Simon has been sent his late mother's diaries and the courtship letters she exchanged with his father, and can't decide whether reading them is an act of care or an invasion. Lee counters with his own father's diary, thirty years running and started by a Disney Store Aladdin Diary, a purely functional record with no reflection in it whatsoever. Between a Lisbon vegan march and the looming stamp duty on Simon's new flat, the conversation ends where these things always end: an imaginary OnlyFans account, funded by house-moving labour.

Mentioned

• Aladdin Diary (Disney Store) – the Christmas gift that started an annual diary-giving tradition lasting three decades
• HMRC (His Majesty's Revenue and Customs) – the UK tax authority, discussed over stamp duty owed on (what is not really) a second home
• OnlyFans – floated, half-seriously, as a way to cover that stamp duty bill; also the platform an elderly former soap actress is said to use
• Patreon – considered and rejected in favour of OnlyFans
• Farrah Fawcett – actress and former Charlie's Angels star, recalled while trying to place the unnamed soap star's identity
• Charlie's Angels – TV series; referenced for Farrah Fawcett's short-lived role in it
• Ryan O'Neal – actor; Farrah Fawcett's longtime partner and Tatum O'Neal's father
• Tatum O'Neal – actress; discussed alongside her father and her relationship with John McEnroe
• John McEnroe – tennis player; mentioned as a former partner of Tatum O'Neal's, with whom she had children
• Paper Moon (1973) – film in which Ryan O'Neal and Tatum O'Neal starred together
• Tom Holland – actor; discussed via a video ranking celebrity physiques by how "natural" they appear, focused on whether his Spider-Man build is achieved without steroids

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Simon and Lee catch up after a stretch apart: Simon turns 58 in Scotland, complete with a sleeper train that quietly failed to leave London and a lakeside sauna ritual, and comes home to an accepted offer on a new flat close enough to see from his window. Lee, holding down the Lisbon end of things, hosts long-time listeners Josh and Craig and finds a speakeasy behind a knitting shop. Two confessional dreams surface along the way – Simon stealing chocolate from an unimpressed houseguest, and Lee shouting at Bob over a missing cheese sandwich mid-flight.

Mentioned

• Josh and Craig – long-time listeners of the podcast who came to Lisbon for a brief visit
• Dahlander [?] – a Lisbon friend jokingly called "the mayor of Lisbon" for knowing everyone; name as spoken, spelling uncertain
• A speakeasy-style club near Rato/Campo de Ourique, Lisbon [?] – entered through a false-front knitting shop, down two flights to a small live-music venue; the venue's own name was unclear in the transcript
• Harry Styles – invoked in a riff about impeccably tailored shorts and personal style
• Ariana Grande – named as the kind of star who, unlike Harry Styles, would not turn up to a low-key Lisbon club
• Diana Ross / Barbra Streisand [?] – one of the two supposedly chartered the private jet in Lee's dream, which ended in a missed cheese sandwich and a furious wake-up; unclear which name was actually said
• Cadbury – chocolate brand discussed via a childhood memory of a nearby factory in Dunedin, New Zealand, and a perceived decline in quality
• The Caledonian Sleeper – the overnight London–Scotland train that was quietly towed back to the station and re-departed without waking sleeping passengers
• Löyly [?] – the Finnish word for the steam released when water hits the sauna stones, given per the speaker's own uncertain pronunciation

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Simon returns from holiday with a question rather than the usual content: should there be a limit on turning your own trauma into comedy, prompted by Amanda Knox's new Edinburgh Fringe show about her wrongful imprisonment for Meredith Kercher's murder. Lee takes it somewhere more personal, tracing his low tolerance for comedy that punches down through a brutal old episode of Never Mind the Buzzcocks and an admission that even David Sedaris can be too cruel for him. It ends, unexpectedly, on two flat viewings: an estate agent he clicked with instantly through jokes, and one who won by actually listening.

Mentioned

• Amanda Knox – wrongly convicted, later exonerated, of Meredith Kercher's murder in Perugia; now has a comedy show at the Edinburgh Fringe about the experience, prompting the episode's central question about the ethics of turning trauma into material
• Meredith Kercher – the murdered student at the centre of the Knox case; her family's objection to being invoked in Knox's show is discussed
• Edinburgh Fringe – festival where Knox's show is currently running
• Never Mind the Buzzcocks (BBC2) – music quiz show; a stretch of episodes hosted by a young Simon Amstell recalled as brutally punching down at guests
• Simon Amstell – Buzzcocks host; remembered for harsh treatment of Amy Winehouse and for reading a Celebrity Big Brother contestant's memoir aloud on air to embarrass her boyfriend
• Amy Winehouse – an episode featuring her on Buzzcocks recalled as especially shocking
• Celebrity Big Brother – recalled for a series in which an ordinary person was planted in the house disguised as a minor celebrity
• Chantelle Houghton – won that series posing as a celebrity, later mocked on Buzzcocks over lines from her memoir; name uncertain from the transcript
• Preston – musician and Chantelle's boyfriend at the time, remembered walking off during the on-air mockery
• The Daily Mail – newspaper behind the mocked photoshoot line from Chantelle's memoir
• David Sedaris – essayist; his writing about his family, including his sister's suicide, discussed as sometimes tipping from painful into cruel

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Simon and Lee start off sleepy and a little weepy, which somehow tips into a debate about the line between pornography and eroticism, sparked by the Heated Rivalry novels Bob bought Lee for his birthday (which, they discover, started life as Bucky Barnes/Captain America slash fiction). From there it's kettlebells, sarcopenia, and shirtless YouTube fitness bros neither of them can bear to watch, before Lee reports that Bob's own kettlebell-honed solidity got tested by a phone-distracted man who shoulder-checked her on a London street – and didn't move. It closes on who gets to take up space and who doesn't, from Coventry's lime bike gangs to the rarity of ever seeing a pack of women do the same.

Mentioned

• The Empire Strikes Back (Star Wars) – Harrison Ford's sequel to the original film; invoked as a comparison for writing a hit follow-up
• The Da Vinci Code / Angels & Demons (Dan Brown) – blockbuster novels; used as another sequel comparison, with mock embarrassment at picking the less-loved one
• Dan Lepard – baker and food writer; arrives as a punning mishearing of "Dan Brown" and becomes its own joke
• Dan Brown's latest novel – unnamed page-turner about consciousness, featuring his recurring Robert Langdon character (described as "the same Tom Hanks character")
• Heated Rivalry (Rachel Reid) – romance novel series, a birthday gift; discussed as having started life as Bucky Barnes/Captain America slash fiction before becoming an original hockey romance
• Star Trek – Kirk and Spock's relationship is cited as the origin of the term "slash fiction"
• Swedish death cleaning – decluttering philosophy; referenced in a joke about a now-discarded handmade cassette collection 
• Leonard Nimoy and William Shatner – actors who played Spock and Kirk; clarified that their characters never had an on-screen romance
• Captain America / Bucky Barnes / Winter Soldier (Marvel) – the fictional pairing behind Heated Rivalry's fan-fiction origins
• ChatGPT – joked about as a possible personal trainer 
• YouTube and Instagram – named as the real source of workout routines, alongside a complaint about shirtless fitness influencers
• Lime – e-bike share scheme; its riders in Coventry prompt a discussion about groups occupying street space
• Back to the Future – referenced via its high school principal character while describing a run-in with a pack of e-bike riders

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Simon and Lee open with birthday banter that spirals into scientists launching an OnlyFans-style subscription service to replace cut research funding, then a viral clip of bonobos defusing a fight with cuddles instead of violence. The real conversation catches fire when Simon reads out an AI-generated reply from a prospective PhD student, and the two dig into what gives it away (that telltale word "specifically"), whether he owes the applicant honest feedback, and how wanting AI to skip the reading is really no different from wanting it to do your weights for you at the gym. Simon closes things out nursing a sprained wrist from coming off his bike on Thursday, with a shout-out to the NHS staff who patched him up.

Mentioned

• OnlyFans – subscription platform typically associated with adult content; raised as a tongue-in-cheek pitch after hearing scientists had lost funding
• Marmosets – small primates; the animal whose research funding was cut, prompting the joke about launching an OnlyFans-style site instead
• Instagram – social media platform; where a viral bonobo video turned up in the feed
• Bonobo monkeys – primate species known for resolving conflict through physical affection rather than aggression; a clip of an older bonobo defusing a fight between two younger males prompts a wider discussion of animal behaviour versus internet content
• TikTok – video platform; cited for algorithmic content moderation, including euphemisms that have replaced certain censored words
• Alice  – addressed directly mid-conversation ("I wonder if Alice is thinking, go back to the bonobos")
• Daily Mail – UK tabloid; invoked as the kind of outlet that wouldn't report favourably on NHS staff
• NHS – National Health Service; A&E staff praised for handling a high volume of patients with care and professionalism

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Simon announces two big life events on the same Saturday morning: the first day of his new role as Director of the Centre for Dance Research at Coventry University, and an offer just put in on a flat. Lee's praise for the decision (steered by Annie Duke's How to Decide) tips into a riff on downsizing, industrial ovens, and buyers' markets, before Lee's own account of a solitary seal in the river at Totnes prompts a longer meditation on living double lives and how much of the self is performance. They close on inherited wisdom: Lee's mother's mantra that a bit of advice is worth a lot of sympathy, and whether either of them would actually want to hear it.

Mentioned

• How to Decide (Annie Duke) – book on decision-making; argues a decision's quality is separate from its outcome, cited while weighing up buying a flat

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Simon opens with a difficult conversation from a trip to Italy, about care and dementia, and what it means to owe someone your future self – discomfort sparked by Lil telling him plainly and rightly that she'd carry on living her own life, not simply become his carer. Lee counters with the story of a friend whose husband planned his own decline with startling clarity before dementia fully took him, and admits he and Bob have made each other the same promise. They end up watching aging parents ration their energy like a strategic resource, before a stray thought about a dance-and-AI panel pulls the conversation sideways into exponential change and the folly of deciding anything for the next ten years.

Mentioned

• Italy (Sardegna) – place Simon was visiting when he had the conversation about care, aging and dementia that opens the episode
• Corbitron – a companion (not literally) present during recording, audibly prompting with the word "exponential" partway through

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Simon is back from one week in Italy (camping, farm work, and a proper test of an air-conditioning-free apartment), while Lee has rediscovered swimming in the Dart, a habit lost somewhere around COVID and indulged daily ever since. They compare the textures of different water, from a Mediterranean "like a bath" to an unforgiving Atlantic, before Lee lands on a firm conclusion (he is riverine, not oceanic) and the conversation drifts into childhood water memories: bath-time hide-and-seek, Star Wars figures drowned in the tub, a home-built pool engineered for whirlpools. It closes with Lee taking his former student and soon-to-be PhD candidate, Charlie, for a swim up the same river, still caked in dirt from a Fringe show about fathers and masculinity.

Mentioned

• The Dart – river in Totnes, Devon; rediscovered as a swimming spot after a long hiatus stretching back to before COVID; swum in daily for a week, becomes the episode's throughline
• Totnes Fringe – theatre festival spread across roughly 19 venues, including shops, gardens, and a church; prompts a riff on what counts as a "fringe" when there is no major festival for it to be fringe of
• Charlie – former undergraduate student, soon to start a PhD; runs his own solo performance company; presented a piece on masculinity, fathers, and nature at the Totnes Fringe, ending caked in stage dirt and paint
• Star Wars (Luke Skywalker and Han Solo figurines) – bath toys from a childhood game of submerging the figures underwater and holding them by the head

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Simon and Lee are joined by Maya: an AI trained on twenty-odd episodes of Midlifing and gifted to them by a listener, Dr David Corbet (@corbetron), who built her using vibe coding. What starts as a joke tips quickly into uncanny valley territory, and from there into a shared list of words that have started to grate on them both (casted, obligated, positionality, normalcy), and their mutual discomfort with how thoroughly trauma has been worn smooth by overuse. It closes on a canoe trip past a riverbank thick with empty second homes, and the guilt of noticing them.

Mentioned

• Maya – an AI trained on around twenty episodes of Midlifing, joining the call as a guest; her polished fluency tips the conversation into uncanny valley territory. Named as a callback to the "Maya got a job in cyber" bit from a previous episode (itself a misremembering of a UK government ad campaign whose dancer was actually named Fatima)
• Dr David Corbet (@corbetron) – long-time listener; built Maya using vibe coding and gave her to the show entirely unprompted
• Office for Students – UK higher education regulator; referenced in connection with a recent institutional assessment visit
• NotebookLM (referred to as "Google Notebook" in the transcript) – Google's AI tool for generating podcast-style "deep dives"; noted for its hosts' unbridled enthusiasm and, formerly, odd glitchy interjections
• Forced Entertainment – UK experimental theatre company; cited as an example of direct-to-camera address and "showing the working"
• Sassari – city in Sardinia; site of Simon and Lil's apartment, recently renovated, raised in a discussion about reluctance to knock down existing walls

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Simon and Lee open on the tyranny of public pianos: one played beautifully by an old friend at Euston station, another axed to pieces in Lisbon after one too many renditions of the same tune. It tips into a longer meditation on recognition, virtuosity, and the icky feeling of wanting to be seen, prompted partly by Simon's nephew Finn asking how the professorship (announced last episode) is actually sitting with him a week in. Lee has his own news too: after two headache-inducing years, his university's research degree awarding powers bid has finally gone in.

Mentioned

• Chopin – composer; played by an old friend of Simon's at Euston station, mid-piece, as he arrived to meet her
• Cais do Sodré – train station in Lisbon; site of a public piano playing the same tune on loop until commuters had it removed
• Hamilton – the musical; the "room where it happened" line recurs, and Lee had recently been watching an excellent Japanese-language production
• Meta Ray-Ban glasses – smart glasses; cited as an emblem of frictionless recording culture
• Michael Barrymore – British TV entertainer and former host of The Generation Game; recalled via the detail that someone died in his swimming pool years ago, then (probably wrongly) credited with now filming strangers in shops via Meta Ray-Bans for TikTok
• The Generation Game – UK Saturday-night variety/game show; cited as an example of personality-driven light entertainment
• Noel Edmonds' House Party – UK entertainment show, named alongside Strictly Come Dancing and Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway as part of the same "Saturday night" lineage
• Strictly Come Dancing – UK dance competition show; named as a descendant of that variety tradition
• Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway – UK Saturday-night entertainment show; offered as the closest contemporary equivalent

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Simon arrives buzzing with news: a professorial confirmation panel that left him pacing the line between anxiety and excitement for weeks beforehand. He and Lee dig into where exactly anxiety lives in the body, comparing notes on heart rate variability, breath control, and the relief of a panel that turned out far less hostile than feared. The conversation widens into the precarious state of UK higher education and the dance sector specifically, capped off with a half remembered government ad campaign about a ballerina who finds her true calling in cyber.

Mentioned

• Kate Bee – guest on last week's episode; praised for having "a good voice for radio"
• Starsky and Hutch – cop buddy show; raised as a model for a good cop buddy dynamic
• Rishi Sunak – former UK chancellor and prime minister; jokingly blamed for the state of arts funding and the wider higher education sector
• "Fatima's next job could be in cyber" advertising campaign – UK government ad campaign depicting a ballet dancer retraining for a career in cyber; referred to in conversation as "Maya," but the dancer in the original campaign was named Fatima; discussed as evidence of precarity in the arts and dance sector. Independent coverage

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Simon and Lee are joined by Kate Bee, founder of The Sober School, for a conversation that opens with the rock-bottom mythology of AA before sliding into personal history: Lee traces his unusual relationship with drink back to growing up in a pub in the mid-80s, and on through the British ladette culture he lived through at university in the 90s, complete with Zoe Ball and Bacardi Breezers. Kate maps the particular shame attached to women's drinking, drawing the three of them into a digression on Julia Kristeva's abject and the quietly respectable, middle-class drinkers no news report ever pictures, with Simon noting how his wife Lil's brush with an alcohol-tracking app in Italy preceded Kate's email by mere days. The episode closes on what Kate found to replace alcohol's pleasure once she gave it up: smaller gatherings, an early exit, and the relief of just being herself the next morning.

Mentioned

• The Sober School – sobriety support for women who don't want AA or rehab, founded by the episode's guest, Kate Bee, ten years ago out of her own experience quitting drinking
• "Take Your Time" – Nirvana; song that prompts a singalong at the top of the episode
• Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) – raised as a model of recovery that doesn't suit everyone; its rock-bottom narrative and "anonymous" framing discussed as barriers for some
• Zoe Ball – British TV and radio presenter; cited as an exemplar of 90s British ladette culture, noted as now sober
• The Spice Girls – pop group raised as a possible comparison to ladette culture, then dismissed as not quite fitting
• Bacardi Breezers – alcopop brand discussed as a 90s drinks-industry product aimed at women
• Julia Kristeva – French feminist philosopher; her concept of "the abject" used to discuss the language ("messy," "sloppy") applied to women's drinking
• Joe Rogan – podcast host referenced jokingly as a contrast to this podcast's tone

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Lee gets back from a holiday in Lisbon – computerless, app-deleted, and topped up with regular visits to a masseur who is also, confusingly, named Simon – while back home Simon is locked in a slow-motion battle with a magpie raiding his bird feeder. The conversation moves from what counts as a real holiday (a "leaky bucket list" versus a hammock and an endless cycle of naps and swims) into a nostalgic detour through the Walkman, suitcase-sized mobile phones, and post restante, tracing how mobile data quietly took over the time email used to take to find you.

Mentioned

• The Omen (1976 film) – referenced for its scene of a journalist's eyes being pecked out by crows, raised during a riff on how clever and vindictive crows can be
• Jeff Bezos – invoked in a bit imagining him ("Jeff Birdsos") running a conspiracy to push magpies onto bird feeders so seed prices rise
• Steve Jobs – cited as the figure behind the iPhone's "revolution product" (2007), framed as less transformative for holiday habits than the later rise of cheap mobile data
• Poste restante – historical postal system letting travellers collect mail abroad; recalled fondly as the highlight of pre-internet travel at 22
• Sony Walkman – portable cassette player; held up as the single device that changed everything more than the smartphone ever did, prompting a dive into how many models and headphone setups were used over the years
• Get Smart (TV show) – referenced via its shoe-phone gadget, recalled alongside memories of a family friend's brick-sized suitcase mobile phone in the 1980s

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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A face full of acupuncture needles and a sourdough microbiologist on a country road in Sardinia: this week Simon and Lee cover a lot of ground. The main story is a hitchhiking adventure from an agriturismo near Tempio – Lil's first time ever, Simon's first in perhaps thirty-five years – that ends with a chance encounter so improbable it needs several minutes of recounting before either of them quite believes it. From there the conversation opens into what happens to your assumptions about people when you're somewhere unfamiliar, and what it means to feel genuinely lucky rather than merely privileged.

Mentioned

• Mary Shelley – 19th-century English author; referenced when the acupuncture needles prompt a comparison to a scene from a horror novel
• Chega – Portuguese far-right political party; mentioned as a Portuguese equivalent of Fratelli d'Italia and Reform UK
• Fratelli d'Italia – Italian far-right political party; cited as a European parallel to Chega
• Reform UK – British populist party; mentioned as a point of comparison.

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Back from his travels and biking to work in Coventry, Simon clocks two encounters with men radiating pure confrontational energy – and wonders aloud what it must cost to move through the world that way. The conversation rolls into territory neither of them usually treads: class, inherited masculinity, and whether any of us really choose who we become. Along the way, Lee recalls a boy on the bonnet of a Capri saying "Miller" with such effortless swagger that six-year-old him wanted to be that person on the spot – and a woman's answer to the question "who would protect you?" lands like a wriggly thing under an upturned rock.

Mentioned

• Zebra crossing – the UK term for a black-and-white striped pedestrian crossing; the setting for Simon's two confrontational encounters that open the episode
• Ford Capri – long-nosed British sports car from the 1970s and 80s; Lee recalls sitting on the bonnet of one as a child when a boy walked past and addressed him by his last name with striking swagger
• Rough Guide (TV series) – late-80s/90s travel and youth culture magazine show; referenced when trying to place the era of a viral clip about men and protection
• Naples / Napoli – Simon spent six weeks there; he recalls young boys walking deliberately into his path as a kind of confrontational test, contrasting it with the encounter back in Coventry
• New Zealand – Simon grew up there; notes that the kind of masculine confrontation they're discussing isn't unique to the UK
• Jefrey Miller – Lee's dog (one F in Jefrey); cited as an example of animal threat-response: snapped at by a spaniel he knows well, he barked back immediately, then moved on without residue

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Simon and Lee open with friendship: Simon has spent the day building a clay oven in Sardinia with Igor and Moreno and finds himself moved by the sheer fact of having people like that in his life. From there the conversation turns to a harder question - whether either of them can actually ask for help when it really counts - and two stories emerge: Lee's account of a yoga acquaintance who showed up with a kindness he couldn't receive, and Simon's retelling of a moment when Lil found herself trapped in a long hug from a friend's partner that felt vampiric rather than warm. The episode closes on a mix-up between a work anniversary and thirty years of marriage, and the one piece of advice Lee has yet to take himself.

Mentioned

• Walt Whitman – 19th-century American poet; referenced as "Uncle Walt" alongside his phrase "we contain multitudes," offered as a gentle counterweight to a moment of harsh self-assessment
• LinkedIn – professional networking platform; the source of an automated work anniversary notification that sets off the episode's closing exchange

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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A Devo earworm at a Sardinian birthday party is the unlikely start of a conversation about what expertise actually is. Lee draws on Collins and Evans's distinction between interactional and contributory expertise, and the two probe whether AI is simply the pinnacle of sounding like it knows what it's doing, and what that means for the hours both of them have put into embodied practices. Simon ends up confessing to late-night vibe coding, somewhere in the murky territory between hating it and loving it.

Mentioned

• Devo's "Whip It" (1980) – new wave song; came up when a community group with the acronym WIP sparked a group singalong at a birthday party in Sardegna
• WIP – community organisation in Sardegna; the acronym's unusual capitalisation convention (only the first letter uppercase) became a topic in itself
• UK Government White Paper on Post-16 Skills – published by DSIT in November; prompted reflection on what specialism and expertise mean in the age of AI
• Rethinking Expertise (Harry Collins and Robert Evans) – academic book introducing the distinction between interactional expertise (talking the talk) and contributory expertise (advancing a field through practice)
• Malcolm Gladwell / 10,000 hours – the idea that mastery requires 10,000 hours of deliberate practice; cited and gently questioned
• Lord of the Flies (William Golding) – briefly referenced as a comic false attribution when trying to recall Gladwell's name
• Vibe coding – AI-assisted web development; tried late one night building an interactive front page, with mixed feelings about it
• Claude – AI assistant; mentioned as the tool used for writing template-heavy applications

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Simon is recording from Sassari, where the barn doors have just gone in and the pace of life feels unrecognisably slow. A conversation about loitering with intent – a legal phrase that turns out to be untranslatable into Portuguese – opens into a wide-ranging examination of third spaces, billionaires, and the frictionlessness of modern commerce: what the UK has lost, and why. Lee's account of an unplanned evening in Lisbon, ending with the three of them eavesdropping on an orchestra rehearsing through a church door, becomes the episode's counterpoint and its argument: that the best days are the ones that just keep opening.

Mentioned

• Sassari – city in Sardinia; Simon is recording from there mid-renovation on a place he has in the city
• Minority Report – Tom Cruise film involving pre-crime; cited as the logical endpoint of loitering with intent as a thought crime
• Cocktail – Tom Cruise film initially named instead of Minority Report; the mix-up launches a long digression
• Bryan Brown – Australian actor who appeared in Cocktail with Tom Cruise; his character's fate in the film briefly discussed
• Richard Chamberlain – actor; mentioned in connection with Cocktail and then The Thorn Birds and Shogun
• The Thorn Birds – TV miniseries; Richard Chamberlain connection discussed
• Shogun – TV miniseries; Richard Chamberlain confirmed as lead [?] – transcript garbled here
• Doctor Kildare – TV series; Richard Chamberlain's earlier role, mentioned in passing
• Jason Bourne / The Bourne series – Matt Damon spy franchise; invoked as another example of a character who wakes without his memory [?] – conversation unclear on whether the Bourne / Chamberlain thread was resolved
• Tilted Arc – Richard Serra sculpture [transcript says "Richard Sarah"] installed in Federal Plaza, New York; designed to bifurcate the plaza and force pedestrians around it; cited as an example of productive friction in public space
• Richard Sennett – writer and sociologist; invoked for his writing on friction in urban spaces and city life
• Too Good To Go – food waste app; compared between Coventry (mostly chain confectionery) and Sassari (independent grocers and green goods)
• Lievetta – artisan bakery in Sassari; slow-fermented, whole-grain bread; discussed as a surprising success in a city used to plainer loaves
• Keir Starmer – mentioned briefly as the kind of figure who has a public life in the institutional sense
• Pink Street – famous nightclub street in Lisbon; described as culturally hollowed out after the last Portuguese-owned venue closed
• Lucas – cocktail maker at a Lisbon bar; produced Japanese plum hooch from under the counter for an impromptu drink [last name unknown]
• Gilles – owner of a Lisbon restaurant serving Cabo Verdean cuisine through a Portuguese lens; met during the same unplanned evening
• Cabo Verde / Cape Verdean cuisine – the culinary tradition of Gilles's restaurant; described as African food filtered through Portuguese flavours

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Simon opens with a psychology experiment about misattributed arousal -- cross a rickety bridge feeling anxious, and you might mistake that adrenaline for attraction to whoever meets you on the other side -- and uses it as a prompt to ask Lee what emotions he feels most commonly. Lee lands on shame and guilt as uniquely useless (false friends that teach nothing, unlike anxiety or joy), then describes the untrammeled, leg-kicking happiness that sometimes overtakes him on a train crossing the River Tamar. The conversation moves through Grindr statistics at Republican conventions, a sudden bout of rage, and a father's urgent text that turned out to be about Peppa Pig.

Mentioned

- Grindr – gay hookup app; cited in connection with reported spikes in usage during Republican Party conventions, used to illustrate how shame can hide behind public moralising about LGBTQIA+ rights
- Republican Party conventions – referenced in relation to the Grindr statistics and the argument that political shamelessness often conceals private shame
- River Tamar – river in the southwest of England; the train crossing it is the setting for a description of sudden, involuntary joy
- Corvids – bird family; mentioned to explain why a magpie on the balcony had worked out how to use a tit feeder designed to exclude larger birds
- Peppa Pig – children's animated series; the actual subject of an "urgent" text from a parent, which arrived mid-meeting and caused several minutes of low-level panic
- Netflix – streaming platform; the medium through which Peppa Pig became a domestic emergency

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Lee has developed a habit he can't fully explain: he spends his walks listening to AI-generated voices read Reddit's most morally contested family disputes, swiping through them pocket-blind on his phone while his wife Bob removes herself from the room entirely. Simon has been watching The Pittt and finding himself deep in the YouTube rabbit hole of Dr. Mike, a physician with eight million followers who spent an episode patiently holding his ground in a room full of anti-vaxxers with flags. Together they turn over the question of why low-stakes moral soap opera – almost certainly fictional – scratches an itch that harder content never quite reaches.

Mentioned

- The Pitt (TV show) – medical procedural drama; praised for its realism and intensity; compared favourably to ER; its makers were sued by Michael Crichton's widow over similarities to ER
- ER (TV show) – 1990s medical drama created by Michael Crichton; watched back to back with The Pitt as an informal comparison
- Michael Crichton – creator of ER and Jurassic Park; his estate brought legal action against The Pitt's makers claiming it was an unacknowledged reboot
- Dr. Mike – YouTube creator with around 8 million followers; known for medical show breakdowns; discussed for his patient, measured performance in a debate surrounded by anti-vaxxers
- AITA / Am I The Asshole – Reddit community in which users submit personal moral dilemmas for public judgment; its stories are repurposed as AI-generated YouTube shorts with sped-up voices; the source of Lee's pocket-swiping habit
- amoral familism (familismo amorale) – sociological concept developed in 1950s-60s research; the idea that extreme loyalty to the immediate family degrades broader civic culture; mentioned while unpicking the ethics of the airport Thanksgiving story
- The Life of Chuck – film based on a Stephen King novella, starring Tom Hiddleston; recommended as a work in progress
- Carrie (1976) – Stephen King adaptation; cited approvingly; prompts a brief tribute to Sissy Spacek
- Sissy Spacek – actor; praised for her performance in Carrie; briefly distinguished from Susan Sarandon

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Simon opens with news: a colleague complimented his secondhand trousers, though he fails to mention he'd just sat through an important meeting with the fly jammed open. A digression via Sort Your Life Out – a decluttering show that leaves him reaching for the language of the divine – opens into a conversation about whether the body ever forgets its training, sparked by Lee's account of a Vera Montero solo and Bob's observation that ballet doesn't fully let you go. By the end they're in the territory of the Ozempic Economy: a Korean philosopher's framework for understanding why, in late capitalism, the self becomes the last thing left to optimise.

Mentioned

- Sort Your Life Out with Stacey Solomon and Dilla Carter (TV show) – decluttering and makeover series; Simon finds it compulsive and a little triggering; the guests' reaction of "Oh my God" to their transformed homes becomes a prompt for a riff on secular transcendence
- Hockey Smut – Lee's project around queer identity in sport; a local ice hockey team discovered it, prompting mixed reactions from players
- Trio A (1966, Yvonne Rainer) – postmodern dance work; cited as the famous example of pedestrian movement that paradoxically becomes virtuosic through its refusal to emphasise anything
- Vera Montero – Portuguese choreographer and performer; Lee saw her in a solo supported by four violinists; her flexed feet and facial effort unsettled him in ways he needed Bob to help him process; discussed as an example of earlier ballet training leaving a residue that resists being shed
- London Marathon – Simon ran it; used as an example of attending carefully to running form, then watching it dissolve as faster runners in every conceivable style streamed past
- Thomas Chan – Instagram creator; introduced Byung-Chul Han's ideas in relation to current culture and the Ozempic Economy
- Byung-Chul Han – Korean philosopher; author of The Burnout Society and The Transparency Society; his framework used as a lens on what GLP-1 drugs say about late capitalism
- Ozempic / GLP-1 drugs – weight-loss injections (Wegovy, Mounjaro, Ozempic named); discussed as emblematic of a pharmacological capitalism that promises frictionlessness by removing the "wrong" body from view
- Looks Maxing – online subculture rooted in red-pill ideology; involves extreme physical self-optimisation including mewing and leg-lengthening surgery; introduced via Clavicular, a figure in the newspapers
- Mewing – tongue-positioning technique associated with Looks Maxing, claimed to reshape the jawline
- Red pill / The Matrix – the ideological frame behind Looks Maxing; discussed briefly and dismissed

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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What do you do when someone asks if you liked something and the honest answer is "it's just not for me"? Simon and Lee explore how taste works – how it forms, how it shifts depending on who's in the room, and why saying something is "shit" is often just laziness dressed up as confidence. Along the way: sharks on planes, Pina Bausch via Tilda Swinton, Coldplay's complicated legacy, and a standing ovation nobody stood for.

Mentioned

- "Thrash" -- shark/hurricane disaster film; Lee watched it on a plane back from Lisbon, wriggling in his seat
- Glen Powell -- actor; appears in the romcom "Set It Up"
- Zoe Deutch -- actor (Lea Thompson's daughter); co-stars in "Set It Up"
- "Set It Up" (2018) -- romcom Simon watched for distraction, possibly a rewatch
- Peter Jackson's Beatles documentary "Get Back" -- referenced as an 8-hour documentary
- Akram Khan -- British-Bangladeshi choreographer; front-row sweat anecdotes, early career shows
- Coldplay -- band; discussed at length re: cool, taste, and politics
- Chris Martin -- Coldplay frontman; known for writing political slogans on his hands
- Snow Patrol -- band; used as a cool/uncool comparison with Coldplay
- Radiohead -- band; controversy over performing in Israel
- Nick Cave -- musician; mentioned alongside Radiohead re: Israel performances
- Wim Wenders -- German film director; made the Pina Bausch documentary "Pina"
- "Pina" (2011, dir. Wim Wenders) -- documentary about Pina Bausch; Lee found it very boring
- Pina Bausch -- German expressionist choreographer; subject of the Wenders documentary
- "Cafe Muller" -- famous Pina Bausch dance-theatre piece
- "Suspiria" (2018) -- Tilda Swinton plays a Pina Bausch-like character; Lee's recommended alternative to the documentary
- Tilda Swinton -- actor; plays the Pina Bausch character in Suspiria
- Diana Nipsa -- choreographer; created "Hornfuckers," seen by Lee and Bob in Lisbon
- "Hornfuckers" -- dance piece by Diana Nipsa; front-row experience, disputed standing ovation
- "Jay Kelly" -- George Clooney ensemble film about acting and its absurdities; Simon watched it with his sister and niece
- George Clooney -- actor/director; made "Jay Kelly"

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A chance remark in a New York bar in 1991 — "you're an idealist" — lands differently than expected. Simon and Lee trace that moment through the topsy-turviness of political labels, from Antifa on a Lisbon rooftop to the day idealism became an insult. Along the way: growing up under IRA bombs and Cold War dread, algorithmically sorted fear, and whether a badly-timed fart rules out the simulation.

Mentioned

- Wall Street (1987, dir. Oliver Stone) — discussed as cautionary tale vs celebration of greed; Gordon Gekko, Michael Douglas, Charlie Sheen
- Platoon (Oliver Stone)
- Born on the 4th of July (Oliver Stone)
- Supergirl (film, trailer) — discussed; CGI dog face controversy
- John Wick — mentioned in comparison to Supergirl's dog-in-peril setup
- Good Boy (horror film) — cited for a dog considered an excellent actor
- Stonewall — NYC bar and landmark; site of the 1969 uprising
- Marsha P. Johnson — activist; cited for throwing the first brick at Stonewall, pivotal for US gay rights
- Antifa — political movement; discussed in context of linguistic and political inversion
- Trump — mentioned in context of Antifa during his first term
- Jillian — babysitter from childhood story; spent her savings on a Vidal Sassoon haircut
- Vidal Sassoon — hairdresser, mentioned in Jillian story
- IRA — cited in context of childhood anxiety and mainland Britain bombings
- Chernobyl — cited as example of proximate vs remote political anxiety (New Zealand vs UK)
- BBC — cited for one-sided reporting on the IRA
- Jeffrey Miller — the dog

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Simon finds himself crying for multiple things at once. Lee reflects on being largely inoculated from grief since childhood, always the supporter, never quite allowed his own response. An honest conversation about mortality, what we carry, and Swedish death cleaning.

Mentions

• Touch by Ashley Montague — cited for the observation that "touch" has the longest entry in the Oxford English Dictionary, longer even than "love"
• Concentric circles of grief — diagram showing inner/outer circles for determining who gives support vs. who can express grief outward; discussed in context of knowing your place in someone else's bereavement
• Swedish death cleaning — practice of clearing possessions before death so loved ones aren't burdened with sorting them; Lee's mum has done this, including getting rid of 400 books
• 2012 Olympics — mentioned as a turning point when arts funding was redirected and a number of mid-scale venues closed, contributing to the decline of the UK live arts scene ahead of Brexit

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Lee and Simon move from the absurd grind of international transit and the ways money buys freedom from friction into a sharper reflection on systems, meritocracy and the stories we tell about fairness. The episode lands somewhere quieter and more human, with transhumanism and techno-hope set against goodbye, touch, family and the fragile consolation of ordinary love.

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Lee and Simon reflect on certainty, persuasion and the strange dead-end of “that’s just a fact,” moving from Louis Theroux’s Inside the Manosphere to questions of shininess, inherited politics and why some surfaces feel impossible to trust. They then swing into a wedding report from Lake Wānaka, where being firmly in the oldies camp still ends with a dance-off, a Virginian falsetto and the instruction to dance like you’ve got no hair.

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Lee and Simon reflect on waking up feeling anxious amid talk of global conflict, distance from home, and the strange experience of feeling both safe and unsettled while travelling. The conversation moves between geopolitical dread and everyday life – trousers, weddings, beauty and awe – arriving at a fragile commitment to grace, kindness and continuing on anyway.

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Lee and Simon find themselves time-travelling: through a tennis racket that returns a 57-year-old body to its 15-year-old instincts (apart from the inconvenient eyes), and through faces from 1980s school corridors flickering inside present-day skin. They circle the pleasure and awkwardness of reunion – what it means to want connection, to resist it, and to recognise the same gesture surviving four decades.

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Lee and Simon explore Simon’s return to New Zealand and the deep, embodied sense of “home” he feels there, distinct from the buildings or habits that mark belonging elsewhere. They circle the gradations of alienness across places – London, Lisbon, Italy, the US – and reflect on privilege, inequality, and the uneasy freedom to move between worlds.

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Simon and Lee discuss how “the slop” of online discourse warps attention, community, and even basic ways of being with other people, then land on the uneasy idea that conversation can be as much a mirror (to feel real and worthy) as a window (to actually learn and connect). A second thread is the double-truth of social life: feeling useful and coherent while simultaneously hearing the inner heckler saying “you’re a fraud,” and how that vulnerability can push people toward bubbles that reassure them.

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Lee and Simon talk about ageing, visibility and bodily maintenance, moving from Tai Chi scams and ripped male bodies to the uneven cultural tolerance of ageing faces, especially women’s. The thread tightens around choosing how to age – attitude over appearance – while catching themselves mid-slide into weather-moaning, grammar-policing crotchetiness.

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Simon and Lee reflect on how “it’s just history” can function as a shield, contrasting nostalgia and certainty with the messier ethics of speaking up, particularly around homophobia and memory. The episode widens this to a mistrust of technological truth-claims, arguing for caution, empathy and interrogation over easy laughter or false neutrality.

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Lee and Simon talk about Heated Rivalry as hockey smut, using it to think about bonkbusters, fan fiction, masculinity and the manosphere, and why gay male romance written by and for straight women feels culturally charged. They contrast escapist fantasy with realism, testing where disbelief breaks (coming out in elite sport, hockey culture) and where emotional truth still lands.

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Lee and Simon move from bread, travel and pensions into a sharper conversation about advertising, sustainability and how language quietly manipulates trust. What starts as midlife logistics ends in unease about media ethics and the stories we are trained to accept.

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Lee and Simon discuss overload: storms, sickness, media saturation, and a growing sense that attention itself is the battleground. They land on “what we ignore” as a survival skill, using sport, news, and desire as case studies for selective blindness and unexpected meaning.

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Lee and Simon reflect on ageing through ordinary shocks – driving at night, learning languages badly in public, and realising your social stamina has quietly changed. The episode circles the relief of opting out (sleep, simple food, cinema marathons) versus the effort of keeping up, without pretending either choice is noble.

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Lee and Simon reflect on the turn of the year not through resolutions but through attention to time, labour, and value – what feels worth doing, and what quietly drains energy. The conversation circles embodied work, intergenerational thinking, and the midlife urge to spend less time reacting and more time building things that outlast you.

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Lee and Simon circle from Christmas silliness to showers, cocktails, bureaucracy, and grief, using humour to hold off the end-of-the-world feeling while letting something tender through. Beneath the ramble, the episode quietly lands on memory, loss, and the strange intimacy of ordinary rituals.

Related link:

• I Asked 64,182 People About “Jingle Bells, Batman Smells”. Here's What I Found Out: https://youtu.be/V5u9JSnAAU4?si=3bZKOd90pUXNdZFp

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Lee and Simon circle around the messy line between saying “no” (as self-respect) and staying relational, using condominum meetings, Portuguese/Italian slips, and a post office queue as lived examples of how “transactional” life can feel. They land on the idea that some exchanges (kindness, levity, basic decency) aren’t quid-pro-quo at all – and then veer into unfiltered joy at Olivia Colman’s acceptance speeches.

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Simon and Lee spiral from the weird intimacy of recording their friendship into the horror of AI-fuelled “chatfishing” and the prospect of being “back on the market” after loss. They end up sitting with ageing, death, and the line between cherished solitude, unacknowledged loneliness, and the hunger for simple physical affection.

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Lee talks about realising how “thin-skinned” he is at home and at work, and how that sensitivity both hurts (wanting to cry over a throwaway comment about his clothes) and helps him get more quickly to the truth of what’s actually going on emotionally. He and Simon fold this into a wider question of whether you want to be “a radiator or a drain” in relationships, and how different couples’ styles of teasing or volatility shape what feels possible or survivable in a long-term partnership.

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Simon and Lee chew over how trauma and pain can’t really be compared or ranked, even inside cushioned-but-precarious academic lives where people still don’t feel safe. They then push a fraught hypothetical about raising a daughter into a misogynist world.

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Lee and Simon meet in person for the first time in three years and move from gallbladder scares and overstretched health systems into a reflection on post-pandemic disconnection, social capital and the erosion of community. They sit with the discomfort of feeling more willing to be “a doer, the joiner” abroad than in the UK, and the unsettling knowledge that not joining in also helps democracy to unravel.

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Lee’s rebellious gallbladder and the realisation that he’s not “a box with a brain in it” spark a conversation about midlife bodies that can no longer be ignored. From Lisbon-airport dehydration to shamelessly helping-while-queue-jumping anxious Americans, they sit with the mix of pride, shame and “curiosity, not judgement” toward other people’s (and their own) fragilities.

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Lee and Simon explore what it means to remove yourself – physically and psychically – from one life while tentatively building another. A wardrobe installation in Sassari becomes an existential reflection on identity, work and the quiet liberation of decoupling.

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A lively riff on “Good luck to you Leo Grande” becomes a tender meditation on grief, intimacy and how performances can feel “mannered” or disappear into truth. Plus a quick detour into house anatomy -- those elusive eaves and the ever-misnamed “Gabel end.”

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Lee arrives wildly apologetic (sugar hangover and “pre-arranged lateness”), then recounts a calm immigration-enforcement raid spotted on a dog walk where Jeff and Poppy bristled first. The pair unpack the crowd’s quiet “witnessing,” the shaky economics versus the “beautifully shiny ideology” of such raids, and how immigration talk often masks racism.

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Simon’s grim HMO viewing – “a cupboard with a toilet in it” – kicks off a sharp rant about rent, greed and our own complicity in gentrification (yes, palazzo included). Lee’s just out of Covid, still “quite brain foggy,” as they juggle setup jitters, wool-winding, and the uneasy balance of rights vs responsibilities.

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Today’s episode sits between worlds: Lee’s COVID-brain-fog ramble collides with Simon’s identity shift as Sardinia becomes a “forever home.” The mood is excited but tender: new kitchen colours, shallow washing machines, and the coat of academia starting not to fit.

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Early-morning chaos (Jefrey’s squeaky-toy alarms and “Dr. Claggy” cinnamon-bun focaccia) spirals into a tender-but-fiery riff on migration, tribalism, and the everyday bureaucracy of moving lives across borders.

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The chat spins from joking about posthumous albums into a deep dive on Bowie, The Beatles, and Peter Jackson’s Get Back, with Simon realizing he might be the “Paul McCartney” of his work life. Meanwhile, the two reflect on trust, apologies, and which Beatle they’d most like to be.

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A tummy bug led to a missed call, sending Simon into a gently comic spiral of catastrophising while Lee nursed ginger ale. They laugh about phones, worry, and how fast our minds jump to worst-case scenarios.

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From crocodile-flatbread daydreams to bake-off blunders, the chat lands on pressure and nerves: how we choke in high-stakes moments yet sail when we’re wearing a role. A gentle riff on anxiety, agency and tiny cues (like “6.9 minutes”) that make being human weirdly manageable.

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Lee and Simon chat about how being “smart” has turned into a bit of a buzzword, popping up everywhere from phones to fabrics to how people talk about each other. They wonder if it’s really that important, especially when things like reliability and good questions often matter more.

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Lee and Simon drift from lighthearted chatter about films, music, and horror-comedies into a deeper reflection on fairness, empathy, and how business rules affect personal relationships. What begins with K-pop demon hunters and Coen Brothers ends with a heartfelt unpacking of hurt, rules, and the weight of being treated “just like everyone else.”

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Lee and Simon muse on the strangeness of plastic-covered furniture and saving things for best, linking it to habits of consumerism and care.

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Lee and Simon discuss how their understanding of success has changed, from youthful drive and ambition to the satisfaction of doing things well.

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Lee and Simon discuss podcast recording quirks, Italian language and food, the difficulty of finding good restaurants in Rome, and the virtues of immigrant-run eateries. They detour into cocktail adventures, running habits, architectural quirks in old houses, and auditory remedies involving bad covers of Sade's Smooth Operator. 

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Lee and Simon reflect warmly and self-critically on moments of unintended unkindness, exploring how irony, tone, and long-honed habits can cause harm even when the intention is to connect. They discuss the complexities of authenticity, performance, and informality—especially in academic or professional contexts—while gently mocking themselves and each other with characteristic affection (at least that's what chatGPT said).

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Lee and Simon navigate tech issues, family estrangement, censorship, and a terrible Wimbledon defeat.

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Simon and Lee swap stories about how AI makes writing easier and helps smooth out prickly emails, even if they feel a bit uneasy about it all. They also talk a bit about underpants, academic jargon, and the oddities of midlife.

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Lee and Simon discuss whether they’re in a second act or nearing the end of their working lives. They reflect on legacy, how little most of us are remembered, and how not having children changes that.

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Simon reflects on feeling in and out of control while managing tinnitus; Lee discusses boxers, rewilding sleep, and lime wall repairs.

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Simon shares a new tinnitus struggle; Lee discusses scones; both reflect on midlife pride, sleep, and renovation woes.

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Lee and Simon go from jam donut focaccia to knitting mistakes, obscure theatre shows to random celebrity run-ins – just the regular midlifing drift.

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Lee and Simon talk about high school reunions before Simon launches a broadside against Meta (and gets a little hot under the collar) and then they finish with a quick chat about pronoia.

Things covered: Bob and Lee's 29th wedding anniversary, Simon's 40 year high school reunion, reminiscence bump, the consequential things that happen to us when we are young, who we are is context, Lee rodding a drain (in Lisbon), home repairs in another country, Lee still talking about drains, the minds of two men (from a listener), saying gidday to Pete, something about Meta and Instagram and the advertising model, Zuckerberg's Hot or Not, the cultural role in how the advertising model functions, the horror of Instagram's algorithm, pronoia (Fred Goldner), harder to imagine than paranoia, Simon has chocolate in the cupboard (and hasn't eaten it all), strawberries in Lisbon, having glutenous bread sold by a Coeliac. 

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Lee and Simon talk about a moral conundrum: whether we ought to follow the wishes of the dead or that we owe more to those who remain alive. 

Things covered: video calls and the future, Blake and Jerusalem, Simon dancing in Dorset, Helen Poynor, transformative art, Jefrey infected by another dog (Lola), Lee practising looking up, Simon has a moral conundrum about following the wishes of the dead or taking care of the living, giving people the option, Simon's feeling about honouring the wishes of the dead, the emotional intelligence of Lee's dad (Norman), Lee's grandad was a wheelwright, not falling out over a wheelbarrow, sentimentality, being clear or not.

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Lee and Simon talk about changing their minds about things that matter, and finding compassion.

Things covered: scent update and the feeling of clean fresh skin, schoolboy French, 'believing' in climate change, scepticism without an object, anthropogenic climate change, changing your mind, perspectives changing through what we read (or not), Lee's binary nature, dancing the flick switch, changing in time, Lee's beliefs re trans bodies, Derrida (again), post-structuralism, gender performativity, fixed positions, allyship, we are human doings not human beings, being changed by theory, the extent to which education changes or transforms us, beliefs and facts, seatbelt use, cultural change through legislation, theoretical paradigms, overestimating the impact of the academy and conversations that spill out from the academy, Judith Butler and trans bodies, woke narratives, wokeness, not voicing disagreement, arguing doesn't change minds, finding compassion. 

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Lee and Simon discuss scent profiles and the ways bodies smell.

Things covered: jam donut focaccia, waking up early, cli-fi (climate fiction), The Deluge by Stephen Markley, description of a suicide bomber's body (from the inside) at the moment of detonation, Simon's scent profile, delving into the olfactory, not showering often, bottom hygiene, Crocodile Dundeee and two dunnies, armpit sweating while emailing, clothes shopping, wedding anniversaries, tolerating Lee, Lee blending scents (again), getting a window replaced in a property built in 1540, Lee living in a boarded up house (I Am Legend), Lee has a little spritz, Simon not wanting to spend his money on scents, Lee's sensitivity to the malodorous, Lee speaking to the Board of Governors, GANs (General Adversarial Network), AI (and machine learning), and artists using AI, Lee is not a pizza and beer man, body odour, an unwashed person, pheromones and being turned off by how someone smells, sniffing Bob, Simon needs a shower, releasing scents on the equinox and the solstice, Lee is correct. 

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Lee and Simon discuss furniture and curated maximalism (obviously Lee does most of the talking here), and chronic pain.

Things covered: the excitement of countdowns, Lee goes to a wine festival, how many Beatles are left, whether the Beatles voted or not, the trailer for Sinners, Hitchcock's "The Birds" (and its soundtrack), spring cleaning, Swedish death cleaning, various style magazines, curated maximalism, being judged when people come into your home, Lee running his hands along the walls because they are so smooth, Simon's boss is a hoarder, moving buildings at work, two half empty apartments, formica tables, Lee's new sofa, Lee being ashamed of his shallowness, Simon being aescetic, Lee running the world from his bed (like Trump), Trump's alleged golden showers, the sofa as the public facing comfort space, Antonio Citterio, the bigness of TVs, getting out of bed and back pain, putting your socks on while standing, 40 years of back 'stuff', getting used to chronic pain, rotation about the longitudinal axis, the word 'curation' makes Simon gip, Elle Decoration and Vogue.

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Simon and Lee talk about metaphors and the tragedy of how poetry is taught, before discussing three truisms from Anthony de Mello.

Things covered: the bell is tolling, true words said in jest, many a slip between cup and lip, not understanding metaphors, being literal, not liking poetry while really liking poetry, the meaning of poetry, Kae Tempest, Lee having an ugly cry at the traffic lights, Simon sneezes, all the Latin Simon and Lee know, the sweetness of dying for your country, Wilfred Owen, nationalism and nation states, Lee recites Owen's "Dulce et Decorum Est", Siegfried Sassoon, the Reform party in the UK, Anthony de Mello's "Awareness", returning love for hate, including the excluded, admitting you are wrong, turning the other cheek (Jesus during Sermon on the Mount), Wikipedia and academic research, Lee definitely married up, the unfettered unfiltered version of Lee, the reason to continue podcasting. 

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Simon and Lee talk about things they love.

Things covered: back in Blighty, the nature of home, putting down roots, having multiple passports (Jason Bourne), freedivers, things we love, what Lee is wearing (again), being self-conscious (or not) about the things we wear, being policed and judged, tortilla covered sourdough, Lee loves perfume and smelling good, layering perfumes, clothes or scent, Dubai chocolate, cookie mix floor tiles, negronis, spending time with friends outside, being social, Simon loves stillness, Stansted Airport, a bus trip to Coventry, TikTok, three hours swiping, the absence of boredom and over-stimulation, Simon's yin phase, two different looks in two different countries, Coventry after dark. 

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Simon and Lee discuss the way age starts not to manner (as we get older), the absurdity of reducing friction in our lives, and then have a quick conversation about Adolescence. 

Things covered: Buona Pasqua, Lee's raw early morning voice, the true reason for buying a house, Lee's Dad's 84th birthday, the cost of a pint of Guiness, the way age starts not to matter, eating only the inside of a cake, Lee's vowels, BBQ Norman, Lee's Mum's spreadsheet, buying a storage cupboard to lead a frictionless life, kitchens as a place of work, Sassari apartment update (more about the floors), other languages (and the limits of vocabulary), Adolescence, misogyny. 

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Simon reports in (once again) from Sardegna while attempting to buy a kitchen and the question of consent raises its head again. Lee and Simon also discuss Simon's lack of sartorial elegance. 

Things covered: marble floors and empty walls, buying a kitchen, 3D models of kitchens, discounts, putting washing machines in kitchens, boring jobs, sharing news over a negroni, descriptions of spaces in another language, asking for consent in Portughese, another leak in Lee's roof, climate change being real, imagining things (and bodies) in spaces, big cultural shifts, fritelle, the beginning of the end, trying to remove marble from a wall, bumping into friends on the street, having one's arm squeezed by a stranger, not being very dapper in an Italian city, Lee being a little more handsy than he thinks he is (on a train), Winnie-the-Pooh (and wanting to be sure of you), Simon is not dapper and Lee tries to give him some sartorial advice. 

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Simon reports in from Sardegna before Lee and he veer off into talking about what draws us to snake oil. 

Things covered: Getting the sound right while recording in a 'cathedral', flight delay, the mundanity of owning a place, Nodi networking function in Alghero, bumping back into Italian, experiences that are both concrete and abstract, dealing with uncertainty, meeting a life-coach, snake-oil, "l'aria fritta" (fried air), what draws us to people selling fried air, having one's buttons pushed over and over again, Sardegna drawing in a dreamcatcher vibe, homemade brick oven and making pizze, primal human experiences, cranio-sacral massages, gong showers (sound baths), golden showers, people talking (or not) about their kinks, piss play, more prevalent than us vanillas, lacking imagination (or perhaps theory of mind), Portishead, Beth Gibbons (singing Gorecki Symphony 3), how to be introduced into something we didn't use to like (e.g. yoga for Lee), the things we end up doing and believing, jam cocktail (listener feedback), unattributed quote from last week to George Saunders' commencement speech (in the links below). 

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Related links (and necessary corrections): 

• Beth Gibbons singing Górecki's Symphony No. 3 (not number 5): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YlGYxCSDJU
• George Saunders' commencement speech at Syracuse: https://genius.com/George-saunders-graduation-speech-at-syracuse-2013-annotated 

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Simon and Lee don't talk about Adolescene (yet), spend way too long discussing Reacher (again), before discussing whether we become kinder with age.

Things covered: Lee guesses Adolescence, finishing off the Reacher series (and just how bad it is), reading all the Reacher novels, trying to remember Duffy's name from Reacher, the Yankees and the Redsox, Stephen Tin Tin Duffy, founding member of Duran Duran (Lee reads out a bunch of stuff from wikipedia), not talking about Deliverance, becoming kinder with age (or not), a Rolodex, intransigence, Lee's parents getting kinder to Bob and the first time they met her, becoming more ourselves, being comfortable acknowledging our struggles, forgetting people's names, growing into ourselves, getting kinder to ourselves, watching people die, the sense of being connected and part of the human race, the desire to be happy. 

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Simon and Lee talk about the relevance and irrelevance of age as precipitated by a Simple Minds song. 

Things covered: Opening a can of beer, being taken out for lunch by a former PhD student, Noble Rot (Lambs Conduit, London), Reacher (the TV show), Anthony Michael Hall (The Breakfast Club), aging and looking aged, Lee and Andrew Child's 'In Too Deep', jumping the shark (again), The Chills, the Dunedin sound, Lee in Portugal again after a heavy pour, Finn and Sophie's visit to Coventry, Simple Minds' 'Don't You Forget About Me', having children versus not having children and the progression of time, not seeing people for a long time, cheque books, very short think pieces on TikTok, Gen X transitioning across so many different media types, Napster, Simon's upcoming visit to Italy, Negroni O'Clock, an empty apartment, a "preventino" or quote for renovation, getting a quote is different from a marriage proposal, Simon going to an online funeral (again) -- the death of his Aunt Adrienne Nolan (RIP).

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Simon almost got hit by a hearse and as a consequence Lee and Simon discuss the nature of stress. 

Things covered: Taking risks on a bike, where humans feel stress, noticing being stressed, degrees of stress, the difference between stress and anxiety, Simon not having headaches, migraines, difference limens, Simon has a panic attack during an Italian lesson, shame and disappointment, Jefrey gives Australian and New Zealand cuisine an 8, Lee on a high with the Falmouth Postgraduate conference, Lee wears his home-knitted scarf, Lee's knitting tension is gorgeous, Lee exceeding expectations (more knitting stuff), becoming expert at things, managing self-expectations, Lee's urge to be liked (food related this time), scrapping out a jam jar, cows with names produce more milk, Lee knitting throughout the entire conversation, Lee going to high-level meetings, advertising for knitting, finding strategies for coping, Lee's first week out of Instagram and just how good it is. 

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Lee and Simon talk about things that bother them about themselves and learning to live with them.

Things covered: Apple iCloud shared accounts and how shit they are, a ladybird backflip a la Jackie Chan, ladybugs, speaking all Northern, living in Lancaster, Blackpool, depressed British seaside towns, PIGS acronym (Portugal, Italy, Greece, Spain), Bob and Lee's ladybirds experience, finding out what ladybirds taste like, Torch Song Trilogy, the difference between hardware and software, knitting stick count in, Simon getting high on his own (bread) supply, Oliver Burkeman's Meditation for Mortals, learning to live with the the things that bother them, people pleasing, Totnes street folk singer who hates Lee, Lee sounding a bit more unhinged, chaos in the world of Bob and Lee (and singing a Christmas Carol), Bob and Lee teaching with Henry and William (their dogs at the time), performing "like me", pay them bitches no mind, self-absorption, Simon's clunking dogging him until he dies, Antipodeans going overseas to see the world (their big OE), risky humour in Turkey, the line between getting it right and getting it very wrong, squaring ourselves with ourselves, being aspirational, human beings recognising their shapes, saying goodbye. 

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Lee and Simon talk about things in life that are abstract and concrete, some things about Lee's knitting, freedom of thought and action, being happy in difficult times.

Things covered: Being homeowners, sliding doors, pocket doors, porta a libero (bifold door), talking about futures (all part of an apartment update), a(nother) knitting update (including the possibility of a knitted onesie), ribbing (more knitting), Lee reaches clickety-clackety on the pearl stitch but is not through the first series yet, counting stitches and losing track, hurt people hurt people, a sin is thought is as bad as a sin in action, freedom of thought and action (Alegre's Freedom to Think), marks made on the body, a bit of chatGPT action, Alan Carr's "Chatty Man", lining the pockets of another tech billionaire, pushback on the term "male privilege", Derridean deconstructions, Lee getting angry at billionaires (again), being happy in difficult times. 

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Lee and Simon talk about songs that make them dance (or not in Lee's case).

Things covered: an Oliver Spencer jacket, body size, Simon's nickname "Snogglegrass", having brothers, David Byrne's American Utopia (by Spike Jonze), I Zimbra by David Byrne, songs that make you dance, songs that make you sing, songs that make you cry, Nina Simone's "Don't Smoke in Bed", Sarah Bareilles "Once Upon Another Time", Elbow "Build A Rocket Boys!", searching for pitch, Lee banging his head three times, the feeling of longing for the things we can't do, Cyndi Lauper's "Time After Time", a printer stuck in Depeche Mode (joke), being Depeche Mode fans (or not), Depeche Mode's fanbase, Duran Duran "The Reflex!" lip sync competition in 1986, being popular (or not), having too much fun (and not being shamed), dance like nobody's watching, singing to musicals, Hamilton, Lee's wonky shoulder, Lee's knitting update (a woolen tanktop), apartment owning update, happy endings.

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Correction:

• David Byrne's American Utopia is a Spike Lee film not a Spike Jonze film.

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Lee and Simon have a conversation about moral compromises.

Things covered: knitting update, Simon's management training (difficult conversations), adult egos, being able to express emotions clearly, being compromised (morally) at work, being party to more privileged information, safe spaces, being responsibility for things that are bigger than me, the compromises of undergraduate recruitment, Simon's previous job at (Toe)Roehampton, working at a sausage factory, being a dream killer, different aptitudes, Jimi Hendrix story about not making it, thinking critically, survival at what costs?, selling shit versus helping people, Simon's compromise in supporting PhD dance students, medical update from Simon and his encounters with the National Health Service, (and is back on butter?).

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Simon shows up late so Lee bangs on fabulously. But then they talk about how much time we spend in our bodies (versus in our heads) and whether it's possible to spend too much time (in our bodies).

Things covered: Lee gets going by himself while waiting for Simon to show up (late), if only dogs could talk, Saturday Night Live, Lee failed to plug in his microphone (up until 06:50mins), needing a checklist and checking them off, Heaven songs, spending time in your body, spending too much time in your body, what it means to be 'in your body', different from using your body, physical labour, noticing your body from the inside as opposed to how your body looks, Simon agrees with himself, over sensitivity to what is going on in your body, a joke coming down the pike (not masturbation), paying too much attention to one's self and to others (say when someone is walking towards you), sensitivity to others when teaching, when we are aware of our bodies, Lee's impinged neck nerve, ibuprofen, Lee spending a lot of time ranking things (in his job), Simon sitting on a ball all day, more on consent and yoga (it really happened), the problem of not spending enough time in our bodies, not having computers in meetings, getting rid of desks and chairs, sending emails during meetings, Dilit school in Rome (and the choreography of chairs).

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Lee and Simon talk about becoming experts (in knitting), reducing screentime and nostalgia for things we have never experienced. Warning: episode includes SPOILERS for the film Conclave.

Things covered: Knitting update from Lee, maintaining the intensity of a hobby, well-being and knitting, novices, expertise and thinking, changing sides while teaching a dance class, being the best in a (yoga) class, the slowness of learning a new skill, Lee being a slow study, knitting becoming a meditation, being distracted from stress, much less screentime, knitting in bed, spending less time on our phones is a really good thing, using a phone to talk to people, anemoia, millenials being nostalgic for the time before smartphones existed, how rare videos were in the 1990s, our conversations were not recorded, audio recording from 1977 of watching Star Wars at the cinema, the complexity of growing up with smartphones, Lee watched Conclave (his homework) -- WARNING spoilers included (but not written here), Gabrielle Eastwood-Ellis as a woman in the Catholic Church, Lee finds a new Chicken Restaurant, being a chicken in Portugal, many restaurants at the bottom of Bob and Lee's road in Portugal, gentrification, Simon participates in a yoga class, consent to touch in a yoga class. 

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Lee and Simon go on a typically chaotic ride that is tricky to summarise other than they catch up. Just read below.

Things covered: Lee takes up knitting, the latest on Mark Zuckerberg, Badly Drawn Boy's Pissing in the Wind, Lee's knitting sticks, reducing screen time, finding a hobby that isn't reading, Lee's year of not buying anything, Simon's recording mishap, screentime by proxy, finger knitting, Lee travelling the globe (Portugal) in a mini-van, taking knitting needles on a plane, Hannibal Lecter, dog muzzles, Simon saw two films with John Lithgow (Footloose, Conclave) and Lee guesses the first very quickly, The World According to Garp, The Adventures of Buckaroo Bonzai, the overlap in Simon and Lee's taste, Conclave (no spoilers), David Lynch's death and his films, Lee remembers Victoria Wood's death, Eraserhead, The Elephant Man, Ecosia (search engine), changing which side of the bed you sleep on, lying on top of Bob, body temperature, people with English as a second language, true facts, no content at the 23min mark, Lil's Permesso di soggiorno, three suitcases full of cash in Sardegna, there's many a slip between cup and lip, not gifting the suitcases, man with a van, how best to get stuff from Coventry to Sassari (and the emotional implications), paying customs, Brexit, not having two of everything and doing it all in one fell swoop, one's forever home, second-hand things, number of phone pickups a day, not even real bodies, Tim Cook paying $1m to Donald Trump's inauguration, Elon (doesn't get a mention), knitting for weeks, touching dough too much when you are learning.

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Lee and Simon continue their conversation with Matthew Onarheim-Smith about his experiences of depression.

Apologies for Simon's mic level.

Things covered: Agency and depression, ketamine treatment (not officially approved for depression), the patterns of depression, combined with talk therapy, failure, shame and hope, Thich Naht Hahn and hope, out of body experiences, living with depression (or chronic pain), acceptance, Uroskolen, bringing yourself to the feelings you want to run away from, the narratives we tell ourselves, not being our thoughts, others hearing our stories, buying into our personal stories, seeking help, interbeing, despair that is shared, not knowing the feeling (of depression), seeking solitude, Matthew's generosity and gentility, how best to help, more on seeking help.
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Related links (and necessary corrections):

• coping with depression: https://www.nhs.uk/mental-health/self-help/tips-and-support/cope-with-depression/
• Self-care for depression: https://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/types-of-mental-health-problems/depression/self-care/
• Mental Health Foundation: https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/explore-mental-health/a-z-topics/depression
• men and depression: https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/explore-mental-health/a-z-topics/men-and-mental-health
• Matthew's "Moving Dad" YouTube channel: https://youtube.com/@amovingdad1310
• Matthew's "Moving Dad" Instagram channel: https://www.instagram.com/amovingdad
• Uroskolen https://www.uroskolen.no/

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Lee and Simon bring on their first ever (official) guest – Matthew Onarheim-Smith – to talk about his experiences of depression.

Apologies for Simon's mic level.

Things covered: Introducing Matthew Onarheim-Smith, Quick by Shona McCullagh, annoying songs, driving with Simon, flirting with depression, entering the conversation with a plan of what to discuss, having a relationship with depression, not feeling good and recognising something is wrong, sound trauma in Vienna, tinnitus, stress as a destabiliser, feeling free, the sensation of depression, thought loops and identifying with those thoughts, Uroskolen (the angst school), courage in discussing depression, shame and stigma, gender and shame, Lee making ginger-bread and going to bed early, Trevor Noah, ADHD and being raised by women, Bette Midler and talking about me, resistance to discussing depression, suicidal ideation, NZ men, dance as a place inhabited mostly by women, men bonding by sharing an activity, showing weaknesses and flaws, dancing for Shona Dunlop-McTavish (and the fertility dance), the feeling of talking about depression.

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Related links (and necessary corrections):

• coping with depression: https://www.nhs.uk/mental-health/self-help/tips-and-support/cope-with-depression/
• Self-care for depression: https://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/types-of-mental-health-problems/depression/self-care/
• Mental Health Foundation: https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/explore-mental-health/a-z-topics/depression
• men and depression: https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/explore-mental-health/a-z-topics/men-and-mental-health
• Matthew's "Moving Dad" YouTube channel: https://youtube.com/@amovingdad1310
• Matthew's "Moving Dad" Instagram channel: https://www.instagram.com/amovingdad
• Uroskolen https://www.uroskolen.no/

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Lee and Simon catch up a bit before Lee discusses having his testicles scanned. Yes. Scanned.

Things covered: Waking up from a nap, staying up late, snow on the ground, 2025, Lee has visitors from Alice Springs, the size of Alice Springs, Alice Sings (a choir), Simon spoiling a surprise party, baby in the house, Lee's nextdoor neighbour Jill, time keeps on ticking, Lee has a lump on his testicles and had them scanned, man-sized tissues, the NHS, Finn needs to check his balls (men aged 17-35), Lil makes an appearance, testicular cancer, the machinations of a testicular scan, superficial lumps, Lee's history with problematic balls, epididymitis, varicocele, making jokes when anxious, Lee is fine, self-diagnosis, epididymal cyst, the diagnosis, manual palpation, hospital in Ashburton, who we turn to or call when we are sick (and/or scared). 

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Lee and Simon talk about being sensitive (or not) to others and Lee had a conversation with his Dad about politics (spoiler: changing what we watch and read changes what we think and believe).

Things covered: Queen at Live Aid (1985), Lee has been having a lot of fun, Simon is not a big drinker, Simon and Lil's cocktail phase, Gimlets, Lee helping the Portuguese government (not really), having fun vicariously, Queen being big in Italy, Pink Floyd, I don't like mondays, Bob Geldof, Happy Salmon, Do They Know It's Christmas "documentary", Midge Ure, Boomtown Rats, The Golden Girls, Sting's haircut in Band Aid, films with "gold" in the title, sneezing then blowing your nose, covering your mouth when your cough (or not), what we did and didn't learn from the pandemic, bodily policing, our capacity to be sensitive to others, Lee's Dad's politics, bootstrapping, first-hand evidence, Socialism, Lee reading Marx to his Dad, Norman's media diet has changed, changing what we watch and listen to changes the way we see the world, flaming aetheism, Darth Vader giving Lee a car, Lee "Strident" Miller, turning their frowns upside down, Happy New Year!

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Lee and Simon enter the Christmas spirit by discussing fart walking. Simon reads Lee a brief story, they discuss a plan to move things and Lee has an airport encounter.

Things covered: Determination to continue, Simon being a Christmas grinch, saying Happy Solstice, putting clothes down in different rooms, Lee in Portugal (hence poppy microphone), fart walking, Bob Whalley's suggestions (and drunken guest appearance), flight attendants' crop dusting, David Sedaris stories (sadness and meanness), not talking to people on airplanes, post-prandial walks, reading a (bread) story to Lee, the song of sourdough, Simon has a follower (no that's not right, it's Lil), physical (analogue) emojis, getting stuff (and what stuff) from Coventry to Sardegna, the first item on a list, emptying your pockets as you go through security, Lee gets a pat down in airport security, back to back meetings in full sun, the tupperware container sky in the UK, a Friends episode (doing things slowly = sexier), airport feedback, smelly toilets (which is how they are supposed to be), Bob asking L&S to do ASMR, cooking for guests in Lisbon, porridge cooked overnight, Bob and Lee going to a restaurant for Christmas. 

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Lee and Simon talk about their bodily 'tells' regarding stress, then digress into a conversation about fashion before a surprise guest appearance.

Things covered: A bodily tic and noticing habits, lip balm, Jon Kabat-Zinn "we are being breathed", work stress, breath, holding back tears, trait anxiety and recipes for heart attacks, Bob's stressors are different, the stress of travelling (and leading up to travelling), airports being designed to bring out the worst in people, Lee's new blue headphones, Simon being able to hear himself, replacing the battery on Bose headphones for £200, "Buy Now" documentary (Netflix), e-waste, Karl Marx and deskilling the work force, Lee's new Payntr Harris Twead overcoat, Boglioli Milano, Loewe electronics and Loewe spanish fashion hour, Lee not buying anything again, unnecessary food, Percy Pigs, Simon's Marshmallow Test failings, the resources required to produce 'junk' food, Tony's Chocolonely chocolate, Bob Whalley makes a guest appearance (at remove, lean in to hear) and comes up with a suggestion or three for next week's episode, plus mukbanging and fart walking.

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Lee and Simon start with a bit of follow-up before droping into a conversation about human resources and being in conversations that are not what we think they are.

Things covered: Lee sings Simon a song, some follow up re Simon's TikTok job, IBAN numbers, foreign exchange trading, Irene Miller's FX chops, why Irene passed out last week (fanmail from Midlifing's resident Doctor Corbetron), Strictly Come Dancing research, anger at Bruce Forsyth, BBC spending money on EDI agenda, OfCom, Candoco Dance Company, human resources, Scooby Doo, Wayne's World, paradigm shifts (see link below), sending emails while naked, legal arse covering, Lee running a little hot, body temperature in general, Lee's contradictions, lighthouse keepers, embarrassing climb-downs, showering with a t-shirt on just in case, colleagues who you have never met, mandatory training at work, PREVENT training, radicalisation, intimacy co-ordination, Simon zipping up, interoception land, Simon's internet broke.

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Related links (and necessary corrections): 

• Ship vs lighthouse paradigm shift: https://www.deseret.com/2023/12/14/23953259/paradigm-shift-families-faith/

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Simon meets up with an old academic friend and it sparks a conversation between Lee and Simon about having a plan B (which might involve collaborating with TikTok).

Things covered: Lee's Apple Watch, meeting a proper academic, having a Plan B, going to the cinema, doxing, a letter from TikTok, content moderation, PTSD from content moderation, generating dance content, Lee's grant winning capabilities, Bob and Lee's Plan B (involves houses), Lee's Mum's hospital visit, real midlifing content, Lee's Mum's health, the Silent Generation, clown face emoji, silly cows (gendered), passing out in the bathroom, "my knickers my knickers" (and having a cold butt on the floor), stories from Lee's parents being necessary for Midlifing, memories (and things) from our parents (including from a distance), the 'fixing' and solidity of parents, grief. 

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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After keeping some content in his pocket for some time Lee springs a question on Simon about touch and fondness.

Things covered: Simon being able to move bodies, Lee's content about touch and fondness, Lee's love for Jefrey, consent, touch being less appropriate, because HR, Simon's dance training and making contact with people all the time, newborns who are not held, Simon asking a PhD student to touch them, things gained and lost regarding consent, dropping a consent grenade, Simon touching people far less than he used to, Lee's actor training and feeling emotions in and through the body, third eye, root chakra, third eye blind, a hangover from being a fat kid, deep insecurity about one's body, Simon hugging male cousins in NZ, the rigidity of make hugs, the back pat, not to be the first person to leave the hug, the nature of hugging, air kissing in Italy, physical intimacy in NZ that is coded in violence, Lee's story about 3 spanish boys on the train (belly prodding), physical contact at work.

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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In part 2 of a two-parter Simon and Lee carry on (obviously) from last week and get lost (and het up) discussing misogyny.

Things covered: voting with our own best interests, the ruling classes, the feminist narrative, misogyny, Bob going shopping for batteries, skin hunger after COVID, getting closer and closer, women and fear, more misogyny, seeing ourselves in other men, rape culture, consent, 16 Candles, The Breakfast Club, Lee's huge fondness for horror films, the final girl (the girl who survives), Nightmare on Elm Street (spoilers), Star Wars (briefly, also BIG spoiler), violence, the responsibility of men to be small, Jefrey waking up early on the weekends, Lee's face has two settings (Binary Face Miller), Lee's age (he's 5 years younger than Simon), Hannah Arendt, to make monsters of others, recognising degrees of humanity, Eichmann trial (in Israel, not Nuremberg), how to edit this essay, saying goodbye.

Correction: Eichmann was tried in Israel in 1961, not in post-war trials in Nuremberg. 

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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In part 1 of a two-parter Simon and Lee start off (inevitably) with an apartment update, some elongated preamble, check in post US election, and voting in our own best interests (or not).

Things covered: Photoshop vs CAD models, learning 3D modelling, planning a kitchen (again), apartment update, Bob and Lee making a list of all the things they are going to do on their week off, camping in one's own place, podcast relationships, parasocial relationships, Colin and Johnny's podcast, Lee asks for feedback from listeners we don't know, US election aftermath, Simon's upcoming 4 year hiatus from all news, Lee's weekly team meetings (that happen every week), remembering Boris Johnson (and him dancing at a wedding), Simon tries to remember something (again), gently touched on erectile dysfunction, things we haven't talked about (not bowel movements for instance), Corbetron's rubbish joke about erectile dysfunction, Simon keeps trying to remember something, realising that Boris was very popular which was revealing about the UK, Hilary in 2016, Kamala being competent, middle-aged white men liking Trump, humans are just sophisticated bees. 

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Simon seeks some advice from Lee about keeping things in confidence, and then they talk about what our work colleagues really think of us.

Things covered: A messed up beginning riddled with technological issues and two different audio streams, Sennheiser headphones, Sony headphones, photoshopping floor plans (apartment update), Lee's Dad flipping houses, renovations from another country, Ian Dury and the Blockheads (Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick), the rhythm method, a drummer in the room as a form of contraception, a conversation in confidence, burning bridges with everybody, overestimating one's capacity to intervene productively, Simon's nickname Clunk, a hilarious way for Lee to be an arsehole, Jefrey (the dog) trying to eat a croissant from a 2 year old, Lee being an excellent Agony Uncle, Lee singing musical tunes, staff away days (that aren't away), saying things we like about colleagues, emerging themes about what Simon's colleagues think of them, Simon's capacity to organise, baked goods at work, cupboard love, lightness of touch at work, being funny at work, hypothetically what Lee's colleagues would say about him, people pleasing, 360 reviews.  

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Lee and Simon discuss the extent to which identities are tied to work, and some other stuff.

Things covered: International Champagne Day (25 October), talking in the third person, Prosecco, Cava, a biscuity Champage, Franciacorta, apartment update (offer accepted), relative cheapness vs eye watering amounts of money, waiting on tenterhooks, needing an Italian bank account, the apartment will be signed off by Christmas, Lee seeding house buying ideas, one's work identity (and it changing or even disappearing), a new perspective on work and on art making, which things to move to Italy, moving money around, the things we buy as investments, not paying rent anymore, Lee being a dastardly prick, Bob coming back from China with gifts, cultural generosity, chinese artist Rui Guo, Simon's virus, Lee's chest pain, wearing stress in the stomach or heart, removing saturated fats from one's diet, that gall bladder thing, egg-less pancake recipe, Hong Kong martial arts film called Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In (must watch apparently), drinking sangria in the park, Lou Reed.  

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Lee and Simon discuss what it is they are most proud of and the capacity to feel as if terrible events are gifts.

Things covered: Not having a kitchen, Wolf ovens, removing fitted carpets from a place, Simon being met by a friend at St Pancras, Lee being proud of still being married to Bob, the challenges of a life, having had a difficult week (tummy anxiety), the feeling of underperforming at work, men being less able to communicate feelings (or not), texting a Jungian analysis, the feeling of a big week when it isn't really that big, how small things accumulate over time, Lee watching and seeing the photographs that Bob is taking while she is away, a period of difficulty as a gift, revisiting (briefly) that moment when Simon and Lee covered Simon's reaction to their first miscarriage (see episode whatever way back when), the capacity to view a difficult thing as a gift, the rhythm of loss, adapting to change in time, coming back to worm carnage, closed captions: unsettling music playing, discordant noise, John Williams and Jaws, being full sensory beasts.

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Simon seems to be on the verge of buying something big and Lee wades in.

Things covered: Catching up after being away and hearing each other's voices, Bob in China, high speed trains to Hong Kong, American and British voices in HK, being a foreigner vs being a tourist, not a lot of love for Keanu Reeves in our listenership, Timothy Chalamet, Tom Holland, being told when we jumped the shark, buying an apartment, an expensive computer, the non-negotiables, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, junkets, not having the vocabulary (regardless of the language), marble flooring, the process of buying an apartment in another country, UK property law, flying freehold, numbers in another language, co-dreaming, checking out bidets in a shop, bum hose pipes in Portugal, Bob's match has been met by Igor, Lil's capacity to image space, geometra (surveyor), first time buyer, the chain in the UK housing market, Lee's house buying history.

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Simon and Lee call Finn to find out who he likes. Things really go off the rails, and then Lee gets back to his favourite subject: jettisoning friends.

Things covered: Lee jettisoning friends (again), update and feedback from newphew Finn re Keanu Reeves, trying to add someone to a FaceTime call, live update from Finn: Paul Mescal and Pedro Pascal, Normal People, Ordinary People, Gladiator 2, Andrew Whats-his-chops (hot priest in Fleabag), All of Us Strangers, Cillian Murphy (Bomby-man), Murphy's face needing a wash, Lee being the universal taste-maker, Oppenheimer, Christopher Nolan, the longest running podcast ever, jumping the shark (again), that Lee dumping friends is not a true story, being gay for pay, Lee listening to a 'blue' podcast (on suggestion from a friend), Tim Walz and tonic masculinity, studying micro-expressions online (during a Tim Walz speech), responding and not-responding to messages (including acknowledging birthdays), iPads being the pinnicle of technology, Lee wearing a HUD to read out a presentation (and not looking ridiculous in the glasses).  

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Simon and Lee get silly celebrating their 200th episode, and they discuss a translation of a speech by Donald Trump.

Things covered: The arbitrary nature of 200 episodes, Lee's soporific tone, falling asleep during meetings, haribot in a mini, just how easy the marshmallow test is (for Simon), Simon's TeeVee snacks adventure (from another episode), brain messages, weeing at the pub, falling ewoks, Return of the Jedi (and ewoks), seeing Star Wars for the first time, force fields, breaking the seal at the pub, waking up people dozing off while listening to Midlifing, their disinterest in their listeners, Lil Boyce and translating things, stuffing up prepositions, Donald Trump speech in Italian, Lee being more special than Simon, making decisions about translating, being seduced by ideas, following (or not) the politics in the USA, the things we can influence, the lesser of two evils, conservatives being happier than progressives, Lee lighting and burning incense, Aesop's incense. 

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Simon and Lee work through earthquakes, what Lee sleeps in, ghost outfits and life after death.

Things they discuss: The dancing scene in Call Me By Your Name, dancing at a wedding, swimming in the early morning, Lee survives an Earthquake in Lisbon (while naked), Bob doesn't even wake up for it, Georges Perec's "Life A User's Manual", the 2011 Christchurch earthquake, the Shaky Isles, 1755 Lisbon earthquake, ghost outfits, the expansive sky where Lee's parents live, Bob and Lee watching for shooting stars, Lee not believing in God, different kinds of tears, the word awe (and contrasting emotions), being as far away from TikTok as you can get, small and not mattering, the smallness of differences in conflict, we humans are all the same, engineering hatred, genetic commonalities with bananas, being made of stardust, there being nothing after death, how long the brain continues to function after death, organ harvesting, being aware, ecstatic dancing, craft beers in Lisbon, free beer, needing to be more dog as a philosophy for life, self-consciousness and dancing like nobody is watching, flow, the Task Positive Network, why human beings like to travel, projecting into a building for retirement. 

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Simon and Lee discuss Simon's experience of a root canal. Lee chimes in with buying a car and a bit about optometrists.

Things they discuss: Simon having a root canal, dealing with the unknown, teachers (for example) keeping in mind how unfamiliar an experience is and how important that is, getting the giggles while at the dentist, down-dogging to the dentist, Tonya Harding the shit out of the others, having five canals, not really knowing what a root canal is, three different approaches from people before Simon had the treatment, giving reassurance, buying a car online and having it delivered, Lee's list of five dream sofas, Simon's first job in a sports shoe store (in 1986?) and not having the necessary expertise (or training), Simon's reading glasses frames, not going to Specsavers, going to an independent Optometrist, the root canal not yet being finished, the possibility of getting a tooth prosthesis (followed by an inappropriate joke that Lee didn't edit out), Simon's incisors, Toothsavers, tooth-hurty, tooth infections, Sir Andy Murray and other Scottish lookalikes, Pamela and Fabio's wedding in Sardegna, auguri, Lil's linguistic advantages, those things called facts, male pattern building, dancing at the wedding, dancing like someone who can dance (and better than Andy Murray), antibiotics, and pre-emptive antibiotics (in case of emergency), probiotics. 

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Simon and Lee discuss how Lee's relationship with his parents is changing (or not) and Simon going through his Mother's writing.

Things they discuss: Jefrey is inbetween breakfasts, Lee's breakfast, brushing your teeth when you wake up, not talking about the science of brushing your teeth before or after breakfast, bacteria replicating at night in your mouth, water squirters, mouthguards at bedtime, sleep apnea, Lee not making breakfast because he's dead, Weekend at Bernie's, how the age of Lee's parents is manifesting itself, Jonathan Silverman, Andrew McCarthy, Brighton Beach Memoirs, the documentary Brats, Rob Lowe making sense, Molly Ringwald not appearing on the documentary, repeating stories as we age and how long between the stories (days, minutes), Lee's Dad's pool is leaking, the man dug or the man Doug, a cubic meter, ladling out water of a pool, elderly people exercising, how Lee's relationship with his parents is changing, being more anxious about them (and expressing it), dying of emptying a swimming pool out, the challenge of doing all of Netflix (Lee's Mum rising to it), South Korean dramas on Netflix, Atal Gwande's "Being Mortal" (the medicalisation of death), Simon going through his Mother's writing (by posthumous request of his Mother) and putting it off, journalling instead of diarying, "What will I tell the children?" (G.A. Ellis), talking about midlife-ing, the beauty of your lives being ahead of you and the flip side of that, thinking about life ending.

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Simon and Lee talk about the things they have learned from their enemies.

Things they discuss: Mars the planet and who owns Mars the confectionary thing, Lee's newfound love of stickers, Pema Chodron's "Living Beautifully", the people we don't like, Bob interviewing a student who talked about their nemesis, Lee getting the discards, the wisdom of Ru Paul, feeling happy at the misfortune of another, Simon's greatest teacher, gentle hints to help you get rid of people, being an outsider, Peter Kramer helping Lee with a bullying situation years ago, the force of personality to be an actor, teachers are not to be trusted and they know fuck-all (except the brilliant ones), the value of terrible things, imagining if Lee were still an actor, the directors Lee would have liked to have worked with (David Lynch), Simon would go with Terrance Mallick, Wild at Heart (by Lynch), Nicholas Cage before he was a little bit Nicolas Cage, not Blue Velvet, Willem Dafoe losing his head, David Lynch having lunch with some actors and getting a phone call from Dennis Hopper, Lee being a fancy human being.

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Simon and Lee share a tricky conversation about the politics of representation.

Things they discuss: finding the note about the tricky subject, Lee extemporising, representation and optics, box ticking, Bayo Akomolafe and representation on slave ships, Simon's confusion about representation, the end game of the politics of representation, Guild HE report on "Understanding the lived experience of ethnic minority students in postgraduate research", the vitality of role models that we see ourselves in, visible markers of identity, female vice-chancellors and a patriarchal narrative, Lee goes all Derridean on us and getting to the point where the binary has been dismantled, gender-based violence in the UK and positioning women as chattle.

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Simon and Lee talk about "youngest and smallest" and the long-term effects of this feeling (and other similar feelings).

Things they discuss: visual but small, knowing things (or not) in meetings, refiling funding pots, knowing less than other people and what gets said (or not), speaking with confidence and authority, being the youngest and smallest, a curse of humility and inferiority, the opposite of a humble brag, walking towards police, Jefrey climbing into police cars, lots of cutting out, a drop off and pick up zone for Jesus, Jefrey being blessed by a vicar, miscreants outside the church, The Outsiders (film), beat cops swinging around their thing-a-rings, the image we have of ourselves and if/when it changes, ozempick thin and ozempick face (and list of people related to this), OJ Simpson trial defence attorney (Robert Kardashian), reorienting perception of one's body and mind, wanting to be quiet and by one's self, Simon confesses to being ignored by Lee, Lee's deep sense of comfort with Simon, being aware of the conditions of our performing in the world, looking physically older. 

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Simon and Lee tier list the shit out of films starring Keanu Reeves.

Things they discuss: Dangerous Liasons (including the book), Valmont (L&S got this name wrong), The World According to Garp, Sea of Love and having the hots for Ellen Barkin, slightly dirty (erotic) thrillers, Cruel Intentions, all the Keanu films (can't be bothered listing them all), Interview with the Vampire (not a Keanu film), two lads banging (in televisual remake of Interview with the Vampire), the final of Wimbledon in which Alcaraz was called 'hot' by Annabelle Croft (who was on Strictly Come Dancing), Nicole Kidman in Eyes Wide Shut, the eroticism of Ken and Barbie, River's Edge (homework for Simon), River Phoenix's death, Gus van Sant, Mission Impossible directed by Brian de Palma, To Die For (Kidman film), Dirty Dancing, True Blue by Madonna, top 5 Beyonce songs, a conversation about Ms Swift, Destiny's Child.

Top 5 according to your hosts: 1. John Wick; 2. The Matrix; 3. Speed; 4. My Own Private Idaho; 5. Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure.

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Simon and Lee talk about obsessions and whether or not to talk about them. 

Things they discuss: Being discombobulated, Lee's flight being cancelled, more on Simon's cholesterol and the NHS, budget cuts, brief (tangiential) conversation with Jefrey the dalmation, there will be butter (a film starring Daniel Day Lewis), birthday presents and Bob's birthday present registry, Bear (note-taking application), annual subscription services, shitting and kissing balls, putlocker (again), very delayed update on Kamala Harris, Eames House Bird, reading in the pub with a frolleague, articles about Lidar ("light detection and ranging"), Quicksilver (launcher application from back in the day), being obsessed with things, dickhead rabbit holes, sub-reddits, Lee going further than Madonna in his (yoga) practice, teaching classes on Brecht and Stanislavski, Artaud and total theatre, why Simon quit instagram years and years ago, and the sourdough line of conversation (getting high on your supply).

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Simon and Lee discuss hosting parties that are performances and re-wiring approaches to food.

Things they discuss: Simon hosts a party that is a performance in which he is not the host called We Move In Close Circles, the stress of hosting a party, making a lot of pizza, curious.com (which changed its name to just Curious), On the Scent, cholesterol update, the cost of olive oil, intermittant fasting regimes (5 days 2 days), snake dinners, Lee's commute, Lee hallucinating about talking to Jefrey, thinking about when you can eat before bedtime and how that's a midlife thing, the Anatomy Colouring Book, Bob and the Death Star (ie charity shopping), Lee in a second-hand Zegna shirt, witchcraft.

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Simon and Lee talk about anxiety that persists over time and situations that appear to be high stakes when they are not.

Things they discuss: Intrusive thoughts, self-diagnosing online, anxiety, worrying, ruminating and being lost in thought, getting into rows (and arguments) in your head, potentially high-temperature meetings (that are low stakes), Universities being hierarchical, people doing what they are told, the clarity of a work position as opposed to the height of it, the diminishing size of undergraduate theatre and dance programmes in higher education in the UK, smelling people's emotions (and Psychoneuroendocrinology), a specialist who just does root canals, teeth grinding and the pandemic, childhood mental health and the pandemic, children being kept home for so long during COVID19, a new labour Government in the UK, the UK being a conservative nation and serfdom, Keir Starmer or not, and people never being happy.   

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Simon and Lee talk about no longer being children.

Things they discuss: Lee deals with some parent issues, tries out his Australian accent, Simon had dinner with friends and talking about no longer being children, dying from a broken heart, family lineage, a line from Shakespeare's Hamlet, not being nurtured as children, being loved by parents, Lee's Mum wanting udder cream, face and hand cream, the active ingredients of udder cream, the Dark Web, Lee still being a child, a 1.1kg pot of udder cream, Lee solves the udder cream problem and clearly will continue being a child, still being childish (in general), approaching Midlifing timetable meaning we have slightly shorter episodes over coming weeks, Midlifing sodes, Italians being funny with acronyms and not having CET, travelling light (and not recording), follow-up from last week which will appear next week.

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Lee and Simon talk about imagining bad things as a way to not do them, Coldplay at Glastonbury, and human beings singing together.

Things they discuss: Midlifing show titles, the desire or feeling to jump or fall off heights, the meaning of al fresco, being sucked off a balcony, thinking through the possibilities of a fall or jump, someone walking over your grave, airing out Lee's flat in Portugal, hanging out washing on the edge of a building, rehearsing the anxiety of falling, a baby on a balcony, going to the internet for a response, imagining terrible terrible things (like stamping on a chihuahua), Wikipedia-level study, such feelings getting stronger with age, Edward S. Casey's book "Imagining", imagining the catastrophe, staying safe, Lee's Chris Martin shoulders, Coldplay at Glastonbury, non playable characters (NPC), a celebration of togetherness, Coldplay being just this side of irritating, human beings singing together, Paul McCartney vs Coldplay, YouTuber with microbakery who can't bake, middle-aged men cycling and hobbies.

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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It's hard to describe what this one's about. Just listen.

Things they discuss: Lee cutting half a yew tree (that has grown a lot), Simon's 40th at Riverford Farm, being old and unimportant academics, the foundations of Bob and Lee's house, youse as plural pronoun, the inaccuracy of language, splitting infinitives and Star Trek, mooching versus smooching (a clunk and Freudian slip by Simon), practice research, a soporific version of Midlifing (mixed in with practice research), Edward S. Casey's bimble, send Midlifing a text message, learning a language by listing all the words you know in that language, Commando comics, mistranslations, the concept of soaking, sex before marriage in Mormon communities, re-watching The Wire (mos def, you feel me?), if your name's not down (or Dan) you're not coming in, Pauline Oliveros and deep listening, Lee on fire (not literally), a typically absurd episode, Simon not hearing what Lee says, Joe Biden's performance in the debate, Ruby and Finn going out counting votes.

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Simon and Lee are back in the saddle together (finally) and they talk about funerals and one of Simon's experiences in Rome. 

Things they discuss: Lee is sick, they discuss Bridgerton Series 3 and Lee's eye for detail, Lee working too hard, a funeral in Portugal, drinking wine at a funeral, the size of one's funeral, Jefrey not technically being a person, dying before or after one's partner (and a rationale old age suicide), Lee's parents at the funeral, becoming inured to death, members of Lee's family, ex-council house buy-off under Thatcher, Simon being given a joke gift by his grandfather, Simon's grandparents called Darn and Boompa, Mackintosh's Toffee in NZ, mean-ness towards children, infantalising people (say at University), a child crying "Vaffanculo", acting (or not) when hearing neighbours under duress, Lee's minisodes efforts.

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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A minisode: Lee covers for Simon and talks about having too many water bottles.

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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A minisode: Lee shaves off his beard and Simon doesn't make it.

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Lee and Simon talk about perfume and where to put it.

Some other details from the episode: being overwelcomed, being taken out for dinner, saying thank you and please so much, Lee's shock collar to stop him saying bad words, language being amazing, Lee's Cult Beauty notifications, Lee wearing perfume (in layers), Simon not wearing perfume, half-chubs, more and more about perfumes and where to put them, Simon's summer scent: DEET; Ffern, the rigour of Lee's perfume profile, aluminium under your arms, Lee being a ledger member of Ffern, Men's Health, ketosis, Simon not having a very strong bodily smell, not going near underpants, brands of underpants, Brown Stitch (clothing repairs in Coventry), little holes in merino clothing, being comfortable, WATC studio and their blank t-shirts, Simon's t-shirt size and no one is listening anymore because this podcast is just us chatting, Susan (Ellis) the content queen, Lee's new chest of drawers, not having a sense of smell, Lee's colleagues telling him he smells good, touching on consent, and consent before touching. 

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Lee and Simon had a real meeting for work before Simon had to sneak off for tooth hurty where he discovers he may not be happy with his smile. A conversation about intimacy and being turned on.

Some other details from the episode: Simon is impressed by Lee during a real meeting they had together for work, feeling fraudulent at work, expressing not knowing, professorial training, Logan's Run, teeth issues for Simon and the difference between not paying and paying for dentistry, having one's smile fixed, an attractive dentist who showed a lot of interest in Simon, Florence Nightinghale, Lee not yet having graduated to TikTok, living with a dog, humans are such simple animals, flirting with men, being turned on by women more than men, male dentists, Lee being dead from the neck down, having more testosterone, Corbetron sweating testosterone, Simon assuming women were/are not interested in him, the stories men are told (e.g. Say Anything, The Breakfast Club), John Hughes, Molly Ringwold, complementing colleagues, teeth grinding as a teenager, a tooth that has decided to die.

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Lee and Simon try and get up from the floor without using their hands and they discuss quite expensive beds and twilight years.


Some other details from the episode: Lee's shoulder, getting sorer as you get older, getting up off the floor, putting your hand on your knee when you bend over, where Lee puts his bakeware, not adapting as you get older, Trikonasana (yoga posture), Bob and Lee buying beds for each other in the future, memory foam mail order mattresses who don't sponsor us, twilight year plans, living in your parents place when it's no longer theirs, memory of driving up the drive wearing a Dinner Suit, power drills, renovating in the garage, someone who owns a power drill, "fai da te" (DIY in Italian), rawl plugs, hanging bikes, how Simon feels about 60 years and where he might land, on a hill in Sardegna, the weather in the UK this winter and spring, medical systems in another country, The Truman Show, Dead Poets Society and overwhelmingly male narratives, Simon going to an all-boys state school, Lee being so embodied.

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Simon and Lee discuss many things including pizza, the D-Day landings and going dry. No one reads these show-notes so we will just leave it at that.

Some other details from the episode: getting things stuck in your teeth, Lee's naked ambition, remote dinner dates, kamaikaze blue tits, stressing syllables in language, how to say Alghero, Cagliari, Dittisham, Broughan, zero-alcohol beer, sleeping better without alcohol, Lee slacking off at work, whether or not the Falmouth VC listens to Midlifing, breakfast dessert, a piece of theoretical cake, the US Army and the D-Day landings (educated and inexperienced), PTS and CPTS, two slices of pizza, Simon being woken up by his neighbours having sex, Jefrey and Lee trying to figure out what the noise is (and looking like perverts), new pop-up pizza in Totnes, pizza is great, how deep pockets can be, types of handbags and just how much Lee knows about them. 

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Lee and Simon talk about the books that changed them and what it would take to join a revolution.

Some other details from the episode: Non-dual awareness, Lee reading during his Masters, Portugal's The Carnation Revolution (military coup), Eurovision song contest, Chega political party (Portugal), igniting a revolution to over-throw a Government, uprisings in the UK, what would it take for Lee to join a revolution, wealth and shifting the goalposts, putting our phones down, Civil War (the film), Annie B. Parson (The Choreography of Everyday Life) and a triangle between the reader, the writer and the world. 

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Lee and Simon go on a strange ride through some "visual culture" before talking about body dismorphia, Lee's natural form, exhibitionism and the things people do to switch off.

Some other details from the episode: Pitch Perfect (the original and classic), just sit outside and watch the waters rise (climate change), And While London Burns (audio performance), Bob eating chicken wings on Chicken Shop Date, the thing that's like Spartacus that isn't Spartacus, Gladiator, crying at the end, Lisa Gerrard, negging, Hot Ones youtube channel, Ridley Scott films, Denis Villeneuve liking Christopher Nolan films, Sting playing Austin Butler in the original Dune, Jake Gyllenhaal in Roadhouse remake, being too lean, dismorphia, how many kilograms in a stone, Lee's natural form, Hot Ones (not Hot Wings), Campari Spritz, the new Jurassic Park shot in Malta, Malta being Catholic and British, UK/US plugs, self-publicity, being an exhibitionist, wearing white underwear, nothing saying weekend like looking at a spreadsheet, distractions and switching off, being lost in thought and ruminating, Lee doubling down on his habits, books and Michael Crichton (gone too soon).

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Related links (and necessary corrections): 

• And While London Burns: http://www.ashdendirectory.org.uk/directoryView.asp?productionIdentifier=2006127_56260318
• Chicken Shop Date: https://www.youtube.com/@AmeliaDimoldenberg
• Hot Ones (First We Feast) (not Hot Wings): https://www.youtube.com/@FirstWeFeast

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Simon is dog tired from baking too much bread, and Lee is in the midst of a work load that is barely sustainable: enter Grover from Sesame Street.

Some other details from the episode: Enjoying making processes efficient; sourdough and allergens; Lee figuring out the rhythm of his job; being surrounded by kindness; a packet of crisps and a sandwich; cheese and Simon's LDLs; sheese (vegan cream cheese); everybody say tofu; tofurkey time; two-thirty and tooth-hurty; the life-cycle of bad jokes; Grover's near and far; the rule of three in comedy; Simon breathes differently when he is Duck Duck Going; public floggings for academics; finding the toddler; Clifford Geertz (anthropologist, died in 2006); Clifford the Big Red Dog; the difference between a twitch and a wink; Kevin Kelley (and other Kevins); The Girl from Ipanema; Kevin Keegan; Princess Leia; IDEO design laboratory; John Galliano; what Lee wears when he cooks; innovation; first past the post voting systems; Godwin's Law.

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Related links (and necessary corrections): 

• Grover's near and far: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9IuXEwpU7U
• Kevin Kelley "Excellent Advice For Living: Wisdom I Wish I'd Known Earlier": https://www.amazon.co.uk/Excellent-Advice-Living-Wisdom-Earlier/dp/0593654528
• IDEO: https://www.ideo.com/
• Godwin's Law: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Lee and Simon have stories of spring before a brief chat about entertaining the possibility of being wrong.

Some other details from the episode: Lee and Jefrey saw a seal (eating a fish); scroggin; supermarkets in the UK and class; swans; woman jogging; deer; Simon's bird feeder; anxious Blue Tits; Lee's biodiverse garden; Lee interviewing PhD students; Lee's selfie-taking abilities; Falmouth University (FU); uck you; Lee being delightfully photogenic; Daniel Dennett, being wrong and being specators or participants; philosophical zombies and consiousness; qualia; Kevin Bacon.

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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The Midlifing logo is adapted from an original image by H.L.I.T: https://www.flickr.com/photos/29311691@N05/8571921679 (CC BY 2.0)

Simon and Lee talk about how well humans know ourselves versus how well we are known by others (with a diversion into Lee scaring someone in a toilet).

Some other details from the episode: BST does not stand for Big Sexy Time, the difference between falling and having a fall, manifesting a fall, Lee crashing his bicycle in Lisbon, Dr. David Corbet (@corbetron) is our Ask Jeeves for medical information, dreamcatchers, having a dance vs dancing (for 55 year olds), the articular surface of the patella has a poor blood supply, arthroscopies, Lee getting norovirus, anaesthetics (sleepy drugs), past-future hedonic preferences, some of our best friends read The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma (by Bessel van der Kolk), how nice it was in Malta, floods in Lisbon, Guy Claxton's Intelligence in the Flesh and inferred self-knowledge, being predictable, Lee singing in the toilets at work, the foyer of a toilet, having a gong in a toilet antechamber, man doing a little scream, singing in the toilet is the moral of the story, Lee's sub-routines at work, meeting someone for the first time with their partner, anyone who has not met Bob yet, not wanting to be predictable vs the reassurance of someone's presence, patterns of behaviour vs being more responsive, dog whistling, stability, solidity and security, stability vs routine, construction of the image of someone at the beginning of a relationship (and projection), being a re-homed dalmation, chaos that is not unsettling, Lee met Simon's frolleague (Kathryn) at the conference in Malta.

Related links (and necessary corrections):

• Pain in the Past and Pleasure in the Future: The Development of Past Future Preferences for Hedonic Goods: http://edepositireland.ie/handle/2262/93850

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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A side-thought in real-life Subbuteo before a conversation about content moderation online and human beings filming and photographing stuff and putting it online. (Oh, and a bit about trains in the UK).

Some other details from the episode: Simon's prior understanding of England: Match of the Day, Subbuteo, and the FA Cup; Lee's laugh (again); fish and chips; fish and chips with puffins, uncontrolled ascents in scuba diving, hyperbaric chambers, Malta conference 2020 collapsing due to COVID, neutral buoyancy, the bends, Radiohead, The Cleaners, Field of Vision (The Moderators), online content moderation, PTS, cameras in our pockets attached to a world wide web, being big daft animals, traffic jams, braking causes traffic jams, the two-second rule, bus replacement service, privatisation, how shit trains have become in the UK, Lee's electric vehicle's collision sensitivity, EV batteries, intemperate braking, back to traffic jams, chaos theory (and butterflies), the difference between watching things and filming things, stepping on Jeff's toes, Simon first built his website (skellis.net) in 1997, the internet's time of innocence.

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Lee laughs weirdly and sets in motion a sprawling natter about cartoons and Penelope Pitstop, before together Simon and Lee drop into a) what it is to be disciplined and committed and b) taking family for granted.

Some other details from the episode: Hanna Barbera cartoons, double feature films, staying awake in films, VHS and Betamax, TikTok and the ubiquity of culture, John Berry and timeless time, the scale and invisibility of the climate emergency, weathering the weather with movement artist Helen Poynor, colleague cousins, Woody Woodpecker, the Ant Hill Mob, Penelope Pitstop, Wacky Races (including Dastardly and Muttley), Susan dry retching through lack of content, Simon's brother Ian training as a cyclist, avoiding rain clouds in the Wairarapa, Ian riding into the back of a parked car, Lee being too easily distracted, Ian doing squats (actually they were leg presses), not having siblings and spending so much time alone, coming home in the dark (unsupervised), taking family for granted once we are grown up, Lee's cousins Neil and Mark, Northern idioms and accents, being social creatures, being in and out, teenagers constructing language, understanding family through distance, being excluded, and being a timid kid.

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Related links (and necessary corrections):

• Coming back to a TikTok: https://freddiedeboer.substack.com/p/you-are-you-we-live-here-this-is
• Penelope Pitstop running: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxfFM9neB8M

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Simon and Lee talk about affective states (as opposed to emotions) and in doing so veer terrifyingly close to their field(s) of expertise. They also talk about other stuff.

Some other details from the episode: Lee reprises some Wet Leg, Simon has been doing some dancing with Katye Coe, the other C word, a place called Beer in the UK, not being interested in being watched, being a performer, people who enjoy being watched, audiences knowing the affective state of a performer, Silvan Tomkins and affect theory, Hamlet being sad because he's Hamlet, Lee having a high temperature week, Lee about to travel, Lee's parents' 60th wedding anniversary, Lee's affective state (irritable, sharp and unpleasant, then crying and distress), not knowing how we feel until we are crying, interoception, emotions, not being nervous but excited (and how they feel the same in the body), words that describe emotions, audiences knowing how performers really feel, electrical and chemical entrainment, being social mammals, being present (in performance), seven minutes before  audience members start thinking about sleeping with the performer, the feeling of being judged or not, letting go of judgement, taking psychedelics, being one with the sky, individualism, Ted Chiang's sci-fi writing (including The Story of Your Life), Matthew McConaughey feeling judged, True Detective, Magic Mike, Channing Tatum, Lee going on his regular train-of-thought ride through his film memory, the Chippendales (finally), the Amy Adam's film Arrival.

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Lee recounts his visit to the UK's corridors of power before they talk about using correct accents (or not) for words that are not English.

Some other details from the episode: Gwyneth Paltrow's mother, the original Westworld, a bad joke about a week in tents, Bob and Lee's keynote in Malta, The Beatles (and Paul McCartney) Lee's intemperance and his flibbertigibbet-ness, the weather still being cold, Simon's intense week, Lee visiting the corridors of power (the palace of Westminster), shaking green hands, Lee and Simon's differences of opinion, security arrangements for entering Westminster, parliament tourists, Lee's costume for the visit, Dr. Martens made both in the UK and overseas (and how much they cost), bargain hunting, being anxious about not getting anxious, getting help at work from people who are really good at what they do, making cases for changing policy, policy wonks, politicians not answering questions, academics answering questions they don't know the answer to, getting French philosophers' names on purpose, Walter Benjamin, coming down off high horses, using foreign accents or not depending on the context, the renewal of the Maori language in Aotearoa, the anglicisation of place names in New Zealand, Lee telling Bob everything and Bob being uninterested in other people's business and gossip. 

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Lee has watched a couple of films and cried a lot. Simon asks Lee about the pleasure of crying. 

Some other details from the episode: Eating chocolate in the morning, Jeffrey helping Lee decide whether or not to make cake, Lee's capacity to cry, Adam Sandler and Carey Mulligan in Spaceman and All of Us Strangers by Andrew Haigh, Sixth Sense spoiler (Bruce Willis is dead), Star Wars spoiler: Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker's father, Carrie (1976), Steven Spielberg's wives, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Spaceman Candy Sticks (NZ lolly in the shape of a cigarette), holding back tears, the content of the film making you cry or the something else that makes you cry, How to Make An American Quilt, Christopher Nolan, Memento and Guy Pearce, Lee remembering everything about films and Simon remembering nothing, Anne Hathaway, the strangeness of human beings, the capacity to make things of such beauty and the terror of human violence, Lee feeling hopeful because we tell stories of love and care, hope being the opposite of fear, Simon's new hot water bottle dreams. 

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Lee takes us through his record buying spree, and they both rabbit on before Simon asks Lee what he is afraid of.

Some other details from the episode: Lee's selfie photo on work website (see show notes), Lee's face for radio, Simon watching 2024 version of Mean Girls (a musical), Lindsay Lohan's cameo, being frightened by a mediated horror film, Lee goes on a record-buying spree, Idles, not post-punk, Lee has his headphones connected by bluetooth and sound fidelity, Lee not using streaming services, The Sugarcubes, Wet Leg, when Lee listens to records, a banquet of French toast, when Simon finally gets a real job, people's photos on Microsoft Teams, Lee never doing moody and sexy, Lee's cool version of a Pomodoro timer, Simon always listening to music while working, Lee not pulling his weight content-wise, Hafiz quote about fear, the things Lee fears most, pulling back from a thought, Lee distracting himself to forget his fear (and other intrusive thoughts), fear of being found out, Simon's fear of being told off. 
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Related links (and necessary corrections):

• Lee's professional 'sitting in bed' selfie: https://www.falmouth.ac.uk/staff/professor-lee-miller

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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A surprise guest appearance gets ruined by Simon. Instead they talk about achievement orientation and finding out what people  think of you.

Some other details from the episode: Some blow back from last week's episode from Simon's frolleagues, Finn's girlfriend Sophie (and brownies), the oddness of the phrase "fuck me sideways" and its mechanics, Lee's lovely lovely week of achievement orientation, useful meetings, achievement orientation in general, how well-read Bob is, Mr Product and Ms Process, a report about three types of men in relationships that Lee doesn't want to talk about, the University that cannot be named and locking down computers, Lee's wiggly wiggly picture, Lee's bid success, people change while our perceptions of them don't change, being confronted by knowing what people think of you, the process of 'start, stop, continue', being less of a dick for 15 minutes, the marshamallow test for being a pillock, a lovely friend of Simon's, being nice, and something Lee likes about Simon.

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Related links (and necessary corrections):

• This might be the report that Lee read about types of men in heterosexual relationships: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0277953623005002
• Marshmallow test video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wi8jqjo8sV8

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Simon and Lee talk about the size of circles of friends, and being properly in the world. Free tangents included. Send no money.

Some other details from the episode: Lee is by himself during the week and gets some space for reflection; Apple Vision Pro; extended/mixed reality; Lee sucks his teeth about AVP; different kinds of reality; George Clooney in ER; video passthrough; Apple Inc.; Simon being happy for Lee and his professorship; being on our way to XR contact lenses; most in and of the world through craft; how many people one ought to be in contact with; getting lost in sourdough blogs; solitude and loneliness; friendship but not to do with healthy; Merton Bakery supplying a Leamington Spa cafe; being a perfectionist; Lee having so little contact with people; the word frolleague (again); Lee's ability to cast people off (again) and not requiring an interim layer of friendship; neoligisms; being guarded about making friends with colleagues (and that division); the future regarding falling out; Lee painting himself as binary when he is very elastic; coefficient of restitution; being people pleasers.

Related links (and necessary corrections):

• Casey Neistat on Apple Vision Pro: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvkgmyfMPks

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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The Midlifing logo is adapted from an original image by H.L.I.T: https://www.flickr.com/photos/29311691@N05/8571921679 (CC BY 2.0)

Lee and Simon discuss any possible plans for their funerals.

Some other details from the episode: Simon talks final season of The Crown, Imelda Staunton's performance, and the depiction of Operation London Bridge (Queen's funeral); pineapple on pizza, Simon wearing aprons, Imelda Staunton singing, 11 o'clock numbers, parking and barking, Company (the musical) and Here's to the ladies who lunch (and Elaine Stritch), Imelda Staunton singing Losing My Mind, acting through song, Staunton as Dolores Umbridge in Harry Potter, Lee's funeral full of song, funerals as dignified quiet spaces, Bob crying at inopportune moments, Simon outliving Lee, a funeral outside or in a church (because of the accoustics), Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go, Lee's brain on shuffle mode, funerals reflecting the people we were, all the people Lee has cut off, Simon's too long eulogy for his mother, the form of a funeral, a funeral like Burning Man, wrapping Lee in cling form, being buried in a big loaf, Turducken, Maniac from Flashdance and Proust.
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Related links (and necessary corrections):

• Imelda Staunton in Gypsy singing Rose's Turn: https://youtu.be/MOTHRn_o5qE
• Elaine Stritch: Here's to the ladies who lunch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slvaecBozmQ
• Imelda Staunton Losing My Mind (from Follies): https://youtu.be/7OvlKjT9D8Y 
• Maniac from Flashdance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIgJenz0ZK4

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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The Midlifing logo is adapted from an original image by H.L.I.T: https://www.flickr.com/photos/29311691@N05/8571921679 (CC BY 2.0)

Lee asks Simon if he is where thought he would be and also where we wants to be: A conversation about change, ambition, community, regret and going along for the ride.


Some other details from the episode: Tearing up over bread, Lee will be missed, vacuum cleaners, living a normal life, most car drivers being above average, David McRaney's You Are Not So Smart, what normal looked like to one's younger self, Simon meeting some people who like his bread, regret and not having a great memory, tip-toeing in the world when you are going through something, people banging on about kids (when they are not), life just happening to us, free will, the rollercoaster of life, not working on the weekends, Grotowski, Lee's Mum's spreadsheet, selling cigarettes and pornography to truck drivers, being a goldfish, Simon teaching a sourdough workshop, the pleasure of trying to get good at things, and the difference between being process and outcome oriented.

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Simon goes on a couple of unusual benders before he and Lee talk about trust, mistrust, getting a feeling about people, and the ways we humans function in groups.


Some other details from the episode: Crying while watching Love Actually on a long haul flight, a Melbourne billboard for erectile disfunction, folding a fitted sheet, Lee's bedding packaging, ironing, The Traitors (reality TV show), eating kangaroo bottom, Matt Hancock (former British politician), Love Island (in name only), Survivor, Big Brother, Lee's baseline venal character, triggers for not trusting, liking or connecting, Simon being less guarded around women, being bullied, learning to trust men again, Wellington College, trying to be friends with everyone, learning to flirt, the way men wield power, people who talk about themselves, Lee editing himself and audio waveforms.

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Related links (and necessary corrections):

• The Traitors: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Traitors_(British_TV_series)
• Blindspot Implicit Association Test (Harvard): https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/user/agg/blindspot/indexrk.htm 

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Simon comes in hot with some "content" about margarine and he and Lee discuss health stuff (again), before transitioning into body fat content and (unrelated) a discussion about making ciabatta.

Some other details from the episode:
Apologising at the beginning of something, attribution and circulation of ideas in dance, saying 'fuck' in multiple languages, margarine trigger warnings, Lee reminisces on learning how to bake, Simon's LDLs and a low saturated fat diet, the difference between statins and stents, Lee's gallbladder (and gallbladders in general), peanut butter being good for you, Lee's body signals as a guide to modifying his diet, Simon really liking butter, brussells sprouts recipes, foul-smelling green smoothies, Michael Fassbender and yoga, The Killer (film), Ben Affleck in The Accountant, George Clooney in The American, skinfolds and fatfolds, being too thin, Lee's Madonna phase, Apple's 'memories' feature, making ciabatta, and how everything on Amazon has 4.5 stars, and enshittification (Cory Doctorow).

Related links (and necessary corrections):

• How statins work: https://www.healthline.com/health/high-cholesterol/how-do-statins-work
• Health benefits of red wine: https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/265635#benefits
• Measuring body fat with underwater weighing: https://www.verywellfit.com/what-is-hydrostatic-underwater-weighing-3120276
• Enshittification: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Simon and Lee discuss some health concerns, eating butter, the unrelenting depressing feeling of watching Fleishman is in Trouble, Taylor Swift's Eras film, and the trouble with boys and men.

Some other details from the episode: Follow up on Simon's PSA test, some stuff about lipids, heart disease, LDLs, a TV update (Slow Horses, Reacher, Fleishman is in Trouble, Taylor Swift's Eras film, Saltburn, The Creator), ferries vs fairies, woman vs women, spoilers for a concert film, video mapping, the end of Simon's days as a swifty, grave fucking, pearl clutching and class in the UK, CJ Cregg, John David Washington, Denzel Washington turning 70 in 2024, Of Boys and Men by Richard Reeves, Lee's knee jerk shouting, Lee being gobbed at for being queer, performing versions of masculinity, being loved by one's father, feminism and masculinity, empowerment of men and women not being a zero-sum game, and some audio feedback from a listener's child immitating Lee's German accent. 

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Simon and Lee start with yet more cocktail talk and then discuss their respective Christmases. They then talk about the difference between making art and play and marriage as a long-form improvisation, and PSA tests. 

Some other details from the episode: A bit about the grey wet weather in the UK; not drinking cocktails in Lisbon; what makes a cocktail a cocktail (three or more ingredients); a Negroni; Ginjinha from a chocolate cup; Aguardiente; how to pronounce modicum; cacio e pepe; Simon's cheese bread; the artisan bread world; slow cooked meat; Riverford Farm (Devon); walking in the rain; having Christmas dinner out (with a set menu); roast baby goat; being taken on a tour of the wine cellar; Bob's "Please Leave Quietly" non-website; Bob's "You can go now" cards; business cards that say "Please stop talking"; PSA tests and prostate biopsies; and erectile dysfunction. 

PS Lee's sound is a little poppy because he was recording while lying in bed a little poorly. You'll hear it perfectly when he says the word, "pop".

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Related links (and necessary corrections):

• Ginjinha portuguese liquer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ginjinha
• Aguardiente https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aguardiente

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Lee and Simon talk about men they are attracted to. Also, Lee takes away Simon's last pleasure in life and they accidentally hang up on each other.

Some other details from the episode: Cirque de Soleil, Lee's parents visiting, Norman Miller's (postcard sized) book of life, more on Lee's Swytch wheel, bad Australian accents, Alan Watts (definitely dead), cut glass English accents, inner beauty, jumping the shark (again), Lee's gently (gender) fluid ways, Jack Reacher's bottom, (little) Tom Cruise as Jack Reacher, Tom Holland and not Tom Daley, Timothée Chalamet, Alan Ritchson, wrestling to see who gets to be on top (and television sex scenes in general), erogenous zones, releasing fingers while coming, Rachel McAdams, Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret (and the Judy Bloom novel), Keanu Reeves being untouchable, Viggo Mortensen, Eastern Promises, Mads Mikkelsen, Morten Harket (from a-ha), slightly dirty looking men, John Wick, nice smelling men, Brad Pitt not changing his underpants, New Year's Eve (non) plans, NYE in the southern hemisphere, Prince's 1999, Mount Maunganui, and (not) pashing Chris Robinson.

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Related links (and necessary corrections):

• Alan Watts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Watts
• Lee Child Reacher novels: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Reacher_(book_series)
• Morten Harket: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morten_Harket
• Prince album 1999 (from 1982): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_(Prince_album)
• Mount Maunganui: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Maunganui

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Lee and Simon talk about their experiences of Christmas

Some other details: Simon the Christmas Grinch; Christmas, religion and commercialism; this time of the year in the Northern hemisphere; being communal in the dark and warm; spying on other people's Christmases; stress and violence at Christmas; enforced jollity of being with people; Christmas presents and showing them to your friends; working on Christmas day; Christmas being time not with friends; buying a bicycle for Lil; learning to ride a bicycle as an adult; Swytch electric bike kits; cycling in the Netherlands; dinner at Bel Canto; dog owners, and Jefrey needing to update his priors.

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Related links (and necessary corrections):

• 1970s Raleigh Tomahawk bicycle
• Swytch bike kits
• Bel Canto Lisbon

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Lee and Simon don't quite talk about bribery and corruption, and instead think through if the world is uniquely crazy in this moment.

Some other details: Simon is gifted an advent calendar; being bribed and/or blackmailed; John Wick (pre-emptive revenge); illegal Russian websites; how shit the weather has been; how small human beings are; the wonkiness of the world; Simon's clunk on 9/11 (and not quite censoring the thought); the 24 hour news cycle; Martin Luther's 95 theses (in 31 October 1517); emergence of a Protestant Church; German accents (and a bit of German itself); JFK calling himself a doughnut; the telegraph and the historical slowness of communications; queques (Portuguese lemon-orange cakes); being content creators; closing the lid when flushing; fecal plumes; and a big apology for the poo talk at the end. 

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Related links (and necessary corrections):

• JFK was assassinated on 22 November 1963: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_John_F._Kennedy
• Martin Luther's 95 Theses: https://www.luther.de/en/95thesen.html
• JFK did not really call himself a doughnut: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/why-does-everybody-think-jfk-said-im-jelly-donut-180963779/

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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The episode starts like it is part 2 but it's not really so don't get upset. Lee and Simon talk about the closure of University dance courses in the UK, and Simon mixes metaphors (again) while remaining ambivalent about having opinions.

A list of things they cover: Going to University to do one thing but ending up doing something else; Universities as places that make things possible for people; dance as the canary in the Higher Education coalmine; how methodologies don't fucking matter; leaving University in debt and not making enough money ever to pay it back; dance as something trivial; developing a practice and avoiding the University; the wind blowing in a very clear direction; Lee sounding like a product manager; arts still being important in very expensive schools; universities not supposed to be for everyone; blaming a member of your own family; Norman up a ladder; listening a bit more; a bread update; and Simon's next tattoo.

Related links (and necessary corrections):

• WEIRD: The W stands for Western not white: https://www.theatlantic.com/daily-dish/archive/2010/10/western-educated-industrialized-rich-and-democratic/181667/

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Lee and Simon ensure they talk about something and end up deep in the land of world politics.

A list of things they cover: Susan's concern about lack of content, fist bumps, clearing throat sounds in middle-aged men, slowing down, elderly neighbours, still being above ground, far right victory in the Netherlands, Christopher Isherwood's The Berlin Diaries, Lee singing, how and why something is important, requels, Scream 7 (and other horror movies), Melissa Barrera being fired, riots in Dublin, UK's Secretary of State calling a place in the north a shithole, things feeling febbrile, and not-so-long-ago anxiety about WWII.  

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Simon and Lee talk about how understanding one's role at work changes, and watching people under enormous stress. Oh, and Lee has a little tantrum.

Some words that help describe this episode: management, stress, leadership, dog noises, acronyms, ambition, meeting challenges, not pushing a point, being right, mince pies, helplessness, uncertain emotional places, wanting to be heard, and the line between supporting and intervening.

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Simon regales Lee with stories from an airport and almost pulling an all-nighter. Lee mentions Marc Augé (for the first time) and cocktails (again).
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Related links (and necessary corrections):

• Humberto Delgado Airport: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisbon_Airport
• Air side: https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/airside
• Marc Augé and non-place: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-place
• Venchi Rome airport: https://eu.venchi.com/venchi-cioccolato-e-gelato-roma-aeroporto-fiumicino-t2-d
• Karrasekare by Igor and Moreno: https://igorandmoreno.com/works/karrasekare/
• Because We Care by Colin, Simon and I: https://www.skellis.net/colinsimonandi/because-we-care 

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Lee and Simon talk about merit, the meritocracy and doing selection processes by chance.

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Related links (and necessary corrections):

• Michael Sandel's The Tyranny of Merit (TED talk) https://www.ted.com/talks/michael_sandel_the_tyranny_of_merit

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Lee and Simon talk burlesque, cocktails and Cornish pasties. They do not talk about zombie stormtroopers but do (also) chat a bit about learning things (mostly because of a crisis of confidence on Simon's part)

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Lee and Simon talk pizza, pastel de nata and signing petitions.

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Related links (and necessary corrections):

• Rome pizza institution (called da Baffetto): http://www.pizzeriabaffetto.it/
• Naples tiktok thing: https://thetakeout.com/tiktok-viral-chaotic-italian-sandwich-maker-farewell-1849331317
• Da Michele pizzeria (Napoli and Julia Roberts): https://guide.michelin.com/en/campania/napoli/restaurant/da-michele
• Forensic architecture: https://forensic-architecture.org/

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Lee and Simon verge on talking about Sex Education but aren't quite ready. Instead they diverge into some Star Wars chatter before discussing being reasonable, being rationale, the backfire effect and deep canvassing. Oh, and pizza hydration.

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Related links (and necessary corrections):

• Return of the Jedi released in 1983: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Return_of_the_Jedi
• How Minds Change by David McRaney: https://www.davidmcraney.com/howmindschangehome
• Backfire effect (the thing Simon couldn't remember): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belief_perseverance
• Deep canvassing (Simon got the year wrong): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_canvassing

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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There has been a stuff up and Simon explains.

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Lee cooks too much curry by accident and Simon wants to talk about Sex Education Series 4 (but Lee hasn't watched it yet). They talk a bit about (and rechristen) chatGPT before landing on the week's topic: the demise of the internet known as obituary pirates.
 
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Related links (and necessary corrections):

• bread hedgehog: https://www.mertonbakery.com/blog/caught
• incoherent lyrics to Footloose: https://genius.com/Kenny-loggins-footloose-lyrics
• obituary pirates: https://www.wired.com/story/youtube-obituary-pirates/
• enshittification: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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The preamble nearly takes over the episode but Lee and Simon intrepidly get things on track in a conversation about labours of love (and emotional labour).

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Lee and Simon talk about bromances and chatGPT. These are not related.

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Related links (and necessary corrections):

• Wigan Pier and northern soul: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-66603612
• Wigan Casino: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wigan_Casino
• Chav: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chav
• Owen Jones and the demonization of the working class: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chavs:_The_Demonization_of_the_Working_Class
• Centaurs and cyborgs (chatGPT) -- not Minotaur!: https://www.oneusefulthing.org/p/centaurs-and-cyborgs-on-the-jagged

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Simon and Lee talk about emotional affairs and love. 

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Simon talks about a major structural change to his backhand in service of yet another bloody oven update. This just has to stop. They both then briefly discuss watching women's sport before their main conversation about coping with pressure while working in teams and asking for help.

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Could this possibly be the final oven update? Here's hoping. In the main topic Simon and Lee talk about love and disappointment. 

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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A conversation about saying thank you, saying goodbye, adopting new technologies, being in competition and the buttons we push and have pushed.

Dedicated to Mandy Smith.

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Stop the presses: Lee has a topic. Simon and Lee talk about why on earth they are friends and just how arbitrary it is to be in a friendship. No oven update included. 

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Simon and Lee talk about the ways in which we are tested by others in social situations – as if being asked, "Do you belong or not?" – and the experience of passing the tests or not. Oven update included.

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Related links (and necessary corrections):

• Elon Musk lies website: https://elonmusk.today/

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Simon and Lee talk about masculinity, toxic masculinity and being men (check out photo link in show notes!).
 
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Related links (and necessary corrections):

• Photo of Lee on window ledge in Lisbon: https://skellis.net/midlifing/ledge
• The witch trials of J.K. Rowling (podcast): https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-witch-trials-of-j-k-rowling/id1671691064
• Robert Jenrick has cartoon murals painted over at children’s asylum centre: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/jul/07/robert-jenrick-has-cartoon-murals-painted-over-at-childrens-asylum-centre

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Lee and Simon talk about the net worth of pets, replacing oven parts and negotiating with landlords.

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Hope these two (or three) parters aren't getting you down. In Part 1 Simon and Lee tried to make sense of a strange exchange between Simon and someone else (driven by anxiety? banter? mocking?), and then diverged into a natter about electric vehicles, smugness and cheapness. In part 2 they rock a conversation about deserving success (or not). Congratulations Professor Lee David Miller! 

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Hope these two (or three) parters aren't getting you down. Simon and Lee try to make sense of a strange exchange between Simon and someone else (driven by anxiety? banter? mocking?), diverge into a natter about electric vehicles, smugness and cheapness, and then rock a conversation about deserving success (or not). Congratulations Lee David Miller! 

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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The final installment of Lee's undeniably demanding test continues. Answers include Bob (again), bread, Bjork, evil laughs, knowing one's faults, being reduced, and lots of puppies. 

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Lee's test continues. Answers include Justin Trudeau, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, John Carpenter, Matt Handcock, Clement Atlee, Aneurin Bevan, texting, worry, anxiety and conspiracy theories. 

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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After a typically arbitrary beginning (mostly about feedback, expertise and ego) Simon stages a surprise exam for Lee and in doing so inadvertently exhausts them of things to talk about for weeks to come. 

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Lee and Simon talk about friends, families and forgiveness.

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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In this two-parter Simon and Lee talk about feeling self-righteous, being taken for granted, anger, asking for what one wants and talking about feelings at work. 

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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In this two-parter Simon and Lee talk about feeling self-righteous, being taken for granted, anger, asking for what one wants and talking about feelings at work.

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Related links (and necessary corrections):

• Slavoj Zizek: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavoj_Žižek

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Simon and Lee talk about risk, watching skilled people, how we humans spend our time, and the relative values of different types of work. Oh, and Simon gives a wee update on his 'bakery' and they both get into their changing relationship to beauty. 

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Lee and Simon head deep into midlife territory with a conversation about money for now or money for the future.

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Related links (and necessary corrections):

• Merton Bakery: https://www.mertonbakery.com
• warez: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warez
• COGs of Coventry: https://sites.google.com/view/cogsofcoventry/
• Un amico vecchio oppure un vecchio amico: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcw2lAun6Uo

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Lee and Simon mark the coronation by talking about stratification and invisibility in society and those moments in which events or people puncture that invisibility. They then shift gears into a conversation about events out of their hands that have most strongly shaped them.

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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Simon and Lee talk about being busy, being appraised, being in meetings, what one's real job is, the word 'quite', figuring out what Midlifing is about ... and Lee makes an offer that some listeners probably will not want to refuse (an offer that might sound like they are running out of ideas when that couldn't be further from the truth).

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

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