Liz and Nic play the Miami Vice theme and talk about Don Johnson, who was recently in Book Club 2 as the fiance of Jane Fonda's character. She thinks it's ridiculous to have them play a couple because Don is 73 and Jane is 85. Still not as big an age gap as Liz and Nirpal! Liz sneers at Johnson's "stupid daughter" (the actress Dakota Johnson) "getting her nipples out" in the 50 Shades of Grey movies. The clue's in the title, Liz. It's 50 Shades not The Sound of Music. She says she once interviewed Antonio Banderas and he was offended by her asking why Melanie Griffiths would leave Don for him. Gee, I wonder why Antonio got upset?
Liz went shopping for the first time in years. She admits that she's bought clothes online since then but that didn't count because she didn't go into a shop. She has to go away next week on a work trip - "a very high-end story cuz I'm a high-end person." Double "ha" with a hyphen! She went to Zara but their decent clothes are sold in London only, and the store was full of half-naked girls. So poor Liz was forced to go back online and blow hundreds on designer gear. Liz says shopping is the only thing that makes her feel good; therapy doesn't. That would be why she's bankrupt, then. She doesn't like renting clothes and doesn't care if it's eco-friendly - "stop having children, buy clothes!"
Liz wrote a "one-woman play" at Easter "because I don't need chocolate." It's about a woman who performs on stage with a hologram of a dead star, based on this recently being done with Paul McCartney and John Lennon at Glastonbury. She's convinced the play will be a hit and make Liz's fortune, just like The Turtle's Head, and the movie script, and ... Liz rambles for a bit about Jennifer Aniston's knickers and Patrick Demarchelier's photography. Nic is reading Yellowface by RF Kuang, in which a white woman passes off a Chinese person's literary manuscript as her own work. Nic gives intelligent and thoughtful commentary on the book. Liz isn't sharp enough to keep up with this and just grumbles about, "in my books, men are ABSOLUTE BASTARDS!" Being of Chinese descent myself, I'm pretty relieved she didn't try to weigh in any further.
This week's column: "In Which I Grieve For My Former Self." This one's even more incoherent than usual. Liz had Botox and bought designer clothes online (as mentioned earlier.) She talks about a friend burned by the mortgage crisis. Liz feels she's had "no life at all." All the five-star travel and interviewing celebrities doesn't count. She is having therapy but it doesn't help. Liz is estranged from her eeeeeevil sister Sue and still has nightmares about Sue bullying her. I'd bully my sister too if she spoke about me like this on her podcast. Liz was there for her nephew's first iPod, his first Hermes sneakers, his first driving lesson in an expensive car, yet now she hasn't seen him for years and knows nothing about him. Liz: do you think the fact you view his life in terms of consumer goods explains why you're no longer part of it?
She compares being separated from her nephew to parents losing custody battles, without a hint of awareness of how offensive this is. She has come down so far in the world that she now has no car (sold to pay Gracie's vet bills, remember?) and her mortgage-burdened friend suggested Liz buy a Volvo instead of a Land Rover. She says she's not just grieving for her nephew, or her London house, or Gracie, but for "the person I used to be: dynamic, successful, happy, high-end, optimistic." Now she's a peasant, like everyone else. A Volvo person. "I fear Next and Per Una are beckoning like an open grave!"
She's angry because someone "ruined her life" and she's had "no recompense!" Who's it this time, Liz? Sue? The stalker? Nirpal? Anything to avoid taking responsibility. She says her psychotherapist didn't believe a highly paid columnist in a national newspaper could be in such dire straits until Liz had a nervous breakdown live on Zoom because someone rang her doorbell. Nic says some sensitive and touching words about the impact of hidden disability that go, again, far over the head of High-End Lizbot.
Archive column: is from 2021 about Liz's alcoholism and finally giving up drinking. This is the one where she goes into graphic, intrusive detail about her sister and sister-in-law's alcoholism including naming both women. The rest is pity-me stuff about how she started drinking because Evil Sue bullied her, all the other women at Marie Claire were younger and had boyfriends, etc. etc. etc. Urgh. Feel like I might need to go and rub myself with salt to get clean again.
Fan mail: Diane offers advice on "Mini Puppy's" crumbling teeth. Alex suggests Liz visit a psychic for guidance, as if there aren't a dozen or more past columns/articles about Liz consulting a psychic. Liz says that a clairvoyant advised her to move to Exmoor and told her it would be a "sanctuary." Not for long, Liz says! Nic tells her to blame Sue and we thankfully end there.