Should I Delete That? - Sentimental Garbage with Caroline O'Donoghue

Episode Date: July 16, 2023

This week on the pod, Em and Al talk all things pop culture with Caroline O'Donoghue, author and host of the incredible podcast Sentimental Garbage. They discuss why women’s interests are devalued in society and why, artistically, women’s work is taken less seriously than men’s. They deep dive into the death of romcoms, the 2010s and Leonardo DiCaprio’s taste in women…Follow Caroline on Instagram @czaronlineBuy Caroline's latest book here: https://store.virago.co.uk/products/the-rachel-incidentListen to Sentimental Garbage here: https://open.spotify.com/show/6w97FzDaRfaE4jWz98npWQ?si=74a1e6b14b0548afFollow us on Instagram @shouldideletethatEmail us at [e-mail] by Daisy GrantMusic by Alex Andrew Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

You spend so long having made to feel slightly ashamed or shitty about things that you like that even when you do get your way and you do get to watch your film whether it's with your brother when you're a kid or with your boyfriend or your partner when you're older. You can't even enjoy it yourself because you keep watching it through their eyes. Hello and welcome back to Sajaljeet that. I'm Alex Light.

Oh damn it! I'm in Gloucson. You're Alex. slide. I forgot. Hi. Hello. Hello in the Isle of Man. Hello from the Isle of Man. Yeah, I do know how you say it the other way around? You know you say like hello from? Like how'd you say this way around? Hello to. To you. To you. Hello to you in the island. You can greet the island. Um, how are you? I am good. I've got two goods this week. No bad. Oh, I want to hear them. Which is rare for me. It is incredibly. I'm excited. I'm excited. I'm excited. Let's go. I'm not.

Normally an optimistic, happy person. Two goods. Number one, have my hair done. Gone super blonde, feel great. It does look fantastic. I just feel like myself again. Yes, I'm a Barbie area. Yes.

Good for you. Second thing is, I've fucked a holiday to Greece. Ooh. And I am so excited. I am so excited. I just feel like I can't wait. I can't, like it's occupying all my thoughts. It's a last minute one.

It's in a week's time. And I am so excited. stunning it's absolutely stunning you deserve it I'm excited for you so there's no room for bads today good for you it's even raining good it is great I wanted to apologise

anybody that can hear any background noise on my side it is a blow in a hooly outside like it's what July it's raining in the house so sorry if you can hear it I'm really proud of you two goods I love to see it I know for what you I will forego my bad as well

I'm going to skim over it because I don't want to talk about it anyway. Oh, it's not sleeping. Don't want to talk about it. Oh, my God. We don't sleep. I feel. Who is she? It's bullshit.

I'm so tired. But it's fine because I foregoing the bad to have you a good week. It's my birthday week. That's a good. By the time this comes out, it'll be the week of my birth. Oh, yes. That's nice. But my main good, Al, are you ready?

Hold on to your horses. Oh, my God. This morning, I ran for a mile without stopping. and then I stopped and I thought I was lush I'm going to do it again and then I ran for another mile without stopping So three miles without stopping Two miles, two miles, two miles

And I stopped in between them And I probably could have done another one But I had Denise Lewis in my head on the couch to five care Being like steady She didn't she didn't say steady But I didn't want to overdo it But I did yeah yeah yeah I did I did two miles

Well done Did it feel good It felt really good I actually I would probably do some content about it because without meaning to sound like a dog when I first started running a mile was the biggest milestone for me, pardon the part of there.

It always felt like the biggest thing. Like I always felt like if I could crack a mile then I could do anything. Like because if you can do one, you can do two and if you can do two do you know what I mean? Like it always just felt really big to me. Yeah. And I had a I had a bridge a mile away from my old flat where I used to live and when I first started running it was like

my big mission was to get to the bridge without stopping. and the first day I did it I like high-fived the bridge and I was like Alex made me do it and I was like crying and I was so proud of myself and this was years ago but it always felt so big and even when I was doing all my marathon training and everything I always stopped at the bridge to tap it

because it was like I could and it was like a reminder that I could do it and so today it just felt like a really big deal like getting there again I was like yeah she's back and from there I just found it getting better and better like I always find the first miles the hardest and then after that you know It's not easy, easy, easy, easy, beautiful. Yeah, so feel great.

How long does a mile take? Like, what's the normal, I'm trying to, I'm not good at distances? I mean, when I'm running very well, I'll do a minute. I mean, I don't really like to focus on time because people compare. I'd say maybe the average mile is like 11, 10, 11 minutes. Okay, yeah, I was just like, I'm not good at miles. I was like, does that mean like an hour or like in five minutes? I could take an hour.

um my Alex runs my my Alex runs a mile in about six or seven minutes um okay that sounds low then if it's a normal miles 11 that's a long time to run for without something I don't know what is normal and I'm really using that term loosely because I don't want any beginners to be like oh I'm setting myself like for me like I think an 11 mile 11 minute mile is fucking stunning like that's my just like I am comfortable here yeah I mean I don't it sounds like good to me. Yes, who gives a shit?

I've got no bench one. I've realized, I've run enough in my life to realize that nobody, like, only tosses ask you how fast you're run? Like, if you run a marathon, only a wife is like, how long does it take? What'd you do it in? Yeah, well, fuck off. Fuck off. So I don't care.

I don't care for time. No, that's because I didn't know, like, how long a mile takes, like, is a few minutes, is it an hour, but that's actually a really long time to run for without stopping. I definitely couldn't do that. Yeah, well done. Well done. Thank you so much. Right, awkwards before we get in.

into our wonderful episode today. Oh, yes, it's a special episode for you, a very exciting one. Loved it. My awkward, my awkward, I was driving on the road, as you tend to do. I was driving on the road. And I was on a main road, and then someone was coming off a side road onto the main road. I could see they were having a hard time getting onto the main road because of so much traffic. So I was like, I'm going to let them go.

But in that moment, I forgot the universal signal for let them go. right? So I just put my hand up, you know, like, you know, like this, the universal stop sign. Stop! Stop like this, you know, like, um, Spice Girl, stop right now. Anyway, like that, basically. No, sorry. I put my hand up and I went, stop like this to them. I didn't say that, but my hand, like, you know, very aggressive, had stop hand. And they just looked at me and I was like, I can't, I don't, I don't know how to amend this because I can't remember how to let you go. So I went like that, like, shoot. I basically shooed them because I was like, is that the hand signal? I don't know.

And then afterwards I was like, oh my God, I could have used my flashes. Oh, God, that's so good. How embarrassing. I love you in a car. If somebody, if a TV production company doesn't listen to this and think, God, we need a series in which Alex drives places, then they're fools. they are fools so I held up the entire road

and this poor car that was like so confused like what are you trying to say to me so yeah love that yeah that's mine go on what's yours right well I actually thought as of this morning knowing we were going to record today I thought

this is great I'm going to be able to not only forego my bad but also forego my awkward this week because I've barely seen anyone I'm on the Isle of Man I'm not socialising I'm literally barely leaving the house so I'll be fine like I honestly I thought I had an awkward free week until today he can probably hear me because the house is small but Frank there's a man in the room next door called Frank and he he came over to do some massage and acupuncture and cupping because I don't know if I've mentioned this but childbirth is brutal not in the sense of like the immediateness but just the fact that it's like an endurance race that you don't get the chance to recover from.

because he just kind of had the kid and then he just sort of crack on and it's sort of fine but everything kind of creaks a bit anyway I've been uncomfortable so's out we've just been tired so Frank's come out to give his hand

he's amazing he does his acupuncture and everything and he came out today and I was like great I'm really looking forward to this and I just obviously haven't socialised in too long because he was in the room in my childhood bedroom

no less we were both in the bedroom and then he was like okay he could probably hear me recounting this story which is even more awkward but he was like I hope so. Okay, take your clothes off and I'll come back in

and I was like, all my clothes and he was like, all your clothes and then he closed the door and then he opened the door again and like, bash the door open again he's like, not all your clothes do not take off all your clothes and I was like, oh my God

and I meant my leggings and my jumper like obviously I was going to keep my knickers on that's the way he just like barrel do the door again he's like not all your clothes too not and then he didn't want to say knickers I don't think so he was just like

just keep on some clothes Most of them. Take leggings and most. Okay. I was like, oh God. Okay. And then I was like, I'm just going to say. I'm going to say the K word. I was like, okay, so I'll keep my knickers on. He was like, yes, yes. And then just like close the door. I was like, oh, God, I have to die now. You said the K word. The K word, I know, in public. Okay. And just before we get into it, I have to show you, and I'll send the photo to our, I'll put the photo on our Instagram, but I have to show you my back, Alex. I'll show you what Frank did to me. Oh my god, is this cupping? Yeah. Ready? Oh my god.

Oh my... Oh my god. Oh my god. Is that painful? What do you do? Yes. Yes it was. Was it painful at the time?

No. It's not painful... Whoa! Sorry. Um... It's not not pain. but it's painful in a good way my granny always called it

delicious agony because it's like you know preparing you for for better days ahead so I watched a video of it on TikTok and I don't like the way the skin all goes up I don't like that I've got photo of it it literally looks like up the testicles in a jar and stuck to my back

and now I look like someone's been like frisbeeing salami at my back and it's all just like stuck gorgeous stunning Anyway, today, we have, just, you know what today was? It's just sometimes we do interviews, like, really hard-hitting and we're really proud of them. And sometimes we just get a really nice opportunity to have a chat with someone that we really rate.

Yeah. And that's what this week was. Well said. Thank you. We sat with Caroline Adonohue. I am the biggest fan of her podcast. It is my favourite podcast by Million Miles. It's called Sentimental Garbage.

And she explains basically the premise, but it kind of looks. looks in detail at the things that have shaped the lives of so many women our age and kind of like pop culture moments and these sort of like huge like phenomenums for fan girls like the twilight series or they've done a whole episode on girls just want to have fun the song and like it's just and and some of your favorite films they do these huge deep dive analysis is on and analyses anyway I just love her and we just had a chat about pop culture and about the films love. And it was all just good vibes. Such good vibes. Her energy was brilliant. We loved it.

We loved it. So, listen to this. But if you haven't listened to Sentimental Garberts, then you're welcome, because I've just given you a fucking gift. I've just given you, I've given you hours of entertainment. Much better than this podcast. But probably, yes. Agreed. It's on par. It's on a par. Oh, before we go, Alex is all. We're just going to throw him under the bus. yesterday my sister said I'm on tenterhooks and Alex went oh what do you mean ten to hooks he thought the expression was tender hooks oh oh tender hooks I swear that makes more sense than ten to hooks

I agree but also I get it I know also that's cute yeah um oogie doogie well well it's time it's time for the interview enjoy enjoy we love you bye bye Hi. Oh, hi. Hello. We've just started this conversation. Okay. Yeah, no, sorry, it's always difficult, isn't it?

When you've been talking for 10 minutes previous and then you're like, oh, and now we're in the podcast. And now we're on. I said to you before we started recording. Yeah. I'm freaking out a little bit. I love your podcast so much. It's so weird having your voice speaking to me because I listen to you. I actually have to ration your podcast.

Oh, really? Yeah, because I can't, because since I have your baby, I've been getting out on little walks it's been really good for my mental health and i've literally inhaling them and i was like now i'm getting through them too fast so i only allow myself one a week now going through the back catalogs of your podcast sentimental garbage which is what i just we need to talk to you about the whole premise the whole how long if you got the whole i could talk about it all day truly i'm i'm so proud of it i really am and like uh it's gotten to a point now where it's been going for a few years and it's sort of it's the business now and like i'm sure you guys have the same

thing where you're like oh wow this this sort of pays for itself and like you know i can rent a studio space and hire someone to help me with the guests and like it's it feels especially when you've been a freelancer for years and years and you were so at the mercy of like papers and like when they want to publish you how much they want to pay you who gets to see it because of the paywall to be entirely in control of your own platform it feels so great doesn't it yeah so yeah and didn't you hit five million downloads six million now sorry six million It's like, yeah, congratulations, that's amazing. Weird, because I remember in the early days, it was like,

oh, and now we have 100,000 people, wow. And to think about 100,000 people, it's such an enormous amount. But, yeah, now it's gone to 6 million downloads. It just keeps ticking up and, yeah. Incredible. It is nutty. Because also, it's very, and I hope this is what people like about sentimental garbage, is that it's quite low-fi.

And I don't really have celebrity guests on. Like, the majority of the guests are repeat guests send their people from my life, you know, who I just think are interesting and fun. And we're not talking about anything particularly topical. It's not trying to be newsy. It's just fun. It's just a lot of fun.

You did get Marianke's on it, though, after your episode to talk to you. When I saw that was the follow-up episode, I was like, it's what? Like, that was so cool. It was really cool. So when we first started, so to give people kind of a background on it,

it was a similar I started in 2018 when I was publicizing my first book, promising young women and I was like you know the sound of thing in interviews coming up

against a lot of like preconceived notions about women's fiction that people are really happy to tell you when you're like a 28 year old

first time novelist like they're I think now people are a bit more careful to speak to you because they're like oh this person has a podcast

they'll put me on blast but when you like no profile at all people are like most books women rights suck or whatever and don't say that but you can tell

they sort of mean it and so I was you know interested in deconstructing that and I realise that like you know there's a pressure when you're an author to talk about your influences as being like you know flower bear or Virginia Woolf

or whatever and you know those things are absolutely valid but a lot of the way I learned how to write structure in characters and scenes was through really commercial novels like Marion Keys or Jenny Cooper or whatever but if you look online for like essays

deconstructing what it is that those women do there was nothing there was just good reads reviews that being like, oh, I love this and that was it. You know, these, these books are read by millions of people globally and yet they're not, there's like literally zero space dedicated to deconstructing what they're trying to do as artists. And I thought that was worth correcting. And I also, cynically, I was like, you know, I could meet other authors this way, you know? And like when you're a first time novelist, you're so lonely in your sort of quest to both get the thing read, but also to like connect with people.

and to talk about the experience of writing and I got to meet loads of people and have a good time and it was just a little 10 episode first season and then every season I've done has been a bit longer this current one is like 30 episodes going to be in a season good yeah yeah yeah I'm pleased to hear it you can stop rush me yeah where did the name come from I love it I don't know like it was it was on the Lou actually I was but I remember I had tweeted something like Like something like, oh, why can't I find an essay on Marion Keys or whatever? Why has no one written this? And do I have to make a podcast? And then like, it instantly got like loads and loads and loads of responses. And then I knew it was a good idea. And then I just, I read an interview with Marion, I think. And she talked about being referred to as sentimental garbage.

And I think I might have taken it from there. It's good. Yeah. I like it. Yeah. She's so cool. She's so cool. I'm obsessed with her.

And she's beautiful. Yeah, just like And she keeps getting more beautiful I just I don't know how I've said this to you Like if I cause you're not a massive fiction reader And when we've talked about this before It's like if I could recommend one fiction book

To everybody it would be grown up Because I just feel like it's the hug of a book Like I've never felt so like Like hugged by a book as I And I love reading like I'm a huge huge bookworm But there's just something about that book That's just like I'm upset that I've read it already Because it's like

like it's done now and I can't read it for the first time again because it's just like I don't know how she does it she just but you're right no one takes well people do take her serious but not they do now they do now and I feel like people like what's interesting is that in the time that because if you listen to the podcast now you'll notice that like it's moved on significantly from that it talks about all kinds of culture you know to things as specific as like the song girls just want to have fun we talked about for an hour and we all talk about things that are as vague in general as like, you know, snacking, you know, like why, why do we still think that meals are the proper way to eat and snacking is the wrong way to eat? Why do we think

that saying the word like a lot in a sentence makes us sound dumb? Like all these things that we go after. And part of the reason that we, I expanded the sort of purview of the podcast was because the fight wasn't worth having anymore because we had won. Like, if you look in the bookshops now, it's all these like beautiful commercial romances by like Emily Henry and Taylor Jenkins read, marrying keys and people are taking these things very seriously and they understand that they take a lot of craft and so it feels like you know that conversation can come to a close because we've all moved on from it but in 2018 it wasn't the case yeah it's amazing how fast that's happened yeah and it will turn back again i fully believe they yeah these things i do think that

like all cultural and social movements come in these waves of pushing forward and then we are three months away from a huge article saying talking about the dumbing down of literature i imagine and then and then there'll be like a post-intellectual flashback and then we'll go back and then in 10 years I'll be on some girls podcast talking about you know like that that's it I think it's that's how it goes is it do you feel that there's a difference so today is the day that your new books come out yes the Rachel incident yeah obviously congratulations thanks do you feel that you because obviously you as a person you've grown you've been in there in the game for longer now yeah kind of know what's up but do you feel like the response is different in that you see the societal differences in the last like

five years do you feel like can you see that in terms of the response of like of this book specifically or just in in the process this time in the way you're being interviewed spoken to yeah it's wild it's great and it's wild because like the um so i wrote two books for grownups and um you know they they did well and they were really well reviewed i mean the first one was like you know did decently and the second one came out during like the first early early months of lockdown when nobody

knew how long was going to go on for or what it even was and so it just kind of tanked and then I had a trilogy for teenagers which was kind of lovely and I still write for young adults and I love it and it's a huge part in my career but what was fabulous about that was that

you know the people who read young adult fiction aren't my peers like you know the ladies that I'm seeing like in Soho or on a media party or seeing for dinner they're like they love and even my dear dear friends I have loads of dear friends

who've never read those books even though they absorbed five years of my life and what's fabulous about that is that you take yourself away really grow as a writer really learn and because you know

trilogies they have to come out in quick succession because you and you're that age you grew up really fast what you like at 15 isn't what you liked at 13 and so they had to come out

quite a clip and so to go away work on your craft for a lot of money and in public and with loads of readers but in a sense socially in private

and then to come back with a new adult novel several years after your last one with a kind of a slightly larger profile better writing generally I think I think the writing is just better than my first two books

and you know more of a kind of a network it feels really cool it feels like something I've worked really hard for and people are like being really kind to me about it you know. Good. I loved it.

Yeah. That's so great. Thanks. Can you tell us a bit about the book? Yeah, absolutely. So it's, um, it starts with our narrator, Rachel, who is, she's 33, three, three, four years old. She's, um, living in London. She's married. She's got a flat. She got a baby. She's got a baby on the way. She's pregnant. Um, and life's all fine. She is Irish. She's from Cork and she's at a kind of, um, one of the sort of Irish expat kind of Christmas parties. And she runs into somebody who asks her, you know, do you know what's happening with Dr. Byrne

you were in my class with him in college he's in a coma and that sort of like first that last page of that first chapter is her kind of thinking how am I supposed to explain to this person that I was not despite popular rumor in cork at the time shagging Dr. Byrne

and so then it goes back in time to so 2009-10 of Rachel living with her best friend this guy called James who's in the closet it and their interactions with Dr. Byrne, his wife, Rachel's boyfriend, Carrie. It's very much like a tight sort of relationship novel, lots of betrayals, lots of, you know, Dr. Byrne does have a wondering eye, but not for Rachel. And lots of just things happen from there.

Oh, is it for her flatmate? It's for her flatmate. And I don't mind spoiling that because it happens on page 17. Okay, I'm going to buy this on the way. Oh, my goodness read it. I'll read out my flight tomorrow. Oh, please do. I'll read it loudly and I'll hover my arm up and just get great because you're going to Ireland tomorrow so it'll be great you know that's my very much my home territory so you can really you know remind everyone on that Ryan Air Flight keep them keep it front and centre yeah yeah that's so exciting congratulations yeah that's really cool thanks very much I'm very excited can I just want to get back to pop culture but can I ask just because I'm nosy yeah what is it like writing a fiction book like is it really I imagine it to be so

chaotic and like so many things you have to remember in this like timeline and storyline yeah is it just is your brain just fried at the end of it sometimes yeah like when i was doing for example the trilogy i wrote that was nuts that was like living in one of those escher paintings with all the stairs do you know mean it was just like yeah yeah and i also like i didn't i never planned it properly because i just like wrote a little story and they were like this feels like a series and then i just kind of made it up from there but i think it you know it was fine in the end but you Yeah, it can really crush down on your brain. And it makes you quite hard to be around, I think, in some ways, because you're only ever half present in the social situations that you're in because you're sort of buzzing away, talking about that. But for Rachel specifically, it was a very different experience because it was the first novel I've written that is quite explicitly based on things that really happened to me.

And by that, I don't mean the events of the book, which are completely fictional. know I mean like I was living in cork in 2010 and I was living with my best friend Ryan and there was no affairs there was none of that but it was just like capturing that time period because it's so weird because we're saying a major I assume I'm 33 and like to think of 2010 as like a period in history like and this is a period novel like there was so many things that were specifically going into that time like the economic crash the fact that you know Ireland still didn't have abortion rights you know

like there was all the kind of pop culture stuff like Paris Hilton and Britney Spears losing your mind and all that kind of stuff it was so

wonderful to especially because I wrote it during COVID to sit in that because there was no new memories happening nothing new was being made so I don't know if you guys

found this at all but like you sat and your memories crept up on you a lot more as you weren't doing anything new it's weird actually hearing you said

I was listening to a song the way here and I can't remember what it's called but I think it's a I think it's Masey Hill and it reminds me of Ed Sheeran's song Castle on a hill my mum's from the Isle of Man which is not too dissimilar from Ireland yeah how it looked but also in like the small town nests and the small town feel that's like it's lovely it's my favourite place in the world but when I listen to those songs I have that feeling like you're saying of like 2010 and my union jack leggings yeah would be tragic so much um and like but it's such of fondness and I can't believe that we're getting to an age where we feel sentimental

yeah but I'm old enough to recognise sentimentality and myself for like era's gone by and I'm like pushing my kid like I'm taking my kid to the Alamand for the first time in a month but I'm like oh god I'm gonna have to show her where like we got fell up by that boy on the beach and then like had a barbecue and like drunk gin for the first time and like all of that stuff you know what I mean like which is it's kind of lovely to yeah that's probably highlighted by having a baby right yeah I think I might be in your life who you can't

and you're all they're like blowing down the street with like the in the car with like I don't know smoking out the car window like that's never going to happen again or like do you know what I mean like that kind of like chaotic innocence

of and I don't know why because I actually spent much more time in London than I did there but for some reason that bit I hold on to in terms of this sentimentality it's so funny isn't it everybody has um you know I always always always

jokes at my mum like when she was 18 she lived in space for like 10 months or something but she always talks about it like it was like a decade yeah the life of her life happened in that time not that she didn't have a full life afterwards yeah but I do think people have these eras in their life and they might be a month or a summer or whatever or just a couple of summers

but when you crush that all down into like a kind of a car cube kind of thing you're like that's kind of who I am that's kind of the root of me is that thing and that was probably your summers in the Isle of Man yeah kind of tragic yeah yeah you kind of can't have I'm like, oh, we all have that, you know. My era, my union jack legging era. Yeah, what an era. But it was, like 2010 was, maybe just because of the age thing, but it kind of felt maybe

it was just like on the cusp of social media. Yeah, yeah. It's exciting for our generation, I think, to sort of look back on that because the internet was a really exciting place, but we also didn't need it that badly. Yeah. You know, it was a place where we went to have fun. Like, do you remember those, like, Facebook groups that would just be like a long statement? Yeah.

Do you know me? Where it'd be like... Yeah, like a joke or like... Like a long joke. Yeah, like a lot of really long joke. Wait, what do you mean? Like it would be like, um, Carolyn Dunnew is now a member of pushing all your furniture together

and pretending of the floor is lava kind of thing. You don't know if that would be it. It was so... So specific. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That unlocked a core memory. I think I had to go through Facebook and like remove myself from all of those groups. It's like, oh my God.

Yeah. That was fun. It was fun. And like writing on each other's walls like. in a very public way but being like coming over to yours now bringing eggs or whatever

you know and like that would be the way we use the internet so differently then didn't we? So differently and you'd write

almost be like had the best time last night I'm so hung over today like why am I telling everyone that like I'm obviously trying to make myself

look cool totally yeah I remember Facebook when Facebook first came in we're roughly a similar age so you must

actually it was in my first year at uni I remember it so clearly and being like what is this? I don't need this I was like the last of my friends was like that's too cool

and then it took over in the UK you guys were very into my space weren't you? Very much so always we had Bebo I was in Bebo oh and then you married an Irishman so that makes sense he must have done

he used to write on my Facebook all the time it was tragic I was like this guy he put this is the most sentimental thing so I met him actually at Glastonbury 13 years ago completely randomly I know so weird That's beautiful

So I met him in the June And then in December He put on Facebook He wrote as a status Is anybody in England Doing anything for New Year's And I read it And I was like

I am technically in England And I do have plans So I replied Is it anybody in England That's so sweet I bit the bill I commented I was like

I'm going to Yes I'm having a New Year's party And he was like Can I come All publicly Like That's so gorgeous I love that

That is sweet Yeah we had a couple of little like bombs in the road between then and now, but, like, is anyone in England having a party? And it's just like, the answer is, yes, of course they are. There will be some parties in England this New Year, babe, like. In England, it's so specific. That's adorable.

And he was so far away in England as well from where I was. But, like, it didn't, it's like it didn't matter. Like, it was just like, it was just England. It's England, yeah. How far did he travel to get to you? Oh, hundreds of miles. Like, from Rye. Oh, my God.

He so posted their Facebook post, just, for you as well. Like, he's so good. He just wanted you really to invite him. But I don't think he had many English friends, so I think it probably was just for me. But I don't saw it. Much if you hadn't. It'd have been in right by himself.

I'm going to delete that. In England, by himself. And he is. Oh, you've just reminded me of something of like, yeah, I remember like doing that thing where you post on your wall, just hoping for somebody very specific to see it. Which is different to, like, I think people do that on Twitter and Instagram all the time. But with Twitter and Instagram, there's more of an understanding that like we all have we could all have thousands of people following us and we don't know them but back then in facebook you pretty much were friends of people that you knew or

were friends of friends and so you had a very targeted idea of who you wanted to see it very targeted and so i used to remember right in my wall there's a guy that i fancied in college and like every once in a blue moon he'd drive me home because we lived vaguely in the same area and like i'd be like posting my mom being like wow wonder if anybody else is leaving college at six o'clock tonight it's just like oh so so pathetic Oh, it's so good. Or like those elusive posts that were like, not okay. Just at hospital, but I'm fine.

What a scary day. What a scary day! And then you'd get, and then so, oh my God, are you okay? And you were by going to end me, hon. Yeah. Oh, my God. I'll DM you. Yeah.

Oh, so bad. That's such a, that's the kind of a, yeah, a part of social media that we don't have anymore. isn't it of just like friends and acquaintances and therefore being quite transparent but also quite hidden at the same time oh god yeah you're right the internet was exciting then yeah and we also again we didn't need it like no we didn't we rely on it really for anything

apart from maybe looking at flats and we were moving but that was it yeah we didn't need it for anything no and sometimes you'd look up a menu for like dominoes like sometimes I wouldn't even do that you'd have the leave for us I remember the first time when I was living with Ryan who this book is like partially inspired by that he ordered a pizza off Domino's off his laptop and I was like this is a new frontier but I think it's funny how everybody every generation does sort of think that their their little period between like 17 and 20 or whether that was the best time to be young

like I was at a party recently and there was guys sitting around there talking and they were like do you know what back when we were kids that's when porn was really porn you know that was when porn was good it was wholesome it was like whatever it's like no it was it's wholesome porn yeah yeah that's so funny storylines and sets you know yeah like well magazines as well presumably yeah yeah that's sentimental oh god like a porn mag don't think they yeah they do still make them now do that yeah I was on the piss with a friend

a while ago and uh we were like just buying booze to have back at our Airbnb we were having like a weekend away and we just bought a copy of Razzle and it was so innocent it's it's so obviously for like like little old men oh no that's not what I thought you're gonna say I think I could say like little boys no no it's like it's very just like oh

busty woman bending over a car and it's like because yeah obviously 12 year old boys are like going on you porn and seeing the worst thing you've ever seen in your life it's clearly little old men who were like my dirty mag yeah oh that's quite sweet then

I find it I find it now yeah I've got I'm weird about old men though because when I see old men by myself by themselves in the supermarket I'm like oh I know I do that

I know I'm very bad for that as well I see them buying like a meal for one I'm like oh I'm probably a horror you're probably you're probably kids hate you because you're a horror that's why you're eating alone but I just think it's a man from up it's just like no your wife's dead

they're never the man from up they're never the man from up I know but I always think they are I have an elderly neighbour and I do try and help her out and I know that's our responsibility as a community members, but she is a bitch. She's like, never

stops bragging about her cruises. And how much money she's making off her several rental properties. I'm like, she can't help herself there. I'm like, Becky, you know, I don't own again. Like, you know, this is not very nice. You're bragging about all the flats that you're renting out to students. She's like, okay. Oh. This is why no one visits you.

This is why you're stuck with me. Yeah, exactly. Okay, so now you've moved the podcast on from from individual like the film that's when I first found it and I have to say they've got a special place

in my heart those episodes like listening to an in-depth analysis of like Titanic the one you did on Wimbledon which is such a specific I don't think that film

got the press that it deserved yeah with Jesse Brown Finley it was just amazing she was so good it's only ever as good as the guest is do you know I can't

yeah no I feel so jealous of you guys having like a permanent co-host because you don't have to be like anxious about what someone's going to bring to the table because most of the time it's like incredible and they're people what's lovely is like and here's actually I imagine I'd actually be interested in your thoughts on this whereas like the bigger a podcast gets the more it becomes interesting to publicists who have clients who are promoting their book or their show or whatever they're doing

and those people and I can relate to this because I'm doing it right now you know like I've done like five podcasts in the last two days and you can't listen to all of them in advance and you just sort of are given a very short brief and you're like okay I'm going in and then and for sentimental garbage the whole the joy of the podcast is supposed to be that like people are really intense about something they've wanted to talk about for years yeah like it's supposed to be like okay I've always want to talk about how Wimbledon is so good and like nobody ever rates it but I rate it and here's why and the magic doesn't work the same if it's somebody who like has been told by the publicist to do it and they've like oh oh I've I don't know, I guess I'll talk about Kermit the Frog. Yeah. I like him, I guess. Do we mean? Yeah. You need someone's, like, passion.

Yeah, yeah. But that comes through in the, like, because it's, I don't know why I have such a niche interest in that film. It just reminds me of home. It's just, like, such a lovely, like, quintessential film. It's so weird that it's not a Richard Curtis film. Isn't it? No.

Isn't it? It feels so weird. Like, it has to, does he just forget he made it? I don't know. Literally, why isn't he put his name to that? It's a weird, like, whoever did direct, produce, whoever as it was should just renounce it to be like no rich it's fine you have it but like that opening thing with the tennis balls

and the eyes and the pit uh it's so good and she's so good as well because she's so good and so young um so good that sorry but like that i just love that episode because it is just so much passion but there was so much there's so much of what you talk about in films that it was like as as a sister i always had to campaign with my brother to get him to watch these films with me and it's really nice it's like I'm getting my little vengeance like 15 years later I'm like oh they are serious films

they are good other people like them too it's not just me like pushing my brother like come on you're gonna love it like let's watch Devil Wars Prada Bridget Jones is just misunderstood like you'll like it when you get to know her so it's just like I don't know

but do you feel like that kind of like genre and era of film is just gone the sort of like Richard Curtis what a great question yes it is it is And that's sad, isn't it? Obviously, like, there are still, like,

great filmmakers around. Like, I'm so excited about Greta Gerwig's Barbie. Like, I just can't. Yeah. It's going to be such an event. Like, it can be so good. It comes out on my birthday. I know, what a gift. Thanks, Greta.

Oh, what a gift. I would love to do, like, a sentimental garbage screening of it when it'd be so good. I've got to do that. You have to do that. I'm so lazy. That's such a good idea. No, do it.

I'll try, yeah. I'll be your first listen. But like, yeah, like going on, it would be so great of having a cup BFI screening and then like interviewing somebody afterwards. Yeah, oh my God, do it. Just not even for my own sort of egotistical purposes,

but more just because like, whenever I've done events with like sentimental garbage girlies, it's always like such a good atmosphere because it's like everyone has permission to feel really strongly about the stupid things. And like, that's a nice room to be in. But I'm sorry, the films like that anymore, I think it's, I mean, it's quite boring answer,

but it's sadly true. where it's um the fun how films get funded is completely different now than it was when we were growing up isn't it so what what what it takes for people to go to the cinema is very different now I think it used to be very normal just for people just rock up in the cinema like a Thursday or Friday and be like what's on and like it would be six very different movies on and some of them would be for children and some of them would be for adults and you know if you think about like an era where like the sort of Woody Allen style movies where obviously I don't you know approve of Woody Allen as a person, but there's no doubt that, like, there was a time when

people went to the movies every week for, like, a grown-up movie about relationships and all of the people in those movies were adults talking about the relationships with one another. And that's not quite rare, like, defined. And they weren't particularly, like, dramatic or sorrowful or tragedy-laden or graphic. It was just, like, people, people going through life, you know? And, like, I really miss that. And I think now that if people want to go to the cinema it has to be like almost a theme park sort of vibe it's got to be the barbie like yeah spectacle like a dopamine like yeah in a film like very sensory and and lights and yeah exactly and then obviously now they make they make rom-coms for streamers now like netflix and amazon

but they never hit the same no and because they look weird yeah and they don't have hugh graham like yeah and also all like i'm not to shade like the people in these films i'm sure they're great you know at the or whatever there's a lot of Instagram face yeah do you mean yeah there's not there's the character like I always think Notting Hill is one of my favourite ever films like obviously that's an original an original favourite but like

it's so good it's so good but if you think about like we've never done it on the podcast actually you should come on and do it don't even tell me I will be there yesterday I would be so die yeah I've been meaning to do it for ages but if you think about the external characters in that like not just like his family and friends and you go to his friend and

it's like they're just like I know to say normal they're just not and I actually yeah I can't even remember who the cast is but it's just like he's got his normal friends and it's not them like making their like I don't know big sex lives or one of them's got a drug problem or whatever

like there's like a mild alcoholic totally you can't hold a restaurant and then the rest of them are just like fine I'm a lawyer yeah I've had a busy day well I'm a bit bumbley yeah but they're just I think that movie we'll talk about this on the podcast but like I think that movie gets a lot of like schick, and so does the Richard Curtis

Uvra in general of like, oh God, he lives in the middle of like Notting Hill High Street and blah, like all. First of all, movies are supposed to be fun and they're supposed to be beautiful and like they're supposed to be these like fantasy places where we can get carried away and see people living on these wonderful streets on Notting Hill Market and it goes up to

his little house of the Blue Door is beautiful. Which, by the way, it's still got cues out after it. I get my nails done next to the Blue Door and every day I'll curse you. Richard Curtis, God damn it. You had your Notting Hill moment yesterday, didn't you? with a horse and hound into the horse and hound

every journalist has a horse and hound story don't they I did the Mission Impossible Junket for the female lead I don't know if you've heard of them but it was

I hadn't done anything like that for so long because I've been out of journalism now for ages and I forgot everything and like the timer you know

and she's like four three then two then one and then she's like wrap up I completely ignored her. I thought she was talking to someone over there and she said, can you not see

me? I was mortified. Like in front of it was Haley Atwell. Mortified, I was like, I'm sorry. That's not too bad. Wrap it up, wrap it up. Then you had Tom Cruise in the lobby with you. Pretty cool. It was cool. Yeah. But everyone should say this, but the film it's just so, I can't bear

action films. I can't bear them. You can't bear in the mission of one? no action just action I can't I'm like it takes so much for me to care even one bit yeah car chase you've seen them all there's nothing different it's just the same thing destruction you're just killing people and like leave you so much mess to clean up I can't I don't I don't so right they leave such a mess trail of absolute destruction and no one just seems to care and the the cleanups not showed and I'm like what happened what happened to it I care a bit more when it's women I don't know why I just yeah I can I can I can fasten on to it more for some reason

if it's like a lady yeah it's like kind of annoying like I don't know again growing up with my brother and in and I suspect this is the same for like so many families where you were all sisters actually so it's probably different but like if we wanted to watch like a film it would be like oh we need something with a car chase in it and it was like that was like what would if it's got a car chase in it we'll watch and it's like and I'd always have to like campaign to watch one of my films what was one of your films probably Notting Hill yeah yeah you know not even And like, and I've heard you talk about this in the podcast, and it's such a frustrating term,

but I guess people are taking it back now, which is great, like chicklit and chick flicks and whatever. But at the time, you did feel a bit ashamed of them. Yeah. But I kind of felt like you had like the American chick flicks, which were like, Freaky Friday. That was one of my favorite films ever. But like those, like Freaky Friday, like the American ones,

I would never get those across the line in the house. Like I'd never get the whole gang to watch those. So it would always be like the English one. like Richard Curtis' ones would be like the compromise. Wimbledon would be like the, okay, well, I'm not going to get Lindsay Lohan into the house, but I will probably get Julia Roberts. And I hate that as well because like you spend so,

and I definitely think about all that about this with a typical garbage where you spend so long, you know, having made to feel slightly ashamed or shitty about things that you like, that even when you do get your way and you do get to watch your film, whether it's with your brother when you're a kid or with your boyfriend or your partner when you're older, you can't even enjoy it yourself because you keep watching it through their eyes and you're like that's so true i hate that feeling so much especially like if you know i'm

watching something that i find great value and meaning and depth in like you know the gilmore girls or something for example if i'm re-watching that and gavl always walk in at like the like the dopiest shittiest moment and he'll just like do that a thing where he like squint at the screen and puts his hands on his hips and like squats down he's like oh that's this what's it about what are you watching and i'm like you don't care go away and you'll ruin it you'll ruin it ruin it with your questions and you're not going to like it and then you're going to sour the vibe

but it's all good in here until then I remember I was like crying at the last five minutes of like Mona Lisa smile like properly hiccuping and like so I couldn't get over it and then he walks into the room and it was Kristen Dunce

oh there she's again her voiceover saying not all those who wander are lost and he went very good impersonation it actually was good Yeah, it was really good. All those who wonder are lost.

And Gab just went, blah. And I was like, because it's a stupid piece of dialogue and isolation. Yeah. But also, you haven't been here for the last two hours. Exactly.

In context, powerful. Yeah, it's very powerful in context. I'm too much of a people-pleaser. I think that's why I actually, I feel like I'm unlocking. I think that's why I don't like watching films. Really? Yeah, because I never got my way

in the ones that I did watch. And then when I do put them on, I get very self-conscious. and I want everybody else to like them. Do you just not like films then? Now, I really struggle to watch films. Really? Yeah, I can watch them alone.

You'll watch like four episodes of TV show though, right? Yeah, and I'll watch, Harder since I'll have you baby. But I'll watch films alone, but I struggle to watch films with other people. I get a bit panicked. What is, it's so weird. Why is it so hard?

I know obviously, like, Netflix and Amazon and sort of the surfeit of choice and everything, but for some reason, why is it so easy to, like, put on, like, for us, if we're coming back from, like, the pub, and it's only half nine so we have like and it's a Saturday

so we have time to watch something it'll always end up being like five episodes of peep show because we can't decide on any film it's like we have we got together we have common interests

why can we find nothing yeah because Alex always wants to watch a car or he all just says a comedy and I'm like let's watch something let's be serious I'm like no it's just light like a comedy

and I'm like fuck it let's just watch succession I do think it's an abundance of choice I can't cope with that I'd rather there'd be like five things for me to choose from and then I would choose, but totally. You're like 5,000.

What am I supposed to choose? I think it's my favorite thing about going on holidays. Like, so my parents have like a caravan in the west of Ireland that me and Gav go like once a year for like five or six days and it's always beautiful and we have like big long days at the beach and then all you can do at night is like go to the pub and then on watch TV, that's it. And it's always like five channels and it's always like the big, big movie of the week is crocodile done.

D2. We have no choice. We have to watch it. And then we always have the best time. That's the thing. And my parents have got a dish in and I was like you've ruined it. You've ruined the hard I would put your dish. It sucks. Too much choice is a curse. I watched Jurassic Park 2 the other day. I was like, oh this is fantastic.

I watched Paddington too the other day. Oh, good Lord. I was, I was weeping. I was sobbing. I couldn't catch my breath. Dave was like, are you all right? I'm like, no. You grant a new era. Aunt Lucy.

I'm so thrilled for him. He is, we said this a couple of episodes ago, that losing his looks is the best thing that ever happened to his acting. But what I think is so weird that like, Hugh Grant was so powerful for a time in the 90s and naughties that when he stopped

being the right age to play the British rom-com hero, they stopped making British rom-coms. Yeah, that's so true. They were like, Hugh's too old and he won't do it anymore. That's down. And now we no longer make rom-com. Surely they can pick another bumbling. They tried with Donald Gleason and he couldn't do it

He's Irish obviously But I had Paul Bettany for Wimbledon And that was pretty much the end of it I know and he was the best hope I think And even still people were like It's not he who don't want it No I suppose he No he was Australian and then he died

But Heath Ledger would have been No I think he Too fit The thing what often happens with male actors Is that women have them first And then when they get Like think about Matthew McConaughey And Robert Pattinson

and Brad Pitt and Thalmondoese like we insulate their talent in our little incubators of our love and adoration for years and years and they're in films when they're hot with them they're with women and then they hit 45 they play a guy who's in the CIA and then men decide that they're real

and they're like I love him we loved him he was ours since Brad Pitt did like Mr. Smith or what was that one where he got shot in the cupboard and spoiler alert for if you haven't seen it Shot in the coat Yeah, what's the call?

Burn after reading. He was so funny. He was so weird, but he was so funny in that. But that felt like when he became like a man, like a boy boy, boy. Yeah. We lose them. They become boys' boys.

Yeah. Oh yeah. They take them all. Because that's so interesting. He featured them went into Batman because he'd done a night style. Yeah. So I think we were in the process of losing Heath Ledger anyway. Yeah.

Not to say that he should have died. But I'm saying he was never going to come back to Rom-Conville. No. Yeah, you're so, that's such a good point. I know. I'm going to bank that for my podcast. Yeah. As you should.

Yeah, that's such a, like, tragedy. The real tragedy. The real tragedy of this story. So we didn't get to keep them. We find the treasures. It's like, we're like, yeah, we spend ages, like polishing a diamond. And then it's like, we'll have that, thanks. Yeah, and I always really annoys me when people talk about Matthew McConaughey's, like,

because remember there was like the McConaissance. Do you remember that? That was a big term for a while. And, yeah, like, they were talking about, oh, yeah, he made a time to kill. and then he, which was this big, prestigious sort of like John Grisham adaptation, and then he was like, you know, how to lose a guy in 10 days and Gold Rush and all these. Like, he was really good in those movies and they were really good rom-coms.

But, like, we act like he was in the doldrums for years and he wasn't. He was being beloved by millions of women globally. Yeah. I'm really angry now. I wonder if that happened when Leonardo DiCaprio, because he did Titanic. Totally, 100%. And he did Romeo and Julia. Yeah.

And then he kind of went on a weird one in that he, because he did a lot of the action. didn't he? Yeah, and then he did like Great Gatsby, which was quite dramatic again, but that goes. But people hated it and they should because sucked. Oh, Alex loved, my Alex loved it. Really? Was it panned?

Great Gatsby? Yeah. Yeah, I think so. Okay. I don't think it was panned so much as like, we all pretended it didn't exist. That's very true. Yeah, I don't know how I fail about Leo. No, I don't, but... Can I have my high take on Leo? Yes, please. Here's what I think. Leave them off.

Do you what I mean? it's like I okay here's my fuller thing and this is the real should I delete that or whatever like yes

okay Leo DiCaprio is what he's like 45 46 something of that and he goes out with 22 year olds okay like 22 year olds are still adult women

like being a pedo and being someone who exclusively goes out with young models are first of all different things second of all DiCaprio is focused

on two things in life he is focused on saving the environment which is a big job we can all agree and winning as many Oscars as he possibly can also a very big job

and took him ages to get that first one it really did it really did so like the one thing that he cannot fit into his schedule

is an age appropriate woman with once needs an ailing father probably wants to have a kid before she's 38 but she runs a major

studio so she's like he's got no time for that no would you not prefer he could date somebody would you not prefer he's not prefer

he eat off the years of a woman under the age of 25 who is perfectly suited to be his girlfriend and go to Monaco and do fun things and not worry about whether or not she's going to marry him have a baby with him

she knows the deal he knows the deal he's not eating up any of her great childbearing years everyone has fun they part ways you've got a point actually I can't really argue with that

get in the Oscar let and save the world yeah the beds will thank him I would feel if there was new that graph that goes around about the women he dates or whatever

the ages of them. I would feel way worse if it was like he went out with this woman when she was 35 he dumped her when she was 40. Wouldn't you? Yeah.

Yeah. That would be awful. Taking the last the last. The last bit of the good and squeezed in it. Yeah. That would be crushing.

I think he's really done nothing bad. No. I mean there are stories but like phones. Yeah. The earphones. The earphones.

Yeah. The earphones. Oh my God. Has everyone heard that? Everyone's heard that. Have you not heard that? Yeah, I thought I thought inside it

Expo. Do you want to explain into the, listener is just very. Please don't do me for defamation if it's untrue. This is all alleged. Rumour and it's alleged. Rumour.

And he's not listening, so let's feel out. Unlikely. Apparently, Leo likes to wear his headphones when he's getting chuggy with it. To listen, we have the same thing, to listen to the Titanic sound track.

Oh, not heard that. Yeah. That sounds like Chinese whispers. What have you heard? Well, it was just that. Just the headphones. Just the headphones. Yeah. Yeah.

But also, my last thing in defensively, I do think he is a fabulous actor. He's amazing. He's a brilliant actor. And, like, he's got great taste in projects and, like, he's just, he's added a lot of interesting stuff into the world. Wolf of Wall Street was so fun. Epic. So good. So good.

But one thing that we always forget about Leonardo DiCaprio because he's so successful is that as a child actor. Yeah. Like, he was a child actor. He was. He was a child actor. He's like, you know, working from a really young age. And we forget that because his transition into adulthood was so seamless. But we know the fucked up things that happened to child actors. And they definitely happen to him.

Like, and he's never talked about it. He's never said anything about his personal life. He's so close and guarded. I think some screwed up things happened to him. And he probably lives in an eternal 21-year-old summer as a coping mechanism. That's my theory. I really do. Yeah.

Yeah. I was at the Elliott Page event last night. And he was talking about like what growing up. as a child actor and like it sounds like awful and he's come through it incredibly sane and grounded and like and think about somebody who has a less stable home life like i don't oh yeah i not for all the money um can i ask in your because this is like your your major um pop culture do you think it's gone now like do you think like in in the like in the magazines that we had the like The, like the chaotic magazine era, I suppose.

And the way that we would describe, like, the sort of chick flicky, chick-litty, like the way that we could be quite dismissive of things. I think what I mean is we take things so much more seriously now. Everything is studied, like, articles rightly. If they're problematic, are, like, picked up on social media, shared, you know, like, criticised, critiqued, made better. Do you think the, like, kind of, woo era has gone? The woo era.

You know what I mean? like they're kind of just like messy and like just fun for the sake of fun fun for the sake of fun yeah like that's what I mean by like pop culturey like yeah like proper like bubbly bubble yeah like bubble handwriting and like yeah

God what an interesting question yeah I remember like picking up heat in his prime remember when heat was like not mean and really funny yeah like that was a real moment even when it was mean yeah we do of horror and you're a bit like ah yeah she's sweaty

I remember picking up a issue of that years ago and the centre spread was like it was so frank about the fact that there hadn't really been that much going on that week and it was Jerry Hallowell like she's out, she's shopping, it starts raining so she catches a bus and it was like six pages of that

and the picture captions which were always the funniest part of of heat were so frank about the fact they were like yeah we don't know this is our lives I guess we're doing this we're watching in the bus Yeah, so self-aware. It was so self-aware. It was so funny. And I think there is some of that still.

I don't know how the sort of de moire culture really sits with me. Do you know anything about that? No. Yeah. Oh, so yeah. Do you want to explain? Yeah, so it's an anonymous account and that basically they publish tips about celebrities. Yeah, blind items.

Blind items, yeah. But like, it itself is a kind of a celebrity entity because it has two million followers. it's a book deal the person who makes it runs a podcast and so it's a huge amount of content being digested all the time and it's all it is is people DM being like I think it started off being like I just saw Chris Pratt getting a smoothie or whatever yeah but then it got really it gets really intense to like you know yeah just like major leaks like major leaks and personal lives and I do think that since we all got phones and since we started needing the internet like the the constant surveillance makes it not feel fun

because it used to be with paparazzi and like I was watching a documentary in Paula Yates the other night and there was bits where like there was friends of her being like I strongly suspect that a lot of the time during the beginning of her career she was calling the paparazzi on herself

and there used to be a lot of like yeah people did call the paparazzi on themselves but now the sort of surveillance culture makes it feel quite icky of like someone should be able to just go to the gym and be on the treadmill and then get a juice and not have like 10 people on their phone, and not even 10, hundreds of people on their phone

capturing them every step of the way. It just doesn't seem like fair play. No. It's just bit rank, isn't it? Yeah. I've seen them when I said, like, you know, you're a hard push to feel sorry for the Kardashians, but like, when you just watch them leaving the dim,

and it's just like, oh, that's got to be a lot. When Des Moire first started, I watched all the stories, and at some point I was like, I don't know what I'm doing, actually. Like, what is this actually bringing to my life? No. Knowing that, like, someone, saw Timothy Shalame in New York and he looked grumpy or something. I'm like, I don't care. Like, what am I doing? This is not helping me, but it's huge. It's really, really huge.

How I never heard of them? I don't know. I don't know. It's very big. How long's it been, where is it? It's an Instagram primarily. Yeah. Why don't I follow that? You shouldn't. It's better for you that you do. Yeah, and I like that for me. Because in, but in lots of ways that era was so mean, like I remember so vividly in magazines those photos of Brittany and the umbrella and it's like that sort of wouldn't happen now but then with it's just it's like a different level of mean it's like a different I don't know different kind of mean I don't know yeah it's it's funny because in some senses I feel like because there are more famous people than ever before and it is more tangible and imaginable to the regular human being that they could possibly

become famous for reason they even understand they could like do a viral you know the kombucha girl TikTok you know she like lives in LA and it's like a full career based off of that you know like it's more feasible for anybody to become famous now and so I do feel like the empathy

gap that was there in the 10 or 15 years ago has definitely closed I think that people understand that it's hard to be a human being for the most part and that you know this fame is difficult and it's probably you know less fun than it is fun if you know I mean

yeah um but also that even though that gap has filled the um the phone sort of thing has intensified stand culture like um you know the guy who played you're tom feldon yeah yeah yeah he talks about like when he was just off those movies he was like yeah you know then the movies they were great and he'd get recognized every now and then and then he would move on with his life um and it was kind of every couple of days he'd someone would come up to him on the street and ask for an autograph and he said now he gets mobbed everywhere even though his last piece of work was 15 years ago

you know? Wow yeah so I do think yeah it's intensified Stalin culture I think yeah yeah and that even though it's people trying to love the person that has like yeah it's a weird love yeah and they're still waiting for them to trip up it's a very fickle love yeah very fickle love

yeah yeah because they find out that you're dating someone who's like 20 years younger than you or whatever or there's some problematic whatever and it's like and you're done totally yeah and my kind of only insight into that is like is being really close friends with Dolly and like she's somebody, she's the only person I know intimately who's like

properly famous. That's still the older turn. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Sorry, like, she's Adele. Yeah. And she's still somebody who like, you walk down the street with her and like 10 people stop her kind of thing. It takes ages to get anywhere. And it's made me realize like and that's still a very form of like select author creator fame. It's not even like being an actor

or something but like the thing of like oh everybody who comes up to us and a lie out is desperate to have a little story about you that they can then tell everybody else yeah I would go mad I don't know how she's going to mad it's not good I don't remember but we asked for photos with her

it was so embarrassing oh what it's good it was lovely it was everybody had a podcast listen to come up to us my hand do it was just so fun and we were so excited that we were like we have a photo with you oh that's so nice it was so fun I would have been the exact same.

Yeah, we're like, oh, do you. Pop World in Bristol. Yeah. That's so good. Oh, thank you so much. Thank you. I thought that we could have done this for like, ever. Yeah, well, we will. When you come into my podcast.

Don't, I will die. Thank you so much. Thank you. That was really fun. Thank you. That was great. I absolutely loved it. Should I delete that is part of the ACAS creator network.