Company, December 1979

[00:00:01] Is technology taking over your job? Do you know the sexual art of window shopping? Are you struggling to get over your electrocomplex? Well, come on in.

[00:00:16] Hello and welcome to Mag Hags, the podcast with daddy issues. I'm Lucy Douglas.

[00:00:22] And I'm Franki Cookney. Together we're diving into the glossy archives of women's magazines to find out what's still hot and what's definitely not.

[00:00:33] Lucy, have you subscribed to the Mag Hags newsletter yet? I have. It's so good. I know.

[00:00:40] Listeners, have you subscribed to the Mag Hags newsletter? It's jam packed with vintage magazine content and it's a really good way to support the show.

[00:00:48] And as we draw towards the close of this season and start hopefully planning the next one, we would really love your support.

[00:00:55] However, I'm aware that a lot of our listeners are more familiar with Patreon. And so as of now, all of our newsletter content is also available on Patreon.

[00:01:06] It's the exact same content, exact same price point. It's simply for people who prefer that platform.

[00:01:11] Oh, good idea. And what about people who love the show but don't want to sign up for a monthly thing?

[00:01:18] Yes, I thought of them as well. If you're enjoying the show but you can't stretch to a subscription right now, we totally get it.

[00:01:26] So we've set up an easy way for you to show your support with a one-off donation.

[00:01:30] You can think of it like buying us a drink or leaving a tip.

[00:01:34] Nice.

[00:01:35] Just go to maghags.co.uk and click on join the club to find the option that works for you.

[00:01:41] And now let's get on with the show.

[00:01:44] Merry Christmas, Frankie.

[00:01:46] Merry Christmas.

[00:01:48] How are you this week?

[00:01:50] Oh, you know, dragging myself towards the finish line of 2024.

[00:01:54] Very much the same here. Although by the time this is out, we should both have wrapped up work for the year, which I am very much looking forward to.

[00:02:01] What's in store for Christmas in the Cookney household this year?

[00:02:05] This year we are hosting, so it is going to be fairly chaotic. But don't worry, Lucy, I have spreadsheets.

[00:02:14] Glad to hear it. I will be on my parents' sofa in Hampshire in front of a log fire and with a glass of Tempranillo with any luck.

[00:02:22] I'm fortunate that my Christmases tend to be quite chill and with very little obligation to do much beyond eating, drinking and the odd walk.

[00:02:31] Oh, glorious. So will this festive theme be running through the show today?

[00:02:38] As it happens, Frankie, we are reading a December issue today. Although I wouldn't say the magazine we're looking at goes hard on Christmas, but we do have some vintage beauty tips to see you through party season, which is good.

[00:02:51] Oh, nice.

[00:02:52] Yeah. And our lead feature is looking at the year and as it happens, decade ahead, asking what the future of work and of society as a whole might look like.

[00:03:02] Ooh, intriguing.

[00:03:05] Yeah. We have also got, I will say, both the absolute best and the very worst of all of the features we've looked at this series. The Zenith and the Nadir, if you will.

[00:03:18] Ooh, exciting. I just actually have one more thing that I wanted to mention, which is that we recorded this episode on what in the UK is bonfire night. So if you hear some fireworks in the background of our recording, that is because I did my very, very best to go through and edit them all out.

[00:03:42] But I did eventually get to a point that I am going to call firework fatigue because I reached a point where I realised I cannot give up another minute of my one God-given life to the removal of firework noises from this podcast.

[00:03:59] So if you do hear them, hopefully you'll bear with and maybe it will just add a little bit of atmosphere, who can say?

[00:04:08] Anyway, I'm really excited for this episode.

[00:04:10] Should we do it?

[00:04:12] Let's get into it.

[00:04:14] It is 1979. The Clash released London Calling and we've also got Rapper's Delight by a group called the Sugarhill Gang, which seems to be signalling a new genre of music becoming popular.

[00:04:31] That lad from the Jackson 5 has released a solo album called Off The Wall.

[00:04:35] Oh, has he now?

[00:04:37] Who knows? Maybe he has a successful future ahead of him as a solo artist.

[00:04:42] And probably most significantly, the UK has its first female prime minister.

[00:04:48] Margaret Thatcher, leader of the Conservative Party, was elected in May of this year.

[00:04:53] So by the time we get round to our magazine, she will have been in power for just over six months because we are reading the December issue of Company magazine.

[00:05:09] December 1979. Company, which was launched just the year before in 1978, kind of off the back of the success of UK Cosmopolitan, which was obviously launched in 1972.

[00:05:26] It was doing so well that the National Magazine Company decided to publish a sister title to it.

[00:05:34] And that is what Company originally was.

[00:05:37] OK.

[00:05:38] So, and our cover girl, our cover girl does not look very December-y, I have to say.

[00:05:44] She looks very, this looks much more like a summer cover, I would say, than a Christmas cover.

[00:05:50] She's wearing fur, I guess.

[00:05:52] She is wearing fur, but it's like, it's like fuchsia. It's like hot pink.

[00:05:57] Yeah.

[00:05:57] And then she's, she's got a very bright pink. I mean, I love her makeup look. It's like a really fun, bright pink lip and then like really soft cheeks and quite.

[00:06:07] She does have a smoky eye, which, which is the ubiquitous Christmas look.

[00:06:14] Yes.

[00:06:15] Just add glitter.

[00:06:16] Yeah, exactly. But then kind of complementing this like fuchsia stole or top or whatever it is she's wearing.

[00:06:24] We've got like a really vibrant lime green, like a black green masthead and cover line type.

[00:06:32] So it just feels like the green and the pink together just feels very kind of high summer, possibly late spring, but it definitely doesn't feel Christmassy.

[00:06:42] But still, I do really enjoy this cover. I really enjoy the look.

[00:06:46] Do you want to find out what's on the cover?

[00:06:49] I desperately want to find out what's on the cover.

[00:06:52] Okay.

[00:06:53] Great confidence tricks. They'll set you up for life.

[00:06:56] The leisure decade. How you'll survive with little or no work.

[00:07:01] Okay. Relatable content.

[00:07:04] Should you take a lunchtime lover or two?

[00:07:08] Oh my God.

[00:07:11] From Valentino to Bruce Lee.

[00:07:13] The curious cult of the stars who died young.

[00:07:16] Ways to drink without getting drunk.

[00:07:18] Appropriate for December.

[00:07:20] Yeah.

[00:07:21] The psychology of shopping.

[00:07:23] Don't spend another penny until you've read our special report.

[00:07:26] Oh my God.

[00:07:27] Every single one of these is amazing.

[00:07:29] I know.

[00:07:30] I want to read all these features.

[00:07:32] I had a really tough time picking features for this.

[00:07:34] We haven't even finished yet.

[00:07:36] There's more.

[00:07:36] Oh, and then we've got competition to win a Renault.

[00:07:39] Perfect.

[00:07:39] Coming to terms with father love.

[00:07:42] And then a chic beaded cardi.

[00:07:46] Yours for only £10.95.

[00:07:48] Yes.

[00:07:50] Yes.

[00:07:50] I know.

[00:07:51] I love it.

[00:07:52] I have got to say overall, my overall impression of this magazine is that it is really packing

[00:07:58] a punch.

[00:07:59] Like in, and in more ways than one as well.

[00:08:01] Like for a start, it is full of content.

[00:08:05] Like it's not a huge magazine, like the good housekeeping one.

[00:08:08] It's still sort of under 200 pages, but it feels like there is so much ground covered in

[00:08:14] this magazine.

[00:08:15] There's so many features in it.

[00:08:16] Like there's so much going on there.

[00:08:19] And it also feels like it really packs a punch in terms of its tone and like what it's standing

[00:08:25] for.

[00:08:26] Do you remember when we did our Honey episode and you were saying how you thought of the

[00:08:31] mid 70s as this like really, really radical time?

[00:08:35] And yet there wasn't any evidence of that in Honey itself.

[00:08:38] Well, I think that forward thinking is a lot more evident by 1979.

[00:08:44] Company very definitely got the memo.

[00:08:48] Its readers are like definitely modern women.

[00:08:51] They are women who really care about gender equality, about calling out the injustices they

[00:08:57] experience and the double standards of how they are treated versus men.

[00:09:02] They care about standing up for themselves.

[00:09:04] They care about their careers.

[00:09:06] They will go to protests.

[00:09:09] They care about feminism.

[00:09:11] They will call themselves feminists.

[00:09:13] So a really nice, neat little example of what I'm talking about early on.

[00:09:18] Like quite early on in the magazine on like page 22.

[00:09:22] We've got these two mini essays on this page called Company Reports on the Big Issues.

[00:09:28] And the top one is Why We Mustn't Let Gropers Get Away With It, in which the writer kind of

[00:09:34] talks about like a couple of recent experiences that she's had of like what we would now call

[00:09:40] sexual assault.

[00:09:40] She refers to them as mini rapes and she encourages other women to do the same.

[00:09:47] One experience is a random man in the street just coming up to her and groping her.

[00:09:52] And the other one is like a man at a party sort of surreptitiously putting his hand on

[00:09:57] her waist and like stroking the back of her neck.

[00:09:59] And she's kind of saying like these incidents will be really familiar to every woman reading

[00:10:05] this.

[00:10:06] They're super common.

[00:10:06] And she's saying, look, look, this behavior is about power and control and is about keeping

[00:10:12] you in your place.

[00:10:13] Like, let's not like pretend that this is about like sexual attraction.

[00:10:17] This is about this is about control.

[00:10:20] That's interesting.

[00:10:21] That really feels like it's paving the way, doesn't it?

[00:10:23] That really feels like it's taking us from the sort of like early 70s, like woman's own

[00:10:28] type values that we saw into like the 80s and 90s and the kind of, you know, sexual equality

[00:10:34] and like gender roles of those times.

[00:10:36] Yeah, exactly.

[00:10:37] It really does.

[00:10:38] And then the second piece on this page is called When a Saint is Someone Who Doesn't Eat

[00:10:43] a Cream Cake.

[00:10:44] And it's highlighting this shift in like moral standards of the time and like how food has

[00:10:50] kind of replaced sex as the ultimate temptation that we must abstain from to display our moral

[00:10:58] fortitude.

[00:10:58] That's fascinating.

[00:10:59] Yeah, it is.

[00:11:01] And like reading that from a 2024 perspective, when the idea of food is having like a morality

[00:11:07] attached to it is something that we're now trying to unpick because it's become so toxic

[00:11:13] and pervasive.

[00:11:14] Like it was really fascinating.

[00:11:16] But on the flip side, like it's not all kind of like big worthy issues.

[00:11:20] There's like loads of fun stuff as well.

[00:11:23] There's a really solid like culture section up the front too with pages on like TV, film and

[00:11:28] music.

[00:11:29] There's loads of reviews, big new releases to look forward to.

[00:11:32] There's some fun mini profiles of actors and writers and artists.

[00:11:36] There's a really fun little review of Rocky 2 that we will include in the newsletter that

[00:11:43] is just basically saying how unnecessary a film it was to make and how obsessed with himself,

[00:11:49] Sylvester Stallone is, which I really enjoyed.

[00:11:52] But yeah, all in all, I am very impressed with 1970s Company Magazine.

[00:11:59] Are you ready to get down to the features?

[00:12:03] Oh my God, I'm so ready.

[00:12:04] I am so ready.

[00:12:07] Play time.

[00:12:08] The age of leisure sounds like a dream, but it could well be a nightmare.

[00:12:13] How will we adjust to a life no longer dominated by work?

[00:12:17] So I was fascinated by this feature.

[00:12:21] And like, I know I throw that word around a lot, but genuinely, I thought this feature

[00:12:28] was so, so interesting for so many reasons.

[00:12:32] But like, so basically the premise of this feature is we are at a dawn of a technological

[00:12:39] revolution that is going to transform work as we know it.

[00:12:43] Computers are going to take over so many tasks that we are basically going to have nothing to do.

[00:12:50] We'll either not work at all, or if we do, our working week will be significantly shorter.

[00:12:56] So how should we fill our time?

[00:12:59] That's the premise of the piece, which obviously feels really prescient.

[00:13:05] Yeah.

[00:13:06] In terms of thinking about how AI may or may not transform the world of work for us now in 2024.

[00:13:14] So just for a little bit of context, so the writer is a woman called Anne Carpfe,

[00:13:20] who appears to still be working today.

[00:13:23] She is a professor of life writing and culture at London Metropolitan University.

[00:13:27] She is a sociologist and award-winning journalist, and her books include How to Age and The War After,

[00:13:35] which is her family memoir about the Holocaust.

[00:13:38] And her most recent book, which was published in 2021,

[00:13:41] it's called How Women Can Save the Planet and was on Emma Watson's COP26 reading list.

[00:13:48] I don't know if you remember that.

[00:13:49] Yeah.

[00:13:50] Okay.

[00:13:50] But yeah, I think she sounds like a bit of you, Frankie.

[00:13:53] Oh.

[00:13:53] I just, when I was looking at her, I was like, oh, I feel like Frankie's going to like it.

[00:13:57] I'm cop.

[00:13:58] Let's get her on the show.

[00:14:00] Let's get her on the show.

[00:14:02] So she kind of kicks off by saying,

[00:14:04] chips with everything is undoubtedly the slogan for the next decade, the silicon chip.

[00:14:09] Let the skeptics be warned.

[00:14:10] This is not science fiction or crystal ball gazing, nor is it in the very long term.

[00:14:16] For as Keane said, in the long term we'll all be dead.

[00:14:19] Which in itself is really interesting because she just says,

[00:14:22] she doesn't explain who Keane is.

[00:14:24] She's fully expecting readers to know who she's talking about.

[00:14:27] I thought that was interesting just on its own.

[00:14:29] Yeah.

[00:14:30] So I think my first question about this is,

[00:14:32] can you imagine a women's magazine today running this kind of feature?

[00:14:40] Like a long, thoughtful report on the technology around work and the future of work and these sorts of hypothetical impacts on society.

[00:14:52] And we're pulling in quotes from like famous economists.

[00:14:56] And like, can you imagine something like this being run in a women's magazine now?

[00:15:02] No.

[00:15:02] No.

[00:15:03] Exactly.

[00:15:03] I could imagine this piece in the Atlantic.

[00:15:07] Yeah, exactly.

[00:15:08] Yeah.

[00:15:09] Maybe the FT magazine or one of the broadsheet magazines, but like New Scientist, if it had a real tech angle.

[00:15:16] Yeah.

[00:15:16] But a women's magazine, absolutely not.

[00:15:19] No, exactly.

[00:15:20] Yeah.

[00:15:20] Like it is a news magazine feature.

[00:15:23] I think it's for that reason.

[00:15:24] I loved it so much.

[00:15:27] Yeah, exactly.

[00:15:28] I was like, yes, this is the kind of thing that we should be seeing in women's magazines alongside all of the fashion and the sex advice and the DIY beauty tips.

[00:15:39] Yeah.

[00:15:40] That's what I want.

[00:15:40] Yeah, same.

[00:15:42] One of the parts that I thought was really interesting, she's talking about trade unionists and sort of how they're approaching this impending dilemma.

[00:15:53] And she quotes a book called The Collapse of Work.

[00:15:56] And this book basically says, industrialized societies will not in future be able to provide work for all on a continuing basis.

[00:16:05] And I thought that was really prescient, as you said.

[00:16:09] But I think it's kind of come to pass in maybe a different way than she was anticipating.

[00:16:15] Like, I feel like there's a lot of talk about how we're going to be working like shorter work weeks.

[00:16:21] But actually what she's not predicted is the birth of like the gig economy and like zero hours contracts.

[00:16:31] So I thought that was really interesting because it might not have panned out in the way they predicted in 1979.

[00:16:36] But certainly the nature of work, the hours that we do, that stuff has changed massively.

[00:16:44] And I think one of the things I found most interested about reading it as somebody who is a freelance worker is how the assumption that the time not spent working will be spent in leisure.

[00:16:58] And what's actually panned out is that any time we spend not working, we spend trying to hustle for more work.

[00:17:04] And I feel like this vision of the future is just not taking that into account.

[00:17:09] It's sort of just imagining that you will have a contracted job.

[00:17:12] It's just that you'll only be doing 20 hours a week.

[00:17:15] Yeah, yeah.

[00:17:16] And so you'll just have a really long weekend.

[00:17:18] Yeah, which, you know, that sounds lovely.

[00:17:22] She says, according to the futurologist, what we have coming to us is a leisure revolution and the reversal of all our traditional attitudes to work or its absence.

[00:17:31] And then she kind of talks quite a bit about how basically we all want to work.

[00:17:36] Like if you ask most people why they work, the common sense answer, of course, is that we work to live and to earn an income to live on.

[00:17:43] But it isn't that simple.

[00:17:44] We complain about tedium and pressure, but for most of us, we wouldn't know what to do without a job.

[00:17:50] And as a society, we abuse those who don't work for whatever reason.

[00:17:54] Workshy scroungers, layabouts and sponges are all words applied disapprovingly to those without work.

[00:18:00] And of course, the devil finds work for idle hands to do.

[00:18:03] So, yeah, there's a kind of like moralizing around around employment, which I don't think that's got away.

[00:18:12] I think we still I think we still have that.

[00:18:15] I think we may be a little bit more understanding of like unemployment now than than we were for a long time.

[00:18:22] But I think the kind of default view is that work means, you know, in this in this sort of context that we're talking about means paid employment.

[00:18:34] And it's completely discounting the unpaid labor that goes into caring, caring for children, caring for elderly relatives, like, you know, running a home, running a household.

[00:18:47] Yeah, 100 percent. Obviously, like reading it as a parent, I really notice that there's no mention of parenting and the kind of work of caregiving.

[00:18:57] But yeah, I agree with you. I think we are more understanding of people's situations when they don't work, when there are reasons why people don't work.

[00:19:08] But I definitely think we view occupation as valuable as you're saying.

[00:19:18] I think we would still judge people who, in the absence of mitigating circumstances, just spend all their time in leisure.

[00:19:25] Yeah.

[00:19:26] Yeah.

[00:19:26] But I want to flip that a little bit and say, maybe, maybe that's a positive human attribute to feel that you want to be doing something and contributing to society.

[00:19:42] Yeah.

[00:19:43] Maybe that's just human.

[00:19:45] Yeah. No, I agree.

[00:19:46] We see a lot of stuff in the media, like both traditional and social, now about sort of like quiet quitting. And I think a lot of that discourse is bullshit. I don't actually think that it means that we've stopped valuing work. Do you know what I mean?

[00:20:03] Yeah, I agree. Like I've been, I've worked well after midnight more times than I would like to admit when I've, when I've been on deadline with magazine. And I don't, I don't think that saying actually like don't really want to do that.

[00:20:23] I don't actually think it's really important for me to like be able to shut off from work and get a good night's sleep and eat my dinner is the same as saying I don't value work at all.

[00:20:36] Yes, exactly. Yeah, completely. I mean, I think, yeah, we all want to be better remunerated for our work. We want to feel more valued, like when we are putting in the hours.

[00:20:48] But I don't think that the sort of quiet quitting trend or people complaining and talking a lot on social media about like, oh, I was just made for pleasure and like lying around and eating little treats.

[00:21:03] Like, I don't think anybody actually wants to be unemployed.

[00:21:06] Yeah, yeah, exactly.

[00:21:07] And not just financially, right? Not just for financial reasons. I do agree with the premise of this piece. Like if I didn't work, I would feel like I wasn't a proper member of society.

[00:21:18] Yeah, I mean, I do identify with feeling like I've been made for pleasure and enjoying little treat culture, particularly when I'm on holiday and I'm wandering around a lovely European city with a glass of wine in my hand.

[00:21:33] But yeah, unfortunately, I do know myself well enough to know that I would go completely mad if I did that on end.

[00:21:46] And there's a bit towards the end of this feature when it's talking about some of the various things that we might do with all of this time that we will have if we're only working 15 hours a week and we're retiring at 50.

[00:21:59] That's very like, well, we'll start making everything by hand and we'll be growing our own food.

[00:22:06] I also was really interested in the suggestion that we were going to go back to like building our own homes and like doing loads of DIY.

[00:22:16] And it mentions like, you know, growing your own veg and that kind of thing.

[00:22:20] I think the quote is people will rehabilitate or even build their own homes.

[00:22:26] And they predict, quote, a real growth in backyard production, not just of food, but of all kinds of household requirements and small scale products and crafts.

[00:22:35] And then there's this bit where it says appliances and tools could be shared in neighborhood workshops, which would exist to provide creative leisure.

[00:22:41] And I wrote down in my notes, I was like, this is my utopia.

[00:22:44] Yeah, I know.

[00:22:45] I really thought that too.

[00:22:47] I also thought this was interesting because where it talks about backyard production, not just of food, but like small, small scale products and crafts.

[00:22:55] And again, I think to some extent we have seen this, like it sort of ties in with the freelancing thing.

[00:23:00] But like being an independent maker is quite common now.

[00:23:04] You know, the 21st century is like we've seen like the birth and the rise of like Etsy and kind of all of these sorts of marketplaces.

[00:23:13] Yeah.

[00:23:14] What do you think about the picture that she paints about leisure?

[00:23:19] Like what leisure time might involve?

[00:23:21] So she says here, it's an alluring proposal, especially when set against some of the other futuristic visions.

[00:23:28] Large leisure complexes are predicted where people will be taught to enjoy themselves and rewarded for doing so.

[00:23:35] Leisure for profit is the brave new world catchword.

[00:23:38] The new unemployable who will spend more of their life out of work than in it will attend a center for human achievement where a computer will match their capabilities with activities to retrain them for work or leisure.

[00:23:52] Which I thought sounded absolutely fascinating.

[00:23:54] I really liked the idea of going to leisure school where you had to be taught to either work or have fun depending on what your skills were.

[00:24:10] Exactly.

[00:24:11] Not just taught, but directed towards the type of leisure most ideally suited to you.

[00:24:18] Can you imagine how gutted you would be if you turned up there and they were like, oh no, you're very definitely suited to work, I'm afraid.

[00:24:27] Off you go.

[00:24:28] Lucy, that literally is what would happen to me though.

[00:24:31] As we've just discussed, that is exactly what would happen.

[00:24:33] It's the computers for you.

[00:24:37] But yeah, I did sort of wonder if it was like aligning with a kind of springing up of the sort of municipal leisure center as we recognize them today.

[00:24:49] And it does sort of look like the number of leisure centers did kind of increase quite a lot in the 70s.

[00:24:57] Yeah, I do think that the idea of sport as a leisure activity is quite of its time.

[00:25:05] And of course, like the 80s fitness craze is about to take off in a few years.

[00:25:10] It's 1979 now.

[00:25:12] Fame comes out in 1980.

[00:25:15] That's a year off.

[00:25:16] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:25:17] And then Jane Fonda's career really takes off in like 81.

[00:25:22] But her VHS came out in 82.

[00:25:23] So I do think that that is a cultural shift that we're like just on the cusp of right now.

[00:25:29] There were just two more sections that I made a note of because you know how on this show we love to find a sentence written like 45 years ago that could have been written today.

[00:25:43] And I felt like this one was a really good example.

[00:25:47] She's talking about just all the new technology and what it's going to do.

[00:25:51] She's talking about how we'll be able to receive and send messages from our own home and send whole files electronically relayed in a flash and all that sort of stuff.

[00:26:02] That's all fantastic.

[00:26:04] And then she says, oh, but is it is it all good?

[00:26:08] She says these gimmicks accelerate a worrying trend, separating people off into their private homes, substituting electronic interface for human and reduces to permanently passive consumers of other people's ideas.

[00:26:20] Yeah, I know.

[00:26:22] At a time when critics of urban life and city dwellers themselves are trying to break down the isolation of nuclear families and single people in the metropolis, the new technology looks as if it intends to isolate us even more.

[00:26:34] It says horror is a legitimate emotional reaction.

[00:26:38] And I was like, yeah, fucking right.

[00:26:42] Lucy, have you seen the new girl in the office?

[00:26:45] No.

[00:26:46] What does she look like?

[00:26:47] Oh, that's just it.

[00:26:49] She has such beautiful hair.

[00:26:51] I wish my hair could turn heads like hers does.

[00:26:54] Quite simply, there are three steps to beautiful hair, Frankie.

[00:26:58] There are?

[00:26:59] Beautiful hair starts with the right shampoo, obviously.

[00:27:03] Obviously.

[00:27:03] But no shampoo can give your hair everything it needs to look its very best.

[00:27:08] That's why Vidal Sassoon created Sasooning.

[00:27:12] It's a carefully coordinated system with three simple steps designed to work together for shiny, silky, sensational hair.

[00:27:21] Oh, wow.

[00:27:22] That sounds like exactly what I need.

[00:27:25] How does it all work?

[00:27:26] Step one is the shampoo, of course, but it's no ordinary shampoo.

[00:27:30] It's almond scented, pH balanced to cleanse gently but thoroughly.

[00:27:35] And it's super concentrated to last longer than ordinary shampoos.

[00:27:39] Excellent.

[00:27:40] And I can guess step two is a conditioner, right?

[00:27:44] Don't be stupid, Frankie.

[00:27:45] This is Sasooning.

[00:27:47] Step two is a protein re-moisturiser.

[00:27:50] A greaseless conditioning treatment to keep hair lustrous, flexible and resistant to breakage.

[00:27:57] Hmm.

[00:27:58] Sounds like conditioner to me.

[00:27:59] And step three is the finishing rinse.

[00:28:02] The final touch to seal all the benefits, detangle hair and protect it against those everyday enemies, heated rollers and blow dryers.

[00:28:11] Okay.

[00:28:12] So that's Sasooning.

[00:28:14] The steps are simple.

[00:28:15] The result's sensational.

[00:28:18] Oh, Frankie, I feel blue.

[00:28:21] I just don't think there's someone out there who's right for me.

[00:28:25] Listen, Lucy, I'm going to let you in on a secret.

[00:28:28] Don't gamble on finding your ideal partner.

[00:28:31] You need an answer that is trusted by thousands to find their person.

[00:28:35] But does something like that exist?

[00:28:38] You need Dateline.

[00:28:39] Locked away in their computer, they have the information to match you to the partner who both interests and attracts you.

[00:28:46] The partner you are seeking and who is looking for you.

[00:28:50] Oh, gosh.

[00:28:51] Is it really that easy?

[00:28:53] Start by filling out a profile form.

[00:28:55] Show us the people you tend to find attractive and tell us a bit about your personality.

[00:28:59] Are you shy?

[00:29:00] Family type?

[00:29:02] Intellectual?

[00:29:02] Or more creative, adventurous and extrovert?

[00:29:06] How simple.

[00:29:07] Distilling my entire personality into a tick box.

[00:29:11] Don't worry.

[00:29:12] We also want to know what activities you like and which ones you hate.

[00:29:16] Well, that's something.

[00:29:17] Once you've filled out your profile, Dateline's computer will sort through tens of thousands of its members to fit the one for you.

[00:29:24] So there is someone right for me.

[00:29:26] Somewhere.

[00:29:27] I just need a helping hand to find that perfect person.

[00:29:31] Dateline leaves nothing to chance.

[00:29:38] Did you enjoy that?

[00:29:39] Incredible.

[00:29:40] I thought that one was a bit on the nose.

[00:29:42] Oh, it is, isn't it?

[00:29:45] So interesting, isn't it?

[00:29:47] I wonder how many people really had like successful.

[00:29:51] And I suppose by successful, I just mean sort of like to them personally.

[00:29:56] Yeah.

[00:29:57] Relationships off the back of Dateline.

[00:30:00] Yeah.

[00:30:00] It says it has tens of thousands of profiles.

[00:30:03] Well, as we know, abundance is not always a good thing.

[00:30:08] Like how long did that last before people started being like, swipe, let's have another go?

[00:30:17] Fathers are first.

[00:30:19] The first man in a girl's life is her father.

[00:30:23] He has the power to mould her, to influence the kind of woman she will become, even the career and husband she will choose.

[00:30:31] By Patricia Jones.

[00:30:34] Ew.

[00:30:34] Ew.

[00:30:35] My overall feeling is ew.

[00:30:38] Yeah.

[00:30:39] This feature is giving me the ick.

[00:30:42] I just want to say broadly, like what's been so enjoyable about making this podcast has been

[00:30:47] how fascinating all of these features that were written decades ago are

[00:30:53] and how insightful they are to the time

[00:30:58] and how in so many cases, like there's lots of things that haven't really changed

[00:31:03] or there's like things that you can recognise in it.

[00:31:06] This just felt like completely baffling to me.

[00:31:12] Yeah.

[00:31:13] It's so Freudian.

[00:31:16] Yes.

[00:31:16] It also felt really out of step after reading such a future focus piece,

[00:31:22] such a like smart kind of analytical, like up to the minute report that we just looked at.

[00:31:30] So going from that to this, I was like really thrown.

[00:31:33] Yeah, I know.

[00:31:34] So I feel like we need to set the scene a little bit for listeners who haven't seen it in the newsletter,

[00:31:40] but it's about girls' relationships with their dads

[00:31:44] and how like maybe a problematic relationship with your dad is going to mean

[00:31:49] that you have problematic relationships with men throughout your life.

[00:31:54] So this is the first paragraph.

[00:31:57] A father can leave his daughter with hang-ups born out of rejection or a fly paper love

[00:32:02] or send her into the world feeling that she is worthwhile and attractive.

[00:32:06] It is with daddy that she will attempt her first love affair

[00:32:10] and the outcome of that romance will colour her relationships and expectations.

[00:32:14] I'm pulling such a face right now.

[00:32:17] I know.

[00:32:18] It's like, it's absolutely bizarre.

[00:32:21] It just keeps hitting you with these really icky moments as well.

[00:32:27] Like I wrote down, this is a litany of traumas.

[00:32:31] You kind of just get past one and then like, bam, another one.

[00:32:35] This is a litany of traumas.

[00:32:38] It is.

[00:32:39] Yeah.

[00:32:40] So the hook for this feature is that a psychotherapist and author called Lily Pincus,

[00:32:45] who is a founder of the Tavistock Marital Studies Institute,

[00:32:51] has just released a new book about incestuous fantasies.

[00:32:57] Her book was called Secrets in the Family and that was published in 1978.

[00:33:01] And her research had kind of shone a light on the fact that father-inspired fantasies.

[00:33:08] I'm using bunny ears because those are the words used in this feature.

[00:33:15] These are not my words.

[00:33:16] Please don't count on me.

[00:33:17] Father-inspired fantasies.

[00:33:19] She points out are necessary and useful for a girl's development.

[00:33:24] A father must really be a bit in love with his small daughter and make her feel that she is lovable.

[00:33:30] But this must happen in a situation where she understands that she cannot take him away from her mother

[00:33:36] and that it is their relationship to which she owes her life.

[00:33:40] Ew.

[00:33:41] I mean, you know, it does seem to be kind of saying like we all have this experience of being extremely influenced

[00:33:49] and shaped by our relationship with our dad.

[00:33:53] Now, on the face of it, I'm not saying that's not true.

[00:33:55] Of course, we're influenced and shaped by our relationships with our parents.

[00:33:57] But the way that it's placing like all of this.

[00:34:01] It's like it's specifically about you as a girl and your relationship with your father.

[00:34:07] So there are a few like examples.

[00:34:10] One case study, I think her name's Sarah, who is interviewed and she talks about whose dad left when she was a child.

[00:34:18] Often when a parent's marriage breaks up and the father leaves a daughter, she feels strangely guilty and believes it is not just mother, but she too, who is being rejected.

[00:34:28] And it's like, yeah, but that's not that's not unique to like girls and their dads.

[00:34:33] That's just that's just children.

[00:34:35] Right.

[00:34:36] And parents.

[00:34:36] Yeah.

[00:34:37] That's that's that's nothing to do with like the special daddy daughter.

[00:34:40] No.

[00:34:41] That's like that's just parent child.

[00:34:43] I know.

[00:34:44] Exactly.

[00:34:45] Also, I think like there was definitely a sense throughout it that it seemed weirdly sort of ununified, like the way like all this talk of how the father parented as though that's somehow a very separate thing to how the mother parented.

[00:34:59] And maybe it was.

[00:35:00] Maybe maybe parenting wasn't discussed or sort of strategized as, you know, in the same way that it is now.

[00:35:08] Yeah.

[00:35:09] Like you weren't sort of considering yourself a team in the same way.

[00:35:12] Yeah.

[00:35:13] It also occurred to me that the parenting we're talking about in this feature would not been happening in 1979.

[00:35:18] This is like the you know, the women reading this magazine, it's like the parents they were brought up with.

[00:35:24] So the parenting would have been happening like the 50s and the early 60s.

[00:35:27] So that actually does seem quite significant.

[00:35:30] Oh, yeah.

[00:35:31] Because those were quite different family dynamics, weren't they?

[00:35:34] You know, a lot of those men will have fought in World War Two.

[00:35:37] Yeah.

[00:35:38] OK.

[00:35:38] Yeah.

[00:35:38] That's that's fascinating.

[00:35:40] And then come back and been plunged straight into like raising kids.

[00:35:44] They would have been the main financial provider.

[00:35:47] I don't know.

[00:35:47] I thought maybe that gave us a little bit of a window onto why there's this real disconnect between like the father, the way the father parents and then the mother or mummy, as she's referred to all the way through, which even like even that kind of gave me the egg.

[00:36:03] Like just seems like the separate person who's sort of not there or she's just doing a very different thing.

[00:36:10] Yeah.

[00:36:11] Yeah.

[00:36:11] There's one case study sort of early on in the future.

[00:36:13] These three sisters who were who were all actors and their father's an actor too.

[00:36:19] And they're all kind of talking about their relationship with him and how special it is.

[00:36:23] And then eventually after like kind of a column and a half, one of them says it must have been difficult for mummy because daddy was so close to us girls that she could easily have felt excluded.

[00:36:36] She has had to be the constant one handing out the discipline while he played Father Christmas.

[00:36:40] But she coped amazingly well.

[00:36:43] I hated that so much.

[00:36:45] She coped amazingly well.

[00:36:46] Yeah, I bet you did.

[00:36:47] And then, yeah.

[00:36:48] And that's the same that's the same case study who says my parents, 33 years of marriage has been a success because mummy gave up her career.

[00:36:56] I really hope that that woman had a really fucking hot affair in her 50s.

[00:37:03] Yeah.

[00:37:04] One of the things that stood out to me that stood out so much to me about this.

[00:37:08] So there's quite a big bit where she's it's it sounds like she's interviewing Joan Collins.

[00:37:14] But actually, I think she might have just taken extracts from Joan Collins autobiography.

[00:37:19] She kind of describes herself in her autobiography as as a classic case of a girl with a father complex.

[00:37:25] So she basically had this really like close relationship with her dad.

[00:37:29] And then her younger sister, Jackie, was born and then her brother, Bill.

[00:37:33] And by that time, she was a sort of tweenager.

[00:37:36] Joan stopped being daddy's little darling.

[00:37:39] At 13, spotty, gorky and shy convinced she had no feminine charms to capture father's attention.

[00:37:45] She decided to regain it by becoming a boy.

[00:37:48] Not really becoming a boy.

[00:37:50] Just going to football games.

[00:37:52] That's what becoming a boy means in this context.

[00:37:56] It means going to football.

[00:37:58] Yeah.

[00:37:59] Anyway, it's like she said it never worked.

[00:38:02] She was never able to kind of recapture her dad's like fascination, like now that he had a son.

[00:38:08] And so she set off on quests to capture this is quote quest to capture the eternal love of impossible men to get me back daddy.

[00:38:16] In America, she became infatuated with a very married man and began one of the most romantic periods of her life when her lover announced he was going to get a divorce.

[00:38:25] I was thrilled, said Joan.

[00:38:28] Subconsciously, my suppressed desire to get daddy away from mummy was being fulfilled in this relationship.

[00:38:33] So the reason it bugged me so much is because this kind of anybody who's had any therapy will know that like what happens is you go into therapy and you say,

[00:38:43] I'm having this problem with my boyfriend.

[00:38:45] Well, you know, he's actually married and like he says he's going to leave his wife for me and I really believe that he loves me.

[00:38:51] And then over a very long period of time with a therapist, you unpack that maybe it's part of a pattern of behavior.

[00:39:02] And then you may come to understand that you are replicating there something that you had, like something that was lacking or an experience that you had as a child.

[00:39:14] And if you do, that's extremely private and not something that you tend to just like throw around willy nilly.

[00:39:23] Yeah.

[00:39:24] It also could be with any caregiver.

[00:39:27] Yeah.

[00:39:27] It also could be oftentimes what people end up doing in adult is actually like almost a reversal of a dynamic they had in childhood.

[00:39:37] You know, sometimes people pursue, in inverted commas, people they can't have because actually they're avoiding intimacy, not because they're trying to get it back.

[00:39:47] You know, do you know what I mean?

[00:39:48] Like it's just a very straight line they've drawn, isn't it?

[00:39:51] And Joan Collins is, I mean, you know, whatever.

[00:39:54] Joan Collins is perfectly entitled to write the narrative about her own life that she wants to.

[00:39:59] Yeah, of course.

[00:40:00] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:40:01] But this whole feature is drawing a very straight line from your relationship with your dad, your future attitudes to men.

[00:40:10] And like you said at the beginning, it's just like it's so Freudian.

[00:40:14] It's just fully buying into the idea of the electrocomplex.

[00:40:18] I guess, I mean, was this the kind of human psychology du jour in the late 70s?

[00:40:24] Was Freud kind of it?

[00:40:27] I mean, Freud has, Freud was influential like kind of all the way through the 20th century.

[00:40:33] But like there was definitely a lot of other relationship research going on.

[00:40:38] But yeah, perhaps it just wasn't mainstream yet.

[00:40:40] Right.

[00:40:40] I was surprised by how Freudian this was, given that it was in 1979.

[00:40:46] But again, maybe we're in that gap, right?

[00:40:49] Between me happening to know all of the cool, like radical new research that was coming out in the 70s,

[00:40:57] and what most people were still kind of had as their cultural references.

[00:41:02] How do you think this, like if some version of this feature was being written, like in the cut in 2024, how would it be written?

[00:41:14] I think if you were going to do a feature on like problematic father-daughter relationships or like problematic parent relationships,

[00:41:23] I feel like you'd be more likely to have it as like a memoir kind of personal essay long read type piece.

[00:41:31] The one I actually, that came to mind when I was thinking about this was, do you remember that one about the girl who went sailing around the world for like her entire childhood?

[00:41:42] It was a Guardian long read.

[00:41:43] Oh my God, yeah. Such a good piece.

[00:41:47] The headline was, Dad said, we're going to follow Captain Cook, how an endless round the world voyage stole my childhood.

[00:41:55] But I just, I cannot see us extrapolating from those stories in the way that this piece has.

[00:42:02] Yeah, yeah. It would be a personal story that says this happened to me and then I was like this.

[00:42:09] Yeah.

[00:42:09] Rather than like, what this is saying is, if this happens to you, therefore you will be like this.

[00:42:18] Hello, Lucy here. Just a quick one to say, if you've not yet signed up for our newsletter, you definitely should.

[00:42:24] You can read the features that we talk about, see all the amazing adverts and get access to loads of other bonus bits.

[00:42:30] Plus, it's a really good way to support the show.

[00:42:33] Find us at maghags.substack.com.

[00:42:40] Are you ready for your fashion and beauty tip of the week, Frankie?

[00:42:43] Yes.

[00:42:44] Your fashion tip is invest in your basics.

[00:42:48] Okay.

[00:42:48] This is actually from our cover feature, The Psychology of Shopping.

[00:42:54] Don't spend another penny until you've read our special report.

[00:42:58] But yeah, in this bit, she's basically saying, don't be lulled into thinking that an item is good just because it's expensive.

[00:43:05] And she says that if something is expensive, you want to be sure that you'll get twice as much wear out of it.

[00:43:11] So, go for classics.

[00:43:14] Okay.

[00:43:14] Then she says, 12 years ago, a silk shirt, a cashmere sweater, a garbardine skirt, a pair of leather boots, a trench coat MAC were all in fashion.

[00:43:23] And they still are now.

[00:43:25] Even jeans have become classics.

[00:43:27] I mean, I cannot argue with that sentence, Lucy.

[00:43:30] Still true.

[00:43:31] Exactly.

[00:43:32] So yeah, those items, that's where you can spend your money.

[00:43:35] Oh, I love this.

[00:43:36] I do definitely believe in this idea of like, if you're going to spend the money, spend them on your black leather Chelsea boots that you are going to wear from the 25th of September until the 12th of May.

[00:43:48] Yeah, exactly.

[00:43:50] Because that is what I do.

[00:43:52] Living in London, in the UK weather, I wear black leather ankle boots for approximately eight months of the year.

[00:44:02] Okay, you ready for your beauty tip?

[00:44:04] Oh my God, yes.

[00:44:05] Face the festivities with relaxed body and mind and skin that's soft, fresh and glowing.

[00:44:11] This Frankie is a double DIY.

[00:44:14] Yes, yes.

[00:44:16] Okay, so first we're going to make a herbal poultice of dried rosemary, two tablespoons please, and sweet basil, one tablespoon, in a muslin bag and drop it into very hot water.

[00:44:30] It's a bath size quantity of water, not a tea size quantity of water.

[00:44:34] By the time that your water's like cold enough to be a comfortable temperature for you to get in, the herbs will have had a chance to infuse with the bath.

[00:44:42] Okay.

[00:44:43] Okay, so then while you're in the bath, while you're in your refreshing herbal soak, you want to make a face mask out of egg whites.

[00:44:51] Okay, okay.

[00:44:52] I wondered why you asked me to bring an egg white to our recording session this evening.

[00:44:57] A simple, cheap but effective pick-me-up for tired, puffy skin.

[00:45:01] So what, I've got a little pot of egg white here and what do I do? I just, I literally just like slather it on my face.

[00:45:09] You spread a thin film of egg white on your face and then leave it for 10 to 20 minutes and then rinse off with tepid water followed by a splash of cold.

[00:45:18] Okay, great. Well, it's just going straight on. This is actually happening.

[00:45:23] This is going to remove impurities from the pores, tone and tighten up the skin.

[00:45:28] Good, I hope so. If I break out in a rash, Lucy, I...

[00:45:33] It's all right. It's all radio, babe.

[00:45:37] But everybody wants video for social now.

[00:45:40] Okay, do you know what? I'm not going to do my forehead because I have a fringe and that's...

[00:45:43] Sorry, but that's a bridge too far.

[00:45:45] You don't want an eggy fringe.

[00:45:47] No. I don't want to... Yeah, I've just done the area of my face kind of below the eyes without getting it on my headphones.

[00:45:53] You're looking toned and tighter already.

[00:45:56] I'm looking shiny.

[00:45:59] All right. Well, I'll let you know.

[00:46:01] We're going to have to pause recording in 10 minutes so I can go and wash it off.

[00:46:04] But for now, let's see how we get on.

[00:46:09] Frankie, I could not be more excited about this next feature.

[00:46:14] Oh my God, tell me. Tell me everything.

[00:46:17] Lunchtime lovers.

[00:46:18] Life has a way of not living up to your romantic fantasies.

[00:46:22] But you can find true romance at lunch with a handsome man who knows the sexual art of window shopping.

[00:46:30] Frankie, I am not exaggerating when I say...

[00:46:34] I think this might be the best 1,200 words of magazine copy I have ever read.

[00:46:43] Oh my God. Wow. That is a... What a shout.

[00:46:46] That is big talk, but I think it might be true.

[00:46:50] Our writer Beverly Haynes is saying,

[00:46:53] men are so obsessed with trying to be Clint Eastwood to impress other men that they have lost the art of being sexy.

[00:47:02] And she is saying we need to bring sexy back.

[00:47:05] And the way that we do that is by doing the sexiest thing you can possibly do, which is not have sex.

[00:47:16] The sexiest thing you can do is have a very long lunch with someone to whom you are not married and flirt.

[00:47:27] Oh my God.

[00:47:27] And then not have sex.

[00:47:30] Oh my God.

[00:47:32] Lucy, I'm really trying to not overshare, but I am so turned on repeating this feature.

[00:47:41] This is 100% my jam.

[00:47:45] I love it so much.

[00:47:47] She said, we're not talking about sex in the afternoon or nooners as the Americans call it.

[00:47:54] No, we're talking about love affairs over the lasagna where you go your separate ways at half past three,

[00:48:00] brackets, or four if you're well matched, glowing with booze and beautiful memories.

[00:48:05] They're best when each of you is attached to someone else so that the sweet tension between

[00:48:10] fantasizing about doing it while not actually doing it is less likely to break down into a dash for some hotel.

[00:48:17] I love it.

[00:48:18] I love, I love it.

[00:48:20] The sweet tension of fantasizing about doing it while not actually doing it.

[00:48:25] Yeah.

[00:48:26] She's like, yeah, I know it's fantasy.

[00:48:29] Let me indulge in it.

[00:48:31] And I love how she kind of sets it up with this like disappointment about like the,

[00:48:38] about men like not, not following her lead.

[00:48:41] So the intro is like, while I was practicing smoking through the veil of a hat,

[00:48:45] the chaps I was about to meet were learning to strike matches laconically one handed.

[00:48:50] I blame Clint Eastwood for the confused conversations.

[00:48:53] Once I'd reached dating age between the classic romantic heroine, me,

[00:48:58] and a procession of men who squinted through the smoke curling around their faces.

[00:49:03] Take just one instance where I asked a gentleman, brackets, question mark,

[00:49:07] for his maroon silk handkerchief to dust off a seat on the Staten Island ferry.

[00:49:11] Well, you can borrow it if you like, he said warily inspecting it,

[00:49:15] but it's got snot all over it.

[00:49:17] Oh man, there's such a disappointment.

[00:49:21] There's such a disappointment.

[00:49:24] As a rule, life simply does not live up to fantasy,

[00:49:27] but there is one glorious pocket of romance that remains,

[00:49:31] the delightful pastime known as lunch.

[00:49:34] Oh, and I love how she's like, she goes into such specifics about like,

[00:49:39] what to look for, like how to do it.

[00:49:43] Should you want to cultivate this kind of lunchtime flirtation where you basically go for lunch for three hours?

[00:49:50] Which I do, like let it be known that I would like to cultivate this kind of relationship.

[00:49:57] So, how we go about cultivating such a relationship, she says,

[00:50:02] there needs to be at least some pretext for getting together over lunch.

[00:50:07] And yeah, it can be very vague.

[00:50:09] It doesn't matter that it's flimsier than Tandenier hosiery.

[00:50:13] Amazing.

[00:50:14] As long as you can say, yes, we must meet to talk about this.

[00:50:18] Yeah.

[00:50:19] And she recommends having at least one solid common interest, act as a home base.

[00:50:23] And then I think this is my favourite bit.

[00:50:26] She says, she's talking about how looks count, but, you know,

[00:50:31] the sort of things like sincerity, honesty, loyalty, sort of integrity,

[00:50:37] character basically doesn't matter too much.

[00:50:40] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:50:40] Because you're not actually looking for somebody to have a relationship with.

[00:50:43] She says, the only everyday quality that will raise his stock as a lunchtime lover is intelligence.

[00:50:48] And I'm just like, oh my God,

[00:50:49] a smart, witty sparring partner who you also physically fancy.

[00:50:54] Like, I'm dying.

[00:50:56] Oh my God, it's the dream, yeah.

[00:51:00] Right.

[00:51:01] Tell you what is not the dream.

[00:51:03] This coagulating egg on my face.

[00:51:06] I am going to have to pause.

[00:51:08] Okay.

[00:51:09] Because this is a very sexy feature and I'm feeling...

[00:51:12] And you've quite literally got egg on your face.

[00:51:15] Can we pause so I can go and just wash it off?

[00:51:17] You can do that.

[00:51:19] Right, I'm back.

[00:51:21] Ah, so far so good.

[00:51:22] Not seeing any immediate ill effects.

[00:51:25] Haven't broken out in hives, so that's ideal.

[00:51:27] No.

[00:51:28] Anyway, in terms of what to look for, there's another part where she says,

[00:51:33] mutual dishonesty is the name of the game.

[00:51:36] I love that bit.

[00:51:38] I know.

[00:51:38] So good.

[00:51:39] So, you know, she's sort of saying,

[00:51:41] no one's like laying their cards on the table and saying this is what they're doing,

[00:51:44] but there's a sort of tacit agreement that you're creating this little bubble for the

[00:51:49] next few hours in which you pretend that you are like absolutely crazy about each other.

[00:51:58] You know, she says,

[00:51:59] lies, nice fat ones like you are the only man I can really talk to,

[00:52:04] are as essential to the survival of our romance as baby bio is to your rubber plant.

[00:52:08] So you're both sort of agreeing to enter into this world in which you desperately want to be together,

[00:52:15] but you can't.

[00:52:16] And so this is all you have.

[00:52:19] And that creates this like delicious tension.

[00:52:24] And she does say, doesn't she, like you should talk about sex, definitely, but never have it.

[00:52:31] And it's like, you don't even really kiss either.

[00:52:34] I think she said the most she sort of says is like a sort of a brush of the arm or like,

[00:52:40] or like, yeah, your fingers might meet across the table or something, but like there's no,

[00:52:46] there's like very minimal physical contact.

[00:52:49] Yeah.

[00:52:50] Yeah.

[00:52:50] I also really loved what this piece is getting at about the kind of,

[00:52:54] the tension between like being a feminist and being a smart, intellectually curious woman

[00:53:04] against being a woman who likes to fuck,

[00:53:07] being a woman who wants to be like flirted with and desired.

[00:53:11] Yeah.

[00:53:12] There's this wonderful paragraph where she says,

[00:53:15] feminist I may be,

[00:53:16] but I do not want reminding of it for this gloriously hedonistic couple of hours.

[00:53:21] One potential lunchtime lover got his cards very smartly by telling me that except to look at,

[00:53:27] I wasn't like a woman at all.

[00:53:28] In one tragic sweep, he had offended my intelligence,

[00:53:32] my sense of sisterhood and my womanly pride.

[00:53:34] Lunch was ruined.

[00:53:35] Pity really, because he had a lovely bottom.

[00:53:38] I know.

[00:53:39] Yeah.

[00:53:40] She says, I want to be fated and indiscriminately admired.

[00:53:43] And I was like, God, don't we all mate?

[00:53:46] Yeah.

[00:53:46] Don't we all?

[00:53:47] So I feel like I'm thinking about like the certain like relationship discourse that goes on,

[00:53:52] on like Instagram and TikTok and like what does and doesn't constitute cheating or what is and isn't

[00:53:58] like appropriate behavior.

[00:54:00] In light of that being an unfortunate facet of life in 2024 that must...

[00:54:07] That we must coexist with.

[00:54:08] That we must coexist with.

[00:54:10] Yeah.

[00:54:12] How do you think a piece like this would go down now?

[00:54:15] Do you think it would just...

[00:54:16] I feel like it would never get commissioned.

[00:54:19] Yeah, I don't think it...

[00:54:20] No, I don't think it would because the whole point of it is that it's shadowy.

[00:54:27] It's not completely ethical.

[00:54:29] Like the boundaries have not been explicitly agreed to.

[00:54:32] And like if you wrote it now, you'd have to get into all of that.

[00:54:34] And that is not the fucking point of it.

[00:54:37] Yeah.

[00:54:38] Exactly.

[00:54:39] I just don't see how you could write this feature now.

[00:54:41] It would either be under the guise of like non-monogamy, which would be like,

[00:54:45] of course, it's all above board and like consented to and like we don't count this as cheating.

[00:54:52] And, you know, I'm saying this as a non-monogamous person who wouldn't consider something like this cheating.

[00:54:56] But like, that's so boring.

[00:55:00] Like, that's not horny.

[00:55:02] Exactly.

[00:55:03] Yeah.

[00:55:04] And then, but then on the other hand, I think you definitely would,

[00:55:07] you definitely have still got people who would consider this cheating.

[00:55:10] Like that, you know, that world 100% still exists and you would get an awful lot of backlash from that.

[00:55:17] But, and I don't think, I really don't think people would take kindly to the idea that

[00:55:22] the whole point is that you're not defining the relationship.

[00:55:27] Yeah.

[00:55:28] Yeah.

[00:55:28] We are in a very, we are in a time where we really like to define all our relationships.

[00:55:33] We have words for, you know, it's not a relationship, it's a situationship.

[00:55:38] And this is very much the opposite of that.

[00:55:40] Yeah.

[00:55:40] Yeah, definitely.

[00:55:42] I also think that like, I mean, this isn't what you asked, but like, you know,

[00:55:46] whether people would, could do, could have a situation like this now, there's a case for saying that as we kind of creep towards something that feels like sexual equality and sexual freedom,

[00:55:59] there is possibly a bit of a sense that you have to put your money where your mouth is.

[00:56:05] Oh, okay.

[00:56:06] I feel like if I tried to do this with somebody now, they'd be a bit like, well, do you want to shag or not? Come on.

[00:56:13] You know what I mean?

[00:56:14] Yeah.

[00:56:14] Like, why are we sitting here talking about shagging when we could be shagging?

[00:56:20] It's like, no, because I want to talk about the shagging.

[00:56:23] Because it's really, really hot pretending we're going to shag when we're not.

[00:56:28] I don't know what to tell you.

[00:56:30] So I don't think, I don't think there's a way to do that because I think if you ethically and explicitly agree to the boundaries of what you're doing,

[00:56:36] then that just kills the erotic tension.

[00:56:39] Oh, for sure.

[00:56:40] For sure.

[00:56:41] Yeah.

[00:56:41] That feels like quite a controversial thing to say in 2024.

[00:56:44] In terms of where we are right now culturally, when we talk about sex, it's all about like knowledge, clarity, communication.

[00:56:53] And I feel like we have to some extent forgotten how erotic the liminal space can be.

[00:56:59] There's a great quote by Anais Nin.

[00:57:02] Sex loses all its power and magic when it becomes explicit.

[00:57:05] When sex is intellectual, imaginative, romantic, emotional, this is what gives sex its surprising textures, its subtle transformations, its aphrodisiac elements.

[00:57:15] Yeah, that's, I mean, that's so true.

[00:57:18] And that's so like, that's so applicable to this piece because this piece is so sexy.

[00:57:26] And yet there's nothing, there's nothing explicit or graphic or anything about it.

[00:57:34] But it's just, it's just lunch.

[00:57:38] I'm just going to read like her final par, which is as perfect as the rest of it.

[00:57:45] No, the show must go on.

[00:57:46] I like the real world of meaningful relationships, marriage and domestic harmony,

[00:57:51] but they wouldn't be half so nice if I couldn't star occasionally in my own glittering production,

[00:57:57] especially when I can choose the budget, the location, and most important of all, my co-star.

[00:58:05] Yeah, I love it.

[00:58:07] I love it.

[00:58:08] It kind of reminded me.

[00:58:11] Oh God, I'm going to get myself in trouble with France again.

[00:58:15] This kind of reminded me of the way that we in the UK stereotype the French.

[00:58:20] I feel like the stereotype that British people have of the French in matters of love is that,

[00:58:25] like, they're chronic cheaters, basically.

[00:58:27] Like, just very horny, very permissive with it, always having affairs left, right and centre.

[00:58:33] I mean, I did literally quote Anais Nin, who I love, and she's a prime example of that.

[00:58:37] And it's not that, like, it's above board or, like, ethical there.

[00:58:41] It's more like they accept it as part of human nature.

[00:58:44] When I read this, it kind of striked me as being akin to that kind of attitude of, like,

[00:58:48] yes, obviously we like stability and emotional security and all of the good things that come

[00:58:53] with having, like, healthy relationships.

[00:58:55] But, Gallic shrug, a woman has needs.

[00:59:04] What is hot and what is not in December 1979?

[00:59:10] What's hot is cultivating an intense flirtation with someone you have absolutely no intention

[00:59:16] of sleeping with.

[00:59:18] I mean, it might be the hottest thing I've heard all week.

[00:59:23] Oh, yeah.

[00:59:24] And what is not?

[00:59:26] Uh, full-time employment.

[00:59:30] And failing to resolve your electrocomplex.

[00:59:33] And Rocky too.

[00:59:34] Poor Rocky too.

[00:59:40] Thank you for listening.

[00:59:41] We hope you enjoyed today's show.

[00:59:43] If you did, please consider leaving us a glowing review and smashing that five stars button.

[00:59:47] It'll help the podcast grow.

[00:59:49] We hope you join us again next time on MacHacks when we find out if we're in tune with our emotions.

[00:59:55] Bye.

[00:59:56] Bye-bye.