S23 Ep5: ⁠Polly Vernon, Journalist & Author — The power of women speaking out — The fearless feminist

40:37And she looked at me and she was so grateful. And she was like, you don't think it's a problem? I was like, of course I think it's a problem. That's my choice. And she was like, everybody, everyone around me is telling me I regret it. I don't, she's married. I just don't want it. And I was like, yeah, that was exactly what I felt. And she went, and you don't regret it? I was like, no, my life is brilliant. No, of course I don't. And she was, she couldn't stop asking me for reassurance. When you're talking, I'm thinking, what gave you this? Is it the big sister where we started this conversation, the big sister element within you?

41:12Because I'm wondering, how did you gain the confidence to tell people what you think? Because I'm just thinking potentially some myself wanted to fit in, you know, wanted to fit in, didn't want to cause a stir, et cetera, et cetera. Not about children, but just generally. I wouldn't just voice my views. Do you think it's the fact that you were a journalist, you were in this sort of world and that that has allowed you to voice opinions that others hold back and thus then actually position you in a place where actually women sort of quite like that you're the first one out. You know, you'll say it.

41:56We won't say it, but you'll say it for us. The big sister element. What do you think it is? Do you know what? I think it's Madonna again. I mean, I think that is probably, I grew up thinking a woman who was so herself and so nothing we'd ever seen before was so brilliant. so I think definitely that I was wanting to get into journalism obsessed by Julie Birchall's columns in the Guardian Saturday magazine and she was so like I'm just gonna tell you what I think and I sort of and I definitely when I started writing I mean I started writing in the mid professionally for magazines in the late 1990s I suppose and and there was that culture of Spice Girl kind of bravado.

42:40And you were supposed to say stuff that was slightly shocking. So there was all that on top of which I have always, always felt, what the hell is the point otherwise? And I am not doing this to genuinely shock. I still don't understand if an opinion is out there already, widely shared and widely accepted, what's the point of me reiterating it, right? The only point of me writing at all, writing opinions, is to put stuff out there that is a bit new and a bit fresh but is truthful like I am not a controversialist I'm not interested in winding people up I am only interested in saying things if I think they are truthful and useful helpful so there's always been that in me and I have always felt that sharing you know from from seeing those initial responses I understood that it was really important to go yeah you can not have kids and and also and i think as i got older i also there was a there was a i didn't want people going oh no poor thing she couldn't have kids yeah and i also think and i have come to understand so many more things like for example it's really important for women who do want kids and can't have kids to see a woman without children be really happy like be really just yeah entirely fulfilled that's important so it's grown my understanding of it has grown my understanding why it's important to talk about it has grown and it's definitely something that has fed that bravado because it works right people people respond to it they like it and it's important to them yeah so of course i'm going to carry on well it's you know it's really really refreshing and i'm coming back to your story because in 2015 you released your book hot feminist and i think it's fair to say that you anticipated it might be a bit contentious um and this was because the book covered the relationship between fashion and feminism you wrote about your life your assault abortion your feelings on motherhood which we've just covered and what it means to be a woman and I think the thing is you write with this fearless honesty and sometimes they're not ready for a level of truth people aren't ready for a level of truth I want to ask you about this book actually and what happened but also you know I go fast forward to now and when we talk about people being scared to say what they think we are now living in a in a world that I'm even scared to say what I think about that entire thing.

45:08You know, it's incredibly difficult. But going to this book, Hot Feminist, you might have known it might have been inflammatory or did you not? Did you think it's just integral to who you are? And that's fine what anyone else thought. But what did you think before it came out? I mean, I never really do think about a potential response when we're writing something. I just think this is what I think is probably true and i you know that book is a whole sort of conversation what was actually happening and again i realize it now much more clearly is i could smell that incoming wave of sort of demand for compliance in the way we think and feel i could smell the shame that would be poured on me i could see it beginning there weren't words like cancellation or internet pylon none of those exist at that point.

46:00Or trolling. Or trolling, anyway. I could see that people who were not saying the right thing about anything were having a hard time. And I knew as somebody who historically didn't always say the right thing or said stuff first, said stuff early, that that could be a problem for me. And I could see it was particularly happening with feminism. And I just thought, that's not okay. You can't say in the name of supporting women, we're going to tell women what they can and can't say and think and feel and i also felt that there was a sort of joylessness with it a very doubt i think it was very victimy and very poor me whereas my feeling about feminism is it should be more about how you help other women right should be about the structural changes that you can you can support one of the the real strong arguments i was like i don't think again i i'm probably passing myself off as far cleverer than i am but it's in the book it was the first time I wrote about my own experience of abortion and I wrote personally about that but I also was thinking this is too good a thing to be true like abortion rights so easily given that's a risk because there are going to be people who aren't happy with that for long and I was right you know but you know I was very much saying stop hanging around worrying about whether or not that man is looking at you funny and focus because this could be an issue and I was you know I was bloody right wasn't I but um people were very very angry with me about that very very angry that I was not singing from this one this one hymn sheet the one hymn sheet and also that I was like look it is entirely possible to consider yourself a feminist and to find empowerment again probably Madonna But to find empowerment in feeling sexy, in being sexy.

47:49So there were all these things wrapped up in one. The other thing that happened was most people didn't read it. So the book came out. It was reviewed horribly by The Guardian, my former employees, The Guardian, very, very well by some other people. But I became, for a few weeks in the summer of 2015, I became just this thing that was hard to hate on. this woman it was okay for you to call yourself a feminist and just say disgusting things about on the internet that was my role and it was horrible i mean it was yeah i was gonna ask how did you this i got quite depressed really i mean you know you've sort of written a book and i went there in that book i was really really fearless in the writing of it i you know i had not that my family didn't know about the abortions I'd had so I had to send out you know quite slightly difficult emails before it went out they were all brilliant I have to say my family and the abortions actually so you know I was really really going there I was really exposing myself and I still think that it's cruel you know what a cruel thing to do to go look this woman's made herself vulnerable let's get the bitch and they were all women it was all other women so the initial response of the book It was actually quite lovely.

49:05It was serialised in the times. But then there was this kind of intake of breath. And after about three or four days after it came out, I just started getting extraordinary stuff on Twitter, just horrific stuff. And it just, it was sickening. And I had this thing, the writer Tanya Gold, who I think is brilliant, something similar happened to her about an article she wrote, a one-off article she wrote. And she said, you get to the point where you hate the shape of your name. like you see the shape of your name online and you know it's followed by really damning disgusting stuff and just kind of speculation about your character and who you are and the things you think and feel and things you believe and it was it was awful it was awful and when you said earlier in the interview one of the last times he looked comments I'm assuming you were looking at these comments though these were the comments coming through so i i learned within about a year i think of stuff going online on the internet because when i first was writing there was no such thing but that happened about three or four years into my career i learned very quickly you just don't look below the line so you don't look at the comments because when you publish an article what you're doing is you're establishing this niche little bit of the internet this niche little part of social media that is entirely about hating you so that's stupid right You learn that very quickly.

50:27But when you've got a book out, you are, A, really encouraged by your publisher and you feel like you have to promote it. And social media is a very powerful tool. Instagram wasn't really, it was kind of there but not really in the mix. Twitter was it. And people were entirely happy just adding, you know, sending me this stuff relentlessly. And also you get to a point where you are being not particularly healthy. and you and I can remember getting up in the middle of the night and searching on my name to see what people were saying even stuff they weren't acting at me and it becomes like self-harm you're compelled to do it and you sort of kid yourself I need to know so I can prepare myself but it's so eroding it's so the shame is extraordinary and I I didn't get fully depressed but I got as close to me I'm not a depressed person I got as close to it as I have ever been.

51:23I felt overwhelmed by anxiety. I began to get to the point, because you think when people are coming at you online all the time, your nervous system can't tell the difference between that in real life. So I remember being on the street and just flinching and just thinking people were going to knife me. Why do you think this happens? I mean, this was 2015. So this was early. It was an early case. I was a trial case. Yes, a trial case. Was it because it was early? if you publish this book, I mean, we're going to talk about your latest book, but if you publish that book now, do you think you would have got the same response?

51:58Do you think we're now all a bit, do you understand me now, we're sort of, we're 10 years on, so we can handle things better sort of now, or do you think? I think we know a little bit better. I mean, the kind of people who were coming for me were nice women who considered themselves very feminist and, you know, decent human beings, but they felt it was within their gift to have a go at me i was the one it was i say i say in the book actually there were there were sort of safety valves on feminism when there are women it is okay to destroy in the name of your feminism and i was one of them but i think the part of the reason people don't do it now is because of what happened to me then you know i wrote a lot extensively about what happened to it and i know i've had one apology one um which i really treasure actually but i know other people feel bad about it in retrospect because they've told other people have told it people have told me so i think i was part of a lesson right and i think there's much greater understanding of what trolling does and that you can be a troll without being some anonymous man in a basement in some far-flung part of america you know you can just be some nice woman perfectly nice woman and say disgusting things you can do that yeah and i just how is um that experience did that dent your confidence at all in terms of yes yeah this this confident you know woman who I was just saying how brave you are you say the things that some women just are like clapping you because and cheering you on because they can't say it but you're going to say it for them how did that make you feel I mean what was truly awful and I've said this before being trolled like that is like those you're immediately thrown back to those that your worst days in school when suddenly you don't know why a rumor's gone around you about you and everybody hates you and they're all saying you smell and that you fancy someone ridiculous and it's like that you are such an outcast except you're an adult and it's the whole of the internet it's awful it's really really awful and what was particularly painful for me was this thing that had always been brilliant and like a refuge and you know and and and my career and all that which was writing this such unbelievably precious thing was the source of this pain that was awful like the one thing I had always felt like I could rely on when things had got difficult which of course they had was causing me pain and that was terrifying but I have to say I have an amazing boss at the times Nicola and she oh god I'm getting tearful and she really recognized what was happening with me can't believe I'm doing this um and she knew instinctively or I don't know that the way to get me back on the horse would be to send me out an interview so it's been something I love so much and then what I was doing then was I was just employing the skill that I had honed and it was nothing it wasn't about me at all it was about other people yeah and oh god bless her I mean she's a terrifying amazing woman who is with a heart of gold but you know she just gave me brilliant interview after brilliant interview after brilliant interview and so I never got off the horse in terms of writing and publishing you know I was I was always and I was doing really good work then as well and then she also kind of got me to write when the paperback the i think trade paperback it's called of the book came out she got me to write about the experience and she handled it so well what an amazing woman she's what an amazing woman true sense of feminism right backing other women and lifting them and seeing them through the bad times she has such such an incredible history on that actually cheers brilliant thank you Nicola I do actually love you it reminds me of it of something I got this morning from a friend and I'm going to read it to you because actually this this lady sounds exactly like this quote and it was about friendship be there for the messy parts of someone's life don't be afraid of the ugly hold someone's hand when no one else can or will.

55:56Pull them to stand. Be there for the dark moments and then enjoy the light together. Don't take a seat at the celebratory table if you won't be there to collect the shattered pieces when the same world falls apart. It's easy to get an invite to someone's pretty, someone's sparkle. But if you get an invite to someone's raw and real, show up and you have been blessed. Show up for the ugly. That's friendship. That's lovely. Isn't that lovely? Show up for the ugly. That just made me realise that that's exactly what she did for you. Yeah, she really did. I'm going to go now again. I keep taking you to darker places and then happier places.

56:35But, you know, if that's OK, because right now we're saying it's taken you 10 years to write another book. Yeah, it did. I think because of that experience, but you did it. And How the Female Body Works, which I'm holding in my hands now, was released in June this year. No trolling, I'm presuming. No trolling. Because it's been called A Joy to Read, wonderfully informative, funny, witty, engaging, and I could go on. And I love that you said technically we're close, my body and I. We go everywhere together. And yet I know little about how it actually works. So tell me about this book and why you thought that you were the right person to write it.

57:19uh I just got to a point when I had too many questions to not start looking for some answers uh so I think I think it was very much as of a function of a timing I'd say it took me 10 years to write another book and that was hugely part of what happened to me the first time because you're a bit like but it's so much work writing book as you know is so much work so if you do it then sort of tentatively offer it to the world and the world goes you're awful you're not going to do that again no hurry but the other thing was I hadn't got an idea that wouldn't leave me alone and this was an idea that wouldn't leave me alone and I'm not a health writer I'm very like passionate about fitness but that's a personal thing and the main question that kept occurring to me was what's a hormone really what is a hormone and then also if they're so powerful if they have such a big impact on our life are we are hormones or you know do we have personalities do we have free will or are we just kind of on this sea of hormonal rushing and then I kind of started looking at the environment we're in and there was so much misinformation about health you know I'm bombarded with stuff I should be doing for my body every day on social media and it's really overwhelming and scary and then I thought why isn't there a book you know why isn't there something that sets it all out from somebody who doesn't know you know I wanted to take the idea is that I take readers on with me in with me along with me in this journey of asking this whole series of experts using all those interview skills I've got the most basic questions I mean I ask a neuroscientist what a brain is I ask a gynaecologist what a vagina is and as I acquire knowledge they acquire knowledge it's not I didn't want it to be dry I didn't want it to be boring I wanted it to be fun and cool and kind of revelatory and one of the first things you learn as an interviewer is there is no such thing as a dumb question dumb questions are your most powerful ones because they make people really consider the answer and then when when I kind of thought okay this is what I could do this will work I started thinking but surely it already exists and it didn't.

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1:00:38you say in the literature that came with the book which i just i am not surprised as of as as someone who for 20 years you know dealing with women and you know for my side of things in business and raising money and the patriarchy that we live in and everything until 1993 women were mostly excluded from medical trials. And even today, fewer than four in 10 participants are women. Extraordinary. I didn't, I was quite passionate originally that this wouldn't be a political book because I thought that sort of muddied the water. I wanted it to be really useful. I wanted it to give the information to be really useful.

1:01:19However, when you start digging into it a bit, it's very hard not to be political. I mean, I think one thing I would say is I found the whole experience of researching it really cheering because there are people who care so much and they're working so hard to make women's experience of their own bodies better and easier and more comfortable and less painful they really really are we've come a long way but the place we came from and not that far away 1993 it's extraordinary we were considered our hormones were considered to make us too complicated to be a study when you're like or do they mean it's more important that we're starting to do.

1:01:56Yeah. Because potentially we're all quite reliant on this, aren't we? A little bit. The human race. A little bit. A little bit reliant on the medicine. Tiny bit that this thing works in a woman and maybe helping women keep their things working might be top of the agenda. I mean, I do think it's an amazing book. I've started it and it sits next to my bed. I'm one of those people that I literally, I have to, I can do about two or three pages a night are you a big reader um I am but I'm a big fiction reader I think because I tend to write non-fiction and because journalism is non-fiction I do love getting lost in a story I love a bath that's one thing I like about this time of year it's bath time again you can't have a bath in the summer so I will take a book into the bath so happily yeah well I I have your book I absolutely I I totally agree with you there's so many things isn't there when you you get stuck in you can't quite believe what you're uncovering which is basically what you've done in this book you've uncovered the fact there wasn't sort of a book that just you sat down and learned and and how do we not all know about our bodies which we don't know I wanted to talk to you about something else which is within all of this which is aging and you're someone who loves growing older you call it magnificent and I can just say that I completely agree I keep telling everyone I'm 50 and then like and everyone's like but you're not and I'm like oh no no I know but I will be but I will be gonna be quite sort of looking forward to it and you wrote an interesting piece recently that tackled the area that you can have cosmetic treatments you know having work done whilst you know still being comfortable basically aging that those two things can coexist yeah do you think that there is a shift that we're seeing that we're sort of entering maybe into a new phase I mean I I don't, or do you think there's judgment?

1:03:51Oh, there's definitely still judgment. I mean, I think it's, and this is the sort of attitude with which I came at feminism for hot feminists as well. I think there is a lot of judgment and there is a lot of stigma. And I think there is an assumption that you cannot have work, which I have had much and I intend to have much more. You cannot have work and be a good feminist or at all well-adjusted. I think the assumption is if you have work, it's because you are in denial about ageing. I'm not, I love ageing. Or you hate yourself. So much. Or you hate yourself. And you kind of want to self-mutilate.

1:04:27Or you hate how you look. And I think one of the things that irritates people about me, there are many, but one of the things that irritates people about me is I talk about the work I have all the time, but I am lucky enough to have access through work to just the best people. So I don't look fake. And I think that really pisses people off. I think they want you to look ridiculous so they can go, there you go, there you go, your vanity. And I think it's almost like kind of some fairy tale, you know, Grimm's fairy tale, vanity will be your downfall. You know, you're so stupid to worry about what you look like that you should just fade into insignificance and your vanity will kill you.

1:05:06And so here am I still being massively outspoken, loving getting older and getting all the buttocks. And that's distressing. You know, it's confusing for people. That's just a lot of different stories at the same time that they didn't think went together. And I do think we are stupidly obsessed with how women look and we need to stop being. But I also think you can enjoy the way you look and you can enjoy kind of boosting the way you look without being completely screwed up. Yes. You know, I think that's possible. Sometimes it just occurs to me that there is so much work that needs to be done.

1:05:42like you were saying about feminism but you know stop talking about someone maybe looking at you strangely let's try and change laws for instance you know let's use our energy in the right way and it does make me wonder why as women we've traveled so far we've gone through so much why we don't even pick ourselves up and just say to ourselves have each other's back whatever she wants to do if she's happy i'm just happy but what we can do together is this this and this you know jodie these are her choices and actually isn't that the whole point of us being women that we can show this grace and this empathy to the world that is crying out for it but we can then club together maybe on the things that do matter because that's something that we do share views because I look at, you know, all Hollywood and this ageing grace, amazing sort of, you know, now everyone in the last Oscars or something was, you know, everyone that won, I can't remember, you know, were older.

1:06:47Was over, yeah. Over whatever. There was a really good representation. It wasn't it. It was incredible to watch. But what do you think these women are doing behind closed doors, everybody? I mean, it does make me go, God, aren't they amazing? they look 40 at the age of 80. Yeah, how's that happened? It's not the smoothie they've been drinking. It's not, and I do think, so I do think, you know, I was kind of a bit confused about women's obligation to talk about the work they have, but actually I've come down on the side of, no, you've got to talk about it. You've got to be honest about it because I think otherwise you leave a lot of people comparing themselves with you negatively and going, but why?

1:07:29Why has she not got any lines? I tell you why I haven't got lines, I hear. Because I get them syringed away once every five, six months. And I think it is hugely important that we are transphatic. I think it's also really, really important that we see women aging without that stuff. You know, without being one of them, not that generous, the more Sarah Jessica Barkers there are, the more that are going, no, I'm not going to do this stuff. And you look at me anyway. Helen Mirren. Exactly. And you see that I am beautiful because I am anyway. I think that's really important. I think while getting it all, I don't like the idea that every woman gets it all and that's all we see.

1:08:06However, I think it is important if you do get it all, you are open about that. And you're like, this is not what a woman of my age would normally look like or naturally look like. Absolutely. I really agree with you. And I also love that you said that in social media, you will not filter your face. No. and you know and and again this is again all of our own choices on how we're going to navigate this period of time you know and and if that it works for you then that is your choice but also at the same time there are so many things that all of us women would share a view on such as how the female body works needed to not have been coming out this year it needed to have been written about yearly, right, for the last 20, 30, 100 years.

1:08:52I do think as I was writing it, there's a big old chunk about the menstrual cycle and there are so many things I didn't know. What was your most shocking thing that you learnt? Okay, so you get drunk quicker when you're ovulating and the impacts of alcohol and nicotine are more intense on your body when you're ovulating. Basically, because all your body cares about at that point in time is getting you pregnant. It doesn't give a damn about processing alcohol. also because you've got higher testosterone in you at that point in time which is going to make you indulge in riskier behavior because it wants you to get pregnant wants you to have sex with absolutely anyone and get pregnant so i'm like well that explains like most of my 20s you know there were there were times when i went out and was like why am i sozzled on two glasses of wine it was probably because i was ovulating equally you're um more disinhibited so you're more likely to text someone you shouldn't you're more likely if you're trying to give up smoking or trying to give up a dodgy ex you're more likely to take up that that poisonous behavior again so it's just stuff like that i'm a bit like i could have really done with this in 1997 when that diary entry had that little marker that i was ovulating i needed to just go home i needed to not have one of those lunches have a drink of water watch this life go to bed but no but so you know i think it as i say i wanted to produce a useful book and i do think my experience of everyone who's read it said what they tend to do is they read the introduction and they go straight to whichever section is most appropriate to them at that point in life and then they go back yes because it's a bit like you know you need to read what happened to you in puberty you need to know about that to understand where you got to now I think it's like therapy but it's a bit like therapy with your body you're like oh and you end up feeling really forgiving of a lot of the things you did because it kind of wasn't your fault it was like genetic programming yes but also just having real respect and kind of awe for this contraption your body which is just trying its best for you all the time it doesn't messes it up all the time but it's really trying it's like an incredibly loyal adorable dog but it's it's an amazing thing that you've done i mean really really it sounds as though 2025 has been your year because not only did you publish your book and maybe I don't know healed some wounds I did heal some wounds I really did heal some wounds but you also launched broad your sub stack in May of this year no it was May last year actually 2020 May last year and this is where you share a slice of life with us all everything from fashion to your opinion pieces what has that experience been like to feel like you can be your rawest most authentic self been brilliant absolutely brilliant this one when i was researching you in advance of this podcast and and you know i have never thought of myself as entrepreneurial which is you know which is what you embody i think yes but that apart from when i launched this sub stack so sub stack for people who don't know sorry if this is really patronizing is a subscriber newsletter so you ask people to pay you a little bit and then they get in my case two two articles a week but when I sat down because I I love journalism with all my heart print journalism is you know it's in my soul it's gorgeous but it's it's going through a difficult time let's say and I got to a point where I hadn't had a fee increase for a decade from anyone so I was working working I couldn't be more successful cover stories left front center award winning columns but I could see a time when that wasn't going to be enough money for me to live I am not a person who is particularly driven by money but I am a person who wants doesn't want to have to do anything else because I love this so I decided to try Substack to see if it worked for me and it works so well but I did approach it I think in the most entrepreneurial way I ever have approached anything I was like okay okay, I know how to do this.

1:12:52This is me. This is my area. I am going to effectively build a sort of weekend newspaper supplement, but it's all me. You know, I'm going to give people stuff to buy. I'm going to give people emotional hits. I'm going to give people contentious opinions. I'm going to mean every word of it. But it's so fun. It is, for a fairly rogue writer anyway, I am allowed to be, because it's just me, it's mine. Yes. I am allowed to be more rogue than I would be anywhere else. Because I like kind of testing subjects from lots of different angles. And I can do that. You know, with a newspaper and a magazine column, you have to kind of focus in on your one argument, deliver it and go.

1:13:32Whereas this, I can go, yeah, but on the other hand, what? That, on the other hand, that. So that's naughty, but also nuanced and really fun. I can write to whatever length I want and I can then voice it so people don't have to read it. They can listen to it. I can use whatever pictures. The pictures of me that have been used in the press are, my byline pictures are generally, everyone's byline pictures, they're quite stern and dull and I'm very serious. When in fact, I'm quite a silly, smiley person. So I think people, and I think this is added to some bother in how I'm perceived. People assume you're a bit of a haughty cow when in fact I'm a bit silly.

1:14:04So I can suddenly use pictures of me smiling and looking silly and goofy. So, you know, from that on, plus I've got this immaculate training from years of brilliant people. um you know i know how to write a headline i know how to draw people in i know just when to whack the pay all in and so it's been oh and it's grown and it's been brilliant and the people who are subscribing are just amazing and we're all chatting and i love it i absolutely love it oh i'm so pleased i mean would you say that you're happier now than you've been ever before yes Ever? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I'm just, because I feel like this might be, you know, it's an amazing thing, I think, again, getting older and just finding yourself and being more you than you've ever been.

1:14:51And that's what age gives you. Absolutely. Is this your sort of, when you think now to your time, is this the happiest you've ever been? I mean, I really, really hope that I just get happier from here on in. Yes. But yeah, absolutely. I am more. I mean, people talk about the confidence women get when they're older. I don't like it's like cocaine. You're like, oh, my God, I'm amazing. Has anyone seen how incredible? I mean, you really are. I feel suffused by it. But at the same time, I don't have to prove anything to anyone. So that's a killer combination. to sort of thinking, I'm really, really good at this.

1:15:27And also I don't care who, you know, as long as I have enough people paying me enough money that I can carry on doing this, that's it. That is what you want. I don't need to be the richest girl in the playground or the most famous writer. I just need enough people to enjoy what I do and pay me to do it and that I can carry on doing it. And that's it. So that's lovely. Yes, no, absolutely. And then, you know, the whole of the rest of my life has just fallen into place around that. And exercise has been a huge part of that. My dog has been a huge part of that. Not having children has been a huge part of that.

1:16:05You know, it's been a big old journey and it's been a lot of work. But yeah, I was right. You were right. You were right. We're coming towards the end of this interview. And I ask everyone on this podcast, what would you say has been, if you were on a roller coaster for you know go back to your younger self and this this whole ride that you've been through from working lunches less working more fun singing the top of your lungs to the through all of that you've told us what would you say when that cart was at the lowest point of the roller coaster has been in your journey i think the lowest point in the roller coaster would definitely be the first book coming out hot feminist coming out and just being just being told basically that I was a bad person and I was bad at this thing I loved beyond anything else which was writing that was unbelievably painful and conversely with the wind in your hair I mean I'd like the early stages were amazing and exciting and so you know I can still remember being offered my first job in a magazine and just how incredible how just brilliantly incredible and then again discovering I was good at it and I have won a few awards and that's obviously lovely but no honestly I think it is just feeling like I am still getting better that's really important you know it still is really important to me that I never cruise that I keep putting out kind of really really good work that I keep you know you asked me earlier if writing the first book and the pushback I got from that damaged my you know desire to be controversial but damaged my desire to say the things I really believe and I think actually there was after getting over that i was like i have nothing to lose anymore everyone there were so many people and writers and people in with any profile who are terrified about getting cancelled i'm not i am free of that because i know if you are really truthful and if you hold your nerve and the end people kind of go oh no she was right shit yeah on to the next and yeah but you know Exactly.

1:18:07I wish we could get over that. But you do become stronger because of that and you become more inclined to put stuff you really believe. I published something in my sub stack about woke yesterday. And I was scared. When I pressed the publish button, I was scared. But the response was brilliant. People respond so well to honesty. Yes. and authenticity and you saying things that matter and that are useful they do yeah so i will carry on doing that so yeah it's it's gotta be now hasn't it it's gotta be now it's gotta be now this is this is this is a high but i don't know the last one well no not at all and and and knowing you briefly i can only imagine this is not going to be you know the happiest it's going to be you're going oh there is more there is more there's more books there's more it's been a real pleasure to speak to you.

1:19:02I'm going to hand over to you. I know you have penned something to your younger self. I have. And it's, wow, to have your skill writing a letter to your younger self is a real privilege. So I hand over to you and thank you for everything that you've shared. Thank you so much, Holly. It's been such a joy. Dear Polly, yes, it really is me. I know. Despite our stoned revelation in about 1992 that time travel would never happen because if it could someone would have already come back and told us. I can't explain the technology, no, but even if I could we wouldn't understand. It's not really our area, is it?

1:19:40But look, first things first, you're brilliant and it all works out. That's the headline. It works out in ways you are not even daring to dream about. It is bigger and better and it feels more lovely than you can imagine. Although I'm going to retract that. Part of what makes you adorable is that you have such low ambitions for yourself. You're so incredibly easily pleased. Like how were you, we, got that job in a cocktail bar in Covent Garden at 21 and spent six nights a week for 18 months on a lacquer cat suit and wonder bra serving long-earned iced teas to city boys and scraping by on minimum rage and tips.

1:20:15And still, we totally thought we'd made it. We didn't think life got more glamorous or thrilling. I'm equally loathe to give you advice or guidance in retrospect because you by love you work it out you struggle and you fall on your ass and you think it's never going to go right but you work it out and then you struggle and fall on your ass again and again and still you go to wherever it is the two of us find ourselves to die by me this is grammatically complex although also it's not as if this is any kind of end point you and I constantly feel like we're just getting started in it in the best, most potent way.

1:20:51Here are the things on which you can and should and will fall back on over and over. One, you're a grafter. You've only just discovered this in that job in a cocktail bar. To this point, you're a bit more floaty-coasty, but the realisation you can earn money by working hard has made quite the revelation. You have a considerable work ethic, a sense that most things can be solved by you rolling up your sleeves and working just a bit harder, and you're right. Number two, oh, accept that, like so many of your generation, you believe if you work hard and are competent and nice, people will recognise, respect and reward it.

1:21:21They won't always. They'll get used to it, start taking it for granted. That will sting you from time to time. You'll feel like you've been overlooked, overtaken, by a person who talked a better game, who picked the sus-up to superiors, who preposterously took them at their word and how great they were, and ignored the evidence of your ability and graft in favour of their words. You don't have to play that game too. It's short-lived. The games are anyway. I suppose it comes fast. But you don't have to believe it when someone else starts acting and talking like they're better than you. They aren't.

1:21:50You are really good at working out who among the men is good for you, supporting, championing, loving, if we're talking romantic or friendship. You have a couple of bumpy goes, but work this out really early on. You're much, much less good at seeing who among the women is good for you. You'll get used and burned a lot by women, simply because you sort of assume they're women, so they must be OK. You'll go above and beyond to help women who simply don't deserve it, who would never dream of helping you in the same way, be more careful and wary. They're all telling you who they are in tiny ways all the time.

1:22:17Heed it. Equally, number four, you're unkind to women who lift you up like you're in the lyric of a Beyonce song. Learning to tell the difference between those types of women can steam a lot of your adult life. It's hard at first, but you get there. You're entirely commendable, but not always that useful, compulsion to help every single woman who asks for it gets focused on those who deserve it, which is where it should be. Five, you're absolutely right to think about how you dress as much as you do. It impresses people as it should. It's the expression of your creativity and your wit. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

1:22:48Six, rejection is horrendous and inevitable. The most useful thing you'll come to understand about it is that everyone suffers it over and over, especially if they're doing anything good. It comes with the territory. You will never not feel its sting, but you'll get over that sting more quickly all the time. And you never let it stop you from trying things, even when it's stinging hard and long. that's a lovely thing seven there's no such thing as a big break there's no moment after which everything falls into place and flows there are many triumphs you hardly even recognize along the way then suddenly there's this body of work of which you can be very proud eight obviously you make mistakes and while some of them sometimes seem monumental you get over them all the time none of them define you nine being happy being satisfied being fulfilled at active states you work towards them all the time.

1:23:37They don't drop in your lap. You don't just wake up like this. You make good choices over and over and over. And there you are. Happy, satisfied and fulfilled. Number 11. It's never about writing. Money. That's not your driver. You need enough, but never loads. This means you'll generally have enough, but never loads. 12. It's a bit about ego. Seeing your name in print is never not a thrill. 13. But it's mainly about writing. That's what does it for you. Same as it always was. so busy it was when you're a nine-year-old kid writing stories on a line piece of a4 it's always lovely number 14 you probably should have started a pension earlier number 15 stop trying to prove yourself to people who don't care and don't want to see how good you are they never will and they don't matter i love you far more than you love yourself right now but don't worry that comes to lots of love me your older self

1:24:29oh you really are uh you know going back to the beginning this older sister i was i was listening to you intently as you read that and i just thought we're lucky to have women like you who are courageous enough to voice your opinion to be who you are some of us aren't you know we just we just aren't that way we're not inclined to do that but we're not confident enough to do it And we need women like you who are and who have skill and talent to articulate it in the most beautiful way. And that was a stunning letter. And really, honestly, I'm enjoying your book. I'm enjoying meeting you. And I so look forward to what mischief you might come up with next.

1:25:15And you know what? I'm going to be right there cheering you on. So thank you, Polly, so much for being on this podcast. It's been an honour. Oh, thank you. That means so much. Thank you, Holly. Huge love.