Midlifing

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Simon and Lee discuss many things including pizza, the D-Day landings and going dry. No one reads these show-notes so we will just leave it at that.

Some other details from the episode: getting things stuck in your teeth, Lee's naked ambition, remote dinner dates, kamaikaze blue tits, stressing syllables in language, how to say Alghero, Cagliari, Dittisham, Broughan, zero-alcohol beer, sleeping better without alcohol, Lee slacking off at work, whether or not the Falmouth VC listens to Midlifing, breakfast dessert, a piece of theoretical cake, the US Army and the D-Day landings (educated and inexperienced), PTS and CPTS, two slices of pizza, Simon being woken up by his neighbours having sex, Jefrey and Lee trying to figure out what the noise is (and looking like perverts), new pop-up pizza in Totnes, pizza is great, how deep pockets can be, types of handbags and just how much Lee knows about them. 

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 and Simon talk about the books that changed them and what it would take to join a revolution.

Some other details from the episode: Non-dual awareness, Lee reading during his Masters, Portugal's The Carnation Revolution (military coup), Eurovision song contest, Chega political party (Portugal), igniting a revolution to over-throw a Government, uprisings in the UK, what would it take for Lee to join a revolution, wealth and shifting the goalposts, putting our phones down, Civil War (the film), Annie B. Parson (The Choreography of Everyday Life) and a triangle between the reader, the writer and the world. 

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 and Simon go on a strange ride through some "visual culture" before talking about body dismorphia, Lee's natural form, exhibitionism and the things people do to switch off.

Some other details from the episode: Pitch Perfect (the original and classic), just sit outside and watch the waters rise (climate change), And While London Burns (audio performance), Bob eating chicken wings on Chicken Shop Date, the thing that's like Spartacus that isn't Spartacus, Gladiator, crying at the end, Lisa Gerrard, negging, Hot Ones youtube channel, Ridley Scott films, Denis Villeneuve liking Christopher Nolan films, Sting playing Austin Butler in the original Dune, Jake Gyllenhaal in Roadhouse remake, being too lean, dismorphia, how many kilograms in a stone, Lee's natural form, Hot Ones (not Hot Wings), Campari Spritz, the new Jurassic Park shot in Malta, Malta being Catholic and British, UK/US plugs, self-publicity, being an exhibitionist, wearing white underwear, nothing saying weekend like looking at a spreadsheet, distractions and switching off, being lost in thought and ruminating, Lee doubling down on his habits, books and Michael Crichton (gone too soon).

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Related links (and necessary corrections): 

• And While London Burns: http://www.ashdendirectory.org.uk/directoryView.asp?productionIdentifier=2006127_56260318
• Chicken Shop Date: https://www.youtube.com/@AmeliaDimoldenberg
• Hot Ones (First We Feast) (not Hot Wings): https://www.youtube.com/@FirstWeFeast

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 dog tired from baking too much bread, and Lee is in the midst of a work load that is barely sustainable: enter Grover from Sesame Street.

Some other details from the episode: Enjoying making processes efficient; sourdough and allergens; Lee figuring out the rhythm of his job; being surrounded by kindness; a packet of crisps and a sandwich; cheese and Simon's LDLs; sheese (vegan cream cheese); everybody say tofu; tofurkey time; two-thirty and tooth-hurty; the life-cycle of bad jokes; Grover's near and far; the rule of three in comedy; Simon breathes differently when he is Duck Duck Going; public floggings for academics; finding the toddler; Clifford Geertz (anthropologist, died in 2006); Clifford the Big Red Dog; the difference between a twitch and a wink; Kevin Kelley (and other Kevins); The Girl from Ipanema; Kevin Keegan; Princess Leia; IDEO design laboratory; John Galliano; what Lee wears when he cooks; innovation; first past the post voting systems; Godwin's Law.

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Related links (and necessary corrections): 

• Grover's near and far: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9IuXEwpU7U
• Kevin Kelley "Excellent Advice For Living: Wisdom I Wish I'd Known Earlier": https://www.amazon.co.uk/Excellent-Advice-Living-Wisdom-Earlier/dp/0593654528
• IDEO: https://www.ideo.com/
• Godwin's Law: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law

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 and Simon have stories of spring before a brief chat about entertaining the possibility of being wrong.

Some other details from the episode: Lee and Jefrey saw a seal (eating a fish); scroggin; supermarkets in the UK and class; swans; woman jogging; deer; Simon's bird feeder; anxious Blue Tits; Lee's biodiverse garden; Lee interviewing PhD students; Lee's selfie-taking abilities; Falmouth University (FU); uck you; Lee being delightfully photogenic; Daniel Dennett, being wrong and being specators or participants; philosophical zombies and consiousness; qualia; Kevin Bacon.

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 and Lee talk about how well humans know ourselves versus how well we are known by others (with a diversion into Lee scaring someone in a toilet).

Some other details from the episode: BST does not stand for Big Sexy Time, the difference between falling and having a fall, manifesting a fall, Lee crashing his bicycle in Lisbon, Dr. David Corbet (@corbetron) is our Ask Jeeves for medical information, dreamcatchers, having a dance vs dancing (for 55 year olds), the articular surface of the patella has a poor blood supply, arthroscopies, Lee getting norovirus, anaesthetics (sleepy drugs), past-future hedonic preferences, some of our best friends read The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma (by Bessel van der Kolk), how nice it was in Malta, floods in Lisbon, Guy Claxton's Intelligence in the Flesh and inferred self-knowledge, being predictable, Lee singing in the toilets at work, the foyer of a toilet, having a gong in a toilet antechamber, man doing a little scream, singing in the toilet is the moral of the story, Lee's sub-routines at work, meeting someone for the first time with their partner, anyone who has not met Bob yet, not wanting to be predictable vs the reassurance of someone's presence, patterns of behaviour vs being more responsive, dog whistling, stability, solidity and security, stability vs routine, construction of the image of someone at the beginning of a relationship (and projection), being a re-homed dalmation, chaos that is not unsettling, Lee met Simon's frolleague (Kathryn) at the conference in Malta.

Related links (and necessary corrections):

• Pain in the Past and Pleasure in the Future: The Development of Past Future Preferences for Hedonic Goods: http://edepositireland.ie/handle/2262/93850

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 side-thought in real-life Subbuteo before a conversation about content moderation online and human beings filming and photographing stuff and putting it online. (Oh, and a bit about trains in the UK).

Some other details from the episode: Simon's prior understanding of England: Match of the Day, Subbuteo, and the FA Cup; Lee's laugh (again); fish and chips; fish and chips with puffins, uncontrolled ascents in scuba diving, hyperbaric chambers, Malta conference 2020 collapsing due to COVID, neutral buoyancy, the bends, Radiohead, The Cleaners, Field of Vision (The Moderators), online content moderation, PTS, cameras in our pockets attached to a world wide web, being big daft animals, traffic jams, braking causes traffic jams, the two-second rule, bus replacement service, privatisation, how shit trains have become in the UK, Lee's electric vehicle's collision sensitivity, EV batteries, intemperate braking, back to traffic jams, chaos theory (and butterflies), the difference between watching things and filming things, stepping on Jeff's toes, Simon first built his website (skellis.net) in 1997, the internet's time of innocence.

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 laughs weirdly and sets in motion a sprawling natter about cartoons and Penelope Pitstop, before together Simon and Lee drop into a) what it is to be disciplined and committed and b) taking family for granted.

Some other details from the episode: Hanna Barbera cartoons, double feature films, staying awake in films, VHS and Betamax, TikTok and the ubiquity of culture, John Berry and timeless time, the scale and invisibility of the climate emergency, weathering the weather with movement artist Helen Poynor, colleague cousins, Woody Woodpecker, the Ant Hill Mob, Penelope Pitstop, Wacky Races (including Dastardly and Muttley), Susan dry retching through lack of content, Simon's brother Ian training as a cyclist, avoiding rain clouds in the Wairarapa, Ian riding into the back of a parked car, Lee being too easily distracted, Ian doing squats (actually they were leg presses), not having siblings and spending so much time alone, coming home in the dark (unsupervised), taking family for granted once we are grown up, Lee's cousins Neil and Mark, Northern idioms and accents, being social creatures, being in and out, teenagers constructing language, understanding family through distance, being excluded, and being a timid kid.

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Related links (and necessary corrections):

• Coming back to a TikTok: https://freddiedeboer.substack.com/p/you-are-you-we-live-here-this-is
• Penelope Pitstop running: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxfFM9neB8M

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 and Lee talk about affective states (as opposed to emotions) and in doing so veer terrifyingly close to their field(s) of expertise. They also talk about other stuff.

Some other details from the episode: Lee reprises some Wet Leg, Simon has been doing some dancing with Katye Coe, the other C word, a place called Beer in the UK, not being interested in being watched, being a performer, people who enjoy being watched, audiences knowing the affective state of a performer, Silvan Tomkins and affect theory, Hamlet being sad because he's Hamlet, Lee having a high temperature week, Lee about to travel, Lee's parents' 60th wedding anniversary, Lee's affective state (irritable, sharp and unpleasant, then crying and distress), not knowing how we feel until we are crying, interoception, emotions, not being nervous but excited (and how they feel the same in the body), words that describe emotions, audiences knowing how performers really feel, electrical and chemical entrainment, being social mammals, being present (in performance), seven minutes before  audience members start thinking about sleeping with the performer, the feeling of being judged or not, letting go of judgement, taking psychedelics, being one with the sky, individualism, Ted Chiang's sci-fi writing (including The Story of Your Life), Matthew McConaughey feeling judged, True Detective, Magic Mike, Channing Tatum, Lee going on his regular train-of-thought ride through his film memory, the Chippendales (finally), the Amy Adam's film Arrival.

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 recounts his visit to the UK's corridors of power before they talk about using correct accents (or not) for words that are not English.

Some other details from the episode: Gwyneth Paltrow's mother, the original Westworld, a bad joke about a week in tents, Bob and Lee's keynote in Malta, The Beatles (and Paul McCartney) Lee's intemperance and his flibbertigibbet-ness, the weather still being cold, Simon's intense week, Lee visiting the corridors of power (the palace of Westminster), shaking green hands, Lee and Simon's differences of opinion, security arrangements for entering Westminster, parliament tourists, Lee's costume for the visit, Dr. Martens made both in the UK and overseas (and how much they cost), bargain hunting, being anxious about not getting anxious, getting help at work from people who are really good at what they do, making cases for changing policy, policy wonks, politicians not answering questions, academics answering questions they don't know the answer to, getting French philosophers' names on purpose, Walter Benjamin, coming down off high horses, using foreign accents or not depending on the context, the renewal of the Maori language in Aotearoa, the anglicisation of place names in New Zealand, Lee telling Bob everything and Bob being uninterested in other people's business and gossip. 

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)