Nato foreign ministers demand a say in a future peace agreement for Ukraine

Summary

The Monocle Daily (3 December 2025): NATO Foreign Ministers, Ukraine Peace Prospects & More

Episode Overview

This episode of The Monocle Daily, hosted by Andrew Muller, features journalist Tessa Shishkovitz and defence researcher Jacob Parakilis as panelists. The focus is on current geopolitics, particularly NATO’s stance on the Russia-Ukraine war, Europe’s ongoing financial ties to Russia, the new Australian ban on social media for children, and cultural trends in hospitality and education. Highlights include a nuanced discussion of peace negotiations for Ukraine, the shifting role of American leadership in NATO, energy sanctions against Russia, and a feature on a Norwegian folk high school from the documentary "Folk Tales."

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Key Topics & Discussion Points

1. NATO, Ukraine and Russia: Peace Prospects and Geopolitical Posturing

• Putin’s Reluctance for Peace

  • Recent talks between U.S. envoys and Russia made little progress, as summarized by Andrew Muller's tongue-in-cheek intro:
    • “We are shocked, shocked to discover that President Vladimir Putin is not tremendously interested in any imminent settlement of the war in Ukraine.” (05:00)
  • Tessa Shishkovitz recounts her interview with Ivan Krastev, noting:
    • “Putin wants a peace deal that is so humiliating to Zelenskyy that he’s gone... that is, of course, what the Ukrainians don’t want, but also the Europeans don’t want that, and NATO… also don’t want.” (05:49)

• Impossibility of Compromise

  • Jacob Parakilis explains:
    • “There’s a territorial issue. Ukraine needs territorial integrity… the problem is that Russia does not want a bright line on the border… that territorial integrity piece is the key to preventing Ukraine from fully and irreversibly going to the West.” (06:55)
  • Both emphasize that Russia’s goal is not just territory, but leverage over Ukraine’s political system.

• NATO and U.S. Engagement

  • American Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s absence from the NATO foreign ministers’ meeting is interpreted as a significant signal.
    • Shishkovitz: “It's quite a clear sign that they are saying you can be happy if we inform you after the fact… everyone's waiting for what America does.” (09:24)
    • “You think sometimes maybe it’s not even so important if Ukraine is in NATO, since we don’t know if America will be in NATO in the next 10 years.” (10:20)
  • Overall, European nations are more united on Ukraine support than in pre-war years.

• Outlook on War Duration

  • Parakilis offers a historical perspective:
    • “There’s an inertia to wars… the victory conditions were incompatible. Ukraine isn't Iran, Russia isn't Iraq and vice versa… but there is a sustenance, a sort of inertia behind that that can keep going for a remarkably long amount of time.” (12:17)
  • Panel agrees it is likely the conflict will endure for the foreseeable future.

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2. Europe’s Energy Dependence: Banning Russian Gas by 2027

• EU’s Continued Payments to Russia

  • Despite sanctions, EU still pays Russia over 1 billion euros per month for energy; top buyers are Hungary, Slovakia, France, Netherlands, and Belgium (13:15).
  • The EU will ban all Russian gas imports by 2027.

• Theoretical What-ifs and Realignments

  • Parakilis posits:
    • “If something like this had been done in 2014, I think we'd be in a very different world. But Russia’s outreach goes beyond Europe…” (14:06)
    • “There’s a world where this level of disconnection… fundamentally changes Putin’s behavior. There's another world where… he re-establishes those deep relationships elsewhere.” (14:35)

• Hungary: Outlier in EU Sanctions

  • Hungary, benefiting from exceptions, is criticized for its “pro-Putin” and “pro-Trump” stance:
    • “You see that this man [Orban] is just a very good tactician… always a thorn within the European Union, which is really good for Putin.” –Shishkovitz (16:16)
  • Hungary also has domestic political motives tied to its approach.

• Strategic Shift in EU Energy Policy

  • Parakilis on the ban’s significance:
    • “There’s a really clear, obvious congruence between the green and resilience agenda and the security and US foreign policy goals… The big objectives of the EU are aligned and so it's going to be hard to change that.” (19:31)

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3. Australia’s Ban on Social Media for Under 16s

• Effectiveness and Enforcement Doubts

  • Australia bans under-16s from social media, with technology companies facing steep fines for non-compliance (21:06).
  • Shishkovitz is skeptical:
    • “I think kids are much too smart to let companies lock them out of anything… Authority wanes very quickly.” (21:06)
  • Parakilis elaborates on the complexity:
    • “The tools that policymakers have are blunt. They are sledgehammers. In the Australian example, I mean, is the potential harm from viewing content or is it from participating?” (23:19)

• Broader Concerns

  • Panelists agree something must be done to protect children, but regulatory measures may be difficult to enforce and risk being outmaneuvered by tech-savvy youths.

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4. Quirky Design Trends: The Hotel Bathroom Door Crisis

• Open-Plan Bathrooms in Hotels Debate

  • The strange trend of hotels with transparent or absent bathroom doors is discussed humorously.
  • Shishkovitz: "It’s a design gag that I personally liked, because it’s sort of breaking down walls… But if you’re not traveling alone, I think the answer is very, very clear." (25:37)
  • Parakilis recounts: "The fanciest hotel I ever stayed in was a hotel in Dubai...a beautifully inscribed glass curtain wall with gold inlay, obviously. Had I been with my family, I would have struggled somewhat more with it." (26:51)

• General Trend Commentary

  • The panel likens this to other overthought design trends, e.g., restaurants ditching plates for “novelty” serving options.
    • Muller: “Do not fix what isn’t broken.” (28:02)
  • All agree that, while some trends are harmless, privacy in bathrooms remains essential.

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5. Documentary Feature: "Folk Tales" and the Norwegian Folk High School Tradition

• Interview with Director Heidi Ewing

  • Explores the film covering a year at a Northern Norwegian folk high school where teens engage in dog sledding, outdoor living, and self-discovery.

• Key Insights from Ewing (31:34 – 36:17):

  • On finding the story:
    • “I read a book by an American dog sledder… She found out about these folk high schools, which is a Scandinavian tradition, that her version of a G, but with much more depth, I'd say.” (31:34)
  • On filming:
    • “If I had known how impossible it is to photograph dog sledding, I would have thought twice about making this movie… The drone kept falling out of the sky, the propellers would freeze. The batteries would only last for a couple of hours. It was almost impossible to shoot the movie.” (34:03)
  • On the generational takeaway:
    • “I think this is a very tender generation that's thinking a lot about the world around them and about their future and the planet's future. It gave me hope.” (35:43)

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Memorable Quotes

• On NATO & Ukraine:

  • "Putin wants a peace deal that is so humiliating to Zelenskyy that he's gone... that is, of course, what the Ukrainians don’t want." –Shishkovitz (05:49)
  • “As long as Putin sits on a square meter of Ukrainian soil and says 'we can't agree,' he achieves that objective of making this impossible circle to square in terms of Ukraine's Western turn.” –Parakilis (07:10)

• On War Inertia:

  • “There is a sustenance, there is a sort of inertia behind that that can keep going for a remarkably long amount of time.” –Parakilis (12:28)

• On the Hotel Bathroom Trend:

  • “I came to the conclusion that having a door at a hall toilet is a very good idea in general. A little bit of privacy at certain moments is recommended.” –Shishkovitz (28:33)

• On Generation Z (Folk Tales documentary):

  • “I think that this is a very tender generation that's thinking a lot about the world around them and about their future and the planet's future. It gave me hope.” –Heidi Ewing (35:43)

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Key Timestamps

• 05:24–08:17 – In-depth discussion: why peace talks with Russia are going nowhere
• 10:02–11:24 – Uncertainty over future U.S. role in NATO
• 12:17–13:15 – "War inertia": reasons for possible continued conflict
• 13:15–19:31 – EU’s ongoing energy dependence and efforts to shift away from Russian gas
• 21:06–24:51 – The likely inefficacy of Australia’s social media ban for minors
• 25:37–28:56 – Panel’s personal takes on baffling hotel design trends
• 31:34–36:17 – Heidi Ewing interview about the making and meaning of "Folk Tales"

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Tone and Language

The hosts and panelists balance informed, analytical conversation with wry humor and personal anecdotes. Discussions are direct, sometimes sardonic (especially regarding geopolitical realities) but always grounded in journalistic and research-based expertise.

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This summary provides a thorough guide to the episode’s main subjects, insights, and moments. It is ideal for listeners seeking a clear yet nuanced understanding of the topical debates and cultural insights featured on this lively edition of The Monocle Daily.

Transcript

[A]

Every day, the world presents you with hundreds of headlines. What do you believe? Who do you trust? The Financial Times cuts through complexity with clarity, accuracy and global perspective. Its journalism is guided by independence, not agendas. That's why leaders in business, policy and culture turn to one trusted source for facts, for insight, for what matters next. Source FT Read more and [e-mail].

[B]

You'Re.

[A]

Listening to the Monocle Daily, first broadcast on 3 December 2025.

[C]

Vladimir Putin declines to join a chorus of Kumbaya. Will Australian kids wear their banishment from social media and the accelerating abolition of the hotel bathroom door? I'm Andrew Muller. The Monocle Daily starts.

Hello and welcome to the Monocle Daily, coming to you from our studios here at Midori House in London. I'm Andrew Muller. My guests Tessa Shishkowitz and Jacob Parakilis will discuss today's big stories. And we'll meet one of the directors of the documentary Folk Tales about a Norwegian high school encouraging its students to go all the way back to basics. Stay tuned. All that and more coming up right here on the Monocle Daily.

This is the Monocle Daily. I'm Andrew Muller and I am joined today by Tessa Shishkovitz, UK correspondent for the Austrian weekly magazine Falter, author of Ekta Englander Britain and Brexit, and Jacob Parakilis, research leader for rand, Europe's Defence and Security research group. Hello to you both.

[B]

Good evening.

[C]

Good evening, Tessa. First of all, you join us as a recently anointed award winner. Congratulations. What was the award and what was it for?

[B]

Thank you. The world's almost most important British journalist.

[C]

Prize, which was the world's most important British journalist?

[B]

Almost, Almost.

[D]

Almost.

[B]

And there might be someone who got a better price.

[C]

But don't undersell.

[B]

My award was the Foreign Press association gives awards every year for best stories of the year. And there's one reserved for the members of the Foreign Press association, of which I am one. And so one of my stories won.

[C]

That's exciting. What was the story and where can listeners find it?

[B]

The story was called Pursued by Putin's Hunters and it was about a Bulgarian spy ring that was put up here in England. The Bulgarian spies were tried and sentenced to also almost 10 years in prison each of them. But they spied on some of my colleagues in Vienna, among which is Christo Grosseff, for example, who is a Bulgarian man and very, very important in uncovering some of Putin's biggest plot ploy is to kill opposition leaders and journalists. And so they decided to maybe kidnap him. So they didn't. But he had to leave Vienna because the Austrian police informed him in 2023 that they could actually not protect him any longer. So that's a little bit of an insight into British court life and Austrian police and security situation for you.

[C]

Jacob, welcome back to the show. It has been a while. I think this is your first appearance in your present guise. So briefly, if you would reintroduce yourself to our listeners by explaining what you are doing all day at RAND Europe's Defence and Security Research Group.

[D]

Well, we research defence and security. The simple answer. Oh, so we RAND Europe is the European arm of rand, which is the big American research services organization once known as the think tank. We no longer use that terminology, but we provide research services across a range of themes for European governments. One thing that's of particular interest that we have just been publishing, most recently yesterday, a series of reports that were commissioned by the Ukrainian Ministry for Digital Transformation about digital transformation on the battlefield. So doctrine technology, policy horizon, scanning.

The value of defense industrial cooperation with Ukraine and its European partners. Four reports and three, two still to come, subsidiary smaller pieces sort of exploring this broad range of topics.

[B]

Please send it to us.

[D]

I will. I absolutely will.

[C]

Well, thank you as well for that seamless segue because we will start with Ukraine, Russia and the necessity for our panelists to bring their best impressions of Captain Louis Renault from Casablanca as we are shocked, shocked to discover that President Vladimir Putin is not tremendously interested in any imminent settlement of the war in Ukraine. After five hours of talks with American America's envoys, a New York City real estate tycoon and the President's son in law, one senior Putin aide, Yuri Ushakov, stifling laughter long enough to intone that a lot of work lies ahead. Which translates from the diplo speak in this context broadly, as we are painfully obviously running out the clock on you bozos. Tessa, are we surprised that this has gone nowhere as far as we can tell.

[B]

Well, you could see in Brussels today how the reaction was that the US Toughening sanctions is trying to use the Russian asset frozen assets to pay for the war loans to the Ukraine and NATO is saying we will continue protecting the Ukraine. So nobody's even seriously thinking that this is over soon. But I had quite a good interview with Ivan Krastiev, the Bulgarian political scientist this week who said, you know, the problem with this peace deal is that Putin wants a peace deal that is so humiliating to Zelenskyy that he's gone, that he will have to go and so that is, of course, what the Ukrainians don't want, but also the Europeans don't want that, and NATO, with a sort of reluctant American partner in it, also don't want. So we are in a situation where it became obvious that Putin wants, as always, a deal that is good for him and for nobody else. And that's what came out of this meeting yesterday.

[C]

President Zelenskyy Jacob has been at pains not to write the whole thing off, though I think it's reasonable to assess he is just desperately hoping to keep the United States on board to the extent that he possibly can. But is there really any imaginable compromise which both Russia and Ukraine would agree to right now?

[D]

It's very difficult to imagine. So there are two overlapping problems. One is that there's a territorial issue. Ukraine needs territorial integrity. I mean, setting aside the political problem of whether Zelensky or the Ukrainian political system could survive the blow of formally signing away territory occupied by the Russians to Russia, setting that aside for the moment, the problem is that Russia does not want to have a bright line on the border, because the dotted line, the this is Ukrainian territory occupied by Russia thing, is the fundamental thing keeping Ukraine out of NATO and probably out of the eu. That territorial integrity piece is the key to preventing Ukraine from fully and and irreversibly going to the West. So as long as Putin sits on a square meter of Ukrainian soil and says we can't agree he achieved that objective of making this impossible circle to square in terms of Ukraine's Western turn, I mean, you can only imagine that the Ukrainians are eager for the war to be over. It has been unimaginably destructive and disruptive of their country and their society. But. But they also are aware that what Russia wants is not territory. It is authority over the Ukrainian political system. And that is what they have spent the last 35 years since independence establishing. And they can't give that up, that's not up for grabs as far as they're concerned.

[C]

At which I am reminded of a conversation about this I had with a Ukrainian MP in Odessa earlier this year and asked him, possibly not thinking it all the way through, how much longer he thought Ukrainians could maintain this fight. And he just replied, well, what choice to we have, Tessa, going back to this meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Brussels, Europe, obviously trying to elbow its way back to the table somehow. But how significant is the fact that US Secretary of State Marco Rubio declined to turn up for this? He sent his deputy Christopher Landau instead. Very, very unusual for the Sack of state not to be at this meeting.

[D]

Yeah.

[B]

Hasn't happened for a very, very long time. Could be maybe excused with the fact that he was involved in all these negotiations. But I think it's quite a clear sign that they are saying you can be happy if we inform you after the fact. And you can see also in the reaction of Marc Rutte today that he put out his full. You know, he's always very complimentary to the US President, as we have noticed from previous dispatches, but he continues to do so because that's the truth. It's very good that Trump takes an interest in the negotiations with Russia and the Ukraine because he could also say, like, no, what he promised his voters was not to be involved at all in this foreign conflicts. And now he's fully involved over his nose in everything. So it's good in the sense that they put their weight in to get some compromise out of Putin, possibly. But it means for NATO that of course, everyone's waiting for what America does. And it means that.

It'S an organization hanging a little bit in limbo. If you don't know if America, America is actually also a partner. You know, we're talking about should the Ukraine join NATO? And you think sometimes maybe it's not even so important if Ukraine is in NATO, since we don't know if America will be in NATO in the next 10 years. So it's quite, you know, we're in a really difficult situation where everything is shifting, all our alliances are shifting. But having said that, I think there's quite a clear concentration within Europe and the European NATO partners and in the European Union, plus Britain in the coalition of the willing and all that to really sort of stand by the Ukraine. And I think that's a lot more than we could have expected a few years back or before the war started, it really focused the attention of the European leaders on the fact that we need to prevent Putin to declare the Ukraine his side of the buffer zone between us and him. And we need to make sure that it stays a valuable and viable state that can defend itself. I mean, that's what the whole debate about the army is about. You know, a million soldiers that Ukraine now has in arms is not something that is sustainable at all, but sort of 600,000 as Russia wants it is a lot less. So somewhere in the middle is a compromise and that's what the Europeans will finance.

[C]

Jacob, we will be talking about other Ukraine adjacent topic shortly, but just finally on this, and it is a slightly depressing thought, how great do you think the chances are that we are still having variations on this conversation 12 months from now? That is, is there a compromise that Ukraine and Russia would agree to?

[D]

I mean, you know, it's the, there's an inertia to wars and if you, you know, rolling back through my, my academic history to looking at non state armed conflict or non conventional conflict, there is an undergirding to certain types of non state violence that leads to their persistence beyond what seems like rationality or capability. And that's true in a different way of conventional conflicts. I mean, Iran and Iraq fought for eight years to total exhaustion because the victory conditions were incompatible. The peace terms were incompatible until both sides were fundamentally exhausted. Ukraine isn't Iran, Russia isn't Iraq and vice versa. But, but.

Once a country has adopted a war footing, once it has gone to a war economy, as Ukraine has had to do and Russia has chosen to do, there is a sustenance, there is a sort of inertia behind that that can keep going for a remarkably long amount of time. And establishing where that sort of will to continue fighting runs into the implacable unmovable inability to do so is a profoundly unsettled question in political science. We don't know. It's very, very difficult to establish even from the inside. And we are not on the inside of either country where the. That's it, no more. We will accept previously unimaginable terms in order to make this stop. Point is it could be some ways away.

[C]

Well, to Europe and the fun fact that the constituent nations of the EU are still paying Russia north of 1 billion euros every month for oil and or gas. The top five buyers being hu, Slovakia, France, the Netherlands and Belgium. Granted that this is down dramatically on a few years ago, before Russia launched its full scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, nearly half the EU's gas and more than a quarter of its oil came from Russia. It is nevertheless a bizarre amount of cash to be shovelling to one's enemy at barely one remove. Accordingly, the EU has now agreed a complete ban on all Russian gas imports by 2027. Jacob Fun Hypothetical. First, how different a world are we living in? If something like this had been done in 2014, I think we'd be in.

[D]

A very different world. But it's important to remember that.

Russia's outreach goes beyond Europe. There's that developing no limits partnership with China. They've managed to develop relationships with Iran and North Korea. They have buyer seller relationships throughout the developing world. Europe is a hugely important source of.

Finance or was before February of 22 finance and a hugely important market for Russian exports and particularly energy exports. But it's not the whole world to them. And I think there's a world where this level of disconnection of Russia from the European and sort of US led world fundamentally changes Putin's behavior. There's another world where it's a blow, but then he re establishes or he establishes those deep relationships elsewhere. Earlier he brings in the war economy. Earlier maybe there's an invasion of Ukraine plus minus two years with a country that is more sharpened and more prepared for going in a full scale invasion. It's very difficult to sort of establish that counterfactual one way or the other.

[C]

Tessa, your neighbors in Hungary benefited from an exemption to a lot of the sanctions, as did Slovakia. They both pleaded, I think somewhat disingenuously, genuinely, that they needed this because they were landlocked as opposed to just weirdly sympathetic to Russia. Hungary is planning to challenge this new edict in the EU courts. Is it clear to you at this point what Hungary's actual thing is here? Like why do they seem to be struggling, a country in which you were just about having living memory of being invaded by Russia or the Soviet Union as then was. Why are they having trouble picking a side here?

[B]

Well, that's a big subject actually why Hungary is in this position. A it is really in the center of Europe. But as you say, Austria, for example, who was very adamant to stay on the Russian gas supply for a very long time and had it for 60 years, has gone out of it now almost the direct link has been now closed. No gas coming from Russia directly, not just via lng, possibly Italy, Germany. It's not quite clear how much of it has a Russian origin, but that means. So Hungary clearly has an agenda there. So Hungary has an agenda in everything. Hungary has a pro Putinist agenda and also a pro Trump agenda. And Trump has a pro Hungary agenda. So the fact that Orban goes to see Putin and Orban also goes to see Trump, and then he gets a little advantage on the tariffs being lower than for the rest of the eu, but he also gets an exemption from the eu. So you see that this man is just a very good tactician, planning that he always is a thorn within the European Union, which is really good for Putin. So he will have advantages coming from Putin and also from Trump because Trump also hates the European Union. All this is sort of the general factor, of course. Also Hungary has an interest that the Hungarians in the Ukraine, this old territories also are possibly an interest in long term for Hungary to revisit.

[C]

But basically, I'm not sure I fancy their chances.

[B]

No, no, it's not very big. But, you know, nationalist ideas always give people a lot of.

Sort of an in into the public opinion. But the most interesting thing is now that he's up for reelection or in April and he, he privately, I think, has mentioned to people that he doesn't think that he is a shoe in for reelection and if that happens. And that's why Putin and Trump, of course, are really trying to rally all their friends to help Orban in whatever he's doing.

[C]

Now just finally on this one, Jacob, obviously by 2027, anything could have happened. I mean, Lord knows what sort of world we would be living in. But does the fact that they're, and it's an open question obviously, are they thinking this far ahead or is this just how long the process is going to take? But does this suggest to you that the EU has internalized, that the energy relationship with Russia, which obtained for many decades, is just gone and it's not coming back anytime soon?

[D]

Yeah, I think so. I mean, this is, look, there are lots of areas where the security agenda and the sort of security and resilience agenda and the green agenda are difficult to square with each other, not impossible, but just you have to do a little bit more work to make them work together.

We're not quite ready to put electric engines in tanks and frigates.

We're working on it. We're not there yet. But this is one that I think there's a really clear, obvious congruence between the green and resilience agenda and the security and the US Foreign policy goals in terms of hardening the border against Russia and securing the integrity and resiliency of Europe. Because.

If you build more renewable energy, if you have more sources that aren't dependent on Russian oil, in particular on Russian gas, you are not only generally speaking, with some exceptions, contributing to your green objectives, but you're also cutting the spigot of funding off to the country which has invaded your friend and partner, Ukraine. So I think there's some, and it's much more complicated than that. There's questions around, well, then you're buying solar panels from China and what's China's relationship with Russia? And we could follow this thread through the rest of the show and not get to the end of it, but I think there is a kind of, okay, this ticks two boxes for us. And it's not an easy simple. We've ticked two Boxes and we're done process. But it's something where, broadly speaking, the big objectives of the EU are aligned and so it's going to be hard to change that.

[C]

Well, to Australia now, the government of which seems almost touchingly convinced that a law restricting the use of modern technology, drafted largely by the middle aged and aimed at the young, is going to have absolutely the intended effect. Beginning next week, Australia will begin implementing a ban on social media for children under the age of 16. Within the last day or so, YouTube, owned by Google, which was showing some signs of defiance, has buckled and confirmed that it will join those companies complying with the order. Companies must demonstrate to Australia's E Safety Commissioner that they have taken reasonable steps to lock the kids out on a pain of a fine of 49 and a half million Australian dollars. Tessa, is this going to work?

[B]

I am very, very skeptical. I think kids are much too smart to let companies lock them out of anything. Parents have, you know, I raised three teenagers. It's very hard to tell your children what to do when they're like 14, 15. Authority wanes very quickly. But on the other hand, you have to do something. So I think a lot of governments are now thinking you have to get a grip on these apps, on these social media apps. On the other hand, I think we have to see, at least in the European Union, to get regulations on providers in general and not to allow people to get away with everything in terms of hate speech, in terms of content, in terms of all this harmful stuff that kids now see. It has changed so rapidly in the last years. I speak to parents of young children now and they are really, really very concerned about that.

[C]

I mean, I like the idea, Jacob, that this may prompt a massive stampede back to MySpace. Although, although the Australian government has said that they will adjust accordingly if they feel that the kids have all racked off to another platform that they think the government doesn't know about. But whether or not this works, and I have to say I share Tessa's skepticism on that, is the idea good? Does more need to be done to protect children from social media? Although I am of course alive to the argument that the people who really need to be protected from social media are basically 60 something men.

[D]

To your first point, has anyone seen MySpace Tom, recently?

[A]

No.

[D]

Everyone's first friend has he.

[C]

I know he just took the money and ran.

[D]

You know what, and more power to it.

[C]

Exactly.

[D]

We should all be so. I mean, look, I think it is a reasonable point of view that there are fairly significant potential harms from children on social media, and my children are a bit younger than Tessa's, and I haven't had to deal with this.

[B]

He says this just because of the look of our faces. We haven't talked about this before.

[C]

Okay.

[D]

I haven't had to deal with this problem personally yet, but I see it coming and I see that it's. It's complicated because we live in a world where, for children, their social lives are going to be partly, barring a sort of global EMP event that sends us all back to the Stone Age.

[C]

Part of we can but hope.

[D]

We can but hope, sweet meteor of death, you know, it is going to be part of their social life. And finding a way at an individual and a societal and a government level to control that and to manage it in a way that is, maximizes opportunities and minimizes risks in the bloodless language of policy analysis, I think is really important. And the tools that policymakers have are blunt. They are sledgehammers. And in the Australian example, I mean, the question is, is the potential harm from viewing content or is it from participating? Because the ban in Australia does not prevent children from watching videos on YouTube. You can fire up any computer, any phone, you can access YouTube, you can access anything that's not age restricted, which, you know, I assume is a fairly small portion of what is available on YouTube. Is the harm that those kids can post videos that they can comment, that they can be in the sort of YouTuber community, or is the harm that they watch videos that tell them things that they're too young to understand and can't contextualize? I think that's the. The real crux of this question, and it's something that the ban doesn't necessarily address.

[C]

Well, we will see how it pans out, obviously. But now to hotels generally, listeners and indeed panellists and indeed the host, who are regular habitus of same, may have been perplexed in recent years by a trend in newer hotels whereby it has been decided that hotel bathrooms should be open, plan and, or not really have a door to speak of, and or are only separated from the sleeping quarters by a pane of glass. One vexed guest has now launched a website, the Clue in the name, bringbackdoors.com which solicits listings of hotels which have bathroom doors and those which have not. Tessa, have you had direct experience of this? I have seen this and I confess myself baffled by it. Why does anybody want a transparent bathroom?

[B]

That, my dear Andrew, is a very personal question, but I think it's a design gag that I personally liked, because it's sort of breaking down walls and you can. No, but it's also fun. You take a shower, you can look out of the window through your hotel room. My issue is that if you're traveling alone, as we maybe often do as reporters, then that's totally fine. You don't really need a wall between the shower, the toilet and the room necessarily. But if you're not traveling alone, I think the answer is very, very clear.

[C]

Well, this is the perplexing question, Jacob, and you are right, I think, Tessa, to make that delineation. But who wants this?

I mean, if you've got a controversial opinion, let's have it.

[D]

But really, I do not have a controversial opinion on this one. I really don't. I also don't have an answer to that question. I mean, I will say the fanciest hotel, by some margin, I ever stayed in was a hotel in Dubai. And it had, between the bathroom and the sleeping area of the room, which was significantly larger than my house.

A beautifully inscribed glass curtain wall with gold inlay, obviously.

[B]

So Dubai. Why are we not surprised?

[D]

If I'd said that that was in Manchester, I think there might be a little bit more surprise. But no, it was Dubai and I was there by myself and I thought, well, this is a novel experience, but had I been traveling with my family, I think I would have have struggled somewhat more with it. So if you're renting rooms exclusively to solo travelers, as Tessa says, kind of who cares? But this was a large room with a king sized bed, and one assumes that not everyone staying in it is by themselves.

[C]

I mean, is this one of those things, Tessa, that I think occasionally afflicts on. Afflicts people who work within a certain industry who overthink the very simple thing that their industry fundamentally does. I'm reminded a little bit of a catering craze, you may recall from a few years back, where restaurants decided that the plate which had served humanity well for centuries could be improved upon, which it can't, and insisted on trying to bring you meals on breadboards, I don't know, shovels in buckets.

There was actually an online campaign set up called we want plates, which I think is broadly similar to this do not fix, which isn't broken.

[B]

I have to disappoint you. I think this trend on the food thing is not over. So they make now, for example, antipasti plates in the middle of table, just on the table and, you know, no plates around and all these kind of things. It's, I think Sort of looking for something new and entertaining. I wouldn't be so harsh on this whole open bathroom thing. And I've seen it also in private houses. People have tried it out.

[C]

Okay, those people are weird.

[B]

What do you think? I think it's actually quite fun to test things and see how much privacy do you need? You know, we also change our ideas of privacy and what it is. So I came to the conclusion that having a door at a hall toilet is a very good idea in general. A little bit of privacy at certain moments is recommended.

[C]

I just want to ask you both in closing, whether not so much this, but if you've ever been especially flummoxed by any accoutrement of a hotel, as in, just like, why is this here? I think back to my time staying at the otherwise delightful W Hotel. I think it was in Chicago. Genuinely very, very pleasant. But I spent quite a lot of my stay there weirdly, morbidly obsessed with the idea that a mummy. Among the things with which guests were supplied was a kaleidoscope.

Obviously.

[D]

Why would you not want a kaleidoscope?

[C]

Well, I mean, I'm not. I'm not.

[D]

I'm not gonna explain it to you.

[C]

I'm not fundamentally against kaleidoscopes. I would not wish to be characterized as some anti kaleidoscope fanatic. I just thought, like, why. Why have I been issued with this?

[D]

The one that stands out to me is I stayed in a hotel where all the room functions were run through an iPad.

[C]

Oh, no.

[D]

Including lights. And it took me about five minutes to find the setting. It's like you in most hotels. There is a switch on the wall, and you push the switch and the lights come on, and you push it again and they go on.

[C]

And nobody has ever complained about that system.

[D]

Significantly more useful than having to go through a bunch of menus so that you can make the lights slightly purple.

[B]

But you see, you're both talking about things like entertainment and also tech that sort of overwhelmed you. But nobody here complains that they actually put in a minibar with, you know, vodka bottles. But I mean, who needs to drink vodka alone in bed at 11 when you come from a business dinner where you already drank enough? I mean, that's something where you could think, that's not healthy. The kaleidoscope and the iPad games, I mean, that is something where you could see, like, okay, that's sort of, you know, a problem. That is not a problem of civilization. Drinking alone in bed late at night might be more so.

[C]

Or maybe after A couple of vodka miniatures, Tessa, you start understanding what the point of the kaleidoscope is.

[B]

Exactly.

[C]

Tessa Shishkovitz and Jacob Parakilis, thank you both for joining us. Finally on today's show, have we been misunderstanding Gen Z? A new documentary suggests we might. Folk Tales by American filmmakers Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady takes us deep into Arctic Norway, where 18 year olds trade classrooms for dog sledding, outdoor living and survival skills at the remote Pacific folk high school. Shot in an intimate cinema verite style, the film follows three students through an unconventional gap year as they navigate grief, social anxiety, and self doubt. Monocle's Joanna Moser spoke with director Heidi Ewing and began by asking how she found out about this Scandinavian tradition.

[E]

I read a book by an American dog sledder. Her name is Blair Braverman, and she wrote a book called welcome to the Goddamn Ice Cube about her time in the north. She found out about these folk high schools, which is a Scandinavian tradition, that her version of a G, but with much more depth, I'd say. And I was intrigued and started researching it and shared it with my directing partner Rachel. And we pulled that thread and it became the film.

[A]

And how did pulling that thread go?

[E]

We like zoomed with like 15 folk high schools and then we went to Norway and we visited five folk high schools. We focused really only on the ones in the north. There's only a few that focus on the dog sledding, on outdoor living, on survivalism, on. On challenging yourself physically in the way that you see in the film. And our last stop was Pasvik on the Russian border. Really hard to get to, super inconvenient. But we met the two teachers, the dog setting teachers, and we knew there was a movie there for sure.

[A]

So then you chose this one specific high school, but then in the movie you portray three teenagers. So what captured your interest as filmmakers in those three people in specific?

[E]

Well, we are practitioners of direct cinema, cinema verite in that tradition. And so really what we're looking for or our characters that might be different at the end of the movie than at the beginning. We interviewed all 50 students, talked to everyone, and something about these three, about Roman, Bjorn, Tor and Hege. They all articulated very specifically what they were dissatisfied with and what they wanted out of the year. I want to grieve my father, I want to find a friend. I want to learn some self confidence. And they were so generous with their. Their vulnerability really, that we thought we were just mesmerized by them. We thought, God, I wonder if this place will change them.

[B]

At all.

[E]

So we. We put our bets on those three and followed them for the most of the year.

[A]

Were there moments where the students surprised you in how they. They grew or they changed?

[E]

Well, yes. Hege, the young woman in our film who, you know, when you meet her, she's like, in a disco, and she's, like, vaping and partying and likes her makeup, and she's just like a typical teenage girl, very feminine. And she took to the dog sledding and to being outdoors so quickly, we were shocked. It was like suddenly she was like. Had an ax in her hand and was chopping wood. A total leader, unafraid to sleep outdoors. And we had no idea she had it in her. I don't think she knew she had it in her.

[A]

Filming in the Arctic must have presented, I mean, unique challenges. What were the biggest obstacles you have faced?

[E]

If I had known how impossible it is to photograph dog sledding, I would have thought twice about making this movie. It's really hard. You can't put your cinematographer on the sled. It's too heavy for the dogs. There can only be one person on a sled. There's a lot of rules in Norway about snowmobile tracks, and snowmobile is the best way to film dog sledding. So a lot of times we couldn't get the permits or the permission. The drone can only capture so much, and the equipment kept breaking. The drone kept falling out of the sky, the propellers would freeze. The batteries would only last for a couple of hours. It was just like. It was almost impossible to shoot the movie, to be honest. We had a Norwegian crew. They had shot in the cold. They knew what to do. We would wrap the camera in sleeping bags and try to protect the equipment as much as we can overnight.

[A]

How did you manage then to capture such personal experiences without then intruding this journey that these people are taking on?

[E]

Yeah, we were very conscious, and we talked a lot to the school about how to not interrupt their year. So we basically spent a lot of time with the students without the camera.

[B]

Camera.

[E]

But really what we did that really, I think, solved the problem of being intrusive is we got a big 1200 millimeter lens and we were able to stand way, way back so that we could be almost out of sight. They knew we were out there, but they didn't have to see us.

[A]

And how long did you film for?

[E]

We filmed for a year, the whole school year. We started before school started and then we ended a few months after. We would go for about two weeks at a time every month or every six weeks, one of us would go for two weeks. So we were there quite a bit. We had 100 days of shooting.

[A]

And finally, what do you hope then audiences take away from Folk Tales?

[E]

You know, I think that there's a few lessons. I mean, one is the transformative experience that nature and animals can give you. It still works, you know, it's not a new concept. I think the film is a meditation on the human animal experience to a great extent as well. And I really think, think that this generation, they're very tender hearted. I think we maybe misunderstood Gen Z a little bit. I think that this is a very tender generation that's thinking a lot about the world around them and about their future and the planet's future. It gave me hope.

[C]

That was Heidi Ewing, director of Folktales, speaking to Monocle's Joanna Moser. You can read more of that interview in Alpino, Monocle's winter newspaper on a newsstand near you now. And you can also see Folk Tales in selected cinemas worldwide from December 5th. That is all for this edition of the Monocle Daily. Thanks to our panelists today, Tessa Shishkovitz and Jacob Parakeilis. Today's show was produced by Monica Lillis and researched by Joanna Moser. Our sound engineer was Christy o'. Grady. I'm Andrew Muller here in London. The Daily is back at the same time tomorrow. Thanks for listening.