Latest / No Country For Hot Girls / REPLAY: Nineties Nostalgia and Milan Misadventures

Transcript

REPLAY: Nineties Nostalgia and Milan Misadventures · No Country For Hot Girls

0:00
SPEAKER_00: Alright, losers.
0:02
SPEAKER_00: Sorry.
0:03
SPEAKER_00: Hello, my gorgeous listeners.
0:06
SPEAKER_00: Of which there are two, I'm assuming my mum and maybe my dad.
0:10
SPEAKER_00: Welcome to episode two of the No Country for Hot Girls podcast.
0:15
SPEAKER_00: Sorry, guys, I keep forgetting the name.
0:18
SPEAKER_00: This is my 11th take, I think.
0:21
SPEAKER_00: Anyway, welcome.
0:22
SPEAKER_00: So, as you can hear, it's me, Juliana Fiscoes, your host.
0:27
SPEAKER_00: Unfortunately, our beloved Hannah is not here today.
0:31
SPEAKER_00: She couldn't make it.
0:33
SPEAKER_00: She has better things to do, guys.
0:35
SPEAKER_00: She's got better things to do.
0:37
SPEAKER_00: No, she's a busy girl.
0:38
SPEAKER_00: She's living in a busy world, and she will be back next week.
0:43
SPEAKER_00: So today we're going to be having a bit of a waffly episode.
0:46
SPEAKER_00: Might not make a huge amount of sense.
0:48
SPEAKER_00: And I need to pre-warn.
0:49
SPEAKER_00: I have just started taking a brand new ADHD medication, which I literally took a couple of hours ago, and I did feel like I was coming up on speed.
0:58
SPEAKER_00: So if this sounds a bit mad and a bit erratic, then please just bear with.
1:01
SPEAKER_00: I'm actually having a cup of tea because I'm starting to crash.
1:05
SPEAKER_00: So this could be a little bit of a roller coaster, but as I say, just hold on to your pants.
1:13
SPEAKER_00: Hold on to your or maybe it's hold on to your coattails.
1:16
SPEAKER_00: Either way, hold on.
1:17
SPEAKER_00: Definitely hold on to your pants.
1:18
SPEAKER_00: We don't want them falling down.
1:20
SPEAKER_00: So today, what are we going to talk about?
1:23
SPEAKER_00: We're going to talk about Milan Design Week, which is where I was last week.
1:26
SPEAKER_00: We're going to talk about performative men, which there were quite a few of them actually in Milan.
1:34
SPEAKER_00: And we're going to talk about the 90s because I just published an article in the Sunday Times style on Sunday, and it was essentially me cosplaying as if I was living in the 90s.
1:45
SPEAKER_00: So we're going to talk about what that involved and was it actually a better decade?
1:50
SPEAKER_00: Spoiler alert, it was.
1:52
SPEAKER_00: So Milan Design Week.
1:54
SPEAKER_00: Okay, for the Philistines like me who don't know what that is, I had no idea until about six months ago.
2:00
SPEAKER_00: It's kind of fashion week, but for designers, architects, interior designers, the whole shebang.
2:06
SPEAKER_00: So it's like lots of very well-dressed, well-heeled people running around Milan going to look at lots of different exhibitions.
2:14
SPEAKER_00: There's lots and lots of different designers showing their work.
2:18
SPEAKER_00: Essentially, there's just loads of exhibitions that are open to the public, and you can go and look at interesting design.
2:24
SPEAKER_00: This year, I think it's become much more popular.
2:27
SPEAKER_00: So there were these massive queues all down the street to get into every single exhibition.
2:31
SPEAKER_00: Some of them literally had to queue for like two hours at a time.
2:35
SPEAKER_00: And a lot of them are sponsored by the big brands like Mew Mew, Gucci, Louis Vuitton, that kind of thing.
2:42
SPEAKER_00: But it seems that it's become a little bit more corporate this year.
2:46
SPEAKER_00: There were still some very cool independent designers and independent studios, but there were also these kind of massive big corporate exhibitions which were just monetizing off this design week space.
2:59
SPEAKER_00: Actually, me and Maya, so because we're so impatient, we couldn't be bothered to wait in the queues for these like massive, really popular exhibitions.
3:09
SPEAKER_00: So the only exhibition that we actually went to for the first two days was the Skoda exhibition.
3:16
SPEAKER_00: As in the car.
3:17
SPEAKER_00: We walked into this courtyard space that had this massive, multicoloured, inflatable installation in the shape of a Skoda car.
3:26
SPEAKER_00: We were bemused wandering around, like trying to find the entrance to this very chic, cool exhibition.
3:32
SPEAKER_00: Anyway, we try and get into this inflatable Skoda thinking, oh, maybe it's in there, all these really amazing pieces.
3:40
SPEAKER_00: Anyway, transpired that we were just at the Skoda exhibition and they were celebrating Skoda.
3:47
SPEAKER_00: But because the cues were so long to everything else, that was literally the only thing that we went for the first two days.
3:53
SPEAKER_00: So anyway, in other news, me and Maya hadn't seen each other for about two weeks.
4:01
SPEAKER_00: She's just moved into an amazing apartment in Milan.
4:05
SPEAKER_00: We were obviously overexcited.
4:07
SPEAKER_00: It was hot, the sun was out, we were living our best lives.
4:10
SPEAKER_00: So we managed to rein ourselves in till about 6 p.m.
4:14
SPEAKER_00: So I arrived.
4:15
SPEAKER_00: We kind of pretended that we were doing some work.
4:18
SPEAKER_00: And then at six on the dot, we were like, okay, I think it's time for us to go for a drink.
4:22
SPEAKER_00: We were feeling really smug.
4:24
SPEAKER_00: We were like, yes, we haven't over-egged it.
4:26
SPEAKER_00: This is a chic sophisticated time to head out.
4:29
SPEAKER_00: Lo and behold, we have three drinks at one bar.
4:33
SPEAKER_00: Then we go for dinner, we have a bottle of wine.
4:35
SPEAKER_00: Then we go to another bar and we have two spagliettos, which are rocket fuel.
4:41
SPEAKER_00: If you have not tried a spagliato, it's delicious, but it is one of the strongest cocktails you could ever taste.
4:48
SPEAKER_00: It was invented at Barbasso, which is this iconic bar in Milan.
4:51
SPEAKER_00: And essentially, the bartender accidentally made a spagliato when he was trying to make a Negroni by swapping out the gin for prosecco.
5:01
SPEAKER_00: So it's just a Negroni with Prosecco instead of the gin, but it's three different alcohols, and as you can imagine, we were white girl wasted.
5:09
SPEAKER_00: At this point, I lose all brain function.
5:12
SPEAKER_00: So it's like I had lobotomy, like I don't remember anything.
5:15
SPEAKER_00: But then we were going to this party just a couple of doors down to see and meet some of Maya's quite cool designs, and it was some kind of chic fancy event, and everyone was looking quite elegant and having really sort of intellectual debates.
5:29
SPEAKER_00: We arrive.
5:30
SPEAKER_00: I don't have any recollection of this whatsoever.
5:34
SPEAKER_00: We were there for about half an hour.
5:36
SPEAKER_00: I think we went inside, but then Maya went outside to find her friends.
5:40
SPEAKER_00: Apparently, I'd been missing for half an hour.
5:43
SPEAKER_00: She goes into the bar, I'm stood by a pole against the wall, just staring into the face, just wobbling.
5:49
SPEAKER_00: Like, God knows what I'd been doing.
5:50
SPEAKER_00: I have no idea.
5:51
SPEAKER_00: Then I go outside, I start being really weird to one of her friends, but I have no recollection.
5:56
SPEAKER_00: I'm like present, and apparently I was sober presenting, but internally the curtains are fully shut, which is actually so scary.
6:05
SPEAKER_00: That is my biggest fear.
6:06
SPEAKER_00: I'm never doing that again.
6:08
SPEAKER_00: Guys, anyway, me and Maya leave.
6:12
SPEAKER_00: She drags me away because I'm being too embarrassing.
6:14
SPEAKER_00: Then me and her get into a massive argument on the side of the road.
6:17
SPEAKER_00: I don't even remember the beginning of the argument because I'm blacked out.
6:20
SPEAKER_00: Then I come to because I'm sobering up because obviously the argument is occurring.
6:27
SPEAKER_00: Anyway, we wake up the next day, both of us feel like absolute death.
6:33
SPEAKER_00: Never ever want to drink again.
6:35
SPEAKER_00: We're mortified.
6:37
SPEAKER_00: I'm having flashbacks, I'm panicking.
6:39
SPEAKER_00: So it was an absolute nightmare.
6:41
SPEAKER_00: We crawl around Milan, we barely make it to anything.
6:43
SPEAKER_00: We go to the Skoda event, that's all that we can manage.
6:46
SPEAKER_00: Then that evening we managed to drag ourselves for dinner.
6:49
SPEAKER_00: At this point, I'm like, I can't drink, I can't drink.
6:51
SPEAKER_00: As soon as we arrive, I'm like, go on then, get me a frizzante.
6:55
SPEAKER_00: So we only had about two or three glasses of wine, thank God.
6:59
SPEAKER_00: But we're getting the bus on the way home, and coincidentally, it was the same bus stop that we'd taken the bus from the night before during our kind of drunken rampage.
7:10
SPEAKER_00: Anyway, so we're sitting at the bus stop, and this guy comes over out of nowhere, this guy in this red hoodie, and he comes over and is like, girls, oh my god, are you okay?
7:20
SPEAKER_00: And we look at him blankly, we're like, who the hell is this man?
7:23
SPEAKER_00: We're like, Yeah, why?
7:25
SPEAKER_00: And he's like, Last night I had to put you on the bus.
7:30
SPEAKER_00: You weren't okay.
7:31
SPEAKER_00: And we were like, What?
7:32
SPEAKER_00: And he was like, Yeah, you were crying, you were stomping around, you were having a fight on this dream.
7:42
SPEAKER_00: He was like, You tried to get on the wrong bus twice.
7:45
SPEAKER_00: I kept trying to direct you in the direction of the right bus.
7:49
SPEAKER_00: Apparently, at one point, I tried to hold his hand as I was sobbing as like some kind of support, like a support hand.
7:58
SPEAKER_00: Anyway, it's so embarrassing.
8:00
SPEAKER_00: Oh, suffice to say, we were literally like, oh my god, what the hell?
8:05
SPEAKER_00: And he was like, Yeah, I put you on the bus.
8:07
SPEAKER_00: I told you exactly what stop to get off at.
8:10
SPEAKER_00: I turned around, and three stops before your stop, you both had disappeared.
8:14
SPEAKER_00: He was like, You were gone.
8:15
SPEAKER_00: I had no idea where you went.
8:17
SPEAKER_00: So I don't know how we got home.
8:19
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
8:20
SPEAKER_00: Anyway, we gained a little bit of inner poise over the next few days, and we did actually go see some interesting stuff.
8:25
SPEAKER_00: It was really fun.
8:26
SPEAKER_00: I love Milan.
8:27
SPEAKER_00: I think it's such a cool city.
8:28
SPEAKER_00: It's it's so underrated.
8:30
SPEAKER_00: I know that Rome is obviously such a beautiful, amazing relic of a city, but it slaps you around the face with its beauty and its history.
8:39
SPEAKER_00: Whereas Milan, I think you have to work a little bit harder, and I think for that reason it's it's actually more satisfying.
8:45
SPEAKER_00: Every single road you walk down, every balcony, every door, every shutter, every dunno window box is just so unique and distinct and like perfectly curated.
8:56
SPEAKER_00: You have to look out for these tiny little details, and they're just so stunning.
9:00
SPEAKER_00: Anyway, so I love Milan, and also the weather was stunning, but that wasn't the only thing that was stunning.
9:06
SPEAKER_00: Guys, I cannot explain to you.
9:09
SPEAKER_00: I cannot explain to you how many beautiful men were there.
9:14
SPEAKER_00: It was more beautiful men I've ever seen in my life in one sitting.
9:20
SPEAKER_00: Like to the point that I was a gog.
9:23
SPEAKER_00: I was a gog.
9:24
SPEAKER_00: My jaw was literally on the fucking floor to the point that I had repetitive strain injury in my jaw.
9:30
SPEAKER_00: Like I'm probably gonna have to get busier on it or something.
9:34
SPEAKER_00: Because every single angle my head moved in, there was another 10 out of 10.
9:39
SPEAKER_00: And just when you thought that the guy in front of you was the hottest guy you'd ever see, you'd look to your right, and there would be an even hotter guy.
9:46
SPEAKER_00: It was crazy.
9:47
SPEAKER_00: I actually can't, I can't even express to you how nuts it was.
9:52
SPEAKER_00: Anyway, by the end, Maya was like, Can you please relax?
9:54
SPEAKER_00: Like, you're literally shrieking in the street.
9:59
SPEAKER_00: But yeah, guys, it was amazing.
10:00
SPEAKER_00: I don't even know what it was.
10:01
SPEAKER_00: I think it must be that all the hottest guys in the whole world descended on Milan for that week.
10:05
SPEAKER_00: I don't I really don't know.
10:06
SPEAKER_00: Either that or all Milanese men are hot, but I have been to Milan before and they they were hot, but there wasn't quite as many hot hotties.
10:15
SPEAKER_00: I don't know, guys, it was crazy.
10:19
SPEAKER_00: And we were doing this game because they tried to do this game with Maya because basically, long story short, there's this girl on TikTok who was doling out advice about how she meets guys IRL, and she was saying that she has this foolproof technique, and essentially what she does is she just stares.
10:40
SPEAKER_00: So she sees someone she fancies, she stares at them, and then basically refuses to look away, even when it gets really uncomfortable.
10:50
SPEAKER_00: And she was like, it worked.
10:51
SPEAKER_00: She was like, they might start getting shifty, they might try and look away, but you've just got to maintain that eye contact and keep the eyes locked, and trust me, they'll come over.
11:00
SPEAKER_00: Anyway, so we tried to give it a go and it didn't work.
11:04
SPEAKER_00: Also, it's just way too awkward.
11:05
SPEAKER_00: You look like a psychopath.
11:08
SPEAKER_00: But we did actually go out to this one bar on our last night, and all of the men were staring, they were such starers, and we were like, Oh my god, what's happening?
11:19
SPEAKER_00: And these two guys eventually came up to us and were like trying to chat us up.
11:23
SPEAKER_00: And we were like, Why do Italian men stare so much?
11:26
SPEAKER_00: And he was like, Oh, that's how we see if you're interested, and then if you stare back at us, then we'll come over.
11:32
SPEAKER_00: So I was like, Oh my god, it actually does work.
11:35
SPEAKER_00: You couldn't do that in London.
11:36
SPEAKER_00: I think you'd maybe get a restraining order filed against you quite quickly, but in Italy they fucking love it, so yeah.
11:42
SPEAKER_00: When I'm back, I'm gonna give it a go.
11:46
SPEAKER_00: But yeah, I have to say it was not the best week to see them that highest number of hot men I've ever seen in my life.
11:52
SPEAKER_00: I have started getting this thing when I drink when my eyes go blood red.
11:57
SPEAKER_00: Not only are they red, they're also really sore and like really small.
12:00
SPEAKER_00: So I was wearing my sunglasses the entire trip.
12:03
SPEAKER_00: I just couldn't even take them off.
12:04
SPEAKER_00: So I just looked like a blind rat.
12:06
SPEAKER_00: And also my body has started getting really puffy when I drink.
12:09
SPEAKER_00: So anyway, I look like I've been pumped full of some kind of gelatinous fluid wobbling around Milan, staring at men.
12:16
SPEAKER_00: But one thing that I want to talk about, which I think is really interesting, is that I noticed there's a very specific kind of man that is emerging.
12:28
SPEAKER_00: Not just in Milan, you've got them in London, you've got them in Paris, you've got them in New York, they're everywhere.
12:36
SPEAKER_00: They love a bit of performative reading.
12:39
SPEAKER_00: In Milan, what I noticed, so many of these guys were doing performative working at the events.
12:46
SPEAKER_00: So they'd be sat on these priceless bits of furniture, which I'm not even really sure they were allowed to sit on.
12:52
SPEAKER_00: It looked like the display, but with their MacBooks out, just tapping away, but every now and again glancing around to see who was looking at them.
13:00
SPEAKER_00: It was so weird.
13:01
SPEAKER_00: I have no idea what they were getting done or what on earth they were getting out of it because it wasn't a co-working space.
13:06
SPEAKER_00: But for these men, the world is their co-working space.
13:11
SPEAKER_00: The man is called the airspace man.
13:13
SPEAKER_00: This is what I'm calling him.
13:15
SPEAKER_00: An airspace man, he likes to read in a pub on a Sunday when there's no tables and take up the table of four and read Sylvia Plath.
13:23
SPEAKER_00: Airspace is a term that was coined by the journalist Kyle Chaika or Haiker.
13:30
SPEAKER_00: I hope I I've probably butchered that, but he wrote an article for The Verge in 2016 about airspace.
13:36
SPEAKER_00: He called it airspace redux.
13:38
SPEAKER_00: And he was basically talking about how all interior spaces look the same now.
13:43
SPEAKER_00: A prime example of something like Soho House.
13:46
SPEAKER_00: You could transplant Soho House from New York, Milan, Mexico City, Seoul, whatever, and the interiors would all look the same.
13:54
SPEAKER_00: Inoffensive, but they're a carbon copy of each other.
13:58
SPEAKER_00: They're replicated en masse.
14:00
SPEAKER_00: You can see how this has proliferated from interiors to everything now.
14:05
SPEAKER_00: Even something like natural wine bars, where they have a really groovy font for their menus.
14:11
SPEAKER_00: They're kooky and quirky, and everyone's doing small plates and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
14:17
SPEAKER_00: But everyone is doing the same thing.
14:18
SPEAKER_00: You see a natural wine bar in Berlin, it looks exactly like a natural wine bar in Dulston.
14:22
SPEAKER_00: It looks exactly like a natural wine bar in Athens.
14:26
SPEAKER_00: My theory is this: it has trickled down to humans, particularly men.
14:32
SPEAKER_00: You can so tell this type of airspace man.
14:34
SPEAKER_00: You can find him anywhere, you can spot him a mile off.
14:37
SPEAKER_00: He's wearing some kind of cool branded t-shirt.
14:39
SPEAKER_00: He's wearing a baggy trouser, he's wearing a cool trainer like a salmon, some kind of ASICs or Wales Bonner or a little booty sometimes, like a little booty, but kind of a hiking style.
14:52
SPEAKER_00: He's wearing black sunglasses.
14:54
SPEAKER_00: Maybe they're wearing a tank top.
14:56
SPEAKER_00: Maybe they've got a little handbag.
14:58
SPEAKER_00: They're going a bit gender fluid, but they're also really obsessed with running.
15:01
SPEAKER_00: But they also love the modern house, and they also love a chilled red.
15:05
SPEAKER_00: Oh my, you bet your bottom dollar that they've watched The Sopranos.
15:09
SPEAKER_00: That's their favourite TV show.
15:12
SPEAKER_00: They're literally everywhere.
15:13
SPEAKER_00: And I feel like Milan was awash with them.
15:15
SPEAKER_00: It just feels like everyone looks and dresses the same, but they all think that they look really cool.
15:21
SPEAKER_00: Which obviously many of them do, but it's just interesting because it's become such a uniform.
15:26
SPEAKER_00: We're living in this age where everything is replicated, trend cycles are so quick, but as a result, we've all become a bit airspacey.
15:35
SPEAKER_00: I just thought it was interesting.
15:37
SPEAKER_00: Even Harry Stars is a is, I'm sorry, he's an airspace man now.
15:40
SPEAKER_00: Now that he's ditched his gay baiting phase, he's the absolute archetype of the airspace man.
15:48
SPEAKER_00: So he's got a little mullet, he's got a pair of aviators, he's in the baggy trousers, he's in a cool branded T.
15:56
SPEAKER_00: He's got some cool trainers on, he's gotten into running.
16:01
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'm sorry to say it, guys.
16:03
SPEAKER_00: I know Harry Styles is quite polarizing, but he is the archetypal airspace man.
16:10
SPEAKER_00: He's having a little espresso in Rome.
16:12
SPEAKER_00: That is such an airspace man thing to do.
16:14
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so that's enough of my ranting about airspace men, but I'm gonna write about it in my subsect, so tune in this week.
16:21
SPEAKER_00: Now, actually, can we talk about running as well?
16:24
SPEAKER_00: I have a thing about running.
16:26
SPEAKER_00: So it was the London Marathon this Sunday, and I know lots of people who are running, so congrats to everyone.
16:33
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely smashed it.
16:35
SPEAKER_00: Just do have a bit of a gripe with this whole running thing.
16:39
SPEAKER_00: I feel like we have become as a culture in the West, we've become, and again, it goes back to the airspace thing and the performative stuff.
16:50
SPEAKER_00: It's become trendy, but it's also not trendy.
16:55
SPEAKER_00: We're so obsessed with self-optimising ourselves all the time that we're like constantly self-flagellating by forcing ourselves to basically almost collapse after 700 kilometers or whatever the fuck it is, running around this part, that part.
17:11
SPEAKER_00: And I actually think Strava should be banned.
17:13
SPEAKER_00: If you're going for a run, why are you documenting it?
17:16
SPEAKER_00: Who needs to know apart from you?
17:18
SPEAKER_00: Otherwise, you're just showing off.
17:20
SPEAKER_00: So you're not running for yourself, you're running for other people.
17:23
SPEAKER_00: Anyway, that is that's my little random about running over.
17:26
SPEAKER_00: Hannah's boyfriend Ollie did actually run the marathon, and I just want to say he did amazing me.
17:31
SPEAKER_00: Congrats, congrats, Ollie.
17:33
SPEAKER_00: And I know lots of my friends like parcons, so sorry for shading parons, but yeah, I feel strongly about them.
17:40
SPEAKER_00: My sister did also do a half marathon a couple days ago.
17:42
SPEAKER_00: Well done.
17:45
SPEAKER_00: Anyway, I've just sat on my fat ass the last two days.
17:47
SPEAKER_00: Maybe that's why, maybe I'm jealous.
17:49
SPEAKER_00: So that brings me neatly onto the 90s.
17:52
SPEAKER_00: So 90s.
17:53
SPEAKER_00: It was a time before gyms.
17:54
SPEAKER_00: There were gyms, but people were going less.
17:56
SPEAKER_00: People were not worrying about wellness, people were not worrying about gut health and microbiome.
18:02
SPEAKER_00: They were going out, they were getting rat assed, they were running around London, Manchester, wherever.
18:08
SPEAKER_00: They were being laid, they were being a mess, they didn't give a flying fuck.
18:14
SPEAKER_00: And we're obsessed with the 90s, apparently.
18:17
SPEAKER_00: It's back, it's officially back.
18:19
SPEAKER_00: There's a major exhibition just opened at the Barbican called 1996, a major exhibition dedicated to the year 1996.
18:27
SPEAKER_00: Edward Enerfall just curated a major exhibition at the Tate Britain, which is going to be the blockbuster Tate exhibition for autumn, and it's called the 90s.
18:37
SPEAKER_00: So as you can imagine, it's everything.
18:39
SPEAKER_00: It's photos, fashion, art, blah, blah, blah.
18:43
SPEAKER_00: We have got Love Story, which has been Disney's most watched limited series about the doomed relationship between Carolyn Bessett Kennedy and JFK Jr., which I side note didn't love.
18:56
SPEAKER_00: I didn't love, I didn't actually finish it.
18:58
SPEAKER_00: I thought it was really sugary and annoying.
19:00
SPEAKER_00: But I also don't like Ryan Murphy shows.
19:04
SPEAKER_00: So anyway, it wasn't for me.
19:06
SPEAKER_00: But he has spawned a million think pieces, an entire fashion bonanza.
19:13
SPEAKER_00: Calvin Klein has been mining his 90s archive because so many people want to buy all of the 90s designs from him.
19:21
SPEAKER_00: All the Brit Bot Pans are back, blur, Oasis, Radiohead, pulp, the lads are back out and living their dreams.
19:32
SPEAKER_00: The consensus is, anthropologically, that every generation is obsessed with the generation 30 years ahead of them.
19:41
SPEAKER_00: It's usually because that generation, to let's say millennials or Gen Z, it was always the generation that they were just not a part of, that they they were kind of adjacent to.
19:51
SPEAKER_00: They felt like they could almost touch, but they weren't there.
19:54
SPEAKER_00: And I was talking to a journalist Miranda Sawyer who is saying that when she was growing up in the 90s, they were all obsessed with the 1970s.
20:01
SPEAKER_00: So they were obsessed with New York, the CBD's, Chelsea Hotel, Robert Maplethorpe, Patty Smith, all of those really cool, iconic 70s rockers and poets and all of that jazz.
20:14
SPEAKER_00: So it is just part of culture and part of human nature.
20:18
SPEAKER_00: But it does strike me that there is something slightly different about the 90s.
20:23
SPEAKER_00: It was the final frontier before the technological revolution.
20:27
SPEAKER_00: It was this kind of golden time of innocence before social media, before the internet, before phones, where you could just be present in your life, which it feels so foreign now.
20:40
SPEAKER_00: Isn't it nuts that human beings used to just live?
20:44
SPEAKER_00: Like now we live in four parallel universes at once.
20:48
SPEAKER_00: No wonder we're all exhausted.
20:51
SPEAKER_00: But for the peas, it was really interesting because I basically just had to go out all the time.
20:56
SPEAKER_00: I took my phone, turned it off.
20:57
SPEAKER_00: I did cheat a few times, but I mostly left on top of the fridge.
21:00
SPEAKER_00: I went to HMV, I got some CDs, and I was listening to these CDs in my bedroom because I had nothing else to do because they didn't have the TV, they didn't have social media.
21:10
SPEAKER_00: And I just started crying out of nowhere.
21:13
SPEAKER_00: I didn't, I was like, am I having a psychotic break?
21:16
SPEAKER_00: And I think it was just I was so moved by the music, and I had space in my brain to actually absorb it.
21:21
SPEAKER_00: It was so crazy, guys.
21:22
SPEAKER_00: It was like the oddest thing.
21:24
SPEAKER_00: And do you know what?
21:25
SPEAKER_00: It was it was also really sad because I remember feeling like that when I was a kid, just lying in my bed and listening to music that you'd bought in I don't know, like some kind of maroon five record or something that you'd bought in Woolworths and just listening to the album.
21:39
SPEAKER_00: I remember the first time I ever cried from a song was Maroon 5 She Will Be Loved.
21:46
SPEAKER_00: Do you remember that one?
21:46
SPEAKER_00: That was quite it was a tearcher, guys.
21:49
SPEAKER_00: But I remember I was in year six and I was lying in my little single bed with my little CD Walkman listening to it, just crying hysterically, feeling like really romantic, as if I could relate.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: Late to this love affair.
22:02
SPEAKER_00: And then I went in the next day to school, and me and my friends were trying to start a band, and I told them that I'd made up this song and started singing She Will Be Loved.
22:13
SPEAKER_00: Anyway, they loved it and they were like, Oh my god, that's amazing! I can't believe you came up with that.
22:18
SPEAKER_00: And then the next day they all had it on the radio, and then I got kicked out of the band.
22:21
SPEAKER_00: So yeah, that was quite a traumatic time for me.
22:24
SPEAKER_00: But the 90s.
22:26
SPEAKER_00: So I went one night to the Groucho Club for this like literary salon.
22:30
SPEAKER_00: Went out to this really amazing restaurant called Quaglino's, which used to be major on the scene.
22:35
SPEAKER_00: Everyone from Princess Diana to Liam Gallagher were hanging out there.
22:40
SPEAKER_00: It kind of looks like it's frozen in time, actually.
22:42
SPEAKER_00: Quaglino's, it looks like a big submarine.
22:45
SPEAKER_00: It's an Italian restaurant in St.
22:47
SPEAKER_00: James's.
22:47
SPEAKER_00: And yeah, it's giving submarine.
22:50
SPEAKER_00: It's like blue ceiling, it's a massive cavernous room.
22:52
SPEAKER_00: All of the doors along the side have these round circles in the middle of them that kind of look like a ship.
22:58
SPEAKER_00: What they call like porter cabins.
22:59
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
23:00
SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean.
23:01
SPEAKER_00: But I was sipping on a Cosmo thinking I look like Samantha from Sex in the City.
23:05
SPEAKER_00: I'm pretty sure I looked more like Alan Titchmarge.
23:08
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if Alan's partial to a Cosmo, but I just feel like he is.
23:12
SPEAKER_00: Either way, we went out so much.
23:14
SPEAKER_00: I was dragging my poor housemate Flo with me quite a lot of the time.
23:17
SPEAKER_00: And ended up meeting so many interesting people.
23:20
SPEAKER_00: I felt much less anxious.
23:23
SPEAKER_00: I got a few numbers as a single woman.
23:29
SPEAKER_00: I'm constantly complaining about how I never meet people.
23:32
SPEAKER_00: We always go to the same things with the same people.
23:34
SPEAKER_00: It's so boring.
23:35
SPEAKER_00: And honestly, just by forcing yourself to go out, you actually do fucking meet people.
23:40
SPEAKER_00: I wasn't doing the staring technique back then, but next time, guys, you bet I'm gonna be staring them down.
23:47
SPEAKER_00: Um by the way, never do the staring on the tube because that is harassment.
23:51
SPEAKER_00: They say it's sexual harassment on those big plaques.
23:54
SPEAKER_00: So just saying if you want to give it a go, don't do it on the tube.
23:57
SPEAKER_00: But yeah, so it was really, really fun.
23:59
SPEAKER_00: At the end of the week, I was craving the 90s.
24:04
SPEAKER_00: I'd also been listening to Blur, I've been listening to Nirvana, I'd been eating loads of cheese strings, downing loads of wine, smoking, which I've constantly trying to quit, but I was, you know, I allowed myself because I was very much in character.
24:19
SPEAKER_00: But at the end, I was like, oh my god, this was a more innocent time.
24:25
SPEAKER_00: And honestly, guys, like something has to change.
24:28
SPEAKER_00: So I really do think that we're heading towards some kind of revolution, which is maybe a good thing.
24:33
SPEAKER_00: It's interesting because the reason why I was writing the article is because Gen Z in particular are driving this trend of nostalgia.
24:41
SPEAKER_00: For example, Gen Z are streaming more old music than they are present music, they're buying CDs, CD players, and obviously some of that is probably a little bit wanky.
24:52
SPEAKER_00: It's like when I was a teenager, I remember I was like walking around listening to Lou Reed on like Barnes Bridge in my Czech shirt and just like staring into the middle distance, writing really sad poetry.
25:03
SPEAKER_00: And I was just like, oh my god, I'm so cool and creative.
25:07
SPEAKER_00: I guess the jet that's the Gen Z now, they're buying, I don't know, Nelly Vitado records and they're having their own sort of vintage moment.
25:15
SPEAKER_00: But Gen Z are really pushing this trend, so are millennials.
25:18
SPEAKER_00: Millennials are buying Pokemon cards.
25:20
SPEAKER_00: There's now Pokemon cards are big missus, guys.
25:22
SPEAKER_00: Furbies, beanie babies, they're going for millions of pounds online.
25:27
SPEAKER_00: And part of that is you yearn for your childhood.
25:29
SPEAKER_00: So millennials, this was our childhood.
25:31
SPEAKER_00: But also part of it is the fact that we're living through a time where we are the first generation that are less well off and will always be less well off than our parents.
25:40
SPEAKER_00: We're the first generation who are less likely to own houses to be financially self-sufficient.
25:46
SPEAKER_00: We're going through a huge cost of living crisis.
25:49
SPEAKER_00: There is an anxiety epidemic with being told every single day that we're gonna die in an inferno in about three years' time when all the fucking carbon in the atmosphere implodes.
25:59
SPEAKER_00: Anyway, so so we're living through kind of nihilistic times, and so it makes absolute sense that people are looking backwards into the past into a time when there was a huge amount of optimism as a golden era.
26:14
SPEAKER_00: And do you know what, guys?
26:15
SPEAKER_00: It was, it really was.
26:17
SPEAKER_00: I'm so grateful that I experienced even a fraction of it, even though I was just running around watching The Queen's Nose and Tracy Beaker and playing mummies and daddies, where I used to force my cousin to dress up as Harry because she was a bit taller than me.
26:31
SPEAKER_00: I was always a minor, obviously.
26:34
SPEAKER_00: We're a generation where there is such pessimism about the future that, of course, we're gonna idealize the past.
26:41
SPEAKER_00: It was really interesting, actually, when I was in Warsaw picking up my passport a few weeks ago, I was so struck by the optimism in the city because we don't have that in the UK.
26:52
SPEAKER_00: There's such despondency, and everyone's complaining, and everyone's skint, and no one can afford rent.
27:00
SPEAKER_00: Whereas in Warsaw, everything's getting better, the economy is improving, everyone's quality of life is getting better.
27:06
SPEAKER_00: There's such optimism, and it was striking.
27:08
SPEAKER_00: People are so nice and friendly.
27:10
SPEAKER_00: But yeah, that was another major thing that Miranda was telling me is that rents, when she was living in the 90s with her friends, they were living in cheap flats.
27:18
SPEAKER_00: So you'd move out earlier, you'd go out because your flat was shit, so you wouldn't want to stay in because you probably have mold on the ceiling, you didn't want to have to pay for food, so you just go to the pub.
27:28
SPEAKER_00: And when you were at the pub, you ended up just making new friends, having interesting conversations.
27:33
SPEAKER_00: And that's how scenes were born.
27:35
SPEAKER_00: That's how bands were formed, that's how creative ideas were born.
27:40
SPEAKER_00: Whereas now, because we're not going out, because we're feeling such guilt about trying to self-optimize and stabbing ourselves in the ass with peptides or fuck knows what we're doing, hammering our faces to get perfect symmetry or whatever it is that we're meant to be doing now.
27:56
SPEAKER_00: Because of that, we're not going out, we're not having that connection.
27:58
SPEAKER_00: It was a really interesting piece to write, and I think that it really made me realise that I need to stop going on my phone so much.
28:05
SPEAKER_00: And it also made me realise I need to just go out, even when I don't want to, I need to suck it up and just go out.
28:11
SPEAKER_00: So, anyway, I'll stop my TED talk.
28:14
SPEAKER_00: We just need to go out, guys.
28:16
SPEAKER_00: Just get wasted on spagliato's and start smoking again.
28:21
SPEAKER_00: I'm joking, don't do that.
28:23
SPEAKER_00: But I'm gonna love you and leave you, because I think that's more than enough for one day.
28:27
SPEAKER_00: And I'm gonna leave you with a couple of 90s recommendations.
28:30
SPEAKER_00: So, number one, my favourite book, The Secret History.
28:33
SPEAKER_00: It came out in 1992.
28:35
SPEAKER_00: It's written by Donna Tart, who is incredibly chic.
28:39
SPEAKER_00: She's got a bob, she's always in a red lip, she's always in a power suit.
28:42
SPEAKER_00: She's this very kind of waspy mysterious writer.
28:45
SPEAKER_00: She wrote The Secret History when she was, I think, in her twenties, and it became this international phenomenon.
28:51
SPEAKER_00: It spawned an entire genre of literature called dark academia, which actually does bloody well on book talk.
28:57
SPEAKER_00: Everyone on book talk loves either fairy porn or dark academia.
29:02
SPEAKER_00: But it's a thriller, it's set in this kind of waspy Harvard-like liberal arts university in Vermont in the 80s, and it's this group of students who study classics and it's all of the drama and murder that ensues.
29:17
SPEAKER_00: That's not a major spoiler because it does you find out on the first page, but it's so good, guys.
29:22
SPEAKER_00: It's honestly the only book that I've ever managed to reread like three times, apart from Natze Mitford, who is also amazing.
29:29
SPEAKER_00: Um, also before Sunrise.
29:31
SPEAKER_00: So, this is a film directed by Richard Linknater, starring Ethan Hawke when he was about honestly 21.
29:36
SPEAKER_00: He looks like a little pipsqueak.
29:38
SPEAKER_00: I love that word.
29:39
SPEAKER_00: Um, he's with Julie Delpy.
29:41
SPEAKER_00: Him and Julie Delpy are the protagonist.
29:43
SPEAKER_00: They meet on a train on the way to Vienna, they're interrailing, they hit it off, and the rest of the film kind of follows them around as they walk around Vienna, and their relationship develops over the course of a day and a night.
29:55
SPEAKER_00: And it sounds boring, but it's not.
29:57
SPEAKER_00: It's so funny, it's so interesting, it's so beautifully shot.
30:00
SPEAKER_00: I want to say it was all one shot, but I feel like that's definitely wrong.
30:06
SPEAKER_00: Anywho, it's gorgeous, and there's two other films, all kind of 10 years apart, and it's the same two characters, and we see where they are every 10 years.
30:16
SPEAKER_00: So before sunrise, I think it's called before sunset and before midnight.
30:22
SPEAKER_00: Anyway, I highly recommend.
30:23
SPEAKER_00: I actually told my friend Gia once to watch, I think it was before midnight.
30:27
SPEAKER_00: I told her it was the first one.
30:29
SPEAKER_00: So they were watching it.
30:30
SPEAKER_00: Like, am I meant to understand like what's happening here?
30:34
SPEAKER_00: Anyway, so that was extremely annoying.
30:37
SPEAKER_00: My final recommendation is FameSick by Lena Dunham.
30:40
SPEAKER_00: I know that's not 90s, but she is an incredible writer.
30:44
SPEAKER_00: I'm genuinely obsessed with her.
30:45
SPEAKER_00: I think she's such an amazing speaker, writer, podcaster, script writer.
30:52
SPEAKER_00: I haven't actually started it, but I've heard such amazing things.
30:55
SPEAKER_00: I think it's a New York Times, Sunday Times bestseller, various bestsellers.
31:00
SPEAKER_00: Apparently, there's also quite a lot of tea in it, which I'm really into.
31:04
SPEAKER_00: So yeah, I'm gonna be reading that and I'll be talking about that next week with Han.
31:08
SPEAKER_00: Also, I'm gonna be rewatching Girls because it's guys, I think it's the best TV show ever made.
31:13
SPEAKER_00: She really was the voice of her generation.
31:17
SPEAKER_00: But anyway, I think that's more than enough for one day.
31:20
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna love you and leave you.
31:21
SPEAKER_00: Ciao, love you guys.