Good Housekeeping, March 1988

The Mag Hags are back and cooking with gas! This episode Franki and Lucy guide us on a tour through Good Housekeeping, March 1988.

You can join the discussion HERE. And if you haven’t listened to the episode yet, you can do that HERE.

Franki Cookney 00:00 

Is television ruining your life? Do you scoff at beauty products? Are you still cooking with an electric hob? Well, my friend, you're in good company.

[Theme music]

Franki Cookney 00:21

Hello and welcome to MagHags, the podcast that trivialises everything it touches. I'm Franki Cookney. 

Lucy Douglas 00:23

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 00:34 

Hi, Lucy. 

Lucy Douglas 00:35

Hello, Franki. 

Franki Cookney 00:36

You'll have to excuse my slightly croaky voice today. I am recovering from laryngitis. It's just for this little bit of intro though. We recorded the rest of the episode a while ago so I should sound totally normal.

Lucy Douglas 00:48

You actually sound pretty cool and husky to be fair. 

Franki Cookney 00:50

Thank you. 

Lucy Douglas 00:52

By the way Franki, have you been doing your bath time exercises? Are your thighs nice and toned?

Franki Cookney 00:59

Oh Lucy, I regret to inform you that I have not. I'm not really a bath person actually, I'm kind of more of a shower girl, so maybe you'll have to find me a workout for the shower.

Lucy Douglas 01:08

Mm, disappointing. So I, for whatever reason, over the last couple of weeks, have got a bit stuck on that Mary Quant advert that we looked at in the last episode. And do you remember the names of the eyeshadows? They were like, Grey Skies and Watery Greens.

Franki Cookney 01:28

Yeah, and Pebble Dash. 

Lucy Douglas 01:29 

Yeah, and like, those names sound so bonkers to us now. And also, also like really unappealing. So there's no way that an eyeshadow or lipstick color would be called something that like literal or mundane anymore. 

Franki Cookney 01:44 

No.

Lucy Douglas 01:45

Like these days they've got like super evocative names. So like instead of Pebble Dash, you'd have something like Smoking Room.

Franki Cookney 01:53 

Oh yeah, you would, yeah, like grey skies… it'd be called something like November Dusk. That sounds really nice to me now and I kind of want that eyeshadow. 

Lucy Douglas 02:07

Yeah, exactly, right?  Well, the other thing that makeup brands do a lot now is give things names that are like either completely obscene, like Screaming Orgasm, or like little jokey phrases like Not On My Watch, or like Spill The Beans.

Franki Cookney 02:24 

Oh my god, totally, totally. And I feel like a Watery Greens eyeshadow would be more like Yerba Mate.

Lucy Douglas 02:34

Yes! Although Franki, I actually remember this is one piece of like retro beauty magazine advice that, it's literally just come to me, that I have clearly internalised and I've been carrying around with me for the last like 20 years. You have blue eyes.

Franki Cookney 02:51 

That is correct. 

Lucy Douglas 02:52 

And I remember learning from a magazine, and I couldn't tell you which one, that green eyeshadow and blue eyes are not friends. 

Franki Cookney 02:59

Oh, is that right? 

Lucy Douglas 03:01

Yes. 

Franki Cookney 03:02

That's so funny. I have, like, I've definitely internalised that lilac and grey are good colours for my eyes. 

Lucy Douglas 03:08

Did you internalise that through like, experimentation and using makeup and looking at how your face actually looked in real life? 

Franki Cookney 03:16

No, I was categorically told in a beauty tutorial, yes. 

Lucy Douglas 03:20

And I have lived my life accordingly ever since. 

Franki Cookney 03:23

I do not stray from my colour palette. And actually, I'm saying that as a joke, but I don't think I own a green eyeshadow. I've definitely got a kind of dark turquoise one, which is about, like, 10 years old because I am that skanky person who keeps makeup way longer than you're supposed to.

Lucy Douglas 03:39 

Yeah, I have to say I'm also not fastidious about the age of my eyeshadows. I've got to say like from my beauty journalism days, it's no secret that journalism in general gets you, does get you a lot of good perks. Beauty journalism in particular is insane for the amount of freebies you get. And I had piles and piles and piles of it when I worked on a beauty magazine and I've still got loads of it now. But yeah, I have to say, despite having been warned against this many times by beauty sections, a lot of my old makeup has never done me any harm. 

Franki Cookney 04:12

Yeah, never, never done me any harm. I relate in the sense that I've never worked on a beauty magazine, but when I was on staff at a newspaper, there obviously was a beauty and fashion section and they used to have charity beauty sales to get rid of all the freebies they got sent.

And they were bloody brilliant. And I definitely still have some really ancient makeup kicking around in the very bottom of my makeup bag from those days.

I think this is a good note on which to slip between the pages of this week's magazine, because, as we will see, attitudes to beauty are very much at the forefront of one of our main features this week. And I think our slightly, shall we say, irreverent vibe is very much inkeeping with what we're going to be talking about.

Lucy Douglas 05:00

Yes! I can't wait to hear what people think about this one. Let's do it. 

[Music break] 

Franki Cookney 05:05  

Are you ready to check out what's on the cover this week? 

Lucy Douglas 05:09 

I am. Yes. 

Franki Cookney 05:10 

We have got Love, The Secret of Super Marital Sex; International Style, and Ten Thousand Pound Summer Wardrobe to Win; TV: Bel Mooney Says It's Dangerous; Patterns Inside: Bolero Set to Knit, Trouser Suit to Sew; Divorce: Women Count the Cost. 

Lucy Douglas 05:32 

Ooh. 

Franki Cookney 05:33

Parents, With a Cause: The Price Their Children Pay. I'm really enjoying how all of these are like, a word.

Lucy Douglas 05:41

Is that how it's written on the cover? 

Franki Cookney 05:43

Yes! 

Lucy Douglas 05:44

Oh my god, perfect. 

Franki Cookney

And then the final one, Cervical Cancer: Why the NHS Can't Cope.

Lucy Douglas:

We're really covering all bases with this cover, aren't we? We've got like, we've got some practical stuff, we've got a prize, we've got issues, we've got secrets. 

Franki Cookney 06:00

Yeah, there's a lot. There's also an offer for a silk blouse inspired by the one worn by actor Greta Scacchi in the film White Mischief, which came out in 1987. Because yes, we are back in the 80s this week. It is March, 1988. Die Hard is out in cinemas. George Michael is the biggest selling artist, rightly so, in my opinion. 

Lucy Douglas 06:23

Yeah. 

Franki Cookney 06:24

And a four year old girl called Franki Cookney is moving house from South London to leafy Surrey with her family. And so, it is a good time to be reading… Good Housekeeping. 

Lucy Douglas 06:37

Oh, perfect. 

Franki Cookney 06:40

We literally did move in March of that year, so I like to think my mum bought this issue for new house inspo. 

Lucy Douglas 06:46

That's very cute, I'm enjoying imagining four year old Franki. 

Franki Cookney 06:51

Just in case we miss the fact that it's the March issue, we also have a very perky young model on the cover carrying a bunch of daffodils. So it's an outdoor shoot, not a studio one, and she's walking along the road, wearing a pale grey trench coat, and some brown loafers. I can't work out what says British springtime more, daffs or a trench coat. So my first impressions of this magazine are, there are lots of ads, a lot of adverts in this magazine, to the point that the editor, the editor of Good Housekeeping in 1988 was Charlotte Lessing. And she actually talks about how she's had loads of people write in saying there's too many ads.

Lucy Douglas 07:37 

Plus ça change.

Franki Cookney 07:38

I think it makes, I think it makes a fair amount of sense that there's a lot of adverts in this issue because in 1988 things were going quite well economically in the UK. Um, the economy had been growing partly thanks to what was known as the Lawson boom, Chancellor of the Exchequer Nigel Lawson, his budget would have been in March 1988 when this issue came out, was quite famous because he cut income tax.

And, you know, his policies were controversial and the boom didn't last, etc etc. Not going to go into the economics of it, but right now at this exact point in history, I think people would have been feeling fairly good about their finances. So that's kind of reflected in the pages of this magazine, I reckon.

And one of the things the editor says, uh, explaining why there are so many adverts, “You know, the ads have to go somewhere. After all, without their existence, Good Housekeeping would cost at least £3 per copy.” It's currently £1 per copy. Yep, fair point. This is where, uh, she's kind of being generous, let's say. “Not to mention the role they play as an information provider, letting readers know anything from the launch of a new beauty product to where to buy a conservatory.” I love that she's trying to spin it as like adverts are actually really helping you, though. Otherwise, how would you know about where to get toasters?

Lucy Douglas 09:05

I mean, I should fully disclose that I do work for a creative agency that is in the business of making adverts. 

Franki Cookney 09:12

No, adverts have to exist, absolutely. I think trying to spin them as a sort of like public service is a little bit of a stretch though. 

Lucy Douglas 09:21

Yeah, yeah, it is a little bit. I, I do really feel like this, that this argument happens all the time. I mean, you know, now it's more like, it's like paywalls, isn't it? It's so boring after a while. It's like, we need to get paid, babe. This is a business. 

Franki Cookney 09:40

Well, yeah. I mean, that's why the point about how the magazine would cost more if there were no adverts is, is the better point, I think. 

Lucy Douglas 09:47

Yeah, exactly. Um, I have a question actually.

Franki Cookney

Yes.

Lucy Douglas

Thinking about Good Housekeeping now, I kind of see it as more of a I see the Good Housekeeping demographic as like a little bit older maybe than the demographic of the magazines that we talked about last week and the week before, sort of see it as more of like 40s, 50s, maybe 60s even. Do you think that Good Housekeeping, the copy that we've got here, that in 1988, is it speaking to a slightly younger reader than, maybe Good Housekeeping is speaking to today.

Franki Cookney 10:24

Yes. 

Lucy Douglas 10:25

Oh do you? 

Franki Cookney

I think so. 

Lucy Douglas

Okay. Interesting. 

Franki Cookney 10:27

There are various reasons why I think that. One is, you know, one sort of really good ways you can often judge what the uh, intended audience is for a publication is by how old the people they interview and the people they use as case studies are in the features. So that was one of the things we were confused about when we were reading Honey, wasn't it? Because we had a case study who was 16 and then other case studies who seemed like they were in their late 30s, early 40s.

Lucy Douglas 10:51

They were all over the bloody place in Honey. 

Franki Cookney 10:53

But I would say it's reading very much like a magazine for people in their late 20s and 30s. Most of those people I think they're expecting are married. Maybe they don't have kids yet, but they are certainly on that trajectory. Also, don't forget people were getting married and having kids earlier. You know, I joked earlier about, I like to think my mum bought this exact issue, but she did read Good Housekeeping in those days. You know, she would have been in her, oh, late twenties, early thirties, at the end of the eighties. And she was reading Good Housekeeping. But I think what happened is its readership aged with it. So now the demographic of Good Housekeeping is generally thought of as a bit older, like I would say Gen X. 

Lucy Douglas 11:41

Yeah.

Franki Cookney 11:42

Maybe boomers. Anyway, the magazine, obviously I mentioned it's got a lot of ads. It is chunky. I don't know if you can see that, but it is a big boy. 

Lucy Douglas 11:52

Oh wow. That's a, that's a book. 

Franki Cookney 11:55

It really is. There is so, there is so much content and information in this magazine. You've got pages of nibs that's, you know, um, news in brief, like little short news stories for fashion, news, people, food, which was one of my favorite pages because it's got a little feature entitled Flavour of the Month with a picture of 26-year-old Marco Pierre White.

Lucy Douglas 12:18

Yeah, I spotted that. 

Franki Cookney 12:19

“Marco Pierre White has looks more suited to a romantic lead than a chef.” 

Lucy Douglas 12:25

I mean, 26-year-old Marco Pierre White is a hunk. 

Franki Cookney 12:28

He's a snack, yeah. 

Lucy Douglas 12:29

He is a snack, I would .

Franki Cookney 12:31

Which is why he's on the food page. Yeah, so then, and then you've got design, you've got money and these are all just news pages, right? Um, there's a really solid interiors and gardening section, which I think you would expect. There's a wonderful like home libraries and bookshelf inspiration, which I'm definitely going to put in the newsletter because these bookshelves, honestly. 

Lucy Douglas 12:53

I was going to say, I'm not going to lie. This sounds like my ideal magazine now. 

Franki Cookney 12:58

As I mentioned, there's a knitting pattern and a sewing pattern. There's cooking and recipe pages. There's health, there's travel, there's consumer affairs pages, financial advice, product testing, obviously the product testing, you know, the Good Housekeeping Institute was set up in 1924. It's going strong. In this issue alone, they tested 17 lawnmowers, Lucy. 

Lucy Douglas 13:20

Out of interest, which was the best lawnmower of, of March 1988? 

Franki Cookney 13:24 

Oh my god, now you're asking me. I'm gonna, hang on. Here we go. No, do you know what? They've not actually said which one they like best. They've divided it into lots of different categories, which honestly, I'm not even going to read you because who knew there were so many different types of lawnmower? So I'm afraid I can't tell you what the best lawnmower in 1988 was.

So there's also a one page roundup of different cordless appliances. So things that, things that absolutely did not take off in cordless form, I would say irons. Have you ever seen a cordless iron? 

Lucy Douglas 14:00

No. 

Franki Cookney 14:02

No 

Lucy Douglas 14:02

No!

Franki Cookney 14:04

No.  I was like, how? What? So that was obviously one of those things that came in and then everybody went, “No, this is stupid,” and it was never seen again. On the flip side, Good Housekeeping were adamant that nobody in their right mind would want a cordless kettle, by which it means a kettle that's on, so the stand is plugged into the wall, and the kettle you can lift off separately.

Lucy Douglas 14:29

Like the kettle I used just now to make my tea? 

Franki Cookney 14:32

Like basically all kettles now, yes. And Good Housekeeping is like, “Can't understand why anyone would want or need this. It's hardly an inconvenience to take your corded kettle over to the sink.” Well, turns out they were wrong. It was a massive inconvenience. But yes, you got a lot for your money in a 1980's issue of Good Housekeeping. 

Lucy Douglas 14:54

You get a lot of bang for your buck. 

Franki Cookney 14:56

After that, are you ready to go inside this issue? 

Lucy Douglas 15:00

Yes. 

[Music break]

Franki Cookney 15:03   

The Enemy Within. “Television, our main source of information and entertainment, can shape our opinions and view of world affairs, but is it a force for good or evil?”

Lucy Douglas 15:08

Evil, that is strong. 

Franki Cookney 15:20

Yeah, she's coming out strong. So the reporter on this or the writer on this is a journalist called Bel Mooney. She's a longtime journalist and columnist, and she still writes a regular advice column for the Daily Mail. 

Lucy Douglas 15:32

I've got to say, I'm obsessed with the name Bel Mooney. It's, it's like the perfect magazine journalism name. Like, I feel like if Jilly Cooper was writing a novel about women's magazines set in the 80s, like the main antagonist would be called Bel Mooney. 

Franki Cookney 15:49 

Yeah. And it's Bel B E L. Just one L, which I just think, you know, as someone who's called Franki with no E on the end, I can appreciate that kind of flourish.

Lucy Douglas 16:00

Less is more. 

Franki Cookney 16:00

Yeah. Just keep it punchy, that's what I say. So at first glance, this feature seems really kind of hyperbolic and ridiculous. And I really thought it was going to be, you know, kind of in the same wheelhouse as like the Mary Whitehouse school of thought. Mary Whitehouse obviously being this conservative activist who set up a group called Clean Up TV in the 1960s. She was sort of railing against violence on TV, sex, anything she saw as like “permissiveness” in inverted commas. Long story short, the TLDR on Mary Whitehouse is she saw 20th century media as contributing to the moral decay of society, and so, you know, when I opened up a feature about like, is television good or evil? That's kind of what I thought it was going to be. And the opening part is a lot. I'm just going to read it to you. “There is a god so powerful and persuasive in our culture that he has taken the place of all the other deities. Speak out against this god and you are railed against. His acolytes protesting that he is a force for good. To question this power is akin to blasphemy. Especially if you move, as I do, among the privileged priests and priestesses who closely serve him. The god I speak of, of course, is television. And his lighted altars glow in every home in the land.”

Lucy Douglas 17:25

I mean, I've got to say, like, I think quite a lot of this article is, it's high camp.

Franki Cookney 17:32

Do you know what, as I was reading that, I was like, I feel like, I need some music. I'm going to have to add some sound design to this section of the podcast because it's so dramatic.

Lucy Douglas 17:42

But do you know what? I actually think like the most camp bit comes next when she sort of like holds her hand up and she goes, “Twenty years ago, I married into a television family. And since then TV has paid my mortgage. I am fanatically proud of everything my husband Jonathan Dimbleby does on the box in an excellent tradition of reportage and current affairs.” I just, I absolutely loved it. Cause I feel like nowadays, like if you read the odd column where like everybody knows that the columnist is married to, or related to, somebody famous off the telly, and we all hav e to kind of pretend that, do you know what I mean? They all just kind of ignore it. We ju st sort of pretend that that isn't the case. And she's just like, nah, fuck it, gonna lean right into it. And then she kind of goes on further down the paragraph to like mention that she's got some ideas for TV shows that she wants to develop, which… Brilliant Bel! Just get it in there in case, in case there's, in case there's some producers waiting with open purse strings.

Franki Cookney

Yeah. 

Lucy Douglas

I mean, it does sort of make me think that she doesn't think that TV is a problem at all. She just needed to write a column this month. Maybe her commissioning editor was like, can you slag off TV? I feel like a lot of, a lot of our readers are into that. 

Franki Cookney 19:05 

I mean, I feel like this definitely was a time when people were kind of asking a lot of questions about how good is all this new technology? An evergreen conversation, really. Anyway, after that really intense intro, she does make some good points. You know, she says television presents us with a standardized view of the world. She talks about how, you know, “A few people produce TV for millions, mainly white, middle class and male dominated as the television industry is, it produces a view of the world that is mostly white, middle class and male dominated.” And I read that and I just thought, well, yeah.

Lucy Douglas: 19:46 

I thought that was interesting. I thought it was interesting that she was making that point in 1988. 

Franki Cookney 19:51

Yeah. I mean, her prime concern is sort of that the battle for ratings has led to a decrease in the quality of content, which again, an evergreen topic. Um, she say, “By emphasizing entertainment value at the expense of thought and serious comment so that everything has to be presented in a zappy, speeded up style, television tends to trivialize everything it touches, even news and current affairs.” And I'm immediately just thinking of Brass Eye. And like, yeah, that's, that's what that was taking the piss out of. So she's, she's not wrong. 

Lucy Douglas 20:33

It also feels quite funny lamenting this like, glut of content when there were like, four channels. So now, when we're sort of, we're tits deep in streaming services. It feels absolute nonsense to get up in arms about four channels.

I did think as well, so the bit, oh, there's a, there's a bit where she's got a bit of an issue with soaps. She, she has this sort of, she has an argument about how like watching hammed up dramas in like soaps and things will make us sort of desensitised to it. So the, the idea is basically like, are we going to expend our emotional capacity empathizing for characters in soaps and have none left for real life people. Which, I mean, a) sounds kind of ridiculous and hysterical, but also, like, I think quite the opposite. I think, I think soaps have kind of proved like in their lifetime that one of the functions that they serve really well, other than entertainment is to take really big social issues, often issues that are really taboo, and make them really accessible to your kind of everyday viewer. So things like, um, like HIV, like EastEnders was credited with EastEnders had a character, an HIV storyline in which a straight male character, Mark Fowler, was diagnosed with HIV in 1991. EastEnders was also the first soap to, or it's also the first TV show to broadcast, um, two men kissing on TV. That was in 1989.

Franki Cookney 22:18

Please can we not forget the, uh, British screen's first lesbian kiss on Brookside. 

Lucy Douglas 22:22

Oh, when was that? 

Franki Cookney 22:23

In 1994, I think it was. It was Anna Friel. 

Lucy Douglas 22:28

Good, good intel. But yeah, and like there's, there's numerous like examples of charities seeing like an increase in people accessing their services as a result of seeing an issue tackled on a soap opera. Um, so. So yeah, I'm sorry, Bel, but you're wrong about that. 

Franki Cookney 22:51

Definitely. So that kind of leads quite nicely because I was going to ask you which of her concerns do you feel have come to pass? There's a line here where she's talking about, the important question is, could we do without it? “I gain far more pleasure, excitement, spiritual sustenance, delight, and information from books than I do from TV.” And I feel like that is in essence, very similar to our, the huge amount of essays and op-eds we've read about people trying to put their phones down. 

Lucy Douglas 23:24

Yeah, yeah, for sure. There was another bit towards the end that I thought, thinking about it in the context of social media companies, seemed really, like, prophetic. And there's, uh, it's like in the concluding paragraph, and she says something about power without responsibility, which I was like, wow. I mean that, like, forget TV companies, at least they're regulated a bit. That felt really, really prophetic when thinking about the responsibility or lack thereof that tech companies, social media companies, have over the content that people consume on their platforms.

Franki Cookney 24:03

I think what's most interesting about this feature is exactly that. It's not so much oh, whether what she says about television is true, but the fact that it's so easy to transplant this whole discussion into now and parts of it still be super relevant. Like, you know, we just can't stop talking about how the latest tech is probably like ruining our lives in some way.

Lucy Douglas 24:26

There's um, I don't know if you ever come across it, there's a Twitter account, I think it still exists, it's called the Pessimists Archive. And it would get, um, Sorry, an X account. Not a Twitter account. It would get like, clippings of newspaper articles from various different points in history that are talking about some kind of, technological or social advancement and would be wringing its hand about it. Like, you know, this is, this is very bad. Most recently when I kind of had to look at it, it's all devoted to like, why AI is going to kill us. 

Franki Cookney 24:26

Yeah. I was going to say the current, the current thing is AI, isn't it? Yeah. I mean, I've had this conversation as well with Robotics and AI expert, Dr. Kate Devlin because she has done a bit of work around sex tech. And obviously one of the big questions everybody has there is like, Oh no, is sex robots going to replace human connection? 

Lucy Douglas :25:23]

No. 

Franki Cookney 25:24

Poor Kate has been called upon to answer this question so many times. But one of the things she always says is that ever since, you know, since technology, began. Since we invented the wheel, people have been worrying about how it's going to destroy life as we know it. 

Lucy Douglas 25:40

It can also improve life as we know it.

Franki Cookney 25:43

But yeah, part of us getting to grips with new technology is discussing all the ways in which it's ruining everything. So it's just, it's just what we do.  

[Jingle] 

Franki Cookney 25:55

*Yawns* Oh man, we're only halfway through the show, Lucy, and I'm flagging.

Lucy Douglas 25:59

Why don't you have a cup of Ovaltine? 

Franki Cookney 26:02

Ovaltine? Isn't that a bedtime drink? 

Lucy Douglas 26:04

Not in Thailand. Over there they call it “Kick the day off drink” 

Franki Cookney 26:09

Catchy. 

Lucy Douglas 26:10

Maybe it sounds better in Thai. But seriously, it makes sense if you think about it. After all, Ovaltine contains malt extract, a well known source of instant and long lasting energy.

Franki Cookney 26:21

Is it? 

Lucy Douglas 26:23

Sure! Not to mention the goodness of barley. And eggs! So that's the protein. And you've got calcium from the milk powder. 

Franki Cookney 26:29

I suppose I hadn't thought of it like that. 

Lucy Douglas 26:31

Few Brits have. Meanwhile, the good citizens of Bangkok indulge in a glass of their favourite energy drink before indulging in any strenuous activity.

Franki Cookney 26:40

You said indulge twice. 

Lucy Douglas 26:42

That's right, Ovaltine is so good for you that your average Thai football team insists on a pre match mug. 

Franki Cookney 26:48

I have literally no way of verifying this information. Um, so you're saying Ovaltine is actually an energy drink? God, what must they think of us drinking it before bed?

Lucy Douglas  27:02

Isn't it time you woke up to Ovaltine?

[Jingle]

Lucy Douglas 27:07

Bloody hell, Franki, I've gone and burnt my porridge again. 

Franki Cookney 27:10

Oh, it's that electric hob of yours, babe. I'm telling you, you want to switch to gas. 

Lucy Douglas 27:14

Gas? 

Franki Cookney 27:16

There's nothing quite like gas for giving you control over your cooking. 

Lucy Douglas 27:19

How so? 

Franki Cookney 27:20

Well, with gas, nothing cooks so slowly, nothing cooks so fast.

Lucy Douglas 27:25

Um. 

Franki Cookney 27:25

Take the New World Plan 6 SBS for instance. It cooks slowly, with infinite care when the occasion demands. 

Lucy Douglas 27:32

Occasions such as porridge. 

Franki Cookney 27:34

Exactly. And when you turn the settings up high, the temperature changed is instant. That's what control means.

Lucy Douglas 27:40

Still, I don't know. I'd be worried about leaving it on by accident.

Franki Cookney 27:44

Oh, there's no question of that happening. When you close the cover, it switches the burners off automatically and returns the controls to the off position. 

Lucy Douglas 27:52

Hmm, it does sound like it's got great… “cookability”. 

Franki Cookney 27:56

That's the beauty of gas. British Gas. 

[Jingle]

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Lucy Douglas 28:01 

More iconic ads. 

Franki Cookney 28:03

I really like that British Gas one because it feels very of its time, given that British Gas was only privatised two years earlier. So presumably before that there would have been no need to advertise. Because there's just one gas. Also, I should declare a conflict of interest here because my dad worked for British Gas all through my childhood, so 

Lucy Douglas 28:22

Yeah, you're a British Gas nepo baby. 

Franki Cookney 28:25

I'm a British Gas nepo baby. Oh, and I'm not with them anymore. I'm with Octopus now. 

Lucy Douglas

Same. Octopus, if you're listening. 

[Music break] 

Franki Cookney

The French have it, the Americans want it, And the British shun it. Lucy, can you guess what I'm talking about? 

Lucy Douglas 28:45

No. Sex?

Franki Cookney 28:51

Great. Yeah. I mean, not no. Um, okay. I'll read you the, uh, stand first. “Why is it most English women wouldn't be seen dead rubbing in breast firmers or working out in the gym five times a week? Sophie Vincenzi compares the beauty habits of English, French and American women and the way it affects their looks.” This is a beauty feature and is there anything you've spotted in that stand first? 

Lucy Douglas 29:17

Is it that Sophie Vincenzi, any relation to our, to friend of the podcast Penny Vincenzi from Honey in 1976? 

Franki Cookney 29:26

Yes, Sophie Vincenzi is Penny Vincenzi's daughter. 

Lucy Douglas 29:30

Oh, interesting. Keeping it in the family. 

Franki Cookney 29:33

Yes. Sophie Vincenzi, her name is now Sophie Cornish, like her mother, had a pretty good journalism career, did a lot of beauty writing, and then she went on to found NotOnTheHighStreet.com. 

Lucy Douglas 29:45

Oh, fascinating.

Franki Cookney 29:47

I feel like that's quite an iconic mid noughties… 

Lucy Douglas 29:49

Yeah, I've definitely bought many a Christmas or birthday present for my mum off NotOnTheHighStreet.com. 

Franki Cookney 29:55 

So the basic premise of this feature is that there is a sort of typical English approach to beauty and that that contrasts with the French approach and the American approach. And those approaches, according to our writer Sophie Vincenzi, break down as follows: English women, she says, are sort of performatively low maintenance. They see vanity as ridiculous and quote, “scoff at beauty products.” Because apparently we don't want to be seen as self indulgent or trying too hard.

French women, on the other hand, take their beauty very seriously and are always in pursuit of perfection. For the French, this is a line from the feature as well, “For the French beauty is a hobby, a serious one, and part of their heritage.” There's also a bit of an implication that it can get quite competitive.

Americans, as you might imagine, have quite an entrepreneurial attitude to beauty. It's all about how much effort you're seen to have put in. And so it's about looking polished. And this confers status because looking polished also implies you're doing well professionally and financially. So that's the gist.

And we'll come back to whether or not this is true in a minute, because I first of all need to talk about the fact that, I'm going to just read a line from near, from very near the beginning. "French women tend to have darker hair and olive complexions," although just to say this statement is accompanied by an extremely pale skinned brunette model in the picture.

"The outdoorsy lifestyle of many Americans results in an athletic form, tan skin and sun streaked hair, while our damp English climate and Anglo Saxon heritage gives us fair baby face complexions and light eyes and hair." 

Lucy Douglas 31:40

Yikes. 

Franki Cookney 31:41

I mean, yeah, it just assumes a total racial homogeny 

Lucy Douglas 31:47

Yeah 

Franki Cookney 31:48

And also a geographic homogeny because not everywhere in America is like tanning and sun streaking. There's quite a diversity of climates in the US. 

Lucy Douglas 32:00

I have to say, I felt when I was reading this feature, like the, the kombucha meme girl, I think there's, I felt like there's sort of two different, so there's a kind of issue around like beauty as an aesthetic, who or what we think of as beautiful, and everything about that felt like, horribly, like it aged horribly and was really like stark and problematic. And then the stuff around beauty as like a practice and, you know, something that we do and around the kind of products that we use or don't use, and the treatments that we might have or not have, and they're being kind of cultural influences in that. I thought that part was really interesting and I thought the voices that she had throughout it, the, like the buyers from the big, from some of the big brands and stuff talking about like which types of products sell well in the UK versus in, in other parts of Europe and stuff. I thought that was really interesting. like the idea about, there's a bit in there about how products for sensitive skin sell really well in the UK. So it's like treating yourself to like a face cream or whatever is sort of seen as less self indulgent. It's kind of okay if there's like a medical need, which I really liked that little detail.

Franki Cookney 33:20

Yeah. She's talking about how, because English women sort of shun the idea of pampering yourself. They think that more of, more of them are starting to identify as having sensitive skin because it then excuses them trying beauty products, which is clever. 

Lucy Douglas 33:38

Yeah. Oh no, I'm not being vain. Yeah.

Franki Cookney 33:40

Weirdly, I actually feel like it's right now going the other way. Like people are sort of using the excuse of sensitive skin to kind of not use as many beauty products. I saw a red carpet, really brief red carpet interview with Zendaya. Just like, it was a short clip that I saw on Instagram or TikTok, I can't remember, where they were just going, “Oh, tell us about your skincare routine.” And she was basically saying, “Oh, I, I, it's really, really simple because I have super, super sensitive skin. I'm really prone to breaking out and like redness and all these things. So I, I, it's really not anything exciting.” And I was thinking, that's interesting. There has to be a reason why she doesn't, you know, she can't just be like, my skincare routine is really simple because I'm naturally extremely beautiful. 

Lucy Douglas 34:29

Yeah. 

Franki Cookney 34:30

So she's sort of inventing this idea of sensitive skin to get out of having to talk about her skincare routine. 

Lucy Douglas 34:36

Yeah. 

Franki Cookney 34:37

So I really wanted to get the perspective of a modern day beauty writer on this. And so I got in touch with Anita Bhagwandas. She's worked as a beauty writer and editor for pretty much, well, pretty much all of the women's mags that are around today. She's a beauty columnist for The Guardian. She's also the author of the book Ugly: Giving Us Back Our Beauty Standards, which is part memoir, part historical commentary. And her perspective is of being a South Asian woman growing up amid British beauty culture and then going on to forge a career in that very industry. So I thought I'd share our chat with you now. 

Lucy Douglas 35:13

Okay, I'm excited to hear what she's got to say. 

[Music break] 

Franki Cookney 35:16

How old were you in March, 1988? 

Anita Bhagwandas 35:19

Oh, I had probably just turned four.

Franki Cookney 35:23

So when I first got in touch with you, I'd literally just read your newsletter where you talked about going to Miami and the sort of like Miami look. Off the bat, what do you think about the premise of this piece? Do you think it's true that different places and cultures have their own kind of beauty rules and approaches?

Anita Bhagwandas 35:40

Yeah, definitely. I think that, that still applies, but I think even within that, like there are sort of smaller factions. Like I, I actually am really, I love that within British, you know, British beauty, that in some places, like it's totally normal to go out with, you know, like the big curlers and to like, if that to be like a really big part of the ritual and to go out with those in a way that you wouldn't see in London. And I think that those differences I think are really fascinating, because I think they tell you a lot, and not in a judgmental way at all, I think they're just really interesting cultural differences and yeah, just different ways that people use beauty.  

Franki Cookney 36:19

I think one of the first things that I thought when I read this was like, so the idea of saying there is one English look felt, I mean, even like, so there's two dimensions to this, right? First of all, it felt insane because I was like, but not everybody in this country looks the same. And you know, the language they use there. is extremely racialized, you know, like, oh, “our damp English climate and Anglo Saxon heritage.”

Anita Bhagwandas 36:45

Yeah, I mean, there's a lot about that that's scientifically untrue, um, which is a whole other thing. I mean, even when I started in magazines and up until, gosh, you know, it's probably only really been the last 10 years that magazines have really upped their game, catering to a wider audience. Definitely in my first jobs in magazines, you assumed the reader was white and everything was geared around the fact that they were white. So it was very much part of the culture and everyone on the teams, generally speaking, was white. But it was, it wasn't actually that long ago that that was still the case.   

Franki Cookney 37:17

I guess reading this, I felt quite naive because obviously I objectively know that that's the case. And I've read your, I mean, lots of people's work, obviously talking about that and how… Obviously growing up reading magazines in the nineties as a white person, I maybe didn't register it because I was just like, this is for me. So why would it clock that it's not for anybody else? And then I think seeing it actually on the page like this, I was like, this is so jarring to me and it probably shouldn’t be.

Anita Bhagwandas 37:47

Yeah. It's that thing. I think we have all had a bit of a, like, you know, maybe it's age, maybe it's more sort of a cultural upleveling of, you know, noticing when people aren't included. But yeah, I mean, that, it was just, that was just the way that things were. And it was automatically assumed that that was the way that things were. And the reason that was assumed was because the aspirational, which is such a magazine word, the aspirational person was a white person and was white beauty standards and was white body types and was white fashion standard. Like it was all of it was sort of has come from a culture of whiteness. So yeah, it doesn't surprise me in any way. It always worked from the assumption that this is what, you know, this is what normal is. And, you know, that, that is quite a complex thing because I guess, you know, if you look at population, if you look at readership, you know, magazines are maybe targeting their readers and they probably do know a fair amount about their readers. Um, but then on the, on the flip side of that, you do have to, you know, if you do just appeal to one person, you will never broaden your readership. 

Franki Cookney 38:54

Yeah. So the next thing I wanted to ask you was how they're defining kind of French beauty standards, American beauty standards, British beauty standards. I'm really interested to know whether you think any parts of those still hold true. 

Anita Bhagwandas 39:09

Yeah, this is really fascinating. So I guess with the American sort of trope, what's quite interesting about that period in time was that makeup and beauty, makeup in particular, actually, was all about like long-wearing formulas and products that would last all day because women were in the workplace in a really significant way. And part of that was, you know, annoyingly women have always been judged by the way they look in a way that men aren’t in quite the same way. So yeah, I think that was a time where it was a status symbol. And I think what's interesting is that even now, there is a slightly different vibe in New York. I would say New York has always been a little bit more polished. I saw a journalist friend, who’s American and writes about similar stuff to me and you know, I do my nails very occasionally, they're quite often chipped. The one thing she said to me was that I really noticed that in the UK, not everyone has their nails done. And I was like, Oh wow. Wow. 

Franki Cookney 40:11

Wow. Nail shaming.

Anita Bhagwandas 40:14

I know. Wow. I didn't, I didn't actually, that's not something I'd clocked. 

Franki Cookney 40:18

I really remember a friend of mine coming back from having been in New York for work for about a year. And she, she didn't like it. Funnily enough, she's someone that had also lived in Paris and in London. She adores Paris, adores French culture, didn't get on with New York. But one of the things she said she did like about it was that she got her hair blow dried every day. And that's so wild. That's what I always think of when I think of kind of New York style is like the, well, they call it a blowout, don't they? A blow dry. I mean, I cannot, I cannot fathom doing that. 

Anita Bhagwandas 40:51

Yeah.

Franki Cookney 40:51

Going to that level of effort. 

Anita Bhagwandas 40:53

I think the interesting thing is that we've come to a place now where things like, so I guess for example, you know, having the lashes and nails done and stuff, you know, that's quite a big thing in like younger goth subcultures and stuff now, as well as it might be in the sort of more Love Island-esque, you know, vibe. Yeah, I think there is a lot of crossover now. 

Franki Cookney 41:14 

Yes. And I'm really glad you mentioned Love Island because at the beginning, when we were talking about, um, you, you were talking about the sort of subcultures of beauty that exist within the UK and you didn't mention Liverpool by name, but I think you were referring to Liverpudlian style, like Scouse style. And that was the other reason why I sort of felt like this premise felt really bonkers to me because I feel like even within our quite small country, there are lots of different beauty subcultures. And so, yeah, so the idea that there's sort of one. approach seems, I don't know, it seems farcical really.

Anita Bhagwandas 41:50

Yeah, that's interesting, but, and I think that it comes down to class because, you know, magazines, etc, would not have looked at the Liverpool girl as aspirational, they still probably don't, you know? It's really, it's always disparaging about that sort of glamming up, the girls from like Liverpool or like, even like in Wales, you know, I've grown up with that. That's, that's, you know, it's classist and it's a horrible sneering. I think the assumption is that we're, richer, wealthier, more naturally beautiful. We don't have to go to that effort. And that is kind of what the magazine piece is reflecting. It's almost like that sort of person, I think. And I, but then I also think there is, you know, the magazine talks about this, there is a slight Britishness to not caring too much, like not being seen to care too much about your appearance because it indicates vanity and I, I do, I think that probably comes from, I think, historical attitudes towards beauty, if I'm honest, that still persist in terms of, you know, women who display too much, you know, makeup or like, you know, looked like they're too done, you know, that was, that was a bad thing. Historically has always been seen as a bad thing. It's been seen as having links to, you know, sex work or working on as on the stage. Like it's always been a way to put someone in a box and sort of say, this is the kind of person you are. And I think that still prevails in our society. 

Franki Cookney 43:06

Do you think this kind of feature would be written now? And if it was, like, how would it be approached? 

Anita Bhagwandas 43:14

To be honest, I have seen this feature written now. It's quite often, it's the French girl beauty is the one that gets written about a lot.

Franki Cookney 43:22

Oh, I think we really sort of idealise the French in that way. 

Anita Bhagwandas 43:26 

I've seen it so many times. And, yeah. And it's this idea that, you know, French women have this very like natural beauty look, but we don't see the full picture actually of any culture, you know, and people don't see the full picture of our culture if they're outside of it too. So I definitely think there's an element of that. Uh, and we still have that sort of French girl. 

Franki Cookney 00:43:53

My god, the amount of, like, choppy little bobs I've tried to have in my life. With varying degrees of success.

Anita Bhagwandas 43:57

Oh yeah, you know, I sometimes still click on stuff, but I always think, why are we not aspiring to Japanese girl beauty? Why are we not aspiring to Somalian girl beauty. Like it's, it does feel, it always feels really Eurocentric to me.

[Music break] 

Franki Cookney 44:13

Eurocentric indeed. Lucy, what did you think? 

Lucy Douglas 44:17

I really loved what she had to say about, well, I loved a lot of what she had to say. I thought that was like fascinating, but I really loved that little detail about the 80s being a period where there was a lot of sort of innovation around long wear makeup. because that was when women were like in the office for the first time, or not for the first time, but like it was much more kind of deliberate and culturally sort of conscious. 

Franki Cookney 44:43

Yeah, totally. And you know what it says in the feature about American polish and that being part of being a professional woman, actually when you do think about it in, in the context of like 80s feminism and women in the workplace, that makes so much sense, doesn't it?

Lucy Douglas 44:58

Yeah, for sure. I also really loved that little nugget she had where she was having lunch with a mate who's a beauty journalist from New York who said that it's really noticeable coming to the UK and not everyone has their nails done. I thought that was like that's totally true. I think when I was working for a beauty mag back in like the sort of early mid 2010s, that was like a beauty trade mag. So we wrote a lot about the sorts of treatments that, you know, like the market, and the sort of treatments that people were buying and that were really popular and stuff. And nail bars were kind of taking off or they had they had taken off but only fairly recently and like that that culture of maintenance treatment so like going to a salon to get your nails done, your lashes done, your brows done, doing that on a kind of regular basis as sort of part of your like weekly or monthly routine or whatever. That was becoming like a lot more of a thing here, and it definitely felt like an American export. 

Franki Cookney 46:01

Yeah, yeah. So I also wanted to put the same question to you that I asked Anita, which is in terms of the characterization of English, French and American in this feature, what do you think about it? Like, do you think there's any, there any kernels of truth in here?

Lucy Douglas 46:17

The only thing, so when, initially, when she said, “vanity is seen as ridiculous by English women, we tend to scoff at products that claim to make us look younger or slimmer.” When I first read that, I was like bullshit. British women are just as vain as everybody else. And then, and then I thought about her point a bit more and I was like, actually, she's not saying the British women aren't vain. She's saying that British women don't want to, don't like to admit they’re vain. 

Franki Cookney 46:43

That's what I mean. It's this performance of low maintenance. 

Lucy Douglas 46:47

Yeah, yeah. And I think that is, um, I do think that's less fair than it probably was in 1986. I think, um, sorry, in 1988, I think now post TOWIE, post Geordie Shore, post Love Island, everybody like that, that, that jig is up.

Franki Cookney 47:08

And also, yeah, you're absolutely right. I don't feel like now. There's really, well, I was going to say there's no shame in being into beauty. It's more like there's no kudos in not being into beauty now, I don't think. 

Lucy Douglas 47:21

Oh yeah, that's a very good, that's a very good distinction. 

Franki Cookney 47:25

I guess I'm just trying to figure out, do I feel like what she's talking about in 1988 is something I feel I grew up with, this sense that I had to kind of scoff at beauty products. And I do a little bit relate to that. And as you say, that's really changed. Like, I don't think, I don't feel really any pressure to pretend I don't like beauty now. 

Lucy Douglas 47:45

No, no. 

Franki Cookney 47:47

I have also grown up though, so there's that. 

Lucy Douglas 47:51

I now give less of a shit. 

Franki Cookney 47:53

Yeah, it's kind of like, has the culture changed or am I just older?

Lucy Douglas 47:57

I think this about three times a week. 

[Music]

Franki Cookney 48:00

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.substack.com

[Music]

Franki Cookney 48:24 

Fashion tip of the week. Show a little shoulder. 

Lucy Douglas 48:29

Oh! 

Franki Cookney 48:31

A glimpse of shoulder is key to Spring 1988 fashion. Shoulders and necklines are the pivotal points of Jasper Conran's new collection, according to Good Housekeeping's fashion folio feature. 

Lucy Douglas 48:45

Hmm. 

Franki Cookney 48:46

Bruce Oldfield's collection, I am told, projects the shoulder line as the new erogenous zone.

Lucy Douglas 48:51

I could see that. There is something kind of sexy about a like, a well framed nude shoulder. 

Franki Cookney 48:57

Yeah, yeah. And then in the pics on that page, we've got a lovely low backed bodycon number from Betty Jackson, which has got a little bit of like back shoulder and shoulder blade. Um, there's a fabulous Lacroix puffed sleeve, which is accentuating the shoulders. And at Galliano, we have necklines slashed straight across the bodice, a look that Good Housekeeping describes as girlishly soft. 

Lucy Douglas

Ooh, I love that Lacroix dress. 

Franki Cookney

Isn't it amazing? 

Lucy Douglas 49:29

It's so beautiful. 

Franki Cookney 49:31

Your beauty tip of the week is keep it low tech. 

Lucy Douglas 49:34

This feels like it's in keeping with our, what I've just learned from our feature.

Franki Cookney 49:39

Yeah. So, uh, after the main beauty feature, Sophie Vincenzi has another feature where she looks into the new science-led approaches to cosmetics. So rather than go and have a nice chat with a motherly type lady on the Elizabeth Arden counter, You can now, in 1988, walk up to Clinique or Lancôme and have your skin scanned or probed by a consultant in a white coat and results fed back to you from a computer. So it's all very exciting, but in a truly refreshing turn. Sophie Vincenzi is not convinced. 

Lucy Douglas 50:11

Okay. 

Franki Cookney 50:12

Yeah, the entire feature has a really critical approach, which you don't see so much of in today's beauty coverage. And then at the end she writes, “I'm not so sure that the high tech approach does simplify choosing skin products. Though most consultants found my skin to be in good condition, they all recommended a lot of different products.” Think she's on to something there, isn't she? 

Lucy Douglas

Rightly sceptical, Sophie. 

[Music]

Franki Cookney 50:40

Don't take your love life lying down. I'm sure you wouldn't dream of it. Sexual intimacy, I'm just going to read the, the standfirst that comes under the headline. “Sexual intimacy has less to do with bedroom technique and more to do with feeling that both your lives are in balance and under control.”

Now this is actually a book excerpt, uh, from a book called Supermarital Sex by Paul Pearsall, PhD. So that's a content tradition that a lot of us would recognize, obviously. Somebody's got a new book out and you basically fill… one, two, three, yeah, three pages with an excerpt. Free content. So the feature starts off by saying, essentially, your relationship doesn't exist in a vacuum. Quote: “You cannot separate your sex life from the rest of your life. Whatever life throws at a marriage, it throws at a couple's sexual relationship too.” So I think we can all agree on that. And then there are sections on friendships, work, money, in-law relations and parenting children and how these can affect our sex lives.

Now I'm gonna just, let's gloss over the money in law relations sections. I really want to talk to you about the friendship section. 

Lucy Douglas 51:57

Like this section specifically, like, this section on friendships. I think it felt really like it was saying that there was one correct way to do marriage. 

Franki Cookney 52:11 

But I think the kind of the through line of this section is your friendships might be a threat to your marriage, which just. standing on its own feels like, I'm sorry, what? 

Lucy Douglas 52:25 

It does feel extremely directive and like, this is what you must do to be married well, to like, to serve your marriage appropriately. And a lot of it, you know, seems to be like, and if you confide too much in your friends, or if you and your other half chat to other people too much at parties, then your marriage is in trouble.

Franki Cookney 52:48

Yes. Yes! I mean, literally it's like, well, if you've got a lot of friends, you need to ask yourself, are you looking for something else that you can't get in your marriage? 

Lucy Douglas 52:58 

I just kind of imagined like, I don't know, me and my fictitious husband have had been at a party the night before and I'd been talking to some friends and he'd been off talking to some other friends and we were having a marvellous time and then we went home, and then the next day with my hangover, I'm reading my copy of Good Housekeeping and Paul's telling me that it means that my marriage is all shit. 

Franki Cookney 53:22 

Yes! Yeah. So there are a couple of um, there are a couple of particular lines that I made a note of. So the first one was, “Ask yourself what needs are being met outside the marriage that cannot be met within it. Marriage is the one place for total vulnerability and intimacy.” That just, I mean, you know, even without the last 10 to 20 years of sex and relationships discourse that feels inherently wrong. 

Lucy Douglas 53:48 

Icky. Yeah. I didn't like it. No. I didn't like it at all.

Franki Cookney 53:54  

No. I mean, he's, so he's, he's sort of literally saying like exactly the scenario you were just talking about, where if you go to a party and you and your partner spend the night talking to other people, that's a bad sign. If you find yourself making new friends after you're married. That's a bad sign. If you confide in other people than your spouse, that's a bad sign. Like Lucy, by this logic, our entire friendship is a really bad sign for my marriage. 

Lucy Douglas 54:25

It is a bad sign. 

Franki Cookney 54:27 

Basically by this man's standards, my marriage is doomed.

Lucy Douglas 54:31 

Yeah, you're in trouble. 

Franki Cookney 54:34 

And then obviously I think, you know, it's just so interesting to see how, how the kind of accepted truth about what's good for a relationship has really fundamentally changed. So another line that I made a note of was where it says, “A good marriage or good sexual relationship requires exclusive intimacy rights.” And I'm reading that and I'm like, like red flag. 

Lucy Douglas 54:59 

Yeah. 

Franki Cookney 55:01 

This is just like the direct opposite of what we now consider to be kind of true about intimacy. And you know, Esther Perel famously talks about how too much intimacy or sort of like too much of it, or like not having a break from it or not having any other sources for it can actually be bad for your sex life, like it's the too much intimacy is the antithesis of the erotic. It can inhibit desire. And he's here saying that just the opposite of that: If you don't have total exclusive intimacy, then you won't have a good sex life. So that's just, that's just fascinating to see how that narrative has done a total 180.

Lucy Douglas 55:44 

Yeah. Yeah. 

Franki Cookney 55:46 

What about the work section? 

Lucy Douglas 55:47 

Yeah. So I, I didn't hate the work section as much. I thought the points that like the things that it was saying about, like, you know, you have to kind of find your, you have to kind of maintain balance. And I don't know if I read this, I don't know if I felt this because I was viewing it through a kind of 2024 lens or because I was like, particularly tired and stressed the week that I read it. But like, I just, I felt really like, I felt really defensive about what he was saying about finding balance. I was just like, it's really hard. It's really hard to find balance.

Franki Cookney 56:19 

I had a very similar kind of feeling a bit later on, uh, in the part in the section about parenting. I mean, there was, there was one line about parenting that I actually liked and thought was a, was an interesting observation where it says “Privacy and quiet are luxuries that few families are lucky enough to enjoy. And the more loving, open, and involved the family, the less likely it is that the parents can find much time to have open, free, expressive sex.” And I was obviously like, yeah, a hundred percent, but I, but, um, I kind of never, I'm not sure if I really heard anyone talk about how the lack of time to have the kind of sex life you want to have is a direct result of wanting to be a very involved family. 

Lucy Douglas 57:10

Yeah. 

Franki Cookney 57:10

And so making what is actually a very positive choice and a very loving, collaborative choice, and then obviously the sex life being the thing that suffers for it. Um, I don't know. It's just, it was quite a nice, it was a nice framing that I'd not really encountered before. 

Lucy Douglas 57:31 

No. 

Franki Cookney 57:32 

However, unfortunately later on, there was a bit where he said, um 

Lucy Douglas 57:37 

Paul giveth and he taketh away.

Franki Cookney 57:44 

Truly. He talks about how, you know, sort of universal problem that all couples cite is the lack of time. And he said, “Remember that time is an abstract concept that depends on where we are, who we are with, and what we are doing.” So it's basically just sort of like, yeah, you know, time doesn't matter if you truly prioritize. And I just read that. I was like, Oh do fuck off . 

Lucy Douglas 58:10 

Actually, do you know what, I think it was that bit that I read and got a bit like, yeah, but it's really hard and I was thinking about it in the context of life, not even parenting because I'm not a parent, but I was like, it's actually really difficult actually to like find time to balance work, especially like when you're in a single income household, and going to the gym, and taking care of myself, and being on top of all my friendships, and having my hobbies, and getting enough sleep, and drinking enough water. 

Franki Cookney 58:38 

Yeah, I feel, I feel personally attacked by this feature. 

[Music break]

Franki Cookney 58:41

What's hot and what's not in March 1988?

Lucy Douglas 58:48 

What's hot is making absolutely zero effort with your skincare. 

Franki Cookney 58:53 

Also, I'm just gonna say cooking with gas. And what is not? 

Lucy Douglas

What is not? 

Franki Cookney

I think we could say science-led beauty. 

Lucy Douglas 59:06 

Yeah. 

Franki Cookney 59:07 

And possibly television as a whole. All bad. 

Lucy Douglas 59:11 

Dreadful. Moral decay. Thank you for listening. We hope you enjoyed today's show. 

Franki Cookney 59:19 

If you did, please consider leaving us a glowing review and smashing that five stars button. It'll help the podcast grow. 

Lucy Douglas 59:25 

We hope you join us again next time on Mag Hags when we'll be turning private detective to spy on our guys. Bye bye. 

Franki Cookney 59:32 

Bye.

[Theme music]

Mag Hags is written and hosted by Franki Cookney and Lucy Douglas.
Editing and audio production by Franki Cookney.

Our theme music is Look Where That Got You, Mattie Maguire. Additional music: Leotard Haul, Dez Moran. Both courtesy of www.epidemicsound.com.