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It's Friday I'm Not Too Old For Coachella · Friday I'm in Bed

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Hello, welcome to Friday. I'm in bed.
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Podcasts for midlife women living their best life but in
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bed by 10. This week on Friday, I'm in bed.
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We're starting with Coachella and all the moments everyone's
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been talking about. From Justin Bieber embracing his
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inner child with that low fi performance to Sabrina Carpenter
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being called out for cultural insensitivity, we're unpacking
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the headlines and asking the important question, should over
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40 still be going to festivals? Then we're talking about the
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return of TFI Friday. Back on our screens tonight.
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Will it be as chaotic as it used to be, or has it been neatly
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tidied up for 2026? We're chatting Lad and Lad 8
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culture and asking what would you actually bring back from the
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90s? So you have a cuppa and let's
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get into it. How are you doing?
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Good. I'm awake.
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I don't know if you are. No.
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I mean why you're tired. I went to a gig last night on a
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Tuesday night and it did finish early because it finished at
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10:00. But with, you know, travel and
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everything, I think I got to bed at 1:00 and that's quite well on
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a Tuesday night. I struggle a bit with that.
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More over the weekend, but a Tuesday night, what about you?
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One O clock, one O clock late, whatever, every time, whatever
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day of the week it is. I went to a gig at the weekend.
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I know you were very proud of me for going to a gig.
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So we went to see the DAMS. They did like a 50th anniversary show
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or something at Wembley Arena. Mostly.
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Mostly for my husband, as I don't, I know, like what I
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thought anyone damn song turned out I knew three.
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Yeah. So that was.
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Yeah, it was. It was good.
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I paid before we went in there. I decided to buy VIP lounge
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tickets so that we could have somewhere nice to sit in private
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toilets so I didn't have to sit in the queue, so that that was
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nice. Worth every penny I would say.
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We had a really quiet weekend and didn't have a gig because
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obviously we sometimes we have, there's a week in June where
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I've got 4 gigs in a week and a half.
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Yeah, but that is what June and July look like for me.
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And and August, in fact, I've got like driving up to
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Manchester to see The Cure and then driving back the next
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morning and going to the Prodigy the afternoon and then having a
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weekend. I think it's been like real
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years since I've been to like a proper, a proper gig.
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I say I have memories of in 2006 going to see Guns and Roses with
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a friend of mine at the at Wembley Arena and what we were
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drinking wine and they gave it to us in pint glasses.
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So that was like not going to be a good start.
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We got very drunk. At one point.
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We fell down two rows of seats and then made some new friends.
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But yeah. And I have memories of trying to
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get home that night. And I was staying at her house
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in London, and we were, like, getting on buses.
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And she was falling asleep. And I was like, I don't know
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where we're going. And my memory of Wembley is that
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it was really kind of an industrial estate.
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Yeah. But so this is the first time
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I've been back. And it's amazing.
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We stayed in like an Airbnb, which was like 5 minutes walk
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from the arena. And it was just had this
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beautiful social space and like little parks and cafes that sold
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me sourdough bread with flowers on.
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So it was, yeah, it was. I was like, I don't remember
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this at all. And yeah, then I had that I'm
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really old moment where you suddenly go, my God, that was 20
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years ago and none of these buildings were even here.
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I have a story similar and I can talk about this gleefully
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because I don't drink anymore that I went to see Pixies at
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Alexandra Palace and it was a really, really hot day.
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And it's a really hot venue as well.
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And we were drinking wine from the little bottles.
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You know, when you go to the bar and you just get little bottle,
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but instead of drinking water because that's what you should
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do when you're hot. Every time we were like, gosh,
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you're so hot. Somebody would buy us another
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little bottle of wine. And and I didn't realize how
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drunk I was until I got out of Valley Pally.
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And there's all these steps I fell over, cut open on my knee.
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But I was just so drunk. I just went back to my friend's
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house and I got up the next morning, went to work and, like,
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I hadn't dressed my knee. I should have gone to hospital.
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And then about 15, no, maybe probably about 10 years later, I
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had to have an operation where they removed a stone from inside
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my knee and they couldn't work. And they couldn't work out why,
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how this stone got there. And it was like it was a pixis
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gurg. So, yeah.
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Drink water, everybody. Yeah.
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That's good advice in general, yeah.
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I mean, I still drink, but I when you're certainly drink
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enough to fall down to rows of seats and make some new friends
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anymore. No, I think there's a balance.
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Anyway, this is all really relevant because the first topic
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today is music festivals, so I get into it.
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Crack on. To talk about Coachella
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festival, which happened last weekend.
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The reason I love, well, I love music, I love festivals, but so
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many pop culture moments come out of Coachella and I want to
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chat about some of them today. There's actually a few.
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So I've got a lot to get through.
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We've got Justin Bieber, who headlined and will, you know, he
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embraced his inner child. So we're going to talk a lot
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about that. But there's also Sabrina
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Carpenter. So she is almost like cancelled
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Woman of the Week, which seems to be a theme for young women in
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the public eye. So I'm going to talk about talk
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about her and also a debate I've seen raging all week.
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It's only Wednesday. So for the last two and two days
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is over is at festivals because Justin Trudeau was was seen
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having a burger with Katy Perry and everyone's like, Oh my God,
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he's so old. He shouldn't be there.
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So I've got a lot to say about that as a 53 year old woman that
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does still go to festivals. So let's start with Justin.
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So Justin Bieber for anybody that's listening, that's like
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who like what? Why?
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So Justin Bieber, I know who he is.
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Well done. Huge child star in the late
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2000s, you know, 2008 in particular, like absolutely
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massive child star he had. That's what the press would
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describe as a bit of a breakdown in the 2000 and 10s.
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I'm going to say the press because obviously I don't know
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if he had a breakdown because he's not my friend.
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So in like 2000 and oh, a year down, I think it's about 2000
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and thirteen, 2014, he was arrested for drunk driving and
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he seemed to kind of go downhill.
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Has seemed very, very unhappy and lost for many, many, many
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years. Now, you know, we can look back
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and there were there were times like when he went and got an
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award in or again, I haven't got the year Jenny McCarthy was
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presenting and she she kissed him and, and was kind of totally
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inappropriate with him. And he was a child and he was
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like, whoa, get off me. So he was kind of sexualized, if
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you like. I'm a bit like Brittany, which I
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would like to talk about as well.
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But also we now know that P Diddy took him under his wing
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and invited him back to his parties, bought him a car and
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did all you know, and was his like mentor.
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And obviously we now know about P Diddy.
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So it's like, oh, what happened? Anyway, Fast forward to last
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weekend is he came on stage, he headlined, he was the most
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expensive headliner the history of Coachella.
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He was paid 10,000,004. Million.
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Oh yeah. Yeah, and he rocked up in a
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hoodie. He sat at a laptop and projected
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probably the wrong word, the laptop to the big screen and
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sang along to his old hits. Now, partly that was because he
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has sold off the rights to all his music.
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I mean, yeah, he doesn't need the money, but, you know, like
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he's shedding his old self. I think he got 2 reported 200
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million for selling off the rights to his music, which means
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Can't Sing it. So this kind of YouTube bit kind
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of covered that bar. He Can't Sing his own songs now,
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but they paid him 10 million to headline.
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Well, I know. And I think how are you going to
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do a tour? There is something about access
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to his music I don't know. Right.
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OK. OK.
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But this is his guest allegedly with his get around for it.
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But the moment the cultural moment was was twofold. 1 was
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the lo fi Ness of it, IE he just rocked up with a hoodie, played
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YouTube, sang to, sang to backing track of his own songs.
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But the big thing was he sang to his old, to his younger self.
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He sang with him, he listened to him, he embraced him.
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It was a moment of an adult man accepting, respecting, watching
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his his child's health. And Gen.
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Z got it. I don't know whether that the
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older people got it, but that's why I want to talk about it
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because it was such a cultural moment.
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And as a parent, I was just like, it makes me want to well
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up because it's like, wow, you know, all this stuff's happened
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to you. And like, So what I'd really
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love to start is the whole kind of concept of child start.
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So it's like the how do you feel about child stars?
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Well. I think the thing, not
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necessarily, but teenagers in general do that, don't they?
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I mean. Shed their change.
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Their shed, their childhood. It's not abnormal for, you know,
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teenagers to have like a rebellious period when they go
9:22
out and do things that they weren't supposed to do, which I
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won't go into any of them just in case my mum doesn't know
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about them yet. But so it's not unusual.
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But when it's a child star, they haven't got that kind of space
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to go through that in like semi private or to meet people and be
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able to just trust them without being hyper aware.
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And they're managed and curated. So when they do go through that,
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they're kind of kept in this little box.
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And when they do go through that, it kind of explodes as
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like a major meltdown as soon as they're old enough to actually,
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you know, not have someone looking after them, rather than
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going through it like quietly in a small way at like 15 and 1415
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like the rest of us do. So I, I tend to think that those
10:06
meltdowns that we see aren't necessarily meltdowns.
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They're they're kind of the thing that we all do, but these
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guys are doing it more in the public eye and maybe a little
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bit later and with a lot more money.
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Miley Cyrus definitely when she was, she was Hannah Montana.
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When she shed Hannah Montana, she shaved her hair off and took
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her clothes off and rode a Wrecking Ball and everyone was
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like, that's Hannah Montana. She's a charred star.
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What is she doing? You know?
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But actually she was just rebelling.
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I think shedding was a quite a good word.
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You know, like just like that isn't me that I mean literally
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shedding. Clothes and hair a lot like,
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yeah, So I I yeah, I think it must be an incredibly difficult
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thing to like, grow up in the public eye like that.
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And, you know, how do you go through that transition?
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You kind of don't get that opportunity to go through that
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transition in like a normal way without everyone making a big
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fuss about it. I mean, I think even some of the
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stars of Harry Potter have all been through it as well, haven't
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they? You know, they, they've all had
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meltdowns as they, like, grew up and they.
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Oh, they're addicted to drugs and they will.
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Maybe maybe some of us just didn't have enough money to be
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addicted to drugs when we were teenagers.
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Do you know what I mean? It's like.
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There's a lot of money, yeah. You're in a very different
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situations. I mean, I don't know what the
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answer is. It's not obviously good for the
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kids to be put in that position. But I mean, it's been happening
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for as long as there are, as long as there have been stars,
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hasn't it? I wonder.
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If it's different now, if things have improved because there's
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things like for example, this isn't children specific,
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definitely not talk about sex, but you know, like intimacy
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coaches, like on set when couples have to have sex, you
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know, in films and stuff. And they're young, particularly
11:45
when they're young, they have intimate intimacy coaches and I
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don't know if they're called coaches, but people.
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So I feel like maybe things have got better, but it makes me, I
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think it's the kind of making money off your kids thing.
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We definitely know that happened with Brittany.
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And it's like, I wonder if in today's cancel culture, would it
12:03
be called out more? Do you think it's like, we seem
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to be very quick at cancelling? It depends.
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If you know it's happening, it must be like if you've got a
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parent or guardian that's like making money off you or supposed
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to be in charge of your money and your career.
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You've got to have at that age someone who's responsible for
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you. And it's really difficult.
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Everyone at that point has a kind of vested interest in it
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that isn't just your best interests.
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You would hope that, you know, if it's your child that you
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would always have their best interests at heart.
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But when we're starting to talk like millions and millions and
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millions of dollars, there's always going to be a kind of
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tension there there, I mean, I guess.
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That. Reminds me, I mean, depending on
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parents that, you know, let their kids do that in the first
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place. Yeah, that reminds me of the
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Beckham we can't remember. When we talked about Brooklyn
12:54
Beckham, one of the things he has said was he felt like he was
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part of the brand and he had to be wheeled out and he had to
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perform and he obviously doesn't want to do that anymore.
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So I think it potentially is still happening.
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I mean, obviously who knows what's happening there, But what
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about the inner child thing? Have you know, I think I've
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never even heard of the concept of inner child child until
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probably a few years ago when people in my life had therapy
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and, and, you know, talked about their inner, you know, their,
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their child. And, and I think it made me have
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I had a conversation off the back of it with, with some
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friends around. What would you tell your younger
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self? Because it's almost like he was
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talking to his younger self because he was singing to his
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younger self. If you had to go back and talk
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to your early teen self, would you?
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Would you even talk? Would you like the?
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Inner child concept is very therapy speak, isn't it?
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And I think one of the things it's designed to do is to remind
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people that they were children because if you've got traumatic
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instances in your past, it's easy to look back on it with
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your adult's brain, yes, and think you should have behaved in
14:07
a certain way without realizing that you were, you know, to show
14:11
someone like this is someone who is your age when this happened.
14:14
Like would you expect them to behave like an adult?
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No, because they're a child and like reminding you that you're
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that you're a child. So I feel like that's kind of
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what the in actual therapy, what the inner child thing is for,
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but it's one of those things that's now like transitioned
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into normal speech and become like, well, my inner child would
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like to have ice cream and brownies for dinner, please.
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Really I. Haven't seen.
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That so yeah, if there's a there's a little bit of in
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people without kind of serious trauma just going yes, my my
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inner child needs comforting today, but I don't know what I
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would tell my younger self. I don't know.
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I don't think I did too bad. Like don't worry about your
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disease. I don't know.
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I think, I, I think, I think she, I think she did OK to a
15:02
child. Maybe don't burst into tears and
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cry so much about trying to pick a secondary school.
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Because. It really doesn't matter.
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As a parent of of a daughter who is 2 1/2 weeks away, my God from
15:17
her first GCSE, it's really hard as a parent because you want to.
15:22
You want them to work hard and you want them to try hard,
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obviously, and you do want them to get into college the next or,
15:29
you know, A levels, whatever, whatever is next, you want them
15:32
to, but you also know that it doesn't matter.
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But if you tell them it doesn't matter, they won't do any work
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at all. Yeah.
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And then it will matter. And then it will matter or you
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put all the pressure on them that it really, really matters.
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And then they get, they're so stressed.
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I know some kids, my daughter's friends, who are so stressed
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because they're getting so much pressure on by their parents
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that they have to get a pluses for everything.
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And, you know, you're sitting there thinking, yeah, but you
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don't because you just got to get to the next stage.
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And the next stage they just want you to get, they have 5
16:03
GCS, ES or something. So you don't.
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So it's kind of, yeah. So I think that's a good one for
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going, you know, saying to your teenage self like, you'll be all
16:10
right. Yeah.
16:12
I think I would say to my teenage self that that national
16:16
record of achievement is never, ever, ever going to leave your
16:19
house once you leave school. Did you have one of those?
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Did you have one of those or with you too?
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You were too old for those. Or I have no, I didn't have, but
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I do have my mum like cleared her attic and I I did find my
16:30
GCSE and O level because I got one O level.
16:32
So I took one early certificate which is like, oh, that wasn't
16:36
been in a loft for for 100 years.
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Anyway, we need to move on. Gave us this like burgundy fake
16:41
leather folder with the gold national record of achievement
16:44
on the front and we had to write like statements and all sorts of
16:47
stuff for the front like. It was going to be the most.
16:48
Important record we ever had in our lives and then just
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disappeared within like that was it.
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So we want to talk about Sabrina.
16:56
So Sabrina Carpenter had a big performance as in she liked the
17:00
anti Justin Bieber from a production perspective.
17:04
Yeah. And actually there was quite a
17:05
lot of chat online around how if Sabrina turned up in a hoodie
17:08
and a laptop, she would have been annihilated.
17:11
And why do women have to over perform and men don't have to?
17:14
But I actually disagreed with that.
17:15
Justin was his was totally separate and different.
17:19
Like another male performer would have probably have done a
17:22
big production. So anyway, but what happened
17:25
with Sabrina was she was just about to play, I think I feel
17:28
like she was a piano. But then I'm like, was she a
17:30
piano? Anyway, that might just be my
17:32
weird memory brain. There was a noise in the
17:35
audience and Sabrina thought it was a yodel.
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And she was like, what is that? What is that noise?
17:40
Who is yodeling? And it put her off because she
17:43
was about to start something and somebody shouted out from the
17:46
crowd, it's our culture. And she replied, yodeling is
17:50
your culture. That's weird.
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I think is allegedly what she said.
17:55
I don't like it. It's creepy is actually what she
17:58
said and then carried on playing and there's been a backlash
18:02
because you know how rude and insensitive that was.
18:07
And she has apologized and said, you know, I didn't, I haven't
18:10
said what it was. So it wasn't a wasn't yodeling
18:13
help If I said that it was an Arabic celebration,
18:17
celebrationary sound that you make called a zagaruta.
18:21
I don't know if that's how you say it.
18:23
So it wasn't a yodel. He has obviously since realized
18:28
what happened. I don't know how much she was
18:30
realizing really what was going on.
18:31
I don't know how much she actually heard and has
18:33
apologized, but the Internet is like trying to cancel her.
18:38
Basically this gives me like full eye roll like.
18:41
I know, I think it's. Really obvious there was no
18:45
intent there. She heard a noise she'd not
18:47
heard before, kind of put her off a bit and said she didn't
18:49
like it. Do you know what I mean?
18:50
Like someone said that's my culture and she just like
18:52
reacted in the minute. I I, I kind of that this is like
18:55
a full eye roll effort at cancelling because it's not her
18:59
fault she doesn't know Arabic. Side note, I've just randomly
19:02
decided to do Arabic on Duolingo.
19:04
It's really hard. But my my question was going to
19:08
be, have we just got so sensitive?
19:13
I was thinking about this this morning in the shower when I
19:16
went to festivals. People threw empty bottles of
19:20
urine at people. I was just.
19:23
Going to say you're lucky they were empty because they weren't
19:25
empty. This is it.
19:27
And I feel like, I mean, I'm not saying that's acceptable
19:29
behaviour. I'm not saying that's the way to
19:32
be, but I feel like if I'm going to be honest, back to you, the
19:35
eye roll, I'm like really like and and in and actually we
19:39
talked a couple of weeks ago about Chuckle Rome being
19:41
cancelled. I'm saying in inverted commas.
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And the footballer has yesterday apologized and said he never
19:48
meant it was her. He always knew it was the
19:50
security man Oopsie, you know, Meanwhile, she's been
19:53
annihilated on on in the press for two weeks or three weeks.
19:56
So it's kind of like, whoa, have we got too sensitive?
20:00
That is my question, not we are we as a as a world.
20:04
I'm going to. Say yes and no.
20:09
So I don't think it's too sensitive necessarily to say,
20:13
you know, that we should be aware of other people's cultures
20:15
and stuff like that. It's the cancel, the cancel side
20:18
of things because someone didn't know.
20:20
That's the side of things where you just go really.
20:23
Like we can't know everything. I mean, apart from me, obviously
20:27
we can't know everything. And I think sometimes we waste
20:32
an awful lot of time focusing on the minutia when the this that's
20:36
a good word when kind of the state of the world at the
20:39
moment, you know, could we start at the top?
20:43
I couldn't. Agree or we felt worrying.
20:45
About a tiny, tiny, tiny little bit, but young people seem to be
20:49
like, obviously I live with two Gen.
20:51
ZS and you know, they talk about it.
20:54
I mean, obviously, I think it's obviously repeated over and over
20:56
on TikTok. And obviously once you see it
20:58
once or twice, then the algorithm gives you so much of
21:01
it. And they do get very like, but
21:03
this shouldn't have happened. And, and she is bad.
21:06
And I have to say, well, is she bad though?
21:09
Because she didn't understand, as you said, but also she's
21:12
performing and potentially one of the biggest night nights of
21:16
her life. There's lots of noise, lots of
21:19
sound. She's got to think about her,
21:22
her words, her dance routine, but also every single word she
21:26
says so that she doesn't get cancelled.
21:28
I mean, obviously that doesn't mean she can stand up there and
21:30
be racist and abusive and whatever, but but it like we've
21:34
got to the stage where, as you said, wait, people are being
21:37
cancelled for things or trying to be cancelled for things that
21:40
in the scheme of things isn't the most important one thing.
21:43
Yeah. And I think, and I think that's
21:45
the issue, it's not necessarily a bad thing for her to then be
21:48
like called up and made aware of it that like, you know, but to
21:53
be like she's bad for the way she reacted to it when she had
21:57
no idea what she was reacting to is just weird.
22:03
And it and I am going to call it girls cancellation of the week
22:07
or something. I feel like I might see if I
22:10
wonder if there's going to be 1 every week because there seems
22:13
to be a pattern. You know, we talked about this,
22:15
young women are only allowed two years of success and you know,
22:20
which women are we going to? Cancel for no good reason this
22:23
week. Oh yeah.
22:24
I feel. Yeah, exactly.
22:27
Anyway, last thing to talk about with Coachella is old people,
22:31
you know, those people over 40. Oh, use it.
22:36
First of all, how dare they? Justin Trudeau and Katy Perry.
22:40
We don't belong there, Cake. We should be at home knitting.
22:42
Knitting. Exactly.
22:45
Just crocheting. Someone's got to make the
22:46
outfit. Yeah, there's a lot of crochet.
22:49
Coachella. You're dead right.
22:51
So Justin Trudeau and Katy Perry are an item for anybody that
22:54
does doesn't know. And they were seen eating a
22:58
burger and drinking beer at the festival, which sparked lots of
23:04
conversation down to he banned single use plastic in Canada.
23:08
And look at him. He's he's drinking, he's eating
23:11
from single use plastic at a festival.
23:12
It's like, oh, come on reach, you're reaching.
23:15
Honestly, I do. I read too much popular culture
23:17
stuff online, as you can tell. But yeah, it's it sparked the
23:21
debate of Uber 40s at festivals. And yeah, how do we feel about
23:26
this as as midlife women? Are we allowed to go out to a
23:30
festival? Go over the what?
23:32
Hell. I mean, I'm not entirely
23:34
convinced that I wanted to go to festivals that much when I was
23:37
like 18, so it's not something that I do regularly now.
23:41
And if I well, I'm going to 1, like a small one, like wild
23:46
woodland. I don't know.
23:46
Anyway, in a couple of weeks, yeah, we're taking the
23:50
campervan. I'm going to do it comfortably.
23:51
I'm not using portaloos and that stuff.
23:53
Yeah, when I was a teenager, I went to Glastonbury.
23:55
I fell over in the mud, I was miserable and I was cold.
23:57
Did not enjoy. That was that was it.
24:00
I went to, I went to Phoenix Festival when that existed and I
24:03
went to Reading Festival. So, you know, I went through a
24:06
bit of going to festivals but I never hugely enjoyed them that
24:09
much. But I've got friends that do
24:10
still go to them now because they were festival people and I
24:14
feel like I could still enjoy one now.
24:17
Probably. Probably more now that I know
24:21
that I can go and have a nap whenever I feel like it and I'm
24:23
not forced to charge around in mud.
24:26
Well, yeah, I mean, I love a festival.
24:27
I went to Transmit last last year and in fact that is quite a
24:31
young festival to be fair. I flew up for the day, I didn't
24:34
stay. Well, you can't stay at
24:35
Transmitted. They're three separate day
24:37
festivals. I flew up in the morning, went
24:38
to the festival, flew back the next morning at the crack of
24:41
dawn, which I think it's quite rock'n'roll for a 52 year old
24:44
woman. Yeah.
24:46
And the infra, I went to download, which it did rain,
24:49
there was mud up to my knees, literally.
24:51
I think the thing I find hard now is my back.
24:55
So you can't, it's obviously if it's sunny, my back's fine
24:59
because you can kind of lie on the ground, if you know what I
25:02
mean, that if it's raining or muddy, you can't sit down.
25:05
So you're standing for huge periods of time and you can't
25:08
take a chair in because of case you throw it at somebody.
25:11
Do you know what I mean? Or attack somebody with.
25:13
I think that's why over 40 should be at festivals because
25:17
we can be trusted not to throw chairs at people.
25:19
Throwing a chair. Anyone I'm sick of.
25:22
Obviously not the place. For us, I am guarding it with my
25:25
God damn life, this chair, because it's like, but I had it
25:28
even at the gig last night because I I stand at the front
25:31
on the barrier like I'm at the front of gigs.
25:33
You have to stand kind of and look up on some doing actions
25:36
now, which you can't see when you're listening to this
25:38
podcast, but you know, you have to kind of look up above people.
25:42
So you're curving your spine and then you're like, and then
25:45
before transmit before when it was Fontaine DC who were the
25:49
second from last on the bill, which is a very, very young
25:51
crowd. They're amazing.
25:52
And then it was Biffy Clara who I went for, who was an older
25:55
crowd. There was 1/2 an hour gap.
25:57
I did some yoga. I literally down with dog and I
26:01
had my hat. My son had to sort of hide my
26:03
modesty because I was wearing a little dress, but you know, like
26:05
I was bending because I was like, oh, and the youngsters
26:09
were looking at me like what the is she doing?
26:12
And I'm like May, I've been coming to festivals since in
26:14
1986. I'm going to do some yoga and
26:17
get on with it. Yeah, see, I, if I'm going to
26:19
stand up for a long time, I need a stick.
26:21
Yes, because I can't stand for a long time with my back.
26:25
And also, yeah, chairs are important to me.
26:27
I find it incredibly difficult to sit on the floor because I
26:31
don't bend in the right places because of my, my broken back.
26:36
So maybe. But then, you know, you can have
26:38
disabled 20 year olds as well. It's not just doing that because
26:41
I'm because I'm how old am I 46 to check.
26:44
I've already started adding a year on because it's in May.
26:46
So I just forget sometimes. But yeah.
26:49
So I mean what is the argument that 40 year olds?
26:52
Don't belong at festivals then. I think it's linked to the fact
26:55
that Coachella is a very young festival and it's a very
26:58
fashionable fashion LED. It's full of influencers.
27:01
You know, lots of Love Island stars from the UK have flown
27:03
over there. It's very young and glamorous
27:05
and beautiful. What's interesting though is I
27:08
feel like the over 40s potentially can afford it
27:11
because obviously it costs to go to Coachella so there's actually
27:14
money. I think it's and I think Reading
27:16
Festival has become that because it's become the GCSE results
27:20
festival. So like 50 year olds, 40 year
27:23
olds going is deemed as weird to them, but they are all still
27:29
there. There they go.
27:30
I was talking about going to reading this year.
27:31
I'm now not going. But yeah, there's that feeling
27:34
that you shouldn't be there. But yeah, I mean, I think it's
27:37
just ageism as well, isn't it? We're just.
27:39
Yeah, I mean, it absolutely is. I mean, just because, I mean,
27:42
essentially it's a load of gigs, isn't it?
27:44
Just because there's a younger, younger crowd there?
27:47
I mean, I get the idea that maybe, you know, you could be
27:49
creepy. It's like, don't go to the I've
27:52
looked at things before and you go, oh, I'd love to go to that,
27:55
you know, even if it's just like dinosaur day, like a park or
28:00
something. And you go, oh, I'm 46 and I.
28:02
Don't have a child? Not take it's not meant for me
28:06
so you know I get the idea that sometimes something can just not
28:09
be meant for you but I don't get the idea that festivals are not
28:12
meant for yeah no sort that I'm I am pro I am pro anybody over
28:17
40 who isn't me going to festivals if they want to sleep
28:20
in tents on the floor, fine, do your thing but.
28:23
Also, if you're going to a festival and there's freaking
28:26
Guns and Roses, say download this year's Guns and Roses and
28:28
Linkin Park and Limp Bizkit. They're all over 40.
28:31
That's my band. But I think The thing is, is, is
28:37
Chela was, it's Justin and Sabrina.
28:40
There were other people there reading Charlie XCX, Fontaine's
28:44
DC. It's quite, it's younger, like
28:47
younger performers, I suppose. So they're just, I just think
28:51
them liking it. New music once you're over 40.
28:54
Well, again, to be fair, there's a lot of people my age who don't
28:58
listen to new music and there was so much amazing music out
29:01
and I was like, well, I'd like to go to weddings, I'd like to
29:04
go and watch Fontaine DC. But it's like people, young
29:06
people sort of then look at me like that musics not for you.
29:10
And I'm like don't talk rub like good load of rubbish.
29:14
See, I'm I'm, I'm still at that, that thing where I'm convinced
29:18
that I'm secretly a 25 year old just stuffed into a 46 year old
29:21
body. I'm like no one can tell.
29:23
Yeah, but I have this because I they can totally, as you know, I
29:27
go to a lot of live music and I go to like rock gigs and I would
29:31
go to say Limp Bizkit and I would be at the front and I
29:34
would be in the mosh pit. Like I'm around, I'm not like at
29:36
the back. And I think is there?
29:38
I do sometimes. Is there going to be a point
29:40
where I'm looked at like, what are you doing?
29:43
But the response I've always had is real respect and they've
29:47
loved the fact that I'm there with my son.
29:50
They have been really. Yeah, like looked after me like
29:54
I'm 90. But what's interesting is this
29:57
guys, there are men at gigs in this is in Essex.
30:02
Did they're there and they'll be back to an eyelid.
30:04
But I think it seems a bit they I think it's it is gendered.
30:07
I think people think that she's like, she's a bit old, as you
30:09
said. Maybe I'm supposed to just be
30:10
knitting at home. Or you could have gone to see
30:13
the Damned because I found the mosh pit very interesting at
30:16
that because obviously it's the Damned 50th anniversary tour.
30:18
All of the Damned are like in their 70s.
30:20
And I was easily one of the youngest people there and, you
30:25
know, my husband then on the, like, the younger side of the
30:27
people there. And the mosh pit was like guys
30:30
in their 50s and 60s, you know, crowd surfing, which, yeah,
30:35
absolutely. Quite hilarious.
30:36
And I was like, I couldn't help but wonder, do they go to gigs a
30:39
lot or is this a special one? And they've come back to relive
30:41
their do some, do some crowd surfing.
30:43
Because you know. They're all really popular,
30:45
aren't they? I was never a fan, I'm afraid.
30:47
Sorry to upset your husband. I'm not a fan of Damned, but
30:50
yeah, it's the. But I do know 6 Music dads is
30:53
what they're called, spending a huge amount of money and when
30:56
you go to gigs, it's full of 6 Music dads.
30:58
They're the people keeping it music.
31:02
Pay the absurd amount that festival tickets cost these
31:04
days, right? So we fix that.
31:06
Yeah, 40 year olds go to whatever festivals you like.
31:09
But, well, we know that, don't we?
31:10
Just do what you like and when we do.
31:12
Do anyway, I'm not going to be told.
31:14
Just do what you like. Why don't?
31:16
Well, I'm not going to be told what to do by a 16 year old.
31:19
Like I've got enough of that going on in my house.
31:22
I'm not having that like across my entire life.
31:24
Thank you very much. You're going to rename the
31:25
podcast? Rename the podcast.
31:27
Oh, just do what you like. Just do what you like.
31:35
OK, So very appropriately, considering the name of the
31:37
podcast, we're going to talk about TFI Friday, which I was
31:40
reliably informed by the Internet stands for.
31:42
Thank. For it's Friday right OK because
31:46
we were so good like we were so good like that in the 90s we
31:48
never we never used F words we. Don't even know what else it
31:52
could stand for. So it's coming back this well
31:55
today, I guess if you're listening to this when it comes
31:57
out or it came back last Friday if you're listening to it
32:00
another time. So they announced that they
32:02
required 6 episodes of TFI Friday Unplugged, which was
32:06
going out on YouTube, Virgin Radios YouTube channel, because
32:09
Chris Evans got a show on Virgin Radio, I believe.
32:13
I don't really listen to him. So the first episode's going out
32:15
11:00 PM this Friday. The original was at 6:00 PM on
32:18
Fridays. Chris Evans is hosting it.
32:20
He was 29, I think when he put hosted the original.
32:23
He's now 60. So yes, Channel 4 is saying it's
32:26
bought it home, back to its spiritual home.
32:29
They've got OK, I have a list of guests, Sam Ryder, Freya Goshal,
32:33
Jack Savoretti, Sindhu V, Gemma Arterton, good name Peter
32:37
Capaldi and Chris Jumbo. Now I know three or four of
32:40
those people, I think it's been described as a filmed podcast
32:45
style show. So they're kind of admitting
32:47
that podcasts have maybe filled that gap that TFI Friday used to
32:52
fill. So if anybody has no idea what
32:56
TFI Friday was back in the day, because I do know that we do
33:00
have some people that are young UNS that listen to this.
33:04
Oh, hello, right. Hi, Libby.
33:09
So it ran on Channel 4 from 9th of February 1996 up until 2000.
33:15
The last series had like wasn't presented by Chris Evans.
33:19
They had like guest guest presenters in and it was kind of
33:23
the, the IT was very zeitgeisty in the world of things like the
33:29
word and what's that other one? Chaotic.
33:34
I would say yes. It was, it was chaotic late 90s
33:38
TV. It kind of epitomized that lad
33:40
and laddet culture. It was quite a definitive TV
33:44
show. And I can remember like watching
33:46
it every Friday. I think peak viewers, it was
33:48
like 2.2 million, which is a lot.
33:50
I mean, I, I don't know because TV doesn't get that many viewers
33:53
these days, does it? But it was.
33:55
Definitely, it was a lot, particularly because it was like
33:57
on at six, 7:00 on a Friday when the people were going out,
34:00
weren't they so kind of like people?
34:02
And it was Channel 4 as well, so it wasn't like the BBC 8:00
34:06
where it would have been, you know, bigger.
34:07
So there was basically filmed in a bar and I think it held about
34:11
30 people. And like 350,000 people would
34:14
apply for tickets. Getting in the bar at TFI Friday
34:16
was like the thing. And then they would go down the
34:18
stairs and they did this thing with the camera would like
34:20
follow you. And then they would have a big
34:21
band on. So they had bands like Blur,
34:24
Oasis. Pulp.
34:26
Bjork, David Bowie, Spice Girls, Anyone Who was anyone played on
34:30
TFI Friday and they had loads of famous segments on it as well.
34:33
I mean this is one of the things about it coming back.
34:35
I don't know what they're going to do if they're just going to
34:37
do it as a talk style show, but things like freak or unique fat
34:41
look alikes ugly. But Can you imagine that being
34:43
on now? No though that's like and 6:00
34:46
PM meant they couldn't swear. Sean Ryder was banned for years
34:49
because because funnily enough he swore cannot control his
34:53
tongue. But what I didn't realise was
34:55
they have actually tried to bring it back a few times in the
34:57
past. Apparently they bought it back
34:59
as OFI Sunday. I don't know what the OFI was
35:04
supposed to be. So that was quickly axed in
35:06
2005. In 2015 they had a one off
35:10
anniversary special they had which was canned after one
35:13
season and then it's come back now again the other ten years
35:16
later. How do we think it's going to
35:19
go? Did you watch the original?
35:21
Yeah, of course I did. Yeah, I mean, we all did, didn't
35:24
we? I think it obviously, I talk a
35:28
lot about nostalgia on my feed on Instagram and stuff.
35:31
And you know, we do all there's a pattern, you know, when times
35:35
are good, we don't look back and when times is shockingly bad,
35:39
which I could say it is right now in the world, we look back.
35:43
So we get all nostalgic to the good old days.
35:46
And obviously to young people, particularly the 90s is like my
35:51
son's like, oh, I wish I was alive in the 90s, you know, like
35:53
it was like this, the pinnacle. And I think also people are my
35:57
age, our age again, we think, oh, the 90s, it was before the
36:00
Internet really kicked off and it was like we were so much Bria
36:04
and it was great and music was great.
36:06
And so there's that this kind of nostalgic vibe going on in our
36:11
minds. But I mean, I've made videos
36:14
sharing some of the things that were said, you know, weighing
36:17
Jerry Halliwell and they're weighing Victoria Beckman
36:20
comparing their weights after they'd had babies.
36:22
And like, it was very of the time.
36:25
It was very sexist. It was very, you know, it was
36:29
life was very different then. And and in a way, that kind of
36:34
stuff is kind of what made. It because it was edgy.
36:38
And it was chaotic and you didn't know what was going to
36:40
happen. And did you see that?
36:41
And Oh my God, did you see her on there?
36:43
And it was all like that. Whereas now we look back to that
36:47
and go, that was dreadful. But at the time it was massive.
36:50
But that's kind of what made it in my eyes.
36:53
So it's kind of like, what's it going to be like now?
36:56
Because they can't do freak or unique to discuss somebody that
37:02
I whatever. I can't even really remember.
37:04
Was it somebody who sort of visibility or something the.
37:06
One where they you could do like weird things if they had like a
37:10
weird skill like wiggling their eyeballs or something and you
37:13
wouldn't know with that one. Yeah, you wouldn't weigh
37:15
somebody and you wouldn't, you know, like so you wouldn't do
37:18
that now. And I think that's, yeah, that.
37:20
Goes back to like kind of the cancel culture thing, doesn't
37:22
it? Like you, you can't.
37:24
You can't. There's because that risk now,
37:26
like, you just go like a tiny little bit too far and then
37:29
that's it. Yeah, it will be all over for
37:32
you. So how do you, how do you manage
37:34
a show like that? I mean, we can see that the
37:38
nostalgia thing is obviously massive.
37:41
So apparently not 97% of viewers are interested in watching
37:45
content released more than 10 years ago.
37:47
That seems like a random statistic, but it's on my notes.
37:50
But Malcolm in the Middle has been revived.
37:53
Scrubs as well. Friends obviously had quite a
37:56
big revival as well. So there is a lot of that kind
37:59
of noise television coming back. That revive in it has a format.
38:03
Can you revive it as a format without bringing back the values
38:07
and still have that kind of vibe?
38:11
If they, I mean, they won't bring back the you know, the
38:15
outrageous, let's say it was it was kind of outrageous at the
38:18
time, but that's why we liked it.
38:19
You know, like it was like, as I said, without that.
38:25
Is it just as you said, like a talk show?
38:27
And actually, if it's Chris Evans going chatting to Lewis
38:31
Capaldi, did you say, or Peter Cloudy, Lewis Peter or Peter
38:35
Capaldi, you know, talking to him.
38:37
And then, you know, let's let's now wing over to the stage and I
38:41
don't know, reef laying because, you know, it's 1999, they're
38:45
still around. Is it, is it really that
38:48
different from Graham Norton? No, it's going to be
38:52
interesting. Yeah, like is he going to bring
38:54
back that? So one of the things I wanted to
38:56
talk about from it is that kind of mid 90s was a huge part of
38:59
lad culture as well. So there was lad culture and
39:03
then we got laddet culture, which was that mid 90s feminism,
39:06
the girly show I used to love. Sarah Cox said that she hated
39:08
the word laddet because it had a lad in it.
39:10
Like we were trying to like copy the boys.
39:12
I feel like there was a kind of element of that to Laddet
39:16
culture that proving that we weren't delicate little flowers
39:20
and try and do and drinking the pints, you know, that kind of
39:24
thing. So there was that element of
39:26
doing what the boys do in it. Loaded magazine, Fate Chair,
39:33
Britannia thing all around the mid 90s.
39:36
And lad culture was a really big thing about which could be it
39:40
was kind of presented as very fun and like, yeah, boys will be
39:43
boys, but it could be very nasty around its edges.
39:48
And then women got themselves involved in that.
39:51
Denise went out and Zoe Ball, Sarah Cox.
39:54
Yeah. Still in the public eye now, a
39:56
lot of them. So at the time, it was very much
39:58
framed as part of like that girl power feminism kind of thing.
40:01
I mean, I know that I thought I kind of identified a bit with
40:05
Vladet culture, I guess was it something that you're a little
40:09
bit older than me, so maybe you were too sensitive.
40:11
Not really. But also I wasn't into Brit pop,
40:16
so obviously it was intrinsically linked to Brit pop
40:20
football. EUR 96.
40:22
I mean, I made a reel the other day about 96.
40:24
It was a kind of key year. I was already married by then.
40:28
In my doomed first marriage, I was very much an American grunge
40:33
girl, so Brit pop. I was not into Oasis.
40:36
I was not into Blur. I was not into any of it.
40:38
So it slightly passed me by. I do remember though, like wow,
40:44
you know, woman has gone out. I remember Zoe Ball.
40:48
It was a whole she has talked about this, hasn't she around?
40:51
She went out all weekend and the press, she was on the front page
40:54
of all like the tabloids because she had like a bottle of JD in
40:57
her hands or something. And she'd just come home from a,
41:01
a, you know, a weekend party. And I remember thinking, and I
41:04
don't remember it as Girl power. I remember it as well.
41:08
You know, I mean, Courtney Love was doing way worse, if you know
41:11
what I mean. As in we're not doing.
41:15
It's almost like there was this shock factor coming from the
41:18
tabloids that, you know, we're not a drug, alcohol in public.
41:24
I think though, that that was that was part of where the what
41:28
felt at the time like a bit of a feminist edge came in, though.
41:31
It was that shock factor because, yeah, when boys do it,
41:34
it's all right. They can be, They can sleep
41:36
around and binge drink and stuff.
41:37
It's fine. When women do it, they end up
41:39
pictures of them in the gutter on the Daily Mail front page
41:42
going, it's disgusting. Look how women behave.
41:45
So there was you felt like there was a bit of rebellion behind it
41:48
that you would like pushing back against the things that you were
41:50
supposed to do. In retrospect, you just kind of
41:53
go, oh, just because boys are stupid, does that mean we have
41:56
to be fucking stupid as well? Excuse my language, but at the
41:59
time it did feel like that kind of little bit of a pushback to
42:02
doing those things. You, you, you see it.
42:05
There's like, there's always the.
42:07
Who are the? Rebellious girls.
42:08
Now do we think you have like the Gibson girls in the night
42:12
and then the flappers he boppers and then like, I don't know,
42:16
like the hippies, I guess, And laddets.
42:18
What's our what's it? Has it got a name now?
42:20
Rat. It's Charlie XCX.
42:22
The Brat. It's Brat.
42:24
OK? I mean, the Brat summer is over
42:25
officially because she set fire to it last year on stage.
42:29
Brat summer over. But it's it's messy, the
42:32
messiness, smudged eyeliner, going out, taking drugs,
42:37
partying all night, wearing what you like literally as in I'm not
42:42
going to conform. You know it.
42:43
I think it's it's the brat culture is now.
42:46
I would say obviously we've moved on from the word brat, but
42:49
but brat. I think what's interesting
42:52
though, is what you said, you said the word retrospect.
42:55
Retrospectively, you know, I think there's a lot of call for
42:59
things to be cancelled because retrospectively, you know, in
43:03
retrospect, then it's not great, you know, let people, for
43:06
example, things that spring to my mind straight away and James
43:09
Bond, because you know, young people, gents are like, that's a
43:13
bit rapey, quote UN quote, where we just grew up with he just
43:18
went, you know, you're my woman. And then and, you know, and then
43:20
took a you know, she didn't have a choice type of thing.
43:23
I think what else was was gone. Something else was was in my
43:26
mind and it's gone. Oh, friends.
43:27
I know lots of talk about friends gay.
43:30
You know, they were kind of were they homophobic?
43:33
But then they had the first lesbian wedding ever on
43:36
television and Chandler's dad was trans.
43:40
So, you know, in some ways they were forward thinking.
43:43
But then, you know, some of the there was no it was very it was
43:45
very white casts. There's lots of you know, so
43:48
there's lots of people going friends back Friends Monica.
43:51
Yeah, but it's, you know, Sat Monica, fat outfit, you know,
43:54
and all and all that kind of stuff.
43:55
And even I, I read in the paper, not in the paper.
44:00
The paper. I don't read the paper.
44:01
Instagram. It's the paper, isn't it?
44:04
On Instagram, I read calls for like, Chris Moyles to be
44:09
cancelled because of some of the stuff he said in the 90s.
44:14
And actually, you know, things like the countdown to Charlotte
44:17
Church turning 16 because she'd be legal.
44:20
And then the press picked up on that.
44:22
And she's since talked about how that made her feel and how it
44:25
was awful. But I think he, Chris Moyles,
44:27
really does kind of epitomize, I think that is lad culture.
44:33
But in retrospect, we go, God, that's so awful.
44:37
But when we were there at the time, it was really, really
44:41
normal. But does that make it right?
44:43
Yeah, it's that thing. What you feel like you should be
44:45
able to maybe consume this kind of media, but looking at it
44:49
through a modern lens, you should be able to do that unless
44:53
it's like, you know, ridiculously, what was it?
44:55
I think, you know, if you watch something like Rising damp, you
44:58
feel like it meant well in the racism context.
45:01
And whereas if maybe you watch something like, I don't know,
45:04
you know, of Hot Mom, you feel like maybe it didn't so much and
45:07
it was just nasty. So I feel like there is there's
45:10
kind of some which some media, which isn't the way we would
45:13
necessarily have done it now, but meant well and other stuff
45:17
which was just unpleasant. But the question is, which
45:20
bucket does the TFI Friday format fall into?
45:23
Because I don't think it did meant well, meant well.
45:26
Meanwhile, I didn't think it was trying to kind of even a playing
45:30
field or draw attention to issues in any way.
45:34
I think it was just self indulgence, deliberate shock
45:37
value. And do we want, do we want that
45:40
back? Do we do we need it?
45:42
Do we need it now? I mean, it feels like at the
45:44
time it was a real response to to mainstream media, which was
45:48
all we had, always being so curated and polished.
45:52
But we have social media now. Anyone can put stuff out there.
45:55
And I know over the last few years that's then become a bit
45:57
more curated and polished and there's been a bit of a pushback
46:00
on that. So does that mean we need TFI
46:02
Friday back? Yeah.
46:05
Or should we all just start posting pictures of our?
46:06
Dinner on Instagram again and who's going to watch it anyway?
46:09
Because if Gen. ZS who are consuming a lot of
46:13
the popular cultural stuff if it's brought back in its in its
46:16
original form, it won't be in its original form.
46:18
But you know even even slightly they're going to be like, what
46:21
is this? I mean, they, you know, they
46:23
can't even cope with friends and, and think, you know, sort
46:25
of so you know, so therefore is it going to be aimed at us?
46:30
I mean, I'm not watching television at 11:00 at night.
46:32
So what is the point of putting on television?
46:34
You might as well leave now so you can watch it at 11:00 in the
46:36
morning the next day. I know.
46:37
But then you might as well then leave it on as a podcast and
46:40
leave it on. Who's watching live telly?
46:42
No, I know. But then you might as well leave
46:43
it on YouTube then. So it's kind of like the
46:45
liveness. The liveness, and that's a word
46:48
was kind of part of it, wasn't it?
46:50
Of course that happened. All the chaos, You know what?
46:53
Was going to happen, was it going to be?
46:54
I mean, I don't know if there if this is going out live now or I
46:57
actually didn't check that, but yeah, what's the point?
47:00
I mean, no one who watched it originally wants to stay up and
47:03
watch it at 11:00 on a Friday night, right?
47:05
That's ridiculous. And the people that weren't
47:06
there at the first time around don't really want to watch it
47:09
now unless it's, you know, so I imagine it's going to end up
47:11
like loads of clips and everyone's going to watch the
47:14
clips on social media and take them out of context and decide
47:16
that they hate people. That'll work.
47:17
No, that's true. So what?
47:19
Go on. There you go.
47:20
First I was going to ask what you were about to say, I think.
47:23
What would you? Bring back from the 90s.
47:25
I have a list I'm getting out my notebook.
47:28
I can't seem to turn off my binging on my on my on my
47:32
computer. So ignore the binging if you can
47:35
hear it. So I have a list, have 1234567
47:39
things I won't talk about more. Don't worry.
47:41
Number one, I would bring back landlines and that being the
47:44
only way we communicate the landline phone.
47:47
If it rings, you're busy, you don't pick it up.
47:49
And that infinite answer machine messages.
47:51
Love all that and bring that back.
47:53
Yeah, you are the answer. Machine messages that go hello.
47:59
Sorry, I'm not here at the moment people start talking
48:01
bring that back. I would bring back he's Gwen
48:04
Stefani because 2026 is she's pro-life, conservative,
48:10
religious, kind of she's like a different person.
48:13
So I bring back 90s Gwen Stefani.
48:16
I decided I'd bring back Reading Festival being alternative
48:19
because now it's like a pop fest and I think it needed, you know,
48:24
I saw L. Seven at Reading.
48:25
Amazing bands and it was alternative and now it's sort of
48:28
just about everything else. I would bring back buying music
48:32
and get rid of streaming music, but I'd make it affordable like
48:35
it used to be. You know, you whether it be like
48:38
going to see a band and it costing 7 lbs and you there was
48:42
no Ticketmaster, you know, you just went and bought a ticket
48:46
from a record shop. You bought a record from a
48:49
record shop. I'd bring back 3 universities
48:53
and in fact they gave you grants.
48:55
Yeah, I didn't get a grant. I bring back the High Street,
48:57
get rid of Internet shopping and this is my final one.
49:00
I'd bring back no judgement. Remember when you used to be
49:03
able to eat like eat a pop tart and nobody like judged you for
49:07
it? Do you know what I mean?
49:08
Like now? And the reason I say this is
49:11
last night we were at the station.
49:14
We need to get some tea to eat something before the gig.
49:17
My son wanted a McDonald's. I had a Happy Meal, sat eating
49:20
Happy Meal, and I thought if I posted this online, I would get
49:24
annihilated free and a Happy Meal because it's McDonald's and
49:30
it's unhealthy and it's high fat and it's this that you know,
49:33
like, you know that. Yeah, Yeah.
49:35
But when you could just eat a pop tart, a McDonald's, nobody
49:38
told you that you were going to die because of it and judge you
49:42
and cancel you. Yeah, I mean, I remember, I
49:45
remember when I used to looking, this is like the most old lady
49:49
cigarette in the world. I remember when I used to go out
49:52
on Friday night with a fiver and I'd buy a bottle of cheap ass
49:54
wine and 10 silk cup. I remember it was great.
49:59
And of course you earned less. To be fair, you know, things
50:02
were. I paid like £2.00 an hour for
50:04
some things but you know. But I could still afford to buy
50:07
records and go to gigs because they didn't cost £75 a ticket,
50:11
they cost £8 a ticket. But the high, so now I might
50:15
have spent the 75 lbs anyway because I want to get, I want to
50:18
get their fancied lounge tickets so that I don't have to talk to
50:20
people. What would you bring back?
50:22
Well, I've been thinking recently a lot about magazines.
50:26
Why don't you still love a magazine?
50:27
Like just 17 when I was not 17. I think we talked about that
50:31
before and there was a magazine in the mid 90s, mid to late 90s,
50:35
which was a bit on the lad outside called Minx.
50:39
Minx Magazine. I loved Minx magazine taught me
50:42
how to make hot Mars bar vodka. Minx magazine.
50:45
Very good. So I don't bring back magazines.
50:47
I actually went into a shop the other day and this is magazines.
50:49
Before you literally bought a magazine and it was like 70%
50:54
adverts as well, you know, where every other page was just like
50:57
fancy adverts, you know, ones when they actually had content
50:59
in them. But I went to a shop the other
51:01
day and so I might buy a magazine, you know, that might
51:03
be quite nice just to enjoy sitting on the sofa with a sack
51:05
of magazines. It was 10.
51:07
Pounds, yeah, I did that. When I go on holiday, I think,
51:10
oh, I'm going to buy a magazine and I buy like Gracia or Vogue
51:13
or something like a fashiony magazine.
51:16
And I think I bought grass here and it was like 9 lbs or
51:19
something and I was like 9 lbs. It's really.
51:21
And then there was nothing in it to read.
51:23
Like, yeah, I loved magazines. I mean, free flip flop on the
51:27
front. They used to give me free flip
51:28
flops every year. I do miss magazines and I miss,
51:32
but I missed the affordability of magazines.
51:34
Agreed. What else?
51:35
I was thinking ties into TFI Friday, but that appointment TV
51:39
thing, I used to, I used to quite like, I mean, I can
51:42
remember, you know, when if it was on, you had to watch it.
51:45
Yeah, you can watch it on a 5 minute delay or press pause.
51:48
You had to wait for the ad breaks to go and get a drink.
51:51
You know, you couldn't pause stuff.
51:52
There was something kind of cool about it.
51:54
I remember Wednesday nights when ER was on, I would like, I would
51:57
like have a bath and then I'd be like, Oh my God, it's starting
51:59
in a second. I can remember nearly falling
52:00
down the stairs once trying to get down for the beginning of ER
52:02
just because I needed to see like early naughties George
52:05
Clooney. Absolutely.
52:07
But then you then all talked about it as school or college or
52:11
work the next day because you all watched it.
52:13
So those kind of cultural moments, we all were in it
52:16
together, weren't we? And whether it's a song going to
52:20
number one or the, you know, the yesterday, yeah, the what
52:23
happened on EastEnders or whatever it was TFI Friday.
52:26
We all watched it and we all talked about it.
52:29
Whereas now we all just consume it in so many different ways or
52:34
don't even. And then but.
52:34
Then and also you just like share it with your friend
52:36
instantly and then you never never mention it again rather
52:39
than like talking about. I miss that.
52:41
Like it was a yeah, proper cultural moment thing to have
52:44
something happen on TV. I do miss that.
52:47
Well, more specifically, I mean, I would bring back 90s Body Shop
52:52
full stop. But definitely fuzzy Pete,
52:54
because I was a fuzzy Peach girl and those little tiny bath
52:57
pearls. Fuzzy Peach bath pearls, Yeah,
52:59
give me those. But they used to do a lipstick
53:01
in the 90s. Like it was like a multi Stielo
53:04
leak, cheeks, lips, everything. And it was.
53:06
Called Rosewood, I think. And it was a gorgeous, matte,
53:10
very nice lip colour. And I would, I would definitely
53:14
bring that back. I've always thought they were
53:15
very stupid for not bringing that back.
53:16
I did a reel on cosmetics on the 80s because I'm more of an 80s
53:22
Body Shop girl last Saturday actually, and they'd had
53:25
Japanese washing grains in there, the Kiwi lip balm, and
53:28
you know, they had the amount of people.
53:31
It's like bring back 80s or 90s Body Shop.
53:34
They had so many great iconic products.
53:38
But I don't know, I mean, obviously they've just brought
53:40
back Dewberry, haven't they? But I feel like they could bring
53:44
back just whole products, not just a fragrance.
53:48
It's, you know, they used to have like Tiger Balm, a little
53:51
pot of Tiger balm that used to put on when you had a headache.
53:54
They're blotting paper. And if they had it in the is
53:56
blotting. Paper I loved, Yeah.
53:58
Blotting paper, yeah. But, you know, yeah, I really
54:01
think they kind of didn't. They go bust fairly recently as
54:04
well for a bit. But Anita, yeah, sold it, didn't
54:11
they sell it to L'Oreal or Estee Lauder or whatever, which means,
54:14
and then loads of stuff changed. Yeah, which feels like very anti
54:19
the body shops ethos as well. Don't they test on animals
54:22
L'Oreal? Yeah.
54:26
But Body Shop, I think I said the High Street, just the High
54:29
Street in general, people don't shop.
54:32
What if I did actually read something again on the news
54:36
Instagram that Gen. ZS want the High Street back and
54:40
are actively shopping. So they are going to London or
54:42
to the cities to buy in person. They want that, which I think is
54:46
great. But I mean, my nearest shopping
54:49
centre is Milton Keynes and actually has a lot of shops in
54:51
Milton Keynes. But for young, young people,
54:54
there's like nowhere to buy clothes, you know, like we had,
54:58
whether it was 90s, it'd be Jane or, you know, Top Shop, you
55:03
know, we had all of the, we had so many clothes shops that you
55:09
could go on a Saturday and buy your fashion and have your
55:12
identity, you know, whatever kind of look you were going for.
55:15
Whereas now you go and they're either clothes for older people,
55:19
IE from a a cost perspective, you know, so it might be Reese
55:23
or Whistles or I mean Hobbs, you know, that's all there next.
55:27
But then there's Primark and there's sort of like not, I
55:29
mean, men has H&M and Zara, but there's not a lot, you know,
55:32
there was. We had so much choice on the
55:35
High Street. Yeah, I used, I did used.
55:37
I did used to love a satellite. I quite like online shopping on
55:40
the basis that what I don't miss now is changing rooms.
55:43
I feel like stop changing rooms have a whole different vibe once
55:47
you're over like 17 and going in with your friends and trying all
55:50
your clothes on and that just drives me insane.
55:53
But I do miss, he's Miss Selfridge, for instance, and
55:56
that kind of thing. I've still got a scare I had
55:58
from the 90s doesn't do up obviously.
56:01
But yeah, the High Street. I think Joe what very
56:04
specifically, I bring back small widths because we didn't need
56:08
Amazon, because we had Woolworths, because they had
56:10
everything in Woolworth. Yeah, but and I I suppose, isn't
56:13
that what Home Bargains is Now, I suppose I I do quite like Home
56:18
Bargains have. To say sorry, I, I, I do like AB
56:21
and M or Home Bargains. No, I have to say I do, I do
56:23
like them. That's that.
56:24
I saw a thing one that was like what you're going, oh, you're
56:27
going, you're going to B&M, what do you need?
56:28
And you go, I don't know, B&M will let me know.
56:31
Home gardens. Oh yeah, maybe similar, but
56:34
there's. Picking mix isn't the same.
56:37
Yeah, I just, I think life before the Internet and then
56:41
that makes again, it's that just being old or, you know, and not
56:44
nostalgic thing. But even my son, he's 18 and he
56:48
says one of the things if I went back to the 90s, why I wish I
56:51
was around was no phones. And and we it's so easy to go
56:56
all young people, you know, they've got no attention spans.
56:58
They're always on TikTok, you know, they consume all that, you
57:01
know everything online, how bad it is.
57:04
But there are people, young people out there going, I wish
57:08
I'd never had it. I wish it didn't exist.
57:12
I agree. I mean, I appreciate a lot of
57:14
it. I wouldn't have the job or the
57:15
life that I have now without it. I wouldn't have made some of the
57:18
connections I've made. We'd never have met Kate, no.
57:22
This podcast wouldn't exist. Get rid of the Internet.
57:25
God, yeah. We wouldn't have a podcast.
57:27
Yeah. There's all kinds of things that
57:29
I really do appreciate about the Internet, But the the fact that
57:33
it's become real life rather than a space that we escaped to,
57:38
I guess is it's a bit much. Yeah.
57:41
And I suppose when it first wanted to leave me alone now
57:44
when we had to dial in to the Internet, which obviously took
57:48
forever and that noise as it as it tried to connect, but you had
57:53
to do that to get. So maybe the issue isn't the
57:56
Internet, the Wi-Fi or broadband or whatever.
58:00
It is because we. We had to.
58:02
Go, you know, I'd get my laptop out, I'd plug in and Facebook
58:06
was around or whatever, you know, But I'd have to then log
58:08
on to Facebook and I'd have to go in and then I'd shut the
58:12
laptop. And then of course, I
58:13
disconnected from the Internet. Yeah, it wasn't there while you
58:17
were watching Telly. Yeah, I do.
58:21
Yeah, I agree. I definitely, I definitely agree
58:24
with that. It's that can't that kind of
58:25
fact that it's just constantly there.
58:27
I mean, I literally did a survey the other day that was like, how
58:29
many hours a week do you spend on the Internet?
58:31
And I was like, how many hours am I awake?
58:34
I know. Do you have an Apple Watch or
58:36
smart watch? See I bought 1 and within about
58:39
two weeks I was like get get rid of it and I sold it.
58:42
I was like this is the worst thing ever because I because I
58:47
don't need any more working alerts.
58:50
You know like my whole life is 1 big alert and then my wrist was
58:53
alerting me and I was just like I please like to stop.
58:56
So on that note, everybody turn off the Internet.
59:01
Now you've done the important bit, which is listening to us.
59:04
Turn off the Internet, Go to bed.
59:06
Everybody that is listening to this, leave us a comment and
59:09
tell us what would you bring back from the next?
59:15
What would you? Thank you for joining us for
59:17
another roundup of midlife chat, hot takes, and occasional
59:20
moaning. Well, quite a bit of moaning.
59:22
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59:44
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