
Kicking off the new year with a bang, the Mag Hags are manifesting the season they want… and it turns out that season is June, 1986.
In classic new year style, we get some questionable diet advice when we revisit the 80 obsession with low-fat alternatives and wade into the big E numbers debate. We ponder a career pivot (namely, becoming an aerobics instructor at that vanguard of the group exercise boom) and finish up with a juicy magazine quiz. Are we in touch with our emotions? Are you? Let’s find out!
If you haven’t listened to the episode yet, you can do that HERE.
Franki Cookney 00:00
Are you having some trouble with blocked emotions? Is your diet a bit outdated? Should you consider a career in sport? Take our quiz to find out.
[Theme music]
Franki Cookney 00:14
Hello and welcome to Mag Hags, the podcast that's in touch with its emotions. I'm Franki Cookney.
Lucy Douglas 00:21
And I'm Lucy Douglas. Together we're diving into the glossy archives of women's magazines to find out what's still hot and what's definitely not.
Franki Cookney 00:31
Well, hello, Lucy, and happy new year.
Franki Cookney 00:39
Oh, you know, just the usual. Spend less time on my phone.
Lucy Douglas 00:43
Ah, that old chestnut.
Franki Cookney 00:45
I know, right? But I really, I feel like I feel like it's different this time. I feel like 2025 is gonna be the year.
Lucy Douglas 00:54
Well, best of luck with it. I am aiming to, I've got a few. Um, one of them is to make more of an effort with my friend Jono. Just because I would like to see him more.
Franki Cookney 01:07
Love that. Also, I think like giving him a shout out on a podcast is a really good way to start that. Hey, Jono!
Lucy Douglas 01:17
And yeah, I think I'm, I also want to try and get my phone use under control a little bit in the new year.
Franki Cookney 01:23
Yeah, it's, I know that people have been writing about this for a really long time, but I do feel like it's in the air. I feel like in this kind of post Twitter era, A change is afoot.
Lucy Douglas 01:35
Yeah. No, there are, there are a lot of like strategists and trend forecasters on LinkedIn talking about like the new analogue and like the rejection of digital.
Franki Cookney 01:46
Yeah. Good. Yeah. Let's ride that wave. Speaking of resolutions, as we know, I do think women's magazines have historically been rather guilty of peddling a lot of New Year, New You kind of bullshit.
Lucy Douglas 01:59
Yeah, exactly. Just lots of like, like wall to wall diets and flat stomachs. unhinged workouts and stuff like that.
Franki Cookney 02:07
The most unhinged workouts. Yeah, exactly. Um, and actually the mag we're looking at today does have a bit of that. Like it's not a January issue. It's a June issue, but yeah, we are going to be talking about diet and nutrition and in fact, sport.
Lucy Douglas 02:26
Oh, okay.
Franki Cookney 02:28
However, I would say that the energy is less about self improvement, uh, and the kind of new year, new you, as it is about, uh, self awareness and, you know, kind of finding the right habits and goals and lifestyles for you. So the sport actually comes as part of a really interesting careers feature, um, really fascinating historical window, that one.
Lucy Douglas 02:53
Oh, cool.
Franki Cookney 02:53
And then, later on, we'll be discussing how to get more in touch with our feelings. And we're going to be doing one of my all time favourite magazine activities, a quiz!
Lucy Douglas 03:04
Oh my god, love a quiz. Bring it on.
[Music break]
Franki Cookney 03:10
Today, we are going back to the Brat Pack era. It's a time when hip hop was just starting to break into the top ten. And when Londoners were looking forward to the opening of the newly completed M25.
Lucy Douglas 03:29
Big year.
Franki Cookney 03:30
It is 1986 and we are reading a magazine called 19, which I will get to telling you a little bit about in a moment. But just before I do. 1986 was a big year for global news stories. One of the biggest events of 1986 was the Chernobyl power plant disaster.
Lucy Douglas 03:54
Oh yeah, that's, that's a pretty big one.
Franki Cookney 03:57
The reactor situated in northern Ukraine, what was then part of the Soviet Union, exploded on April 26th and it remains. the worst nuclear disaster in human history. Another absolutely massive and also tragic event of the year was the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster. On January 28th of 1986, the shuttle exploded 73 seconds after it lifted off from Cape Canaveral. All seven crew members were killed.
Some good news from 1986 though.
Lucy Douglas 04:28
Okay, good. For balance.
Franki Cookney 04:30
Halley's Comet made its closest approach to Earth since 1066. That was also the last time it was seen in the Earth's skies.
Lucy Douglas 04:37
Ooh, okay.
Franki Cookney 04:38
It's not going to be back until, like, 2060 something, so that was pretty exciting. Anyway, in music, Madonna's True Blue is the best selling album of 1986. I mentioned hip hop, Run DMC was the first hip hop group to hit the top ten with Walk This Way, the song they did with Aerosmith. In the cinema, we would have had Top Gun.
Lucy Douglas 04:58
Wow. Okay.
Franki Cookney 05:00
Platoon, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Blue Velvet, Pretty in Pink, and a personal favorite, Labyrinth.
Lucy Douglas 05:10
I mean, those are all pretty iconic films, I would say.
Franki Cookney 05:13
So yes, as I said, the magazine we are reading today is 19 magazine, and it is the June issue. So we have a summer issue. On the cover. We have a woman in a long white kaftan type shirt dress. She's got insanely long blonde, like mermaid y hair that's going basically all the way down to her fanny. Half of it's piled up on her head and the rest is sort of like spilling down her front. She's wearing tan leather Moroccan style sandals, which. are great. Like I think would definitely still look good today. Um, and she's, she's, um, she's herding some goats, Lucy.
Lucy Douglas 05:56
Inexplicably herding some goats.
Franki Cookney 05:59
I mean, if that doesn't say aspirational content to you, I don't know what does. Anyway, our cover lines. There aren't that many, it's just three. Somewhat predictably, "Get Set for Summer! The most brilliant fashion and our exclusive duster coat."
Lucy Douglas 06:15
Oh, what is a duster coat?
Franki Cookney 06:18
It's like a, it's just like a long ankle length jacket.
Lucy Douglas 06:22
Okay, okay, okay.
Franki Cookney 06:23
Our next cover line. "Keeping your cool, revealing your feelings."
Lucy Douglas 06:28
Ooh.
Franki Cookney 06:29
I don't know, it doesn't say, sort of suggest whether it's like an either/or, or whether it's going to teach you how to do both, or.
Lucy Douglas 06:36
I would love to learn how to keep my cool while revealing my feelings.
Franki Cookney 06:39
And the final cover line, "plus John Taylor on the single life." John Taylor was the bass player in Duran Duran. And I'm really pleased to report that he did find love, eventually. John Taylor, uh, has been married twice. But, uh, in 1986, he is single.
Right, a bit about Nineteen magazine. It ran from 1968 until 2004. So it definitely would have been kicking around in my teenage years, but it's not one that I remember. It was an IPC title. IPC also owned Honey. And actually when Honey closed down in September, 1986, they merged it with 19. So we're looking at it just before that merger happened. The editor at this time is Maggie Koumi, who a couple of years later would go on to be one of the founding editors of UK Hello Magazine, alongside former Company editor, Maggie Goodman. Obviously I mentioned Company because that was the magazine we looked at last week. Anyway, looking through this mag, my main feeling about it was that I love the design. Once you get inside it. It really is very 1986, like we have got color, we have got flourishes, we have got fonts.
There's a kind of news roundup page entitled Source, and we've got like, the section header is in hot pink italics at the page, and then we've got subheads in blue, red, we've got body copy in green. We've got loads of great color pictures on that page as well. There's a lot more space around the columns and around the pictures. So we're really moving away from those walls of text that we've seen in the earlier mags, and we're really starting to give things room to breathe.
Lucy Douglas 08:33
And also be a bit playful with the design. It sounds like, like make the design of it actually like a talking point of the magazines and not just a sort of a means to an end.
Franki Cookney 08:44
Definitely. Definitely. I found it really nice. It kind of, it feels, I want to say, kind of scrapbooky.
Lucy Douglas 08:5
And I guess that's in keeping because 19 is, um, is aimed at slightly younger readers as well, isn't it?
Franki Cookney 08:58
Yeah, it definitely is. The other thing that I wanted to say is that all the ads are really colorful as well. So I think that for most people if they think of like 80s style, they are picturing like Memphis style design. So the Memphis group was a bunch of artists and designers from Italy and they did like the kind of bright colors, geometric shapes, like the bold patterns and they were very, they were kind of at their height in the mid-eighties and that influence is clearly a play in these ads. And so it just lends a really fun, vibrant visual energy to this magazine that I absolutely love.
Lucy Douglas 09:39
Cool.
Franki Cookney 09:39
So, with all that in mind, are you ready to go inside the issue?
Lucy Douglas 09:45
Yes, I am. Let's do it.
[Music break]
Franki Cookney 09:50
All work and lots of play. So this, Lucy, is a feature about women in sport, but not professional athletes. It means women working behind the scenes or in some kind of adjacent role.
Franki Cookney 10:05
"You don't have to be a champion to make a career for yourself in sport. Behind every sportswoman or man that reaches the top in their particular field, there are teams of coaches, trainers, organisers or general helpers. Our journalist Jill Eckersley talks to four women making careers for themselves in sport."
So first up, we have got Sue Youngman. She does PR for Wimbledon. We've got Katrina Terry, who works as a groom for a professional show jumper. Got Jenny Humphries, who is a fitness instructor and she is pictured looking about as 80s a fitness instructor as you could ever wish for. And then our final case study is Judy Smith and she is a motor racing mechanic. Her subheading is "Racy Lady."
Lucy Douglas 10:59
I love that for Judy.
Franki Cookney 11:01
Also, sorry, sidebar, there is another feature in this magazine that we're not going to be discussing in depth, but there is another feature, which is a sort of just a kind of one page first person experience type feature about being a lady wrestler.
Lucy Douglas 11:16
Gosh.
Franki Cookney 11:16
And it's literally called "A day in the life of a lady wrestler"
Lucy Douglas 11:22
Wow, okay,
Franki Cookney 11:24
Lucy. What did you think of this feature?
Lucy Douglas 11:27
Um, I loved it, obviously, for for a great many different reasons. Like I read it knowing that Honey magazine, which we obviously looked at in our second episode of this series, ultimately got folded into 19. So I kind of had that context when I started reading this, but as I was reading this feature, I was like, yeah, this feels very similar energy, very kind of, here's how we live now. You're like a young woman going out into the, into the world. These are all the opportunities that you could have. These are the things that you could do.
Franki Cookney 12:03
Yeah, totally that. It's really sweet, isn't it?
Lucy Douglas 12:07
It's very sweet.
Franki Cookney 12:08
As somebody who entered the world of work in the auspicious year of 2008, I felt I had some feelings when I read about Sue's journey into becoming a PR for Wimbledon because she basically did a psychology degree at Exeter University, decided that I wanted to go into advertising, marketing or PR. "So when this job came up, I was delighted," and bam, here she is working as a PR for Wimbledon.
Lucy Douglas 12:35
Yeah, that really stood out to me too. Like I really, I've sort of wrote in my notes, like how easily all these girls just sort of strolled into their. into their jobs that now would be really quite coveted positions that you'd have to like, jump through quite a lot of hoops or do quite a lot of like, grunt work to like, get your big break and your opportunity in.
I mean, I love the idea, like this, the racing car mechanic one, who... what does, what does her bit say? It's just like, she didn't really seem to have any interest in or designs on becoming a mechanic. It was like somebody at the careers office at school was like, why don't you do this? And she was like, okay. And rocked up.
Franki Cookney 13:20
Yeah. She says, um, she says, "There are quite a few women racing drivers these days, but I only know of one other lady mechanic besides me." Lady mechanic.
Lucy Douglas 13:30
Yeah.
Franki Cookney 13:31
Said Judy, "It had never entered my head to work with cars, let alone become a mechanic, she said. I had a couple of other jobs, but I had been out of work for two or three months when the careers officer asked me how I fancied working as a junior in the pits. I think the boss was quite surprised to see a girl turn up for the job." And it says she knew nothing at all about cars when she began. She started at the bottom, cleaning and polishing. She says, "I've been here two years now and I love it."
Lucy Douglas 13:55
So that was kind of, I felt like this was a window into a type of career path that probably doesn't exist anymore.
Franki Cookney 14:03
Jenny, our fitness instructor, says she cannot, she currently isn't making a living just from fitness instructing. She also works in a bar.
Lucy Douglas 14:14
Yeah, Jenny's, I feel like Jenny's experience is a little bit, feels a little bit kind of discreet from the other three. But yeah, I really loved Jenny's story. It was so of its time. So she, so she goes along to some like kind of dance fitness class at her local like community center and loves it.
Franki Cookney 14:37
She says, "I saw a pop mobility class advertised at my local sports center. It was at the height of the fitness craze when fame was on TV and everyone was buying leotards and leg warmers."
Lucy Douglas 14:48
Perfect.
Franki Cookney 14:48
She got in touch with, and this is, this is, I love this so much. "I got in touch with the Keep Fit Association. said Jenny enthusiastically." And from there she was able to train as a fitness instructor. Just... the Keep Fit Association.
Lucy Douglas 15:01
Yeah. It's so, it's funny now, like in the, in the context in which we exist today of like completely ubiquitous group exercise classes for every single different combination of types of movement and resistance and speed and all of those different like variables that have been like, branded and maybe, you know, super sophisticated to kind of become like global fitness brands.
Franki Cookney 15:32
So the idea of there just being one Keep Fit Association is just adorable.
Lucy Douglas 15:36
So adorable. Yeah, exactly.
Franki Cookney 15:38
If you had to pick one of these four sporting careers, which one do you reckon you would go for?
Lucy Douglas 15:44
I mean, most boringly, I'd probably be in, I, you know, drawn to the PR job because it's most similar to my actual job.
Franki Cookney 15:54
Yeah, yeah, fair enough.
Lucy Douglas 15:57
However, however, that said, I quite like the idea of just sort of going along and to a garage because I was told to by somebody and I didn't have anything better to do and just learning how to be a mechanic. That's quite cool.
Franki Cookney 16:15
I know, I felt really drawn to that as well. That being said, the Wimbledon job does sound quite fun.
Lucy Douglas 16:22
Yeah.
Franki Cookney 16:22
Definitely the most sort of glamorous, isn't it?
Lucy Douglas 16:25
Yeah. And very varied.
Franki Cookney 16:27
Yeah. What I like about this is that Jill Eckersley, our journalist, has obviously sort of asked her to try to get some like little like celebrity anecdotes in. Like, oh, I bet you, I bet you bump into the tennis stars all the time, don't you? You know, like which ones have you met kind of thing, try and get some gossip.
Lucy Douglas 16:43
She's not having any of it.
Franki Cookney 16:45
She's just like, "We all try to be as helpful and unobtrusive as possible. Generally, tennis stars appreciate being treated like normal people. You might see Becker or Annabelle Croft in the club restaurant, or John Lloyd and Jimmy Connors practicing together as I once did, but no one bothers them. We just get on with our various jobs," and I'm like, Boo! Boring!
But she's just very sensible, isn't she? She obviously wants to hang on to her job. And absolutely fair enough. So then she talks about, you know, some of the things that she has sort of had to deal with as a PR. She never gets to watch any of the tennis because she's so busy, as you would probably imagine during the actual tournament. "There's no chance at all to get bored, even when it rains. In fact, I'm busier when it rains because journalists still need a story, even when there are no matched reports. Luckily, however, she says, there is always something happening. A thunderstorm, a flood, the controversy over Anne White's bodysuit." Now, do you know what she's talking about?
Lucy Douglas 17:43
I do not, but I'm hoping you're going to tell me.
Franki Cookney 17:45
Yeah. So, this is quite fun. Anne White had played at Wimbledon the previous summer in, uh, 1985, and as people who are into tennis will know, you have to wear all white when you play at Wimbledon, and Anne White took a slightly, um, creative approach to that, and she basically wore, like, um, an all white leotard. Now, if you just Google 'Anne White Wimbledon bodysuit', you can see, have a look at a picture of it because I think you need to see it to believe it.
Lucy Douglas 18:21
Oh, wow.
Franki Cookney 18:22
She was told off. She had to go and get changed.
Lucy Douglas 18:24
I mean, of course she was told off because the All England Club are no fun, but I really love that for her.
Franki Cookney 18:29
I mean, it was, it was quite a big splash at the time. And so I found an article in the LA Times reporting on it from June, 1985. And it says, "The All England Club's reaction was predictable. So was all of England's. The truth is, they like a bit of nasty here. And the newspapers played Anne White's bodysuit like none since Lady Godiva's. In a nation where the economy is faltering and bombs are exploding, five of eight national newspapers played pictures of White on the front page." I was like, Oh, yeah, that does sound like us.
Lucy Douglas 19:04
Yeah, that does sound like us. And that also sounds a lot like American, like, highbrow newspapers talking about us.
Franki Cookney 19:12
Yeah. So anyway, that I would imagine that for Sue Youngman, that, you know, that would have been a pretty exciting story to kind of be around. And that would, it would have been an exciting time to be working. I guess one of my questions is like, why do you think they ran this feature?
Lucy Douglas 19:29
I thought it was like, uh, ‘here are some careers you might not have considered that you could do.’ I did notice that at the end it had like a little box out of like various different sort of associations that you, places that you might go to like look for jobs in, in some of these sporting industries. So I guess in, in that way it could have been slightly promotional, but yeah, I, I didn't, I didn't have a cynical read on that at all.
Franki Cookney 19:55
Yeah, no, I, I don't, I, I guess I don't feel, cynical about it as such. It's more that I felt that I was casting around a bit for the why now element of it.
Lucy Douglas 20:05
Right, right. I mean, it's possible that the, that the why now was just Wimbledon. It's a June issue.
Franki Cookney 20:13
Yeah.
Lucy Douglas 20:13
Wimbledon's usually last week of June, first week of July.
Franki Cookney 20:17
Yeah, you're right. I mean, it could be that that was the starting point or it's like, Oh, let's, you know, speak to somebody who works at Wimbledon and find out what that's like. And then the feature kind of expanded from there.
At the very end, as you mentioned, there's a box out with sort of want to know more, and then it's got details for how to get in touch with the British Horse Society, the Keep Fit Association, the Sports Council. And there's a recommendation for a book as well called Careers In Sport. And then the very last bullet point in that box says, "as leisure time increases, more jobs are being created in the leisure industries, including sport, and some colleges offer diplomas in recreation management to those interested in the administrative side of sport." And I was like, here we are again, talking about leisure time increasing, and we're seven years on from that article that we discussed in Company magazine. One of the things that you speculated or predicted about the rise of leisure centers and kind of sport as a hobby and activity, that definitely has come to pass. And we talked about how like the eighties definitely saw like a fitness craze. And now here we are in ‘86.
Lucy Douglas 21:31
Yeah.
Franki Cookney 21:31
And it really does feel like that has manifested.
Lucy Douglas 21:34
Yeah. Yeah.
Franki Cookney 21:35
Would we, would we run a feature like this now?
Lucy Douglas 21:38
I could see a reality in which a feature like this would still be, would still be published. Like if there is a, a, a kind of a, a really punchy hook that was tied to some sort of like big report or, um, or bit of government policy or, or something like that, that kind of looked at like. you know, young women who have careers in a certain field.
Franki Cookney 21:59
I also think you get, you get sort of like nice careers y type features, I feel like Refinery29 does quite a lot of pieces along the lines of like what people earn, you know, like the sort of Money Diaries and people's income and sort of 'How I got my job'. I've always loved as well, you know, in Stylist they have that Work/Life page and it's literally somebody runs you through their entire day.
Lucy Douglas 22:27
Yeah, I really like that feature too. It's, it's a nice one that feature.
Franki Cookney 22:31
A colleague of mine did it recently. Um, she's a sex therapist and she posted it on Instagram and I was like, ah, you've made it. This is so goals!
[Jingle]
Franki Cookney 22:42
Lucy, your hair looks amazing. I'm so envious of your natural curls.
Lucy Douglas 22:47
You're too kind. But you know, Franki, you too can keep ahead of fashion with Poly Papilloten.
Franki Cookney 22:52
Polly who?
Lucy Douglas 22:54
Papilloten. Creating curls and making waves has never been easier, whatever your hair type.
Franki Cookney 22:59
I'm listening.
Lucy Douglas 23:01
Simply spray your hair, then take a Papilloten rod, wind your hair around it, and twist and dry your hair. Then brush into curls or waves.
Franki Cookney 23:11
Okay. And is it permanent? I'm not sure I'm ready to go full Charlene from Neighbours.
Lucy Douglas 23:18
No, but they will last an entire evening or even longer.
Franki Cookney 23:22
Hmm, that does sound like a modern, fun way to change my style to suit my mood. One question though. Can I do it in my car while wearing nothing but a swimsuit and a pair of sunglasses?
Lucy Douglas 23:33
I'm not sure why or when that scenario would arise for you, Franki, but I'm going to go ahead and say yes.
Franki Cookney 23:38
Wow! Sounds like Poly Papilloten is the new wave in temporary styling.
Lucy Douglas 23:44
They're curls with a twist.
[Jingle]
Franki Cookney 23:47
Wow! How did it get to June already? We've really fast forwarded into 1986.
Lucy Douglas 23:53
Speaking of which Don't you think it's time you jazz up your low key image and wardrobe? The flashdance look is over, babe.
Franki Cookney 24:01
Oh, but how do I find the right style and colour consciousness?
Lucy Douglas 24:06
You need Rimmel's new Jazz Collection. It's the leader of the independent pack for cool young dudes and sizzling starlets. Take the blues options, for example. A quartet of colours for perfect eye fidelity.
Franki Cookney 24:21
You what?
Lucy Douglas 24:22
Start with a flamboyant beat of pianissimo pink before layering on a lilting but lively lilac. Or, why not lay on the blues with cool aqua eyeshadow, then lick your lips with fun loving Dixieland pink lipstick.
Franki Cookney 24:36
Oh, those do sound cool, but I feel like I might be more of a hot jazz kind of gal.
Lucy Douglas 24:43
No problem. This Rimmel eyeshadow quartet hits a riotous tempo. You've got super cool citron, opulent orange, gorgeous green, and rich rust. Then strike the right chord with keyboard black mascara.
Franki Cookney 24:57
What a wonderful crescendo of cosmetics. I can tell Rimmel is really going to give me the Razzmajazz I need.
Lucy Douglas 25:04
With 268 colours for eyes, lips and nails, you can take off those lids and get set to hit the high notes.
[Jingle]
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Franki Cookney 25:13
What? I think that's some of the most chaotic advertising copy I've ever read.
Lucy Douglas 25:19
That's really, really chaotic. That, um, flamboyant beat of pianissimo pink through to Dixieland pink lipstick. That was a real tongue twister, that one.
Franki Cookney 25:31
It was a tongue twister and it was all word for word what was on the page.
Lucy Douglas 25:36
I know. I saw that ad. I actually loved that ad. Like the, um, aesthetics of the ad, it was so fun, but, um,
Franki Cookney 25:45
And also really 80s as well, but it was very like, go home, Rimmel, you're drunk.
[Music break]
Franki Cookney 25:54
You are what you eat. Can you swallow it? This is It is a feature about healthy eating and sort of reporting on the latest understanding of what is healthy and what is not. And making suggestions for the kind of diet you ought to be following. The reason I chose this feature to talk about is that it talks a lot about 'junk food'.
Lucy Douglas 26:28
Mm.
Franki Cookney 26:28
Quite early on in the feature it says, "we've even coined the phrase junk food," which was a little bit misleading because the word, the, the phrase junk food had been kicking around for like well over a decade at this point, and it was definitely being used in the UK, in the mainstream media by the mid-seventies. So that was a bit of a red herring. They're very concerned about junk food, and that felt to me like quite an interesting window onto the era. So, I guess like, before we get into it, what were your, what were your sort of first impressions? It's Jill Eckersley again, by the way. Our gal Jill.
Lucy Douglas 27:09
At the risk of, um, getting myself cancelled, I didn't hate this feature. I didn't, I didn't find this feature That problematic.
Franki Cookney 27:23
Okay. So I'm gonna, I probably should have read the standfirst to begin with. I'll read it to you now because that sets up the scene. It says, "These days it's hard to pick up a newspaper without noticing yet another scare story about food or a new miracle diet, which is supposed to allow us to live to a hundred. Cut down on fat. Eat more grapefruit, don't drink coffee, chocolate gives you acne, it's all very confusing." And then she goes on to say that we've coined the phrase junk food and we're eating a lot more of it, "as well as the ready prepared frozen just heat and serve meals that we eat at home. Add to that the sweets, crisps and milkshakes we consume, not to mention the fizzy drinks, and that's what's called a junk food diet. But is it really junk and is it really bad for us? Jill Eckersley finds out."
Lucy Douglas 28:10
So my reading on the, on the junk food stuff was that, you know, there's been a big increase in the bit, like as a result of women being out at work more, we're relying way more on kind of convenience food, ready meals, things that are quick, things that are easy. And this is also kind of coincided with like an increase of, of big sort of brands like McDonald's and Burger King and fast food restaurants and things like that kind of having a growing presence in the UK. As a result, more of of us having like poorer diets and that's probably something we should keep an eye on.
Franki Cookney 28:51
Yeah, yes. So a bit of useful context, as you've just already alluded to, the 80s saw a real fast food boom. Um, there's an amazing Newsround item from 1981 talking about it, which I will include in the show notes because that's fantastic. As you say, places like McDonald's or Burger King had arrived in the UK in the seventies, but the eighties is when they really took off. We got our first Pizza Hut in 1982 as well. And it was also when like frozen ready meals took off in a really big way. So I think, yeah, I think that is telling us something about the era that we're in.
Lucy Douglas 29:26
I also don't hate this, this framing around like, "there's a lot of confusing information. There's a lot of misinformation. We're going to break it down and give you what you need to know." Like, I don't hate that as a premise for a, for a feature about this sort of thing. And I actually, so one, the thing I really felt when I was reading this is that when we did our episode on New Women magazine, which was the last time we looked at a diet feature, we, we kind of made the point that like good diet advice is boring and we all know it. And I feel like this is, that was the kind of main thrust of this feature, really, like a lot of the advice in it was just, it just felt quite straightforward.
Franki Cookney 30:14
Yes, so there is a paragraph kind of towards the second page, this feature goes across two, so two spreads, four pages. There's the sort of report, there's bullet pointed tips, you know, "skip the chips, eat half portions or stick to slimmer specials." And then, at the end there's a quiz, "Are you eating too many junk foods?"
Lucy Douglas 30:34
Mmm.
Franki Cookney 30:35
And then there's some boxes out with like, celebs and kind of what they eat, what their diets are like. Towards the bottom of that second page, it says "eating healthily need not mean giving up anything altogether. What it means is eating a wise variety of food, including plenty of wholemeal bread, vegetables and fruit. Provided you stick to a sensible balanced diet for most of the time, the occasional indulgent junk food binge will do you no harm at all." And I put a big yellow post it on that and wrote, Ding, ding, ding! Because it's sort of like, there it is, the universal, like, the healthy eating advice, which actually hasn't fucking changed, but we just have to keep dressing it up in new ways.
Lucy Douglas 31:14
Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
Franki Cookney 31:17
One of the things that struck me is that, yes, she is talking about, "oh, it can be confusing when experts disagree and change their mind about what isn't, isn't good eating," which is true. But then I think the way that it is then laid out and presented quite didactically, like this is the new gospel, in no uncertain terms, this is how you should be eating. I didn't feel like everything in this list is stuff that still is considered best practice today. So I sort of felt like there was a bit of cognitive dissonance there in terms of being like, "Oh, I hate it when experts tell you exactly what you're supposed to eat." And then becomes, immediately becomes part of the problem.
Lucy Douglas 31:58
Yeah. Yeah. I, yeah. Okay. Yeah. That's fair. And she does, she says, doesn't she, for years we were told protein foods like meat, eggs, and dairy products were good for us. Now we're being told to cut down on them and eat more bread and potatoes. Once thought of as fattening starch.
Franki Cookney 32:12
Yep. And then, you know, cut to the late nineties, early 2000s, and everyone's doing Atkins diet. And then, you know, 10, 15 years later, they're doing paleo and you know, carbs are the enemy again.
Lucy Douglas 32:23
So I actually, when I was at university, I would often make myself like poached eggs on toast for lunch because it was like quick and cheap and easy. And several of my mates would like repeatedly tell me that it was bad for me to eat that many eggs, like eggs, they're really full of cholesterol, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And it became, like, it became like this joke because I kept, every time I would make eggs, somebody would say something and I would get more like militantly defensive about it until it, until it was like, sort of, 'lol, you can't say anything bad about, eggs in front of Lucy because she's like she's she's from like Big Egg.' She's part of the British egg lobby. And then fucking a few years later all of a sudden everybody was eating boiled eggs as a snack on their way to work because like high protein you know like have more more protein, better, like, energy source. And I was like, I felt so fucking vindicated.
Franki Cookney 33:28
Yeah. Yeah. No, I totally hear you. There were lots of parts of this feature that kind of made me understand my childhood. Just the, like, the truths about food that I grew up with. There was one particular section, oh, here it is. And I, I wrote down 'triggered.' It says, keep your total fat intake down to three ounces a day. Use polyunsaturated margarine in cooking and either buy low fat spread or simply use less butter, buy skimmed or semi skimmed milk. And Lucy, I, I'm afraid to say that I very much grew up in a margarine household. But I think, again, that's, that's something that feels really 80s, is this idea of like low fat versions of things that we now understand to be unhealthy for us in other ways. And I think the wisdom now is that actually you're better off eating proper butter. Just obviously like,
Lucy Douglas 34:32
Yeah
Franki Cookney 34:32
Maybe not a whole block in one go, you know? But I also felt like there's a, there's a really interesting paragraph on additives and E numbers and that feels so late eighties, early nineties to me.
Lucy Douglas 34:47
Yeah. I remember E numbers being big in, they, they, like, they'd obviously become enough of a concern that they'd made their way into ad copy, like, "with no E numbers."
Franki Cookney 34:58
Yes.
Lucy Douglas 34:58
Like, no, yeah, like, that was, I remember hearing that something didn't have E numbers, or it would be, like, on the label of packaging and stuff.
Franki Cookney 35:08
Yes, exactly. It was like, they were like the parabens and sulfates of their time.
Lucy Douglas 35:12
Exactly.
Franki Cookney 35:15
I think the other interesting thing about the sort of additives and E numbers thing is that we, it's the beginning of the conversation around ultra processed foods, right? Which we're now very much in the midst of.
Lucy Douglas 35:26
Yeah. Yeah.
Franki Cookney 35:28
So it's not like there's no truth to any of this. I think it's just the way that it, it's set out in quite a harsh didactic way in places. And I guess I wonder whether you think content like this has directly contributed to people's poor relationships with food. Like, do you think articles like this will have been damaging?
Lucy Douglas 35:52
I think there's a risk of like laying too much responsibility at the, at the door of like one individual writer or even like one individual issue of an individual magazine. And I do, I actually, and like I sort of said before, I didn't find this feature like, in the context of what it is, and at the time, I didn't find this feature too problematic. But then it's also the kind of, it sort of becomes part of like a, a patchwork and a kind of snowball, I guess, maybe.
Franki Cookney 36:27
Maybe it's the result of consuming so many different kinds of diet features over your magazine reading years.
Lucy Douglas 36:34
Mmm.
Franki Cookney 36:36
With slightly different advice. I've always sort of felt that it's just creating a bit of a preoccupation, which is not particularly healthy in itself.
Right. I don't want to talk to you in great detail about the 'Celebs daily food intake'. I will read you out who's included though, because it's very 80s. Uh, we've got Toyah Willcox.
Lucy Douglas 37:01
So 80s.
Franki Cookney 37:02
I mean, such a strong start. Pamela Stevenson, Stephen Tintin Duffy. And Siobhan Fahey of Bananarama, of course, and then later Shakespeare's Sister.
Lucy Douglas 37:15
I was obsessed with Siobhan Fahey's diet.
Franki Cookney 37:18
Siobhan Fahey's daily diet in 1986. So, breakfast, spicy sausages with tinned tomatoes and whole grain mustard, fresh from the fridge. Crusty white bread. I mean, that sounds nice. That sounds like a really nice weekend brunch. But wait, lunch. "I don't normally eat it, but snack on and off on Maltesers, Hula Hoops, Cherryade, tea, and ciggies, especially when I'm writing."
Lucy Douglas 37:44
Maltesers, Hula Hoops, and Cherryade? Are you eight?
Franki Cookney 37:48
I know. Dinner, either chicken and sweetcorn soup and two pancake rolls from the Chinese takeaway. Or a frozen Marks and Spencers pie, chicken and leek, or turkey and ham with frozen Brussels sprouts or cauliflower.
Lucy Douglas 38:01
I know, I loved it.
[Music]
Franki Cookney 38:05
Hello, Franki here. Just a quick one to say if you have not yet signed up for our newsletter, you definitely should. You can read the features we talk about, see all the amazing vintage adverts, and get access to loads of other bonus bits. Plus, it's a really good way to support the show. Find us at maghags.co.uk
[Music]
Franki Cookney 38:29
Are you ready for your fashion tip of the week?
Lucy Douglas 38:32
Yes, I am.
Franki Cookney 38:34
Eeeeee! I'm so excited about this because this week, both your fashion and your beauty tip are DIY ones.
Lucy Douglas 38:40
OMG.
Franki Cookney 38:42
So there is just the most incredible, like, one page kind of style feature entitled 'Instant Update'. And it's basically sort of like little upcycling tips and like hacks you can do and I, I love it. I fucking love this whole feature.
Lucy Douglas 39:05
It's very you. It's very Franki Cookney.
Franki Cookney 39:07
So your fashion tip of the week, Lucy, is DIY racing shorts. "Racing shorts were shown at all the collections, and can easily be made just by cutting off leggings or thick shiny dance tights. Last autumn's ski pants too might have seen better days, especially at the knees, so chop them and hem them neatly. Keep any of the cut offs to make amusing bracelets or fall down socks."
Lucy Douglas 39:35
Wow. Okay.
Franki Cookney 39:37
I know. I mean, I chose that one because it was kind of the most bonkers, but the whole feature is brilliant.
Lucy Douglas 39:44
Yeah.
Franki Cookney 39:45
And it's, it's just absolutely bursting with anarchic energy. Another one I really liked was, "bright, thick cotton tights can be used for endless things. Knot into a crazy little hat."
Lucy Douglas 39:59
"Cut off into glamorous fingerless evening gloves."
Franki Cookney 40:02
The possibilities are endless.
Lucy Douglas 40:04
Incredible.
Franki Cookney 40:06
Your beauty tip of the week, Lucy, is to make a DIY bath oil. This comes from a feature, the feature is basically all about staying fresh. I mean, I suppose, you know, it's June, so it's summer. It's like kind of, "Summer is when we become even more aware of personal hygiene and freshness," but it's an entire an entire editorial about like, staying fresh and like, not getting too stinky.
Lucy Douglas 40:36
I don't think I'd really clocked that before, but wow! Like, can you imagine a magazine today, like running a whole feature based, based around the premise of like, 'Hey guys, remember, remember, remember to stay fresh and remember to wash in summer.'
Franki Cookney 40:56
Yep, yep. "Follow a daily routine that'll help you look fresh, feel fresh and stay fresh." And the headline is, "Get Fresh!"
Lucy Douglas 41:09
I don't know why that's really tickled me.
Franki Cookney 41:13
It's very funny. Anyway, so I pulled the beauty tip from this feature. "If you have a favourite perfume, pop a couple of drops into some olive oil, leave overnight and you'll have your favourite fragrance in bath oil form."
Lucy Douglas 41:29
Oh, okay. It's actually not a bad tip. I don't hate that, yeah.
Franki Cookney 41:34
Yeah.
Lucy Douglas 41:36
I think that's a lovely tip.
[Music break]
Franki Cookney 41:40
Are you in tune with your own emotions? Lucy, this is a mainstay of women's magazines, but it is the first time we have had one on the show. It's a quiz!
Lucy Douglas 41:54
I'm so excited.
Franki Cookney 41:56
Up until now, I had actually forgotten about the ubiquitousness of like, the quiz, the magazine quiz. And not only that, but how much I fucking loved them. I think if there was one thing that I absolutely would go straight to in a magazine, it was the quiz.
Lucy Douglas 42:17
I think that's like quite an innate thing. Like we by and large love to, to do things, like, there's something extremely compelling about these sorts of like, answer a bunch of questions about yourself and find out something about your identity that you didn't know, or your personality.
Franki Cookney 42:33
Or, like, have something you suspected reflected back to you.
Lucy Douglas 42:37
Yeah, yeah, exactly. That's why, you know, the, all those, bloody BuzzFeed, like, you know, which New Girl character are you? Like, quizzes are so popular.
Franki Cookney 42:51
How would you die if you were in Game of Thrones?
Lucy Douglas 42:54
Yeah, exactly. There's another thing about quizzes that I think is really, It's fun and lovely. It's definitely something that you do on your own often, but it's also often something that you would do, you might do with a friend. If you're having a sleepover or whatever, staying over at someone's house, like you do it together. It's quite, it can be quite interactive.
Franki Cookney 43:17
I'm so glad you said that Lucy, um, because what I was hoping is that we would both do the quiz. And then discuss our findings.
Lucy Douglas 43:28
Okay.
Franki Cookney 43:29
Basically the stand first says, "Acknowledging how we really feel inside is tremendously important, not only for our physical wellbeing, but also for our mental health. We don't usually mind acknowledging the so called good feelings we have, love, compassion, affection, et cetera, as these are socially acceptable, but we often tend to veer away from expressing, even to ourselves, some of those apparently bad feelings like anger, jealousy, and greed. Although it would clearly be antisocial to express all our feelings, it is still very important that we learn to recognize them and admit them to ourselves. So how in touch with your feelings are you?" And then there are three parts to this and they're all slightly different. So part one, there's 15 statements and you were just supposed to put T or F depending whether they ring true or false to you.
So just a couple of examples. They're quite, quite varied. They sort of ricochet between sort of fairly innocuous things like, "I am easily startled," to, "sometimes I feel I've committed some great wrong."
Lucy Douglas 44:31
Yeah, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna lie. This, this part really, really powerfully reminded me of the assessments that you have to fill out if you go and see your GP if you think you're depressed.
Franki Cookney 44:43
Oh no, really?
Lucy Douglas 44:45
Yeah, it, it, this felt extremely reminiscent of that. "I don't always understand my motives for doing things. I'm easily startled. Sometimes I get angry with, with quite ordinary, inoffensive people." Unfortunately, I, I, I ticked true for that one.
Franki Cookney 45:01
So I thought about it, you know, as blunt an instrument as those, uh, NHS mental health quizzes are. This is even blunter in that there's no kind of Sometimes/ Occasionally/ Not for the last six months/ All the time. Like it's just true or false. So it's quite difficult. It's like sometimes I get angry with quite ordinary, inoffensive people. I'm like, I mean, yeah, obviously.
Lucy Douglas 45:27
Who doesn't?
Franki Cookney 45:28
But I ended up ticking false because I was like, I don't, I don't think that happens like regularly enough for me to say it's like part of my personality. Similarly, number 14 was "when someone criticizes me, I brood about it endlessly." And I was like, I mean, I obviously brood about it, but endlessly is a strong word. So I'm going to go for false, but yeah, there wasn't a great deal of nuance there. So then we've got part two and this is where things get complicated.
In part two, there are, there's a list of 24 different emotions and then you have to score them for frequency and intensity. So in the frequency box, you can put O for often, S for sometimes or R for rarely. And in the second box, the intensity box, you can put S for strongly or M for mildly.
Lucy Douglas 46:23
It was so, it felt really convoluted this bit. And also, I mean, obviously this is, this is, as you say, an extremely blunt instrument, but I felt like sometimes I feel anger mildly and other times I feel anger strongly, like, depends a lot on the situation.
Franki Cookney 46:44
Precisely. So part three, and then we'll, then we'll discuss our results. Part three, we were given a scenario. And we had to choose A, B, C, D, or E, which of the responses seems most like what we would have done in that situation. So that feels, that feels a lot more straightforward, although there are definitely a few where I felt like I was sort of A with D rising, do you know what I mean? I was like, so for example, like number four was, "You are offered a wonderful new job, something quite superior in salary and status to anything you've done before. Your natural response would be to. A, feel surprised, pleased and thrilled. B, examine the offer carefully, looking for any catches or drawbacks. C, wonder if the offer was made for some reason you've not been told about. D, worry that you won't be able to cope with the job. E, think the employer is naive. They could have got you for a lot less." And I thought, well, yeah, A, obviously surprised, pleased and thrilled, but I can't pretend there wouldn't be any worry that I wasn't up to the job in there. So, it. you know, having to choose between those two felt a bit, um, disingenuous.
Lucy Douglas 48:00
For sure. I also felt with some of these, I was like, well, I wouldn't do any of these things. So number three, "Someone asked you to do a favour that would entail a lot of time and trouble on your part. You would A, feel annoyed and put upon. B, reject the proposal as a nuisance and imposition. C, begin to think that the person is trying to use you. D, feel it easier to do the favour than argue or complain. And E, explain that your time is too valuable to waste on this." Well, I wouldn't, I wouldn't do any of them. I'd just, I'd probably just say, I'm sorry, I can't do that.
Franki Cookney 48:33
Your gripe is that they're, that they haven't addressed what you would do, but the point is they're asking you about how you would feel.
Lucy Douglas 48:44
Oh, okay. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.
Franki Cookney 48:46
I put A, feel annoyed and put upon. Because that is how I would feel. But I would behave like you. I would try and come up with a compromise or talk to them and say, look, I don't think I can manage that.
Lucy Douglas 48:56
One thing I did find quite confronting and amusing about my own responses was my response to question number one. "A man you don't find attractive has been pursuing you and professing undying love. You'd feel. A, pleased and flattered that he finds you attractive. B, annoyed at having to cope with this unwanted admirer. C, suspicious that he's playing a game with you. D, a little guilty about having aroused such strong affections. E, amused at his inappropriate behavior." Unfortunately, my response was B, annoyed at having to cope with this unwanted admirer.
Franki Cookney 49:33
Oh, hard same. Hard same. And then we're going to get into the results now, but this is a good way to do it because the results for that section, basically, mostly A's. means normal response. "You react with an emotion more or less appropriate to each situation." And I was so surprised to see that "pleased and flattered that he finds you attractive" is considered the appropriate response to essentially being harassed.
Lucy Douglas 50:05
Yeah, I know.
Franki Cookney 50:06
Like, a man you don't find attractive has been pursuing you and professing undying love like.
Lucy Douglas 50:12
Yeah.
Franki Cookney 50:13
That's not okay.
Lucy Douglas 50:15
No, I know. It was interesting, wasn't it?
Franki Cookney 50:18
So, mostly A's for part three. Was indicating kind of like, like a normal level of being in touch with your feelings. And I did get mostly A's, although, as I said, a few of mine was sort of like A brackets D or A brackets E, because I felt like there might be another hint of, something in there.
For part 1, a score of 0- 3 true answers is not significant. And that was me, I had 2 true answers.
Lucy Douglas 50:46
Did you? See, I put 6 trues, so that may indicate some trouble with blocked emotions. Now I, I would say that's inaccurate. I don't think any of my emotions are blocked.
Franki Cookney 50:59
Okay, so how would you explain, how would you explain yourself? How would you explain your results, Lucy? Because this is interesting, right? Because I think this speaks to maybe like how we've moved on in, in this kind of area and in terms of psychology and how we understand emotions and behavior, right?
Lucy Douglas 51:20
eah. Yeah. Okay. So, um, the things I take to true on, I'm easily startled. I can be quite easily startled.
Franki Cookney 51:28
Really? I did not know that about you.
Lucy Douglas 51:30
Yeah, I know. It's really embarrassing. Sometimes I get angry with quite ordinary, inoffensive people. Sometimes, yeah, that does happen. And it's always when I, um, like premenstrual or I'm stressed at work. I recognize that the, that the anger that I'm feeling is like disproportionate to the stimulus. And I know that it's because there's something else going on with me.
Franki Cookney 51:58
Yeah. Maybe that's just a badly worded question.
Lucy Douglas 52:01
Maybe. Sometimes I feel like I've committed some great wrong. Yes, that's called anxiety.
Franki Cookney 52:07
My, my other true was my dreams are extremely vivid and if that's sort of associated with having blocked emotions, I feel like we're once again back in Freudian territory.
Lucy Douglas 52:20
Yeah. Yeah.
Franki Cookney 52:22
And then the results for part two are convoluted, as you might imagine, because the whole thing was. So basically, "If most of your marks are often and sometimes with only a sprinkling of rarely, you're an emotional person, full of feelings and open to a wide variety of moods and reactions." Was that you?
Lucy Douglas 52:43
Yeah. Yeah.
Franki Cookney 52:45
Yeah. It was also me.
Lucy Douglas 52:47
"If you answered strongly more often than mildly in the second column, your emotions are forceful, intense, and flamboyant."
Franki Cookney 52:53
I actually love that. " predominance of mildly may mean that you are rather repressed and inhibited." Yeah. So no big surprises here. I guess, you know, kind of the only, the other thing I wanted to ask you about is like, You know, where do you think we are now sort of culturally when it comes to talking about feelings? Like, have we moved on in our understanding? Do you think as a rule we are more in touch with them? Would a quiz like that, like, does the premise of this quiz still stand up or does it seem dated to be asking, are you in tune with your own emotions?
Lucy Douglas 53:32
I think it feels dated to have it as a sort of binary either or. Like, you're either in tune with your emotions or you're not.
Franki Cookney
Or you're repressed.
Lucy Douglas 53:43
Yeah, yeah. But I think now the quiz would be like, there'd be more than two sort of outcomes and they'd have like natty little names, wouldn't they, as well. They'd be sort of branded up as like.
Franki Cookney 53:55
Yeah, it would sort of be like, you're the actress, you're, you, perform all of your emotions, or it'd be like, you're the hermit, you know?
Lucy Douglas 54:05
Yeah, exactly.
Franki Cookney 54:08
It's like little characters.
Lucy Douglas 54:09
Exactly. Yeah. And so, so you'd have like, yeah, the hermit at one end, and then at the other end, you'd have the like trauma dumper or the like, you'd have this kind of character that's like so in touch with their emotions, but they also make them like everybody else's problem. That feels like a more sort of modern phenomenon that you'd, that a piece like this today would, would kind of look at.
Franki Cookney 54:31
Oh, that feels intensely 2025 to me. I think there would also be the person who's making their relationship with their feelings their entire identity.
Lucy Douglas 54:40
Yes.
Franki Cookney 54:41
You know, kind of building on the like, me and empath meme. It's that sort of idea of like, Oh, well, I'm somebody who's very like this about my feelings. So therefore
Lucy Douglas 54:50
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
[Music break]
Franki Cookney 54:54
Lucy? What is hot and what is not in June, 1986?
Lucy Douglas 54:59
What is hot is getting in touch with your emotions. And what is not is E numbers.
Franki Cookney 55:09
E numbers, yeah, absolutely. Stay away from the junk food in 1986. I think a career in sport could be quite hot for you in 1986. One you might not have considered. But yeah, stay away from the junk food.
Lucy Douglas 55:28
Thank you for listening. We hope you enjoyed today's show.
Franki Cookney 55:31
If you did, please consider leaving us a glowing review and smashing that five stars button. It'll help the podcast grow.
Lucy Douglas 55:38
We hope you join us again next time on Mag Hags, when we'll be finding out how feminism has ruined men's lives. Bye bye.
Franki Cookney 55:46
Bye.
[Theme music]
Mag Hags is written and hosted by Lucy Douglas and Franki Cookney. Edited and produced by Franki Cookney. This episode was mixed by Siân Williams.
Our theme music is Look Where That Got You, Mattie Maguire. Additional music: Leotard Haul, Dez Moran. Both courtesy of www.epidemicsound.com.