Outro and Final Announcements

I added one more podcast to the giant podcast bin. Now you have pluuckgged that podcast out and started listening. I took my microphone and found some human folk. Then I recorded all the noises while we spoke. My name is Adam Buster and I'm a man I want you to enjoy this. That's the plan. Hey, how you doing podcasts? It's Adam Buxton here. As you may be able to hear, I'm not on my regular Norfolk farm track Instead, I'm sitting in the shade at a bench in Ravenscroft Park. Tower haamlets East London I'm in London to do a couple of shows with the Adam Buxton band at Hawxton Hall It's been quite an intense month This june twenty twenty six, on a personal level. There have been some very happy birthday celebrations For me And one of my children, had some good times, saw some old friends, sat around, played some guitar. life doesn't get any better. News wise It's obviously been busy Per Starmer resigned yesterday. I don't know if you heard And it looks as though Andy Burnham might be the new PM by autumn or even before A lot of shit goes down in June. Frans Ferdinand assassinated nineteen fourteen Versailles Treaty nineteen nineteen, invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany, Operation Barbarossa in nineteen forty one D day, nineteen forty four Korean War starts in june nineteen fifty, sixix day warar in june nineteen sixty seven, Tianaman Square, june nineteen eighty nine, Brexit, june twenty sixteen meaneanwhile, I am to be found eating birthday cake. Today is supposedly the hottest June day on record. Temperatures forecast rise above thirty five Celsius ninety five Fahrenheit for Fahrenheit fans. And this coming weekend, Sunday the twenty eighth of June, I will be hosting a screening of the People's emergency briefing film at the Norwich Arts Center. It is an hour long film that brings together nine Leing UK scientists and experts presenting the latest evidence on what's happening with climate and nature, what it means for everyday life in the UK, and what can be done about it. The film also includes perspectives from a range of UK residents from all walks of life, as well as great personalities, including Jennifer Saunders and Stuart Lee And I still haven't seen the film, but there's a chance that I'm in it too After the screening at the Arts Center on Sunday, myself and acclaimed nature writer Patrick Barkham will discuss some of the information in the film with each other and with the audience. I hope I get to see and talk to some of you there. A reminder that the aim of the People's emmergency briefing film and general campaign is to get the government to take seriously the idea of a climate emergency and adjust policy accordingly And there's also a link to the petition trying to achieve that aim in the description But right now, let me tell you a bit about podcast number two hundred and seventy six, I feel slightly self conscious sitting here and waffling on my own with people around me. Normally I'd be on my own, J me and Rosie out in the Norfolk Fields. Rosie, by the way, is doing well. I think she's in a shady spot in the kitchen with all the doors open and some ice cubes in her Dog water bowl. Anyway, yes, podcast number two hundred and seventy six. This one features a rambling conversation with journalist, podcaster, my old friend, friend of the podcast, and one of the producers of my audible comedy series, Success Pod. That's Louis Thoreu. We got together in London earlier this month, following the release of Success Pod for a celebratory waffle session in which we talked a bit about how the show came to be, played a few sketches of outtakes and went off on various tangents in the process. We talked about improv comedy. Several of the sketches on SuccessPod were written or improvised with comedians that I met when I was a guest on one of Kyle Smith Bino's excellent live improv comedy nights. They're called Cool Story Bro with a K when it came to the Norwich Playhouse in early twenty fifteen And that night I met Lola Rose Maxwell, who ended up being one of the writers on Success Pod as well as Emily Lloyd Sany and Robert Gilbert. who also improvised a few sketches, along with Kiiran Hodgson, another brilliant character comedian, not in Cool Story Bro I had met Kiiran years earlier when he was cast in one of my many failed TV pilots Brilliant Myself and Louis also talked about Great singers who can't sing What Rosie is really thinking, and Louis presented me with a Zen Buddhist Koan KO N about chopping wood and carrying water And of course, as I'm sure you're all aware, Zen Buddhist Koan is a paradoxical question or statement designed to bypass the rational mind and provoke a direct unmediated experience of reality. I must confess, I didn't really understand that that's what it was. I thought Louis was just giving me some random quote. I'm not totally sure that Louis understood it was a Zen Buddhist cooan either. You can judge for yourself how much of the point we missed. In the last part of our conversation, I asked Louis if he'd heard from any of the subjects of his recent insside the Manosphere documentary on Netflix And that led us into talking about What men want woman And I might qualify at least one of my comments in the outro, just in case my wife My wife ever listens to this episode. But we began by talking about Stephven Bartlett, who went viral recently after claiming on his podcast Diary of a CEO that drinking two to three glasses of wine ruined three days of his life. He attributed the cascading loss of productivity, poor sleep and missed gym sessions to a disrupted dopamine and cortisol system as tracked by his whoop wearable device. Now Louis did actually say that it was only one glass of wine that had caused this chaos. It was a little bit more than that two to three, but anyway, not what some of us would consider the most massive bender. I'll be back at the end for qualifications, links and goodbyes, but right now With Louis Thu, hereere we go Ramble chat and have a ramble chat. We'll focus first on this then concentrate on that come on let two the fat and have a ramble chat first on your conversation Cight your talking Y Hey. How you doing, man? Good, goodood, thank you. Nice to be here. Yeah, nice to. I gave you very enthusiastic. Hey at the top they're like a proper proper start rather than just a soft I wondered if that was a new thing you're doing because I haven't listened to the last few of your regular podcasts Is that become a signature thing? No, not really. Usually I do my he at the very top of the podcast with Rosie. Right, that makes more sense. And then I go through It' quuite alarming. Yeah Usually I do the soft start com in the middle of a sentence. I thought we'd started earlier when I was talking about Stephen Bartlet. All right, what were you saying about Bartlet I was saying that he'd gone viral because of a ludicrous clip where he talks about drinking two hundred and fifty milliliters of wine And he's saying with so solemnly He's saying, and for three days, I podcasted worse Using podcasts as a verb is part of it, I think too. and I was in the gym. I couldn't work out properly and I was suboptimal. I can't remember something about him there's a senseally like he was bereaved because of he'd messed up so badly And everyone thought, you for three days, right? For three days he was in crisis and every think like, you had one glass of wine. As it big glass though. Get some perspective. Yeah. You know, it felt like a tipping point like come on, the knives are out for Stephen Bartlet Well not by me. I've got nothing but respect from all of my podcasting peers. And you've been on that show. And if I didn't, I still wouldn't tell you. Yeah It would be bad manners And also probably professionally awkward And I've been on his show, so I always noticeed that culture generally He seems to be Marmite, as they say, seems to divide opinion Really? I'm only aware of the successful side of him, which is considerable. Like he dominates, doesn't he? Like he is up there at the top of the He's a beast. Charts and absolute monster. He is certainly someone who I was thinking about when we were doing success pod, one of the people who a genius at Maxing absolutely optimizing every aspect of what it is to make his pod P maxing. He is pod maxing the heck out of Isn't he? Everything he does. L he was one ofaxing He was one of the first people to film that I was aware of Well, Joe Rogan Yes, of course, everything starts with Rogan. actuallyctually Tom Green was filming his chats Before they were called podcasts, but essentially that's what he was doing. Really? Yeah, it was just sitting in his room in LA somewhere. Well, Howard Stern was filming them in the nineties. Okay Well, Abraham Lincoln was getting people to paint portraits of him while he was having relaxed chats. Well, Methuseah. Yeah. Well before that it was TV, wasn't it? I liked TV when it used to be like podcasts are now You know what I mean? Like there were quite a lot of shows that were just people sitting around talking It takes you back to the kind of golden age of the chat show when it was people like Dick Cavat in America, David Frost There was a guy called Mike Douglas, no relation to Michael Douglas I mean and Parky, of course, our own Michael Parkinson, and You'd have You know, someone from the Black Panthers would come on and then Ralph Nader and then John Lennon and then Gorvidan Gorvidar Gloriaein and Norman Mayler. like these heavyweight thinkers Muhammad Ali And they were just they didn't prep it. I don't think. It wasn't like they were had anecdotes. charged up and ready to go and there was something it felt like a like a discovery, like there was an improv. and that spirit infuses podcasts now Because those chat shows, they got ossified, didn't they? They became well oiled entertainment engines and something was lost. The trouble is now there's thousands of them So you don't have the same sense of we're all Tuning into the same thing and having a conversation about that Well, the pressure on television is to keep everything moving so fast. So that long form aspect that's much more relaxed on those shows you mentioned, the Dick Cabbot thing. you know, you could go relatively in depth. He'd be talking to someone for twenty minutes or so. And that's not something that you're able to do on a modern chap show. Graham Norton can't do that. He's got to keep it rolling, rolling, rolling and there's got to be gags and then there's he's going to throw to the music and all that stuff. and the tone has to be predictably entertaining and fluffy, right? It can't suddenly start talking about Gaza or But with Bartlet, you're not aware of the Bartlet refusnis who are out there The skeptics. I mean, I'm not that aware of anything. Really that's going on because I'm not on social media And I only am aware of stuff that I actually seek out, you know what I mean? Not too much comes across my transansom by accident How are you finding your culture Is it just recommendations and things you read in normal like newspapers and magazines? Yeah, so I've got my news feeds and maybe I'll come across things there and then Yeah, lots of recommendations from friends. That's the main thing. Do you look it Instagram and X. Very seldom. No, I never look at X because I can't if I'm not a member, right? Like I can see maybe a post, but I certainly can't click and look at the replies and things like that. So there's no point really. And that's been quite nice I just don't even bother And then Instagram, I had one thing when I was researching something few months ago when I was doing Success Pot and I wanted to do a parody of kind of ads you get on there. A lot of them AI generated and I instantly went down a rabbit hole. literally thinking that I'd been on there for ten minutes and then I looked up at an hour had gone by. And I was looking at videos of cargo sliding around on cargo ships. I haven't seen that but I think I'd probably quite like to look at that. In stormy weather, like huge swells. What it mask shipping container. R and I scrolled out and that, Oh, that's good you know, apparently seemed real, like real footage. And then there was another one of a guy being knocked off by one of these sliding shipping contailers which is bust out of its moorings There was loads and loads and loads. and then I realized, Ohh, these are AI generated. Stop. Yeah A lot of them are just total fabrications. caused The algorithms figured out. Pople love this stuff. They love the swelling seas and the slidey heavy boxes. All of it is scratching some itch or other. So there's loads of them And then I realized There's loads of everything that is in any way Interesting. likeike I saw another video with A woman sitting on a sofa in her front room and she knocks over a glass and the dog gets spooked freaks out, runs around the room, the shelf falls down, and it's just this kind of mad succession of accidents Sounds a bit like the laughter dinger The way things go. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. It's like the Instagram much more exciting version of the way things go and ' a German art piece from the seventies as maybe in early eighties where almost a Heath Robinson. It's a kind of It's the domino cascade but taken to the moon with all sorts of kinetic actions one leading to another There was loads of Japanese videos that did that as well a few years ago. They're really satisfying. And that one, the way things go is in a warehouse. that's obviously real, but is your point that your one Not real, Not real Was it labeled? No And it took me a while because I was watching it and I watched it about five times or something. I was like,. And then suddenly I thought, hang on a second How is this being filmed? Why would someone be filming this And how have they caught this exact moment when absolutely nothing else was happening You know, it's not in the middle of something else when something goes wrong It's just o yeah, someone was just filming wow Tina was reading the paper one day and suddenly all this happened No, it didn't It's all AI. and there's loads of other things like that with animals doing mad things and Did you look at the comments to see whether it was people saying this is AI or not? I stopped looking at the comments after a while because mostost comments on pretty much anything interesting video wise A, this is just AI slop. includluding stuff that is actually real, like the videos of the Chinese robots earlier in the year. performing this mad synchronized routine And I spent a while trying to establish whether that was real or not. And as far as I could tell, it was real But there was just so many people underneath going This is just AI slop. So that's the thing' like everything like that recently that I've consumed was just looking at stuff for success pod and it all made me think Boy boy dangerous in there Stay away. So did making a success spot open your eyes and feel like it was a holiday from your usual habits and you felt refreshed by exposing yourself to media culture in a different way. U yeah, well, it was interesting to broaden my podcasting horizons like I listen to a lot more podcasts than I would normally listen to, different kinds. What did you notice? There's way more American blokes sitting round comedians analysing what they do and having tequila doing a lot of quite pointed bs. You shouldt notice some apparent differences between men and women When you survey the podcasting landscape Like the blokes are doing bs making fun of each other. The women, a lot of the time it's this sort of Um almost cloyingly supportive atmosphere of You're safe, tell me about the problems you've been having I'm thinking mainly about Alex Cooper actually She American call her daddy Oh yeah That's a huge one. Massive There's lots of those, but there's also lots of more laddy ones with women Really? Wh which we do a spoof of on suuccess pod, where they are just talking about bodily functions and it's really hardcore. like they're definitely in competition with the blokes for who can be most disgusting and We've got a sketch that we recorded with. I'm going to give a shout out to some of the people who have voice talents on Success pod. Lola Rose Maxwell Emily Lloyd Sainy Jones, Kiran Hodgson, Robert Gilbert and we did one with Jones and myself as a couple of kind of thick posh blokes who are hosting a podcast called Mate, I can't believe you've just done that. And Lola Rose and Emily were Bab and Boo from a podcast called Bab and Boo, Needa Poo done I can't believe you just done that. I literally can't believe what you just done. so good I know. And we are so lucky to be joined in the Mate, I can't believe you just done that studio todayod with two of our favourite podcasts. I'm of course talking about the amazing Bab and Bot from Bab and Bot N a poo. Welcome We're big fans of you as well shut up hundred percent. hundredcent single episode every single episode ye. Which one is your favourite? A all of them T say a thing that we said on one of. Like you know, when you are like, I can't believe you literally just done that I actually can't believe it. y. I literally can't believe you just I dot know where the tit When the title of it came from when we went out. We went out was it a couple of years ago? We went out a couple of years ago No way You feel like let's just say a couple His Highness, the Guinas had been drunk. my. We drink as well, don't we? Wh do we not? think may have had and basicallyy Tobbey gets up and he's like excuse me, mate, whereere's Lou. And the barming like points, I think it' left pointed left and you just go to the right. I go the opposite way. That literally the way you're not supposed to go. Everyone on our table is literally just like, Mate, I literally can't believe you just done that. Can I just say No,'s true. I don't think we've told that story on the podcast before. That's the first time Can I just say it's so weird for us to hear you do that lie? because even now, sometimes you remember when you did you did a poo on your hands and your feet. did that much And I enjoy. I didn't even know I was doing it. and I admit, I literally can't believe you just ust done There's something about Improv when it's done really well. I've seen in the US the upright Citizens Brigade a few times. Have you ever seen them No But they obviously pioneered a technique that was incubated In Chicago, the second city comomedy Tope and It was a certain style called the Herald or something. Anyway, the four of the upright citizens took it and ran with it. and then had their own theatre first in New York, then in LA, then I think maybe even other places. And whenever you went along, you were guaranteed of seeing something amazing. They had a rotating cast of performers who would come and study the improv with them and then be part of the show's recurring characters and different shows. It was always kind of amazing, like a high wire act. The Herald is a famous twenty five to forty minute long form improv format created by Dell Close and Shana Halpen takes a single audience suggestion and uses an opener to inspire a series of interconnected scenes, group names, recurring characters that weave together by the end of the show. And so Del Close was one of these almost legendary sort of underground figures who weren't known to the general public, but for people in the comedy community He was a godfather and he wasn't interested in success, but he I think Bob Oden Cook gives him credit in his book as well So perhaps yeah a good person to know aboutm I'd love to do all that You know, you get to a point where you just think there's so many things I'd love to be good at. Although this year, I have finally done some things that I've been putting off for a long time, although I don't know how long I'll stick with them getting guitar lessons. Okay and getting singing lessons. Okay whichich you might say is a little late after doing the album and the tour But I've still got a few shows left to go so maybe by the time I get to latitude, my singing will have improved Does it help Early days Is it about breathing? Yeah. It's a lot about breathing and sort of figuring out what muscles are operating and not tensing up in your clavicular area and doing all these things and making sure I was jutting my chin out and sort of over projecting and yelling a little bit and stuff like that. all these habits you get into that make it harder to hit the right notes But would you say like, well, Bob Dylan Maybe could have used singing lessons but that's what made him Bob Dylan. orr does he sing well in a different way I was talking to Frank Black about this the other day for a forthcoming episode of the podcast. Nice. But he was saying a lot of his favorite singers were, yeah, that kind of Bob Dylan style claimer prophets of rock and roll who were just more or less shouting tunefully like Marky Smith as well Sith. Here's my name drop. I think it was Nick Broomfield was telling me that he was with Leonard Cohen and Whether it was Nick or someone else had said like I want to sing, but you know, I'm thin of recording an album And then it coed, Can you sing? And he said, notot really. And Lenic said, great BeCacauseuse that means you won't sound like anyone else. Ahuh So that was the takeaway Yeah. and maybe you have to sing Maybe you have to sing quote unquote badly in your own way. Yeah, you got to find your voice. Yeah. Would you ever go all out completely sincere? I'm in pain This is horrific or do you know what I mean? Yeah? I'd love to Would you? But I just don't think I've got what it takes. Like maybe went on if I had an intensive course of psychedelic therapy or whatever and lost my ego And maybe I'd come out the other side of that and I would be an incredible artist who was just connecting left and right with everybody on a very fundamental emotional level. But at the moment, now I mainly want to talk about shorts and thingsings that happen in the kitchen Body in the modern time. They got to get themselves a podcast. I will do yours and you'll do by! We're sorting out the problems of the world so fast What made you want to do Success Pod? Oh, okay. You already had a successful podcast. Yeah, that's true. but I was accumulating all these little sketches that were just fun to do. Like I've always made those. Do you remember I used to have a radio show in Cheltenham? Yeah, when I was at art school in the early nineties And I got this gig on a local radio station. and I could fill it with whatever I wanted. But I was making these spoofs on a four track. A, I found one the other day I will play it to you of We asked twelve million people what they found most difficult and depressing about life in nineteen ninety three, and they all said the same thing. It's gott to be scrunching up bits of paper that you wantan to put in the bin, doesnn't it? Compacting small portions of waste paper before disposing of them. That's something that always gets me down. I deffinitely scrunching up paper put it away. scrch h terrible scrunching. Well, now there's new scrunchies Bs of paper that come already scrunched. so when it's time to throw them away they're already done. All you have to do is pop them in the bin. New scrunchies come in all different shapes and sizes for any occasion. Ns They're ready made to put in the bin. That sounded good. But That's essentially I'm doing the same thing still. You know what I mean? Spoof ads and spoof trailers and things like that and I'm doing all the voices. L that was the fun thing was layering up all the vocals. Kenny Everett style. Yeah But is it weird? One thing I was worried about doing Success Pod was like, is this just going to drive people mad to hear the same voice in so many things, doubling up. Listeners will let us know, won't they? Yeah. I mean, not for me, o But then also I do think you've fertilized it with other people, I think that has that's opened it out. Yeah But there's worlds where it would all just be you. and there's people Victor Louis Smith used to do that, didn't he And I think it can get a little bit oppressive, yeah because it's so easy as well when you're doing that overp prodduce it and to nip all the air out of it and make it really fast, fast, fast fast Anyway, so I had all these bits that I would do every now and again. Just for fun always thinking maybe these could go in some funny offs shoot podcast And back in twenty eighteen I sent a load of clips to Shamus my producer and said, what do you think about like just doing a one off funny episode that's all sketches and little stupid off cuts that don't belong in the main podcast And he said, Yeahah, great. But then we never did anything about it. L all these things, you know, you just kick them around and there's never the right time to pursue them But I kept on coming back to it and then after you set up your production company Mindhouse with your partner, Nancy I thought, well, if I take this to Louis and Nancy thenen it'll become real. and then I'll have to do it and they'll help me do it. and also I can get Louis's perspective on the actual content which I really thought would be valuable, to avoid what we were talking about, to avoid it becoming too oppressive. to one note Because when you came to me, it was this concept of in what we now call sort self optimization field or the world of success, it had become a thing, hadn't it, especially for men's podcasts that they should be like, Oh, you can use this like whether it's about or financial success, where to invest crypto, it felt like there was potentially a controlling idea of sort of hacks and yeah, how to hack and live your best life. So then it became about how do we match that up with the sketches? and make it all flow. It was striking how tricky it was to get the grammar and figure out How does this hang together? Yeah. Right because you're mixing so many different elements. I mean, still There was a point about a month or two before we delivered it where I just thought this doesn't work at all. because it's mashing together so many different tones. like you know,'s stuff where I'm doing all the voices teending to be characters. There's stuff where I'm talking to Rosie where I'm a version of myself And Rosie is another version of myself, essentially. But we are saying Wait what? someome sincere things. Wait, Rosies, what? I thought Rotie was like K Fabe. We never acknowledged that Ros' Yes, I mean the character of Rosie It like Keith Harrison Orville. You'll ever get to a point where you toour you bring on a Rsie, like a you know, like spit the dog U Now, that' be weird 'cause there's a real dog. Sure So you can't do that No. And also the other thing is that Obviously Rosy is real Rosie is always there. Likeone was going to say, wouldould you do Rosie without Rosie? No If I'm talking to Rosie, Rosie is there. But you have to say that. Why would we believe you It wouldd just be such a weird lie to tell, I think, to boast about that if it wasn't true There's a you famamous horror film. It might even have Anthony Hopkins in it where the guy gets attacked by his ventriloquist's dummy. Yeah. Like do you ever worry that Rosie might give vent to some forbidden part of you? Yeah, I do I feel like that's already happened a little bit. reallyally? In success Pod. Be she can be quite cutting. Yeah. It's a different side of Rosie than you would hear on a typical episode of my podcast. I'm trying to get my wife back into I'm trying to get my wife into horror films. You did two different versions. I'm not letting that go. Oh Jesus. Why did you do M wver than Mount Eat you I think I didn't do it right the first time It's to stay on brand, othertherwise it's gonna get confusing irst the first one was just M It wass a different guy. different wife different Sed guy. Yeah. The other one is M wife robot voice That's the one thing you don't want tona say to your audience because then they get it in your head that like, oh, he's not giving us a good show. We're not getting max bucks if you say you're tired? We're not getting a bang for our bucks, like you imagined halfway through a standup show, you'd be like I'm sorry, guys, I'm I'm not dead There's the one thing no audience is gonna to be like, o, don't worry. Let'ss phone it in I was thinking that maybe they might give me a break because I'm trying. But I'm just trying to be honest Anyway, I don't know anyone who doesn't need a prop to switch into character like Barry Humphries, who used to do Dame Edna and Les Patterson Les Patterson I bumped into a radio person the other day who in fact it was my old producer at Six Music James Sterling. And he was talking about being at GLR when Barry Humphries came to do an interview. and he wanted to be interviewed as Les Patterson And the interviewer said before they were on air. likeike how will I know when you are Lz and he said, When I put the hat on. And as soon as the hat goes on, he's Liz. And if he's got the hat off. He was the Australian Minister of Culture or so. Right. Yeah. And he was very you sort of abstained and booz He had big bulg big mad stained teeth and he he had just drolled a lot. There wass a lot of droll everywhere. and he was sort of dissolute and big He needed the hat. And I need Rosie, I think, I can't just free style without dog legs So Rosie's there And and also I hope Rosie will never die, but if that happens I won't carry on pretending that she's still alive in order to what will you do? Podcast going. I think I'll have to rebrand, I'll have to pause, I'll have to think what I'm going to do with my life. She's so central to everything now And so it was arere you looking at Rosie and imagining What she would be saying then Sometimes, I mean, I think a lot of the time She's just Interested in food And she just wants to know where the next food is coming from. I mean, there's a little bit in Success Pod where I play A short recording of my thoughts And so I list a number of my top ten thoughts and they're all kind of thoughts that I have And then Rosie plays me a selection of her thoughts And I thought really hard for that bit about like what is she thinking and mainly I think she is thinking about beinging physically comfortable, like what position is best on the sofa And maybe if I move my head a little bit and just rest my chin on this cushion, then that'll be better and then maybe if I go over under the table it'll be a little cooler. and then I want a treat. I'd like a treat. quite hungry, and, if I go and stand over there they might give me one. So she's thinking that really most of the time. But I also do think that she thinks I'm so glad you're back. I love you It's so nice to be with you and you know, that kind of thing. dog versions of those thoughts. You know, I'm going to run the risk of being pedantic, but I don't think animals think with pronouns. Oh was I did a story about dogs and it was the dog was barking. I was talking to this slightly new ag Los Angeles trainer and I said if the dog could speak now, what would it say? he said, It would say fair, fair, fair, fair, fair And I was like, w, I said I thought that that's right, isn't it? That is actually right. And because you think about it reminds me of something, I think it was a Nietzsche critique of Descartes, you know and Descartes's famous formulation likeike if you knew nothing, nothing can't you don't know if you're in a waking dream, nothing coming into your senses You can't depend on any of it. You've forgotten everything you ever knew. What do you know And he's like, all you know is I think I think And then he gets to I think therefore I am. but Nietzsche's thing is like, who's I Right? Who I think like you might say think But you can't really organize it into the concept of a kind of knowing subject, right? It's just thinking. Thinking is happening or thinking, think, think, think, think, think, think So in the countries of Rosie, thats is that ego as a part of consciousness. I think it's the idea that like if you imagine how you think one of Nietzure's things was like multiple identities and actuallyually the human subject can actually be like a society A bit like super ego, ego I that there's an upper class or you know, ruling class and then there's a, you know, sort of below deck sort of rowdy part of you that wants to go out and punch someone, you know what I mean? Like All of these are organized into In other words, in a simple crash sense, you'd say like, oh, I hear voices in my head But in a more normal way, it would just be I'm in conflict with myself. It's like the num skulls from Bino. Yeah, kind of They're all working their way in there. And even that thing like, you think how limited it is to say, well what do you want? I want? Well, I want this, but I want this and I want, you know, I want so many different things that are in conflict The eye starts to feel like a meaningless construction. Yeah. Well, that's what happens with psychedelics is all that gets torn apart, right? Yeah. And suddenly you are if you're taking five MEO DMT or whatever it is Is that the God molecule? The God molecule. You are blasted into a void of pure consciousness divorced from ego and a sense of self and You're just floating around in a realm of liquid consciousness. I mean like Does that mean anything to you at all? Can you even begin to conceive what they're talking about when they talk about all that stuff? Have you ever had any of those things? It's not hard to imagine, right? You imagine it being blasted into a kind of liquid ecstasy of pure radiant gold U I can imagine that orr even the dream state when you think of yourself asleep the way in which you're Kind of unconscious but conscious. Is it something that I particularly want much notot that much Don't you think that do you ever wonder though if there's some sort of amazing Egoless Nirvana on the other side of that that would just make you totally chilled Super dude M It'll come to me where I read it What was Before enlightenment word carry water After Elightenment Chopwood, carry water Life carries on essentially. Nothing really changes. Right you're never going to arrive. It's not like, o, it's all different now but your attitude to chopping the wood and carrying the water. That's the thing is you are responding, whoever said that can fuck off. Because they think they're being so clever saying the same thing twice after the big thing that's happened. But it's not clever because all we are are just machines for processing things and internalizing them and reacting to them and being conscious of them and having an emotional response to them. So sorry That's all we are. and it matters. you can train yourself to respond differently and you can have your experience of reacting to the world altered in all sorts of different ways, either by things that happen to you or things you do to yourself. Well you can have a healthy outlook, you can be well balanced, but you're still going to have the same sorts of problems. it was a Freud thing where he goes, what's the aim of analysis? He says, The in of analysis is to replace neurotic grief with ordinary human unhappiness or something. In other words It's not like, o, you graduate to a different plane. You just cope with the ups and downs in a more mature and healthy way. Yeah. Well, that's what I mean though.ike the former you might hate chopping wood and carrying water and think it's a pain in the ass then something might happen to you which would change the way you think about those things in a valuable way, which actually because of that sort of transforms everything about those experiences. you know what I mean? So Chopping wood version one versus chopping wood version two are totally different. evenven though you're doing the same thing. Maybe Maybe not that different But this is we should have covered this in success parts. We can do this we can put this in like season too. We revisit like the Enlightenment question. Yeah Do you ever have a breakthrough? Most of the time when people talk about having a breakthrough I'm thinking No you have me Don't you? And when people talk about, I got off the drugs and now I'm so much better, I often I'm thinking, you're still on the drugs. in what way? Well, I just think that that recovery narrative feels trite and Not to say it's never the case, but quite often personus is still in trouble There is still still a lot of damage. Well, but but that's sort of what you just said. Yeah Yes, they're in trouble, but now they are armed with very valuable strategies for helpully I they have learned a lot of words Yeah, yeah, but that's the thing, isn't it? You're just learning ways to cope And that's, you know, it's like the AA prayer. Uh what is it again? It's giveive me the strength. D't want me the serenity No we're not going to do that. I can tell you, we're not doing that. No one needs to hear that. The serenity prayer Give me the serenity to cope with the things I cannot cope with the courage to face the things I can and the wisdom No one cares And the wisdom that know the difference donon't read it I've done it. I've gott to read it because you said I re it.. I so disrespectful. God grant me the serenity yes. Pandle the things No, to can't change. Ecept the things I can't change. Yeah and the courage to change the things I can. Yeah ye and the wisdom to fark off. T know the difference. David Bowie had that tattooed on his leg See now, I think maybe there's a little of sense in it did he really? Yeah, he did E though I don't think, well, no, I guess he was. Lets starts up there with the if by Kipling we're in Kipling we're like in Anateity Ally. We've wandered into like the realm of pure vacuity. I think the serennity pray is excellent and deep.e week we're going to go hang in there, baby do footsteps God, why did you desert me when I only saw one set of footsteps? Do you know that one No, I didn't have to You do What's that one? That's the one where it's the footsteps thing where it's is's a picture of footsteps on a beach and it goes I saw a path of life along the strand of the beach, and I saw there were times when you were beside me, God And then there were times when I was on my own and I realized it was times of greatest stress there was only one set of footprints, God, why did you desert me in my hour of greatest need? I can't believe I'm getting chills as I say this. He said, Son Those were the times when I carried you M. Beuse that's why there's one sort of show I understand now Pro probablyably could have figured it out if he'd looked at how much deeper the footprints are. How big, boy, you have the same size feet as God That's kind of coincidental. I like all that stuff. I think that stop it I think it's deep. It's good stuff, man It's valu it helps a lot of people like help me you have a post that says you don't have to be crazy to work here. but it helps. I've got to get organisized Well hing in there, baby. It sounds to me like you have a fuck of a lot of unprocessed stuff that you are trying to keep at arm's length, justust saying You're afraid of this stuff because this is a big dose of truth in poetry form that you are afraid to incorporate into your so called life What about that People don't like sighing People with mesophonia don't like scis. donon't they? No, no, no. C cut that bit out I'll keep it in to keep it real. Well, we were talking about Rosie and what's going on in Rosie's mind. Yeah. but mainly What I was thinking about was that when you came it was this idea of success part and ye I really lik Yandrew the character. in my head, Yandrew was gonna to be maybe even hosting the whole thing, possibly. Well it was originally Ken Cord. There's going to be Ken Cordder. Right And Ken would be basically a wantan to be Stephen Bartlet. And I saw Yandrew as more of a bartlet because he is more of a Bartlet, isn't he? Yeah and I find it very funny and I thought, oh, it'll be a success podcast in the You know, and Stehen Bartlet's one example, there's many others. This Chris Williamson does a similar thing. Yeah ye. There's disrupted by that guy Rob Moore, is it the disruption podcast? There's hundreds of these podcasts where people are teaching dispensing wisdom and Tim Ferris. Tim Ferris Hberman Andrew Hubberan, what's the Tim Ferris one? He's widely considered the godfather of the genre, the Tim Ferris showhow What's the genre called It's self help, isn't it? Yeah, I guess it would be So then I like the idea of Yn drew is a kind of shambolic I mean, he's so mysterious y, right? I never really do you know where he's from In my mind, he's moved around a lot like he went to the American school in the UAE or something. U really? I think you say Luxembourg. Yeah I get North European sort of energy, no Something a bit Dutch I used to just get a lot of ads So like selling schemes and drop shipping Dropshippings a big thing in the manosphere. Right, okay And they don't even know exactly what it is. You buy things on wholesale and sellment retail, I guess. Yeah And that was happening about ten years ago, that seemed to be happening a lot And so I was getting targeted with all these ads and that's how Yandrew started. Because sometimes there's a person you're actually doing. like, is there some guy out there who talks like Yandrew? I don't think so. So where is that coming from? Being earnest, you know, it's getting close on the mic And reative creative it and I'm being very breathy and once you start wking to the mic. It's suddenly maybe a bit of South African or something, but it it's just a whole Hot pot of different stuff that you get sometimes when you meet people and they've moved around so much and there's so many influences in their life And it's those kinds of people I see on these YouTube ads Good looking younger So he's on the young side. I't think so although by the end of doing it, he felt There's one I do about he meets a nutritionist guy. He starts coming to pieces a little bit and the nutritionist tells him he's got a parasite and he loses his shit Then it was basically me. It was starting to turn to you, I remember that one So I like that and I thought it could be held together by More or less, You know, kind of consensual ed interview L in the sense of you'd be in character interviewing someone. Yeah, but in a goofy way, you wouldn't be it wouldn't be like Alie G where you'd be pretending that the person would think necessarily You were real. They'd be briefed, but that it would be you'd be improving in a sense in character Miss. Merton style. Yeah, there we go. That's the template. They used to do it on the daily show as well. Right peopleeople knew that they were going to be talking to a moron. Yeah. O so I guess the other one would be a Colbert report. Right where he played a kind of character, Bill O'Reilly character So we kind of proceeded on that basis for a little bit, didn't we? Yes. We had a long list of people who would be good. Deborah Meden Richard Midley, people like that. Bring them on for life lessons. Yeah Interviewed by Yandrew And we recorded with Adrianne Chiles. who was very kind and came along for an afternoon and chatted with him and he was really good because it's a hard thing, I think for someone to come in and know what's expected and how to pitch it like because you don't want them to play along too much Because then it feels like, oh, it's arrch and they're in on it But you want them to kind of be natural and normal, right? Yeah There were some good bits from that Adrian Charles think Adrian, what is the one thing that every successful person needs I think you need the ability to work your ars off for a long period of time. What about a phone? U Because with a phone, you can call people, you can build relationships, you can make deals, you can check stocks. It's obviously harder without a phone. Send texts and emails. Yeah. Play games. Yes. now.es. If you're talking now, certainly, you would be needlessly handicapping yourself by not having a phone, but its almost there's almost a reality show there. Can I be a success in life without a phone. No. It was a really good sport. I really like that interview. I think the reason we didn't use that and didn't go down that route was because that's quite a big single idea. It was hard to get from the interview to the sketches. Yeah And that was partly because It sort of well what was the breakthrough do you think? It seemed to need you to be on more of a journey. I think that was a thing that cut through was me being anxious about becoming irrelevant in the changing podcast landscape Now that everyone's filming everything. What was the point when you knew you had to film your podcast? Was it two years ago? I just realized everyone was watching TV on their phones. and if you could film it cheaply and easily, why wouldn't you film it? And then you realize You're really at a disadvantage if everyone else is doing it and you're not Numbers wise. Yeah. And numbers wise terms of having visibility on social media, which obviously is double edged because sometimes you think, well, I'm just feeding free content onto social media and building the platforms and maybe building my social media presence, but How many people are kind of coming back to check out whole episodes But I think enough to you sort of have to play Well I thought I had to play the game. I do think that like to the point we were talking about earlier, There's a sense in which Podcasts have become TV. All those things that you went to TV for people are now getting from podcasts Except Not all of it, but a lot of it. Except in a kind of shit version. shit unregulated, sloppy version. Yeah. Do you what I mean? With a lot of really dodgy rubbish being talked about and not fact checked and All that kind of stuff, you know, Big time. whichich is a big problem that's being accentuated by AI Here's a great transition into asking you as a sidebar or a little bit of a tangent about The manosphere This is a sketch that I had that was going to be in Sccess Pod that didn't make the cut I can't remember why, I think because there was another similar one and we just ended up with that one. but this is a sort of weird reality show spoof that I did a while back Previously, hey, I got the tiny underwear commercial. Oh my gosh. I know, isn't it great? Oh, it's so great. I know I'm really pleased and Michael's really pleased. Oh, Michael's been through a lot. He's very strong. He's such a strong person. He's strong. He's so strong. He's very proud of me for having tiny underwear. I think I'm gonna cry. You should cry. Go ahead and cry and get the water out of your face. You're strong. You're strong. You're much stronger. You're so strong. You is very strong. You're even stronger than Michael. You're stronger than Michael What the hell have you been saying about me women? You and I haven't spoken on the podcast about the mananosphere. We've been bodied it Have you been in touch recently with any of the Any of the guys, Tiki Toky, Sneako, Myron? Not really. The big news As we speak in the manosphere is that a huge long read has dropped in the New Yorker an investigation of Andrew Tate. Right And obviously there's been stories about there have been stories about Andrew Tate before But the New Yorker is you know, different level of exposure and the writers gone into a lot of detail. It's horrific. I mean even in the manosphere As awful as a lot of the content is, Tate is a step up I mean, the contention would be it's not been adjudicated in a court of law, but the allegation would be that he is a serial rapist ay of havoc in his wake. Now as I say he would deny that, but the articles goes into all of that and the details Um Beyond horrible which is, you know, and obviously there's horrible people, but then you also join the dots with how close he is to people who are close to Trump how much influence he has in the culture generally, but also high levels of politics. He was defended so much by so many of those people Yeah, and I don't know how You know, the depth of his relationship with say Faragej or I know he was always friendly with Tommy Robinson. they both came from Lewon And a lot of that stuff I knew that was in the article. there was a time when we were making my film. So I should say like for people who haven't seen, I had a film on Netflix. It dropped a couple of months ago. It's called Louie Through Inside the Manosphere I'd hoped when we went into it that we would get an interview with Andrew Tate, that never happened. I had this protracted back and forth with him. DMing on X and with Tristan as well It never paid off with an actual encouter. Krist Kristin Tate his brother So we sort of had to sub in other manosphere figures. The main one we featured is HS Tikki Tky, a UK based. actuallyually he was living in Malbea mainly, but he's from the UK. Essex, G of Musleite looks a bit like Andrew Tate So six feet three or four, needs to work on his calves. N needs to work on his calves but has very other than that like it kind Physically impressive musly guy. twenty three years old, I think twenty four And he also, like Andrew Tate He would also say porn is for people who are weak and sick and pathetic, but he managed or had a company that managed only fans, girls, so he would make money from adult content is which is also an Android tape maneuver. So to your question, yes, do don't I haven't remained in touch. I'm still following the culture. There's a lot going on. There's other stuff going on always online After the film came out, Clavicular, this other influencer blew up It's showing no sign you know, so the New Yorkers paid attention, but I don't know that that will make much difference to anyone And clavicular I don't know much about clavicular, but I have heard that This is someone who has Lots of medical procedures to change the way he looks. He's more about I think he might have had some cosmetic surgery. The things that you always hear like using little hammers to braid like yeah do micro abrasions on your bones to give yourself at the cheek bones A lot of it is sort of related to things that you take, not supplements, maybe supplements but also maybe testosterone or different drugs that you can take and he passed out during a live stream During a live stream he passed out. Having taken be taken to hospital Yeah His real name is I think Braddon Peters and he's from Florida. He might be what probably only nineteen or twenty. Oh really that young. Maybe twenty one, I'm not sure And he's the king of so called looks maxing. Looks maxing yeah But then that's the younger part of it, which you focused on in the Mosphere dock then I was reading a piece by Helen Lewis. in the Atlantic, the men who want women to be quiet. And her thing is You know, versions of this are happening in higher up in conservative circles and it's kind of uniting the American right. There's all these warring factions who are more or less MAGA or they disagree about foreign policy or various other things But they do agree that feminism is a lousy idea. And that idea seems to have more and more traction in the American right in a way that really makes you think, oh, this isn't just kind of Ludicrous influence a culture anymore. This is actually now taking hold of something that might translate into policy for another Republican administration And so women would be returned to being second class citizens and people would sort of accept that. Yes. Repeal the nineteenth, I think, which was the amendment that gave women the vote I think that's part of the Those are talking points that would have been completely beyond the ple have now drifted slightly out of the shadows. I think I read that Pete Higeth, the American defeense seecretary, is part of a church that discourages women from voting. Yeah. so Helen Lewis writes wr about Yeah, yeah, and the guy that runs that and You hear JD Vance, not saying that exactly, but There's just sort of a strange What is it? Well, I suppose the oververton window being pulled in a certain direction. and yes far right, which historically you might have associated with racist or nativist views Aually The organizing principle is misogyny. It runs on an engine of disparagement of women And as much as there are fractures, especially over Israel Everyone's on the same page about women, about the need to roll back any of the gains of feminism And if one of your friends suddenly sincerely started expressing that point of view. and saying, you know what? society is in the trouble that it is partly because gender roles have become so confused by feminism and women wanting a load of things that actually aren't in their best interests and are not in the best interests of society. How would you person assuming you didn't just walk out. What would you say like to answer some of those ideas Um I suppose the first thing I'd want to acknowledge is that It's okay to think that men and women aren't the same. I mean it feels strange that that might be considered controversial, but I think perhaps To some people, maybe that does feel controversial. or even starting from the premise that men and women are exactly the same and should want all the same things and behave broadly the same way. So you'd be looking to find that commonality I don't want to do it a disservice to my parenting or to my Mum, especially. I was raised by a feminist momum I think there was a part of me that grew up thinking that, oh Men are like quotequote, men and women are like quote unquote women because Boys are given action meant to play with And girls are given dolls, right I no longer believe that.'s nurture. Yeah rather than. That whole nurture, like gender is a construction Yes, it is to an extent, but There are also biological differences So I suppose I try and start from a basis of finding some common understanding But then in the end, you know It really depends what exactly they were proposing. If there's about women shouldn't be allowed to vote I don I don't know quite what you do with that Myron Gainess one of the people that was in the Manosphere dock Who got dumped, right during the dock? At the end we put up a title card saying he's been left or they have separated by his girlfriend Angie. He now has, according to Amazon, a book coming out called Why Women deserve even less. Yes, it's a sequel to the first book Wh women deserve less. It's generous to call it a book. I've read it. it's A pamphlet, okay It looks like he might have spent a rainy afternoon writing it. It's got one hundred and sixty one five star reviews Does it? O doesn't have any other ratings other than five stars It says yourour biology still screams, pursue women. Get laid, buildild a family But women no longer need men for money, protection, attention, or even company. algorithms and digital dopamine do it better, cheaper and drama free Why women deserve even less is the updated no BS reality check It exposes how AI, porn only fans, sugar platforms and tech made men more optional than ever. It kills the last of your illusions and arms you to stop wasting time, money and decades of your life. This isn't hate, it's math. it's survival But you sort of think like Interesting And you know what sugar platforms are? No, what sugar platforms? That's platforms like seekingarrangement. com where young attractive women who need money can meet older guys who have money and Sex isn't promised or even necessarily part of the equation It might happen and they just go out so it's a sugar daddy basically, a sugar daddy arrangement Interesting isn't it that he's sort of making a similar critique than the one we might make, which is that oh well platforms and the digital incentives are distorting aspects of how men and women interact So what's he proposing as an alternative then? is's just This is The book is a wake up call This is How Things are. So what are you supposed to do about it? Just shut women out of your life and Stop thinking about them That's mugtwel. That would be a mugtw response You know about them Remind me men go their own way. Oh yeah, which is opt out. It's almost like sexual segregation basically if you're black pilled be like there's no future in a world where actually women can find whatever they want either by making money online or by finding super alpha guys. five percent guys then the rest of the men should just give up and not have anything to do with women just exist in their own male only bubble. That's obviously quite dark and extreme. I think I don't know exactly what Myron's going to say in his new book. pamph for it I suspect it will be along the lines of Women have been given an inflated idea of their own value By being incentived, especially attractive women, by being incentivized by likes on Instagram and similar platforms and they're being rewarded for being sexually liberated, if you like. And it's a losing game for guys So he's adv I think he'd probably advocate tr a trad a more traditional arrangement Yeah which that's a whole other bind a woman's got no social media following who stays at home Makes your sandwiches. Make a sandwich is a big thing. I don't know why it's almost like a meme findindal woman's going to stay at home, make you sandwiches and never go out without your say so and definitely not be on social media. Sounds a little bit like my wife Well, that's the thing is that there's lots of women who do Yeah like that. And so what a lot of these manosphere figures are in a kind of digital ghetto in which their idea of what a woman is is Basically a very specific kind of Instagram model And if they don't get that then they feel they've been shut out of the whole playground. Well, partly that, but partly they're just all their generalizations are like this is what women are like. and you're like whether or not it's good or bad, that's only it's not true for all women. Right. That's true because they're living in Florida and theyre they themselves are active on social media. So they've got a self selecting sample of women who are basically going to yacht parties and going to nightclubs and buying a table and you know Hanging as a coterie of attractive women making a lot of money, getting built getting clout out of playing up to certain stereotypes of femininity So you're like, well, that that isn't, you know, in their world, you imagine if they met Mary Curie or whoever or Ruth Para Ginsburg, like it would blow their minds. You know, the idea like, o you know a woman can have value that's not to do with how many L they're getting on their Instagram feed But for whatever reason they've chosen not to look at any of that Yeah, I mean, the way I interpret all that is just through the lens of hating, I hate social media so much and I just think that's part of what you get you are a society that values being on social media so much is a totally distorted idea of what's worthwhile in a relationship. You know, and none of these people are talking about I think we both met our wives because we became friends with them, right? We didn't get We didn't sort of see them in a nightclub and go look at that hot woman. I'm gonna Conquer her You know, it's not you get to know people and you have conversations and you're into the same stuff or you make each other laugh and then you relationship forms and you know, it's just a small friendly association that turns into something else And that doesn't seem to feature anywhere in all of these things. It's all about like Oh, these bloody sexy women won't even look at me and Obviously, social media is an insecurity generation machine, right? And it's creating this sort of anxiety that Life's happening on the other side of the screen The expression I heard is it encourages you to compare your insides with other people's outsides So you're like, well, I don't feel like that. And his's people with this curated lifestyle partying with champagne and fast cars and there you are I don't know, lying in bed or wherever you happen to be thinking like why why isn't that happening for me? So that's part of it. And making the Manosphere film It was a realization more than anything that This is a sales grift. This is an attempt to So fans, like people who've come to look at the content and enjoy spicy comedy or you know, because a lot of it is someone at HS going down saying cheeky rude things Sometimes horrible things to women out in Marbay or elsewhere he's capable of being quite funny. likeike he obviously hasn't got his hundreds of thousands of followers without a degree of charm. And also having moments where he is self aware and where he realizes that This isn't the best way to live Yes orr don't know I wouldn' I don't if they'd go that far But knowing that actually he's compromised his morality in certain respects.. in order to become rich and famous But I don't think he would necessarily regret those decisions. And then so he gets this huge following on social media and then You believe in him, you think he's cool and fun and then As one of his fans, you then buy one of his fitness programs or you subscribe to his app orr you subscribe to one of his only fans girls that he's managing So in the end It's all incentivized by possibility of them making an income. In the article I was listening I was listening to it on the in the New Yorker and They suggest that Andrew Tate after he was kicked off YouTube and couple of other platforms He was paid six million dollars a year. to do content for Rumble Six million. Six million dollars a year. for a certain amount of guaranteed L not a massive amount. like I don't know, like Whatever it was, a few streams during the week and then some streaming at the weekend and various a number of hours of live show. And that content would be him just wanging on about. Just talking random stuff probably with his brother Tristan to guests. So a broadcasting contract I was really sur Even having made the film, I was like, that wow, I wouldn't have expected it would be six million and the platform Rumble, which is a kind of gloves off version of YouTube where Content moderation policies are a lot more flexible almost anything up short of incitements to violence. illegal sexual content Other than that, there's a huge amount of latitude Romboy has been apparently been invested in by among other people, Peter Theal Who's the head of Palantir and the mentor to JD Vance And was one of the co founders of Facebook and Heaypal, I think, whichich again, I hadn't realized that either. Now there's a whole other question about to what extent should Rumble be more moderated Well, he's a big free speech fundamentalist, right? P Yeah. Pumably. I mean, based on that, you'd have to think he was. I mean, I mainly know him because of his A as a tech baron p for Trump very early on Yeah In twenty sixteen, when most of Silicon Valley was not in Trump's corner be that for some time he's expressed at best ambivalence and sometimes outright hostility to the idea of democracy. Oh yeah, okay and encourage people to Do things like Cstead build their own extra national or outside national borders communities on artificially constructed islands that would have their own sovereignty. Is that a bit like Curtis Yarvin? Is he called Yarvin? I think Curtis Yarvin might be even further to the right, but yes, he's coming from a similar you a tratical idea, yeah. Pro monarchy president should be like a tech CEO. Yeah, and hence basically monarchical. But when I say like Sometimes I find myself saying, Oh, that's one of those free speech guys. And it sounds you kind of sound like you're dismissing the idea of free speech in itself, obviously everyone wants free speech and that's a nice thing to aspire to, but it's Obviously I' talking about people who have kind of weaponize that concept in order to just say whatever they want in a totally unhelpful way. Yeah. It's dark. It's very dark Wow, we have really skidd it around from all sorts. We were into different areas. We were like the sub basement of a subramble. We were three or four floors down. But listen, thanks for coming in and chatting. And also thanks for everything that you did with Success Pod helping me get it made and assemble the team, Lucy Toppping, the producer and Samus and everybody else who worked on that, Ben Partridge, who wrote on it and Guests, Kathy Bookks, Sam Campbell, Guz Karn, Jessica Knappet, Romas Ranker Nathan and yourself. And Jessica Knappet also was such an important part of helping me out with it. eararly on, she came in and did a few days in a writing room with Lola Rose Maxwell and Ben Partridge and They contributed some really good ideas. So I'm so grateful to all of them and also I feel like I want to shout out. Lava this guy who sent in some stuff for one of our me in Joe's Christmas shows and I met him that way And he's been great like helping me out with the music, the theme music and so many of the other bits in there Olga Reed, who was the mixing engineer who mastered the whole thing. She was fantastic Felix and Jonathan Harks and these are just Francesca Bassett. Aaron Fellows, Sam Bryant. I should mention as well Jamie Demitrio and Tash Demitriu, they helped out in very early days of development helping me try out ideas as did Julia Davis. ash' his friend Daniel Barker. Anyway I'm so grate Sames Murphy Mitchell. Sames Murphy Mitchell, I've mentionedamus. I thought I wanted to mention Sure, Samus of course. H's your secret Not secret. But he's your wing man Yeah, he's been so important to you saw Emol Grez. Yeah. He's so busy now, he's like a really senior guy in Netflix. Rightking working the Letterman showow. canan we say that? He's not doing L Letterman anymore, isn't he?,'s He' now are higher up at Netflix in the US. So he bestrides the world. That's pretty cool. How long have you been working with him Since Bg the TV show, which was twenty twelve twelve, fourteen years, How well is he known to your audience do you think Oh, I think I thank him at the end of every e. There's a name, but do they have a picture in their head? He's quite an impressive figure of a man. Yeah, he's very tall. He's probably six four. Somet And he'' sort of u Well, he's got elegant facial hair at various times. Yes, he had something that was a little bit Hitler in the mache. I wouldn't put it like He used to. you know It was like a Yeah, toothbrush mustache Yeah, yeah. No, he's he's cool looking. Well you can see a picture of him when the Letterman show My next guest Won a Emmy, I think or something? Yeah. Yeah There's a picture of him on stage We need to ride those coattails. Yeah man. Right I'm already in the Netflix Henhouse, but surely Samus can get you in Well, I've got I've got to perform well on audible before we get to the henhouse So If you're listening to this And you've listened right the way through And you still haven't heard Success Pod, come on a guy out Please giveive it a listen. I think you'll enjoy it. I'm happy. You' got a very tired old man. he's tred. The main thing is he's just tired he's trying hard. He doesn't want to talk to my dog and I really like the serenity prayer and I just think that That's the way you should do things. and anyone who doesn't like that stuff and keeps talking about Nietzsche is making things needlessly Distressing. Distressing, pretentious aloof But why not just Just, I mean, he's tiing Don't you get it? And even if it isn't good Well course it isn't that good. Do you know how tired he is Alright. So yeah no, okay. yeah, it isn't Maybe not the best show. He isn't sleeping well. I was gonna cut theill me saying I'm tired. Iill. And then you fixated on it There's no brilliant performer ever said that before Let's have a nap All right, I'm gonna h out. Adrienne, let's talk about your column for the Guardian. You have enjoyed great success with It doesn't feel like that to me. It feel like everyone's taking the piss, but I'll take whatever I can get. It is a satirical column. It sort of tries to be funny. Oftten I think people think I'm being a satirical I'm actually playing a straight bat So look, if anyone can read to the end of anything I'm These are some of the headlines I thought it was weird to have a favorite spoon. Then I realized I wasn't alone. I absolutely stand by that one can go to the moon, so why can't we stop my glasses sliding down my nose? That's true I felt that very strongly. I just perhaps I've got a poorly shaped nose But And it's a bar like wearing glass It certainly was when I was a kid. I do think if your balls are aching, you're wearing them wrong. Yeah, possibly This is an idea for a column. Which of my toes could I not live without It isn't the one you think. Oh that's a good one. What do you think? I mean, I'm assuming. Assuming the little one plays above its weight. And obviously the big toe is important I'm going to go through the Toes three and three and four. I reckon I could probably sever those and still walk. The column is writing itself. Yes it is. Hey, Wlcome back! Podcasts to Ravenscroft Park, East London Beautiful day, a hot day It's like New York out here. Klang. Ooh, look, I've just found eleven pence. That's good, isn't it Nice By eleven Mjoos So that was Louis there, chatting to me, very grateful as ever to Louis for making the time. At some point, I feel like I'm due a proper normal podcast sit down session with me doing more of an interview with Louis, but moment never seems to come around. Anyway, it was nice to catch up with him a little bit. Oh yeah, the thing I wanted to qualify from our mananosphere discussion though was when I said Louis and I didn't meet our wives by saying, o, look at that hot woman in a nightclub, I think I said something like that. Instead, we sort of just giggled our way into a cozy friendship and then into a marriage. Made it sound a little bit. antiseptic, obviously, there was a lot of raw, powerful attraction between myself and my beautiful wife. And Louis and his beautiful wife, they are alarmingly hot women of the kind that any member of the manosphere could only dream of being rejected by That's what I've written here in my notes. And now as I'm reading it out, I'm thinking Maybe my wife wouldn't appreciate that qualification. Okay In the links for today's podcast, let me tell you that as well as a link to that Pople's emergency briefing film and talk with myself and Patrick Barkham at the Norwich Arts Center this coming Sunday, the twenty eighth of June, I really hope some of you will be able to come along to that. You will find a link to the live podcast that I'm doing with Mwan Rizwan at the roundhouse on the fifth of August twenty twenty six Don't forget to book your tickets for that, the only live podcast that I will be doing this year. There's a link to the Laufe Dinger, The W Things Go, the film by Peter Fishley and David Weiss from nineteen eighty seven which is essentially an epic Rube Goldberg machine constructed in a warehouse out of bits and pieces of kind of industrial equipment. It's really good. My children used to enjoy watching it when they were little. And I felt good about it because I thought this is good. I'm glad you're watching that. It's better than some of the other dog shit that I allowed them to watch Also another thing that kids might probably enjoy and adults unless they are outraged by the implications of the thing is the film of the martial arts Robots. doing an amazing performance at the Spring Gala Festival in China. China earlier this year, that I mentioned briefly with Louis, that as far as I can tell, is real, not everyone agrees Also you'll find links to the A piece about Andrew Tate's Empire of Abuse by Heidi Blake from the New Yorker earlier this month and Helen Lewis' piece, The Men who Want Women to be quiet from the Atlantic. I think maybe both of those are behind paywalls. I'm not sure, although you might be able to Read them as a free article before being asked to subscribe. There's also a link to Samus winning his Emmy if you want to see what Seamus looks like back in twenty twenty four. Ass a link about absolutely nothing, but it's totally joyful. Jimminy Glick played by Martin Short, interviewing comedian actor Artie Lang. You don't need to know who Arie Lang is. I think he was in Norm McDonald's show at the point he was being interviewed by Jimmy Glick, but anyway, Jimminy Glick gets a lot of mileage out of the fact that he doesn't know us know who Rti Lang is And Harty is a good sport about it, but oh my god, it made me laugh. Umbridge. I've been watching a lot of Jimminy recently after watching the Netflix documentary about Martin Short. which I really recommend Okay, that's it for this week Thanks very much to Claire Broughton and Diggory Wade from Hatrick for additional editing and production support. much appreciated, by the way, speaking of Diggory. last week, he and I recorded the Q and A session. Thank you so much if you contributed questions for that. We only covered a handful, so those questions will keep us going for a few more sessions after that. We're hoping to do them fairly regularly, I think in the next few months. the first one will appear for everybody to listen to in a few weeks time, two or three weeks. Thereafter, you will have to become a Patreon supporter if you want to listen to those Q and A's. The Patreon thing is only a source of bonus content. Ething else about the podcast will be available to everybody for free as normal Thanks very much indeed to everyone at ACAast for all the hard work they do dealing with my sponsors. Thank you to Helen Green for the beautiful artwork. I just saw a picture of the unabsorbent tea towel that she designed. and I will look into getting them made available via my website In due course. But thanks most of all to you for listening right to the end. Sending in all those nice questions really much appreciated. One of the comments that was sent in for the Q and A was from someone who said, Please don't call them creepy hugs I mean, they're not meant to be creepy, obviously, because I don't know if you realize but they are it's audio only. there's no actual physical contact, so it's not as creepy as it could be But it's only a joke Anyway, look, come here for a sincere, non creepy hug, if you'd like Hey, how you doing To see you, people are looking at me like what's that guy doing? Hugging a microphone in the middle of a park I'm just doing my job Until next time, we share the same aural space. Go carefully. and you know, for what it's worth. I love you. Be. That was almost more annoying.