Mamamia Out Loud: How 29 Minutes Of TV Perfectly Portrayed Modern Grief

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Mamma Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters that this podcast is recorded on.

Hello and welcome to Mamma Mia Out Loud.

It's what women are talking about on Friday, April the 14th.

I'm Holly Wainwright and I'm Claire Stevens, filling in for Jessie.

And I'm Elfie Scotch, the editor at Mamma Mia, filling in for Mia, I guess.

I'm like, surely I'm filling in for Jessie, we have some boys.

Mia and Jessie is still on Honeymoon.

And we'll be back next week.

And I'm sure we'll, I wonder if they'll be talking to each other.

Do we think they will be?

It will be very interesting.

And the amount of piss-taking we're going to do for the fact that they've gone on Honeymoon together.

I mean, it's deeply deserved, isn't it?

It really is.

So in the interim, Claire and Elfie, thank you so much for filling in.

On today's show, a very famous woman is the latest to insist we should stop talking about bodies in capital letters.

And because Mia isn't here, we're debating it.

Also, a conversation against my will about something of enormous importance that happened on succession.

And what it tells us about loss.

And our best and worst of the week, which range from chart-topping podcasts to rodents to elevators.

But first, in case you missed it, Elfie.

11-year-olds are apparently holding up the jam economy.

Holly, did you know?

So if you missed this outrage this week, it started with an ABC story.

Basically, the ABC published a feel-good article talking about how 11-year-olds and very young kids are stepping in to help out a cafe-produced jam in a small regional New South Wales town.

Unfortunately, what they did not predict was the backlash from many people pointing out that that was questionable and possibly infringing on child labor laws.

It's not.

Twitter were very grumpy about the jam-making children.

They started to boycott it and give it bad reviews.

Oh, okay. Here's the thing that I did not know everybody else expressed surprise about this.

There is no minimum working age in New South Wales at the moment.

It ranges around Australia.

Basically, there is a legislation now that is trying to push for that age to be increased to 13.

But as it stands, you can have a job as an 11-year-old in New South Wales.

See, I was not surprised by this because I live in the regions now and our local IGAs, like the supermarkets, are almost entirely staffed by schoolchildren.

I've always thought, gosh, isn't that great and industrious and instilling work ethics early?

And then I read Twitter and I was like, oh.

I always thought it was 14 and nine months.

I think that's the weird arbitrary thing a lot of us have in our heads.

And so long as they're safe.

Oh, gosh, but I also thought, I also thought this is the reality of cost of living pressures.

Send the kids to work.

Yeah, send the kids to work.

I'm also in the regions that they need more people.

Yeah, it's true. This town has 200 people. What are they going to do?

Spoiler warning before we get into this.

If you have not seen the latest episode of Succession yet, please fast forward about 10 to 15 minutes and we'll meet you there.

I also know that not everyone is watching Succession.

Also, if you don't care about what happens on Succession, you can stay with us.

Yes, because this conversation is not actually about Succession.

It's about a theme that came from the most recent episode.

This is your last spoiler warning.

So go.

Shoot, off you go.

On Monday, episode three of season four of Succession dropped titled Conner's Wedding. It was not really about Conner's Wedding.

What it was really was one of the most interesting depictions of death and grief that I've seen on screen.

Is he gone, Frank? I mean, is he gone?

I don't want to bullshit you, Cap. I think he went. I think he's gone.

The death itself was one that we always knew was coming.

But as we all know, death being inevitable doesn't mean it's not a shock.

And in the episode, Logan Roy, who's essentially the Rupert Murdoch-esque founder and CEO of the fictional business, Wastar Royco,

dies suddenly in a private plane on the way to a business meeting.

He has a heart attack and his son-in-law, Tom, calls Logan's adult kids and they're given the opportunity to say goodbye to their dad,

who they have a very complicated relationship with, when he's probably already gone.

And it's a fascinating episode of television.

Once we get to the death, everything happens in real time, like one minute of succession time is one minute of real world time.

So one take. Yes, one take. There's a 29 minute take in there that's just all in one go.

And what it shows that I don't think I've seen on screen before is the uncertainty of death and the complicated way a death unfolds,

particularly now in the time of iPhones and technology, because we're all connected to each other.

So a generation ago or maybe even 10 years ago, you would learn that somebody had died.

Now that doesn't happen. You learn somebody's not doing well. Somebody's had a heart attack.

They appear to be unconscious. You actually get play by plays of what's unfolding, which is incredibly confusing.

And you get conflicting information, not because anybody's acting maliciously, but just because that's what happens in a crisis.

And that's what happens. And the kids react in four really unique ways.

One's in complete denial and says, we don't know who's dead until his doctor confirms it once they land.

Another goes straight to logistics. Who's the best plane doctor? Let me speak to the pilot. I need to get on a zoom call.

Another one is a mixture of catatonic with grief and angry because her brothers got to speak to their dad first and she was late to the room.

And she's worried he didn't get to hear what she said.

And the last sibling, who is a bit of the forgotten sibling, he has this moment of shock when he finds out and he simply says, he never even liked me.

So he has this moment of profound honesty.

And I just thought it was fascinating because this is how death plays out in 2023. There's uncertainty.

There's news and then compounding news. There's confusion. It's mundane. And you don't really get the relief or closure that TV and movies have told us that we get.

Elfie, why do you think people cannot stop talking about this episode?

For a start, I think the acting, the way that it was shot was remarkable. Just as a piece of standalone television, it was incredible.

I also think that what we saw reflected on screen was an experience that I imagine many of us have had.

And it captured it in such a realistic way that I think it was really difficult to turn away from.

Like what really struck me mostly was the idea that these are like the most powerful people in the world, supposedly like the wealthiest of the wealthy.

And yet in those moments, they were completely disempowered by this news. There was nothing that they could do.

And I think that ultimately that's the most interesting part is that you felt like you could relate to them properly, probably for the first time in the entire series so far.

I do think that just in general, portrayals of death on screen and grief are so important because we are very repressed about talking about really difficult topics like this.

We find it difficult to connect even to our closest friends when they're going through something like this.

So it was a really just magnetizing kind of episode that you couldn't look away from.

And I think that that's why everybody's talking about it now.

We don't see these really gritty depictions of death.

Often death is used as a plot point just to propel the plot forward.

In this episode, the death was the story. The unfolding of the death was the story.

And that's what happens in real life. You very rarely get a phone call from someone saying someone so suddenly died.

It's news that unfolds and there is confusion and conflicting information that makes it really complicated to process.

I think that obviously depends on how close to the person you are.

I mean, you do get phone calls saying that people have died, obviously.

Probably the people closest to you.

Yes, exactly. You'll be more informed of their progress.

Now, I famously said last week I don't watch Succession and this week I've felt more on the outer than ever before

because it literally is all anyone's talking about.

But whenever there's a really meaningful death in TV drama, it turns the conversation for quite some time.

And I was thinking about this a lot this week because I also read this piece on Mamma Mia that our friend and colleague, Nicole Stewart,

wrote about her dad dying recently.

And she wrote a piece about how she's 34 and she's lived a life of various levels of loss.

But the loss of her father has hit her in such a profound way, of course it has.

But the thing that I found really interesting in what she said, which is so true, is she wrote about how

I've stood by friends as they've said goodbye to loved ones.

I've attended funerals of acquaintances out of respect.

She had a few tears and eaten some sandwiches and then gotten on with my day and my life.

And the thing is, is that's what everybody does and it's what you need to do in order to keep moving forward

because we all know that everybody dies and you can't be poleaxed at about every time.

But that's what everybody does until a death that hits you so hard and so close to home that normal life can't be resumed.

That is something that's reserved for people in your life who their daily absence will leave an enormous hole.

And I know Claire, you know, Jesse's talked on this show about your family suffering several of those losses over the past year for your mom in particular.

And I think the fact that it's such a universal experience but so little discussed.

And even in Nicole's piece, she talked about how it's a club that no one wants to be a part of.

But ultimately it's a club that everybody's going to be part of is really interesting.

Like we're still not comfortable to discuss it and to talk about the actual process of it.

Nicole also says in that piece that you're part of a club you didn't ask to be a part of, you don't want to be a part of it.

And the people who reach out are really surprising and seem a little bit random.

And what struck me about this episode was the people who are good in that situation are surprising.

And that's what you find when you go through a crisis moment in life.

You don't know how anyone's going to act or who is going to be the person who instinctually knows what to do until you're in it.

And in this episode, it's the brother-in-law who thinks to call and put the phone next to Logan's ear,

which is quite a empathetic, compassionate thing to do and not logical at all.

Particularly for the characters on that show.

Yeah, but it's so tender that made my heart hurt that bit.

And it's something you see these people as vicious business people who are just constantly competing.

And to see that that was his instinct was fascinating because that's what you see when you have these moments.

You're incredibly surprised by the person who will just have an idea or a gesture that you think,

oh my God, you really get it in quite a beautiful way.

And how everybody reacts differently.

When we lost Brent's mum, there were five of us in the room.

The siblings, everyone was so different in the way that they processed it and what happened.

It's just, yeah, it's a moment that you can't prepare for, except on TV.

I have read, even though I'm not a succession person, about how they've kept this secret because it is a massive, massive plot point.

And I don't know how they keep anything secret.

But they kept Brian Cox turning up to filming throughout the, even though his character had died, he came to his own funeral.

So that the paps would be confused about who, oh, who's died if he's in there.

And it was very clever.

I think the code word in the writer's room was Larry David.

So they would just say, like, in this episode, blah, blah, blah.

Connor's wedding, Larry David, and that was Logan's death.

So that's how people on the outside didn't know.

But I think probably the cast and even the extras, because all the extras knew who were there for that episode.

And there were so many extras because it was wedding.

They clearly all knew the stakes of this in television land that you just did not want to be the person you ruined.

Those NDAs must have been one attack.

Yes.

So this is only episode three.

And obviously, like this was teased in the very first episode of the very first season, right?

Because that's the point of succession.

So how many have we got to go like to see what happens?

Because this is the last one, right?

Yeah.

Seven episodes.

Very bold.

Left.

You see this unfold and you see when it happened.

It is very, even though you're right, it's been inevitable since the first episode.

It's still a shock how and when it happened and all the circumstances around why.

Like he was on a plane when he might have been at his son's wedding under different circumstances.

Might have been able to get medical attention.

I'm sure that'll all come out.

But it really kind of rams that idea that it still feels random and cruel, even if you know it's coming.

But now we have seven episodes to see the fallout.

And I think the emotions and the grief and how it manifests in different people will be fascinating.

Sorry for the spoilers.

Yeah.

Soft.

There are many different ways to look healthy and beautiful.

The body that you've been comparing my current body to was the unhealthiest version of my body.

I was at the lowest point of my life when I looked the way you consider my healthy.

Ariana Grande is very, very famous.

She's also very, very tiny in every way, but I shouldn't say that and I especially shouldn't say that

after she posted a three minute video this week that echoed the very often quoted line

stop talking about women's bodies.

The irony is, of course, I had no idea anyone was talking about Ariana's body until she posted that,

but I don't think it was aimed at me.

I'm not the demo.

It was aimed at the people who had been concerned trolling her about her weight for weeks, if not months,

if not actually years.

And this is what she said in her video.

I just wanted to address your concerns about my body and talk a little bit about what it means to be a person with a body

and to be seen and to be paid such close attention to.

I think we could be, I think we should be gentler and less comfortable commenting on people's bodies,

no matter what.

If you think you're saying something good or well-intentioned, whatever it is, healthy, unhealthy, big, small,

this, that, sexy, not sexy, I don't, we just shouldn't, we should really work towards not doing that as much.

There are ways to compliment someone or to ignore something that you see that you don't like,

that I think we should help each other work towards, just to aim towards being safer and keeping each other safer.

Grande went on to say that she was not healthy because the concerns, which I can't stand it when trolls basically like to dress it up as concerned,

we're very worried about you.

The concerns were about her health and comparing her to an older picture of her where they clearly decided she looked healthy in a picture now

and they clearly decided she looked not healthy.

She went on to say she was not healthy in those pictures that the trolls were comparing her to.

She made the very valid point that health looks all kinds of different ways.

But here's my question.

On Wednesday, we talked about how we know that we should stop commenting on young girls' appearances to try and stop the fact that we live in a world

where girls are taught from such an early age that that's what matters the most.

But even though we know that, it's hard to socialize out a kind of, oh, you're so beautiful, you're so cute to little children.

And this is kind of similar because there's an online cohort and it may well be divided along generational lines who know not to ever comment on bodies.

But then there's the rest of the world, people who I would know who don't live so online who haven't got that memo yet and will still very happily say to you like,

oh, you look like you've lost weight, gained weight, you look healthy, oh, aren't you big when you're pregnant, all of those kind of things.

They haven't yet got the memo that you're not supposed to do it.

And then there's obviously also the people who are profiting from the women's bodies, like the media organizations who are endlessly running pictures and going like,

I think I saw one today of like Poe from Masterchef flaunting her amazing, wowing onlookers in her bikini.

And the weight loss companies and the exercise industry.

How many times do celebrities have to say it?

And is it the goal really now, Elfie Scott, to just see past bodies and just like pretend we can't see them and talk about other things?

I think in general polite society, yes, that should probably be the goal.

But I want to play devil's advocate for a second here because I do think that promoting blanket blindness of people's bodies is not totally helpful either.

I kind of see it in the same way as saying, you know, like, oh, I don't see race until we're actually on equal footing.

And until there is no discrimination based on body type, then I think we still have to talk about it, unfortunately.

And I also will say about the Ariana Grande posting, as somebody who used to work in the fashion industry,

I have seen posts very much like this from models in the past who have said, please ignore everything that's happening with my body.

You don't know me.

And that is a very valid point.

But I would also say from what I've seen historically, a lot of the time that those women are dealing with something,

I just don't agree with the idea that we should never, ever comment on it because I do think that there are times when it is appropriate

to question things.

I'm in two minds because I think sometimes it's a bit like gaslighting for somebody to stand, you know, on a stage or perform and look a really obvious way.

And we're not allowed to say anything.

I wrote something a few years ago that I think I regret about an Australian musician who was incredibly tiny and was referring to themselves as curvy.

And I was basically saying, no, like we're not just going to accept that people don't look a certain way.

Like that is just complete gaslighting.

At the same time, I regret writing about that because I don't think it's the individual woman's fault.

I think it's similar to what we were saying on Wednesday about it's the soup that we all live in.

And when I wrote recently about Gwyneth Paltrow and she was talking about what she ate and my take was Gwyneth, you're an idiot.

But I had quite a bit of feedback that said, why is it that eating disorders are the only mental illness we seem to be able to mock?

Like mocking somebody with an eating disorder seems OK because it's like, you're an idiot, you don't eat anything.

And it's like, no, it's really insidious.

That made me really second guess how I had written about it.

To be fair, I think your piece was a bit more nuanced than just going, you're an idiot.

But sure, for the purposes of this conversation, I'll let you misrepresent your intelligent post.

But I think that a little bit, you know, with Ariana Grande, if you look at those comments where a lot of people were saying,

I just hope you're OK.

I'm thinking of you or people who were a lot more vicious about it, about how she looks and how she's unwell.

If she is unwell, that's not the way to deal with it.

To my eyes, she's always been tiny.

And like when I say tiny, I mean kind of all over tiny, like she's short, she's little, she's a tiny little person.

And she posts her body all the time.

Of course she does.

And so we always have this issue of like, if somebody is using their body as a marketing tool,

you're not allowed to comment on it.

And I would say you're not.

But also the idea that it's helpful for a whole lot of strangers to comment on your size.

It's interesting because we're living in this moment of skinny being trendy again in a pop culture sense.

We've gone from this phase of like strength and curves, which had its own issues because there were budding plants.

And there's, you know, it's just another version of an impossible body to this skinniness that is quite shocking.

Like I've seen quite a few celebrities posting, they're posting.

When you talk about it, you sound objectifying.

So it's hard, but like collarbones and ribs and shot that I feel like we haven't seen since the noughties so much, you know.

And it is shocking and it is a bit jarring.

And you kind of do want to say, like I certainly would want to say to young people or whatever, you know, like, don't get too into that.

But on the other hand, if I'm genuinely concerned for those people, I don't think that commenting on their social media posts about it is any more helpful than if you are a normal person in inverted commas and your body has changed for whatever reason.

People will comment on it on social media and it's never helpful.

I totally agree.

And I think that actually what should happen with the conversation that I think we should keep having is not that it should be centered around individuals exactly like you were saying Claire.

I think that ultimately what needs to happen is we need to be able to step back and put pressure on industries that actually promote and reward those kind of bodies above other types of bodies.

When I am on Instagram say and I see those photos, what I'll do is like unfollow those brands because I feel like that is a better way of continuing the dialogue for myself or I'll like, you know, post it on my Instagram and say this isn't on.

It's not about me shaming the model or talking about her body specifically, it's more just talking about like the system that rewards that.

And also makes us look at our bodies as if they're trends, you know, and right now we're in a skinny trend.

Because it does feel unfair to be told as a blanket rule don't comment on women's bodies when, for example, if I'm scrolling through Instagram, a lot of the stuff even targeted towards me is about women's bodies.

So I'm like, I'm not walking around looking to talk about it, but I am seeing somebody post a bikini photo and get thousands of fire emojis.

But I think a really compelling and maybe a little bit more nuanced take on this that I heard recently was Chrissy Swan on The Imperfects.

And she was saying that she regrets kind of buying into some of the body stuff early on in her career when she was a lot younger and doing weight loss stuff or commenting on weight.

And now she's got to the point where an interviewer asked her a relatively innocent question at the end of an interview.

And she just answered, I don't talk about my body.

And from an individual woman's standpoint, I love that.

And I wonder if we should all adopt that.

And I also celebrate her right to change her mind about that because we've discussed this before.

Me has got an interesting take on it, but if you've done a weight loss brands campaign and you've put your body into play as it were in inverted commas,

whether that then means that it is fair game to be asked about it forevermore.

And Chrissy Swan is in that position and she did used to talk about it and she did used to do those things.

I 100% stand by your right to go, you know what, my view on this has shifted because the thing is, if you're in the public eye to any degree and you lose some weight,

and I'm not talking about the, you know, in inverted commas, scary, skinny end of the scale,

you will be inundated as Chrissy Swan said she was in that thing with women saying, how did you do it? How did you do it? How did you do it?

That happened to me with a much, much smaller scale when my body has changed over the last couple of years.

My DM's like, exactly what are you eating? Exactly how much exercise are you doing?

And so I think that the idea of saying, I don't discuss it, I really respect.

And I don't think there's anything hypocritical about choosing to draw that line.

If you want to make out loud part of your routine five days a week,

we release segments on Tuesdays and Thursdays just for Mamma Mia subscribers.

To get full access, follow the link in the show notes and a big thank you to all our current subscribers.

It's best and worst of the week and Elfie you're new here so let me just give you the rules.

It can be anything. So like your best could be something that's changed the world

or it could just be something that was great for you like a great coffee you had this week.

Like we have no judgment on what's important and what's not here at Mamma Mia allowed.

It's just your best most of the week and Claire Stevens is going first.

My best of the week and I'm sorry I might sound like a broken record was releasing my podcast,

which came out more than a week ago, but it counts because the feedback that I've gotten has been so...

I could not have anticipated anything like it.

So to anyone who sent a message or left a comment, I'm just blown away by people popping into my DMs,

sending an email, leaving a comment saying, I really want more of these conversations.

So your podcast is called But Are You Happy?

And it was really scary putting that concept into the world and you never know with a creative project

if you're totally off the mark or if anybody's going to care.

And to get that feedback was just absolutely beautiful.

So that's been my best and a friend actually said she was doing a hike

and she passed a group of girls who were talking about it and I was like, why is that the best feedback?

Oh my God, that's a really old.

Real world, real world.

That is 100% the best feedback.

Oh my God, out loud conversations.

My worst, this sounds incredibly self-involved, but as you know,

everything that happens to anyone else is obviously mostly about you, correct?

And out louders may know, they may not know, but I'm pretty sure they know Jesse is pregnant.

She is.

And she...

On a honeymoon and pregnant.

Yes, so she is just over six months and there will be a little baby coming in about 12 weeks.

And I've just kind of started to realize that that probably means that our dynamic or our relationship will change

and I've become fixated on the things that might be the last time we're going to do that thing.

So the night before my wedding and the night before her wedding, we shared a bed.

We love sharing it like we did when we were growing up.

And the night before her wedding, I was kind of laying there and hand on the stomach and feeling the baby kick

a little bit dangerous considering I was sick the next day and hopefully I didn't infect anyone.

You didn't know that.

But I was going to bed the other night and I thought,

is that going to be the last time I ever share a bed with my sister?

Oh darling, that's really sad.

Because she's married now and she's going to have a baby that she's going to love more than me.

No.

She's going to love the baby heaps.

It's true that there will be some of these lasts, but you're going to love that baby heaps too.

You get a lot of firsts.

Oh yeah, true.

I'll be the greatest auntie.

Oh my God.

I cannot wait.

And also, I don't know if I can share this, it might be too intimate,

but at your wedding, Claire Stevens, Jessie made a speech and she was saying how

everyone kept telling her that she would know love like she felt for this baby

and she said, I feel like I probably do because I have you.

It was a really nice line.

I was like, because she roasted me for like 15 minutes.

Up until that point, she just said horrible shit about you.

That was really kind.

I think you're going to have such an interesting, but it's going to be great.

So I think maybe a lot of women have that when it's your best friend or your sister who's

having a baby and you think, oh goodness, this is going to change our dynamic and our closeness.

But I'm assured by the people around me that it will make us closer in a different way.

Yes.

And there's a consolation prize.

Holy shmoly.

I'm going to go next.

I think I have this best once a year, every year.

And it was my camping trip over Easter with my original mother's group.

Was it raining?

It rained on Friday night.

There was a storm on Saturday.

It was super windy, but apart from that, it was good.

But every year, every Easter, I go camping with my original mother's group,

who we've now known each other for 13 years because that's how old our kids are.

And it's the only time of the year really we see each other because we've all got

different lives and live in different places.

So it's always very heart-filling.

But I always also don't want to go because I don't like camping much.

And it's a lot of hard work.

Like getting ready for camping is like packing a car and forgetting things and not.

And we're going to be cooking and there's this and there's that.

And it's like enormous hard work.

And I'm always like, oh, the bloody camping.

And it is always incredible because our kids are now these big grown-ups who will not grown-ups,

but they're teenagers who have this very particular bond because they've been doing this every year

since they were babies and they know each other in a very particular way.

And the relationships between us all has changed and grown and everyone's been through stuff.

And it's just the most wonderful heart-filling weekend.

And just reminder 20 million that often you're like the things that you like,

that'll be hard work when you actually get to it.

Oh, well worth all the hard work.

That was my best shit.

Just realized producer M have gone the wrong way around.

She's supposed to do worst first.

Mia will be listening and she'll be going, you're supposed to do worse first.

So sorry, Mia, but I'm doing worse second.

My worst is cute though.

So it's okay.

We came back from camping.

So this is my life now that I live in the regions.

Our lawn as such.

We haven't really got a lawn.

We've got a back garden.

It was like all chewed up, like loads and loads of holes and little dirt mounds.

And we were like, what the fuck has happened?

Bandicoot.

What does the bandicoot even look like?

So bandicoots look like little like rats, but cuter because they've got a pointy little schnoz.

And they're bigger.

Apparently what they've done to our lawn is they buried their pointy noses in to try and get ants and stuff.

And they're like, and the reason that they came and did it is because tuna, our dog has not been there.

And normally I presume that a she's an amazing defender of the bandicoot,

but also her smell would presumably put them off.

So we came home and we were like, what the fuck's happened to the lawn?

Because tuna was like being looked after somewhere else.

And then tuna came home and she was like, what the hell's happened to my lawn?

Plus I must patrol every inch of this garden to keep the bandicoots away.

So anyone who lives in a similar place who has advice on how to get rid of without hurting them,

because they're native, you can't like trap them or anything.

That's not our intention.

But at the same time, the garden looks like a pig's eye bandicoots.

So my worst was bandicoots.

Elfie Scott.

I think your worst is adorable.

Okay, wait, should I start with my best or worst?

Start with your worst.

Let's finish strong.

We'll be happy.

Start with your worst.

Go to your best.

Actually, can I do it the other way around?

Because I think my worst is better.

Is that okay?

I'm so sorry.

Let's just go round.

Yeah, let's just do it.

My best, and this is so saccharine and ridiculous.

My best was the long weekend and just getting to spend time with my partner.

Because we have been together for four years and honestly, when I get to spend time with him,

we get to stay in the morning and do the quiz and stuff like that.

It's the best.

It makes me feel like I am still on a sleepover with the cutest guys.

That was really, really nice.

And I know that that's painful and nobody wants to talk about cute stuff in their relationship.

But I'm just reflecting on how lucky I feel.

If you feel like you're on the sleepover with the cutest guy four years in, you are in a

good relationship.

Yeah, it's really nice.

It's very special.

The worst is potentially something that you could both relate to.

I don't know, but this is something that has happened to a few people in the office that

I have realized recently.

I got trapped in the elevator the other day.

And I have an elevator phobia.

So this was like bad news.

I was on my own and I just, for some reason, like you don't really know what you're going

to do in your most primal moments of fear.

And I just went to ground.

I went on all fours calling Rosie.

She's been like, help me.

Was it the bad lift?

Was it the lift with the black?

No, I don't even enter that one.

No.

In our building out loud as there is one lift that is, it's under construction.

Like you go in there and it's got black sheets on the wall.

But sometimes if you're desperate and you're late, you have to get in that lift and I'm

always there.

I will always be late rather than go in that lift.

Anyway, I got out after like 10 minutes.

But I long 10 minutes.

It's a very long 10 minutes when you're phobic.

Oh my God, the walls were closing in.

Anyway, point being, I am now very superstitious.

And I wish I could do it.

Fun story about that. So we had a family thing in the office last week.

Don't ask a long story.

But I have an auntie who is terrified of lifts and was like shaking on a way out.

Then we go to go back down and she's talking about how scared she is.

We go in and we're not at the maximum capacity or anything.

There's maybe like six of us.

The lift doors get stuck and then it's beep, beep, beep, beep, beep.

It's the scary and she just yelled and just ran abandoned everybody else.

Those lifts are cursed.

Especially if you're scared.

When I used to work at what used to be called ACP, Bower, Army or whatever,

I got stuck in there lift once, but a full lift for 45.

No, I would have given up.

On the way home, it was like six o'clock at night.

It was bad.

And what we discovered during that is that when you press the emergency button

and say, come and save us, it's an agency and they're like two hours away.

Yeah, I once got stuck in a lift.

I got stuck in a lift maybe at our old office.

Not only did the lift stop, the light went out.

Did the light go out for you?

No, thank Christ.

It froze and the light went out and I was like, I'm in a nightmare.

I have a very superficial recommendation to send us into the weekend,

which is a fashion related one, right?

So everybody knows that I love my jeans.

Love my jeans.

I've been wearing jeans now as a uniform, particularly my Karina Freya jeans.

The uniform for ages, I've decided to like really radically change it up

for autumn, winter, this year.

Denim skirts.

And long denim skirts.

Well, the thing is, is that apparently long, properly long maxi denim skirts are very trendy.

I'm not very trendy.

I'm old, but I wanted one before I knew that they were trendy.

And what I've decided is I can pull off like a, what do you call it, midi level?

Yes, yes.

So I think I'd look silly cause also I'm very short as you know, in a full length one.

But I have bought two, not one, but two denim A-line midi skirts.

One from David Lawrence that was called the Olsen A-line.

I think it was $130.

So not super cheap, but really nice quality.

And then I bought a different one that's like a different color

and a bit more Westerny looking from Foxwood.

It's called the Martha Denim skirt was $99.

They're great.

And I've decided the reason it'll work for my uniform change is I can still wear all my

shirts.

I'm invested in a lot of shirts and shoes to go with my jeans.

I can wear them with my denim skirts too.

So I'm recommending that if you've seen all the trendy people, I shouldn't ever say trendy.

It just makes me sound 102.

If you've seen all the cool people wearing full on denim skirts and you're like, I couldn't

pull that off, consider an A-line midi midi.

Yeah.

Cause I couldn't do a maxi.

I look very silly.

Yes.

I like that suggestion because something that stresses me out about winter is pants make

me itchy.

I don't know if anybody else has that.

I always get itchy and pants.

I think I have really dry legs and I don't moisturize them enough.

So I always get itchy.

So that, I like that airflow.

Now I'm after a pair of boots and then I'll be done.

That'll be a witchy aesthetic, isn't it?

That is it from Mamma Mia Out Loud this week.

Thank you to the brilliant Claire Stevens and Elfie Scott for filling in for our honey

and Lavine Friedman Stevens's.

They will be back next week.

Thank you for listening to Mamma Mia Out Loud.

The episode is produced by Emma Gillespie with audio production by Leah Porges and assistant

production from Susanna Macon.

Goodbye.

Bye.

Shout out to any Mamma Mia subscribers listening.

If you love the show and you want to support us, subscribing to Mamma Mia is the very best

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Machine-generated transcript that may contain inaccuracies.