Good morning angels!!! I’m coming at you after a hilarious weekend where I bought a guitar at the flea market on Saturday, proceeded to go directly to lunch with a new friend, proceeded to move on to having DRINKS and DINNER and MORE DRINKS with these friends and ended up lugging Sonya (which is what we named the guitar) around with me all night:

Close Friends got to see this entire chaos play out (of course) but this is a call out to all of you: I tuned her up and she still sounds OUT OF TUNE? Particularly the G string (lol.) Any tips lmk! Or maybe I should just cut my losses and understand that this is a cheap flea market guitar…

Book Club Podcast: Watching Women & Girls 👧

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November 3, 2023

• I did an AMA over on Close Friends which was SO fun and I love letting you all know a bit more about me/ us/ this

• Bel wrote a gorg newsy on Sunday about digital intimacy and what we lose when we’re all SO online and trying to do normal things like… date and make friends

🌹 Digital intimacy and losing our mystery 🌹

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November 5, 2023

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• The Beatles have released their final song, using AI to bring John Lennon's voice back to life

• “From my hometown in Gaza, the unthinkable news: 36 of my family members are dead”

• Shit You Should Cook About: Cheaters Lasagne 

• Reminding you about our Dolly Alderton giveaway!

• Last week in podcasts!

• An interview rec!

In the most 2023 music story ever (and quite an amazing one tbh) the Beatles have released their final ever song, ‘Now and Then.’ In an interview with the BBC earlier in the year, Paul McCartney teased the song, saying it’s made from a tape that was labelled ‘For Paul,’ which was given to him by Yoko Ono in the 1990s. Previously, there wasn’t a way to separate John’s voice from the piano on the track, but with a software system developed by Peter Jackson and his team, they’ve managed to do just that, and now they’ve completed what is quite a beautiful song. Here’s how they described the journey in the bio of the song on YouTube:

“Now and Then's eventful journey to fruition took place over five decades and is the product of conversations and collaborations between the four Beatles that go on to this day. The long mythologised John Lennon demo was first worked on in February 1995 by Paul, George and Ringo as part of The Beatles Anthology project but it remained unfinished, partly because of the impossible technological challenges involved in working with the vocal John had recorded on tape in the 1970s.

For years it looked like the song could never be completed. But in 2022 there was a stroke of serendipity. A software system developed by Peter Jackson and his team, used throughout the production of the documentary series Get Back, finally opened the way for the uncoupling of John’s vocal from his piano part. As a result, the original recording could be brought to life and worked on anew with contributions from all four Beatles. This remarkable story of musical archaeology reflects The Beatles’ endless creative curiosity and shared fascination with technology. It marks the completion of the last recording that John, Paul and George and Ringo will get to make together and celebrates the legacy of the foremost and most influential band in popular music history.”

I wondered what the reaction to something like this would be, especially when there is so much tension around both AI and posthumous releases, and from what I’ve been seeing (on TikTok mostly) it’s been quite beautiful. I’m seeing a lot of bittersweet moments about how people can’t believe that they’ve now heard a Beatles song that perhaps their own parents didn’t get to hear, but mostly amazement that this actually came to life.

This weekend I read this piece in The Guardian by Ghada Ageel, a third-generation Palestinian refugee who spoke about losing her family who were supposed to be in “the safe zone” in Southern Gaza.

“My family home was supposed to be in the safe zone in southern Gaza. But last week the bombs came anyway, without warning. They fell at around 10 o’clock on Thursday morning in four or five big explosions. An entire residential quarter of the Khan Yunis refugee camp, where I was born and raised, was reduced to rubble. Everyone there experienced it as an earthquake; a human-made earthquake. The whole camp was shaking.

I’ve counted 49 dead – among them are 36 members of my family. Another dozen or more are still missing under the rubble of eight homes, I’m told, and more than 100 are injured.”

Obviously, I recommend you go and read the full piece here!

Pointing you to the journalists out there who are covering this in-depth (have taken on a LOT of your suggestions, so thank you!)

Shit You Should Cook About is written by London Laura - our resident ray of sunshine and Stanley Tucci superfan. She’s a new London dweller, chief of romanticising literally everything, and will definitely ask you all what your love language is at some stage. You can find more Shit You Should Cook About over here!

Helloooooo SYSCA whānau!!! Wowwowowow I have missed you! I’ve been thrown back into the world of school, doing readings on the train and spending my weekends remembering how on earth referencing works (very much here for any cite app recs!!) There has been very little cooking and a LOT of reflecting happening because it turns out studying psychotherapy means that you are learning/looking at what goes on unconsciously a lot and I’m finding myself seeing the world in quite a different way which is amazing and exhausting 😴 

All this is to say I have MISSED you, and this week I felt very in my head, so decided to make something that takes a minute but I find the process very very rewarding: lasagne 🍅 This is a cheats version (for those who want to make your cheesy white sauce we love you) but this is a cook by layers beauty that I was eating for days afterwards. Perfect for the rainy, dreary days we are having here in London as the seasons change (and for the stormy weather Aotearoa has been seeing!)

The thing is… I forgot to take ANY pics of it so here is one of when Luce came on her whirlwind London weekend and met Stanley Tucci Lite and my heart was so so full 🥹🥹🥹 (also listen to the encounter here which is pure chaos.) 

Lots of love xxxxxx

• Half a white onion - diced 

• 1x garlic cloves - chopped 

• 2x tins tomatoes

• 2 tblsp tomato paste

• 1 tsp sugar (white or brown or honey) 

• 1 tblsp white or red wine vinegar 

• 1 eggplant (don’t use if you don’t like it, sub in another veg like mushroom or zucchini or mince or just keep it tomato saucy!)

• 1 packet lasagne sheets

• 1 500g tub ricotta

• Fave cheese for grating (cheddar, mozarella, parm) 

Preheat your oven to 200C. In a large pan, sauté your onion and garlic in some oil. Add in your diced eggplant (or other veg), and sauté until it’s tender and golden brown (you may need more oil here as eggplant soaks it upppp). Add the tomato paste and stir for 2-4 minutes, then add your tins of tomatoes, vinegar and brown sugar, crushing the tommies with a wooden spoon. Here you could also add any herbs you have on hand. Let this cook without a lid for 15-20 mins. Get your lasagne dish ready, and spoon a teeny bit of sauce on the bottom. Place one layer of lasagne sheets across the dish, I always snap them to make them fit. Spoon half the sauce over the top, then dollop a third of the ricotta evenly over the sauce - try to spread it with a knife but it will be messy so just do your best! Grate some cheese, and then place another layer of lasagne sheets. I actually spoon a little hot water over the pasta sheets to make sure they get enough liquid, then add the rest of the sauce, repeat the ricotta cheese process then top w another layer of lasagne. Spoon the last of the ricotta on top, grate some cheese and pop in the oven for 30 mins, taking out when all bubbly and golden. Cut into squares, serve, & definitely save some for lunch the next day 💘💘💘

Ok so as you deffo know by now, we are HUGE Dolly Alderton fans (like, huuuuuge) so for all our NZ/ Aussie readers (sorry everyone else 🥺) we’ve got TEN copies of Dolly Alderton’s new book Good Material to give away (which is out on the 7th of November.) All you have to do is fill in this form here to get in the draw!!!!

ENTER HERE!!!

Bel and I are back on the mic this week to talk about Taylor Swift's re-release of 1989 (and all the Haylor tea), Charli D'Amelio cosplaying as a Walmart worker, North West's Halloween tribute to Kanye, and the tragic passing of Matthew Perry. How do we mourn a celebrity? Should we feel strange for doing so? Why did this one cut so deep? Listen wherever you get your pods!

This week we've got Squish back on the mic (thanks to all of your messages hounding him to make an epic return.) With him back we've got a bit of an AI special for you! From fake videos of Bella Hadid, to an executive order from Joe Biden to try and regulate it, to an advancement in cancer research thanks to the new tech, we give you the low down on what this type of technology means for us and our futures.

I really loved this interview between

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