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Hello and welcome to Mama Mia out Loud. It's what women are actually talking about on Wednesday, the third of September. I'm Holly Wainwright.
I'm Jesse Stevens, I'm Amelia Lester, and yesterday I forced you to to sit down with me and a Terra card reader. Yes you did, Stephens for a special upcoming out Loud episode, and I think we're going to put some of it as a subscriber episode because yeah, there's a lot of content.
A bit private. I'm feeling very relaxed today because I sort of feel like my future future, Holly, like it's all set, it's all take care of. I don't need to worry anymore. Like the good things, the bad things, it's just going to happen.
I can just sit back the opposite. Really, I had a really strong reaction to it, which I unparck with you guys.
She said some really interesting things about Maya, some really accurate things. I can't stop thinking about it.
Yes, so that's next week's excitement. But here's what's on our agenda for today.
There was a brief period this weekend where a lot of the world thought that Donald Trump had died. Now he hasn't died, but the rumors around his health have not gone away. And I'm going to give you three reasons why.
And a sudden rise in rudeness. New research indicates retail workers are in the firing line and we want to work out why.
And another royal fiance is about to take the infamous battle moral test.
Would you pass it?
Spoiler alert?
No? But first, in case you missed it, the compliment sandwich is stale.
Oh.
This was a management technique that was developed in the eighties. It was meant to soften the blow of negative feedback. It's kind of like the one thing everyone knows about managing people. Yes, or maybe it's just be Let me give you an example of how it plays out. This is from an article on fizz dot org. The compliment is the bread roger. Your input at the client meeting was invaluable. The feedback is the meat. You've been showing
up late and leaving early. It's impacting your deliverables. And then the bread again the compliment, but that last report you created excellent work.
And I don't, as Roger, I feel manipulated. I feel as though I've not even heard either of the compliments. Now know, you just wanted to give me feedback and the other stuff was just decorative.
All Roger heard from that is you're leaving work early and it's impacting your deliverables. And he ends up more resentful than if you hadn't pushed it, because you can tell that you're patronizing him.
Yeah, and don't get me wrong Roger's problem. I mean, Roger's doing a shit job.
He's doing a good job, sometimes not such a great job.
And a good job.
No, but the way the compliment sandwich works like you're told to do it regardless. So this is what I mean, is that when people give me compliments either like they're not real, they just want to give you bad feedback.
No, this is the research, Holli. There is research here, and it shows that when you hear a compliment in this way, you're already bracing for the negative feedback. So you hear the first nice bit and you're like, what are you about to tell me? And then this makes employees feel more aggrieved than if you just delivered it to them straight. So shall I tell you what to do instead? Yes? Please. What you're meant to do instead is aim for candor. Now, this is a hard word.
It's hard to even really know how to get there. But I'm going to give you a couple of tips in how to be more straightforward at work. The first is practice your first line when you're going to deliver some tough news. So someone just actually get a first line in your head, because it really sets the tone.
This is my first line for Roger. Nice of you to show up today.
It's very candid, very candid. Secondly, show you care about the person. Do you care about Roger probably not? Do you care about his deliverables? Yes? And end with an agreement a plan on the way forward.
It's definitely a lot more honest. And in the past when I've been hurt by feedback, it's because I have felt that that person has been holding onto the feedback for a while.
That's a big mistake.
Yeah, and you just think, well, now I'm embarrassed. If you just said it, then I would have just addressed it and it would have hurt at the time, but I would have moved on.
Right. I'm playing a tiny violin here for managers, because I've been one, I was one for a lot of years.
Did you use compliment Sandwiches sometimes?
Definitely. Yes. Humans are messy and annoying, right, all of us are. So the problem with what exactly what you just expressed, Jesse, is that you only hear the negative not the positive. Is really annoying for managers because the thing about all of you and me and everybody is that sometimes we're good and sometimes we're not, and we're good at some things, and so all of it's true. The compliment's true, the negative bit's true, and the other
compliment's true as well. But it's smart to get rid of the compliment Sandwich for the reasons you've already said that people only hear the negative ones. And they say that what you should do is you should just give real time feedback all all the time. Yeah, but that is really exhausting because you're the managers usually in most organizations also have a job to do. It's rare that they're only managing, so they've got to be like doing
their job and constantly for giving you the feedback. And then we all know, working in a big group of young women that if you're a manager and you ever say to anyone I need to have a word with.
You, oh my goodness, then everybody.
Freaks out and everybody gets upset. If you put a meeting in someone's calendar, everybody, So what are you supposed to do? But it's a note unwinnable situation. When I was coming up in management, all that psychometric testing stuff was really hot. You know, are you an inter? Are you an extrovert? Are you an X Y Z, blue, yellow pink? And the theory was you can't manage everyone
the same. You have to manage people differently because some people respond really well to direct feedback and it shuts some people down. This is all very tiring.
I'm going to make a proposal. Okay, So we can't do the compliment sandwich. What about the open faced feedback where you pair a difficult piece of feedback with a nice thing. That's all they think of, a chabato with some tuna on top. Maybe in some papers.
Like what kind of nice thing?
Like hey, I really like that shirt, Jesse, But what's up with your deliverable?
Exactly? That's just a shit sep with It's a melt.
It's a toast.
It's a toasty I like that, that's a smash burger, which is just like Roger. For sake, it's eleven o'clock, So really.
Pretty aggressive chatter tonight on on acts that President Trump might be gone.
Many have predicted that a Donald Trump twenty twenty five health event would be the defining story of this year. Donald Trump's death.
We're going to find out once and for all informedutes, Amelia. I only have one question today, because it's on every screen I look at. Is Donald Trump dying?
Well, we're all dying, Holly. Was that not enough of a compliment?
Sandwich?
Brutal feedback, But there is some evidence that Donald Trump is maybe dying quite fast or is not in good health. And before anyone comes at me for speculating about the health of a poor old man, I want to lay on the table that in twenty twenty Donald Trump posted on social media that Joe Biden had been executed and replaced by robots. So I think he's fair game to discuss. I want to point out that he's the most powerful
person in the world by many metrics. We know less about his health than just about any other president in recent history.
When we did speak to the Caracard reader and this was off Mike. She said that, yes, while we're all dying, she said, it is not imminent. So there's our prediction for the day.
Okay, that's great. I have some more actual reasons, so let me explain first why people thought he was dying. This past weekend. I was actually getting my nails done, and then I was browsing the internet, and all of a sudden, I noticed that everyone who I know in Washington, DC was saying that there was a rumor going around that he was dead.
Oh my gosh, and really like legitimate, like you're smart journalist friends.
Yes, everyone was convinced. So here are the reasons why he wasn't seen for three days, which is unusual for.
Him always on presidency.
He didn't have plans to go away to one of his golf courses for the long weekend which the US just had, which is again very unusual for him. And then, and my favorite of the reasons is his vice president JD. Vance. He gave this really weird interview last week where he said that if a terrible tragedy were to befall his boss, he JD. Vance was ready to step in It was kind of like that internet meme where it's like no one colon JD Van.
I reckon Trump's got a shits out of which coming from JD pretty quickly.
Yeah, So overnight Australia time, we got a press conference from Trump, so we know he's not dead. He was talking about space force and it was clearly a proof of life conference because no one cares about space force, least of all Donald Trump. But he had to show us that he was in fact still alive. So he isn't dead. But here are three reasons why Trump is still on death watch. The first, his hands have been really bruised for months.
I keep seeing this and then articles about what foundation he's using to cover them.
The wrong shade, the wrong shade.
He's never worn the right shade of foundation in his life, Amelia. Why would he start now with the han.
You're not meant to test fundation on your hand anyway. You went to the side of your faceline. Maybe he went to Sephora, who knows. But the reason his press secretary is given for the bruising is that he shakes a lot of hands, and he's shaken more hands than any other president. She said, And that has led to some bruising.
Look, there's a tiny bit of legitimacy in that, because Trump would definitely be one of those dudes who prided himself on a hat shake, and he'd be like, I judge a man by a handshake, one of those guys, So now they'd be like a competitive.
Dealreak his hands. The bruises are covering that hands.
Doesn't seem real to me, Scar Ivy, don't you think like ivy import that's what doctors. But that could also be fittermin feet like it could be dying like you know anyway.
Second reason, his ancles are very swollen, very swollen.
When have we seen his ankles.
All the time.
Maybe he's pregnant with the girl, really really swollen at the end of my pregnancy.
His official doctor says this is because he has basically benign leg vein issue. But also, I do need to mention that people in the Trump White House have a history of lying. Remember when we were told he had the biggest inauguration crowd of all time. Yeah, that's the second reason. Third reason, this is a man who loves a routine. He does everything according to habit, and lately his routine has really been off running through a few things.
He hasn't been wearing his trademark big red tie, you know, the big red tie. He's been wearing his big red hats in the Oval Office in the White House. And we all know that he feels very strongly about the dress code in the Oval office. That's right, as Ukrainian President Zelenski discovered when he did not wear a suit there. And Trump has been avoiding the press, which is really
unlike him. He loves talking. Maybe the weirdest thing of all, there was footage this weekend of some giant black rubbish bags being thrown out of a second floor window at the White House. Really weird because those windows famously don't open for security reasons. Michelle Obama has complained that when she lived in the White House she couldn't open the windows for security reasons, and now we're seeing these giant
black rubbish bags being thrown out. So he was asked about this at the press conference, and he just lied. He said that this video was AI. It's not AI. It was taken on like multiple people's phones, So we don't know what that's about, and I don't have answers on it all but I do want to say that he's the oldest person to ever be sworn in as president. He's seventy nine, and he eats four burgers and the chocolate milkshake a night. He eats two fi little fishes
and two big macs. So I don't think this is a completely outlandish line.
I think couldn't he just because I must say, even in the press conference, and there is something within me that feels uncomfortable speculating about death, not in this context because the headlines just were unavoidable over the weekend, but you can see the glee on social media of people almost championing someone's death.
I want to stop you there for a second and say, what's interesting is that there weren't headlines in the big, reputable press outlets. So it's interesting to compare this to how the press covered Joe Biden's cognitive to that was something that we heard a lot about last year, a
lot of speculation about his health. He was eventually sort of pushed to step down and not run again for president because people thought he wasn't healthy enough, And none of the big news outlets covered this whole weird death rumor that happened over the weekend.
Surely because it is just conspiracy stuff.
Yeah, but the Biden stuff was covered in a completely different way, and I don't know why that is. I think it's because we've come to expect erratic behavior from Trump. We've come to expect strangeness. The trash bags just feels like another chapter in the strangeness of this presidency.
He did seem though, in that press conference that he did overnight. He seemed low energy. He just seemed a little bit off. And maybe that's because of what we've heard over the last few days. But could the man not just have the flu? That's what I kept thinking, is he's seventy nine years old, exactly, you can get knocked around by it. He's probably not one hundred percent, but.
He called though, Jesse. The bruising has been happening for months, So yeah, the bruising and the swollen ankles have been happening since the start of the year as well. And the fact that he's not talking to the press and sort of dialing back his commitments.
My main takeaway from this, I've got to change my Maca's order because I like a fill it of fish and I don't want to have anything in common with.
Donald in a moment, the sudden rise in rudeness will tell you about the new research that proves you're not imagining it. In case you missed it, actor and rapper Will Smith is on a comeback tour and when he shared videos on Instagram from his recent performances, viewers noticed that something was a little bit off. So he's promoting he's based on a true story tour and sharing footage with captions like, my favorite part of tour is seeing
you all up close. The only problem is that when people zoomed in on this footage of the mass crowds, they found a number of unnatural elements. So we're talking people with extra fingers, distorted faces, inconsistent hand shapes, which are all hallmarks of AI generated content. Like even the thing that I noticed was just a blurring of faces almost into each other. It was really unusual. And there's one viral screenshot of a man holding a sign and the sign reads you can make it. That's a Will
Smith song helped me survive cancer. Thanks Will. And what's weird is that this man's knuckles blur into the a four piece of papers holding even weird to hold an a four piece of paper. The woman in front, her hand is part of the sign, and her bracelet is also someone else's headband. Look, it's just all a bit off.
It's Kate Middleton photoshop skills.
It's really bad. And while Smith's team hasn't confirmed it, experts think this is a result of something called upscaling, which is a type of AI enhancement where you can make something look like they are sort of more humans in the shot, and you can even make people look more excited. Smith did eventually spawned a few days ago by sharing footage from a concert and when it pans to the crowd, they're just all cats.
This is a dream, recurrent dream I have, Like when we were on the out Loud toy panned to the crowd, it's just all.
Cats and clearly it's just like, oh, this is AI.
Right.
But Holly, you went back and watched the original videos, did you notice to the naked eye that it was a I know not the first time I was just in the like it was fun.
I was like yeah, and then when it was pointed out to me, I was like, oh yeah, yeah. My generous take, if one should have a generous take about Will Smith because I look to see if ticket, because he's just on this really quite odd tour of England to strange places, like just a few dates but like yeah to Scarborough Beach, which is just not somewhere where generally speaking people play. But they did all sell out, so it's not like there was an embarrassing dearth of enthusiasm.
But I relate maybe, like real people are very unsatisfying in their appearance enthusiasm, whether or not they're holding up signs and credit you were saving that life.
So justin Timberlake really needed this for his Katy Perry.
Katy Perry did, and I thought like, well, if this is possible, then I wonder if with our out loud tours, because you know, a big part of publicity is to communicate your bigness, like you need everyone to know how big and important and what a vibe you are. Like if we're in our theater and then you just zoom out as eras to her, like, can't we just mash in the eras to a stadium? And then even in a podcast context, it's like, Holly, sometimes you don't laugh
enough for my jokes. I'm thinking that we just dial that up by forty fifty.
My head is like it hatches open, like yeah yeah, and you've.
Got eight fingers. Turn around and Melie as a cat. And this is actually terrifying. A piece in the Sydney Morning Herald over the weekend by Jacqueline Maylee asks retail work are copying more abuse, but why. Last week, Woolworth's reported a twenty six percent increase in violent incidents at its stores over the past year, and the Australian Retailers Association has released data that says eighty seven percent of retail workers report experiencing verbal abuse and fifty one percent
report experiencing physical abuse. The reason this caught my attention is because I've definitely noticed this unusual thing lately, which is that every time I call my doctor or my phone provider or an airline, I get a sort of an automated message telling me to be respectful and courteous and basically if I'm not, then the call will be terminated. And that feels new. I don't feel like that was happening.
And lots of actual signs and shops, yes, see that all the time now in Bunnings, in wherever you go that say police treat our stuff with respect, zero tolerance. That also feels new.
It does feel new, and I always think like that happened in Money's the other day, and I thought, who's yelling at this woman behind the counter? Like, I've definitely noticed this as something that is suddenly everywhere. Mainly offers some theories in her article, Amelia, what do you think is behind this measurable increase in general rudeness but also towards retail workers? What's going on?
Yeah, these stats are so startling to think about how widespread it is. I worked in retail for many years, many years ago, and I never endured this kind of abuse. Things have changed, and I think there's a couple of obvious reasons why. I mean, the world is darker now, it's scarier, We pick up our phones and estimated two hundred and five times a day, we're clearly always distracted and stressed, and there's obviously absolutely no excuse for rudeness. But I want to put on the table that maybe
part of this is not the customer's fault. It's to do with the employer, and it's to do with the way that in the pursuit of shareholder value, employers are consistently cutting corners, their workforces are smaller than before, or workers are being forced to do more with less, and that's leading to understandable frustration on the part of customers. One interesting concept that I came across is the idea of sludge. Have you ever heard of this idea? Now?
This refers to the way that call centers, in particular actually set up to frustrate us when we call them. This is a thing that companies want to do to create friction between the customer and the thing that the customer wants, which will cost them money. So some examples in an article about sludge and the Atlantic recently were Toyota in the US was found by a consumer corporation to have set up a hotline for people who wanted to access certain products and services that was actually just dead.
You could never actually reach a person on this hotline that they had set up. Another example is that you might find that you get accidentally hung up on by a call center. Has that ever happened? Turns out that that's sometimes not accidental. There is evidence that companies are doing this to style me getting what we want from them.
And then you if you do get to a person.
You are furious, you're furious, and you've also dehumanized whoever's on the other end because you've been speaking to robots.
Well, that's what I wondered about this too, is that if you think about some customer service, and again I don't want to like, I don't know about people who are abusing workers, and certainly not in any violent or extra of course not. But because we have automated so much, I wonder if there's some kind of connection now in that we're like, we're used to robots being able to do these jobs, so it's almost like a real person
who's doing a retail job. We've almost devalued their humanity because we're like, well I can just beep past you, you know what I mean. Yeah, I also say that's the thing.
I also wonder, like your first port of call with most businesses is a chatbot, now, right, And so you go to your chatbot who you talk to. It's not very satisfying getting angry at a chatbot because you just get this blankness.
And they're rarely satisfying. No, will rarely get you what you want.
Yes, And so you escalate, you escalate, And I have been in that situation I was thinking recently about and I have never raised my voice lost it at some because, and you need to say it to yourself, you go, don't shoot the messenger. If you're angry at the corporation. It is not this person's fault who you've ended up. Imagine what that person has copped. But I remember I
had an issue with an airline. It was one hundred percent their fault, and I was so annoyed and I got hung up on hours and hours on the phone, promises that they'd call me back, an email that got ignored. All of that By the time you get onto the person, I didn't feel like the person was empathetic or apologetic or anything like that wasn't the person's fault what had happened.
But at that point you can see how people's frustrations would rise to such a point that they act in a way that's incredibly antisocial and rude, which again isn't an excuse. But when something's happening on such a cultural level, there are clearly a number of factors that are contributing to it.
The other pillar in sludge is actually that workers are not empowered to do anything about complaints and they're actually told to try and prevent you from reaching up the tree of power to get to someone who can actually do something for you.
And sometimes like they're not even allowed to acknowledge, they're not allowed fault, which is a trap for them, which I think as well with even if you're in your supermarket, and the number one contributing factor to sort of incivility is stress and so cost of living, all of those things. If you walk into your local shopping center, you're struck by how expensive things are, you feel manipulated, you feel hard done by, and your only connection to that brand,
which you can tell. And even with the airline thing, I'm going, I know how much profit you made, Like in my head, I'm thinking that, and I'm going, you actually don't care if I'm a customer or not. The way that you're being treated, I think it's then like the front line of that business are often young casual employees, might be their first job, and then they're copying it.
Well, that's the problem because all these things are very valid, you know reasons, and they're saying obviously COVID played a part in this too, and the suspicion and distrust that were seeded around that. I also wonder if now, because we're so used to researching and buying on our phones, we almost also have a really high level of expectation of customer service in a way in a place where we're like, why can't you give me twenty five options
about all the things? But doctors deal with this all the time, for example, health professionals where people walk into their surgeries or clinics and they're like, well, I've already googled, and I know the twenty five things that are wrong with me, So what do you know? You know what I mean? I think there's that's an element too, But whatever the causes are, as Mainly writes in that column, the facts are that retail workers skew female and young
right overwhelmingly. And she writes at the end, which is something I can relate to and very much agree with that what's a real shame about this is often where people do their first jobs. Not entirely, it's not at all correct that retail workers are sort of part time teenage jobs. They are often female jobs because they're flexible and you can get different time shifts and all those
kind of things. But for young people it's often their first port of call for employment and dealing with people, and it's always been thought that it's an excellent experience,
which I very much agree with. My daughter has a job like this in that they learn quickly what's expected of them, how to deal with difficult people, you know, all of those things, and that's great, but that if this incivility continues to rise and rise, that will be something that people don't want their kids to do, so they'll pull them out of that if they can afford to, which is a loss in itself, but also it's giving a whole lot of people a very skewed idea in
a way of what the world is like because you're dealing all the time with a level of stress and abuse. Well maybe you're not. Maybe you're giving them an accurate, brutal picture of what the world is like, but having to deal all the time with really stressed out people. I have to say, I live in a small town and I think that regional shopping experiences are really different. I know all the people who work in the shops
near me. They all know each other's names. And it's interesting because the kids I know who work in those kind of shops, they can tell the difference immediately between local people and tourists in the way they speak to them, which is, I'm not like being I don't mean to be like city country divide on that, but there's like what I mean about that. It's about the humanization piece.
Like you speak differently to somebody who you see every day, you kind of know a little bit, or you can relate to in some way or whatever, which is our own prejudices. Of course, then you do. If it's just like this is I'm never going to see you again. I don't care about this exchange. I just need what I want, and I need it now well.
And also, small businesses have different kinds of imperatives to these large corporations we're talking about. I wanted to suggest there are two ways to counteract the sludge with the corporations, which is really what the sludge concept refers to. The first is this idea of having an ad midnight. You get together friends that you don't see often enough, and you all make the calls that you've been putting after the insurance company, to the telecom company, to the electricity people.
Oh that's interesting.
You have some drinks and you just take your time on the whole, so you.
Make it like a positive experience exactly, and then you can bitch to each other as well, and.
Well the other ones. My personal life hack which I'm loath to even share, but it really has changed things for me when I am battling a large corporation, which unfortunately happens more often than you might want. Instead of fighting with someone who has not been given any power to change things for me or get me what I want, I go to the people who actually have the power.
So I google who's in charge, who's the chief customer officer, who's the person who actually needs to report to the powerful people about how they're treating customers, and I write them an email.
Does it work?
It's sort of a weaponized charentization.
I didn't want to raise the K word because people get very upset when we do. But there's a little rise.
Of a charent No, no, no, there's an example of it. Well, I mean, listen, the way that we're being treated by big corporations, we have to be able to fight back. And one example is a big corporation was meant to come and install a dishwasher for me, full of like very boring things that happened along the way that made me waste two days of my life waiting for this dishwasher,
and the dishwasher was still not there. So I emailed the chief customer officer, and then the very next day someone came and saw the dishwasher and I was not charged for the installation.
I also I found the COVID argument interesting because I read this research that said that epidemics all throughout history have contributed to a coarsening of society. So it changes society not for a year, not for two years, but
for a really long time. And they said that there's decades of social damage from each pandemic, and then it's often inherited from kids, whether that's a distrust of authority or institutions, or feeling like you were forced to do something you didn't want to, the isolation, the anxiety that
I think has changed us. And so even though I don't think COVID is the whole story, I think that explains why it also appears to be a global phenomenon, because there are a reports like this all over the world.
After the break a potential princess, she's not really a princess, but it just sounds good, so I'm going with it. A potential princess is taking a very serious test for the castle in Scotland right now? Can anyone pass it? One?
Unlimited out loud access. We drop episodes every Tuesday and Thursday exclusively for Muma MAA subscribers. Follow the link in the show notes to get us in your ears five days a week, and a huge thank you to all our current subscribers.
Do not unpack your own bags. Only drink from one side of your glass. Stop eating as soon as the host has stopped eating, and whatever you do, do not put the milk in first. Right now, a forty five year old English nurse is being tested by her future in laws about whether she can hack royal life. You know what I'm talking about, don't you?
That lady you talked about the other way.
Yes, she is Harriet Spurling and she is the fiance of Princess Ann's son, Peter Phillips. Now he's not a prince. He could be, but Princess Anne famously said, not fancy titles, not for my kids. And this is Peter's second marriage. Her kids are generally credited with being pretty normal. I mean they're not that normal. His first wedding was subject to a four hundred page spread and hello, but they're
quite quite normal anyway. He and Harriet got engaged earlier this year and he's taken her up to Balmoral for the summer. Now, if you don't know what Balmral is, or you do, but you know vaguely, it's where the Royal summer. You know how fancy people they don't go on holiday this summer?
Yeah? Yeah, is there a nice nice body of water there?
I've obviously never been because he's inviting me, but it is famously stunning. It was the Queen's favorite place. In fact, she died there.
So is it near the Cottwalt?
God no, it's in Scotland's but oh yeah, So this isn't summer like land around Paul in a bikini. This is not that's not the Hampton. God no, it's like so the Royal.
Should I should doubt it, aparol.
I don't think so, because sounds.
Because this is the thing, is the Royal? If they did, I love that. I hope that Harriet is asking for one right now. Because so they summer there, which means
they go in late July. Apparently they stay till September, and all of the senior royals and junior royals and some world leaders and some important people are expected to turn up for a portion of the time, okay, which is annoying if you're a young royal and you'd rather be on a yacht in centrepe But these days they'll probably go and do their yacht centrepez and then they have to turn up to Balmrel for a few days. Prince Harry is very gushing about bell Moral in his book.
It's obviously a very special private place for them. Right anyway, All that sounds lovely, but there is a thing called the bell Moral Test. It was the title of a Crown episode in one of the late seasons. Yeah, because if you are entering the royal family, you get taken there for the first time for your summer weekend. Obviously used to be with Queen Elizabeth, now with the King
and Camilla. You get taken there and it's like like any family, there are weird traditions, but in British aristocracy, and particularly at this level, there is so much unspoken etiquette that you have to know.
So was Meghan's subject to the baumarl head.
She was and apparently. So Apparently Princess Dinna passed with flying Colors, and it was one of the big reasons why the rest of the family is very happy for her to marry, in which we all know how that ended. Catherine pasted Flying Colors. Apparently Fergie did not. Fergie did not go well, World Leaders go, Apparently Margaret Thatcher failed massively, Meghan went And there isn't a lot of detail, including
in Harry's book, about exactly how that went. But when I'm about to tell you what I'm about to tell you, I think we can all guess, right. So, for example, I want you to think about what you'd pack in a weekend bag if you knew that someone else was under packing and putting away all your clothes. For example, you'd probably buy all new nickers.
Wouldn't add some new socks because I don't think holes are cutting it, and with all the rain there, I need some properable socks.
So it's very uncool to unpack your back. So the valet will do that for you. So you take your case and you leave it with them. So when you're packing, just think about that, because they.
Talk and this is going to be a packing situation, just thinking where you probably need to change for dinner, right, So.
You definitely need to change for dinner, So formal wear for dinner, right, There'll be probably a ball or two while you're there. That's infamously a very big ball at the end.
So a down for my weekend?
You do maybe with a target?
Jean's okay when I'm going on a ramble.
Apparently jeans are okay these days. A tartan skirt is preferred and sensible hefty shoes, but jeans.
Are actually wheezed.
If no tracking pack, no soft pants, Amelia, your soft pants are not well.
I know Megan bought a pair of elevated sweatpants.
Definitely, if I wanted to go for a morning walk or to do perhaps a little a spot of morning pilates, could I bring my workout clothes.
Can you imagine and I'm sorry to channel me and now, but I'm going to can you imagine bumping into Camilla? Well maybe Camilla might be down with it, but can you imagine bumping into Princess Catherine in the hallway with your cameltoe out? Jesse? Exercise Stase, No, keep that to yourself. Although actually in spare Harry talks about how you would have to be careful opening his dad's door because he
was often doing a yoga head stand against it. That was apparently one of the details that was that was one of the details that would see this particularly traitorous to share. So pilarates, okay.
But in your own in my room with the dogs in your own room, intwued.
Must like dogs because there'll be millions of them, but must not object to shooting other animals. That is an important part of your weekend.
So you can't just be in the background going you've got to shoot deer.
Stack flexibility here because Kate, Princess Kate is famously allergic to horses, and so I'm sure that she's permitted to not have to go near horses for the weekend.
That had a great excuse not to go and shove your head in a dead stage. Harry talks about that in his book. He says that when he shot his first stag, it was like a ride of passage, and that one of the aides who talk about there he had to shove his face in the guts of the stag and get the blood all over your face, and then you're not allowed to wash it for the rest of the day they're with. These people are out there.
I thought my in laws were weird.
Back to this when you sit down for dinner, so for a starter, and this will be very tricky for both of you. No diamonds before six. Okay, if you've got your jewelry with you, you cannot wear it before six, but you can wear it after six.
Ok okay ye.
No tiara to that ball we mentioned, unless you're married. So Harriet, I'm sure she has a bag full of tiaras.
She's like, not you, Harriet.
Only married ladies are allowed to wear tiaras.
I'm a heel's vulgar, like a you know, like, what are we thinking is the.
High heels of vulgar? So apparently every dinner, every dinner is formal and for the women, that preferably means a skirt and stockings. Infamously, even this week, Meghan spoke on a podcast about how she had to wear stockings like panty stock but too dressy. Up. He is not great, so not like sky high heels and like you know that kind of thing.
Do you think we get to wear like a statement eye with an eyelash strip or not?
I think what you're probably not allowed to do is call down and say where's my clam squad. You're probably not allowed to say that, all right, you probably won't be making your own tea, let's be honest. But if you were never ever, ever put the milk.
Yeah, what's wrong with that? You said that before.
So it's an infamous British snobbery thing and there's a debate about this, but there's famously Evelin war Ode about this. He said, nannies and governesses will put the milk in first to tea, right, but anyone from the drawing room above so like above stairs, the posh people think that's very much a faux pa. And that apparently milkin first or MIF is code for common, so you might say, for example, and the queen apparently, you know, God rest her soul, was like, she's a bit MIF, isn't she.
I've got a question coffee because I need coffee.
And like a barista made with an oat milk.
I've gone deep on this because it wouldn't we all there is so bow Moral is open to the public for a large part of the year because it's so fancy and it's so enormous and at that time they do have barristas on staff, like that you can go into the you know at the gift shop and have a little sandwich and a scon and you can have
a freshly made coffee. But the chefs who've worked at bow Moral say that there is no barista who is so I think that probably someone could rustle you up a coffee, but you probably don't want to be the person who's asking.
And it might be instant coffee exactly.
Oh dear, it probably would be. I want to ask you what you think about the table etiquette. Right, So, even on a non formalish evening, you have to enter the dining room in succession order, which means that Peter and Harriet are nineteenth in line if everyone's there.
But let's face, it's got to be potatoes left.
It's not there, so he's probably further to the front of the kitsen that. But you have to enter in succession order.
You've got to line up for dinner.
You have to well to walk in and then it's not a buffet. That would be weird, but buffets are very calm. Seating a sign seating absolutely and I didn't know this, but maybe you did, Amelia, because I'm sure you go to fancy your dinners. To me, the rules are you're not allowed to talk across the table. So say you're King Charles and I'm Harriet, who's like trying to make a good impression on my uncle. I hoping that's going to do well for me somewhere. I can't
just go. So, Charlie, how is the deer killing today? Although I don't know that he's into that. You must not talk across the table, and you must never instigate conversation with the monarch. You have to wait to be asked.
That's interesting.
So you talk to people on your left and right. But the bit I wanted to know if you knew, is apparently during the first course you speak to the person on your left, and they're in the second course you speak to the person on.
Your I did not know that. The only thing I know about dinner party etiquette is the Larry David line about middling, like you've got to be a good middle at a dinner party if you're in between two people, if you're a middle and you've got to step up the conversation.
That's how Harry. It's a good middle only. Ever, do you know I said only have a drink from one side of your glass of cup? This is actually a good tip, right because you know how you get lipstick marks on things and they say like, we can't help that, we're human, and even mouth marks. But lipstick marks and mouth marks are very uncool, right, Like they're uncool, but they're accepted because you've got to be dressed up, so you just have to keep putting your lip in exactly
the same. I wasn't going to start sipping from the but you might because you are the next taby pick the next time, and then you've got them all the way around.
That's common.
Do you think I could ask for a paper straw that would help?
Famously only like drinking through a straw? Can I have a straw?
And they'd be like madam, and I'd be like, can I have a chill can of diet coke? Please?
A pinky finger in not out.
Out is bad?
Is good?
And apparently, as I say, do not engage with the king under any circumstances unless he talks to you. Talk quietly. Never eat with your fingers unless it's oysters or afternoon tea. Do you feel prepared. Could you now go to quietly?
For what if I'm telling you a great store.
And they're all old, they can't hear anything.
You must not laugh.
How do I ask for the bathroom?
Well, ideally you shouldn't, but apparently what you should do if you're if you're at the table and you certainly need to go lactose whatever, Yeah, then you just say excuse me and you go. But you must not under any circumstances say.
I'm going going to I got away.
But you shouldn't ever say toilet. You can say lavatory lou would be acceptable, but never toilet. Never say toilet.
See I reckon that all of us have done the Bell moral test to some degree when we have tried to assimilate into the culture of a new family very quickly. Because you walk in and I'm thinking with a potential partner, where you just scan and you go okay, How do
I not make a faux pas here? A friend of mine said that she was at a potential partner's house and washed her hands in the kitchen sink and used the display teatowel to wipe them, not knowing it's like an ironed fancy tea towel that is not to actually be used like it's decorative, and everyone was like, oh, no, you've completely you've completely screwed it. When I went to Luca's family home for the first time, I coughed, and
you would know that in a house. I'm sure Maya won't mind me calling her a crazy germaphot and Jay like that fair are they just very serious about germs? And I coughed. I probably I would have coughed into my hand, I think, and then probably, you know, open the fridge and touch what I could. Sorry, do you have a display teatouse?
My man?
And definitely a faux pa, but I think we do that. I can never work out. I still don't know in Maya's house if we're shoes off, I think she's screwing with me because every second time she has her shoes off and then she has her shoes on, I'm like, do I take my shoes off?
Holly? Did you face any Brents from New Zealand?
Right he's from.
Did you face any New Zealand customs?
No?
I didn't really because he didn't. You know. We were all so old that the first time I went to Mom's house actually she's I know I've told you this before, but Brent's mom was a psychic, so she would like read you when you walked in, and I would just be like, oh my god, what energy am I giving?
You know?
But every family does have its really weird little cultures, and you don't realize when you're a parent that you're building them too, right. I remember that a partner of my brothers once came round to dinner. She cleared the table thinks she would be helpful, which, by the way, balmeral rules never do that. Never offered a help and apparently it's disrespectful to the staff. But we didn't have
any stuff. It wasn't disrespectful to anyone, except that there was like a third of a bottle of wine left in the wine at the table, and she tipped it down and sink because she was like, well, obviously that's going off if we save it. And my mom nearly had a caniption.
I'm sorry notion of wine going off. Bring me your fresh as wine. As Steve Carton wants said.
My mom was just like George just drugged and she was like, what are you doing.
I'm with your mom on this.
I'm sorry, Luca coming into my family. He thinks a social event is complete after ninety minutes, and so he tries to exit and goes, all right, the foods finished, let's go. And I'm like, this is a multi day, like we have only just begun. Sit down, have another drink, and he's like, I opt out of this family. This is far too intense.
When I had my first Christmas with my partner, it was only our third date, so the steaks were quite high. I bought my parents. He had his family.
There high level of difficulty difficulty.
Two things went wrong. The first thing is that after dinner, his family are all very competitive and they play charades, and my family would sooner do literally anything than participate in organized games.
So that was there are games families, and not the true exactly.
And then the second thing was his aunt is famously very blunt. They're a bit more formal in some ways than my family. And I did not wear the right thing to Christmas dinner. I wore a long white sleeved t shirt that I thought was very chic, very Carol and Bessett Kennedy. Apparently it was giving active where and she looked at me up and down and she said, well, at least the boots are elegant, ah, which I actually have to say is a great lie. So now we say that to each other, Holly to the royals.
There are games family out there, well.
They are, but apparently monopoly is banned at Balmoral because they get too competitive. It's caused too many problems.
It's too close to home because they really do.
Own exactly what do you mean I have to buyfair all over again, Like, no, I'm not doing that. So yeah, no they are. And at Christmas famously, although that's not at bow Moral. That's a Sandringham down south. You get weighed before and after dinner to make sure you've had enough fun. Yeah, apparently apparently that went down really well with Princess Diana. I can imagine.
That that was a bit of fun.
Out louders, thank you for being with us this Wednesday. We appreciate all of you so much. Don't forget that. If you want to watch us, if you want to see my lipsticks so common, you can do that on YouTube. We put our whole episode up there if you know you'd like to watch it. Links in the show notes, and we're going to be back in your ears tomorrow.
And if you are looking for something else to listen to, we did a very fun subscriber episode yesterday all about things we deem offensive. It was based off an essay that we read and em came with a very long list of things she finds offensive. I think one of hers was about straws. I have a rant about when Raisins pretend to be chocolate. I find that offensive when you're posing as a chocolate chip cookie and you're not. And Holly needs to talk about fully grown men in
Oh Song with James. It's a very politically correct episode, but because really subscriber episode, we feel we can get away with it. So there is a link in our show notes. But actually I'm.
A little bit royal because I don't like it when people leave the bag in the tea.
Yeah.
True, the King wouldn't like that either. Shout out to any Mamma Mia subscribers listening. If you love the show and you want to support us, subscribing to Mamma Mia is the very best way to do it. There's a link in the episode description