027 Mrs. T Transcript (Margaret Thatcher)

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Amit: This is famous and gravy, a podcast about quality of life. As we see it, one dead celebrity at a.

Michael: This person died. 2013 age 87. She grew up in a flat above a grocery store owned by her father,

Friend: Gloria Allred,

Michael: who

Friend: I must be Ron nevermind.

Michael: Okay. She had high standards. She expected everyone to do their work. Even some of her strongest critics accorded her a grudging respect.

Friend: Lady, bird Johnson,

Michael: not lady, bird Johnson. Boy. That's a good one. We ought. Think about her for the show. All right. She rubbed many feminists the wrong way. Quote, the battle for women's rights has largely been one. She declared

Friend: too bad. She doesn't see what's happening today.

Michael: Huh? Uh, think a lot of people might take issue with that statement. She believed personal responsibility and hard work were the only ways to achieve national prosperity.

Friend: Um, was it Nancy Reagan?

Michael: Not Nancy Reagan. Very good. Guess she was the first woman to become prime minister of Britain.

Friend: And I just like looked it up yesterday. When all this course Johnson news came out. I was like reading articles about her. Oh my God. Um, this is bad. Okay. Madeline ALB.

Michael: Not Madeline Albright, not Madeline Albright. Uh, she was nicknamed the iron lady.

Friend: Oh, Margaret Thatcher. Margaret Thatcher.

Michael: Today's dead. Celebrity is Margaret Thatcher.

For me, there is no choice. I do not intend to be the first woman prime minister of a mediocre and declining Britain.

And I do intend to be its first woman minister.

Welcome to famous and. I'm Michael Osborne.

Amit: My name is Amit Kapoor.

Michael: And on this show, we choose a celebrity who died in the last 10 years and review their quality of life. We go through a series of categories to figure out the things in life that we would actually desire and ultimately answer a big question.

Would I want that life today? Margaret Thatcher died 2013 age 87. Category one grading the first line of their obituary, Margaret Thatcher, the quote iron lady of British politics who set her country on a right word, economic course led it to victory in the Falklands war and helped guide the United States and the Soviet union through the cold war's difficult.

Last years died on Monday in London, she was 87.

Amit: It's very factual.

It's very factual. It sounds like a very, it sounds like they liked

her a lot. That was my reaction. There's a lot of praise in here, especially for the New York times. Yes. What is just glaringly missing from this first line of the obituary is how controversial and like polarizing she is.

Yes. And this is basically nothing but praise. Let's talk about

one word,

Michael: right? Word. I picked up on that as well, because that's loaded, you mean in the double meaning of right. Like right word in terms of right. Leading politics, but also right word in terms of like, correct, correct. Yeah. Drinks as if that was the way it was supposed to be.

Yes. Like the, the right word economic course, but it's

Amit: also, I think not acknowledging the divisiveness is a bit of an omission effect.

Michael: I couldn't agree more. I'm sort of shocked. Like it, would've been very easy to say Margaret Thatcher, the polarizing iron lady of British politics. It would've taken a single word to call out the fact that her legacy and her.

Perception in the UK and really abroad is really split.

Amit: Correct. And I think we've sled obituaries before for being too opinionated. Yeah, I'm per yes. Yeah. But this, uh, this sort of lack of acknowledging the controversy seems weird. Well, okay. So

Michael: let's set aside that omission, cause I think. Pretty firmly agreed that that is an omission.

What about the rest of it? I mean, there's a sort of nod to domestic stuff, set our country on a right word, economic course, and I agree like that's loaded and then it's all international from there, victory, the flins helped guide the us and the Soviet union through the cold war difficult last years, which I do think all of that's very, very true.

And is a nod to who are bigger legacy, correct. It just resume points. So, I don't know. I, I don't know what to make of that. Hypothetically had this included the word polarizing or controversial or divisive

Amit: controversial is good enough. You know, it's light enough.

Michael: Yeah. It's also a little bit vague though.

If you're every politician is controversial in their way. I mean, very few of them are real uniters most of them, especially in the modern era, like trade and divisiveness. And in fact, that's. What I would argue that she's like an early example of modern politics in terms of being a non-consensus politician.

Like she was about divisiveness and leaned into it.

Amit: Yes.

Michael: For years now in British politics, this word, you must use it. Consensus has rared its head. You must have a consensus. Uh, see it's a word again. You used not to use. When I first came in politic, we had convictions. And we tried to persuade people that our convictions were the right ones and as Noy, good having convictions, unless you have the will to translate those convictions into action, that is really missing

Amit: your question was if it included some nod to that.

Yeah. I,

Michael: I mean the, the more I look at that omission, the bigger that omission gets, everything else about this, you know, I love that they include the nickname. Yes. Iron lady, like it's great,

Amit: Nick. I think we said this in the Yogi Vera episode, like it was one of the all time great sport nicknames. This is definitely one of the all time great political

Michael: nicknames.

Amen. That really this score is gonna boil down to how much you dock for that omission, I think. And

Amit: I'll tell you how much I dock. I probably would've given it an eight. I'm taking it down three points at an even five

Michael: for, without it. Okay. Okay. That's pretty close to where I was at. I was gonna go six cause there's a lot.

I do like about it. I mean, there is a like grand world stage. Presented in this obituary and she's on it and she's at the center of it. Yes. And it's pretty fascinating. And so I like that the overall presentation of a, you know, important figure, whatever you make of her, like you have to take her seriously.

So I, I do think that there is something about the way this is presented and written that captures her stature. But I also. The omission is worth four points at least. And I don't know if this would've been a 10 before. Eh, I don't know. I'm going six. Okay. Yeah. Going six. So you're a five, a six kind of middling.

All right. Category two, five things I love about you here. Omit and I work together to come up with five reasons why we ought to be talking about this person, why we might love them.

Amit: Whew. Can we just let's let's give number one, just first woman to lead a Western democracy. .

Michael: Yeah, I think that is no question.

The first number one, I had effective decision maker and leader, and then I wanted to talk about her femininity. It's not just the pioneering aspect, right? It's not just first woman prime minister of a major Western power. It is also an effective one that she had an agenda that she executed on that agenda.

And that, you know, she was an unquestioned leader of her party. You know, for a time of her nation. So I want to talk about her femininity, I guess, here, under this thing I love about her. Okay. So number

Amit: one is just this blanket, femininity, the headline being the first woman to lead a Western democracy.

Yeah, just Bravo applause. It doesn't matter. That's pioneering. That's groundbreaking. We still haven't even. In the United States, right? So Bravo. Yes, 1979 people who know nothing else. It's good for the future and good for all generations. That's simple

Michael: fact. Yeah, but I, I, the way you're, I'm hearing you describing it, you're pointing to pioneering accomplishments and I'm actually wanting to have a discussion here in thing one about the nature of that leadership quality, because I don't know what the fuck to make of it basically.

All right. Bring it. Well, I've really, really thought about this. There's a great article. I came across in L magazine where all these people debate. Like, should we consider Margaret Thatcher, a feminist icon? And the consensus is a pretty resounding no, because she doesn't do anything in her political life to further the cause of equal gender rights.

Absolutely not. Right. However, her existence, as you know, the leader of a country. Girls women, boys, everybody grew up with like, this is possible and this is normal. And so that has to be taken seriously in terms of its significance. Then I think that there's a whole separate discussion of. Her femininity as leadership qualities and on that score, I don't know what to make of it.

I read this biography where the author really did a good job of sort of saying most of the time, it's hard for a woman to be in a position of power. And Margaret Thatcher turned a series of characteristics. That were clearly feminine characteristics to her advantage as a leader. Give me an example of those characteristics.

This is the argument that this particular author makes. She kind of comes up with these archetypes, great diva mother of the nation, coy flirt the housewife, the matron, the warrior queen, and then, and she then makes the case that Margaret Thatcher turned all of these characteristics to her advantage at different points throughout her political career.

Which I think is a thing to love, whether you identify as a man or a woman, but I also don't know what the hell to make of her as a feminist figure because she's so clearly uninterested in, you know, quote unquote feminist causes what she

Amit: actually stood for was antifeminist or rather non

Michael: feminist. Yeah.

And I think non feminist. As generous as you could make it. I mean, she's certainly not a champion of like equal pay for example, or of reproductive rights or anything that you would sort of consider a feminist. Cause I suppose so there's

Amit: some perplexing there, but how do we sum this into a

Michael: point? Yeah, I don't know.

I think it's the kind of thing that's gonna actually be debated for a long time in terms of traditional woman roles, as it was understood in 1980 and why her then. What I think is the thing to sum up and love is that she figured out what worked for her and it took her all the way to the top. And not only allowed her to win the prime minister seed, but also execute her agenda.

Ultimately.

Amit: So I think maybe our point, if it were a text message is feminist icon exclamation point.dot dot question, mark.

Michael: Yeah, I think that's right. I think that's right. All right. What do you got for

Amit: number two? I'm gonna just take it down a notch. Let's just make it a little more lighthearted than that.

First one voice lessons at the advice of Lawrence. Olivia, did you know about this?

Michael: I didn't know about the Lawrence Olivia piece. I knew about the voice

Amit: lessons. Well, Lawrence, Olivia just sort of jumped in, was a tiny part of it. So as she was rising in politics, television critic, Clive James compared her voice in 1973 to a cat sliding down a Blackboard.

So Thatcher's publicist set to work on this and he met. By chance Lauren, Olivia who arranged voice lessons for the rising Margaret at Thatcher with the national theater's voice coach. That's incredible. So I liked that little intersection, but I also like she had to be groomed.

Michael: Yeah. A little bit. There was a attention to the image.

Amit: Yeah. It's was moderately manicured. Yeah. You know, to get there.

Michael: Why is that a thing you love? Isn't that sort of a natural part of politics, period. I mean, and didn't everybody have to craft their image.

Amit: What I really love, Michael, and this is the vanity is just the intersection with Lauren. Olivia that's fair because I always like those stories, right?

Because it is an intersection of politics and entertainment and it's part of a life story.

Michael: Do you think that how soon had anything to say about her hairs? I

Amit: think he

Michael: hat her hair. He had hat her. Yeah. Now he's all about angles and this is nothing but curves. It's a right word. Wave. It has, it is a right word wave.

Uh, well said I'm gonna keep this light from my number three. Okay. She could hold it. Like hold her urine really, really well. What, yeah. So there's a great story in this biography. I read where she travels to Russian to meet GOVI H and there is a 13 hour meeting and this story is told the biographer through a deputy and the deputy by hour nine is losing it and is like, where's the bathroom.

And he can't find the exit to the, the door to the bathroom. And Gobi off is kind of laughing and then says, ha it's over there. Apparently the whole 13 hours. Margaret Thatcher never left to go to the bathroom. Was there a secret

Amit: behind this? Like how

Michael: she did it? I think it had to do with like grit focus, hard work ethic.

You know, I, I am not here to urinate. I am here to talk to go chop and nothing is gonna interrupt the flow of that. No matter what else. I mean, really what we could say is focus in a sense,

Amit: but yeah, it does say something to her. Resoluteness there is a mind over matter aspect in that. Indeed. I take it.

She's not a beer drinker, at least during these 13 hour meetings. I

Michael: don't think so. Although apparently she did enjoy a good. I could

Amit: see that this is good. Next time I leave the house, I'm gonna tell my dog, like, I'll be back in 13 hours. If Margaret, that could do it, you

Michael: could too. I'm sure rookie will understand that.

Yes. A good one. Good fact finding. Thank you. You wanna take number four?

Amit: Yes. I'm gonna go last name, legacy. Thatcherism. And Thatcherite both became vocabulary words, reading through all of these articles and all the obituaries. There's all these references to Thatcherism, or this is a Thatcherite policy that she had

Michael: that impact.

I'll say one other thing about the name. I really like the name Thatcher. Like you can feel like a knife. And they're somewhere, you know, it's got an Onam Mon cause yeah. It's got a butcher that sounds aggressive. correct. It's a little threatening, you know? Um, so do you understand that as, uh, political tactics or policy or both?

Amit: I think Thatcherism is the politics and Thatcher right. Is the tactic. Yeah. So I understand it as both having that sort of indelible impact.

Michael: Good one. I had that as well, actually. I mean, would you like a CISM or the CISM is very different. Yeah. Okay. What is CISM as you understand

Amit: it? In my context. Mm. Um, it would be sort of, uh, faint.

I reverence that's good. that's

Michael: good. Yeah. I'd have to think about what Osborne is. I mean, that is actually sort of the point though, right? Is that I'm not sure I could. Osborne

Amit: ism, nor are you able to, it is for other people to define

Michael: that. But I also do think that the prerequisite is extreme conviction, right.

That you cannot have an ism attached to your last name unless you know exactly what you're all about. Correct. And probably can't have it unless you, this is point number one. Not only have an agenda, but execute it.

Amit: Correct. Right. So where are we at? We've done four. We've done four. Okay. So you've got number five then.

Michael: Whew. It was almost a Malcolm of it kind of moment. But when she first took office, she quoted the St. Francis prayer. Yes. I saw that I'm not a big prayer guy. You know, prayer makes me uncomfortable for the most part, but I really like the St. Francis prayer. Okay. Give it to us. All right. Let me see if I can do it.

Lord, make me a channel of your peace. That where there is hatred. I may bring love that where there is wrong. I may bring the spirit of forgiveness. Whether is, is discord. May we bring harmony where there is error? May we bring truth where there is doubt? May we bring faith and where those despair may be?

It may. That's good. That's the first half.

Amit: Yeah. And I think that's where

Michael: that's she, all of those things. I like that. Where's this problem. Let me bring a solution. The, the language of that first half of the St. Francis prayer. Is I think like a good vision. I even like the opening channel of peace. Yes.

That's the good thing that we should all aspire to regardless of your religious or spiritual affiliations? Correct. Okay.

Amit: So two, two points. Okay. One, I believe when she gave it, when you say, for example, may I bring truth? She did say it the right political way of say, may. Bring faith. Yes. May we bring truth?

May we

Michael: bring Harmon? She understood herself to be representative of a population. Correct. And secondly, how do you

Amit: know the prayer?

Michael: Oh, it's had been meaningful to me in different places. I learned it outside of church. It was something I came across several years ago. That exactly. For the reasons I just stated, I like all of those aspirations and I decided to commit it to memory.

I love.

Amit: Yeah, I wanna put that on one of the top five things I love about Michael Osborne. Oh. At this moment.

Michael: Thanks man. Thanks. All right, so let's recap. We got number

Amit: one, feminist exclamation point question mark.

Michael: number two, voice lessons as facilitated by Lawrence, Olivia. Correct. Number three. Can, uh, hold it, um, number.

Yes. For the name Thatcherism Thatcher, right? Yep. And number five fan of the Saint Francis. Category three. Yes. Category three Malkovich Malkovich. This category is named after the movie. Bing John Malkovich, in which people take a little, uh, water slide. I've come to think of it as a water slide into John Markovic's mind where they have a front row seat to, uh, one of his experiences.

what do you have? What's your milk that I

Amit: think what I'm gonna go with is what I'm calling milk gate. So England had a program that free pints of milk are provided for children up through a certain age. It subsequently got reduced, but when she went in, this is the early seventies. I believe she was the equivalent of the secretary of education.

And as a conservative politician, her job and duty essentially is to cut government spending. And so one of the first substantial acts she made was to end the free milk program for kids. The group she took away from was age seven to 11, and she said basically like, we'll still provide for the younger ones.

The others can buy their

Michael: own milk by the time you're seven you're cut off.

Amit: Yes. So what I wanna see behind the eyes. What the fuck were you thinking? Maggie like, how are you gonna get any support from any sides of the political aisle? How is any press going to like you? We understand your mission, but of all the things you are never going to win, literally taking milk away from children.

I guess I wanna be

Michael: it's cliche and it's cruelty. It's like, you know, a few degrees away from taking candy from a baby, taking milk from a seven year old. Exactly. I mean, I see her. Unafraid of a fight to say the least, do you think this is picking a fight?

Amit: This is picking the dumbest fight you can possibly pick.

Yes.

Michael: Yeah. Well, but I mean, you know, a few years later she becomes prime minister. I mean, I think it one admiration within her party for being, you know, steadfast. But

Amit: if anybody was on the fence about her, I think it'd split it back. Okay. But yeah. And it earned her the nickname at the time. Thatcher milk

Michael: snatcher.

Yes. I saw that. I think that one actually never, totally went away as a nickname. I feel like that, oh, they were still like chanting that into the nineties. I think that's right. I mean, I was one of the problems with a figure like this. There is almost too much information and scrutiny of her. Like you could spend a life.

Combing through the archives of Margaret Thatcher. Yes. As opposed to say curly Neil who were not exactly sure if he was ever married yes. And

Amit: I wonder if curly performed, he had to have, yeah. He had to have played a game in front of her.

Michael: That's a great question. Do you think she would enjoy the, I don't know, she's not much of a

Amit: sports team.

She might have popped in for believe. Like I hear the black team from America is in town

Michael: that does tricks. I should make an appearance. Yes. Uh, and then get back to fighting the coal miners. Yes, exactly. My Markovich. Yes, my Malkovich moment. This is more of a curiosity. One for me. I want to know what's going on in her mind.

Okay. So October 12th, 1984, there's an attack. It's an assassination attempt on Margaret Thatcher. The IRA blows up has a bomb in, in Downing street. IRA for clarification sake is the Irish Republican army. Is that what it's? Yes. Yeah. And it was. Considered by the UK to be a terrorist group for a number of years, they were fighting for Irish independence.

It was a major sort of, uh, violent entity that was trying to inflict harm on all kinds of people in power in the UK, and try to kill Margaret Thatcher. So Obama goes off. She. Escapes without injury, but I mean covered in Ash and you know, this happens in the middle of the night in her nightgown. Let me just read you this from the biography I read the bomb went off at 2:54 AM.

The prime minister was as usual awake and working on her speech for the next day. The air was full of. Thick cement dust. She recalls in her memoirs. It was in my mouth and covered my clothes as I clambered over and discarded belongings and broken furniture towards the back entrance of the hotel. She was taken to the police station where she changed from her night clothes to a Navy suit.

Her friends and colleagues arrived suggesting she returned to number 10 Downing street. No, she said, I am staying. Then this is what the author says then. And this is the detail that makes you realize this woman is not like you and not like me. She laid down and took a short nap. So she could be fresh for the long day ahead of her, but a power nap.

Like I'm, you know what, I'm just gonna take a power nap. That is incredible. That's incredible. Right. I love napping. Um, when I do nap, I mean, I need a quiet room and I need to like allow sleep to descend on me that she could nap after a assassination attempt. Like holy shit. Uh, I want to know, and because I do think you have to have a certain kind of.

State of mind to allow, you know, the, the, the active part of your cognition to kind of relax and say, I'm gonna let this go and I'm gonna let allow sleep to come to me. Like this is the trick of going to sleep, right? Yes. That she was able to do that after an assassination attempt is astonishing to me.

That is astonishing. And I want to, I kind of wanna know what are the thoughts in her mind as she's drifting off to.

Amit: I, I think she had a power of, of completely discarding

Michael: thoughts she must have, but this is why it's a Mavi moment to me.

Amit: That's a fantastic one.

Michael: I love that one. So that's my Mavi. Shall we go on?

Yes. Category four, love and marriage. How many marriages also, how many kids? And is there anything public about these relationships? Okay. One marriage to Dennis in 1951, Dennis died in 2003. So they were married, uh, for about 52 years. Margaret Thatcher was 26 when they got married, she was Margaret Roberts.

She was Margaret Roberts at the time, about 77 or 78, when he died by all accounts described as loving and support. That this was actually looked like a pretty healthy marriage. And even though he is very much a conservative figure, he was supportive of his wife's career. And even to some extent, sacrificial, which I think that's sort of interesting.

There are two children twins, a boy, and a girl mark. And did you watch the crown Susan? I've never seen any crown. Okay. I only watch season four to get up to speed on Margaret Thatcher as played by Gilian Anderson. There is an episode which begins with the queen talking, uh, to. Margaret Thatcher. And she uses the phrase, my favorite child, my son mark.

And the Queen's like, uh, uh, did you say favorite child? And I was like, oh, what dramatization by the writers of the crown. But then I looked into it. She was very public about this. She had was very clear. I had a favorite child. How terrible. Yeah, it's super fucked up. And the kids to this day have a contentious relationship with each other.

Sounds like a lot of what we know about Margaret Thatcher's later years come from her daughter, Carol, who. How's the sort of interesting careers, her second favorite child, her second favorite child. the other twin, the dramatizations I saw in both the iron lady and in the crown had her spoiling her son mark.

And I think it gets to this point that, you know, a lot of her critics lobby had heard that she is a kind of man worshiper in a way from the venture. Yes. Apparently in later years, there is some reporting that she tried. Have a different relationship, a better relationship with her daughter and her Carol said, you know, that ship is sailed.

Like that's not gonna happen, but yeah.

Amit: Super fucked up. Do you see anything in that with this, this feminist question, mark, that we talk about her preferring the son. Yeah. Over

Michael: the daughter. Yeah. Absolutely. The cynical interpretation is not hard to make that she worships power and she's in a society where men have power.

And so she downplays or dismisses any kind of like woman first or woman first. Orientation or thinking in her politics or in her personal life. I mean, and this goes back to her childhood too. She has said to have absolutely worshiped her father who was a grocer and my father never wasted a moment. He and my mother ran the shop and then he also was on our local council.

He was chairman of our local finance committee. He was a doer. He was a give. And having that background means that you absorb it right into your bloodstream, right? From childhood. There's almost nothing on record about how she felt about her mother, this thread of just shining light on men. Is apparent throughout her entire life.

I don't know what to make of that.

Amit: I mean, I guess that's how you get in good graces with a conservative party in the

Michael: seventies. Yeah, I think that's true. So yeah, I mean, it looks like a kind of power hungry play in a way, I guess. I don't know. What

Amit: do you see? So we know one marriage longstanding. What do you see behind the love curtain in that?

Did you get anything from the biographies? I looked at tape and I don't see like

Michael: affection. Yes, but they're British. I don't know. And they're British of a certain generation. I'm just not sure how public they are about affection. I think that there was actual, real love. It does sound like, and we'll get to this later in her later years, she really suffered from advanced dementia.

And it apparently that starts around the year 2000, roughly there is a, a story that Carol relays about having to break the news to her mother over and over. Her husband has died. So she experienced that grief over and over again. And it sounds like real grief. I mean, I think she loved the man. I think he supported her career.

You know, the marriage predates her entry into politics. So I don't know what to make of the marriage category here other than the relationship with the children is super duper weird to me. Any parent, whoever. Says they have a favorite. And I think you can struggle more with a child, but to say you favor one, like you like one more boy that misses the point of parenting for me.

Yeah. It's

Amit: not, I mean, it's not just very weird. It's grossly unhealthy and, but it's

Michael: also unnatural to me. I don't even rank my friends anymore. I think I did in grade school say this is my first best friend and my second best friend, but now, you know, I love different people for different reasons and like different people for different reasons.

And this isn't something that needs, you know, an ordinal organization. You know what I mean? Correct. I don't know. On one hand I applauded Margaret Thatcher for a long loving relationship with a, a life partner who supported her. That looks good, but the relationship with the kids is fucked. All right.

Shall we move on? I think so category five net worth, what did you find? 10 mil.

Amit: That's what I saw. Yeah, that seems like about right for that age of politician, that seemed low to me. She's

Michael: so lionized. I mean, she is like, there are people who hate her, but there are people who love her. This biography, I read it starts off in roughly 2008, uh, presidential cycle.

And all of these American presidential candidates are flying over to the UK for a photo op with Margaret Thatcher. At this point, her dementia is very advanced. She has no idea who these people are, but she is that important to. Conservative politics in America and really around the world. Holy

Amit: cow, 10 million is very small then.

It is for that stature. Yes. So maybe there's another 10, 20, 30 just stepped in mattresses

Michael: in the Cotswolds. I do feel like there's one more point to be made here. I mean, I think that your take on her, especially if you're a British citizen is gonna really depend on how well or poorly you did under her leadership.

And there's no question that this is the beginning of a growing inequality gap in the UK. So I don't know something about 10 million sort of like. Downplays any sort of, I don't know, uh, assertions of cronyism. I

Amit: think there's poor record keeping. I think there's money elsewhere, possibly in the favorite son.

Yeah.

Michael: Um, and she married well, married Dennis is wealthy. Like when she married him, it, it was a clear step up in her, you know, standard of living. Okay. All right. Should we move on? Yes. All right. Category six Simpsons star night live or halls of fame. This category is a measure of how famous a person is. We include both guest appearances on SNL or the Simpsons, as well as impersonations.

These are gonna be fun. So I saw four impersonations on SNL. My favorite of which was. John Liko you are some tall drink of water. now princess Margaret. This is the first time I've had royalty on my show. So tell me, is it true that Charles and die? Our leading separate lives. It's such a shame. I am the prime minister of great Britain, and I did not come here to engage in gossip about the Royal family.

Amit: the purpose

Michael: for my visit here in the United States was to be farewell to close friend and ally Ronald

Amit: Reagan.

Michael: Oh, so you've been to the white house, quite a place. Of course, what am I telling you for you live in a castle? also, uh, in the late seventies, uh, right after she takes power, Michael Palin of money, Python fame.

So two different men impersonating the first prime minister of the UK is not coincidental, but then there were two others. I saw Mary Gross and Vanessa Bayer. Uh, I wasn't able to dig up those skits, but there you have it. She was impersonated at least four times. Okay.

Amit: Can I bring into the SNL, please? Are you familiar with

Michael: Ian rubbish?

I am now cuz you told me about but I think you should explain. I, it was a,

Amit: it was a sketch when Fred Armerson was on Saturday live and it was a pH documentary, like in of this spinal tap sort of way. And it chronicled, disband Ian rubbish in the Bizarros and there were eighties punk band, Ian rubbish being the lead singer.

But he was an art and supporter of Margaret Thatcher and he has songs out there that are like Maggie Thatcher, Maggie

Michael: Thatcher, you like political rallies for Maggie Thatcher.

Right. That's a good one, but I never saw her make a guest appearance on Saturday night live, nor would she one other note, and this is not exactly SNL, but I feel like I gotta get it in there. There is a speech where she actually makes reference to the Monty Python, dead parent sketch. I gather that during the last few days, there have been some ill natured jokes about their new symbol, a bird of some kind.

So I will say only this of the liberal Democrat. And of the party. It symbolizes. This is an ex par

Simpsons. I only saw her mentioned in one, 2004 episode called codependence day. Apparently O the bus driver watches a documentary about the coworker strikes and says, Mrs. Thatcher has blood on her hands. That's the only reference I found in the Simpsons. That's odd. Yeah.

Amit: And I would think like Mr. Burns would've

Michael: referenced her.

I mean, who knows? I think it would've been offhand, but she never did her own voice and she, I don't think was ever, uh, parody. Okay. And then Hall's of fame. I didn't, she was never on Armenio hall, but, uh, there is a whole Wikipedia page dedicated to her award as an honors. I mean, you could go on a nauseam about how she's been lionized.

I think overall she's very famous UN questionably. Category seven mm-hmm category seven over, under, in this category, we look at the generalized life expectancy that for the year they were born to see if they beat the house odds. And as a measure of grace. So life expectancy for women in the UK born in 1925 was 58.31.

She died age 87. So she beat it by almost 30 years. As I mentioned earlier. Dementia sets in around 2000, according to her daughter sounds

Amit: like a pretty rough last 10

Michael: plus years. I think that's right. I think Dennis dies. And I think that she loses her, you know, she would start sentences and not know how to finish.

She wouldn't exactly know where she was going. Would you wanna stay

Amit: alive for that? Like, no, I understand the, the problem of the siblings and the children of saying like, You know, it's still our mother and she's living. Like we can still see her inside of

Michael: there. I don't know who knows what's going on inside.

This is one of those really confusing, hard to know things. Correct. I, it, it it's described as being very scary and it

Amit: looks scary. How can it be described to this? Like who knows?

Michael: I mean my understanding of things. And it's very imperfect. You can have some awareness that your mind is slipping or whatever you wanna call it, that you're experiencing dementia, but that it can wax and wan I mean, you hear people say he has good days and bad days, meaning recall is better or worse.

And I don't know if when recall is better, you are like reminded. I used to be sharper. What I want to. Experience it, I don't know, Ahed, there's a part of me that wants to say, if you are at peace with yourself and you have cultivated an attitude of surrender and acceptance in your life, which I think is like a really important spiritual principle, then maybe it's not so bad, but maybe that's just a, a really nice way of thinking about it.

And that has. Relationship to what it's actually like to be there. I mean, age scares me overall. I'm certainly scared about losing physical capabilities, you know, falling down more, more injuries, more pain. I feel like I could get to a place where it's like, well, maybe my body can't do what it used to do, but I I'm still happy to have, you know, most of my cognitive powers to lose.

no, that looks really scary to me.

Amit: Yeah. That would be scary. I think you brought a piece. I think that's a factor for me. Do you feel peace inside? Are you capable of feeling any joy? Yeah. Like when that, when you eat that piece of toast, whether it's put in your mouth or not, does anything fire and I think that's

Michael: important.

It's so hard to know what's going on inside no matter what, you know.

Amit: Yeah. But as with the limited information I have right now, I don't

Michael: think. It's a hard category for us on famous and gravy, right? Because we often are looking at people at the peak of their powers and what they accomplished when they, they were at their most vital and capable.

And when all the talents conspired to lead them to the rocket ship of fame and power and. Glory and fortune. And what was that like? Aging overall looks hard. This came up when we talked about Casey caseum and having a degenerative disease that lasted several years. I don't want any of that, but, you know, I, I, I, there's no way around it.

There's a part of me that feels like I am crossing my fingers. You know, and hoping for as smoother glide as I can possibly get on the dissent towards, you know, old age and death. Right. This is a scary thing about life, man. Yeah.

Amit: Well, you said that about, I think that was the last episode about your father-in-law.

Like he died. He died. Well, yeah,

Michael: selfishly, I want to be there as much as possible. And if it's just my vessel and not my full humanity, I wanna be able. Go into the afterlife. Yeah. Gracefully, you know, I guess I'm sort of making a case for some version of assisted suicide or euthanasia, you know? Yeah.

Amit: Or just like a weekend at Bernie's type of thing.

Like they can

Michael: keep your body alive. That's that's the ideal, the weekend at Bernie's ideal. No, that they keep dressing the

Amit: live or the, the rest of development surrogate for your , uh, for your

Michael: demented vessel. Yeah. Well that got heavy, but I guess we had to talk about it. Yeah. That was important. I think.

Well, let's take a.

Amit: Michael. I want to talk

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Amit: in my liquor cabinet, Michael. I have lots of great whiskeys things that I stand behind. Very flavorful ones. Yeah. I don't have that in gin. Um, I have good gins. Yeah. I have nice labels, but they all sort of taste the same.

There's not the, oh my God. Gin. I

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Michael: At this point in the show, we get a little bit more speculative and really trying to imagine what would it have been like to have been this person? The first of the inner life categories is man in the mirror. How did this person feel about their reflection, Ahed? How did Margaret Thatcher feel about her reflection?

I

Amit: don't have a great deal of confidence in my. I think she liked it. I think she looked in the mirror and she saw power. She saw results. She saw determination. She basically looked the same every day. Yeah, right. That we, the hairstyle doesn't the hairstyle. Yeah. But I don't know. There was just such lack of visibility of cracks.

Which leads me to believe the exact opposite, you know, that there is the inner child inside. There is something scared inside and all she sees outside in her own body is this large defense of a vessel. So I'm gonna go with yes, she liked it. She liked it. But also with the caveat of, I don't know how deep her self awareness was.

That she was willing to travel that path. I

Michael: think it, she liked it. I think, you know, if you watch, um, the Merrill street movie, there is a point in her political career where they're like, you've gotta lose the hats. We gotta work on your voice. You know, apparently they called Lawrence, Olivia. I didn't know that part of it, but where there's a real deliberate attention to her, how she presents and how she speaks and how she looks.

I do see her in interviews. With a smile on her face in a way that does look pretty natural and confident. You know, I think you can grow to really like how you are coming across and lean into how you are persuasive and a very self-assured speaker I'm with you. There's some question in my mind about, you know, in the middle of night at 4:00 AM, if she comes across the mirror, what does she really.

I'm I'm a lean yes. To, okay. Next category, outgoing message. Like man, in the mirror, how do they feel about the sound of their own voice when they heard it on an answering machine? Would they have left their own voice on an outgoing voice mail?

Amit: I'm going with a stronger, yes. She was a great speech giver.

She was very quick. And I think her voice was her strength. Yeah. Would she actually do it from a self importance point of view? Yeah, I think so. I think she'd still do

Michael: it. You think? So you raise a voicemail of Margaret Thatcher, I suppose there's some truth to that and that she's wanting to. On a common level somehow and everybody else does it.

She's not gonna have, you know, some deputy or some secretary create the voicemail for her. Yeah.

Amit: It's sort of like, I'm not gonna waste government money. yeah, yeah.

Michael: Right on this. It's a political question. I agree with all of that. I, I think she liked it. I also admire somebody who decides to work on their voice.

And to like, this is how I sound in public speaking. I'm gonna work on that. I think that there's also a class element there though, too. I think that as she's trying to, you know, gain steam in the conservative party that her working class background, like was betrayed by her voice and that she worked to get rid of the accent.

Yes. All right. Next category regrets, public or private, we've covered a handful of these, but it is said that after she was ousted as prime minister, which that has its own saga, right? She, the biography I read certainly made a case that the things that led her to take power in the first place were also the same qualities that caused her demise, basically called her arrogant.

She kind of dropped the ball in 1991 and got ousted from power. And it is said that she never again had a happy day in her.

Amit: Wow. Yeah. I mean, it's such a tale of the eighties and nineties. Yeah. Of the distinction. It's remarkable. And I did see also, I mean, she was rarely spotted emoting and they did catch her with tears in her eyes on that last day that she left

Michael: down in.

Yeah. And she got, I actually saw an interview with her where she teared up, uh, when remembering it and in front, like on camera. We notice now that it's affecting you now and it must have been, yes. You're not affecting my voice. You're thinking back to traumatic things, but I managed to get through them. I thought about that.

I even considered it as a Malkovich moment, cuz like what is the emotion there? Is it betrayal? I guess. I mean she obviously loved being prime minister and I think was never able to fill the void that that power gave her. I mean, I don't know. Is it unfair to look at her as, or any politician as just being power obsess?

I mean, I think she actually had conviction and cared about things, but that she only gets validation in life from having achieved power and then executing

Amit: it. I don't think that's an oversimplification, I think is whether we should judge that or not is a

Michael: more difficult question. Well, maybe we'll save that cuz I do think that's an interesting question.

And that, that feels Vander Beaky yes.

Amit: So other regrets milk snatching, we talked about flins right. Largely derided as an unnecessary war with a lot of lives lost. Yeah. Did

Michael: she ever express regret about it? No. I think quite the opposite. The commander of the operation has sent the following message. Be pleased to inform her majesty that the white Ensen flies alongside the union.

In south Georgia. God saved the queen. What happens next? Thank you very much. Enjoy set that news and congratulate our forces and the Marines. Are we goodnight? Clear.

This biography that I keep referencing the woman who wrote it is an admirer of Margaret Thatcher, because more than anything else, this author is anti-socialist the way she tells the story is that, you know, great Britain had been on the decline since world war II, economically. And sociopolitically after Margaret Thatcher's reign.

I mean, London is reestablished as a financial center of the world and the economy. Major metrics is doing really well. And, you know, has been performing better ever since all of that political success, her ability to fight the coal miners and the unions and to, you know, have major, major tax cuts came because of the political capital she gained during the flins that's my reading of history.

And I think that's a pretty common reading of history, whether it was political opportunism. I think it was as understood by her and attack on sovereignty. Yeah.

Amit: And we should say, I mean, um, de Diego Mardo we talked about him episode 15, a large point in his life was the hand of God in the 1986 world cup of Argentina versus England.

That's right. A lot of the justification of fan support for that was well it's, Argentina's turn to seek vengeance for the flins

Michael: war. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But no, I don't think she. Regretted it interesting. I think that's more or less it for regrets. What we did mention earlier, the trying to reform the relationship with her daughter.

That's about it. Okay. All right. Next category. Good dreams. Bad dreams. So it's not about personal perception, but rather, does this person look haunted? Did they have something in the eye that suggests inner turmoil, inner demons, unresolved trauma.

Amit: I wanted to see it in the eye, but I didn't. And I'm just gonna go to your nap story.

I think she, I think she wiped it all the way each night. I think so,

Michael: too. But she's a mystery to me. And if it's there, it's not in the eye. Yeah. She is

Amit: a mystery. So are you going good dreams

Michael: also? I'm going good dreams also. Okay. Yeah. Uh, second to last category cocktail, coffee, cannabis. This is where we ask which one would we most want to do with our debt guest?

So maybe a question of what drug sounds like the most fun to partake with this person or another philosophy. Is that a particular kind of drug might allow access to a part of them that we are most curious about. What'd you have

Amit: cannabis, let's roll a joint Maggie, and I'll tell you the reason we know there's armor.

We know there's great, great defenses out there. So you have to break through it. This is very much an access thing for me, because I'm, I think I'm composed so differently. I wanna know how you get to that stance of a little bit of every man for himself. Like we don't need to be helping. Others, we just need to be giving people the tools for self ownership and capitalism and that solves everything.

Yeah. So I just want to know what that perspective

Michael: is. Oh, it's interesting. I actually had all put the exact same thing, you know, pass that joint over here. It's my, my turn. And then back to Maggie, I also chose cannabis. I'm looking for where she understands fallibility, you know? I mean, that, that, that's a good, yeah.

I wanna know where she understands, you know, imperfection and how she understands imperfection in other people, because I, that's not self-evident to me, based on, you know, her very, very strongly held political views. Do you admire that? Let's leave aside the actual. What her actual political agenda is. Do you admire somebody who has that kind of committed political agenda or is the whole thing too, sort of is the realm of politics too frustrating

Amit: for you?

I think both the realm of politics is too frustrating, but yes, I do. I do admire it. Is it desirable? Not for me. It's a necessary thing. We need those people to let the world spin around. Yeah, I do believe in. So I think this is rare that we actually both picked the same substance for the same reason. Yeah.

So maybe me, you and Maggie, we do it together. That sounds nice. There is the problem that they're dead, that we

Michael: haven't yet figured out. No, we get to create this scene and you know, the theoretical afterlife. This is correct. Okay. Are we there? We're there. The VanDerBeek named Dr. James VanDerBeek who famously said in varsity blues.

I don't want your life. Do you want me to go?

Amit: Yes, you rarely offer. So I feel like you have something good

Michael: to say. I feel like I'm having to Wade through a lot to give this a very fair Vander bake because I don't really want to hang out with her. I don't find her particularly likable. I. I'm starting to wonder if the desire to be liked is a really dangerous, if not natural character trait, it's one.

I wish I could downgrade in my life. I'd like to be okay with not being liked and holding conviction. There's a mythologizing of Margaret Thatcher that transcends her actual. Experience as a person on planet earth. I think that she is understood where people say what an incredible transcendent figure that on its face is not appealing to me.

Like, I don't want to a statue of me, but there's definitely a part of me that it admires not just an idealist, but an idealist who sets a goal. And then. Executes on it. You know, there is a lot of claim that she deserves significant credit for ending the cold war in part, because she establishes a relationship with Gobi off and then sort of signals to Ronald Reagan.

This is a man you can work with. I mean, she, she does some matchmaking there. Yes. And that's an incredible accomplishment and it's one that should. For whatever other shortcoming she has. I think it's, there's a reason that's in the first line of her obituary. So to have a belief about how the world should be organized and then to deliver on it, I admire that the long marriage is incredible.

I don't know, man. Maybe the,

Amit: the favorite kid thing really

Michael: sticks in my crawl. Yeah. It's a little hard to get past that. I think I got got no, I mean, I'm kind of trying to talk myself into it. And as I studied her more and got my, you know, got closer to it, I, I was looking for things there's lots to admire and I'm, I'm glad I've done a deep dive in Margaret Thatcher, but.

Where's the joy. And if the joy is in power, God, that has a limit, you know, and you feel that as you lose your cognitive abilities as a human, that that seems more tragic to me than something to be celebrated. Even if you were incredibly transcendent at the pickier powers.

Amit: Yeah. I mean, maybe the dementia's not so

Michael: coincident.

I, I don't, I don't wanna necessarily say cosmic justice but I do think that there's a relationship between how tragic that looks and what she was all about, you know, in the years proceeding it. Yeah.

Amit: Okay. So you're a no, so I, I really like what you said about having ideals and executing on them. I mean, that is goal setting.

Yeah. Right? Like if you go through. Type of self-help and even lots of religion and, and all forms of schooling, it's set a goal and work towards it. And that's what she did. That is a formula for fulfillment as best we know it. And that's something to be wanted, right. If I'm to separate myself from the belief in the politics, that is something.

To be wanted, you know, when I was in grad school, I remember there was a course on level five leadership, which is basically the most effective leaders across the world in, in anything, not just business and in government, but even, uh, sports households and whatever. And it's the two factors were humility and fierce resolve.

Yeah. Uh, no. Margaret Thatcher had fierce resolve. I saw almost zero signs of humility. The opposite. Yeah. She may have been effective in getting it done. Was she fulfilled enough in her likability? No way to be that divisive. I don't think that's the reason that I would say no. And I am gonna say no, I am gonna say no to the VanDerBeek and I think it's the profession.

It's the whole. By God, you had such a huge impact on the world. You will not be forgotten for a long time. You changed a country, but the absence of joy, the absence of humility and the, in my perspective, the absence of self-awareness and self knowledge, I'm gonna go a no,

Michael: this is fucking driving me crazy.

This knocking. Yes.

Amit: Is, is it, is it knocking on heaven's door? Is this perhaps

Michael: how we introduce, yeah, this is, is how we're gonna, if

Amit: this, if this makes the tape listeners, the city of Austin is doing work programming mode, outside of the studio right now, where there appears to be just hammering against metal sheets for no other,

Michael: maybe Morse code it's for the XLO phonic response.

Yeah. They're installing a new gas line right below our studio. All right, so we're here, we're here. We're at the part of the gates. I can take this St. Peter. Yes, mark it. Maggie here. I think I was an unlikely figure to have achieved the power I did, but I do feel like I was driven to a higher calling and supported by the higher power.

On my way to the prime ministership. This is why I said the St. Francis prayer on my way in the door is that I tried to, as best, I could have a clear vision for what I wanted to do and world events conspired so that I was given a tremendous amount of political capital to execute my agenda. And while I did it with some level of controversy and not everybody liked it.

I felt it was necessary. And I stand by everything I did. I think I left the world and my country a better place. Maybe I'm wrong about that, but I followed my heart. Please let me have it.

Thanks so much for listening to this episode of famous and gravy. If you're enjoying our show. Please tell your friends about us, help spread the word. Also, if you're interested in participating in the opening segment, where we quiz people about who today's dead celebrity is. Feel free to submit your name.

You can reach us@helloatfamousandgravy.com. That's hello@famousandgravy.com. Find us on Twitter. Our Twitter handle is at famous and gravy, and we also have a newsletter which you can sign up for on our website, famous and gravy.com. Famous and gravy was created by Amit Kapoor and me Michael OS. This episode was produced by Jacob Weiss, original theme music by Kevin Strang.

And thanks so much to this week's sponsor Lindon leaf, organic molecular spirits. Again, you can get a 20% discount on our website. If you use our promo code famous 20 that's two zero. Thanks for listening. See you next time.