How to Fail - cannot take the fawning anymore!

[Lottapianos]

Is it just me, or has the fawning and sycophancy gone completely off the scale? I've listened to this podcast since it started and used to really enjoy it. It's an interesting premise, and Elizabeth Day used to be a really good interviewer. And I get it - she's asking people to share very vulnerable stuff so wants to keep everything safe and 'nice'. Fine

God save us though, I've just finished listening to the live episode with Caitlin Moran, and it LITERALLY ended with 'YOU'RE amazing!', 'no, YOU'RE amazing!' giggle giggle giggle giggle. Absolute vomit.

Do you listen, and do you struggle with all this malarkey too?

[midsomermurderess]

I find Elizabeth Day unbearable.

[popyourcollar]

I agree, I really enjoyed it when it started, now I find the tone too saccharine. ED can be a brilliant interviewer - she did an amazing HTF with the American writer Claudia Rankine - but these days she is too sycophantic.

[popyourcollar]

I rarely listen these days unless it's somebody I'm really interested in.

[Lottapianos]

Ok, glad it's not just me. Same here, can only bear to listen when she's interviewing someone I really like or am really interested in

[RoseHarper]

Agreed, she is a good interviewer and has some great guests, and I love the premise of the series, but it is all a bit OTT and doesnt add anything to the show.

[HerbalTeaAndCake]

Well I can't bear Caitlin Moran. Her speeded up, patronising voice annoys the crap out of me. So I don't listen to her in anyone's podcast. And my GOD she's on a lot of them!

I do know what you mean abut ED. Sometimes she's great, other times she's a bit nauseating.

[HerbalTeaAndCake]

But I have listened to LOADS of her episodes 🤷‍♀️

[Perfectlystill]

Elizabeth Day is just AWFUL to listen to.

Caitlin Moran completely dreadful too.

[Lottapianos]

I'm sure ED wasn't always as awful as she is now. The guests on the recent HTF series have been dreadful too. The only one I'm remotely interested in is Joan Bakewell

[popyourcollar]

Yes I think the earlier series had more interesting guests and ED was a more solid interviewer. She did a fantastic one with the American writer Claudia Rankine where I thought she was a brilliant interviewer. The ones with Fleabag and Hot Priest and Dolly Alderton also stick in the mind.

I agree that the guests now are totally nothing-y - I also only listened to the Joan Bakewell one (and the recent one with ED's husband which was cringey but fascinating).

[Lottapianos]

'The ones with Fleabag and Hot Priest and Dolly Alderton also stick in the mind.'

The Andrew Scott one is defo on my favourites list. Ditto Gina Miller - you got to see a completely different side to her

I enjoyed the episode with ED's husband - definitely some cringe moments but what a thoroughly lovely bloke

[resistingreality]

Just came across this thread having reached a point of no return with How to Fail. I think Elizabeth Day seems like a genuinely lovely and well intentioned person so don't want to dump on her but she has a habit every episode, where the interviewee says something about their personality to which she'll reply: "Me too! We're just the same!" I think it's a way to develop a connection (obviously) but it loses something when she says it every episode.

I also have some concerns about a format where failure is a route to success which I agree with to some extent - but most of us will never achieve 'success' on the terms her interviewees experience and I do think it is a rather privileged version of life which presupposes the basics are in place.

I read her recent article in The Times about fertility struggles. I felt her pain so much. She did say some funny things though. One was that parents believe they are exempt from self reflection or something (I certainly don't) and that the fact of being parents makes them think their opinions are automatically more valid. I can honestly say I have never met anyone who thinks that. In my experience, most people with kids ... are just people who happen to have kids.

[Lottapianos]

'One was that parents believe they are exempt from self reflection or something (I certainly don't) and that the fact of being parents makes them think their opinions are automatically more valid'

I'm not a mother, and I can absolutely relate to what she says. No, it's not all parents by any means, but there are some parents who are extremely smug and self-satisfied, and take delight in saying things like they never really knew love until they had a child etc. That's a bit much to stomach, particularly if you have complex feelings around not having a child yourself

Just listened to her on another podcast, and she seems to be in the process of accepting that having children is not going to happen for her. Good for her, and I wish her nothing but peace on that very painful journey

[resistingreality]

I'm so sorry @Lottapianos I am sure I have said may stupid and insensitive things in my life (in fact I know I have) and that probably includes my post above. I just can't imagine why anyone would make such a stupid statement and I'm so sorry they do. I also see that I've engaged in the equivalent of 'not all men' (not all parents) so I will shut up on now.

[Lottapianos]

'I also see that I've engaged in the equivalent of 'not all men' (not all parents) so I will shut up on now.'

But you're right - it's not all parents! Please don't worry, you haven't said anything remotely insensitive 😊

[bingohandjob]

I loved listening to HTF during lockdown and really warmed to ED, I think she can be a lovely, warm host (perhaps rather than interviewer, if you see what I mean) though lately, whereas I used to listen to every episode, I skip a fair few now and haven't listened to one in a while. I think maybe the gushing praise from certain sections of the media have sent her a bit giddy. Funnily enough, I used to think she was just an identikit upper middle class columnist but I thought her podcasts revealed a more reflective depth. But now....🙄

I have to skip any podcast that has Moran as a guest. I just cannot.

[CaveMum]

I used to love her podcast, and her book got me through a dark time a few years ago, but I rarely listen to it now. She appears to have gone all out for “woke cookies”: that grovelling statement she read out after one episode last year promising to educate herself and be a better trans/non-binary ally after daring to ask a few guests (I think one was Alan Cumming) if they thought they would have been questioning their gender identity had they been a young person now was a nail in the coffin for me.

[Lottapianos]

'She appears to have gone all out for “woke cookies”: that grovelling statement she read out after one episode last year promising to educate herself and be a better trans/non-binary ally after daring to ask a few guests'

I agree, that was an absolute low point. So craven

[CaveMum]

She was also part of the panel that put a transwoman author on a short list for a women's literary prize, so went massively down in my estimation then.

[resistingreality]

@cavemum Completely agree. I think she calls herself a reformed people pleaser and I have a lot of sympathy for that but I'm not sure how reformed she really is. But to me it's part of a general absence of sort of critical thinking. I know it's not really set up for that, but I nearly threw my phone across a field (I was walking the dog) when one guest said her double-barrelled surname was her first failure because it made people think she was posh, when she's not (she is posh).

[Lottapianos]

'I think she calls herself a reformed people pleaser and I have a lot of sympathy for that but I'm not sure how reformed she really is'

I share your cynicism. I listen to her other podcast, Best Friend Therapy, because her friend Emma is a therapist and really interesting. People pleasing, guilt and anxiety are often raised by Elizabeth, and she does sound extremely hard on herself. I guess if she's going for the 'media luvvie' role, then fawning over trans people while claiming to a devout feminist is a non negotiable part of that

[Hormonehell1]

Interesting.

I struggle with her poshness in terms of personally being able to connect to her and I find the energy she has for friendship exhausting to witness but again, that’s no disrespect to her it’s just she’s not very relatable to me personally.

I did notice her complimenting Gabor Mate on his “lovely” hair on a recent podcast and it was quite jarring because the topics covered in the episode had been very cerebral and heavy. For E to suddenly almost flirtily compliment him on his hair it was such a gear change- even dower GM didn’t quite know how to react.

The fact her husband has no friends snd she loves having friends concerns me. I worry that she is missing out there but equally they’re both rich af so I’m sure neither cares!

The premise of HTF is a bit off because she says hers is her fertility issues. That’s not her fault. It breaks my heart to think that she sees it as a personal failure. I think a failure is just when you don’t try as hard as you could and fail an exam. So many of the so called failures mentioned are beyond the control of the person who she interviews.

I think she has a good heart and is a nice person. Just not as relatable as I first thought.

[CaveMum]

@Hormonehell1 I totally understand why she feels her fertility issues are a personal failure. I felt exactly the same while undergoing fertility treatment. It’s not rational but you think of yourself as a failure as a woman - one of our driving “purposes” (for want of a better expression) is to reproduce and when it doesn’t happen as easily as you had hoped it’s hard not to think that you’re “failing”.

[OhComeOnFFS]

Just reviving this as I've listened to a lot of HTF podcasts lately. I really like Elizabeth Day but yes, the fawning over guests just makes me cringe. It's the same when she's talking to Emma on Best Friend Therapy - on and on about how they are great friends etc. None of that matters - and frankly, who cares? What gets me on BFT is that Elizabeth always starts it off by talking about herself. In my opinion a podcast with a therapist should have that therapist doing most of the talking. And of course Emma can't then disagree with her BFF, can she?

As for Caitlin Moran - I can't listen to anything she's in and can't read anything she's written, either. She's so irritating and makes such a huge fuss about stating the bloody obvious.

[Lottapianos]

'It's the same when she's talking to Emma on Best Friend Therapy - on and on about how they are great friends etc. None of that matters - and frankly, who cares?'

Couldn't agree more. I listen to Best Friend Therapy because I really like Emma and find her thoughts and professional experience really interesting, but I really do have to suffer Elizabeth's gushing. She's going to get lost up somebody's backside one day!