Honey, March 1976

[00:00:02] Do you work out in the bath? Are you sufficiently selfish to hold down a job and a boyfriend? Do you know how to play libido properly? If you answered yes or no to any of the above, you've come to the right place.

[00:00:21] Hello and welcome to Mag Hags, the podcast that sincerely wants to be selfish. I'm Lucy Douglas.

[00:00:27] 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.

[00:00:38] Hello, Franki, how are you?

[00:00:41] Hi Lucy, I am okay. Working hard, playing hard, you know, parenting hard.

[00:00:47] Are you having it all?

[00:00:51] I'm really trying. But you know what, I've been thinking about that.

[00:00:57] So in our very first episode, you told me about the origin of the phrase, having it all.

[00:01:02] I did, yeah. I think having it all is a phrase that was kicking around from like the late 70s onwards, but it was popularized by Helen Gurley Brown, who was the editor of Cosmopolitan in the US at the time.

[00:01:16] And she published a book in 1982 that was called Having It All.

[00:01:20] The subtitle of which was Love, Success, Sex, Money.

[00:01:26] Exactly.

[00:01:27] And that got me thinking, because I, as someone who was born after 1982 and grew up in the 90s and the early 2000s, I had always thought that having it all meant having kids in a career.

[00:01:40] But there is nothing in that subtitle about parenthood. And there's very little mention of children in the book at all.

[00:01:46] No. Yeah. And Helen Gurley Brown didn't have kids herself.

[00:01:50] Right. And so at risk of having a feminist epiphany right here on the podcast, I feel like the meaning of having it all has been twisted in the intervening years.

[00:02:01] Like I see people, particularly millennial mothers, joking about the impossibility of it. I see, you know, I see outrage about the pressure and expectations it has supposedly created.

[00:02:12] But it was never supposed to mean that. Having children was never part of the picture of having it all, at least not for Gurley Brown.

[00:02:20] Yeah. Yeah. You've been barking up the wrong tree, mate.

[00:02:23] All this time, Lucy.

[00:02:25] Yeah. I mean, also, like, I think the whole idea of trying to have it all has fallen out of fashion or like it's certainly not on trend anymore.

[00:02:35] I think most of us are aware now that there's only so many hours in the day and the idea of trying to have a kick-ass career and a, like a really high-flying career and a really fulfilling and busy family life are relatively incompatible in terms of time.

[00:02:54] But in terms, I guess in terms of like discourse, we've done a real 180, isn't it? Like, it's not cool to be girlbossing anymore.

[00:03:00] Like, we're all quiet quitting now and fighting back against hustle culture and toxic productivity.

[00:03:05] Yeah, so true. Okay. So with that in mind, if you were going to write a book called Having It All Now, what would your subtitle be, do you reckon?

[00:03:15] What's our all in 2024?

[00:03:19] Okay. What's my all in 2024? Something like a living wage, anxiety, men to keep emotionally at arm's length but reliably have sex with and decent pubs.

[00:03:36] Amazing. An impossible dream, Lucy.

[00:03:39] An impossible dream.

[00:03:40] I think I'm going to go for authenticity, community, influence and brand deals.

[00:03:48] Friendship, purpose, pleasure, plants.

[00:03:52] Oh, I love that one. Yeah, I'll take that. I'll take that.

[00:04:08] Like, it was a super important time in feminism, definitely. But it was pre-Thatcher. And I think while we'll definitely like see the women in this magazine working very hard, it's definitely not as brash in tone as some of the mags that came like later in the 80s. Like, it's quite a bit more gentle.

[00:04:28] Okay. So not girlbossing?

[00:04:31] It's not girlbossing, no. I'd say it's like, girl, go get them.

[00:04:36] Oh, okay. I'm really excited.

[00:04:39] Are you ready to get into it?

[00:04:40] I am.

[00:04:42] This week, we are going back to March 1976. And we are reading a magazine that you might not have heard of before. It's called Honey.

[00:04:54] So Honey magazine ran from 1960 to 1986 when it was merged with 19 magazine, I believe. And at its height, it had a circulation of 250,000, apparently, which to put that in context today, it would make it like the third most popular women's mag today, I believe, according to the latest ABC figures.

[00:05:16] That's incredible because I had not heard of this magazine.

[00:05:19] Yeah, it was huge. But just before we dive in, I wanted to talk a little bit about the context of March 1976 in the UK. One of my colleagues recommended to me a miniseries of The Rest is History podcast, which I hadn't actually listened to before. And I'm sort of since realising that it's kind of like recommending Desert Island Discs to someone. So I thought it would be useful listening to kind of better understand where the UK is socially when this magazine is published.

[00:06:16] Yeah, okay.

[00:06:18] Like rampant inflation, cost of living crisis. Anyway, Howard Wilson became Prime Minister for the second time. He was previously PM in the 60s, but he doesn't stay Prime Minister for very long. He announces his resignation in March 1976.

[00:06:35] Oh, just when our magazine comes out.

[00:06:37] Yeah. And I think as we're about to see, it's quite an interesting backdrop on which to be publishing what is like quite a cheery, upbeat little mag.

[00:06:46] Hmm. Okay. And that is interesting as well, because when I think of the mid and late 70s, I think of punk, right? And my first thought was, what was Patti Smith doing in 1976? Because I knew that her debut album came out at the end of 1975. And like the Sex Pistols form in 1975, The Clash, The Jam, The Buzzcocks, all these bands were getting together around this time.

[00:07:08] So that whole scene was really kicking off. But I'm going to hazard a guess that the March 1976 issue of Honey magazine is not very punk.

[00:07:20] Absolutely not very punk, Frankie. Very much not punk, I would say.

[00:07:27] But let's dive in. Okay, so Frankie, you're, I'm going to say like 21. You might have just watched the Winter Olympics on TV. You might have just been to see the new Pink Panther film at the cinema with Peter Sellers and Christopher Plummer.

[00:07:43] If you're anything like our cover girl, you're young, fun and fresh faced and rocking a baby blue cotton, like utility jumpsuit. You have got some very skinny eyebrows, got a lot of heavy black, like inner liner. We've got a lot of coal on the inner line.

[00:08:03] Yes, love that.

[00:08:04] And very peachy cheeks.

[00:08:06] People do say that about me.

[00:08:08] They do. Our cover lines are, is selfishness a sin or a necessity?

[00:08:14] The Who, still a smashing rock band.

[00:08:17] Wait, is there a question mark at the end of that?

[00:08:19] No, I'm doing the Who dirty there.

[00:08:22] The Who, still a smashing rock band.

[00:08:26] It's something about the word still.

[00:08:29] Like they're still here, guys.

[00:08:31] Don't forget about the Who.

[00:08:32] We've got a one, two, three of makeup.

[00:08:35] Oh, yes.

[00:08:35] People who contact the dead.

[00:08:38] Our freebie, our freebie for this issue was a double-sided record with four great new Philly soul tracks.

[00:08:47] Definitely not very punk, but a nice little freebie, I think.

[00:08:51] Yeah.

[00:08:52] Starting now, our new serial by prize-winning novelist Beryl Bainbridge.

[00:08:58] And yeah, so later in the mag, there's like an extract from a novel, which is quite cute, I think.

[00:09:03] Yeah, I'm into that.

[00:09:04] I've heard of Beryl Bainbridge as well.

[00:09:06] Like she's kind of a big deal, isn't she?

[00:09:08] Oh, she won a Whitbread award in 1977 and in 1996.

[00:09:11] Nominated five times for the Booker Prize.

[00:09:13] Anyway, yeah.

[00:09:14] Please, please continue.

[00:09:16] Our final cover line.

[00:09:18] How are your weekends?

[00:09:20] Homely, sexy, useful, stylish or rotten?

[00:09:24] Oh, um, I'm gonna say all of the above.

[00:09:31] Okay.

[00:09:32] I think mine are useful with Sexy Rising.

[00:09:37] My overall vibe of this magazine, kind of reading through it.

[00:09:41] And this seems like especially more stark now that I know that life is kind of tough in the UK at this point.

[00:09:49] But this is just like a really optimistic magazine, I think.

[00:09:54] A lot of the features and a lot of the adverts as well just seem very geared up towards like,

[00:10:00] you are a young woman going out into the world and you can do stuff.

[00:10:05] You have opportunity and you can live a cool life.

[00:10:09] So overall, I feel like this magazine feels a bit less like it's sort of reporting on the issues of the day

[00:10:15] than our Cosmo was that we looked at last week.

[00:10:19] And it feels a lot more like it's kind of reflecting on how young women live now.

[00:10:28] Which I don't know how exciting I would have necessarily found that as a reader in 1976.

[00:10:34] However, for our purposes, it feels like a very rich time capsule.

[00:10:40] Yes.

[00:10:40] And actually, at this point, it would be a good moment to flag.

[00:10:43] If you want to read any of the features that we talk about or look at any of the adverts that we talk about on the magazine,

[00:10:50] you can sign up to our newsletter, maghags.substack.com.

[00:10:57] So that's maghags.substack.com.

[00:11:02] Yes, I love this idea.

[00:11:04] I think it's going to be a really good way for people to actually engage with the features and the adverts

[00:11:09] and look at all the design elements and then they'll really understand what we're talking about

[00:11:12] and be able to send us their thoughts.

[00:11:16] The first feature that I wanted to talk about today is a particularly strong example,

[00:11:22] I think, of how women are living at the time.

[00:11:25] And it's the one, it's our story from the cover.

[00:11:28] How are your weekends?

[00:11:29] Homely, sexy, useful, stylish or rotten.

[00:11:32] So this feature is simply called Weekending.

[00:11:35] And it's basically, you can do all sorts of things at the weekend.

[00:11:40] So we're going to ask some people what they do.

[00:11:42] And the hook for this feature, the why now element, appears to be a new advert for British Rail

[00:11:49] because, yes, the railways are state-owned in 1976.

[00:11:54] And that advert reads,

[00:11:56] See a friend this weekend with a picture of like a smiling young woman in a fur coat

[00:12:02] and one of those sort of thick fur hats stepping off a train with her arms open,

[00:12:07] having a very fabulous time.

[00:12:08] Yeah, I think I feel like I could totally imagine the vibe,

[00:12:12] that kind of retro travel by train vibe, like have a fun weekend away by train.

[00:12:18] Right.

[00:12:20] Which makes it all the more hilarious that nobody in this feature uses trains.

[00:12:26] They all either stay at home or drive, except apart from one,

[00:12:30] the one case study who does talk about using the train,

[00:12:34] going to stay with her parents,

[00:12:36] literally says it's the only thing about her weekend that she doesn't like.

[00:12:39] The train services are so bad,

[00:12:41] I seem to spend the whole day trying to catch trains.

[00:12:44] Oh God, this has gone really badly for British Rail.

[00:12:48] It's gone so badly.

[00:12:49] As a PR opportunity, it's gone so badly.

[00:12:52] In fact, even more amusingly,

[00:12:55] say like the model on this advert is the first case study.

[00:12:59] She kind of makes a point of saying like right at the beginning

[00:13:02] that she wouldn't dream of getting the train.

[00:13:07] Like literally, I think the quote is,

[00:13:09] see a friend this weekend.

[00:13:10] And that's pretty much what she does,

[00:13:12] as though she wouldn't dream of going by train.

[00:13:15] I feel like they needed to do a bit more work on her contract

[00:13:17] before they put her up for interview, didn't they?

[00:13:21] Right, yeah.

[00:13:22] I don't think I would be very interested to read that feature now,

[00:13:25] but I am very excited to hear what people were doing on the weekends in 1976.

[00:13:30] Well, exactly.

[00:13:31] This is what I mean.

[00:13:32] For our purposes, this is an absolute goldmine.

[00:13:35] So we've got five case studies.

[00:13:38] Three of them are called Sue.

[00:13:40] Stop it.

[00:13:41] I'll give you like a really quick summary of them all.

[00:13:45] So our first case study is Greta.

[00:13:48] She is a model and she likes to get out of the city on the weekends.

[00:13:56] And she goes down to her house in Surrey with her husband.

[00:14:00] Our second case study is Sue No. 1 and her husband Bob.

[00:14:04] And they have a sort of quite standard sort of weekend.

[00:14:07] They like to eat food.

[00:14:08] They play games.

[00:14:09] They see friends, go to the pub, that sort of thing.

[00:14:11] Case study number three is Rosemary.

[00:14:14] And I'm going to come back to Rosemary because she was the one that piqued my interest the most at the start.

[00:14:20] Case study number four is Sue Tu and her partner Don.

[00:14:26] And they spend their weekends on a boat and like a proper sailing yacht, like not like a barge.

[00:14:34] And then the fifth case study is Sue No. 3, who is only 16 and her first job in London.

[00:14:41] And she goes home to her parents at the weekends.

[00:14:44] And she's the one who hates trains.

[00:14:47] She is the one who hates trains.

[00:14:48] Yes, correct.

[00:14:49] Okay.

[00:14:49] So I want to start off by talking about Rosemary.

[00:14:52] Rosemary is one of this season's debutantes.

[00:14:55] Oh, is she?

[00:14:56] So I didn't really know anything about like the London season and the debutante.

[00:15:02] You know, I didn't know anything about that whole scene.

[00:15:05] You're not posh enough to know about the debutante scene, Lucy.

[00:15:08] I'm astounded.

[00:15:09] I'm not posh enough, but I looked into it.

[00:15:12] And actually, so the big like debutante ball, the one that kind of started in the Regency era,

[00:15:20] that is the kind of iconic ball when you think of the debutante.

[00:15:24] Yes.

[00:15:24] So that's called the Queen Charlotte's Ball.

[00:15:27] It was started in the 1700s.

[00:15:29] And that was when women or girls becoming women of a certain upper class in society were presented to the royal family.

[00:15:37] And that tradition kept going until 1958.

[00:15:41] Like they were literally presented to the royal family.

[00:15:43] They were literally presented to the royal family until 1958.

[00:15:47] Oh, my God.

[00:15:48] Like, here are some new females for you.

[00:15:51] Yeah, exactly.

[00:15:52] Exactly.

[00:15:53] Correct.

[00:15:54] And you had to be.

[00:15:55] So in order to be presented to the royal family, I think you had to be presented by your mother or a close female relative.

[00:16:03] But they had to have been a debutante themselves.

[00:16:06] Wow.

[00:16:06] So that was kind of kept very like within a class system, very inherited.

[00:16:11] But in the late 19th century and early 20th century, it became more commonplace for like,

[00:16:19] like wealthy Americans who really, really wanted the status of it could buy a presentation,

[00:16:26] like ticket into the debutante ball from some English aristocrat that was a bit cash poor.

[00:16:33] Oh, really?

[00:16:34] Yeah.

[00:16:35] Yeah.

[00:16:35] So there was a lot of like diluting the...

[00:16:37] The Americans diluted the British aristocracy.

[00:16:41] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:16:43] Anyway, so Queen Elizabeth put a stop to it as part of her kind of drive to modernize the monarchy when she first became queen in the 50s.

[00:16:52] The party line was that there would no longer be a member of the royal family at the Queen Charlotte Ball because it was part of a drive to modernize the monarchy.

[00:17:01] That was the official party line from Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip.

[00:17:04] Is there a but?

[00:17:05] Yeah, yeah, there is.

[00:17:07] Princess Margaret...

[00:17:08] Of course.

[00:17:08] ...went on the record as saying, we had to put a stop to it because they started letting any old tart in London then.

[00:17:15] Incredible.

[00:17:15] So these balls, in 1976, these balls were still going on.

[00:17:19] Is that right?

[00:17:20] But just there was no royalty there.

[00:17:22] Yeah, exactly.

[00:17:23] So the tradition kept going for another 18 years.

[00:17:26] They kept the Queen Charlotte Ball going, but they sort of became less relevant and less popular over that time.

[00:17:33] And then 1976 was actually the last Queen Charlotte Ball that was hosted.

[00:17:38] Wow, the end of an era.

[00:17:40] Yeah, it was.

[00:17:41] It was revived in the noughties, I believe.

[00:17:46] But it was happening.

[00:17:48] And this case study is a really interesting little sort of mirror into a very sort of specific type of upper class 20th century Englishness, I think.

[00:18:00] So basically, Rosemary spends her weekends going to a coming out party, a ball held by one of her friends or another debutante.

[00:18:12] So in order to attend, you just kind of go and stay at somebody else's house.

[00:18:16] And there doesn't seem to be any suggestion that you necessarily know the person whose house you're going to stay at.

[00:18:25] You just get put up in the house of some other posh person who lives nearby and presumably has a enormous pile in the country with many a spare bedroom.

[00:18:38] Infinite numbers of bedrooms.

[00:18:40] Yeah.

[00:18:40] Can I tell you what really struck me about this?

[00:18:43] Rosemary has this whole section where she's talking about packing wrong for the countryside.

[00:18:49] Now, she doesn't mean for the ball, does she?

[00:18:52] Presumably you wear a ball gown for the ball.

[00:18:53] I think she's talking about the daytime on Sunday.

[00:18:57] Yeah, no, it's the daytime on the Sunday.

[00:18:59] She's packed a skirt and everyone's wearing jeans.

[00:19:03] Yes.

[00:19:04] And I was like, this is amazing.

[00:19:06] I'm obsessed with this.

[00:19:07] Also because this is the second mention in this feature of the countryside dress code.

[00:19:13] Because Greta, who was the first case study you mentioned, also talks about,

[00:19:18] oh, well, when I'm out in the countryside, I just wear jeans and, you know, it's a totally different vibe out there.

[00:19:25] I was just really intrigued by this very upfront discussion of the fact that there is a different dress code for the countryside in the city.

[00:19:34] Because I think there is.

[00:19:38] I just don't think anybody would vocalize it in that way.

[00:19:42] And also I think London style now is like so casual compared to outside London, which is, I'm thinking like evening wear specifically.

[00:19:54] Like women's evening wear outside London is still glam.

[00:20:00] Women's evening wear, if you live in London, is very deliberately not glam.

[00:20:07] Well, I mean, speak for yourself.

[00:20:11] I do actually relegate that slightly.

[00:20:13] Like I can't get on board with trainers as evening wear.

[00:20:18] I just, I cannot.

[00:20:19] But I do hear what you're saying completely.

[00:20:22] But if I'm going out to the countryside for a weekend, maybe I'm going to visit friends or just having a weekend away.

[00:20:28] There are definitely things I wouldn't bother packing because I'm like, nah, that's a bit London-y.

[00:20:32] Interesting.

[00:20:33] And then I read this article and was like, this is fascinating because it sounds really archaic.

[00:20:38] But I don't, I actually don't think those dress codes are non-existent.

[00:20:42] They're just a little bit more.

[00:20:45] They're subtler.

[00:20:46] I just think different places do have different vibes.

[00:20:48] And you know me, I love a packing list.

[00:20:50] Oh yeah, you do.

[00:20:50] So if I was going to the Cotswolds for a weekend at a big house, I would get such a kick out of spending the week before thinking about what to pack.

[00:20:58] Planning your cardigans.

[00:21:00] Yes!

[00:21:01] Should we talk about Bob and Sue number one?

[00:21:04] So just again, for another little bit of context.

[00:21:07] So Sue number three is 16, which I thought was absolutely fascinating in the context of like being a working young woman who lives in the city in the week and goes back to her parents at the weekend.

[00:21:20] By contrast, Sue number one and her husband Bob look about 40.

[00:21:28] They don't say how old they are in the future, but they talk about not being young.

[00:21:33] I also actually don't think they are as old as 40.

[00:21:36] I think that I think they're maybe in their early 30s, probably in their late 20s.

[00:21:41] I think they're probably about 28.

[00:21:42] But I just think the style, particularly the men's style, the style of Bob and that absolutely insane mustache he has just makes him look so much older.

[00:21:55] But his attitude as well, like I really hate what he says about there's this line where he talks about not having to keep up with going to parties because they're no longer young, trendy and single.

[00:22:06] And I was a bit like, Bob, don't don't give up, man.

[00:22:10] Don't put yourself out to pasture, Bob.

[00:22:11] Yeah, exactly.

[00:22:12] I don't know.

[00:22:13] It just really made me angry.

[00:22:16] Not as angry, though, about the fact that Sue is working as a fucking nurse and she's still having to do all of the housework and washing on her Fridays, quote, before Bob gets home.

[00:22:28] This is a common theme in quite a lot of the anecdotes that we come across in this magazine.

[00:22:33] Greta as well.

[00:22:35] She's your first case study, isn't she?

[00:22:36] And they're the ones that go out to their big, sorry, country mansion on the weekends.

[00:22:42] And you said she's a model.

[00:22:44] She sounds like she's got quite a sort of jet setting career, but then she's definitely doing like all of the cooking and that sort of stuff, isn't she?

[00:22:52] Yeah.

[00:22:52] I get up very early on Saturday morning, go shopping, come back and start cooking.

[00:22:57] We always have country sausages for lunch on Saturday.

[00:23:00] Saturday night, we have a huge dinner and sit around the fire.

[00:23:03] Sunday, we get up very late and have an enormous breakfast.

[00:23:06] I do spend a lot of the weekend cooking, she says later, and I get very exhausted.

[00:23:11] Yeah, I'm not fucking surprised.

[00:23:13] All these dinners, all these huge meals, Greta, that you're making for people.

[00:23:18] I read that and I was like, I can't decide whether I'm envious or horrified by Greta's weekends.

[00:23:24] Because on the one hand, they have this big country home, which they can invite friends to stay with them.

[00:23:30] They do also have an exquisite Chelsea townhouse.

[00:23:33] Well, there you go.

[00:23:34] Exactly.

[00:23:34] What's not to envy?

[00:23:36] But then at the same time, I just, I don't know, man.

[00:23:39] I got kind of really sweaty thinking about her getting home from a work trip at 1am and making a fucking salmon mousse.

[00:23:47] Anyway, back to Bob and Sue.

[00:23:49] Back to Bob and Sue.

[00:23:50] So Bob has said we don't really need to bother with keeping up with going to parties.

[00:23:56] I mean, as a concept, I find that slightly baffling.

[00:23:58] Because what do you mean keep up with the idea?

[00:24:02] Going to parties isn't a chore, Bob.

[00:24:04] Yeah.

[00:24:04] Let's say we've already established that Sue is cooking for Bob.

[00:24:08] Bob goes to the pub for a bit on a Saturday afternoon and watches sport.

[00:24:13] And then sometimes at weekends, they have their friends around.

[00:24:15] What their friends call John and Val for dinner.

[00:24:18] And then play a game called libido.

[00:24:21] After dinner, it's listening to records and board games.

[00:24:24] Cards for minor stakes, a penny or a hatenie.

[00:24:27] Or libido.

[00:24:29] Though we don't play libido as it's supposed to be played.

[00:24:32] Much to my annoyance.

[00:24:33] I have never heard of libido.

[00:24:36] Well, I had not heard of libido.

[00:24:38] But as soon as I read about it in this magazine, I immediately googled it.

[00:24:43] And when I googled it, I immediately saw it for sale on eBay for £11.

[00:24:48] And so I think you know where the story is going, Lucy, don't you?

[00:24:51] Oh my God.

[00:24:52] Yes, I do.

[00:24:54] Please tell me more.

[00:24:54] I am the proud owner of a vintage 1971 set of libido, the board game.

[00:25:02] Okay, tell me about libido.

[00:25:04] What is it?

[00:25:05] I have played it once.

[00:25:07] It's basically strip monopoly.

[00:25:09] I was going to say, is there an element of stripping that's heavily implied in Bob's

[00:25:14] We don't play libido as it's supposed to be played.

[00:25:17] Much to my annoyance quote.

[00:25:18] Exactly.

[00:25:19] So this is, I'm reading directly from the rules of libido right now.

[00:25:23] The object of the game is to accumulate as much money as possible while at the same time

[00:25:27] compelling opponents to remove their clothes and also to reveal their sexual attitudes.

[00:25:33] You know how in Monopoly you've sort of got the community chest and the chance cards

[00:25:37] and that sort of thing?

[00:25:38] Yeah.

[00:25:39] Similar vibes with libido.

[00:25:41] Like you go around the board and depending what symbol you land on, there's a pack of

[00:25:44] sex cards and a pack of money cards, different sort of challenges on each of them.

[00:25:50] And a lot of the questions are sort of like, whoever can't answer this question has to remove

[00:25:55] one item of clothing, that kind of thing.

[00:25:58] However, there is also a pack of clothing cards, which you can deal out and people can just

[00:26:04] symbolically give up their clothing.

[00:26:05] So you've got a choice as to whether you give up one of your clothing cards or if you play

[00:26:09] it properly, you remove actual items of clothing.

[00:26:13] Okay.

[00:26:14] Okay.

[00:26:16] I have to be honest with you, Rob and I did not play the strip version, mainly because

[00:26:21] it was a bit cold and I couldn't be arsed.

[00:26:26] Can you imagine getting a couple of friends around for a dinner party and playing that?

[00:26:30] I've imagined little else.

[00:26:34] I actually posted about it on Instagram and was like, anyone want to come around for games

[00:26:38] night?

[00:26:38] And I got zero takers.

[00:26:40] Rude.

[00:26:41] I know.

[00:26:42] Anyway, so just to give you an example of one of the cards that you might pick in libido,

[00:26:47] give any player who has not made love to you £500 as consolation.

[00:26:53] Oh, amazing.

[00:26:54] Yeah.

[00:26:54] But I would say, I mean, it's really fun and psychedelic and I'll include some pictures

[00:26:58] in the newsletter.

[00:27:00] But I would say that my overall impression of libido is that it is somehow both overly

[00:27:10] complicated and boring.

[00:27:13] It's not a golden era of board games game.

[00:27:16] No, I think, I think it's right for an update, honestly.

[00:27:21] And I think I could come up with the goods.

[00:27:25] There's another nice little sort of article that's like a kind of how we live now sort

[00:27:31] of piece.

[00:27:31] In the very rich journalistic territory of imagine living in not London, where we literally

[00:27:38] just meet these two different case studies who don't live in London.

[00:27:41] I don't want to talk about it in loads of depth, but I do just want to mention the second

[00:27:45] case study is these two women called Angela.

[00:27:48] They're 29 and 30 and they've left London to go and live in Somerset.

[00:27:53] They work for Friends of the Earth and they grow all their own vegetables.

[00:27:59] And there's so much what we would now see is like cliche euphemisms in there.

[00:28:06] There's a lot of my mother would prefer to see me married and having children.

[00:28:11] She thinks this is just a phase.

[00:28:14] Just a phase.

[00:28:15] Yeah, there are so many like absolute clangers in there.

[00:28:18] And my question is, do you think the staff of Honey Magazine realized that they were selling

[00:28:27] a bucolic lesbian dream?

[00:28:29] Or do you think they genuinely thought that they were just talking about two women best

[00:28:36] friends who had moved into their own home together in deepest, darkest Somerset?

[00:28:44] Do you know what?

[00:28:44] I don't know.

[00:28:45] I've thought so much about this because you could not read this feature now in 2024 and

[00:28:51] not understand that these women are a couple, right?

[00:28:56] Yeah.

[00:28:56] You couldn't miss that.

[00:28:58] You know, we spend a lot of time talking about those kinds of memes like the just a

[00:29:01] or just close friends.

[00:29:03] All of that stuff is just so obvious to us now.

[00:29:06] It's really, really hard to work out whether A, the readers and B, as you say, the editors

[00:29:11] would have been aware or not.

[00:29:14] I've got to say yes.

[00:29:16] And I'm basing that purely on just like my mum, who is not a magazine editor, but she

[00:29:23] was a 19 year old woman in 1976 living in London.

[00:29:29] She read Honey.

[00:29:30] I asked her.

[00:29:31] She remembers it.

[00:29:32] I don't think she would have missed the inference here.

[00:29:36] I just don't think she would have done.

[00:29:38] Okay.

[00:29:38] Okay.

[00:29:40] That's not to say that every reader would have got it.

[00:29:44] But yeah, speaking of my mum, when I read the weekending feature, I realised it's almost

[00:29:52] 50 years ago, but there wasn't one lifestyle here that sort of felt relatable.

[00:29:58] Do you know what I mean?

[00:29:59] I found myself reading it being like, so what were the cool kids doing in 1976 on the weekend?

[00:30:05] And like specifically the cool kids who didn't have lots of money.

[00:30:08] And so I asked my mum, basically she gave me a whole list of pubs that she liked going

[00:30:14] to.

[00:30:14] She told me she was going to see all these bands, the movies, the diversions, the jam.

[00:30:18] Like there's no mention of people going out to gigs or anything like that in this feature,

[00:30:22] which is interesting.

[00:30:23] Or even like the cinema or the theatre or anything.

[00:30:26] Exactly.

[00:30:26] Like there's kind of no culture.

[00:30:28] I mentioned earlier that my first thought about 1976 was what was Patti Smith doing?

[00:30:33] Two months after this was published, Patti Smith was on the cover of Time Out wearing

[00:30:38] like a leather jacket with nothing underneath.

[00:30:40] Talking about like her gender expression.

[00:30:43] And I feel like there was a lot of exciting, transgressive, creative stuff going on in that

[00:30:48] time.

[00:30:48] I spoke to my mum about what she was up to in 1976 as well.

[00:30:53] She was either working very hard or getting very pissed with her medical school friends.

[00:30:58] She was very like, well, we were either in the pub or getting a curry.

[00:31:02] Turns out my mum, absolutely not counterculture at all.

[00:31:07] I regret to acknowledge that.

[00:31:09] I think my mum was quite cool.

[00:31:10] And she also said she was training to be a teacher, right?

[00:31:14] And I'm sure your mum was unionised as well as a medic, but she was like, oh, everyone

[00:31:18] was in the NUT, the teachers union, you know, she was involved in CND.

[00:31:23] One of the things she said, and I wrote it down in quote marks, was everybody was very

[00:31:27] radical, which is not really reflected in the pages of Honey, is it?

[00:31:31] No, not at all.

[00:31:34] Hey Lucy, I heard you joined the Navy.

[00:31:37] That's right, the Wrens.

[00:31:39] Well, you know me, the last thing I wanted to do when I left school was a nine to five

[00:31:43] job where I just did the same thing every day.

[00:31:46] Isn't it horribly strict?

[00:31:48] Not at all.

[00:31:49] When I first joined, I thought it would be people shouting at you and telling you what

[00:31:53] to do, but it's not like that at all.

[00:31:55] I live in a big house in Kensington and share with three other girls.

[00:31:59] We can go out whenever we like in the evening and nobody stops us or asks where we're going.

[00:32:04] Oh, that does sound rather jolly.

[00:32:06] But what do you actually do?

[00:32:08] Well, they offered me three different jobs and I chose radio operator.

[00:32:12] Basically, my job's typing messages onto tapes and sending them to naval ships and bases around

[00:32:18] the world.

[00:32:19] It might be a top secret message or it could be something routine.

[00:32:22] All the messages go through a computer, so there's a lot to learn and you have to know

[00:32:27] all the right codes.

[00:32:28] Oh, how terribly exciting.

[00:32:30] But aren't you worried they'll ship you off somewhere miles away?

[00:32:33] On the contrary, I actually want to go overseas.

[00:32:36] For me, that's part of the appeal.

[00:32:38] I'll probably be sent to Gibraltar next year, but if I'm really lucky, I might get to go

[00:32:43] to Oslo and work with NATO.

[00:32:45] Goodness, how grand.

[00:32:46] Can anybody join?

[00:32:47] If they're between the ages of 16 and three quarters and 28, yes.

[00:32:53] So if you like the sound of life in the Wrens, get in touch.

[00:32:58] Oh, how time flies.

[00:33:00] Can you believe it's 1976 already?

[00:33:03] I know.

[00:33:04] And I still don't know what the face of the 70s is.

[00:33:07] Tell me about it.

[00:33:08] I've seen you down on the high street in your winged eyeliner and pearlescent lippy.

[00:33:12] Oh, no.

[00:33:14] How do I stop looking so 60s?

[00:33:16] Well, it looks like the face of the 70s has finally come through.

[00:33:20] And according to Mary Quant, it was well worth waiting for.

[00:33:24] I don't know what any of that means.

[00:33:26] But please, for the love of God, tell me, how should I be doing my makeup in 1976?

[00:33:31] Well, undress your eyes and dress up your lips and nails.

[00:33:34] But of course, it's not as simple as just leaving off your mascara and slapping on an

[00:33:40] extra coat of nail varnish.

[00:33:41] It's not?

[00:33:42] No, but don't worry.

[00:33:44] Mary Quant has your back.

[00:33:46] She's introduced three new colours to her Peep Eyes Duo powder shadow called Pebble Dash,

[00:33:52] Gray Skies and Watery Greens.

[00:33:56] Watery greens.

[00:33:58] Okay.

[00:33:59] And does Mary Quant have any new lip and nail products for me?

[00:34:03] She does.

[00:34:04] They're not bright, but they're certainly not dull.

[00:34:06] All I can say is they're very un-purly and positive.

[00:34:09] Well, thank goodness for that.

[00:34:12] But hang on.

[00:34:13] What do you mean all you can say?

[00:34:15] I thought you were trying to sell me this stuff.

[00:34:16] They have a little difference that's going to make all the difference.

[00:34:20] But what?

[00:34:21] Get the fashion look from Mary Quant.

[00:34:26] Some more completely inexplicable advert copy.

[00:34:30] Absolutely fantastic.

[00:34:31] Probably a good time to mention again.

[00:34:33] As we said before, if you want to see these ads in all their glory, do make sure you sign up to the newsletter at maghags.substack.com.

[00:34:41] I think we should also include some others that haven't made it into the ad break, but are equally compelling.

[00:34:48] There's another lovely little classified ad for a series of brochures if you are marrying a Catholic man.

[00:34:56] How-to guide for marrying into Catholicism.

[00:34:59] Yeah, I'm absolutely obsessed with it.

[00:35:03] Do you sincerely want to be selfish?

[00:35:06] I just want to read the intro, actually, because it, A, sets up the feature really nicely, and B, I think it absolutely slaps.

[00:35:14] So, selfish is sensible.

[00:35:16] Undoubtedly.

[00:35:18] Indisputably sensible.

[00:35:20] Everybody told me so.

[00:35:21] The psychiatrist, the sinner, the saint, and my mother.

[00:35:25] Which was mean of her, really, because like everybody else's mother, she spent my childhood telling me to be unselfish.

[00:35:31] And then suddenly, when I was nearly grown, she announced that if I didn't look after myself, nobody else would.

[00:35:37] And quite right, she was.

[00:35:39] That's an absolutely banging intro.

[00:35:41] Yes, great.

[00:35:42] I think it's brilliant.

[00:35:43] Who is the author?

[00:35:44] Penny Vincenzi, who is, she's on the staff at the magazine.

[00:35:47] I think she's the beauty editor of Honey.

[00:35:50] But she goes on to have, well, she has like quite a successful magazine career, Cosmo.

[00:35:55] I think she works at Vogue for a while.

[00:35:57] I think she may have even worked at some of the Sunday papers.

[00:35:59] And then she became an author in a sort of Jilly Cooper vein.

[00:36:04] And she sold, she published 17 novels and sold 7 million copies of her books worldwide.

[00:36:10] Incredible.

[00:36:11] In 2018.

[00:36:12] Isn't that cool?

[00:36:13] Yeah.

[00:36:13] Really cool.

[00:36:14] As the intro kind of suggests, the sort of crux of this feature is we've always been told that being selfish is bad.

[00:36:21] But actually, we kind of need to look after ourselves and, you know, be able to support ourselves.

[00:36:26] Then she goes on to, she speaks to somebody who is very, very unselfish and speaks to somebody who is very, very selfish.

[00:36:33] And then we kind of meet in the middle.

[00:36:35] So, Frankie, did anything in particular stand out to you about this feature?

[00:36:40] The fact that we're literally still talking about this.

[00:36:43] Features are being written about this daily.

[00:36:46] Like, how selfish is too selfish?

[00:36:49] And maybe being selfish is good, actually.

[00:36:52] I also agree with you.

[00:36:54] I think the writing of this feature is fantastic.

[00:36:56] Yeah.

[00:36:57] There's a great line that I really loved.

[00:36:59] You can just really hear the tone of it.

[00:37:02] She's talking about how, obviously, the idea of being unselfish is all well and good kind of thing.

[00:37:07] But, like, what are you supposed to do when you actually get out into the real world and people aren't giving way all the time?

[00:37:13] So she says, if nobody's grabbing, that's lovely.

[00:37:16] But they mostly are.

[00:37:17] So what are you meant to do about it?

[00:37:20] I was just like, oh, yeah, I feel that.

[00:37:24] Yeah.

[00:37:25] I feel like now we'd call it boundaries.

[00:37:27] It's around this kind of pop psychology, like pseudo-therapeutic speak that happens a lot on TikTok and that, you know, everybody's had therapy.

[00:37:37] So everybody's learned to talk therapy speak.

[00:37:39] We are still talking about this.

[00:37:41] We're just talking about it in a more sophisticated way than they were talking about it in 1976.

[00:37:46] I mean, yes and no.

[00:37:48] I know what you mean because it's quite blunt.

[00:37:50] And I'm sure you'll share some examples in a minute.

[00:37:53] But at the same time, the discourse now is very sort of like, actually, it's totally OK to put your needs first.

[00:38:00] And that doesn't actually feel like it's a more intelligent angle than this article, which actually really does sort of explore what it is that drives people to be unselfish or what it is that drives people to be selfish rather than just being like, it's totally OK to do you, babe.

[00:38:19] It really reminds me of, if you remember, that meme of a therapist saying, here's the text that you can send your friend if you can't deal with them right now.

[00:38:28] And it was like, hey, I'm so glad you reached out.

[00:38:31] I'm actually at capacity and I don't think I could hold appropriate space for you right now or, you know, whatever it was.

[00:38:37] I feel like that's where we are.

[00:38:39] It's trying to come up with some magic code that gets us off the hook for giving a fuck about each other.

[00:38:45] And at least this is sort of curious, you know, about human nature and different ways of behaving.

[00:38:54] Yeah, yeah, that's such a good point.

[00:38:56] So we've got this unnamed psychiatrist who features heavily in the intro who I really quite enjoy.

[00:39:04] He says, people have certain needs and drives.

[00:39:07] We have a need for food, warmth, sex and security.

[00:39:09] In satisfying those drives, we may be considered by some other people selfish.

[00:39:14] But if someone tries to submerge the basic aspects of his or her personality, something is going to have to give way.

[00:39:20] To deny yourself entirely or to try to is to put a strain on your relationship.

[00:39:25] So that's something that I feel like is definitely a difference, right?

[00:39:29] Because when they're talking about not being selfish, they're really talking about an extreme of unselfishness that I don't think many people would recognize today.

[00:39:40] The case study that they use, I think her name's Diana, but she's just absolutely putting herself out there.

[00:39:48] And I think that when it's saying to deny yourself entirely or try to is to put a strain on your personality, I feel like in 2024, a lot of people are sort of using that to basically get off the hook of doing anything at all.

[00:40:00] Like a lot of the people who are putting themselves first are not like the flip side of that isn't denying themselves entirely.

[00:40:07] It's just not getting what they want on that particular day.

[00:40:11] You know what I mean?

[00:40:12] So I think our understanding of what selfish means and what unselfish means has changed quite a lot.

[00:40:18] But maybe you can help illustrate that by telling us a bit about Diana.

[00:40:22] So Diana is labeled as a very unselfish person by Penny, our writer.

[00:40:29] So she is a social worker by day and then she volunteers in the evenings for the Samaritans.

[00:40:36] She knocked herself out organizing a conference, not literally, I don't think, figuratively knocked herself out organizing a conference for Amnesty International recently.

[00:40:47] So basically what I'm hearing is Diana has an extremely demanding job and then spends all of her free time volunteering for charity organizations.

[00:40:58] Can I just pause quickly because I really loved the explanation of Amnesty in here.

[00:41:03] Oh yeah, it's so great.

[00:41:04] So Amnesty International, which is a group which helps political prisoners.

[00:41:08] Which is true.

[00:41:10] But it's funny reading that now that Amnesty is arguably one of the biggest human rights organizations in the UK.

[00:41:16] It is the biggest human rights organization in the world.

[00:41:19] Also, they won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1977, the year after this magazine.

[00:41:24] And so I feel like maybe Diana was a small part of that.

[00:41:28] I feel like maybe Diana is going to feel vindicated now.

[00:41:30] And everyone's like, oh, why are you wasting all this time with this political prisoners charity?

[00:41:34] Vindicated after Honey Magazine came to laugh at her.

[00:41:38] Honey Magazine, we're like, oh, take a break, Diana.

[00:41:42] It's like, excuse me, some of us are winning the Nobel Peace Prize over here.

[00:41:45] Well, yeah.

[00:41:46] So on that, she gave of herself unstintingly, never stopped working for or worrying about other people.

[00:41:53] She did also just happen to be divorced.

[00:41:56] It feels like there's a little hint of judgment there.

[00:42:01] Basically, the implication is she spent so much time worrying about other people and doing charitable things that she hasn't invested any time in herself or her relationship.

[00:42:12] And so her relationship has died.

[00:42:14] She sort of backs that up.

[00:42:16] She almost agrees, though, doesn't she?

[00:42:18] Oh, she does.

[00:42:19] Yeah, she totally agrees.

[00:42:20] She says,

[00:42:30] So self-aware.

[00:42:32] So, yeah.

[00:42:33] So we've got this kind of really like self-aware and very perceptive view from Diana of herself using her charitable work as a crutch to avoid dealing with any real feelings.

[00:42:46] And then on the flip side, we've got our very selfish case study, who is Jenny.

[00:42:52] Jenny starts off being absolutely iconic in this case study.

[00:42:57] I'm really obsessed with her.

[00:42:59] She has this boyfriend called Mark, and she says she takes care of him because it gives her pleasure.

[00:43:07] But otherwise, she's totally indulged, spends most of her waking moments pleasing herself.

[00:43:12] And then we learn from her quote that he would like her to give up her art gallery that she owns and runs.

[00:43:20] It was a birthday present from her father.

[00:43:22] Lol, forever.

[00:43:24] But, you know, fair play to Jenny.

[00:43:26] She doesn't want to give up her gallery just because her boyfriend wants her to.

[00:43:30] And her boyfriend wants her to because she earns more money in the art gallery than he does in his job.

[00:43:38] And she says, OK, so it hurts him that I'm more successful than him and make more money.

[00:43:43] Well, I can't help that, I'm afraid.

[00:43:44] He's just not a successful sort of person.

[00:43:47] I love him the way he is, but I'm not prepared to go under with him.

[00:43:50] He has to take me on my terms or not at all.

[00:43:53] And I'm sort of like, yeah, Jenny.

[00:43:57] However, however, my view on Jenny does change somewhat.

[00:44:01] Yeah, because so far her so-called selfishness is basically just wanting to have a job and a boyfriend, which I think, like I say, I think our definition of selfishness has changed.

[00:44:13] Yeah.

[00:44:13] Anyway, later on, she says, I'll tell you one way in which I'm appallingly selfish.

[00:44:17] I just won't listen to people's troubles.

[00:44:19] I mean, the husband of one of my best friends just left her.

[00:44:22] Well, she spent three evenings here in what seemed like three more days on the telephone crying and asking me what she could do.

[00:44:28] In the end, I got very brisk.

[00:44:30] She said, look, Felicity, I'm sorry, but nobody can help me but yourself.

[00:44:34] You must go and sort yourself out.

[00:44:36] I haven't got the time.

[00:44:37] Selfish, you may say, but she was a silly girl.

[00:44:40] She neglected that husband of hers.

[00:44:42] She insisted on having children when he didn't want them and then moaned about how boring it was.

[00:44:48] Oh, my God.

[00:44:50] So let's just check in on Felicity.

[00:44:52] I mean, literally, can we check in on Felicity?

[00:44:54] Felicity has been left by her husband when she is in the sort of vulnerable year, I guess, of early parenthood.

[00:45:03] We don't know how old Felicity's child is, but I'm going to say young.

[00:45:08] I'm going to say under two.

[00:45:09] And Felicity's husband has walked out and her best friend is saying,

[00:45:14] I do not have appropriate space for you right now.

[00:45:17] Wow.

[00:45:18] Jenny couldn't even handle three days of phone calls after this breakup.

[00:45:23] She's like, after three days, enough is enough.

[00:45:25] I'm actually reeling.

[00:45:26] I've been on such a roller coaster with Jenny.

[00:45:35] Lucy, I think I'm ready for my fashion tip of the week.

[00:45:55] Honey is a little bit light on the fashion advice, I have to say,

[00:45:59] but we do have one feature that has gone big on hips.

[00:46:03] It's recommending lots of layers and then accessorizing with scarves to accentuate your hips.

[00:46:09] I mean, I'll be honest with you.

[00:46:12] There's the literal opposite of what I'm going to do.

[00:46:16] I would not be doing anything to accentuate my hips or add layers and volume to my hips.

[00:46:21] Yeah, I really don't think I need to be doing anything to accentuate my hips.

[00:46:25] It's like my hips be accentuating themselves perfectly fine.

[00:46:29] They are speaking for themselves loud and clear.

[00:46:32] They are.

[00:46:33] Your hips are girlbossing.

[00:46:34] My hips are girlbossing.

[00:46:36] Beauty tip of the week, eyebrows are back.

[00:46:39] Oh.

[00:46:39] But that's it.

[00:46:40] There's literally no elaboration on that statement in the Honey Beauty editorial.

[00:46:47] Just eyebrows are back.

[00:46:48] Okay, I need some context.

[00:46:50] Like, how has that sentence come to light?

[00:46:55] It's in our one, two, three of makeup, which is a kind of like paint by numbers idea,

[00:47:00] where it kind of lists the products and tells you how to put them on.

[00:47:04] But point number five is eyebrows are back.

[00:47:07] Okay.

[00:47:08] I mean, you know how eyebrows go in and out of fashion.

[00:47:11] Yeah, to be fair.

[00:47:12] Yeah, I absolutely do.

[00:47:13] I grew up in the 90s.

[00:47:15] Our final feature that we are going to talk about today is a simple one-page essay called

[00:47:24] How Lovely to be Beautiful.

[00:47:27] And it's kind of like in the sort of rich women's journalism tradition of being hot is bad, actually.

[00:47:34] This reminded me powerfully of the 2012 Samantha Brick viral article in Mail Online.

[00:47:43] Please explain to anybody who is not familiar what you're talking about.

[00:47:48] Okay, well, basically, in 2012, Mail Online published a feature in the female section by

[00:47:55] a journalist called Samantha Brick.

[00:47:57] And the title of it was,

[00:47:58] There are downsides to looking this pretty.

[00:48:00] Why women hate me for being beautiful.

[00:48:03] And it was, as Lucy just described,

[00:48:06] this kind of time-honored tradition of discussing

[00:48:08] whether it actually might be bad to be gorgeous.

[00:48:12] And actually, how you really don't understand that it's really quite difficult to be beautiful.

[00:48:20] And all of this sort of stuff.

[00:48:22] And I feel like that was my,

[00:48:24] that was the first time I can really remember being on Twitter.

[00:48:28] And it felt like the whole of Twitter was talking about this one article.

[00:48:33] Which is like the best and the worst of Twitter all at the same time.

[00:48:37] Yeah.

[00:48:38] So what I think that this honey piece gets right,

[00:48:41] which I'm sorry, Samantha, but Samantha's piece did not.

[00:48:45] It's that Celia Brafield, the writer, is not saying,

[00:48:49] I am hot and it is bad, actually.

[00:48:53] She is saying,

[00:48:54] I can see how it can be difficult for hot people.

[00:48:58] She is coming at this as an observer and not as the injured party claiming pity.

[00:49:09] I'm instantly a bit more on side with this piece.

[00:49:13] So she interviews a few different people for it and she gets some experiences from some,

[00:49:17] there's a few like Miss World type voices in there.

[00:49:21] Margie Wallace, who is Miss World in 1973,

[00:49:25] said that when she told me how she felt when she was competing for the title,

[00:49:29] it's not like being Gigi Garland and getting a great wave of love coming over the footlights.

[00:49:33] What I got from the audience was hate.

[00:49:35] I knew the only person out there who was for me was my mother.

[00:49:38] Everybody else in the audience was picking me to pieces.

[00:49:41] And then we've got a few other examples of like models or similar hot people

[00:49:47] explaining their experiences of like having people coming up to them and saying,

[00:49:52] you're not that pretty, actually.

[00:49:54] Like, okay, thanks for that.

[00:49:57] Can you imagine?

[00:49:58] I mean, that must really suck.

[00:50:01] Yeah, yeah.

[00:50:02] You're just going about your life and people are just being like,

[00:50:05] you're not as hot as you think you are.

[00:50:07] Yeah, exactly.

[00:50:07] And we've also, for balance, we've got the voice of a hot man in here as well.

[00:50:12] Oh, yeah.

[00:50:12] Let's see what he has to say.

[00:50:13] He was like, all my mates were desperate for girlfriends, recalled a handsome actor.

[00:50:17] And I was just having to fight girls off.

[00:50:19] And now that we're older, it's not stopped.

[00:50:21] It's just different.

[00:50:23] They like hearing about the great time I'm supposed to have.

[00:50:26] I sort of live their sexual fantasies for them.

[00:50:29] But if I'm halfway polite to one of their wives, I practically get my face smashed in.

[00:50:33] So I guess, I mean, my question is like,

[00:50:36] do we still hate hot people?

[00:50:39] Do we still hate hot people?

[00:50:41] I think we like to think we don't.

[00:50:45] Because when, for example, when this Sam Brick article came out,

[00:50:49] and then she's done sort of a couple of follow-ups since then,

[00:50:52] I think that one of the things that sort of came up in the discourse around it,

[00:50:55] and one of the things that tends to come up around pieces on this subject,

[00:50:59] is the idea that we like to tell ourselves it's not true.

[00:51:01] We like to tell ourselves that we don't hate hot people.

[00:51:05] We don't resent them.

[00:51:07] And so all the things that these people are saying are just nonsense,

[00:51:11] because honestly, nobody even cares that much what you look like.

[00:51:14] But then there's always somebody who has to go,

[00:51:16] you're not even that hot anyway, love.

[00:51:17] Which kind of just goes to show that like, yeah, we definitely do.

[00:51:23] Honourable mention to a final feature.

[00:51:25] It's Penny Vincenzi again.

[00:51:27] Honey beauty editor, Penny Vincenzi.

[00:51:30] We now know her.

[00:51:30] And it is a brainwave for bath time.

[00:51:34] So what this is, Frankie, is an exercise feature,

[00:51:40] an exercise how-to for workouts that you can do in your bath.

[00:51:45] Shut up.

[00:51:47] Yeah, absolutely incredible.

[00:51:49] Sit up in the bath, put your hands under your bottom, fingers turned in,

[00:51:53] push up from your hands, lifting the body out of the water,

[00:51:56] and keeping your legs straight.

[00:51:58] Do this five times.

[00:51:59] Good for front of thighs and tummy.

[00:52:01] Oh my God.

[00:52:02] Is this better or worse than all the emails I get telling me about which sex positions burn the most calories?

[00:52:10] The best bit about it, though, is that the last example,

[00:52:13] they just completely canned the brief as a whole.

[00:52:17] So it's because she's got her arms out.

[00:52:21] She stretched her arms out wide.

[00:52:22] And it says in the caption,

[00:52:24] attempt this only in the swimming pool or if your bath is of monster proportions.

[00:52:31] Wow.

[00:52:31] What a feature.

[00:52:34] What's hot and what's not in March 1976?

[00:52:37] What is hot?

[00:52:38] I mean, just just weekends.

[00:52:41] Just the weekend.

[00:52:42] Really hot.

[00:52:43] And what is not in March 1976?

[00:52:47] Playing libido without taking your clothes off.

[00:52:50] Not hot.

[00:52:51] Not hot.

[00:52:55] Thank you for listening.

[00:52:56] We hope you enjoyed today's show.

[00:52:58] If you did, please consider leaving us a glowing review and smashing that five stars button.

[00:53:03] It will help the podcast grow.

[00:53:04] We hope you join us again next time on MagHags,

[00:53:07] when we'll be confronting the enemy within.

[00:53:10] Yes, folks, we'll be digging into the danger of too much television.

[00:53:15] Bye.

[00:53:16] Bye.