It’s almost September and the Salon doors are flung wide open (even if this means that autumn spiders come stomping inside)!
Have a listen to the wonderfully meandering conversation here – and check out the shownotes below for a taste of what you’re in for!
We begin in the natural queendom. Spiders drift daintily on gossamer threads through Louise’s forest, while in Neil’s house, wolf spiders capable of carrying off goats lurk behind the sofa. Turnstones might be Louise’s favourite bird, but she’s never seen them turn a stone. Are they lying?
While the Turnstones aren’t turning stones, they are hiding behind rocks, which makes them impossible to count apparently. This does however give Louise’s mind time to wander, and we swoop into a conversation about neurodivergence (particularly in the workplace).
Birds seem to be a temporary theme. Louise spoils Neil with a reference to The Canary Code (which isn’t about birds at all but rather intersectionality in the workplace). Following the flight path, Neil’s reminded of an inspiring piece posted to Behavioral Scientist about the lived experience of poverty and how including lived experience in intervention design makes everything better.
Louise’s recos come swiftly and solidly: Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Perez is followed by a shout out for a recent ep of Four Thought, exploring the question of ‘Who Tells The Story?’. While Neil’s cognitively wiggling from those like a worm in a beak, BOOM! In comes Spuffy-dom and a delve into the fan fic universe of Buffy The Vampire Slayer via this article about an incredibly problematic episode (and what the fan are doing about it). We may brush against Freud and Jung but really… Wooden stakes speak for themselves.
Buffy kicked down some representational doors in her time, paving the way eventually for shows like Heartstopper (available on Netflix and based on a series of books by Alice Oseman). Neil wishes shows like this were available when he was young. But then there were only 4 channels in the UK. And ‘gay’ wasn’t a thing TV really liked to talk about unless it was terrifying, over-dramatic or Julian Clary (who could be all three in hindsight).
Flicking through the channels of chat, we alight briefly on the power of animation to tell stories and reflect things that standard shows can’t. Neil clangs down a reference to BoJack Horseman, and then (of course), The Simpsons ,which gets away with more than you’d expect it to.
It’s another wonderful conversation – and we invite you into the Salon with us! Follow this link to our official home on Anchor – or search ‘Hello You Podcast’ wherever you get your pods!
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