Bowie's Eye Injury and Friendships

The Second World War is the largest event in human history . A twenty part documentary series with Tom Hanks. No part of the globe was untouched, no life unchanged. Sky History brings you the ultimate account of World War two, every single person had a story . These are the stories that make us who we are . World War two with Tom Hanks, Tuesdays at nine PM on Sky History or catch up now on demand . No listen up, business owner. Your business is good, but your website is bad . Let's fix it with Ayanos. Your super duper easy y peas digital partner. It uses clever AI to build your super smart website in no time. And there are many tools to help start growing your business today . You like ? It's nice, nice night.s Yeah ., love it Yes, I thought so darlings. Try Ayonos, your digital partner at ionos. co dot UK Hi everyone, welcome to this week's episode of No Such Things A Fish, where we were joined by the legendary , by the superstar, by the old round top guy who is Nish Kumar . And now anyone in the UK will know all about Nish . He's very often seen on our televisions and now he is on our podcast . If you are not from the UK and you're not familiar with Nish's work, then after listening to this episode, you will surely want to go to YouTube. If you search for Nish Kumar, you will find a full recording of one of his shows and it's definitely worth checking out his stand up because it is brilliant . If you are in the UK or in Ireland, then maybe you want to go and see Nish live. You can go to nichumar. co . uk and you will find all the dates of his tour there . He is doing a work in progress at the Edinburgh Festival and then he is going on the road in September and he is very likely to be at a town near you. If you'd like to know more about us then, go to at preatreon pon dot com slash clubfish is a place to go. You can sign up there for free and get lots of little bits and pieces or you can sign up to one of our tiers and get even more. In fact, if you go to the enty Pl More Fish Tier this week, you will get an extra long episode of this show. In fact, you always get one of those, but this show is about twenty minutes longer than the actual episode. And that is because Nish Kuma is so knowledgeable about so many different things , especially the subjects we talked about today. And so there are so many extra bits, extra facts, extra jokes, extra anecdotes, and it is all in there . But if you don't want to do that, do not worry, just sit down and listen to this week's episode with Nish Kumar, on with a podcast Hello and welcome to another episode of No Such Things A Fish, a Weekly podcast coming to you from the QI offices in Hoban. My name is Anna Shinski and I'm sitting here with James Harkin, Andrean Demuri, and Nish Kumar. And we have gathered here today with our four favourite facts from the last seven days. In no particular order, here we go starting with you Nish My favourite fact that I've gathered in the last seven days is after James Cameron was fired from the film Piranha two, he broke into the studios multiple times in the dead of night to improve the editor . Why hero. Yeah, he cares that much about the craft so it's so funny to think of the word craft associated with the film Kirana too . Yeah, it's not Bong Jin Ho saying to me this is cinema. It doesn't feel quite feel it doesn't quite feel like that. He to give him his due , I think that is part of the reason why he is, I think he occupies I think about maybe four or five of the twenty most profitable films of maybe not profitable, but most financially successful films . Yeah, because the sort of common thread of all of his movies is this al smortost of oper atic grandeur being applied to very sort of mainstream conventional films. They get elevated by his sociopathic commitment. So hang on, is Pirana two in the top twenty grossing films because I haven't seen it's one of the camera Elfred that I haven't seen. Yeah, right. I don't think it's in the top two of the pirana films . I think all of the avatars are floating around in there. Oh yeah, and certainly Titanic. I think it's cheating when your sequels count, which people do it with Avatar. They count Avatar and it's what it's like, love them together. Because yeah, if you know this one's gross a lot, then the next one's probably then it'll just be Avatar Marvel and then like it'll have to be like police academy. Police academy that's it. What I found mad about reading about Pirana two is how like you say it's surprising that James Cameron cared enough to break together at his feet, but how seriously they all took it because you think surely if you're working on these films in any role you know you're making a joke. Don't worry. No Pirana One was huge, right? It was a big movie that did really well. It was just Joe Dante of Gremlin's fame , I believe. And then Pirana two, Cameron had been hired to work on it. And we should say it's his first ever film he worked on as a director . And he was hired to work on it by the producer and it sounds like it was a nightmare to work on. Yeah . And he was fired quite quickly They filmed in Jamaica the outdoor purama bits, and then the actual moved to Rome for the indoor bits. And he was fired at the end of the Jamaica bit . So that's why he was breaking in. Like he was breaking in because he'd been fired from the project, but his name was still on it. And he thought this is so bad. I can't let it go out like it is. The thing was, there was this guy called Olvidoi Asinitis . Yeah. It's like Tavio, it's almost his first He really wanted to be the director, but because he was half Italian and half Egyptian, the American movie industry wouldn't let him be right. So he had to bring someone in, and his idea was, well, bring a new person in. They won't do anything, but I'll be the real director. Yeah. But then he brought James Cameron in who kind of took it a bit seriously. So unlucky one of the most demented and single minded people in cinema. Because as far as he knew he was a twenty eight year old nobody, right? Yeah, I could I'm getting an intern on. And it was obsessive. Was he like, is he a Roger Corm an guy? I think he comes out of that sort of Cameron comes out of that stable where they were just sort of all being trained to do everything in film and then sort of thrown out into the wider world. A couple of years ago I went to the Academy Museum in LA, where they sort of have various bits of film ephemera. And they have his concept sketches for the Terminator. And when you look at the concept sketch of the Terminator you go that looks exactly like the film it's exactly like the film. And so the thing that my main takeaway from looking at those sketches was this is a guy with a vision and this is a man who I imagine will walk through and over anything he has he does come across as that yeah he's the terminator Yeah he is the terminator is the terminator I bet he thought he was the hero of that, but he was the villain. He was talking about Terminator too, but that's another matter. I watched those movies so many hundreds of times when I was palpably too young to be watching them my. p Bearecausents didn't my parents would stop us from watching things like I remember my parents saw pulp fiction and it's kind of the worst thing they could possibly have said to me because I said how was it? And they said, really brilliant. And I said, Oh, great, can I watch this? event No. Well, why would you say that the movie was good? I was like ten years old. I was like, why would you say the film is good? But they saw the Terminator box. They thought, yeah, it's robots and lasers, who cares ? And then, you know, meanwhile, then they're walk in the room and a guy's using a fountain pen to dig his eye out I do think my mom at that point was like, oh, okay, I think we might have misread the situation . I mean, some people still aren't really sure what Terminator is about. I was impressed. I'm just gonna learn I'm just gonna get Come on . I'm just gonna get a message out on my phone that we received from Anna. What's embarrassing about this is my first serious relationship was with a guy. It was for three years and he was obsessed with the terminator films. Anna, please, we need to read out the evidence before we have your response to it . Anna Technsky, the concept of Terminator is absolutely mental . I just thought it was about a metal bloke killing people , which at the most basic level it is . Nothing you've said there is incorrect . I suppose it has more layers than I expected. Yeah, you've not disproved your initial assumption. No Metal Bluke is actually sort of perfect description Terminator. There was a real fight like between Terminator and Robo Cop, my childhood was defined by metal blugs. Yes . We have Pirana two to thankful Terminator. I didn't know about this. So basically, Pirana two happens and it's a disaster. He develops a high fever. He's in Rome. Yes. So at this stage,' shes not been paid anymore, is that right? No, he's off the clock. Yeah. Yeah, this is the story. This is the crazy inception of Terminator. He goes into he's hospitalized with this really high fever, but while he's in hospital, probably because of the Pirana two stressful exacking and all that, he has this vision of a skeleton robot coming out of a fire metal cloak and metal bloke. And crawling that's the only bit of tomato I've seen is that scene where he's crawling at the top of him. I don't know what happened to the bottom but spoiled as that woman. I couldn't work out whose side I was on. So in the Piranha two debacle, Asinitis sounded like a bit of a douchebag, while the producer. But I mean, he did talk about James Cameron and like he is obviously a massive control freak and he said so Asonitis, I don't know if I'm pronouncing his name right, but Asonitis, that's better. That was much better. He said what's in the name of Super Mario Brothers was like He did say Cameron was very arrogant and he said at one point he just came out of his office and he saw his crew, the entire crew and set way out in the distance out to sea on a bunch of boats when they were meant to be on the beach filming . And the first assistant director was fully clothed swimming towards the shore. And he got to the shore and he pulled himself up onto the beach and he shouted at Astonitus. That guy is a maniac as in James Camera's mind. I'm out of here. And James Air itis is like, What's he doing? Why are you out at sea? He was like, James Cameron saw the perfect shaped cloud . And he knew we had to film it. So the entire crew and set is now in a series of boats out at sea chasing a cloud just following the chasing art. The whole thing with clouds is like, oh that one looks like a giraffe. Oh it doesn't look like a giraffe . They change shapes at . That's so weird . And listen, maybe this is , you know, and I say this is a huge fan of his work and maybe this is a bit of snobber on my part. But when you hear stories like that about Kubrick or Korasawa, you're like, yeah, of course you have to get the perfect thing. This is what you're making is this kind of this is a sort of work of art. When you hear about piranha do you think you lost your fucking mind the other thing that I always like to bring to this, this is actually something that James Eyecaster introduced me to and it's a real obsession of his. So in at the book The Futurist The Life and Films of James Cambroid by Rebecca Keegan , she narrates a story about the shoe of aliens and the aliens shot of pine wood and I think Star Wars shot at El Street and both of those films have the kind of same experience, which is an American director doing a science fiction film that a British crew of , you know, pretty hardened union guys cannot have any respect for them whatsoever . And like they used to call when they were shooting Star Wars, they used to just refer to the Chupaca costume as the dog . And so on the final day of shooting aliens, so this according to Rebecca King's book, this is what James Cambridge says to the crew. This has been a long and difficult shoot fought by many problems. But the one thing that kept me going through it all was the certain knowledge that one day I would drive out of the gates of pinewood and never come back here and that you sorry bastards would all still be here that's like rousing end of shoes. That's what Janriver Sch says to us every episode of the show he goes on holiday. Yeah . Well , I thought there were huge problems with tea breaks . Yeah, aliens. Souls and aliens alike. Basically the crew know very clearly when they're when they are a union . Yeah, you got a union tea break. And Cameron is there being an auture and saying but we need to film for twenty eight hours to get this perfect shot in the perfect way and they're saying, well, we can't. We're going for our tea break.. Yeah I love it. I read that he made movie posters Cameron before he got into directing . And that he basically didn't watch the films because they're all terrible. So he just got the name of it and he would just make something that he thought looked cool and then send it in . But it meant that he was really a control freak with the posters for his movies. And so with aliens , some guys showed him what he thought the poster should be for aliens . And he said honestly, if I have the choice between that piece of shit and an all black frame, I'll go with the all black frame . And this guy obviously wasn't really listening. And he then went to his designers and went, he wants an all black frame . And then we have the iconic song who just says the word aliens there. Right, yeah. No way. I think the strap line is this time it's war because the idea is in the film there's one alien in the second film there, are thousands. It's kind of a bit of a Vietnam analogy, you know, disastrous, over confident American Marines heading into a war that runs out of control. But I think supposedly he invented the this time it's blah . Really ? Well , maybe was that I think was that this time was that before this time it's personal? I mean, that was Jaws, wasn't it Draws two? Was it Jaws two this time of year ? Was that not first jaw?s's First Jaws, it business. Business. Third Jaws. This time is pleasure. About the shark and proji going on a lad's holiday . So you know what? We have Jaws to thank for the Terminator because we have Piranha two to thank for Terminator Pirana one to thank for Piranha two and Pirana one only existed because Steve it was like a rip off of Jaws. Yeah, and Steven Spielberg went to watch it and they were going to sue and say you can't make this. And Steven Spielberg enjoyed it so much. He was like, Oh, don't sue them. This is really great. And is that why? Because then Joe Dante then yeah he exactly. We produce gremlins. Yeah. So they're together afterwards. Well, that's amazing That's really cool. We have so many things I haven't seen to thank for so many other things I haven't seen. I'm really grateful We're the same age. What are you doing? I didn't know I was going out. Yeah The Second World War is the largest event in human history . A twenty pop documentary series with Tom Hanks. No part of the globe was untouched, no life unchanged. Sky History brings you the ultimate account of World War two. Every single person had a story . These are the stories that make us who we are . World War two with Tom Hanks, Tuesdays at nine PM on Sky History, or catch up now on demand We shall move on to fact number two, that's my fact. My fact this week is that the inventor of Stand Up Comedy was known as the man who talks with string because he was never, well I will tell you what because he was never seen anywhere without his lucky string . Consider yourself admonished. That's what I've said what? As if you weren't gonna clarify . No, this is just gonna be the end of the discussion. Moving on five hundred three . The adventure of Sound of Comedy was known as the Man of String. Okay, anyway, who's got a fact about Roger Corman? I just also want to clarify he's not a man of string, he's not made of string, he just carries string. So you got metal men, we got string men. Natal men's strong man who talks with string, as he talks, but he's holding string. Exactly. Yes. This is a guy called Charlie Case. He tends to be referred to as the person who invented Stound Comedy, although obviously there's a lot of facets to stand up, so lots of rivals in that claim. But he was born in eighteen fifty eight, so it was late nineteenth century. And this is in a book called The Legacy of the Wisecrack , which I mentioned because it had some other interesting bits in it. And he was basically the first person who took to the stage, as it says, with the explicit purpose of telling jokes to make people laugh. No props, no well, no costume they say, although at the time almost everyone did black face on stage and he did do that. So but I read he was mixed he was mixed race, right? Well it's very unclear. It's not sure. Yeah. We think records are a bit. His obituary say they think he was mixed race, but black people and white people at the time would go in black face. And black performers blacked up sort of as way into the industry because of the white performers. Yeah. Is that it? Yeah, very strange. And we really don't know with him. I think he probably was, but people didn't mention it in his life. And then in his obituaries everyone was like, he had a black parent and he had this string that he always carried on stage and he fuddled with it constantly. He couldn't be without it. A couple of times he forgot it. And if no replacement could be found , he just fully, you know, broke down. He said, I might as well be without my hand. And he explained it. He said, When he first went into business, he wore a pair of black gloves and he would fiddle with them and toy with one of them, pick the it f atingers and eventually a bit like when you give a baby a rag and then after five years you realise it's just a string, he'd picked at his glove so much that like a blanket rather than a rag usually a blanket Why are you giving your baby a rag? Give your baby a rag . No, you know what is this? We need to start toughening up the young women . Give him a rag. Give them a rag But there, there you go. So we needed that and you know, he really did. He couldn't be with Amton. That's amazing. And I guess like is to do something with your hands, right? Like that 's so yeah, yeah. Exactly. I don't think I've never heard this man's name in my life before. Fascinating. He's not famous . makes It sense that it's in that period because here sometimes we're still referred to as the turn and I never really understood why that was and it's because in vaudeville shows when they were turning the set from you know the acrobat to the sort of m arching band . They would put the curtain down and somebody would come out and tell jokes to stop the audience from getting bored. So they were turning the set behind the curtain . So the person telling the jokes is still sometimes referred to as the turn or front of curtain entertainers and it's because I love that. Yeah, it's like it's, you know, particularly like a lot of the like old school guys who do lots of gigs like Blackpool or sort of Butlin's will call us front of cur thetain and we were basically just there to stop the audience. We're going anywhere. Sometimes obviously had the opposite effects. It really depends on who you employ. Oh, listen, I have really struggled in the vaudeville, yes might have been a real struggle with half the audience have left and they are asking for their money back. They thought they were going to see elephants and instead of seeing a man yelling out David Lloyd George . He was really sticking it to Gladstone by We need to clear the stage at the end of the show. So if you could come on the episode Clear the auditorium. So this guy was he British What was he ? Oh my gosh. Charlie Case. American. American. Okay. I think he was Americ an. They were also had they had the same sort of tradition of and when you do stand up in a matcham theater, like the Victorians say what you would about them. They knew two things colonizing my ancestors and building theatres. And when you do stuff in a match in the theater , you understand, oh this is what this is built for because the acoustics are so unbelievably good. A thousand seat room has the same sonic dynamics as a three hundred seat basement . It's extraordinary. It's unbelievable. You know, I'm thinking of something like that Hackney Empire has loads of stand up , they have a pantomime every year, and then Robin just did a gig there. Like when her last album came out, I think she did like a special sort of small gig. And so you're like, there's very few places where you can put like Robin a pantomime and me. Can I just ask Andy which Robin you thought? Yeah , I did think that man I did I thought Robin Ints. Was it neither of those? No. It was Robin it was ROBY . Yeah. Isn't there also, isn't it Robin Thicki? Robinsicky , Robinson Vicky is a popular musician . Opposite end innovation wise. Possibly considered a de innovator She threw pop music forward five years and then he actually was a useful corrective to say . An innovator. Yeah, he was anovan . He sort of the equivalent of the barbarian horde smashing up, right . I thought Isn't this on first named terms with Robin Thicky? Isn't this likely? Can it be ? Ins makes more sense because I am on first named terms with Robin I That's what I thought . Thicky and I I',m am goingaz toe you here. We've never crossed paths . I was looking at some superstitious comedians . So I looked at Hilda Baker, who was a Bolton comedian from the nineteen fifties and she considered the color green to be so bad luck that you weren't allowed. No one was allowed to wear green in the whole theater. But apparently this is quite a common thing or it certainly was in the mid twentieth century and the reason is that Mollier who died on stage during the hypochondriac was apparently wearing green when he died on stage. I've never heard this before. That's also why because Tommy Cooper, of course, died on stage wearing that square red hat with the fl at fed erals and no one no one wears that anymore . I didn't know Molly Air Tommy Cooper. Incredible. They didn't call it that bad And the hypochondriac as well. So it was like was he playing the title playing there? Oh my god. So people thought it was part of the And would he be coming off, you know, in between scenes saying I'm really not feeling well and they're saying I know of course , Rasio Day Lewising . Of course, you don't call it that . But that was the thing with Tommy Cooper, right? He collapsed and people thought it was a big yeah. Are you superstitious niche about any aspect of a show . I'm trying to think about sort of pre show rituals. Yeah, the most important thing that I always do is I always piss before I go. I'm obsessed if. I E donven't need it, I'll try and force one out. And I read and I think part of it is because I read this thing . Apparently David Cameron used to give speeches on a slightly full bladder because he 's there's some idea that 's an episode of Friends as well. Joey gets Joey gets a role where he really needs and they're just so impressed by his urgency. Eurgency as he needs to be. Yeah, and he starts doing it for every role. Apparently having to pee makes me a really good actor, that's yeah. Yeah. So Cameron and David Cameron is the same. But then I also read that he got that that Hitler used to do that as well. And I think I don't know whether any of that's correct, but when I read that I thought, well, I want to be like Hitler or Cameron. I'm going to make sure I speak with the emptiest bladder possible in front of an audience. You know what? I always have a Wii before I go on stage as well . But I also I do the wi and I sit down when I'm doing the Wii and then I sit down for another twenty seconds and then usually a little bit more comes out . And I got that tip from Sandy Tokswig who got it apparently from Princess Anne. What? And I thought I want to be like Sandy Tokswig and Princess Anne. So it's always more pink according to Princess Abby.. Yeah What's holding back ? Princess Anne, you got a UTI girl. That's fascinating. I'm so disappointed that when you say with people going on stage because David Cameron, I was just desperate for it to be that David Cameron once went on stage and went like a star was born. Just a really dark Tory party conference like right just or just after the EU referendum he walked out of Downing Street and that was the result and quit. He just immediately pissed himself. That he was wearing dark trousers and you know it's that conference where they all stood really like power apart shaking it out. God honor comedians superstitions Carol Burnett first woman ever to host a variety show I think. She at the end of every show for whole her life tugged her like did a little ear tug. She's ninety three, so I shouldn't imagine she's dead. Little ear tug at every show you know she did that? Why? She when she went to do her first show which was the Paul Winch ell and Jerry Mahoney show in december nineteen fifty five. She was twenty two years old. She was playing the girlfriend of her puppet. And she told her grandma, her nanny. She was like, I'm going to be on Telly. And her nanny said, Oh, say hello to me, will you? And she said, I can't really do that on TV, but I'll give you a little sign. This is And for evermore. And she said it just means she said at first it meant Nanny, I'm here and I love you and then later it meant Nanny, I'm here and I love you and your check's in the mail . Oh, that's so nice. Yeah. That's really nice. Pavarotti? Yeah. Funny. Funny guy. Really good comedian. It's a shame because it's on the undercard of his career, but he was a funny dude. He was very superstitious and he wanted to find a bent nail before a performance backstage . He believed that if he found one, that's really good luck. And it's a theater. So there are carpentry going on. There's often a nail around stage, but his iron would frequently just leave nails strewn around so that Pavarotti would find one before I go quickly and therefore have a great show. That's great. I think that's probably the kind of stuff my tour manager does without me really fully understanding it. I think there's a lot of unseen work being done by people around me to get to sort of get me on stage. Harold Lyd? Oh yeah, very superstitious. He had a nice big house near Hollywood and there was, an ornamental fountain outside of it, and he thought it was extremely bad luck to drive around the fountain . So he never did it at any time in his life, and the only time he ever did it was the hearse on the way to the funeral. Okay. His own funeral. And yes, exactly. And the interesting thing about this is his house after he died became like a filming location and in the godfather, Westworld, Beverly Hills Cop and Command o , someone drives around that fountain and then later in the movie suffers a horrible horrific death. No . Have they written that? They've written it in. That's very nice. That's so cool. Isn't that good? That's nicer than what we all thought, which was that just someone had a horrific death. Yeah. Okay, it's time for fact number three and that's Andy. My fact is when David Bowie auditioned for the BBC in nineteen sixty five, the judges ruled that he was a singer devoid of personality that his band was not particularly exciting and that there is no entertainment in anything they do . There is no entertainment in anything they do. It's unambiguous . This guy's going nowhere. That's not it's not your shit, is it? It's a putting and yeah, it's much more scientific. So this was a thing that existed. It was called the talent selection group and it was a BBC institution that pulled together various radio producers. Right, to just assess everyone who wanted, you know, to be played on BBC radio. Right, yeah. So who old was he in ' sixty five? Very young. Very young . He was sixty nine when he died in twenty sixteen and I can't I'm now struggling to show basic mathematics again. So he would have been eighteen, seventeen or eighteen. So he was he was very young and playing with a band and the band was called David Bowie in the lower third and it doesn't sound like it was a good audition. I mean, you know, I don't think it's too I mean when you're eighteen exactly. See the picture of him? I think he was he must have been playing the sacks and singing I think possibly. Well, they did three songs because that's what you brought to the talent selection group. One of them was by Bowie himself, one of them was by James Brown. The third one was Chim Chimerie from Mary Poppins, which is a rogue choice. That makes one hundred percent sense to me. Like if you think about his music, it is music that exists at the intersection between James Brown and Mary Park . Like actually think about if you really think about it, there is like this interesting combination of black American music and English whimsy. And actually there is something of both of those in Ziggy Star Tust. Well, if you'd been on the talent selection group, maybe it would have gone differently. Another verdict, I don't think the group will get better with more rehearsals . Just devastating, you know. It's one of the most weirdering things I've ever given all the time of the world. They're not gonna change. You know, terrible. That was terrible. And you've peaked. Brilliant. It's a bit like Simon Cowell, isn't it? Would you say? Like a kind of slightly withering sort of Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I don't think it was big dogs. I just think it was random producers from across the Beep who were pulled in to you assess and they assessed a load of different acts. They know they came up with various quite ropey judgments on acts who went on to be huge . But it's an audition. It's at the very start of your career that all go well, you know. And it took ages to get successful. I hadn't realized. I think by nineteen sixty nine before he was at all famous. He'd already been in seven bands, many of which were founded. In nineteen sixty nine, space oddity was rushed out to coincide with the Moon Landings and was like the theme tune for that and was huge . But then he disappeared again. Yeah. And I don't really live another hit for about four years. Yeah. No, he didn't disappear. He just simply moved was living in Bromley. Oh yes. Which is essentially the sorry Sorry, he was in Beckham at that point . But yeah, he was sort of that period of his life where after he turns eighteen, he kind of gets very fixated on this mind teacher who is like a really, really influential person in his life , but also it's worth seeking out some of the kind of first album which I think is self titled or maybe it's called Space Auditor. It is self It's worth checking out that ear of it because it is not I say this as a very, very big fan of his. You've had it well you've hidden it well sorry back No problem speck is in Brooklyn so yeah yeah it was it's bad Look at this, but it sort of Bowie at this point is he sort of goes through so many different iterations and yeah he falls in he goes stud ies at Mime School. Then he the first album is sort of very like flower powery like tail end of summer of love stuff. But then the shift between that and the man who sold the world is extraordinary, right? It is an incredible transition. He basically really gets into the velvet underground. And that is the thing that kind of unlocks. Who's just trying all sorts of things? He's trying so much out. Yeah . Can I just say one thing on the mime thing? Because I found out a little bit about this. This is insane. So he falls in with this mime artist called Lindsey Kemp, right? And becomes so entranced that Bowie nearly abandons music for interpretive dance. Yeah . When he was again, not very famous yet, he opened for T Rex. He supported them on , you know, tour, as a one man mime act depicting China's invasion of Tibet . Really ? And that is a challenge. Like, that's a challenge, right? As a one man is my favorite enough, there are a few of you. Yeah, I've got to think outside the tiny invisible box . Basically the T Rex audience hated it two reasons . One , come on, we're here to see T Rex and secondly, a lot of them were communists. Breath for it now . So this was a few months before Space Auto T came out. He later wrote to John Peel, who 'd seen this, said You decided the problem was that I was doing mime, you didn't like mime. And until I came here to America, I never realized that you were right. Nobody in the world lik es. He needs an insane food and listen, thank God that doesn't exist because I imagine it doesn't now look high. It looks like Mickey Rooney and Breakfast at Tiffany's Imagine I imagine But weirdly that,'s you know, Lindsey Kemp was a huge influence on him creatively and they were lovers at the time. When you look at things like Ziggy, when you look at the video for Ashes to Ashes, even though that was sort of because he was also falling in with the new romantics in the early eighties. You still see the influence of theater and mind? Yeah, definitely. Yeah, it was I mean, we loved him anyway, but also it was really exciting because I went to school in Allingpton down the road from the school he went to. But he lived in Beckham and they tried to get him to come back in the early two thousands. He was like absolutely not. When he went to America in interviews, he would refer to things as being so croidan if they were bad nice. But he was that's why, you know, like the Buddha of Suburbia, the whole novel is really about growing up in Beckham and Bromley and feeling depressed until you realize David Bowie li ved there Like how that like unlocks the protagonist's creativity and sexuality. And it was the same with Hilda Baker, the Bolton comedian from the nineteen fifties . Yeah. Everyone from Bolton. You've only just started wearing green now. I have . One of the formative moments of his life came from that time in Beckham's Lashbromley, where he's so he's famously his eyes sort of look like the different col ors, they has actually put me off him a bit. And I messaged Dan Treiber, crawling a podcast about David Bowie, who Dan Triber absolutely loves , but saying, I don't really like him. And I think it came from this. When he was fifteen, he had best friend George. They're both fancy the same girl and George got a date with her. And Bowie called George and said Listen, I've spoken to her and she doesn't want to go out with you actually, but she didn't want to say to you your face. So George doesn't show up, then finds out Bowie's tricked him and then goes into school next day and Bowie's boasting about how he's now going out with this girl. So George, quite right, goes and clocks him in the face, in the playground , damages his eyeballs. It really didn't mean to hurt him , but what it meant to hurt him a bit? Funny way of going about it . I didn't hurt him emotionally when I pushed him in the face yeah . It didn't mean to cause him permanent damage. But it gave him this condition called anistochoria where one pupil is larger than the other. So his eyes aren't different colors. It's just one pupil's small, so it looks like his eyes are light colored. And I really liked this from an interview with a magazine. I think someone written into the magazine with questions for Bowie. And one of the people said, Hey , what would you say to that kid at school who punched you in the eye in case he's reading? And Bowie said, I'd probably say something along the lines of it was great seeing you last week, George. Did I leave my lighter in your car? Because they remain they say friends. Very close friends . Yes, that's yeah. That's good . So you said that you almost gave up to be a mime. He also almost gave up to be a Buddhist monk, didn't he? Did he? Yeah . And that's because he got in with some Buddhist monks in London, but also he read a book The Rampa Story by Tuesday L opsang Rampa who Andy remembers is a friend of the podcast . He's a big deal. He is a big deal because he was not a Buddhist monk. He was in no way a Buddhist monk. He was a plumber from Devon who pretend ed to be a Buddhist monk and wrote about this about his life as a Tibetan monk until people kind of came to his shows and said, Can you read this thing that's in Tibetan? He said , I can't really read Tibetan and I've never been to Tibet. And he said, Oh, it's not my fault. I was possessed by the spirit of a monk when I fell out of the tree trying to photograph an owl. That's right . And then they said, ye,ah that's not true, is it either? And he went, Oh no, no, fine. Actually , it was all dictated to me by a Siamese cat called Mrs. Fifi Grey Whiskers . Yes. The point is that a lot of the Buddhist sort of things that was happening in the time and everyone getting into Buddhism was down to this guy's book and he was nothing . That's amazing. Mrs. Fishy Grovers because the cat later wrote, I think two of her own books through Tuesday Lobs like Rampart. There's one called Living With the Lama. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's true. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Hard way. Kat writes a book called Living with the Lama because I think you do have to clarify in brackets afterwards that you mean the Lama as in you do a lot of religious life. You can do a lot with the cover up. Yeah . I'm afraid you are not getting away with the James Cameron Black Square on that one It's essential that we clarify with the cover. That's so funny. That was a Bowie Ramper Tyway of understanding. That's amazing. So what you fan, big bowie fans? What's the view on the whole thin white duke, quite intense flirtation with fascism , Naziism, that kind of stuff . One word for the for the Nazi stuff your friend of mine, cocaine . I 'm if you watch the Alan Yentob documentary Cracked Actor, which is his US tour, I think in seventy six, seventy five, seventy six . You can't believe he didn't immediately drop dead. Yeah , he wasn't about . The rumor is at the time that he was subsisting exclusively on a diet of cocaine and milk, but he is in he is in he's cooked himself into a psychosis. There's a bit in it where he just starts going there following me. They're following me and he is wow he is truly in a kind of psychosis. And I think people want to intellectualize it and say, well, he had this fascination with it's not any of that. He did read a lot of books. He did read a lot of books about the Nazis that he think people want to talk about it as a kind of intellectual, like an extension of his interesting character and performance. He was gatted out of his mind. And I don't mean your friend who's standing too close to you at a party and asking if everyone hates him. I mean he was seeing . He was like David Bowie was such an extreme party animal that he had to go to Berlin to clean up. He had to go to Berlin to get drugs out of his system. That's how many drugs he had in his system . Can I just say reading lots of books about Hitler and the Nazis is not actually a sign of anything that 's just a sign of being a middle aged man man, correct? I'm currently plowing through the last days of Hitler and it's terrific . That's it . Yeah, no spoilers please. I saw him on the last tour he did in two thousand and And he sort of had he had something like a kind of heart valve problem about two months later and then he never toured again. And he sort of would make like these intermittent public appearances. But I went on my own , this is in a period where I was going on my own to see a lot of gigs and I saw him and James Brown in kind of quite quick succession. Oh and Mary Poppins, I hope. And Mary Poppins . And the David Bowie gig is the only time someone asked me if I was lost and needed help . Wow Wow, the only time are you okay? Are you lost? And I was like, No, I'm here to see I'm here to see David . And I've always carried resentment towards a man who was sat two rows in front of me wearing a Lou Reed Transformer t shirt. And I at the time, I remain a big Lou Reed fad, but I was really a big fan of the Lou Reed album Transformer at the time. And Bowie said',re We going to do a song by the Velvet Underground . And I cheered . Bear in mind, I'm at this gig on my own. And I assumed the man in the Lou Reed cheat would also cheer and he didn't. And I was like, You the fan of only Lou Reed's sol o output, you got no time for white light, white heat. Maybe he's not just not a cheer , you know? Well, he really made me look like an absolute twerp. That is I would say the smallest grudge I've ever heard carried for the longest time hold of how long you've catched two years. I still think about that guy I'm like a guy in the Loubreade Teach We should move on to our final fact of the show and that is Change's fact. Okay, my fact this week is that the Swedish political party called the Center Party and the Danish political party called Left are both right wing . Are they trying to just nav sneaky votes? We haven't heard them. No, not really. So I was reading an article on electoral reform dot org dot UK and it was a list of badly named parties . And basically , these parties all started off kind of left of center , one hundred and fifty years ago and things change. Like the Democrats and Republicans are swapped over a couple of times, I think of what they believe, right? And also the what's that window called overton? The Overton window moves. So people who wear a little bit left wing or a bit right wing and now more centrist or whatever. And that's what's happened with these two parties, which is the Swedish Centre party and Venstra which is the Danish for left . And the Danish one is the main rice of centre part y and has been for twenty five years . And the center party, it depends on their leaders because they are a little bit centrist, but at the moment, they're more right wing. But you can't change the name. It's easier to change your opinions, I guess, because everyone knows what the party is. Everyone knows they're not really tricking anyone because everyone knows everyone in Denmark knows this party . I like that you say it's easier to change your opinions. You're suggesting rather than change their names they should just become left wing. I wasn't really suggesting anything. I hadn't finished that thought. It is a bit like if Crispy Kreme donuts were like, We're plumbers now, but we've got a really strong brand idea exactly . Yeah . You're like, Well, you could just ch itanging No. No,ris Kpy Kremes. Listen, I will say in terms of tailoring this podcast episode to your guest, this could not be more clearly my internet search is our electoral reform . org, James Cameron's Wikipedia page and a video of David Bowie talking about the internet . Denmark also has the radical Left Party, Radicarle Vontra in. Where are they at? They're on the left, but they're the least radical of all the left wing . Something with radical in its name is central. Good. It is the problem and listen. I am painting with a broad brush here and I understand there is more nuance to these things, but it is sort of the problem of talking about Scandinavian politics because you're like, These guys are really right wing. They only believe in partially comprehensive state cover for I think the thing that distinguishes them is they're a party that they're basically parties that are like that are socialist socialists and then there are parties that aren't nationalist socialists. Like there are some when you say when you say nationalist socialists that has been a few bucks Yeah, there's still some people there's still some consensus around some economic principles but I think there's more divergence around so we believe that we believe that everyone gets a year's maternity or paternity leave but we do also believe in invading paradise. Is that it? I believe there's an element of that. There's a lot of anti Muslim sentiment among certain parts of Scandinavia . So there's a guy called Rasmus Paladan, who's a former member of Venster. He's probably the most famous right wing politician in Denmark . And he's like burned karans and stuff like that . But there's a group called Free Jazz Against Paladan that follows him around the country and plays jazz very loudly and very badly at all of his events . Is jazz the right? I'm not saying they're doing it badly, but it's jazz the right genre of music to I suppose it's quite surprising. You know, there goes a new direction. It was quite useful. Famously anti communist jazz, wasn't it? It was pushed by America to kind of stop communists from liking communism. Well, and also the musicians themselves not aware sometimes . Genuinely not aware. Nina Simone died without ever knowing that she has asset. Yeah, that an African tour refers, oh God You got to watch a movie called Soundtrack of Acoud Tat. Soundtrack of a coup detart is an incredible film about these American state funded operations to send jazz musicians as kind of soft power missions around the world. It's one of the best documentaries I've ever seen. And they didn't know that they were being pawned . Yeah, they didn't they didn't know that where the money was coming from and but also you know, a lot of these like we've had another three hundred million dollars in the account. No one no one likes jazz. Yeah . But sorry, was the reasoning that it's would the CIA stop people liking communism? Specifically in the African continent, sometimes there were cover operations for the sort of traveling state department delegations that would go out with them . But also a lot of these musicians did not have rights in their own country . And there's some really heartbreaking stuff in the documentary about Louis Armstrong and the kind of disgust that he feels because he does understand that he's being used as propaganda for a white government that is not giving him right in his own country It is really, really brilliant and sinister and what was done to Lumbur in that country by Western governments in service of the mining companies because they might have liberated these countries, but they did not take the huge mining companies out of those countries. And the Kobalt infones still comes from the Democratic Republic of Congo, and there are still Western countries that might not have colonized them in the conventional sense, but the large corporations that are exploiting these countries for their mineral resources are effectively financially colonizing them. And now this podcast has really taken the full Kuma turn in the Soviet Union, the idea was that they had certain approved musicians and approved literat ure and approved all this kind of stuff. So if you shove in some jazz singers , some surrealist art, stuff like that, then people will start thinking in a non communist way. That's sort of freedom . Freedom. That's Jackson Pollock was he? Yeah, he was. They just wanted to get rid of him. No, it's interesting. Some more weird names in politics . Have you guys heard or have we ever talked about the tiny Indian state of Megalaya Megalaya, Megalaya. This place is extraordinary. So there's a weird trend for weird names there. Like loads of people there call kids weird names. Nobody knows where it came from, just like people from this Indian state called their kids strange names, which means that people who run for political office often have weird names. So people who've run for political office there include Frankenstein Momen . Field Marshal Morpiang is in first name field, second name marshal. Great . Billy Kid Sangmar, and someone who's gained office there is Adolf Lu Hitler, Rang Marak, who's an Indian politician of the National Congress Party. He was a minister in their government. He was asked if he felt awkward about it. And he said, I am aware at one point in time, Adolf Hitler was the most hated person on Earth, but my father added Lu in between the Adolf and the Hitler. So that's why I am different. And that you were very disappointed when you got his biography, weren't you? A lot more regional Indian politics than I had really bargained before. The cover was just a black squirt We really could have done with the clarification cover art there. I think it's interesting how political parties arose in the first place. I think they were invented in Britain? Certainly in Britain, it was the Whigs and the Tories and that was the end of the seventeenth century and it was all to do with the Catholic question of Catholic succession , which is a big deal for a long time . And it was very controversial. And the Whigs wanted it was about the Duke of York actually . Should the Duke of York be in the line of succession? And what do we think now? It's a debate that Ranger is on that Wigs are coming back going, I told you . Yeah, Wiggs wanted him out and Tories were much more arch traditionalist and they wanted to preserve the succession, but it's so what they were trying to conserve was the Catholic line of succession. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, it's maybe a bit upside down for the were they called the Tories were and not the Conservatives at that time. Tories was originally an insult, it's kind of Irish bandit. And I think Weeks is also a kind of insult every party name starts off as an insult and then devolves into actual name. Magic Poop party. Yeah ex,actly . You got to be careful the insults you embrace and they insult . But yeah, actually because we were talking about Swedish politics, Sweden was dominated by the hats and the caps for about a hundred years , they were the two parties and the caps was an insult. So the hats were meant to be the strong militaristic. They were named after the big tricorn hats that like Propa Posh people had members of government and military. And then they said you cat, you nightcaps. And they were referring to this floppy like weely cat. Really? Did they wear them? Like did they embrace it and wear them on the campaign ? I don't think they actually went into the trouble of sourcing nightcaps and embracing them, but they embraced their names, the caps and they were like they were the wigs and the Tories. Often they still worn, would you say, nightcaps? Because I you obviously do wear one. Well, I've got one, yeah, yeah. But I just want to know if anyone would be curious if anyone wears we baronnets to help manage curly hair. Yes, that's that true that bonnets are still used. Yeah. Are they used night? Are they called night caps? I don't know. Many bonnets wear ing not known as bonnets still. Were they used to keep your head warm? Is that the point So yeah, it so much's colder back in the day. Yeah. I would assume that it is a little ice age. Yeah . If you still wear a nightcap to bed, podcast at QI. com. Absolutely. And the picture. If anyone's still wearing a nightcap, with love they are listening to it . Let's be honest A big ebony screws , that's one . That's one . Yeah. Do you want to come upstairs for a nightcap? Just two people sat in hats, one of them looking confused and disappointed . I'll get the warming pan . I do like a frivolous party. Oh yeah, I'm a big fan of the occasional protest parties. One of them I mean, the Wikipedia of Frivolous political parties is terrific and interest one to read through. So many places that have frivolous parties that it's beer related. It's very interesting as the friends of Beer Check, Belarus Beer Lovers Party, Austria Beer Party, Australia Lower Excise Fuel and Beer Party . It just goes on Germany, Norway, Poland, Romania, Ukraine, they've all got a Beer Lovers Party or a Beer Party. There' defsinitely a light beer versus dark beer political rivalry as well, I think in the late nineteenth century . But I like in Denmark the Union of Conscientiously Workshire elements, which I don't think we've actually mentioned before, founded by Jacob P algard in nineteen seventy nine. And so they were demanding lots of mad stuff and it was a complete joke, like better Christmas presents for everyone, Nutella for all army field rations, better weather, tailwinds on all bike cars. Better weather Denmark . More renaissance furniture in Ikea. yeah. Yeah, of course, you'd back it Andy. But in nineteen ninety four , he was elected , how God was elected unexpectedly, really didn't expect to be, got twenty three thousand votes, and it was a hung parliament. So suddenly he was in this extraordinary position of having the deciding vote in a lot, a lot of situations. So when the when the Lib Dems came in and did a coalition with the Tories, they said, well, we will do it if we can have one of our policies which is proportional representation. Yeah . Which one did he go for? Yeah, they genuinely did introduce N atella into our very good. Yeah, that's amazing. I think it doesn't exist anymore. The Libbs didn't get PR over the line . So these guys are still technically one up on the Lib s. Yeah . Did they have a referendum about the Nutella ? It's an easier one to win, isn't it? He did say in a moment of foresight , he made a portrait of him got a portrait on him and had it hung in parliament, and he said he commissioned it to war n people that any crazy populist moron could get elected. And this was in the early nineties. So we learned a lesson. We learned too late . There was a survey this year places in the North Caucuses and they asked for people who you think would be a good person who your leader espouses their views . And a lot of people went for Stalin. In fact, I think Stalin might have been the top respondent , but four percent of people said that they wanted their leader to be like T eight hundred from the Terminator movie. And we're like, Wow . And we're back. And he is that the baddy or is this the second world I mean like he's the baddy in the first one and the goody in the second one. He gets reprogrammed and he goes from being a baddy to he's like Nick Clay I see but the reverse play. It's the old reverse clay . It's the old reverse clay. In the first one, he's