Miss Me? - Test Brat Special

Episode Date: June 27, 2024

Lily Allen and Miquita Oliver discuss ‘stolen’ artefacts, their love of cricket, and Glastonbury festival.Details of help and support if you’ve experienced domestic abuse are available at bbc.co.uk/actionlineCredits: Producer: Flossie Barratt Technical Producer: Will Gibson Smith Production Coordinator: Hannah Bennett Executive Producers: Dino Sofos and Ellie Clifford Assistant Commissioner for BBC: Lorraine Okuefuna Commissioning Editor for BBC: Dylan HaskinsMiss Me? is a Persephonica production for BBC Sounds

This is the BBC. This podcast is supported by advertising outside the UK. on Rogers Internet. Visit rogers.com for details. We got you. Rogers. BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. This episode of Miss Me contains adult themes, very strong language, and references to domestic abuse, which some listeners might find upsetting.

Hey, bibs. Hi, Makita Oliver live from Antigua. Look at my yard. Yeah, it's... Can you see? I really tried to show the whole yard in the shot. I can see that. It's quite cribs, isn't it? It is quite Cribs. That's what I said when my mum first found this house.

I was like, are we these people? But we've grown to love it. And I like to now say it's our house in Antigua. But no, we don't own this house. We just rent it when we come here. It's very, very nice. It's very nice. You know, it's so nice because Antigua is so hot. I mean, of course, it's the Caribbean and it's June. And up here, because we're right on the top of like a hill mountain, you can see all over the island, but there's this breeze,

this cool breeze that you don't get anywhere else. So it's been pretty beautiful. I've had a lovely time, but I've got to leave soon. I'm leaving tomorrow. And you're going to New York City. I'm going to your house even though you're not going to be there but I will be seeing your house in New York for the first time without you yeah that's okay isn't it it's not weird is it David is meant to be coming to meet me in

Rome but now feels like he might have to stay in New York for work so you might not be alone in the house wait wait wait wait we'll talk about this later um yeah that's like a that's a family discussion that's what we call a spanner in the works my god I was like out here to have my hot girl summer in your house like walk around naked play some tunes and now your husband's gonna be he'd be fine with that he'd be absolutely fine with that also i'm meant to stay in your bed and he's obviously going to be in that bed no you were going to stay in ethel's bed because she's got the better view oh yeah higher up that's true anyway god don't we sound jet set rome antigua new york i don't usually have summers like this i've been in greece obviously i got back the day before yesterday speaking of heat jesus so me and marnie ethel's not really very she's not really that interested in history okay marnie however is very interested in history so we went to athens for the day on

the way back to go and visit the acropolis bloody hell hell. Do you know about the Acropolis? Yeah. The Acropolis is this building called the Parthenon, which is like on the top of this big hill and you have to walk all the way up it. And it was like 42 degrees or something. Oh. It was so hot. And so Marnie and I got to the Acropolis

about three o'clock in the afternoon. She really doesn't love the heat Marnie and she was just looking up this hill like mummy please do we have to um well this is a really special place it lets her like the path non is no joy it's like what is it fifth century BC built like this is the kind of stuff I'm really interested in this I would go through the heat for this to see something this special well Well, let me tell you something. So we got there and she was like, I really don't want to go up that hill.

And the tour guide was like, well, listen, there's the Acropolis Museum, which is at the bottom of the hill. And, you know, we always take like our primary school students and stuff to the museum anyway, so that they know what they're seeing before they go to the top and go and see the actual Parthenon and stuff so Marnie was relieved by this because it was you know an air-conditioned museum as opposed to sweltering heat um oh so she did opt

for the for the slightly more civilized option no we were gonna do both but we decided we thought we'd start off at the museum okay by the way this museum is incredible like i've they they have been they built like a whole like um to scale like a sort of reconstruction of the parthenon in the museum and you can see it from the museum it's literally just outside the window so it's all a huge big glass wall and you're looking at the parthenon from like a to scale uh reconstruction of it and what they've done is they've put all of the well okay first of all I have to intro this by saying revealing my stupidity because all through my life we didn't go to school though it's okay did not go to school right as evidenced by this little ditty that i'm about to regale you with so i have often heard people refer to the parthenon

marbles or the elgin marbles right and what did you think it was what did you think it was all about? I thought it was like a little bag of marbles. Okay. Like a precious bag of marbles, you know, like a bag of coins, like some treasures. Right. And I just thought they were like these mystical. Like a bag of precious stones. Yeah. Like a little mystical bag of marbles. So I'm walking around the Eucropolis Museum and there's like you know

basically what this collection is in the museum is like the statues and busts of all of the Greek goddesses Athena Poseidon you know which were all like on the roof of the Parthenon and and everything that was inside right so we're walking around this museum and she was like, you know, we've managed to salvage, we've got about 35 or 40% of the collection here and the other 60% is in a British museum. And I was like, oh, that's the Parthenon marble. I didn't realize it was like literally like kilometers

and kilometers worth of like marble busts, everything that you could possibly think of. Yes, but the way that this stuff was stolen is outrageous. Outrageous. Because Elgin marble, some Lord Elgin came over and asked if he could have some. They said no. And then the enslaved Greeks had no power, no power to stop him. And I think the ottoman empire the ottoman army invaded it was the turks the turks were in control of the greeks at the time yeah and they said yeah sure to be fair to old elgin he did manage to get like a decree from the turkish king to say yes you can take like samples of the marbles and he just went a little bit further than

that and took 60 of them he just went a little bit further which is such a colonizing british attitude like we don't really care we can do whatever we want britain is extraordinary as a place so tiny so tiny but believed so much in its power it's like the most entitled little girl that ever lived like actually i can just do what I want and take whatever I want because I am powerful. And actually there's a real infantilizing of other people's cultures. Because if you look into the language,

their language is always like, but we can look after it better than you. How dare you tell the Ghanaian royal family that you can look after their shit better than they can. Did you see that James May Caster stand up where he was saying that like not only did we not only did we steal your shit but we've also put it on display you're very you know who stole your shit you know that it's us and then we've put it on display with

a plaque next to it to explain how important it was to you and your country and your people but we'll have it instead we'll have it hi andy, Andy Oliver. Oh, mum. Come on, come in and say hi. Mum, we're talking about the British stealing artifacts from around the world. You'll love this. That's cute. You'll love this. What did you say? You said it's infantilising of other people's culture.

Because they say stuff like, oh, well, we would give it back. But it's, you don't know how to look after it as well as we do. That's what they said to like Ghana and to Benin about all the gold and all this stuff. And then it turns out that the British museum has had a whole ton of shit stolen. And they were like, oh,

well we've got 350 items, 350 items. That's quite a lot of shit. That's quite, that is quite a lot of stuff. That's quite a lot of stuff. That is quite a lot of stuff. That's quite a lot of not looking after. The devil's advocate, Lil,

because I feel like it's important if we're debating this, do we see the other side? No, when I was there, I was like, obviously the marbles should be here. Apparently there is an ongoing conversation between the British Museum and the Greeks about getting the marbles back to the Parthenon Acropolis Museum on

loan, which is so generous. Well, that's big of them. So generous to have the conversation, at least. Yeah. Yeah. How would they get them there? Probably like in shipping containers or something. How did they get them out in the first place?

It must have been quite the operation, Elgin. Do you know actually what they did it they they knew that it was too heavy right to ship or that it would be very expensive to ship such heavy things so they literally just chopped the fronts of the so they so in in the apocalypse museum there are like these huge just lumps of like plain marble that have had the like beautiful bits chopped off of the front and shipped to the british museum yeah like that you see that pretty bit on the right you just chop that off just literally like with a sort of sledgehammer just like with a little chisel i feel like they didn't even take care of it properly apparently loads fell in the sea it's like could

you at least please look after this shit probably we're just going to borrow this for 10 000 years just borrowing i'm not very good at like getting the british public on my side but i do think that Probably. We're just going to borrow this for 10,000 years. Just borrowing. I'm not very good at getting the British public on my side, but I do think that we should give the marbles back. It doesn't really make much sense to me. If people come for you for this one, Lil, I will really be quite astounded. They will come.

They'll find a way. They'll find a way. Do you know what I thought we could do? This actually got me really thinking about what we could do like okay we never went to school we did a bit but what we could do is we could travel the world as our school i know that people say like life is like education sure but we could like go and learn ancient history in greece english lit we could go to straffordon. I love the idea of it. I think that about 15 minutes in, I'd be really bored and I'd be like,

can we just... No, what about we could go to Venice to learn about the arts? You know what? Last night I went out for dinner with this woman who runs this school called the Think Global School. It's really fascinating. It's like three years of high high school so i think it's like

the last three years so like 14 15 16 maybe 17 and they don't have like an academic year like we do in the uk or in the united states they break it up into four separate terms and each term the kids spend in a different country oh isn't that amazing? So they're like doing the next one in Ecuador. They like go to South Africa. They did a term in Korea. Like they go all over the world. This is what I mean. Global school.

Yeah. Global thinking. It looked really fascinating. And actually it would mean that you got told stories from the people of the countries rather than through the British lens and British gaze. Because I also, I love being British. It's just fucking outrageous

some of the shit we go up to and continue to. That's all I'm saying. It's really bad. When people will say to me sometimes, you know, when I'm like traveling on holiday and people are like, which country are you from? And I always just say the bad one. No, I'm like London, UK.

The worst one. The worst one. Hey, let's say something. Let's say some great things about being British and things we haven't been. Because I think there are beautiful things. One I would say is cricket. And I went to the cricket here.

It's the Cricket World Cup here at the moment. Don't talk to me about cricket, Makita. Well, I don't like cricket, but you love it. I love it. I don't like cricket, but she loves it love it I don't like cricket but she loves it I actually do quite love it but I just needed to do that for the song

me and Greg James are the only sort of like slightly mainstream cricket enthusiasts under 50 in the UK Felix from the Maccabees yeah him too

yeah so you I feel are quite a test match bitch yeah I love a test love a test love a test now why don't you tell the world about your secret life as a cricket wife where you would like make sandwiches and yeah when i when i lived in gloucestershire my husband played for the local cricket team and yeah it was

my responsibility to do the teas so every weekend i'd make sandwiches and cakes and you know lug them up the hill lay them all out in the cricket clubhouse. Yeah, that was my vibe. Oh, what a life. What an idyllic lifestyle. So that's quite civilised test cricket, isn't it? T20 is like carnival, like Grove, Notting Hill carnival. It's like there's cheerleaders, there's tunes.

There was this DJ. Oh, my God. So every time, in between every bowl and every hit then they put the tune back up like you're all like just listening to a jungle radio station really interesting and it'll be like oh bad luck brother and then it'll just go and then it'll go back to the cricket so it's like it's always up and it's always on it was really there's this chef here called Tommy Banks that's a brilliant chef. He has an amazing restaurant called the Black Swan in York.

And he is here cooking with my mum because my parents are here doing a pop-up in Antigua, a pop-up restaurant to sort of push the culinary scene of Antigua and the Caribbean in general. And he loves cricket and he really enjoyed it. He was like, this is not like test cricket, but he, it was like a rave. We all went down and had a great time.

It's thrilling. It's exciting. But what I love about Test Cricket is the sort of long, drawn-out nature of it. I like the turning up with the papers and sitting there and you put your little earpiece in and listen to TMS, which is Test Match Special on the BBC. That's what Tommy Banks was saying, actually.

He said that sometimes he just likes to listen to Test Matches on like a tiny little radio. It's not really about it being some big glamorous visual experience. It's actually really nostalgic to hear it a bit crackly. Yes, that's what you do. You sit there with the little radio in your ear, in one ear, and you sort of like talk and have some tea and people drinking their pints very slowly.

It's not like football where it's like let's get this down as in 90 minutes it's like you know sinking sort of five pints over the over the course of an afternoon yeah but cricket can you drink while the game's on because the reason people down drinks at football is because you can only drink in half time now or before or after you can drink you can drink during the um the game at cricket for sure yeah so it actually sets a more civilised scene rather than people downing before they get to second half

which is no one's fault it's only because they banned alcohol. So yeah, so we've all been here but then Garfield who's been here for two and a half months

so he was getting separation anxiety with my mum he just kept going babe, babe, babe and she was like what? I was like are you just a bit panicky

about leaving mum Garfield? So it was a bit of that but also the fact that was going straight from antigua to glastonbury now glastonbury is obviously not till this weekend the reason he's going early is because he has a bar called gorilla bar which is in the shangri-la field he's around for about what do you mean sure i mean he quite likes that build-up it's not like oh, I've got to go and do a week's work at Glastonbury. It's like, got to do the build, got to build the stage.

Are you sure Garth? Sure. No, Garth would just like to nice up the area, but you know, it made me realize that I had the most brilliant Glastonbury last year. You were there the year previously to sing with Olivia. So we've kind of done the last two years respectively,

but this year I just did not feel that Glastonbury urge you either have that urge or you don't I just didn't feel it and I decided to trust that but it's shaping up nicely I think. Yeah it's going to be a great year going to be a great year Is that really all you have to say about Glastonbury?

It's going to be a great year? I would like to go to Glastonbury to go and see Charli XCX play her. She's doing a DJ set. Oh yeah. She's literally the only thing that I care about in the world right now. I'm so,

I'm such a Beggy Charlie XCX fan. You really are, aren't you? Really going for it now, aren't you? 365 fight girl. Was he? Yes, Lily's having a brat summer. Having a brat summer. And if you know what that means,

then I guess you know what that means. Now, actually, our producer said, do you think that that Shania three hit songs are enough for a legend slot? I disagree. Wait, what are the songs? Man, I Feel Like a Woman. Yeah, that other one I despise.

I can't stand it, which is... That Don't Impress Me Much. The Brad Pitt one. The one where she talks about Brad Pitt. I can't stand that one. And... That don't impress on me much. The Brad Pitt one. The one where she talks about Brad Pitt. I can't stand that one. And then I suppose You're Still the One. You're still the one that I love. I really like Shania Twain,

but particularly the early stuff. Her first album. And then those pussy children. You know that one? Nope. I think she'll probably sing more than three songs. So yeah, let's hope that, you know, 80,000 people know more than three songs.

Know the early albums as much as I do. Yeah. I don't think we've ever been to see a band together at Glastonbury. I've seen lots of acts at Glastonbury. I like going to see bands. Oh, I haven't really. Also, don't do too much walking.

Like, not too much adventuring. Don't worry, you're not missing anything at Parkfield. It's fine. I don't know, you might catch... I caught a London Grammar set there once, which I thought was pretty good. Oh, nice. And Wolf Alice I've seen at the park.

Oh, I thought it was just where all the Rolling Stones kids were. Oh, my God, I actually have a nightmare. Like, one year I got asked by Emily Evis to stand in for MIA because she cancelled her set basically. But it hadn't been announced. So loads of people turned up expecting to see MIA and they got me. And there was this one girl that was like 10 rows in that was just like, I'll never forget her face.

She was just like, fuck you, you fucking bitch. I was just like, I'm just doing her a favour. It was really horrible. But that was on the park stage. That's a really hard thing to do. I remember when Florence stepped in for Foo Fighters, but it was like a kind of glory moment. But I thought, you've got all these people

waiting for Foo Fighters. Yeah, tough. I did it once at Best of All, two-door cinema club. The lead singer got ill and so they asked me to step in and headline the whole festival. Oh my my god but i was quite smart in that i opened the set with a two-door cinema club cover so i got everyone on side very clever see that's very good and i love

you know how i feel about a cover i wonder if do a leaper will do any covers she'll bring on some friends won't she maybe elton but he was there last year. I feel like he probably doesn't really want to go back to Glastonbury. Do you know what? I have to be honest. As much of a superstar that Dua Lipa has become, and it is kind of a surprising story because I remember when Dua Lipa was like a model in West London that my cousin Marlon was like making some beats for.

So her stratospheric rise has been, you know, rather impressive to be one of the biggest pop stars in the world. But I still think she must be shitting it. It's a really different thing to headline Glastonbury, not even to just play to headline it. It's quite a lot. So good luck to her. In all seriousness, you know, I really am wishing her all the best

because, you know, it's a really contentious issue about how many, well, you know, what percentage of festivals take on female headliners. And it's not a very big number. And so the promoters of the world will be watching her set very closely. Because they want to justify their own actions of booking male fronted bands. And so I wish her the best just for herself and because she's a human being and i don't wish you know harm or ill to anybody but also for you know other female um performers i've it will be really interesting to see how how it pans out yeah that's a lot on her

shoulders well i think we should have a break he brew let's have a break for me and my boo i'm gonna go uh mainline CharlieXCX brat and who knows what Lily will do. See you on the other side. Go back to school with Rogers and get Canada's fastest and most reliable internet. Perfect for streaming lectures all day

or binging TV shows all night. Save up to $20 per month on Rogers Internet. Visit Rogers.com for details. We got you. Rogers. Welcome back. Welcome back. So, can I tell you something?

My mum has got a black eye at the moment. Alison? Yeah. I don't know how she's done it, actually. I didn't ask her because we got drawn into this other conversation. Because, you know, when a woman has a black eye, like your brain goes to a certain place when you see that, right? I don't know why.

It just does. And I said, you know know have people been asking you about it and she said no actually they haven't it's really weird and so I've been out and about I've been working I've been having meetings I've been having lunch you know she's like I feel like if I if my leg was in a cast or if I had like a bandage on my arm or my finger the first thing people would say is like oh what happened are you okay But no one says anything about the black eye, which I think is really interesting. Terrifying. Because why would you not ask

unless you were scared of the answer? And the answer being domestic abuse. Yeah. Domestic violence has existed in the way that it has for so many years because it does terrify people. I think people usually know when there's something going on in a household,

but whether people do anything about it or choose to look the other way. Well, that's just the thing. I feel like people do just choose to look the other way. And I think that happens all across the board when it comes to the suffering of women, right? I mean, I always say that, you know, men especially, you would always hear boys like in this sort of macho way would sort of say you know if anyone touched my daughter or anyone touched my my sister I'd fucking kill them and it's like well how come like all the men in the world aren't dead then because where are all these protectors

every single woman that I know has been like harassed or sexually assaulted in some way and no one ever comes to defend their honor and it just you know my mom is not a victim of domestic violence but nobody else knows that no well anyone that knows her husband or her boyfriend wouldn't know that not to be the case because he wouldn't hurt fly but of course because of Aaron but do you think it's also because of who your mom is because um I remember when I was talking to um Davina McCall she was at my mum's house with me and my mum we were talking about when she was an addict in her 20s and because she was white and hanging around with rich white people in Notting Hill Gate no one ever asked her about it or asked her if it was a problem so it

was allowed to become a really really uh big problem really quickly because of the life she was surrounded by and I think your mum is a white, affluent, powerful film producer in London. I don't think people would ever think it was that maybe. Maybe that's what's happening. But even if you were just to say, oh, Alison, you've got black eye. How did that happen?

And if she went like, oh, I walked into a door, you'd just say, is everything okay at home? Yeah, if someone says I walked into something that again sort of would begin questions of is everything okay but it's the same with it's the same with um children being abused and teachers not asking and people not asking even though you know something's happening it is something that we do actually my friend Nat told me that a guy was in his wheelchair the other day and he fell over going over the zebra crossing and was on the floor for about five, ten minutes and not one, people were walking past him.

Not one person went to help him. Not one on Wilsdon High Street. That's insane. Like, the amount we would do to turn the other way. And that's not even something that incurs violence coming towards you because I do understand when someone's being mugged people do run from that because they feel like there's violence in a weapon but when there is absolutely no violence where is our care and understanding and love for each other truly yeah it's it's very concerning I don't know it's it's

a it's a tricky one as I told you I've been leaning towards um rastafarianism which happens more and more every time i come back to antigua and it really i know i know that it might sound a bit silly um and a lot of people think it's based on getting high and smoking a lot of weed which really isn't it's a religion and it's a way of being and it really is about protecting and uh loving and looking after. They very much look after the women in the camps and in the religion. Women are, you know, adored. There is misogyny in the background.

Of course, there is a bit of misogyny in the background, which is why my mum's not into it. But there is a lot of respect and love for women within the culture. Homophobia? Ah, yes, there is homophobia. Yeah. That's not the bit that you're leaning into, though. That's not the bit that you're leaning into, though. That's not the bit that I'm leaning into.

I'm sort of leaning into the bit of peace in my heart. Peace around me, love, peace and unity. I've actually been listening to a lot of nostalgic albums while I've been out here. I've never really listened to Exodus. I mean, of course I have, but I don't think I knew I was listening to Exodus beginning to end.

That is, of course, the seminal last album made by Bob Marley that changed the world and I'm in love with him I'm officially in love with him but then that led me to Tribe Called Quest I've been listening to some old tribe bit of low end theory oh yeah like butter baby

and then that took me to The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill start to finish. That fucking record is just, was mind blowing, wasn't it? Absolutely mind blowing. Her voice. Her voice, the storytelling. Like I love that she has that back note of the classroom and they're talking about love and what it means to them.

And what a name, the miseducation of Lauryn Hill. Like, yeah, that's been beautiful to remember that kind of creativity that was around us in the 90s when people were just putting out albums of that calibre all over the place. And then that took me to Mariah Carey Daydream, which was revelatory as well. One of my favourite ones from that period was TLC, Crazy Sexy Cool. What an album!

That record. People think TLC's Waterfalls. That's not it. No. No, it's Red Light Special. Red Light Special. Oh. I mean like different sort of lavender maroon

and pink silk baggy pyjama. That video, those videos were good. That period of time i remember having a miseducation of lauren hill um the tlc crazy sexy cool the mortiba album okay don't lie you're into it don't even try it finley quay maverick a strike right um maybe like Sure. Maybe like Desiree. No way. Maybe like a Desiree album. Yeah. I'm afraid of the dark. Especially when I'm in the park and there's no one else around. Oh, I get the shivers.

Desiree is a beautiful woman and I've never met her. I'm sure she's a fantastic lady, but that woman cannot write a song. She is not a songwriter. I don't want people to- That's outrageous. I don't want people to come for me.

Outrageous. I don't want people to come for me. That's just dumb. Of course she can write a a song she might not write songs that you like but she you to say she can't write a song this is a touchy subject for me right now okay oh right got it okay don't worry you're i think you're better than desiree at writing songs i think she is not a good lyricist there go. There's definitely a bit where she rhymes toast and ghosts. Genius. I think you're talking to the girl who rhymed Tesco with Alfresco. I know, but I always thought that was brilliant.

Keats, wrong crowd. Okay. Read the room. No, because what you do as a songwriter, you write simplicity really beautifully you don't write you don't simplify beauty that makes sense like littlest things that's such a beautiful song but of course you say especially when i was in your baggy t-shirt it's not littlest things it's littlest things sorry what did i call it littlest things what is it littlest things

it's the same thing littlest things no you were like little like talking about the littlest littlest thing i've never talked to you about this song i love it i think it's so clever but like even when you're saying especially when you're in your baggy t-shirt when i was in your baggy t-shirt and trainers that that's just like setting the scene. You're not rhyming toast with ghost. Anyway, I really don't want to be mean to Desiree because I think she's a beautiful lady. Like her aura is beautiful.

I think you do. I think you want to take Desiree down. And I think first you came for Shania. You know what? You're just a bit ageist. I think you're just an ageist. No, I thought Desiree was crap in her 30s. You know what?

I have to go because I've seen the hate that comes for you and I don't think I can take it. So I'm going to stop talking now. I'm going to stop talking now. I don't want that for you. I don't want it for you. I don't want it for you, babe. I don't want it for any of us.

I will see you on monday for this time bitch i will see you on monday raven i'm so excited to talk about raven in these hot halcyon day oh you're in london what's the weather like hello oh hi okay we need to go raving i miss raving with you we have my birthday party but we need to go raving I miss raving with you We have my birthday party But we need to go raving

What kind of You know what We'll save this For raving Let's save it for raving Alright sweetheart I'll see you at the rave I'll see you on the floor

I'll see you on the death floor Thanks for listening to Miss Me With Lily Allen And Makita Oliver. This is a Persephoneca production for BBC Sounds. If you've been affected by anything in today's episode, you can go to bbc. Myself, Annie McManus. And me, Nick Grimshaw. Are fully going in on Glastonbury. With very special guests. Emily Evers.

We have a local cheesemaker. Who has a really reliable weather forecast. Shania Twain. Whenever I meet a celebrity, I'm shy about it. Join us for weekly bonus episodes. We're going to have all the festival chat. All the action. All the backstage gossip.

Sidetracked by Glastonbury. Listen first on BBC Sounds.