Everything Is Content - Hot rodent boyfriends, the return of lads' mags and Blue Sisters

Episode Date: June 7, 2024

Oenone’s back on good old fashioned British soil so we’re all back in the studio together again, and boy does it feel good! Join the girlies for the biggest debate we have probably ever had on the podcast… is the term ‘hot rodent’ a compliment or is it derogatory? We also dive into some of the nuance behind the return of Loaded - are we going to welcome erotica in back into our newsagents with open arms? We also get into bookworm mode to discuss one of the most hotly anticipated books of the summer - Coco Mellors’ second book Blue Sisters. Don't worry - the conversation is spoiler free for anyone who hasn't read the book yet!Wanna chat? We’re on Instagram and TikTok @everythingiscontentpod. We love having a natter over there so do let us know if there is anything you’d like us to cover, or if you have an opinion you think we should know!  —YOUTUBE: Joey Essex on Richard and JudyBBC: I Kissed A GirlEVENING STANDARD: The Mighty Hoopla 2024 review: the power of the Noughties pop-fest remains strongDAZED: All anyone wants is a hot rodent boyfriendOFF AIR WITH FI AND JANE: Interview with Danni LevyGUARDIAN: Loaded Magazine - the saddest relaunch in history COCO MELLORS: Blue Sisters COCO MELLORS: Cleopatra and Frankenstein ANN NAPOLITANO: Hello Beautiful—Follow us on Instagram:@everythingiscontentpod @beth_mccoll @ruchira_sharma@oenone ---Everything Is Content is produced by Faye Lawrence for We Are GrapeExec Producer: James Norman-FyfeMusic: James RichardsonPhotography: Rebecca Need-Meenar Artwork: Joe Gardner  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

can we get quiet in the booth please you can't we can't just mute anyone anymore i'm beth i'm richira and i'm anoni and this is everything is content this is the podcast where we get stuck into the pop culture discourse that everyone has a lot to say about. We are the Aeoli on the patatas bravas of content. Anoni's back from her Parisian spring so we're all back in the same room for the first time in ages. How was it? Do you know what I think I've been back in London two weeks can't even remember being in Paris. London is so full on I genuinely feel like I've been back longer than I was there but it was amazing but it was just a mere whisper on the wind. Did you get what's that called the Paris syndrome that loads of people get when they go to Paris and they find it so ugly that they pass out?

Is that a thing? It is a thing. No do you know why because I didn't do I wasn't like near the Champs-Élysées. I went to the Eiffel Tower and it was sparkly at night but from like far away. I do understand that because there are parts of Paris that are really ugly but the bit i was in was kind of in a smaller district it was like being in a really edgy cool arty part of london when they only sell orange wine but french version i love paris does it smell like piss i've heard it smells like piss um no okay i don't think that by the way somebody just told me that so if our french listeners are angry don't be angry at me no and i do you know i really respect the respect the French. They're a really socialist country. And I think that they have a lot of things

that we could learn from, aka drinking all the time, but never being drunk, which is something that we have not got in the UK. And cheese, they've really got cheese. You ask for a plate of cheese in France, you're looking at eight to 12 euros. They come out with a cheese board that,

I'm not joking, you get charged like 150 pounds. Every time, it's just the most amazing, interesting,eses why did you come home well Brexit mostly and the Olympics but I'm back and it's nice to have you back in my my office in the stude in the stude how are you guys well I can't complain really I mean I can and I will probably for a really long time but you just got back from hydra yeah i was in greece i actually love greece i feel like i really fit in there i fit in with like kind of old and mediterranean men you just sit around and gossip and drink coffee what vibe drink wine and play dice games and just talk shit with their friends i love i see that for me and those little like

glasses with like some sort of mastica yeah a little little something in it yeah a little pine drink so tanned yeah root where you've been where you've been girl um i've not left the country for a little bit i've been here holding the fort down in london while you girls have been away you know i'm keeping everything together london's running because of me yeah it's all good make sure you're subscribed so you never ever miss an episode and follow us on instagram and tiktok at everything is content pod today on the podcast we will be discussing the return of the lads mag loaded should men have a safe space to ogle women and we'll also be discussing the internet's obsession with the hot rodent boyfriend and finally we're going to be heading into our

little bookworm corner to chat about blue sisters so girls what have we been loving this week i don't know if i've been loving this but i I'm peripherally loving the fact that Joey Essex is on the normal Love Island. His agent actually works very hard because there's not a show in Great Britain that he's not done yet. But I mean, look, everyone deserves love. That's true. And he is a sweet bloke from what I remember. He is so funny. Because I feel like he kind of has drifted out of the public consciousness, which is probably why he's going on this.

He said it was for love. I don't think so. But's had some absolutely like hilarious moments i don't really remember anyone that he's ever gone out with any chance and he didn't hook up with like somebody really rogue off celebs go dating oh i can't remember another celebrity yeah and it was like a really rogue pairing hold on let me wait yes that's why i was thinking you're right there because i actually thought he went out with amy charles as well then i thought chloe sims those are all his relatives yeah i think he's had some kind of like non like non-famous but didn't don't they have a show which i actually really want to watch called like little sims or house of sims or something which is them

i don't know if he's on it but it's definitely chloe they've done quite well i mean considering towie still on and like they started like i would say 15 years ago well i think the original cohorts of all of those shows always keep a place in people's hearts it's like the first season of binge i'll see the first geordie shaw they're always whereas like the more late later ones yeah but he's now he's done all of these shows and now he's kind of back he's with these newbies on the reality scene i kind of find it a little bit like not power imbalance it's not problematic but it is quite interesting to see it's a fame imbalance he knows how it goes he's probably not phased by the whole thing when he leaves this like nothing

material will change in his life whereas that's not the case for all of these young bucks so one year when jemma owen was in there they all said that they didn't know who her dad was but i don't believe that for a second but it was like flies on a shit like they all just went for her because of the fame element in my opinion so i feel like joey's gonna disrupt the like natural order of the the game show element of it it's giving to me love island is a sinking ship because you're right it completely corrupts the essence and the idea of the show maybe that is because of the very valid criticism it gets which that everyone who goes on it now is actually looking for fame and so they're just thinking well screw it that's just it it might bring it back to life but it's going to be a very different

show yeah it's like a it is an influencer training camp and i think if you watch it for that it can still be enjoyable and i hope he'll have some zingers for us because he says some very funny things when he said richard he asked him richard and judy were the people that created the earth so like anything like that i'll be watching them i think he's such a kind of sweetheart i wonder if he says it's ream still he literally tried to make that happen he made it happen so what we've been loving this week which era so actually kind of tied on to what you're saying beth i've been loving i kissed a girl have you watched it shamefully no ah so okay i think i've seen a few people online say it's like the new sparkly version of love

island and it's you know way more interesting way more authentic it's essentially um a reality love-based tv show they get a bunch of women all of them are gay or bisexual and it all kind of revolves around um they get paired up at the beginning they get paired up based on who producers think will hit off so some of those pairings stay together some of them don't and i guess the nature of just like women dating women it gets quite messy really naturally um and in a way that's not nasty the dynamic is just really pure and it's like really fun to watch also danny minogue is the person like she's the maya jama of the show so she's the person like coming in you're like orchestrating the whole thing and she's just so camp it's amazing i've heard it in the ether but i haven't actually seen

lots about it like bbc okay where is it where do you film it is it kind of like a remote holiday destination same as i think it's in italy they say the massaria i think that yeah i think it's in italy all the couples are like really engaging there's like my faves and my like less faves but there's also like the people you root for and there's also the messy ones it's just like the perfect reality show and like it's brought me so much joy over the past few weeks and loads of my the messy ones it's just like the perfect reality show and like it's brought me so much joy over the past few weeks and loads of my friends are into it at the moment too there was the reunion last week and there's been some drama so i definitely recommend tuning in so you can join in the discourse does it make you want to dump your boyfriend and get a girlfriend um my

boyfriend listens to the podcast so no no me neither i am i don't think that you just don't you don't see enough representation of especially i would say like women and women relationships i actually do think you do see more male gay relationships portrayed on screen in a realistic way or even in reality tv so i actually do really want to want to tune in and only what have you been loving actually to carry on the gay train i have been loving I have been loving seeing all of the footage from Mike C Hoopla and I'm actually really cross that I wasn't there because there were so many iconic people namely Rachel Stevens which actually reminded me that Rachel Stevens I think was my first girl crush I remember making my mum take me to Cribs Causeway in Bristol when I must

have been like eight or nine and queuing up to meet her and her like signing something for me and I just I had all these things I wanted to say to her and I just couldn't say anything so I was just so enamored with her and then I kind of had this you know when you forget I love all of her music that she came out with like after S Club and then she was performing that and I was like god it's so good and I think what I love about Mighty Hoopla and just the gay establishment in general is the ability to love and respect pop stars and artists who by mainstream media and standards are often viewed as sort of like has-beens. And Mighty Hoopla always just gets-

Agreed. What conceptually seems random, but then you see these crowds and it's like everyone is so happy to see Countess Luan. Oh my gosh. Absolutely singing her terrible little lungs out. Jojo Siwa as well Jojo Siwa

I actually thought Do you know I quite liked it I've not watched the performance I've actually got really Into that song I can't remember what it is now But it's like

Calm as a bitch I've seen some of the videos I've not watched performances I kind of didn't I never know you can do this Apart from like Glasses It wasn't on purpose

It was just my whole Oh right I see You placed it together Me too I clicked on one And then it just showed me And basically I just watched it was really good i want to watch stevens rebecca black was there my friend saw her and said she was amazing really she's very talented yeah there was so many funny tweets coming up because it's been raining loads and so everyone's really worried

about how waterlogged like brockwell park was and then there was all these memes of um oh my god what's she called I can't move my face because I've had bell tux what's that actress called I have not got a clue the one that's in

White Lotus oh Jennifer Coolidge yeah so it's all the memes of the Jennifer Coolidge scenes from White Lotus when she's like

these gays are trying to kill me inside Brockwell Park this weekend and that was really making me laugh and then everyone was like we're so proud of

like the hoopla organisers because there's just like no it's just I don't know there's something so nice about the community that organises these events you can be with the gays

at Glastonbury I will be you've got just take this energy and bring it at the end of the month I think I just wish I'm going next year

I've been before I've never been I've never been I used to live really near Spockhall Park and my friend was like I have tickets and I was like

we shall go and it was one of the most uplifting amazing things can we go next year yeah i have a question do you want a hot rodent boyfriend i think i might have one do we have one already you tell me i think you do i think we all have a different genre of mouse i'm sorry what is this rude what you're saying is this a nasty thing saying we've got rat boyfriends i think if mine's ears were a bit more sicky out he'd

definitely be i'm staring at malia and i'm sorry to say it i think your boyfriends are giving a bit of ratatouille okay i've got to hear more about what hot rodent man is before i boot off okay let's get into it so this is a new concept that has been all over the internet for like the past few weeks and it's basically diagnosing categorizing labeling men as rodents days wrote a piece about it i want to say two weeks ago and the writer said rodent handsome men are usually more svelte than muscular with more pinched angular features they're often not conventionally handsome but this only makes them more hot prominent rodent men are allegedly josh o'connor and mike feist from challenges kieran culkin from succession tom

holland zendaya's partner and jeremy allen white do we get what the rodent boyfriend thing is what do you think about it i get where they're going with it but i think it's a bit rude i don't think all of those men actually look like rats it's rude can i tell you a story did you date an actual rat no that's coming later no so friend of the podcast comedian alice bryan she has a whole silent routine which i saw in edinburgh maybe like two years ago before this is like taking the mainstream and it's called rattle potato and it's basically about how every single person is a rat or a potato and when you first hear it you think it's rude and by the end you're like oh i

understand bella hadid is a rat of course gg hadid is a potato no i see it yeah and so she would just get pictures up on the screen and do like a powerpoint presentation potato rat potato and only potato i think you're both rats i'm definitely yeah do you see so i've heard that in various like iterations over the years the one i heard about like 10 years ago was rat and frog yes rat and frog so rather than potato yeah frog which is the exact same thing it was just like i haven't heard the potato version do you think this is a celebration of like women you know having fun with their sexuality or do we think it's rude i i think it's rude actually i get us like having this debate about like what kind of hot we are frog rat potato whatever but i feel like the daily

mail's also covered this and basically gone in on like who looks like a rat in hollywood and it's fucking rude i think it's so funny i think it's rude i don't think it's rude at all i literally i'm like this makes complete sense to me because also a lot of it is about the ears and when you think of a cartoon mouse i'm thinking here what's he called dum dum what's the one from cinderella called i don't know and i think actually it's about the cartoonification of a rat which is basically what's he called? Dum Dum? What's the one from Cinderella called? I don't know. Gus Gus. Gus Gus. And I think actually it's about the cartoonification of a rat, which is basically these big ears

and then this little face. It's very true and very relatable. I think something can be accurate and also be a bit rude. I think it's because it's been on the news that we've just been like, that man looks like a rat. Imagine just having a name search today

as like Josh O'Connor and then the title is rodent man loose from sewer like it's just a weird way to talk about people I think to be like I've chosen a random subspecies and these men sort of look like that yeah imagine if it was like they were categorizing women and they were like these like bird women are hot bird women are hot now sorry people literally call women birds they do no. No, but that's different. And we don't like it. I thought that was a personality thing.

No, it's just like that. Look at that bird over there. And it'll be pointing to a human female. Yeah, but I don't think anyone would be like, oh, that's progressive. No, but also I have to bring it back to the rat. Like you're, what's mean about this whole thing is that you're being like, oh my God, poor man.

And it's like, sorry, these rats are actually out here being cute. A man should not be offended. Golden retriever we were okay yes exactly justice for the rodents this is political I think it goes quite deep I'm seeing what other animal would you is it because it's a rat and I don't think they look like rats Barry Keoghan looks like a snapping turtle um Joshua Connor does like a cartoon he looks like cartoon rat i've not seen flushed away but apparently that rat that looks like matty lee was based on matty lee he does he does wear a leather jacket i'm not matty lee the rat josh o'connor is not going to be sat at home being upset he's been compared to a rat have you seen him he's obsessed with like biology and zoology and

all the other ologies like he just wants to be planting trees if anything he's going to be complimented and second of all we've gone through decades of women's literal bodies being decimated all is happening to these men is that they're being complimented in a slightly confusing way for looking like a rat and i for one i'm here for it it is i guess an opportunity for kind of non-perfect looking white guys for us to be like no no they're still hot which just annoyingly just doesn't happen with women in hollywood so i'm pro it because it's just stretching what we accept and what we like and like playing with our attractions but it is annoying we don't do it for i don't want women to be compared to rodents but i do want more normal looking women if someone said here are the rat women and they said nicole kibman bella

whatever because they are objectively attractive women as these men are i wouldn't be think it was mean do you think they're objectively very attractive but they're not well within i just think they're they're they're attractive within a way broader scope i think they're allowed like big ears falls outside but like jeremy allen white is a roman sculpture of a face yeah yeah yeah i i think maybe the clumsy point i'm trying to make is it is a way wider parameter as we've always we've been knowing this for men to be deemed attractive and a lot of i think their female equals wouldn't be considered attractive like a big-eared woman with a like a wonky profile even like a roman statue like someone with a very like

roman-esque nose as a woman we don't do the same thing we don't have and i don't know why that is and maybe that's why we're a bit salty i don't think it's a problem having like internet jokes about it us laughing about it like doing the categorization i think it is just weird that newspapers and magazines are picking up and there was something just a bit like unsavory when like challenges came out and then that was like the first thing like coming out like i feel like he's quite a young-ish celebrity getting more famous because of this film i just feel like it's a bit like oh it's just a bit uncomfortable that like there's a wave of like media just being like look at this rat guy like he's like women are going crazy for this rat guy it's just a bit it's a bit weird i'm just gonna

say it justice for rodents. So, Loaded magazine has been relaunched. For anyone who wasn't aware of it the first time around, it was a men's lifestyle magazine that was published from 1994 the date of my birth the year of my same oh my god we're the same age as loaded to 2015 um and it became one of the most prominent lads mags of the time i grew up in the lads lad generation I very much remember Loaded, Nuts, Zoo oh yeah them all being kind of like on the top shelf of the newsagents and also just how weird it was that my granny would be like reading the newspaper and I'd be like sat with her in her little flat and she'd turn over and it'd just be Lucy Pinder's tits titties there would be no reaction because

it was just page three yeah you'd be in like the newsagents shopping for sweets on the way to school or whatever and then there'd be a man browsing tits and that was normal it was just page three. Yeah, you'd be in like the news agents shopping for sweets on the way to school or whatever. And then there'd be a man browsing tits. And that was normal. It was so normal to see that in context of like real life. But in 2015, they did stop printing it, but it still existed as a digital magazine after that. But marking their 30th anniversary, Loaded has relaunched as a digital lifestyle brand

with the new female executive editor danny levy i was listening to affair with jane garvey and feiglover one of my faves and they interviewed her and it kind of stirred lots of emotions in me which i found very interesting because my initial gut reaction to a magazine like that being relaunched is quite uncomfortable because as we said we've come away from the world of you know page three page three tits just being next to your lion bar tits and confectionery have been separated but why why must they danny the new editor brings has this kind of argument that she thinks actually there is a dearth of magazines for men that are kind of like titillating and fun. And you're kind of, we now, what we have is politics and maybe more hard-hitting journalism or like magazines like GQ and then just like hardcore porn.

And there isn't this kind of like soft eroticism that was there before. How do you guys feel about the return of Loaded? And did you listen to the interview with Bea and Jane? I did listen. I don't listen to this podcast that you talk about all the time and i should actually i know i don't i don't either so they have this podcast called fortunately with with um those two and i used to listen to it in lockdown that's when i started but i've always loved jane garvey because she was women's out and on women's hour she was like that really scary teacher that you wanted to like you but she was quite hard but her and fear like bffs they're like in the late 50s it's such a great

conversation because it's kind of a bit like the stuff we talk about, but they're like obviously generations older than us and have loads of knowledge and they both own kind of BBC and big news things. So you need to listen to the podcast.

So that was just my question because listening to it, going into it, I knew you liked them, but I was like, is this going to be an interview with like an older feminist who's going to be kind of

talking down to this woman? And I was quite impressed actually because it's a very fair conversation. It's not a particularly long interview. For anyone who wants to listen to it, we'll link it in the show notes because I just found it really it was yeah very balanced she just asks kind of the questions that you want like she's very upfront she's like one you've got Mike Tyson included in this you know that served time for a rape conviction in in the 90s what else did she ask i thought was really clever but i have

to say fee glummer and jane garvey both impressive in this as well because they are a generation of women that sometimes could be lumped in with like the jk rollings for example who kind of have gone off piste compared to where we're sat they're so progressive they're so on it and actually they're way more brave than i would be i would be way more sycophantic and pandering to interviewing someone like that because i'd be really worried about them being offended or not answering the questions and Fi was so direct they disagreed which I yeah was very good so I also and both of you remember Loaded I don't remember I remember Nuts and Zoo I remember page three don't remember Loaded I'm the same I don't I don't remember Loaded did it I mean I guess it did have this big cultural impact but which I kind of wondered

whether they were just inflating ahead of the launch but everyone I've talked to was like no it was a big thing because I did often also just used to start I was so fascinated because when you're a child you are I did used to like I'd be like and then just like looking at all of the magazines the bucks and because I think the boys at school would go and buy them as well and like break time and like they would there was a whole cultural thing of boys would have a dirty bag in the woods do you know friends yes yes which you don't really have anymore with the internet and it was a rite of passage and you know i think it is really disconcerting that male sexuality was literally on the shelf in the sense that it was okay for men to be titillated it was okay for men to literally go out and shop for their sexual pleasure whereas women it was like masturbation was not something

that's spoken about that then shame something that like we literally were like couldn't I couldn't even think about the idea that that could be done without feeling like God was watching me or like someone who died could see into my room like it was so much shame around it whereas for boys it was literally like wanking was a joke these magazines which I never really thought about that directly I think it was so in the culture I wonder if we didn't literally put two and two together and be like what are these naked women for if not a purpose for men to get off yeah you know you're not reading that I'm reading the article well that's what I mean I never actually realized there was journalism in them and this is like a big part of the the conversation that she has is like that you know there is going to be really good journalism

and it is going to be also these funny soft stories which I do the parts I agreed with was there is a big differentiation in terms of what media is available to women in terms of there's loads of women's magazines that have kind of like every area of interest that you could cover whether it's like fashion or clothes or politics there are loads of spaces for us to go whether or not there are those things for men and I just don't know because I don't seek them out and like GQ Esquire because they are quite high they're quite glossy and I didn't when I was listening to the interview I was't seek them out. And like GQ, Esquire, because they are quite high. They're quite glossy. And I didn't, when I was listening to the interview,

I was like, what's she on about? And then I actually went, yeah, that's the point. Something that is, I think they're loaded is like trying to be in the middle. It's like, it's silly. It's like a hello to the man. It's like kind of lads who like,

you know, drinking pints and getting older and don't want to be, you know, it's not like the anti-woke. It's not far right, but it's just saying we don't, you know, we're not necessarily involved in that. We're not trying to be high know it's not like the anti-woke it's not far right but it's just saying we don't you know we're not necessarily involved in that we're not trying to be highbrow politically correct glossy whiffer blokes there is loads of places in women's media where it's just thirsting over jeremy allen white in his um carlton time briefs like i'm sure there would have been pieces on that

so is that that different so what is the vibe of this magazine going to be then she's saying that there's going to be light articles or like actual journalism in it but there's also going to be like so she says not loads of women not loads of tips i think she said in the first edition there's a feature about the woman elizabeth hurley and then there's two women because my fear of it is everything about lad culture yeah growing up in the early 2000s horrible because of how men treated women i remember getting catcalls like a 9 to 18 year old like that was my years catcalling as a teenager yeah i remember like you know kind of the boredness of it was horrible to be a woman but if it is you know i don't want to direct replica but if she's trying to reinvent or if they are trying to reinvent it in a in an evolved way maybe it is a lot of hot air to worry about it i'm a bit cynical as well of them like planting a woman at the forefront of it to like take the heat it

just feels like i don't know i'm just looking at this picture and i'm just really cynical about it it just is like some orchestrated way of being like well you know a woman's doing it it's not like you know men being weird it's a woman doing it so on that there's a piece in the guardian which feels quite bad faith that says loaded magazine the saddest relaunch in history or a you know men being weird as a woman doing it so on that there's a piece in the guardian which feels quite bad faith that says loaded magazine the saddest relaunch in history or a safe space for middle-aged men the original magazine helped to find an era now it's back for men in their 40s and 50s who can't let go of larging it and there's this like back and forth that it doesn't actually say like who it's written by and one of the questions is sorry loaded us back and

the response is yes the dubai-based businessman stewart lockery has backed a new relaunch its executive editor is a woman named danny levy a woman yes but don't worry lads levy won't fill the magazine with feminist tutting or knitting patterns she is a fitness influencer possibly best known for appearing in the 2015 itvb reality show life on Mars. Luckily for the load of readers, she also seems to think the world has gone PC mad. So this is a tricky territory as well because I kind of looked up afterwards

so I was quite interested because she also does, she does fight back against V on some things where I don't think V is being disparaging or kind of patronizing at all but this woman does say, look, I've actually been

abused by men. I'm not an idiot to know that men can be perpetrators of violence and aggression towards women in this kind of cultural war time it's a great marketing ploy to get people to look at this and go this is the anti whatever it actually does feel just like a sort of middling magazine that maybe will just have a bit a slight raunch to it because i don't think anyone's going to be topless in it my was most interested in when she talks about it's kind of an antidote for the hardcore porn that young men are now fed instead of the far tamer page three bucks and

beauties which i think is a very interesting point because i'm not anti-pornography i am very fascinated in how it shapes a whole generation of men. I think it is the root of a lot of men's misery is that overconsumption of hardcore porn. So I think, and again, I don't know if she's right in saying that this will be an antidote, but to position it as an alternative

is way more enticing to me than to say like, you know, the woke brigade won't like this. I think it's quite a smart idea, i feel like porn has already happened you can't retrace everything by like releasing this magazine and i think i understand that you know that is like a really sellable tagline but i don't i don't feel like one magazine can sort out the fact that like yeah there's just rampant like there's like an inability to control like the internet right now and like what it's done and also it does say the magazine is aimed at men in their 40s and

50s yeah so that's but that being said i was just thinking when i was at school i never saw porn especially because of that shy kind of coy feeling of like girls can't be involved in sexual pleasure oh my god i could never look at that haha yeah so it wasn't until i was in my 20s at uni when we sat down in our halls and decided to all watch a video as a bit of a joke. I think we'd watched the Sex and the City video where they watched gay porn and we'd like decided to do basically the same thing. And we're all really squeamish but then also quite like fascinated. And actually, I think we're so lucky to have grown up in a generation where we're sexually

liberated enough to be able to talk about sex and have sexual freedom, but we weren't being brought up. I mean, I'm sure the boys at school were watching porn, but definitely not to the extent that kids are from. And it was family computer type thing. It was really, it was not, they weren't being brought up i mean i'm sure the boys at school were watching porn but definitely not to the extent that kids are from and it was family computer type thing it was really it was not they weren't beaming into their eyeballs with their iphones every minute they could it was like boys googling boobs and then getting sat down at the dinner table being like you google boobs like do you know what i mean do you remember meat spin no meat spin what's meat spin oh my god i think i know what it is is it was if you're a gift or something or was it yeah it's exactly what it sounds like meat spin basically like i remember

at school i think it was secondary school some like boy obviously some horrible boy from like the boys school next to ours was just like horrible boy some horrible terrible boy was just like oh you should definitely look up meat spin it's like a really interesting website and it was like a phallic phallus just like spinning around i do helicoptering but do you not remember people used to email you stuff like that on your computer and you'd be like in it and you couldn't get it and it would just get bigger on the screen you'd be like trying to click off it and even that i think it actually has a it's kind of charming yeah it is you know that that's how we saw a penis doing that i think for a lot of young people that would be old hat they've seen that they wouldn't care that's i mean they probably just wouldn't even

care they seem very extreme things whereas i think someone sent me lemon party once which no one was good for that and i was just like oh i i was probably like 17 but i was like i don't want to see what's lemon party lemon party is some older gentlemen enjoying each other okay and i was like okay i honestly remember being like 13 and one of the boys saying like something about wanking and genuinely not knowing what it was and just being like i had no idea so yeah i actually i think i've changed my mind now after what you said richie i think it actually in bad faith uses the kind of crisis of online pornography to try and like shoe up because you're right it actually probably won't have a material difference and you can't unring that bell you can't go back to that

era where there were you know the most extreme thing you could see was a nipple i would love if that was possible because i think i'd love also i'd love to talk about porn and that deep dive deep dive another episode i actually think it doesn't have a hope in hell of doing that yeah can we quickly get on the choo-choo gay train yes i feel like magazines do like exist for this for the male gay community yeah there are there are these kind of like hyper-sexualized magazines maybe they are slightly more high fashion but i do think that is this so like is is this for the straight man is it just it's just i guess this just condenses down what we perceive to be the worst parts of white male british straightness which is like all the things that have taken on really bad meaning like flags and patriotism

do you know what i mean it's just it's just maybe there is space for those things to not be as bad as we think they are like of course men should be allowed to be horny yeah that's true i think i i'm happy for them to have it and i really just want to leave them alone with it let us know if you're going to be picking up a copy of loaded for your dad do you think on the top shelf so the end of last month coca mellas who is the author of best-selling debut clear patch and frankenstein which we've all read i think yes all of us have read she's come up with her second book called blue sisters which follows three semi-astranged siblings, Avery, Bonnie and Lucky Blue, as they return to their family home in New York around the anniversary of the death of their sister, Nikki. The book is billed as a story of grief, hope and the complexities of family. So a little

note before we get into it, we are going to be talking about general themes, but we're going to avoid major spoilers. So this conversation will be safe safe whether you've started it whether you've not started it but want to read it you are welcome here so let's get into it little bookworms so having read Cleopatra and Frankenstein and now Blue Sisters quite recently did we like it more do we like it less do we feel that they were kind of companions in a in a sense what were our opinions of this having read the first when i read cleopatra and frankenstein i hadn't read for years like it was like a post english lit thing where like i couldn't get into reading it was like way too i don't know it just felt like homework it felt like homework for years after uni which yeah that lasted for nearly a decade i had the same crazy so that was the first book that got me back into reading so i always

i'll always commend it for that and at the time I thought it was really good and then since I've read more stuff I've just realized that I don't think I get on with Coco Mellers I just I don't see the hype and I find the hype around it really confusing and I think with this book I don't think it I think it was for me slightly better than the first book because I think the theme was more interesting but it's just the same problems I think which we'll go into in a bit what did you think Anoli? So I loved Cleopatra and Frankenstein as in it stayed with me for so long I think that I'm always really drawn to stories of those characters which are like really flawed it's quite hedonistic and

I think what really I enjoyed about Cleopatra and Frankenstein was they were really problematic they were doing things that I grew up doing and they were like taking drugs and they were drinking but it didn't feel like there was a moralistic tone to it in the same way that I think I really enjoyed Blue Sisters but it definitely feels like it's been written in a post-woke world which isn't an issue but it's like that those characters have that consciousness in the way that they talk and they relate to each other whereas in Cleopatra and Frankenstein these people were just fucking up over and over again without a sense of sort of like checking themselves and I found that maybe

more I like I like leaning into the hedonism and the darkness and this book has those things but it's like post recognition of that I agree it kind of felt yeah maybe like a self-content like once you become aware of what the internet talks about what it likes and doesn't like it is difficult to then just be totally free with your writing although i quite liked in both books there's kind of an age gap relationship that isn't you know broadly like categorized as wrong or abusive which i think is quite brave and there's like infidelity which i think is dealt with in both books in an interesting way it's never like evidence that someone's a villain it's you know it's kind of

a symptom of other things going wrong so I think I like that those themes stayed the same but I agree with you and only on that point and I'm interested to know what you didn't get on with Ruchira because I think there's some things I grate up against I think it's she's a fantastic writer but I think it's just a kind of you know sometimes you just don't have a relationship with an author and the style you just don't get on yeah I think you know what I was a little bit disappointed with with this book that she went for the same format of doing like each chapter is a character's point of view and I think there was like a lot of similarities with the first book even the characters were kind of like mishmash

versions of the first book I think it would have been really compelling if she'd gone in a completely different direction and I'm saying that you know having done the Eliza Clark interview where she like every book is a different thing I don't like I think that's really impressive not every author has to do that but I think I think it was like a really similar vibe should I talk about what I did like yes so i am the youngest of three sisters and i often find that sometimes the portrayal of sisterhood in media feels really false to me like they all just obsess with each other and love each other this is built in friendship and that is not at all my relationship with my sisters it is this kind of really complicated thing where it's like i would kill for you but also i want to fucking kill you but if anyone comes for you i will hit them in

the face but also i'm about to punch you like we it's constantly like these two things hitting up against each other where it's like we're so similar that all we can see is our differences and like we're so so that kind of like antagonistic feeling and there's some lovely there are actually sentences in there that I kind of like read and then read again and you know when something makes you feel comforted because you're like okay I'm not insane so I did love that portrayal of sisterhood and I have to say that there was one of the sex scenes I read when I was on the Eurostar and I thought that was sexier than like some sexy things I've seen is it a spoiler one Avery I won't say but I when I read that I was like I found that really erotic and I think so I thought she wrote some of the sex really well and I think so for me it's like those intimate parts of the characters I really enjoyed and I wish I could

have spent more time in their minds and their feelings I wonder if this book suffered from too much plot and too much action which I think something that happens quite a lot with books at the minute because everything is often and I don't know this to be true often written with a view to it for it to perhaps end up being on screen yeah and it was quite like dialogue heavy and I did feel like a lot of it was being explained she's very show not tell yeah and I tell not show sorry I would like to have got to know the characters and then kind of been like oh but I felt like okay I know this about them and it was I think she's a great writer I always really struggle with saying things about writers because I'm like I'm desperate to write her.

And it's like, I never want to be like, this isn't good. Cause I, do you know what I mean? I hope that's built into what we say. Like huge respect. And also like this has its audience. It's very beloved. Kudos to her. Yeah.

With the dialogue I found it was either real zingers or I was like, ah, that's, I didn't, I kind of great. It was very emotive, very sentimental. I don't always get on with that. Did you not i kind of great it was very emotive very sentimental i don't always get on with that did you not find it cringe when she was like writing out the russian dialect for the boxing coach she did this with her last book where she did it with um a character i can't remember where they're from somewhere in eastern europe sorry but they she did the exact same thing where she like wrote it through what she perceived to be the dialect of that accent and it was really

cringy that's it i find difficult and some people I think I was reading reviews and they were like I love the realism of this so I just I think it's a bit of a yeah mismatch with me and Coco Malice I will probably read everything she writes and I'm I am a fan it's quite interesting I'm a fan but I'm not I think it's a great book and I think people are going to love it I think that there is so much strength to it I wonder if Cleopatra and Frankenstein to me felt less guarded. This book to me read a little bit like, unless that was just an intentional thing of trying to create some distance

between her natural voice or storytelling or whatever. I think Lucky was my favourite character. Same. And I was going to ask who everyone thinks. Favourite sister. Avery was my favourite. Avery really wound me up.

I really liked her because I think she was quite frustrating me up I really liked her but because I think she was quite frustrated because she's the oldest sister which is just a very controlling but Richa you're the oldest sister aren't you yeah and I'm the baby so maybe that's why I look lucky I just found her the most compelling I felt like she had the most interesting arc as well and like yeah what happens to her throughout the book I felt like she was the person that I was most bothered about one thing that I found kind of difficult and she did this with Cleopatra and Frankenstein as well is she always writes characters as if they're like extraordinary

constantly extraordinary they're always like the most beautiful person in the room they're the best boxer of all time but you know they have confidence issues they're a lawyer that's like I don't know impossibly smart and like perfect at what they do and it's just like i don't know i don't i don't really i can't really believe them as people the one kind of normal character was the character that died which is not a spoiler that is you enter the novel and you know this person has died i think this the sister that died was kind of was quite normal yeah yeah yeah she was a normie you're right but everyone is otherwise like imperfectly perfect earning millions of pounds yeah i think she does write extraordinary

she writing about very privileged very kind of talented extraordinary like you know once lifetime people which i see i have to say i do i love floor characters but i also do have this quite um i see the world that i even got told that like i will main character but it's everyone to me i'll be like they are that person like richira is the best like she's so i do see the world that i even got told that like i will main character but it's everyone to me i'll be like they are that person like richira is the best like she's so i do see the world in this really like technical way so that didn't annoy me that much so i actually did like a lot of this book sisters definitely no i'm a younger sister no one can annoy you like your sister oh my god like i think she got that the way that like the dynamic of sisterhood, you hate them,

love them. You can really say just, and they do in this book, they say the most terrible, disgusting things. And then they kind of turn around, they go, what we having for dinner?

Which me and my sister, it was never as extreme, but like we would be brawling one minute, combing each other's hair the next. Also just come back to what you said and only about a lot of people writing books these days with kind of a part of them looking to get it optioned for tv and film clean patch and frankenstein is getting made into a tv series so i wouldn't be surprised if that was at the forefront of her mind when writing a second book because it was already in the works for her first debut i wanted to posit the idea of i wonder if part of the issue for you and maybe some of the

bits we've all said are a bit grating is that despite london new york being kind of like paralleled in terms of they have a lot of similarities there is that level of like american earnestness and you've got this and you're the best that it doesn't mesh as well with our sort of very depressed grey british humor which is maybe slightly more sardonic a bit more right a bit more like actually you are a piece of shit like none of them they think they're a piece of shit in some ways but they also really love each other and like that doesn't feel very british yeah the americans are like you can do anything like yes you'll die if you can't make it out of here but you can you're

in time you know you can do anything you want whereas british people like yeah the world doesn't owe you anything because I see Cocomelos as English I kept reading them as English and then sometimes they would say something and then I would think

oh no you're American yeah I wonder if that is part of the element of like it's so close to feeling British

in some senses but then actually it can be a bit more saccharine than we'd expect from like Sally Roone's not even a good example but I'm just trying

to think of a book whether I can't even think of a book whether i can't because it is i think what's interesting the themes are really gritty and they're really dark and they're real and i actually did love the stuff about sexuality as well and like there's a darkness and the mitriosis thing i think was so worthy and actually like a quite a great thing to put in a book and even the way that lucky parties and like the drug taking and actually the sort of like horrific awful grossness of being someone that parties to that extent yeah is quite exposing and you know when you wake up from the light of day or you're going

to bed and it's like 9am so there is that gritty element but then the other characters do maybe perhaps have a softness to them which is maybe jarring with the themes I don't know no no I definitely do think that because I read a book that we're about to talk on the podcast about in a few weeks that has you know a scene of partying and that felt really gritty to the point where like I felt sick reading it and it felt like really kind of immersive and there was something about it that like was making me physically react but reading her books there's nothing that makes me like physically react it doesn't feel like I'm immersed in their worlds i don't know there's something that like holds me at arm's length with the characters i don't know if it's the fact that

they're like perfect and then also perfectly imperfect all the time i don't know if it's like the switching of narrative so you never stay with somebody long enough to get them i don't know what it is but it's like something but maybe that's part of it that switching narrative thing i feel has been like quite a big thing lately i almost can't remember what books used to do before they did that i feel like it's such a thing isn't it just kind of and it's a difficult thing to get right to kind of do seamlessly i feel like i just do the same voice over and over again yeah i think it is a great read and i think from us it's maybe a not for us but do you like i would recommend this to people and i will i'm gonna lend my copy to people i'm gonna i will probably buy this for a few people but just and i probably

will continue to read everything because this was a second book first book was turned down with 30 publishers wow i don't i don't want to say it's not for me i do think it was for me i just i have to say this talking about a book in this way brings up so many different things than when after you've just read it so like i would do book clubs often about a book that if i was just reading it i would have been like love that when you really dissect and like go into the i think you do start to take on more of like a critical lens especially if you're like i read it i think most people would enjoy this you know what i mean i think so she's so readable i think she's she's a kind of unique talent in that I didn't need to put them down either of the books which is

it's hard to do oh I've got a recommendation on this if you want a book about sisters have you read Hello Beautiful yes

did you love it oh my god I went through it and it's another one about sisters it is by Anne Napolitano I think we had it as a potential

for one of our book clubs I listened to it as an audiobook when I first got into running and I would I was so addicted to it the way I got out on my runs at the beginning of the year was I only let myself listen to audiobook when I first got into running and I would stunning I was so addicted to it the way I got out on my runs

at the beginning of the year was I only let myself listen to audiobook when I went on a run so it would make me go out on a run because I was like it made me sob

those characters really stayed with me yes it's completely believable but it's it feels a lot long I feel like you're with those characters a lot more

for decades and decades but it's loads it is probably the best I've read all year I loved it I really think that you will like it Richard I think it is stunning probably the best I've read all year I loved it I really think that you will like it Richard I think it is stunning Blue Scissors is out now if you have read it let us know what you thought over on our Instagram at everything is content pod

thanks for listening to us this week also we just want to say genuinely we're so grateful to all of you who have left a review on our podcast we have actually been working on this for years and have been trying to get it off the ground and running and every time we see one of your little comments and only do we send it into our group and go it also hopefully it might help us get sponsorship and make the podcast bigger and better and we take a lot of time doing this because we love it and we love you but if you leave us a review it means more to us than you will ever know. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. And also on that note, if you do like the podcast and you have a friend that you think would also like the podcast, just tell them to listen to it. Just sit them down and pop the headphones on and press play. Thank you. We'll see you next week. Bye. Everything is Content is a Grape Original Podcast and we are part of the acast creator network

this podcast was created devised and presented by us beth mccall richira sharma and anoni the producer is faye lawrence and the executive producer is james norman fife