If I Speak - 37: Do you believe in ghosts?

Episode Date: November 5, 2024

The veil is thin this time of year, so Moya and Ash tackle a mystery question about the spirit realm. Plus, neighbourhood cat panics and advice for a listener who can’t stand that her friend is a police officer. Email your missed connections and dilemmas to [e-mail] Music by Matt Huxley.

Hello and welcome to If I Speak, broadcasting live and direct from a misty, drizzly UK autumn. With me as always is my co-pilot, Moira Lothian-McLean. Moira, how you doing? I'm good, but we're not live. We are direct, but we're not live. You should have seen the face our producer child just made when you said live and direct. She was like, false advertising, but she had to do it silently. Guys, we're not live. So sorry. Okay. Broadcasting, likely edited and direct from the Misty Tresor of UK autumn. You didn't really say much about how you're doing before the criticism began. I've noticed this as well. When I listen back, I always say something that picks a hole in what you've just said, which is so interesting

and not a nice reflection of who I am and how I respond to things because I'm just not good. Because you're asking how I'm doing, I'm like, this is something you just said. And I think that speaks volumes about so many parts of me. Heather Miedema Wow. Okay. That was actually more of a voluble answer than I was aiming for, but I'm glad I got it. I'm glad I got it. a voluble answer than I was aiming for, but I'm glad I got it. I'm glad I got it. I have, before we get into our icebreaker, I actually have like a little anecdote and it's about the neighborhood cat drama that's going on right now. That Meesa is king of the cats and has been bullying other cats.

No. Oh! Different cat drama. Okay. Hit us. All right. I genuinely think that I live on a street where people have more cat drama. Oh, okay. All right. I genuinely think that I live on a street where people have more cat drama than usual, right? Like, you know how the whole thing is like, oh, you know, on average, you know,

a human being eats two spiders every year. Oh no wait, that's been thrown out by Spidery Dave, who, you know, chows down on 99 a day. I think that like, we have bumped up the like median level of cat drama like for the entire country. Median? Modal? I don't know. There's so much cat drama on the street. Firstly, we had my former neighbor who had 30 cats and at least two restraining orders out against him. Then we had Musa behaving like just a little thug to be honest, still behaving like a little thug. And now there is like a

volume three of cat drama. So there is a neighborhood group chat. I'm not a part of the group chat, but I get my fix of gossip from it because I have my spies embedded within. And what's been going on within this group chat is that I think culturally the whole group chat is a bit weird about cats. So anytime they see just any cat outside, someone will take a picture and they'll be like, whose cat is this? You know, a bit worried about it. And quite often it'll be Moosa, like trying to get fed again. They'll be like, no, again, that's just Moosa. don't worry about him. Or at least my spies and envoys will say that. And I think that people don't always understand that like cats are just like, you know, outdoor creatures.

They will roam, they'll do what they want. And around the neighborhood, like some signs popped up in all the lamp posts saying, found cat, call this number. And it was a picture of a cat with a pink collar. I was like okay it's got a collar that means it's somebody's cat but I was like oh maybe maybe like it got stuck in like the shed or something like that but I don't know no that is not what happened in the group chat the person who put the posters up posted in the group chat saying hey I found this cat gray and white, got a pink collar.

I'm really worried about it. It just keeps coming to my door. It seems really underfed. I'm really, really worried it's not being looked after properly. There is then a response from somebody saying, we've spoken about this several times. You know that this is my cat. Can you please stop posting about it? It's not lost. It's not hungry. It's just roaming around." The original person then says, well, I wouldn't have to post about your cat if you'd looked after it well enough. Why is it always sleeping in my garden at night in this flower bed? To which the best response I've ever heard came out of the person whose cat it was. Instead of saying what I would say, which is like, well, yeah, it's a cat, it's going to go where it wants, like, get over it. Instead, what they said was, don't judge my cat for how it wants to live its life. Don't judge my cat's life choices, okay? Do not judge a cat by its collar, okay?

No, do judge a cat by its collar. Apparently the collar also says, I like to roam on it. So this person, I don't know what it, I was trying to work out what it's about. I think part of it is people want to feel chosen. Two, people want to feel like they're doing a good deed and three, people love to feel superior to their neighbours. So that's what the cat drama is really about. It's actually human drama. Well, it is human drama, but I also think this is not, I think you're right. There is

obviously extensive cat drama going on, but in my old neighborhood group, I don't have one currently, not been added yet. But in my old neighborhood group, there's constantly people being like, whose cat is this? Oh, there's a new cat on the street that I've seen for several days in a row, as you've pointed out. And I think about all the paranoia that surrounds cats. You have like the Croydon cat killer. Up here, there's the cat man of Greenock, which my colleague wrote about. There's a current cat panic going on at East Kilbride. I think cats really are a focal point of panics in just their independent movements and where the dogs aren't. Dogs get panics when they're attached to their owners, whereas cats get panics when they are separated from their owners and they're roaming. Whereas cats get panics when they are separated from their owners and they're roaming and they become this, I don't know, independent, what's it, the borders are porous to them.

Every garden is their garden. Cats are a really interesting embodiment of human paranoia about certain things like territory and space and this is my space and like who owns this cat? Who's responsible for this cat? Is it going to have to be me? Am I going to have to step up and be responsible for this cat? Whereas like dogs, people are like, I can see who owns that dog. Is it going to tear my throat out? That's the panic you get with dogs. I think you're totally right. I mean, to be honest, I think that the Turks have got it right. It's just like fucking cats everywhere. Like doesn't matter whose cat is you give it a little bit of itchily kofta job done. Yeah when I was in Istanbul, we can stop talking about cats in a minute because this is actually turning to a big theory about

cats. But when I was in Istanbul, I remember going around like every corner and obviously there's cats everywhere and also dogs. And I thought I couldn't work out for a long time whether there was just like a lot of very weird cheese smells and I was, no, it was piss. It was cat piss. But it's an interesting flavor of cat piss. It's like cheesy, cheese piss anyway. I think, I think,

pets obviously, as we've talked about before, are little receptacles for a lot of human drama and the way we feel about other people. And maybe even like children in some ways in that we're judging other people's methods of taking care of those pets and also what those pets do. Let's move on. I hear you've got some questions for me

and I'm gonna answer them so, so quickly. Why? Because you talked about cats so long that you now got to rush through these. You don't wanna give my questions the time that they deserve. Oh my God, the criticism again. What is going on? Oh, my therapist, my old therapist would be so disappointed in me. Okay. You're a wonderful person, Ash. Does that offset it?

Question one. I feel like you said that in Hellvetica somehow. Like, I did. We went from like, I don't know, a little bit of aerial font to like pure in Hellvetica. Okay, right. Now we're in Comic Sans. Bake sale is happening. I don't know, your local community hall. What are you bringing to the bake sale? Tahini and chocolate brownies, easy.

Oh, I think we need to like post the recipe for those underneath the episode because those are so good. Okay. I haven't fully cracked it yet. I haven't fully cracked it. My friends are still better than mine. Shout out Ella. Those were some fucking amazing brownies that you made.

Mine still aren't good and quite good enough. I think that I need more salt, a little bit more saltiness. And I think that I should do some like more kind of deep stirring to get the marbling effect like deeper through the brownie body. What about you? I don't know. I'm so probably this Probably this 101 cookie recipe that is like crack. I made them this weekend. There's two different types. There's like one that's rolled in oats and it's like, it's very delicious.

It's very quick, very easy, very delicious. Very more-ish. And then I made these cookies, which are based on Millie's cookies this weekend. And my housemate was like, what the fuck did you put in these? They're like, crack, you need to tell me what went in these.

Very basic, very nice. Probably just those if I'm being lazy. If I'm being fancy, I go for like a soft moist ginger cake because I think those are always a winner. People don't realize they like ginger cake, but when they try it, they're like, this is incredible. Anyway, second question. And some of our listeners will balk at me citing this word. I'm sorry, but it's November, it's time. Christmas or New Year? Ugh, neither. You look so unhappy. You look so unhappy.

No, I actually, you know what? You know, no, where I'm coming from is that this upcoming season, winter festival season is like actually stressing me out, but I actually really love Christmas. I love both. Christmas, I guess. I'm just stressed about this upcoming one. Is that because so much has happened,

so much has changed, like you've lost people, new people in the mix, all of that? You know what, it's that. It's the thought of like a big family gathering, the first one that my stepdad, which I think is, oh wow, that is an emotional trip where I didn't know I had. Thanks for that, Moya. Oh, Ash. Okay, we'll solve the problem. Everyone can come to my house for Christmas this year.

Everyone come to my house, we'll have a big Christmas. It'll be great. I live in a fairy tale cottage. You can watch me, my mom and my sister argue for three days straight and then you'll forget your woes. I thought you were just going to say you can watch me end of sentence. You can just watch us, you know, regress into our childhood selves and then all your woes will be forgotten. It will be great. Okay. Right. Let's move on to the next question. What is the hardest interview you've ever done and why? Okay, there's two that come to mind for really different reasons. One was someone who was interviewing about their book, They Shall Remain Nameless. But we actually ended up not putting it out because he just wouldn't answer any of the questions. So I like, I read their book. So I read his book.

I don't know why I tried to do like gender free after already gender again. So like I read his book, it wasn't abundantly clear to me who the audience was for it. And I just thought, you know what, I'm going to pull out the bits that I find interesting and see where he wants to go with it and see where he wants to take the idea. He did not want to do that. Normally these interviews about someone's book, they last at a minimum one hour, right? Sometimes they can even go to two hours, right? If they're really, really good and there's full flow. This, after 10 minutes, it was abundantly clear that like there was going to be nothing good about it whatsoever. Like it was like pulling teeth. It was just completely dreadful. So yeah, that was, that was, I think, like the hardest

interview, but I think another one in a different way was Bernie Sanders and trying to work out the balance of like one is like the way in which we got the interview with him was via his publisher. So you kind of had to ask him about his book and make both him and the publisher feel that he got given a fair shot. And then the other was what I wanted was a politics interview about the genocide in Gaza.

And so I asked him three times whether he thought it was genocide. He didn't answer that directly. I can understand the political case for doing that. I don't agree with the political case for doing what he did, but I can understand it. And I think what was difficult about that one is that there was just this real tension between what the publisher wanted out of it, which is like helping him sell his book what the publisher wanted out of it, which is like helping himself his book and what I wanted out of it, which was like a proper news line and something which would like actually tell the audience something important about where he stood. So yeah, two different difficult interviews in different

ways. What about you? Most difficult interview? Oh, okay. My most difficult interview was with a pop star who is British and famous. Like, you know, she's doing well. What does her name rhyme with? I'm not going to say. I'm not going to say, but she makes great music, really good music, more on the R&B side, I would say, like more on that side. And she was so boring, I had to do another one. I had to do two interviews because the first one, she just was so boring and also just wouldn't like talk about stuff. That's one of them. That's one of the most

difficult interviews I've done because there was just nothing. And I was also like quite, well, not like early, early, but it was like a couple of years into my actual professional magazine career. That stage was probably been like 2021. And it was just like you said, pulling teeth. But I was just like, why won't this woman tell me fucking anything about these things? Like, it's not even a hard interview. I'm just trying to get something about you as a person that makes you seem alive. And every answer was like one or two words, even to the open-ended questions. It was just had to ring up again. And I nearly like cried after that one. The other one was with an American film star who is the daughter of two famous people and is a fellow tiny mixed race person. Okay, okay.

I mean, are we talking like mega, mega famous? Mega famous, mega famous. Are we talking about like, had the buckle fat removal surgery? Had the buckle fat removed. And she was just really rude. She just did not want to do the interview. It was because she was doing some sort of like partnership with a photography company at the time. And like, you know, one of those classic phoners where they

rang up and I was trying to ask her, she was at this time positioning herself as someone who really wanted to talk about, you know, like politics and identity and all these things. So I was asking her questions that were actually vaguely interesting. She was just so rude. And I think she was just so hostile to me asking even these questions, even though she was putting herself forward as someone who wanted to be asked, and they weren't difficult questions. The magazine I worked for wasn't the kind of magazine

that was giving you like a grilling unless you were, you know, they really thought you deserved it. But they were questions which would be like, what do you actually think about this? Like, oh, you've talked about this. What do you think about this? And she was just really rude. And I was like, wow, wow, okay, whatever. Fine. And since then, I have actually not been able to bring myself to really support her work

that much because I think she's, she's maybe I probably caught on a rough day. I probably caught an off day, but the off day stays with you, even if it's not a fair representation of that person. And I'm sure there's people out there would say that about me. To be fair, if I was the daughter of Lenny Kravitz and Lisa Bonet. stays with you, even if it's not a fair representation of that person. And I'm sure there's people out there would say that about me. To be fair, if I was the daughter of Lenny Kravitz and Lisa Bonet. Don't say it Ash! I'm not getting to faith! That was an if, that was an if. I was like, if I was hypothetically that person. If I was, yeah, if I was that person as well. But I will say Kim Kardashian, the eight minutes

that she gave me were perfectly pleasant. I'll say that for Kim. Well done, Kim. Kim's a pro. Kim's a pro. She's a fucking pro, mate. She's a fucking pro. She turns it on. Okay. Shall we stop doing blind eye turns and go to our mystery question? Chow, I'm turning the sound on my phone. What do you got for us? Ooh, okay, it's seasonal. I'll tell you that much.

Do you believe in ghosts? Okay, this is so odd that you have asked this. Why? Have you seen the ghost? No, but okay. Right. So me and my housemate, my good friend, also it's weird saying housemate because she's one of like my closest friends.

So, but me and my housemate. The day before yesterday, which means fuck all in the context of listeners, but recently we were in the kitchen and we were having a long discussion and ended up with us somehow. It was completely, it didn't start here at all, ended up with us talking about where we felt uneasy in the flat, in our new flat. And you know, we had a long conversation about ghosts. We had a long conversation about ghosts, okay? And it may or may not have ended with my housemate

taking one of her pieces of Palo Alto, I may be saying that wrong, it's healing wood. I need to look up the exact what it is. Palo Santo? Palo Santo, I wanna call of Palo Alto, I may be saying that wrong, it's Healingwood. I need to look up the exact what it is. Palo Santo? Palo Santo. I want to call it Palo Alto, but that's the place. That's like a Bay Area upscale neighborhood. That's where the social network has a large formative part of the narrative set.

Taking the Palo Santo, and I was doing a little procession around the flat, just Palo Santoring every room of the flat to make it ours and telling the spirits that we were fine with that. Just imagine two women both under five foot four, walking around a dark flat, announcing they're coming before they put the lights on in the living room and the bathroom and the hall, waving some wood around the toilet and then being like, okay, we're good here. The worst bit is, I actually feel better now we've done it. So the answer is yes. And I have other stories about ghosts, but I will let you tell me whether you've been

saging your toilet anytime recently. Saging my toilet? Nah, the toilet would not be haunted. I don't believe in ghosts, but like that feeling has been stretched, right? That belief, that disbelief in ghosts has been stretched. Because my mom, my mom, my mom, by the way, we should get her on as a podcast guest at one point. She's going to say some like crazy fucking shit. And about, maybe we could do a mom's up. Actually, she didn't say because I feel like your mom would have so going to say some like crazy fucking shit. And your mom's up. Maybe we could do a mom's up.

Actually, she's doing separately because I feel like your mom will have so much to say. And my mom will also have so much to say. And I don't want to just like say it and then both and get drawn out. I'd rather give your mom like the honor of a full audience. I don't know. I think that maybe like a full audience might be, you might want to give her some like, some nice structured curtailment, you know, just like a little bit, a little bit. But my mom would like,

you know, she's a Bing Corley storyteller, which means that every time we hear the story, there's a little tweak in it to, you know, make it a bit more exciting. And so she was like, oh, yeah, like I've seen ghosts twice. One was made of electricity and came out of the plug socket. Don't really know what that would have been. That sounds like something she may have seen in an 80s film, but like, okay. And the second one was she talked about like feeling her dad's presence after he passed away. And I was like, Okay, like, I understand that. And I understand that it's a very emotionally vulnerable time and you'll interpret things in a certain way, but rational,

reasonable people don't do that. And then not that long after my stepdad died, I was on the sofa laying with my head back over the armrest. My ponytail was dangling. And I swear to God, it felt like I was so, like at the time I was like, oh, my stepdad has just like touched my ponytail. Like that's what's happened. And I know, I know rationally that that's just me interpreting like a little breeze or something,

or the weekend just gone, we buried his ashes. And at one point there was like a little breeze or something, or the weekend just gone. We buried us ashes and at one point there was a warm breeze, which again, my brain just went straight to interpreting that as his presence. And so right now what I'm feeling is this really big chasm between my rational beliefs and the shortcut between sensory perception and what's going on like with my brain and my mind in terms of recent experiences. So I don't believe in ghosts, but that doesn't mean I haven't felt their presence. You don't believe in ghosts, but ghosts believe in you, okay. I do think it's so fascinating how quickly, like you say about sensory perception, it can change. So I will share a story about ghosts. I don't want to call it ghosts because

I want to call it energy because I know that's saying woo woo and wishy washy, but I don't believe in like this formation of a specific ghostly figure or a person per se. I also don't want to call them ghosts because I always want to say goats. Like my brain just kind of autocorrects. It's like, I don't believe in goats. I don't believe in goats. But yeah, I feel more like the thing that I not even make up in my head, but the thing that I buy into in my head, whether I like that or not, is this idea of energy.

And it's interesting, because since we did the little Palo Santo-ing, now I'm like, yeah, the living room is great. I love the living room again. Whereas before I just completely avoided it apart from where my housemate was here. Because it is really big and we've only filled it with some stuff, we've got two sofas now, but there's no coffee table and it's still a bit cavernous and we need another lamp and all this practical stuff that explains why this room might feel less welcoming to me than say the bedroom that I spend so much time in, or the kitchen where I've been doing loads of delicious meals. But in my mind, it was very much this room, I have an aversion to this room. I feel a weird energy in this room. Why is that?

When I'm in the bath on my own, I have been freaked out a couple of times. The bath is the original bath from when these flats were built, as is the toilet. The bath is a beautiful, cloth bath. Elvis died on that toilet. No, he did the toilet. I feel fine on it's very hard to believe in ghosts when you're having a crap. Okay. It's such a human thing. That might be where ghosts pop up because like a lot of the time people have like massive heart attacks while on the toilet because the sensation and the feeling is like wanting to defecate. So it wouldn't be unreasonable for you to feel a more big presence. But this is what I mean, I think it's very hard to feel the presence of a ghost. I'm sure people are writing to tell us about all these ghosts they've

seen while they're having a shit. But feel the presence of a ghost or an energy or feel that sensory gap when so many of your senses are engaged in doing something like having a wee, you know, and you're feeling very alive and warm and you're kind of comforted by the functioning of your own body. Whereas lying in the bath on my own in a state of what I call relaxation, others might call nervous system dysfunction, trying to read a book, then I get startled. There's sometimes a noise when the heating comes on in this house, all the pipes creak. The house creaks. The house comes alive in a way that's quite spooky.

I can hear the neighbors through the floor when I'm in the bathroom laughing. My housemate the other day, this is how the ghost conversation started, said, when I came back home, so I'd gone out on my lunch break to the gym because despite the rush of the job, I've got to keep it right, keep it tight for me. Otherwise, I will go mental. I got into the gym. I came out from the gym and her keys were in the keyhole so I couldn't open the door. I knocked on the door and I was like, I can't open the door when your keys are in the door. She was like, I thought you were in for the last however many hours. I said, oh really? She was like, I don't want to freak you out. Later she said, I don't

want to freak you out, but the reason I thought you were in is because I heard some people laughing in your room. And I was like, No, you didn't. You heard the neighbors downstairs. No, I was laughing. She's like, don't, don't be alarmed. It was a friendly presence. And I was like, yeah, it was fucking friendly. It was Barry downstairs. They were having a great time. That's why it's friendly. But that's not my ghost story. But I want to give you space to talk before I tell my ghost story. Because my ghost story is sad as well. Okay, right. I definitely want to hear the ghost story. But I think just to like, respond

directly to what you said, which is that I think a lot of the time, like it's about feeling vulnerable. It's about feeling vulnerable, particularly in houses. People don't see ghosts out in the street or in a field. It's always in houses. It's always in places which are contained indoors somehow. And I think it's about not being able to let go of the sense of threat and not being able to let go of the sense of watchfulness.

And so you put it onto certain things. Sounds travel in a weird way. And also your brain isn't always the most reliable interpreter of what's going on in the world. So it's like, it might be a noise from downstairs, but you've heard it as if it's from the room in your flat. When we first moved into this place, there was so much emotionally going on. It was a really, really positive, exciting thing. But I think I was also nervous. I was nervous about taking on all this responsibility. I was nervous about the fact that me and my partner were like, it was this new stage in our lives. And I had found out that the previous couple who needed a quick sale, so they were divorcing, there'd been domestic violence.

And in my head, and I know this is gonna sound really unreasonable, but I think that just sort of, it goes to show the way in which you like impute meaning. There was this thing in my head, like would the house hold the energy or was there some kind of horror story element of the house having corrupted and warped,

you know, what had been this like nice loving couple into something which is like horrible and violent and like shattered their dreams. And I do remember having to like, go through like room by room. And like at one point, like me and my partner like lay down on the floor, like up in this, like looking up at the ceiling of the spare room and just like talking to the house a bit to like, I kind of change our relationship with the space. And now I laugh at myself for having felt that way at all. And now I'm like, obviously, this is my home. Obviously, the relationship that I have is what I make it in this space. But like when I first got here, because it didn't feel like it was my space, I felt like it was haunted by the relationships that had been there before.

That's the same themes that I was talking about with us, like going through this. And my housemate also said this, she was like, we just need to make it ours. And that I think is very telling. But I'm going to tell my ghost story. It's really sad actually, so I don't want to tell it with a the grin and gleefulness because it is actually a sad story. So one of the houses I lived in before I moved out of London, one of the more recent ones, it wasn't the most recent one, it was really beautiful. It's a really beautiful flat in South London. And it was, you know, the people who'd lived in that flat were usually friends of friends

of the people who owned it and often were like the, you know, the children of them and their friends. And they'd all grown up and moved off to other places. And when I moved in, there was just a weird energy. I moved in with two people who were linked to like the family in some way, they weren't like direct children but they knew the family friends of wherever it was a really weird vibe I didn't know them we didn't have much in common one of them was very unhappy for various reasons I found out something like bad has happened in that flat like it's just sad personal circumstance I weren't going to one of them but that's not the ghost story. So there was a really weird energy.

And then, you know, they moved out one by one and people I knew moved in and the energy was still so odd. There was the living room, which we never went in except to use as a like washing hanging thing. And sometimes we'd have like, occasionally I throw a party. The others wouldn't, I throw a party and then it would be used.

But it was not a room that we hang out in. We didn't use the communal space. We would stay in our bedrooms, cook, go back to your bedroom, cook maybe eat in the dining room when I was in there. We were very isolated from each other. And my ex at the time would just talk about like how weird it was when he came around, how he felt this place was like a cold place. And I go into the living room and I feel like cold and I feel weird in my room as well. Like it just wasn't a happy flat. It wasn't a happy flat. And when I moved out, despite being so beautiful and so nice, when I moved out, I felt this great sense of relief. And the house that I moved into, immediately I was like, Oh, this is what a home feels like.

There was no strange energy, even though again, I was moving in with strangers. And we weren't like best friends or anything, but like it was a completely different atmosphere. And the thing about the flat I'd moved from is originally the living room had been a bedroom. So all four rooms had been used as bedrooms and it had been a really tight knit group that lived there. It had been one of the children of the landlord and his and their full friends. I should do your classic like gender redo and their full friends. And I discovered that

the person who'd lived in the living room, the person whose room they had been, they'd all been on a holiday together. They were really tightit and there'd been a horrible accident when this woman was out running and she'd been hit by a car and she died. And then they turned her room into a living room because they didn't want anyone, I guess they couldn't stand to see that carried on as a bedroom. And they were all really impacted by this. It was still talked about in such hushed tones and such a horrible tragedy. And they may just keep a photo of her in the house the whole time, which I noticed at one point was smashed, which is quite odd. But I just could not shake the feeling that there was this huge, I wouldn't even say like her spirit

was in the house. It wasn't that there was this horrible, heavy grief that lay over that flat that just had not left when the residents who were there had left. And it lay over that living room so heavily. You could feel it. You just did not want to be in that space. No one did. None of the people who lived in a house with me ever hung out in that room. It was not a communal room. The house was not a communal house. And I truly do believe that the grief was so much, it just seeped into the bones of the house and kind of, and as it was passed on this story of, you know, well, that was that person's room and these people, it just kind of carried on with all the inhabitants. I'd love to know if the people who live there now and maybe don't hear about the story feel the same way, but it was fascinating to me when I found that out after already feeling a bit

weirded out by these rooms and feeling a weird vibe from that place. But that is my ghost story. And that's why I believe in energies rather than like, it's a ghost. It was more like, I'm not welcoming this house and this house makes me feel bad. But other stuff was going on that were probably made me feel bad too, you know? But it was just, it never became ours. It was always the grief flat. I guess to maybe broaden it out beyond ghosts, but also like thinking about the way in which like, we make sense of death and we make sense of like,

the permanence of it. And like, you know, I remember, do you remember that like, awful, awful, awful, and also probably should be like a trigger warning here for suicide. But do you remember that awful, awful Netflix series, 13 Reasons Why? It's like, came out ages ago. Oh yeah, I never watched it. warning here for suicide. Um, but you remember that awful, awful Netflix series 13 reasons why it's like came out ages ago.

Oh yeah. I never watched it. Refused to read the book and never watched it. So I read the summary and I was like, this is stupid. Well, I mean, so I didn't, I didn't watch it, but I was on, I was on holiday and me and my friend were like staying in hostels and staying in a hostel where we're sharing the dorm room with like these, um these American girls who were really funny because they were so scared of everything. It made me realize that when you take Americans away from their context and they don't have cars, they were just freaked out by it. And so one of them would stay basically in the dorm room. She was too scared to go out in Thailand,

which is really quite safe. Too scared to go out in Thailand, which is really quite safe. Too scared to go out. She was watching 13 Reasons Why and I asked her what it was about and she told me. It was the conceit is this girl is wronged by everybody and she's ultimately pushed over the edge by these horrible experiences, but she records these tapes. She records these tapes, explains to each person how they wronged her and why then she was driven to suicide. And I was like, this is such a toxic idea, which is being spread by this mega popular TV show, which is this idea that death isn't that permanent and you can keep talking to people afterwards and you can use suicide to make a point and it communicates that point and you're still somehow alive afterwards. And I just thought that it didn't... One, it was kind of dangerous and fucked up in terms of how it romanticized suicide in a

way which I thought was really irresponsible, especially considering the age group that would have been the target demographic for this particular piece of content. And then two, I was thinking about the ways in which we instinctively think about the sort of continuation of our minds and relationships after death. My partner gets really upset whenever I even joke about if we see a ridiculous thing and I'll be like, oh yeah, my partner gets really upset whenever I even joke about like, if we like see like a ridiculous thing and I'll be like, oh yeah, like bury me wearing that or something, like he'll get really, really upset by it.

And even when I'm like making jokes about like, oh, if I go first, I'm definitely gonna haunt you. He's like, no, like, please can you not joke about it because it's permanent, like it's permanent. It would be the permanent loss of you and you're talking like something would continue and it wouldn't. I think we're very bad at like picturing our own, the severing of those connections.

Yeah, everyone thinks they're going to live forever even if they die, if they died, you know, when you think about like, oh, I got hit by a car. I've survived. Even if you died, you're like, somehow, I'm still around, still hanging out. Surprise, bitch. I bet you thought you'd seen the last of me. Even with stuff like, I don't know, the haunting of Hill House, which everyone is says is the best mediation on grief and it's, you know, long lasting legacies and effects. It's like the ghost is still being used and they're still communicating with the alive people

in order to hammer home the message of grief is going to get you unless you sort it out. You know, like that's, that's the messaging. It's like the ghost is going to get you unless you sort it out. That's the messaging. It's like the ghost is still there and you still can have a quick chat with your sister who died tragically. You still have that conduit. I think it's both a fear and a comfort blanket, isn't it? It's a fear and a comfort blanket. It's two sides of the coin. You fear seeing this ghost, but sometimes it's a comfort to imagine that they're still there, both for yourself and the loss of the person. Should we do some dilemmas? Wait, do we believe in ghosts? I don't believe in ghosts, but I have had emotional experiences which make me feel very empathetic with those that do. Because when you have that feeling where

you're like, I am so raw with grief and like, my brain has just interpreted like, this sensation is like the presence of this person who I've lost. I totally get that. Because actually, like it's not that I'm trying, that I'm working hard to believe that this was the ghost or the spirit or the presence or the energy of this person. I'm actually working hard to remind myself of the fact that I don't believe in it. That's a very comprehensive answer. I don't think I actually feel strongly enough either way to even make a decision. I'm like, there is such a long list of things I have to make my mind up on and that I believe is pressing priority that coming down hard on a position of ghosts in any which way is actually just not important enough to me. I'm like, let them believe it.

That sounds like someone who's trying not to anger the ghosts in their flat. It's like, why? They're happy. They've had some real good healing wood to sniff. They're, they're, they're high living. They've been having that real good healing wood to sniff. They're, they're, they're high living. Real good healing wood, eh? They've been having that real good healing wood. They've got a big bag of ghostly Doritos and they're watching Family Guy. They're having a great time.

I mean, if there are ghosts in my house, they'd be like, oh my God, she plays a lot of Civilization 6. The ghost in your house is like, she's talking about the French Revolution again. Boo, I was there for it. Not even that interesting. The ghost in your house is like stuck surveilling you forever. My ghost is like, good God, this woman just talks about how much she works all the fucking time.

Get a life, loser. That's what the ghost in my house says. Get a life. Get a life. They're like, I had a life. You're wasting yours. That's what the ghost is saying to me. Okay.

Shall we do some problems, some real life problems? Let's do some problems. This segment is called I'm in big trouble. It's where we do our darnedest to give some, I would say, enthusiastic, but not necessarily well research advice about the issues that you're facing. And if you want to send us one of your problems, email us at if I speak at navaramedia.com.

That's if I speak at navaramedia.com. But while you're at it, also send us some extra Halloween Miss Connections because I'm gonna do a Miss Connections roundup. And I thought there's going to be some people who've been at a party and they have seen someone dressed as like, I don't know, one of my friends went as, Chapel Rowan clarifying her, gay Halloween's amazing. And he's not even gay, but he definitely partakes in the gay Halloween spirit. Best gay Halloween

costumes that I've seen in the middle weekend were, uh, Chaperone clarifying her positions on the American election. That was a very good one. And then one of my friends dressed as a meme, Cosmo, Queen of Melrose, just like, and my father was a Jehovah's witness. And they did the, the voice and everything about her. It was amazing. Those were the two standouts of the spirit of gay Halloween, I'd say. So yes, so many misconnections. Okay, dilemma. Dear Ash.

Well, actually it was dear Moira and Ash. I put you first because you're alphabetical. To make up for the earlier portion of the show. You're like, I'm going to put you first, babe. I should put you first. Ash, you are my elder in age. Moira says age before beauty. No, in all forms, morals, ethics. You know, you should go first. Okay. Dear Moira and Ash, I just immediately went back to what it was. Dear Moira and Ash, I would love to hear your thoughts on my tricky friend group situation. I graduated from uni around 10 years ago and I still have a large

loose group of friends that I made while studying. Most of us work in the arts or art adjacent sectors, but one friend who's slightly more in periphery, is now a police officer. I have strong opinions against the police that stem from personal experience, local and world history, and witnessing how they behave every day on news and social media. I'm not sure exactly where I stand on abolition, defunding, reform, etc. But I do know that being a police officer is the biggest red flag of all time, and I would never decide to become friends with one if faced with the choice today. This friend was never the closest to me out of everyone in the group. Even before she joined the police, I was often irritated by her general ignorance when it came to huge topics such as feminism, race, politics, history, etc. Other people usually put

this ignorance down to her having come from a small insular town, but that always felt dishonest and it was great on me. However, she is and always has been a nice person on the face of it and I have never seen her be deliberately malicious or cruel in any way. I truly believe that she believes she joined the police force for the right reasons, to help and protect people and rid the world of evil or whatever. Is she a Marvel superhero? Buffy the vampire slayer. When she joined, I was deeply uncomfortable about it and would try to make myself feel better by imagining that perhaps because she was working in a small town, the crimes she'd

be dealing with would be smaller and therefore the consequence would be lesser for everyone involved. But it's now been a few years since she joined, and she tells stories lightheartedly of her colleagues committing blatant offences while on duty and facing no repercussions. She complains apathetically about the men she works with being horrifically sexist, racist, homophobic and all sorts else as if it's comparable to them leaving dishes in the sink. She tells us outright that when she charges people committing crimes, she decides whether or not to charge

them based on whether she's in a good mood that day. I think instead of saying it's a dilemma, you need to whistleblower and talk to the articles team. IOPC, is that you? Yeah. You need to know you to be sending in tips to Navara Media, not just if I speak. And we're just supposed to laugh and nod along as if it's all normal. If it were up to me, I would have let our friendship peter out as swiftly as I could. However, the others, despite their claims of a cab, all seem much more willing to continue have this person as part of their friendship group. And we'll regularly invite her to events

and gatherings I'm also attending. I can't really do anything other than be pleasant and friendly to her in these situations. But I can't stand it. I hate feeling like I'm condoning her profession and the institution of policing by chatting and smiling ineffectually. I want to come back against the things she says with force, tell her how I think her job is a hot prorant and convince her to quit. I her to complain angrily about it to my other friends and for them to agree and take action. I want it to be okay for me to not accept her as part of my life anymore if she remains part of this oppressive organisation, but I sense I am isolating the intensity of my feelings and if I say too much, it will cause tension

and turmoil. Should I go on for the rest of my life, suppressing these uncomfortable feelings whenever we all meet up, for the sake of the wider friendship group? Or should I be more open about my misgivings, stand up for what I believe in, and potentially risk anger or upset and fracturing relationships? Thank you so much. Love the podcast always." Wow. Juicy. Very juicy. Who wants to go first? Like a Chateaubriand. So juicy. Yeah, so much to get into. If only Michael were here to talk about how much he loves the police.

I just think they do a good job, Moira. My Michael Walker impression needs work. Okay, here's what I think. The problem that you've identified and the problem that you actually have are slightly different. They're related, but they're slightly different. The real problem you have is that

you cannot stand this woman, right? You cannot stand her. You fucking hate her. You think she's got no morals, no values. She thinks you think that she runs a mouth. You think that she's a brute and you've been forced into proximity with her for a long time. And that's where the intensity of feeling is coming from. This feeling of that's like bubbling up and you're like, oh, like it just bugs me and it bugs me that like no one else can see it. Like you can't stand her. And I think that even if she hadn't

been a police officer, right? Even if she got a job in human resources, I think that you would not be able to stand the presence of this person. It might be a little bit less acute. You might feel it less as a principal political objection, but you wouldn't be able to stand her. So that's the first thing. That's the real problem. You do not like her. The second thing is what do you do when somebody conducts themselves in a way that you think is deeply, deeply immoral, for whatever that reason might be. In this case, it's because of not just being a police officer, but her approach to the power that she wields, but it could be anything. I think that you have to either remove yourself

from situations where she's going to be, and you just like, I'm not going to be around her. Or you just stand on business and you say what you think and you take the consequences of it. Like, I just think that this, this oppression in all ways is doing you some harm. And also maybe a third thing I'd say is that, you know, you mentioned that And also maybe a third thing I'd say is that you mentioned that she talks about the homophobia and sexism of her colleagues in this very lighthearted way. I wonder if her bringing it up and trying to gauge other people's reactions is her trying to work out, is this right or is this fucked up? And so often we joke about things or we tell them as funny stories when actually maybe deep down what we want is confirmation that it's actually really bad. And it can take some time to work that out. But I think sometimes people talk about this stuff,

not because they think it's right, but because they want to be reassured about, I mean, either that they want reassurance that like it is right, there's a little voice in them saying it's wrong and they want reassurance that it's right because everyone laughs along or maybe they're interested in hearing people say, no, actually, I think that's really wrong

because that validates the little voice that's saying it's wrong. I don't know, what do you reckon? I don't think the special one believes this woman is a brute. I think they think she's weak. I don't think it's about her being a brute. I think it's actually the opposite. I think they despise her because they think she's weak.

I think they think she's weak, that she's just not on par with them. I think you get it from this idea. It's like they have a standard that she is not meeting and they don't see her as a powerful person because a powerful person wouldn't join the police. A powerful person would stand up against these things. A powerful person, they're like, she's never been deliberately malicious or cruel.

That to me, they're like, she's perfectly nice. That to me says the problem is not that they think, you know, she's this person, this powerful person, she's a weak person. And they see us swept up in this institution and just going along with it. And they see that as weakness. And I get that maybe I'm projecting a bit because I fucking hate weakness, you know, but that's what I'm sensing from this dilemma. And I think this person is also pissed off that they themselves are just not standing by their own. They're not standing on business. They're not fucking saying what they actually think. I think you're pissed off because you somehow feel that the majority and the need to keep

the peace as it were is stopping you saying your opinion. You can keep the peace and say your opinion if you deliver it correctly and you deliver it in a way that actually is constructive and is not destructive. But what you want to go is go in with an AK-47 and just go, you're a weak cunt who's like an immoral person. You're literally, you are part of a terrible thing. I think you're awful. And I think, you know, because you've stored up so much disdain for this woman, if you let the clip off, you'll just go. And I recognise this in people around me who sometimes they get angry about stuff that has nothing to do with the thing they're actually angry about. And I did too. And they just let the clip off. And you're like, the vitriol or the anger that is or the problem that you have brought

up here does not warrant the way you were talking about it and the way you're framing it. And that means just to do a little bit of Sherlock Holmes thing, I think you're actually pissed off about something that happened like two weeks ago, you didn't say anything, you repressed it. And now you're cut, it's all coming out, or resentment that's been building way longer is coming out. You've let the clip off. And you're going and I think you know that if you let the clip off, you will have, you will go to her in a way that makes you look bad. That makes you look like a mean person. So rolling up my sleeves to give some advice. The advice I would give is if she really is coming to you and saying examples of terrible things that she's witnessed and heard in the

day to day, it is actually not as hard as you think to go, Hey, do you know what? I actually don't think that that's a great thing and I'm just gonna leave this conversation now because I don't agree with it. If you do wanna talk about it anytime and like discuss it, I'm happy to, but I just wanna say that I don't feel comfortable laughing about this in this way. The reason you find it hard to do that

is because you'd have to do that with compassion and empathy for her and say it with a tone that's actually quite gentle and nice and you don't want to do that. You want to let it ring. You want to let it rip. You want to be like, fuck you, fuck you. I don't like you. I don't like anything about you. Sorry to your, like, what is it? You know, it's like, sorry your grandma's dead or whatever, but like, I just don't want to be friends with you anymore. That's what you want to do. But yeah, if you, I think if you really are honest with yourself and you're honest that you don't like this person full stop and it's, you know, there is the structural reasons, but there's

also the dislike that has always existed that Ash talked about and you accept that, I think you'll find it a lot easier to just be nice and gentle and step back when you need to. Because you don't have to hang around with all the time. Like this is a large loose group that you're talking about. You're not meeting constantly. You are seeing on occasion in the larger group. You're also annoyed with your friends for not having the same principles once as they state like the, you know, they're saying ACAB, but they're not actually, they're just like laughing along when they hear these stories. It's okay for you to be like, actually not comfortable hearing that and just keep being along when they hear these stories. It's okay for you to be like, actually not comfortable hearing that. And just keep being like,

calm and mature when you're delivering it. And really, and you're going to have to try really hard. If you really want this to go through, you have to not let your personal dislike bleed into the way that you're interacting with this woman. And the way you're communicating with this woman, you can, you need to accept it, you need to understand it, but when you talk to her, you need to say just, I'm sorry, I'm not comfortable with this, and I'm gonna step away. That's my advice.

Something that you said made me, I guess, reflect on this submission in a different way. And it was you saying that you think on some level that you're better than her. And it is really, really hard to see someone as your equal, which is on the one hand, you feel superior to this woman. She's not a feminist, she's not political. And then you would go, oh, well, maybe it's because she's working in a small town, maybe it's because she's from a small town. You keep flipping back and forth between, in a way, feeling superior to her on the basis of character, feeling superior

to her on the basis of experience, and then feeling a bit bad about yourself for going, oh, well, have I not taken into account enough of her experience? In none of these circumstances, are you thinking of her as an equal who's capable of the same limitations as you and requires the same grace and understanding as you and is also capable of being held responsible in the same way that you are. And that's a really, really hard line to walk. And I think that's something which I can't name anyone who gets that 100% right 100% of the time, but I think that's definitely the place where you have to aim. I think there's also another thing, and this is why I don't think

it actually is so much about the institutional critique of the police, because if it was about the institutional critique of the police, it wouldn't really matter that you'd been irritated by her for a really long time. It wouldn't wouldn't even matter like what crimes like she was, you know, charging people with, you know, she might be like a police officer who works in like investigations focusing solely on domestic violence or doing something that you'd go, okay, right. I can kind of understand that you still have an institutional critique about like the structural and inherent violence of the police force. The fact that you not being able to stand here comes first and then it's the stuff about like, you know,

I think that sort of tells you what your beef is. That doesn't mean you don't hold the principles that you've described, but I think that fundamentally it's like, this person rubs you up the wrong way. It's like they're a bath of water and you're a cat like you'd like get me away from this fucking thing yeah and it's it's you know it is the hardest thing in the world to separate our personal beefs from our structural beefs and a lot of people can't do it and i think it makes you a better person if you actually sit down and

try to because then you really can tease out what's coming from you and what's sort of like, I don't just don't fucking like this person or what's coming from this external like actual value thing. And sometimes those things overlap. I do want to say that they they're like, you know, I don't I don't think that the small town thing is an excuse for that's what their friend said. And they were like, no, I don't. Yeah, yeah. But you are still citing it to be like, here's a reason, but I don't believe it. Here's another reason.

I don't believe it. It's all, I do think it factors in. Anyway, the advice that I think we're agreeing on is you need to sit down and work out like what you actually would say and then say it. And then just realize you can step away and your friends. I think the other thing as well is people get annoyed when you people you like, like someone that you don't. That's annoying. It's like,

why can't everyone see what I see? It's not your business. It's not your business. You just got to let it go. Can I put it as a TLDR, which might sound a bit harsh, but I think maybe special one needs to hear it. Be a grown up, be an adult, either take responsibility for saying some of the stuff that you think. And if this woman says something like, I planted crack on somebody or something really egregious, you take responsibility for saying what you think about it or take responsibility for separating yourself from her. But you can't make other people responsible for doing that for

you by trying to persuade them that they should be seeing her in a particular way. It has to be on you. That's what being a grown up is. Shall we sign off? This has been If I Speak. Who have you been? I've been Moir Lady MacLean. Who have you been? Jose Mourinho. Goodbye. Bye. Hey Lady MacLaine, who have you been? Jose Mourinho. Goodbye! Bye!