Miss Me? - Put The Tweezers Away… with Andi Oliver

Episode Date: November 28, 2024

Lily Allen and Andi Oliver discuss grief, HRT and the changing scene of fine dining.This episode contains very strong language, adult themes and discussions about grief and bereavement that some listeners may find upsetting. If you have been affected by any of the issues raised, you can find support via the BBC Action Line: https://bbc.co.uk/actionline/Credits: Producer: Flossie Barratt Technical Producer: Will Gibson Smith Production Coordinator: Hannah Bennett Executive Producers: Dino Sofos and Ellie Clifford Assistant Commissioner for BBC: Lorraine Okuefuna Commissioning Editor for BBC: Dylan Haskins Miss Me? is a Persephonica production for BBC Sounds

BBC Sounds music radio podcasts. This episode of Miss Me contains very strong language and adult themes. Hi everybody. Welcome to Miss Me with me, Lily Allen and Andrea Oliver who is Makita's mum. Hello, hi darling. Hi. I am Makita's mum, I'm kind of your auntie.

She is my auntie. I am Alison's friend, she's my friend. We're family, big family. Alison is my mum, to everyone that doesn't know. Alison is her mum and I've known you since the day you were born, simply put. So you're home, you've been away for two and a half months. I've been away for two and a half months because I've been filming a TV show I do called Great British Menu, which is a food competition show and I host it.

And so I've been away for two and a half months and I've just been, it's quite, and it's quite an interesting job because it's one of those things that I need to be on like all day, all the time. And if I'm off for a second, then the whole thing falls apart. Do you know what I mean? It's like I have to, I have to be the cog that keeps all the wheels turning basically. Yeah. And it's quite high-pressured for them. So there's been a lot of crying. Oh my goodness. A lot of crying chefs and a little bit psychiatric nurse duties. Do you know what I mean? It's like kind of... Well, chefing is like a high-pressure job, right? Like people go batshit crazy doing that job.

People go batshit crazy because they don't rest and they don't look after themselves, they don't eat properly, they don't have a routine and you, there's a lot of chefs I discovered really have like quite serious control issues because you kind of get into things where you have a picture in your head of what you want to create and you know exactly what you want it to look like on the plate and when it goes out to other people. So getting people to stay in that same vision with you and at the level that you want it to be is really, really hard. So you end up controlling it all and do it yourself. I also read something somewhere recently, I can't remember who it was, but maybe it

was Heston Blumenthal or someone else that because working in a kitchen is such a specific environment and so unlike any other environment, that actually it's really hard to re-enter the world outside of a restaurant because everything is so regimented and done in a specific way that when you're confronted with normal life outside of it, it just doesn't make sense because people are sort of free-wheeling as far as I can say. Free-wheeling and all relaxed. It's like, why are you so relaxed? Yeah. So anything could happen at any moment. What is your problem? Yeah, you're basically hypervigilant. It makes you really hypervigilant. Yeah, you must be in a state of fight or flight the whole time and in the kitchen. Yeah, exactly

the whole time. And also to contend with is the current state of the economy and what is going on in the restaurant business. I wonder if you could tell me a little bit about where things stand in the UK. I mean, in the UK, it's pretty dire right now. People are really, really struggling. I know at least four Michelin-starred chefs who've had to close their restaurants in the last six months. And that's quite a lot of restaurants to close. Like really highly visible, very famous, world famous chefs who are just not able to make it work. I think that it could be, there's the economy, there's all of that stuff. So people don't have the money that they had. But also, I think, you know, there are always trends in restaurants,

aren't there? And I think people are less interested in that kind of food in fine dining, so to speak, and more interested in that kind of middle casual sort of upper, the upper end of casual dining. So if they're going to go out somewhere, they want food from different parts of the world. They want things that are going to interest them, that have stories behind them, that aren't just about tweezers and that took 17 hours to make one kind of parry breast or whatever it is, you know? Microherbs. You know, I think people are a little bit, I mean, there is some of that food is spectacularly good. Some of it is spectacularly uptight. Do you know what I mean? There's quite a broad

spectrum even at that end of what's great and what's not great. Things can be technically brilliant and delivered in a very precise, perfect way, but it still doesn't mean you want to eat it. And it still doesn't mean you want to part with £800 for it or £700 for it. People don't have that kind of cash to just chuck out right now. It's a lot of money. Yeah and also emotionally I think that you know things feel so fraught in the world that and you know food should ultimately be a source of comfort and maybe people are not feeling as if like you know that kind of dining suits where we are in the world right now. Like, do I want to sit down and watch something that has been sort of labored over by, you

know, hundreds of people in the kitchen? Or do I want to feel like my sustenance and my emotional needs are being taken care of through food? It doesn't fit the two of them sort of feel like maybe they're fighting against each other a little bit. I think you might be right, actually. You know, there's a little restaurant up the road from here. There's a little Thai place in Leytonstone that is,

they don't really do bookings. There's like a queue down the road. People are desperate for that food. And you go in and they've got these huge bowls of incredible broths that just feel like they're just like overflowing with love and thought and care and tenderness and all the things that people really miss and I think you know people are missing and fine dining feels like it's full of like neurosis yes and well because it is a lot of the time it is because to do to make

that food takes such a toll on people it's a world, you know, for one dish to take like, you know, my friend Tommy Boucher is going, oh, sometimes that doing, making that garum or that fermentation, that will take me up to 10 months. You know, it's like, that's a lot. Tommy's doing great actually, but there are other people I know who are really not. And I think you have to be you have to have something added and special. And that added special thing is soul and Tommy is a very soulful cook. Paul Ainsworth, another very soulful cook, Claire Smith, she's very soulful. So they're bringing things to that type of food that people also want and need in their lives anyway, but there's only so much space for that many of those

restaurants to exist. It's funny. I went out for lunch with a friend of mine who's actually a restaurateur in England but is American and we had lunch in a very fancy restaurant and he was saying the complete opposite that here in New York, it feels like the fine dining scene is, you know, on the precipice of like exploding again in contrast to where it was sort of 18, 24 months ago. And he puts it down to, I mean, I know it's only been a couple of weeks since Donald Trump's been named, you know, the next president of the United States, but that New York is starting

to feel like, you know, sort of prosperous city again for the upper classes and that everyone's sort of getting up and rearing to go for that to become the reality. Well that's interesting that it's so different over there because here people are just terrified actually and depressed and I just think they don't even know what to do. They're closing restaurants and then they're going to go, what am I going to do? Because they can't open another space. They can do consultancy or go and pride. I don't even know what to do. They're closing restaurants and then they're going to go, what am I going to do? Because they can't open another space. They can do consultancy or go and pride. I don't even know what they're going to do.

These are world famous chefs. They don't even know what their next move is. So they're going to have to, it's pivot time. Lots of people, this happens in life, doesn't it? You just have to fucking work out what you can do with your skills and what you're going to do with them next. Take a minute, Don't panic. I'd say in England, stop making such piddly food and get some like, you know, good old

trusty comfort grub on the tables and you'll be all right. And in America, get those tweezers out. Get those tweezers out and get charging. Yeah, get your micro-herbs in. People are ready to pay you. Exactly. I went to go and see a doctor earlier on this week. Well, I went to go and see him a couple of months ago to go and get a whole bunch of

blood tests done. And I went to go and see him and my results came back and I'm incredibly low on vitamin B, vitamin B12, folate and my testosterone levels are really, really low. And so there has been a suggestion that maybe I go on testosterone to help me in that area. Which is like this comes under HRT, right? This is absolutely comes under HRT, hormone replacement therapy. And I didn't have any HRT for years because I am of the generation that we got scaremongered, fear mongered about HRT. There was a weird report that came out years ago.

So when everybody was on HRT and it was going really well and a report came out and just with actually in the end, provably false information about the links from to between HRT and some forms of breast cancer, it basically gave a blanket connection between HRT and some different forms of illness. So hundreds of women stopped taking HRT overnight because everybody got really scared of my, I actually think it was a generation above me. But that information has sort of filtered down

generation by generation. It's actually been proven to not be true. And I think it's really have to deal with it on a case by case basis and look at your own personal history. But I started HRT about three years ago. Your mom was one of the people who really kept saying to me, you just got to do it. It's changed my life.

I feel so much better. And then I had a hysterectomy because I had really bad fibroids, which Makia now has, of course, which is why she's not here and I'm here. Well, she doesn't have them anymore. They're gone. Doesn't have them anymore. Oh my God. Did you see the picture? No. You can't see the picture of the fibroids. They look like dinosaur eggs. They're huge.

It's the weirdest thing you've ever seen. Anyway, so I started HRT and I started with estrogen patches and you're supposed to put one or two on and I was just putting, I was, every time I took my clothes off, there were patches falling out of the legs of my clothes because I just was like, these are not working. And I just kept slapping them on all over my body. So I thought, oh, I want the gel. I got the gel and then it was, it was better, but I still felt really, it was really like massive anxiety attacks and panic and all sorts of weird things.

And then they put me on testosterone and it was amazing. I was like, this is like a gift from God, literally putting this testosterone, especially put a tiny little pee of it on. And I'm such an excessive person. And I spoke to my doctor, my doctor, rubbing it in like, slapping it on like brute. It's like, literally big, let's go people. And I, I realized I was getting really narky. Like properly, like weirdly, like aggressive, like fucking, you know, and I just thought, like a man, like a dude, like a weird dude, like a really uptight, like maybe like a boy in his late teens, he's got like stroppy with everybody and wants to punch everybody. I started getting like that and I suddenly caught myself.

Somebody said something to me and I was like, well, I'll tell you, fuck. And I just thought, this is not right. There's something weird with me. And I suddenly realized I was putting on probably five times the amount that I should have been putting on. Cause I mistook aggression for energy.

So it felt like I was getting energized by this testosterone. And actually what it was doing, because I was putting on too much, was just making me a very aggressive woman-man. It was really quite alarming. So I just stopped it straight away, which you're probably not meant to do either. And I left it for a week or so. And then I started doing the actual dose. And now I've gone back to normal again.

And how is it? I love it. I like it. Well, I just, I like not feeling, you know, batshit. I like not feeling, I've never really had anxiety issues per se, I don't think, in my younger years. And so it felt quite unfamiliar for me to suddenly be so overwhelmed with anxiety

that I couldn't leave the house, couldn't even stand the sound of my family talking because it was giving me a panic attack, all of that. And also my night hot flushes at night have gone Right which was they were really bad like waking up in the middle of the night just with my heart beating really quick Tell me about hot flashes because I said my this doctor said, you know, do you get hot flashes and I was like, hmm I don't know. I mean I get you know, like overheated sometimes was like, no, no, no, you don't understand. Like hot flashes.

It's very, very intense. Hot flashes feel really Nana described it brilliantly. She said just before it happens, you get that feeling in the pit of your stomach when you get really scared, when you know something shit is about to happen. Yeah. You know, that feeling of dread that you get? So you get a feeling of dread momentarily and then you just become, it like rushes up your whole body. It's like somebody has lit a fire inside your belly and your

whole body just is... Does it hurt? No, it doesn't hurt. It's just so hot. You can't even breathe like... It just makes it, it just, all the air seems to leave the room. You're like hanging out the window in the, to put your head in the snow, which as you know is not my want.

It's awful. Hot flushes are the worst thing for me. God didn't really make it easy for us, did he? As a woman. What the hell? He was definitely a bit of a misogynist, God. Definitely a guy. Definitely a guy.

Who hurt you, God? It was a woman. Show us on the doll where the bad man hurt you. It's really, really horrible. But I feel like I'm I think I'm coming out the other side of it now. It's been over 10 years, Lily. Of menopause? Yeah, that's the other thing nobody tells you is how long it goes on for.

I thought it was going to be like sort of, you know, bad PMT for a year. And then I'd be done and we'd be good. But it's actually been over 10 years of different symptoms at different times in different ways. The worst being, and I also take progesterone now as well, actually, which I discovered today because I looked it up can really make you put on weight. So that's going out the window. Are you going to give it up because of the weight gain? I'm like, oh for God's sake, why does everything make my ass bigger? It's just annoying. Oh, I'd like something to make my ass bigger at the moment.

Maybe I'll ask for progesterone too. I'm going to give it a minute. My butt is quite fine just as it is. Thank you very much. I'm going to give it a minute and I'm going to see if it starts making me put on more weight than I'll have to. I might have to rethink it and that's just truth. That is just the truth.

That's just the truth, Ruth. But I'm very grateful for HRT. I mean, you know, thank God for it, basically. We should say that HRT does come with potential side effects and you should always consult your doctor before taking any new medication. Simples. I went to see Wicked with my children. consult your doctor before taking any new medication. Simples. I went to see Wicked with my children on Sunday. Is it good? I'm dying to see that film.

Two hours and 40 minutes long. That sounds good to me. Really? Well, I just, I really like the look of it. So if it's long, then I'd be quite happy. Is it too long? I mean, I don't know if I was in the right frame of mind for it, I'm going through some stuff at the moment.

So, you know, I was definitely, my mind was definitely elsewhere, but I don't, and I really loved the stage musical. It wasn't as long as that. And the film is actually in two parts. This was part one, part one, part two comes out in November, 2025. Oh goodness. So, part one, part two comes out in November 2025. So, you know, they've really sort of dragged it out. Yeah. But you know, both of the central

performances are amazing. You know, Cynthia is incredible. And so is Ariana, you know, she's funny, because her character is, you know, not sort of likable, really. I mean, well, she makes her likeable even though she has some really unlikable attributes. And it seems like quite a hard balancing act, but she pulls it off really well. I just, I'm such a fan of Cynthia Erivo. I hosted a proms at the Royal Albert Hall and she sang all of my favourite songs like Gladys Knight,

Aretha, Barbra Streisand. I mean, I was in actual heaven and she was so exceptional. Her voice was so absolutely mind-bogglingly ridiculously brilliant. I mean, it's unbelievable what comes out of that woman's mouth. It's unbelievable she literally took the roof off the art hall it was one of the most incredible things I've ever seen in my life actually I think that performance it was stunning so I can't wait to see it. It's funny because I always assumed that she was American and it wasn't until relatively recently that I realized that she was a Landoner. She's South London. Because you don't really get those voices

from London really. I mean, I feel like she's really honed her craft. She fucking puts the hours in and she practices. She works really hard and she talks about when she was little, her mother said to her, well, if you're gonna sing, you better be the best. So she went, okay, and she is. She just did the work, she does the work,

and she obviously has a God-given talent naturally, but she is a master craftswoman. But the technique is incredible. The way she controls it is just, because you know she's a storyteller. She like absolutely takes you from the beginning to the middle to the end. You're like with her every step of the way,

every single note, every little bit of nuance, every breath, every sort of projection. It's quite astonishing. I just find it incredible. I actually got really pissed off this week because when the premiere happened, on the front of like three or four, four of the biggest national newspapers, there was no picture of her at all. No picture of Cynthia, no mention of Cynthia until like halfway down the article, just a huge picture of Ariana Grande, who is lovely, I think.

She seems like a lovely girl. And their relationship is a beautiful thing. They just seem to be so sweet together, like loving, like they really look at me, like hold hands all the time. I just love them. They make me feel happy when I see them. And they completely took Cynthia out of the picture for all these headlines, literally just erased her completely, made me so fucking cross. Because it's like like even at that stage, even at that stage she's that brilliant. It's the biggest part in the movie. She's wowing audiences

all over the world and they still won't put her on the cover of the newspaper. It's fucking pathetic. Well, I think it's probably done intentionally to make a political point to create more division in the world. I think that these newspapers have an agenda, right? And it's got very little to do with Ariana Grande and Cynthia and fairness and everything to do with, you know, making people upset and angry and to start up a conversation about race and division. And I am upset. You should be. I am too, because it's just, it's just, you know, what it makes, I was thinking about it. I was thinking, am I in the end, what I am too. Because it's just, you know what it makes, I was thinking about it and I was thinking,

in the end what I am is I feel, it makes me feel hurt. Do you know what I mean? It's like, it's kind of age old, deep hurt. It's not even like, oh, my feelings are hurt. It's just this old, ancient heartbreak of racism and that kind of aggression is just so exhausting and after you know election results in different countries including the one you're in now and all the shit that's going on in the world it's just like

and it's like we just I just need to know that people are good I just need to know that essentially we are good and I feel that when I go from to meet my friends and I see the people that I see and stuff, but then I see stuff like that and I just get fucking, you know, I'm quite an optimistic person. I think it's deliberately antagonistic, you know, and I think that it's supposed to do what it does exactly what it does, which is to sow more division, which creates uncertainty, which makes the people that own these newspapers and these publications richer. Because in times of uncertainty, people can profit. So I think that it's absolutely done on purpose.

And it's a distraction. So that we're talking about this and not watching what they're doing, do you know what I mean? Watching all of the rest of the actually, that is a symptom of a much deeper, darker energy at work in the world right now, do you know what I mean? And I just think that we need to be very, very careful here and everywhere else and don't take anything for granted for one moment. We can't take any of our rights for granted. We can't take any of our ways of living for granted

because look how quickly things can change. Look how quickly the rug can be pulled out from underneath your feet. Do you know what I mean? It's just, I think it's a signifier. So I feel vigilant and exhausted simultaneously. I am also obsessed with Cynthia Erivo's nails. As everyone knows, I am a big nail enthusiast myself,

although this week I'm not really showing that. But yes, her nail game is very, very strong. It is really strong. I actually sat next to Cynthia on a plane going from London to New York not that long ago, and she had the nails. She looked incredibly chic by the way. She had Louis Vuitton cashmere cape on and a matching Louis Vuitton handbag and the matching suitcase. And just what she was the last person on the plane like VIP

and it was all very fabulous. And then you know the beginning of a flight if you're sitting in business or first class, which I was, they bring you a sort of warm bowl of nuts. Yeah. And I was sort of watching Cynthia try to negotiate her way through this bowl of nuts incredibly unsuccessfully because of the nails. And I really wanted to just be like, babe, do you want, do you want a hand? Shall I feed you some nuts?

Yeah, I would totally have fed her the nuts, but I felt like I might have been. I mean, the nails look amazing. How she does anything with them is beyond my comprehension. Well, I can tell you she couldn't, she couldn't eat a bowl of nuts comfortably with them. They definitely were an obstacle. She really is very chic, isn't she? I just, yeah, I'm just, I'm very into it. I think it's time for us to take a little break.

Alrighty. Okay, welcome back, gang. Here I am with Andy Oliver. I like it when you call me Andrea. Shall I say welcome back gang. We're back. We're here with Andrea Oliver. What? Andrea Oliver? Andrea. Can't believe that still makes me laugh. It makes me laugh for 25 years. I was going to say to you, you know, a couple of people in our family network have written books recently. Nana, Cherry, who's your best friend, and Rose Boyt, who is my actual godmother and my mom's best friend.

And both of those books cover a period of time before me and Makita were born. So it was quite enlightening to read those things. Was it weird to read? Because you've heard us talk about that stuff obviously forever, but what's it like to read it? Sort of heard you guys talk about it, but also not really. Like, what was my mom like? Like, what, what did, when did you first meet her? What did you think of her when you first met her?

I just was like, wow, that's energy. I just remember her flying down Dean Street. Your mom used to go so far. She looked like she had wheels on. You know how hyper she can be. And so she just was like, she used to zip about like just a full ball of energy. And that was the first thing I remember thinking about, like, who the fuck's that? She's got some fire under her. And then I met her. I think I met her through Rose. I was trying to remember this earlier today.

I don't even remember. It must have been through Rose. And we were just we were like a bit of an invincible gang, really, our gang. Not not in a way of deliberately trying to keep anybody else out. I don't mean it like that. I just mean like... I feel like we were all the leftover bits that other people maybe wrote off a little bit and thought we were just going to amount to absolutely nothing or a total waste of space, a bunch of us.

And I think that in itself drove us to just do the things we wanted to do. And London at that time was a really amazing place because physically there was loads of space to do things for a start. So you could quite easily get hold of a massive warehouse and put on a play or a fashion show or a dinner or make a film there or do whatever it is you wanted to do. You could just get hold of space. Like when we used to do these parties that Rose talks about in her book, actually in Naked Portrait, Rose talks about the parties at Battlebridge Road. And they were, Battle Bridge Road was behind King's Cross. You know, what's that bit of King's Cross now where all the fancy shops are and stuff?

Where Bagley's used to be. Exactly, exactly down there. And there was nothing up there except dirty old brushed down warehouses and stuff. And we got hold of one of those and used to have this weekly party in there. It was four pounds to get in. And then we had these big bars full of ice and Red Stripe. And that was the bar. And then Sean and the Watson brothers and Bruce and stuff used to DJ up on this table. So you could just make it happen.

You could make a party happen. You could make an energy happen really easy physically because there was space to do it. I always think about that, like the lack of physical space that young people have available to them now. You can't really do that anymore. Those spaces are all flats or they've been built up into something else. So there was a kind of real freedom to that time that wasn't just about, it wasn't just about being able to get space,

but it was also, I guess, coming off the back of punk, coming out of that energy. Punk kind of gave birth to us all, really, because it made us believe in our own instincts, I think. It gave us, it made us feel that we had the right to take up any space we decided we were gonna take up and we could do it however we wanted to do it. So she was just part of that, you know, your mom.

And cause we all had babies quite young. There was you, there was, you know, Keats and Sarah was already born, of course. And then Tess had Phoebe and Naima was born. So there was just like a bunch of us that had little kids as well. And if we hadn't known each other, I, you know, it would be possibly a very, be a very different story that I'm telling, because the support that we all gave each other with these little tiny babies

strapped on, you know, we just, you know, when you were there, you were one of the babies, we just would pile you all up and put you with one person, all the rest of people would go out or whatever. But it was like it felt like being saved by a family. It felt like we created a really genuine, very strong family. When Sean died, when my brother passed away, he was 27, I was 25. That family of people saved my life, you know, because they became like a wall around me and looked after me so deeply.

And I needed it so much. I can't even tell you. You can because I remember my mum, sorry I'm feeling so emotional but I remember my, you know my mum always says that your, at Sean's funeral just the sound of your wailing haunts her forever. She told me that. And I, it's not something obviously that I've ever heard in my lifetime because I've never seen you in that state of distress.

But even just the thought and the image of you going through that period of time just makes me... I was so broken. ...just feel for you on such a level. I just can't even imagine. Do you know? I don't know how this is making me level. I just can't, I can't even imagine. Do you know? No, don't be sorry.

I don't know how this is making me cry. No, don't be sorry. It's interesting to me because I don't remember lots of it because I was in shock. It's trauma. Yeah, deep trauma. So there's bits of it I don't remember. So reading Rose's book and hearing her account

of Sean dying and the funeral and all this stuff that went on. Like my dad had this weird preacher that came to the funeral who was, you know, when there's death happens, there's always like weird things that make you laugh hysterically in the middle of it all suddenly. And this weird preacher started going on about cricket and he was going, when you halt, you halt. When you run your last run, it's your last run. And we all became hysterical because we'd never even seen this man before. And obviously everything was just really heightened. And in the middle of the funeral, it was like this weird comedy 15 minutes and we all kept going, Oh my God, Sean would find this man so hysterically funny.

And it was tough, obviously, it was a really tough time and reading it through Nana's book and through Rose's book has been a really interesting perspective for me because what I understood was that I lost my brother, but they all lost somebody, everybody lost somebody different in the one person. Do you know what I mean? He meant something different to each person.

Like Rose said to me, oh, I hope you don't feel like I was trying to claim him. And I said, absolutely not. He was your dear friend and you lost your dear friend and it broke your heart. And you're allowed to talk about that. And everybody's allowed to feel whatever they need to feel about you don't own people in life and you certainly don't own them in death either you know. It's funny because I don't really remember Sean

because I was so young when he died but I do have like a vision of him lying sort of face down in lying sort of face down in Carol's bed in that estate that they used to live on. And I just remember his arm hanging over the edge of the bed. Edge of the bed? And of course, you know, when I was so young, like probably three or four or something, right, when he died. So I don't have much memory of his personality or like interacting with him. But obviously, him being the father of Phoebe and Theo, for us, it was the death of Theo's dad and Phoebe's dad, you know, for our generation. So it's

interesting, isn't it, how somebody relates differently to everybody involved. For loss in different ways. And I think the further away I get from it, the more grateful I am that I had him at all, that we had him at all, that I had him in the first place. You know, it's like I've seen so many people lose so many people at this point in our lives that I am more philosophical about it, I suppose, the further away it gets, it's been an awfully long time now. And I think that I still get weirdly overwhelmed by it,

like at the oddest moments, suddenly it'll come to me and it'll just knock you out and then I'm fine again. So I just feel like we had such a great time. I mean, we used to fight all the time, obviously, because my brother, you're annoying, but he was also absolutely one of the smartest, funniest, most ridiculous people I ever have known. I'm really grateful for that, you know? Oh, I'm so glad. I'm so sad that I never got to know him. I know. I wish you'd hung out a bit longer. I wish you guys had had more of him. And also, he never knew Garfield.

Imagine if they'd hated each other. They would have had a great time. They would have been such a couple of arseholes. They would have been the bane of your life together probably. Oh my God, I'd be up the wall. But I just, you know, I wish you'd met Garth. I wish you'd met my friend, Damon. There's a few people I wish you'd met, but what can you do?

Well, I tell you what, I did want to ask actually, because I don't really know much about this at all. What were my mom and dad like when they were together? And please don't feel like you have to dress it up. I don't feel like I've got to dress it up. Tempestuous. Tempestuous.

They were like all loved up or wanting to punch the shit out of each other, you know, just like, fuck you, fuck you. Wow. So nothing like the relationships that I get involved in. They were, they were extremes. They had a very fiery relationship. You know, it was everything good or everything shit, I think. I think that's a fair statement. I think your mum would probably agree with that. Yeah. And I think your dad would too. When they were great, they were great and funny and kind of magnetic. You kind of wanted to be around them. They're like physically affectionate with each other in public. I mean, not like, you know, overly so, not alarmingly so. You know, when some people are like, can you take your tongue out of her ear? It's not like that. They weren't

like that. No, I can't bear that. It's not right to go home something. Stop it. No, but they were, they just used to, what I remember is them laughing. Like when they were good, they used to really make each other laugh. And that's, that's a nice thing to be around. So you would want to be around them and that. And there was a kind of intensity to that. And that's always something that other people want to be around. But of course, you know, that wasn't the only part of it. It was difficult as well. And when it was difficult, I think it was heartbreaking. I think if you have a really great time with somebody when it's really good and this shit is equally shit,

it's exhausting and it's fucking heartbreaking. And as a child of divorce, I think that, you know, you always wonder what it would have been like if they'd stayed together. And so, and because I wasn't there and I wasn't a, you know, conscious adult when it happened, I wonder if the prevailing consensus amongst you and your friends was that it was ultimately a good thing that they were not together anymore.

I think it was ultimately a good thing that they were not together anymore. Okay, good. Absolutely that. I'm a child of divorce as well. I was fucking glad when my mom and dad got divorced. I was like, please, me and Sean would be upstairs thinking, why don't they just get divorced? They clearly can't. You even stand to be in the same room together. They'd be downstairs arguing and you'd have your mate upstairs. It'd just be like, oh my God, this is awful. Just fucking leave each other.

I was glad when they got divorced because it just wasn't right. Thank you very much for joining me on this show this week, Andrea Oliver. I was going to ask you to break down your recipe for honey baked chicken, but I think it's best kept as a family secret. So everyone can ask. Yeah, there's a version of it in the book, but it's not the only one. They can go fuck themselves. That's for me and me only. Although Garfield fucked it up at Phoebe's 40th. I hear you call him Dr. Salmonella now.

Is that what you call him? Yeah. Whatever. He said, he said, Nelly keeps calling me Dr. Salmonella. I was like, oh my God, because of your shit chicken. It was so half baked. And I don't mean that just like in terms of literally half baked. It was just like a half baked effort. It like he just how could he do that I don't know it's real you

know he knows how to cook chicken I've shown him how to cook chicken he knows how to cook chicken yeah well he didn't that day he didn't that day it sounds horrible um we're gonna talk on listen bitch about parenting which which is going to be great. So I will see you on Monday for that conversation. I can't wait. For Listen Bitch. I'm ready. I'll be ready. I'll have a little nap. Thank you. Thank you, honey. Bye. Thanks for listening to Miss Me with Lily Allen and Makita Oliver. This is a Persephoneca

production for BBC Sounds. In Northern Ireland, from the late 70s to the early 90s, the IRA killed over 40 alleged informers. Men and women accused of passing information to the police and the British Army. But the man who often found, tortured and sometimes killed these people on behalf of the IRA was himself an informer, a secret British Army agent with the code name Stake Knife. These were police agents, I had to find other agents. Just how was one man allowed to lead a double life for so long?

It's not like James Bond, it's not a black and white situation. When lies are still being told to this day, who do you believe? I wouldn't even know where to start, and I'm with the IRA. Steak Knife. Listen now on BBC Sounds.