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What do you do when someone asks if you liked something and the honest answer is "it's just not for me"? Simon and Lee explore how taste works – how it forms, how it shifts depending on who's in the room, and why saying something is "shit" is often just laziness dressed up as confidence. Along the way: sharks on planes, Pina Bausch via Tilda Swinton, Coldplay's complicated legacy, and a standing ovation nobody stood for.

Mentioned

- "Thrash" -- shark/hurricane disaster film; Lee watched it on a plane back from Lisbon, wriggling in his seat
- Glen Powell -- actor; appears in the romcom "Set It Up"
- Zoe Deutch -- actor (Lea Thompson's daughter); co-stars in "Set It Up"
- "Set It Up" (2018) -- romcom Simon watched for distraction, possibly a rewatch
- Peter Jackson's Beatles documentary "Get Back" -- referenced as an 8-hour documentary
- Akram Khan -- British-Bangladeshi choreographer; front-row sweat anecdotes, early career shows
- Coldplay -- band; discussed at length re: cool, taste, and politics
- Chris Martin -- Coldplay frontman; known for writing political slogans on his hands
- Snow Patrol -- band; used as a cool/uncool comparison with Coldplay
- Radiohead -- band; controversy over performing in Israel
- Nick Cave -- musician; mentioned alongside Radiohead re: Israel performances
- Wim Wenders -- German film director; made the Pina Bausch documentary "Pina"
- "Pina" (2011, dir. Wim Wenders) -- documentary about Pina Bausch; Lee found it very boring
- Pina Bausch -- German expressionist choreographer; subject of the Wenders documentary
- "Cafe Muller" -- famous Pina Bausch dance-theatre piece
- "Suspiria" (2018) -- Tilda Swinton plays a Pina Bausch-like character; Lee's recommended alternative to the documentary
- Tilda Swinton -- actor; plays the Pina Bausch character in Suspiria
- Diana Nipsa -- choreographer; created "Hornfuckers," seen by Lee and Bob in Lisbon
- "Hornfuckers" -- dance piece by Diana Nipsa; front-row experience, disputed standing ovation
- "Jay Kelly" -- George Clooney ensemble film about acting and its absurdities; Simon watched it with his sister and niece
- George Clooney -- actor/director; made "Jay Kelly"

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

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A chance remark in a New York bar in 1991 — "you're an idealist" — lands differently than expected. Simon and Lee trace that moment through the topsy-turviness of political labels, from Antifa on a Lisbon rooftop to the day idealism became an insult. Along the way: growing up under IRA bombs and Cold War dread, algorithmically sorted fear, and whether a badly-timed fart rules out the simulation.

Mentioned

- Wall Street (1987, dir. Oliver Stone) — discussed as cautionary tale vs celebration of greed; Gordon Gekko, Michael Douglas, Charlie Sheen
- Platoon (Oliver Stone)
- Born on the 4th of July (Oliver Stone)
- Supergirl (film, trailer) — discussed; CGI dog face controversy
- John Wick — mentioned in comparison to Supergirl's dog-in-peril setup
- Good Boy (horror film) — cited for a dog considered an excellent actor
- Stonewall — NYC bar and landmark; site of the 1969 uprising
- Marsha P. Johnson — activist; cited for throwing the first brick at Stonewall, pivotal for US gay rights
- Antifa — political movement; discussed in context of linguistic and political inversion
- Trump — mentioned in context of Antifa during his first term
- Jillian — babysitter from childhood story; spent her savings on a Vidal Sassoon haircut
- Vidal Sassoon — hairdresser, mentioned in Jillian story
- IRA — cited in context of childhood anxiety and mainland Britain bombings
- Chernobyl — cited as example of proximate vs remote political anxiety (New Zealand vs UK)
- BBC — cited for one-sided reporting on the IRA
- Jeffrey Miller — the dog

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

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Simon finds himself crying for multiple things at once. Lee reflects on being largely inoculated from grief since childhood, always the supporter, never quite allowed his own response. An honest conversation about mortality, what we carry, and Swedish death cleaning.

Mentions

• Touch by Ashley Montague — cited for the observation that "touch" has the longest entry in the Oxford English Dictionary, longer even than "love"
• Concentric circles of grief — diagram showing inner/outer circles for determining who gives support vs. who can express grief outward; discussed in context of knowing your place in someone else's bereavement
• Swedish death cleaning — practice of clearing possessions before death so loved ones aren't burdened with sorting them; Lee's mum has done this, including getting rid of 400 books
• 2012 Olympics — mentioned as a turning point when arts funding was redirected and a number of mid-scale venues closed, contributing to the decline of the UK live arts scene ahead of Brexit

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

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Lee and Simon move from the absurd grind of international transit and the ways money buys freedom from friction into a sharper reflection on systems, meritocracy and the stories we tell about fairness. The episode lands somewhere quieter and more human, with transhumanism and techno-hope set against goodbye, touch, family and the fragile consolation of ordinary love.

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

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Lee and Simon reflect on certainty, persuasion and the strange dead-end of “that’s just a fact,” moving from Louis Theroux’s Inside the Manosphere to questions of shininess, inherited politics and why some surfaces feel impossible to trust. They then swing into a wedding report from Lake Wānaka, where being firmly in the oldies camp still ends with a dance-off, a Virginian falsetto and the instruction to dance like you’ve got no hair.

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

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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)

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Lee and Simon reflect on waking up feeling anxious amid talk of global conflict, distance from home, and the strange experience of feeling both safe and unsettled while travelling. The conversation moves between geopolitical dread and everyday life – trousers, weddings, beauty and awe – arriving at a fragile commitment to grace, kindness and continuing on anyway.

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

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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)

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Lee and Simon find themselves time-travelling: through a tennis racket that returns a 57-year-old body to its 15-year-old instincts (apart from the inconvenient eyes), and through faces from 1980s school corridors flickering inside present-day skin. They circle the pleasure and awkwardness of reunion – what it means to want connection, to resist it, and to recognise the same gesture surviving four decades.

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

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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)

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Lee and Simon explore Simon’s return to New Zealand and the deep, embodied sense of “home” he feels there, distinct from the buildings or habits that mark belonging elsewhere. They circle the gradations of alienness across places – London, Lisbon, Italy, the US – and reflect on privilege, inequality, and the uneasy freedom to move between worlds.

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

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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)