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Simon is recording from Sassari, where the barn doors have just gone in and the pace of life feels unrecognisably slow. A conversation about loitering with intent – a legal phrase that turns out to be untranslatable into Portuguese – opens into a wide-ranging examination of third spaces, billionaires, and the frictionlessness of modern commerce: what the UK has lost, and why. Lee's account of an unplanned evening in Lisbon, ending with the three of them eavesdropping on an orchestra rehearsing through a church door, becomes the episode's counterpoint and its argument: that the best days are the ones that just keep opening.
Mentioned
- Sassari – city in Sardinia; Simon is recording from there mid-renovation on a place he has in the city
- Minority Report – Tom Cruise film involving pre-crime; cited as the logical endpoint of loitering with intent as a thought crime
- Cocktail – Tom Cruise film initially named instead of Minority Report; the mix-up launches a long digression
- Bryan Brown – Australian actor who appeared in Cocktail with Tom Cruise; his character's fate in the film briefly discussed
- Richard Chamberlain – actor; mentioned in connection with Cocktail and then The Thorn Birds and Shogun
- The Thorn Birds – TV miniseries; Richard Chamberlain connection discussed
- Shogun – TV miniseries; Richard Chamberlain confirmed as lead [?] – transcript garbled here
- Doctor Kildare – TV series; Richard Chamberlain's earlier role, mentioned in passing
- Jason Bourne / The Bourne series – Matt Damon spy franchise; invoked as another example of a character who wakes without his memory [?] – conversation unclear on whether the Bourne / Chamberlain thread was resolved
- Tilted Arc – Richard Serra sculpture [transcript says "Richard Sarah"] installed in Federal Plaza, New York; designed to bifurcate the plaza and force pedestrians around it; cited as an example of productive friction in public space
- Richard Sennett – writer and sociologist; invoked for his writing on friction in urban spaces and city life
- Too Good To Go – food waste app; compared between Coventry (mostly chain confectionery) and Sassari (independent grocers and green goods)
- Lievetta – artisan bakery in Sassari; slow-fermented, whole-grain bread; discussed as a surprising success in a city used to plainer loaves
- Keir Starmer – mentioned briefly as the kind of figure who has a public life in the institutional sense
- Pink Street – famous nightclub street in Lisbon; described as culturally hollowed out after the last Portuguese-owned venue closed
- Lucas – cocktail maker at a Lisbon bar; produced Japanese plum hooch from under the counter for an impromptu drink [last name unknown]
- Gilles – owner of a Lisbon restaurant serving Cabo Verdean cuisine through a Portuguese lens; met during the same unplanned evening
- Cabo Verde / Cape Verdean cuisine – the culinary tradition of Gilles's restaurant; described as African food filtered through Portuguese flavours
Get in touch with Lee and Simon at info@midlifing.net.
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The Midlifing logo is adapted from an original image by H.L.I.T: https://www.flickr.com/photos/29311691@N05/8571921679 (CC BY 2.0)
