How to have the perfect summer

This is an audio transcript of the FT Weekend podcast episode: ‘How to have the perfect summer’

Lilah Raptopoulos
All through this month, I have been saying to friends and strangers and whoever will listen that I have a good feeling about this summer. I think we’re all going to have the summer of our lives. I’m not sure why I know this, but everyone I say it to seems to believe me. Maybe we’re just ready for it. Also, all you really need to have a great summer is to decide you’re going to have a great summer and to do stuff that makes you happy. So over the past few weeks, we’ve been crowdsourcing summer ideas from you. And today we’ve invited my colleague Matt Vella on, the editor of FT Weekend Magazine, to chat through them. I knew he’d also have some good, strong opinions of his own.

Matt Vella
Having a boat is terrible. Nobody should have a boat. But everyone should have a friend with a boat because that’s very good. My brother-in-law has a boat, which is horrible for him and wonderful for us. It . . . yeah, I think the, like, to-do item is find yourself a friend with a boat.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah, yeah. That is just one of many tips we’ve collected of small things to do that will make your summer infinitely better. Your responses were, unsurprisingly, excellent. They always are. And now we’re just going to get into it. Thank you for being part of this. I am thrilled to enable you. And now it’s up to you. Go out there. Do the thing. This is FT Weekend. I’m Lilah Raptopoulos.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Matt Vella, welcome to the show. It’s so good to have you here.

Matt Vella
Thank you so much. I love being here.

Lilah Raptopoulos
I’ve been excited about this for weeks. We are here to talk about having this (laughter), about having the summer of our lives.

Matt Vella
We’re both turning 13.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Exactly. (laughter)

Matt Vella
Excellent.

Lilah Raptopoulos
I . . . yeah, my goal is to feel like a . . . 18-year-old, already in university.

Matt Vella
OK. Gotcha.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Who has no responsibilities at all. Well, what about you? What was a good summer memory?

Matt Vella
Yeah, I think it would be something maybe like after college, but a similar thing where I sort of knew what I was going to do. But I had some time and I worked in a crappy bar in Paris, which I highly recommend to anybody at any life stage if they’re trying to figure out what to do next, because people don’t really expect service to be great. So if you do the bare minimum, you know, you can do pretty well. And you know, 22, 23, you can go a lot harder than later on.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah, you don’t need a lot of time to recover.

Matt Vella
Exactly. Yeah.

Lilah Raptopoulos
So we asked listeners to send us one small thing that they like to do that makes their summer 90 per cent better. And we got a flood of responses. We, you know, you never know when you do these call-outs what’s going to hit with people. But this touched a nerve.

Matt Vella
That’s great.

Lilah Raptopoulos
OK, let’s listen to a few messages in a row to kick things off.

Female caller 1
Hi, my name is (inaudible) and I live in London. My tip is to lie on the grass, look at the sky and fall asleep.

Matt Vella
Love that. Completely agree.

Male caller 1
Work with the window open is a great way to feel like I’m not missing out on a sunny day when the whole city is outside and you can always mute yourself and put your headphones on when you are on Zoom call. It’s the best thing I’ve done for my work-from-home space other than getting an actual desk earlier this year.

Matt Vella
I love it. I love it.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Get an actual desk. (laughter).

Male caller 2
Lilah and team, it’s Pete here and I’m from Brighton in the UK. It’s sunny. Summer’s here. This tip makes my summer at least 90 per cent better. It’s investing in a good barbecue. I’ve got a Big Green Egg for my sins and I cook on it multiple times a week. Invest in a barbecue. You won’t regret it.

Matt Vella
Nice. I love the, well, the simplicity of all of these and just kind of enjoy life. I mean, it really confounds your maybe stereotypical idea of the FT reader, right? I thought we’d be hearing like, you must go to Positano, that kind of thing. But . . .

Lilah Raptopoulos
Get on your yacht.

Matt Vella
. . . “Open your window.” It’s brilliant. I sort of wonder if after this sort of long Covid winter of our discontent, if it’s just, you know, a spring of small pleasures. Not that it was worth it at all, but just . . . that’s a good wavelength, I think.

Matt Vella
Yeah, I think so, too. I was expecting a lot of little hacks, like little funny, weird things that actually can improve your summer, but a lot of them were very simple. They were like, “Start each morning with a mango.” “Up your picnic game.” Or “Use seasonal produce.” Or well, someone said, just like, “Put your feet in the water and just feel the water.” And I said, like, “When? What beach? What water?” And he was like, “I don’t care. Just put your feet in the water and feel the water.”

Matt Vella
In the fountain. But you know, one where it’s allowed.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah.

Matt Vella
Yeah. I love the Big Green Egg guy. Totally on board with Big Green Egg.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Do you have a Big Green Egg? Can you explain it? 

Matt Vella
I don’t have one anymore. I used to when I lived in Brooklyn. But it’s just a giant egg. But it looks like a big green egg. (chuckles) My journalistic power is on full display here. Yeah, but inside is a kind of a grill, and it just gets very, very hot, you know? It works very well, but it looks so strange, especially if you get the big one that people just want to talk to you about it. And you run out of stuff to say about it a lot.

Lilah Raptopoulos
I feel that way, too, about how simple and like peaceful kind of the responses were. But I also felt a little like, you know, the advice that everybody was giving themselves is actually advice that you could give yourself all year. But summer is like an excuse to be happy.

Matt Vella
Yeah.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah. Like delight yourself because life is better that way. That’s kind of the top line.

Matt Vella
Yeah. Yeah.

Christina
Hi, it’s Christina from the Upper West Side in New York City. And one of my favourite things to do in summer is to take those sippy cups that you get from Broadway and you fill them up with a gin and tonic. Or, like, today’s little beverage is a Campari and soda. And I take that for a walk over on Riverside Drive. So and no one’s the wiser either because it looks like you’re just having a more salubrious beverage. Another thing to do is get your Mister Softee’s telephone number because you can call him or rather text him and say, “Hey, Boulevard, it’s Christina on 106. If you’re around, can I pop out?’ And he’ll be like, “Yeah, I’m around the corner. You don’t have to go to the Ben & Jerry’s, so you don’t have to go to the Baskin-Robbins. You got Mister Softee, kids.”

Matt Vella
Oh, my god. That’s my queen.

Lilah Raptopoulos
I know. I love this woman.

Matt Vella
Oh, my god. Have you ever heard so much wisdom come out of anyone but maybe Oprah’s mouth in such a short, like . . . (chuckles) 

Lilah Raptopoulos
Right. 

Lilah Raptopoulos
I was like, where to begin? You know, in London, where we’re headquarters, drinking out on the street is not quite the taboo that it is in some places in the United States. So good. Yes, our special relationship continues. But yeah, the Mister Softee thing is amazing. I never even would have thought to get the number, let alone text. I mean, that’s . . . 

Lilah Raptopoulos
Sorry, what is this ice cream truck called in London again?

Matt Vella
It’s called Mr Whippy.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Oh, Mr Whippy.

Matt Vella
It’s like his evil cousin. It’s got a kind of stern softie that sounds like something rewarding.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Rewarding. Something we deserve.

Matt Vella
Yeah. But, no. I mean, have you ever done this? Have you ever, like, called or texted?

Lilah Raptopoulos
I haven’t. I’ve always had a, you know, everybody has an app idea that it’s like that will most likely be a failure. My dream app was always to have like a Mister Softee tracker.

Matt Vella
OK.

Lilah Raptopoulos
So you knew, like, where you could find the ice cream truck because it’s a very specific kind of ice cream. And it’s like one of my favourites. It’s a . . . it’s like a true delight. I never thought to just get his number. Like there’s a Mister Softee guy who’s near me. I would love to know him.

Matt Vella
Yeah, you’re totally right, though. It’s like it’s got to be the right combination of heat. And when it comes out of the machine and like, a little bit of the kind of the diesel exhaust. You know, a (inaudible) of exhaust, is important, I feel like. And it’s got to, like, disappear in a minute and a half or less. Nice when I’m eating them.

Lilah Raptopoulos
OK. Shall we do another?

Male caller 3
Hi, Lilah. This is (inaudible) calling from Amsterdam in the Netherlands. My top summer tip for FT Weekend podcast listeners is never leaving your home without an air sofa. You might wonder what that is. It’s like carrying your couch with you everywhere but much lighter. And you can also fold it so small that you can carry it in your picnic basket or backpack. You really can plunge yourself in the hardest of places in a soft way. I have one that I have been carrying with me faithfully for years. I find it really helpful when I’m camping or attending an open-air concert, or on the beach. I really cannot imagine my summer without my Fatboy. Take care, bye. (laughter).

Matt Vella
Oh, my gosh. You might have the wisest listeners of, like, audiences. They’ve reached nirvana.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah, totally. This audience.

Matt Vella
So I’m imagining, like, a full on, like, Simpsons couch, but that’s just translucent. Is that what you’re picturing?

Lilah Raptopoulos
I actually asked him to send me a picture because I needed a little more context.

Matt Vella
Wait. Can you send it to me? Because Fatboy is a brand of beanbag and stuff, but he’s inflating it. Is he blowing into it?

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah, it’s one of those ones that like it has a bunch of air in it and they look like lips, like a giant mouth.

Matt Vella
Oh, my god.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Do you see it?

Matt Vella
That is amazing. I love that. It might play differently in — not Amsterdam — but still like, I think it’s amazing. I have to say, I’ve . . . with age, I’ve gone from thinking like, “Old people have those little folding stools.” Or “Fools!” To actually, “They’re genius.”

Lilah Raptopoulos
Totally.

Matt Vella
Yeah. It is a brilliant hack and I’m sure a conversation starter on the order of the green egg.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah. It’s one of those things that every time I see it in the park, it’s kind of like when someone brings a hammock to the park and they hang it between two trees and you kind of want to make fun of them about it, but actually they’re just way more comfortable than you. And they’re having a great time.

Matt Vella
Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Who’s to decide what’s cool? I think a Fatboy might be cool.

Matt Vella
Yeah. Well. Mmm.

Lilah Raptopoulos
I feel like we should do cocktails.

Matt Vella
Yeah.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Drinks.

Matt Vella
Is there a Harriet?

Harriet Fitch Little
Hi, this is Harriet. I’m a food and drink editor on the magazine. And my free tip for making our summer a tiny bit nicer is just try and make your water nicer. Keeping water in the fridge, keeping your glasses in the freezer and buy some limes. And then, most critically, buy an ice cube tray that’s going to give you big, sexy, chunky ice cubes rather than those tiny, sad little ones that melt immediately in your glass and make your water kind of taste like melted ice.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah. OK. So this was a very popular tip across the board. Harriet, obviously, is our food and drink editor and just an aesthetic genius.

Matt Vella
Yeah. I swear to God, she just, like, walked past my desk and just moved my pen two centimetres and it, you know, changed my entire outlook on whatever story I was looking at. She is brilliant at that kind of thing.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah, she really is. Also, another listener, Jess Goldsmith, says “Use a fancy glass with fancy ice for normal drinks when you’re working.” Yazzie says, “Put your iced coffee in a nice glass.” It was an outrageous number of just do the thing you’re doing, but in a nicer way.

Matt Vella
I mean, it’s the same sort of the same thing. Again, it’s just take a minute. Take a beat to treat yourself. There was one that was so good because it was like, “Just say yes.” And I love that. First of all, because like, “Just say yes” is totally like a Nancy Meyers movie, like waiting to happen, like romantic comedy. But you do spend a lot of time saying no, maybe this is worse when you’re a parent. But to just be able to just like say yes to stuff for a while, even if it’s just to yourself. You know, as long as it’s not like, “Yeah, I’m going to put this private flat on my Amex, which is close to maxed. Like, you know, reasonable yeses, I guess. But that is a good way to live, I think.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah. Is there something you’ve said yes to recently or someone said yes to you recently and you got like, “This felt good.”

Matt Vella
Oh, my god. Every example is like ordering food or something like that. So I was like, yes, that Five Guys was a good idea. What about you? Have you said yes to something? I feel like the dress is the only thing I’m hearing every time I say yes, say yes, but . . . (laughter)

Lilah Raptopoulos
The dress. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I was just thinking about this, too. Because I went home this past weekend to my parents’ house in Boston, and I was sitting in my mom’s kitchen and talking to her and she said, “You know, I just like people who just say yes.”

Matt Vella
That’s amazing.

Lilah Raptopoulos
And when you say, “I want to go take a class and learn like one magic trick. Do you want to come with me?”

Matt Vella
That was her example?

Lilah Raptopoulos
Someone said, “Sure, yeah, I’ll do that with you.”

Matt Vella
That was oddly specific.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Well, she just . . . The woman’s dying to learn one magic.

Matt Vella
I mean, that’s great. I’m not, I have nothing against it, but that was oddly specific.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Or she really wants to learn how to play, like, one song on the piano, you know? But, like, that’s like a life mindset, too. And it’s a good summer mindset, which is like, you can either be the person who gives people an excuse to do something or you can just like if someone has that spontaneity to them, you can just like go with them and not overthink it. Like I have a friend who through the summer often will text a group of people and say, “I’m taking the ferry to the beach for sunset. I don’t care if anyone comes, I’m doing it. You know, if you meet me here, you can come.”

Matt Vella
That’s great.

Lilah Raptopoulos
And he gets a big group.

Matt Vella
Yeah. That’s fantastic. That’s good. Yeah.

Lilah Raptopoulos
OK, let’s do one more listener call-in and then we’ll talk about some culture things that we’re looking forward to. Here we go.

Female caller 3
Hi. My name’s Moira and I’m calling from the Isle of Dogs. My top tip is to use a freezer, if you have one. Put pillowcases in plastic bags. And obviously take them off out of the plastic bags when you’re using them. And hot water bottles also into the freezer. Leave a gap for the ice to expand inside. Frozen grapes, delicious, Mars bars, chocolate first, also delicious frozen. And water bottles. You can, plastic ones, you can freeze solid and they take some while to defrost even in hot weather.

Matt Vella
I mean, I have one word written next to Moira’s call-in, which is genus. But I think I meant genius. And because it is genius, I mean, like all of this, it’s just like a recipe for a good life or a good day, at least.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah. Moira is our producer Lulu’s mom.

Matt Vella
Really?

Lilah Raptopoulos
Which makes it even better.

Matt Vella
Oh, that makes so much sense if you know Lulu. She’s, like, definitely on a good wavelength, too.

Matt Vella
I feel like I could have used Moira and her tips about using the freezer when I was . . my dad’s from Greece and when I was little, we used to go to Greece every summer and visit all of his family and all of his friends. And it was like, so hot, like, just bad. And they didn’t have ice. They just don’t use ice. And I just remember, like opening their old freezers and like, sticking my head in and just suffering, like lying, getting like, bitten by mosquitoes. And everyone was comfortable with it because they were used to the heat.

Matt Vella
Yeah.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Could’ve used some frozen grapes.

Matt Vella
Oh, frozen pillow case. It’s like . . . 

Lilah Raptopoulos
Frozen pillowcase?

Matt Vella
I like all the . . . Yes, there were some mom subtext, sub notes in the advice: “Take it out of the plastic,” “Don’t fill the bottle all the way up.” Yeah I mean the freezer thing: I completely endorse, completely agree.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah. OK, Matt. I would love to transition into hearing what cultural things you’re looking forward to this summer. But first, some kind of curious like why is summer so ripe for doing cultural things?

Matt Vella
I mean, to be honest, for me, it’s the kind of extremes of mundanity and like amazingness. One of my absolute favourite summer things to do is go to the movies and not since I’ve been editing the FT Weekend Magazine. But in previous times, you know, I’ve been able to do that, you know, during the week, go see a movie on a Friday or something, especially in New York. You know, it’s like being teleported to the Arctic from the Sahara and it’s quiet and there’s nobody in there and it’s loud. The movies are loud and, you know, it is such a delightful and rewarding space to just be in. And it doesn’t really matter what you see, although, I will say it, like, this summer, we I don’t know what we did to deserve the movie summer that we’re going to have because it’s nuts how much you’re getting. And it’s like they’re going to put out every movie that they ever thought of making or something because it’s like, “Do you want auteur cinema?” There’s like Chris Nolan, Greta Gerwig, Wes Anderson. “Do you want big explosion movies?” There’s a Mission Impossible and the Fast and Furious and a good superhero movie and a bad superhero movie. There’s raunchy comedies like it’s just an embarrassment of riches, but even one there isn’t, just tucking into a movie by yourself is.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah, like on a sweaty day.

Matt Vella
Yeah, it’s one of my all-time favourite things to do.

Lilah Raptopoulos
What about music? I’ve been thinking about summer music and one listener, Franklin Mount, emailed us and his tip was to listen to Talking Heads. The Talking Heads’ album 77.

Matt Vella
That’s a good, always a good recommendation.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Always a good recommendation. He said most people either haven’t listened to it in years or never have. I listened to it recently for the first time in probably two decades, and it blew my mind.

Matt Vella
Whoa, whoa, Franklin, I don’t know about not listening to it in years. Is it really good, though? You’re right about that. I would agree with that. Does he have a new album coming out? Or something?

Lilah Raptopoulos
I don’t think so. But he’s got I feel like David Byrne is in the air. He’s got, you know, his concert documentary, Stop Making Sense, which is like the best thing ever. It was acquired by A24, and so it’s going to be re-released in theatres later this year. I think this summer, which would be actually another perfect thing to go to a movie in a cold air conditioning and get a giant Diet Coke and a giant popcorn and watch.

Matt Vella
Yeah, that’s, it’s like the best of both worlds. But there are like some crazy tours. I mean, Blink 182 is touring again. Yeah.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Blink 182 is touring. Beyoncé is touring.

Matt Vella
Taylor Swift.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Taylor, of course, is touring.

Matt Vella
But I would say don’t go. I mean, this is controversial. I would say skip the Taylor Swift and maybe even skip the Beyoncé and go see like Le Tigre or Shania Twain, you know. Lower . . . Yeah.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Is Shania Twain touring?

Matt Vella
Lower the, like, bar a little bit. And, like, maximise the sort of fun.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Yeah, I know. Buy a ticket that night. For a show that’s happening.

Matt Vella
Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Just like, say yes to the scalper.

Matt Vella
Yeah. Say yes to the scalper. (laughter)

Lilah Raptopoulos
Maybe it’ll work. Maybe it won’t. (laughter)

Matt Vella
Coming to TLC this fall. Say yes to the scalper.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Lilah Raptopoulos
OK. Last question for you, Matt. Of all of the cultural things that are happening, of all of the activities that you’re planning, what’s one top thing that you’re — I don’t want to say The One Thing because who knows? — But what’s one top thing that you’re looking forward to the most for this summer?

Matt Vella
I’m going to go with Indiana Jones, which I have a vivid memory of going to see with my dad in a very hot kind of strip mall, unglamorous movie theatre in Alameda, California, and having just my tiny mind blown by the boulder scene and all that stuff, and wanting to be an archaeologist for like the next 20 years until I actually found out what archaeologists do in real life. It’s not steal treasures; it’s count pottery shards. Yeah, right. Oh, my god. But anyway, Indiana Jones is coming back, and even if it’s bad, it’ll be good. So what about you?

Lilah Raptopoulos
Mine are probably “Get my Mister Softee’s phone numbers.” These are not cultural. The other is to figure out a way to get on a sailboat and sail down the East River and . . . 

Matt Vella
Mmm. Like you’re contributing to the sailing. Or you’re just a passenger?

Lilah Raptopoulos
I don’t need to contribute. I’ll take a beer. This is amazing.

Matt Vella
Yeah. Thank you.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Why don’t you come back at the end of the summer and we’ll see if it was the highlights or we’ll do this again for the winter. Let’s do the winter.

Matt Vella
Barbie spoiler gassed.

Lilah Raptopoulos
Oh, Barbie, that’s another really good thing to look forward to. OK. Matt, this is incredible, as usual. Please come back.

Matt Vella
Yeah, thank you so much for having me.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Lilah Raptopoulos
That’s the show this week. Thank you for listening to FT Weekend, the Life and Arts podcast of the Financial Times. Our entire team hopes you have the perfect summer. We’ve put some links to some wonderful FT Weekend summer content in our show notes. You’ll also find there a link to an excellent discount to an FT subscription. That’s also at ft.com/weekendpodcast.

Next week my colleague Marianna Giusti is coming on to tell us what it’s like to run a family vineyard in Tuscany. Sounds very romantic. Turns out it’s not. As illustrated by this episode, we really love hearing from you. You can email us at ftweekendpodcast@ft.com. The show is on Twitter @FTWeekendPod and I am on Instagram and Twitter @LilahRap.

I’m Lilah Raptopoulos and here is my wonderful team. Katya Kumkova is our senior producer. Lulu Smyth is our producer. Mollie Nugent is our contributing producer. Our sound engineers are Breen Turner and Sam Giovinco, with original music by Metaphor Music. Topher Forhecz is our executive producer and our global head of audio is Cheryl Brumley. Have a wonderful weekend and we’ll find each other again next week.

[MUSIC PLAYING]