345: Books, being busy and Britain vs Denmark with Helen Russell

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2:10Ellie Gibson: Hello scumbags, this is the Scummy Mummies podcast. With your hosts, Ellie Gibson and Helen Thorne.

2:23Hello and welcome to the Scummy Mummies podcast. It's me, Helen Thorne. And it's me, Ellie Gibson. Ellie, I'm delighted. We have an excellent guest today. She's an internationally renowned author. She has written the most beautiful books and she's sitting here in your lounge, Ellie. Oh! It's Helen Russell. Hello. Hello. Hey, hey, hey. Now, long-term listeners of the podcast will remember Helen because she's written brilliant books like A Year of Living Danishly, How to Be Sad, The Atlas of Happiness, the one about the Vikings. How to Raise a Viking. How to Raise a Viking. Now, that was the last podcast you were on.

2:57Yes. I mean, we're talking about the wonders of Scandinavian parenting. But you're back here and you have left Denmark now. I've left Denmark. Not just to visit the podcast, to live in England. I know. It will always have a special place in my heart. But yes, I moved back to England to the heart of the English countryside. And yes, it's been a shock. It's been a whole thing.

3:18Ellie Gibson: Well, it was a shock for me, Helen. Because, by the way, I'm getting already been confused by the two Helens. So for this podcast, I'm just going to call you Helen Russell, Helen. And I'm going to call you Helen Thorne, Mr. T. Yeah, I'm here for that. That's the only way to remember it. So, yes, because we've talked before, Helen Russell, about how Denmark obviously is a glorious socialist paradise where every, you know, everyone is completely happy all of the time and there's no death or misery and at least there's no reform or, you know, which is a great source of misery for me. And it's absolutely, it's basically a utopia.

3:54Ellie Gibson: So what's brought you back to this shithole? Well, I would say it was a mix of work and family and wanting our children to grow up knowing their relatives a bit more and their grandparents a bit more. um and yeah it was it was really hard to say goodbye to Denmark we had 12 years there so much I loved about it was my career as well as my sort of living I raised my children there but actually um lots of even family members said don't come back it's all terrible here but I think that there are still sources of joy and there are things we can work on uh work so after 12 glorious years my husband got another job um I no longer at Lego sad times still got lots of friends at lego though so still you know can get our lego lego fix and go and visit um and also i wanted to kind of explore what what might be possible over here and so it's been surprisingly lovely the the chaos and the muddle of english village life has been quite a joy and denmark doesn't do chaos or muddle so i was quite unused to that and i was quite good at following the rules in denmark and coming back here and realizing it's a little bit more loosey-goosey What do you mean by chaos?

5:09Ellie Gibson: How does that manifest, to point a phrase? I feel as though even coming back to the airport here with my three Viking raised kids who are used to running wild, just trying to tell them at Gatwick Airport, maybe don't run off because we don't know what are these people. you sort of have to stay nearby and you go to the loo and there's a covid sticker stuck on something else stuck on something else yeah everything's patched together there's updates you go on the trains and the you wash your hands in the sink and it gets sprayed with water and and my children and my children would go into pubs here and they didn't really know what pubs were for starters i failed them terribly they didn't know how to open a packet of crisps because they don't sell individual packets in denmark so that that beautiful sort of hiss and the lovely smell I didn't know about and they they kept saying well the tables in England are very sticky yes yes they are very sticky they are very sticky because it's just generations just people doing their best but it's a much bigger place you know there's a lot of people just trying to get along you know everything really it's a bit slap dash but there's a charm to that I think so I think there is there there's been a real value in in teaching my kids that not everything is like Denmark and we learn to to get along and we learn to work things out and I can still take a lot of that living Danishly and running wild and whittling things with wood and try and also teach them to read and learn something here yeah often there is a very strong rule abiding culture in Denmark particularly I would say from my experience and so often if I tried to do something outside of those parameters it was frowned upon it was made very clear that wasn't possible whereas here and maybe it's village life where it's community and there's a bit more give and take it is much more flexible so for example my daughter lost her coat she likes to leave things wherever she goes lost her coat uh at the village hall and if this was Denmark I'd have to make an appointment with someone meet them at that specific time be made to feel pretty much a fool a pretty chaotic fool having lost it in the first place um and then that would happen here I just sort of wandered in and out to like Alsatian dog training women's choir uh kung fu and then somebody said oh there might be a hook around the corner and so it's a bit more loosey-goosey i guess and it depends i think probably maybe bits of britain are different i mean there's a bloke down the road in catford who's keeping a couple of xl bully dogs uh in a makeshift cage he's constructed in the multi-story car park out of uh barriers and no one seems to fucking care it's pretty loosey-goosey down that way makeshift and cage are words that should never go together it's not until xl dogs wow yeah um so now if we go there if we hear the dogs barking my my son's like it's the dog's mum I'm like yeah just come on get in the library uh it's pretty funny on the way to the library running the risk yeah yeah getting mauled by a dog so yeah is it making you want to move back to Denmark all this it's making me want to move to Denmark it sounds uh yes but how because how old were the kids when you went over there so they were all born there right born there all raised there so we moved back when my twins were seven and my eldest was 10 so they had those kind of um give me the child till they're seven they had all those early experiences in Denmark and I think that has helped in some ways for them to be quite resilient and quite hardy and outdoorsy um but in other ways there was some butting of heads and some different cultures around among their peers of of having to get used to way more competitive kids here kids who wanted to win at all costs and my kids were like shouldn't we all just compromise and see if we can collaborate together no wow yeah it's been some interesting so it's like you've gone from steiner school to like an inner city comp i mean where i live is a very nice little country village but yeah in some respects yeah um no one's keeping xl body dogs in a cage in the church hall helen no i think we'd have to worry about that a couple of quite fierce alsatians with chains around the bay so you've you've made that you've made the big leap and how how he found you know just you you've got to do the play decks with the mums as well so you've got to make new friends as well as facilitating um you know children and and sporting things and whatnot and a timetable of yeah events now that part of life is exhausting don't you think i mean i suppose if you move anywhere if you relocate anywhere for any reason i spent so much time trying to get the kids sorted making sure that they were okay and then i realized i sort of had a bit of a hit the wall got a terrible stye I was wandering around trying to make new friends going, hello, with my eye patch on.

9:36And it got to the stage where you think, oh, I'm going to have to make some new friends as well. I've been so focused on making sure the kids are all right, yada, yada. And that took a while. Yeah, there was about a time, maybe even about a year in, where I thought, oh, this is awful. I really miss my friends a lot. And English friends weren't so nearby. So that's taken some work. but you could get there in the end. But yeah, it was hard. And I've met some really lovely people now, some kindred spirits, but really hard at the beginning. You're like staggeringly lonely when you relocate or have a different life stage to everyone else.

10:13So you're back in Scots and yourself and you've been busy writing, Helen. I've been busy writing. And you've got a new novel called Laura Clarke is Away from Her Desk. Tell us all about it. So, Laura Clarke is the woman in the office who you might not notice. In her office, no one is entirely sure whether or not she wears glasses they all presume she does actually she doesn't um but she does everything she is the person who keeps everything running she's the person who brings in the biscuits the cakes fixes everything when the lift's broken she's the person she's officially an hr manager but actually she ends up doing everything for everyone therapist all of these things um and one day she puts her on out of office and disappears and nobody knows what's happened no one can quite believe it some chaos ensues her family a husband who is largely on the golf course of course a daughter who doesn't pay much attention to her they can't quite fathom how to run life without her they don't know whether to worry whether to be cross um so we're piecing together with laura not there we're piecing together what has happened and the pressure that many of us in midlife with uh caring responsibilities up and down and work and the emotional labor and the invisible load what happens when that reached break reaches breaking point

11:28Ellie Gibson: so it's like a thought experiment so what inspired you to write this to write this book about a woman in her 40s with a family uh who finds life quite stressful and probably wants to tell everyone to fuck off uh helen where did you where'd you get your ideas from amazing isn't it weird um i so i was talking to someone i said i could have not written this book but then i probably have just exploded absolutely combusted it feels like these are the conversations I've been having with friends as I'm sure you guys have too for years now that kind of like this is fucking ridiculous how can this be my life and how can this one thing loaded and a bit like kind of buckaroo like one thing just pop something else on pop something I'll be fine just pop something else up they can do it you can handle it and then just what happens when you finally explode and flick flick the middle finger to life so it was kind of um an escape and um and sort of wondering a what if and taking these conversations and the things that we all feel and wondering what would happen going to its logical conclusion and also I wrote it while I was moving back from Denmark to the UK so I couldn't really do I write a lot of non-fiction but I couldn't really commit to doing interviews or doing anything useful because I was just busy I lived in a B &B for excuse me I lived in a B &B for a month trying to get my kids settled in school my husband was still in Denmark I had my big sty trying to make new friends saying hello so I was really just losing my sad little mind and so actually having this imaginative escape where I could just be in any coffee shop just tip tapping away just getting through each day was a massive release just to have that escapism was great so how did you find that shift from as you say you've written lots of very successful very good non-fiction books um was it how was the experience of writing fiction was it a big shift or was it oh i'm a writer i got this i just i just make it up instead of writing facts that's fine just the facts or not yeah well i don't know how you find this i find it um there's a little bit of um glorious madness and mischief that goes on because you get to know these characters so well you can kind of hear them talking and they're sort of with you at all times which i'm not sure is entirely healthy for a grown woman and when you're kind of growing up inside out you know you know you know you've got like six or seven people just all chittery.

13:45Yes, or like the Jimmy Stewart with the big river, big rabbit. Big rabbit, yeah, yeah. Palooza. So it was like having imaginary friends and sometimes if the kids would say something ridiculous or my husband would say something ridiculous or my mother or the world, I would just be thinking, well, I'm going to, you know, you can kind of vent in fiction all of the things that feel as though they are building up.

14:08Ellie Gibson: Right, and you don't have to get permission because you're not using their name. You don't have to get permission, can't even get mad, can't get mad, just fiction. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Purely coincidence. That's what I always like in thinking of novels. I have been known to goad my son into a conversation knowing that he will say something funny that I can then write down and put in my book. It's very satisfying. It's a good game. That's good. It's very productive, Ellie. Very productive use of your time. Oh, I need the kid to be funny here and I need him to be talking about superheroes. Jo, what do you think of the Snyder Cut of Justice League and off and off he'll go so it's quite good yeah i worked in so the husband in laura clark's husband is a golfer called mark and i worked in a golf club in my teenage years and you just you know you're treated like shit when you're white well you were back in the day being like a kitchen assistant in a golf club or a waiter and just these like sexist old gamony people um and just it just felt so good to think oh that was all worth it because look i can use it now and then And I went around a few local golf clubs and I sat in their club rooms and just listened and watched and thought, oh, yes, there's still some of these characters around.

15:16So there's such joy to do that. Yeah. Yeah. And all the characters in your book, I can, oh, there's, oh, you know, you have like visceral hate for some of them. But also you just like, wake up, you know, you know, why can't you see? So Laura's obviously the linchpin, you know, the person that connects all these sort of people. And you've got different voices. So it's not just from Laura's perspective. I'm not going to give too much away. But, you know, it's all the people that play a part in her life or that she has an impact on. And then when that bit is taken away, it's like, how do they function?

15:51How do they? But the person that I didn't really appreciate is not doing that thing. And, oh, you know, and there's an awakening. You know, it's sort of like flipping up the guess who flippers. Like people go, oh, yes. Oh, and then that person realises the value, the worth, the effort that this woman is putting into, you know, both work life, home life and all that sort of thing. And I wanted to talk about the friendship because obviously I love female friendship and I love how it's portrayed. It can be a bind and a burden.

16:23Ellie Gibson: You can have its chain together for years. One minute just having a coffee, next thing you know, it's 13 years later and you're doing a fucking tax return together. I know. It's a dangerous hole to go down. Sorry, Helen. Sorry, Mr. T. Carry on. Yes. Well, so in the book, there's these beautiful devices in which you read postcards from the past between Laura, is the woman who suddenly disappears, and her best friend, Ruth. And they've taken different lives. But they started off as young people making this amazing decision to go travelling in an instantaneous thing. It's like, just go. and there's that delight and you can feel the excitement of youth going we can just do this we can do anything yeah there's there's no restrictions on our life and and that blank canvas and you know and and I think we start to feel that now as parents of older teens you're like you've got your whole life ahead of you do something big do something bold you know before life gets too serious and you and and your world shrinks a little bit and so that excitement's in there and so that this beautiful device in your book um between their postcards to each other is divine and then it's a wonderful way you you start seeing how ruth's life went one way and laura's went the other um and i just thought that was was very clever but also a joy because you you wait for the next postcard you know like you're waiting for the the mail at the door i'm so pleased i've got you yes it's brilliant and i was really interested so ruth is her best friend and this is not a spoiler but she is a mother of twins in as a as an older mother inverted commas um and i was also a mother of twins an older manner inverted commas and um just the madness of i see friends around now having babies at my age and just and just but some people are seeing their children go off to university so i just find the breadth of life experience of women in their in midlife years mad that you can be with a newborn and then someone else has got a child getting married or off to university becoming a grandmother at 44 you know we are all of these things it's a mad thing to be navigating and I think you encapsulate it so well because it's sort of like the what-ifs yes and I think I think at this age and I can't speak for other women but there are a lot of what-ifs and especially you know if you're divorced and and or you know thinking about divorce that's a what if isn't it's like what if i just left what if i created you know could there be something better or would it be worse you know it's that sort of gamble so i think that's what i really and you know i don't want any any spoils but it's just a yeah it's a beautiful awakening of of for for a woman uh but also um you know i think it's good to stop and pause and think about the impact that you do have on other people's lives yes and just the relentlessness of giving.

19:18Yes, the reckoning and sort of the endless availability that is not sustainable. So, yeah, I think. I like the buckaroo thing, Ellie. Let's steal that for a new sketch for our show for next year.

19:31Ellie Gibson: I'll just put it in my novel, actually. Oh, OK, yeah. I'd love to see you both dressed up as a buckaroo. You could literally. Oh, no. Miserable Steve is the donkey. Yes, yes, your husband. No, no, no. Our roadie. Our roadie. He'll be coming. My husband's called Happy Pete. Steve is our roadie. And we could just say, right, it's time to teach men the mental load. Let's put on it. He would fucking love that. Here's the hat of the PTA emails. Wear that piece like that. Oh, I think we've just written our funniest sketch. Let's tell him in the van. He'll be delighted. Steve, go on all fours. He'll love it.

20:06Because how much would a female audience delight in physically seeing...

20:11Ellie Gibson: In watching a man being humiliated. I mean, that's what we're saying. Yes, it is. It is. you could frame it like the jesse ware video and james norton you could say no it's gonna be really hot it's gonna be really nice oh or no or not no no i've not seen it i'd have to i mean we call our show hot mess there is nothing hot other than the temperature of our armpits but yes no it is it is just a mess but i wonder i love yeah i love the idea of using the postcards and i wonder if we could bring do you think we can bring correspondence back i'm i've correspondence yes well i'm reading this book called the correspondent uh which just won the women's prize for fiction it's about an older lady who's an ex-court clerk and she lives in the states and it's sort of it's just there isn't a sort of plot well i mean obviously there is a plot there isn't a traditional narrative it is all just communications emails and letters and postcards between her and friends and family members and old colleagues and and all of that and the story unfolds through all of that and i'm just like is that do you think the pendulum's going to swing back do you think we've all gone a bit oh whatsapp and email let's bring back postcards make britain write again i wonder with the whole sort of social media ban and um like whatsapp and things if kids i mean postcard seems quite an easy way in doesn't it you have to write too much they say so much in so few words something very beautiful and you've got the visual thing as well yes and i love another pitbull i remember in our mum and dad's house mum used to have all the postcards i'd sent her from i i always loves i don't send my dad one obviously but i would send my mum why when she was alive because I'm like oh but we're in Cornwall and she loves Cornwall or we and you I'd always want to choose the one with the most amount of photos because I want to in one you know square piece of card show her all the different things that I had seen I was like I want to share that with my mum on the other side of the world and that's kind of magical yeah maybe it is generational so you see that postcode on my mantelpiece there of the polar bears I sent that to my children shut up uh from the arctic from like one of the most northern post offices in the world.

22:07Ellie Gibson: And when I went to Antarctica a few years ago, I sent them one from the most southernmost post office in the world. So they now have a postcard from each end of the world. Do you think they give a shit? Do you think they give up monkeys? But did you bring them back some Lego or some sweets? I brought them back some weird Norwegian sweets. Yes, of course. Which they were much more interesting. And they didn't say, Mummy, look at these stamps from different ends of the world. They weren't moved. No, to be fair, I wasn't here when that one arrived. And I got home and saw everyone, Oh, my postcard arrived.

22:37Ellie Gibson: And they went, yeah. I was like, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool. But I guess they just haven't grown up with it. No. Or they're ungrateful. Let's, let's, who knows? No, I think, I think it just doesn't have the novelty. It doesn't have the, because everything's so instantaneous. Yeah, they could find that picture on the internet, couldn't they? Yeah. It's probably AI. I mean, that polar bear is smoking. So yeah. Yeah, it's a sombrero that gives it away. Yeah. But going back to your book, Helen, which was supposed to be the point of the podcast, rather than my postcard habit or not habit, who inspires you?

23:13Ellie Gibson: What writers do you read? So, as I say, I'm yes still trying to write this stupid book. And bless you. Bless you. Bless you. Sorry. Oh, it's not tea. Sorry. Bless you. God, you know you're getting old when your sneezes are getting louder and louder. Honestly. Sorry. and sometimes if I'm having a hard time writing the book which is almost all the time and I I like to keep reading because I think that's good for your brain it keeps your brain sort of limber but I tend I find if I read books that are really good I just find it really it's really hard because I go I can never write like this this is a waste of my time so I have to read really sort of mostly terrible not terrible but but I have to read sort of sort of popcorn fiction sort of I read a lot of thrillers where you know housemaids end up stabbing their evil boss to death and things like that uh just to because that is it's not I'm not saying I could write those books they're incredibly cleverly plotted and all of that but the sort of prose is at a level where I think oh okay that's okay you don't have to be Shakespeare to get a book published you can write in in good clean excellent but I don't want to say basic it sounds like I'm calling these people pricked do you know what I mean though yeah so I also feel that if I read something too good I think this is terrible what's the point or if I go into a bookshop and I'm half I'm at a tricky bit in a book and I go into a bookshop I think oh goodness there are so many books already what is the point why am I doing this like Richard Osman says if you walk into a bookshop you just know the world does not need another book no one no one in the world is saying I wish there were more books but then I am often looking for my next read and I sometimes think well there's there's not I really enjoy like funny books and there aren't that many so I think well then that's fine and then the world does need another funny book and that's fine um I often go back to that George Orwell essay of just keeping keeping it light Helen um of you know how to write and then also I read a lot of literary fiction and then feel sane that I can't possibly do this but then I know now that I can't I think when I started out and lofty goals really and I'd read Oh, my goals are very low.

25:16I'd write it. My agent would say, you're really, no, no, this is your voice. I just come out chatty. So like, yeah. So yeah, a mix. Yeah, I try and read in different genres so that I'm not influenced by it. Yeah. Yeah. What's the best book you've read recently? Oh, I'm going to sound like a right old knobhead. But Iris Modork.

25:38Ellie Gibson: The Complete Works of Geoffrey Chaucer. Iris Modork. Oh, nice. I haven't read that. Yeah. I thought it was, I thought it'd be hard work. And I thought, okay, come on, you can handle this now. It's absolute rollicking great corker. So that's nice because it makes me feel, oh, my brain is not completely atrophied from children and life and things. And, you know, our attention spans are so short now. And so that made me feel like, oh, good. I haven't melted away entirely. Oh, and we were talking about Miranda July's All Fours. I still want to stop people in the street and ask if they've read it and talk about them.

26:14And at some points in that book, it felt like she was in my head. And I thought, oh God, other people think like this. This is amazing. Yeah. Yeah. Have you read all fours? No, it is on my list. I know, I know. And so many friends have said, God, I've got to read it.

26:28Ellie Gibson: It's so good. If you haven't heard of it, it's by this American writer who, again, you'll be amazed to hear, is a woman in her, I think, 40s with like a child. It's a popular thing to be at the moment. And she writes about, and it's set in the States and it's about this woman who, yes, in a very different way, I think, to your book. And it's not as funny, obviously, but she sort of walks away from her life. And I'm thinking of leaving my husband. So for me, it really resonated. Yeah, sorry, that was my husband going to understand. But it's, and to be honest, I sort of hated it at first and was like, I don't like this character and I don't like, you know, and this is all very self-indulgent and weird and American.

27:07Ellie Gibson: And then after about 50 pages, I was like, I couldn't get out of bed. I just said to Pete, now you're going to have to cook the dinner because this is what I'm doing for the next eight hours. See you later. It's amazing, isn't it? She's not very likeable, but I think I really, I think Sharon Horgan's done some great stuff. I think she's wonderful, but she's made sort of spikier women, brought them to screens a bit more. And I think more of us should be doing that in books and in screens. Like, why do we have to be likeable all the time? Yeah. Yawn. It's in the oyster. It's really interesting you say that because we went and saw Supergirl the other day.

27:39Oh, yes. Good. And one of the lines that both Ellie and I really liked, and we talked about it afterwards, was that the mother says to Supergirl, you don't have to be nice, but you have to be good. Oh, I felt that in my fucking boat. I thought that was really brilliant because I think that's such a shift in how we perceive women because I feel like being small, being nice, being selfless all those attributes were a brilliant trick by the patriarchy to say that that's a good girl you know other people's pleasure is more important than yours other people's you know happiness is more important than yours yeah servitude is a great virtue yeah yeah exactly and now we're getting these incredible role models both young people and women who are going uh no no i don't i don't think so i think i think i think this is this this is what we want and this is okay.

28:37Yes. It's more than okay. And that energy is really brilliant. Yes. And I'm raising boys and girls trying to say, you don't have to be nice and you don't have to be grateful all the time, but you have to be kind and respectful. And that's just it. Do the right thing. There's no option on that. And sometimes doing the right thing isn't going to make everyone happy. And that, ooh, that's a hard lesson that one can keep working on, but it's the right thing.

29:07Ellie Gibson: And that book, and I think this other book that you and I have talked about, Yesteryear, which is an absolutely amazing book. It's the best book of ever ages. It's brilliant. And it's about a trad wife who wakes up in a sort of modern day influence of trad wife. And she wakes up as being an actual trad wife in the 1850s. And I won't say any more than that, but it's absolutely, and again, I hated it at first, hated her, and then got really into it and thought it was amazing. and I started reading about it online and there's a big debate now about there's a lot of people doing posts saying I don't like yesterday at year because the character is unlikable and some pushback and saying why do characters have to be likable and why is it always it does seem that it seems to be female characters that we often debate how likable they are that doesn't really happen with a lot of men could just be ruffians or rascals or terrible serial seducers yeah they get a free fucking pass I mean how conscious of that when you were writing this character Were you conscious of I want to make her likeable or make her unlikable or whatever?

30:04Ellie Gibson: I think so. I think for commercial fiction, there is still a pressure to make characters likeable. But I wanted her to do some things and behave in some ways that you that you perhaps did bristle at. That I wanted her to kind of come out of that mold of must be likeable, must be likeable as we've all been socialized and to then start making some choices for herself. So it's kind of a bit of both. I think there's a starting at that point to like make, to make, you know, there's a lot of things competing for our attention. So to make the reader think, oh, I care what happens. I care what happens to this person.

30:39There has to be a little bit of that. But then I hope she does a bit more rebellious. Yeah. And she's feeling her way through and she, you know, she doesn't do everything that's by the book. And, you know, but also you write in a way you can understand why she made that choice. Yeah. And she is compassionate towards herself at the end. Yes. Which is really beautiful because we're so good at punishing ourselves. And I think sometimes us as women can be our biggest critics and our biggest sort of blockages for that. So I think there's some, yeah, you wrote in such a brilliant way in which you can, yeah, you want to cheer her on, you want to hug her, you want to fucking slap the husband.

31:25you know, you want to shake, shake the daughter. Come on, come on, come on, Sian. Yeah. Or Sian, as I called her, until I realised her name is Sian. Do you know what another thing of making new friends is? You know, if you were coming up with characters from a book, I didn't have any friends called Laura or Sian or Mark. I didn't have any friends called these names. And then you move to a new place and you end up making friends called these names. And now I'm a little bit like, it wasn't you. I didn't know you at the time. It's just a name. it's just a name it's just a name yeah so I'm a bit I'm a bit frady about that sorry everyone not based on real people

32:02Ellie Gibson: no I did have to say to my friend Simon oh there's a character in my book called Simon but I just want you to know it's not based on it's not based yeah he's a massive bellend but it's not based on you it's based on and then I said the name of another person that we know who is a massive bellend and I was like it's based on him and he was like oh that's fine yeah so now he feels like he's in on the secret exactly yes he's delighted yes oh man oh wow Well, congratulations. It's very exciting. And I know it's going to be loved and it will resonate with so many people. And I know you've got another book coming out.

32:35Is it next year? Next year, yes. A book about moving back to England and noticing what is good and what is worth fighting for and a sort of modern, inclusive vision.

32:47Ellie Gibson: I mean, Sainsbury's and Radio 4, that's it, Helen, to be honest. Come on. This is not going to be a long book. Yeah. Oh, Ellie. I just think you can't throw the bath wash out I think that if we all throw our hands up surely Nigel Farage is one surely we have to just try and be good and keep going and be kind it's fine we're living in Burnham's Britain now Helen it's all going to be it's fine it's the indie kid it's all going to be okay with his eyelashes and his black t-shirt lovely mascara it's all going to be we're all going to live in a glorious socialist paradise more people from Denmark are going to be moving back over here we're getting the we're getting the train lines back we're nationalizing things everything's fine let's see we can but hope i feel like i'm in the honeymoon phase but uh yes but yes as we say rest in power keep starbucks long live randy bumham uh i know he did his best anyway uh therapy's biggest impact doesn't show up in some dramatic breakthrough it shows up in the smallest moments.

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36:02Ellie Gibson: Have you got any pearls of wisdom, Helen? Have you got any advice for any aspiring fiction writers who perhaps are really struggling to finish this fucking book they've been writing for literally years? And they have written quite a lot, but they are aware it's mostly dog shit. It won't be mostly dog shit. I would say three things. Firstly, it's like the shitty first draft. Just get it all down. Get it all down. And then you can come back with like an editor's eye. Instead of coming at it with your critical self every morning and going, oh, that's rubbish. Just get it all down. don't look back and then go back the next thing is i like post-its all around big fan of post-its not on this lovely flock wallpaper but on some sort of glass um because then you can move things around things perhaps on a child or a husband someone who's wandering around um how how perspiring they are that day you don't melt off um and then also i've seen pictures of you working outside and you've got a lovely outside area but i can't concentrate outside oh really distracted no i don't mind it she's got a lovely awning she's got a lovely well that's his maybe but yes yes i find i work better there or quite often i go to the gym which has a nice big cafe and i quite like a little low level chat for people watch yes or sometimes people listen sometimes i do listening and write down what people are up to so yeah and then she'll text me which is delightful i'm like oh she's at the gym again what's he saying now oh or just on the bus there was an amazing conversation that day but this woman was having on the bus to catford and this woman was going you never believe what he's done now he's broke my shopping trolley i know the one that matches my ankle bracelet and she was absolutely living and then she rang colin going colin you've broke my shopping trolley the one that matches me ankle bracelet and i was just oh that's a gift i can't make this up no delicious yes so eavesdropping that always gives some new inspiration that's yeah that's a good time so your advice is yes so so don't work outside well I can't work out.

37:56You know, glare, laptops, distraction. But getting out of the house is quite helpful.

38:01Ellie Gibson: It's fine. She's got an awning. Getting out of the house. And also going back to the idea of the domestic load. If I work at home, quite often they'll be like, I'll just do the washing. I'll just do the dishwasher. Oh, yeah. Or I'll just eat everything in the fridge, eating the stuff I don't like. So being somewhere else can help. Yeah. All right. Helen Russell, a joy and a delight. Always. But what is our favourite part? It's, of course, the scummy-ummy confessions. Yes, yes, it is. Extraordinary scenes. So, Helen, would you like to start? Have you got a funny, funny, scummy story for us? I have.

38:32I just... I might have to call you later if I'm not allowed to say this. Basically, at my children's primary school, there's shenanigans in the loo. Oh. There's been some protests and then being garnished with... There were conkers when they were in season, leaves. So there are dirty protests. offerings made shall we say and then they're garnished with things from out so so it's almost like it's sort of a master chef episode wow here's my final plate and here's the garnish and that's we don't know who it is there's a phantom shitter there's a there's a phantom shitter and the gar it's more the garnisher i've not i sort of maybe my standards are so low that i'm not surprised there's a phantom shitter but the garnishes i just find that extraordinary it's a flourish yes

39:18Ellie Gibson: It's like the great British shit off. Like, here's my showstopper. And here's some parsley. Yeah. So when I say it's my confession, it's not me, just to be very clear. Yes. But this is what's taking up a lot of my headspace right now. Wow. And it is quite scummy. Yeah. I know. That's a WhatsApp group kind of shit. Yeah, there's a chat. There's a lot of chat going on. Wow. Yeah. Have you got one? This is quite a recent one. So last night, so one of my children has gone on the Duke of Edinburgh for a couple of nights. And he's the older child. So I don't know if you find this. When your children are a bit older, suddenly it's like it's 10 o 'clock at night and they're still sort of often flopping about or just taking an hour to brush their teeth.

39:57Ellie Gibson: And it's, you know, they're sort of there. And I'm of an age where by 10 o 'clock at night, I want to be in bed and asleep. I am done, which can make, you know, the old having it off. Yes. When do people do it? When do people do it when the kids don't go to sleep? You have to get divorced and find a new lover. You have to send them off on Duke of Edinburgh. Yes. Yes. So the little one is a very good sleeper. So the big one was off yesterday. So Pete was like, right. And I was like, there's a window. There's a window. Let's do this. And so we put the little one to sleep. And then, you know, off we went, had a lovely time.

40:35Ellie Gibson: And he had one of these special pills you can get. And there's a new kind. I didn't know this. There's two kinds of Viagra. And one of them, it just gives you the one go round. And the other one keeps you going for a couple of days. Oh, no. Days? You can't go to work with a big old tent. Well, this is it, Helen. So this is it. So we took one. He just got his bike.

40:58Ellie Gibson: Stay with me. Stay with me. So, you know, we had a lovely time. And then this morning, I was making a packed lunch. And he comes in the kitchen. And he's like, I can't do the school run like this. He's wearing these shorts. and have you seen that video of Henry Cavill with the watch anyway I was like right no you you absolutely can't leave the house um I can't deal with that now because Joe is just um but if you just give me give me 20 minutes and he's like yeah okay yeah so I had to take I took Joey to school and then came back and then he's like well I've got a meeting at half nine I was like yeah no no okay and I've got Helen Russell coming I've got to tidy the house so right very quick over the dining table jeans off let's go um so morning yes this is amazing that's quite quite the quite the start to the day ellie so that's my confession is that we we did have a lovely time last night but today we had that it was honestly and as soon as it was done it was like right great um should i put do you want a tea yeah should we listen and don't forget we've got to um fin and fit out that form for the yeah fine like it was it was all a bit like clog in clock out yeah yeah shake hands at the end.

42:08Well, that was lovely.

42:09Ellie Gibson: You know, and then we were a bit like, hey, we've had it off twice in 12 hours. Oh, really? Look at us. Done for the year. We've still got it. Honestly, yes. That's at least two quarters done. Yes. So, congratulations. Yeah, congratulations. Well done. No, thanks. Great times. Yeah, I'm feeling pretty jolly. I'm having a table the same way again. Helen Thorne? Oh, I was going to say quite the opposite because we went away for a romantic holiday in Rome and, you know, it was lovely but very hot and it's like anything oh yes finally we've got you know again i've got teenagers and we we very rarely have any time alone and we've got oh yeah rome yeah sexy times but the combination of extreme heat and carbohydrates does not make for a sexy but we had some lovely naps very intimate lovely naps and and you wave to each other from the other side of the bed and it was lovely but no um it was it was rome was fantastic but just uh sweating a different kind of way and yeah yeah excellent well uh i think i think that's it isn't it so your book laura clark laura clark yeah your book laura croft laura oh i'd love to read laura croft is away from her desk laura laura clark is away from her desk is out probably now we haven't decided when the podcast is going out but let's say it is thank you helen russell for coming all the way from the village that uh that you live in the shire it's been to my house where i live thank you very much let's plug our nonsense we're going on tour oh my god i cannot wait we are having we've um we're in the last quarter of our hot mess tour yeah we've done we always um write a show and it goes for two years and so we're in the last so if you want to see this show which i I think is the best show we've ever done.

43:58I agree. It's funny. It's great fun. And you'll have a lovely time with your friends regardless because you're out of the house. But we're going to go to brilliant places like Seven Oaks. We're doing a tour of Ireland. We're going back to Canterbury. All sorts of, Maidenhead, all sorts of brilliant places. But it's all on scummyourmommies.com.

44:17Ellie Gibson: Yes, it is. And then, of course, it'll be our Christmas tour if you're the kind of person who likes planning Christmas things now. And then we'll be doing, yeah, doing a new show next year. thank you Helen for coming back on the show and you've got other brilliant books that people could read one of my favourite one is How to Be Sad I think that's I fucking love that book I've read it twice it's brilliant and the Atlas of Happiness is excellent and obviously the Year of Living Danish is a joy Martin Sheen's a fan oh yes yes Martin Sheen Martin Sheen yeah Martin Sheen Martin Sheen yeah the president there's a lovely photo of Martin Sheen holding your book.

44:57Yeah, reading my book. Yeah. That's really kind.

44:59Ellie Gibson: Well, that's it. Thank you so much for listening, everybody, and until next time, bye! Bye! Bye!

45:12It is recording on my blue, by the way.

45:15Ellie Gibson: It says disk space remaining 41 hours, so I don't think I would have stopped. Hopefully we'll be okay now. Oh, we will be. let's just manifest it of manifest it yeah I know you saying that again that's the end of this podcast I think that's just the end that's I think that that's it's like my kryptonite yeah you gotta manifest my fist manifest let's get into manifesting oh

45:45hey

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