Episode 20: Momentous moments and regal ritual

Something momentous has happened, we have reached the 20th episode of HYP in this series! So Neil & Louise reflect on what’s happened since we last recorded … which contains a few other momentous things, as it happens.

Listen to Episode 20 here!

Louise has started a coaching qualification, with the aim of becoming an ICF accredited coach and is interested in working with people so they can express who they really are and what they really value.

Neil has become a property owner, moved from the South East to the West Country AND has already nearly unpacked all his boxes (“what dark art is this?” wonders Louise). Also survived COVID, and we chat about the feels associated with getting COVID and the complete lack of guidance from the UK government.

As if that wasn’t enough: Neil had his last trip out of Brighton, an important personal ritual, interrupted by the announcement that Queen Elizabeth II had died and overtaken by national ritual on a grand scale. We meander around what that means for us as individuals and for UK as a whole, finding that we can’t easily pin it down. We get interested in separating the Queen (and the Royal Family in general) as a person/people from the office they hold and its symbolism.

As a bit of light relief, Louise recommends reading The Queen and I by Sue Townsend (author of the Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 11&3/4).

After talking about the uneasy balance of humanity and royal symbolism we segue into the persistence of outrage (or as Louise puts it, “a roiling, frothing sea of anger”), which is a theme that we’ve touched on many times through the last 20 episodes. This article by Rachel Cunliffe explores the career of a “young, right wing sensationalist” and the ways in which journalism in the UK is … if not broken then at least limping a little. https://twitter.com/RMCunliffe/status/1562551184577425414?s=20&t=VvOzwutVimxb2qfm4coTYA

And this leads Neil neatly to this piece by Anya-Milana Sulavar, published in LiisBeth. We love her work (Peeps!) and this piece looks at the ways in which big business is hurting journalism: https://liisbeth.com/big-business-is-killing-the-fourth-estate/ We (as ever) get interested in what this means for local media and what we’re losing (have lost already?) in UK journalism.

While we’re talking about outrage, Neil picked up this Twitter thread on how to spot fake tweets: https://twitter.com/Shayan86/status/1567541626251231233?s=20&t=3dGwYk24XtLyIqlYs1tUHQ

We end on positive news about food (another topic that crops up frequently in HYP) with this article Neil shared on the positive relationship between fruit intake and mental health. Nomnomnom! https://www.psypost.org/2022/09/eating-more-fruit-and-fewer-savory-snacks-predicts-better-mental-health-study-finds-63904

Which reminds Louise of research that shows the order in which you eat veg, carbs and protein can attenuate blood sugar spikes, courtesy of the Zoe Health Study podcast: https://joinzoe.com/learn/podcast-how-to-control-blood-sugar-spikes. AND for the record, Louise DOES use the word attenuate correctly.

In closing Neil, who is on fire this episode, makes a connection to biophilia. This is a topic we both love and Neil hypothesises that the mental health benefit could be about being close to the naturey, planty goodness of fruit & raw veg as much as its consumption.

We hope you enjoy it as much we did – grab your chair, get cosy and join the Salon. Find us on Anchor here or search ‘Hello You Podcast’ wherever you get your pods!

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Episode 19: Spiders, Spuffy and impossible birds

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!