put them to the test and watch them squirm.
I think this show will be totally OMG.
That is an acronym.
It is so funny. I watch it with Brent. It's like our weekend nighttime treat. I'm like falling off the couch laughing. But I can't tell you why.
Like it's just he is very fun.
It's just very never him like it's great.
It's very stupid.
But it's kids.
No, it's not kids, it's so it's comedians, and so it's all Australian comedians, most of whom can't spell Aaron Chen who anyone who watches fisk Oh, I love it. It's just unbelievably good. But I can't really explain to you why. But if you just want to laugh, go watch that. The thing I can tell you about is a book that I've actually been dying to tell you all about since I read it a while ago. But I was waiting for the author to be on mid
this week, which she was. So it's a book, an Australian fiction book called Tilda is Visible by an author called Jane Tara. Now it has the best premise of a book I've heard of for so long. It is not surprising that it is currently subject of a bit of a bidding war in Hollywood because it's about a woman, a midlife woman who's life's in the toilet. She wakes up one day and half her little finger has disappeared. It's there, you just can't see it. And she's like what.
She thinks she's going crazy. And then she wakes up the next day and the tip of her ear lobe has disappeared, and so she goes to the doctor and she's like, I don't know what's happening. And then the doctor examines her and the doctor's like, oh, you're becoming invisible. That's a condition that happens to lots of midlife women.
Oh my god, it's so good.
And there's like a support group for invisible midlife women and there's like she said, like who like who and the like remember that comedian such and such, And she's like, yeah, whatever happened to her, she became invisible.
It's like that's so creative.
So clever. It is so funny. And then the book itself, it's a novel, but it also kind of goes into sort of self helpy world. Jane herself, as she talks about on mid went into a very sort of meditation almost woo wooy place to get through her midlife crisis and so does Tilda, and so then she goes on all that and it's just really it's a great book. What can I tell you? It's very clever Australian fiction book. It's by Jane Tara.
It's called Tilda Is Visible.
Can we hear her on Mid this week?
She is on Mid this week. We'll put the link in the show notes. We talk about invisibility.
My recommendation.
You know when you are reading a fantastic book and you're always half in another world, You're just walking around in another world and you're another.
Character and you just want to get back to it.
And it's a break from yourself.
You're not you anymore. You become someone else for a while. At the moment, I am a single mother's two children because I am Missy Higgins.
Oh yes, because she's written a book.
Well this is the thing, and this I don't often get this from music, but there is something about Missy Higgins's songwriting that feels like I'm reading a book that's so narrative and so evocative. I started listening after I listened to Claire's but Are You Happy?
Interview?
And I went and saw miss Higgins a few months ago and she played some new songs from the album, and I really like them, and I never like songs the first time I hear them.
It's true.
At the concert she was like, no, don't yeah, my planning one I know, and I just kind of went, oh, I actually like that.
I've been playing this album on repeat as well.
And then Miss I think she's an out louder.
Yes, I'm I started listening and I have not been able to stop. And I'm now loving my commute to and from work because I just I just put this album one. I'm just a I feel like I'm fourteen again, where you just listen to the same songs over and over again. It is about her and you get this from but are you Happy? But she and her husband split's got two little kids, and it's about explaining that and like relationships falling apart and that period of her life and it's just brilliant.
Go and listen. It's yeah so good.
Every Tuesday and Thursday, we drop new segments of Mom and Me Are Out Loud just for momm and MIA subscribers. Follow the link in the show notes to get your daily dose ab out Loud and a big thank you to all our current subscribers. It's best and worst. Again. I don't think I need to explain this except that as always our best and most can be silly, they can be serious, they can be a mixture of those things.
Yep, yeah, why don't you go first.
My worst is that I'm not sure if I've got Rosasha or if I've just fucked my skin barrier.
You've done.
I just feel so hot though it feels hot hot, but hot is different. It doesn't just feel sore. It actually feels hot from the inside. And I feel like maybe I've got roseaisiha. Anyway, have you ever had it before? No, but it's something that happens at this age. A lot of friends who alwayce dated a guy who had it.
Actually twenty I was saying, I've always quite liked Roseasia because I think it looks like a lovely pigle.
It feels awful, and I just feel like I'm always red and hot. Anyway, that's my worst. My best is that Luna's been having sleepovers and I've been doing Nana sleepovers, and it's such a different experience because she's not sleeping through the night properly, and Luca and Jesse have been so kind of apologetic and like, oh, you sure, and you've had a big week. Last week, I had a
really big week. We're traveling around for upfronts, and I said, oh, why don't I just keep her on Friday night because they went out and so jealous and they're like, oh no. Jesse was like, oh no, You've had a really big week. And I'm like, oh, it's fine. And Luke's like, oh, there, she might wake up, and I'm like, oh, well, she wakes up, and what was so interesting? I put it down and she did wake up. And I've had a lot of years of kids waking up in the middle
of the night, and it's a feeling. I was trying to describe the feeling, and I only realized this because it was completely absent. When it's your granddaughter. It's kind of like an existential dread. I don't know, Jesse, you're in the middle of it. How do you feel when she wakes up in the middle of the night.
It's become quite psychologically distressing, because it's like, the worst is when it's taken you a long time to fall asleep and then you felt yourself just go to it and you get woken up. But then you're on the clock because you're going I know I have to be up at this time. That time is never going to change what time I have to be up. And if this is the third or the fourth time that she's been up overnight, then it's chipping into like my six hours I was planning on getting or whatever.
And underlying that is the absolute panic that this will never be fixed. Yeah, like I'm never going to sleep. And also I think the randomness of it, like if she woke up every night at two and four, then you would deal with it. But maybe she'll up four times, maybe she'll sleep through the night, which she has done occasionally. But anyway, so she woke up, and what did you
do with her once she wake some care? I just did just like I got her up and we went and got a bottle, and I came back and I cuddled her and she went doggy and it's a doggy. And I can't even tell you how neutral I felt about it. If anything, I felt happy because it was like what time, Yeah, I get to say it's a doggie, and then I put her back down. She doesn't need a lot of settling. She just wants a bottle and then she goes straight back down to bed. I'm easily
sleepable again. And if I'm tired in the morning, oh well, I'm tired in the morning.
I love that you've got grunny sleepovers'.
And then then having rep in the morning is just so fun. It's just like it's fun.
What time.
Oh look, I went and got her. I had a morning to myself. Oh hell yeah, yeah, like I went and got her Alley.
It's so cute. I'm just imagining you padding around the house with baby Leanna on your head.
And of course Luca gives me eight million instructions, don't sleep in the same room with her, don't put her in, don't do this, don't and I'm just like, yep, yep, yep, and then I do it.
I'll do my thing.
My worst is semi Luna related. She has developed as me. No, it's a pathological fear of the bath. In fact, Holly, this is I'm asking for parenting advice, and you're you're closer to it than me. She will not go in the bath, oh no. And she's also smear's yogurt in her hair every night.
Yes, so she needs She made the.
Screams as if the water is like boiling. The first time it happened to me, I'm like, bug at the water.
Yeah, have you ever had that with kids?
Yeah?
Actually, which one of them? Billy? He did not like baths at all, and it was always showers. And the annoying thing about showers, as I'm sure you're about to say, is that a little child like that cannot shower themselves. So then you're in the freaking shower.
Yeah, you've got this slippery ten kilos on you.
And what does she do?
And this is my worst nipple cripple every time. It's a new party tree.
So we get in the shower and she nipple cripples, and if I scream, she laughs, and it's.
A game, like we're doing now, yes.
So then she starts laughing. So now my life is being nipple crippled and going don't react And I'm like, oh, oh my god, it's so annoying.
And then Luca came in the other day and does she nipple? This doesn't hurt as much.
I'm like, yeah, exactly, I put my nipool on the line for a while for you. And now they're just recovering. And now Luca comes into my bathroom and he's like, why is your bikini top there? And I'm like, I have to wear a bikini in the shower now because I'm being crippled.
Anyway, it'll pass, I'm sure.
It's holy it's been a month.
You know that thing with kids where you're like, this is my life forever. She's going to be eleven and nipple crippling me in the shower and I can't.
It's just so annoying my best And this actually sort of relates to a worst I've had. I think I told you two months ago that I tested positive for this stomach infection called h pylori. Apparently a few people have it, Like it's not not that rare, but test a positive and I had to do this horrible course of all of these things.
Did it involve a stuel sample, No, it didn't.
None of it was stool.
It's very high stomach ache. But anyway, took all these things, really horrible treatment.
Didn't like it. Anyway.
I had to do a breath test to see that it was negative. Still positive, Oh no, which I was like, well, what.
Do we do now? Am I resistant to antibiotics?
I don't know.
So I have all of these questions right, and this is my best. On Saturday night, I go to hang out with Lucas friends. Difference between my friends and Lucas friends. So all these friends are doctors and the ones that aren't doctors are lawyers handy, and they're really fucking handy. And the thing about handy people after they've had a few drinks, oh I love it is that it you get free medical advice. Yes, and when they stop giving you free medical advice, just go the next one.
Yeah.
So I had a few drinks, they had a few drinks. I was like, this guy's had six beers, Like he's going to be honest with me about how bad this is. And I also then started getting.
Are we going to be irresponsible and share the advice? Well?
The thing is, you know how in emergency or like, you go to a doctor and they've got a really good game face and you're like, just pretend having a beer at the pub and just be honest with me.
This is the thing is they I'm like, is it bad?
Yeah? They haven't learnt to be responsible with their.
No because they have no inhibitions. And I've also Claire's been having with her baby. She had a few health questions. So I was like, Claire, I've got this, and I was going, would we go to this specialist.
Or imagining just with a whole lot of like med students sitting around you, or maybe are they doctors now?
Are these doctors now? They're actual doctors and feel so old? Lots of different specialties. One was a urologist. I was like, I don't really have much use for it, but the others I do, like, you can.
Go together end of the table to get chronic urinary infections.
I might have cleared up so don't need them. But I got such good advice, and then I would go the bathroom message Claire and go Okay, this is what I'm going to do, and blah blah blah.
And they've just highly recommend if it all possible, finding a friend who's a doctor, especially if you've got health anxiety, because yeah helps me.
My worst of the week is wardrobe related, and I'm looking for some advice from my good friend mere Freedman. So she will be so horrified when I tell this next. But you know how I told you to another hair dryer and you were like, oh my god, Well I also don't really have a wardrobe.
Right, So when we moved into our this is what goes on in the country. I was going to say when we met, you don't at me. I was just joking and just trolling Holly. I know that people in the country do have wardrobes and hair drives. It's just Holly that doesn't.
When we moved into what I was going to call our new house, and then I remember that this month we've been there for two years. The bedroom that Brent and I have got does not have a wardrobe, and the kids got the bedrooms with the really big wardrobes in them, like built ins, and I've never worked out where we could put a built in an hour and
I haven't figured it. So I've got a little cupboard in our room that has some of my clothes in it, and then half my clothes room Billy's room, and half my clothes room Matilda's, and then most heart clothes are in a pile on the floor. And then you know what, I'm so stressed, I know exactly anyway, I'm having a style stuck rut. As discussed in the Emmys episode on Tuesday, any Body, if you're wondering what we're talking about. Pop back there.
I don't think your outfits have been banging. I don't think you're in a rack at all style.
Of jeans for three years now, but hey, I like them. My other wardrobe challenge, of course, is that very often I come up to Sydney for a few days in a row, so I'm like packing, like these are the things I'm writing. Anyway, this weekend, I've got a bit of time. Life's busy, and I don't usually but I've got a bit of time, and I'm going to do a big wardrobe clear out, chuck out, consolidation where you can put it. We still haven't solved that problem.
But the racks I've got, I'm going to sort you out. I've got so many things.
Here's my question though, about what the system I should use, because I'm going to go through the wardrobe and bility that has like lots of clothes of mine from various eras. We need to consolidate so it's easier for me to pick what I'm going to wear and stuff. What's my system?
Is it?
Chuck, keep, donate?
What is it?
Well, that's the first thing.
How do I decide what to chuck and what not to chuck. I'm nostalgic.
I think I think there are some things that you just keep for sentimental reasons. So anything that is like, oh that's what I wore when blah blah, wedding dress, like her wedding dress, wedding dress, like your christening dress, but you wore when you're christened. Your bumm, it's frock.
We're very godless over here, you really are.
You're pagan knock down. I don't know what do your people do? Want to dance around the fire. So what I want you to do is use all those different places, and in one of them you're going to put all the things that are just not right now. They might not fit you. My view is, if something's too small, it's got to go. It's got to go. If something's too small, you don't need that pressure. You just don't need that pressure. Give it another life, up cycle it,
give it to someone else. But then you will have things that are out of season that just aren't right right now. So like, for example, leopard print was out for years, but you know it's going to come back again. Put that away. You know sequence they were out for a while. Put those away. Things that you love but that just don't feel current. Just put them away as long as they fit you. And things that are out of season in terms of it's cold, you know, put
away your warm stuff. Then we're going to get you some things. You know that idea of the stuff that you wear every day, the rotation, the ten percent of your wardrobe that you wear ninety percent of the time. We're going to get that in your bedroom, right and we're going to get it off the floor. We're going to get a hanging. But you've got to be able to see it, because my view with clothes is if I can't see it, I won't wear it because it
doesn't exist. And then what I want you to start doing is taking a mirror selfie of yourself every day. Don't have to post it, although the outladder would quite love that. And what that does is that you can then look back and see outfits that you felt good in, outfits that you did in things that you know, because the worst thing with when you don't know what to wear is, oh, I just don't know what to wear and it just feels like you've got to reinvent it
because you forget right. But if you've then got a record of the outfits and you can also start to look at them and see what they have in common and on the days that feel right and the days that don't feel right, but be ruthless.
Do you do like a color Yeah, I.
Do color code, but more I do buy pants, skirts, tops, jackets like I divide them by king yep.
Okay, we're going to sort it out this weekend. I'm going to big sprinkling the wardrobe. I'm going to also sort out the kids clouds. We're going to create space, and you're right, everything I don't where all the time can stay in there. And then we just have the wardrobe issues.
It's too Yeah, and I'll find you that I've got a million things that I do. You know, is great problem. I'll tell you later. I'll send you some links.
Okay. My best of the week was a little parenting epiphany that I had on Saturday. So at the weekend I took Matilda, my daughter, to Canbra. She plays AFL and she the last game of this whole season for her was in camera because she's like part of this academy team and it was like will she get picked? When she get picked? That kind of stuff. It was very early on Sunday morning, so we decided to make
a weekend with it. She and I went down to Canberra on Saturday afternoon and we had the most well, slightly irritating but also delightful day, like doing a little bit of light shopping. I didn't have to stand outside Glassons change room for a while, which was quite stressful. I am not good their life choices. I am not good at being you know, the bloke who waits outside the change.
Room never had anything really bored.
And then she orders me around. The girl is a special type of hair. Oh, She's just like, get me this in another size, get me that, not that one. And I'm like this pair of Danndom shots and she's
like no, and I'm like, what's wrong with them? And she's like, you know, it's just goes on and on and the music's so loud because but anyway, we said in the hotel and we went out for dinner that evening and we had the nicest dinner together, right like she's fourteen fifteen soon And we sat there and we ate food that she wouldn't normally eat, and we had a conversation like about life and her friends and stuff.
I sat there because it isn't always like that. Like a lot of teenage me and knows very well, a lot of teenage time is slam doors, mumm, you're an idiot. You don't understand, can I can? I can? I will
you will you will you. But it was one of those little moments that you kind of want to snapshot in your head because when I was where you are, and I mean, I know you're enjoying lunar enormously, but when I was in the trenches of little kiddom, the idea that one day I would sit across the table with my beautiful daughter, that we would have like an almost grown up conversation, and we'd just like it seemed impossible,
like it was another planet. And it makes me there's a lot to get nostalgic and sad about about your kids growing up, as we've talked about a lot, but there are also some really lovely things about it watching them be. You know, we spent this time together and it was like mother and daughter because every five minutes she was asking me to pay for something, but it
was also just this lovely appreciation of each other. And I loved it, and we had a really great weekend and that was my Oh, that's so nice.
It's been a big week in the US presidential race. And if you can't get enough of US politics, then we are doing subscriber episodes with Amelia Lester, who is a genius expert.
You got to play with the media this week, got.
To sit there because you had an appointment, and we talked about the debate, the second attempted assassination, and also Trump's alleged girlfriend. We're being cheeky when we say that, but it's an interesting story. Listen via the link in our show notes and make sure you're signed up to the Mummeer out Loud newsletter because this week we actually have an exclusive bonus chat with Amelia Lester all about Taylor Swift's endorsement.
I wasn't already subscribed to this newsletter for free, I would be doing it to just listen to this shows the.
Really really good question about it trum Taylor. Make sure you've signed up. There is a link in our show notes.
Thank you out louders for being with us all week. That is all we have time for this week, of course, but we will see you back here on Monday. And a massive thank you to our team Executive producer Ruth Devine, Senior producer Emiline Gazillis, our audio producers Leah Porges, and our social media producer is Isabelle Dolphin. And will see you on Monday. Bye bye.
Shout out to any Mum and Mia subscribers listening. If you love the show and want to support us as well, subscribing to mom and Mia is the very best way to do so. There is a link in the episode description.