Midlifing

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Simon is back from a weekend of hedge laying that turned out to be mostly a fight with brambles, and the two compare notes on the favours their past selves do, or fail to do, for their future selves. The main event is a New Zealand high school reunion WhatsApp group. A haka video turns into a bit of a pile-on against an absent former classmate, and Simon, who was himself bullied out of a school as a boy, asks whether anyone should be defined by who they were as a teenager. Lee would never consider going to a reunion, and makes the case for not looking back at all.

Mentioned

• Elon Musk – a passing joke about planting a data centre where the trees used to be; the name is unclear in the transcript
• Hedge laying – traditional method of cutting and bending trees along a hedge line to rebuild it; the weekend's task, which mostly became clearing bramble
• University Challenge – UK quiz show; a joking frame for asking whether the working week has been "won"
• Gremlins (1984 film) – used to describe a job that keeps multiplying; prompts an attempt to remember the rules about water and feeding after midnight
• The War of the Worlds – H. G. Wells's novel, and the 2005 Tom Cruise film; brought up for its aliens being killed by something small and ordinary (bacteria), which turns into a fart joke
• Coventry – setting for an imagined running blog by an office colleague about a farting centre director
• Haka – Māori challenge performed by a whole school to see off its final-year students; discussed as having become far more serious, skilled and culturally grounded in New Zealand schools over the last 40 years
• Māori culture – context for how the haka is now taught and performed in schools
• WhatsApp – the high school reunion group chat where the pile-on happens; also a PhD students' group chat proposed in a work meeting, which got groans

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at [email protected].

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The Midlifing logo is adapted from an original image by H.L.I.T: https://www.flickr.com/photos/29311691@N05/8571921679 (CC BY 2.0)

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Simon has been offered an MRI for his tinnitus and is a little too delighted about it, which leads to the confession that he finds medical tests oddly relaxing. Lee's sharp sense of smell, recently tested on a train beside four unwashed teenage boys, makes a brief appearance. From there the conversation moves through recreational shopping and a surprising number of pairs of jeans to the lines people draw around themselves, and where being principled ends and being stubborn begins.

Mentioned

• NHS (National Health Service) – UK health service; the source of an out-of-the-blue ENT appointment about tinnitus that ends in the offer of an MRI
• The Oscars – used as an analogy for a "not quite a hospital" clinic, like the lesser awards for the parts of the film industry nobody pays attention to, such as sound mixing
• Queen Elizabeth – evoked in the image of holding a handkerchief to the face on a train to block out the smell of four teenage boys
• Lisbon – a favourite city for its contrasting smells: rubbish bins in the summer heat, then jasmine round the corner, and jacaranda trees that smell lovely in spring and of piss for the rest of the summer
• Wagamama – restaurant chain; its menu suddenly becoming unreadable is the first sign of needing reading glasses in your mid-40s
• Dopamine Shop and Food Never Comes – recreational shopping sites that recreate the whole ritual of online shopping (searching, comparing reviews, checkout, tracking) without anything being bought or delivered; names as heard in the transcript
• YMC – clothing brand; a pair of their Deadbeat jeans in indigo denim, admired for the pin tuck
• ASOS – online retailer associated with fast fashion and micro-seasons; mentioned for the "ASOS haul", a YouTube genre in which people unpack large orders on camera

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at [email protected].

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The Midlifing logo is adapted from an original image by H.L.I.T: https://www.flickr.com/photos/29311691@N05/8571921679 (CC BY 2.0)

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A week of storms, one of which sent a tree into Bob's train, plus government advice to stockpile water, leaves Simon and Lee wondering whether embodied practice might be the last thing standing after AI. But the conversation keeps turning towards hope. Lee wakes up giddy despite the headlines, and Simon finds himself weeping at a stranger's goodbye at an Italian bus station. That leads to a question about what tears actually do, and who they are for.

Mentioned

• Wes Streeting – UK government minister; cited for the advice that households keep three litres of water per person per day for at least three days, as national preparedness against storms, cyber attacks and war
• Sting – musician; a friend's observation in the 1990s about how relentlessly his songs rhyme comes up during a riff on poets and rhyming
• Roxanne (The Police) – Sting song briefly sung as an example of the rhyming
• Fields of Gold – Sting song; mentioned in passing as later Sting
• RoboCop – the line "Dead or alive, you're coming with me" quoted during a riff on robots going wrong
• Hitler's bunker – invoked as the image of end-of-the-world giddiness, which the optimism discussed here is not
• Flipboard – news aggregator where a story about a 14-year-old boy attacked in the street prompts a reflection on how media report cruelty but not everyday kindness
• Riverford Organic Farmers – Devon veg box company; its founder's weekly letter to customers made the same point about the generosity of ordinary people
• Guy Singh-Watson – Riverford founder and author of the weekly letter; his brother Ben is also mentioned
• Sassari – a bus station on the way to the airport, where a family's tearful goodbye prompts thoughts on compassion and empathy
• J. L. Austin – philosopher whose idea of the performative (saying as doing, as in a promise or a wedding vow) is used to think about tears as something that does something, and about the need for grief to be witnessed
• Steve Irwin and Robert Irwin – the late "Crocodile Hunter" and his son, recently seen on The Graham Norton Show; leads into the question of where "crocodile tears" comes from
• The Graham Norton Show – BBC chat show where Robert Irwin appeared
• Devon – where a nephew photographed a front door on the street
• Sky burial – funerary practice of leaving a body on a mountaintop to be picked clean by vultures and the weather; offered as a closing curiosity
• Primrose Hill – London hill jokingly proposed as the UK's nearest equivalent to a sky burial mountain

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at [email protected].

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The Midlifing logo is adapted from an original image by H.L.I.T: https://www.flickr.com/photos/29311691@N05/8571921679 (CC BY 2.0)

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A review of wired headphones, sold out to nostalgic teenagers, sets Simon wondering why some objects turn his head long after he's stopped needing them. Simon and Lee compare their weaknesses – hi-fi on one side, trousers and coats spread across two countries on the other – and trace how money, desire and the discipline of saving up have shaped what they covet since their teens.

Mentioned

• Bose – audio brand whose new wired headphones prompt the opening conversation; sold out because younger buyers now want wired headphones again
• The Incredible Hulk / Bruce Banner – Marvel character; the image of a Hulk-style trouser split prompts a detour through the actors who played him
• Eric Bana – Australian actor who played the Hulk in Hulk (2003); misremembered as "Eric Banner"
• Edward Norton – played the Hulk in The Incredible Hulk (2008)
• Mark Ruffalo – plays the Hulk in the Marvel Avengers films
• Universal Works – British clothing brand; a light grey cotton-linen pair of trousers that turns out to belong in Lisbon
• Lisbon – one of two homes; clothes bought in one place often turn out to be for the other
• Midlifing episode 3 – an early episode extolling the virtues of a coat, which still fits perfectly
• Sony Walkman – first piece of sound gear, the start of a lifelong pull towards hi-fi
• Nirvana – grunge band; thanked for a 90s look of oversized, ripped and thrifted clothes that suited a student budget
• Patrick Cox – shoe designer; emblem of the smarter late-90s UK look that was out of reach on an actor's wages
• Firetrap – UK clothing brand, part of the same late-90s look
• Knox College – halls of residence during the first year at university, where second-years in a shared "double" had an enviable stereo
• HMV, Lambton Quay, Wellington – record shop where a job came from walking in and asking, with an interview on the spot
• Karori – Wellington suburb; washing dishes at a restaurant there, with a late-night bike ride home
• Rotel – hi-fi brand; the amplifier, tape deck, record player and speakers saved for by working two jobs
• Isto – Lisbon clothing brand with fully traceable production data; source of a perfectly fitting jacket that was tried on for days and not bought
• Sardinia – region of Italy with a similar well-heeled look to the Lisbon man in chinos, loafers and a blazer
• Palantir – data analytics company whose CEO reported AI figures taking up smoking, confident AI will cure cancer

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at [email protected].

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The Midlifing logo is adapted from an original image by H.L.I.T: https://www.flickr.com/photos/29311691@N05/8571921679 (CC BY 2.0)

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Simon's secondhand iPhone and Lee's flirtation with a folding one get things going, but the episode turns on a last-minute invitation to Lisbon Fashion Week that Lee almost turned down over pizza. Saying yes, he points out, isn't a marriage, because you can always leave. That leads them to ask who actually gets to be that open: the socially anxious, parents on pick-up duty, anyone whose evening isn't already their own.

Mentioned

• iPhone 13 Pro – the secondhand phone the episode is recorded on; the discovery that its speakers sit at the top opens the conversation
• The Luddites – 19th-century textile workers who smashed machinery; prompted by the question of when an early adopter turns Luddite, followed by a brief and uncertain detour into cotton presses and weaving
• Apple Watch and iPad – recalled as examples of early adoption, including an iPad snatched by a passing cyclist
• iPhone X – the last model bought new on release, before a switch to secondhand phones over the cost of keeping up and the environmental impact of rare earth materials
• Kodak – shorthand for a point-and-shoot approach to cameras: interested in images, not in how they're made
• iPhone Duo – a phone that unfolds into a screen for watching television on trains and planes; being considered, but only after a couple of months of reviews
• Leaning Tower of Pisa – punchline to "leaning is not the same as falling"
• ChatGPT virtual try-on – feature for trying on clothes digitally; set as homework for the coming week
• Google wardrobe – Google's equivalent clothes try-on service; reportedly looks like a face pasted onto a model's body
• Lisbon Fashion Week – the event a last-minute invitation led to, which became an example of being open to saying yes
• Aperol spritz – being drunk at the pizzeria when the invitation arrived (transcript reads "April spritz")
• Ammo – a local Lisbon pizzeria run by Luciano from Naples, serving 24-hour sourdough pizza
• Rick Owens – American fashion designer known for dark, avant-garde clothing; a pair of his shorts, bought in a charity shop, was worn to the fashion event
• Michèle Lamy – octogenarian fashion icon and Rick Owens's wife and collaborator
• Six degrees of separation – used to describe following the interesting people who turn up in a well-connected friend's wake
• Shayo by Nnamdi – a new Nigerian slow-fashion label just launched in Lisbon, working with young Nigerian designers; met outside the event, leading to some accidental networking
• Waiter press – kettlebell exercise, held overhead like a waiter's tray, recommended for the newly delivered 16 kg kettlebell

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at [email protected].

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The Midlifing logo is adapted from an original image by H.L.I.T: https://www.flickr.com/photos/29311691@N05/8571921679 (CC BY 2.0)

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Lee reveals that giving a colleague a lift home exposed a further, unsuspected layer of "unfiltered Lee", which prompts Simon to suggest a set of age-rated cardboard signs to hang around his neck. Simon finds real pleasure in treating a knotty work situation as a giant puzzle made of human pieces. He also reports that this week's raid on the office chocolate cupboard turned up only waxy, orange-foiled Halloween balls. Then Simon brings in a line from Annie Duke about crediting ourselves for good luck and blaming bad luck, which leads them to effort, privilege, and what large language models might be doing to a young person's sense of agency.

Mentioned

• Microsoft Teams – the platform for a work meeting earlier in the week, which opened with a podcast-style countdown out of pure habit
• Cher – "If I Could Turn Back Time" quoted after realising 1930 is nearly a century ago, not 60 or 70 years
• 1930s BBC nativity play broadcast – a technically ambitious live broadcast from near the tip of Cornwall, now being re-performed as an immersive piece in a church by a local theatre company with research centre support; the on-air bulb blew mid-broadcast and the cast carried on regardless
• Forced Entertainment – Sheffield-based experimental theatre company; the idea of wearing cardboard signs around the neck is called "very early Forced Entertainment"
• Falmouth University – cited as the third biggest employer in Cornwall, in a discussion of universities being too important locally to fail (transcribed as "foundless")
• Marlene Dietrich – conjured as the image of the old-time nightclub where "vamping" (filling time on stage) might come from
• Coventry University – domain for an imagined "quality control" email address to complain about the downgrade in stolen office chocolates
• Annie Duke, How to Decide – book on decision-making; its line about blaming bad luck for bad outcomes while crediting ourselves for good ones prompts a conversation about effort, luck and agency at different stages of life
• Large language models – discussed as a "seismic" wildcard for students' sense of agency, compared with older forms of privilege

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at [email protected].

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The Midlifing logo is adapted from an original image by H.L.I.T: https://www.flickr.com/photos/29311691@N05/8571921679 (CC BY 2.0)

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Lee arrives squinting at his phone, his many pairs of reading glasses having all washed up in one place, out of reach. After a detour through Reacher and its spin-off Neagley, Lee brings in an Alabama senator warning that airline pilots may secretly be furries, and Simon questions the maths. From there it's a stolen mint chocolate that turns out to be Simon's Proustian madeleine, a private tapestry tour at the V&A, a defence of experts, and an imagined Akram Khan statue that spins at the press of a button.

Mentioned

• Reacher (TV series) – the latest season is being watched; a friend texted to say they cried at the end
• Neagley (TV series) – Reacher spin-off, watched over the weekend and rated highly; the character was always a fascinating one in the books too
• Maria Sten – actor who plays Neagley in both shows; her name is only half-remembered in the episode
• Alan Ritchson – plays Reacher; noticeably smaller in season one than in season four
• Tommy Tuberville – Republican senator from Alabama; a press-conference clip in which he warns that aviation workers, pilots included, may be furries with a "deranged fetish"
• Furries – community of people who dress as cartoon animals, with a sexual and a non-sexual "stripe"
• Adidas – brand invoked in a joke about the two "stripes" of furries
• Mickey Mouse and Pluto – examples of the kind of cartoon animal furries dress as
• Pup play – mentioned as distinct from being a furry
• Dungeons & Dragons – floated as a niche hobby probably more common than being a furry
• YouTube – its new ads that shrink the video, even during a yoga session
• Marcel Proust – the madeleine, as the model for a mint chocolate that triggers memories of after-dinner mints at grandparents'
• The Meaning of Life (Monty Python) – the "wafer-thin" mint, alluded to and then dropped
• Elizabeth Shaw – after-dinner mint brand with an "interesting range"
• Bendicks Bittermints – the "bitter mint" style of after-dinner mint
• V&A – two days of meetings with access-all-areas tours of V&A East Storehouse, V&A East and South Kensington; Young V&A also mentioned
• David Bowie Centre, V&A East Storehouse – a room visited on the tour
• Boris Johnson and David Cameron – each suggested as the source of the anti-experts line (the "had enough of experts" remark is usually credited to Michael Gove)
• Dominic Cummings – "drove to Durham"; his name can't be recalled in the episode
• Wayne McGregor – choreographer, cited as the rare choreographer with money because of his work for ABBA
• ABBA – ABBA Voyage, via Wayne McGregor
• Akram Khan – choreographer with a large installation at V&A East, which prompts the joke about an "Angry Akram" statue
• Michael Jackson statue on the Thames – the giant statue floated down the river to promote HIStory in 1995, used for comparison

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at [email protected].

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The Midlifing logo is adapted from an original image by H.L.I.T: https://www.flickr.com/photos/29311691@N05/8571921679 (CC BY 2.0)

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Simon opens with a simple question for Lee: what, exactly, is the attraction of right-wing extremism? Lee comes at it sideways, through Britpop. He admits the off-stage rudeness of Blur and Oasis in the late 90s put him off their music entirely (Tori Amos, at least, seemed nice), and wonders whether the far right runs on a capacity for forgiveness he simply lacks. From there it's Question Time, another Reform MP on the panel, and a view from Sassari on nostalgia as the engine of it all.

Mentioned

• Igor x Moreno – choreographic duo whose show was seen the night before recording; described as almost the only choreographers Simon goes to see
• Andrew Tate – cited as where a "gateway" figure can eventually lead
• Britpop – 1990s UK music scene, framed as two factions with a bridge between them
• Blur – the art-school side of Britpop; rude off-stage behaviour made their music impossible to enjoy at the time
• Oasis – the working-class side of Britpop; same objection, same result
• Pulp – the band that bridged the two camps, "the one ring that binds them both"
• The Lord of the Rings – source of the "one ring" riff on Pulp
• VHS vs Betamax – format-war analogy for the Blur/Oasis rivalry
• Tori Amos – the alternative listening of the time: angry and spiky, but critiquing misogyny; a clip of "Winter" is played
• Israel – example of a topic on which a podcaster's view gets set aside while the rest is still valued
• "Be curious, not judgmental" – maxim recalled from the show's early days, and from Ted Lasso
• Question Time (BBC) – televised political debate show touring the UK; the new season again features a Reform MP on the panel
• Any Questions? (BBC Radio 4) – the radio show Question Time's format derives from
• Reform UK – far-right party; discussed in terms of platforming, normalisation and nostalgia
• Andy Burnham – referred to as the new Prime Minister; the "Burnham bounce" is credited with Reform's drop in support
• Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland – devolution, and what it might mean to be left living in England
• Sassari – city in Sardinia; a vantage point on immigration, visible change and resistance to it in Italy

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at [email protected].

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The Midlifing logo is adapted from an original image by H.L.I.T: https://www.flickr.com/photos/29311691@N05/8571921679 (CC BY 2.0)

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Simon is packing for a work trip to Sardinia via Venice that may or may not still be above water, while Lee is nursing a resurrected three-week-old voicemail from his own iPad and marvelling at a £2000 folding phone. A friend's line from her work as a couples therapist – point the finger at yourself a little more – tips them into their oldest shared material: Simon's mother's temper, recorded in her own diaries, against the careful, unbreakable Danish teak table that survived Lee's parents' house intact.

Mentioned

• Venice – mentioned regarding an upcoming work trip, with a wry aside about whether it's still above water
• Sardinia – ferry destination for the same trip
• Apple Duo – newly launched foldable Apple phone; its price becomes a running joke about "awesome power" gadgets
• Austin Powers – referenced via the pinky-to-mouth gesture from the Dr. Evil "one million dollars" bit
• Anthropic / Claude – AI company and assistant, referenced in a quick pun ("Miss Anthropic's Claude")
• BBC – broadcaster of an interview in which an AI researcher is asked to put a percentage on the chance AI causes human extinction
• Terminator – cited as the obvious cultural reference point that should have made the AI-extinction answer unsurprising
• Doctor Una / "Couples Therapy" (HBO) – a couples therapist with an HBO show of the same format, clipped for TikTok and Instagram; her line to "point that finger at yourself" becomes the episode's central thread
• Mick Jagger – invoked humorously as the wrong kind of finger-pointing

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at [email protected].

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The Midlifing logo is adapted from an original image by H.L.I.T: https://www.flickr.com/photos/29311691@N05/8571921679 (CC BY 2.0)

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Simon has been sent his late mother's diaries and the courtship letters she exchanged with his father, and can't decide whether reading them is an act of care or an invasion. Lee counters with his own father's diary, thirty years running and started by a Disney Store Aladdin Diary, a purely functional record with no reflection in it whatsoever. Between a Lisbon vegan march and the looming stamp duty on Simon's new flat, the conversation ends where these things always end: an imaginary OnlyFans account, funded by house-moving labour.

Mentioned

• Aladdin Diary (Disney Store) – the Christmas gift that started an annual diary-giving tradition lasting three decades
• HMRC (His Majesty's Revenue and Customs) – the UK tax authority, discussed over stamp duty owed on (what is not really) a second home
• OnlyFans – floated, half-seriously, as a way to cover that stamp duty bill; also the platform an elderly former soap actress is said to use
• Patreon – considered and rejected in favour of OnlyFans
• Farrah Fawcett – actress and former Charlie's Angels star, recalled while trying to place the unnamed soap star's identity
• Charlie's Angels – TV series; referenced for Farrah Fawcett's short-lived role in it
• Ryan O'Neal – actor; Farrah Fawcett's longtime partner and Tatum O'Neal's father
• Tatum O'Neal – actress; discussed alongside her father and her relationship with John McEnroe
• John McEnroe – tennis player; mentioned as a former partner of Tatum O'Neal's, with whom she had children
• Paper Moon (1973) – film in which Ryan O'Neal and Tatum O'Neal starred together
• Tom Holland – actor; discussed via a video ranking celebrity physiques by how "natural" they appear, focused on whether his Spider-Man build is achieved without steroids

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at [email protected].

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The Midlifing logo is adapted from an original image by H.L.I.T: https://www.flickr.com/photos/29311691@N05/8571921679 (CC BY 2.0)