This Is Not A Frivolous Royal Story & Why Your Life Is Chaos Right Now

0:03 Hello and welcome to Mamma Mia Out Loud. It's what women are actually talking about on Monday the 26th of October. I'm Holly Wainwright.

0:10 I'm Jessie Stephens.

0:11 And I'm Amelia Lester.

0:13 And here's what's on our agenda for today.

0:16 The fascination with Harry, Meghan and family estrangement has taken a very dark turn.

0:21 Plus the accessory making a very unlikely return.

0:25 And if you feel like you're at a big decision point in your life, you are not alone. And there is a reason why everyone is feeling this way right now.

0:34 But first, this is not a titillating royal story. This is not more fun, slightly snippy Harry.

0:41 And Meghan gossip.

0:42 This is actually a story about a shocking and sad allegation against the father of a very famous woman. And because that woman is Meghan Markle, who, yes, we talk about on this podcast a lot, She is one of the most discussed women in the world. It's also a story about the media and what happens when tabloid frenzy meets family estrangement meets a truly horrific allegation. First of all, I'm going to give you the facts on what's happened.

1:09 Thomas Markle is Meghan Markle's dad. He is 82 years old. He has been a famous person by association since Meghan started dating a prince, right? He was living in LA for a long time. He worked in the film industry, in the TV industry. He was a lighting designer. And so that meant that a lot of this narrative about Megan was like, I grew up on sets because she was an actress, obviously, and she was around that. But her parents divorced when she was two. They split when she was two. So he was never like in her life full time.

1:41 Actually, between the ages of 11 and 18, he was her primary carer.

1:46 And that's why there are lots and lots of images of them together, which I'm going to get to in a minute. So he then moved to Mexico and then to the Philippines. And earlier this year, he moved back to Florida after having a leg amputated. He has had a lot of health problems. Anyway, this past week, the UK Sun newspaper broke a story that Thomas Markle Jr., Megan's half-brother, who's 60 years old, told police that he had found physical boxes and digital hard drives full of child sexual abuse imagery in their shared home in Cebu, the Philippines. He took them to the police. Thomas Markle Jr.

2:23 took them to the police.

2:24 Markle Sr.

2:25 Has denied possessing the child's sexual abuse images, telling the Daily Mail that the accusations were sick lies. But there's now an active investigation into the allegations. No charges have been laid yet, but the information coming out is very disturbing. That's kind of as much as we can say about that, what's happened there. But when it comes to Meghan, it seems that she might have known that this moment was coming.

2:47 She was quick to release a statement when this news broke last week. The statement said, I'm deeply distressed at the news that's come to light in the last 24 hours, and my thoughts are with any children who may have been harmed. In 2018, a letter was sent to the Metropolitan Police and Royalty and Specialist Protection. That letter was subsequently shared with me. It made troubling and disturbing allegations against my father, and I was given assurances that these were being investigated. I hope it can now be understood that despite certain media publications distortion over the years, any distance from my father and my choice not to allow him to have contact with our children was for one reason,

3:27 to protect them. I trusted that the authorities were doing the same for other families. Although the breadth of what has now been uncovered is more sickening than one could ever imagine, my sincerest hope is that justice will be fully served and that the priority remains the safety and protection of innocent children. Meghan said to let 2018 in there.

3:46 Since that statement was released, the Metropolitan Police confirmed the existence of the letter, but say it was 2019. I want to discuss the press's reaction to all this, right? It's worth noting that when Thomas Markle Jr. went to the police station in the Philippines to make the report, he was accompanied by a reporter from the Sun newspaper who filmed the whole thing, documented the whole thing, and they broke that story as an exclusive. It's also worth noting that Thomas Markle Sr., who is in a nursing facility in Florida, is being visited by a reporter from The Mail, who did a two-hour interview with him as soon as this had happened and published a big exclusive in The Mail on Sunday full of sordid details about

4:22 his so-called sex life, as well as, of course, a denial. What this story tells us in part, as well as just how disturbing these allegations are, is how embedded the tabloids are with Meghan's estranged family and how invested they've been for nearly a decade about reporting a very one-sided version of events. Thomas Markle started talking to the press famously just before the wedding. That's why he wasn't there.

4:49 Since then, and this is why, like, as you say, Amelia, there was a period in Meghan's life where she and her dad were really close. And you can find a million pictures on the internet from that era because he has sold Every piece of their life that he could, and so has her half-brother and half-sister, since that ring went on that finger. Prince Harry has never, ever met this man. He spoke to him on the phone once, but they have never been in the same room. And the press have harassed Meghan about that. They've said, what kind of person cuts her family off? Who doesn't talk to her dad? Who doesn't talk to her siblings? This just shows what a monster she is.

5:25 Surely now... They would have egg on their faces.

5:28 We wonder why they hate the press so much. And I just, what you say, I didn't know that, that they basically had members of the tabloid follow them to the police station, not follow them, actually be invited, chaperone them. And I just keep thinking with this story, this is not Thomas Markle looking at pictures of British.

5:51 Landmarks on his phone.

5:53 Computer like what happened before the staged paparazzi shots of him being like having his suit tailored and um you know looking at stories about them on the internet that was cute and funny compared to i mean it was there was a sinister side to it which was just like he was using megan to kind of get this attention and presumably money um this is not that like the tabloids This isn't a story. This is an alleged crime.

6:24 And I just think it's like you've been working with this man who is now alleged to have done these things. The headlines, and this is what is so infuriating about the internet, but also the tabloid press, there will be no, like, mea culpa. There will be no, oh, we take that back, because the headlines have run. Like, there was a big, I was looking at a big front page, I think it was on The Sun, that said, Dad's plea to Meghan, see me one more time before I die. And there's a picture of Thomas Markle Sr. looking so unwell, and Meghan is this fame-hungry, awful daughter who's abandoned her ailing father.

7:01 That narrative had so much purchase, and yet she was cast as this absolute villain.

7:07 Like, you can see why they're so angry.

7:10 And also, I've just been reflecting on my role in consuming and even perpetuating stories around the royal family and around Meghan and Harry. Because just as happened with the Andrew allegations, there's a sense of everything suddenly becoming much darker than we wanted it to be. And we want to look to these people, either the royal family or the people adjacent to the royal family, almost as a distraction, almost as a soap opera in a way. But this event really casts everything in a much darker light. And there's a tendency now to want to look away from it as well.

7:50 And it's real people and it's real lives. And the other element I think is that you can't ever truly know. It's making me think about estrangement and about the complexities of family dynamics and just any judgment that anyone had for Megan, like you can't truly know.

8:09 That's the thing is it's like, you know, family estrangement is big, In the media, it's a big business in a way because it's something that everybody wants to talk about.

8:19 Books have been written about it. Oprah documentaries have been made about it.

8:22 And it's framed as a bit as drama or boundaries.

8:25 It's framed as drama and it's also being framed generationally as sort of a contagion that boundaried young people don't want to, you know, don't want to fulfill their duty, I guess is the thing that is often said in terms of their families. And the thing about what's been going on with Harry and Meghan, and it's interesting because just last week, I can't remember if we actually talked about this, but when Harry has been giving interviews to promote the grief masterclass that we did talk about, he kept saying things about family estrangement and saying this is very common. He kept saying this is really common. It's in everybody's lives. You know, I know people look to my family, he said, and they're like, we'd like them

9:06 to work it out because maybe my family could work it out. This gives so much context that really is none of our business, but it gives so much context to what they've been dealing with. Because in Harry's memoir and in some of the sort of attributed leaks, they said that the palace was so mad about the Markles.

9:27 Because if you're If one of your princes marries someone who's got a problematic family, in inverted commas, who will keep talking to the media, who will turn up on talk shows, who will pose for the Sun photographer for a few hundred bucks or.

9:39 Whatever we're assuming.

9:39 Who will go on Big Brother as her brother did.

9:42 Exactly.

9:43 Then the palace are like, this is messy, this is annoying, this is not what we want. Like, you've married into these common people who will do things for money. One of the reasons why the royals like to keep things in that rarefied world that they.

9:58 Move in is that's not gonna happen. what I mean?

10:00 And even Kate Middleton, who people now hold up as a kind of exemplar of a royal spouse, she had her own very different, and I'm not comparing the nature of the allegations, but her own problematic family member in her Uncle Gary.

10:16 Yes, she famously had an uncle who lived in Ibiza and who was, Let's say colorful. This is on a different level to that. You're so right. And the thing is, is that Harry's camp have sort of said that caused a lot of pressure. The palace keep going on at Harry about Meghan's family caused a lot of pressure and was part of the stuff that pushed them out.

10:36 I actually had a question for you. How does he treat her dad in spare? Does it come up?

10:43 So Thomas Markle, as I remember it, Thomas Markle isn't mentioned specifically in Spare a lot, but what is mentioned a lot is the intense pressure that everybody close to them was under from the media. Because literally as soon as her identity, Meghan's identity, as his girlfriend was revealed, it's almost like... In the Wizard of Oz when you send out the flying monkeys, it's like the tabloid reporters and the paparazzi photographers and everything, go find anyone who knows anything about these people and throw money at them.

11:18 Harry called him complicated. I think that's the quote. That's as far as he went in terms of acknowledging Thomas Markle Sr.

11:27 It's so....

11:29 We also like to think in some ways that the excesses of the tabloid press, particularly the UK tabloid press, are behind us, like the phone tapping stories, the fact that you can't, the money isn't flowing around media in quite the same way that it was once. When I was working in that world at Woman's Day, we would pay unbelievable amounts of money for photographs, for all kinds of things that just don't exist anymore. That level of budget doesn't exist anymore. But what this shows us and the fact that these mainstream tabloid newspapers in Britain are are paying for a guy to be in the Philippines and babysit Thomas Markle Jr., paying for somebody to visit Thomas Markle Sr. in their nursing home every day.

12:05 This compromises the ability to report on the story. I'm sorry to be the kind of like moral lecturer here, but there's a reason why best journalistic practices are not paying for stories. Because if you're accompanying the guy going down to the police station making the allegations, it's compromising his allegations somewhat.

12:23 Of course it is.

12:25 And it's very, when I did work in that world of which I'm not proud, obviously, but it was very often families who were selling stories. It would be a disgruntled sibling. It would be a disgruntled in-law who would be calling someone that they built a relationship with on the news desk and say, they're going to be here or this is happening or she's really upset about that.

12:43 It was often coming from inside the house. And then the effect on that, on the celebrities involved, is an intense level of paranoia, knowing that they can't trust anybody. And in this very involved saga is what Harry and William said happened to their mother, that she was manipulated by certain reporters to do that famous Panorama interview, for example, by them saying, somebody's leaking about you, you need to get your story across. And just... trying to live your life while constantly knowing that people are doing that.

13:16 Like as a human being, how traumatic to even hear those allegations about your father. And of course, the narrative has become, well, if Megan knew, then what did Megan do? And what's important for people to know, I think, is that she heard that allegation. We're not quite clear from who yet, perhaps a family friend, perhaps his ex-wife, something like that. Um, have sent that to her.

13:39 She's seen it.

13:40 She has said that, or, um, reports have suggested that she understood the metropolitan police were looking into it. It wasn't apparently happening in the UK. And her advice was, um, if you want the legal process to take place, you can't make a, we know that she, she had, she couldn't come out and make a statement. And so she was in some ways trying to let the process take place, but then, um, couldn't explain to anyone why she wasn't speaking to him, which must have been immensely frustrating and also just awful having someone that you were once so close to be accused of such horrific crimes.

14:16 Meghan Markle is one of the media's favourite punching bags, of course. She's also heavily promoting her business at the minute, as she has every right to do. I wonder, do we think there's a world where all of the organisations who spend a lot of time criticising her, telling everybody what a terrible person she is, back off.

14:35 No.

14:36 Will this not make them back off?

14:38 I don't think so.

14:39 I think that they will persist with the idea of who she is. We'll see them twist themselves in knots about how this is potentially Megan's fault or what she could have done differently. I think it will just play even more into the narrative that Meghan Markle is chaos and she comes from it.

14:55 I want to be clear in case people are thinking about this and going, but you guys talk about those people all the time. Like you're always talking about Meghan. Like my position on this is that these, they are public people. They definitely are. Prince Harry in particular, of course, has always lived a very high profile life. And I think they both now are living in a world which they have chosen where they need a certain amount of publicity to sell the things they want to do.

15:18 Attention.

15:19 Yes, they need a certain amount of attention to be able to do the things they want to do, whether that is raise awareness for their many charitable causes or whether that's sell products to us like Grief Masterclass and Megan's. I think fading into oblivion is not an option for them.

15:35 Well, this is the thing.

15:36 And Harry addressed this in that GQ interview last week that he did that we talked about where it was basically put to him. People want to know why you guys, if you hate the media so much and you hate the attention so much, why don't you just go away?

15:48 Why don't you stop talking? Why don't you disappear?

15:51 Harry pretty much said, We've tried that.

15:54 It doesn't matter.

15:55 If you don't talk about the press and you don't talk to the press and the stories don't stop. He said there are millions and millions of stories. You've got people writing the story for you, whether you say anything or not. And he's written an enormous selling memoir. She's made TV shows. None of that to say, oh, it's fair game, say whatever you want about those people.

16:17 Of course not.

16:18 But the point is, it's such a difficult line for them to walk of being able to say, we know there's a lot of interest in us. We want to try and manage that as we can. When there's this whole industry, it seems that's just deeply invested in spinning, not just lies, but like really awful, awful lies about them.

16:39 And partly you can't ignore that partly because Harry and Meghan and Harry in particular have always been so outspoken about the press and saying, calling them out and suing them and pointing to it.

16:50 And nobody likes that. The media don't like that.

16:53 So I think it's a really interesting line about some people will say, well, they deserve all the invasion because they're public.

17:01 I just think we're past that.

17:03 If discussion of this really disturbing story has brought up anything for you, we are going to put some resources in the show notes.

17:11 After the break, can you feel the ground shifting under our feet? I think it's happening and the world is facing some big decisions.

17:19 I'll tell you why.

17:21 In case you missed it, Margot Robbie's back starring in Neighbours, sort of. You might have heard about, or you might be consuming them, I don't know if anyone here is, micro dramas.

17:31 Everybody's talking about micro dramas.

17:33 They started in China and then now everyone's trying to get in on it, right? They're short bursts of drama.

17:39 They are.

17:39 They're like sort of, a lot of them are kind of like soap operas, but imagine soap operas told in like 90 second snippets, right? They've been massive around the world and now everybody's trying to jump on them.

17:50 So apparently they've recut even movies and stuff, like Mean Girls has been recut into a microdrama.

17:55 What does that say about our attention span?

17:57 Well, nothing good, Amelia. But it's very clever in terms of juice for squeeze. If you are a production company who happens to have, for example, a very long-running and beloved Australian soap opera in the safe, that has been cancelled. And you think, what could I do with all these years of vision of some of Australia's most famous and celebrated actors performing in a soap opera? I know what, we could turn them into micro dramas. So Neighbours is going to be turned into micro dramas. And the way that at the moment the reports are going is they're going to focus on some of the most famous people who've been on it. So Margot Robbie is the first cab off the rank. It's going to make about 120 hours, apparently,

18:42 of tiny little snippets of Margot Robbie being on Neighbours into a narrative arc that makes a story.

18:49 So are they going to change the story?

18:52 Well, I guess what you do is you probably think about any episode of TV drama. There's usually two or three threads going at any time, right? Narrative threads going in. So like, I can't remember all the dramas on Neighbours because when I was obsessed with Neighbours, it was like the Kylie and Jason days, right? But let's say Kylie and Jason were having a ding dong over here. Secondary storyline, Mrs.

19:14 Mangle was gossiping about somebody. Third line storyline, Stefan Dennis' character was up to no good.

19:19 So we're cutting Mrs.

19:20 Mangle and we're just going all in on the drama.

19:23 And we're just chippy chopping it. Not everybody's happy though.

19:26 A lot of the former Neighbours stars are saying that they've been calling their agents because they're like, hey, if you're going to chop me up, and push me out again, am I going to get paid?

19:37 Do you think Margot Robbie is making one of those phone calls?

19:40 I reckon Margot Robbie is going to come out about this. I think this could be the first time she's learned of it because contractually, and this is what's annoying.

19:47 You mean on out loud, right? Yes, yes.

19:49 She's listening right now.

19:50 Famously in Out Loud. She's like, wait, what? When they signed their contracts, this wasn't a thing that they ever thought would exist in the future. But technically, the production company can do what they want with the footage.

20:04 They've got 40 years of footage.

20:06 And so Margot Robbie, I think, would be horrified to know that they're going to do this because they are going to use that image and that storyline in a completely different context.

20:16 But why does that matter? Because.

20:19 I mean, it cheapens it and also it doesn't employ.

20:21 Cheapens it?

20:22 It was a soap opera.

20:24 But the soap opera itself was like the lifeline to the Australian television industry.

20:29 This is taking all of this that all these people worked for.

20:32 The writers, I imagine, aren't great. going to get paid anymore for this. My big question is about residuals because there's a world in which no one really gets paid much for this and it gets chopped up. AI makes it. I guess the production company will make some money. But a lot of actors are kicking up a stink, kind of being like, what does this.

20:50 Mean for me?

20:50 Some of them are saying, I was 13 when I signed my neighbour's contract and we hadn't imagined an AI world of microdramas. I think that when you think about it, because at the same time this weekend, Home and Away announced that they're going to start making new micro dramas using existing talent.

21:05 Well, that's interesting.

21:06 And getting them sold as branded content and making, and I think this might be the future of the soap opera because 90 seconds is kind.

21:14 Of all you need, right, for some of these.

21:16 But, okay, if I signed up for a show, like I didn't, I wasn't making a 90-second show. I was making a particular episode. show where I was playing a particular character.

21:25 Yeah, but your defence here is resting on this idea that, like, actors in soap operas are sort of signing up for some great artistic endeavour, and I'm just a little sceptical of that. Really?

21:34 I think that you're signing up to do a particular thing to exist in a particular ecosystem alongside other storylines, and so to have that picked out just feels icky to me, not necessarily with what's happening, but what could happen in the future. Like, could they not start... Tweaking some stories. Could they not start adding some things? And then all of a sudden Margot Robbie is, you know, saying and doing things she never did.

21:58 Think of all the other celebrities, though, who've been on Neighbours and Home and Away.

22:01 Oh, yeah. Did you know that our Russell Brandt, who we were talking about last week, he had a celebrity cameo?

22:06 Yeah, he did.

22:07 But Delta Goodrum, Kylie Minogue, Liam Hemsworth.

22:11 Guy Pearce.

22:11 Russell Crowe.

22:12 Every famous Antipodean has been on one of those soaps at some point.

22:16 So you'll be seeing them again.

22:17 What about us? Are they going to cut up? Mamma Mia out loud and all the times you and I have fought, Jessie. That could be juicy.

22:23 Amelia, I think you'll find that they're just going to make a microdrama of just me and they just cut you out every time you speak and it's just a playlist of me talking to myself.

22:32 Mercury is in retrograde.

22:34 That's why we have you on the show, Amelia, is because your incredible understanding of astrology.

22:40 When you said world news, you also meant extraterrestrial news. And Mercury is in retrograde. Now, look, signs that Mercury is in retrograde are remarkably similar from what it feels like to be in perimenopause. So for all my 40-something women out there, my sympathies, because we're dealing with both the Mercury in retrograde and our peri-symptoms. That is, we're forgetting plans. We're losing things. We're dropping the ball left, right, and center. Now, I'm not going to bore you with the reasons why Mercury is in retrograde. I tried reading an explanation. Apparently, it tracks backwards three or four times a year, old Mercury. I don't know why it does that.

23:15 It's an optical illusion. It's all very confusing. But this Mercury in retrograde, this is the last of the year. And this one is special. It started on October the 24th. And according to Charney, dates vary. But Charney says it ends on November 4. And Charney is an astrology guru. And it is taking place during Scorpio. Is anyone here a Scorpio?

23:36 No, but I always think of Scorpios as bringing the drama. No offence, Scorpios. So is that double drama?

23:43 This is an intense period astrologically and astronomically. That was definitely not a word.

23:51 I heard that travel, like you might be like missing planes and Holly's meant to get on a plane this afternoon. And I just think delayed flights.

23:59 I read it.

23:59 I read it in Marie Claire.

24:00 Yeah. Look, according to the astrologer Chani, our plans and conversations are about to get more dramatic and more transformative. So- It's a snakes and ladders situation. This period is going to dredge up unanswered questions, unfinished conversations. It's a chance to really re-examine plans and figure out which ones you're invested in and which ones no longer work for you.

24:21 What does that bring up for you, Jessie?

24:23 Look, I heard that apparently exes are coming back. I'm waiting for my exes to come back and tap me on the shoulder.

24:28 Oh, they've heard that you've got twins and.

24:30 They want in on that. They're like, that sounds great.

24:35 So it's interesting to note given all of this, that the next 10 days in politics around the world, and this is no understatement, could change everything.

24:45 The lengths our Amelia will go to to make sure to get the.

24:49 Global political climate involved.

24:51 No, this is big, Holly. This is big. Let me explain. So yesterday, we kicked off this Mercury in retrograde in Scorpio with two big elections. First of all, Serbia, There was a semi-autocracy there, according to The Guardian. Now, I don't know about you. I don't want to live in a semi-autocracy. And Alexander Vucic, who was running the semi-autocracy for many years, he was challenged by a group of students and academics who had a slogan, which was very catchy, Serbia or mafia. Well, just this morning, Sydney time, it was announced that Vucic is out.

25:27 The good guys are in?

25:28 Yeah, the pro-democracy students and academics are in.

25:31 Oh, we like democracy.

25:32 They chose Serbia, not mafia. They chose Serbia, not mafia. Tick. So the second thing that happened yesterday, Brazil had an election. That was a nail-biter. And as we came into the studio to record today, it just was announced that a guy named Lula, who has been in office for quite a few years and is 80 years old, he has won the election. Flavio Bolsonaro was the guy who was challenging him. Flavio Bolsonaro is the son of a convicted criminal, the former president Jair Bolsonaro, and he had three election promises yesterday. He wants to mine more of the Amazon rainforest.

26:06 He wants to build mega prisons and he wants to release his father from house arrest. And it turns out that he's not going to be able to do any of those things because Lula was reelected. So he got kicked off. So that happened. And now tomorrow, Israel goes to the polls. Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition is facing an opposition bloc there. That's also going to be very close. It does look like the opposition bloc might win. But again, anything could happen in that. And then finally, in a little country, which some people say I talk too much about, called the United States, they have a big election next Tuesday, which, as you may recall, is the day before Mercury in retrograde is no longer in retrograde.

26:48 Do you think that all of these countries look at the calendar? and go Mercury's in retrograde, that's when we have an election because it's time of transition. Do you think that's where the calendar is kind of decided?

26:59 I think that Donald Trump's a big astrology fan. I've spoken about when I was in a sort of moment of tumult in my life, I got really into astrology and I downloaded an astrology app and I was paying for the astrology app. That's when you're really... That's when you know you're questioning your life decisions when you're paying for an astrology app. But I became quite a believer in the idea that astrology kind of tells you what you want to hear from the universe. And in that sense, it's very clarifying. Okay.

27:27 I wrote down, I was told that we must be gentle with ourselves.

27:31 We must be gentle.

27:32 Just during this period.

27:33 Just during this period you get to be hard on yourself.

27:36 We've just got to be a bit.

27:37 Gentle on ourselves.

27:38 But does that mean that if I'm one of these scrappy insurgents trying to unseat a popular government, I'm like, this is a great time?

27:45 Yeah, I think so because people are stepping back and reassessing their lives and making sure they don't lose their phones because apparently that is another symptom of this Mercury retrograde.

27:54 Keep an eye on your phone.

27:55 Things have been chaotic.

27:56 They have.

27:57 I reckon you think it, then you go, Mercury must be in retrograde, and it just always is.

28:03 If you just always, always.

28:05 If you want a slightly more substantial conversation around the US midterms, I don't know if you do or not, but if you do want one, it's on Thursday's subs episode.

28:14 Yes, because I have 100 questions about that. I need to know, like, how much they actually matter, because Trump is still going to be president.

28:20 Yeah, whatever happens.

28:21 Whatever happens, Trump will still be president. Just hold on to your phone, ladies.

28:24 That's the message.

28:26 After the break, the accessory that is making a long-awaited comeback. Over the weekend, our very own Leigh Campbell, host of YouBeauty, posted a considered and powerful carousel on Instagram that you may have seen. She wrote, This hasn't been an easy decision, but it's one I'm ready to share. It is with a great amount of relief and a renewed sense of self that I announce.

28:49 Slide. Next carousel. I've gone back to a regular wallet.

28:53 She's so.

28:55 click baited me I was like and I know Lee and I was on like slide three I'm like what has happened oh my god is she like is she quitting is she moving to the Alps like what's going on is she getting a.

29:06 Divorce and then I was like oh oh that's.

29:09 Big that is big um she shared her reasons and they are very compelling Her child steals her phone and she can't pay for anything at the pub. Speaking of alcohol, and that did come up a few times in Lee's Carousel, DoorDash requires a physical ID card when delivering booze.

29:28 Phone battery anxiety is real.

29:30 She likes to give the windscreen squeegee guy cash. She also said her husband is Greek. They are always giving cash for gifts and also Greek people use cash.

29:39 That's her stereotype. I actually co-sign it.

29:41 She can keep that stereotype. Please attribute that to Lee Campbell.

29:45 She keeps losing receipts and dockets and she also said children need coins for bake sales.

29:50 So true.

29:51 The woman needs a wallet.

29:53 Comments have called her a visionary. They're giving her a tap on the back for doing what's right for her.

29:59 This is her Mercury in retrograde moment. Reassessing your habits.

30:04 She looked at it and went, it is time. I keep losing my things. I need a wallet.

30:09 One woman said that over the weekend they needed to do a coin toss at cricket and it took everyone looking around and she, because she had a wallet.

30:17 Saved the day. And I bet one person was like, oh, I've got an app that does a coin.

30:20 Toss for you.

30:21 And it's like, can we just use a coin?

30:24 I want to know, what do we think? Discuss.

30:27 Do we still have a wallet? Are we buying a wallet?

30:29 How do we feel?

30:29 Allow me to be on the side of the out louders out here who are like, I wasn't supposed to have a wallet.

30:37 I have a wallet. Do you not have a wallet?

30:39 Do you have it with you? I've never seen your wallet.

30:41 Yeah, Jessie, I have a wallet too. I think anyone who switched to not using a wallet was going down the wrong path.

30:46 Okay, you're going for a wallet. Walk to your local coffee shop.

30:52 Take in my wallet.

30:53 No, I don't take the wallet for that. That's true. But that is only quite recent.

30:58 But also now what's happening is when you go for a walk, you leave your phone at home. That's the new thing, raw dogging reality. That's the trend. So then you take the credit card but not the phone.

31:09 But what Leigh is talking about is that a lot of people who are maybe cooler than us, Amelia, I mean, I know that's hard to imagine.

31:16 Yes.

31:17 Who are those people?

31:20 Have abandoned their wallets a long time ago and their phone does everything.

31:23 For them, right? Do you know the first person to shame me about my physical wallet ever? Mia. Can I guess? Mia. Yeah. It was Mia Freedman. It was circa 2018. And she was like, oh, I'm sorry. Are you visiting from the 19th century when I tapped for dinner with my credit card? Well, I'd like to know the eggs on her face now.

31:41 Exactly.

31:42 The thing is, if I didn't have a physical wallet as well as a phone, then I would have massive anxiety about the fact my phone is flawed.

31:51 It runs out of batteries.

31:53 Sometimes you're trying to get to your driver's license, but the app needs to re-download for some inexplicable reason.

31:58 Look, I've got an even more embarrassing thing to admit. I don't understand how to pay with my credit card on my phone.

32:04 It seems to.

32:04 Involve like five steps. I literally don't understand.

32:07 It Okay, I'm going to be honest. Someone else set that up on my phone. But now I just know I double click.

32:12 Was it your husband?

32:13 Yes, it was my husband.

32:14 My kids, my teenagers, when I try and pay with my phone and I don't just double click and I have to press lots of buttons, they die.

32:21 They die. They just line in.

32:24 Oh, my God. But it's complicated.

32:27 I thought you people.

32:28 Don't you have to look at your face? Doesn't it have to clock your face?

32:33 I thought.

32:34 People like you two had the back of your phone, you know, the thing where you slide your cards in, like a card holder.

32:41 I would assume you had a card holder.

32:42 That's giving Boomer. I have my own card holder. Okay.

32:46 Apparently there's a comeback of something called wristlets have you ever heard of a wristlet no okay you know like a pouch with money like a pouch and it has the weird um like thing a little bump on it a little a little thing apparently that's to put your wrist through and apparently cool people have a pouch with a little thing like a little a little handbag for your wrist strap.

33:12 The voice of God you just heard from our producer.

33:16 The word you're looking for, Jessie Stephens, is strap.

33:19 It's a handbag for your wrist. It's a wristlet.

33:22 Of course you were told that by someone who got into the Berlin nightclub that no one gets into.

33:26 So, Jessie, so Amelia and I are on the record here as being the Luddites who still do have a wallet.

33:31 Yeah.

33:31 Wallet sales and everything have plunged, right? People are not into wallets anymore. They're not into handbags, not into any of those things. You, I remember that you lost your phone once and you couldn't check into a hotel. You couldn't pay for anything.

33:43 So are you going to buy a wallet?

33:45 Okay.

33:45 So actually right before COVID, I went into a shop and bought an expensive wallet for me because I was like, I think it's time I bought a wallet.

33:53 And then wallets fell out of.

33:56 So was that a COVID thing? That was.

33:57 I reckon COVID was the clincher where everyone just went.

34:00 But what's that got to do with COVID?

34:02 Well, I think that none of us went out.

34:04 So why did we need our wallet? We were just at home, right? So I think that that's when the wallet truly got abandoned. But I've been way... I'd quite like to bring it back because it was an expensive wallet. It was from Status Anxiety and it's a nice leather and it smells nice. And so I'm thinking that I'm going to bring it back in a big way. It's not a wristlet. Maybe I need to give it a little pouch.

34:22 The hand action that you denote for wristlet is the cutest thing I've ever seen. For some reason, it's just like really making me happy.

34:31 So I think that small goods manufacturers would be very happy to hear this news because I think about that all the time.

34:37 Wallets and purses used to be a go-to gift.

34:39 Holly, I love that you think about it all the time. And you said before, wallet sales have plunged. Are you just waking up in the middle of the night being anxious about wallet sales plunging?

34:49 Full disclosure.

34:51 You know how sometimes men are heartbroken?

34:55 You planted this whole story.

34:58 To just go as wallet, like as ever, but it's Holly with as wallet.

35:02 And they're all blue and they've all got a little Harry Styles face or something in the middle.

35:07 Anyway, no.

35:08 But you know how men are sometimes hard to buy for? Stereotype alert, along with the Greek people using them.

35:14 Yes.

35:14 Made it hard to buy wallets one of my go-to gifts for Brent right because he can't use his phone to pay for things and now the poor man has because I forget I bought him one has all these wallets I reckon that there would be lots of people very happy to hear this news and they will become a status symbol like again.

35:31 I agree and I do like that it has coins because I think about the windscreen wiper person all the time because I'll have the dirtiest windscreen I'm like I'd love you to clean it but unless you have a little tap and go I can't pay you for that but Luna came up to the other day with a little gold coin in her hand. And I was like, where did you get, did you dig that up from the backyard in some archaeological dig?

35:52 Excuse me, what's your Tooth Fairy delivering? Is your Tooth Fairy.

35:55 Delivering QR codes or coins? She's not there yet and I don't know, a bank transfer?

35:59 Tooth Fairy QR code does not work as well, I'm telling you.

36:02 It has to be something under their pillow.

36:04 It's also part of this whole regression back to realising that like most analogue things are better than most digital things. Think about the fact that There was that time where you couldn't swing a cat without someone telling you how great it was to read something on their Kindle. Those people have now just gone back to books.

36:21 I agree.

36:22 And newspapers are better in analogue, as I've spoken about before. Having the newspaper delivered has changed my life. You don't have to worry about batteries. Everything has an app now. Our producer told us that her fan has an app. Her fan has an app. Let's just go backwards.

36:37 I agree.

36:37 Even the docket thing, every time I order something and they give me a little docket, you know, they say your number 87 or whatever. I've lost it by the time I go back because I don't have any way to put it.

36:46 So I'm bringing back the wallet. I'm very excited about this. I'm sure the Outlouders will be happy about that. They'll have wallet opinions. But I need to, before we go today, before we close out this Monday, this very important business. Our darling Outlouders who are in a Facebook group that we have. Actually, I met a lot of Outlouders at Lily Allen last night. I told them last week I was going.

37:05 It was great.

37:06 We all had a jolly good time. Did they have their butt plugs on them or at home?

37:10 Some people had.

37:11 I'm not proud of this, but there was a woman next to me and she had a free butt plug because she was a VIP. And she didn't understand it. She didn't understand the law. She obviously hadn't listened to the album enough. And she kept saying, don't you think this is a weird gift? And I kept going, why don't you give it to me?

37:25 I'd really like it.

37:26 Not for any.

37:27 I wouldn't like it for any.

37:28 I thought it would look really good on our shelf.

37:31 Of course, we're talking about Lily Allen's very, sounds great, her new sex toy line that we talked about on Friday. We had to cut half that conversation because we said butt plug 45 times.

37:42 Apart from that.

37:43 Outlouders, I was watching you in the group this weekend and I have a question. Are you really as nice as you.

37:49 Say you are?

37:50 Because one Outlouder called Farah posted a question, this one, if someone gave you a hand-drawn gift for your birthday present, even though their art was not professional, would you think it was? And then she put like a poll in there where it was, one was whimsical and special and would proudly hang it even if it wasn't professional and Other options were disappointing as they didn't buy a proper gift, embarrassing for them, more thoughtful than anything that can be purchased.

38:16 So you could select one.

38:19 76% of Outlouders said that they would think that getting a hand-drawn gift from their friends was whimsical and special and they would proudly hang it even if it wasn't professional.

38:29 Was it an anonymous poll?

38:31 Because I feel like if it was an anonymous poll, the results may have been different.

38:35 I love that, that the Outlouders are such good friends that they're like, I could draw them something on a napkin and go, that's my present.

38:41 And they go, that's so special, whimsical, I'm going to hang it my whole way. I don't believe you.

38:45 I don't believe that all the Outlouders' houses are full of hand-drawn presents from each other.

38:50 I did like the one Outlouder who added, because you could add responses to the poll, say thank you and feel grateful because it's a special gift, but pop it in a safe place within a week.

39:00 That was probably my vote.

39:01 Because I do, I agree that if, you know, and to be clear, Farrah then posted the picture and questioned it.

39:06 It's gorgeous. It's lovely.

39:07 It's so good. There were so many really great, then people posted their own pictures. Of course, this is lovely. When I was back in England recently, one of my friends gave me a drawing of my dog. She is a professional illustrator.

39:19 It was really good. Oh, that's different.

39:20 That's hanging up in my house.

39:22 Like I made a podcast for my friend's birthday because they didn't have a lot of money that month and she loved it.

39:28 And she has it. hanging up on a wall of QR code where you can just download and listen to it.

39:34 It was actually a voice memo that I called a podcast.

39:39 I think that that's true and lovely. But if we're going to tell everybody that hand-drawn presents are great, We're all about to get an influx of.

39:48 Come on.

39:48 I really would have voted for need more information. That was my preferred option. But then once you had the information... Well, I saw what the image was and I thought it was really nice.

40:00 And then I went through.

40:01 But like.

40:03 I think it depends on the quality of the image. Regardless, I would say thank you. That's so nice and it's really, really thoughtful. But I went through a stage after I finished school where I did a lot of, because I did lots of drawing at school and I would draw things.

40:16 I didn't know this, Jessie.

40:17 So I drew my dad for his birthday one year to go, dad, here it is.

40:20 Are you a good drawer?

40:21 Well, I thought I.

40:22 Was until my mum said, this looks like someone's dad and I never saw it again.

40:27 And now I've never done it again. Oh, we need that in the out loud group.

40:31 Your mum needs to dig it up and post it.

40:33 My mum has burned it or something, but she just put me in my place and.

40:36 She was like, this isn't whimsical.

40:37 I love your mum.

40:38 It's not cute. Buy Dad a wallet.

40:40 I think it's so great.

40:42 Or a wristlet.

40:43 Or a wristlet.

40:44 You know how I just went to Cambodia with my friend Penny and they built a house there? I was thinking that as a present for them, like an acknowledgement of– I could just do a stick figure drawing of them building a house and just like put it in one of those cheap frames and go.

40:59 Here you go, girls.

41:01 And they wouldn't be able to say it was bad because they would be the not nice people in this poll.

41:06 No, you have to put it up in the most prominent position in your home.

41:09 Out loud is tell us. What standard does this drawing have to be? Be honest.

41:15 Because our next merch drop is Holly stick figures and you better put them in your home.

41:22 Before we go, allowed us that.

41:24 It's all we've got time for this Monday. We hope you are having a good day. Before we go, Jessie, what's the new subscriber offer we've got to tell everyone about?

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41:51 No strategic towel hiding. They're one pieces, even come in a different size for top and bottom, which is the gold standard of any swimwear. Mamma Mia subscribers now get an exclusive 20% off. You can click the link in our show notes to subscribe and get your code. So a reminder, if you're a subscriber, you obviously get extra episodes.

42:08 You get Move, our exercise platform. You get really good, like exclusive offers all of the time. This is just the most recent one for Fearless, the Australian swimmer brand.

42:19 We'll see you tomorrow. Bye.

42:23 Mamma Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of the land on which we have recorded this podcast.