September 15, 2025 • 43 mins
The assassination of Charlie Kirk dominated the news all weekend. As the arguments rage online, we unpack the aftermath and what it means for political discourse moving forward.
Then, a royal twist. Prince Harry’s return to the UK may have changed everything—and yes, it involves a specific cake with serious meaning.
Plus, Jessie’s trend of the week: the 'mayor walk'. It’s power, it’s pep, it’s posture—and apparently, one of us was born to do it. (Mia, please sit down.)
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
You're listening to a MoMA Mia podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Muma Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters
that this podcast is recorded on Welcome to mum mea
out loud What women are actually talking about on Monday,
the fifteenth of September. I am Jesse Stevens, I'm me
and Friedman because hollywhen right is sick.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
I'm Amelia last.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
And here's what's on our agenda fit today. The assassination
of Charlie Kirk in broad daylight, the aftermath and what
it all means.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
Plus Prince Harry went back to the UK last week
and it has changed everything.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
And what is a mayor walk? And can doing one
transform my mood? But first we have to talk about
Charlie Kirk. I just want to obviously start by saying
how horrifying it was to hear and a lot of
out louders will have seen or will have had people
in their household, friends and family and kids who saw
(01:07):
the whole footage of a third twenty one year old
man being assassinated in front of thousands of people in
broad daylight while he was talking on a college campus.
And I didn't actually know who Charlie Kirk was, and
so I was trying to I felt like I was
playing catch up because I was like, what just happened?
(01:27):
Who is this guy? And my teenagers were like, you
don't know who Charlie Kirk is?
Speaker 3 (01:32):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (01:32):
Yeah, no's He was very familiar to young people because
he was all over TikTok and had started this movement
where he sort of goes on college campuses and debates people.
But I didn't know who he was, and so all
I was reeling from was the shock. And my kids'
friends were messaging them telling them to be careful on
social media because some of their friends had seen the
(01:54):
full video. I've got friends with primary school age children
who saw it because within you know, seemingly minutes of
the attack, it was circulating everywhere. Every second reel you
would see on TikTok and every second Instagram post was
this incredibly vile the footage of a man being murdered. Essentially,
how did you guys feel when you heard?
Speaker 3 (02:13):
Well? I think I had two reactions. It was really
upsetting to think about this man who has two young
children being killed and seeing that footage is something that
is really hard to take. But then the second thing
that was why it really hit me is because it's
an act of political violence. And remember when Trump was
almost assassinated a year ago, there was an attempt on
his life. When I heard that news, I burst into
(02:36):
tears because there's something so uniquely disturbing about the idea
of someone being killed for what they say, and it
makes us all feel unsafe.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
I think I agree with you. I found it really shocking.
I found the way that the events transpired sort of
in real time from the other side of the world,
quite unusual, in that we had the President of the
United States declaring him dead before anyone else knew that
was the case. We'd seen the footage, people didn't know
(03:08):
if he died or not.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
And then by the time I came to the story,
it was all clear. You must have been up earlier
than I was here you did know who Charlie Kirk was.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
Yeah, I was very familiar with Charlie Kirk. He's been
all over my Instagram and TikTok for twelve months. As
you say, he's thirty one. He's widely credited as the
guy who is very much responsible for getting the younger
vote to galvanize around Trump. There is a very convincing
argument that Trump would not have been elected if it
weren't for child.
Speaker 3 (03:35):
I did not know that he was that significant.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
Yeah, and so Charlie Kirk, just to give you a
little bit more background, he was not simply a conservative
influencer like he was in with Donald Trump and in
with Donald Trump's family. So do you remember the false
reports about eating family pets Haitians eating family pets around
the time of one of the debates, yea and the dog. Yes,
(04:00):
So Charlie Kirk was instrumental in perpetuating that myss. Like
he was so on the Internet that he had the
power to basically go, this is the story we're going
to tell. And he had a handle he.
Speaker 3 (04:13):
Was which was a completely untrue.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
Story, completely untrue. So he basically had a handle on
the young conservative movement and in terms of getting Trump
in office in both twenty sixteen and twenty twenty four,
there's a through line with Charlie Kirk, like he started
up in twenty twelve and was like, let's make conservative
politics cool again. Let's go and own the Libs. And
(04:35):
he was able to galvanize this whole generation of people
and be like, we're for real American values hahna social
media in a way that was very new, and this
debate platform that we were talking about a few months ago,
he popularized that lightly. Yes, he was the guy. That's
what Turning Point USA is, which he co founded. It
(04:56):
was about educating young people on conservative values.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
So can I ask, because you say that he's been
in your algorithm for a year now, I guess that's
because you're watching these videos. That's why he keeps popping up.
And what is it about him that inspired such strong connections?
Speaker 2 (05:12):
I would always stop because I found it so infuriating.
And it was because it was like he thought that
because he spoke really fast in us lots of words
in the same vein as someone like Ben Shapiro, who
is the facts, don't care about your feelings, conservative guy,
that he was owning someone and showing out the hypocrisy
and the weakness of their argument. But really he was
(05:32):
just talking really really loud over the top of people.
To me, it was such an indictment on the state
of debate. Like, I found it incredibly depressing. But he
also came up in a lot of conversations I have
with friends, because every now and then they'd go ah,
did he kind of make a good point about this thing,
because he could be very very persuasive, but he was
(05:53):
arguing for really dangerous, really really upsetting political views. The
idea that he would be assassinated for speaking, you know,
his beliefs was just I can't think of another word
other than than shocking. And a lot of people have
felt the need to say this, but like, I don't
(06:14):
think I've ever agreed with a word that Charlie Kirk
has said, and I've actually seen a lot of them.
But that doesn't mean that political violence or that someone
losing their life for what they're saying is allowed. And
I think I found there were two sides. There was
the holding him up as a martyr, and then there
was barely the news had dropped. I don't even think
(06:35):
his kids would have barely known what had happened to
him yet, and there was glee. It was such a
uniquely Internet moment.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
What made me so shocked was the butt I disagree
with you. I don't think there was two sides. I
think there was probably three, because there was the people
who were just like, this is just terrible, and I
would put myself in that camp.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
I think those people didn't post, well.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
No, but why do you have to post this is
what made me feel so heartsick apart from the human
heartsick story of a father with two children, age one
and three, and a wife who it's clear whether she
was there or she wasn't there, but it doesn't matter.
It's been televised globally essentially via the internet. Firstly, why
(07:17):
does everybody have to come on social media and make
a statement like what is that about? Secondly, the people
who come on and say this is bad but I
didn't agree with what he said, or but sometimes violence
is necessary. I saw some people say but sometimes violence
is necessary. These are respectable mainstream commentators.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
You know why?
Speaker 1 (07:40):
Why when is violence necessary?
Speaker 2 (07:43):
You know what I notice more than anything this weekend
is that there's something really interesting about who people are
talking to. The extremes are talking to each other, and
if you're not exposed to one extreme, it looks like
someone is staring at the sky, shaking their fist, saying
something that doesn't make sense. It's like, why is the
butt necessary? The reason why people went that way is
because on the other side, you saw the reaction of
(08:06):
conservatives in the US. It was as though this man
was some kind of messiah, and he was someone who
lacked empathy throughout his life, and he was someone who
defended gun ownership, and he was someone who had said,
we're going to have a few regrets.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
None if this matters. Can we just agree that we
don't kill people if we disagree with what they stand
for or what they say or what they believe. My
exhaustion and my despair at the last few days has been,
you know exactly what's going to happen. Some people are
going to celebrate it. Then there's going to be opinions written,
and then there'll be backlash to the opinions and hot
(08:43):
takes of hot takes, and everyone will try to cancel
each other if you say something, what should you say?
And it's like, firstly, you don't need to say anything,
and secondly, you can just say this is tragic. Can
we all agree that we don't kill people that we
disagree with.
Speaker 3 (08:58):
This reminds me a little bit mea of when school
shootings happen and we're told that we're not allowed to
politicize them, and now it's not the time to talk
about gun control because that would be somehow desecrating the
memory of these children who were gonne down by weapons
that should never have been available to ordinary citizens.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
Do you know what I've also thought about so much
is that this culture and we've noticed as people who've
been online for you know, getting close to two decades
now and writing opinion at the beginning, you know, in
the twenty tens, early twenty tens, people would say I
disagree with you. You know, there would be opinion sites
and other people would have opinions. It then became over
(09:39):
the last sort of five to ten years, you need
to delete it, take it down, apologize for what you said,
because this feeling of having an opinion out there that
you didn't agree with became so intolerable to a generation.
And it was part of cancel culture as well. Right,
So someone said something you didn't agree with. It's not
I disagree with this person and you debate them or
(10:01):
you choose not to engage with them anymore. It's they
need to be punished, they need to be canceled or
wiped out.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
But that's coming from both sides of me right now.
I agree this is happening. Conservative forces in the US
are gathering to make lists of everyone who said things
about this.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
I agree they didn't think were And to me, it's
not a left and right. To me, it's our culture,
well of the internet, of if I disagree with you,
you can't exist, and that is a through line to assosciation,
which is terrifying.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
I don't know. I think that they might be disparate issues,
because what I worry about is we look at this
and go, oh, it's it's left and right. It's the
progressives on the internet have lost their mind. Hang on,
we know very little about the person who did this.
One man shot that bullet, and he will have had
a motive and an upbringing and was very pro guns
and all of that. And I do not like holding
(10:50):
a whole political spectrum to account for an act of
very specific political violence. You're allowed to go online and
criticize someone, absolutely, go for it. I mean, Charlie Kirk
did that, as was he's right. But political violence, we
know begets political violence. I think that's what's scary.
Speaker 3 (11:06):
And I think that you said something before, Jesse that
we need to talk more about, which is that this
was a very online event. And Mia, you directed my
attention to an Instagram post from doctor Raymond Nichols. He wrote,
you were never meant to witness someone's final breath and
then laugh at a TikTok. You weren't built for that.
Your soul wasn't designed to hold that kind of weight
(11:27):
and then move on like it's nothing.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
I think that part of the shock. This sounds sort
of ridiculous, but I thought about how many videos had
popped up of Charlie Kirk, and often I watched the
whole thing. I was trying to understand it. That man's
face had become very familiar to me. To watch that
man die was an incredibly confronting thing because of the
level of familiarity I suppose so many of us had,
(11:50):
and the reaction. You can look at the reaction from
all sides. I heard some journalists talking about it, and
journalists knew him as a man. They'd sat with him
and they traveled with him, and he was a flesh
and blood person who some people liked, some people didn't.
And the fact that even after he died, it was
like for some people that wasn't enough. I just went
(12:13):
the man isn't breathing anymore?
Speaker 1 (12:14):
Yeah, Like, don't you think that's a result of dehumanizing people?
In the first place.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
Yeah, and in terms of the political violence begetting political violence.
Speaker 3 (12:23):
People are scared. I think it's also about the fact
that people are scared.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
They're terrified. I mean if I was getting up on
stage and that sounds ridiculous, but I think that the
media class is kind of having this moment of if
we live in a culture where you can't sit on
stage and say what you think.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
We'll look at Salmon Rushti. Yeah, it wasn't that long
ago that someone tried to murder him.
Speaker 3 (12:40):
But also the building up of him as a martyr,
which is happening right now. I mean people are scared,
Like ordinary Americans who don't speak into microphones for a
living are scared because when you build someone up as
a martyr and then you say that the martyr has
been killed, it leads you to wonder what actions will
be taken as a result of that.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
Yeah, And to your point before, Amelia, about this happening
across the spectrum. Three months ago, Melissa Hortman, who was
a Democrat and her husband was shot and killed in
their home. Now President Donald Trump refused to say her
name in the past when JFK was assassinated, When Martin
Luther King was assassinated. There was at least this sense
of like, we can stand here as a political class,
(13:19):
hold hands and say we disavow this. Across the spectrum,
this does not happen. But now you get the but
what about thing? Because a moment like this happens and
you have Elon Musk right, the left is the party
of murder. Like that's just not I agreeful.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
And I think back to what you said Jesse before
about there were two groups of people. This all comes
down to the algorithm and the internet. I think that
the reason it can feel so demoralizing being online and
make you despair is that you do only see the
extremes and they are not symbolic of how most people
(13:57):
feel about anything.
Speaker 3 (13:58):
And the problem was, we see the extremes. We saw
this happen, and maybe that's why it was such a
big deal. Do you think, because in some ways this
feels like a bigger deal than when the Trump assassination
to happen.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
The reason I heard someone say that it felt like
a bigger deal, and I'm not American and I wouldn't know,
but maybe you can speak to this, Amelia, is that
there is a tragically a blueprint for attempted assassinations or
assassinations of American presidents. You know, there was JFK. There
was the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan, the attempted assassination
(14:31):
of Trump. That's why it was like, it was shocking,
but it wasn't surprising, the attempted assassination of Trump. Charlie Kirk.
As far as I understand, Jesse, he wasn't a political candidate,
He didn't hold office. He had no actual impact on
the levers of government, unlike someone say even Anelon Musk,
(14:52):
who was actually in there doing things at the behavioral
he was powerful, but he was influential exactly, he was influential.
And the people that said is what made my blood
curdle is that the people who were like, sometimes violence
is necessary, And I'm like, what, so it's necessary if
you disagree with the person, But then if someone uses
that justification because they disagree with you to be violent
(15:16):
against you, Suddenly, oh no, it's only necessary when I
disagree with the person's views, and that that's not a democracy.
Speaker 3 (15:23):
That's You've christiz for me as to why this is
such a big deal, Why we're talking about this on
a Monday when it happened on a Thursday on the
other side of the world. And it's because he was
famous and was killed because of his words. He wasn't
in office, he didn't have actions to criticize or condemn.
He just had words.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
This is why we protest, and this is why we speak,
and this is why we debate, and we do all
of those things. And in the course of a debate,
you can entirely lack empathy. And I want to sort
of acknowledge space for that, because Charlie Kirk did dehumanize
a lot of people, he did hurt a lot of people.
But just because he lacked empathy doesn't mean that in
the wake of his death we need to like, that's
(16:06):
not how I.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
Know unless you believe that words are violet. And then
the logical through line is that, well, if someone's been
violent to me with their words, I can be violent
to them with a gun. And that's a terrifying reality
in a moment.
Speaker 3 (16:20):
How Harry's trip to the UK has suddenly changed everything.
The Duchess of Sussex's jams have been arriving on us
doorsteps this week and last week.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
I have an unpopular opinion. I think they're too cheap.
How much are they? They're nine dollars and I think, yeah,
I think it's seven dollars postage. But like with all
this fuss, I reckon. I mean, I wouldn't have bought them,
but I think she could have sold them for like
thirty dollars.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
I completely agree. Agree, is there expensive postage?
Speaker 1 (16:50):
Seven dollars?
Speaker 3 (16:51):
Apparently there was some twine and some dried lavender on it,
so okay.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
That was just a little bit.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
It makes it film mass produced? I completely agree. And
I don't know if you heard this or even if
it made it into the cup for Friday's episode, but
you know, we spoke to a tower card reader on
Friday and one of our questions was whether Holly will
ever get her hands on a jam.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
I think there's a lot of it available now. I
don't know how hard.
Speaker 2 (17:12):
She gave in Australia Maya, and she said she will
get the jam, but maybe not the jam.
Speaker 3 (17:17):
That she wanted.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
It might be a UNI, which isn't that how life goes?
Speaker 3 (17:21):
So this is not about the jam. Prince Harry's had
a really good couple of days. Let me explain. He
took a thirty six hour trip to Kiev in Ukraine
over the weekend and he was promoting his Invictus Games
foundation there. But before that he went to the UK
for a few days.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
And had a balloon animal sword fight with a small child.
Speaker 3 (17:43):
Oh so see that photos. He went, he visited sick children,
he got out and about in the community, he was smiling,
he was laughing. The UK press called it old Harry
is back again, because you know, he's only been to
the UK recently for lawsuits and has looked very dow
funerals and funerals.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
So was he in the UK as part of an
Invictus Games thing too, I'm just wondering.
Speaker 3 (18:04):
No, it was essentially a little unofficial royal visit. So
he went in part because he really wanted to meet
with his dad and it was unclear whether he was
going to And if you recall last week on the show,
I cited some reporting that said that his dad was
not going to meet with him. And the reason why
his dad was not going to meet with him is
because his other son, William has absolutely next to this.
(18:26):
He says he's not allowed to meet with Harry. It's
sort of the same as Prince Andrew. Once you're out,
you're out. You can't be let back in. He said
unforgivable things about Kate. He implied that Kate was racist
about his children's skin color.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
And that she was cold. I've got a lot of
sympathy for this idea because can you imagine, given that
so many private conversations were relaid both in the Netflix
documentary that Harn Meghan did and in Spare his memoir, like,
even meeting with Charles, I think trust would be very
much in tatters.
Speaker 3 (18:59):
Yeah, And you know, I don't think it's unusual when
there are two children to sort of play off each
other to their parents. I remember once you and me
were talking about how fun it is to complain about
sibling to our parents and then to see whether or
not they agree with you.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
And complain to our sibling about our parents exactly.
Speaker 3 (19:16):
So all of this has said that he didn't know
whether he was going to get to meet with him. Well,
guess what. Charles was coming down to London from Balmoral
for his weekly cancer treatment and he met with Harry.
This is a huge deal. They have not met since
February twenty twenty four.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
Do we know where they met.
Speaker 3 (19:32):
They met at.
Speaker 1 (19:33):
Clarence House House and the perhaps were tipped off by
the palace to show Harry driving in in his range driver.
Speaker 3 (19:42):
Now apparently they really pulled out all the stops. Harry
has a beloved chocolate biscuit cake that Charles made sure
was laid out for him. Clearly this was a real
attempt by both sides to repair things.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
So the queen had this tradition of afternoon tea diplomacy
where if she really wanted something or she really wanted
someone to make them feel special, she would lay on
the full English afternoon tea with the proper sandwiches, and
she loved a bit of cake. So there was this
special cake that she would have, this chocolate biscuit cake,
which is quite it's really good does and Harry loves it.
(20:17):
So there was a lot of people were saying, well,
when Harry goes if he gets the chocolate biscuit cake
that is like the real symbol of an olive branch,
except in chocolate cake.
Speaker 3 (20:27):
Form, and he got it tasty. So the question is why.
The question is why Charles went against the heir to
the throne and his eldest son's stated wish to meet
with his Maverick younger son, who has also not said
very nice things about him in the past. So why
did Charles do this? Me? And what's your theory?
Speaker 1 (20:46):
I had no theories. There's two that are going around.
There's a newsletter called the Royalists that I read by
a royal reporter called Tom Sykes, which I'm getting so
much value out of. He has said that the media
is very focused on the split between Charles and Harry,
but what no one's really noticed is the split between
(21:06):
Charles and William. And he said that's the big story
because Charles believes that William is lazy, essentially because he
does not have nearly as many public engagements. So even
though Charles has been having cancer treatment for the past
twelve months, he's done one hundred and seventy five engagements.
But William has been very clear about family first and
wellness first, and Charles is of the queen thinking, which
(21:31):
is duty first. You never put anything above your duty
as a royal.
Speaker 3 (21:35):
And by the way, there's another dynamic lad on top
of that, which is that William thinks he's going to
modernize the monarchy and he gets so fed up with
how Charles is very stuffy and he likes wearing his
uniforms and he thinks this is all very old fashioned,
and he thinks that putting his family first is showing
that he's doing a lot to modernize the monarchy.
Speaker 1 (21:53):
He's like, let's make the monarchy cool again.
Speaker 2 (21:56):
So do you think that maybe Harry and Charles had
a little bit of a bitch about William?
Speaker 1 (22:01):
I think Charles would have probably been more discreet than that,
because you know, you don't trust Harry, right.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
Yeah, but you know with your mum, Yeah, you don't
go full into it. You see how fi you get?
You kind of go. How's William?
Speaker 1 (22:15):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (22:16):
Has he been working hard?
Speaker 3 (22:18):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (22:18):
It's not a lot of engagements?
Speaker 1 (22:20):
Is That's true? And it's funny when Harry was in
London last week, suddenly Kate and William filled their diary
with some more engagements.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
Did you read the profile in the Guardian about that
interview that the interviewed?
Speaker 1 (22:32):
Yeah, so he took a Guardian journalist with him on
this trip to Ukraine, which is really interesting. He's got
two new media advisors. What did you think of that.
Speaker 3 (22:40):
Interviewcinating so number one with the Guardian, which they even
say at the side of the article. This is a
really weird choice to have The Guardian go with him
because the Guardian is a very openly republican media outlets.
Speaker 1 (22:53):
So is he he hates the monarchy too.
Speaker 3 (22:55):
And then the second thing that's interesting about him going
to Ukraine, this is his second trip to Ukraine since
Russia's invasion, William has not been at all. William is
desperate to go, but because he's the heir to the throne,
they've said that it's not safe for him to go.
So there's been reporting that he was incredibly rankled by
the fact that Harry gets to go and show his
(23:16):
valor and his bravery stepping through the bombed out buildings,
and William just has to hang around on the Estonian
border with Russia because he's not allowed to go into Ukraine.
Speaker 2 (23:26):
I thought this was I thought of all the things
Harry and he's Montecito home with his la wife and
all of that. I just thought of all the things
he could do. He doesn't need to be in Ukraine
like he doesn't does no. I know he's got the
Invictors Games, but I actually really respect his commitment to
that cause. And I read about him and He had
(23:46):
this great quote about like nobody should feel embarrassed or
ashamed about their disabilities, and it's about flipping from sympathy
to admiration and respect, like it's just a cause that's
so consistent with him and his life and his military experience.
And I just read that and I got to the
end and went, yeah, people really respect you because you
kind of do know what you're talking about, and you've
chosen this cause and stick with it.
Speaker 3 (24:07):
He also gave a million pounds to a charity in
the UK, and a lot of people thought this was
a little bit ghosh to give this amount of money.
But then Americans pointed out, who were very comfortable talking
about money, that William's Earthshot Prize, which also gives a
cash prize out to people, isn't even funded by William.
It's funded by private donors. So in other words, Harry
(24:27):
is putting his money where his mouth is in a
way that William is not.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
I can see how galling it would be for William
because Harry, and this is why the Queen was so
uneasy and vetoed Harry and Meghan's request to be part
time royals, because when you're half in half out, he
gets to come and do these quasi royal tours. It
looks like a royal, walks like a royal, smells like
(24:52):
a royal, but isn't officially royal. So that helps him
make commercial deals back in America because he's this pretend royal,
but he's not governed by any of the limitations of
being royal. So, for example, William can't go and do
what he does in Ukraine because it's too much a
security risk.
Speaker 3 (25:10):
Right and yet Meghan, on the shortbread biscuits that went
out in the US this week, apparently on the packaging,
it says, these remind me of my time living in
the UK when I used to have tea and biscuits.
And you know, she's playing off this idea that these
are the biscuits that she probably ate at Buckingham Palace.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
Speaking of Megan, she has given Harry some very good
advice that came through in the Guardian interview. So Harry
only mentions her once, but says that she tells him
that telling the truth is the most efficient way to leave.
I love that and now he lives by that.
Speaker 3 (25:42):
I think that's brilliant.
Speaker 2 (25:43):
I think it's brilliant she's so wise our Meghan, and
I thought I could do it a little of that.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
Remember when she said she didn't google him before they
were sorry the Guardian article?
Speaker 3 (25:53):
Did you read it, Jesse, Yeah, I rewet. So he
is really at pains in that to say, yes, I
missed the UK, but I also love my life in
the US, and people have been saying that he's been
looking very miserable lately, so maybe he's unhappy, but he
was really at pains to paint his life in the
US as well that he's very fulfilled in. Do you
feel like that was doth protest too much? Or did
(26:13):
it feel convincing to you?
Speaker 2 (26:15):
Totally convincing, totally convincing that he is not love and
that they kind of said, oh, you know, you whinge
and yeah, someone who's always got something to complain about.
But he was saying everything I've spoken about is just
getting my version of what was already on the record
out there. It was a rite of reply and now
I've said it. He does seem happy, he does seem lighter.
Speaker 3 (26:34):
But here is where we need to move into rampant speculation,
and mir I want your thoughts on this. He clearly
wants in on some kind of royal or quasi royal existence.
He's been missing the shaking of hands and the jousting
with sick kids, and he wants some of that.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
He wants to be on the balcony.
Speaker 3 (26:51):
It's not clear whether Meghan wants that. In fact, I
would say that Megan feels much more comfortable doing exactly
what she's doing, which is pursuing a more traditional American
or Hollywood conception of celebrity. Or you do the TV
shows and then you sell associated branded products. These two
intentions are in conflict with each other.
Speaker 1 (27:09):
Disagree because I think that what makes Meghan, the only
thing that makes Meghan different from any other influencer is
the Dutchess part. So they need the royal adjacency to
make money in the US and to retain their power,
and their income is directly linked to that royal adjacency.
(27:30):
If they're just Harry and Meghan, well you know, then
they're the same as like poshen Becks or any old, famous,
albeit world famous couple. There were two things in that
interview that really jumped out at me. The first was
when he said the next year is all about my father.
I'm like, Okay, well, Charles is sicker than we thought.
And the second thing was the last line where the
(27:51):
journalist talked about how popular he is in Ukraine, and
because there's so many people who've got disabilities in Ukraine
who've been injured in the war, he's hugely famous because
of his Invictorus Games work, right, and so he was
like mobbed in Ukraine. And the journalist recounted to Harry
that he'd asked one of the people like him so much,
and he said, oh, he's just dis great royal, but
he seems to do things his own way. And when
(28:14):
he said that to Harry, Harry said, you know who
else did their things their own way? My mum. And
I was like, oh, the feeling that William and Harry
must have in who has claimed to Diana's legacy, because
Harry has written so much about his devastation and Diana
and Diana and he is like her in a lot
(28:36):
of wa yeah, and William hasn't. And there's this idea
that somehow William wasn't affected by her loss and isn't
still affected by her loss, just because he doesn't emote
in that kind of American way. You'd have to say
that he's William, and I guess he could, but that's
not really the vibe of the monarch and future monarch.
Speaker 3 (28:56):
It's such a funny and un forbidding family. There was
some other news last week. Paul Barrow, Diana's former butler.
He wrote something about the last days of Queen Elizabeth's
life and he had some inside sources there. And apparently
she didn't even tell her family that she'd been diagnosed
with cancer. She told her ladies in waiting, and she
told people around her, but she was concerned that as
(29:17):
she told the family, they'd say, you got to get
off the throne and we're going to put in a
regency ruling until you pass. And I just can't imagine
being in a family where you have to decide if
it's strategically okay for you to mention that you're dying.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
M after the break, why you need to start going
on mayor walks. And I'm going to reveal who at
this table is an absolute expert in them.
Speaker 1 (29:39):
Do you want daily outloud access? Why wouldn't you? We
drop episodes every Tuesday and Thursday exclusively for Muma MEA subscribers.
Follow the link in the show notes to get us
in your ears five days a week and a huge
thank you if you're a ready a subscriber.
Speaker 2 (29:59):
If you're feeling a bit flat, bit isolated, bit lonely,
a woman named Anna Syrian wants you to try what
she has termed the mayor walk. The writer she has
a substat called ambitious Softy says what she does is
she walks into the hub of her local neighborhood. So
think your local cafe, right, and she sets a challenge
(30:20):
for herself to embody the energy of a small town mayor. Right.
What does that look like? You have to assume everyone
is happy to see you. You have to make eye
contact with all dogs and all babies. You must carry
a warmth and lightness out in the community for specifically
ten to twenty minutes.
Speaker 1 (30:41):
She's right, that amount of time is doable.
Speaker 2 (30:44):
Is your limit? Yeah, She says, this is the best
way that she's managed to make connections in her small community. Amelia,
would you say you have mayor energy?
Speaker 3 (30:53):
Absolutely not. I think I have spoken on this podcast
about how my neighbors in my apartment building complain to
the strata that I was not friendly enough, but.
Speaker 2 (31:03):
That I feeling what happened to me.
Speaker 3 (31:05):
But that is I think why I adore this. It's
a challenge, like even to do it for ten to
twenty minutes. It scares me a little bit, and that's
how I know I must do it. So I tried
it this morning. I got on the bus and I
said good morning to the bus driver and then he
said something unintelligible back to me. But I felt like
I'd set off on the right foot and I'm going
to try this. I think it's fantastic.
Speaker 1 (31:27):
Can you try it in your own house?
Speaker 2 (31:29):
I think the home could do with some mare energy,
because you mayor to call you out, you have mad
small town mayor energy in the office too.
Speaker 3 (31:39):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:39):
So what happens is this is how I imagine it going.
You get in the lift, you take a deep breath,
you close your eyes, you have a moment, you go
turn on the math, and then you walk out of
the lift. And because you happen to own this business,
you don't get to walk in like a Millia and
I do where we put our heads down and hide
in the barthrooend. You've got to have some kind of
present and you walk in and you have your like
(32:02):
queen wave that you do to people, yes, and they.
Speaker 3 (32:06):
Don't got to queen waves.
Speaker 2 (32:08):
Oh sorry, you're shaking hands.
Speaker 1 (32:10):
You're not actually shaking people's hands and wave that's what
you're doing.
Speaker 2 (32:13):
And then you're going you have your prepared small talk,
you start touching people's clothes, questionable.
Speaker 1 (32:17):
Idea, whether that's my version over the wave?
Speaker 2 (32:20):
Yep, And then you just go, how's your weekend?
Speaker 3 (32:22):
Da?
Speaker 1 (32:22):
Da da?
Speaker 2 (32:23):
And you are like this this socialite that turns it
on ten to twenty minutes. And then you go and
hide in your office and when you see me, you're
like high like because you know you don't have to
go full mayor on me, but not the mayor of
view to other people. I think that people who own businesses, wow,
have to turn on the.
Speaker 1 (32:40):
Mayor, do you know? And also people who work in
the service industry. Oh when when you're in any way
customer facing and you've just nailed why I'm so tired,
Because I've often said when I'm at work, I feel
the responsibility to walk the floor so people can see me.
I've got to be interested in everyone, and I genuinely am.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
You must embrace babies. If there's a baby in the office,
it is like you must hold the baby make a fast.
Speaker 1 (33:08):
When you're the mayor or the owner of a business,
you know that people's interactions with you carry weight, and
if you are in a bad mood or distracted or
absent or whatever, they can take that personally in a
way that they might not if you're a regular coworker.
Speaker 2 (33:24):
Yes, exactly.
Speaker 1 (33:25):
It's like being in front of house.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
Yeah, it's almost like being a little bit famous, right
because everyone knows who you are, even if you don't
know who they are yet, because it might be their
first day, right and like you haven't met them before,
but you've got to give them a memorable experience, was
the mayor.
Speaker 3 (33:37):
This reminds me that I had a boss at a
magazine I used to work out who was quite famous,
and he he's not an a winter or famous, but
he's up there for journalists. And his strategy was he
would walk around the office once a day, and you
knew that he'd come and see you, and you kind
of wanted to prepare for it by putting something on
your desk to start the conversation, because the one thing
(33:58):
you couldn't be was boring, So you might put a
book on your desk, or you might put a new
snack or some kind of offering to the boss on
his mail walk, so that when he came round to
see you, you had something to riff on, and then
you'd make that connection as he went on his walk.
Speaker 1 (34:11):
That's genius, because I think people can become very anxious
when they have to talk to the mayor, because I
think it's not just business owners, but it's also managers.
I remember when my boss used to come into my
office when I worked in magazines. I would always have
like sporting equipment, not actual sporting equipment, but like there'd
be an umbrella that he would pretend was a golf club,
or they'd be like a ball that he could like
(34:34):
throw in the garbage bin, and that sort of facilitated
his mayoral experience.
Speaker 2 (34:39):
I have found that I've gone a bit full mayor
when I'm with Luna throughout the committ Like when I
was just on my own, I could just walk through
and be anonymous or whatever. But when I'm with Luna,
I almost want to present the world as this open,
exciting everyone's our friend, and I turn into a different
version of myself because I want to model what a
(35:00):
kind good engaged person looks like, which is entirely performative,
like I've got to go all right, let's put on
my acting hat. So the other day I took Leona.
It was a really cold day. We were hanging out
in the morning. We walked past this guy who I
see all the time. I say hi to him, who
is currently homeless, and we stopped and I went, would
you like a coffee? Let's go and get this maunt
of coffee learner. And I thought, and that was for Luna,
(35:22):
like I'd like to believe that I'm a kind person,
But I went, Luna needs to see her mum being
a mayor. And so when on board it, she tried
to steal the bickie off the top and I went, no, no, no,
that's not good form, Luna, we're being the mayor went
and gave it to him, and I was like, this
is how I should behave every single day, Like it
makes you feel so good about yourself because you connected
with the community.
Speaker 3 (35:41):
All the studies show that happiness comes from interactions that
you have with acquaintances or strangers. Yeah, the friendships and
the relationships, those are the draining ones.
Speaker 1 (35:51):
That's why so many of us suffered during COVID right
because we didn't have We were deprived of those interactions.
Do you remember when we were finally let out of
our houses and we would have these long conversations with
strangers in like queues or on buses. I think it's
so interesting, this idea of a mere walk because the
mayor is different to a royal and different to a celebrity,
(36:12):
because a mayor is accessible and a mayor is relatable.
Speaker 3 (36:16):
And accountable and of service.
Speaker 1 (36:19):
You're of service.
Speaker 2 (36:20):
So I also think I think this is why I
hate having birthday parties, because you have to put on
your may had Oh. And the thing about this that
I loved was I've got ten to twenty minutes maybe
twelve minutes in me a full mayor mode.
Speaker 1 (36:35):
You're right home sting a party. You have to be
a mayor.
Speaker 2 (36:37):
I hate because the thing is I have a birthday
party and you invite all your friends there, and I'm like,
I can't do three.
Speaker 3 (36:43):
I don't know what it's worth. Kids' birthday parties where
you're unclear on the name of any of the people
you've invited to know, how can you be the mayor
when you don't know people's name.
Speaker 2 (36:51):
And it just goes on and on. It's like I
feel as though you do ten minutes, you set it
up and then everyone else you know what you need
a sub in mayor. You need to then go here's
a baton. Now you be the mayor because I can't sugptin,
I've got it.
Speaker 1 (37:01):
My best tip for mayors if you find yourself in
a mayor situation. Great to see you.
Speaker 3 (37:06):
Great to see you, not nice.
Speaker 1 (37:08):
To meet you because maybe you've met before and you've forgotten.
Really great to see you.
Speaker 2 (37:13):
Great see Do you think this whole conversation people have
thought we're talking about the male horse, female horse? Is
it a female horse?
Speaker 3 (37:20):
My biggest takeaway is that Maya thinks an umbrella is
sporting equipment. Before we go, I have gone full domestic goddess,
and I want to share it with you. I know
how to make a scone according to the Country Women's Association,
as you know, are the experts on this. Did you
do a course of course this weekend?
Speaker 1 (37:38):
Sorry?
Speaker 2 (37:38):
Of course she does such unusual things, Amelia.
Speaker 3 (37:42):
This weekend I had a friend visiting from the US
and she has a baby and is very frazzled, and
I was trying to think of what's some really Australian
thing we can do that's not cliched, And it so
happened that in my neighborhood there was a Country Women's
Association course on how to make the perfect scone. And
I thought, that's the most Australian thing I can.
Speaker 2 (38:02):
Know, Amelia. It's very with love Megan of you, I
think it's been We say.
Speaker 1 (38:08):
Course like, is it a weekly thing? Did you have
to do?
Speaker 3 (38:12):
It was a very rigorous three hours and we had
to get involved with the making of the scones. But
I learned a lot of really fascinating things.
Speaker 2 (38:20):
Okay, please please tell us I do love us Gone?
Speaker 1 (38:23):
Can I just put that out of there?
Speaker 3 (38:24):
Love us Gone? Did you bring any I did not
because I ate them all. We made pumpkin We made
a savory SCN with cheese and olive. The best cheese
mixer of SCN is parmesan and cheddar half half. And
we made a regular SCN. And then we made a
lemonade scan which I'm going to make with my kids
because they're really easy.
Speaker 1 (38:38):
Have you heard a lemonade s gone?
Speaker 3 (38:40):
It's just lemonade, flour and cream.
Speaker 1 (38:44):
Yummy. I thought you put cream on a SCN, not in.
Speaker 3 (38:46):
A skin, can make it in the scon So the
main thing I want to leave you with because the big,
big thing she said about how to make the perfect
scne is you do not twist. Let me explain. When
you are cutting the scon out of your dough, there's
a temptation. There's a temptation to twist the cutter into
the dough.
Speaker 2 (39:04):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's what I do
with Plato.
Speaker 3 (39:06):
You must never twist. It inhibits the gone's ability to
rise and to meet its full potential.
Speaker 1 (39:13):
Jesse, you can't inhibit the scone.
Speaker 3 (39:14):
Never twist, Never twist.
Speaker 2 (39:16):
I'm under as a foundation needs to be free.
Speaker 3 (39:19):
Okay, do you have any other questions for me.
Speaker 2 (39:21):
In terms of the tray, Like how close are we're
putting the scones together?
Speaker 3 (39:25):
Good question. They should not be touching. This is a
common misconception. In fact, I heard from someone in the
office here who thought that you were meant to sort
of have them lightly kiss each other.
Speaker 1 (39:34):
No, I thought they came in a miss and tray me.
Speaker 2 (39:38):
Oh, you've really upset everyone. Now you're not going to
be invited back. I think that Amelia and Brent. Holly's
Brent who won the scone competition's gone off. Yeah, I
think that there should be a competition, except it's just.
Speaker 3 (39:49):
No, I'm going to win because I'm going to leave
you with a couple more tips. Keep everything cold so
you don't need to sift flower, which is great because
I never truly understood how to sift flowers.
Speaker 2 (39:57):
I never understood the purpose.
Speaker 3 (39:59):
I didn't know that.
Speaker 1 (39:59):
The purpose is so you don't have lumpskys.
Speaker 3 (40:02):
Well anyway, keep it in the freezer and you never
have to sift together again. Keep your flower in the freezer.
And another thing is that when you've made this and
you put them on the baking tray, whipping into the
fridge for a little bit, then turn the oven on
so they get a little bit of a chill before
you get them in the ovens.
Speaker 1 (40:17):
Few more steps and I'm happy with the.
Speaker 3 (40:19):
Final tip that I want to leave you with. And
this is important. You cannot over mix. It's a lazy
girls taking exercise.
Speaker 2 (40:25):
Which is also the role apparently for cookies. Yeah, you
want to. I think that maybe you're not meant to
with cookies. You're like, they're really good when you.
Speaker 1 (40:32):
Take them go what a bit rubbery.
Speaker 3 (40:34):
Yeah, it just doesn't let them rise and then cream
and jam. I want to see if we have thoughts
on what goes first.
Speaker 1 (40:39):
Okay, I think jam goes first.
Speaker 2 (40:42):
I would think cream and then jam as the top
or off for us.
Speaker 3 (40:45):
So it turns out that the reason why people are
even putting jam on top is because of Instagram. Like
this is like like it's always been understood you're meant
to put the jam on first and then the cream.
This is a cwa's doctrine, and I am inclined to
believe them on everything, including scones. But they speculate that
because we now want to make everything pretty for social media,
(41:05):
that's why there's been this pernicious shift towards putting the
jam on top of that's like porn.
Speaker 4 (41:10):
It's like porn, yeah, because it might be food porn,
but like the reason that there are certain things that
you see in porn, like no pubic care, is because
it looks better on camera.
Speaker 2 (41:24):
That's so much like nons.
Speaker 3 (41:26):
It's like Scott, I don't know if the CWA would
endorse that, but let's let's run with it.
Speaker 1 (41:30):
Maybe they of course for that, probably not they probably
they don't.
Speaker 2 (41:35):
A big thank you to all of you the out loud.
Speaker 3 (41:37):
It's fun.
Speaker 2 (41:38):
It's been so much fun that might come by. We might,
we might even invite you for listening to today's show
and our fabulous team.
Speaker 1 (41:44):
For me interrupting you.
Speaker 2 (41:46):
No, not really. Look, I've missed your energy. I've missed
your mayror energy. You're well behaved today, you were, you
were prepared, my best foot forward. You've got a good energy.
You're allowed back. Friends, don't forget you. You think I
should keep interrupting you just keep interrupting, don't you. One
at a time, you.
Speaker 3 (42:03):
Compared SCons to porn. I don't think that's her being
on good behavior.
Speaker 2 (42:07):
You can watch on YouTube if you watching us on YouTube, Man,
I have actually, how do we look?
Speaker 1 (42:12):
I've got some notes. No, you look great.
Speaker 2 (42:14):
Thank you will be back in your ears.
Speaker 3 (42:17):
Tomorrow before we go. Though, if you're feeling that pressure
of the end of the year, and I know it's coming,
you might enjoined last Wednesday's episode. It's related. We talked
about the great lock in. This is a phrase I'm
using all the time now, and I used it with
my babysitter and she was so impressed that I knew
this phrase, so listen to that, and here's a little
taste of it.
Speaker 2 (42:37):
Lucking guys, Stacy, are you locking in?
Speaker 3 (42:40):
Can I lock it out?
Speaker 1 (42:42):
Get me out, leave me on the outside.
Speaker 3 (42:45):
I just feel like this is like New Year's Resolutions rebranded,
except we have to do them every quarter, and I'm
just like, I've failed already ten days into the month.
I don't want to do it. I don't want to
do it. I have fundamentally resent having to think about
the year in terms of quarters. I am an accountant, Yes, Amelia.
Speaker 2 (43:03):
How about like, are you going to run a marathon?
Are you training for?
Speaker 3 (43:07):
Yeah? You know that, Jesse, It's so funny that you
asked me that. I am just trying to go to
exercise classes and stay silent during them. That's just my goal. Yeah,
it was a really interesting chat and we'll pop a
link to that episode in the show notes. I guarantee
you will be using it a lot. Bye bye.
Speaker 2 (43:28):
Shout out to any Mum and Maya subscribers listening. If
you love the show and you want to support us,
subscribing to MoMA MAA is the very best way to
do so. There's a link in the episode description
You're listening to a MoMA Mia podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Muma Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters
that this podcast is recorded on Welcome to mum mea
out loud What women are actually talking about on Monday,
the fifteenth of September. I am Jesse Stevens, I'm me
and Friedman because hollywhen right is sick.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
I'm Amelia last.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
And here's what's on our agenda fit today. The assassination
of Charlie Kirk in broad daylight, the aftermath and what
it all means.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
Plus Prince Harry went back to the UK last week
and it has changed everything.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
And what is a mayor walk? And can doing one
transform my mood? But first we have to talk about
Charlie Kirk. I just want to obviously start by saying
how horrifying it was to hear and a lot of
out louders will have seen or will have had people
in their household, friends and family and kids who saw
(01:07):
the whole footage of a third twenty one year old
man being assassinated in front of thousands of people in
broad daylight while he was talking on a college campus.
And I didn't actually know who Charlie Kirk was, and
so I was trying to I felt like I was
playing catch up because I was like, what just happened?
(01:27):
Who is this guy? And my teenagers were like, you
don't know who Charlie Kirk is?
Speaker 3 (01:32):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (01:32):
Yeah, no's He was very familiar to young people because
he was all over TikTok and had started this movement
where he sort of goes on college campuses and debates people.
But I didn't know who he was, and so all
I was reeling from was the shock. And my kids'
friends were messaging them telling them to be careful on
social media because some of their friends had seen the
(01:54):
full video. I've got friends with primary school age children
who saw it because within you know, seemingly minutes of
the attack, it was circulating everywhere. Every second reel you
would see on TikTok and every second Instagram post was
this incredibly vile the footage of a man being murdered. Essentially,
how did you guys feel when you heard?
Speaker 3 (02:13):
Well? I think I had two reactions. It was really
upsetting to think about this man who has two young
children being killed and seeing that footage is something that
is really hard to take. But then the second thing
that was why it really hit me is because it's
an act of political violence. And remember when Trump was
almost assassinated a year ago, there was an attempt on
his life. When I heard that news, I burst into
(02:36):
tears because there's something so uniquely disturbing about the idea
of someone being killed for what they say, and it
makes us all feel unsafe.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
I think I agree with you. I found it really shocking.
I found the way that the events transpired sort of
in real time from the other side of the world,
quite unusual, in that we had the President of the
United States declaring him dead before anyone else knew that
was the case. We'd seen the footage, people didn't know
(03:08):
if he died or not.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
And then by the time I came to the story,
it was all clear. You must have been up earlier
than I was here you did know who Charlie Kirk was.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
Yeah, I was very familiar with Charlie Kirk. He's been
all over my Instagram and TikTok for twelve months. As
you say, he's thirty one. He's widely credited as the
guy who is very much responsible for getting the younger
vote to galvanize around Trump. There is a very convincing
argument that Trump would not have been elected if it
weren't for child.
Speaker 3 (03:35):
I did not know that he was that significant.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
Yeah, and so Charlie Kirk, just to give you a
little bit more background, he was not simply a conservative
influencer like he was in with Donald Trump and in
with Donald Trump's family. So do you remember the false
reports about eating family pets Haitians eating family pets around
the time of one of the debates, yea and the dog. Yes,
(04:00):
So Charlie Kirk was instrumental in perpetuating that myss. Like
he was so on the Internet that he had the
power to basically go, this is the story we're going
to tell. And he had a handle he.
Speaker 3 (04:13):
Was which was a completely untrue.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
Story, completely untrue. So he basically had a handle on
the young conservative movement and in terms of getting Trump
in office in both twenty sixteen and twenty twenty four,
there's a through line with Charlie Kirk, like he started
up in twenty twelve and was like, let's make conservative
politics cool again. Let's go and own the Libs. And
(04:35):
he was able to galvanize this whole generation of people
and be like, we're for real American values hahna social
media in a way that was very new, and this
debate platform that we were talking about a few months ago,
he popularized that lightly. Yes, he was the guy. That's
what Turning Point USA is, which he co founded. It
(04:56):
was about educating young people on conservative values.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
So can I ask, because you say that he's been
in your algorithm for a year now, I guess that's
because you're watching these videos. That's why he keeps popping up.
And what is it about him that inspired such strong connections?
Speaker 2 (05:12):
I would always stop because I found it so infuriating.
And it was because it was like he thought that
because he spoke really fast in us lots of words
in the same vein as someone like Ben Shapiro, who
is the facts, don't care about your feelings, conservative guy,
that he was owning someone and showing out the hypocrisy
and the weakness of their argument. But really he was
(05:32):
just talking really really loud over the top of people.
To me, it was such an indictment on the state
of debate. Like, I found it incredibly depressing. But he
also came up in a lot of conversations I have
with friends, because every now and then they'd go ah,
did he kind of make a good point about this thing,
because he could be very very persuasive, but he was
(05:53):
arguing for really dangerous, really really upsetting political views. The
idea that he would be assassinated for speaking, you know,
his beliefs was just I can't think of another word
other than than shocking. And a lot of people have
felt the need to say this, but like, I don't
(06:14):
think I've ever agreed with a word that Charlie Kirk
has said, and I've actually seen a lot of them.
But that doesn't mean that political violence or that someone
losing their life for what they're saying is allowed. And
I think I found there were two sides. There was
the holding him up as a martyr, and then there
was barely the news had dropped. I don't even think
(06:35):
his kids would have barely known what had happened to
him yet, and there was glee. It was such a
uniquely Internet moment.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
What made me so shocked was the butt I disagree
with you. I don't think there was two sides. I
think there was probably three, because there was the people
who were just like, this is just terrible, and I
would put myself in that camp.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
I think those people didn't post, well.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
No, but why do you have to post this is
what made me feel so heartsick apart from the human
heartsick story of a father with two children, age one
and three, and a wife who it's clear whether she
was there or she wasn't there, but it doesn't matter.
It's been televised globally essentially via the internet. Firstly, why
(07:17):
does everybody have to come on social media and make
a statement like what is that about? Secondly, the people
who come on and say this is bad but I
didn't agree with what he said, or but sometimes violence
is necessary. I saw some people say but sometimes violence
is necessary. These are respectable mainstream commentators.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
You know why?
Speaker 1 (07:40):
Why when is violence necessary?
Speaker 2 (07:43):
You know what I notice more than anything this weekend
is that there's something really interesting about who people are
talking to. The extremes are talking to each other, and
if you're not exposed to one extreme, it looks like
someone is staring at the sky, shaking their fist, saying
something that doesn't make sense. It's like, why is the
butt necessary? The reason why people went that way is
because on the other side, you saw the reaction of
(08:06):
conservatives in the US. It was as though this man
was some kind of messiah, and he was someone who
lacked empathy throughout his life, and he was someone who
defended gun ownership, and he was someone who had said,
we're going to have a few regrets.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
None if this matters. Can we just agree that we
don't kill people if we disagree with what they stand
for or what they say or what they believe. My
exhaustion and my despair at the last few days has been,
you know exactly what's going to happen. Some people are
going to celebrate it. Then there's going to be opinions written,
and then there'll be backlash to the opinions and hot
(08:43):
takes of hot takes, and everyone will try to cancel
each other if you say something, what should you say?
And it's like, firstly, you don't need to say anything,
and secondly, you can just say this is tragic. Can
we all agree that we don't kill people that we
disagree with.
Speaker 3 (08:58):
This reminds me a little bit mea of when school
shootings happen and we're told that we're not allowed to
politicize them, and now it's not the time to talk
about gun control because that would be somehow desecrating the
memory of these children who were gonne down by weapons
that should never have been available to ordinary citizens.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
Do you know what I've also thought about so much
is that this culture and we've noticed as people who've
been online for you know, getting close to two decades
now and writing opinion at the beginning, you know, in
the twenty tens, early twenty tens, people would say I
disagree with you. You know, there would be opinion sites
and other people would have opinions. It then became over
(09:39):
the last sort of five to ten years, you need
to delete it, take it down, apologize for what you said,
because this feeling of having an opinion out there that
you didn't agree with became so intolerable to a generation.
And it was part of cancel culture as well. Right,
So someone said something you didn't agree with. It's not
I disagree with this person and you debate them or
(10:01):
you choose not to engage with them anymore. It's they
need to be punished, they need to be canceled or
wiped out.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
But that's coming from both sides of me right now.
I agree this is happening. Conservative forces in the US
are gathering to make lists of everyone who said things
about this.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
I agree they didn't think were And to me, it's
not a left and right. To me, it's our culture,
well of the internet, of if I disagree with you,
you can't exist, and that is a through line to assosciation,
which is terrifying.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
I don't know. I think that they might be disparate issues,
because what I worry about is we look at this
and go, oh, it's it's left and right. It's the
progressives on the internet have lost their mind. Hang on,
we know very little about the person who did this.
One man shot that bullet, and he will have had
a motive and an upbringing and was very pro guns
and all of that. And I do not like holding
(10:50):
a whole political spectrum to account for an act of
very specific political violence. You're allowed to go online and
criticize someone, absolutely, go for it. I mean, Charlie Kirk
did that, as was he's right. But political violence, we
know begets political violence. I think that's what's scary.
Speaker 3 (11:06):
And I think that you said something before, Jesse that
we need to talk more about, which is that this
was a very online event. And Mia, you directed my
attention to an Instagram post from doctor Raymond Nichols. He wrote,
you were never meant to witness someone's final breath and
then laugh at a TikTok. You weren't built for that.
Your soul wasn't designed to hold that kind of weight
(11:27):
and then move on like it's nothing.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
I think that part of the shock. This sounds sort
of ridiculous, but I thought about how many videos had
popped up of Charlie Kirk, and often I watched the
whole thing. I was trying to understand it. That man's
face had become very familiar to me. To watch that
man die was an incredibly confronting thing because of the
level of familiarity I suppose so many of us had,
(11:50):
and the reaction. You can look at the reaction from
all sides. I heard some journalists talking about it, and
journalists knew him as a man. They'd sat with him
and they traveled with him, and he was a flesh
and blood person who some people liked, some people didn't.
And the fact that even after he died, it was
like for some people that wasn't enough. I just went
(12:13):
the man isn't breathing anymore?
Speaker 1 (12:14):
Yeah, Like, don't you think that's a result of dehumanizing people?
In the first place.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
Yeah, and in terms of the political violence begetting political violence.
Speaker 3 (12:23):
People are scared. I think it's also about the fact
that people are scared.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
They're terrified. I mean if I was getting up on
stage and that sounds ridiculous, but I think that the
media class is kind of having this moment of if
we live in a culture where you can't sit on
stage and say what you think.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
We'll look at Salmon Rushti. Yeah, it wasn't that long
ago that someone tried to murder him.
Speaker 3 (12:40):
But also the building up of him as a martyr,
which is happening right now. I mean people are scared,
Like ordinary Americans who don't speak into microphones for a
living are scared because when you build someone up as
a martyr and then you say that the martyr has
been killed, it leads you to wonder what actions will
be taken as a result of that.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
Yeah, And to your point before, Amelia, about this happening
across the spectrum. Three months ago, Melissa Hortman, who was
a Democrat and her husband was shot and killed in
their home. Now President Donald Trump refused to say her
name in the past when JFK was assassinated, When Martin
Luther King was assassinated. There was at least this sense
of like, we can stand here as a political class,
(13:19):
hold hands and say we disavow this. Across the spectrum,
this does not happen. But now you get the but
what about thing? Because a moment like this happens and
you have Elon Musk right, the left is the party
of murder. Like that's just not I agreeful.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
And I think back to what you said Jesse before
about there were two groups of people. This all comes
down to the algorithm and the internet. I think that
the reason it can feel so demoralizing being online and
make you despair is that you do only see the
extremes and they are not symbolic of how most people
(13:57):
feel about anything.
Speaker 3 (13:58):
And the problem was, we see the extremes. We saw
this happen, and maybe that's why it was such a
big deal. Do you think, because in some ways this
feels like a bigger deal than when the Trump assassination
to happen.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
The reason I heard someone say that it felt like
a bigger deal, and I'm not American and I wouldn't know,
but maybe you can speak to this, Amelia, is that
there is a tragically a blueprint for attempted assassinations or
assassinations of American presidents. You know, there was JFK. There
was the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan, the attempted assassination
(14:31):
of Trump. That's why it was like, it was shocking,
but it wasn't surprising, the attempted assassination of Trump. Charlie Kirk.
As far as I understand, Jesse, he wasn't a political candidate,
He didn't hold office. He had no actual impact on
the levers of government, unlike someone say even Anelon Musk,
(14:52):
who was actually in there doing things at the behavioral
he was powerful, but he was influential exactly, he was influential.
And the people that said is what made my blood
curdle is that the people who were like, sometimes violence
is necessary, And I'm like, what, so it's necessary if
you disagree with the person, But then if someone uses
that justification because they disagree with you to be violent
(15:16):
against you, Suddenly, oh no, it's only necessary when I
disagree with the person's views, and that that's not a democracy.
Speaker 3 (15:23):
That's You've christiz for me as to why this is
such a big deal, Why we're talking about this on
a Monday when it happened on a Thursday on the
other side of the world. And it's because he was
famous and was killed because of his words. He wasn't
in office, he didn't have actions to criticize or condemn.
He just had words.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
This is why we protest, and this is why we speak,
and this is why we debate, and we do all
of those things. And in the course of a debate,
you can entirely lack empathy. And I want to sort
of acknowledge space for that, because Charlie Kirk did dehumanize
a lot of people, he did hurt a lot of people.
But just because he lacked empathy doesn't mean that in
the wake of his death we need to like, that's
(16:06):
not how I.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
Know unless you believe that words are violet. And then
the logical through line is that, well, if someone's been
violent to me with their words, I can be violent
to them with a gun. And that's a terrifying reality
in a moment.
Speaker 3 (16:20):
How Harry's trip to the UK has suddenly changed everything.
The Duchess of Sussex's jams have been arriving on us
doorsteps this week and last week.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
I have an unpopular opinion. I think they're too cheap.
How much are they? They're nine dollars and I think, yeah,
I think it's seven dollars postage. But like with all
this fuss, I reckon. I mean, I wouldn't have bought them,
but I think she could have sold them for like
thirty dollars.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
I completely agree. Agree, is there expensive postage?
Speaker 1 (16:50):
Seven dollars?
Speaker 3 (16:51):
Apparently there was some twine and some dried lavender on it,
so okay.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
That was just a little bit.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
It makes it film mass produced? I completely agree. And
I don't know if you heard this or even if
it made it into the cup for Friday's episode, but
you know, we spoke to a tower card reader on
Friday and one of our questions was whether Holly will
ever get her hands on a jam.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
I think there's a lot of it available now. I
don't know how hard.
Speaker 2 (17:12):
She gave in Australia Maya, and she said she will
get the jam, but maybe not the jam.
Speaker 3 (17:17):
That she wanted.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
It might be a UNI, which isn't that how life goes?
Speaker 3 (17:21):
So this is not about the jam. Prince Harry's had
a really good couple of days. Let me explain. He
took a thirty six hour trip to Kiev in Ukraine
over the weekend and he was promoting his Invictus Games
foundation there. But before that he went to the UK
for a few days.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
And had a balloon animal sword fight with a small child.
Speaker 3 (17:43):
Oh so see that photos. He went, he visited sick children,
he got out and about in the community, he was smiling,
he was laughing. The UK press called it old Harry
is back again, because you know, he's only been to
the UK recently for lawsuits and has looked very dow
funerals and funerals.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
So was he in the UK as part of an
Invictus Games thing too, I'm just wondering.
Speaker 3 (18:04):
No, it was essentially a little unofficial royal visit. So
he went in part because he really wanted to meet
with his dad and it was unclear whether he was
going to And if you recall last week on the show,
I cited some reporting that said that his dad was
not going to meet with him. And the reason why
his dad was not going to meet with him is
because his other son, William has absolutely next to this.
(18:26):
He says he's not allowed to meet with Harry. It's
sort of the same as Prince Andrew. Once you're out,
you're out. You can't be let back in. He said
unforgivable things about Kate. He implied that Kate was racist
about his children's skin color.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
And that she was cold. I've got a lot of
sympathy for this idea because can you imagine, given that
so many private conversations were relaid both in the Netflix
documentary that Harn Meghan did and in Spare his memoir, like,
even meeting with Charles, I think trust would be very
much in tatters.
Speaker 3 (18:59):
Yeah, And you know, I don't think it's unusual when
there are two children to sort of play off each
other to their parents. I remember once you and me
were talking about how fun it is to complain about
sibling to our parents and then to see whether or
not they agree with you.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
And complain to our sibling about our parents exactly.
Speaker 3 (19:16):
So all of this has said that he didn't know
whether he was going to get to meet with him. Well,
guess what. Charles was coming down to London from Balmoral
for his weekly cancer treatment and he met with Harry.
This is a huge deal. They have not met since
February twenty twenty four.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
Do we know where they met.
Speaker 3 (19:32):
They met at.
Speaker 1 (19:33):
Clarence House House and the perhaps were tipped off by
the palace to show Harry driving in in his range driver.
Speaker 3 (19:42):
Now apparently they really pulled out all the stops. Harry
has a beloved chocolate biscuit cake that Charles made sure
was laid out for him. Clearly this was a real
attempt by both sides to repair things.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
So the queen had this tradition of afternoon tea diplomacy
where if she really wanted something or she really wanted
someone to make them feel special, she would lay on
the full English afternoon tea with the proper sandwiches, and
she loved a bit of cake. So there was this
special cake that she would have, this chocolate biscuit cake,
which is quite it's really good does and Harry loves it.
(20:17):
So there was a lot of people were saying, well,
when Harry goes if he gets the chocolate biscuit cake
that is like the real symbol of an olive branch,
except in chocolate cake.
Speaker 3 (20:27):
Form, and he got it tasty. So the question is why.
The question is why Charles went against the heir to
the throne and his eldest son's stated wish to meet
with his Maverick younger son, who has also not said
very nice things about him in the past. So why
did Charles do this? Me? And what's your theory?
Speaker 1 (20:46):
I had no theories. There's two that are going around.
There's a newsletter called the Royalists that I read by
a royal reporter called Tom Sykes, which I'm getting so
much value out of. He has said that the media
is very focused on the split between Charles and Harry,
but what no one's really noticed is the split between
(21:06):
Charles and William. And he said that's the big story
because Charles believes that William is lazy, essentially because he
does not have nearly as many public engagements. So even
though Charles has been having cancer treatment for the past
twelve months, he's done one hundred and seventy five engagements.
But William has been very clear about family first and
wellness first, and Charles is of the queen thinking, which
(21:31):
is duty first. You never put anything above your duty
as a royal.
Speaker 3 (21:35):
And by the way, there's another dynamic lad on top
of that, which is that William thinks he's going to
modernize the monarchy and he gets so fed up with
how Charles is very stuffy and he likes wearing his
uniforms and he thinks this is all very old fashioned,
and he thinks that putting his family first is showing
that he's doing a lot to modernize the monarchy.
Speaker 1 (21:53):
He's like, let's make the monarchy cool again.
Speaker 2 (21:56):
So do you think that maybe Harry and Charles had
a little bit of a bitch about William?
Speaker 1 (22:01):
I think Charles would have probably been more discreet than that,
because you know, you don't trust Harry, right.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
Yeah, but you know with your mum, Yeah, you don't
go full into it. You see how fi you get?
You kind of go. How's William?
Speaker 1 (22:15):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (22:16):
Has he been working hard?
Speaker 3 (22:18):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (22:18):
It's not a lot of engagements?
Speaker 1 (22:20):
Is That's true? And it's funny when Harry was in
London last week, suddenly Kate and William filled their diary
with some more engagements.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
Did you read the profile in the Guardian about that
interview that the interviewed?
Speaker 1 (22:32):
Yeah, so he took a Guardian journalist with him on
this trip to Ukraine, which is really interesting. He's got
two new media advisors. What did you think of that.
Speaker 3 (22:40):
Interviewcinating so number one with the Guardian, which they even
say at the side of the article. This is a
really weird choice to have The Guardian go with him
because the Guardian is a very openly republican media outlets.
Speaker 1 (22:53):
So is he he hates the monarchy too.
Speaker 3 (22:55):
And then the second thing that's interesting about him going
to Ukraine, this is his second trip to Ukraine since
Russia's invasion, William has not been at all. William is
desperate to go, but because he's the heir to the throne,
they've said that it's not safe for him to go.
So there's been reporting that he was incredibly rankled by
the fact that Harry gets to go and show his
(23:16):
valor and his bravery stepping through the bombed out buildings,
and William just has to hang around on the Estonian
border with Russia because he's not allowed to go into Ukraine.
Speaker 2 (23:26):
I thought this was I thought of all the things
Harry and he's Montecito home with his la wife and
all of that. I just thought of all the things
he could do. He doesn't need to be in Ukraine
like he doesn't does no. I know he's got the
Invictors Games, but I actually really respect his commitment to
that cause. And I read about him and He had
(23:46):
this great quote about like nobody should feel embarrassed or
ashamed about their disabilities, and it's about flipping from sympathy
to admiration and respect, like it's just a cause that's
so consistent with him and his life and his military experience.
And I just read that and I got to the
end and went, yeah, people really respect you because you
kind of do know what you're talking about, and you've
chosen this cause and stick with it.
Speaker 3 (24:07):
He also gave a million pounds to a charity in
the UK, and a lot of people thought this was
a little bit ghosh to give this amount of money.
But then Americans pointed out, who were very comfortable talking
about money, that William's Earthshot Prize, which also gives a
cash prize out to people, isn't even funded by William.
It's funded by private donors. So in other words, Harry
(24:27):
is putting his money where his mouth is in a
way that William is not.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
I can see how galling it would be for William
because Harry, and this is why the Queen was so
uneasy and vetoed Harry and Meghan's request to be part
time royals, because when you're half in half out, he
gets to come and do these quasi royal tours. It
looks like a royal, walks like a royal, smells like
(24:52):
a royal, but isn't officially royal. So that helps him
make commercial deals back in America because he's this pretend royal,
but he's not governed by any of the limitations of
being royal. So, for example, William can't go and do
what he does in Ukraine because it's too much a
security risk.
Speaker 3 (25:10):
Right and yet Meghan, on the shortbread biscuits that went
out in the US this week, apparently on the packaging,
it says, these remind me of my time living in
the UK when I used to have tea and biscuits.
And you know, she's playing off this idea that these
are the biscuits that she probably ate at Buckingham Palace.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
Speaking of Megan, she has given Harry some very good
advice that came through in the Guardian interview. So Harry
only mentions her once, but says that she tells him
that telling the truth is the most efficient way to leave.
I love that and now he lives by that.
Speaker 3 (25:42):
I think that's brilliant.
Speaker 2 (25:43):
I think it's brilliant she's so wise our Meghan, and
I thought I could do it a little of that.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
Remember when she said she didn't google him before they
were sorry the Guardian article?
Speaker 3 (25:53):
Did you read it, Jesse, Yeah, I rewet. So he
is really at pains in that to say, yes, I
missed the UK, but I also love my life in
the US, and people have been saying that he's been
looking very miserable lately, so maybe he's unhappy, but he
was really at pains to paint his life in the
US as well that he's very fulfilled in. Do you
feel like that was doth protest too much? Or did
(26:13):
it feel convincing to you?
Speaker 2 (26:15):
Totally convincing, totally convincing that he is not love and
that they kind of said, oh, you know, you whinge
and yeah, someone who's always got something to complain about.
But he was saying everything I've spoken about is just
getting my version of what was already on the record
out there. It was a rite of reply and now
I've said it. He does seem happy, he does seem lighter.
Speaker 3 (26:34):
But here is where we need to move into rampant speculation,
and mir I want your thoughts on this. He clearly
wants in on some kind of royal or quasi royal existence.
He's been missing the shaking of hands and the jousting
with sick kids, and he wants some of that.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
He wants to be on the balcony.
Speaker 3 (26:51):
It's not clear whether Meghan wants that. In fact, I
would say that Megan feels much more comfortable doing exactly
what she's doing, which is pursuing a more traditional American
or Hollywood conception of celebrity. Or you do the TV
shows and then you sell associated branded products. These two
intentions are in conflict with each other.
Speaker 1 (27:09):
Disagree because I think that what makes Meghan, the only
thing that makes Meghan different from any other influencer is
the Dutchess part. So they need the royal adjacency to
make money in the US and to retain their power,
and their income is directly linked to that royal adjacency.
(27:30):
If they're just Harry and Meghan, well you know, then
they're the same as like poshen Becks or any old, famous,
albeit world famous couple. There were two things in that
interview that really jumped out at me. The first was
when he said the next year is all about my father.
I'm like, Okay, well, Charles is sicker than we thought.
And the second thing was the last line where the
(27:51):
journalist talked about how popular he is in Ukraine, and
because there's so many people who've got disabilities in Ukraine
who've been injured in the war, he's hugely famous because
of his Invictorus Games work, right, and so he was
like mobbed in Ukraine. And the journalist recounted to Harry
that he'd asked one of the people like him so much,
and he said, oh, he's just dis great royal, but
he seems to do things his own way. And when
(28:14):
he said that to Harry, Harry said, you know who
else did their things their own way? My mum. And
I was like, oh, the feeling that William and Harry
must have in who has claimed to Diana's legacy, because
Harry has written so much about his devastation and Diana
and Diana and he is like her in a lot
(28:36):
of wa yeah, and William hasn't. And there's this idea
that somehow William wasn't affected by her loss and isn't
still affected by her loss, just because he doesn't emote
in that kind of American way. You'd have to say
that he's William, and I guess he could, but that's
not really the vibe of the monarch and future monarch.
Speaker 3 (28:56):
It's such a funny and un forbidding family. There was
some other news last week. Paul Barrow, Diana's former butler.
He wrote something about the last days of Queen Elizabeth's
life and he had some inside sources there. And apparently
she didn't even tell her family that she'd been diagnosed
with cancer. She told her ladies in waiting, and she
told people around her, but she was concerned that as
(29:17):
she told the family, they'd say, you got to get
off the throne and we're going to put in a
regency ruling until you pass. And I just can't imagine
being in a family where you have to decide if
it's strategically okay for you to mention that you're dying.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
M after the break, why you need to start going
on mayor walks. And I'm going to reveal who at
this table is an absolute expert in them.
Speaker 1 (29:39):
Do you want daily outloud access? Why wouldn't you? We
drop episodes every Tuesday and Thursday exclusively for Muma MEA subscribers.
Follow the link in the show notes to get us
in your ears five days a week and a huge
thank you if you're a ready a subscriber.
Speaker 2 (29:59):
If you're feeling a bit flat, bit isolated, bit lonely,
a woman named Anna Syrian wants you to try what
she has termed the mayor walk. The writer she has
a substat called ambitious Softy says what she does is
she walks into the hub of her local neighborhood. So
think your local cafe, right, and she sets a challenge
(30:20):
for herself to embody the energy of a small town mayor. Right.
What does that look like? You have to assume everyone
is happy to see you. You have to make eye
contact with all dogs and all babies. You must carry
a warmth and lightness out in the community for specifically
ten to twenty minutes.
Speaker 1 (30:41):
She's right, that amount of time is doable.
Speaker 2 (30:44):
Is your limit? Yeah, She says, this is the best
way that she's managed to make connections in her small community. Amelia,
would you say you have mayor energy?
Speaker 3 (30:53):
Absolutely not. I think I have spoken on this podcast
about how my neighbors in my apartment building complain to
the strata that I was not friendly enough, but.
Speaker 2 (31:03):
That I feeling what happened to me.
Speaker 3 (31:05):
But that is I think why I adore this. It's
a challenge, like even to do it for ten to
twenty minutes. It scares me a little bit, and that's
how I know I must do it. So I tried
it this morning. I got on the bus and I
said good morning to the bus driver and then he
said something unintelligible back to me. But I felt like
I'd set off on the right foot and I'm going
to try this. I think it's fantastic.
Speaker 1 (31:27):
Can you try it in your own house?
Speaker 2 (31:29):
I think the home could do with some mare energy,
because you mayor to call you out, you have mad
small town mayor energy in the office too.
Speaker 3 (31:39):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:39):
So what happens is this is how I imagine it going.
You get in the lift, you take a deep breath,
you close your eyes, you have a moment, you go
turn on the math, and then you walk out of
the lift. And because you happen to own this business,
you don't get to walk in like a Millia and
I do where we put our heads down and hide
in the barthrooend. You've got to have some kind of
present and you walk in and you have your like
(32:02):
queen wave that you do to people, yes, and they.
Speaker 3 (32:06):
Don't got to queen waves.
Speaker 2 (32:08):
Oh sorry, you're shaking hands.
Speaker 1 (32:10):
You're not actually shaking people's hands and wave that's what
you're doing.
Speaker 2 (32:13):
And then you're going you have your prepared small talk,
you start touching people's clothes, questionable.
Speaker 1 (32:17):
Idea, whether that's my version over the wave?
Speaker 2 (32:20):
Yep, And then you just go, how's your weekend?
Speaker 3 (32:22):
Da?
Speaker 1 (32:22):
Da da?
Speaker 2 (32:23):
And you are like this this socialite that turns it
on ten to twenty minutes. And then you go and
hide in your office and when you see me, you're
like high like because you know you don't have to
go full mayor on me, but not the mayor of
view to other people. I think that people who own businesses, wow,
have to turn on the.
Speaker 1 (32:40):
Mayor, do you know? And also people who work in
the service industry. Oh when when you're in any way
customer facing and you've just nailed why I'm so tired,
Because I've often said when I'm at work, I feel
the responsibility to walk the floor so people can see me.
I've got to be interested in everyone, and I genuinely am.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
You must embrace babies. If there's a baby in the office,
it is like you must hold the baby make a fast.
Speaker 1 (33:08):
When you're the mayor or the owner of a business,
you know that people's interactions with you carry weight, and
if you are in a bad mood or distracted or
absent or whatever, they can take that personally in a
way that they might not if you're a regular coworker.
Speaker 2 (33:24):
Yes, exactly.
Speaker 1 (33:25):
It's like being in front of house.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
Yeah, it's almost like being a little bit famous, right
because everyone knows who you are, even if you don't
know who they are yet, because it might be their
first day, right and like you haven't met them before,
but you've got to give them a memorable experience, was
the mayor.
Speaker 3 (33:37):
This reminds me that I had a boss at a
magazine I used to work out who was quite famous,
and he he's not an a winter or famous, but
he's up there for journalists. And his strategy was he
would walk around the office once a day, and you
knew that he'd come and see you, and you kind
of wanted to prepare for it by putting something on
your desk to start the conversation, because the one thing
(33:58):
you couldn't be was boring, So you might put a
book on your desk, or you might put a new
snack or some kind of offering to the boss on
his mail walk, so that when he came round to
see you, you had something to riff on, and then
you'd make that connection as he went on his walk.
Speaker 1 (34:11):
That's genius, because I think people can become very anxious
when they have to talk to the mayor, because I
think it's not just business owners, but it's also managers.
I remember when my boss used to come into my
office when I worked in magazines. I would always have
like sporting equipment, not actual sporting equipment, but like there'd
be an umbrella that he would pretend was a golf club,
or they'd be like a ball that he could like
(34:34):
throw in the garbage bin, and that sort of facilitated
his mayoral experience.
Speaker 2 (34:39):
I have found that I've gone a bit full mayor
when I'm with Luna throughout the committ Like when I
was just on my own, I could just walk through
and be anonymous or whatever. But when I'm with Luna,
I almost want to present the world as this open,
exciting everyone's our friend, and I turn into a different
version of myself because I want to model what a
(35:00):
kind good engaged person looks like, which is entirely performative,
like I've got to go all right, let's put on
my acting hat. So the other day I took Leona.
It was a really cold day. We were hanging out
in the morning. We walked past this guy who I
see all the time. I say hi to him, who
is currently homeless, and we stopped and I went, would
you like a coffee? Let's go and get this maunt
of coffee learner. And I thought, and that was for Luna,
(35:22):
like I'd like to believe that I'm a kind person,
But I went, Luna needs to see her mum being
a mayor. And so when on board it, she tried
to steal the bickie off the top and I went, no, no, no,
that's not good form, Luna, we're being the mayor went
and gave it to him, and I was like, this
is how I should behave every single day, Like it
makes you feel so good about yourself because you connected
with the community.
Speaker 3 (35:41):
All the studies show that happiness comes from interactions that
you have with acquaintances or strangers. Yeah, the friendships and
the relationships, those are the draining ones.
Speaker 1 (35:51):
That's why so many of us suffered during COVID right
because we didn't have We were deprived of those interactions.
Do you remember when we were finally let out of
our houses and we would have these long conversations with
strangers in like queues or on buses. I think it's
so interesting, this idea of a mere walk because the
mayor is different to a royal and different to a celebrity,
(36:12):
because a mayor is accessible and a mayor is relatable.
Speaker 3 (36:16):
And accountable and of service.
Speaker 1 (36:19):
You're of service.
Speaker 2 (36:20):
So I also think I think this is why I
hate having birthday parties, because you have to put on
your may had Oh. And the thing about this that
I loved was I've got ten to twenty minutes maybe
twelve minutes in me a full mayor mode.
Speaker 1 (36:35):
You're right home sting a party. You have to be
a mayor.
Speaker 2 (36:37):
I hate because the thing is I have a birthday
party and you invite all your friends there, and I'm like,
I can't do three.
Speaker 3 (36:43):
I don't know what it's worth. Kids' birthday parties where
you're unclear on the name of any of the people
you've invited to know, how can you be the mayor
when you don't know people's name.
Speaker 2 (36:51):
And it just goes on and on. It's like I
feel as though you do ten minutes, you set it
up and then everyone else you know what you need
a sub in mayor. You need to then go here's
a baton. Now you be the mayor because I can't sugptin,
I've got it.
Speaker 1 (37:01):
My best tip for mayors if you find yourself in
a mayor situation. Great to see you.
Speaker 3 (37:06):
Great to see you, not nice.
Speaker 1 (37:08):
To meet you because maybe you've met before and you've forgotten.
Really great to see you.
Speaker 2 (37:13):
Great see Do you think this whole conversation people have
thought we're talking about the male horse, female horse? Is
it a female horse?
Speaker 3 (37:20):
My biggest takeaway is that Maya thinks an umbrella is
sporting equipment. Before we go, I have gone full domestic goddess,
and I want to share it with you. I know
how to make a scone according to the Country Women's Association,
as you know, are the experts on this. Did you
do a course of course this weekend?
Speaker 1 (37:38):
Sorry?
Speaker 2 (37:38):
Of course she does such unusual things, Amelia.
Speaker 3 (37:42):
This weekend I had a friend visiting from the US
and she has a baby and is very frazzled, and
I was trying to think of what's some really Australian
thing we can do that's not cliched, And it so
happened that in my neighborhood there was a Country Women's
Association course on how to make the perfect scone. And
I thought, that's the most Australian thing I can.
Speaker 2 (38:02):
Know, Amelia. It's very with love Megan of you, I
think it's been We say.
Speaker 1 (38:08):
Course like, is it a weekly thing? Did you have
to do?
Speaker 3 (38:12):
It was a very rigorous three hours and we had
to get involved with the making of the scones. But
I learned a lot of really fascinating things.
Speaker 2 (38:20):
Okay, please please tell us I do love us Gone?
Speaker 1 (38:23):
Can I just put that out of there?
Speaker 3 (38:24):
Love us Gone? Did you bring any I did not
because I ate them all. We made pumpkin We made
a savory SCN with cheese and olive. The best cheese
mixer of SCN is parmesan and cheddar half half. And
we made a regular SCN. And then we made a
lemonade scan which I'm going to make with my kids
because they're really easy.
Speaker 1 (38:38):
Have you heard a lemonade s gone?
Speaker 3 (38:40):
It's just lemonade, flour and cream.
Speaker 1 (38:44):
Yummy. I thought you put cream on a SCN, not in.
Speaker 3 (38:46):
A skin, can make it in the scon So the
main thing I want to leave you with because the big,
big thing she said about how to make the perfect
scne is you do not twist. Let me explain. When
you are cutting the scon out of your dough, there's
a temptation. There's a temptation to twist the cutter into
the dough.
Speaker 2 (39:04):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's what I do
with Plato.
Speaker 3 (39:06):
You must never twist. It inhibits the gone's ability to
rise and to meet its full potential.
Speaker 1 (39:13):
Jesse, you can't inhibit the scone.
Speaker 3 (39:14):
Never twist, Never twist.
Speaker 2 (39:16):
I'm under as a foundation needs to be free.
Speaker 3 (39:19):
Okay, do you have any other questions for me.
Speaker 2 (39:21):
In terms of the tray, Like how close are we're
putting the scones together?
Speaker 3 (39:25):
Good question. They should not be touching. This is a
common misconception. In fact, I heard from someone in the
office here who thought that you were meant to sort
of have them lightly kiss each other.
Speaker 1 (39:34):
No, I thought they came in a miss and tray me.
Speaker 2 (39:38):
Oh, you've really upset everyone. Now you're not going to
be invited back. I think that Amelia and Brent. Holly's
Brent who won the scone competition's gone off. Yeah, I
think that there should be a competition, except it's just.
Speaker 3 (39:49):
No, I'm going to win because I'm going to leave
you with a couple more tips. Keep everything cold so
you don't need to sift flower, which is great because
I never truly understood how to sift flowers.
Speaker 2 (39:57):
I never understood the purpose.
Speaker 3 (39:59):
I didn't know that.
Speaker 1 (39:59):
The purpose is so you don't have lumpskys.
Speaker 3 (40:02):
Well anyway, keep it in the freezer and you never
have to sift together again. Keep your flower in the freezer.
And another thing is that when you've made this and
you put them on the baking tray, whipping into the
fridge for a little bit, then turn the oven on
so they get a little bit of a chill before
you get them in the ovens.
Speaker 1 (40:17):
Few more steps and I'm happy with the.
Speaker 3 (40:19):
Final tip that I want to leave you with. And
this is important. You cannot over mix. It's a lazy
girls taking exercise.
Speaker 2 (40:25):
Which is also the role apparently for cookies. Yeah, you
want to. I think that maybe you're not meant to
with cookies. You're like, they're really good when you.
Speaker 1 (40:32):
Take them go what a bit rubbery.
Speaker 3 (40:34):
Yeah, it just doesn't let them rise and then cream
and jam. I want to see if we have thoughts
on what goes first.
Speaker 1 (40:39):
Okay, I think jam goes first.
Speaker 2 (40:42):
I would think cream and then jam as the top
or off for us.
Speaker 3 (40:45):
So it turns out that the reason why people are
even putting jam on top is because of Instagram. Like
this is like like it's always been understood you're meant
to put the jam on first and then the cream.
This is a cwa's doctrine, and I am inclined to
believe them on everything, including scones. But they speculate that
because we now want to make everything pretty for social media,
(41:05):
that's why there's been this pernicious shift towards putting the
jam on top of that's like porn.
Speaker 4 (41:10):
It's like porn, yeah, because it might be food porn,
but like the reason that there are certain things that
you see in porn, like no pubic care, is because
it looks better on camera.
Speaker 2 (41:24):
That's so much like nons.
Speaker 3 (41:26):
It's like Scott, I don't know if the CWA would
endorse that, but let's let's run with it.
Speaker 1 (41:30):
Maybe they of course for that, probably not they probably
they don't.
Speaker 2 (41:35):
A big thank you to all of you the out loud.
Speaker 3 (41:37):
It's fun.
Speaker 2 (41:38):
It's been so much fun that might come by. We might,
we might even invite you for listening to today's show
and our fabulous team.
Speaker 1 (41:44):
For me interrupting you.
Speaker 2 (41:46):
No, not really. Look, I've missed your energy. I've missed
your mayror energy. You're well behaved today, you were, you
were prepared, my best foot forward. You've got a good energy.
You're allowed back. Friends, don't forget you. You think I
should keep interrupting you just keep interrupting, don't you. One
at a time, you.
Speaker 3 (42:03):
Compared SCons to porn. I don't think that's her being
on good behavior.
Speaker 2 (42:07):
You can watch on YouTube if you watching us on YouTube, Man,
I have actually, how do we look?
Speaker 1 (42:12):
I've got some notes. No, you look great.
Speaker 2 (42:14):
Thank you will be back in your ears.
Speaker 3 (42:17):
Tomorrow before we go. Though, if you're feeling that pressure
of the end of the year, and I know it's coming,
you might enjoined last Wednesday's episode. It's related. We talked
about the great lock in. This is a phrase I'm
using all the time now, and I used it with
my babysitter and she was so impressed that I knew
this phrase, so listen to that, and here's a little
taste of it.
Speaker 2 (42:37):
Lucking guys, Stacy, are you locking in?
Speaker 3 (42:40):
Can I lock it out?
Speaker 1 (42:42):
Get me out, leave me on the outside.
Speaker 3 (42:45):
I just feel like this is like New Year's Resolutions rebranded,
except we have to do them every quarter, and I'm
just like, I've failed already ten days into the month.
I don't want to do it. I don't want to
do it. I have fundamentally resent having to think about
the year in terms of quarters. I am an accountant, Yes, Amelia.
Speaker 2 (43:03):
How about like, are you going to run a marathon?
Are you training for?
Speaker 3 (43:07):
Yeah? You know that, Jesse, It's so funny that you
asked me that. I am just trying to go to
exercise classes and stay silent during them. That's just my goal. Yeah,
it was a really interesting chat and we'll pop a
link to that episode in the show notes. I guarantee
you will be using it a lot. Bye bye.
Speaker 2 (43:28):
Shout out to any Mum and Maya subscribers listening. If
you love the show and you want to support us,
subscribing to MoMA MAA is the very best way to
do so. There's a link in the episode description
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