Good Housekeeping, March 1988

[00:00:01] Is television ruining your life? Do you scoff at beauty products? Are you still cooking with

[00:00:08] an electric hob? Well, my friend, you're in good company.

[00:00:16] Hello and welcome to Mag Hags, the podcast that trivialises everything it touches. I'm

[00:00:22] Franki Cookney.

[00:00:23] And I'm Lucy Douglas. Together we're diving into the glossy archives of women's magazines

[00:00:28] to find out what's still hot and what's definitely not.

[00:00:34] Hi, Lucy. Hello, Franki.

[00:00:36] You'll have to excuse my slightly croaky voice today. I'm recovering from laryngitis. It's

[00:00:41] just for this little bit of intro though. We recorded the rest of the episode a while ago,

[00:00:45] so I should sound totally normal.

[00:00:47] You actually sound pretty cool and husky, to be fair.

[00:00:51] Thank you.

[00:00:52] By the way, Franki, have you been doing your bath time exercises? Are your thighs nice and toned?

[00:00:59] Oh, Lucy, I regret to approve that I have not. I'm not really a bath person, actually.

[00:01:04] I'm kind of more of a shower girl. So maybe you'll have to find me a workout for the shower.

[00:01:09] Hmm. Disappointing. So I, for whatever reason, over the last couple of weeks, have got a bit stuck

[00:01:15] on that Mary Quant advert that we looked at in the last episode. And do you remember the names

[00:01:21] of the eyeshadows? They were like grey skies and watery greens.

[00:01:27] Yeah. And pebble dash.

[00:01:29] Yeah. And like those names sound so bonkers to us now and also, so like really unappealing.

[00:01:38] So there's no way that an eyeshadow or lipstick colour would be called something that like literal

[00:01:42] or mundane anymore. These days they've got like super evocative names. So like instead of pebble dash,

[00:01:50] you'd have something like smoking room.

[00:01:53] Oh yeah. You would get, yeah, like grey skies. It'd be called something like November dusk.

[00:02:02] That sounds really nice to me now. And I kind of want that eyeshadow.

[00:02:07] Yeah, exactly. Right. Or the other thing that makeup brands do a lot now is give things name

[00:02:12] that are like either completely obscene, like screaming orgasm or like little jokey phrases,

[00:02:19] like not on my watch, like spill the beans.

[00:02:24] Oh my God. Totally. Totally. And I feel like a watery greens eyeshadow would be more like

[00:02:31] yerba mate. Yes. Although Frankie, I actually remember, this is one piece of like retro beauty

[00:02:40] magazine advice that it's literally just come to me that I have clearly internalised and I've been

[00:02:46] carrying around with me for the last like 20 years. You have blue eyes. That is correct.

[00:02:52] And I remember learning from a magazine and I couldn't tell you which one,

[00:02:55] that green eyeshadow and blue eyes are not friends.

[00:02:59] Oh, is that right?

[00:03:01] Yes.

[00:03:02] That's so funny. I have like, I've definitely internalised that lilac and grey are good colours

[00:03:08] for my eyes.

[00:03:08] Did you internalise that through like experimentation and using makeup and looking at how your face

[00:03:14] actually looked in real life?

[00:03:16] No, I was categorically told in a beauty tutorial. Yes.

[00:03:20] And I have lived my life accordingly ever since.

[00:03:23] I do not stray from my colour palette. And actually I'm saying that as a joke,

[00:03:28] but I don't think I own a green eyeshadow. I've definitely got a kind of dark turquoise

[00:03:32] one, which is about like 10 years old because I am that skanky person who keeps makeup way

[00:03:37] longer than you're supposed to.

[00:03:39] Yeah. I have to say I'm also not fastidious about the age of my eyeshadows. I've got to say

[00:03:44] like from my beauty journalism days, it's no secret that journalism in general gets you,

[00:03:50] does get you a lot of good perks. Beauty journalism in particular is insane for the amount of freebies

[00:03:57] you get. And I had piles and piles and piles of it when I worked on a beauty magazine and I've still

[00:04:03] got loads of it now. But yeah, I have to say, despite having been warned against this many times

[00:04:08] by beauty sections, a lot of my old makeup has never done me any harm.

[00:04:12] Yeah. Never, never done me any harm. I relate in the sense that I've never worked on a beauty

[00:04:16] magazine, but when I was on staff at a newspaper, there obviously was a beauty and fashion section

[00:04:21] and they used to have charity beauty sales to get rid of all the freebies they got sent.

[00:04:27] And they were bloody brilliant. And I definitely still have some really ancient makeup kicking

[00:04:34] around in the very bottom of my makeup bag from those days. So I think this is a good note on

[00:04:40] which to slip between the pages of this week's magazine, because as we will see, attitudes to

[00:04:45] beauty are very much at the forefront of one of our main features this week. And I think our slightly,

[00:04:53] shall we say, irreverent vibe is very much in keeping with what we're going to be talking about.

[00:05:00] Yes. I can't wait to hear what people think about this one. Let's do it.

[00:05:05] Are you ready to check out what's on the cover this week?

[00:05:09] I am. Yes.

[00:05:10] We have got love, the secret of supermarital sex, international style and £10,000 summer wardrobe

[00:05:19] to win. TV, Belle Mooney says it's dangerous. Patterns inside, bolero set to knit, trouser suit to sew.

[00:05:29] Divorce, women count the cost. Parents, with a cause.

[00:05:35] The price their children pay. I'm really enjoying how all of these are like, a word!

[00:05:41] Is that how it's written on the cover?

[00:05:43] Yes!

[00:05:44] Oh my God, perfect.

[00:05:45] And then the final one, cervical cancer. Why the NHS can't cope.

[00:05:50] We're really covering all bases with this cover, aren't we? We've got some practical stuff,

[00:05:55] we've got a prize, we've got issues, we've got secrets.

[00:05:59] Yeah, there's a lot. There's also an offer for a silk blouse inspired by the one worn by actor

[00:06:06] Greta Skacki in the film White Mischief, which came out in 1987. Because yes, we are back in the

[00:06:14] 80s this week. It is March 1988. Die Hard is out in cinemas. George Michael is the biggest selling

[00:06:21] artist, rightly so, in my opinion. And a four-year-old girl called Frankie Cookney is moving

[00:06:28] house from South London to Leafy Surrey with her family. And so it is a good time to be reading

[00:06:34] Good Housekeeping.

[00:06:37] Oh, perfect!

[00:06:39] We literally did move in March of that year, so I like to think my mum bought this issue for Newhouse

[00:06:45] inspo. That's very, I'm enjoying imagining four-year-old Frankie.

[00:06:50] Just in case we miss the fact that it's the March is due, we also have a very perky young model on the

[00:06:58] cover carrying a bunch of daffodils. So it's an outdoor shoot, not a studio one. And she's walking

[00:07:05] along the road wearing a pale grey trench coat and some brown loafers. I can't work out what says

[00:07:13] British springtime more, daffs or a trench coat. So my first impressions of this magazine are,

[00:07:20] there are lots of ads, a lot of adverts in this magazine, to the point that the editor,

[00:07:27] the editor of Good Housekeeping in 1988 was Charlotte Lessing. And she actually talks about how she's

[00:07:34] had loads of people write in saying there's too many ads.

[00:07:37] Plus a tranche.

[00:07:38] I think it makes a fair amount of sense that there's a lot of adverts in this issue because

[00:07:44] in 1988, things were going quite well economically in the UK. The economy had been growing, partly

[00:07:53] thanks to what was known as the Lawson boom, Chancellor of the Exchequer, Nigel Lawson. His

[00:08:00] budget would have been in March 1988 when this issue came out, was quite famous because he cut

[00:08:07] income tax. And, you know, his policies were controversial and the boom didn't last, etc.,

[00:08:13] etc. Not going to go into the economics of it. But right now, at this exact point in history,

[00:08:17] I think people would have been feeling fairly good about their finances. So that's kind of reflected in

[00:08:24] the pages of this magazine, I reckon. And one of the things the editor says, explaining why there

[00:08:29] are so many adverts, you know, the ads have to go somewhere. After all, without their existence,

[00:08:35] good housekeeping would cost at least £3 per copy. It's currently £1 per copy. Yep, fair

[00:08:41] point. This is where she's kind of being generous, let's say, not to mention the role they play as an

[00:08:49] information provider, letting readers know anything from the launch of a new beauty product to where to

[00:08:55] buy a conservatory. I love that she's trying to spin it as like, adverts are actually really

[00:09:00] helping you, though? Otherwise, how would you know about where to get toasters?

[00:09:05] I mean, I should fully disclose that I do work for a creative agency that is in the business of

[00:09:12] making adverts.

[00:09:13] No, adverts have to exist, absolutely. I think trying to spin them as a sort of like public service is a

[00:09:19] little bit of a stretch.

[00:09:21] Yeah, yeah, it is a little bit. I do really feel like this, that this argument happens all the time.

[00:09:28] I mean, you know, now it's more like, it's like paywalls, isn't it? It's so boring. After a while,

[00:09:33] it's like, we need to get paid, babe. This is a business.

[00:09:39] Well, yeah, I mean, that's why the point about how the magazine would cost more if there were no

[00:09:44] adverts is, is the better point, I think.

[00:09:47] Yeah, exactly. I have a question, actually, because thinking about Good Housekeeping now,

[00:09:54] I kind of see it as more of a, I see the Good Housekeeping demographic as like a little bit

[00:10:00] older, maybe than the demographic of the magazines that we talked about last week and the week before.

[00:10:07] Sort of see it as more of like, 40s, 50s, maybe 60s, even. Do you think that Good Housekeeping,

[00:10:13] the copy that we've got here in 1988, is it speaking to a slightly younger reader than

[00:10:21] maybe Good Housekeeping is speaking to today?

[00:10:24] Yes.

[00:10:25] Or do you?

[00:10:25] I think so.

[00:10:27] Okay, interesting.

[00:10:27] There are various reasons why I think that. One is, you know, one sort of really good way you can

[00:10:32] often judge what the intended audience is for a publication is by how old the people they

[00:10:38] interview and the people they use as case studies are in the features. So that was one of the things

[00:10:44] we were confused about when we were reading Honey, wasn't it? Because we had a case study who was 16

[00:10:48] and then other case studies who seemed like they were in their late 30s, early 40s.

[00:10:51] They were all over the bloody place in Honey.

[00:10:53] Yeah.

[00:10:53] But I would say it's reading very much like a magazine for people in their late 20s and 30s.

[00:10:59] Most of those people I think they're expecting are married. Maybe they don't have kids yet,

[00:11:03] but they are certainly on that trajectory. Also, don't forget people were getting married

[00:11:08] and having kids earlier. You know, I joked earlier about I like to think my mum bought this exact

[00:11:13] issue, but she did read Good Housekeeping in those days. You know, she would have been in her

[00:11:20] oh, late 20s, early 30s at the end of the 80s. And she was reading Good Housekeeping.

[00:11:25] But I think what happened is it's readership aged with it. So now the demographic of Good

[00:11:34] Housekeeping is generally thought of as a bit older, like I would say Gen X.

[00:11:40] Yeah.

[00:11:41] Maybe boomers. Anyway, the magazine, obviously I mentioned it's got a lot of ads. It is chunky.

[00:11:49] I don't know if you can see that, but it is a big boy.

[00:11:52] Oh, wow. That's a that's a book.

[00:11:55] It really is. There is so there is so much content and information in this magazine. You've got pages

[00:12:01] of nibs that's, you know, um, news in brief, like little short news stories for fashion,

[00:12:06] news, people, food, which was one of my favorite pages because it's got a little feature entitled

[00:12:13] flavor of the month with a picture of 26 year old Marco Pierre White.

[00:12:18] Yeah, I spotted that.

[00:12:19] Marco Pierre White has looks more suited to a romantic lead than a chef.

[00:12:24] I mean, 26 year old Marco Pierre White is a hunk.

[00:12:28] He's a snack. Yeah.

[00:12:29] He is a snack. Like wood.

[00:12:31] Which is why he's on the food page.

[00:12:34] Yeah. So then and then you've got design,

[00:12:36] you've got money and these are all just news pages, right?

[00:12:40] Um, there's a really solid interiors and gardening section, which I think you would expect. There's a

[00:12:46] wonderful like home libraries and bookshelf inspiration, which I'm definitely going to

[00:12:52] put in the newsletter because these bookshelves, honestly, I was going to say, I'm not going to

[00:12:55] lie. This sounds like my ideal magazine now.

[00:12:58] As I mentioned, there's a knitting pattern and a sewing pattern. There's cooking and recipe pages.

[00:13:04] There's health, there's travel, there's consumer affairs pages, financial advice, product testing.

[00:13:10] Obviously the product testing, you know, the Good Housekeeping Institute was set up in 1924. It's going strong.

[00:13:17] In this issue alone, they tested 17 lawnmowers, Lucy.

[00:13:21] Out of interest, which was the best lawnmower of March 1988?

[00:13:25] Oh my God. Now you're asking me. I'm going to hang on. Here we go.

[00:13:28] No. Do you know what? They've not actually said which one they like best.

[00:13:32] They've divided it into lots of different categories, which honestly, I'm not even going

[00:13:36] to read you because who knew there were so many different types of lawnmower.

[00:13:41] So I'm afraid I can't tell you what the best lawnmower in 1988 was.

[00:13:45] Okay.

[00:13:46] So there's also a one page roundup of different cordless appliances.

[00:13:51] So things that absolutely did not take off in cordless form, I would say irons. Have you ever

[00:13:58] seen a cordless iron?

[00:14:00] No.

[00:14:02] No. No. I was like, how? What? So that was obviously one of those things that came in

[00:14:11] and then everybody went, no, this is stupid. And it was never seen again. On the flip side,

[00:14:17] Good Housekeeping were adamant that nobody in their right mind would want a cordless kettle,

[00:14:22] by which it means a kettle that's on. So the stand is plugged into the wall and the kettle you can

[00:14:28] lift off separately. Like the kettle I used just now to make my tea.

[00:14:32] Like basically all kettles now. Yes. A good housekeeping is like, can't understand why anyone

[00:14:39] would want or need this. It's hardly an inconvenience to take your corded kettle over to the sink. Wow.

[00:14:45] Turns out they were wrong. It was a massive inconvenience. But yes, you got a lot for your money

[00:14:51] in a 1980s issue of Good Housekeeping. You get a lot bang for your buck.

[00:14:56] After that, are you ready to go inside this issue?

[00:15:00] Yes.

[00:15:03] The enemy within. Television, our main source of information and entertainment,

[00:15:10] can shape our opinions and view of world affairs. But is it a force for good or evil?

[00:15:18] Evil. That is strong.

[00:15:20] Yeah, she's coming out strong. So the reporter on this or the writer on this is a journalist called

[00:15:26] Belle Mooney. She's a longtime journalist and columnist. And she still writes a regular advice

[00:15:31] column for the Daily Mail.

[00:15:33] I've got to say, I am obsessed with the name Belle Mooney. It's like the perfect magazine

[00:15:39] journalism name. Like I feel like if Jilly Cooper was writing a novel about women's magazines set in

[00:15:44] the 80s, like the main antagonist would be called Belle Mooney.

[00:15:49] Yeah. And it's Belle B-E-L.

[00:15:51] Yeah.

[00:15:52] Just one L. Which I just think, you know, as someone who's called Frankie with no E on the end,

[00:15:57] I can appreciate that kind of flourish.

[00:16:00] Less is more.

[00:16:01] Yeah, just keep it punchy. That's what I say. So at first glance, this feature seems really

[00:16:07] kind of hyperbolic and ridiculous. And I really thought it was going to be,

[00:16:12] you know, kind of in the same wheelhouse as like the Mary Whitehouse school of thought.

[00:16:18] Mary Whitehouse obviously being this conservative activist who set up a group called Clean Up TV

[00:16:22] in the 1960s. And she was sort of railing against violence on TV, sex, anything she saw as like

[00:16:28] permissiveness in inverted commas. Long story short, the TLDR on Mary Whitehouse is she saw 20th

[00:16:36] century media as contributing to the moral decay of society. And so when I opened up a feature about

[00:16:42] like, is television good or evil? That's kind of what I thought it was going to be. And the opening

[00:16:47] part is a lot. I'm just going to read it to you. There is a God so powerful and persuasive in our

[00:16:56] culture that he has taken the place of all the other deities. Speak out against this God and you

[00:17:02] are railed against his acolytes protesting that he is a force for good. To question this power is akin

[00:17:08] to blasphemy. Especially if you move, as I do, among the privileged priests and priestesses who

[00:17:15] closely serve him. The God I speak of, of course, is television. And his lighted altars glow in every

[00:17:23] home in the land. I mean, I've got to say, like, I think quite a lot of this article is it's high camp.

[00:17:32] Do you know what? As I was reading that, I was like, I feel like I need some music. I'm going to have

[00:17:37] to add some sound design to this section of the podcast because it's so dramatic.

[00:17:43] But you know what? I actually think like the most camp bit comes next when she sort of like

[00:17:48] holds her hand up and she goes, 20 years ago, I married into a television family. And since then,

[00:17:55] TV has paid my mortgage. I am fanatically proud of everything my husband, Jonathan Dimbleby,

[00:18:01] does on the box in an excellent tradition of reportage and current affairs.

[00:18:06] I just, I absolutely loved it. Because I feel like nowadays, like if you read the odd column where

[00:18:12] like everybody knows that the columnist is married to or related to somebody famous of the telly and

[00:18:20] we all have to kind of pretend that, do you know what I mean? They all just kind of ignore it. We just

[00:18:26] sort of pretend that that isn't the case. And she's just like, no, fuck it. I'm going to lead right into it.

[00:18:30] And then she kind of goes on further down the paragraph to like mention that she's got some

[00:18:34] ideas for TV shows that she wants to develop, which I was like, brilliant Belle, just get it in there

[00:18:42] in case there's some producers waiting with open purse strings.

[00:18:48] Yeah. I mean, it does sort of make me think that she doesn't think that TV is a problem at all.

[00:18:55] She just needed to write a column this month. Maybe her commissioning editor was like,

[00:19:00] can you slag off TV? I feel like a lot of our readers are into that.

[00:19:06] I mean, I feel like this definitely was a time when people were kind of asking a lot of questions about

[00:19:11] how good is all this new technology? An evergreen conversation really. Anyway, after that really

[00:19:19] intense intro, she does make some good points. You know, she says television presents us with a

[00:19:26] standardized view of the world. She talks about how, you know, a few people produce TV for millions,

[00:19:35] mainly white, middle-class and male-dominated as the television industry is. It produces a view of

[00:19:41] the world that is mostly white, middle-class and male-dominated. And I read that and I just thought,

[00:19:46] well, yeah. Yeah. I thought that was interesting. I thought it was interesting that she was making

[00:19:50] that point in 1988. Yeah. I mean, her prime concern is sort of that the battle for ratings

[00:19:56] has led to a decrease in the quality of content, which again, an evergreen topic.

[00:20:04] She says, by emphasizing entertainment value at the expense of thought and serious comment,

[00:20:09] so that everything has to be presented in a zappy, speeded up style, television tends to trivialize

[00:20:15] everything it touches, even news and current affairs. And I'm immediately just thinking,

[00:20:21] brass eye. And like, yeah, that's what that was taking the piss out of. So she's not wrong.

[00:20:33] It also feels quite funny lamenting this like glut of content when there were like four channels.

[00:20:42] So now when we're sort of, we're like tits deep in streaming services,

[00:20:50] it feels absolute nonsense to get the up in arms about four channels.

[00:20:57] I did think as well, so the bit, oh, there's a, there's a bit where she's, she's got a bit of an

[00:21:02] issue with soap. She, she has this sort of, she has an argument about how like watching

[00:21:07] hammered up dramas in like soaps and things will make us sort of desensitized to it. So the idea

[00:21:14] is basically like, are we going to expend our emotional capacity empathizing for characters and

[00:21:21] soaps and have none left for real life people, which I mean, a sounds kind of ridiculous and hysterical,

[00:21:29] but also like, I think quite the opposite. I think, I think soaps have kind of proved like

[00:21:36] in their lifetime that one of the functions that they serve really well, other than entertainment

[00:21:43] is to make really big social issues, often issues that are really taboo and make them really accessible

[00:21:52] to your kind of everyday viewer. So things like, yeah, um, like HIV, like EastEnders was credited

[00:21:59] with EastEnders had a character and HIV storyline in which a straight male character, Mark Fowler

[00:22:05] was diagnosed with HIV in 1991. EastEnders was also the first soap to, or it's also the first TV show

[00:22:12] to broadcast, um, two men kissing on TV. That was in 1989. Yep. Um, please, can we not forget the,

[00:22:20] uh, British screens first lesbian kiss on Brookside? Oh, when was that? In 1994, I think it was.

[00:22:27] It was Anna Friel. Good, good intel. But yeah. And like there's, there's numerous like examples of

[00:22:35] charities seeing like an increase in people accessing their services as a result of seeing an issue

[00:22:43] tackled on a soap opera. Um, so, so yeah, I'm sorry, Belle, but you're wrong about that.

[00:22:52] Definitely. So that kind of leads quite nicely because I was going to ask you, which of her concerns

[00:22:57] do you feel have come to pass? There's a line here where she's talking about the important question

[00:23:04] is could we do without it? I gain far more pleasure, excitement, spiritual sustenance,

[00:23:09] delight and information from books than I do from TV. And I feel like that is in essence,

[00:23:16] very similar to our, the, the, the huge amount of essays and op-eds we've read about people trying

[00:23:24] to put their phones down. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. There was another bit towards the end that I thought

[00:23:29] thinking about it in the context of social media companies seemed really like prophetic. And there's,

[00:23:37] uh, it's like in the concluding paragraph and she says something about power without responsibility,

[00:23:42] which I was like, wow. I mean that like forget TV companies, at least they're regulated a bit.

[00:23:50] That felt really, really prophetic when thinking about the responsibility or lack thereof

[00:23:55] that tech companies, social media companies have over the content that people consume on their

[00:24:02] platforms. I think what's most interesting about this feature is exactly that. It's not so much,

[00:24:07] oh, whether what she says about television is true, but the fact that it's so easy to transplant

[00:24:13] this whole discussion into now and parts of it still be super relevant. Like, you know, we just

[00:24:20] can't stop talking about how the latest tech is probably like ruining our lives in some way.

[00:24:26] There's, um, I don't know if you ever come across it. There's a Twitter account. I think it still exists.

[00:24:31] It's called the Pessimists Archive and it would get, um, sorry, an X account, not a Twitter account.

[00:24:38] It would get like clippings of newspaper articles from various different points in history that are

[00:24:45] talking about some kind of technological or social advancement and would be wringing its hand about it.

[00:24:55] Like, you know, this is, this is very bad. Most recently when I kind of had a look at it,

[00:25:00] it's all devoted to like why AI is going to kill us.

[00:25:04] Yeah. I was going to say the current, the current thing is AI, isn't it? I mean,

[00:25:08] I've had this conversation as well with robotics and AI expert, Dr. Kate Devlin,

[00:25:13] because she has done a bit of work around sex tech. And obviously one of the big questions

[00:25:19] everybody has there is like, Oh no, a sex robot is going to replace human connection.

[00:25:23] No.

[00:25:24] Okay. It has been called upon to answer this question so many times, but one of the things

[00:25:30] she always says is that ever since, you know, since technology began, since we invented the wheel,

[00:25:36] people have been worrying about how it's going to destroy life as we know it.

[00:25:40] Right. It can also improve life as we know it.

[00:25:43] But yeah, part of us getting to grips with new technology is discussing all the ways in which

[00:25:48] it's ruining everything. So it's just, it's just what we do.

[00:25:55] Oh man, we're only halfway through the show, Lucy, and I'm flagging.

[00:26:00] Why don't you have a cup of Ovaltine?

[00:26:02] Ovaltine? Isn't that a bedtime drink?

[00:26:04] Not in Thailand. Over there, they call it kick the day off drink.

[00:26:09] Catchy.

[00:26:10] Maybe it sounds better in Thai, but seriously, it makes sense if you think about it. After all,

[00:26:16] Ovaltine contains malt extract, a well-known source of instant and long-lasting energy.

[00:26:21] Is it?

[00:26:22] Sure. Not to mention the goodness of barley and eggs. So that's the protein. And you've got

[00:26:28] calcium from the milk powder.

[00:26:29] I suppose I hadn't thought of it like that.

[00:26:31] Few Brits have. Meanwhile, the good citizens of Bangkok indulge in a glass of their favourite

[00:26:36] energy drink before indulging in any strenuous activity.

[00:26:40] You said indulge twice.

[00:26:41] That's right. Ovaltine is so good for you that your average Thai football team insists on a pre-match

[00:26:47] mug.

[00:26:48] I have literally no way of verifying this information. So you're saying Ovaltine is actually an energy

[00:26:55] drink. God, what must they think of us drinking it before bed?

[00:27:02] Isn't it time you woke up to Ovaltine?

[00:27:07] Bloody hell, Frankie. I've gone and burnt my porridge again.

[00:27:10] Oh, it's that electric hob of yours, babe. I'm telling you, you want to switch to gas.

[00:27:15] Gas?

[00:27:15] There's nothing quite like gas for giving you control over your cooking.

[00:27:19] Oh, how so?

[00:27:20] Well, with gas, nothing cooks so slowly, nothing cooks so fast.

[00:27:24] Um.

[00:27:25] Take the new World Plan 6 SBS, for instance. It cooks slowly with infinite care when the

[00:27:31] occasion demands.

[00:27:32] Occasions such as porridge.

[00:27:34] Exactly. And when you turn the settings up high, the temperature changed is instant. That's

[00:27:39] what control means.

[00:27:41] Still, I don't know. I'd be worried about leaving it on by accident.

[00:27:45] Oh, there's no question of that happening. When you close the cover, it switches the burners

[00:27:48] off automatically and returns the controls to the off position.

[00:27:52] Hmm. It does sound like it's got great cookability.

[00:27:56] That's the beauty of gas. British gas.

[00:28:01] More iconic ads.

[00:28:03] I really like that British gas one because it feels very of its time, given that British

[00:28:08] gas was only privatised two years earlier. So presumably before that, there would have

[00:28:12] been no need to advertise because there's just one gas. Also, I should declare a conflict

[00:28:18] of interest here because my dad worked for British gas all through my childhood.

[00:28:22] Oh, yeah. You're a British gas nepo baby.

[00:28:25] I'm a British gas nepo baby. And I'm not with them anymore. I'm with Octopus now.

[00:28:33] Same. Octopus, if you're listening.

[00:28:37] The French have it, the Americans want it, and the British shun it. Lucy, can you guess

[00:28:44] what I'm talking about?

[00:28:46] No. Sex?

[00:28:51] Great. Yeah. I mean, not no. Okay. I'll read you the stand first. Why is it most English

[00:28:59] women wouldn't be seen dead rubbing in breast firmers or working out in the gym five times

[00:29:03] a week? Sophie Vincenzi compares the beauty habits of English, French and American women

[00:29:09] and the way it affects their looks. This is a beauty feature. And is there anything you've

[00:29:15] spotted in that stand first?

[00:29:17] Is it that Sophie Vincenzi, any relation to our, to front of the podcast, Penny Vincenzi

[00:29:24] from Honey in 1976?

[00:29:27] Yes. Sophie Vincenzi is Penny Vincenzi's daughter.

[00:29:31] Oh, interesting. Keeping it in the family.

[00:29:33] Yes. Sophie Vincenzi, her name is now Sophie Cornish, like her mother, had a pretty good

[00:29:39] journalism career, did a lot of beauty writing, and then she went on to found notonthehighstreet.com.

[00:29:45] Oh, fascinating.

[00:29:47] I feel like that's quite an iconic mid-naughties.

[00:29:49] Yeah. I've definitely bought many a Christmas or birthday present for my mum off notonthehighstreet.com.

[00:29:55] So, the basic premise of this feature is that there is a sort of typical English approach

[00:30:01] to beauty and that that contrasts with the French approach and the American approach. And those

[00:30:08] approaches, according to our writer Sophie Vincenzi, break down as follows. English women,

[00:30:15] she says, are sort of performatively lone maintenance. They see vanity as ridiculous and, quote, scoff

[00:30:22] for beauty products because apparently we don't want to be seen as self-indulgent or trying too hard.

[00:30:29] French women, on the other hand, take their beauty very seriously and are always in pursuit

[00:30:34] of perfection. For the French, this is a line from the feature as well, for the French, beauty is a

[00:30:39] hobby, a serious one, and part of their heritage. There's also a bit of an implication that it can

[00:30:44] get quite competitive. Americans, as you might imagine, have quite an entrepreneurial attitude

[00:30:49] to beauty. It's all about how much effort you're seen to have put in. And so, it's about looking

[00:30:55] polished and this confers status because looking polished also implies you're doing well professionally

[00:31:01] and financially. So, that's the gist. And we'll come back to whether or not this is true in a minute

[00:31:07] because I first of all need to talk about the fact that I'm going to just read a line from very near

[00:31:16] the beginning. French women tend to have darker hair and olive complexions, although just to say

[00:31:21] this statement is accompanied by an extremely pale-skinned brunette model in the picture.

[00:31:26] The outdoorsy lifestyle of many Americans results in an athletic form, tan skin and sun-streaked hair,

[00:31:33] while our damp English climate and Anglo-Saxon heritage gives us fair baby-faced complexions

[00:31:39] and light eyes and hair. Yikes. I mean, yeah, it just assumes a total racial homogeny.

[00:31:47] Yeah. And also, a geographic homogeny because not everywhere in America is like tanning and sun-streaking.

[00:31:56] Yeah. There's quite a diversity of climates in the US.

[00:32:00] I have to say, I felt when I was reading this feature, like the kombucha meme girl,

[00:32:05] I think there's, I felt like there's sort of two different, so there's a kind of issue around like

[00:32:09] beauty as an aesthetic, who or what we think of as beautiful. And everything about that felt like

[00:32:18] horribly, like it aged horribly and was really like stark and problematic. And then the stuff around

[00:32:26] beauty as like a practice and, you know, something that we do and around the kind of products that we

[00:32:36] use or don't use or the treatments that we might have or not have. And there being kind of cultural

[00:32:42] influences in that. I thought that part was really interesting. And I thought the voices that she had

[00:32:48] throughout it, the like the buyers from the big, from some of the big brands and stuff talking about

[00:32:54] like which types of products sell well in the UK versus in, in other parts of Europe and stuff.

[00:33:00] I thought that was really interesting. Like the idea about, there's a bit in there about how

[00:33:05] products for sensitive skin sell really well in the UK. So it's like treating yourself to like a face

[00:33:12] cream or whatever is sort of seen as less self-indulgent. It's kind of okay if there's like

[00:33:16] a medical need, which I really liked that little detail.

[00:33:20] Yeah. She's talking about how, because English women sort of shun the idea of pampering yourself,

[00:33:27] they think that more of, more of them are starting to identify as having sensitive skin

[00:33:32] because it then excuses them trying beauty products, which is clever.

[00:33:38] Oh no, I'm not being vain. Yeah.

[00:33:40] Weirdly, I actually feel like it's right now going the other way. Like people are sort of using the

[00:33:45] exclusive sensitive skin to kind of not use as many beauty products. I saw a red carpet,

[00:33:54] really brief red carpet interview with Zendaya, just like it was a short clip that I saw on Instagram

[00:33:59] or TikTok. I can't remember where they were just going, Oh, tell us about your skincare routine.

[00:34:03] And she was basically saying, Oh, I, I, it's really, really simple because I have super,

[00:34:09] super sensitive skin. I'm really prone to breaking out and like redness and all these things. So I,

[00:34:13] it's really not anything exciting. And I was thinking that's interesting. Like there has to

[00:34:19] be a reason why she doesn't, you know, she can't just be like my skincare routine is really simple

[00:34:24] because I'm naturally extremely beautiful. Yeah.

[00:34:29] So she's sort of inventing this idea of sensitive skin to get out of having to talk about her skincare

[00:34:35] routine. Yeah.

[00:34:36] So I really wanted to get the perspective of a modern day beauty writer on this. And so I got in

[00:34:42] touch with Anita Bagwandas. She's worked as a beauty writer and editor for pretty much,

[00:34:47] well, pretty much all of the women's mags that are around today. She's a beauty columnist for

[00:34:52] The Guardian. She's also the author of the book, Ugly, giving us back our beauty standards, which is

[00:34:57] part memoir, part historical commentary. And her perspective is of being a South Asian woman,

[00:35:04] growing up amid British beauty culture, and then going on to forge a career in that very industry.

[00:35:09] So I thought I'd share our chat with you now.

[00:35:12] Oh, I'm excited to hear what she's got to say.

[00:35:15] How old were you in March 1988?

[00:35:18] Oh, I had probably just turned four.

[00:35:22] So when I first got in touch with you, I'd literally just read your newsletter where you

[00:35:26] talked about going to Miami and the sort of like Miami look. Off the bat, what do you think about

[00:35:33] the premise of this piece? Do you think it's true that different places and cultures have their own

[00:35:37] kind of beauty rules and approaches?

[00:35:39] Yeah, definitely. I think that that still applies. But I think even within that,

[00:35:45] like there are sort of smaller factions, like I actually am really, I love that within British,

[00:35:51] you know, British beauty, that in some places, like it's totally normal to go out with, you know,

[00:35:57] like the big curlers and to like, if that to be like a really big part of the ritual and to go

[00:36:02] out with those in a way that you wouldn't see in London. And I think that's really fascinating.

[00:36:07] Those differences, I think, are really fascinating because I think they tell you a lot

[00:36:10] and not in a judgmental way at all. I think they're just really interesting cultural

[00:36:13] differences and yeah, just different ways that people use beauty.

[00:36:18] I think one of the first things that I thought when I read this was like,

[00:36:21] so the idea of saying there is one English look felt, I mean, even like, so there's two

[00:36:28] dimensions to this, right? First of all, it felt insane because I was like, but not everybody in

[00:36:33] this country looks the same. And you know, the language they use there is extremely racialized,

[00:36:40] you know, like, oh, our damp English climate and Anglo-Saxon heritage.

[00:36:44] Yeah, I mean, there's a lot about that that's scientifically untrue, which is a whole other thing.

[00:36:49] I mean, even when I started in magazines and up until, gosh, you know, it's probably only really

[00:36:56] been the last 10 years that magazines have really upped their game, catering to a wider audience.

[00:37:01] Definitely in my first jobs in magazines, you assumed the reader was white and everything was

[00:37:07] geared around the fact that they were white. So it was very much part of the culture and everyone

[00:37:11] on the teams, generally speaking, was white. But it wasn't actually that long ago that that was

[00:37:15] still the case.

[00:37:16] I guess reading this, I felt quite naive because obviously I objectively know that that's the case.

[00:37:22] And I've read your work, I mean, lots of people's work, obviously talking about that and how

[00:37:28] obviously growing up reading magazines in the 90s as a white person, I maybe didn't register it

[00:37:33] because I was just like, this is for me. So why would it clock that it's not for anybody else?

[00:37:38] And then I think seeing it actually on the page like this, I was like, this is so jarring to me

[00:37:44] and it probably shouldn't be.

[00:37:46] Yeah. Yeah. It's that thing. I think we have all had a bit of a, like, you know, maybe it's age,

[00:37:51] maybe it's more sort of a cultural up leveling of, you know, noticing when people aren't included.

[00:37:57] But yeah, I mean, that it was just, that was just the way that things were. And it was automatically

[00:38:01] assumed that that was the way that things were. And the reason that was assumed was because

[00:38:07] the aspirational, which is such a magazine word, the aspirational person was a white person and was

[00:38:14] white beauty standards and was white body types and was white fashion standards. Like it was all of it

[00:38:20] was sort of has come from a culture of whiteness. So yeah, it doesn't surprise me in any way.

[00:38:25] It always worked from the assumption that this is what, you know, this is what normal is.

[00:38:30] Yeah.

[00:38:31] And that, you know, that, that is quite a complex thing because I guess, you know, if you look at

[00:38:36] population, if you look at readership, you know, magazines are maybe targeting their readers and

[00:38:42] they probably do know a fair amount about their readers. But then on the, on the flip side of that,

[00:38:47] you do have to, you know, if you do just appeal to one person, you will never broaden your readership.

[00:38:53] Yeah. So the next thing I wanted to ask you was how they're defining kind of French beauty

[00:39:00] standards, American beauty standards, British beauty standards. I'm really interested to know

[00:39:04] whether you think any parts of those still hold true.

[00:39:08] Yeah, this is really fascinating. So I guess with the American sort of trope, what's quite

[00:39:14] interesting about that period in time was that makeup and beauty, makeup in particular, actually,

[00:39:21] was all about like long wearing formulas and products that would last all day because women

[00:39:26] were in the workplace in a really significant way. And part of that was, you know, annoyingly women

[00:39:33] have always been judged by the way they look in a way that men aren't in quite the same way.

[00:39:38] So yeah, I think that was a time where it was a status symbol. And I think what's interesting is

[00:39:44] that even now, there is, there is a slightly different vibe in New York. I would say New

[00:39:51] York has always been a little bit more polished. I saw a journalist friend who's American and writes

[00:39:57] about similar stuff to me. And, you know, I do my nails very occasionally. They're quite often

[00:40:02] chipped. She, the one thing she said to me was that I really noticed that in the UK,

[00:40:06] not everyone has their nails done. And I was like, oh, wow.

[00:40:12] Wow. Nail shaming.

[00:40:13] I know. I was like, wow, I didn't, I didn't, actually, that's not something I clocked.

[00:40:17] I really remember a friend of mine coming back from having been in New York for work for about a year.

[00:40:23] Um, and she, she didn't like it. Funnily enough, she's someone that had also lived in Paris and in

[00:40:29] London. She adores Paris, adores French culture, didn't get on with New York. But one of the things

[00:40:33] she said she did like about it was that she got her hair blow dried every day. And that's so wild.

[00:40:38] That's what I always think of when I think of kind of New York style is like the, well, they call it a

[00:40:44] blowout, don't they? A blow dry. I mean, I cannot, I cannot fathom doing that. Yeah.

[00:40:50] Going to that level of effort. I think the interesting thing is that we've come to a place

[00:40:54] now where things like, so I guess, for example, you know, having the lashes and nails done and

[00:40:59] stuff, you know, that's quite a big thing in like younger goth subcultures and stuff now,

[00:41:03] as well as it might be in the sort of more Love Island-esque, you know, vibe. Yeah, I think

[00:41:11] there is a lot of crossover now. Yes. And I'm really glad you mentioned Love Island because at the

[00:41:16] beginning when we were talking about, um, you, you were talking about the sort of

[00:41:19] subcultures of beauty that exist within the UK and you didn't mention Liverpool by name,

[00:41:24] but I think you were referring to Liverpoolian style, like Scouse style. And that was the other

[00:41:29] reason why I sort of felt like this premise felt really bonkers to me because I feel like even

[00:41:34] within our quite small country, there are lots of different beauty subcultures. And so, yeah,

[00:41:42] so the idea that there's sort of one approach seems, I don't know, it seems farcical really.

[00:41:49] Yeah, that's interesting. And I think that it comes down to class because, you know, magazines,

[00:41:54] et cetera, would not have looked at the Liverpool girl as aspirational. They still probably don't,

[00:42:00] you know, that it's really, it's always disparaging about that sort of glamming up the

[00:42:04] girls from like Liverpool or like even like in Wales, you know, I've grown up with that.

[00:42:08] But that's, that's, you know, it's classist and it's a horrible sneering. I think the assumption

[00:42:13] is that we're richer, wealthier, more naturally beautiful. We don't have to go to that effort.

[00:42:18] And that is kind of what the magazine piece is reflecting. It's almost like that sort of person,

[00:42:23] I think. And I, but then I also think there is, you know, the magazine talks about this,

[00:42:26] there is a slight Britishness to not caring too much, like not being seen to care too much about

[00:42:31] your appearance because it indicates vanity. And I do, I think that probably comes from,

[00:42:35] I think historical attitudes towards beauty, if I'm honest, that still persists in terms of,

[00:42:42] you know, women who display too much, you know, makeup or like, you need to look like they're

[00:42:46] too done. You know, that was, that was a bad thing. Historically it's always been seen as a bad thing.

[00:42:51] It's been seen as having links to, you know, sex work or working on the stage. Like it's always been

[00:42:58] a way to put someone in a box and sort of say, this is the kind of person you are. And I think that

[00:43:03] still prevails in our society. Do you think this kind of feature would be written now? And if it was

[00:43:11] like, how would it be approached? To be honest, I have seen this feature written now. It's quite often,

[00:43:18] it's the French girl beauty is the one that gets written about a lot. Oh, I think we really sort of

[00:43:23] idealized the French in that way. I've seen it so many times. And, and it's this idea that,

[00:43:30] you know, French women have this very like natural beauty look, but we don't see the full

[00:43:35] picture actually of any culture, you know, people don't see the full picture of our culture if they're

[00:43:39] outside of it too. So I definitely think there's an element of that. And we still have that sort of

[00:43:45] French girl, you know, narrative. My God, the amount of like choppy little bobs I've tried to

[00:43:50] have in my life with varying degrees of success.

[00:43:55] Oh, yeah. You know, I sometimes still click on stuff. But I always think why are we not aspiring

[00:44:00] to Japanese girl beauty? Why are we not aspiring to Somalian girl beauty? Like it's it does feel

[00:44:07] it always feels really Eurocentric to me.

[00:44:12] Eurocentric indeed. Lucy, what did you think?

[00:44:15] I really loved what she had to say about well, I loved a lot of what she had to say. I thought that

[00:44:22] was like fascinating. But I really loved that little detail about the 80s being a period where

[00:44:27] there was a lot of sort of innovation around long wear makeup, because that was when women were like

[00:44:34] in the office for the first time or not for the first time. But like, it was much more kind of

[00:44:39] deliberate and culturally sort of conscious.

[00:44:41] Yeah, totally. And you know what it says in the feature about American polish and that being part

[00:44:47] of being a professional woman. Actually, when you do think about it in the context of like 80s

[00:44:53] feminism and women in the workplace, that makes so much sense, doesn't it?

[00:44:56] Yeah, for sure. I also really loved that little nugget she had where she was having lunch with a

[00:45:02] mate who's a beauty journalist from New York, who said that it's really noticeable coming to the UK

[00:45:07] and not everyone has their nails done. I thought that was like, that's totally true. I think when I

[00:45:16] was working for a beauty mag back in like the sort of early mid 2010s, that was like a beauty trade mag.

[00:45:23] So we wrote a lot about the sorts of treatments that, you know, like the market and the sort of

[00:45:27] treatments that people were buying and that were really popular and stuff. And nail bars were kind of

[00:45:32] taking off or they had, they had taken off, but only fairly recently. And like that, that culture of

[00:45:39] maintenance treatment. So like going to a salon to get your nails done, your lashes done, your brows done,

[00:45:48] doing that on a kind of regular basis as sort of part of your like weekly or monthly routine or

[00:45:54] whatever. That was becoming like a lot more of a thing here. And it definitely felt like an American export.

[00:46:00] Yeah. Yeah. So I also wanted to put the same question to you that I asked Anita, which is in

[00:46:06] terms of the characterization of English, French and American in this feature, what do you think

[00:46:11] about it? Like, do you think there's any, there are any kernels of truth in here?

[00:46:15] The only thing, so when initially when she said vanity is seen as ridiculous by English women,

[00:46:21] we tend to scoff at products that claim to make us look younger or slimmer. When I first read that,

[00:46:26] I was like, bullshit. British women are just as vain as everybody else. And then, and then I thought

[00:46:34] about her point a bit more and I was like, actually, she's not saying the British women aren't vain.

[00:46:38] She's saying that British women don't want to, don't like to admit their vain.

[00:46:42] That's what I mean. It's this performance of low maintenance.

[00:46:46] Yeah. Yeah. And I think that is, um, I do think that's less fair than it probably was in 1986. I

[00:46:54] think, um, sorry, in 1988, I think now post TOWIE, post Geordie Shore, post Love Island, everybody

[00:47:05] like that, that, that jig is up.

[00:47:07] And also, yeah, you're absolutely right. I don't feel like now there's really, well,

[00:47:13] I was going to say there's no shame in being into beauty. It's more like there's no kudos in not being

[00:47:18] into beauty now. I don't think.

[00:47:20] Oh yeah. That's a very good, that's a very good distinction.

[00:47:24] I guess I'm just trying to figure out, do I feel like what she's talking about in 1988 is something

[00:47:29] I feel I grew up with this sense that I had to kind of scoff at beauty products. And I do a little

[00:47:36] bit relate to that. And as you say, that's really changed. Like, I don't think, I don't feel really

[00:47:42] any pressure to pretend I don't like beauty now.

[00:47:44] No, no.

[00:47:45] I have also grown up though. So there's that.

[00:47:50] I now give less of a shit.

[00:47:52] Yeah. It's kind of like, has the culture changed or am I just older?

[00:47:56] I think this about three times a week.

[00:48:01] Hello, Frankie here. Just a quick one to say, if you have not yet signed up for our newsletter,

[00:48:06] you definitely should. You can read the features we talk about, see all the amazing vintage adverts

[00:48:11] and get access to loads of other bonus bits. Plus, it's a really good way to support the show.

[00:48:16] Find us at maghags.substack.com.

[00:48:24] Fashion tip of the week.

[00:48:27] Show a little shoulder.

[00:48:29] Oh.

[00:48:30] A glimpse of shoulder is key to spring 1988 fashion.

[00:48:35] Shoulders and necklines are the pivotal points of Jasper Conrad's new collection,

[00:48:39] according to Good Housekeeping's fashion folio feature.

[00:48:43] Bruce Oldfield's collection, I am told,

[00:48:46] projects the shoulder line as the new erogenous zone.

[00:48:49] I could see that.

[00:48:51] There is something kind of sexy about a look.

[00:48:53] A well-framed nude shoulder.

[00:48:55] Yeah, yeah. And then in the pics on that page, we've got a lovely low-backed bodycon number

[00:49:02] from Betty Jackson, which has got a little bit of like back shoulder and shoulder blade.

[00:49:07] There's a fabulous La Croix puffed sleeve, which is accentuating the shoulders.

[00:49:13] And at Galliano, we have necklines slashed straight across the bodice.

[00:49:19] A look that Good Housekeeping describes as girlishly soft.

[00:49:23] Ooh, I love that La Croix dress.

[00:49:26] Isn't it amazing?

[00:49:27] It's so beautiful.

[00:49:29] Your beauty tip of the week is keep it low-tech.

[00:49:32] This feels like it's in keeping with what I've just learned from our feature.

[00:49:37] Yeah. So after the main beauty feature, Sophie Vincenzi has another feature where she looks

[00:49:43] into the new science-led approaches to cosmetics. So rather than go and have a nice chat with a

[00:49:49] motherly type lady on the Elizabeth Arden counter, you can now, in 1988,

[00:49:53] walk up to Clinique or Lancôme and have your skin scanned or probed by a consultant in a white coat

[00:50:00] and results fed back to you from a computer. So it's all very exciting. But in a truly refreshing turn,

[00:50:07] Sophie Vincenzi is not convinced.

[00:50:09] Yeah. The entire feature has a really critical approach, which you don't see so much of in today's

[00:50:16] beauty coverage. And then at the end, she writes, I'm not so sure that the high-tech approach does

[00:50:22] simplify choosing skin products. Though most consultants found my skin to be in good condition,

[00:50:27] they all recommended a lot of different products.

[00:50:34] I think she's onto something there, isn't she?

[00:50:36] Rightly sceptical, Sophie.

[00:50:40] Don't take your love life lying down. I'm sure you wouldn't dream of it. Sexual intimacy.

[00:50:47] I'm just going to read the stamp first that comes under the headline.

[00:50:51] Yeah.

[00:50:51] Sexual intimacy has less to do with bedroom technique and more to do with feeling that both

[00:50:55] your lives are in balance and under control. Now, this is actually a book excerpt from a book called

[00:51:02] Supermarital Sex by Paul Purcell, PhD. So that's a content tradition that a lot of us would recognize,

[00:51:09] obviously. Somebody's got a new book out and you basically fill one, two, three. Yeah, three pages

[00:51:17] with an excerpt. Free content. So the feature starts off by saying, essentially, your relationship

[00:51:25] doesn't exist in a vacuum. Quote, you cannot separate your sex life from the rest of your life.

[00:51:29] Whatever life throws at a marriage, it throws at a couple's sexual relationship too. So I think we can all agree

[00:51:35] on that. And then there are sections on friendships, work, money, in-law relations and parenting children

[00:51:42] and how these can affect our sex lives. Now, I'm going to just, let's gloss over the money,

[00:51:49] in-law relations sections. I really want to talk to you about the friendship section.

[00:51:54] I feel like this section specifically, like this section on friendships, I think it felt

[00:52:01] really like it was saying that there was one correct way to do marriage.

[00:52:09] But I think the kind of the through line of this section is your friendships might be a threat

[00:52:15] to your marriage, which just standing on its own feels like, I'm sorry, what?

[00:52:23] It does feel extremely directive. And like, this is what you must do to be married well,

[00:52:32] to like, to serve your marriage appropriately. And a lot of it, you know, seemed to be like,

[00:52:38] and if you confide too much in your friends, or if you and your other half chat to other people

[00:52:43] too much at parties, then your marriage is in trouble.

[00:52:45] Yes. Yes. I mean, literally, it's like, well, if you've got a lot of friends,

[00:52:51] you need to ask yourself, are you looking for something else that you can't get in your marriage?

[00:52:56] I just kind of imagined, like, I don't know, me and my fictitious husband had been at a party

[00:53:02] the night before. And I'd been talking to some friends, and he'd been off talking to some other

[00:53:07] friends. And we were having a marvellous time. And then we went home. And then the next day with my

[00:53:11] hangover, I'm reading my copy of Good Housekeeping. And Paul's telling me that it means that my

[00:53:18] marriage is all shit.

[00:53:20] Yes. Yeah. So there are a couple of particular lines that I made a note of. So the first one was,

[00:53:28] ask yourself what needs are being met outside the marriage that cannot be met within it.

[00:53:32] Marriage is the one place for total vulnerability and intimacy.

[00:53:37] That just, I mean, you know, even without the last 10 to 20 years of sex and relationships

[00:53:43] discourse, that feels inherently wrong.

[00:53:46] Icky. Yeah. I didn't like it.

[00:53:49] No.

[00:53:50] I didn't like it at all.

[00:53:52] No. I mean, he's, so he's sort of literally saying like, exactly the scenario you were just

[00:53:58] talking about, where if you go to a party and you and your partner spend the night talking to other

[00:54:02] people, that's a bad sign. If you find yourself making new friends after you're married, that's

[00:54:09] a bad sign. If you confide in other people than your spouse, that's a bad sign. Like,

[00:54:17] Lucy, by this logic, our entire friendship is a really bad sign for my marriage.

[00:54:23] It is a bad sign.

[00:54:24] Basically, by this man's standards, my marriage is doomed.

[00:54:29] Yeah. You're in trouble.

[00:54:32] And then obviously, I think, you know, it's just so interesting to see how,

[00:54:38] how the kind of accepted truth about what's good for a relationship has really fundamentally changed.

[00:54:44] So another line that I made a note of was where it says,

[00:54:46] a good marriage or good sexual relationship requires exclusive intimacy rights.

[00:54:52] And I'm reading that and I'm like, like red flag.

[00:54:57] Yeah.

[00:54:59] This is just like the direct opposite of what we now consider to be kind of true about intimacy.

[00:55:09] And you know, Esther Perel famously talks about how too much intimacy or sort of like too much of it,

[00:55:15] or like not having a break from it or not having any other sources for it can actually be bad for your sex life.

[00:55:22] Like it's the too much intimacy is the antithesis of the erotic. It can inhibit desire.

[00:55:27] And he's here saying that just the opposite of that, that if you don't have total exclusive intimacy,

[00:55:34] then you won't have a good sex life.

[00:55:36] So that's just, that's just fascinating to see how that narrative has done a total 180.

[00:55:42] Yeah. Yeah.

[00:55:43] What about the work section?

[00:55:45] 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,

[00:55:53] you know, you have to kind of find your, you have to kind of maintain balance.

[00:55:57] And I don't know if I read this and I don't know if I felt this because I was viewing it through a kind of 2024 lens

[00:56:03] or because I was like particularly tired and stressed the week that I read it.

[00:56:07] But like, I just, I felt really like, I felt really defensive about what he was saying about finding balance.

[00:56:14] I was just like, but it's really hard. It's really hard to find balance.

[00:56:19] I had a very similar kind of feeling a bit later on in the part, in the section about parenting.

[00:56:25] I mean, there was, there was one line about parenting that I actually liked and thought was a,

[00:56:30] was an interesting observation where it says,

[00:56:34] privacy and quiet are luxuries that few families are lucky enough to enjoy.

[00:56:39] And the more loving, open and involved the family,

[00:56:42] the less likely it is that the parents can find much time to have open, free, expressive sex.

[00:56:47] And I was obviously like, yeah, a hundred percent.

[00:56:50] But I, but I kind of never, I'm not sure if I really heard anyone talk about how

[00:56:58] 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.

[00:57:09] Yeah.

[00:57:10] And so making what is actually a very positive choice and a very loving collaborative choice.

[00:57:19] And then obviously the sex life being the thing that, that suffers for it.

[00:57:23] Um, I don't know. It's just, it was quite a nice,

[00:57:25] it was a nice framing that I'd not really encountered before.

[00:57:29] No.

[00:57:30] However, unfortunately later on, there was a bit where he said, um,

[00:57:35] Paul give us and he take us away.

[00:57:39] Truly.

[00:57:42] He talks about how, you know,

[00:57:44] it was sort of universal problem that all couples cite is the lack of time.

[00:57:48] And he said,

[00:57:50] remember that time is an abstract concept that depends on where we are,

[00:57:53] who we are with and what we are doing.

[00:57:56] So it's basically just sort of like, yeah, you know,

[00:58:00] time doesn't matter if you truly prioritize.

[00:58:03] And I just read that. I was like, oh, do fuck off.

[00:58:08] Actually, do you know what?

[00:58:09] I think it was that bit that I read and got a bit like, yeah,

[00:58:12] but it's really hard.

[00:58:13] And I was thinking about it in the context of life,

[00:58:16] not even parenting because I'm not a parent,

[00:58:19] but I was like,

[00:58:20] it's actually really difficult actually to like find time to balance work,

[00:58:25] especially like when you're in a single income household and going to the gym

[00:58:29] and taking care of myself and being on top of all my friendships and having my

[00:58:33] hobbies and getting enough sleep and drinking enough water.

[00:58:36] Yeah.

[00:58:36] I feel personally attacked by this feature.

[00:58:41] What's hot and what's not in March 1988?

[00:58:45] What's hot is making absolutely zero effort with your skincare.

[00:58:51] Also,

[00:58:52] I'm just going to say cooking with gas.

[00:58:56] And what is not?

[00:58:59] What is not?

[00:59:00] I think we could say science led beauty.

[00:59:04] Yeah.

[00:59:05] And possibly television as a whole.

[00:59:08] All bad.

[00:59:09] Dreadful.

[00:59:10] Moral decay.

[00:59:13] Thank you for listening.

[00:59:15] We hope you enjoyed today's show.

[00:59:17] If you did,

[00:59:18] please consider leaving us a glowing review and smashing that five stars button.

[00:59:21] It'll help the podcast grow.

[00:59:23] We hope you join us again next time on MagHacks when we'll be turning private detective to spy on our guys.

[00:59:29] Bye-bye.

[00:59:30] Bye.

[00:59:30] Bye.