Send us Fan Mail

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.

---
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 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.

---
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)