Guest Episode - Issy Bailey

Welcome back to Fuck Off Fridays with your girl Liv and your girl Charlie. Today we have a very special guest. We have the three-time Paralympian Izzy Bailey. Thank you for coming on our sofa. Thank you very much for inviting me. No, we're very excited. Very excited. Yeah, this is exciting. So first things first, we realised that not only do you have your own Wikipedia page, go on, but it's also out of date. Yeah, whoever decided they were a fan in the beginning and started it up hasn't kept up with my career, obviously. They have dropped off. What it does mention, though, is that you went to Rankham College with me. Oh, we love that. Shout out to Rankham. Yeah. Rankham, RIP. Yeah. So that's how Izzy and I met. So we went to school together. Oh, I love that. See, I didn't even know. Yeah, surprise. And we used to sing in the choir together. We did. Oh, my goodness. I think that's basically how we became friends. It was through choir, wasn't it? And then we then. In the late years, we're playing hockey and lacrosse together as well. Yeah. Yeah. It was such a small school that basically if you could hold a hockey stick, you're on the hockey team. Yeah. So we did all the sports together. Did you do tennis? No, but you were very good at that as well. I think Holly and I just were the only two that were willing to give up our Saturdays to play tennis. Yeah. I'm always crap at tennis. I did it as a bit of a social. If you have a tennis play panel. Yeah, because the teacher was fit. The teacher was fit. Oh, my God. Yeah. Yes. Yes, he was. Yes, he was. We had some very fit groundsmen that used to drive around on quad bikes and we were like. He also ran the choir as well. Yeah, he did. So there's a reason why we spent a lot of time together. I have many talents, yeah. Extra choir, 8am on a Tuesday. I don't mind if I do. I'll be there. I really hope he never sees this. I know. I imagine. I imagine. I wonder if he's still fit now. I bet he is. Yeah, that's basically how we became friends was through school and singing. And then there was a period of time where we went. We went and sang to old people. Do you remember that? We went and sang Christmas carols. Yes. I do remember that. Oh, my God. I did that. You just brought back a traumatic memory. I do remember that. And on the RAF base, we did some. My dad hooked up, didn't he? Yeah. Who won Papa Clem? They had like an old people's lunch. And Izzy and I went and sang Christmas carols to them. I remember your dad saying to us that, don't be nervous because they probably can't hear you anyway. I was like, hey, thanks. That is such a Papa Clem thing. I know, yeah. All these retired RAF flyers who've got hearing damage from their years of flying. But they just, they clapped along very politely anyway, didn't they? So, yeah, it was a good time for them. It was cute. But also on your Wikipedia page, it says obviously you went to the University of Exeter. What I enjoy is that you didn't even know you had a Wikipedia page until I told you. No, I'm concerned to know which photo they've used. Oh, it's a really nice photo, actually. I think it's your GB headshot. It's probably 10 years old. It doesn't show me on here, but when I Google it. It's this GB headshot. Oh, that's hideous. Yeah. Oh, I think you look great. 10 years ago. Would that have been from 2014 when you joined GB Squad? That was the We're Going to Rio 2016 photos. Oh, cool. So exciting. Yeah. So can we go into this? I think it'd be really great to share with everyone. Because obviously at school, we were on the shooting team as well. Yeah. Check your privilege. So you were always a natural shot. But maybe if you can share with people how you got into shooting, how you got into the Paralympic Games. Games and how Wikipedia is incorrect. Because you actually went to three, not two. So yeah, if we could talk through that, that'd be grand. Yeah. No, like you say, we did a bit of clay pigeon shooting at school. And my. It sounds very privileged, doesn't it? But my grandpa would have a gun in the garden, like an air pistol. He'd set it with a target in the garden when we were kids. So I knew I could shoot. I did CCF at school as well. So I knew I could sort of hit a target and I was always all right. But I was never going to take it seriously. I was never going to. Compete. And I got injured in 2013. I was in a car accident and I was at Stoke Mandeville Rehab Centre. Yeah. And at the time, the GB shooting team were training at the sports facilities there. And somebody suggested I go down and have a go at shooting just as a pastime during rehab. Yeah. And I did. The coach liked the sort of, I guess, ability that I had at the time. Gave me a training plan and I went from there. And he. Actually, the coach, the opportunity that he gave me was massive. But he actually didn't let me say no. He just gave me this training plan. There's no act of free will here. No, absolutely not. She's got a good eye. We'll have her. Yeah. There was no question whether or not I was going to be on his team. I was still an inpatient in the hospital. A lot of my day was physical rehab, occupational therapy. But my coach, Vlad, who was Estonian, he wouldn't really clock any of this. He'd say. No, no, shooting range. We go. And that was it. He just forgot about the fact you were there to rehab. Yeah, no, no, no. None of that. Come with me. None of that. He was like, you're going to be here for three hours. And I was like, no, I've got to go to physio. He's like, no. And I was thinking, okay. But anyway, he gave me the opportunity. I made the GB team sort of under his guidance. And that was it. Just. Wow. Wow, that's amazing. Yeah. How many spots are there on the shooting team? There aren't a sort of limited number of spots. It's very much the funding that they've got for that Paralympic cycle or Olympic cycle. They then know how many athletes they can fund. Okay. And they sort of allocate based on potential and previous success. Wow. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So they were looking at the time for pistol shooters, split pistol and rifle. I'm a pistol shooter. They were looking at the time for pistol shooters, young, female, because it's quite a male dominated sport. Yeah, a bit diversity. Diversity and young athletes. So that's. I just ticked all their boxes for them, which I think was. Helped me really get in. And then the coaching was great. The team set up at that time was really, really strong. Loads of para-athletes around me with lots of different levels of experience, but life experience as well. Different disabilities coming together and sort of sharing on that journey, really, with the same goals. So I was just sort of swept along in that wave. Yeah. Yeah. Did you at any point go, I actually really don't want to do this? Yeah. 2023. Yeah. Yeah. When you retired? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, no, I really enjoyed quite a lot of my. I did 10 years, pretty much 10 years exactly was shooting. I really enjoyed it up until about 2020 when COVID hit. Yeah. So I qualified in 2019 for the Tokyo Games and I was shooting really well. And I just could have done with Tokyo being in 2020. But COVID. COVID put it back a year. Oh, yeah. It was. Training was really hard. It was pretty miserable and I got injured. So I went to Tokyo feeling nowhere near my best. I was miserable that I'd missed that sort of peak. I was injured. I was just. Now I know that I was just depressed. Tokyo was a shit show for me. I had one event that I didn't finish and one event that I shot a personal best. Oh, wow. It was just too inconsistent. Chalk and cheese, yeah. Yeah. And it was pretty traumatic. We came home. Everyone was just really demoralized because the shooting hadn't won any medals in Tokyo. And we all kind of just plugged on for the next Games because it was only three years away. Of course, yeah. You extended by a year. You then have to shorten the gap to the next one. So the cycle to Paris was only three years, which felt super short. But it also gave us an opportunity to go for another Games really quickly. So I did that. I knuckled down and thought, I'll do Paris. And then I'm done. Yeah. It was a slog to get through it. But I shot well. I did what I needed to do. 2023, qualified for Paris. I got a new and phenomenal coach at the start of 2024, who absolutely made my 2024 season the best it could ever have been. And I finished on a high. I really enjoyed my last season. Oh, nice. Okay, yeah, yeah. But yeah, I was ready to quit. I was ready. I was done. Yeah. And do you think, is it being in that high pressure? In that environment? Is that, do you just, because I think it does come a point where you kind of tire of it. Yeah, very much. You just had enough. Yeah. I mean, a lot of people hit that, hit that sort of place at different times. Yeah. There are still guys in it now who have been shooting since before I was there. So people will stay in shooting for more than 20 years. Yeah. You just, you reach your limit when you've reached your limit. But no, I had reached mine and I'd achieved what I wanted to achieve from it. I was never going to be a Paralympic champion. I'd been. I'd been to the games I wanted to go to. I'd got what I wanted from it. And I now, I had other goals outside of sport. So yeah, nicely wrapped up in a bow. 10 years, three games, done. Three games. Massive achievement. Yeah. Massive. I'm pleased with what I did. But there are lots of people still going who've achieved a lot more and they're going for more games. So I still follow them, still see them. And I just don't shoot anymore. I said, do you do any, any form of shooting now? Or have you like completely. Completely. The only form of shooting I do is actually when I go out to Texas and hang out with my friends in Texas. Yeehaw. I love that. Yeehaw. And we shoot lots of big guns out there and. They're mad for guns, aren't they? They are mad for guns. I've never seen so many guns in my whole life. It's wonderful. Going, going from, you know, the UK where to have a single gun, you need all this sort of paperwork, safes, locks in your car, everything. Security is through the roof and for good reasons or whatever. - Yeah. - Then we go to the States and I've been out there with people who've got safes you know walk-in safes just crammed full of more guns than they even know they have it's and you can just go and buy one on the over the counter can't you yeah in walmart which i find wild yeah here like i'm really interested because we had a conversation about guns the other day right and um about like i think we're driving back from soho farmhouse and we were talking about um like mental health and uh how much stricter it is here like you touched on and with the licensing and stuff yeah and i said i'm really interested to hear your thoughts on it because obviously the states is really different and obviously there's a whole load of without getting too political there's a whole load of like you know gun violence and things like that there here obviously you have to you know apply for a gun license you have to have a reason to have one and things like that and something i said and i don't know if it's a thing but i said i was like surely you must need to have like a regular mental health check to be like this person is okay you know they are able to operate a gun um because even when i think back to i don't know how many years ago this was but there was a shooting up in the lake district and somebody i know lives up there and apparently they literally turned up to the end of their drive and they said and they were after the guy who lived next door who i think was like their lawyer or something they turned up to the end of their gate and they said oh does so-and-so live here and they're like oh no that's like next door not knowing that this guy had a shotgun in the car and was obviously about to go and kill him but anyway i don't think they did shoot the neighbor but the guy eventually shot himself and it was then found out he had mental health issues so i'd be really interested to hear your thoughts on the whole flip it the u.s lack of gun controls compared to here so you said people have got all of these guns and i remember going to we went to our friend christina's wedding yeah shout out christina all again and as soon as everyone heard that you shot they were to you like flies to shit and they were like you shoot guns what type of guns do you shoot and they were absolutely mad for it and they loved it it was like she's a celebrity so i guess having seen the other side of it and obviously being in that industry like what what do you think about it yeah i mean it's interesting what you say there about um the mental health checks and things because you do have to when you apply for your firearms license or you apply for um you know licenses above what we had so we had section five and things like that yeah um you have to get a okay note from your from your gp which means that you do have to see somebody after this i have to sign you off but in the world of elite sport of course mental health is now quite a big talking point yeah the pressure that you that you live with the ups and downs you might take massive losses you might lose your funding all of these things really impact an athlete's mental health and in shooting there's a little bit of a stigma with with mental health still i think that you might be hesitant to raise your mental health concerns because you're worried about losing your licenses and how it might impact on your sport because if you lose your licenses then you've lost your your livelihood your access to ranges so there have been athletes in the past that definitely have tried to um keep sort of mental health worries or or concerns under wraps simply because they're worried about about their sort of athlete yeah yeah but it all is very sort of natural um life in elite sport the pressures of that and the anxiousness the nervousness um the usa that's a different kettle of fish yeah it's a very very different kettle of fish um and i think that we won't gain anything by by going into that here um the you know even even the different states have different policies they have different ways of looking at looking at it and individuals sometimes you know we hear mostly on the news here about um individuals that strongly advocate for their right to to bear arms and their right to own as many guns as they want but actually there are individuals that forego those those rights because they don't believe that guns should be in every household that should be in every car you know i i've been in cars in the states where they've got three four guns in the car because of where you might be sitting at a time when somebody i mean it's it's it's wild and i've never needed to even think about using a gun in the states and and um but i i do know people that believe that it's absolutely necessary yeah um so i think it's very much a just ingrained in the culture the safety they think they need you know if you know that your neighbor's got a gun are you going probably i guess you probably want it as a defensive thing but that's the thing i always think is that here i don't i didn't worry about it until we were driving down the whole reason we had a conversation about guns we're driving down the road and there was a guy videoing on the side of the road and he held up a camera but he was looking through it like it was a gun and honestly he was on the verge and basically at the last minutes we drove past he brought it up like that and she like put it to his eye and i was like i'm getting shot um but i think that's how the whole conversation started but i think if if i knew that other people carried them it's a bit like knife crime here that's i think the only thing we can really compare it to is knife crime here people feel as though they need a knife like need to carry a knife with them to defend themselves should someone else attack them so it then becomes more of a defensive trait and i think that's the thing that like here if everyone else had a gun and i was worried i was going to get shot well i want to shoot you before you shoot me you know i don't know my dueling pistols at dawn yeah yeah anyway let's gun chat can you talk to us about the games because i've never other than going and spectating like the hockey in like 2012 yeah i went to that ah love that well i've never it's the eventing sorry i can't relate oh but like a peep behind the curtain what is it like what's the setup like like oh yeah tell us all and tell us more about condoms at the games more about condoms sure yeah so the um i mean if you want to dive in at that point the stories about um condom vending machines at the games it's all true love stay safe athletes go on um of course the three games i went to a very very different rio was uh just a tropical carnival of games it was wonderful it was bright colorful energetic um and the these they had these condom crank machines we go up and you just turn the crank in the in the dining hall for everyone to see it was so loud so it was this enormous these enormous tents um so everything sort of echoed and every time anyone was walking in and out of the doors you'd crank the the machine to sort of drop a few condoms out and and and every time someone would crank crank crank crank the tables nearby i'd be like get on i love that um but yeah no of tokyo obviously with with covid was um very very different games it was the the sort of safety regulations were so strict yeah um it's 2021 that you went it was meant to be the 2020 games you went because 2021 i remember here anyway it was rife again yeah yeah we went back into another lockdown so when you were there were you having to all be like did you have to like ice was isolation yeah very much yeah you have to do all that but like quarantine that's the world i was in for quarantine did you have to quarantine before you actually went and then were you like in your own bubble with all of the other athletes yeah so um before we went out to tokyo we had to do covid testing every day and that was a scare actually because i had a test that it was like negative negative negative it came up positive like three days for the games and i had to go like i think it was i had to go into london specifically to get another test to prove that that was a false positive or i'd have been i'd have been left home so everything you've worked hard for could have been out the window just because of yeah yeah yeah we had a we had a lot of people who won silver in paris who didn't go to tokyo because she tested positive for covid jesus i know it was it's heartbreaking yeah um so we did lots of testing and then every morning in tokyo at 8 a.m swab up the nose and if you were positive you isolated but yeah it was even even in the buildings walking around the village in the lunch hall um masks on everywhere you only took your mask off to literally compete wow and and in the dining room which is this this enormous space lots of tables and a huge sort of buffet service food all of the seats had these plastic screens around them so you couldn't even speak to the person across from you that's so sad you're just in your own little bubble it was it was really really isolating and restrictive but no one got covid so i guess the measures worked but it wasn't um it wasn't a fun and enjoyable games you weren't hanging out with people from other countries like you normally do people nope and then no shagging is happening there not a lot of shagging although i was with a friend at at tokyo so okay we were okay um but though then paris came around and um again completely different games for us as shooters we were in a satellite venue so we weren't in the main village until i think the eventers had that as well obviously we're horsey gals but i think all the eventers had that too so they were like way out of the way in your little pod and they're like it's kind of not as fun because part of the fun i guess is being with yeah yeah being with the things when you're finished yeah is a really fun part of the games but no we were about three hours away in the french national shooting center in chateau rue which is a state-of-the-art facility okay yeah but um and they had a sort of mini village set up for us which was which was fab but we were with all the shooters you know these people that we see four or five times a year anyway it was like a world cup for us um a high standard world cup yeah of course but um three hours is a long way though that's a lot yeah yeah three hours away and then at the end when shooting finished, we, we, we bust up to the village, which was. a shit show in terms of access oh was it i guess i haven't put any thought into it if well hang on no because surely because the shooting's out of the way but i guess at the main olympic village you have all the other para sports and all the other para athletes so they just not oh no so it was the they if you think you've got like a shooting shooting workouts let's get 150 disabled athletes let's say 75 of them are in wheelchairs and you try and get 75 wheelchair users on a coach on multiple coaches and then you've got multiple stops and you've got to get certain people off and certain people need to stay on but maneuvering all the wheelchairs it was a nightmare so they instead of driving the coaches from chateau rue to paris which would be about between three and four hours they drove everyone first to the airport regardless of whether you were getting off and then drove from the airport to the village so it took seven hours there's no accessible toilet they had no food you I don't know i don't know whose job it was but that was like i say that was miserable but once we got to the village yeah what was it like when you were there brilliant it was stunning and did you get to go and watch all of the other athletes complete in their different disciplines as well i watched tennis i watched alfie hewitt in the final of the men's tennis at paris roland garros wow it was insane that's really good the atmosphere was incredible but most of the other sports had either finished or they were they were coming to the end so it was finals so tickets were quite hard to come by yeah but i did go to the tennis do you not as an athlete do you not get athlete accident tickets you can yeah you can get okay if it's allocated then then it's full if it's full right i was gonna say like surely i'm sorry but you're uh yeah you're a paralympian as if you don't then just automatically get tickets we did get to see some stuff we did get to see some stuff um i had some friends that went to powerlifting some the athletic stadium so yeah we did get to see some things and be in the village with everyone else and lots of other countries and bigger social spaces than we'd had in chateau roux um actually i don't remember there being a condom machine i'm sure there was maybe it was maybe it was out of stock by the time we got there everyone already rated yeah the olympians finished them off but um yeah paris was great really really great experience and um i was really happy to like fly home from paris and know that that was that was it i'm done that was your was that your last competition yeah ever so you like officially retired yeah i've never shot my guns again never shot my guns again really really pleased yeah but how nice that you've come out of it you finished on a high and you feel good about that i feel yeah i feel really good about it yeah i think that had a lot to do with the coach that i was that i was given in in january 2024 um sonal came onto the gb coaching team and she just absolutely revolutionized the way that we thought about coaching professional coaching um we'd had a lot of um enthusiastic ex-athletes that had been coaching and monitoring the squad and giving advice but until she came along we didn't understand the difference between professional sports coaching and experienced former athletes yeah she just made me think completely differently about how to utilize my my time on the range what i was doing there how to think about competing how to manage my thought processes under pressure and all of these different things that i wish i had learned earlier in my career yeah but she made sure that the last year you know i set a new british record i was really pleased with how with how we ended the season um and i have absolutely no regrets it's nice to go out like that rather than be in a bad spot really low or depressed about it and then be like i just can't bloody do this anymore yeah do you know what i mean yeah no i've i've seen that it's heartbreaking i've seen athletes on my team retire when it hasn't been their choice yeah and they've either they've either you know they've not made the cut or the pressures got to them so they yeah so they they sort of you quit to save your mental health yeah of course and uh and the risk of losing your funding you know you think well i can't pay my mortgage if i'm not on funding i need to go and get another job and so they have to quit before they before they've you know really they feel finished with in themselves yeah and it can be completely just shattering to them especially if you've like built that identity as an athlete how do you come out of that and the other on the other side when you're no longer an athlete um yeah people really suffer um but luckily i had a plan and i was able to do it and i was able to i had a plan i've moved on with that plan and i just i don't really identify as an athlete anymore at all yeah i'm just happy with that as that part of my life's done and now i am moved on you wouldn't so you won't let it define you no like i'm very happy to talk about it and i still um give advice to like new athletes coming on do a bit of mentoring or whatever but i have like no interest in being a coach or anything to do i don't actually think in my heart that i am an athlete i just happen to be good at it and i enjoyed the lifestyle met really great people um but i don't feel the need to do it anymore okay what's next for izzy bailey so post shooting other than traveling the world you know she holidays more than i do she she really is i wouldn't go that far she really is mrs worldwide um but like now what's your what what does the what's your future career look like for you like what are you up to and what do you find joy in now that you're in that next phase yeah so i'm doing my phd in in english um i've been waiting to do this for a long time i finished my master's in uh 2021 and ever since then i've just been thinking right when can i start my phd and i wanted to start as soon as i finished shooting so i applied sort of in the last year of my competitive career and i started in january last year so i've been doing it for a year and a half i just love it i love it it gets me up in the morning i just where are you doing that through loughborough university oh amazing okay i love it my supervisors are awesome um and i just can't think of anything better to do in my time we love that i love it so much because i don't really know too much i know obviously a lot of people so you do like your bachelors and whatever you're doing it in then obviously then you can move on to your master's like what can you talk us through what phd looks like and like what does it mean when you've then got it because i think phd and i think pretty huge deal yeah pretty huge deal yeah oh deal i said dick but oh but she is gonna be a pretty huge deal i will have a phd but it won't be that kind of phd sorry um yeah no it's um a lot of people say to me like what do you want to do with your phd what are you gonna do after it the answer is i don't know i can probably just do a postdoc just stay in research and academia i just i i love it i can't tell you how much um i enjoy research um but my specific phd i look at the relationship between substance use and poetic creativity and inspiration wow okay so i compare that to performance enhancement in athletics yeah oh my god that's really interesting i think it is i think it is and my supervisor bless him he he thought it was interesting as well when i initially applied the idea was really underdeveloped i just had this acorn of an idea yeah um a to the university and now that i look back on it i don't know how my proposal ever made it through the gate because it was terrible it was so bad but um my my supervisor andrew um saw something some potential there um and said i'll work on this with you but first we need to improve your proposal so it's it's worthy of of coming to university um so yeah we did that and got accepted and um been working on it and he's just he's so encouraging what two supervisors um and one's in english and one's in sports sciences and the the english professor is just so enthusiastic about the project which makes me even more enthusiastic yeah it fuels your fire a little bit more yeah yeah yeah we share lots of ideas and thoughts and and um yeah just i can't imagine doing anything else love that so how long will it take you i'm part-time so it'll take five and a half years wow and you're a year in i've yeah year and a half yeah nice yeah sure the brains and the brawn yeah you're the boobs yeah you're the whole package you don't have to put that in the brains on the brawn and the boobies the whole package not the legs um i don't know if we're on video like you can see them but like disclaimer they don't work no one's gonna be able to see your chair we're just out there yeah quite nice to have a break from it that's a snippet if i ever do it it's fucking great oh what a woman how do you deal with trauma humor do you mind if i ask a question about dating go for it so yes i will go out with you will you go on yeah i would love to take you out um brilliant charlie you can leave us now are you with anyone now are you how do you find dating um i find it yeah i mean i had i had an awesome boyfriend that um is actually still on the shooting team matthew um and we are we're not together anymore but we're still very close we live in the same village and yeah he helps out he's a great guy yeah he is a top man if ever there was one um but in the end anyone can we find him a match he's not dating that i know of okay well hey look shout out if you're a single lady you want to date an athlete he's available in the cot sword area he's great and i will only allow him to date top quality women so yeah um yeah i'm already taken baby charles and charles um yeah no he's great so i was dating him for a long time and then we split up in 2022 and then i just was shooting and not interested i have since been on a couple of dates with some really really nice guys yeah i've been lucky they've been really really nice but i just haven't felt like butterflies you know yeah i've looked at them i thought green flag green flag loving this but i want to don't want to jump into bed with you so i just so i would caveat that okay only because butterflies to me are a sign of anxiety in your body saying it's not quite right oh really i think i think you need but what if you're not if you're not excited about a person when you meet them if it's very much i want to meet you for a coffee but when i go home i want to be on my own that's not a good sign is it no no but i think if you're feeling a little bit too much i don't know if you're feeling a little bit too let's say a little bit too anxious a little bit too jittery well there's exciting oh yeah no you don't want to be it's different to butterflies oh see i would describe butterflies excited yeah no i would i would say a bit of chemistry not chaos yeah yeah i don't want to be confused yeah but a bit i want to i want to like fancy somebody yeah um i just you know i thought there i've been on a couple of dates with with a few people um but nothing just didn't chemistry so i just said you know really sorry i think you're great but i don't this isn't a romantic connection for me and that was that um but i'm not looking either no no and i think dating apps just are creepy yeah really creepy i don't like how people just like you decide whether or not you think someone could be for you just by like it's almost like the instant gratification which is kind of like um we've spoken a bit about um you get a lot of like yeah and i think with things like i stayed off tiktok for a long time because i was like i don't want to go on it people like he was so weird about it and i was like just gotta do it she's like send me a screen recording i was like send me a screen recording it'll eventually go through to instagram i mean i'm now on tiktok because everyone's like if you want to grow your social media following all right and you want to monetize it and travel more that's exactly what i want to do any travel brands out there i want to travel and subscribe yeah um people like you need to go on there but i think there's almost like everyone now everything's at your fingertips and if you want an answer to something you google it and i think with the dating apps it's like you think you know everything about a person just by a few photos that they put up a bit of a bio that they put up and you decide there and then whether or not you're going to be like that person rather than actually meeting them and exploring them and getting to know them and i think sometimes when at the same time when people date and they're like oh i think they're really great and i'm like slow down could also be a bunch of bullshit yeah get to know them and like really build up that trust with someone so like i know it sounds really cheesy but like i think you'll know when you meet the right person whether or not they're for you or not but also i think just because like soph had her hinge on we were on holiday together over christmas and it's so easy to go no no no whereas i think a lot of the people that you've said no to if you met them on a night out and had a chat you'd probably be like yeah all right because you're purely going for vanity yeah yeah so or like we were talking earlier on about um even around things like dating apps asking you questions like do you want kids yes or no and you will decide whether or not you want to be with someone immediately on that basis based on one answer to a conversation yeah i think it's tricky you know when because when you're i think when you're on an app um there's there's like one agenda and the agenda is am i gonna date you if you meet somebody out in the wild whatever wherever you meet people these days yeah you might you might meet them and think actually this person's really fun let's be friends let's do this together let's hang out yeah and and but if you if you meet someone on a dating app you know you're already putting them in a box of i'm looking at you only to date you yeah am i it's dating or nothing yeah um because you don't sort of meet people on what are they called hinge and bumble or whatever it is yeah yeah it's not to make friends really is it it's no yeah looking for the one um although we did hear that linkedin is the new tinder is it apparently oh yeah from who loads of people are talking about seriously linkedin it's not for businesses i don't i don't use it i don't have tiktok i don't have you don't need a profile hang on no yes you do because if this is a nice segue actually if you're going to do more like public speaking and um motivational speaking and that sort of thing oh good point linkedin is a great profile great platform for you to be on would be actually yeah you're probably right i can help you with that i've got a very old uh linkedin profile so it does exist yeah but i just i don't even think i have the app on my phone anymore so you'll have to another thing for us to do over lunch we'll look at that over lunch i tell you who popped up my linkedin the other day was um and someone you shout out answer matt someone who was on the england world cup team he was also on a question of sport as a panelist what's his surname people are gonna be shouting their radio yes matt dawson there we go he popped up as a suggested person to follow my linkedin the other day and i was like oh the fuck is a rugby player doing and this is great professional athlete what's he doing on linkedin he's now investing in businesses he does like motivational speaking or like guest guest speaking he does panels that sort of thing um so i think linkedin is a very appropriate place for you to be and who knows maybe you'll also find a boyfriend on there too not that she's actively looking no exactly but if they not i've just my i've built up my life in such a way that i'm so pleased with it if anyone would come along and need to change a component that i'd think oh i'm not adapting they have to come in and compliment it they'd have to be epic yeah to do that yeah they'd have to to come in and be worth me compromising my beautiful life for them yeah i agree and i'm not saying you know i wouldn't do it for anyone but it's got to be spectacular basically kevin costner for me to do that kevin fucking costner yeah have you listened to that episode yet of course yeah okay good i my very delightful friend who is sat in the studio with us today over there on her phone she is a marine biologist she's very intelligent she is waiting to marry kevin costner so get in the queue she's very excited that we've just met him can i just say i have a question i have a question i have a question i have a question in love with kevin costner since i was eight years old and i watched oh she's hardcore and i watched um kevin costner in robin hood prince of thieves yes yes what a guy my mom for christmas when i was eight or nine years old bought me a poster for my bedroom wall of him shooting his flaming arrow there's your inspiration for shooting i mean oh alice is getting very excited i'm not sure i wasn't inspired by the shooting i was inspired by the man i mean terrible piece of casting in that film let's let's go i'm not sure if you're going to be able to do that i'm not sure if you're going to be able to do that i'm not sure if you're going to be able to do that i disagree that film is is hang on isn't severus snape in that as well yeah he is may he may he rest in peace he is the sheriff of nottingham i mean it's great but why is kevin costner robin hood i don't know however love is love okay yeah the heart wants what it wants and i wanted kevin costner in those weird leggings so one of my absolute favorite films is man in the iron mask with the three musketeers oh my god have you not seen it you're not seeing it no yeah very young leo would have been 18 yeah maybe fit leo is what i'm and the guy who plays d'artagnan this is very teenage crush years yeah hang on right now i've got a story about little d'artagnan so no and i feel like only my brother will be able to relate to this oh go on you and we used to watch a cartoon version called the three musketeers three musket hounds yes yes i was all dogs and i was like yeah anyone else seen that okay i'm glad it was called dog tanyan and yeah really great i see you i see you yeah my mum bought me the the dvd box set it's like four dvds of dog tanyan love that it's it's really funny yeah but less fit guys in it yeah a lot less yeah the guy who plays d'artagnan um you touched on green flags a minute ago we'd love to know what are your what your green flags and then we'll lead on to what your red flags yeah oh okay so a big green flag for me is um being genuinely interested in what they do with their life so what they do for work whatever it is having a genuine interest i don't like the word passion for it and a bit gummy but having having genuine ambition for what they do and and purpose like they don't have to be so goal driven that it blinds them to a certain goal they don't have to everything else but having having some ambition and what they want to do and how they want to improve themselves and their career big green flag yeah being self-motivated and having having a passion for something um another green flag is asking questions yeah like if i say something like oh my goodness my favorite film is robin hood prince of thieves them saying oh why is that tell me yeah you know i i don't just come back at me with oh well mine is this or i think yours is rubbish next no i don't just come back at me with oh well mine is this or i think yours is rubbish next no i don't just come back at me with oh well mine is this or i think yours is rubbish next no i don't i think like a really big green flag is showing interest in someone asking questions yeah and they're not caveating it or judging it or trying to one-up it i think just genuinely yeah just genuinely having an interest and being happy to sit back and listen to that person speak and then when i ask them a question in return being able to tell me honestly and openly like what are you interested in um and having that that confidence to be honest and say i'm interested in insurance broking whatever it is it's probably not insurance broking but yeah um whatever it is that you're interested in just own it and and tell me who you are honestly um but yeah having a having a real interest in something and being interested and interesting green flags nice what's a red flag for you yeah oh just people who use condoms bullshit uh what's a red flag for me yeah i just need to pause pause game again anyone who's not been to olympic games yeah i was gonna say anyone who's only been to two games elite athletes only ick um red flag god there's quite a lot on there oh you can reel them all off drinking is a big red flag for me like drinking to excess okay i was just gonna say like drinking to excess at being not being able to be social without having a drink yeah i would say just does not align with how i would like to live my social life yeah um just drinking for the sake of it not for me um i would also say self-care self like if a lack of self-care yeah so self-neglect so not having a um a decent diet not really caring about what you put in your body um drinking smoking those kind of things just if you don't if you're lazy and don't go to the gym if your job's not active and you don't try and move your body if you're not willing to look after yourself you're not gonna look after me so yeah that's me yeah red flag i'm afraid yeah i think also how you present yourself to me is really important like i don't think um you know you need to leave the house every day looking like you're about to walk down a catwalk but also you don't need to look like you work in a soup kitchen no exactly and i think yeah you know you've got to feel confident having yourself but ultimately i find if i look nice i feel good i feel more confident about how i make myself better mood feel yeah but also i found out recently that did you know bo like body odor is not from sweating it's from bacteria on your skin that's did you know the difference between deodorant and antiperspirant yeah it says it in the name but that's what i mean but it's only just sort of coming out so deodorant is does exactly what it doesn't it's deodorizes antiperspirant stops you sweating yeah oh interesting deodorant just masks okay it's yeah it's only just come out was it it's in the name google i'm i mean yeah but people are talking about it all of a sudden now and i saw it the other day oh interesting is that because we've had a massive heat wave and everyone's sweating and smelling so yeah and i had a friend text me yesterday saying someone has bo in the office and i'm going to figure out who and then she's like it's the guy behind me if someone's got bo don't just give them deodorant go and give them some hibiscus because they've got bacteria on their skin yeah shower and they need to remove that yeah okay so i've got a lot of people who've had a lot of bacteria on their skin and they've got a lot of i've asked google what's better deodorant or antiperspirant neither is universally better as it depends entirely on your own needs antiperspirants use aluminum compounds to temporarily temporarily block pores and reduce sweating deodorants don't stop sweat instead they neutralize the odor causing bacteria and use fragrance to keep you smelling fresh so neither is better i've started using wild recently product placement sponsor us and it smells absolutely glorious but it's also meant to be really good for the planet as well yeah well there you go yeah so yeah this leads on nicely to what you said about people that drink to excess i wrote this down last night and i said you're pointing at me every part of my being wanted to share this with live last night oh god so i'm walking the dogs late last night because obviously it's been really hot recently and as i'm walking back up the lane like through the village these two terriers dashed out of this house and so there's all these nice row of really lovely houses and there's one house on the end that looks like it's just been neglected for years there's two caravans parked outside that are rusting and gross all of the bushes are overgrown it looks like cheap as creepers house it's like you you do not want to go in there like you will be abducted anyway so walking past and with my friend joe and these two dogs come running out and i was like what the hell's going on they continue to follow us up the lane but it's like on a main road so i like handed her brin and i was like can you take the dogs i'm gonna go and try and return these puppies yeah so i walked back over and dogs even though they were yapping at me they were actually really sweet and friendly i think they were just scared and i was like why are they barking so much so i like look the brain might i'm on my own this is like i'm gonna end up on a netflix yeah don't go in there this is literally a true crime thing going on so i'm like i'm like hello hello hi your dogs have escaped like you might want to lock your gate no response something's really weird anyway outside the front there's like not just your um recycling bins of bottles there's then big supermarket bags like the big boy ones full to the brim of wine bottles and i'm like oh it's obviously like an alcoholic or or someone has died i can't work out anyway so i'm looking through the bushes and i can see there's a guy passed out on a table and i was like you know how they say dog walkers are always the ones to find dead people yeah honestly this is the wildest friday night i've had in ages i guess he's not dead because we're talking about it now well i i'm not sure i signed up for this so i'm obviously female on my own i'm not going anywhere near that man single white female yeah and i saw and i did see something the other day on tiktok this girl shared that was like my dad's a police officer here's all the things he's shared with me to basically keep yourself safe and it said if there's ever a man on his own who asks for help don't help him he'll find the way he's just preying on you because you're on your own and it was like even if there's another woman there don't ever help them but just don't ever put yourself in a situation fred and rose west i'm looking through the bushes there's like the end of this cat like there's the driveway and then there's bushes a little gate and then you can then see through to the house i'm looking and i'm like this man's not moved and it's like he's rock solid still and i was like oh my god is he in rigor mortis like what is going on here oh god but i can see that he's not moving and i'm like oh my god see he's got an air pod in his ear and then two empty bottles next to him and i was like fuck what am i gonna do what i'm gonna do anyway these dogs are running around so i was like guys like i don't know what to do with you they didn't have collars on no nothing so i walked back out to the road i then go to call my friend joe and i was like joe i need you to come back i don't know whether we should be calling 999 because i'm not sure if he's dead or alive and i was like i am not going in because i really will be on a netflix documentary anyway at this point this lovely girl called phoebe is running and and i was like please can you help me and she kind of looked really confused and i looked behind her i was like no no i was speaking to you i was like i think this man is dead i'm not really not sure what's going on anyway so she calls her dad he comes running down from another house in the village and her dad's like he was like you girls stay here look after the dogs i'll go through so he's like shouting at this man this man does not respond but he was like he's breathing i can see it because i was like does he does he have a pulse like what's going on wait to bury the lead comes back out and he's like i i don't really know what we could do and i said well you know these dogs are locked outside they're yapping they're gonna get run over like they could cause an accident he's then liable is he well like alcoholism are you well are you okay then these other neighbors start walking down with their dog coming up from their dog walk and i was like what is this normal and they're like yeah he's an alcoholic the dogs get out all the time and i was like you guys seem really fucking blase about it um anyway in the end this girl's dad goes and wakes up this guy and is like are you okay like your dogs have run out he is hammered so talk about drinking to excess so he's clearly got a serious problem he came walking out like almost like speak to everyone he's like burnt to a crisp but he's obviously been sat in the sun like no all day and was like skeletal there was like nothing to him and it was and he was like oh sorry everyone i better look all right moron and i was thinking yeah yeah but also seriously dangerous yeah but like what do you do in that situation i was a bit like we were we reported it to 101 like the non-emergency numbers they had a record of it but like i was literally like i was like we need a real adult here not me so i was so glad that that girl's dad came i was like i don't know i don't know what we're meant to do you are a real adult i'm not a real adult i'm not real you are but i was like i don't i don't i genuinely was like what what what do i do here do you call the police do you like is he dead who knows but if someone's suffering with alcoholism like what what are you meant to do and there's no phone signal so i couldn't ask google yeah because it's in the cotswolds yeah phone signal in the cotswolds but fuck nowhere yeah yeah so talk about drinking to excess that would be a that'd be a red flag for you that would have been a red flag for me i mean just that'd be a red flag for most people that's that's concerning i mean at least you you highlighted it to 101 you reported it and it sounds like his neighbors know about it like it happens all the time i'm sure they've probably reported it before nothing's happened i mean honestly insane it was honestly insane um wild anyway izzy to bring it home yeah have you got any personal icks that you can share with us or anything that you've maybe seen or other friends icks that you've been on a date and you've gone um i guess normal ones like bad nails if they bite their nails down to the down to the quick yeah ew um nasty feet i really don't like feet at all icky icky icky um if they i think if i was like queen for a day i'd say open toe shoes really i'm glad flip-flops you've got to have really nice feet to wear flip-flops i think i almost wore sandals today so i bet you're glad i didn't you look classy thank you um um bad icks i think i think one Let me think of a decent one. Yeah. A guy that shaves his legs. Oh my God. Don't like that. My first ever boyfriend was a triathlete and he used to wax or shave his legs. I think athletes, you know, if they have to. I'm sorry, but does it make that much of a difference? How much quicker are you going to swim? Icky, icky, icky. We don't want that. No one shaves his chest. Yeah, we do. I can't mention it. We can just edit it. A friend of ours. Edit it. Woof, woof. Mm-hmm. The dog man. He shaves his chest. The dog man. Yeah, we call him the dog man. No shaved chest. Icky. Yeah. Actually, I did see something on Instagram and I'll put it to you and then you see what you think. I saw something on Instagram that said, you know, if you want to work out if you're genuinely in love with somebody, just picture your man or woman just walking along the street, walking through the supermarket, and then all of a sudden they drop into a perfect split. Like the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders. Are we talking box splits or are we talking split splits? They just drop into a perfect flawless split. Do you think to yourself, ew, or do you think, mm, my flexible king? Am I dating Louis Spence? Yes, babes. I'm like a whippet. I mean, how do you respond to that if your man just drops into a split just like that? I'd actually be really impressed if I didn't know you could do the splits. I'd be like, get up. I would be like, get up. I think men would sexualize it if it's us as women, but I think if a man did that. Because I don't want to, we said this in the first episode ever, I don't want to see my boyfriend doing the downward facing dog. No. So. You're talking about yoga, and I was like, leave the old man alone if they're doing it for mobility. Yeah, yoga's good for everyone. They have an accidental fart. Good for them. They're moving. I don't want to be around that. But yeah, I just thought of that as like, just that mental image of, imagine your crush dropping into a perfect split in front of you, in some public place. How would you feel? Honestly, I think I'd be impressed. If you've not watched the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders America's Sweethearts on Netflix. You're telling me, if Charlie came in here right now and dropped into a perfect split, you'd be like, whoo! If he did it at the end of Thunder, I'd be cheering him on. Get your pom-poms out. I think the splits are well impressive. I mean, I've got zero hamstring flexibility. So, like, I bend over and I'm like, so, you know. Yeah, I've never been able to do splits. She's rendered me speechless. But I think. Now I've got a mental image of her boyfriend doing the splits. Yeah, sorry. Sorry about that. It's not for you. There you go. I love him dearly. Fucking hell. Sorry, Charles. You've been used as fodder yet again. Charlie. That's a good thing to think about. So, what's next for Izzy Bailey? Oh. You've got your PhD going on. She's got a pretty huge dick going on. I've got a pretty. She's a pretty huge deal. I've got a pretty huge doctorate going on. Yeah, I'm going to just. That is my focus. It's my. It's the only thing I've got specifically going on long term at the minute. A bit more. A bit more traveling planned. Go out to the States again. I always go out to the States for the winter. Yeah, I love that. But yeah. You've just been to Hawaii, haven't you as well? I have. Yeah. Yes. Hawaii was amazing. I loved it. Severe lack of pineapples now that I'm back in the UK, which is sad. Yeah, it's a bit sad. But yeah, I'd love to go back. Yeah, just some traveling, research, and no dating apps for me. No, no. I'm just going to wait till the one finds me at home sitting surrounded by my books and says, do you want me to make you a coffee? And I'll know. He's the one for you. If you like Love Actually, you know, with the cards outside the door, to me, you are perfect. Yeah, but I wouldn't be married at the time that he did that. Yeah. I look quite pretty. Yeah, I look quite pretty. I look quite pretty. Yeah, no. Okay. So who in Love Actually would you go out with? I have this conversation quite a lot with one of my friends. Hugh Grant me, baby. Hugh Grant. Hugh fucking Grant me. Really? Absolutely. I'd run for an airport and jump on that man. Fuck yeah. The way he is in that, I'm thinking about it, but how he looks, he's in his prime there. Or Bill fucking Nighy because he's a pervert and I love it. Bill Nighy, yeah. Give it to me. He'd teach you some stuff, wouldn't he? Yeah. Don't do drugs, kids. Become a pop star and they give you them for free. He wears like those horrible like crocodile skin suits or whatever they are. Yeah. What a fucking bloke. Winkle pickers. An icon. Winkle pickers and leather trousers. Go on, lad. He's also in Harry Potter as well. He's diverse. Oh, he's such a bloke. Yeah. Minister of Magic. Who would you want to be with? Oh. Don't say Martin Freeman in the porn bit. No. No. Go on, Bilbo. Get it. Go on. Go on. Go on. Don't know. I can never decide. Probably Keira Knightley. No, I'm sorry. I'm still giving it some thought. My name is Colin Frizzell and I have a big nod. Colin, I reckon you'd be fun. Yeah, he was Nick in My Family if anyone watched that. Yeah, he did. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Jam-packed full of condoms. Yeah, he's funny. Maybe him. Yeah. He'd be fun, wouldn't he? He's a good time. Yeah. Well, Izzy, thank you for joining us. Thank you very much for having me. It's been fun. It's been a pleasure. And if anyone wants to check out Izzy's Wikipedia page or update it for me. We'll update it. We will update it. But, yeah, thank you for coming on. We appreciate you. Thanks for sharing all of your career experiences. Pleasure. And giving us your insight. We appreciate you. It's been super fun. We love it. And until next Friday, stay toxic.