Episodes

  • 240: Threadbare smalls and other legacies
    Jul 9 2025

    Send us a text


    Lee and Simon discuss whether they’re in a second act or nearing the end of their working lives. They reflect on legacy, how little most of us are remembered, and how not having children changes that.

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

    ---
    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)

    Show more Show less
    26 mins
  • 238: Cicadas on the Inside, Birds on the Out
    Jun 25 2025

    Send us a text


    Simon shares a new tinnitus struggle; Lee discusses scones; both reflect on midlife pride, sleep, and renovation woes.

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

    ---
    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)

    Show more Show less
    28 mins
  • 237: That's Dirty. That's Real Dirty.
    Jun 18 2025

    Send us a text


    Lee and Simon go from jam donut focaccia to knitting mistakes, obscure theatre shows to random celebrity run-ins – just the regular midlifing drift.

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

    ---
    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)

    Show more Show less
    27 mins
  • 236: Do you think you suffer from pronoia?
    Jun 11 2025

    Send us a text


    Lee and Simon talk about high school reunions before Simon launches a broadside against Meta (and gets a little hot under the collar) and then they finish with a quick chat about pronoia.

    Things covered:
    Bob and Lee's 29th wedding anniversary, Simon's 40 year high school reunion, reminiscence bump, the consequential things that happen to us when we are young, who we are is context, Lee rodding a drain (in Lisbon), home repairs in another country, Lee still talking about drains, the minds of two men (from a listener), saying gidday to Pete, something about Meta and Instagram and the advertising model, Zuckerberg's Hot or Not, the cultural role in how the advertising model functions, the horror of Instagram's algorithm, pronoia (Fred Goldner), harder to imagine than paranoia, Simon has chocolate in the cupboard (and hasn't eaten it all), strawberries in Lisbon, having glutenous bread sold by a Coeliac.

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

    ---
    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)

    Show more Show less
    24 mins
  • 235: They no longer have needs, they are dead.
    Jun 4 2025

    Send us a text


    Lee and Simon talk about a moral conundrum: whether we ought to follow the wishes of the dead or that we owe more to those who remain alive.

    Things covered: video calls and the future, Blake and Jerusalem, Simon dancing in Dorset, Helen Poynor, transformative art, Jefrey infected by another dog (Lola), Lee practising looking up, Simon has a moral conundrum about following the wishes of the dead or taking care of the living, giving people the option, Simon's feeling about honouring the wishes of the dead, the emotional intelligence of Lee's dad (Norman), Lee's grandad was a wheelwright, not falling out over a wheelbarrow, sentimentality, being clear or not.

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

    ---
    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)

    Show more Show less
    27 mins
  • 234: If you were at the thin end of the wedge of intolerance
    May 28 2025

    Send us a text


    Lee and Simon talk about changing their minds about things that matter, and finding compassion.

    Things covered: scent update and the feeling of clean fresh skin, schoolboy French, 'believing' in climate change, scepticism without an object, anthropogenic climate change, changing your mind, perspectives changing through what we read (or not), Lee's binary nature, dancing the flick switch, changing in time, Lee's beliefs re trans bodies, Derrida (again), post-structuralism, gender performativity, fixed positions, allyship, we are human doings not human beings, being changed by theory, the extent to which education changes or transforms us, beliefs and facts, seatbelt use, cultural change through legislation, theoretical paradigms, overestimating the impact of the academy and conversations that spill out from the academy, Judith Butler and trans bodies, woke narratives, wokeness, not voicing disagreement, arguing doesn't change minds, finding compassion.

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

    ---
    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)

    Show more Show less
    29 mins
  • 233: You would be delighted if you could smell me
    May 21 2025

    Send us a text


    Lee and Simon discuss scent profiles and the ways bodies smell.

    Things covered: jam donut focaccia, waking up early, cli-fi (climate fiction), The Deluge by Stephen Markley, description of a suicide bomber's body (from the inside) at the moment of detonation, Simon's scent profile, delving into the olfactory, not showering often, bottom hygiene, Crocodile Dundeee and two dunnies, armpit sweating while emailing, clothes shopping, wedding anniversaries, tolerating Lee, Lee blending scents (again), getting a window replaced in a property built in 1540, Lee living in a boarded up house (I Am Legend), Lee has a little spritz, Simon not wanting to spend his money on scents, Lee's sensitivity to the malodorous, Lee speaking to the Board of Governors, GANs (General Adversarial Network), AI (and machine learning), and artists using AI, Lee is not a pizza and beer man, body odour, an unwashed person, pheromones and being turned off by how someone smells, sniffing Bob, Simon needs a shower, releasing scents on the equinox and the solstice, Lee is correct.

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

    ---
    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)

    Show more Show less
    26 mins