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00:00 Hello and welcome to this special end of year edition of Love Lives. It has been an incredible
00:07 year for the show which regular listeners will know that we relaunched at the start of this year
00:13 with Name, Look and Feel. We are so thrilled with how Love Lives has started off. We have had an
00:21 incredible lineup of guests with actors, musicians and best-selling authors joining us to discuss
00:28 the different loves of their lives and how they have impacted them. So without further ado allow
00:33 me to share with you some of our favourite moments from the season. One of the subjects that came up
00:46 a lot this season was female rage and healthcare injustice. Two brilliant writers spoke to us about
00:53 this when they were discussing their work. I was absolutely filled with a rage that was so murderous
00:59 and furious. It wasn't just a kind of 'oh someone's left the lid off the milk, how annoying' it was
01:04 like if someone does that again I'm going to stab them to death with a knife. It was just the worst
01:09 place to be and it was so surprising. And I talked to my friend Trish Halpern who I co-host
01:15 podcast postcards for Midlife with and I said 'Trish I've got to tell you something, I think I've got a
01:20 brain tumour' and she said 'I've got cancer, I've got something awful going on, I've just thrown a
01:25 hoover down the hall, I've attacked...' you know it was just we just we had the same thing and then
01:30 we thought well that's a bit weird, haven't we both been going through the same thing? And then
01:33 I went to the GP twice and they offered me antidepressants and I said I just don't think
01:37 you know that might work for somebody, it just doesn't feel like the right thing for me, I've
01:42 just got no joy in anything and you know these night terrors are getting worse and worse.
01:49 And then I did some research and found, I suppose you would call her the medical
01:54 expert who kicked off what is now the menopause revolution, Dr Louise Newsome,
01:58 and I went to see her and she said 'well you're going through this thing called the perimenopause
02:04 which is the 10 or 12 years before the menopause'. So the perimenopause is when all the hot flashes
02:08 and all the kind of traditional symptoms that we sort of laugh at women getting older for having
02:13 happen. So you, but there's over 40 symptoms and there's no blood test that tells you this but it
02:18 you know every woman will have one of the symptoms. If you're losing nights and nights of sleep
02:23 and you can't regulate your mood and all your estrogen's disappearing and your progesterone
02:28 and your testosterone, it's a hormonal depletion that's causing absolute chaos. I mean hearing you
02:33 say all that it just makes me so angry because I was going to ask why don't we know all this?
02:38 I know the reason why we don't know all this because women's health is not prioritised.
02:42 What are the things in your subconscious or in your emotional life that nudges you toward
02:47 needing to write this story? And I think the propeller has to be a very strong emotion and
02:52 I think if you've never written a novel before maybe rage is the one that will do it you know.
02:57 And as you get further along in your career it can simply be like extreme curiosity or affection or
03:03 whatever but like maybe to get that first one over the line because it's such a weird thing to do to
03:08 write a novel. Like to like just come out with like I think I'm capable of inventing a whole
03:13 landscape and many people in it and it will be important. People will care. People will care and
03:19 pay £60.99 on the hardback for it. It's a nuts thing to think about yourself. It's so
03:24 grandiose and self-important so maybe rage has to be the propelling emotion.
03:28 A few of our guests this season have pretty major public profiles so naturally one of the things we
03:35 wanted to ask them about was how they navigate fame and their thoughts on fame generally.
03:41 I was like 21. Yeah which is very young to be very very famous and successful. I was 21 and
03:47 I had, I didn't really feel pressure but I had like, I had a bit of money and I also had like
03:58 the wrong people around me. People who, I don't know, some people took advantage of it. Also I
04:06 took advantage of it so I'm not blaming them people by the way. Like I was just a 21 year old
04:12 who was in a position where music was happening, going out was happening, alcohol was happening
04:21 and I was consumed by all this, all this stuff. So I was probably an egotistical 21 year old who
04:30 thought the sun shines out of his a** or something like that basically and I fell into,
04:38 I don't know, a lot of problems. It was just to do with like London life too.
04:44 So I moved home and that was the best thing for me and now my coping mechanisms for,
04:52 I don't, I hate the word calling myself fake. I'm not, you know what I mean? I still get the
04:58 training and I still do normal things, you know what I mean? Just people come and say hello and
05:04 I sound but now it's like completely different. Like I need routine in my day-to-day just to be,
05:11 just to get myself on a level. I need exercise, I need good eight hours sleep. Like I sound boring
05:20 but like I feel like to do this job at a 10 out of 10, you need to be an athlete.
05:28 I myself feel confusion about like how much public attention is desirable, how much is healthy,
05:40 how much just kind of messes you up. Okay so my first book, Prep, came out in 2005 and
05:48 in the 18 years since then, the amount of time that a writer is expected to be on a screen
05:55 has changed greatly. Like in, you know, 2005 you and I would not, there would not have been
06:02 cameras. I would not have been wearing the minimal amount of makeup that I'm even wearing.
06:06 I know this is something Sally Rooney has spoken about a lot and she's kind of totally withdrawn
06:10 from the public eye because it's just very, it's very strange dynamic and it's not at all what we
06:16 kind of go into it for. But it's like the world we live in now with social media, everyone is
06:21 almost encouraged to want to be famous and if not famous, have a degree of attention on them. Like
06:27 I think if you look at studies on Gen Z, the top desired job is to be a social media influencer,
06:33 you know, have those eyes on you. And it's just so interesting that that is now something that
06:39 people are kind of glamorizing and fetishizing when actually the reality of it seems quite
06:46 unappealing. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think, I mean, it seems like almost anyone who has gotten
06:53 a true taste of fame has some degree of ambivalence about it. Or, you know, like obviously
06:58 it's very easy to find, you know, documentaries or stories about celebrities who really,
07:05 you know, were very talented, got recognition and struggled a lot. One subject that comes up
07:14 time and time again whenever I speak to women on this podcast is violence against women. And we
07:19 were very lucky to have the brilliant A-list actor Hayley Atwell with us this season. And one of my
07:24 favorite moments from that episode was when she talked about harassment when women go out at night
07:30 and the things women have to do in order to feel safe. I remember doing my own version of that when
07:35 I was, you know, when I was clubbing sort of as a teenager. And if I was in the, you know, I'd often
07:41 like to go to gay clubs because I could dance freely and feel just for me much safer. And I
07:47 remember though when I was in clubs and the men would come up to me and I felt they were quite
07:51 adamant or aggressive on the dance floor with me. The thing that actually, it's so, it feels kind of
07:59 so crazy that, you know, women have to feel unsafe just dancing. But if I was resilient,
08:08 if I was sort of back footed or try and walk away, I had this real fear that if I offended
08:15 the guy that it, that wouldn't make me safe, that would make him angry. And so there's this,
08:23 and I feel like you can feel, hear her in the music doing that as well. But if you do something
08:28 a bit mad, they back down. And so I used to do really ugly, intense dancing at them that also
08:36 was totally out of rhythm all of a sudden and almost be like manically into them. And it would
08:41 last like 10 seconds before they were like gonna back down. She's crazy. And it would be like an
08:45 arm, armor. We also spoke to the musician Zara Larsson about the realities of being a young
08:53 woman coming up in the music industry. I think a lot of people who have power in the industry,
08:59 they know they do. We know they have power and a lot of people abuse that. And I think that's
09:04 what kind of turns them on. Not necessarily because they really want to sleep with you.
09:08 They just want to, they just want you to know that I have the power to make you uncomfortable
09:16 right now. And that's what I'm going to do. You know what I mean? Have you ever kind of
09:20 gone to the next step of like reporting behavior or like complaining in any kind of formal way?
09:25 No, but it's so f***ed up that some of the things that have happened have been so obvious.
09:33 And it has happened like in front of other people. And what kind of thing like inappropriate
09:39 comments? We could like be sitting at a dinner. Yeah. And there's all these people that I know
09:46 and that everybody knows. And then it could be like, you know, somebody's putting a hand on my
09:52 thigh or saying like, like I'm going to come to your hotel room and I'm going to do like,
09:59 well, getting like way too close and personal, keep touching. And it's like, you all see this,
10:05 like this is happening right in front of you guys. But no one says anything because it's not to the
10:11 point where if I wouldn't have gone to the police, I said what? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's not illegal.
10:17 It's not criminal. But those like minor things, when you stack them on top of each other and it
10:25 like happens and it's just it's just casual, you know, it's not that deep. Which is what they would
10:30 say if you complained. You know what I mean? So there's certain people I know, like I would never
10:34 be alone with you. Like I just know I would never be in a room alone with you. And that's why I'm
10:38 saying. Because there are certain people that other people say don't be alone. Yeah. I just know,
10:42 like I just know the vibe. And I would just always bring my manager. I would always have my mom. Like
10:47 I would have somebody there to make sure that I'm safe. Yeah. Because for a lot of and I'm lucky
10:55 enough that I've been able to have that because a lot of people, you know, they travel far and
11:00 you end up in a room and you just want to make your dreams come true and you do whatever it
11:06 takes. And then you're like put in this uncomfortable situation. And sometimes they make you
11:10 feel like, well, if you want it. Yeah. You know what I mean? So crazy to think that it sounds
11:17 like such a cliche, for lack of a better word. But of course it happens. It does. It does happen.
11:23 And I think I wouldn't really say I've gotten to the point where people wouldn't try me.
11:27 I think it actually changed starting in the industry so young. I think it definitely I
11:32 felt such a shift from when I was 17 to 18 because now I'm legal. You know, yeah. Which is so creepy.
11:41 But I almost invited other. Yeah. Which is like you're you're a f***ing old man. Like,
11:48 why are you even looking at me like that? But I really felt a shift as turning 18. It was like,
11:52 whoa. Yeah.
11:54 Another subject that came up a lot this season was friendship, which should be no surprise with a lot
12:09 of guests choosing some of their closest friends as the loves of their lives.
12:14 I think that no one really talks about or prepares you for the first time that that happens in your
12:20 20s when you realize that your friends are kind of either moving off in different ways or their
12:27 lives are changing and yours is maybe not changing in the same way and how you navigate that. And I
12:33 remember in my 20s that being such a painful process. And part of that pain was just not
12:38 expecting it. And I definitely think that while female friendship is one of the most incredible
12:42 things, I for sure know that like from as early as I could remember, the expectation is that you
12:50 remain friends until the day you die. And if you don't, then that's a reflection on you. And that
12:57 says something about your character. So, for example, even now, when if I was to tell someone
13:01 that, you know, I have friends that I don't speak to anymore, I can see it in their eyes. The look
13:06 is what have I, what have you done as a person to have created that? And so I think that there is
13:12 that expectation. And so in your 20s, if you haven't experienced that before, it can be so
13:17 painful because you feel like this should not, this friendship should not be breaking up or
13:22 this friendship should not be changing or becoming more distant, you know, in the same,
13:25 because especially when you're younger, you also just have more time. So you can be time intensive
13:31 with your friendships in a way that as you get older, you just can't necessarily do that.
13:35 But I think when you go through it the first time, for me, what I realized was that the thing that
13:41 was making it really painful was expecting everything to remain exactly the same. And
13:46 if it didn't remain exactly the same, that meant that we didn't care about each other or that we
13:51 didn't love each other. And I have learned from now having gone through at least about the three
13:57 iterations of this, you know, I'm in my early 40s, that that just isn't the case. And also,
14:02 if a friendship doesn't work out, or if it drops off, or if it's just someone you haven't spoken
14:06 to for a few years, it's okay. Like, it's okay. We're not meant to have everyone in our lives
14:13 that we have met since birth. You know, it's that's just not how life works, right?
14:17 Finally, we loved speaking to two brilliant authors, Nicola Dynan and Nisha Dolan,
14:24 about the evolving ways that queer relationships are being represented in fiction. Tom tells Ming
14:30 that he came out late and then adds, "Nobody wants to admit that people leave the closet,
14:35 but not the room." That really struck me. What do you think Tom means when he says that to Ming?
14:40 So I think there's a sense of lingering shame that a lot of queer people deal with. And also,
14:52 you know, I think with stories of queer people generally, they often exist in extremes. Like,
15:01 we have these stories of like, queer misery, but then we have these like, unrelenting stories of
15:06 queer joy. And it's like, well, in reality, does like something more in the middle exist, you know,
15:12 that you have maybe this very liberating act. And if you're lucky to have people around you who love
15:17 and accept you for who you are, then that can be like, extremely liberating. But at the same time,
15:23 you still harbour all of those things that you've heard when you were younger,
15:28 and all of those little things that make you feel less worthy, that have a cumulative effect
15:34 in how you relate to others in the present. So I think that's what I was trying to say when,
15:39 you know, I wrote, you know, people leave the closet, but not the room. And in the book, like
15:46 Ming and Tom, with regards to Tom's sexuality, you know, his identity as a gay man, and Ming's life
15:52 as a trans woman, both of them haven't faced many barriers. Tom is this, you know, middle class white
16:00 boy who grows up in South London with like, very well meaning, very white parents, and who are very
16:07 open and accepting, even though they often, occasionally, you know, not even occasionally,
16:12 often make blunders, you know. And Ming comes from a relatively financially privileged position,
16:20 you know, she's able to afford hormone replacement therapy. And that means jumping through a very
16:29 long NHS queue, that's like, very inhumane, and a huge problem for trans people in the UK today.
16:35 But despite those things, and despite those barriers, they still face difficulties with
16:43 respect to their own identities. And I think in that way, we almost underestimate those little
16:52 things we pick up as children and as teenagers, you know, before we have a real sense of ourselves, or
16:59 before we formed a fully actualised version of ourselves. And I really want to examine in the
17:05 absence of all those barriers, what's left behind and how does it affect us?
17:10 One label that has been applied to your work, which I think says a lot about our culture is
17:16 it's been called casually bisexual. And to me, that label kind of just highlights how
17:22 unaccustomed people still are to seeing queer relationships in fiction.
17:27 Well, I think it implies the existence of formerly bisexual literature. And I want to
17:31 find the literature where we f*cking get to go to the Met. Business class bisexual, please.
17:37 So true, yeah.
17:38 Yeah, but I think what it's getting at is that it's seen as rare for literature to not
17:50 problematise the fact that someone is gay and make it the source of conflict in the novel.
17:56 There's a grain of truth there in terms of what our mainstream culture has traditionally
18:02 upheld and celebrated. But I also think for decades at least, there have been books that
18:10 have obviously done that. And for centuries, there have been books where we all know the
18:14 characters are gay, even though it's not stated. In some ways, that's the original casual, like
18:19 the picture of Dorian Gray is way more casual than my book in that it doesn't a single time
18:24 have overt allusions to homosexuality. So there's a grain of truth in terms of the need for it to be
18:31 as easy for a random person walking into a shop to pick up books where the characters are gay,
18:35 and it's not a problem. But there's also an element of is this really that new?
18:40 That's it for this year. Thank you so much for watching and listening to Love Lives this season.
18:48 We will be back in 2024 with more guests and more episodes. So please stay tuned, and I will see you
18:55 then.