Allegedly Thriving

#07 - Shoot tired, Ocean Village and Easter Bunnies

• Issy and Martin • Season 1 • Episode 7

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0:00 | 42:35

In Episode 7 of Allegedly Thriving, Izzy and Martin are back in the studio with more space, more distance, and (thankfully) less bao-bun-and-death ambience than the last mobile episode.

Martin’s thriving after saying yes to a huge opportunity: photographing the Business Beats Cancer annual gala dinner at St James’ Park and experiences the special kind of exhaustion known as shoot tired.

Izzy’s thriving too leaning hard into self-care, think skincare routines, solo Metrocentre shopping, and a serious reading streak!

Along the way, they go off-road into airports, duty-free perfume chaos, business class lounges, the weirdness of selling channels at 2am, and Izzy’s childhood cruise memory where money had no meaning and the bill definitely did.

Thanks for listening to Allegedly Thriving and for coming along for the inevitable detours.

If you want to learn more about the two potentially unhinged presenters:

Martin - Photographer and Owner of Terry Harrison Art: Martin Newham Photography  and TerryHarrisonArt

Issy - Director, Owner and all round Digital Genius:  Howell Studios and Howell Media

SPEAKER_00

Well as they say in Orange is the New Black, which is part of my mantra. Trust no bitch.

SPEAKER_02

You call me a bitch a good few times this week.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, because you've been such a bitch. Oh, well, we're sat in the new version of my own studio, so that's nice. It's amazing. I'm not used to I I don't have to look over there now. I can look over here.

SPEAKER_02

You're further away from me. We have more space between us. Great. It is, it's amazing. And we're back in a studio. So the last episode we went we went rogue.

SPEAKER_00

We talked about bow buns and death.

SPEAKER_02

And we were outside. Well, inside, outside.

SPEAKER_00

You know, it reminds me of it reminds me of um when I was a kid and I used to watch the tweenies and the ones of them in the actual studio, like the actual tweenies setup, they looked so realistic and real that as soon as they had there were some episodes where they'd have to go outside and they'd be like in a park or something, and they'd literally just be the worst puppets you can possibly imagine. And I would kind of the the facade was kind of broken for me. I was like, oh, they're not real after all. Oh dear. So that we were like those versions of the tweenies last week, out and about.

SPEAKER_02

Well it wasn't last week, was it? A catastrophe. A catastrophe. That's very good. Thank you. And we we I wasn't able to uh I wasn't able to make it. However, I'm probably gonna need you to drive most of this because I don't really know what I'm gonna talk about. Thanks. Yeah. They seek me out. And we're three minutes in, you haven't done the intro yet.

SPEAKER_00

Yes. So this is allegedly thriving, episode I think six, but we don't know.

SPEAKER_02

Six or seven.

SPEAKER_00

Multiple episodes have been recorded now. And uh this is we've done a thing. And we've done a thing. And this is this is where we discuss whether, based in the world of business, based in the world of being a general functioning adult, whether we are thriving or surviving in this mad, mad world that we call planet Earth. So to kick off, I'm Izzy, by the way, and you are I'm Martin. And to kick off, are you thriving or are you surviving?

SPEAKER_02

I'm thriving. Again.

SPEAKER_00

You're always thriving. Well The one week you were surviving, we didn't record an episode.

SPEAKER_02

Well, you see, I'm I'm I'm an optimistic person and I am building a new business, which means every week that I get more contacts and I speak to more people, it's a good week. So I'm thriving.

SPEAKER_00

Is that the photography business? Yes.

SPEAKER_02

So I I I I I'm taking the whole mantra of say yes to everything. Not quite everything, but within reason, you know, say yes to everything. Um so I got an opportunity to shoot the Business Beats Cancer annual gala dinner at St. James's Park last week, which was a 600-seat charity event. Um and I'd never done an event that big and it involved a lot of low-light flash photography, which I wasn't really sure what I was doing with, so I just said yes and did it anyway. So stressed a lot in doing it uh and then just did it and it went well.

SPEAKER_00

And I think the thing is, I mean, I have been I have worked more events than I can possibly count on my hands. And as this was what your first one sort of filming it, or photographing it and being on it as a as a as a creative, is that where you s the thing that always surprised me when I first started doing events was how they never stopped. So it's like this the moment it starts, say like six o'clock, to the moment it ends at midnight. Literally, there's always something to capture that entire time. So it's literally it's never a break. You're just constantly going for six to eight hours. It never stops.

SPEAKER_02

I had a little break, it was quite nice. Yeah, but they're so hard for and you're like, oh yeah, it was it it was an eye-opener. Um I it was interesting. Uh over the weekend I was editing all the pictures, so I had about 1500 pictures that I sold down to 700 that I then um went through and edited and landed on about 300 odd into certain different categories. So with it being that many people, with it being a big gala event, you know, the main category was people because the people want to be seen there, so that's who I was trying to photograph, big groups of people, that kind of thing. Um, what I found was interesting was I I wanted to put a reel together to showcase the evening, and I thought, okay, I'm gonna put a story together using the images because that's what I try and do. And I was looking at them and realized I'd completely lost the story because from the point of view of somebody coming in, I didn't take any entrance, any any pictures of the entrance. I didn't take any pictures of the first table you come to because I was upstairs at the at the kind of the the reception area with the big CIUK sign where I was grabbing people and getting pictures and stuff like that. Now, everyone's happy with the pictures, they're happy with the story that I could tell because I took enough of the setup, but it was a really good learning experience because now next time I've got a much better shoot list in my head that I just didn't know because I didn't have the experience. So I it's so it's been a really positive experience for me because the clients are really happy. I've learned a hell of a lot, and the next time it will be even better. So it's kind of win-win-win.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, and it comes with it comes with time and experience, and I think like so. Now one of our filmmakers will go out to film an event shoot, and if you tell them it's an event promo, here's the running order, they it's like filing paperwork for them because they've done it so many times. But it's like so you know, you get you you go through the running order and you go, right, okay, I need shots of this, shots of this, shots of this, and you just follow it like a structure. But at the end of the day, events are weird things because they're like encapsulated chaos. It's like they're great projects because they're isolated, they've happened, you can't do it again. So that's it's a bit like you know how some people at school would prefer exams to coursework because you just go in, get it over with, and go home. What the hell? It started hailing.

SPEAKER_02

Yes, we uh pause this transmission to look aghast outside as hell drops.

SPEAKER_00

But like it was sunny about ten minutes ago. Anyway, what the hell?

SPEAKER_02

It's March in the UK. This happens.

SPEAKER_00

I don't have any windscreen wash. Anyway, so so events, they're mad little things, and you just feel like and there's a thing that a terminology that we have in our business that is a very real thing, and you've probably experienced it now, which is called, and I've described it to you before, shoot tired, which is a different kind of tired. It's where your brain is so mentally turned on and wired from just being switched on for like eight hours, but your body is so exhausted you could just lie on the floor, and you really want fast food. That's shoot tired.

SPEAKER_02

It was so it was so true. So I I got I got that I got there at half past four. Um, I didn't hadn't been given any expectation as to how long it should have gone on, and I was thinking half ten eleven. No. Um one in the morning. We we managed to know James and I, because I met a nice and I met a nice colleague called James, videographer. Um, we were both escaping and having a little 15-minute break downstairs near the green room where the rest of the volunteers had completely eaten everything, and we just managed a small coffee each. Um, but it was when everybody was eating, and one, I'm not gonna take pictures of people eating because nobody wants that. That's glamorous. And I'd already walked around for half an hour just trying to take sly shots of people at the tables, and I thought, well, there's nothing else to do, so I'm gonna have a break. Um so we were talking there, had a little break, but other than that, yeah, I was until quarter to twelve, I was on my feet. You know, I never sat down the whole time. And I got out and I was starving because the the food smelt so good, but obviously there was none for us. You're not allowed to touch it. That beef was oh lovely. Anyway, um so you know, walk down, get a chicken cottage because it was delicious, get home, realize I'm still unable to just go into bed.

SPEAKER_00

But you feel physically exhausted. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

So you know, it was half past one when I thought, okay, I've sat down, had a cup of tea, I've de-stressed, I've I've de kind of you know fizzed a little. Um, I'll go to bed. And then I was up at like five six o'clock, so I had four hours sleep that morning.

SPEAKER_00

And you have experienced what we call shoot tired, which is a very different kind of tired. It is literally so every single time we all do an event, you have that weird, buzzy head feeling where you're like, oh my god, my brain is so switched on because I'm so turned on to listen to everything and anything. At any point, I have to be looking at everything all the time, and then your body's like, I just want to go to bed, and your feet hurt, and you just want to stuff your face with McDonald's, and then you just lie in bed in the darkness waiting for your brain to switch off.

SPEAKER_02

So I walk a lot, I do a lot of hiking, I do all sorts of things, you know. I've had a bit of a quiet winter and stuff, but I'm still relatively active. Eight and a half hours on your feet not doing anything, my thighs the next day. They were s my legs were sore for two days.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Why do you think during our event season, which is the height of summer for us, all of our filmmakers and me and my dad are all exhausted all the time. It's because it's and then the next day you have that feeling of jet lag, you have that feeling of slight sluggishness, and you've got to go again.

SPEAKER_02

For me, I I got four hours sleep that night. I was up again at half five because my head was sitting there thinking, oh, I need to start editing that.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, it's because your brain hasn't switched off.

SPEAKER_02

So and I knew I couldn't. So no, I was there at six o'clock in the morning downloading, I was I was I was culling 1,500 photos down to 700 at 6 o'clock the next morning, and I I spent the weekend on and off culling them, editing them and getting them ready. So by the end of the weekend it was done. Realistically, when this becomes something more regular, or if it becomes a part of a regular workflow and it's an actual something that I'm not doing for free because it was you wait till events season. Because it was a it was a charity do, it was free, it was an opportunity. Um, you know, and it's and you know, as a freebie, it's worked very well because I meant I got to know a number of people. It's a marketing investment, isn't it? Absolutely, it's worked really well. But you know, I need I'm also conscious that if I'm doing that all week, I need to be able to switch off on a weekend or switch off for a couple of days, but my head is such that I know if I I I wouldn't be able to relax on a Saturday and Sunday knowing that I had 1,500 photos to look at on the Monday. If I wasn't doing anything on the weekend, I'd start doing the work.

SPEAKER_00

But this is where this is why you see someone like me who is very bad at organising myself, but also really good in the sense that I actively allot time where I have to literally switch my brain off. So like I think I end up in like a a r a relaxation debt, effectively. So if if like I am work so for example, I was working this Sunday, like well Sunday that's just been, and I did what half eight till half four. Um that to me is like a full it's obviously a full day's work, and then I'm effectively because that's a Sunday that I'd normally be off, I obviously can't just like have a day off for fun. I have to like earn that time back. So today I didn't come into work till like 11, so that's a couple of hours, and then the week then you know next Sunday I'll probably make that time back, and then you know, I like I you have to kind of be strategic with your time and claim it back, otherwise you just end up working all the time. So that's kind of so the way I see it is that I'm owed time because that would have been a day I'd be off. Because and I know uh as a self-employed or as a business owner, you've got to be like the person who's like working all the time and hustling all the time, but that's not me at all. I like a weekend.

SPEAKER_02

No, I think I I I agree. I think it's always about a balance at the same time. What I will always struggle with, I think, is if I know I've got something that needs done, or I know I've got something I've got planned in to actually work and edit and deliver, it's more if it's a deliverable something. If it's something for myself, I can put it off. It's fine. If it's something I'm doing for someone, I prefer to get it done as quickly as possible. Oh yeah. So if it's a choice of, you know, if we're if I if I'm gonna go out somewhere, I go out for a nice meal, then yeah, I'll forget the whole thing. I'll go out and I'll enjoy it. If I'm going out for a nice lunch with Jane and we have coffees and cake and all of that, absolutely I'm I'm I'm in.

SPEAKER_00

Otherwise it's hanging over you.

SPEAKER_02

If it's just sitting watching telly, yeah, I mean I'm gonna go and do something.

SPEAKER_00

But then this is where the power of the deadline comes in. Now I've never ever missed a deadline. And how old media, how studios never, ever missed a deadline, ever. But I you also get used to understanding how much time you actually commit to certain things, so it's like if I know an edit will take me realistically three hours and the deadline's in a week, I'll be like, I can gladly sit on that and just watch telly and relax and switch my brain off. But there is a thing that some events and some things we do want their content the same day or the next day. I have worked on weddings in the past where the bride and groom have wanted the wedding video at the end of the night to watch with their guests. So, what I mean is is that like in terms of turnaround, some things are more realistic if it's to sell an event for the next year or if it's whatever.

SPEAKER_02

But sometimes that's my phone. I need to take this.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, take it, take it. Was that it there?

SPEAKER_02

No, that wasn't it. So it was supposed to have a drive shaft replaced. So it I I've already paid for the drive ship. I know, I know, I'm leaning back. Um I've already paid for the drive shaft. Uh it turns out the drive shaft they got didn't fit or it wasn't the right one. So because he's an old school mechanic, what he's done is he's basically just rebuilt the entire CV boot instead of it, which means he now owes me £97. So I'm gonna go tomorrow, pick my car up, and get my book. An honest mechanic. I paid him £250 for the part.

SPEAKER_00

Men have such a different experience in mechanics. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_02

He's wonderful.

SPEAKER_00

He's a brilliant mechanic. I need to take my car there because people mechanics see a 30-something young woman appear with a car that yes, she only bought it because she liked the colour, and see just a walking bag of money.

SPEAKER_02

To be fair, this guy I think has been doing this for 40 years.

SPEAKER_00

Right. I need to take my car to this guy, whoever he is, sign me up.

SPEAKER_02

He's cash only. Even better. Right. Um just works works in works in Pensha. Um, but yeah, he he he does everything and he's honest with you.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I'm I need to go there because I I get shafted easily every single time because I I had I'm not gonna say which garage, but or slash dealership. But if you know what car I drive, you know which one I'm talking about. Is that when I took my car there for an MOT slash service, they did that thing where they did like a video of everything that was wrong with my car, like everything, like as if it's literally like falling apart. It's only four years old, five years old.

SPEAKER_02

It's a French lemon though, so you know.

SPEAKER_00

But bear with me here because bearing in mind it was three years old when I bought it, and they were telling me it's the best car, it'll last forever, it'll do this, it's you know, it's it's amazing, it's blah blah blah. Two years later, they're telling me it's basically falling to pieces, and I said, Well, technically, you're the brand that my car is. Two years ago you're telling me his car is gonna last forever and it's amazing. Why are you telling me now it's falling apart? Is it because it's being MOT'd and I need to pay for things that don't exist? Because we are French. But, but and she said, Well, to be honest, cars do tend to fall apart and tend to show signs of wear after five years. And I was like, I had a car that was 17 years old as my first car, and it was fantastic. But anyway, what I was saying was is that they sent a video showing everything that was wrong with the car, and I'd have to pay thousands to get loads fixed. And I was and they were like, Oh, it's gonna be bad. So then I sent the video to my dad, who is an amateur mechanic at this point, who actually watched it and went, That's not that's not right. That's not that part of the car that they're referring to. That doesn't even exist on your car. And they literally were just showing me this video saying that all these things have corroded, that I needed a new fan belt or cam belt, and it's only done like 45,000 miles and stuff, and there's lots of really I and I was royally being screwed over. So that's shocking. It's awful. Like they they quoted me three and a half grand to change basically everything in my car, things that didn't even need replacing, and then had the audacity to when I came in and paid 900 pounds for things that I actually needed. Everything that was an advisory they told me I should get there and then. And I was like, and they were trying to scam me. So, in terms of garages, I have had my fingers burned quite a few times.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, don't go to dealer garages. Never go to a dealer's garage.

SPEAKER_00

No, I know, and everyone said that. Why did you go to a dealer garage? And I was like, 'cause it's down the road, and I'd think that they'd actually But they'd charge you twice as much. But they'd actually care about the cars because they're their brand? Apparently not. So yeah, cars are me, not friends.

SPEAKER_02

But it does raise an interesting point about honesty and how important honesty is in business or or or not in some industries in some cases.

SPEAKER_00

And you I think I think some have a notorious slime ball element to them though.

SPEAKER_02

I think they do. I I I I I think sometimes deservedly, and sometimes maybe not quite so deservedly. Uh I think sales has a terrible reputation.

SPEAKER_00

Mm-hmm. Anything sales related.

SPEAKER_02

They do.

SPEAKER_00

Housing, estate agents letting agents have a terrible reputation. Some for good reason. Um lawyers, accountants, anyone who basically focuses on money.

SPEAKER_02

Do you not think though that like a lot of things, there's a small minority absolutely tarnishing a majority of people that are actually relatively decent and they're good and they're honest and you know, they're fair.

SPEAKER_00

I think in this day and age it's because well, because of the rise of automation and AI and everyone's using that as like the buzzword, but because basically a lot more is achievable without needing a professional at your doorstep in person, the y you either have to go one of two ways. You either have to get more honest or more dishonest. Because because of the rise of all this technology where you could effectively just scoot around it and do it yourself, but you have to either double down on the snake oil or you just have to go, yeah, of course you could do it yourself, go for it. And I think or this is if you were gonna work with me, this is the benefit. And I think it's gonna be more benefit focused if you're honest, rather than obviously people telling you that this is literally like the end of the world if you don't buy this product. It goes one extreme or the other. And that's what that's my belief, anyway. That's making people either m even more scammy or even more honest.

SPEAKER_02

So we were having a discussion just yesterday uh about sales to a point, and I think you were telling me about what it was like being a pregnant single mother and seeing what was being advertised to you and how it was being advertised. And that was that was shocking. I was I was actually I went home last night and I was just thinking about that, thinking that is absolutely reprehensible.

SPEAKER_00

It's horrendous. And to provide context, it's basically that when I was pregnant, as soon as I basically found out that I was, I was being marketed to in such a way where you are effectively incredibly vulnerable when you're in that position, and the people who are selling products to you as a pregnant person for the for a baby or for you is very much driven on obviously you need this, not that you want it, but when you don't know what to do with a baby, you think you need everything, and they've massively prey on that. Like I'd need all this stuff, otherwise, and then you get the threats on top of it, otherwise, you won't your baby won't develop properly. You're gonna fail as a mother, mother, basically.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, it's the threat and the fear element, I think, that was shocking for me. It was the whole, you know, you need this, because if you don't, your baby's gonna be deformed. Your baby's gonna become it's gonna be stupid. It's gonna be Hitler. Yeah, exactly. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, no, it is. If you don't buy this press pump, your child will become Stalin.

SPEAKER_02

If you let your baby lie and it's back for more than three minutes without moving it, you are basically never going to leave it. It's gonna be within your house now until you're 50.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, and it's like, you know, you go to then you go to like mother and baby classes, or you go to like a shop where they're selling something, and then I would be there with Esme in the Pram just walking along, and someone would be like, What? You don't practice 10 minutes of tummy time every three hours? And I'd be like, No, yeah, but like what? Or like what you don't use this particular brand of cream for your baby's cradle cap? Like, no. Alex And then you just but then you'd feel like a total flipping failure because you'd be like, Well, no, but she's alive and she's happy. What you mean, that smiley, gurgly baby over there that's having a great time playing with that box? You're telling me that she's messed up because I haven't got this particular bumbo.

SPEAKER_02

What? But it's it's crazy because 95% of all of the things you're talking about didn't exist 70, 80 years ago.

SPEAKER_00

No, or even like seven years ago in some respects. Like you can buy all sorts of crazy products that literally like are designed to basically because obviously there's a lot of working mothers now, there's a lot of need the need to go back to work is bigger than ever. A lot of products are designed with the solution in mind that basically does a lot for you while you're doing other things. But Esme with a baby that basically effectively, like all babies, just wanted to be attached to me for about a year, so she just wanted to be. On my face, in my face, on my body, here for all this time. And every product is designed to create a separation or like do other things while you know you're because like I would be sat Esme would only fall asleep with me holding her for about a year. So I would have to spend an hour, two hours a day, often sitting holding a baby in silence.

SPEAKER_02

See, I've always liked those giant straps you see women and and men wearing, you know, they're just the slings where they're just they've literally just tied their baby. It's too though so flipping complicated. But once they're there, they'll just crack on with their life. It's do what I want. I just have a baby here.

SPEAKER_00

No, they don't. I got one of those. I bought into it. Really? It's a lie.

SPEAKER_02

You can't do anything.

SPEAKER_00

No, I bought into it, right?

SPEAKER_02

I mean, I could understand on the front, whipping around the back, you can make tea and stuff.

SPEAKER_00

I'm gonna get a dolly and I'm gonna bring that sling in and you're gonna see what it's like. Because literally, when it arrives, I'm not joking, it is about 40 feet of elasticated fabric, right? And then there's like a you know when you watch people learning how to tie a tie.

SPEAKER_02

Can I just say there are there's that there are literally hundreds of millions of Indian women who wear wonderful soris. It's amazing. It's amazing. They're just listening to this thinking, what?

SPEAKER_00

What's this simple? Well, basically, you follow this tutorial, right, where you're like wrapping it around you and around your neck, and like you tie it and all this stuff, and then you've got this little like pouch. And then the thing that got me is the fact that you're practicing your handiwork with a literal human baby. So, like, I would have tied this thing and put it on and whatever, and put a newborn baby just falls out, and you can't practice with a doll because babies wriggle, they move and they get comfy and they're heavy in places, and they stretch and they kick, and you have got this elasticated thing wrapped around you. And I put Esme in there, and she's like literally motorboating me, like squished, and then she's like pressed up against my boobs like it, and like and like it's trying to move, and I'm trying to do things, and she's crying, and I'm like, Oh, this is just awful.

SPEAKER_02

That's interesting because I've always looked at them, and I thought that I've always been of the view and the opinion and the thought that the baby insertion element is hard, it's really hard. It happens halfway through. I thought that you were you were half slung, then you place the baby, then you carried on doing the sling, so it was nice and secure.

SPEAKER_00

You do the whole thing, you tie it, you wrap it around you, you make like a season's a bit reductive. You literally, and I'm not joking, I will bring it in if I find it, and or maybe I sold it. I literally I put it on, put Esme in it, I'll send you a picture. And she is literally squished, like I was trying to put her back inside me. She is squished against me. And it's great for certain babies that just sleep a lot, that are pretty calm. If you have a baby like I did, which is Esme, who was effectively was a lunatic, like didn't stop moving, and she still doesn't. Like, if I put her anywhere where she had to just sit, she hated it. And it's a bit like me, really, but like like to the point where when I had her and she was like 10 minutes old, they they put you on they put the baby on your chest for like skin to skin or whatever. Because it's meant it's called the golden hour. You're meant to sit, basically, completely knackers out naked with a baby on you and just like cradle them and get that all the hormones and whatever, right? So I was like holding her and cradling her, and like she literally, I'm not joking, less than 15 minutes old, was climbing off me.

SPEAKER_02

Like straight your mum. I'm going hands.

SPEAKER_00

It was like she literally had been in my life for 10 minutes, and I was holding her, thinking, oh nice cuddly golden hour. Her little tiny feet were on my hand, and she was pushing herself up and off my shoulder, and I was like, fucking stay there. And I spent the whole golden hour wrestling with a newborn baby, and then I knew at that point all the things that I bought, all the fads, all the things on social media that I had been sold to, it all went straight out the window. I was told I would get through childbirth with a lavender room spray and some fairy lights. It wasn't, it was an elephant-sized injection of anesthetic. So yeah, ran over.

SPEAKER_02

No, I mean it's it's also the longest we'll ever talk about babies on this podcast. It is.

SPEAKER_00

And um, yeah, and it's funny because literally I can't remember the first year of her life basically because all of it was such a flippin' blur because you're meant to record everything, you're meant to note everything down, you're meant to know everything all the time. And I was obviously running a business at the same time, and I'd go to like appointments or I'd go to like baby classes, I'd go talk to other mums, and they'd be like, Oh, what age did she get her first tooth? What age did she do this? Oh, is she is she on sugar yet? Is she off sugar yet? Is she doing this yet? And I'd be like, I don't know. I think so. She's like sucking on a Freddo. I'm like, she's not on sugar yet.

SPEAKER_02

I do like these conversations because they always they always just cement in my mind the decision that I made that was correct.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, it's a good decision. Madness. It's all madness, and you just it's it does something to you and it's crazy. But yeah, that was uh that was that that's that's children for you.

SPEAKER_02

That is children. But you know, you were you were talking about the whole you know the the golden hour and all of this. There's there's there's so much information, misinformation, twisted information out there for you. But it's it's it's everywhere. It's like you said, everyone's trying to sell things. It's like the event we went to yesterday with the scent. And there was these wonderful people there showing us a wonderful Apex scent, whatever it was, and it was all really nice. But I'm not a perfume kind of guy. So they're talking about how this perfume has frankincense in, and that will ground you because it's a 2,000-year-old thing. And it's got pineapple, which is which is means you're going to be successful in all of these things. But but and I and and and that's great, and that's fine. It's up there with like, you know, crystals, manifestation, all of these different things. They they all have their place, and it's all fine. But I don't believe it. Which means it just washes over me. Because the the funniest thing yesterday was they they everyone had a little smell, and we're all smelling it. There's eight of us in a room, and the two ladies, and one of them was sitting there with a big description she's talking about, and she says, So what do you think of it? And there's silence, and it got a bit awkward, so I thought I'd better say something.

SPEAKER_00

You're not the play-doh guy, are you?

SPEAKER_02

No, I just sat there and said it's uh it's it's very pleasant.

SPEAKER_00

That's diplomatic.

SPEAKER_02

It got better, it got better, and and and there was still silence, so I thought, well, I'm not very much of a scent guy, but you know, I if somebody was wearing this in a room and I walked in and I smelt it, I I wouldn't sit there and go, Go, God, Jesus. I'd just think, oh no, that's quite nice and pleasant.

SPEAKER_00

I think no, because apparently one guy in it sprayed it on his hand and went, just smells like play-doh. And my dad came out and went, bit cheap. But like what I mean is is that no, and this goes into the sensory overload I was talking about earlier. But it was loud, it was hot, it was noisy, it was amazing, it was a brilliant event. But at the same time, I was like sensorally overwhelmed, and then on top of that, everyone smelt the same. Like there was like a cloud of perfume that everyone had sampled, so everyone had the same smell, and I was like, this is just overwhelming.

SPEAKER_02

But the subtext was that if you wore this fragrance, you would be successful. It was it? And I'm like, hang on, no, you no.

SPEAKER_00

I didn't get that talk.

SPEAKER_02

If you wear that scent, you'll just smell of that scent. You know, it's it's it's this whole thing of if if you believe something will happen and just sit and do nothing, it'll happen. No, it won't. If you believe something. If you believe something, yeah, I absolutely agree with the believing in things and manifesting things. If you want to if you if you believe something is going to happen, something should happen, you want something to happen, you believe in it, and you work to achieve it because you're motivated because you believe it, then you're gonna get there. If on the other hand you sit back and go, I believe I'm gonna get a KFC bucket today, and then you sit back, you're not gonna get a KFC bucket. It's not gonna happen.

SPEAKER_00

I just want a KFC bucket today. I know.

SPEAKER_02

But you know what I mean? It's it's this whole thing it's when people do it wrongly. And sense, I don't get it. I don't understand perfume counters.

SPEAKER_00

It doesn't make sense.

SPEAKER_02

No, oh god.

SPEAKER_00

But no. Talk sense to me.

SPEAKER_02

You know when men make that annual pilgrimage round Christmas time into a large department store, um, we we uh most times you go into a department store from at least one angle and you've got to go through the beauty counters like Phoenix. No, it just smells like an airport. Well, I have to take in a deep breath and just walk through them because I don't want to be inhaling all the different scents. And I never understood why I kind of you put all the perfume counters together, which makes sense because you go to one place for your perfume. Oh, would you give it up?

SPEAKER_00

But at the same time, all the smells merge. Yeah, no, true. But And then and then and then and then we've got the point we've got on go.

SPEAKER_02

Have you had this way? You're walking through and you get the aggressive toutes who just spray you. They just go psst they literally attack you, they attack you with perfume.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, no, I don't sit and go they don't do that anymore because of allergies and stuff. I don't think.

SPEAKER_02

Well, I would like to think that after being punched in the face a few times, they don't do it anymore.

SPEAKER_00

Well I I that gets me on to another musing which doesn't have any connection or meaning whatsoever, which is you know when you're in an airport and you're f you're fed through you're like birthed into the airport through the canal of G3. Yeah, basically. And you come out the other side like It's that wonderful canal.

SPEAKER_02

It's that wonderful canal of of perfume, fags, and gin.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, and random like iHeart London teddies and stuff.

SPEAKER_02

They just put Tobler in at the end.

SPEAKER_00

But the the thing that has always, always I've the people I've always wanted to speak to, and I know this sounds weird, is you know when you have a really early or really late flight, basically a red eye, effectively, you know when you go through the duty free and there are people selling Chanel or selling like I don't know, J Lo or Britney Spears or whatever, not them, but the actual perfume, is I've just got an image now of them trying to sell J Lo.

SPEAKER_01

Chanel's just down a stand.

SPEAKER_00

It's 2 a.m. at standstead. No, but it's like 2 a.m., right? And their job is to sell Chanel at 2 in the morning. I want to speak, I want every time I go through the airport and I see these people who are having to sell Marc Jacobs Daisy and it's like half past one in the morning, and I'm like, who it's because time doesn't exist in an airport. But it exists outside an airport. But imagine you've got a night shift, and your night shift is to sell perfume. It's such a weird thing.

SPEAKER_02

I get it, but it doesn't exist in an airport. I know. That's why there are people sitting there at five o'clock in the morning getting a pinting.

SPEAKER_00

I know I can't do that. No. I can't do that. I'm I'm a Burger King before nine kind of girly. But what I will say is it's just it's always fascinated me the fact that when you walk through the duty free, that there are people just dressed like they're it's two o'clock in FedEx, but it's like half past one in the morning and they're selling Chanel number five. I just think it's fascinating.

SPEAKER_02

But there are people buying it as well.

SPEAKER_00

Which is even more fascinating.

SPEAKER_02

Absolutely. It's two in the morning, I'm absolutely like it, but oh, do you know what I could do with some Chanel? And it's because it's duty free.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, that is true.

SPEAKER_02

20% saving.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, what's your favourite thing to do in an airport?

SPEAKER_02

Leave.

SPEAKER_00

Fly away. Literally leave, yeah. No, because I love an airport.

SPEAKER_02

I don't.

SPEAKER_00

I love going like I said, I love um the fact time has no meaning. I love a 10am Burger King. A whopper before 10.

SPEAKER_02

That you need to take a mortgage out for.

SPEAKER_00

Yes, but it's all part of the experience. No, it's not. And then buying a bunch of magazines that I would never normally read, like a 1099 Cosmo, and then getting on a plane and realizing I've got too many things to carry.

SPEAKER_02

Have you ever gone to a business class lounge, the waiting lounges?

SPEAKER_00

No, but I know people who have and I'm jealous.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, it's it's an experience because we did it for our honeymoon. I'm gonna sneeze. Um, bless you. And now you won't. Oh. Oh, there you go, see. Absolutely. We've stopped it. Now it's just suddenly gonna come out of nowhere.

SPEAKER_00

Now it's just like I've got tiny tickolours in my nose.

SPEAKER_02

We're in Heathrow. We go into the business class lounge because we bought a business class ticket because it's our honeymoon. Very nice, very nice. Yeah, I mean, bear in mind our business class ticket basically meant that we were in business class on a plane that didn't have actually a business class section. They just had another set of economies, but you you didn't have somebody in the middle seat, you had a table.

SPEAKER_00

You paid for the sucker ticket.

SPEAKER_02

And we got champagne. But anyway, we're in the lounge, and you go in the lounge and there's a buffet, and you just help yourself to food, which is great. There are kids, that was annoying, but there's also just bars. Help yourself bars. So you have to understand that that it's just fridges of beers, optics, uh, sorry, bottles of spirits, you just help yourself to, wines you just help yourself to, and there's nobody watching it.

SPEAKER_00

Wow.

SPEAKER_02

So you've got children and teens in here who can help themselves to whatever they want from the bar.

SPEAKER_00

That is nuts.

SPEAKER_02

If they've got parents who don't give a crap.

SPEAKER_00

Oh my god. And no one's policing it. That reminds me so much of Ocean Village.

SPEAKER_02

Literally a free-for-all.

SPEAKER_00

I love that because that basically when I was and I know I'll we'll talk about our actual podcast eventually, but when I was seven.

SPEAKER_02

Well, we've been going 14 minutes.

SPEAKER_00

Well no, you had a call. When I was when I was seven and my brother was twelve, my parents took us on a cruise for a week called Ocean Village. And if you were around at the time, about sort of two thousand early two thousands, it was basically butlins on the sea. Um, and it y you've gotta it it's butlands, but you're even more captured. Gotta Google it. Like, seriously, Ocean Village was it it was mental. It was the wildest seven days of my life, one of. And then so basically, when you got on the cruise, it was like a cashless system. So every passenger got a card, basically like a credit card, it looked like a credit card with your name on. So me age seven and my brother age twelve got one as well. And what you do is you basically, every time you want a drink or food or anything, you just literally, me or Tom or my mum and dad would just go up to the bar and order whatever we wanted, right? And literally and I and I mean literally anytime you wanted to go anywhere. There was food, there was bars, it was everything. And me and Tom were literally like with our cards going mental just for fun. And then at the end of the end of the cruise, they slide a bill under the door, and it was like over £700 of just me and Tom buying JT Wo's and Coca-Cola's, literally, like, because each one was about like £3.50.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, and how how did your parents react?

SPEAKER_00

I think my dad sort of cried. I think a slow tear rolled down his face and he paid it. But it's just so funny that the whole week you just forget the concept of money, you forget the concept of my parents. Well, just saying to me and Tom, Oh, yeah, you go off and go buy your JTO's. No, no, like they were the enablers. And like it got to like my dad got so drunk, my mum and dad got so drunk they both went up the stairs back to our cabin on their hands and knees. My dad accidentally walked into the ladies' loos, he was that pissed. Like um, my brother didn't leave the cabin and watch the webcam from the bunk all whole a whole week. I went to a weird kids' club where they had like giant chess. My brother, like, we there was there was a there was a performance from this like dance troupe, which was like a nighttime one. And they announced it was called moon, but they announced it by going, everybody moon.

SPEAKER_01

Okay, that's that's funny now, but as a seven-year-old.

SPEAKER_00

My dad and my mum and my brother were literally all wetting ourselves, and there was this like elaborate moon performance. So, yeah.

SPEAKER_02

And nobody was pulling their pants down.

SPEAKER_00

You need to look up Ocean Village because it was the maddest seven days ever. But yeah, money had no meaning, and we were just blipping our cards like it was like a fairy wand and just getting whatever we wanted at any point. It was the best, and I didn't have any responsibility for it.

SPEAKER_02

The reality bites at the end.

SPEAKER_00

Exactly. And then we realise we're bankrupt. But um, but yeah, so you're thriving. You haven't asked me.

SPEAKER_02

Well, we didn't even get round to it. How many? Are you thriving or surviving? We may have to cut a lot of that out.

SPEAKER_00

All of your bits.

SPEAKER_02

Well, I mean, to be fair, we don't think we're planning on editing any of these.

SPEAKER_00

So um I this week I am thriving. Ooh, excellent.

SPEAKER_02

Why?

SPEAKER_00

Because I am, all right at the end. Um because I uh even though I have had obstacles thrown at me this week, I have gotten over them and I have been more active with my self-care.

SPEAKER_02

Physical or mental?

SPEAKER_00

Both. I have been every single night making sure I do my skincare routine, which I'm practicing at the minute, of like using like a soap and then washing it off, and then putting serum on and toner and moisturizer and eye patches. I'm doing all of that. I'm reading loads, I'm reading a lot. I'm taking Esme to the library tomorrow to get more books. I um So what book are you reading? Uh I've just finished Behind These Doors by Alex South, all about UK prisons. It was very interesting. Um, but I read a lot. I've completed nine books this year already. So I've been doing a lot of reading. I've been I've taken some time off this morning and went shopping by myself in the Metro Centre and went and bought Do you want to tell the listers what you bought? I went and bought things I needed and then realized I was an 87-year-old woman because I I may have bought a new nighty and some night cream and some new uh eye patches. And I felt quite good about myself.

SPEAKER_02

And your cause wasn't helped at all when an hour and a half ago you offered me a word as original.

SPEAKER_00

I put a scotch candy from my purse. So I am 87, alright? Leave me alone. I am an old child.

SPEAKER_02

You're worthless, young man.

SPEAKER_00

It's called Grandma Core. Look it up. Um so yeah, so even though I've had a not a stressful week, but a week that would normally make me feel very, very, very, very stressed. I feel like I'm working hard to overcome it. Well, don't you? So that's me. That was you. We're both thriving. Next week, do you think you'll be thriving or surviving?

SPEAKER_02

Um, I think I will continue to be thriving.

SPEAKER_00

I think I will be surviving.

SPEAKER_02

No, no. Okay, you will be thriving.

SPEAKER_00

I think I will be surviving.

SPEAKER_02

No, you you you've gotta say you're gonna be thriving. If you think next week you're gonna be surviving, you're putting yourself in a negative mindset. Oh my god, I've turned into one of them.

SPEAKER_00

It's easy. Manifest! Manifest! No, it is Easter, and I'm looking forward to that, and I hope to get a lot of eggs from the Easter bunny, which is, you know.

unknown

Not real.

SPEAKER_00

No. That is not true.

SPEAKER_02

And with that, you think there's a giant bunny that comes along and gives you chocolate eggs.

SPEAKER_00

I told Esme about him and I and she said, Mummy, can the Easter bunny bring me a TV? I was like, that's not gonna be a big egg.

SPEAKER_02

Kids these things.

SPEAKER_00

I was like, whoa.

SPEAKER_02

Do you think you need to get the that the kinder deluxe range? Yeah, it's not plastic. It's got a deluxe range. They're not plastic toys. They just come with like, you know, TVs and scooters.

SPEAKER_00

In a massive yellow pod with a huge egg. Sponsored by Hyset. No, no, I I I've I've basically steered her more towards the Freddo range.

SPEAKER_02

In the Tupreese. Support the trees for dinosaurs.

SPEAKER_00

The Easter Buddy is literally just like dragging this giant egg. Find this bridge. Right, the end.

SPEAKER_03

It's a good thing we only do this for ourselves.