Am I Out of Touch?

This episode has explicit content

This week I tackle the death penalty, but through the paperwork rather than the politics. Why are states sourcing execution drugs from suppliers they won’t name? How did Tennessee’s attempted execution of Christa Pike go so wrong that the state had to stop, wait and explain itself? And why does the language around capital punishment (“carrying out the sentence”) sound like a parcel delivery? Both sides of the debate get a fair hearing, with three lines in the sand, three verdicts, and the argument that the big moral question and the paperwork question are really the same one. 

Send us Fan Mail

Support the show

If you enjoyed the episode, go to my website and access the back catalogue at https://amioutoftouch.buzzsprout.com

OR susbcribe https://bit.ly/4x7eilH

I look at the slow death of reliability, the service that used to just happen on time, in any weather, and has been replaced by vague windows and excuses. First, the post office: the early-morning, rain-or-shine promise has become “we’ll get to it eventually,” and the expectation has dropped to match. Next, the paper round, which has all but vanished. Restrictions are partly sensible, but the real problem is that nobody wants the job anymore. Last, the “someone will call between 8am and 6pm” callout window, which turns a whole working day into a hostage situation. The episode argues that all three come down to the same thing: companies and individuals would rather hedge a promise than be held to one. It closes with three verdicts and a call for stories from listeners.

Send us Fan Mail

Support the show

If you enjoyed the episode, go to my website and access the back catalogue at https://amioutoftouch.buzzsprout.com

OR susbcribe https://bit.ly/4x7eilH

 Taking aim at the circus that surrounds British sport. First, the footballer on Strictly Come Dancing and the “effort face” that comes with being out of their comfort zone, plus the professional partners who do the real work. Next, Manchester City’s 115 charges, a case so slow and complicated that it has become its own sport, with every result sitting under an asterisk nobody can yet read. Last, boxing’s move to the Gulf, where the money has opened up some great fights but raises the question of sportswashing and who the spectacle is really for. The episode closes with three verdicts.

Send us Fan Mail

Support the show

If you enjoyed the episode, go to my website and access the back catalogue at https://amioutoftouch.buzzsprout.com

OR susbcribe https://bit.ly/4x7eilH

 Three British guilt trips unpacked. Why water companies are lecturing you about hosepipes while losing billions of litres through leaking pipes. How an oil company invented the "personal carbon footprint" to convince you that recycling is your responsibility. And why we've become a nation of amateur enforcement officers, reporting our neighbours for the wrong bin day while actual utilities get a free pass. A sharp take on how guilt gets redirected away from those actually responsible. 

Send us Fan Mail

Support the show

If you enjoyed the episode, go to my website and access the back catalogue at https://amioutoftouch.buzzsprout.com

OR susbcribe https://bit.ly/4x7eilH

Effort is disappearing. But not evenly.

This week on Am I Out Of Touch!, we're looking at who quietly got permission to stop trying — and who never got that memo. We're tackling the great male dress-down and the double standard nobody talks about, why designer jeans are still just jeans no matter what they cost, and how "overdressed" became one of the most cutting insults in modern social life.

Because somewhere along the way, we decided that trying too hard was more embarrassing than not trying at all. And that's exactly backwards.

New episodes every week. Find us on Spotify, Apple, YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts. Leave a voice message at speakpipe.com/amioutoftouch.

Send us Fan Mail

Support the show

If you enjoyed the episode, go to my website and access the back catalogue at https://amioutoftouch.buzzsprout.com

OR susbcribe https://bit.ly/4x7eilH

Eleven minutes in a McDonald's car park, watching the clock go from 12:47 to 12:58, wondering how "fast" became a suggestion. This week I sit in the drive-thru and picks apart three things it's quietly ruined: the actual meaning of the word "fast," the speaker box that interrupts you before you've named a single item, and the imported American send-off that never got its papers sorted for British soil. Expect an app parking bay that betrays me, a family order that descends into simultaneous translation, and a hard-won case for "mind how you go" over "have a nice day." Verdict, as ever, included. 

Send us Fan Mail

Support the show

If you enjoyed the episode, go to my website and access the back catalogue at https://amioutoftouch.buzzsprout.com

OR susbcribe https://bit.ly/4x7eilH

Three ways your fellow commuters are broadcasting their private lives into shared public space, whether you consented or not.

Number one: loud music on public transport. Headphones exist, they're cheap, and yet every journey someone's got their phone speaker facing the carriage, playing the same 30-second clip on loop while an entire train quietly dies inside.

Number two: speaker phone calls. Full conversations, both sides, completely audible — relationship problems, salary negotiations, dental appointments  broadcast to sixty strangers who never asked to know any of it.

Number three: notification sounds. Ding, ping, buzz - every single alert, at maximum volume, because muting a phone apparently takes more effort than subjecting an entire carriage to it, all day, every day.

From a TikTok on full volume at 8:47am to the impossible social contract that says you can't ask someone to turn it down without becoming the villain — this episode is a plea for basic respect in shared space. Your convenience is not more important than everyone else's peace. There is a mute button. Use it.

Featuring a bonus mini-rant on loud conversations on trains — the most innocent-seeming, hardest-to-call-out form of audio pollution of them all.

Send us Fan Mail

Support the show

If you enjoyed the episode, go to my website and access the back catalogue at https://amioutoftouch.buzzsprout.com

OR susbcribe https://bit.ly/4x7eilH

 Indicators are apparently optional now, caravans have declared the middle lane a personality trait, and somewhere out there a man in a woolly hat has put his convertible roof down in October and is not backing out of it. This week Alison takes on the three unwritten rules of British driving that everyone's quietly ignoring - plus a modest proposal for solving the caravan problem once and for all. Is it me, or is everyone else losing the plot? 

Send us Fan Mail

Support the show

If you enjoyed the episode, go to my website and access the back catalogue at https://amioutoftouch.buzzsprout.com

OR susbcribe https://bit.ly/4x7eilH

A bonus rant on pumpkin spice: the flavour that broke free from lattes and infested literally every product category on earth.

Pumpkin spice lattes were fine. Seasonal. Normal. But then pumpkin spice stopped being a flavour and became a personality marker, proof that you "get" autumn, you're into the vibe, you're the pumpkin spice person.

And once it became a tribal requirement, the food industry descended. Now it's in donuts, cereal, yoghurt, cream cheese, butter, and  inexplicably - toothpaste. None of it tastes good. It all tastes like you're eating a scented candle that's gone off.

The worst part? You're not buying it because it tastes good. You're buying it to announce you're into Spooky Season. You have to own the crisps, the toothpaste, the cereal. You have to perform it. Corporations turned a latte flavour into proof of belonging to the right tribe.

Verdict: pumpkin spice lattes are fine. Pumpkin spice in a crisp? In toothpaste? "That's when it stops being a flavour and starts being a trap."

Send us Fan Mail

Support the show

If you enjoyed the episode, go to my website and access the back catalogue at https://amioutoftouch.buzzsprout.com

OR susbcribe https://bit.ly/4x7eilH

Retail's broken the calendar, Christmas starts in September, and autumn is now a personality trait you're required to perform. Three reasons the year has collapsed into a series of algorithmic performance requirements: American Halloween arriving months early, the entire retail calendar divorced from actual time, and "Spooky Season" as proof you're fun, seasonal, and doing Instagram right. From Tesco skeletons in August heat to pumpkin spice as tribal marker, we've let shops and algorithms hijack every holiday. By the time the actual date arrives, you're already exhausted. Pull-quote to graphic, then I'll create the visual. 

Send us Fan Mail

Support the show

If you enjoyed the episode, go to my website and access the back catalogue at https://amioutoftouch.buzzsprout.com

OR susbcribe https://bit.ly/4x7eilH