Sheffield, Disney, and Quitting My Job
03-09 March 2025
Hello bumbums,
It is eclipse season. It is also a full moon soon. Is anyone else feeling CRAZAYYYYYYY.
This week I went to a city in the north of England, realised my childhood experiences of female characters in film were problematic, and quit a job that taught me some seriously good things.
I hope you experienced a multitude of intellectual fulfilling and heart warming memes.
Happy reading!
Now That I Think About It
Working in customer service has been one of the best things I’ve ever done. Being face to face with the public is like being face to face with every possible situation a person can experience. (We once had an old man shit his pants and trail it round the shop. I’m not even kidding.) Each time a person comes in and speaks to me I am practicing how to cope with the messiness of life (!!) and trying to forge connections with strangers. Even though at times it felt like a war zone, I think it might have taught me some of the most important lessons of my life.
In honour of leaving my job this week, I’d like to share my first ever article on Medium called ‘How Working A Customer Service Job Made Me A Better Person’. If I leave you with one thing in this newsletter I’d like it to be this - I love being part of the world even when it is annoying or sad or people are mean. I am a yapper and a forgiver til I die and working customer service taught me that.
Sheffield
As a Scottish person I rarely have time for the English but luckily in the UK we have northerners who are the closest you get to the Scots below the border. My pal who lives in Sheffield is a good lad and she was kind enough to show me round her city. She was a great tour guide, taking me to all the major spots. I learnt about John Ruskin - an environmentalist, philanthropist, and lover of the proletariat - who made small art museums for the workers in the city’s steel making industry. He believed that you should paint nature exactly how it looks (not a big Picasso fan then). I also went to Kelham Island, a fun spot for hipster shops, pubs and nice walks, and explored a 1980s housing complex refurbished into funky flats.
There was also day trips outside the city. We went to Bamford Edge on an absolutely amazing day, took some posy photos on a cliff edge and walked around a damn (DAMN!). Another trip was to Chatsworth House (the inspiration for Mr Darcy’s Pemberley in the 2005 Pride and Prejudice film) and I thought a lot about how much I would like to have been a posh lady in the 1800s living in a big house with a river. I reckon I could have been happy sitting by the water reading my book, maybe playing the piano every now and then, having my every whim catered for. As long as I wasn’t married to an absolute idiot that would be ideal. I would also have no kids because they would impose on my ability to write long and detailed essays about the state of the world for my woman’s magazine.
Anyway, as expected Sheffield was good. Northerners are best.
Consumption Corner
A comedy night mention this week!!
Last Laugh Comedy Club - Sheffield Comedy Night 01/03/2025 ☆☆☆
The line up was a guy who came third in Britain’s Got Talent, an Aussie doing jokes that I thought had long ago died, and a Nigerian-Londoner talking about the mandem in Costa. Best bit of the night was when a member of the audience said they’d married their brother’s wife and his kids were his nephews. The crowd went insane and we were all screaming.
Top Male Gaze Moments in Film
Recently I’ve been thinking about how when I used to watch Disney films as a kid there were these weird moments when the girls would start behaving in a way that meant all the men started looking at them (read: the male gaze). I’ll be writing a longer article on this, but these two moments below are examples of whem I first realised an important function of being a woman is being sexy.
Call Me By Your Name (2017, Luca Guadagnino) ☆☆☆☆
Second time watching this. First time was when it first came out in 2017 and I remember finding it emotionally crucifying, so much so that I thought I didn’t like it but really I think I rejected how raw it made me feel. After reading the book and watching it again, I now believe this story is created to break you open in the best way possible.
Weekly Stats
Unread books stacked next to my bed: 40
Times I gua sha’ed my face: 3
Beetroots: 4
Men that annoyed me: 7
JD Vance memes consumed: 50+
Lat pull down top weight: 21.5kg
Next week on the rickleverse
In the next newsletter, I will tell you about a Harry Potter escape room, another top 250 IMDB film, and more detail about my memorable male gaze moments.
See you then!
Love,
Rachael
