249 In this unscripted weekend episode of Tailoring Talk Magazine, Roberto and Jon somehow manage to go from a countryside bike ride to Project Hail Mary, from Apple launch queues to Greek Cypriot funerals, and from cinema etiquette to whether phones are quietly ruining modern life.

Jon joins the call mid-cycle, complete with wind noise, hills, passing horses and the kind of rural soundtrack that makes it sound like he’s broadcasting from Victorian England. From there, the conversation turns to Project Hail Mary, why Ryan Gosling feels like perfect casting, why the film works so well on a second viewing and why some stories really do deserve to be seen in the cinema.

Roberto then shares a very Apple story about how queuing for the iPad 2 at Brent Cross led to one of his closest friendships, before the episode takes a sharp turn into funeral etiquette, what happens when you trust the wrong person’s dress code advice and why arriving at a very formal funeral dressed for a “memorial” is the sort of nightmare Richard Curtis would have written for Hugh Grant.

The main rant of the episode is all about phones. Phones at funerals. Phones at concerts. Phones in cinemas. Phones in restaurants. Phones at breakfast in five-star hotels when your partner is sitting right in front of you and you’re still staring into the glowing rectangle like a socially useless meerkat.

There’s also talk of Jack White’s phoneless shows, the lost art of being present, whether phone use will one day become as socially frowned upon as smoking, old-school texting, T9 keyboards, Jon’s restaurant phone-stack rule and why your terrible low-light food photo is never going to beat the restaurant’s own Instagram shot.

Also in the mix: Michael, Godzilla, trailers that give away too much and why a 30-second teaser is often more powerful than a three-minute plot summary.

In This Episode

Roberto and Jon discuss:

• Project Hail Mary and why it’s already worth watching again

• Ryan Gosling’s performance and the emotional heart of the film

• The strange magic of Apple launch queues

• How the iPad 2 launch accidentally created a lifelong friendship

• Why Roberto ended up accidentally underdressed at a very formal funeral

• The problem with phones ringing during serious moments

• Concert phone bans and whether they make the experience better

• Cinema etiquette and why people can’t seem to sit still anymore

• Phones in restaurants and the death of basic table manners

• The phone-stack rule and why the first person to touch their phone should pay the bill

• Old-school mobiles, expensive text messages and the pain of pre-T9 typing

• Why modern trailers reveal far too much

• Michael, Godzilla and upcoming cinema chat

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