Send us Fan Mail

Simon arrives buzzing with news: a professorial confirmation panel that left him pacing the line between anxiety and excitement for weeks beforehand. He and Lee dig into where exactly anxiety lives in the body, comparing notes on heart rate variability, breath control, and the relief of a panel that turned out far less hostile than feared. The conversation widens into the precarious state of UK higher education and the dance sector specifically, capped off with a half remembered government ad campaign about a ballerina who finds her true calling in cyber.

Mentioned

• Kate Bee – guest on last week's episode; praised for having "a good voice for radio"
• Starsky and Hutch – cop buddy show; raised as a model for a good cop buddy dynamic
• Rishi Sunak – former UK chancellor and prime minister; jokingly blamed for the state of arts funding and the wider higher education sector
• "Fatima's next job could be in cyber" advertising campaign – UK government ad campaign depicting a ballet dancer retraining for a career in cyber; referred to in conversation as "Maya," but the dancer in the original campaign was named Fatima; discussed as evidence of precarity in the arts and dance sector. Independent coverage

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

---
The Midlifing logo is adapted from an original image by H.L.I.T: https://www.flickr.com/photos/29311691@N05/8571921679 (CC BY 2.0)

Send us Fan Mail

Simon and Lee are joined by Kate Bee, founder of The Sober School, for a conversation that opens with the rock-bottom mythology of AA before sliding into personal history: Lee traces his unusual relationship with drink back to growing up in a pub in the mid-80s, and on through the British ladette culture he lived through at university in the 90s, complete with Zoe Ball and Bacardi Breezers. Kate maps the particular shame attached to women's drinking, drawing the three of them into a digression on Julia Kristeva's abject and the quietly respectable, middle-class drinkers no news report ever pictures, with Simon noting how his wife Lil's brush with an alcohol-tracking app in Italy preceded Kate's email by mere days. The episode closes on what Kate found to replace alcohol's pleasure once she gave it up: smaller gatherings, an early exit, and the relief of just being herself the next morning.

Mentioned

• The Sober School – sobriety support for women who don't want AA or rehab, founded by the episode's guest, Kate Bee, ten years ago out of her own experience quitting drinking
• "Take Your Time" – Nirvana; song that prompts a singalong at the top of the episode
• Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) – raised as a model of recovery that doesn't suit everyone; its rock-bottom narrative and "anonymous" framing discussed as barriers for some
• Zoe Ball – British TV and radio presenter; cited as an exemplar of 90s British ladette culture, noted as now sober
• The Spice Girls – pop group raised as a possible comparison to ladette culture, then dismissed as not quite fitting
• Bacardi Breezers – alcopop brand discussed as a 90s drinks-industry product aimed at women
• Julia Kristeva – French feminist philosopher; her concept of "the abject" used to discuss the language ("messy," "sloppy") applied to women's drinking
• Joe Rogan – podcast host referenced jokingly as a contrast to this podcast's tone

Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.

---
The Midlifing logo is adapted from an original image by H.L.I.T: https://www.flickr.com/photos/29311691@N05/8571921679 (CC BY 2.0)