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A review of wired headphones, sold out to nostalgic teenagers, sets Simon wondering why some objects turn his head long after he's stopped needing them. Simon and Lee compare their weaknesses – hi-fi on one side, trousers and coats spread across two countries on the other – and trace how money, desire and the discipline of saving up have shaped what they covet since their teens.

Mentioned

• Bose – audio brand whose new wired headphones prompt the opening conversation; sold out because younger buyers now want wired headphones again
• The Incredible Hulk / Bruce Banner – Marvel character; the image of a Hulk-style trouser split prompts a detour through the actors who played him
• Eric Bana – Australian actor who played the Hulk in Hulk (2003); misremembered as "Eric Banner"
• Edward Norton – played the Hulk in The Incredible Hulk (2008)
• Mark Ruffalo – plays the Hulk in the Marvel Avengers films
• Universal Works – British clothing brand; a light grey cotton-linen pair of trousers that turns out to belong in Lisbon
• Lisbon – one of two homes; clothes bought in one place often turn out to be for the other
• Midlifing episode 3 – an early episode extolling the virtues of a coat, which still fits perfectly
• Sony Walkman – first piece of sound gear, the start of a lifelong pull towards hi-fi
• Nirvana – grunge band; thanked for a 90s look of oversized, ripped and thrifted clothes that suited a student budget
• Patrick Cox – shoe designer; emblem of the smarter late-90s UK look that was out of reach on an actor's wages
• Firetrap – UK clothing brand, part of the same late-90s look
• Knox College – halls of residence during the first year at university, where second-years in a shared "double" had an enviable stereo
• HMV, Lambton Quay, Wellington – record shop where a job came from walking in and asking, with an interview on the spot
• Karori – Wellington suburb; washing dishes at a restaurant there, with a late-night bike ride home
• Rotel – hi-fi brand; the amplifier, tape deck, record player and speakers saved for by working two jobs
• Isto – Lisbon clothing brand with fully traceable production data; source of a perfectly fitting jacket that was tried on for days and not bought
• Sardinia – region of Italy with a similar well-heeled look to the Lisbon man in chinos, loafers and a blazer
• Palantir – data analytics company whose CEO reported AI figures taking up smoking, confident AI will cure cancer

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)

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Simon's secondhand iPhone and Lee's flirtation with a folding one get things going, but the episode turns on a last-minute invitation to Lisbon Fashion Week that Lee almost turned down over pizza. Saying yes, he points out, isn't a marriage, because you can always leave. That leads them to ask who actually gets to be that open: the socially anxious, parents on pick-up duty, anyone whose evening isn't already their own.

Mentioned

• iPhone 13 Pro – the secondhand phone the episode is recorded on; the discovery that its speakers sit at the top opens the conversation
• The Luddites – 19th-century textile workers who smashed machinery; prompted by the question of when an early adopter turns Luddite, followed by a brief and uncertain detour into cotton presses and weaving
• Apple Watch and iPad – recalled as examples of early adoption, including an iPad snatched by a passing cyclist
• iPhone X – the last model bought new on release, before a switch to secondhand phones over the cost of keeping up and the environmental impact of rare earth materials
• Kodak – shorthand for a point-and-shoot approach to cameras: interested in images, not in how they're made
• iPhone Duo – a phone that unfolds into a screen for watching television on trains and planes; being considered, but only after a couple of months of reviews
• Leaning Tower of Pisa – punchline to "leaning is not the same as falling"
• ChatGPT virtual try-on – feature for trying on clothes digitally; set as homework for the coming week
• Google wardrobe – Google's equivalent clothes try-on service; reportedly looks like a face pasted onto a model's body
• Lisbon Fashion Week – the event a last-minute invitation led to, which became an example of being open to saying yes
• Aperol spritz – being drunk at the pizzeria when the invitation arrived (transcript reads "April spritz")
• Ammo – a local Lisbon pizzeria run by Luciano from Naples, serving 24-hour sourdough pizza
• Rick Owens – American fashion designer known for dark, avant-garde clothing; a pair of his shorts, bought in a charity shop, was worn to the fashion event
• Michèle Lamy – octogenarian fashion icon and Rick Owens's wife and collaborator
• Six degrees of separation – used to describe following the interesting people who turn up in a well-connected friend's wake
• Shayo by Nnamdi – a new Nigerian slow-fashion label just launched in Lisbon, working with young Nigerian designers; met outside the event, leading to some accidental networking
• Waiter press – kettlebell exercise, held overhead like a waiter's tray, recommended for the newly delivered 16 kg kettlebell

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)

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Lee reveals that giving a colleague a lift home exposed a further, unsuspected layer of "unfiltered Lee", which prompts Simon to suggest a set of age-rated cardboard signs to hang around his neck. Simon finds real pleasure in treating a knotty work situation as a giant puzzle made of human pieces. He also reports that this week's raid on the office chocolate cupboard turned up only waxy, orange-foiled Halloween balls. Then Simon brings in a line from Annie Duke about crediting ourselves for good luck and blaming bad luck, which leads them to effort, privilege, and what large language models might be doing to a young person's sense of agency.

Mentioned

• Microsoft Teams – the platform for a work meeting earlier in the week, which opened with a podcast-style countdown out of pure habit
• Cher – "If I Could Turn Back Time" quoted after realising 1930 is nearly a century ago, not 60 or 70 years
• 1930s BBC nativity play broadcast – a technically ambitious live broadcast from near the tip of Cornwall, now being re-performed as an immersive piece in a church by a local theatre company with research centre support; the on-air bulb blew mid-broadcast and the cast carried on regardless
• Forced Entertainment – Sheffield-based experimental theatre company; the idea of wearing cardboard signs around the neck is called "very early Forced Entertainment"
• Falmouth University – cited as the third biggest employer in Cornwall, in a discussion of universities being too important locally to fail (transcribed as "foundless")
• Marlene Dietrich – conjured as the image of the old-time nightclub where "vamping" (filling time on stage) might come from
• Coventry University – domain for an imagined "quality control" email address to complain about the downgrade in stolen office chocolates
• Annie Duke, How to Decide – book on decision-making; its line about blaming bad luck for bad outcomes while crediting ourselves for good ones prompts a conversation about effort, luck and agency at different stages of life
• Large language models – discussed as a "seismic" wildcard for students' sense of agency, compared with older forms of privilege

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)