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Hi, I'm Tom and I'm Elise Elliott.
Now you may know me from the radio, but you don't know him like I do.
Welcome to the Elliot Exchange, our podcast where we talk about the quirks of marriage, parenting, and putting.
Up with someone who insists Hawaiian shirts are actually fashionable.
Hi there, Tom, Hello Elise.
We've got an exciting episode. We're talking about temperature in the house. What setting do you like it at? Also jobs of the future? Are our jobs at risk? And solitude? Do humans really need to be all by themselves?
But of course first we have an email from Daphne, so I think is a lady and you can send your emails to Elliot Exchange at nine dot com, dot you. Daphne says his winter settles in my husband and I sounds like the Queen and the Christmas mess and.
My beloved Philip.
My husband and I have an ongoing fight about the temperature in our house. I run cold, he runs hot. Do you guys have this issue in your house? Who wins? How do you manage it? This is not an uncommon thing.
This is a very common theme.
Because apparently and I looked into this women's bodies prioritize the protection of the internal organs more than men, and it's something to do with having a baby and that sort of thing. And so mean, by and large don't feel the cold nearly as much as women, And so hence you get this fight with do we have the heavy doner, do we have the heating turned up to twenty fourre do we destroy the environment or do you just put on a a pair of thick socks and gloves in the house.
I am so with Daphne on this. I love the house, said it a really sort of balmy twenty nine degrees. I would if I could. I love being warm and toasty inside. You are the extreme opposite. You're a cold man, Tom.
I have a warm heart, but I can tolerate lots of cold. So I'm quite heavy walking around in the snow with shorts on.
That is it?
Because you don't feel anything I can.
I do, And I see I can sense that other people feel the cold, but it just doesn't worry me. I think it's brisk and it keeps the blood flowing.
So, for example, today is particularly chili Dane Melbourne and Hawaiian shirt and shorts.
Well Today's not that cold. So the other morning, well, I'm just saying the other morning when I left home it was two degrees celsius two and what we're wearing Hawaiian shirt and shorts, and that's the two above freezing. In fact, it felt like freezing.
There's an element of android about what would you say that because you don't feel the cold?
Well, well, there's a dutch Man who I'm once interviewed called whim Hoff, and he does things like he climbs a mound everys just wearing a pair.
Of shorts and is he just talks about it being a matter of fortitude.
Yes, And the latest trend in health is to have an ice bath each day, which I like the look of.
Oh yeah, you'd quite like that. But there's an element of self flagellation in the is that that appeals to you? But look that the house thing is a real conundrum. So what do couples do? Do you set on midway? I think you could comfortably live in house. It's at about sixteen seventy perfect.
Look, I think if you can see your breath temperature is about right. What about what cars are in bed? If you can see that's right? And you what about what about what cars have done? So you now have not just heating, but you have heated seats.
And I test drove a Mercedes AMG GT and it was convertible and it has a neck heater. It's called the next gars, right, and so it blows heat around your neck as you're driving.
So we have this weird thing. Of course, least like we could drive to the snow and on the way down, I'll turn on the EIR conditioning because I've so enjoyed the sub zero.
Team, and you do that after surfing when we have it here. There's nothing quite like trying to peel off a wet, freezing wet suit and you're hop in the car and you have the air cone on.
So I think after the answer is there is no answer, but you can rest assured that you are not alone. And there are even companies now which will do things like you can have a Douner which is quite literally thick on one side and thin on the other.
That's great.
Or if you don't have a modern car and you can afford one, you get one with heated seats and your husband can keep his seats off. In fact, you can even get seats which your air conditioned now.
So you could go air condition seats heated hot seat. So there you go. It's another another battle of the sex as we haven't solved now lis.
Donald Trump is trying to reindustrialize America. You know, he's imposing tariffs on everyone, and he wants all the cars and the steel Billy Joel sang about that and wants all the jobs to come back to America. That's right, iPhones made in America. They're going across like five thousand US dollars each, but they'll be made in the USA. But it does beg the question about jobs of the future.
And I was talking to our daughter about this because you know, fairly soon she's going to start picking her final subjects for school. And then that leads into what if anything, you might study at university, and I thought, you know, like, what are the jobs of the future. For example, some people are saying AI is going to kill everything that you won't need lawyers or accountants anymore. AI will do that. You won't need people who write
write stuff like advertising copywriting people. AI will do that. People who write plans for think AI will do that. You know, graphic artists. AI will do that.
Have it designing home so your architects as well, and scriptwriters, yes, I mean what about nuance though? And humor?
Well, I think AI is going to do that too. Like in the Second Terminator movie where the Arnold Schwarzenegger terminator is the good Terminator. He's all banged up, you know, it has been shot several times by the Red Eye. Only goes I need a vacation. He's learning. It'd be funny.
That's about as funny as Arnold gets.
Isn't It is very funny?
Yeah, So look, I think AI is a threat so much so. Look I signed up for one of those little courses, you know, AI for over a certain.
Age and got AI for Dummies or something.
There was an age thing in there and I lasted two days because it was stultifying.
Well, but see, the issue is is that you can you can take the view that AI like. Let's see, if you put it in terms of students, AI is probably a C to a B student of best. But if you want to be a grade, you're still there a person. But see the problem is not everybody is a grade, and it's the people who aren't a grade in terms of their creativity or whatever who might struggle with AI. And then I think, well, you know, if your toilet gets blocked, AI can't fix that, correct.
So it's really interesting. The government were toying with perhaps an inheritance taxes, and they were saying one reason they were doing that is because a lot of white collar jobs will be gone with AI and they need taxes from somewhere. But they said blue collar jobs will never be replaced by AI. So further mo are to your point about the toilet, So.
Buy you yeah, or a pickup truck, buy a big box full of tools. Do an apprenticeship. And apprenticeships are fantastic, you know, you do one with building and they say, right, you're the apprentice. Go down to the hardware shop and buy the left handed hammer. We need one. You know, you go down and make a full We'll go and buy a tin of stripe you paint. We need that to Where's that? That's what That's what builders do with
the apprentice. And now you get to have a like a like a hot dog and a sort of energy drink for.
Breakfast every morning, and things like gardeners.
Gardening a cart. Do the builders, Well, there is a machine in fact, there is a company called Something Robotics which is built a brick laying machine, and it's a machine. You can lay the bricks better and quicker than a human. Can we now?
Beautiful segue and cue the sad music for Tom's really tough.
Two weeks of his life stoky bricks.
We never quite It was three weeks and it started five in the morning. And this was in nineteen eighty nine at middle when we didn't have robots and AI. This is your one sort of touch, No no. I did a lot of laboring jobs and my role in brick stacking. So the bricks would come out of the kill and they sit outside for two days and a loose stacked to cool off, and then we'd bring them in and we had to stack them into the smaller
stack that would go out to building size. That's all done by machines now, but back then we were the machines. And after one week, yes, one, they said would you like to be the leading hand? I said, what does that mean? He said, well, you get to wear the tool belt and you get to operate the strapping machine.
Oh that sounds fainly, yeah, interesting.
And I said, why did you pick me? And he said you speak English.
Was this the same job where you were handed the keys to the little pickup strike and you pierced a box?
That was That was a different job. That was where I was working in a warehouse and they said, can you drive a forklift driven one? And this is why I me and often get given jobs because they lie about what they can actually do. And sure there are sort of instructions and all the levers about what you're supposed to do, but they'd worn off and so I had to move. I had to get a box off a palette and put it up a thing, and instead of the fork things going down, I had them going
straight ahead and they punch. They punched through the box. And it turns out there was a color TV inside the box. I just no one saw it. So I just take the box up and then just drove the forklift away and pretended I hadn't seen it.
Put it in what you thought was reversed.
And I do apologize to Lynn Fox Logistics, And.
Have you admitted that to him before?
No?
And mya who's who? I think we were delivering the TV on behalf of But if a customer complained thirty six years ago.
It was my faul for I think stick to radio. Do you like that's coming from?
Well it's a bit sad, isn't it.
Well, apparently humans do need solitude. Being alone can actually make you happy, according to Daniel Schreiber. He believes the correlation between people living alone without a partner and being lonely has traditionally been well, will we say underestimated, because apparently it is quite good for you. Now, you love alone time you go into your man cave and I reckon you. If you could, you'd put an electric fence around your man cave.
You're a force field.
Well, they're all sort of is a force field. I tried to come in last night, Hi, dying, and he says busy. You actually said to me I'm busy.
Well, it was.
Too busy to say hi, darling.
Well I was in the middle of something very complex.
Yeah, And if.
You break the train of thought, it means I have to start again. So you know.
Look, I think if you lead a busy life, talking a lot, dealing with a lot of people, which you and I both do, solitude is a lovely respite. But I don't think there's one size fits all. If you're in a very very lonely job, or are a lonely person. Maybe solitude ism for you are that well.
But seely some people are insanely social, and I mean they have to be around other people all the time. They're always talking to other people. They're not comfortable just with their own company. Other people are quite happy to have a mixture of things. Like I spent a lot of my week, you know, talking to lots of people and whatever, and then outside that time, I'd like to just decompress, be by myself, not necessarily be physically alone, but just just to have some time where I don't
have to rehash the problems of the world. And I remember my predecessor on radio, a man called Darren Hinch.
Thank your Mother for the Rabbits That's.
Life aka the Human Headline. Darren had a number of relationships. You won't mind me saying this because it's all on the record, but one that I remember was he and his then partner lived in the same apartment block in Melbourne, but in separate apartments on separate floors of the building, and they thought that was fantastic. I could go and see each other and do whatever they do. And then they retreat to their their own space.
You're suggesting you would like this.
No, I'm just saying for him it helps their relationship.
Is how it starts, isn't it. When you start you buy me a little granny flat for me to move into. So look, you, I think I think you prefer being alone more than I do. I love human company.
Really, yes, twenty four to seven.
Look, the only time I like solitude is when I'm surfing, so that's that's my alone time.
But if the Noah's Ark comes, you want lots of other people to be out there, because you know means if the shark attacks, yeah, yeah, if it's just you, you're the target. If other people are out there, you've got more of a chance of surviving.
There is that. But I prefer the company of humans, So I think I just have to accept that you have a force field.
For example, I'm quite happy sitting in say a cafe, just having a meal by myself.
I always admire people who can sit alone in a cafe, even without a phone, and just asi and look into the distance like some intriguing.
Per think about what might have been maybe.
Reade watering heights sort of ramp up their intriguing scale. Yeah. Yeah, so look, I think I kind of get it, maybe a little bit of bit of quiet time, but I think in forced loneliness is a sad thing. Tom gyms and clothing. I'd like to say I have come a long way from the eighties where we used to wear fluorescent g string leotards over shiny pants, maybe a little fetching headband with matching wristbands. Allah, Let's Get Physical white a sexy film clip.
I gotta say, Olivia Neutron.
Yeah, that was the second album I owned, after Michael Jackson Off the Wall and Stevie Wonder Master Blaster. I had a living in John Let's Get Physical. It was very, very hot.
Well there was. There was actually an atteamp to try and sex up Olivia a bit, particularly in America, and that's why that that that song was produced. But when I remember being quite influenced by the one hit Wonder, British band called Wright said tread sexy form, I love loves going to leave with Iron too sexy because they were, and I have to say I owned one.
You did not? Yes, did you own a Mesh singer? What color mesh?
Did?
I ask?
Black? Did you wear the gym. I did with what what with? What with perish?
How short?
Well they were relatively short, but they were quite cut up at the thigh.
Don't fair this? What year? Please? Oh?
That would have been well if it was right, said Fred. There has to be nineteen ninety one or thereabouts, because that's when they came out. They did have an underpart lining, but it's they've taken a.
Bit of a did you wear irony or seriously no seriousness? And how did you think you looked in that?
Quite smart iran? The the only one. Only time I ran a marathon, I would not wear a meshing, No, but I wore I wore a pair of sort of tight shorts, like made out of spandex. And because it was the late eighties that you know, it had a pink panel, a green panel, a fluorescent yellow panel, and an orange panel, and I thought that would look smart in the running race.
So back to the meshing, like, did you pick up anyone at the gym?
No? Well, some men thought it was quite interesting, but that wasn't my pert target market. Of course, it's all legal these days, but when you look about what people wear like, I also remember in the early nineties Andre Agassy was playing at Wimbledon and he said he didn't want to wear all white, and the all England Tennis clubs is you have to wear all white. And when he walked after his first match, but it's like, what
is he going to wear? And he came out head to toe pure white, not even not even you know, a piping or anything that was a different color. So he went all the way of wearing fluorescent colors and things and say I'm going to wear all white. And of course the old days in tennis they still wear long trousers and ladies would wear dresses when they played, so you know, not to distract the audience by showing them a finally turned ankle or anything. So you know,
what about what about the high wasted leotar. Now that's a look that probably shouldn't.
Come back, yea, even in the high cutlets.
Yeah, Jane Fonder style them.
You know you're breeding club or.
I think that's coming back. Seven bathies, my.
Cup bait Jane Fonder, he's eighty five or something.
The young folks today like to wear is shot shorts in lycra because the booty is really very much a focus.
About the sock ling. So I'm trying to push for long socks again and I've been wearing them around the place.
Is that trend taking off? No, you're trying valiantly.
You are trying the fact that you can still buy them proves that there is a market for them.
So do you think we should have gym police when it comes to clothing?
Well, there was a woman who was kicked off in an American airline because she wore basically gym gear like it wasn't much more than a bra top.
And that's a whole separate But in the gyms.
In the gym, I think, you know, as long as you're comfortable and not displaying leaving something to the imagination, that's that's.
Surely too vague. I think whatever people are comfortable training in, and people shouldn't be perving anyway.
Well, gym that point. There's a girl in the UK's in Australia.
Many people you follow, I follow.
Some strange people.
This girl the hot skipper you follow? Yeah, she's not skipper as in.
She's as jump jumping. She's fantastic.
You follow her.
She took up skipping during the pandemic.
And now I've been coming in and you're watching her when I when I break through the force field into your study, you are watching a lot of her videos.
She's the world's skipper. She has made millions of dollars or pounds through doing skipping routines. This other girl, she's a build up and I think she wear.
A tool belt with what was that thing you had to have as.
Well the the tool belt with the strapping machine?
She got a strapping machine.
I don't know, okay, But the point is her coworkers on a hot day take their shirts off, and she says, she reckons that it's only fair that she be allowed to do building topless on the building side, and she's taking them to court. Now, no, this is not a gym, But to be honest, she might win because if her male co workers are allowed to go to topless on the building, so what about her anyway, she's arguing for that.
But no, no, I think in gym's you know, look, I The only other thing I would say there is, if you're going to wear lots of super tight clothes, you've sort of got to have the physique to carry it off.
Judge that we like, what was it a weight thing? Is it a rolls thing. Are you conting?
There's a variety of ways of looking at it. Look, I've seen, you know, friends who have to remain nameless, who you think they look better than what they do. And they're mammals, middle aged men and lycra and they stuff themselves into their you know, two of the France Likera gear to ride down to the beach and back on a weekend. And I mean, I feel like saying to them, Look, you know, maybe when you were twenty five that would have looked okay. Now you're fifty five
and it doesn't. And even though you can afford it, and I know you want to pretend that you're in the tour of the France and you might have been going to France next year to watch it and so forth.
While you're eating a bagette and bollive wine.
Doesn't mean it's appropriate to wear it.
How about that, Tom, I'm still recovering from the vision of you in a mesh similar at the gym.
Bring it back, bring it well. Sadly, it's one of those items of clothing that I no longer have.
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