The Phonebox Podcast With Emma Conway - Sex Education In The 90s: Riona O Connor

Episode Date: February 5, 2024

Sex education lessons in the 90s were WILD! On this week's episode of The Phonebox Podcast we chat all things willys and fancying boys with the amazing comedian Riona O Connor! How we were clueless and how she hid her love of the opposite sex by using horses as a cover.Be sure to go and check out the hilarious Riona on instagram here and grab tickets to her next shows!For more of me follow @brummymummyof2 on Instagram, YouTube, Facebook and TikTok and follow the @phoneboxpodcast account on Instagram for polls and nostalgic fun.If you have any guest suggestions, topics you would like me to cover email [e-mail] and be sure to tag so I can see where you are listening!Editing by Soundtruism. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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you've had a lovely week. It's flipping freezing in Birmingham. I'm going to use the phrase, it's Baltic. I don't know if that's a Midlands phrase, but it's the phrase I'm going to use. It's flipping Baltic. I have, I'm going to say a ray of sunshine, a bit of comedic delight on the podcast today. Welcome to the Phone Box podcast, Reena O'Connor. How are you? I'm good. I'm not too shabby at all now. How are you? I'm good. Is it Baltic where you are and do you use that phrase? Oh girl, it's Baltic here, yeah, and we do use that phrase, yeah. It definitely is Baltic. You definitely say that at home, like, yeah, it's freezing. It's freezing.

I wonder if it's a 90s phrase or if it's i don't you don't hear many people saying it's baltic anymore well you don't maybe it is maybe we should bring it back let's get it trending i think it's accurate to uh describe what we're feeling so why would we not use it exactly right now where before we get started where can people find you because i know you're doing gigs and you're on instagram so tell the people where they can find you well the easiest place is pop to instagram and it's reena o'connor underscore on instagram and facebook and tiktok theme and i'm doing a few gigs coming up in london and in luton this year which i'm very terrified and excited about um and yeah that's where you find me

yeah she's great you should definitely go on instagram the instagram world can be a little bit um miserable sometimes but you do very funny stuff and very relatable so i liked your one you did the other day about foundation because i literally rock rock affair ivory oh definitely well what is it what did i say was you know are you what. Well, what is it? What did I say? Was, you know, are you, what's your skin shade? Is it porcelain? No. Is it, you know, are you whiter than a polar bear's arse?

No. Is it anemic Victorian with cholera? Isn't going to make it through the winter? That's the one. That's the one. I'm always going right down to the bottom. Right, that's the one. And then if I get a bit of a tan, I think I'd go up to ivory.

Just a little bit. A little bit, a little bit colour. Okay, right right so what year were you 14 oh jeepers so i was born in 1981 so where does that make me in 90 you're 94 not 95 95 a great year were you i presume you're based in ireland then what part of Yeah, I was home. So from County Kerry, a town called Trilley. And that's where I spent all my life until I was 19. Then I moved up to Dublin and then I came over here

then when I was 21 to the UK. So yeah, all the teenage years were in the lovely Trilley, County Kerry. Oh, lovely. I think I've been, I went on a little, because I was talking,

Stephen's, my husband's Irish, and we did like a tour of Ireland before we had kids. And I'm sure I went to Trulia. Is it pretty? It's very pretty. Yeah. But Trulia is near lots of pretty places. Okay. You like that. So we're really near the beach.

So when I was growing up, like it was never the case of, oh, do you want to go to the beach? It was, well, which beach? Which beach? Oh, lovely. It's like 10, 12, 15 beaches within like 10 to half an hour drive. Do you know what I mean? Oh, so nice. We went somewhere where there evidently was a dolphin,

a famous dolphin. Yeah, Dingle. Yeah. That's really close. Sadly, he wasn't there. We drove all the way. Oh, for God's sake. I think it's Fungi.

Fungi the dolphin. I think he passed away recently. I think he did. I think my mother-in-law told me that. Yeah, sadly. So I never got to see him. Oh, sadly. You missed out there.

You missed out. Let's dedicate this podcast to Fungi the dolphin. Okay. So what did you have on your bedroom walls? When I was a teenager, two things happened. The first one was I wanted to paint my room the color nirvana nirvana was the color I chose to paint my walls and it was like this purpley pale purpley color and uh and it wasn't great didn't match anything else in the room but I was like no it's

nirvana and nirvana are cool and I like nirvana and all the cool boys like nirvana so I'm going to put my one nirvana and then the other thing I Nirvana so I'm going to put my one Nirvana and then the other thing I did was because I was scared of boys so I would not have put any picture of a boy on my room no way

not a picture of a band not any no Peter and Jay none of those I was scared because if I put a picture of a boy on my wall then someone might know

that I liked boys and how dare you like boys how dare you how dare I I mean that's so no so i refuse you that so what i had on my walls was horses we weren't stealing horses i used to get like the horse and hound magazine or whatever it was called and i used to rip out the posters from horse and hound

and it was wallpaper literally you couldn't see i mean i don't know why i was so worried about this nirvana color because you couldn't fucking see it just horses you didn't care that people knew you're obsessed with horses but you thought I don't want to I don't want people to know I like a boy um did you secretly like boys in your head and but you just couldn't put the post through yes oh my god I liked all the boys but I think like you know the way like you know the tiny things that happen to you when you're a teenager or you're a kid and you're just scared for life like now what happens to you you might bat an eyelid or even if it happened to someone else you'd be like gosh that's not too bad but like when you're a teenager any like any interaction with boys like i remember when i was young i don't think i was a teenager

yet but like this boy from my state came over and he with another boy and he was like um oh like you do you want to go out with me and I was like uh okay alright yeah okay and then and then he turned around

to the boy next to him and he goes told you and then they walked away and then they walked away let's find him let's find him we track him down

and absolutely like you shave his head or something make him horrible shave his head yeah because his hair was his thing. He was like, you know, the Kurt Cobain look.

That was his thing. Of course. He was fit. So he looked fantastic with a shaved head anyway. Oh, they're always fit. The Rungans are always fit. That's the problem. So that scared me for life.

So then I was like, well, no, I can never admit I like ever again, ever. So that's why I had horses. Hey, you're a Canadian podcast listener, and that makes why it has horses. We'll complete it and we'll give you a chance to win one of three $100 Amazon gift cards. That way, we can say thanks for your opinion. Just go to mypodcastsurvey.ca and have your say. That's mypodcastsurvey.ca. With the Fizz loyalty program, you get rewarded just for having a mobile plan. You know, for texting and stuff. And if you're not getting rewards like extra data and dollars off with your mobile plan,

you're not with Fizz. Switch today. Conditions apply. Details at fizz.ca. So I went. Pardon where my safety net. They're not going to reject me. Boys are mean.

Let's go, baby. Boys are mean. I'm telling you. So that was like my teenage interaction with boys, like just scarred for life. I'm go, baby. Oh, he's a mean. I'm telling you. So that was like my teenage interaction with boys, like just scarred for life.

I'm telling you now. Yeah, I've really tried to with my children say, look, we need to step away from them. If they're like you,

they're mean to you. I don't like that like plot. I don't want that to be like the trope of your life. If they're mean to you, they're arseholes.

That's it. 100%. So like step away. Just be with people that are nice to you. Because you always have that like kind of like, oh, bad boy. No, they're arseholes. Okay. So in your head, who did you secretly fancy that was famous?

Oh my goodness. I think I really liked, do you know what I like? I'm not even sure what he looks like anymore. But do you know I'm not even sure what he looks like anymore but do you remember the song it was a song called Jessie by Joshua Cadiston now this is a

Jessie oh that is I couldn't I was in love with that song at the piano and there was this reading something

about her on a beach or something and I was like it was I mean I couldn't even tell you what he looks like. But it was that voice. I couldn't tell you what he looks like, but that song. That voice, that song.

And how he was just like constantly re-falling in love with her and trying not to fall in love with her. Because the relationship would ultimately just never work. But he was like, we can't be together, Jessie. We can't be together. But he was like, okay like okay well just tell me how's it gonna be if this dream is gonna come true

right and I was like oh he loves her so much I haven't yeah so that was it was that song for me

what else oh I mean obviously Jon Bon Jovi I'm gonna say not you are coming up with niche

crushes we've not had a Jon Bon Jovi oh my god definitely Jon Bon Jovi not had a Jon Bon Jovi now. Oh my God, definitely Jon Bon Jovi. We've not had a Jon Bon Jovi. I don't think, like, I liked all the boy bands, but I don't think I would ever have admitted to fancying any of them because they were too, like, it would, I felt like I could never go there

because I was afraid, like, of constant rejection. Whereas Jon Bon Jovi was, like, so away. He would never reject me. See, I thought you were going to say, I thought I stood a chance at Jon Bon Jovi was like so away. He would never... See, I thought you were going to say I thought I stood a chance with John Paul Jovi. There was never a chance I would meet John Paul Jovi and he would fall in love with me. It was just wonderful.

He is in a good film. Is he in a film with Sandra Bullock? Is he in a film with somebody? Where he played the carpenter. He was hot in that. Yeah. He played the carpenter and he's got the bad thing pictured.

He's got like denim. Yeah, and like floppy hair. Floppy hair, proper 90s floppy. Oh, God, he's fit. Oh, Jesus above. Absolutely divine. Like absolutely divine. I swear to God.

And he got me going. He's still got it. He's still fit. Oh, he's gorgeous. Isn't his son going out with someone famous now? His son has gone out with someone really famous. I can't. I feel like his son is going out with someone.

It's not one of the Jenners. I don't know man i'm so out of touch i i couldn't even tell you but he definitely is going out it's not olivia rodriguez i don't know we'll find out and i'm gonna look what the other man looks like as well okay so we talked about your bedroom what music were you into so i loved i loved the Beatles and I loved Guns and Roses and I love I mean I sort of loved everything I would I would listen to everything that was in the charts I did the thing where you know you'd have your um your tape player and you'd be listening to the radio and you're like if you hear a song you like and you press record you know it was that I loved all of like the big anything that was playing like in the day I loved

them all but yeah the ones that I would listen to on repeat were Guns N' Roses, Bon Jovi, The Beatles you're quite credible you're quite credible you know I do like it I did have The Beatles the red and the blue album um and that's what I just listened to like continuously I think I probably played it to boys to try and look a bit cool as well I was like just going to pop the Beatles on lads I wouldn't have got any boys anywhere near my house or anywhere to play anything to she was such a lucky bitch

did you go to a girls school? I did you can probably smell it off me I went to like an all girls Catholic school and we you go to a girl's school? I didn't. Yeah, same. You can probably smell it off me. Yeah. I went to like an all girls Catholic school and we had skirts down to our ankles like it was horrendous.

Nice. You know, we, our sex education was we had like, I mean, this is from a comedy like you wouldn't believe this

if it was on Feckin' Father's Head but like our sex education was our speech and drama teacher because she was probably the most out there one of them all Mrs a Mrs. Tracy. And she rolled in, you know,

you roll in the TV and the video player, you know, because they only had like, what, two per school or something. So they rolled them in, up at the top of the class, and pressed play on the video. It was a nun. And it was a nun telling us, you know, there's no sex before marriage. Sex is a gift

it's a very special gift that you give your husband when you are married it's just a no nothing about it it's just

it's just a no we just we didn't know anything about we didn't know it looked like I remember the first time I ever saw a penis

was in it must have been in some magazine was it like smash hits maybe or something and Rage Against the Machine did like a bottomless photo shoot. What?

Did they go willies out in Smash Hits? Maybe not Smash Hits, but it wasn't like an adult magazine or anything. Yeah. It was like a general music magazine or something. And yeah, and they had their keks off. And I was like, that's the first time I ever saw a penis I was like what the fuck is that like we saw all of them it wasn't just one penis I think I saw about five of them how many all at one that's a lot to take in it's overwhelming sensory overload oh god oh god

good job you saw more than one though because if you saw one you might have been like oh this isn't a bit wrong with him but now you were faced with five you're like oh no that's just a fact that's it it's like well it must be what's under there then if they all house them you know it must be we didn't really have good sex education we had to put a condom in sixth form we had to put a condom on, you know, the big toothpaste. Even if they do family size toothpaste, a condom over that. And we were all just like, oh, my God. Because obviously it would be our responsibility.

Like, there you go. And then you're like, OK. Another lesson we had. Now, this, I don't know if this is an English thing. Did you watch the cartoon about like a nuclear war? Jesus. It was an old man and an old woman and no people remember that. And they go into a bunker and there's a nuclear war and how they survive a nuclear war.

That was another lesson. We were like. No. No, I don't think we had that. It was a Raymond Briggs cartoon. So like the same man that did the snowman and stuff. Oh doing nuclear war as well yeah just in case girls just in case we need to prepare you can put a condom on a toothpaste and you know what to do if a bomb goes off yeah but there's no bunkers so you're like that's great you'll all be fucking digging

holes watching the mushroom cloud going jeez where's the bunker there's no no flipping bunkers okay so in the hierarchy of school where were you were you like one of the cool kids were you a bit nerdy oh no I think I was sort of probably in the middle I was very very attitudey like I was very unless I was around like you know my really good mate I was very attitude like don't fuck with me just fuck off and leave me alone I was very very very tip of my shoulder very very attitude but like um no I was definitely in the middle like I didn't have like a huge like group of friends I had maybe two or three friends in school and that was sort of it so like if I wasn't in classes with them I was very much like just leave me alone just leave me alone around and I used to sit by myself but like no I wasn't like

when the nerdy ones like definitely wasn't part of the cool crew oh sweet god no no so I was definitely sort of in the middle somewhere

just floating around trying to like not you know get in anyone's way type scenario that's kind of do you know what that's kind of like

what I want for my kids just want to kick your head down up around a bit have a few mates yeah that's it just kind of survive you know what that's kind of like what i want for my kids yeah just kick your head down up around a bit have a few mates yeah that's it yeah just kind of survive just get through it just get through it i think i did that like kind of flitted around a little bit kind of i wasn't really cool i did um i tried to make people laugh and that was kind of my ammo to a friendship and i think that's probably what i still try and do today really meet something and instantly like go oh my boobs have fallen out or something and they're like we're in a meeting ever this is really this is really weird yeah okay so um what kind of student were you at school what were your favorite subjects i love music anything because i mean i i've got adhd but i didn't know

that at the time obviously because you know on you, not about those things in the 90s. But like, and yes, I loved anything that I found easy. Loved it. No problems. I loved music. I quite enjoyed history. I quite enjoyed math. Loved art. I found all those things incredibly easy.

No problem. Languages. Oh, sweet God. Oh, my God. It was like a band on your head against a wall. I couldn't do languages for a lot of money. English, again, if I found something boring, for my leave insert, which is like your A-levels,

you have to do six subjects in Ireland. You have to do English, Irish, maths, and a language, and whatever. And we had to do English. And I was doing the book that we were reading with Emma. And I never read it. I never, ever read it. to do English and I was doing the book that we were reading with Emma and I never read it I never ever read it What did you do in the exam? Did you just bop up and go

well she's called Emma and she's a girl I didn't like it, I don't know why I completely blagged but I never read it because like I don't think we ever read, like we might have read bits and bobs of it out loud in class but that's sort of it, I never read it at all. Because I read it and I was all I heard was like, blah, blah, blah.

There's something about being posh. No, I would say this is not 3.18. What's going on? Don't care about people. Couldn't invest in the characters. And so I never read it. So yeah, loved music. Oh yeah, that was pretty much it.

All I wanted to do was music and acting anyway. But you couldn't do acting in school in Ireland. That didn't exist. It's quite interesting what you said about the ADHD as well. Like back when we were at school, nobody was nothing. Oh, no. There was no LGBT. There was nothing.

There was no ADHD. There was no, there was just like, there was nothing. It's so strange, isn't it? Yeah, it is. And it's totally changed. I think hopefully for the better. But yeah, we had none of those things. And I don't't think i would never i wouldn't have even been flagged up with anyone with adhd anyway because i was sort of like that um introverted like you know i wouldn't

it wouldn't show what inattentive was was mine rather than like giddy extrovert like i was always just like if i liked it i was into it and if i was if i didn't like it i was like not even in the room, you know. Yeah, I don't think it would have been slagged up anyway. Yeah, I think things have hopefully changed a little bit. Right, I want to talk clothes. Now, could you where you live get lots of nice fashionable 90s clothes? I mean, I still am.

I don't know anything about fashion. I can't figure it out. I don't know how to dress my body. No matter how many amazing fashion influencers I follow, I haven't a clue. I don't know anything about fashion. I can't, it's like, I can't figure it out. I don't know how to dress my body. No matter how many amazing fashion influencers I follow, I haven't a clue. I don't know anything. So I've been the same when I was a teenager. And I remember my favorite outfit was that,

I remember it so vividly. Do you remember Jo Bloggs? Of course I remember. Until you just said it, I hadn't thought about it. And you've said Jo Bloggs, I'm like 100% remember it. I had a bright red XXXL Joe Bloggs t-shirt and I'm only five foot two and I was really small. So like I wore this XXXL bright red Joe Bloggs t-shirt over bright purple lycra cycling shirt. And that was my favorite outfit i wore it non-stop if i was not in school i was in my joe blogs red t-shirt with the purple cycling shorts and i thought that

this is the one this was it what we weren't what were your feet what was on your feet i think i i think i'd trainers yeah probably trainers i imagine or maybe flip-flops probably no I'm sorry you lost me you lost me at flip-flops but I I was thinking oversized shirts cycling shorts trainers cool but then when you said flip-flops yeah I took a step back I wouldn't have understood though that you could do trainers with the t-shirt I wouldn't have understood that and I would have thought well I look like I'm sort of cool like I thought flip-flops were cool so. So maybe like this is sort of making me, yeah, look a bit cool. Because I'm wearing Joe Bloggs and Joe Bloggs is cool, yeah? I think Joe Bloggs is cool.

I certainly didn't have a Joe Bloggs. I really wanted a naff-naff top. Oh, no. That was very popular. And we were talking yesterday. I was talking to him about Spliffy, which was also. I didn't know what that was. Spliffy.

Yeah, maybe that was it. So it was just, the brand was Spliffy. And it had a was it. So it was just, it was just, the brand was Spliffy and it had a cartoon of a man which I didn't really, I didn't understand at the time was holding,

you know, a spliff. And that's what people wanted to wear. But we, I didn't know what that was. Like you didn't know what a willy was.

No. I didn't know what spliffy meant. No. I was just like, oh my God. No, we didn't know anything.

I want one of those off the market, please, ma'am. And my mum must have been like, oh, what are you talking about, you weirdo? Okay, apart from your flip-flops did you have any other awful

fashion faux pas oh god it's like it's you know when you look back and you go god we were so we were so cringe our little baby selves waiting to clown i love it yeah i wore this um white cropped t-shirt so it came to like it was a really short white cropped t-shirt and across my boobs it said it said open up with an arrow pointing down what what do you think in what do you think in your head you thought it meant or did you know it meant something like a little bit like like risque but i did not know that it something like a little bit like risque but I did not know that it meant

like fucking spread your legs woman I didn't know it meant that I think I would have thought of like open your heart like a bit of Madonna

like that kind of I thought it was risque but I did not understand why and it was for I was going to the disco I think it was the first disco I ever been to

and it was definitely like Horan's Center and Horan's was like the club and treaty that all like the teenagers and the older ones would go to but I was about 14 so it was my first time going and they had like special like youth disco and uh and I was and I wore this like I remember this like little green floaty skirt with this and god knows what I had in my feet I think i had some big brown horrible platforms or something oh god and um and my mom when i was going out my mom was like are you sure you want to wear that are you sure do you like the sense of what it's you know with the writing and i was

like yeah tell me no so let me work with the right let me go i don't know how she let me go I would not let me go I'm like yeah and she let me go and anyway and we went and like I had my first kiss but it was with like it was you know when you're a teenager and they do the the cringe set up like and in Ireland what did you call it we used to call it shifting like kissing was shifting you probably had snogging yeah we had snogging yeah we had snogging yeah shifting in in truly anyway and was like um you know someone would come over and they're like do you want do you want to shift him and and he'd be like well i don't know yeah and he said no he wants to shift you and you'd be like okay all right yeah and i played it cool like you know

i'm i'm no problem and so then there was like this little room where they stored all the beer barrels and i don't know how we had access to the storage beer barrels room but anyway myself he was like a guy called jonathan can't remember his second name and myself and jonathan went over like into the room with the barrels of beer and we stood behind the barrels of the beer and of course everyone was like peeking around the door being like yeah like jonathan and so you have to dog your first kiss with an audience like so cringe and so cringe and then we were sort of standing there and I'm I'm guessing it was his first kiss too because neither of us sort of knew what to do we were just standing there looking at each other and

then I think I said so like do you want to do it I it's like horrible cringe in your top do you want to do it i it's like horrible cringy in your top do you want to do it like we did and it was just oh you know when you just remember and you got all this sweetness and the cuteness but at the time it was just the cringiest thing and then we left the room with the barrels and i never looked at him again you were like that's it thanks peace out that was it thanks enough now see you have a nice life i would forever be embarrassed by this moment to never acknowledge it happened ever again have you ever have you ever seen him on facebook or anything no no i think like we i think i think we sort of knew each other that crowd of people knew each other through

horse riding because we used to go out to the local horse riding center and i think so he but he wasn't from there i think he was like you know from somewhere very glamorous like ballyboi or something he was somewhere far away from trillage you know so i wouldn't have seen him and i don't know i can't remember his second name so i don't know what i remember he was one what a man of mystery And Jonathan, if you're listening. Jonathan, look me up. Right in. Okay, so what do you think your biggest success at school was? I do remember the only, I mean, for me,

the only time I ever felt like I was good at anything was when I was doing music or something like that. So I always enjoyed that. Anything else, I was a bit like, although I did have a fantastic success at terrorising my French teacher. Everyone used to be like, oh my God, Katrina.

God, I promise it was not Noel and again. Sorry, my real name was Katrina. But when I became an actor, I couldn't get my name. You have to apply for your name through equity. And someone else was called Katrina O'Connor. Oh, the one bitch. I know. actor i couldn't get my name you have to like apply for your name through equity and uh someone else was called katrina o'connor so i had to talk to you i know and i never like she's not even around famous what a loser god's sake katrina whoever you are so that bitch is walking around

there at my knee and yeah so i had to chop off the cnt and that's why i'm rena instead of katrina but um yeah so that's what i was saying. Katrina, I used to hate French so much and Mrs. Nolan was such a sweet, kind, quiet little woman, but she was always trying to make me do things that I was absolutely not wanting to do. So we would always clash. And then there was another,

our history teacher was called Sister Joan. And then I became Sister Joan's nemesis because she used to make us learn off by heart all the paragraphs at the end of each history chapter. And we'd have to learn off by heart and stand up at random and she'd give you a random verse. And I was like, well, this is fucking ridiculous. Why am I having to learn an entire chapter? No, I said, so I would learn it. And then she'd make you stand for the rest of the class and I wouldn't stand.

I'd like be sitting on the desk or standing on the desk or like sitting on the floor. And they'd be like, come on out. Good day, i'm sister joan had a right get picked off today so became my nearly famous for sister joan and sister poor poor mrs nolan i don't feel sorry for sister joan because she was like my mom the way my mom puts it she was a bull of a woman she was a bull of a woman she couldn't give a shit like she was she was i wasn't keeping her up at night do you know i mean that was just a day in her life she couldn't care where is poor mrs shit like she was she was I wasn't keeping her up at night do you know what I mean that was just a day in her life she couldn't care whereas poor old Mrs Nolan

she was she was a great I mean I wasn't awful but I definitely wasn't doing what I was told with the French class yeah teachers at my school also I think were approximately

110 years old I can't maybe they weren't maybe they were literally 35 and I they were 35 they were they were 35 probably like some of them were 28 and we thought they were like 35 and i i'm they were 35 they were they were 35 probably like some of

them were 28 and we thought they were like rk we were oh god we did a lot of dictation at our school did you ever do dictation so literally you'd have um mrs griffiths or mrs they'd just read out the bible and you just write down that's not good that's not a good teacher method i'd say if they wanted an easy day yeah today we're just going to read out mark but and you're like but then again i became an re teacher so it must have you must have worked no without about you you were yeah yeah yeah i was an re teacher until i started to do this full-time so it must have been and I will say um the teacher who was my RA teacher I wrote to her when I was like in my mid-20s and saying I I want to be a teacher you got any advice and she wrote me a really nice letter back so that was

oh that's really sweet that is really it is yeah also that was like a really weird thing for me to do right to my she probably was like got a letter thing for me to do. Right to my... She probably was like, what? Got a letter from it, the stalker. I think she would have been really flattered because I think no matter what you do in life, no matter what work you do, you like to feel seen and you like to feel like you're making a difference. You're making some little bit of impact.

So I imagine she was quite flattered. Yeah, she was really nice. Okay, so what was your absolute biggest teenage flop apart from the kiss it still makes you cringe today oh my god what was this oh I think like it's a teenage flop I think it's probably oh oh there's there's one oh there's two I've got two I've got two awful ones I think one of them is like like it's sort of like a one of my first ever performance faux pas as well so we did this school play called Love from Judy and I had this like small part in it and I had only one song and I was like I've only got one song and it was a duet with this

other lovely girl and she would play a boy and I was playing a girl because we don't it was all girl school and we did it and anyway we were doing it like live on stage one night and uh and she she went flat she sat she sang the wrong thing and uh and i i mean talk what a horrible thing it was a really shitty thing of me to do i did it i did it in the moment without thinking and there's something you should never ever do on stage and is that i i commented on the mistake with my look i did a look i did it like a i did a face i did it like oh oh kind of a face and people laughed and it was so i so regret it to this day i thought i threw her under the bus her name was orna and i fucking

threw her under the bus with my facial comment on her going wrong and gone. And then they fucking cut the song. They cut the song! So I had no song on the show and I would like talk about shooting yourself in the foot, really now like, I shot myself in the foot. And I remember like being traumatized, but I knew it was my own fault. It was my own fault.

That one, no, I think it's more the fact that the girl couldn't sing it. Not that you gave a bit of a dirty look I shouldn't have commented, it was nasty And then, oh, but I shouldn't have done it No, but I think you're being very hard on yourself It was a physical reaction, you couldn't help it And you were just like, like that

It's absolutely, you know I tell you what we did at our school We were drafted into the boys' school to play the girls. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Isn't that the most exciting thing you've ever heard, yeah? I would have been dying of excitement. Oh, my God, the hormones. The hormones must have been flying all over the room.

Yeah, so we used to have to say they'd be like, they'd be doing Grease or Guys and Dolls, and they'd draft us in and we'd have to go over to them. Oh, my God, I would have died. I would have been so happy. Oh, my God, I would have died. I'm so happy. I would have been... Oh my God, I was so happy. And I just was played like the crappiest littlest part

just to get in with the boys. To be honest, I'm never going to reach that high again. That was the best time of my life. That is actually incredible. I remember I were only sighting up the boys' school. So it was like ours was presentation

and we were next to like this big park and their school was called the Green School. And it it was down the green the park was called green it was down the green and then they used to walk past our school to go into town on their lunch break and they finished like maybe 20 minutes before us and so we would be it was like a zoo we were just you were like howling at them like a punting it's just like oh god do you see they're like you know john just passed there john mccliffe cool cool and uh and yes we'd just be like in trying to do class but staring out the window at the boys passing and they were pretending they were looking at us like oh my god we were so desperate animals we were caged animals oh my god i wonder

but i'd love i'd i need to get a boy on who's been to well a man that's been to a school because i'd love to know from their perspective what they thought of these absolute desperate teenagers yeah girls crazy like i'm so happy that my sons are in mixed schools because i just think it creates like these these otherness of like these creatures these like ethereal creatures these boys what are they what do they do what are they like do you know what i mean so i didn't have clue i was like you know no no boys were my friends for years like and uh they were just like these foreign things the aliens they might as well have been aliens yeah i've never won i've talked about before how i

went to university and was in rooms with boys i I was like and even now I'm like yes exactly I mean most of the boys that I ended up with were gay because when I went to theatre school when I left school I was then on to theatre stuff so all my friends were gay men, the majority of them I did philosophy

so they were all just arses but we used to do philosophy let me tell you you oh no let me play you this song and no bore off I don't want to hear all your rubbish music okay so what would you say to yourself if you could go back in time oh I would say um do more of what I love I think and don't cringe away from it and don't I think I stopped I think when I was when I was a teenager I used to write a lot of music and I used to write songs and then and I would only share them with like a couple of friends but there was one day where um we were out because I

used to be in musical society truly musical society was my favorite thing in the whole world oh my god I loved truly musical society so much and uh we were out on a night out after and then someone had a guitar and they were like oh really you write songs go up and do a few songs so i did oh oh god to be a teenager so hard and i did and i went up and i signed my song and it was called the devil's grin the devil's grin i mean i can hear it i can hear it now it was like as i look in the devil's mirror, he winked at me. I mean, oh, God. Oh, my God. However, Taylor Swift has a line.

He looks up grinning like a devil. Did she steal it from you? Did she steal it from you? Was she there? Did she have somebody there? We might have. I'm going to take that one. I'm going to take that one.

Thank you for validating my teenage songwriting self Emma and uh but anyway I came down after singing the song and there was like two people they were laughing at me and they were like I can't believe you did that I can't believe you're gonna do that and then I never wrote a song again until I was like in my 30s I hate those people I hate those people I would go and I would tell myself, just stop being embarrassed. Stop being embarrassed by your very existence. Yeah. But I think we were all embarrassed by our very existence. I don't know.

I don't know. And nobody's come on and been like, do you know what? I was an absolute legend. Not one person said that. No. Weren't we just, it's just torture being a teenager.

It's so hard it is and even like how old are your children you're eight and four eight and four yeah because i've got a teenager now and it's still hard now like it's nothing's nothing's changed are you glad you grew up then or do you wish you were a teenager now with like social media and stuff oh no i think i mean you know everyone's gonna say their their journey was potentially better but like I think we were better off without social media right I think that I think what really scares me is things like whatsapp groups like among teenagers that sort of terrifies me because the othering that can go on like in general groups

as a teenager is really scary and imagine like putting that onto a a platform where they can access you all the time like there's yeah you can't just go home and switch off it's there all the time so yeah it sort of really scares me for for my kids yeah we've both of mine have got phones now my little my youngest just got one for his 11th birthday and I learned my lesson I took I actually they don't have their phones in their room after eight because some of these crazy kids are facetiming on whatsapp at like two o'clock in the morning you're like what let's get some and actually my um the my oldest was so relieved because it meant that she could say to them

sorry I didn't take your call or sorry because didn't reply because my mum said I can't. So like the onus goes on to me now. Like my mum says like I can't, so she can just relax in a bedroom and, you know, not worry about people constantly messaging and sending gifts of cats. They just kept sending cats, cats, cats, cats for like hours and she's like, I can't keep up with replying to the cats.

Oh my gosh, it's impossible. So I think I will be doing all of those things and you know just just oh yeah locking it down as much as humanly possible while trying to give them a little bit of freedom and a little bit and like it is it is in the freedom bit is terrifying I like it is so it is really really hard it's one of the hardest things I mean but then um I had so much freedom when I was younger like yeah it's just bopping about here there everywhere and we were able to walk down into town and do our own thing like but I do remember like you know just when you think about the innocence like the little skills that they don't have that we're not even

gonna know like until they encounter them because you can't think of everything but I remember the first time going into town by myself with my friend I mean I must have been 12-ish 12 or 13 and um we went into the Allegro restaurant which is like you know just a little chill out restaurant in Trilley we went in there um but then I would say to my mom before I went I was like but like am I allowed to go in there like mom am I allowed like do you have do you not have to be like a grown-up or with a grown-up like will they allow me in with my friends and I was like of course they will of course you know when you just don't know like it's so it was my teaching my daughter how to to like put her hand out so like she knew the bus was could stop at the bus stop like

she was like but what if car like if i put my hand i'm just cars think i want to get in their car i'm like well that's not really how it that's not really and if that happens run that was exactly run the other direction we don't want them stopping so i'm a scream i'm like stranger all the time in my kids i'm like stranger danger they're everywhere they're everywhere run oh my god it's so it's so scary gee where the where's the book? Oh my God. But yeah, the thing that you don't know, there's so many things that you just, you just, yeah, can't know everything. No, you can't.

It is terrifying. But Rina, thanks so much for coming on the podcast. It's been a delight to talk to you. And I will leave all your links in the description so you can definitely go and check her out. Thanks so much for listening. We have another fab episode coming up next week. Before, be sure to go and follow me on

From When We Were Two and also the Phone Box podcast where we do polls and chats. And what was the name of the man that you fancy? Because I want people to message me if they fancied him too. Joshua Caddiston. Joshua Caddiston.

Yeah. And also, did you have a Joe Blogs top? Please, they're what you need to message us because we want to know. And you can message her as well. No reference. Just a picture of you and your Joe Blogs top? Please, they're what you need to message us because we want to know. And you can message her as well. No reference, just a picture of you and your Jo Blogs top. Well, thanks so much for coming on and I will see you soon.

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