The Oven Is Only So Big: Katherine Trebeck on the Wellbeing Economy

Catherine is a political economist and advocate for economic system change

Lee : Hello, mindcakers. And today we are, honoured and privileged to be joined by Catherine , who is a political economist, a writer and advocate for economic system change. Welcome, Catherine.

Catherine : Thank you, Lee. Awesome to be here.

Lee : I don't understand most of that intro myself. So what do you actually do?

Catherine : I think a lot about how economic systems are affected by power and vice versa. because I don't think you can look at the economy without talking about power and I don't think you can talk about politics without talking about the economy. And so I sort of play in the middle and think about, right, how are, how are the way the economies we have structured? Are they serving people and planet? And nine times out of 10, if not more, the answer is no.

Lee : No. I mean, I'm gonna go off piste. I have a tendency to go off at tangents and I'm already gone off script with my questions that I've got to ask. Because we do. I mean, particularly at the moment, there seems to be a lot of decisions that are made, to benefit. I saw people betting on the, Iran. There seems to be a lot of betting on the Iran war and people with insider knowledge and people at the top benefiting. In my brain, in my pea brain, with a planet with limited resources, surely you can't keep saying, well, we're going to grow GDP by 2%, 3% and, and growth and growth and growth and growth and growth. Because there's only a limited.

Catherine : Yeah, you. I mean your podcast called Mind Cake. So people keep talking about, we've just got to grow the cake or grow the pie. Yeah, but the oven is only so big.

Lee : Yes.

Catherine : And so, so we need, we need different recipes to take care of people. So the, the idea is if you just grow the pie bigger, everyone's slice will get bigger. You don't need to talk about what size slices different people have. And maybe some people are getting half the bloody pie and only a few people, you know, and then most of us are having to share the rest.

Lee : A few crumbs.

Catherine : The challenge is, hey, yeah, the crumb. Literally the crumbs from crumbs from the big piece that people are hoarding up and hoarding away. And so if you take that science, and there's a lot of science around the limits of the planet in all sorts of dimensions. Climate change is the one probably people talk about a lot, but it's a lot more than that. Biodiversity loss. People probably see fewer bees in their backyards over different summers. That's just one example and so if you take that seriously, you need to have a good hard look at how economic systems, policy choices, how we tax what we spend money on, what sort of businesses make up the economy and who is winning and who is losing. Production and consumption systems, all those sorts of questions come into play. And where I land is, well, the recipes of the past are not fit for the future. We can't keep saying we'll just have more of the same because those challenges are becoming more and more apparent. But the sort of solution that seems to be offered from a lot of people in government is just have more of the same. Maybe faster, faster, more of the same. Quick, no holds barred, more of the same. But that's just patently not working. And so if you take it seriously, you need to have a very different conversation about different ways of doing things. The good news is, is that lots of people are exploring those different ways of doing things. They're rolling up their sleeves and experimenting. So it's not an entirely step into the, into the unknown, but it's a massive shift. That's what our times require.

Lee : Yeah, I would wholeheartedly agree. Because you can't, like you say, you can't keep chasing with the limited resources that we have, you can't keep growing because then eventually you get somebody who comes along and wants to sort of colonise Mars because we haven't got enough room and resources on this planet. I mean, he wants to live there.

Catherine : It's insane. Which is completely letting the economic system off the hook. And it's almost like, well, we can't, we do not have the intelligence to imagine a different system here. The implications, well, we can't go there. So we have to have the intelligence to imagine moving whole civilizations to Mars, which is. Surely we can have the intelligence to imagine something very different here that is much better aligned with what people on planet need.

Lee says we need to be very fussy about growth in Australia

The other point around growth. So often in policy circles it's almost as if growth is a solution to everything. And yet I find that a really profoundly unsophisticated conversation. Because growth is a little bit like the word move. So Lee. So for example, if I said, hey Lee, move, you'd say to me, well, where? out the door or further in, or fast or slower, or up and down, or you'd ask me all sorts of questions. And in a way, I think we need those sort of questions around growth. What sort of growth do we need more where of where do we need to grow? what's the nature of that growth in what direction? And so I talk about being very fussy about growth, rather than sort of unilaterally critical of it or unilaterally positive as most sort of government discussions are. But we need to be fussy about it. What do we want more of in our economy and what do we need to power down? If we're really honest about how harmful certain activities have been for people on planet. And there are examples of society's doing that. I mean, you're based in Scotland. Scotland was on the, on the front foot with curbing tobacco use and banning tobacco hubs, those sorts of things. They're the sorts of decisions we need to be able to make across the board. You know, what do we need more of? And what if we're really honest is not good for people on the planet? So it's, maybe it's time has run out.

Lee : But I have often wondered, I read somewhere if we lived. If you ask people, do you want to live underground in Antarctica for the, for the rest of your life? They go, well, no, but basically what they were saying was that how habitable that is in the, in the harsh conditions, it's like a hundred times or a thousand times more habitable than Mars would ever be. So if you don't want to live underground in Antarctica, where actually. Yeah.

Catherine : And yet you think Mars would be a good idea.

Lee : We think Mars be a good idea. So why don't we spend that money trying to fix the perfect planet that we've got.

Catherine : Yes.

Lee : Rather than build a phallic shape, rocket that's going to take a handful of billionaires to, to Mars. So yeah, I don't know where I was going.

Catherine : They can go.

Lee : They can go.

Catherine : Yeah, they can go.

Lee : We'll be, that would probably be, probably be a good, not a bad move. But, but what I suppose what I'm saying is when that's when it's such a big shift and when you've got people who've got the money to maybe make change and are spending it in other areas. how do you, your job must be very, very difficult.

Catherine : Well, to a degree, but in a way, I mean, people, people who are sort of seem to think business as usual is okay, would say to me, oh, well, you're being unrealistic. But I think moving humanity to Mars is pretty damn unrealistic. And I think also hitting on that the current system is okay and is good enough and is actually the best we can do is also unrealistic. I mean, I'm here in Australia, we're one of the richest countries in the world where we are already being battered by environmental breakdown. We had Black Summer a few years ago. Your listeners will probably remember just before COVID hit, the whole almost south east coast of Australia was on fire. There are huge parts of Australia that are now uninsurable because of the extent of huge floods. And all this evidence is saying these extreme weather events are becoming more and more frequent. They are the new normal. There are some scientists who are saying, right, that Black Summer fire of before COVID that will be a normal summer in 10 years time. And so the idea that we can avoid change I think is a stupid deluded idea. I think that the question becomes, okay, what does good change look like? How do we take care of people throughout that change? Because know, humans quite naturally are fearful of change. So how do we, how do we honour that and take that seriously and look after them and build pathways out of it and imagine something better? Ah, because to me imagining moving humanity to, to earth is a much bigger lift than actually getting our heads around a different economic system. Because there are already examples of it bubbling up everywhere. We see it in incredible enterprises like worker co ops for example, or in Scotland they've just brought in the Community Wealth Building act. That's about shifting the flows of money so it stays locally in community rather than being syphoned up off to remote sort of faceless shareholders. there's great examples of businesses who are saying we're going to keep resources in production longer through what's called the circular economy. So you're no longer taking things out of the ground, using them for a little while, throwing them away, but you're actually designing for reuse, designing things to last longer. I mean to me that doesn't sound that crazy. That sounds just pretty sensible. So we need to roll out those sorts of examples and have more and more of them and then they start to add up actually to a more a, new normal. That's a much better way of doing things.

Lee : They start to become like you say, the norm rather than, rather than the

Catherine : exception that's proving the rule. And at the moment those examples of which there is incredible examples, they are going against a lot of headwinds because a lot of the policy rules are not supportive of them. But also mindsets or you know, around how people talk about the economy. If you turn on the radio and look and listen, listen to the way politicians and media commentators and academics talk about the economy, it's also not really supportive of these sorts of conversations and yet despite all that, there are still these amazing examples out there. There's a whole lot, a lot of policy examples too of, you know, bits of legislation and regulation and I've mentioned the Community Wealth Building act. But there's lots of governments who are using procurement to make activities more sustainable or even I get really excited about things being banned. So just ban bad stuff. And so let me give you one example. In the state of South Australia here they've said, right, banning single use plastics, you know, coffee cups, those little plastic bits you put on your loaves of bread. they're banning advertising outdoors for fast food. I mean, so that's also great. All those sorts of. So there are lots of examples. In the state of of Oregon, the city of Portland has said we don't want companies that are operating here to pay their CEOs huge amounts of money compared to what they pay their average worker. They don't have the the powers at their level to sort of stop that. But what they've said is, okay, if you're operating in our town and that ratio is enormous, like 100 to 1, we will jack up your basic, your business rates, your local taxes. If it goes up to 250 to 1 they'll go up even more. And so, and I love that they're just saying, okay, what's, what are the levers we have given the level of government we are, let's utilise them. Sweden has said we want to encourage a more circular economy. What we'll do is reduce the VAT on repairing your things like your toasters or your jeans. So there's again, there's cool enterprises, there's cool policies out there, but actually they're not yet adding up to the change we need. There's still, as you said earlier, the exception that proves the wrong.

Lee : I don't want to be cynical about this.

Lee : But particularly in the uk, you know, I'm going to use Covid as an example and what I said earlier about people, I guess the problem you've got is there are a lot of people high up in government and whatever who's, it's in their interest not to have this stuff. I mean I can't imagine Trump, or Boris Johnson for that matter saying, you know, when you think about all the ppe. yeah, contracts.

Catherine : Contracts for mates and things.

Lee : Yeah, yeah. I think of this circular economy. So circular just, just again in, in layman's terms. So circular economy is where you, it's like your recycle is more recycling and reuse is that?

Catherine : Yeah, yeah.

Reuse particularly so yeah it's better not to buy something in the first place

Reuse particular particularly so yeah it's better not to buy something in the first place of course but then if you have to buy something by you know you get something that can be completely reused, you know unpacked. So I'll give you an example I find quite amazing. There's a bank in the Netherlands called Triodos Bank. They do all sorts of good stuff. they are actually really grappling with some of these issues. Their chief economist writes a lot about post post growth ideas. They channel credit into activities that we need more of in, in a well being economy which is sort of the phrase for this. When these things start to add up we'll build towards an economy that serves well being so circular economy is I think a component part of that and what. But one cool thing about Triodos is their headquarters, their building in the Netherlands is all held together by screws so it can be entirely unpacked, dismantled and every plane of gas, glass and bit of wood and you know reused.

Lee : What's this? I'm going to look this up. What's it called?

Catherine : Triodos. Yeah Triodos Bank. It's my, my UK current account bank is with trade off.

Lee : I think I might just change now.

Catherine : Yeah. Because good on you.

Lee : The Halifax are pretty hopeless.

What changes do you think could be made to improve mental health

let's bring it back to mental health. What changes do you think could be made to improve? Because I think we're in a system that's kind of bad for our mental health. So what?

Catherine : Absolutely.

Lee : What could we improve? What, what could they do?

Catherine : Yeah.

Lee : What would be the big like headline things they could do to, to make a difference.

Catherine : There's no flick of a light switch.

Lee : No, no.

Catherine : But this is about things like if you look at what why are people distressed and anxious and depressed and alienated with their lives? It's a lot of the time and I'm not going to be sweeping about it but a lot of the time it's because they recognise they're operating in a pretty inhumane system where they're treated like just in time inventory, you know like on demand at the click of an app and then disposable when companies capitalism no longer needs them. So they're being treated like rubbish and yet they're human beings with feelings and families and hopes and dreams and so I mean I kind of think no, no wonder people ah are scared. The future is looking pretty grim. If you're not a billionaire you're I mean even if you are a billionaire you're going to be having to put up long, you know, higher fences and more security around your system. But if you're looking at the future your kids are facing, you know, libraries collapsing and schools crumbling literally and extreme weather events getting more and more frequent, it's a pretty scary outlook on, on so many fronts. And so people feeling lack of control, lack of future, they're working longer hours to just keep their heads above water so they're not able to hang out with their families or their communities and build those relationships that we know are so important to humans as social beings. They're often further from nature. We know how important it is for folks to get out into nature and sit under trees. And that's hard if you're working three jobs on the minimum wage just to put food on the table.

There's huge economic inequality that is driving societies apart

So there's all sorts of dynamics that are driving societies apart and driving individuals away from what they need. And I, a lot of those dynamics have economic roots. They're things like the nature of the way business work where they're often for all sorts of reasons incentivized to keep costs down and labour is seen as a cost. So you know, shed workers where you can, you pay them as little as you can. You don't treat them as human beings, you just keep, treat them as an input to production. there's the huge economic inequality that is driving societies apart where people are quite literally living in different worlds and don't relate, relate to each other. Plus then those at the top have the ability to influence policy and apparently, you know, democracy and inverted commas. Whereas everyday people feel that democracy and government's not working for them. They feel those institutions are not on their side. and so addressing economic inequality, addressing the quality of jobs, addressing people feeling that they're not in control of their lives by maybe bringing, helping them be owners of their work. You know, the firm that they work in, have more local, local jobs, improve the ability for people to influence decisions that matter through them through things like participatory budgeting, which, you know, Polto or Allegra in Brazil or New York or France are quite famous for, citizens assemblies which have, have happened in places like Scotland. Yeah, there's, they're not perfect and we can have arguments about how much are they being used by government. But the idea is there that you bring people into, into government making and decision making a lot more than they, they currently are. Ah, so there's a whole wide range of different mechanisms and I, I think about all those different shifts you need to build an economy that serves the wellbeing of people and planet, which is sort of the tagline for a wellbeing economy. So lots of different shifts, local right up to the supranational. And I think of it a little bit like a jigsaw puzzle, like a thousand piece jigsaw puzzle. All these little shifts, big shifts are going to be necessary, but none of them are sufficient on their own. And so what most people do when they are grappling with a jigsaw puzzle of that size of a thousand pieces, they start with the corners. And so how this is how I get my head around the sort of, that multiplicity of changes that are needed is the corners of this jigsaw puzzle. And they quite handily all start with P. So I think about purpose, prevention, pre distribution and people power. So purpose is around. Well, okay, what is the economy for? Is it there just to sort of quarterly increases in growth or is it a mechanism that we take care of each other and then how we judge the success of that economy is very, very different. Are, we talking about the direction and composition of growth rather than just faster, faster, faster growth and how we measure it? you know, just how we think about the economy as a means rather than the ends in itself. Similar for the component parts of it, you know, what's the purpose of business? Is it just to extract and syphon up finance and shove it up to shareholders, or is it to be part of a positive contribution?

Next concept around prevention is looking at why challenges exist

Lots of examples in each of these P's, but I'll rattle through the concepts next one around prevention. So much effort gets spent and a lot of money gets spent responding after damage has been done. So to keep on with that Australian bushfires example, you can imagine after those bushfires, all that money that went spent was spent in rebuilding people's houses, bridges, overtime for emergency services, asthma treatment for kids who briefed in a lot of fume, mental health treatment for people whose houses were burnt down. Ecological economists call that defensive expenditure. But you can imagine it across the board once people start listening to government announcements through this frame. And we call it failure demand. These are basically costs that are avoidable. So increased spending on rent assistance because our housing market is dysfunctional and basically has become a vehicle for investors. Or increased spending, on diabetes drugs because people are not able to access healthy food, for example. gps are writing more and more anti anxiety prescriptions because people are not feeling in control of their lives, don't have a sense of purpose and dignity. And so prevention is around just asking, well why, why, why are these challenges existing? And often say we need to channel in a three year old and ask why, why, why? Until you get upstream to the level of the economy and dare to take action there. So, so to go back to the example of the circular economy, the more our businesses are circular rather than linear with their use of materials, the less we'll be having to spend on beach cleanups and river cleanups, let alone pulling plastic out of the ocean. The more people pay enough to live on, the more jobs people are paid enough to live on, the less governments will be writing cheques for benefits for in work tax credits.

Next step is pre distribution and that's saying government should redistribute

So the next one pre distribution and that's saying yeah of course there's a job for government to redistribute through taxes and transfers to sort of reduce the gap between rich and poor. But that's a hell of a heavy lift for government. They don't do it very well. It's a subject to a lot of political machinations and challenges. And so wouldn't it be better if the way the markets were designed is that they generated a better balance of resources in the first place. So things like workers owning the businesses, the community wealth building agenda comes in here that you keep the money circulating locally rather than having it go up, even how we price goods and services so you've got a microphone in front of you. I bet you when you pay for that, that didn't include the full environmental cost of digging the resources out of the ground, shipping it around the world. So the more our prices start to include the environmental costs, we won't be seeing things that are artificially cheap because we've basically put blinkers onto the environmental impact. And then the final piece of this jigsaw puzzle is people power. And that's just making sure that folks feel in control of the decisions that matter for them. Which is important for its own sake and important for mental health. But also important tactically because we know that when folks feel done to they, they resist change, they're scared of it if they feel it's not for them. And so also it's important to help people feel, yeah let's, let's walk on this road. This is a journey I want to be part of. So things like making the just transition real and I've already mentioned things like participatory democracy, citizens assembly, but workers on boards of companies, economic democracy, those sorts of things. So that's sort of like the, that's a picture of what that's just the corners. Yeah.

Lee : Wow.

Catherine : That they're the chunks. The quarters. Maybe I should say the quarters. But the good news is, is that people are working on all those different pieces as people who are diving into each of those challenges and coming up with ideas, coming up with, with examples, coming up with proof of concept, that it's showing that it's not just desirable, but it's absolutely doable. We just need to.

Lee : Unnecessary.

Catherine : Oh indeed. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I don't think there's a more necessary conversation.

Lee : No, no, I, I would agree.

Lee says inequality between rich and poor stems from people's wealth

And we spoke a little bit before we came on about universal income and when you talk about the divisions between rich and poor. why find interesting is you're living in an economy where footballers are paid millions of pounds to kick a ball or lawyers.

Catherine : Well, most of them.

Lee : Oh yeah, pretty well. I mean something pretty badly. But I just mean in terms of. Yeah. in terms of.

Catherine : You don't go for the right team then, Lee?

Lee : Well, evidently not. No.

Catherine : But you're right. I mean it's insane, isn't it? That's the astronomical salaries. Whereas you look at the talent of a nurse who is able to calm down a distressed patient, who is able to engage with their family, who is able to work with compassion to the fore, know what medicines are needed, not know what treatment. I can't. I mean I, I think that's an extraordinary skill. I think teachers who. With.

Lee : Yeah, I mean, worth in terms of Worth. Yes. Whatever your ideal of footballers or teams or whatever, you've got a, you've got a number of people who, whose contribution to society as a whole.

Catherine : Yeah, yeah.

Lee : Is, is at one level and then you've got a whole other set of people like you mentioned, people in the care homes, people who empty the bins, people who, you know, work in hospitals, teachers, who if they all work, if they all walked out tomorrow would have a different effect and. Than if the footballers all went on strike. Yeah, but, but the, but the disparity between how we, how we value them.

Catherine : Absolutely, absolutely. Can I add another dimension to that?

Lee : Yes.

Catherine : Because it's not just earning where the huge inequalities come from, it's people's wealth. So if that footballer, they might be earning X billion or million a year, but it's then if they buy property with that or they buy shares or they, it's that wealth will then make them more money. So you know, this is what Thomas Piketty, that, you know, French economist talked about, that your money will make more money for you than People like you or Eileen could make working at our day job. and, and it means you see things like property become out of reach for people. You know, people on average incomes will not be able to afford a house. I mean in parts of Australia at the moment. And so, so it's not just earning which is profoundly distorted, but it's even that, that added layer of people's stocks of money, it's, I mean, it's just things are messed up, really messed up.

Lee : So what? On the basis that governments are slow,

Catherine : clunky, and dominated by vested interests.

Lee : And dominated by vested interest. Let's try and stay on the positives, Catherine. Let's try and stay on the positives. Sorry, what can you, what can you or I do? What could I do other than change m my bank?

Catherine : Yeah, do that.

Lee : I'll do that.

Catherine : Celebrate. Celebrate the good stuff. And of which once you start looking, there is no shortage of it.

There are lots of great examples of worker owned businesses in Scotland

So I bet you most of. Well, many of your listeners will have in their bathrooms a shampoo or shower gel from the company Welsh company called Faith in Nature. I see it in most of my friends houses when I come come back to Scotland. They have done something really cool. They have appointed someone to their board to represent nature. So there's someone sitting around the board table whose job it is, is to speak up for the interests of nature. If you've got a lot of Scottish listeners, they might go into a health food store or a little supermarket and see something by a company called Green City Whole Foods. you see their trucks across Glasgow and Edinburgh all the time. What I love about them is they're a worker owned cooperative. They've been around since the 70s. So it's doing something, they're doing something right and they've got a mission to reduce their supply chain, act more sustainability, sustainably, but take care of their workers rather than be in business to treat their workers like rubbish and take money elsewhere. there's a tonne of incredible smaller initiatives in Scotland or whether it's little repair cafes or you know, freedom Bakery, I hope that's still going where it's sort of teaching folks who are in, in jails, you know, to bake bread so they've got something to come out with. So it's using being commercially, commercially viable as a mechanism, not the point of business, so that those sorts of choices everywhere that people, people can make, but also how you speak about things. So not to not just take as a given when next time you hear someone saying, well yeah, of course the reason that, you know, our country's in such strife is because of immigrants. I'll say, well, hang on a minute, maybe, maybe we should look at how the economic system has been designed and how it's created huge inequalities. and to maybe, maybe you say, if you ever meet, you know, politician in the street or at a school, fate say, well, what are you, what are you doing to bring about a more humane sort of well being economy? So there's lots of conversations that folks can have and I, I really think conversations matter because while we've got all these cool examples, policies that we've talked about, enterprises, community initiatives, I think of them as a little bit like Legos scattered across a kid's floor. Like Lego wins. We've got all these little examples, but they're not yet adding up to the change we need. They're vulnerable to being trotted on and kicked out of the way. And that in my reading is because the dominant economic discourse is still profoundly outdated and stuck in the 20th century with those old assumptions. We were talking about the need for new recipes. And so the more people talk about what is possible and what is necessary and make it a normal conversation and you have politicians start to hear it from, you know, the surround sound of lots of people chatting about it.

Lee : Yeah.

Catherine : Celebrating the cool businesses, you know, that, you know, showing them, showing that, you know, if you meet your local mp. Do you know what? I really love these sorts of businesses. What are you doing to help them?

Catherine : Those sorts of questions that, that is what everyone can do.

Lee : Can I, can I come up with another analogy?

Catherine : awesome.

Lee : You know we spoke earlier, I have a three, six, year old and a nine year old. Is that maybe what you actually need is lots more just individual pieces of Lego so that they're scattered more so that when the people, the fat cats come along. Because for anyone who's ever stepped on Lego, it hurts. Hurts. That's the one. I think that's the way change is going to come is by scattering more lego.

Catherine : irritate the system. Irritate the system. One piece of LEGO at a time.

Lee : Anarchic, isn't it? No, not anarchic. Anarchistic. Is that a word? I don't even know. Yeah, but yeah, more Lego, that's what you need.

Catherine : Yeah. And then it will start to become the new normal. Others be inspired by it, others will replicate it, others will think, oh, oh, I'm not going on out on such a limb, that's cool. And then banks will start to say, oh yeah, okay. Now I'm more familiar with worker cooperatives. I will, I'll be more happy to help them with, with the bank account or credit if they need. Or business advisors and accountants will say, well what do you mean? This is a community owned business.

Catherine : They'll be, they'll say, they'll understand and say yeah, of course we can do that. Let me help you do your accounts. All those sorts of simple things you need to make, you know, this good stuff become the normal stuff.

Lee : I know you're not going to get drawn into this, but I'm just, I'm, I'm gonna say anyway. Should we therefore be avoiding if possible, not banning, but avoiding if possible, the likes of Amazon prime and temu?

Catherine : Yeah, yeah, I'm happy to, I'm happy to go there. Yeah. I think because what, what is the nature of this, this business one, it's anti union. It treats people like, literally like just in time inventory. It's a device that makes, you know, consumption easy and disposable. Doesn't take into account the environmental impact of fast consumption, fast fashion. it helps people, you know, if they're, you know, retail therapy, quite literally, you know, if you're depressed, you know, clicking and getting a new delivery became almost, you know, sort of meme during COVID So it's offering people these sort of false, you know, pseudo satisfies. As one of my favourite thinkers would, ah, Manfred Max Neefe would talk about things that aren't really satisfying them. So absolutely, we should be moving away from those sorts of business models. M. The problem is they're massive. So hence we need to go and you get a dopamine hit the small folks.

Catherine : Yeah. But you also get a dopamine hit by being at a sporting match and seeing your team win. You get a dopamine hit by. I mean I don't sing, but I remember even when like you know, go to church and you'd hear this, you know, you know, you get the hairs on the back, your neck or you go a park run, you know, which lots of people do now, you get a dopamine hit from being together and doing stuff cooperatively and you know, people being kind to each other. You get a dopamine hit as well. So yeah, there's other ways of getting it than just looking at it through a different lens. Lots of alternatives out there. Lots of alternatives.

Lee : If you haven't realised already. I know we are running out of time, but I am kind of renowned for my Jeremy Paxman hard Hitting questions.

Catherine : Okay.

Lee : So I don't know whether you're okay with me ending up. I don't know why you're laughing, whether we were okay, whether you're okay.

Catherine : Jeremy Paxman has more hair than you lately.

Lee : So, you know, everyone has more hair than me. As, as, as Paul points out every week. What I was gonna ask my hard hit to finish up with some hard hitting questions.

It says on your website that you like cooking for friends

It says on your website that you like cooking for friends.

Catherine : Yes.

Lee : And I wondered, is that about finesse or is it about comfort food? And what is your, what is your go to? from a. Well being economy. From a, from a, from a mental health. If you go, Lee, you're looking a bit sad today. I'm going to, I'm going to cook you something to cheer you up. What would you serve me?

Catherine : Oh, so I'd probably bring you a gift. I'm going through a phase of making my own dukkha or ducker. I don't know if Scottish folks have this, but it's this sort of north, African combo of sesame seeds and crushed up pistachios and, fennel seeds and salt and nigella seeds. And you can put it on anything. You put it on your bread with oil or you can put it on your avocado or put on your risotto or your salad. So I make that in jars. And partly because, you know, my day, you know, I'd be at the desk all day and I feel a little bit like I haven't really achieved much, just sort of pontificating about the economy. I do this, hey, I've got these jars of dukkha I can give to friends. I also, on a similar vein, I love making chilli sauce. I'm not very good with it. I haven't nailed the recipe yet. I haven't been consistent. But I love making chilli sauce and giving that out and then I've got something I can. So it's about having something tangible. exactly.

Lee : Something wholesome that you've made yourself.

Catherine : Well, it's pretty oily and salty.

Lee : Yeah. I think a good chilli sauce would be, would lift anybody's mood, I think.

Catherine : Yeah. If they're in the right frame of mind.

Lee : Any garlic in it?

Catherine : Oh, yes. You can never have too much garlic cake.

Lee : No, you can never have too much garlic.

Catherine : More garlic, more oil, more chilies.

Lee : You found out that, my cousin Carrie, who I found out at the weekend, is allergic to garlic.

Catherine : Oh, that's really sad.

Lee : It is very sad. It's very sad. And we went to a restaurant and, we made sure that they didn't have. We double checked that there was no garlic and it turned out. And, Yeah, she hasn't been very well, so.

Catherine : Oh, sorry. We should.

Lee : We shouldn't end it there. that's not. So sorry, Carrie. Catherine, thank you so much for giving up your time.

Catherine : Such a pleasure.

Lee : Not so much. Thanks for, changing your seating position. So I've got your lovely vista in the background of Australia. Yes. I will go out into nature, into Scotland later and I, will change my bank account. And thank you so much for giving up your time and hopefully we can chat more in the future.

Catherine : I look forward to that, Leigh. Take care. Enjoy your.

Lee : Have a good day.

Catherine : Get well soon, Carrie.

Lee : Bye.