Suggestible - Love Stories, Saunas & Mr Sunday's Most Surprising Suggestible

Episode Date: October 19, 2023

Suggestible things to watch, read and listen to. Hosted by James Clement @mrsundaymovies and Claire Tonti @clairetonti.Tickets available for Claire's Friday Night Chai Concert on Nov 24th at Seven Sisters Festival, Glenaroua - www.clairetonti.com/eventsStay tuned for tickets to Claire's speech with Generation Women on Nov 22nd at Howler Bar, Brunswick - https://www.generationwomenaus.com/This week’s Suggestibles:02:06 Fly to Norway and do a Sauna?10:30 Love Stories by Trent Dalton18:32 Nick Cave's The Red Hand Files26:44 Inward by Yung Pueblo32:59 Seven Sisters Festival (tickets and info)34:08 Generation Women (tickets and info)35:58 The Fall of the House of Usher37:45 Suggestible Announcement49:46 Shin UltramanSend your recommendations to [e-mail], we’d love to hear them.You can also follow the show on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook @suggestiblepod and join our ‘Planet Broadcasting Great Mates OFFICIAL’ Facebook Group. So many things. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hey folks, it's Mark Maron from WTF. I travel all over North America doing stand-up and it's always good to know Airbnb is an option when I'm away from home. But if you're away from home, why not take your own place and Airbnb it? Airbnb your whole home to make some extra cash. Or if you have a spare room that's not in use, just Airbnb that. Whether you could use extra money to cover some bills or for something a little more fun, your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at airbnb.ca slash host. Bing-a-dee-bong, ba-da-da-bing-bing-bong, ba-ba-ding-a-dee-bong, ba-da-da-bing-bing-bong. It's suggestible time.

It certainly is. Possibly for the last time. We'll talk about it. No spoilers. You said we're doing it at the end. What's happening? This will get people listening to the end. Oh, Lord.

All right. You've done 500 episodes, so you know all about how to podcast. Not of this, but yeah. How many have we done? I think it's like 195 or something like that. Right. We're five away from 200. I feel like that's fitting.

Just to be like, yeah. Who knows? Hello. Welcome to Suggestible, a podcast where we recommend new things to watch, read, and listen to. My name is Claire Tonti. James Clement is here also. We are married.

And this is the show. We haven't done one in a long time. I've been traveling and doing things overseas and taking a big old rest. Yep. Yeah. And I ran out of Sex and the City episodes to talk about. You certainly did. Why are you squinting like that?

It's hot tea. You didn't put any cold water in it. Oh, I did put some cold water in it. Well, how much though? I made James a herbal tea, not with caffeine because he's 40 now and he can't be having no caffeine before bedtime. I'm not 40. Don't say that.

It's a terrible thing to say. I have found this week I have never had grey hairs before. I have had two grey eyebrow hairs and four grey like weird white hairs growing out of my skull. What is so weird to me as well is I think I sort of thought that maybe just your hairs turn grey but no, what happens is new ones grow out of your head. So now I just have like four grey hairs that are

about three centimetres long out of my crown. My hair is like 90% grey. You're going to be all right. Yeah, I know. Your mum's got barely any grey hair. I know, but I don't know what's happened, but it's terrible. I got my first grey hair when I was like 10. Oh, I know exactly.

You're used to it. You're going to be all right. I know, but you're used to that kind of thing. My hair has not been sullied by narrow your grey hair. Sometimes I catch myself in like – For my 38 years. I see myself in a shop mirror. I'm like, huh.

Like seeing a ghost. It's like, you know, when you see like a. That's how I feel about you every day. He's here. Jesus. Or you died. That's life, mate. Yeah.

Anyways, we recommend things, obviously. Do you want to kick things off? Yes, certainly do. First up, I'm going to recommend not doing two overseas trips back to back. No? You don't think so? No, this is suggestible. Well, I don't recommend looking after children for two overseas trips back to back.

Yeah, that is true. That's a lot. That I did not take. No, my brother got married in Oslo, which was a really beautiful wedding. It was very exciting. So I took our son over there. I wouldn't know. You wouldn't know. But while I was over there, I did a very cool thing that I'm now going to get into, which

I'm recommending to people. And it is sauna. Oh my God. You've turned into Joe Rogan. And steam. And looking at my recommendations, I've turned into you. Well, okay. So let me explain. I don't know why, but for most of my 38 years, I keep saying I'm 38 because I just had my birthday recently. Don't confuse me on my age. Dear God. I've been very confused about saunas because to me it just seems very uncomfortable.

You get very, very hot and sweaty and there's just like lots of people all dripping with sweat sitting around in a room. Yeah. And I just, I've never understood it. The ones at our local pool are just a whole lot of old dudes. Just old dudes. Sweating around with a weird sweaty towel over their shoulders. And they're always talking business.

And you can't wear headphones in there. So I'm just listening to just bad business advice. When do you ever go and sit in the sauna? Well, when I take our son for swimming lessons and if I don't have our daughter with me, I'll do some laps poorly. You'll go in a sauna? And then I'll go and do a quick sauna. I didn't know that.

What else? I'm learning something new every day. But it's always the worst. Like it's just unbearable. But in a nice environment, like it's not in like a public pool full of gross business talking sweaty men, then it's nice. Yeah, so this is what I'm recommending, which I know is not really fair because people, unless you live in Norway, actually,

but people can have access to saunas. Of course, and also there's a lot of, I get ads for like portable saunas. It's like you can put the sauna in. Oh, there you go. It's like a zip-up tent sauna. I get like inflatable ice baths and stuff like that. Yeah, because that is the key. I'm in that Joe Rogan hour.

I have not realized – I know this sounds really dumb because I have done like hot pools before where you go in the hot pool and then you jump. You're doing a plunge pool thing. And I always thought that seems terrible just like shocking your system with icy cold water and then jumping back in the hot pool. Lovely though. Yeah. Very good for you. So many health benefits. I'm not a doctor. They'll jump into a snow. Yeah but I get it now because what I did was my brother my littlest brother booked for my big brother well my bigger brother I'm the oldest but you know you get it. Got who got married. A private sauna thing that was on the fjord in Oslo.

So in Norway, Oslo is the main city and there's this huge kind of beautiful fjord, Black from Frozen, the musical slash movie, that runs into the city right next to where the opera house is and he booked this sauna. It's all wooden and beautiful and so it's a private scene. It's sitting with sweaty strangers, which I don't want to do. You're sitting with like your friends. Sitting with sweaty friends.

Yeah, exactly. But you're all just sitting there and there's a steam thing so it gets really hot and you add extra water onto the thing and it goes shh. Everyone's having beers. Yeah. And then you climb out and you're looking out this window that's looking out over the fjord.

Then you climb out, you get out of the sauna when you can't bear it anymore and then you jump on the actual fjord. You jump off the deck of this beautiful wooden deck of these little private rooms. There's lots of them that are like these little wooden huts on the fjord edges. This is so specific, this experience. I know. This is not how other people saw that.

I know. All I'm saying is though, that the, like, obviously not everyone could do that particular experience. It was incredible though, because I also was terrified of jumping in the fjord. It was dark. It was nighttime. And, and the fjord's like a giant, you know, it's a river. It's got all kind of like river from the ocean. It's got swans and all kinds of things on it. I was freaking out and I didn't want to do it and then I bloody did it and then it was the best thing ever and I've suddenly realized, A, two things, which people can do.

It is good sometimes to go outside your comfort zone and, two, the benefit of that kind of sweaty thing and then jumping in the ice cold water and then going back in and then doing it repeatedly. I've slept so well. Yeah, incredible. I felt so good. Like it just, it was just. And you got the freshness of it.

So you do it at a pool and you get into a chlorinated pool and then you're going back into a weird wedding room. Yeah, not so good. Yeah, exactly. Where business happens. Exactly. It just reminded me and I did feel sort of similarly when I got to do a mineral hot springs thing and they had these plunge,

icy plunge pools. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's the same. It's just there's something really calming about it and I just felt like this week, particularly in Australia, there's been a lot of things happening. A beloved comedian, Cal Wilson, passed away who I just, I didn't know her personally but so many in our community, the comedy community did. been a lot of things happening. A beloved comedian, Cal Wilson, passed away who I just,

I didn't know her personally but so many in our community, the comedy community did. Our community. Not our community. As in like so many people that we know knew her very well. But I always admired her enormously. She was just a joy barrel, sunshine. And she wrote kids' books. She had a beautiful son um she and she died very quickly

i think from a rare cancer yeah i think um yeah and pretty being pretty private about it but i think that's yeah but that seemed to be the thing and i just so my heart was just i was devastated i think as well because it made me think about mortality and how, as always happens, you realise how fragile everything is and you were living in like a construct of an idea that everything is not but it actually is. And also just she, through COVID, I loved her videos because she would make these ridiculous like rainbow sparkly hats and she got painted in one for like the Archibald Prize or something.

Right, right. And it won an award. Anyway, she was just this joy rainbow. So that made me sad. Then we had the yes campaign vote for First Nations voice in the parliament. Which I'd love to be like, I was surprised. Like I wasn't that surprised. I was hopeful, but I wasn't overly surprised.

And we have people who we know who like works really hard on that as well. I was surprised. Like I wasn't that surprised. I was hopeful but I wasn't overly surprised. So and it's just. And we have people who we know who like works really hard on that as well. Correct on that campaign and the answer was no. So if you don't live in Australia, I'm sure the news has travelled around because I think we're the only country now that had that kind of colonisation happen where we don't recognise our First Nations people adequately in the constitution. So that's depressing. Anyway.

Just go to Norway and have a cold plunge. And all the things that are happening globally in the world. It'll make you feel better. I know. So I know it doesn't make sense but I just think wherever you can get a bit of reprieve or some mental health stuff and it reminded me that like the cold plunge and a hot sauna, not obviously in Norway but just like even at your local pool, just something that like physically

you do that actually improves how you feel mentally. It's good for like endorphins and various body chemicals, et cetera, as well. I don't know which ones. It did help me sleep and I just thought if anyone's struggling with that. Yeah. Anyway. It's also good for exercise recovery.

Oh, there you go. Actually, the thing that my friend Marty does, which obviously this is like if you can't get to a local pool and you can't find a sauna or whatever, he has a hot shower and then he has a cold shower every morning. Yeah. And he swears by that. Yeah, but he also swears by not having kids. So, like, let's be real.

Marty's fitness and energy levels have nothing to do with his cold slash hot shower. Look, all I'm saying is that is true, actually. He's still got abs, Claire. He's 41. It doesn't make any sense. He has a room in New South full of Lego. He does, that's true.

I shouldn't be telling everyone that, but he does. He's a great guy. Yeah, he's such a great guy. He directed us in a horror film, just a little local one. So great. Which I hope never emerges. Oh, my God. I really hope it does one day because it's so good.

Your death scene is so good. Thank God I'm barely in it. Anyway, so, yeah, that's something I'd recommend for your mental health. Cool. All right, over to you. Well, I'm going to recommend a book that you gave to me quite a while ago and then recommended on this show. Ah, I see.

It's by Trent Dalton. It's called Love Stories. Are you familiar with this? I gave it to you. Yeah, I gave it to you. That's what I'm talking about. So Trent Dalton, you might know, he's an Australian. He still is, I guess, a journalist, and then he wrote a book,

his breakout novel was called Boy Swallows Universe, which I read a few years ago, which is an incredible novel, which is loosely also based on his life. So what he decided to do for this story was after the pandemic, he was gifted a typewriter from a woman that he knew who died and she was like, please do something special with this. And it was this beautifully maintained piece of equipment. Like he went to get it serviced and they were like, this is perfect.

This is absolutely fine. So he said, get it serviced and they were like, this is perfect. You know, this is absolutely fine. So he said, what I'm going to do with this, I'm going to get a little fold-out card table. I'm going to put it in the Brisbane CBD, which is the central business downtown. That's right? That's it. That's how you say it.

Well done. You managed it. And put up a sign that says something like love stories or I want to hear love stories or whatever. So just anybody who would want to walk past and stop and sit with him and just tell them. If they've got a love story, they tell a love story. And it's about, you know, it's people like couples who are talking

about being married for decades. It's about like young and new love. It's about heartbreak. It's got stories of like love between a parent and a child. It's about loss and grief and reunion. And it's just incredible. And if you're like, God, this is a boring one. I hate this one.

It's all short. Like it's all like short stories and little snippets. And he gives you kind of insights into the person he's talking to. And it's not just their story. It's like what's going on around him in the area. Like he talks about what he witnesses at different times of day in the central business downtown area. That's it, the downtown.

There's this time called, I think. Downtown. Downtown. It's not in the central business downtown area. That's it, the downtown. There's this time called, I think. Downtown. It talks about like the magic hour, which is, I think it's like just before lunch. So everything quietens down and whatever. And it's just like mostly this dead kind of area. And then you start to really notice and focus in on things and the quiet of it.

There's also like danger foot because, you know, you're's also like danger afoot because, you know, you're in the central business downtown area that, you know, there might be, you know, drug addicts or whatever. So there's an element of that. He's not really in any kind of danger. There's like happenstance, like coincidences that happen, people that he runs into that like he used to know and all these kinds of things.

It's really great. So I would recommend this book. I don't know if you've read it, Claire, but I would recommend it to you and anybody else who's just looking for a nice read. He also talks about like his life in relation to like his relationship with his wife and, you know, the people that he knew, you know, growing up and all these other things. And it's just a great author. And I should read whatever his other book is because he did another book called-

Voice Follows Universe. That's the one I mentioned. I read that one, but there's another one. It is All Our Shimmer Follows Universe. That's the one I mentioned. I read that one but there's another one. It is All Our Shimmering Skies. Yeah, which I haven't read. Have you read that one? I have started it. I found that it's very, the beginning of it, there's a,

I don't want to spoil it but it's heartbreaking. Oh, my God. And you know what? I was in my like looking after my head and heart over the last year and a bit and I couldn't keep going with it because it just broke my heart. So no good? No, I think it is actually really good. All right.

And it's beautifully written. And I do plan to go back to it, but it just broke my heart, the first two chapters. And I was like, Trent, why do you do it to me? I can't handle it. He's a real softy. Yeah, he's so sweet. And he talks about that a lot.

Yeah. I remember Annabelle Crabb said she interviewed him and the first thing he said was, here's Trent working out his bullshit again in a novel. You know, just like working through his stuff with everyone. No doubt. Yeah. But, yeah, he's a beautiful writer and seems like a really great person.

Yeah. And it's also a really beautiful book. Hey. It's a beautifully made book because you gave me the hardcover one. Yeah, I'm sure it's obviously about Kindle and presumably softcover and whatever, but, yeah, it's a really beautiful book. Yeah. Like even the texture of the cover.

Yeah, it's really lovely. It's red with the gold and then there's the pages as well. There's the pages of the book, that's right. But seeing the way he's typed it in the – He's got the title in the front all the things that you know all of that front to back front to back back to front no opening it left to right back to front no is it where is it japan and china where they read books in the opposite i don't know specifically but i know in japan i know this because i bought our son

some japanese transformers comics. They're bundled. They read backwards basically. Yeah. But I don't know anything and I refuse to learn. That is true. That is you, old Jimmy Clement. Don't want to know nothing. Don't tell me anything.

I don't want to hear about it. That's you. That's you for sure. I'll come to it on my own time and then I'll get it wrong. On your own dime. In the dangerous downtown. That's right. The central business downtown. That's right.

These are all linked below, by the way. I don't know how you'd link going to a plunge pool in Norway or whatever. Okay. Well, I actually have some other recommendations. Oh, okay. Colleen's already said this. Okay. What's your other thing?

All right. Okay. So, Visiting the Scream by Edmund Munch. Oh, my God. In the Oslo music. No, I'm joking. Right. I'm just going to say I went to the moon.

Let's just do flights of fancy. I'm sorry. That was really. It's also really awful if someone's been on like a European holiday and then they just like talk to you about all the things they've done. Everyone hates that. Everyone hates seeing a slideshow of other people's holidays. Worse if they've got pictures.

The good thing now is that you can put it on Instagram and you can ignore it there as opposed to you go to someone's house and like, do you want to see my trips and photos? Here's the thing. I actually feel like if their travel photos are in like a collection on Instagram and there's like five of them, that's fine. Oh, totally. Because it's like the highlight.

It's back when we had to look at people's photo albums or like slideshows from a digital camera and there's like a thousand and you're like sitting there, I guess your parents are putting them on the TV because it's a little thing. And also, and maybe it's just me, I don't care if you've taken like a photo of the Tower of Pisa, right? I fucking know what that looks like. I've even been there, not to brag.

That's why I always think you have to put yourself in photos. Yeah, you've got to be in theisa, right? I fucking know what that looks like. I've even been there, not to brag. That's why I always think you have to put yourself in photos. Yeah, you've got to be in the photos, right? Because otherwise no one cares. No one cares. I could Google a picture of that. It could be the background of my phone. It's not, but it could be. Correct, exactly.

So what I do want to recommend, I actually stole this recommendation. I went to see Chat 10 Looks 3, which is one of my favorite podcasts. This dog is really getting on my nose, Claire. What are you doing in here? Why? No. Smugging around. Just stop it.

Mason said if the dog puts its paw on you like that, it's a sign of disrespect. That's what makes, because the dog did that to him, climbed up on his chest. Oh. And he's like, that dog doesn't respect me. And I'm like, probably not, but why? Except for when podcast dog Ollie, when you're feeling blue, she will come up to you and she'll just put one paw on you and then she tilts her little head and looks at you and you go, thanks,

I know, life is a lot. She's got that look like I'll kill you. Life is a lot. No. No, she's getting old. Goodness me. She's getting old, man. She's 11 this year.

11, yeah. No, so I went to my favourite podcast. Thanks for getting that dog, by the way. It's going to die soon and I'll be sad. Thanks for that. Thanks for that, Claire. Oh. Yeah.

But she's given us so much joy. That's life. You can't not do things, James. Watch me. Just do what? Then you do nothing and you never feel anything. Yeah, I know. How cool is that?

You've got to try. You've got to try things. Anyway, she's the best. Anyway, after these dogs, no more dogs. Yeah, okay, no, definitely. But that's more zippy. I'm gone. Yeah, I'm gone dogless. But that's more zippy. I'm going, yeah. You just chewed everything we know, we own.

She's better now but I'm going dogless, mate. Yeah. I love dogs but I'm going dogless. Me too. Yeah. My goodness. Yeah. Imagine the freedom.

Imagine the quiet. Imagine the hairlessness as in not us though we might be bald by then but like the dogs, just like no dog hair. We're both bald. We're completely bald. Well, we'll be in our late 50s or something. Yeah, maybe. There you go.

My dad's not bald, so we'll see. No, my mom's not bald either. But going by the way this year is happening, I'm now going to be white by the end of the year. Wow. Whitehead. Come and join me. Please not.

Okay, so I went and saw my favourite podcast, Chat 10 Looks 3, Annabelle Crabb, Lee Sales. It was a really great live show and it's a great podcast to listen to for recommendations. At the end of the show, Lee Sales read this passage from Nick Cave. Oh, Nick Cave. And it reminded me again that he does this blog called The Red Hand Files.

Yeah. And people from all over the world write to him just any question. They say, Nick Cage, I loved you in the movie Face Off. Yes, that's what they say. They absolutely do. Nick Cage, I loved you in the movie Snake Eyes, but not the G.I. Joe spin-off prequel movie. I'm talking about the Snake Eyes movie.

Correct, exactly. So I'll just explain to you what The Red Hand Files is first before I read you one of the letters. So The Red Hand Files began in September of 2018 as a simple idea, a place where I would answer questions from my fans. This is Nick writing. Over the years, the Red Hand Files has burst the boundaries of its original concept to become a strange exercise

in communal vulnerability and transparency. Hundreds of letters come in each week asking an extraordinarily diverse array of questions from the playful to the profound, the deeply personal to the flat out nutty. I read them all and try my best to answer a question each week. The Red Hand Files has no moderator and it is not monetized and I am the only one who has access to the questions that sit patiently waiting to be answered. Thank you all for being a part of what has become, at least for me, a life-changing, soul-enriching exercise in commonality and togetherness.

I love Nick Caveman. Oh, my God. I love him too. He's lost two children. What's that? He's lost two children. He's lost two children. Two children.

Jesus Christ, I didn't know that. Yeah, yeah. He's an extraordinary musician but he's also an amazing human being. He had a song called, I think it was in the 90s, called Red Right Hand. I wonder if that's where it comes from. I assume it is. Yeah, I would say so. He hasn't said but I wonder if that's where it comes from. I assume it is. Yeah, I would say so.

He hasn't said but I would say that would be it. Yeah, beautiful musician and a really, really interesting person who's suffered a lot and has sort of led through that, which I think I just admire his art as well, that practice I think of using what has happened to him and his humanity to kind of shine a light for other people and pathways through really dark times. And you did that song with Kyla Minogue, which you might be like, that doesn't work, but it does.

It's actually a good song. Yeah, it's a really good song. I listened to that recently. I got recommended it because I was writing a murder ballad and someone recommended that. Oh, nice, yeah. That's a murder ballad. Maybe I recommended it to you.

Maybe you did. Anyway, I wanted to read this particular letter because I just think for this week and at this time, it's really poignant. Sure. This is the letter that Nick received from Elle in Germany. I'm 20, a high school graduate in my gap year, and I find it pointless to pursue anything in this bizarre and temporary world that is so much against my values in every possible way. I believe I am speaking for a generation here. I'm asking with the biggest admiration what you would do in my or our situation. And do you mind if I read his reply?

No, you've actually read this to me. So I know it. I haven't read it to you. No, you showed this to me the other day. Did I? 100%, yeah. But for everybody else, they probably weren't there. I did not.

I know this. Oh, my gosh. I don't have any memory of that. Did I really? Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Holy moly.

All right. Are you sure? 100%. I know about this. We had this conversation. Oh, wow. Okay. Well, here I go.

I'll read it to you. Seriously. Okay. Well, here I go. I'll read it to you. Seriously. Okay. Dear Elle, you are right in describing the world as bizarre and temporary. It is indeed a strange and deeply mysterious place, forever changing and remaking itself anew. But this is not a novel condition. Our world hasn't only recently become bizarre and temporary.

It has been so ever since inception inception and it will continue to be such until its end, mystifying and forever in a state of flux. The same can be said for our values. They too can be temporary and exist in a state of flux. If my experience is anything to go by, the values that you hold sacred now may change and be considerably different to those you hold dear in 10 years time and be almost unrecisable when compared to those you possess when you reach your latter years. You may also find that some of the values that you perceive now as incontestable truths will be looked at with suspicion, even contempt by the generation that come after you. A humbling realisation if ever there was one. In the past, for example, an older person giving

advice to someone younger was a trusted value for all, but in the present age it is sometimes viewed in a different light altogether. Still, Elle, you did ask, and so to the question. What you and your generation can do in order to live fulfilling lives in a bizarre and temporary world that does not share your values? Well, I would not suggest for a moment that you change those values because even though values evolve and grow, they are at any given time a crucial part of our nature and critical to the development of the world. My suggestion would be to instead look to two qualities that will improve your life immeasurably. The first is humility. Humility amounts to an understanding that the world is not divided into good and bad people, but rather it is made up of all manner of individuals,

each broken in their own way, each caught up in the common human struggle, and each having the capacity to do both terrible and beautiful things. If we truly comprehend and acknowledge that we are all imperfect creatures, we find that we become more tolerant and accepting of others' shortcomings and the world appears less dissonant, less isolating and less threatening. The other quality is curiosity. If we look with curiosity at people who do not share our values, they become interesting rather than threatening.

As I've grown older, I've learned that the world and the people in it are surprisingly interesting and that the more you look and listen, the more interesting they become. Cultivating a questioning mind of which conversation is the chief instrument enriches our relationship with the world. Having a conversation with someone I may disagree with is, I have come to find a great life embracing pleasure. L, my advice then is to try to make more use of humility and curiosity. These attributes have a softening effect on our sometimes inflexible and isolating value systems. They allow us to remain true to our temporary selves, but fluid and playful in our dealings with this strange and ever-changing world.

Love, Nick. You've read me some of that. I haven't read the whole thing. Yeah, I don't think I've read it to you. I'm sure you read an excerpt from it unless I imagined it. No, I think I just told you about it. Okay, maybe that was it. Yeah.

Anyway, that was amazing. What an amazing writer and artist and musician and, you know, even the stuff that this guy's done, right? He wrote the movie The Proposition. It's like a 2005 Western starring Guy Pearce. It's fucking incredible if you haven't seen it. Check it out. He also composes music for movies.

He did The Assassination of Jesse James, Hello Highwater, another Western. Well, these are all Westerns actually. But he also, you know that movie Blonde that came out? Apparently it's terrible, but I'm sure his work on it is quite good. Yeah, he's amazing, man. Incredible. He's a really, yeah, just an incredible human being.

He also wrote a sequel script to Gladiator, not the one that's coming out, the one where Russell Crowe's like a general through time and he keeps popping up in different wars and different eras. They never made that one. But, you know, that's neither here nor there. There you go. Yeah.

What a guy. Yeah, do you know what I find? Amanda Palmer, who is an artist and musician that I really admire, talks about him as one of her heroes. I just think what he must have been through over the last few years and to be able to turn that pain into that kind of reflection and art and a response, you know, emailing and responding to people in that way. Anyway, I just really admire him a lot.

Yeah. Really the depth of his humanness, I think, and capacity for compassion and love in a world that's been very cruel to him. Yeah. I really admire. Yeah, just what he's been able to give back is amazing. I could never and I wouldn't. I would choose not to.

Anyway. Yeah. We can wait for clean water solutions. Or we can engineer access to clean water. We can acknowledge Indigenous cultures. Or we can engineer access to clean water. We can acknowledge Indigenous cultures. Or we can learn from Indigenous voices. We can demand more from the earth. Or we can demand more from ourselves.

At York University, we work together to create positive change for a better tomorrow. Join us at yorku.ca slash write the future. Okay, cool. Well, I've got another thing I'm going to recommend. Cool. Get ready for it. Here we go. Poetry.

What? That's right. I'm on the poetry train. I know. I'm so proud of you. I finally clicked. It's clicked with me. I get it.

Not all of it, but I get it. I get how to, like, consume it and, like, absorb it. You all of it, but I get it. I get how to like consume it and like absorb it. You know what I mean? I just, something happened and I just kind of, yeah, I don't know. I think it's, I've been slowing down work a bit as well. Yeah. So anyway, if you don't know how to read poetry, it's basically, what I've found is you read it, you read the poem, and then you

just sit with it for a bit. You don't like burn through it. You think about what it means, what it means in relation to the author, to you, to people around you and all of those. This is, I mean, there's no right way to do it, I assume. And I've got, you know, the book that I've been reading, it's by young Pablo, who you got me onto. He's got a great Instagram account if you want to follow him and a number of books.

It's called Inward, which isn't his latest book. He has a new book that's out, which I'll get when the physical copy is out in a few weeks. But I just read like a little bit every night before bed instead of like going on my phone and browsing Reddit and being like, oh, God, why am I doing this? Just watching people like punch each other or whatever gets thrown up on me at Reddit.

It's really amazing. So, I mean, you've followed this guy for a while, right? people like punch each other or whatever gets thrown up on me and read it. It's really amazing. So, I mean, you've followed this guy for a while, right? But he has like poetry. He's a former addict and he's just been through so much and come through and he's just this beautiful poet where he talks about like healing and self-acceptance and addiction and letting go and all of these different things. And it's amazing.

And I actually have a couple here, if you don't mind, that I will read. Are they some that I've recommended? No. Have you spoke about this guy before on this? No, I haven't. Okay, cool. I really haven't. I'm sorry.

I shouldn't joke. There you go. Stop all the clocks. It's not the poem from Four Weddings and a Funeral. I do love that poem. Which I think is not a great movie. All right. Just between me and you.

I mean, Notting Hill is better. Let's be realistic. Oh, yeah, definitely. Okay. Okay. This one is called Nothing. These don't have names. So it is normal to feel down, tired, and emotionally exhausted

when you're going through a big transition, especially when you have to let go of something good for the chance at something better. Great changes are not meant to be easy. They arise to inspire your growth. And this one I like also. Second poem. Who even is this person? Don't even worry about it. It's after you've turned 40. Yeah, I think that's what happened. I'm like, oh my God, I'm going to die. Her rebirth was stunning. She lifted herself up from the depths of despair,

grasped her dreams, embedded them in her heart and walked forward into a future that only her will and vision could control. Brackets, revival. I don't like how he does that. Sometimes it would be like brackets, self-love at the end. It's like you don't need to do that. Just write the poem and leave the bit at the end. But, yeah, it's great.

It's really incredible. Yeah. Oh, I love that. I'm so proud of you that you're really into poetry. Thank you. I was just thinking about like what you've been through in your life and what you're doing with your music and it's just incredible. We should talk about the festival you've got coming up as well, by the way.

Oh, yeah, I should. Well, before we wrap this up. But, yeah, just really great. And, you know, the poem doesn't have to be gender specific. Just because it says her, you can maybe relate it to you. If you're not a her, you could be something else. And that's cool. That's what I think. That is cool. Anyway, what's your gig?

I'm really excited that I just can't explain to you how much excitement I have in my heart that you are into poetry. Get over it. I never thought this day would come. Do you know what else is great about poultry, which I think you've discovered too? Yeah, it's short. Yeah, it's short.

But it sticks with you. Yes. They're kind of like friends to me. And I don't know if you have found this, but I will find ones that I like and I'll just go back to them. I'll read them again. So there's actually a really great Instagram account that I've recommended before called Poultry's Not a Luxury. Yes, I follow that too.

Yeah, and I follow that one and they're all different and they just pop up and I read one a day. But you find different poets that way and it's interesting the ones that do really kind of hold your heart. Yeah. And there are some poems that I love that have been with me for years that I will always go back to. Stop All the Clocks, for example.

Correct, exactly. There's a beautiful poet who's very famous, Mary Oliver, who I sent an episode of Krista Tippett's podcast called On Being. I've also recommended this before on the show. Yeah. But that particular conversation, because Mary Oliver passed away, she had a really, really traumatic childhood. So much so that she can't stand being indoors. And she lived in a- I remember, I remember you talking about this actually.

Yeah, yeah. And so much of her poetry is set, I think it's in Cape Cod and she lives out in the wilderness. And she lived with not a lot of money so she was often foraging for food while she was writing her poetry. But living a life in that way, she has really great advice for writers in general about how to cultivate a practice to allow that kind of messaging to come through. She talks about how poems are closer to songs than they are to prose. Sure, yeah.

And they don't have to rhyme. No, yeah. And they don't have to rhyme. No, exactly. And also that poetry is really old and it's actually made to be shared. So it's an oral tradition before it was written down. Human beings have been doing it for thousands of years and often in groups. Yeah, well, most people weren't literate. Yeah, exactly. So like when I was in Exeter, I went to this amazing Mothers on the Mic event

where all of these women just got up to do like beat poetry that they'd written with their kids on their hips and it was like this indoor picnic and they were all just kind of clapping and sharing these poems that, you know, their community was responding to and listening to in real time and it wasn't necessarily to be published and it wasn't necessarily to go anywhere other than in their community. But yeah, poetry has that way of capturing something about what we're all going through in a very short kind of, I don't know. Yeah, I love it. So, so great. Anyway, gig. Yeah, gig.

Gig. So, gig. Okay, gig. Gig. Gig. Okay, gig. Gig. Gig. Right. So the gig. So I'm playing Seven Sisters. It's the first festival I've ever played. It's a women's only event. It's from the 24th to the 27th of November at Glenoroa in Victoria, which is torn Garung country. And it's three nights of wellbeing. So I'm playing on the Friday night at 8.15 in the Chai Tent and I'm super excited about it because I've never done an event like this before. So I'm really looking forward to it. It's going to be very cosy.

Candice McLeod actually who played with me in Yak and Dander is singing first and she's a really amazing singer too and songwriter. So I feel really, really privileged that I have been invited to come to sing. So it's just going to be an acoustic gig, which is really lovely. My friend Emily is coming. Your friend Emily.

Well, your old friend Emily, who is also my friend Emily, is coming to play with me, which is really special. She's a really amazing person. I'm going to be handing out some percussion. We're going to be doing some group singing. So that's really exciting. I'll be singing through not the whole album but some of the album. And then also, yeah, so on the 22nd of November,

I'm going to be doing a speech as part of Generation Women at Howler Bar. So I think it starts at 7 p.m. You can find tickets online. Collings will put a link below. Are tickets online yet? Not for that one yet. Okay. No, but you can find tickets online. Collings will put a link below. Are tickets online yet? Not for that one yet. No, but you can get tickets soon. So Generation Women is this amazing event that happens once a month on a Wednesday night at Howler in Brunswick. And they ask a woman from each generation to tell a story based on a theme.

And so it will be from women in their 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, sometimes even 80s. And watching on one night a woman from each generation kind of get up and speak and tell their story is so fascinating because the depth of the storytelling changes as they get older as well and the perspective is different. And you just get these incredible stories from women who are in all walks of life so they're not necessarily performers they're some some of them are some of them are writers

some of them are comedians and some of them are artists and singers and some um uh you know people who've worked in loads of different varieties of people who have the story or something yeah exactly yeah so mine's on a time of transition so So I haven't written it yet. I've got a couple of weeks to write it. So that's going to be on the 22nd of November at Howler Bar. And that's the gigs I've got at the moment. That's really cool, yeah. So, yeah, but watch this space. There's more coming next year, I think.

So, yeah, I am actually on the 2nd of February, I'm going to be playing a really small acoustic gig in Shepparton. Yeah, yeah, yeah. More details to come about that. But I've been invited to come and play. They're purely acoustic, that one. Cool. But I'm not sure the location.

So have a look over on my Instagram and on my website. I'll be updating over there with events. Before we wrap it up, it wouldn't be proper if I didn't watch an awful thing that you'd hate I know it was very confusing to me Poetry and Love Stories by Trent Dalton

I'm like who is this man I've been watching other things but then because we hadn't recorded in a while I went through

and I'm like I didn't write normally I write stuff down I haven't been writing down what I watched I'm like I can't remember what I've been doing

I've just been consuming media and forgetting what it is which is the best way to watch anything but I recently watched and I talked this about on my other podcast, which is more successful.

It's called The Weekly Planet. We just hit 500 episodes. You're welcome. It's called The Fall of the House of Usher, and it's by Mike Flanagan, who's a great horror director, writer. He did Midnight Mass, which I think is my favourite series. Slight spoiler on that. It's about a small island, like a fishing village,

and then these religious miracles start to happen and they're like, oh, my God, an angel has visited us. Yeah, I remember this one. And it turns out it's a fucking vampire. And some people are like, I don't think that's an angel. I think that's something else. They're like, no, it seems all right. It's probably fine.

It's amazing. It's really good. He also did the sequel to The Shining called Doctor Sleep with Ewan McGregor, which is also amazing. He's done a bunch of other stuff which people probably have heard of. He's adapted a bunch of Stephen King stuff and also done his own stuff including this. Anyway, so it's basically succession but there's like ghosts and murder

and gore and acid rave and all of these different kinds of things happening on it. So if you like the dynamic of a family, like an awful rich family, but then you want to see a bunch of them get murdered in weird supernatural ways. This might be the one for you. Wow, so it's like succession with murders. Yeah, exactly.

All right. I'm always, I don't love everything. Like he did a young teen kind of spooky thing recently, which I didn't love, but also it wasn't aimed at me, so I'm like this isn't for me, it's fine. But I'm always interested to know what he's doing because it's always, it's always interesting or it has been as of so far. So I really like his work.

But anyways, we should talk about, Claire, what is going on with this show, which we are doing, but maybe not doing next week. Yeah, but maybe not doing next week. Yeah. Yeah. So, well, we haven't been doing it for a while. So I have been taking a break, obviously, because I've been super exhausted and traveling. And I spent a lot of time, obviously, working on the music that I've been doing and it's been a huge

thing to kind of navigate and I just needed a break from everything and I'm trying to work out what I want to do next really yeah and and that's taking a bit of brain space. And we also really realised that in making this show, which we love doing, and we did it all through COVID. I still can't believe we did that. Believe it. Because I actually was looking for some reason. I popped onto my Twitter and I had put this feed up, this post up about at the very beginning of 2020,

it was six weeks before I was going to have our daughter, and I said in the tweet, I have just realised that in six weeks I will be having a baby by C-section during a global pandemic while raising a kindergarten kid and teaching them full-time and running the company all from home, healing from a caesarean. And I just read that line and I thought, God. That's a lot of things, isn't it? That is a lot of things. I had no idea it was going to be like, what, two, three years

of all of that. Huge. Anyway, so. It was a lot. It was a lot. But so we're trying to figure out how to actually watch them things together. Yeah, because that's the thing. Like often we'd go, we'd like separate and watch like different stuff or read different stuff and then we'd spend time like consuming media independently. Separately. And then we'd come together for 40 minutes to talk about something.

So we thought if we bring this back, which we probably will like sometime in the new year, then we'll both read something or we'll both watch something and we'll talk about it that way. Together. Which makes so much more sense. It does actually. But that way we can like we could still, you know, enjoy things, but also like spend time together.

That's the idea. Yeah. Yeah. Cause it's been, it has over time meant that, cause as parents, if there are parents listening, which I know there are, that little bit of window of time once the kids go to bed is like the only time that you often spend together. And because we've had to consume stuff to recommend to the other person. And then what happens as well is that we recommend stuff to each other

and we never get to watch it because once you've talked about it on the show, we think, oh, well, I can't watch that now because it's already been talked about. Yeah. So I think if we do bring it back hopefully in the new year, that's a way better approach. And, yeah, for me as well it's like it's an opportunity for us to like reconnect and like grow together and all of these things you know so yeah yeah exactly yeah because we've been working very separately as well like because you know you're touring and doing music and i'm podcasting and sleeping and we're both looking

after reading poetry now so yeah so we're like taking some trips together and some time together and all of that. And, yeah, we will be talking, just not recording most of it. Yeah, correct, exactly. And then we'll sort of look at the new year. I think I realised that over the last sort of time, like the last few years, and I was working really hard at kind of de-stressing and caring for my nervous system.

Yeah. But I still think there's, yeah, it's just thinking about the way that we approach our work again. I always feel like that as you get older and I'm 38 so I'm not that old. I bet I'll listen to this when I'm 60 and be like, oh, God, she knew nothing. But, you know, just the way like it's so interesting how just when you think you have everything figured out you don't. Yeah.

And you have to reassess how you do things yet again. And I guess I'm looking at this new career that I've kind of embarked on and realizing that I don't want to stretch myself too thin. I want to be able to be present with you and the kids and also do the thing I love, but not necessarily stretch myself to the point where I'm super exhausted. Yeah. And we've both been, you know, various times. It's probably an overshare, but really like involved, like really involved in our work. And it's kind of something we don't want to fall too much into.

There's obviously times when you have to, you know what I mean, when, you know, it's you've got to like. And you're building something. Yeah. Yeah, it's just trying to find that balance, isn't it? And I think as parents and particularly but anyone will relate to this too that it's this constant. Not our friend Marty who only builds Lego and gets abs.

You know, and wins awards for his cyber safety videos. Exactly, yeah, yeah. Yeah, like the pendulum kind of swings back and forth. Yeah, absolutely. And you have to kind of figure out what works best. So that's kind of where we're at. Hey, we're taking some. And I think part of it is in our culture that we live in,

this Western kind of culture, it's so much about productivity and it's so fast-paced and particularly where we live in Melbourne is this real drive to like constantly be working and constantly be bettering yourself and constantly be reading things and working and pushing and pushing and pushing. And the good thing about, the really lucky thing about where we are like in our lives and careers is we don't, we can choose to not do that some of the time,

you know. Yeah, exactly. Whereas if we were teachers, which we should be by all accounts, we got, you know, very, very fortunate, then that would, you know, we would be doing that, you know, that would be our lives, which isn't a bad thing. It just means that it would be different. Yeah. And I guess it's just even in whatever circumstance you're in, it's like trying to figure out the best way to still be able to different. Yeah. And I guess it's just even in whatever circumstance you're in,

it's like trying to figure out the best way to still be able to rest. Yeah. I was speaking about this with a friend who just came back from overseas and she was saying that because her family had taken some time to just decompress and to spend time together. So much of what we do with our kids and our family or just overall as a culture is just like more, more activities, more things, more things, more things and going and going and going.

And what I'm finding at the moment is like keeping up with all the messages and everything from friends. All the WhatsApp groups. Yeah, exactly. You've got to mute them. That's what I do. Yeah, I don't like them. I like to know what's going on.

I mean, you can still check them. Yeah, I know. But anyway, I just feel like anyway,'s Eve. I like to know what's going on. I mean, you can still check them. Yeah, I know. But anyway, I just feel like anyway, it'll be a nice bit of time this end of the year to figure out what 2024 looks like for us. Actually, maybe we should take this out going, because this is really just a conversation where we're planning out like what we're doing.

No, I think it's fine. It would be weird if we were like, we're not doing an episode for a while. Bye. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. That's true. And thanks for everyone for. Bye. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. That's true. And thanks for everyone for your messages. Oh, my God, so supportive.

And people like send messages like, we need you guys coming back and whatever. And I'm sorry that, you know, we're going to pause again for a little bit. It's been, we see the messages and we're sorry. I know, we're sorry. And I'm really grateful. And maybe you'll pop in the Weekly Planet more, I guess. We could even do that. Yeah, I would really love to do that.

Because I know Mason likes talking to you. I think he does as well. I'm pretty nice to talk to you. Well, the new Captain Marvel movie is coming out. Oh, good. So it's got to be about a girl. Now listen, and you're a woman. So this actually makes sense.

Oh, I see. Yes, good, good. And there's three Captain Marvels. So, you know, this time around. So there you go, extra woman in there. Got to get a woman in there to talk about the extra woman. I'm going to come in and talk about I want to watch a movie with you guys that I'm going to hate.

Okay. That's like some kind of horrible cars murdering macho bullshit and I want you to get me in. You know what we'd love to do? Because I don't want to do just like a token episode on the Little Mermaid even though I love the Little Mermaid. No. Totally.

Well, totally. Well, yeah. Not that I know anything about movies. Martin Scorsese has a new movie coming out called Killers of the Flower Moon and it's in the 1920s and it's about a Native American tribe, this is a true story, who are murdered after oil is found on their land and the FBI investigates. It goes for three hours and 24 minutes.

That sounds fucking terrible. No, no, no, no, no, no. I think it's got Brendan Fraser. I like him. It's got Leonardo DiCaprio famously stunted emotionally. Do you know I had a huge thing for George and Jungle? Yeah. I mean, obviously.

I mean, come on, man. I was obsessed with him for a while as a teenager. Like I had a really deep crush. This is, yeah, of course. I mean the hair, the abs, all of it. All of it. I get it, yeah. All of it.

I don't really know now because I did, I feel like a few years ago I went back to watch it because I was like, oh, I remember this. Yeah. And I watched it and I was like, oh, no. Really? Yeah. Because I went back because I'd never seen it and I watched it, I think it was when I was just finishing teaching.

I'm like, I don't know, we'll put on George of the Jungle. And I'm like, I always thought it was like a stupid thing. And it is stupid, but it's pretty funny. Like it's intentionally. No, no, I didn't mean like it's a funny movie. I was just like not into him at all. What's your era of Brendan Fraser's your favourite? I'll show you.

That era. Yeah? George of the Jungle. What was? All right. No, that's not true. You know what the best era of Brendan Fraser is I'll show you? The Mummy? The Mummy. George of the Jungle. What was? All right. No, that's not true. You know what the best era of Brendan Fraser is? I'll show you.

The Mummy? The Mummy. Yeah, true. That is true. Look at this. Yeah. Come on. I know.

I really was... Actually, I do remember that. I was really into him in The Mummy as well. Just beautiful. I loved it, yeah. Those movies, they ruined his body, like the surgeries that he's had and all of that, yeah. From the stunts he had to do. The stunts, yeah. Wow. Yeah's had and all of that, yeah. From the stunts he had to do.

The stunts, yeah. Wow. Yeah, pretty grim. I mean, yeah. Apparently like the nicest guy in Hollywood. That's really sad actually. But now he's had the resurgence so he's like doing big properties again. He's just really excited to be working.

Cool. All right. Well, so was it Martin Scorsese you said? Martin Scorsese, yeah. All right. And he doesn't just make gangster movies. I talked about this recently. I think you watched it maybe with me.

He did a movie called Silence which is about Christian priests who go to Japan to teach them about Jesus and they're just not having it and so they basically capture them and like torture them and try to get them to convert away from Christianity and denounce Jesus. It's based on a true story and it's about like faith and religion. It's got Adam Driver and one of the Spider-Men in it. You know how I feel about Adam Driver.

Yeah. Yeah. Love Adam Driver. I can't believe there was a time when I'm like, is this guy handsome? Of course he's handsome. Since he figured out how to brush his hair over his ears, he nailed that look.

Anyways, if you want to review this show, I'm going to read up through. It's Joseph Gordon-Leviting. Joseph Gordon-Leviting? Yeah. What do you mean? I mean him and Joseph Gordon-Levitt have both figured out their ears and they're both super hot now. You know?

They've figured out their ears. They've figured them out. What did Joseph Gordon-Levitt do to figure out his ears? Do you remember him in 10 Things I Hate About You? Yeah. It was just a taxi with his doors open. Yeah. Like that guy said to you when you were a kid.

He did. I never forgot. Yeah. That's it. Yeah. And then he somehow from that movie where he was like stupidly and gorgeously in love as like a nerdy kid. Yeah.

And he was very much a kid in that. Like he just suddenly became incredibly hot. He just blossomed. He blossomed. He bloomed. That's right. He did. How did he do it?

Figured his ears out. Figured his ears out. Anyways, if you want to reach the show, you can with email if you've got one or you might not today. It's okay if you don't. Do you not? Oh, whoopsies. Oh, I do have emails.

I do get emails. Yeah, yeah. Okay. So you can review the show. You can do it in app. This one, I'm going to read three. This one's from Peach Dick who says, sick show. What? Yeah. Peach Dick? Yeah. Wowza. D-I-K. I love how James is grumpy. It reminds me of myself. I also like Claire. 10 out of five. There you go. Thank you. This one's some super fun film time. He says, I love susceptible pod. A very good pod with two very good hosts. It's like yin and yang.

One is cheerier and one makes the world bright and one is James. Not this week. And this one is from Anthetomantium. Oh, these names this week. Great chemistry. They say, I wonder what their secret is. Great question. Poetry.

Yeah, it's just poetry straight up. It says poetry. This episode is too long. We never do episodes this long. I know. It's outrageous. My gosh, my gosh. All right.

I have got a heartfelt monster movie rec from Xavier in Sydney. Do it. Hey, Claire and James. My name's Xavier and I love the podcast and I've been listening to the show for years. I love hearing the two of you banter and talk about shows, movies and books and I would never have heard of it if it wasn't for the show.

So I thought I'd suggest a movie that you two and fellow listeners might not be familiar with. Let's go. Recently a cinema near me was having a deal where certain film tickets could be purchased at $6 and I thought for $6 I'll watch anything. That's a bargain. I know. That's what they used to be when I worked at the movies which was like 30 years ago.

Yeah. Yeah. When you were nine. So go on. 30 years ago. Yeah. Yeah. When you were nine.

So go on. And the cinema just so happened to be playing the new, at least in Australia, movie Shin Ultraman. If you're unfamiliar, James frantically Googles. If you're unfamiliar with Ultraman or what Shin means, Ultraman is a tokusatsu, a live action film or television program that can make heavy use of practical special effects. Yeah, man. It's a Japanese superhero kaiju, I'd say, franchise that started in the 60s.

It's basically a franchise where giant monsters attack Japan and humans and aliens have to fight said monsters by growing the size of skyscrapers to fight them. Yeah, man. It's a fun franchise that usually caters to a kid's audience and the movie acts as a reboot of the original show in the 60s, retelling the most popular stories and episodes in a film format.

If the term Shin seems familiar to James, it's because this is the second movie in a disconnected trilogy similar to the Cornetto trilogy, the first being Shin Godzilla and the latest being Shin Kamen Rider. Yeah, apparently that one wasn't as good. Shin in Japanese meaning true or definitive, as all three movies are standalone films. Man, this looks freaking sick as hell, man. I'm looking at this.

I'm loving it. It really doesn't sound like my thing. But, yeah, it sounds like your thing. Oh, my God, Ultraman, look at him go. He's so big. Yeah, so they're standalone films of the franchises that go back to what made the original films and shows special, all three movies being in some way worked on by the creator

of the popular anime manga series Evangelion. Hideaki Anno. It's Evangelion, but yes, go on. Oh, sorry. I've really butchered that name. That's so embarrassing. Anyway, already this is all very different from the usual recommendations on the pod.

Japanese action movies aren't usually everyone's cup of tea, but I think there is an exception with Shin Ultraman. God, look at this guy. He's so big. Show me. Show me the picture. No, I was watching the video of him. Oh, okay.

Oh, no. I can't be bothered. No, just quickly. Look how freaking sick this guy is. Look at him. Watch, he's going to grow out. He's going to be like, look. What?

What is happening? Oh, God. Yeah, that's him. He's huge. Yeah, he's big. He's a big guy. Yeah, yeah. Is he a robot? No, he's a man, probably. Oh, God. Yeah, that's him. He's huge. Yeah, he's big. He's a big guy. Yeah, yeah. Is he a robot?

No, he's a man probably. Oh, God. I kind of hate that. I hate that. Thanks for the letter. I hate that. All right. Yeah, so thank you so much, Xavier.

Yes, thank you so much. But thank you also to Collings who edits this every week. Also, Collings, just thank us for having one less podcast thing for you to edit as well. You're welcome. No problem. Not a big deal. I'm happy to do it. Thank you also to Maisie who's been on all the socials and been keeping this thing alive. I know, the poor, long-suffering Maisie. I know. Yeah, we really appreciate that. And again, and I appreciate you, Claire, for doing the show with me. And I appreciate the listener, all the listeners, lovely listeners.

They are really awesome. Again, we get the least worst listeners. The worst comments are on YouTube and they filter through the podcast and then to here. So it's all those, you know, by the time it gets here, it's all nice people. I know. As I've said to you multiple times and you always say, no, it's not true, but it is true. We have the best listeners.

Cream of the crop. It might just be true, Claire, but I'll never tell. Yeah, so if you want to write to us, you still can write at suggestivepod.gmail.com. Yeah, we'll still check them out. I will be checking that inbox and we'll let you know about future episodes and what's happening. Cool.

Yeah, thank you as always to Royal Collings too. What a legend. I got to meet him in person. You did? The first time in that quite. Very jealous. So many years. I can't, seven years?

Did he talk about me? We certainly did. Did he talk about me? We certainly did. Did he talk about me specifically? He did. Okay, good. Can't remember what he said. Oh, come on. But it was so, he's just the nicest person.

What was so fun and great about it, Collings, and this is just, it's just so great because poor Collings has to deal with me not knowing my login passwords all the time. I've not been good with admin, not replying to emails and then replying all of a sudden and then suddenly wanting a thing done in like two days because my brain is just a nightmare yep um you recently discovered one of my journals and was like whoa yeah it's just like what is this it's all all over the show even like dated it's completely out of order even if you read it in order there's like recent stuff written at the start and like older stuff

halfway through the book and then I like go back. I just find blank. I just open it to a blank page and start writing. It's just a nightmare. It's just a – anyway. So Paul Collings has to deal with that woman on a regular basis and it was funny in person because I didn't have anyone to sell the tickets at the door or check people off the door list because the venue had said

they'd have some when they didn't. And so Collings just came in backstage and was like, would you like me to do this? Or maybe I asked him to do the door list but he came in. He probably knew. He probably sensed it. He came in with my laptop and was like, this is so funny, we're doing this in person.

Can I have your password? And I couldn't remember it. And then he's like, it's okay, we'll figure it out. And then we like both had to figure this thing out. And it was just the funniest thing because we always do it online and we had to do it in person. And he was just as amazing and lovely in person. We are very, very lucky with this community.

Congratulations on 500 episodes. Thank you so much. And 10 years. That's right. 10 years of all of this stuff. 10 years. Very, very impressive. We didn't use a podcasting.

I did the YouTube for longer than that, but not a big deal. Don't even worry about it. I love that you celebrated by writing 500 in pen on an A4 page. It would have been weird if we did anything else, I feel. You could have literally packed out a big show and done a big extravaganza and it would have been awesome. Yeah, but I didn't. But I didn't even think of suggesting because I knew you didn't want to.

Never. No. I should do some more live shows. I didn't. But I didn't even think of suggesting because I knew you didn't want to. Never. No. I should do some more live shows. I do enjoy them when I actually do them. But just the thought of the organisation. You hate doing them. It stresses me out. I hate.

You love live performance. I love it. I can do it. I can do it because. You're really good at it. My performance is performance. It's not a performance. It's just talking.

But I can do it because I was a teacher. So I good at it. My performance is performance. It's not a performance. It's just talking. But I can do it because, like, I was a teacher. So I can do it. But I don't get, like, the buzz that you get. No, in fact, you just get exhausted. Yeah, afterwards I get off and I'm like, oh. The lead up is not worth it. I've just stopped even suggesting it because the lead up, you get so mad and you just complain and complain and complain and complain.

And then everyone's so nice. And everyone is so nice to you and you have this lovely time. But the lead up is just not worth it. It's really bizarre because no one cares about this. We should stop. But nobody knows who I am. Obviously not. Of course they wouldn't, right?

I live in the suburbs and I'm just a guy, right? Yeah. Which is true. And then I go into a room where literally every person knows who I am and has listened to like extensively. It's like it's really bizarre. Like, yeah. The world is a very strange, bizarre place.

In a nice way, let me just say that. But, yeah. Yeah, it is. Because there's like really, really lovely people that listen. And so, but, yeah, but you don't really, I just feel like you find it stressful. Yeah. But I should also say when I'm doing it – I just feel like you find it stressful. Yeah. But I should also say when I'm doing it, I'm fine. Like I feel fine.

Yeah. Yeah. And when I'm talking to people, I feel fine. And you really like meeting people. Yeah, I do. I really do, yeah. Whenever people come up and say hi, I'm like – it always catches me off guard because I just never expect it.

If someone's looking at me, I'm like, what is this? What's happening? Yeah, yeah. It is interesting though, isn't it? Because we really have to finish. But what I find interesting too is sometimes we've thought of the idea of just having like a catch-up with fans of the show because I feel like you would probably prefer that to like being on stage.

Probably, yeah. But I don't know, how would we even like do that? Yeah, exactly. It would be like six of you can come. First six. I don't know. Who knows? Anyway, as always, thank you so much to everyone for listening to the show

and hopefully pop in and be around the traps. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. All right. All right. See you later. Bye. Bye.

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