Send us Fan Mail

A week of storms, one of which sent a tree into Bob's train, plus government advice to stockpile water, leaves Simon and Lee wondering whether embodied practice might be the last thing standing after AI. But the conversation keeps turning towards hope. Lee wakes up giddy despite the headlines, and Simon finds himself weeping at a stranger's goodbye at an Italian bus station. That leads to a question about what tears actually do, and who they are for.

Mentioned

• Wes Streeting – UK government minister; cited for the advice that households keep three litres of water per person per day for at least three days, as national preparedness against storms, cyber attacks and war
• Sting – musician; a friend's observation in the 1990s about how relentlessly his songs rhyme comes up during a riff on poets and rhyming
• Roxanne (The Police) – Sting song briefly sung as an example of the rhyming
• Fields of Gold – Sting song; mentioned in passing as later Sting
• RoboCop – the line "Dead or alive, you're coming with me" quoted during a riff on robots going wrong
• Hitler's bunker – invoked as the image of end-of-the-world giddiness, which the optimism discussed here is not
• Flipboard – news aggregator where a story about a 14-year-old boy attacked in the street prompts a reflection on how media report cruelty but not everyday kindness
• Riverford Organic Farmers – Devon veg box company; its founder's weekly letter to customers made the same point about the generosity of ordinary people
• Guy Singh-Watson – Riverford founder and author of the weekly letter; his brother Ben is also mentioned
• Sassari – a bus station on the way to the airport, where a family's tearful goodbye prompts thoughts on compassion and empathy
• J. L. Austin – philosopher whose idea of the performative (saying as doing, as in a promise or a wedding vow) is used to think about tears as something that does something, and about the need for grief to be witnessed
• Steve Irwin and Robert Irwin – the late "Crocodile Hunter" and his son, recently seen on The Graham Norton Show; leads into the question of where "crocodile tears" comes from
• The Graham Norton Show – BBC chat show where Robert Irwin appeared
• Devon – where a nephew photographed a front door on the street
• Sky burial – funerary practice of leaving a body on a mountaintop to be picked clean by vultures and the weather; offered as a closing curiosity
• Primrose Hill – London hill jokingly proposed as the UK's nearest equivalent to a sky burial mountain

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

---
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)

Send us Fan Mail

A review of wired headphones, sold out to nostalgic teenagers, sets Simon wondering why some objects turn his head long after he's stopped needing them. Simon and Lee compare their weaknesses – hi-fi on one side, trousers and coats spread across two countries on the other – and trace how money, desire and the discipline of saving up have shaped what they covet since their teens.

Mentioned

• Bose – audio brand whose new wired headphones prompt the opening conversation; sold out because younger buyers now want wired headphones again
• The Incredible Hulk / Bruce Banner – Marvel character; the image of a Hulk-style trouser split prompts a detour through the actors who played him
• Eric Bana – Australian actor who played the Hulk in Hulk (2003); misremembered as "Eric Banner"
• Edward Norton – played the Hulk in The Incredible Hulk (2008)
• Mark Ruffalo – plays the Hulk in the Marvel Avengers films
• Universal Works – British clothing brand; a light grey cotton-linen pair of trousers that turns out to belong in Lisbon
• Lisbon – one of two homes; clothes bought in one place often turn out to be for the other
• Midlifing episode 3 – an early episode extolling the virtues of a coat, which still fits perfectly
• Sony Walkman – first piece of sound gear, the start of a lifelong pull towards hi-fi
• Nirvana – grunge band; thanked for a 90s look of oversized, ripped and thrifted clothes that suited a student budget
• Patrick Cox – shoe designer; emblem of the smarter late-90s UK look that was out of reach on an actor's wages
• Firetrap – UK clothing brand, part of the same late-90s look
• Knox College – halls of residence during the first year at university, where second-years in a shared "double" had an enviable stereo
• HMV, Lambton Quay, Wellington – record shop where a job came from walking in and asking, with an interview on the spot
• Karori – Wellington suburb; washing dishes at a restaurant there, with a late-night bike ride home
• Rotel – hi-fi brand; the amplifier, tape deck, record player and speakers saved for by working two jobs
• Isto – Lisbon clothing brand with fully traceable production data; source of a perfectly fitting jacket that was tried on for days and not bought
• Sardinia – region of Italy with a similar well-heeled look to the Lisbon man in chinos, loafers and a blazer
• Palantir – data analytics company whose CEO reported AI figures taking up smoking, confident AI will cure cancer

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

---
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)

Send us Fan Mail

Simon's secondhand iPhone and Lee's flirtation with a folding one get things going, but the episode turns on a last-minute invitation to Lisbon Fashion Week that Lee almost turned down over pizza. Saying yes, he points out, isn't a marriage, because you can always leave. That leads them to ask who actually gets to be that open: the socially anxious, parents on pick-up duty, anyone whose evening isn't already their own.

Mentioned

• iPhone 13 Pro – the secondhand phone the episode is recorded on; the discovery that its speakers sit at the top opens the conversation
• The Luddites – 19th-century textile workers who smashed machinery; prompted by the question of when an early adopter turns Luddite, followed by a brief and uncertain detour into cotton presses and weaving
• Apple Watch and iPad – recalled as examples of early adoption, including an iPad snatched by a passing cyclist
• iPhone X – the last model bought new on release, before a switch to secondhand phones over the cost of keeping up and the environmental impact of rare earth materials
• Kodak – shorthand for a point-and-shoot approach to cameras: interested in images, not in how they're made
• iPhone Duo – a phone that unfolds into a screen for watching television on trains and planes; being considered, but only after a couple of months of reviews
• Leaning Tower of Pisa – punchline to "leaning is not the same as falling"
• ChatGPT virtual try-on – feature for trying on clothes digitally; set as homework for the coming week
• Google wardrobe – Google's equivalent clothes try-on service; reportedly looks like a face pasted onto a model's body
• Lisbon Fashion Week – the event a last-minute invitation led to, which became an example of being open to saying yes
• Aperol spritz – being drunk at the pizzeria when the invitation arrived (transcript reads "April spritz")
• Ammo – a local Lisbon pizzeria run by Luciano from Naples, serving 24-hour sourdough pizza
• Rick Owens – American fashion designer known for dark, avant-garde clothing; a pair of his shorts, bought in a charity shop, was worn to the fashion event
• Michèle Lamy – octogenarian fashion icon and Rick Owens's wife and collaborator
• Six degrees of separation – used to describe following the interesting people who turn up in a well-connected friend's wake
• Shayo by Nnamdi – a new Nigerian slow-fashion label just launched in Lisbon, working with young Nigerian designers; met outside the event, leading to some accidental networking
• Waiter press – kettlebell exercise, held overhead like a waiter's tray, recommended for the newly delivered 16 kg kettlebell

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

---
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)