Speaker 1: You're listening to Amma Mia podcast. Hello and welcome to
Speaker 1: Mom and Mia out loud.
Speaker 2: What women are actually talking about on Friday, the thirteenth
Speaker 2: of February.
Speaker 1: I'm hollywayn Right. What sorry, it's bad luck?
Speaker 3: Oh shit thirty Yeah, that's bad luck.
Speaker 2: Friday thirteen, Okay, Friday, the twelve ay Ofbruary.
Speaker 3: All the fourteen like is kind of Valentine's Day, but
Speaker 3: a day before Friday.
Speaker 1: Valentine's Eve, Yes, February. We love that. And I am
Speaker 1: Hollywayne right.
Speaker 3: I'm Claire Stephens and I'm Jesse Stevens.
Speaker 2: And here's what's on our agenda for our Friday show.
Speaker 2: This is the week that the robots finally really freaked
Speaker 2: me out, and we need to debrief.
Speaker 3: Plus the petty hills we will always always die on
Speaker 3: And are you a finger princess, because apparently there's one
Speaker 3: in every friendship?
Speaker 1: Have anything to do with that?
Speaker 3: I think? I don't know, Holly, that's in your dreams.
Speaker 3: Let's move on from here, but first, in case you
Speaker 3: missed it, we are about to enter the year of
Speaker 3: the Horse, the fire Horse, the Year of the fire Horse,
Speaker 3: and there are some things everyone should know.
Speaker 1: This is in the lunar calendar.
Speaker 3: Right, this is Chinese stroll.
Speaker 1: It's the lunar calendar. I think the new year starts
Speaker 1: on the seventeenth.
Speaker 3: On the secondeenth, which is next Tuesday, my wedding anniversary. Really,
Speaker 3: stay well, Claire, I think it's our year. I did
Speaker 3: some reading. I think it's our year. Feel like so
Speaker 3: much holly over here is year of the pig.
Speaker 1: Let's not say that with so much glee.
Speaker 3: I like it.
Speaker 1: I am a pig. Yes, we'll leave it.
Speaker 3: You've had your years, Claire. We're the year of the
Speaker 3: horse because we were born in nineteen ninety. Yeah, so
Speaker 3: this has come round. We are, along with anyone born
Speaker 3: nineteen fifty four, nineteen sixty six, nineteen seventy eight, two
Speaker 3: thousand and two, twenty fourteen. Beyond that, I don't believe
Speaker 3: you exist. And after reading about the Chinese zodiac for
Speaker 3: eleven minutes this morning, I get the strong sense that
Speaker 3: good things are coming for us. The fire horse is
Speaker 3: one of the most powerful combinations on the Chinese zodiac.
Speaker 3: Susan Goo, a traditional Chinese medicine practitioner and acupuncturist who
Speaker 3: probably knows a little bit more about this than a
Speaker 3: White Girl on TikTok or Me says that in Eastern culture,
Speaker 3: the horse represents action, freedom, speed. You're known for your speed,
Speaker 3: but fast on your feet, not and breakthrough. It reflects
Speaker 3: a stage of life that moves boldly forward without the
Speaker 3: fear of obstacles, placing emphasis on being in motion rather
Speaker 3: than standing still. So this year, anything that we want
Speaker 3: to do. Let's say, we want to start running, we
Speaker 3: want to start gardening, we want to become really into weightlifting.
Speaker 3: No planning. This is not the year for planning, ladies.
Speaker 3: This is the year of just going for it. And
Speaker 3: I was feeling really positive right and I thought, I'm
Speaker 3: going to rabit in Holly's face.
Speaker 1: Then can I just quickly tell you what's going to
Speaker 1: happen to pigs this year?
Speaker 2: Oh? Yes, just because you know, I think you want
Speaker 2: to be represented.
Speaker 1: I want to be represented.
Speaker 2: And also it's not good news as opposed to you,
Speaker 2: who's got lots.
Speaker 1: Of good news.
Speaker 2: The Year of the fire Horse presents a challenging, high energy,
Speaker 2: and tumultuous period for pigs. Due to the rapid, unpredictable
Speaker 2: nature of this year, pigs may face increased stress, emotional sensitivity,
Speaker 2: and instability in work and relationships.
Speaker 1: That doesn't sound.
Speaker 3: Good, guys, like you've got to go back to bed. Well,
Speaker 3: Holly in solidarity. I then came across something that was
Speaker 3: not so good for us, right, because the horse does
Speaker 3: sound Horses are beautiful, horses are beautiful, energy healthy. Yeah,
Speaker 3: maybe that's why bio Sensory was sitting on one naked
Speaker 3: in that Vanity fair profile that we.
Speaker 1: Talked about it. It was a nod to. It was a nod.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So in nineteen sixty six, which was the last
Speaker 3: time we had a fire horse year, and you know
Speaker 3: how I said, historically it's a very important year, there
Speaker 3: was a statistical drop in birth rates in a bunch
Speaker 3: of Eastern countries. You know why, because there are superstitions
Speaker 3: around having babies in the year of Christ. Do not
Speaker 3: want babies in the year of the horse. Apparently they're wild,
Speaker 3: they're too difficult, and they bring bad luck to the
Speaker 3: whole family. Oh no, Claire, do you have any feelings
Speaker 3: about that? Yeah, I mean you're gonna have two of them,
Speaker 3: so hahah that's hilarious. And we already know that the
Speaker 3: girl is that Yeah, there's doing a lot of kicking.
Speaker 3: I'm getting a big horse energy from the girl. Yeah,
Speaker 3: she's wreaking havoc in there, but I am also having
Speaker 3: a horse.
Speaker 4: Baby.
Speaker 3: You're having a horse. I'm having a little horse in July.
Speaker 3: End of July.
Speaker 2: This is news for people who did not listen to
Speaker 2: yes Yesterday's subscriber Episo said with me where you two talked.
Speaker 1: About your weird twinness pregnancies.
Speaker 2: Exactly when I said weird, sorry to every twin in
Speaker 2: the world, I meant you're interesting, intriguing and curiosity inducing
Speaker 2: twin pregnancy.
Speaker 3: Sorry, girls, how do you feel about having that baby
Speaker 3: in the Year of the Horse? You've been anxious? Well, no,
Speaker 3: I mean I think to have a horse. I'm like,
Speaker 3: I already had a horse.
Speaker 1: She came kicking.
Speaker 3: She did come say that. Matilda came out of the
Speaker 3: womb going ah, she got lost and there were lots
Speaker 3: of issues. So there's going to be some wildness. Yeah,
Speaker 3: a lot of city still. Yeah, but I have to
Speaker 3: say this whole thing about it being our year. No, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 3: high energy. I have done nothing. I'm doing a lot
Speaker 3: of standing still, a lot of life.
Speaker 2: You're building a baby. We need to reframe that as
Speaker 2: work and not laziness.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, well I would say I'm feeling less fire
Speaker 3: horse and more water. Is there a wa No, there
Speaker 3: is one I've added.
Speaker 1: In the world.
Speaker 3: Water exactly exactly. But I'm on my back, floating, sleeping. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and that's the energy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I have a wildlife story that has nothing to
Speaker 2: do with anything just sidebarring. We can take it out
Speaker 2: if we want. Because another Chinese early ex sign.
Speaker 3: Is snake, which was the year we'd just had.
Speaker 2: I think, so yes, yes, And on Saturday, this is right,
Speaker 2: this is the exit of the Year of the Snake.
Speaker 2: And on Saturday, I was driving down a road near
Speaker 2: where I live, and I see steaks quite a lot.
Speaker 1: Where I live, because I live.
Speaker 2: In the in the country, not really the country, but
Speaker 2: you know, regional area, I see stakes quite a lot.
Speaker 2: I was driving down the roadwhere I live and.
Speaker 1: There was a huge like a huge.
Speaker 2: Green python in the middle of the road, like in
Speaker 2: the middle of the road, right it was going to
Speaker 2: get run over. And I was early in the morning,
Speaker 2: was like seven thirty in the morning and Saturday, and.
Speaker 3: I feel like a sign, Holly, but I don't know what.
Speaker 1: Well, here's me.
Speaker 2: I was like that poor snake it's going to get
Speaker 2: run over. So I pulled the car over.
Speaker 1: I go over the sea.
Speaker 3: Then what.
Speaker 2: Holly, I go over to see if the snake is
Speaker 2: in fact alive.
Speaker 1: It is. His little heads up. It's like all very
Speaker 1: busy like looking looking.
Speaker 2: And I'm like, how do I get the snake off
Speaker 2: the river along? Because it's going to get squished. And
Speaker 2: I don't know a lot about snakes, but I know
Speaker 2: that like where I live, we have black red belly snakes,
Speaker 2: venomous hie them's a chill.
Speaker 1: Hythens be chill. Anyway, I'm standing there looking like an.
Speaker 2: Idiot, like a city slicking idiot, staring at this snake.
Speaker 2: And a ute comes along and pulls up, and the
Speaker 2: man from Central Casting.
Speaker 1: Gets out of this car. Is the ozziest country bloke
Speaker 1: you have ever seen in your life.
Speaker 2: He's kind of older. He's literally wearing overalls. He's like
Speaker 2: looks at me like I'm really stupid. But he's quite kind,
Speaker 2: so he's like dull.
Speaker 1: For that sake.
Speaker 3: You're like, I was just having a child.
Speaker 1: I just don't want him to die.
Speaker 2: He's just looking at me like anyway, I said, I
Speaker 2: was thinking, how am I get a stick?
Speaker 1: And like, try and.
Speaker 2: Push it off the road, and he's like, you're an idiot,
Speaker 2: and he said, not poisons, but they're snappy little buggers.
Speaker 2: And then he goes over to the snake. He picked
Speaker 2: it up, grabs it by the head and throws it
Speaker 2: into the giant python.
Speaker 1: And he was just like, there you go. He'll live
Speaker 1: to fight another day now. And he goes back in.
Speaker 3: His car and he drives off.
Speaker 1: And I was like, snake encounters.
Speaker 3: I love country people.
Speaker 1: Now I realized that was the exit of the Year
Speaker 1: of the snake.
Speaker 3: I still have a few days to have a snake
Speaker 3: baby well, because I was too early for this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you can't one of that battle no snake baby
Speaker 2: babies inside.
Speaker 3: But I have had two snake encounters this year. We
Speaker 3: had an encounter with a diamond pythen and I got
Speaker 3: Matilda really into the snake, and then every morning she'd
Speaker 3: get up and say snakes. Yah. It was in a
Speaker 3: tree where Matilda was playing. Yeah. And then we saw
Speaker 3: one on the road as well.
Speaker 2: Apparently they like to warm themselves up on the tarmac. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's my friend, that's what my friend would who picked
Speaker 2: the snake up told me, don't try that at home
Speaker 2: kN and that had nothing to do with that, but
Speaker 2: I just wanted to share.
Speaker 3: Also, just a reminder, So, Claire, you and I are
Speaker 3: on a subscriber episode with Maya where you talk about
Speaker 3: discovering that you were pregnant. What the journey's been like
Speaker 3: so far. There's some Duty Twins stuff. Yeah, yeah, that
Speaker 3: of mea locktus in a room and just asked all
Speaker 3: the questions. Yeah, and she even said yes sday she
Speaker 3: said I left a little surprise for you at the
Speaker 3: end of the episode. So she's making us listen downloads. Yeah,
Speaker 3: she's desperate.
Speaker 2: Moving on Lewis Kim kissing at the Super Bowl AI.
Speaker 2: Apparently they were there. They were sitting next week to
Speaker 2: other but apparently.
Speaker 1: Those photos you've seen of them kissing AI.
Speaker 3: Don't trick me. You know what I keep getting spammed
Speaker 3: is AI images of Megan and Harry and their children. Yes,
Speaker 3: and it's clearly not them because I don't share pictures
Speaker 3: of their kids. But I'm like, who is making these
Speaker 3: and why?
Speaker 2: Catherine and William like laughing up Royal's lee and passion,
Speaker 2: Like there's a lot of confusing stuff out there. Obviously
Speaker 2: Posh dancing at Brooklyn's wedding. We know thats AI because
Speaker 2: Brooklyn's holding that ace up his sleep for his next drop.
Speaker 2: But did you know that a lot of people are
Speaker 2: also getting AI kids school pictures? Now, let me tell
Speaker 2: you a story in the Nine Newspapers this week by
Speaker 2: Marie Eldar explained that when she picked her kid up
Speaker 2: from school photo day recently, she was like, how did
Speaker 2: the photos go? And her kids said, we didn't have
Speaker 2: class photo. They're going to use AI to make it. Evidently,
Speaker 2: Marie writes, the photographer took individual photos of each student
Speaker 2: instead and seething positions. So that's a lot of a
Speaker 2: lot of work still, and then we'll string them together
Speaker 2: using AI to create a group one where everybody looks great.
Speaker 2: Individual photos stitch together to create a moment that never happened,
Speaker 2: rather than capture one that did. I hate this so right,
Speaker 2: So I kind of hate it too because I was like,
Speaker 2: but somebody looking weird on the weird.
Speaker 1: I need to start. I think it's pejorative, someone looking
Speaker 1: a bit distracted, a bit messy, yeah, eyes closed.
Speaker 3: The fact it takes you half a day and teachers,
Speaker 3: you get out of class, it's really hot, you get
Speaker 3: a really angry photographer. A quarter of the people in
Speaker 3: the photo look really bad. You then have the status
Speaker 3: of whether you have to sit in the front row
Speaker 3: or the back you're going to go.
Speaker 2: And so I was thinking about all that too, and
Speaker 2: what we have lost, And then I made a point
Speaker 2: that's probably more intellectual than mine. She said, we've just
Speaker 2: won a small victory in the new social media band
Speaker 2: for kids, but now it's showing them that.
Speaker 1: It's okay to fake photos.
Speaker 2: In discussion with other parents in the group chat, I
Speaker 2: assume they pointed out bigger concerns. Where would these images
Speaker 2: be stored, Which AI tool were they being fed into?
Speaker 2: Would their likenesses turn up somewhere unexpected? And I feel
Speaker 2: like this is the week where everywhere I've looked, the
Speaker 2: sort of tsunami of AI use is finally tipping over
Speaker 2: into everything. There was a really confronting, very thorough four
Speaker 2: thousand word piece in the Australian mag by Roz Thomas
Speaker 2: about the use of AI among UNI students and that
Speaker 2: basically said that a conservative estimate of how many students
Speaker 2: and these were like, these students were studying everything from
Speaker 2: economic social sciences, nursing, marketing, business were outsourcing almost all
Speaker 2: their study, and conservative estimate was around eighty five percent,
Speaker 2: and a lot of the academics said they think it's
Speaker 2: closer to ninety at least. A typical quote from this
Speaker 2: from one of the students was it's seven forty am,
Speaker 2: twenty minutes before the exam is due to begin, and
Speaker 2: Hayden is still asleep. Has he slept through his alarm,
Speaker 2: exhausted from late night crammy? Nope, the only work he's
Speaker 2: done for this exam is researching which AI he'll.
Speaker 1: Cheat to get the best marks.
Speaker 2: In a minute or two, he'll roll out of bed,
Speaker 2: slap some water on his face, and fire up his laptop.
Speaker 2: At eight am, he'll feed his exam paper into chat GPT.
Speaker 2: By eight six am, it will have gifted him thirty
Speaker 2: correct answers. Hayden knows a perfect score will trip the
Speaker 2: university's AI detectors, so he'll deliberately mangle a couple of
Speaker 2: responses to get him to ninety four percent. Then he'll
Speaker 2: wait three hours to mimic a genuine exam effort before
Speaker 2: firing his A plus paper back to his examiner. Hayden
Speaker 2: has now graduated with a high distinction. How much of
Speaker 2: his final year studies did he outsource to AI?
Speaker 1: All of it? He says, without skipping a beat.
Speaker 2: And this article goes on to interview more students who
Speaker 2: all say the same thing. More teachers also the same thing,
Speaker 2: and I was like, I'm troubled.
Speaker 1: Are we troubled?
Speaker 3: We're so troubled?
Speaker 1: But then I thought, am I being a Luddite for
Speaker 1: being troubled? No?
Speaker 3: No, there's a quote in there that says it's from
Speaker 3: a Unie student who says, we use AI to answer
Speaker 3: the questions on our AI generated papers so that our
Speaker 3: lecturers or tutors can use AI to mark them. And
Speaker 3: I was like, that is the most depressing thing I've
Speaker 3: ever heard. I mean, you're not learning anything. And academics,
Speaker 3: a lot of academics are saying, is this going to
Speaker 3: be a post literate generation? And I feel for not
Speaker 3: only academics, but teachers who went into this field because
Speaker 3: they love reading the thoughts and the ideas and the
Speaker 3: mistakes of young people like that. That's the whole point
Speaker 3: is like engaging with that and being like, I have
Speaker 3: never read that idea before, What an interesting perspective, And
Speaker 3: that's never going to come out of AI and you've
Speaker 3: got you could even tell they interviewed someone who is
Speaker 3: in like year eight, that year eight kid thinks they're
Speaker 3: smarter than the teacher, which even that dynamic and maybe
Speaker 3: when it comes to AI and kind of getting around them,
Speaker 3: maybe they are. But the worry with the university students
Speaker 3: is that in five minutes they're going to be in
Speaker 3: the workplace.
Speaker 1: Having faked the.
Speaker 3: Answers. But then I went, Okay, maybe they're more set
Speaker 3: up for the workplace than I am, because that's what
Speaker 3: I'm torn about. I'm thinking, well, is the future of
Speaker 3: the workplace, is the future of social sciences? Is the
Speaker 3: future of engineering? Or is the future of nursing just
Speaker 3: the ability to use AI? Really well, maybe it is,
Speaker 3: and maybe they're better trained than any of us. As
Speaker 3: depressing as that is, however, something that I take a
Speaker 3: little bit of glee from is that AI still stuffs up.
Speaker 3: And so I love when we're doing.
Speaker 1: So little bit worrying. If you're a patient of the nursing.
Speaker 3: Well, exactly A has a little hallucinating exactly so, Jess,
Speaker 3: I don't know if you've told this story or not
Speaker 3: loud before about so you know, we're all using chat
Speaker 3: jpt some kind of AI tool for a million different things.
Speaker 3: I am using it as a doctor at this point,
Speaker 3: I'm ingesting. The other day I had food poisonings. Doctors
Speaker 3: will love that. Yeah, and it's pretty bloody good. It
Speaker 3: breaks down like this to go to the hospital.
Speaker 1: As far as you know, it's pretty good.
Speaker 3: Anyway, I'm still standing, Yeah, I'm still standing. But we
Speaker 3: went to a lovely murder mystery murder mystery night at
Speaker 3: a friend's place late last year, and obviously the person,
Speaker 3: lovely lovely girl who organized it did it through chat JPT.
Speaker 3: So she's like, chat JPT, we're doing a murder mystery night.
Speaker 3: Give me characters, give me like an outfit that people
Speaker 3: should wear. Yeah, I had to wear a ball gown.
Speaker 3: It was everybody else was in these funny costumes and
Speaker 3: I was in heels and address and I'm like, that's
Speaker 3: chat JPT. I hate you. But chat GPT had aneurysm
Speaker 3: at some point during planning this whole thing. The hallucination
Speaker 3: of chat JPT made the night. It was because it
Speaker 3: was completely inconsistent. It was that clue didn't match that
Speaker 3: we get being like, wait, what, that's not what my thing,
Speaker 3: and everyone speaking in accents. It was a nineteen twenties
Speaker 3: murder mystery. There was one guy who was like a
Speaker 3: pe teacher and was complete. He was running a gym. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and we were like, I don't think there were gims
Speaker 3: completely modern and it was the funniest but I just
Speaker 3: went so long as chat GPT still makes mistakes, we're safe.
Speaker 3: So long as there are images where people have three hands,
Speaker 3: at least we've got some chance.
Speaker 2: Of where far off that I can tell, I've Kim
Speaker 2: and Lewis looked pretty convincing pashing at the super Bowl.
Speaker 1: They were in exactly the right outfits. Didn't you come
Speaker 1: across a weird robot thing this week?
Speaker 2: Too?
Speaker 3: So? I was watching the Lucy let Be documentary on Netflix.
Speaker 2: So she is the British nurse, Yeah, who is convicted
Speaker 2: of murdering several children.
Speaker 3: Yes, so over a twelve month period there were a
Speaker 3: number of children.
Speaker 1: Who's another one of those light things that you like
Speaker 1: to watch.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly who died. They were in Nicu, and they
Speaker 3: died because of circumstances that no one could really explained.
Speaker 3: So they did an investigation. Lucy let Be came out
Speaker 3: as having been on shift. So Lucy let Be was
Speaker 3: found guilty in a court of law, and it's about
Speaker 3: the courtroom and the trial and everything that happened, but
Speaker 3: also the debate that's occurred even since. But she's convicted
Speaker 3: and she's currently in jail. So at the beginning of
Speaker 3: the documentary it says names, appearances, and voices have been altered,
Speaker 3: which is something I've seen before to protect identifying information.
Speaker 3: I thought, particularly because it was to do with babies
Speaker 3: and the sensitive, incredibly sensitive subject matter, I thought, oh, okay,
Speaker 3: I totally understand that. But it was when digitally anonymized
Speaker 3: came up that I went, oh, that's a term I'm
Speaker 3: unfamiliar with. And the first I suppose, like witness person
Speaker 3: that they have comes on and it says Zoe's mum
Speaker 3: and Zoe was one of the victims. And in the
Speaker 3: top right corner it said digitally anonymized something wasn't right.
Speaker 3: Her eyes weren't right, her skin wasn't quite right. And
Speaker 3: I went, robot and I just want to play you
Speaker 3: a little bit of what this person says.
Speaker 4: Three weeks before my duty, I woke up and my
Speaker 4: water had broken.
Speaker 2: This was it.
Speaker 3: It was happening at the hospital.
Speaker 2: I got checked out and a scan confirmed everything was fine,
Speaker 2: so we were ready to meet little Zoe.
Speaker 1: So that's not a human talking, no.
Speaker 3: So I was really confused, just going is that a
Speaker 3: human or not? And to be clear, Zoe's mum cries,
Speaker 3: she emotes, she picks up a tissue. There's another one
Speaker 3: where a best friend of Lucy let be she goes
Speaker 3: through pictures of her and Lucy like from all across
Speaker 3: the years, and it's this woman.
Speaker 2: But they're robots, so I can understand what you're saying.
Speaker 2: Bear with me because I'm not a robot. It takes
Speaker 2: me a minute. So in a documentary, you know how,
Speaker 2: sometimes they might interview someone who doesn't want their face
Speaker 2: on camera. Yes, and they might just cast them in
Speaker 2: a dark shadow and maybe change their voice by like oo.
Speaker 1: Like that kind of thing.
Speaker 2: It's kind of the new version of that. Yeah, So
Speaker 2: Zoe's mum, those were her words. I believe she had
Speaker 2: said or given to an interviewer, put through a different
Speaker 2: voice and given a whole new face, so that her
Speaker 2: anonimity is protected. But you have a human to sort
Speaker 2: of relate to again.
Speaker 3: Yes, but then the irony is I suppose in this documentary,
Speaker 3: and I turned it off after the friend came on.
Speaker 3: I just found it so discombobulating and confusing because I thought,
Speaker 3: the reason we have these testimonies, the reason you would
Speaker 3: add these into the documentary, is to humanize this story
Speaker 3: and to remind you that there are real victims and
Speaker 3: real people at the center of this. They are not
Speaker 3: real victims, but real peak extent. We've always done that.
Speaker 3: If we run an anonymous story on the site, you
Speaker 3: use a stockphold, you use a stock photo. And but
Speaker 3: it was something about the crying. It was like the
Speaker 3: fact that this AI generated image was emoting and trying
Speaker 3: to make me feel something, and I was like, but
Speaker 3: is that how she would say it? Like? It just
Speaker 3: felt so disingenuous. And I know that there are other
Speaker 3: documentaries that have started to kind of play with it,
Speaker 3: but I think because of the sensitivity of the subject
Speaker 3: matter as well, a lot of people went, I absolutely
Speaker 3: have the ick with this and I can't continue.
Speaker 2: To watch it.
Speaker 3: So I was watching the Gabby Potito documentary. So it's
Speaker 3: called American Murder Gabby Potito on Netflix, and it's the
Speaker 3: young woman who was murdered by her boyfriend while they
Speaker 3: were traveling around America, and they have got snippets of
Speaker 3: her voice because she did so much content online. She
Speaker 3: was doing YouTube and Instagram videos. They've got her voice
Speaker 3: that they've been able to use AI to kind of
Speaker 3: emulate her reading out her text messages. I was so
Speaker 3: torn because I was like, on the one hand, you've
Speaker 3: always had like a voice actor do that and you
Speaker 3: kind of signposts. I mean, the difference is that the
Speaker 3: voice actor is paid. Yes, that's true, that that's literally
Speaker 3: putting people out of work. I mean, on the one hand,
Speaker 3: I thought, well, is it more authentic if it's her voice?
Speaker 3: But then it's adding emotion and it's adding emphasis where
Speaker 3: it may not have been there.
Speaker 2: It's very complicated because there are sensible reasons why both
Speaker 2: those decisions would be made in those In these two examples,
Speaker 2: you know that it might be more affecting to see
Speaker 2: a person talking than a shadow head, even if that
Speaker 2: person isn't real. And this is the thing I worry
Speaker 2: that I worry about this stuff because maybe that just
Speaker 2: sort of dates me, makes me a lot. I like
Speaker 2: the people who worried about calculators and people who worried
Speaker 2: about Google and people who worried about the printing press.
Speaker 1: I don't know. But also it just feels like.
Speaker 2: It matters what kind of tone of voice Gabby Petito
Speaker 2: had have been using the artistic decisions that you would
Speaker 2: make about how that mother said those words, what a
Speaker 2: tone of voice was. Yeah, are all manipulating your experience
Speaker 2: with sort of homogenizing humanity. I know that sounds like
Speaker 2: a big hyfaluton thing, but homogenizing humanity not seeing the
Speaker 2: weird little nuances in the way people would how do
Speaker 2: you decide what accent she's gonna have, you know, like
Speaker 2: is she from somewhere else? All those It's just really
Speaker 2: it's beginning to freak me out.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, and we're declaring it now, but how long
Speaker 3: until it's not declared? Until I'm sitting there just feeling
Speaker 3: genuinely confused. And it's just part and parcel of the
Speaker 3: content that we consume. And I worry that having ethics
Speaker 3: about these sorts of things. I think about it with
Speaker 3: writing as well, because as the story at the moment
Speaker 3: about an American author who's written two hundred books in
Speaker 3: the last year with AI, the quote from her is,
Speaker 3: if I can generate a book in a day and
Speaker 3: you need six months to write a book, which Jesus
Speaker 3: six months, I will trying to write a book in
Speaker 3: six months. Who's going to win the race? And I
Speaker 3: was like, one, I didn't know it was a race.
Speaker 3: It is actually very I mean, she did that near
Speaker 3: the snakes. But it does make me think, are these
Speaker 3: ethical concerns can hold people back in the workforce going
Speaker 3: to hold people back from No one's studying the ethics
Speaker 3: anymore because they're just doing their essays on the.
Speaker 2: Yeah, actually success because you're asking the robot what they
Speaker 2: think about robots, and guess what they think about robots?
Speaker 3: Grabulous out louders. In a moment, we're going to talk
Speaker 3: about the petty hills. We will always always die on.
Speaker 1: Out louders.
Speaker 4: I'm having so much fun being back in your ears
Speaker 4: twice a week on our subscriber episodes. On Tuesday, we
Speaker 4: spoke with Holly we the Royal we Me. I spoke
Speaker 4: with Holly and Jesse and we've talked about generational parenting.
Speaker 4: But on that note, as you may have heard, someone
Speaker 4: is doing some weird twin shit. Claire and Jesse pregnant
Speaker 4: again at the same time. If you want to know
Speaker 4: everything about that, and I had questions. Let me tell you,
Speaker 4: I have shoehorned them into the studio and made them
Speaker 4: sit down. Jesse had to put a feed up, and
Speaker 4: I've asked them a lot of questions about Claire's pregnancy
Speaker 4: and how they're feeling. If you're not already a subscriber,
Speaker 4: follow the link in the show notes and you can
Speaker 4: listen to it right now and get us in your
Speaker 4: ears five days a week.
Speaker 3: Now. We've discussed how this is the year of the
Speaker 3: Horse and the many ways in which we can become
Speaker 3: better people, But sometimes we also need a break from
Speaker 3: self improvement by being unnecessarily and inappropriately Betty. An article
Speaker 3: on MMEA last week asked seventeen women about the petty
Speaker 3: hill they're willing to die on. I clicked immediately because
Speaker 3: I too would like to lie down on a hill. Yea,
Speaker 3: and it probably wouldn't take that much to make me
Speaker 3: just collapse on that film. A couple of the responses
Speaker 3: were things like, I always make a point of walking
Speaker 3: straight into someone if they don't make room for me
Speaker 3: when getting off a train. Yeah, that's fine.
Speaker 2: There are a lot of public transport related ones, right,
Speaker 2: People who do not let people get off trains before
Speaker 2: they get on. That's not okay. No, those people.
Speaker 3: Really upside around the world.
Speaker 1: They would all be gone.
Speaker 3: Yes. Another one was if a car starts to tailgate
Speaker 3: me when I'm going the speed limit or even a
Speaker 3: bit over, I will purposely slow down. That sounds dangerous
Speaker 3: and annoying. Yeah, I always convince myself it's a police
Speaker 3: officer tailgating me and they're testing me, So I always
Speaker 3: say the speed limit, which must also be annoying. But
Speaker 3: we also asked around the Mummeya office and here's a
Speaker 3: few of the hills our friends would like to die on.
Speaker 5: If there is a full boss and someone has their
Speaker 5: bag on the seat, I will very loudly ask them,
Speaker 5: can you please take your bag off the seat so
Speaker 5: I can sit down. When people that are like not
Speaker 5: sitting in your row on the plane put their carry
Speaker 5: on luggage in the overhead locker for your section so
Speaker 5: that when you get on there there's no space, it
Speaker 5: really drives me nuts, and I.
Speaker 3: Do make a song and dance about it. I get
Speaker 3: really annoyed when people put things in lockers at the gym,
Speaker 3: but they don't lock it. I open them and there's
Speaker 3: like people stuff inside, and I've thought about setting a
Speaker 3: pin code unlocking it because I have never done it,
Speaker 3: but I'm so close to you because it's annoying. My
Speaker 3: petty hill that I die on is when cyclists cut
Speaker 3: you off and you're a pedestrian. I'll just go so sir,
Speaker 3: to let them know you've done wrong. You've done wrong,
Speaker 3: done wrong, did wrong. I never set a pin code
Speaker 3: at the gym. Yeah, No, I think it signals to
Speaker 3: the world that I'm trusting. I trust everyone. Yeah, I
Speaker 3: leave my backpack in all thoughts of places. I like
Speaker 3: to think that the three of us are quite rational
Speaker 3: and sensible, not particularly emotional or sensitive. But I do
Speaker 3: have some strong opinions I'm not afraid to share with
Speaker 3: the group. Here are the petty hills I'm willing to
Speaker 3: die on. Sparkling water is simply ruined water. Yeah, if
Speaker 3: you want bubbles in a beverage, get a coke. It's
Speaker 3: not right in water. And we've talked about this on
Speaker 3: a subscriber episode. But also if someone comes to the
Speaker 3: table and says, what water do you want, I just
Speaker 3: think that we've got to be speaking default in tap water.
Speaker 1: Tap is fine.
Speaker 3: Still, it's fine, but don't bring me a still bottle
Speaker 3: and then charge me seventeen dollars for it. I was fine,
Speaker 3: fine with tap. When people say still, I'm like, oh,
Speaker 3: you do it well? Goodness. Yeah, crocs are a hideous shoe,
Speaker 3: and not in an ironic way. No, I disagree. I
Speaker 3: think that we've moved on. They're dated.
Speaker 1: My son lives only in crops. Yes, they don't look great,
Speaker 1: but they're easy. And you know, I don't need him
Speaker 1: to look great. I need him to have his feet.
Speaker 3: Step on the snakes. People who become your best friend
Speaker 3: immediately are bad news. That's that's a rule. I've always
Speaker 3: that my nan news to say that. I believe it.
Speaker 2: People who go straight to a nickname of time, but
Speaker 2: a time must elapse before nicknames are used.
Speaker 3: To Marritt, first sight is just as worthy of analysis
Speaker 3: and pages in the newspaper as elite sports.
Speaker 1: I just gets them.
Speaker 3: Yes, sure, fact, there's a whole sports section and I'm like,
Speaker 3: what isn't that great?
Speaker 1: Are you joking? There's some really good anyway, We don't know,
Speaker 1: we won't. You've got a tennis correspondent here.
Speaker 3: And if one correspondent and my football you're also a
Speaker 3: maps correspmard and that's a coincidence. Okay, I think it
Speaker 3: lives in the same universe. Ring tones are a nervous
Speaker 3: system hazard. There's no reason to have your phone on
Speaker 3: loud because, let's be honest, it's in your hand. What
Speaker 3: if you're a doctor, that's actually more annoying. No, in
Speaker 3: the pit where their phones keep going off during surgery,
Speaker 3: I'm like, put it on silent. Person delivering my baby
Speaker 3: to have their phone on loud, why, well, because if
Speaker 3: they're at home or something, I want them notified it's
Speaker 3: in their back pocket. Yeah, it's vibrate.
Speaker 2: People who have don't have their phones on silent. I
Speaker 2: want the outlouders to give us lots of good examples
Speaker 2: of when your phone needs to be on loud. I
Speaker 2: guess if it's not next to.
Speaker 3: You, Yeah, but have it on you have pocketed on
Speaker 3: your person. And my final one is and this is
Speaker 3: something I think about most days. Bad Neighbors and Bad
Speaker 3: Neighbors Too are two of the greatest films of the
Speaker 3: last decade. They're actually so funny, they're so good zach
Speaker 3: Efron both at their hot and every time I watch it,
Speaker 3: I go nah, I didn't overhype this. These are really good,
Speaker 3: great premise. I think about them often. No, I agree
Speaker 3: with funny, but in like quite a progressive way. Yeah, yeah, no,
Speaker 3: everyone should watch those films. Okay, I have a few.
Speaker 3: Nuts are not a satisfying snack that anyone ever truly wants. Okay,
Speaker 3: I feel like all of yours are going to be
Speaker 3: about nuts because it's one of the few snacks you're
Speaker 3: allowed to have. Exactly all you do is text me.
Speaker 2: My second one is nutritional robots are always like four almonds.
Speaker 3: I don't. I've never met someone who feels like four almonds.
Speaker 3: This is my second one, Suggesting someone have a handful
Speaker 3: of nuts as a snack has passed thee these are
Speaker 3: all about and then this is my third one. Most
Speaker 3: nuts taste like tree unless they're covered in salt or chocolate.
Speaker 3: Can you have salt?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: I think a little bit, but I can't really have truck.
Speaker 1: And they kill people. Nuts kill people.
Speaker 3: True, I hate nuts.
Speaker 1: They're so right like almonds are like pistaschios.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but I want to hold back four This is obvious.
Speaker 3: But if I order a diet coke, a coke zero
Speaker 3: isn't fine.
Speaker 1: I often ask that, now, don't they Yes, oh we
Speaker 1: do have coke zero.
Speaker 3: And it's like, well, that's not what I asked for.
Speaker 3: And when Holly asked for a peanut gree, you didn't say, oh,
Speaker 3: we have a sab blanc.
Speaker 1: Is that fine?
Speaker 3: No, it's not. It's very very important. And a diet
Speaker 3: coke in a can is not the same as a
Speaker 3: diet coke in a bottle, is not the same as
Speaker 3: a diet coke in a glass bottle. And it's not
Speaker 3: just is not the same as on tap on tap,
Speaker 3: that's different. If you've got post mix, I'll have pepsi
Speaker 3: mat can we just get ow?
Speaker 1: Is she maintenance? Not at all? Only when it comes
Speaker 1: to her soft drink juices.
Speaker 3: No more apps, We're all, oh the things I you know,
Speaker 3: for daycare, I've got two apps for daycare, one to pay,
Speaker 3: one to check speaking of my diabetes. You't know how
Speaker 3: many apps?
Speaker 1: I have.
Speaker 3: Too many? And then it's like, you want to look
Speaker 3: at pictures of your baby, download this app like from
Speaker 3: ultrasounds and stuff, and I'm like, I.
Speaker 1: Don't want to look that bad.
Speaker 3: And if I'm eating at your establishment, I don't think
Speaker 3: I should have to ask you to use the toilet,
Speaker 3: and then you should have to give me a key
Speaker 3: with a wooden spoon on the edge. I think that
Speaker 3: it should just be easily accessible, but there's something embarrassing
Speaker 3: walking around with the huge thing, and the next time
Speaker 3: I need to go being like.
Speaker 2: You wouldn't spoon again public transport, clearly lots of people
Speaker 2: have lots of hills to die on. A quiet carriage
Speaker 2: is a quiet carriage? The amount of time I spend
Speaker 2: in my quiet carriage listening to the guy behind me
Speaker 2: watching sometimes pawn, just porn, but also just some terrible
Speaker 2: comedy or a really bad bro podcast on loud with
Speaker 2: no headphones.
Speaker 3: And is he like this is a good place to
Speaker 3: listen because it's quiet.
Speaker 1: Is the hill to die on? A bit?
Speaker 2: Is that if I turn around to a person who's
Speaker 2: perfectly happy to watch porn with sound up in a
Speaker 2: quiet carriage, yeah, it's not gonna go well for me.
Speaker 3: No, And you would have to speak, which is breaking
Speaker 3: your own rules exactly.
Speaker 2: I'm like, sign usually look around for someone who's pettier
Speaker 2: and braver than I am and.
Speaker 1: Say tell him on that.
Speaker 2: Point about the people who put bags on seats. My
Speaker 2: brother is so obsessed with that. That one time I
Speaker 2: was talking to him because he gets the tram into
Speaker 2: work in Manchester every day, and he was telling me
Speaker 2: that he one time saw our local MP and he'd
Speaker 2: voted for him and he likes this guy and everything,
Speaker 2: and he had put the local and put his bag
Speaker 2: on the seat next to him. He's like, that's it.
Speaker 2: I've never voting with him again. Something in my brother's world.
Speaker 1: That means bad person.
Speaker 2: The baggage carousel stand back, I can't bear what's wrong
Speaker 2: with us?
Speaker 1: All like pushed up against the carousel said, no one
Speaker 1: can see their bag.
Speaker 3: You'll see your bag coming and then you can die
Speaker 3: to it.
Speaker 2: It's like every time I do that, I get really
Speaker 2: up that about the state of humanity because I'm like,
Speaker 2: you're just being selfish.
Speaker 3: Stand back again, and you've got plenty of time to
Speaker 3: see it. You do move too quickly. Yeah, that's actually
Speaker 3: part of the problem.
Speaker 2: Cottage cheese is not cheese, and cuge cheese brings pleasure.
Speaker 1: Cottage cheese does not, ain't it.
Speaker 3: It's like, really nuts.
Speaker 2: All tomatoes do not go in the fridge ever. Now,
Speaker 2: if you put your tomato in the fridge, I'm not
Speaker 2: talking to you.
Speaker 1: You make it taste like nothing.
Speaker 3: Tomatoes, Why I'm having tomato issues. No, most things actually
Speaker 3: do go on the bench.
Speaker 2: On the bench, but particularly tomatoes. They are always bad
Speaker 2: if they go in the fridge. The most controversial one
Speaker 2: I always get a lot of shit for is cream before.
Speaker 1: Jam on is gone. I know it's not traditional, except
Speaker 1: apparently the Queen does it that way.
Speaker 2: The cream is like the butter. It goes on the bottom. Okay,
Speaker 2: bag out of a teacup. Don't leave the bag in.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that is very long. It feels a little bit incomplete.
Speaker 3: It's like giving you work.
Speaker 2: And then often if you get a tea when you're
Speaker 2: out there, say leave the bag in, like, no, I'm
Speaker 2: paying five point fifty.
Speaker 3: Feels like it also feels like the tea is never done.
Speaker 3: Like every time you take a sip, you're taking a
Speaker 3: sip of a fundamentally different cup of tea. Yeah, because
Speaker 3: the concentration of the tea is different at all times.
Speaker 2: And lastly, this is very parent one. But if you
Speaker 2: do not say please, I cannot hear you.
Speaker 1: That is the parents.
Speaker 2: Everybody's like when they say can I have a chocolate?
Speaker 1: You just ignore them.
Speaker 2: They say it again you say, pardon, I can't hear
Speaker 2: you in a loud voice.
Speaker 1: That's very important. You will get to this.
Speaker 3: That is so, That is so true. Yeah, man is
Speaker 3: a good teach teach toddlers, because you're like, I know
Speaker 3: how badly you want that, don't You'll do anything.
Speaker 2: But I cannot hear you until you say the magic word.
Speaker 2: It's been working for centuries.
Speaker 3: After the break. There is a finger princess in every group,
Speaker 3: and it's less dirty than it sounds. Apparently everyone has
Speaker 3: an annoying friend called the finger princess. And I fear
Speaker 3: the more I read about this, the more I discover
Speaker 3: I am one. A finger princess is someone who asks
Speaker 3: extremely simple questions they could easily google. There are definitely
Speaker 3: a few out louders who might be finger princesses, and
Speaker 3: they jump in the group and they ask things.
Speaker 1: Although actually getting opinions.
Speaker 3: Exactly and recommendations. I feel very defensive of them because solidarity.
Speaker 3: So that the type of person who says, you're in
Speaker 3: a group chat and they say, so, what times doennis night?
Speaker 3: What restaurant do we agree on?
Speaker 4: Hey?
Speaker 3: Can you send me the menu? Where are we park?
Speaker 1: Where is it?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Yeah, all of that that's what they do. They
Speaker 3: might post in a Facebook group and if ask if
Speaker 3: someone knows of a hairdresser in Sorry Hill's, and people go,
Speaker 3: you could google ah. They might say to their partner
Speaker 3: where my water bottle is, even though they haven't moved
Speaker 3: up the lounch and looked for themselves. They ask questions
Speaker 3: that really they should use a little bit of initiative.
Speaker 3: That was the term I heard a lot in high school,
Speaker 3: was like, you should use initiative, and I was like,
Speaker 3: I remember a teacher playing a guessing game with me
Speaker 3: where the word who was clearly getting me to come
Speaker 3: up with was initiative and it went for like seven minutes.
Speaker 1: I was like, I have no.
Speaker 3: Idea what you're asking me. Finger princesses are used to
Speaker 3: people doing things for them and won't engage in any
Speaker 3: basic problem solving. Do we have any finger princesses in
Speaker 3: the room.
Speaker 2: Yes, I am one, and I don't mean to be.
Speaker 2: And this goes back to our AI conversation sometimes is
Speaker 2: I sometimes realized that even in a work setting, I'll
Speaker 2: be like, oh, I don't know how to do X
Speaker 2: y Z, and I might ask someone how to.
Speaker 1: Do X y Z.
Speaker 2: The look I get on the faces of the young
Speaker 2: people make me realize I was meant.
Speaker 1: To ask Ai that question.
Speaker 3: Luke has started saying that to me. He will say
Speaker 3: to me, so just so you know what I'm going
Speaker 3: to do is asking my chat And I'm like, okay,
Speaker 3: you ask I don't like, but sometimes I need someone
Speaker 3: to tell me that.
Speaker 2: And sometimes and also sometimes you need to actually have
Speaker 2: a conversation with a person and you learn better that way.
Speaker 2: And awesome defensive finger princesses, is there are hairdressers in
Speaker 2: sorry hills. You're not really asking, is there? You're asking?
Speaker 2: Do you recommend one? Recommendations from robots are not reliable,
Speaker 2: as we've discussed, whereas recommendations from out louders are very good.
Speaker 3: How your foster a sense of community? All Facebook groups
Speaker 3: are people asking questions they could google. Like that's that's
Speaker 3: how people spend their time. If we just googled everything
Speaker 3: we possibly could, we would simply never ask a question
Speaker 3: because Google slash AI can answer everything. The other thing
Speaker 3: is like, sometimes you need the vibe, not a chat
Speaker 3: GPT response. It's like when people go to a Facebook
Speaker 3: group and they've got a weird rash and like I've
Speaker 3: got a weird rash, and all the responses that are
Speaker 3: always will go to the docks. It's like, well, I
Speaker 3: don't want to go to the doctor. I want to vibe.
Speaker 1: And someone will say picture.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it's like, well, now you've made me panic. Yeah,
Speaker 3: you've made which is one But the only answer I
Speaker 3: ever want is it's fine. Yeah. It's like do I
Speaker 3: currently have sepsis? Because if not, I'm actually just gonna
Speaker 3: chill and read your responses. Are we all good? Are
Speaker 3: we all good? But I also think everyone needs to
Speaker 3: calm their hell down and stop pointing fingers at their
Speaker 3: friends and coming up with bloody criticisms.
Speaker 1: Print exactly finger.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I thought it was good to ask people for help
Speaker 3: because it makes them feel like they matter. Yes, mattering,
Speaker 3: And I actually always think I ask very little of
Speaker 3: people in tangible terms, like I'd never ask I'd very
Speaker 3: rarely ask for like a lift or like can you
Speaker 3: help me move or anything like that, But I will
Speaker 3: say when's dinner? Where am I going? All of that.
Speaker 3: I do think that's probably quite annoying, like for the
Speaker 3: people that always know, and it's like they booked and
Speaker 3: they found the thing and it's like, Hey, well, we
Speaker 3: going to dinner and what time?
Speaker 1: Like that's probably annoying.
Speaker 3: The other thing is I read this article and I thought,
Speaker 3: what we need to encourage? And this is completely hypocritical
Speaker 3: of me because I don't do it. But just be
Speaker 3: direct if you have an issue. If your friend says
Speaker 3: what time's dinner, you can say I don't know, look
Speaker 3: it up. Okay. No, I disagree because this article had
Speaker 3: some advice on what to say if you have a
Speaker 3: fingerprintcess friend and it says you ask, hey, have you
Speaker 3: seen my water bottle in the office day? And I
Speaker 3: say I'm not sure. Where have you tried looking for it? Okay,
Speaker 3: so you're a bitch. And then you say to me, hey,
Speaker 3: can you send me the menu for tonight? So I
Speaker 3: just know what's on the menu. I don't have it,
Speaker 3: but it should be easy to find.
Speaker 1: Yes, on the website, say on the website.
Speaker 3: It should be on the website. And then you'll say, well,
Speaker 3: of that, and then where are we going ak to
Speaker 3: the website? Can you send me the url? Please? And
Speaker 3: then like you ask me, you know, some vague question,
Speaker 3: and I say, can you actually look into that for
Speaker 3: me and let me know what you find m power,
Speaker 3: move absolute power. You can't. A finer princess will never
Speaker 3: take on the mental load. They'll just be like that's
Speaker 3: weird and then not just go to someone in their
Speaker 3: house and be like, hey, can you do this job?
Speaker 1: There is no bigger finger princess than a teenage daughter.
Speaker 1: She is on the couch and she is mom, is
Speaker 1: there any water?
Speaker 3: No way out?
Speaker 2: Like imagine if I tried that one and I was
Speaker 2: you could find.
Speaker 1: Why didn't you go find out? Tell me if there's
Speaker 1: any water?
Speaker 3: You get me one? She'ld be like, what, mom's broken?
Speaker 1: Dad?
Speaker 3: Can you get MoMA water?
Speaker 1: Exactly.
Speaker 3: People are annoying and they do ask questions they could google.
Speaker 3: But the cost of human relationships is that friction of
Speaker 3: every then being like, h shut up. It's not something
Speaker 3: we need to diagnose.
Speaker 1: I don't know, I think out loud.
Speaker 2: Is it going to have a lot of fun diagnosed
Speaker 2: with finger princess people in their last Yeah.
Speaker 4: Vibes, ideas atmosphere, something casual, something fun.
Speaker 3: This is my best recommendation. It's Friday, so we want
Speaker 3: to help set up your weekend with our best recommendations. Holly,
Speaker 3: you go first.
Speaker 2: I'm going to recommend hip new books that everyone is
Speaker 2: talking about. It was written in eighteen forty six.
Speaker 3: Oh, don't tell me you've reread Buthering I have.
Speaker 2: I think I told the outlouders this, but I am
Speaker 2: reckoing it today because this is the week that Wuthering
Speaker 2: Heights comes out. We went to the premiere in fact,
Speaker 2: and we're saving all of the juicy details about what
Speaker 2: it's actually like until next week.
Speaker 1: But it is huge.
Speaker 2: And the thing is what's exciting about it is everybody
Speaker 2: is going to read Wuthering Heights. They have had Penguins
Speaker 2: say that they have had a four hundred and sixty
Speaker 2: nine percent increase in sales of Wuthering Heights this year alone,
Speaker 2: and it's only going to get more. So I am
Speaker 2: recommending it. But I need to give you a little
Speaker 2: bit of warning about that book, right, Okay, So Emily
Speaker 2: Bronte wrote that book one hundred and eighty years ago,
Speaker 2: and it is some twisted shit. If you haven't seen
Speaker 2: the movie and you've just seen the greatest love story
Speaker 2: of all time and all that stuff, like, just be
Speaker 2: prepared for what you're about to step into. When it
Speaker 2: was written and in the old days, the Brontes wrote
Speaker 2: their books under a male pseudonym because women were allowed
Speaker 2: to write books, and if they were, they were dismissed
Speaker 2: as very silly. When it was published, one of its
Speaker 2: early reviewers said, how a human being could have attempted
Speaker 2: such a book without committing suicide before he had finished
Speaker 2: a dozen chapters is a mystery. It is a compound
Speaker 2: of vulgar depravity and unnatural horrors.
Speaker 3: Oh man, that is why it stood the test.
Speaker 2: Of That is what we have to contend with with
Speaker 2: Wuthering Heights right now. Emily wrote this in lesson a year.
Speaker 2: It is the only novel she ever wrote. It is
Speaker 2: not believed that Emily Bronte ever had a boyfriend or
Speaker 2: a lover, or actually knew any men that she was
Speaker 2: not related to, so they think that Heathcliff was really
Speaker 2: based on her brother, who was.
Speaker 1: To use a pejorative, a crazy person.
Speaker 2: Anyway, if you think it is a soppy love story,
Speaker 2: you have a very big shotcoming. So I don't want
Speaker 2: to hear any winging about trigger warnings about going this
Speaker 2: movie or reading this book. It is some dark, twisted shit. However,
Speaker 2: I am recommending it because it is brilliant. It stands
Speaker 2: a test of time.
Speaker 1: It's actually a book that's gossip because the whole plot.
Speaker 2: Of Wuthering Heights is somebody who used to work in
Speaker 2: the house where all this went down telling someone.
Speaker 1: Else about it. So it's like earwigging on a gossip session, just.
Speaker 3: A bit like married at first sight. It's so like
Speaker 3: my first sight. Are you one of those people who
Speaker 3: is mad that the film is not a perfect because
Speaker 3: there are a lot of literary shits.
Speaker 2: Not, No, I'm not at all, because I think we've
Speaker 2: talked about this on the show. But I've got my
Speaker 2: head around the fact that Emerald Fanell says she's written
Speaker 2: a movie inspired by the book.
Speaker 1: All accounts that it's.
Speaker 2: Brilliant, it's dark, it's twisted, and I am recommending you
Speaker 2: read it because it is brilliant, but it isn't a
Speaker 2: stoppy love story. And also to remind everybody that women
Speaker 2: have been writing dark, crazy, sexy, pucked up shit forever
Speaker 2: without church epity, without with no robots, and even when
Speaker 2: they had to pretend they were doing to write them.
Speaker 2: So it's like, there's something deeply feminist about that book.
Speaker 2: And I am highly recommending that if you're going to
Speaker 2: go see the movie. Read it, not because you need
Speaker 2: to for the movie, but just to like wallow in
Speaker 2: the depravity.
Speaker 1: As that reviewer said, there's all kinds of abuse, there's
Speaker 1: all kinds of unhealthy relationships on display. It's great.
Speaker 3: I have a recommendation for a book as well, which
Speaker 3: is called The Correspondent by Virginia Evans.
Speaker 1: Was that written in eighteen forty sereo?
Speaker 3: It was not. I believe the reason why I had
Speaker 3: to read it was because it kept coming up, as
Speaker 3: which I think I said about Heart the Lover as well,
Speaker 3: it kept coming up in everyone's best twenty twenty five books.
Speaker 3: This one it was plaguing me. Everyone was going, you
Speaker 3: have to read this. It's brilliant and it sounds unreadable
Speaker 3: because it's a series of letters, so the whole thing
Speaker 3: is written in letter form. The main character is named
Speaker 3: Sybil van Antwerp, and she's a seventy year old woman
Speaker 3: and it's about memory and guilt and aging and relationships
Speaker 3: and her relationship with her daughter. The way they unfold.
Speaker 3: This author is able to unfold plot through letters is
Speaker 3: just nothing short of genius. It's just incredibly mesmerizing. Like
Speaker 3: from the first page, I was just in Claire. You've
Speaker 3: read it too. I sobbed and sobbed. Yeah, it's just
Speaker 3: and that.
Speaker 1: What's it about.
Speaker 3: It starts off being about all the little things in
Speaker 3: her life, like her neighbor who's clearly kind of interested
Speaker 3: in her, and her brother and her, but it becomes
Speaker 3: clear that she's lost her son. It's got the most
Speaker 3: incredible passages about grief. She's got a fractured relationship with
Speaker 3: her daughter that kind of opens up. But you also
Speaker 3: see her bitching about her daughter like to other people
Speaker 3: in the letters, and so things are changing over time.
Speaker 3: But it's also like it reminds you of the beauty
Speaker 3: and the power of letters, Like how much has been
Speaker 3: lost that we don't write each other letters anymore.
Speaker 2: You can get GPT to write emails. I'm sure they'd
Speaker 2: have just the same emotional heft.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, Well there's actually a personality in these and
Speaker 3: the tone of everyone that's really different is just amazing.
Speaker 3: And I also want to throw in another one actually,
Speaker 3: because I listen to true crime conversations all the time.
Speaker 3: I used to host it. It is a Mummere podcast.
Speaker 3: It is one of our biggest podcasts. It is fascinating
Speaker 3: they interview every week someone who who knows is an
Speaker 3: expert in a particular criminal case. And you might remember
Speaker 3: in twenty nineteen there was a young woman, a twenty
Speaker 3: five year old named Courtney Heron, who was murdered after
Speaker 3: a night out in Melbourne's CBD. Jemma Bath just last
Speaker 3: week interviewed Courtney Heron's father and he goes into his
Speaker 3: very personal experience of the justice system and the mental
Speaker 3: health systems and why he believes Courtney was denied justice.
Speaker 3: It's just such a generous podcast for him to even
Speaker 3: sit down and talk about it. But also it has
Speaker 3: so much heart and twenty nineteen it just feels so
Speaker 3: so recent, and Jemma does such a brilliant job with it,
Speaker 3: so we'll link to that in the show.
Speaker 1: Notes as well.
Speaker 3: My recommendation is I listened to this podcast on a
Speaker 3: long car trip over the holiday and oh my god.
Speaker 3: It's a documentary style Apple original podcast called a Drift
Speaker 3: and it follows the story of the Robertson family and
Speaker 3: it's the late nineteen sixties in England. They're struggling with
Speaker 3: life on a farm when Google the father decides, guys,
Speaker 3: let's sail around the world. So it's a true story.
Speaker 3: It's a true story, okay, and there's been a book
Speaker 3: written about it, and you've got the stories from all
Speaker 3: the kids who were there and went through this whole experience.
Speaker 3: And it's fascinating because there's a big plot point of
Speaker 3: what happens, which we'll get to, but even just all
Speaker 3: the tiny side stories it goes into are brilliant. So
Speaker 3: it's the parents and they're four kids and so interesting
Speaker 3: in terms of family dynamics. What happens when they stop
Speaker 3: in Florida for a few months to work and kind
Speaker 3: of get involved with a bit of a shady guy,
Speaker 3: and what it's like to sail in literal paradise, the
Speaker 3: things they see that having been like inland in England,
Speaker 3: they had never seen before. But the crux of the
Speaker 3: story is that one day they are sailing in the
Speaker 3: Pacific Ocean pretty much as as much in the middle
Speaker 3: of nowhere as you could possibly be. They have an
Speaker 3: encounter with killer whales that makes their boat sink and
Speaker 3: they are stranded, oh shit, and no way to contact anyone,
Speaker 3: minimal supplies, surrounded by sharks, and it is just the
Speaker 3: most you can't believe. It's a true story, except that
Speaker 3: they are telling it. The kids who are in the
Speaker 3: boat are telling the story. So it's a beautifully made
Speaker 3: show with you know, all the soundscaping and like all
Speaker 3: how many episodic And I love a limited series podcast,
Speaker 3: especially for a road trip that you know you'll get
Speaker 3: this whole story.
Speaker 1: It's great to jump into one of those.
Speaker 3: And you're just enthralled. So go and listen wherever you
Speaker 3: get your podcast.
Speaker 1: It's called a drift.
Speaker 2: Just one thing about reading about books. I just want
Speaker 2: to remind everybody about our summer book club series which
Speaker 2: we made with our partners at Royal Caribbean. We did
Speaker 2: three very different books Jesse m and I. We did
Speaker 2: All Fours by Miranda July, we did Great, Big Beautiful
Speaker 2: Life by Emily Henry, and we did Angie fe Martin's Malluka.
Speaker 2: And the people who have listened along with that, we've
Speaker 2: had lots of great feedback about it.
Speaker 3: We had a lot of out louders say that Malaluca
Speaker 3: was the one that they enjoyed the most, which I
Speaker 3: think we said as well because we hadn't read it yet. Yeah,
Speaker 3: Australian fiction debut author came out last year, so much
Speaker 3: discussion happening about that book.
Speaker 2: All four was probably the most divisive. Yeah, probably most
Speaker 2: in the spirit of my friend Emily Bronte.
Speaker 1: But anyway, you.
Speaker 2: Can find all the Mom and Mere book Club episodes
Speaker 2: in our feed and we'll put a link in our
Speaker 2: show notes. You can go straight there if you and
Speaker 2: your mates want to read along and listen to those epps.
Speaker 2: That is all we have time for out Louder. Feels
Speaker 2: like it's been quite a lot today.
Speaker 1: We've been all over the place.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much to you Claire Stevens for filling
Speaker 2: in for our Emily. Thank you to our brilliant team.
Speaker 1: You want to shout some of them out.
Speaker 3: Group Executive producer Ruth Devine, Senior producer Tina Mattalov, our
Speaker 3: senior audio producer is Leah Porgies, video producer Josh Green,
Speaker 3: and our junior content producer is Tessa Kodovich. Bye Bye, Mamma.
Speaker 2: Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of the land on which
Speaker 2: we've recorded this podcast.