THE ADAM BUXTON PODCAST - EP.148 - TONY LAW

Episode Date: February 14, 2021

Adam enjoys a rambling conversation with Canadian comedian Tony Law.Thanks to Séamus Murphy-Mitchell and Owen Donovan for production support and to Anneka Myson for additional editing. Podcast artwork by Helen GreenRELATED LINKS TONY LAW'S VIRTUE CHAMBER ECHO BRAVO AND THE TONEZONE (TWITCH TV)TONY LAW TAUNTS THE PEOPLE OF THE FUTURE - 2006 (YOUTUBE)SUPPORT TONY ON KO-FIKo-Fi is a bit like Patreon - it's a web platform that enables people to take donations from people who enjoy their work that help to cover the cost of whatever they happen to be putting out into the world.TONY LAW WEBSITETHE GENIUS OF SYNECHDOCHE NEW YORK - 2014 (YOUTUBE)THE ALEXEI SAYLE PODCAST - 2021 (FACEBOOK)ALEXEI SAYLE'S LOCKDOWN BIKE RIDE 4: HAMPSTEAD TO KING'S CROSS - 2020 (YOUTUBE)DAVID BYRNE ON BIKING IN NY - 2009 (YOUTUBE) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I added one more podcast to the giant podcast bin Now you have plucked 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 Buxton, I'm a man I want you to enjoy this, that's the plan. Hey, how are you doing, podcats? Adam Buxton here.

Listen to this. I'm still crunching through snow, and it is really bitter out here tonight. I would normally be out walking the fields here in East Anglia with my dog friend Rosie, as you know. But dog is not well at the moment. For the last week, she's been off her food and just very melancholy, or, to be more accurate, melon-whip-it-poodle.

What? And anyway, she's feeling sorry for herself, poor old dog. She's been to the vet a few times, and the vet says, well, there's nothing serious wrong. It might possibly be a reaction to some pills she took, and I don't know. But, yeah, it's been a bit depressing having the emotional anchor of Castle Buckles laid low. Anyway, we're having more tests done. I'll let you know how she does as soon as I can. On the upside for Rosie,

the fact that we've been fussing over her a little bit more than usual has meant that she's been allowed to sleep in our bedroom with me and my wife. Last night I woke up to find her licking my face and panting above me. It was quite alarming. Rosie was still fast asleep. I was talking about my wife, not Rosie. All right, now let me tell you a bit about podcast number 148, which features a rambling conversation with Canadian comic Tony Law. Tony facts. Tony grew up on a farm in Alberta, western Canada,

between the foothills of the Rocky Mountains to the west and the flatter Alberta prairie to the east. He moved to the UK as a 19-year-old at the end of the 80s to pursue his comedy dreams. In 1995, Tony won the New Act competition at that year's Glastonbury Festival, and by the start of the new millennium, he was becoming an established

face on the London comedy circuit, with shows that were characterised by, and I'm paraphrasing from Wikipedia now, his highly surreal material and delivery, as well as his eclectic historical style of dress, favouring boots with turned up jeans jeans. That's historical dress. And a Viking-slash-explorer style of hair. Many of his stand-up routines are ad-libbed and often built around fictional and surreal situations. I first met Tony in the mid-2000s when he was one of a group of comedians who would regularly perform shows together at the old Ealing Studios in West London.

Soon after, in 2005, 2006, I started a comedy club night at the Zeta Hotel in Clerkenwell. a hotel in Clerkenwell and I would show some of the videos that I was posting on my YouTube channel in those days and try out other bits and pieces of character comedy and my character Pavel and my character Famous Guy and I would invite other comedian friends to come along and do bits and pieces too and recently when I was going through my videotape archives, I found a recording from one of those club nights from 2006 that included a set from Tony in which at one point he read out a letter that he'd written to the people of the future, dear stupid people of the future, in which he was taunting them about having to live with the effects of man-made climate change. And I was reminded that it is really a brilliant and very funny, albeit grimly funny,

satire of climate change denial and complacency, but it's just an excellent bit as an idea and the way it's executed. And with Tony's permission, I uploaded it to my YouTube channel today. If you want to see it, link in the description. In 2012, Tony's live show, Maximum Nonsense, was nominated for the Best Comedy Show Award at the Edinburgh Festival that year. And thereafter, a string of awards for his live shows followed, in addition to his appearances on TV shows like Have I Got News For You,

Never Mind the Buzzcocks, 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown, and Stuart Lee's Comedy Vehicle. Since the start of COVID times, Tony has been broadcasting regularly on twitch a streaming platform that a lot of comedians have been using to fool around and try out bits and pieces while comedy clubs remain closed it's like live youtube for a while tony would be joined virtually by fellow comedian phil nickel for improvised streams of nonsense on Twitch, crudely green-screened over random images and GoPro-style footage. But recently, Tony has been hosting the show solo

and rebranded as The Tone Zone. It was called Virtue Chamber Echo Bravo before. Now it's The Tone Zone. So that's just Tony with more of the same sort of improvised stream of consciousness stuff, but with the odd guest as well. I'm hoping to enter the Tone Zone myself

at some point. Whoa, listen to the crunch on this snow. I could sell that to a sound effects library. My conversation with Tony that you're about to hear was recorded remotely a few days before his 51st birthday in September of last year, 2020. And it was very good to see Tony again. Hadn't seen him for a while. Talking to me from the recording booth that he has made himself inside a cramped cupboard in the North London flat where he lives with his wife Storm,

their children and their dog Wolfie. The recording booth cupboard is where Tony also broadcasts his shows for Twitch and, as you will hear, records the odd audio book. There doesn't seem to be a great deal of room for manoeuvre in the cupboard so every now and again you can hear in our conversation Tony accidentally bumping his mic stand as well as the occasional sound of his children in the background and Wolfie the dog.

Despite frequent flashes of the silly, absurd version of Tony that fans of his comedy will be familiar with, he was also up for sharing a more thoughtful, self-deprecating side. And we talked about a lot of stuff that I'd never really spoken to him about before, including his upbringing on the farm in Western Canada, his formative comedy and other cultural influences, and good times and bad times with alcohol, and the process of transitioning into a life of sobriety, which he did back in 2015.

We also talked about the phase that I was going through last September, of being immersed in the strange world of Charlie Kaufman, the American writer-director, via his novel Antkind, and in particular his film Synecdoche, New York, which he wrote and directed, which in the wake of my mum's death last June and a lot of rumination about mortality, was taking up a lot more emotional and philosophical real estate

than was probably healthy. Sorry, this is a long intro. back at the end with a couple of recommendations for you but right now let's tune the vat and have a ramble chat put on your conversation coat and find your talking hat

yeah yeah yeah la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la Let's see here. Hey. How's it going?

Good, man. How are you? Yeah, not too bad. I'm in my closet studio yeah you are i love it in here i did a an audio book 20 000 leagues below the sea and i was i loved it so much i thought this is gonna go good and this is gonna be what i do now and uh didn't hear back so much i tried to i wanted to make it kind of surreal and you spend most of the book describing sort of how they described nature in the 1900s like loads of the words have changed now you couldn't even find how to pronounce some of them the boctilioxis uh and all of that but i wanted to make it like um i did that kind of comedy voice that we do i did that voice right there throughout the book and i thought well that'll add a bit of

that presumably that's why they got me you know and i'll make it a bit silly and i made ahab i made him no then you know and uh i remember talking to the hey did you really yeah and i was i thought well this is the sort of stuff they're after from the tone zone that's why they got me in and uh and i was talking to morrison the my tech guy slash direct producer and he went yeah i think so and i did such a good job explaining why i thought that was cool that he just went yeah that's awesome i think that's great that's probably why they go but then it dawned on us after we'd recorded for about 18 or 20 hours he went hang on is there anywhere in the book where we find out where he's from

because imagine he's literally from the south of france but no we don't find out and i have a backstory for him and all that you know it's a surreal plotting stodgy book so you gotta play you gotta make it somehow fun it's really dull is it yeah it's quite a dull book well i was happy to have it. I'll read anything. Did you used to read Jules Verne when you were little? No. I just remember the film, actually. Yeah.

The Disney one. Yeah. And the ride. I remember going on the ride. Oh, yeah. Yeah. In Disneyland in California or Florida? We went to the Florida one.

Yeah, man. That was incredible. We took the kids to Euro Disney a few years ago, and they sort of replicate all those rides, and it's so dated. Yeah. Nostalgia fuels us, but the kids are looking around going, this is all shit, isn't it? Did you like Disneyland? How old were you when you first went to Disneyland, when you went on that 20,000 Leagues ride? Eight.

Oh, perfect, perfect. So did it seem amazing and magical to you, the whole place? Yeah, it seemed pretty, everything was amazing, yeah. And I wasn't old enough to go on Space Mountain yet. Oh, yeah. That left me thinking, wow, there's more? We're farm people. I grew up on a farm, so it was the first time I ever got lost from my parents. I hadn't seen them for hours, but I didn't care because, you know, I was eight. I was like having a great time. But I'd lost them for a couple hours and it was dark. So I just took myself off to the Hall of Presidents and just sat in there. And that's where my brother found me.

He said, oh, I figured you'd be in here. What was it like me and my sister used to i should say that we were lucky enough to go to disneyland many times when we were young because my dad was a travel journalist and he loved america and he would take us to the states with him and we would always end our trips around the states by going to California, which was where my aunt and uncle lived. And so we'd go to Disneyland and it was just, we absolutely loved it. It was like being in a film, you know, this was in, in the seventies when life in the UK was just impenetrably gray and boring and everything shut down on Sundays. And it was just so turgid and dull. And as far as I was concerned, the most wonderful thing you could be was American.

I mean, for a young person listening now, they might think, what? Oh, yeah. Back in those days, English people loved America. America was just great. And Americans were so cool and funny. And it was like permanent sunshine. And the way they spoke was so it was like being in a movie you know and so me and my sister were obsessed with disneyland and we had a poster a

big map of the whole park and we put it up on our bedroom wall at home and we'd go through and we would study each ride they were all numbered and listed at the bottom of the poster and we'd tick all the ones that we'd been on and we'd circle the ones that we wanted to go on but the one that we never ever even thought about looking at was the hall of presidents what was the hall of presidents yeah that's how they get out their propaganda i guess you go sit in there and one president animatronic president gets an animatronic president gets up and he does one of the speeches he's famous for. And then another one gets up.

It's all capped off with a rousing speech from Abe Lincoln. Okay. But they didn't go with the Daniel Day-Lewis. You know, he made them real high-pitched. Yeah. No, they went with the deep one. Four score.

Yeah, I just loved all that. I was into history back then. I used to watch cartoons before school. It was probably the same in England. We had two channels. And every morning at about 6 a.m., Professor Kitzel came on. That was about time travel. And then the next cartoon was Max the the 2 000 year old mouse so that just

hooked me in right from early doors it sounds like we're just making up tv shows and we had no books in our house like none except for we had the 1967 encyclopedia britannica collection a through z we had them all we even had some extras on there so i used to pull those 1967 Encyclopedia Britannica collection. A through Z. We had them all. We even had some extras on there. So I used to pull those out because I like the smell of them. And I'd get them out, smell them for a while, and then just dive in. So I have a pretty good knowledge of history right up to 1967 that I've carried with me.

I mean, I've changed a few views since then. But yeah, so that was what I was into. And then when I went to the Hall of Presidents, that was my kind of place. As my brother finally clicked, oh, yeah, he'll be in there doing all the talking book stuff or no, that's that's uncharitable. Is that your older brother? That's second oldest. That's Blaine. My brothers are Brett and Blaine. And my little sister is Rebecca. Brett, Blaine, Becky. And Tony.

And Tony. Or Hollywood, as my brother used to call me. Did any of them become performers? No, not at all. So my brother, he took over the farm. He's a farmer. I know you didn't really ask what my whole family did, and I've just gone straight into it. No, I was going to.

I've always wanted to know about like... You and I have known each other a long time. I know, but we always end up having stupid conversations. And I just wanted to... I mean, stupid and enjoyable, but I... You do banter. Exactly. But I've always wanted to know what your childhood was like and where you grew up and because you

refer to it obliquely now and then, and it always seems very romantic. And yeah, I romanticize, I mean, I was very lucky to grow up on a farm, but we, we had to work a lot. They put you to work. So I did like physical labor and this isn't complaining I used to complain about it but you know so we used to have to do hard work from the age of eight you know feeding pigs and feeding cattle and castrating pigs and hauling grain and picking rocks all that stuff which I hated yeah man and the only thing it's ever done is it's just knocked the whole work ethic out of me just destroyed it as a child I worked so hard as a child I just saw I can't it's not for me this I quite fear physical labor now right you know that's why I prefer to go on stage do some talking read an audio book I could do that 30 hours a day this is out in rural alberta you said

alberta yeah so after school all the family chats are always like every brother thinks the other brother had it easy oh you didn't uh you know because everyone's view is oh tony because i i had long hair once when i was young what was i about 18 20 something like that i had long hair once when I was young. What was I, about 18, 20? Something like that. I had long hair. And my brother said, Oh, Fabio. He used to call me Fabio.

Fabio is so tired. Are you tired, Fabio? Fabio needs to go lie down. He's so tired from being in Hollywood. That's my brother's fist day. Even now, and I'm 50 years old, and I'll take my wife and my two 10-year-old kids and we'll go visit my brother, and he'll go, Hollywood, he's so tired. Yeah, Hollywood doesn't like to go do the work.

He's too tired. He has modeling in the morning. Fuck you, Brett. I referred to Fabio the other day and was met with a blank stare because he was a big deal, wasn't he? Remind us who Fabio was when we were growing up. I don't remember him very much purposely, but he was a model. Oh, I think he modeled with kittens or something, or puppies or something. He did some sort of famous ad campaign.

Back when ad campaigns were fueled by cocaine and the Scott brothers. It was probably a Ridley Scott campaign where he was lying under a lion or something. And he was a square-jawed, blonde, sort of European guy. Yes, well, he himself was very leonine and had, as you say, big square jaw and long golden locks and was absolutely buff. His name was Fabio Lanzoni. I'm now looking at Wikipedia. Oh, so he was an Italian bloke. Yeah, Italian-American, actor, fashion model and spokesman, although it doesn't say for what.

I think I'm right in saying used to appear on the cover of a lot of romantic fiction. Oh, yeah. is for these paintings of men with rippling muscles, with shirts either wide open or falling off, and hair cascading over their shoulders and women swooning in their arms. Black and white photos. Yeah, back when sexuality and things like that were more straightforward. We were, you know, just trying to figure it out at that time.

Do you have fond memories of your childhood and your adolescence in Canada? Yeah, I think so. I think I was pretty, that's all I knew. So, yeah. But, you know, I couldn't wait to get out of there too because it's a very conservative-y place. There was no idea of university or anything like that. So like all of that part of the world I'd learnt after I'd already left. So you were either going to be

another farmer. So I worked at Fletcher's Fine Foods at the abattoir. I was working there. And that was horrible. I didn't like butchering hogs. And then I... Oh, were you actually, were you in charge of the execution devices? Well, no, but I was, no, I was down the line from that. Okay. But I used to go down and see the guy on the killing floor. I don't think they allow that nowadays, but this dude, back then, that was all he did. Now I think they rotate the guy who does the killing.

He had been working there 17 years, killing up to 3,000 pigs a day. Oh, man. Yeah, that's got to do something to your psychology, isn't it? You would think. Anyway, you get the idea. So if you're not going to go on to be another farmer or, you know, you've got something you really need to do, there's nothing. And you only start realizing that when you get to 16 or 17. And then you don't really know what it is because you don't know what there is. It's like, there's no internet to go, Oh, fuck. Did you see what they're doing over there? But, um, yeah. So, and the history was what kind of got me to look around. So I thought I'm going gonna go over to the uk and i'm gonna see some actual history go look at some actual old stuff i had no interest in going to like the east coast of

north america i wanted to go over to europe man right yeah so and that's why i came over was it as simple as you having been inspired by your encyclopedia Britannica? Or was it something you'd seen on TV or in a movie? No, I think it was the cartoons. Oh, do you know what? Well, I forgot a really significant episode was at 15 when the Landmark girls had a big party. So sometimes someone on their farm would have a party and um the house would be off limits to everyone and they make all the kids go out in the pasture or wherever and they had a huge party with loads of kids over and i was um you know the usual awkward kind of and i i wasn't sure about

alcohol yet i was 15 and then i but you could go into the house if you needed just to have some quiet time or whatever. And they go, we got a movie on for you kids over in the den. You know, you go in there and you can have some Coke and some chips and you can watch a movie. So I went in there and there's only like two other kids. It was the Holy Grail was on. I'd never seen it before. I was 15. I'd made it to.

And I watched it all the way through with my mouth just wide open because i just thought holy shit and i was always like funny class clowny you know loved comedy between us but i'd never seen anything like that and there there it was it was history and it was comedy and it was like couldn't even like it really did fundamentally change me so we watched it right straight away again and the second time I watched it I laughed like I've never laughed that hard since it was so hard and it was so deep it was like a howl I can't over emphasize how it touched me it was like thunder I couldn't believe it you know the night when the knights are on top of the castle and all that i was crying and and begging them to pause it and

you know the other kids in there were loving it too but they kept looking over at me it was just i'd never seen anything like it and that just confirmed everything i needed to know it's like i couldn't believe it. So funny. Yeah, so you thought, I'm going to go to where they made this. Yes. I had that Anglophile thing of British music, you know? Right. What were you listening to?

You know, listening to old stuff. So stuff at least 15 years behind me. All the English stuff. It had to be English. So I started off with the Stones, and then I moved my way up through the Kinks, and then I had a Led Zeppelin phase, where all I listened to was Led Zeppelin. And then The Who was what really took me. I'm one of these morons, where if I get obsessed with one thing, it has to be just that one thing.

So I only listened to The Who for about a year. That's it. I wouldn't talk about anything else. It was just The Who. And then I wanted to make myself cultured. I didn't know how you do that. But I figured if I listened to Mozart enough, something would change in me. And then I saw Amadeus and that blew me away.

So I listened to nothing but Mozart for six solid months. And even today I can pretty much recognize anything by Mozart wherever I am at when it comes on. So I don't know a single thing about anything else, any other classical music, but I know Mozart. So I'm a Mozart guy, a Who guy, and a Monty Python guy. What's your go-to Mozart then? I would say... That sounds like the theme to a daytime TV quiz. Yeah, it's like on the opening bars of the film where Amadeus and Solieres falls. He's cut his throat okay i really fell in love with pastries in that movie i was bringing lovely pastry this one's called nipples

of venus it's very naughty yeah it's very beautiful all those scenes and all the costumes and the art design and um it's it's wonderful oh i went to prague was one of the first places i went to early doors and that was yeah that's where it's all filmed isn't it right i've never been to prague i'd love to go but i watched the movie the other day with my daughter because i thought well she's precociously intelligent if i say so myself she loves reading books and she's fairly open-minded so i said let's watch uh amadeus how old is she she is 11 she's going to be 12 uh next month but um lynn manuel miranda is her guy you know she loves um hamilton and okay Hamilton. Okay. All those kinds of things. But I thought, well, if she likes that,

then maybe she'll be impressed in a similar way by Amadeus and the spectacle of it and the costumes and everything. And I had a residual memory of it being terrific, you know, and it is good, but it's very long. Every scene, the delivery of each line and the pace of the editing is so much slower in any movie like pre-2000. So she was fidgeting a little bit, but she made it right the way through. I just checked on Google. Bless her.

That is hardcore if she did that, man. It is three hours. Oh, it is? Okay. And I forgot the last hour is pretty much all Obama. Like, it's his gradual slide into disease and death and humiliation. You know, it just feels like 2 hour 40 to me, because I like it so much. But yeah, it's three.

It's three if you're watching with an 11-year-old. I'm on a Charlie Kaufman jag at the moment because I'm reading his debut novel called Antkind. I'm actually listening to the audiobook and it's, you know, 25 hours long or something. He's also got a film out called I'm Thinking of Ending It on Netflix. Oh.

Hello, fact-checking centre here. The film is actually called i'm thinking of ending things and it's an adaptation of a horror novel i think but do you like charlie kaufman stuff like basically listening to the book and thinking about him more reminded me of how much i liked being john malkovich and how much i disliked Synecdoche, New York. And I went back and I started gingerly kind of reading around the film and looking at analyses of that film on YouTube because it's a very odd, surreal, absurdist piece of work.

Yeah, I don't remember it. Oh, man. Philip Seymour Hoffman is a theatre director. Apologies if I'm getting this wrong. This is just from vague memory. I haven't seen it since it came out. I think it came out around 2006 or thereabouts.

2008, actually. And he's a theatre director. He's in an unhappy marriage to a character played by Catherine Keener. And he's obsessed with his health. He's a hypochondriac. He's very depressive. He becomes obsessed with the idea of authenticity in his art.

reality of life and the horror of being locked into this path to death is to create a version of his own life and the city of New York in a huge hangar that he hires, like on the suburbs of New York. And so they build this replica of all the buildings that he associates with his life. And he hires actors to play everybody in his own life and an actor to play him. And so it's all kind of crazy and meta and mind bending. And time is elastic and weird things are happening in the background. And, you know, a woman goes to look around a house that she wants to buy. a woman goes to look around a house that she wants to buy and her and the real estate agent are wandering around, ignoring the fact that there is a fire in the corner of the house. It's just burning and there's smoke billowing around, but they're not mentioning it. She's

just sort of going in over here is the, uh, is the sitting room and it's nice. Is it the window facing out there? You can see you've got a lot of room here and you can decorate how you want. And meanwhile, there's a fire in the corner. Is there something about the fire? Yeah, so they don't mention the fire and it's all an allegory for how that's what life is, according to Charlie Kaufman,

or at least according to the Philip Seymour Hoffman character. You know, you might buy a house and that's probably the house you're going to die in. You know what I mean? Like all the evidence of the end of your life and all the factors that will contribute to the end of your life are probably already with you one way or another. But the business of life is to ignore them all and to distract yourself from them either by watching movies or whatever it is and some people have the type of personality which enables them to keep distracting themselves and enjoy themselves and not dwell on the inevitable but other people like the philip seymour hoffman character can't help themselves. They end up obsessing about it and dwelling on it and

making art about it. And it overtakes them. And then suddenly, before they know it, their time has run out. And that's it. And so it's really unsettling, especially for someone at my stage in life. I think I've spent far too much time not thinking about life at all uh-huh maybe uh scared that i might start obsessing about it yeah yeah at this age is a funny old age yeah man it's because my kids are getting older so they're 11 now twins and and it's just thinking i haven't amounted to anything it's not that it's like i haven't given them an example of, you know, it's all of that. You just worry about like five years ago. I just thought, you know, I'm doing what I'm doing.

If this works, it works. If it pays off, it pays off. You know, we're getting by paying the bills like and didn't care about, you know, status. You know, I'm doing my gigs. And it's only like when when they go to other kids houses especially primary school in in Islington it's like there's loads of middle class people who have their kids in state school but as soon as it gets to secondary they're gone you don't see them again because they've saved up or whatever and so and then when you go my son's now in this state school around the corner

and uh so it's different now now it's just us so in one way now at state school and meeting the other parents and just saying oh well we're all this is great this is where we belong do you know what i mean whereas before there was always so much like oh god they're going to that house and they're gonna they're gonna think but they don't they genuinely don't care they know they live in a tiny flat i mean i'm sure at some point they'll go god we grew up in a small flat but when they're little they it's cool because every uh their friends think it's really neat because it's central um but you can't help yourself so all the things i probably should have spent my whole life thinking about have just come on in the last few years and also like i stopped drinking four years

ago so that's another thing that's the first time i've done any like actual thinking and so yeah and then you hit 50 and uh and so cynic doki and is all, it's here isn't it and then all of our people that shouldn't be dead are dead all of that started with Bowie didn't it it did it did, yeah, my dad popped off a few

weeks before so I had a preview in a way and then it all started biting, that sense of some sort of midlife crisis. Not just for me, but for the rest of the world, it seemed. But forgive me if this sounds hokey and insincere, but I don't mean it to be. But the thing your children will remember is not your status. They'll remember their relationship with you and how they felt about you and how you felt about them.

Oh, yeah, yeah. And I know that, but it doesn't stop you from thinking, God, I'm a loser. I think probably everyone thinks they're a loser, but sometimes you feel like more of one than normal. What is it that makes you feel like a loser in those moments? I don't know. Is it just comparing yourself to other people? For me, it's awards season. Poverty, I think.

What were you saying? It's what? I was giving a glib answer while you were giving a... Did you say awards season? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, back when I used to watch TV, it used to be like anyone I didn't rate who was on TV, that used to trigger me. But then I turned a corner and I thought, God, I'm turning into a really good guy because I started feeling like, oh, good for them.

They really deserve that. Yeah, I can see why. You know, I think they're great. Then I thought, yeah, I'm awesome. No. So it was, I don't know just uh stuff you know should be doing better you said poverty and presumably you meant like when you struggle yeah you're like everyone you know you struggle for rent and and uh struggle to get by and that's mainly covid's brought that home you know because you're a comedian you can't work so there's no live gigs that's my main thing and then i got i don't want to turn it into a wine fest i'm just everyone goes through it and everyone's having the same thing and you you ignore that and you you're pretty buoyant and everything's pretty cool it's just every once in a while when your kid looks at you they're probably

looking at you just tired but if you're weak like me, you allow your to go, Oh, I wish I could be more for you. And you know, you catch yourself in time and remind yourself it's about the relationships. And that's such a relief. So what I can give him is I can go to school with him every morning. And even if he wants me to sit behind him, he still likes me to come. So I can sit on the bus and you know,, be all cool like we don't know each other sometimes. So that those are things you'll remember forever. Yeah. So I started out whining and then I think I pulled it back by being grateful. I think so. Every morning, every day I like to cook myself an egg I like to boil the egg or scramble the egg

Or maybe poach the egg But then I read a website on eggs It said that I was eating babies Oh no I felt so bad when I looked at the egg But when I ate the egg it was still nice I can't leave this YouTube comment hanging because it's...

Well, you can tell me whether you think this is useful, a useful bit of philosophy from a YouTuber. This is a comment from someone called JJ. And as I said, I saw this beneath an analysis of the film Synecdoche, New York. And I'll post a link to this video in the description of this podcast if you're interested. this video in the description of this podcast if you're interested but jj says and there's lots of people in the comments sort of talking about the film and saying how much they love it but most people agree it's quite a bummer like it's it's a massive it's pretty depressing really it's a fairly bleak analysis of of what it is to be human uh not everyone thinks that anyway. But JJ says, my personal philosophy of life is evolving as I grow. But I think my purpose is to develop meaningful relationships with kind

people, gain mastery over something so I can contribute to the world. Actually, I should say, because maybe people, because I'm reading out this YouTube comment, they might think that this is a ridiculous or funny comment. This is not like a ridiculous comment. I'm reading this sort of sincerely because I'm really waiting for someone to go fucking idiot. No, this is just a nice comment. Okay. Yeah. And he says, my personal philosophy of life is evolving as I grow. But I think my purpose is to develop meaningful relationships with kind people, gain mastery over something so I can contribute to the world, regulate negative emotions, and intentionally try to cultivate positive emotions,

and try to be present and appreciative of the finite existence I have. It's important to embrace the melancholy of how sometimes life doesn't make sense. And, once those feelings are felt, attempting to find a positive spin to the meaning of things, whether it's celebrating beauty or the joy of human connection. And I just thought, yeah, man, that's the best YouTube comment I've read. That's amazing. He's really ticked all the boxes there. He sussed it. Maybe he copied it out of the book.

That's all the stuff you should want to try and do. Yeah. I mean, actually being able to do those things is another story. That's good enough to cut out and put on my screen and have a little look at it. Because I like how it's written in my kind of language. That was great. You don't see that every day. Certainly not on YouTube. You have seen them all, haven't you? I'm still not tough enough, not strong enough to look at comments. You know, I walk around with my eyes kind of just squinting,

just not really checking my peripheral vision too, too much. Don't want to see what's going on over there too much, you know. Comments about you, you mean? Yeah, me and also something i really like yeah i don't necessarily wanna no i generally avoid stuff that's about me you know i i don't mind reading stuff if it's funny or if i'm going to be able to use it in a show or something like that but i don't seek out reviews and things like that i generally avoid those things. Someone on our stream the other day came on and started watching it and said,

these guys are dickheads. And even that made me think, oh God, but actually I thought about it today and yeah, we are actually. So they've nailed it. That could have been positive. These guys are dickheads. You know, as far as dickheads goes,

these guys are it. That's good. It's such a shame that that's the base level of interaction that people just always feel compelled oh i mean and that's gentle in in this world of course it is pretty savage it's like a walk in the park yeah you didn't get a death threat no one threatened to kill your family or anything like that you got off light you think to yourself, God, I'm going to go out and find that guy

and we'll deal with that. We'll see how they... And then it'll be just like a guy, you know, with... It'll be an 11-year-old. In a wheelchair. Yeah. Someone having a tough, tough old time. Right. There you go. Exactly. It's either an 11-year-old who's bored or

as you say, it's someone who's kind of unable to leave the house. Yeah. Had a really tough time of it. Yeah. The internet. Wow. Do you ever pine for pre-internet days? I mean, there's no point. You'd be insane if you did. But do you ever think back and think about how different things were and how it feels like, wow, things were a lot simpler i change all the time actually sometimes i think god i feel lucky to have been from those times yeah from the olden times i feel like it gives us an insight onto things but then you know you meet people who are like not really affected by it all that much you know those those those people, they're rare, aren't they? But there's these incredible people who are like busy. They go from cello to the woods on the weekend. And,

you know, I know some people like this and they're good, good people. They're kind, connected people. They're so kind and nice. I feel intimidated around them, but I know that I need to be around good people are these people who are younger than you are you talking about a younger generation well no the whole family right from mom and dad right down so the kids are friends with their child and so they they invited us to go with them to the woods and and before we went i was thinking i hope they don't find out i'm an asshole because i can be a prick and i'm rude and i go like i've still got loads of of farmer in me like you know just quite happy to not talk or you know like or just go

quiet or be grumpy or be on edge or you know i just got loads of back ass backwardness to me so but when you're with these good kind people is that goes away because you're just kind of going you're like your best 17 year old self or whenever life was pretty good you're like that and you're just like do you guys want to go and fire some arrows off yeah and you've got lots of energy and things like i know that's true isn't i was thinking about that the other day that i've just been at home, really, since March. And so even though I am frequently, my spirits are frequently lifted by members of my family, at the same time, there are a lot of moments where I just am so overwhelmed by the predictability of the routine that, you know i i just forget to cheer up and be grateful i've quite liked that everybody else has been in that's my favorite part of lockdown is that

everybody was in because there for a while there for a while i was spending too much time on my own so i go and do my gigs come back then the daytime i take the dog to the woods spending most of my time in the woods and then a couple hours with the kids at bedtime. And now I think everybody's spent an awful lot of time on their own and in. And it's an attractive life, isn't it, to switch off? Well, on the one hand, it is nice to keep things simple and to spend time with your family. to keep things simple and to spend time with your family but obviously on the other hand it is hard to um i'm just going to trot out another cliche about the whole pandemic situation that really doesn't need repeating come on now fire it out i want to hear it i love it i love it give us uh

what do you got to say about the on the one hand the one hand, you're spending much more time with your family, you're keeping things simple, reminding yourself of what's really important, stripping away a lot of the distraction and the pointless competition and the anxiety over status, indeed, that characterises so much of the modern world. But on the other hand, there is a real anxiety underlying all of this. There's a pandemic that is affecting millions of people in all sorts of terrible ways. It's not going, I'm saying this in a silly voice as if I am minimizing these things. I love that voice.

It's just that, it's just that obviously, you know, that's a point of view that has been expressed before. That's my second favorite of your voices. What's the best voice? Over there. Oh, yeah, well, that guy, he was inspired by you. That was... I know, I know, that's what I tell people. That's my big claim. I was going, oh, you're like Adam Buxton in his podcast.

You know, one of his voices is me, you know. I did a, to explain to the listeners, I did a character called famous guy and he was and it was inspired by watching russell crowe doing interviews and uh talking about his band 30 odd foot of grunts and he would get very upset if people didn't take the project seriously because it would be like it's not just me and this band there's four guys in 30 odd foot of grunts and they're all equally important and then he would say my character would say he just it was all about like how much he'd been paid i'm doing a new movie it's out next week and i got paid 10 million dollars and a million dollars and uh i love that you did that great

little thing where you'd click your fingers and then oh yeah that's right you try and get my energy yes exactly yeah it was a lot of very, you know, pointing, you know, and looking at people in the audience and going, what about that? I'm important. Do you understand it? And that's right. Do you understand it? Yeah, that's right. I love that guy. That was fun, man. And that was entirely because I started hanging out with you and some of the other people from Ealing Live. Yeah, Ealing Live. And remember, Miranda was there. Miranda Hart.

Yeah, she was one of the guys. Was she? Yeah. So this was in 2004 or something that I think I met you? Yeah, yeah. Miranda was, because I did it 2003, 2004. So she was on one of those years. Maybe it was 2003.

But I remember, yeah, everyone was so good. Katie Brand. Were you there when Katie Brand was there? Yeah, it was Katie Brand and James Backman, who went off to do a lot of stuff with Mitchell & Webb and then went off to America. And Lucy Montgomery and Alice Lowe. Oh, yeah, Alice and...

Steve Oram and Tom Meaton. Oram and Meaton, yeah. Gareth Tunley. And the big tall guy. He's married to Lucy Porter. Oh, yes. Justin Edwards. Justin Edwards, when he dressed up like...

So Katie Brand would come out as Charlotte Church and go, fuck you. Is it David? Fuck you, David. I'm the voice of an angel. And so he was that original voice of an angel. What's he called? Yes, I'm walking in the air.

That guy. Yeah, that one. And he looked just crazy because he's so big and he had the hair done. What was his name? I've forgotten. Alec Jones. Alec Jones. I'm the voice of an've forgotten. Alec Jones. Alec Jones. I'm the voice of an angel now, Alec Jones.

Oh, right. No more way, Charlotte Church. But in Welsh accents. That was a funny sketch. And then Katie Brown used to do lots of famous people, didn't she? And she would do Kate Winslet going on about how ordinary she was and how much like everybody else she was. And she would come out with wellies on and a skirt.

She would have the back of her skirt tucked into her pants and there'd be shit all over her pants. She was really good. That was so fun. I love doing that. So great. Yeah, and it was fun. That's where I met you. And I remember talking to you before a show because I kind of decided at that point that I needed to do some live stuff because me and Joe weren't really working together all that much on TV.

And I thought, shit, I've got to reinvent myself. Joe was off doing his film stuff with Edgar. And I thought, well, maybe I can try doing some live stand-up because I'd never done it before. And that felt like, oh, you know, you're not really a proper comedian unless you've paid your dues on the live circuit. But there was no way I was going to get up and tell jokes with just a microphone. So I thought, well, maybe I can do characters.

So I ended up being able to hang around with you guys a little bit and uh it was really fun oh we had a laugh my favorite thing that i'm trying to do and i always it's such a fine balance is i like i'm really interested in the idea of someone who is is like a failure so when you go to a gig someone who's like who's not made it is interesting to me when i do a gig in newcastle and my small amount of fans come and you do a joke about how you fucked this up and you did that people really dig that but it's such a fine line before feeling sorry for yourself or whining but there is if you can get it right you can show some stupid decisions because we all make so many stupid decisions you know like you can go watch Russell Howard and that's that'd be great

I'm sure but Russell Howard's like sharp on it makes good choices you know that's not my sort of thing if I go to a gig I want to see, you know, this was right in front of me. And then I did this. And you're going, oh, you fucking idiot. Holy shit. I love it. Now I feel so much better about how much of a tool I am. That's the nirvana. That's the sweet spot.

Yeah, man. That's exactly right. I was talking to someone else about this recently because I had a book out earlier this year. And I got quite a few messages from people. And one of the messages I got was sort of telling me off for being down on myself, you know, for telling stories about times that I'd fucked up on panel shows or whatever. And they were saying, listen, man, you've got nothing to complain about. Get over yourself. You know, you should be more positive. And they were trying, they were

saying it in a nice way and an encouraging way, but that's not helpful to me. No, I just sort of thought, well, you've misunderstood where I'm coming from a little bit. I don't feel sorry for myself in that way. No, I like hearing that when people do, you know, I love that. I just go, God, I'm not the only moron. So do I. And I'm attracted to those people. Yeah. But hey, man, you know, you are there with your beautiful family. It's so nice to see your daughter. She looks charming. And you are now four years sober.

Do you think of yourself as someone who is sober? Or do you think, well, I just stopped drinking? Do you know what I mean? Mostly, I just don't think about it at all. Like, I do all the things you're probably not supposed to do. Do you know what? I never think or hadn't thought much about drinking because I had to, you know, I made the whole switch. Like, can't spend any time thinking about that.

That's over. And it was only just recently, actually, I started listening to the Pogues. And then I just started following, you know, old Shane and just reading everything I could and following his life. And, and you'd think most people would watch that and go, um, wow, that is sad. Like, look what alcohol has done to him. But I didn't, I just thought, man, he's gone the whole way. He's not given up he's run with it he's been the true irish imagine the amount of times that kind of crazy drunkness he's had on his own where he's seeing stuff and so i was romanticizing yeah a horrific thing yeah yeah that made me go i could start drinking again you know once the family's all off on their own and they're

i think it was really funny when I was drinking. Yeah, so I wasn't thinking of all of that. It was the first time I've done that. I haven't told my wife I had those thoughts. No. She'd be really cross. I didn't see very much of you in your boozy days. I mean, you know, we were all boozing a little bit when we used to hang out back in the Ealing days.

But were you sort of going off the rails? Did you have a wake-up call at some moment and just think, oh, shit, I've got to rein it in? Yeah, I think it was around 2012, 13, I started drinking a lot. I think around 2013, I did a thing that I think happens to quite a lot of people is I started seeing some success on the horizon and it looked like there was some really good things about to happen. And if you don't treat the underneath kind of hatred of yourself, you sabotage, don't you? You think you don't deserve that. You're a fraud, you know, that kind of stuff. And so I just drink more and more and more. Yeah.

So it was a bit like that. And then it just snowballed really quickly to about 2015. Because I remember you were on Nevermind the Buzzcocks with Noel and you were all sort of dressed up like pirates and stuff. So were you? Yeah, that was still the sweet spot. Because there's always a time when you're drinking, you're just getting everything right because it isn't all bad you know there's like if you look at old footage of of the who for example before keith moon got fat and really sad there was a time when they were hammered all the time and they were quite funny and they still played really well live so there was a time and then all that sort of stuff, those TV things started to dry up real fast.

And at the time, it was like, just thinking, it's fucking politics, man. It's bullshit. At no point thinking maybe you were a little too sloppy when you went into the TV studios and everybody saw you. Yeah. But, you know, that's pretty fun. Yeah. I think I remember Stuart goldsmith's podcast i think you went on there and you were in edinburgh and you clearly were absolutely smashed and i was thinking

like wow he's gone for it because i'm always really i've never got absolutely hammered doing a show i don't think but i've definitely had times where I've thought, oh, yeah, this will be funny. And it's, I'll be more relaxed, and it'll be good. And then I've seen it back. And it wasn't good. And also, I'm just aware that my, you know, I find it hard enough to get my brain moving at the best of times. I know that I have to save all that for afterwards. Yeah, I had forgotten how sort of antisocial I really was. So when I was 14, 15, everyone says they're shy, but I had that kind of autistic kind of level of, you know, inside my own head kind of. So alcohol was the thing that made me go, oh, right. You could just get rid of that.

It was a useful tool. Was the process of just quitting fairly straightforward or was that traumatic for you? You could just get rid of that. It was a useful tool. Was the process of just quitting fairly straightforward or was that traumatic for you? Well, I started doing, you never know who listens to the podcast, but I had a phase where I did the, you know, the stuff that keeps you awake. You know, it was big in the 90s. Pro Plus. Yeah, yeah, that stuff. The Pro Plus from Columbia. know it was big in the 90s pro plus yeah yeah that's the pro plus from columbia but i never did it in that way like hey i'm cool let's do this at a party i did it secretly and i used that to

sober me up you know do you ever see denzel washington in that movie where he's a pilot yes and he's absolutely bollocks but he's got a fly and the only thing that can give him is that so i had a short period where i was doing all of that right and so you know then the family says like we're out of here this is there's me thinking i'm keeping it from my family but you know even if i was doing my business on my own away you come home all hungover and tired anyway so i realized i was gonna lose all that so i stopped everything all at once and i know that they recommend that people don't do that that you slowly come off things but it's like i i'm not gonna be allowed back ever if i do that kind of they'll just think it's bullshit so yes i stopped bam like that and that was yeah that

was horrible that was about six months of like well you know when you see uh homeless guys and they're talking to themselves so i was i'd had that much going on that i was kind of there and then when you come off of it you start talking to yourself and you hear it yeah it's like lots of paranoia and why does the cia always make it into the most mundane people's you know like yes it makes it into loads of people's stories. You just think there's someone out there following you. Yeah, sure. And you've got to put a name on it.

So you just always pick the CIA. Did you spend a lot of time on YouTube investigating conspiracy theories in those days? No, not at all. I stayed well away from the Internet. Well, that's probably just as well. I couldn't concentrate long enough. Yeah. But I think a lot of people who recover from things do do that, don't they? That's they fill it with something. Yeah, sure. I remember you saying after you stopped boozing that you were very fond of ice cream. You'd become incredibly. Oh, yeah. oh yeah yeah first i got super fat and and

i shaved off my beard and left sideburns so it's fat with sideburns and long hair there's a guy there's a guy who's giving up and my wife i remember my wife saying you're gonna look at photographs of yourself from this time and you're gonna wish that you hadn't been like this and i'm going well i was just being myself man and uh yeah i look back and i think holy shit you'd really given up oh man at least i was sober i mean that's the that's the part they never show people when they're giving up is hey look it's all good you give up it's gonna be great look at the transformation in tony in this photo he's skinny sure he looks a bit tired actually my face looked

a lot younger just fatter and younger and sadder you look very well now i must say you look oh i'm really happy to not be uh down the Shane McGowan handle. Yeah, I'm glad too. But I can see in him the thirst. Like, I get the thirst he's got. Yeah, yeah. He's being driven by all sorts of things. It's the booze that's the trauma in the end.

You're drinking because you're drinking. Yeah. That's when the layer, the loop comes in. Yeah. Drinking because you're drinking. When you talk about hanging out with people who are making all the right decisions and stuff, well, it seems to me that you're doing a good job. Yeah, you get intimidated by people just for being good people. But then, you know, it's like that's the ultimate in being a real childish, just not strong person.

To be intimidated by really kind good people who are who make good decisions you know yeah and there's a part of you just well yeah but but there's no yeah but they're just really nice so you're faced with going oh god oh geez yeah but i bet you yeah i'm sorry but i'm giving you a yeah but um yeah but i bet you that even those up-tempo positive people have moments where they're in a philosophical hole oh for sure yeah that's the thing isn't it it's always the big mistake humans always make isn't it is that no empathy for others like everyone's got it better everyone's got it good they don't know what it's like but actually everyone everyone knows what it's like

wi-fi be moving so slow it's taking ages for pages to load it was like this when the engineer came he said it was fixed but now it's the same i'm taking a photo with my tea To put on my Instagram Some people like to see the tea of another man People be tripping our tea Pick it, y'all, she brewing a nice picket

But I can't upload Cause my Wi-Fi's too slow Come on Come on I had an experience going to see you in Edinburgh. When would it have been? 2014, 2013, somewhere. Was there puppets in it? There was planets hanging up. Ah, somewhere. Was there puppets in it? There was planets hanging up.

Ah, yeah. You were talking about James Gandolfini dying. Oh, yeah, and I had laser fingers. Lasers coming out of my fingers when I first went on stage, I think. Yes, if that sounds right. Owl, owl puppet. Yeah, who's that? Is that Wolfie? Yeah, that's Wolfie barking at... Oh, see you, my love.

Love you. Yeah, Storm's going on a walkabout. What kind of dog is Wolfie? He's a German Shepherd. Wolfie! He's a big black German. He was the last drunk decision I made. So the paranoia actually had a phase before I'd quit everything. So there was a point where I'd sort of started drinking again. And I was like,

I need a dog to protect me. But I didn't have enough money to get a fully trained German shepherd that could actually protect me. So like an idiot, I got a puppy german this vulnerability i felt has suddenly gone up a bit because now i have this little creature i've got to look after too like such a fucking dumb decision so now when i would go out i would feel threatened personally and worried for the dogs it made me oh god going to the woods is a nightmare. I was so scared. And, you know, like I was creating such a mess for me. Wolfie comes from that time. Yeah.

So, yes, 2013 is when James Gandolfini died. So he died in the summer of that year. So I think I would have seen you towards the end of August doing your Edinburgh show. And you were talking about how his death had affected you. because you were a big fan right yeah yeah because I remember over Christmas this is long before kids when Storm and I watched the whole box set together and we hadn't spoken to anybody else for probably a week the first thing we did do it when we went to a restaurant is we hadn't heard each other speak for quite a few days and the first thing i ordered was yeah i'm gonna have a steak and a scotch that's what i

literally asked for and then we just pissed ourselves anyway i don't know why i brought that in it's nothing to do with nothing but yeah couldn't couldn't talk like nothing else for a while yeah oh man a friend of mine the other day was complaining that there's no good tv anymore especially this year because uh it's all just repeats and bloody covid times and uh it's all just lockdown tv and zoom shows and uh people are so kind like trying to help comedians by putting on these zoom shows like loads of people you know they're gonna lose money but they want to pay you some money that's so sweet you know like the stand comedy club is finding ways to give you a little bit of money and there's just people like that

and then you know that the comedy clubs are doing shit as well like what a crazy thing zoom and zoom they're tough to do so i i try and just get my face right up and then make fun of us doing zoom and you're trying to connect with people looking down the lens aren't you it's hard to do isn't it because you've got to remember to look into the camera rather than just at the image of the person you're talking to and the minute you do that you're being fake, which is stand-up's enemy. Yeah, that's true, isn't it? And so you have to address that going,

I'm being fake now, so it's tougher for you to empathize. But now I'm not looking at you, but I'm being real. There's all of that going on. Yeah. Well, you mentioned the Stand Comedy Club, and that's where I saw you in Edinburgh. And I came in late for your show, or at least with only a

couple of minutes to spare before it started. And the only seat in the place, and it's a very small venue, was right in front of you. Oh, I remember that now. And when I say right in front of you, it's like, yes, there's barely even a stage. Yeah, that, like six inches. Right. So you're over there. You've got the microphone. The chairs are half a meter away from you. And, you know, they've packed as many chairs as they can. Literally, you could reach out and touch the people in the front row. Just to the audience, you're saying, come on, there's still a couple of seats left here, right in front, right in front.

So I was looking around going, I can't go and sit there. And then I thought, yeah, fuck it, i can't go and sit there and then i thought yeah fuck it i'll just go and sit there so i went and sat down because i thought it'd be funny you know it'd be nice to see tony and i hadn't said hello to you yet and i was looking forward to seeing you afterwards and having a drink and stuff and then as soon as i sat down i just thought oh no this is a stupid thing to do isn't it this is not what you're supposed to do i love that decision i just suddenly realized like oh you're not supposed to do this with stand-up comedy because he knows me i know him and now i'm going to completely throw him off but it was too late to move by that time i didn't know

what to do and i just spent the whole show trying to decide whether you were really fucked off with me or no that must have been painfully long i should have made you feel relaxed about it right away i should have given you some eye winks or or i should have made some fun of it i couldn't have been in in too good of a flow because you got to say something about it. Yeah. I mean, I think you did, you acknowledged me and you did smile at me, but at the same time you were in, you were doing your show, even though it's not all scripted and you come in and out of bits. If you want to,

you can say anything you want. It's not like a theater performance, but you were in a zone and to suddenly start chatting to me would have taken you out of it. Well, some of my non-jokes need so much selling that, you know, you really need to concentrate and get every word right for it to go. Oh, yeah. OK, that could work. Yeah. You've got to really dig deep for my material. Oh, man. It was it was such um relief afterwards to find that you weren't furious with me oh god that's that's great i i actually don't mind where anyone sits now i used

to be all like that you know well you know what it's like when you get older you stop having all these little things like these worries it's ah yeah ah, yeah, all right. Yeah, you're going to go on first and so-and-so's going to close. Great. Get to go home sooner. Like, whereas in your younger, you're like, I've got to go on last and all of that kind of crap. Nothing better for me than doing a gig to, I don't know, going to Aldershot and 70 people or whatever. Or going to Newcastle, playing to however many, driving there on your own, listening to your podcasts, getting informed, learning about stuff,

maybe stop halfway and do a FaceTime with your family because you've got to exercise your voice going, oh, okay, I feel connected. That's's fine then you get up there you do the you meet up with the sound guy and i guess i love that level of friendship as well someone you see once a year or twice tops where the you don't have to get too close to how you really feel about anything i love that yeah i could do that all day long it's very it's like farmers I don't think I've ever heard my dad ever have a a deep conversation with anyone in my life it feels I was telling the kids about uh when they visited Canada's going oh I remember me and dad we'd take haul grain into town 25 minutes there haul the grain 25 minutes back and we never talked the whole time we just and I was saying it like it was something I was proud of, and we kind of,

just, we just knew. And, but they all just stopped talking and look at each other and go, that's actually really sad, Dad. Oh, it's great. We didn't need to talk. We knew what each other was. And you start thinking, oh yeah, maybe, yeah, okay. That is quite sad, actually. I don't know. I'm conflicted. Maybe you and I are similar in that way, too, because my dad, he wasn't exactly taciturn. But yeah, there was no deep conversations right the way through up until the end. But don't you find like I'm way over the top with my two kids. I'm like trying to have moments all the time. And they just find me annoying and clingy i know it well

i've overheard them during lockdown oh god dad probably wants oh what's he want to talk about wait this is an advert for squarespace. Every time I visit your website, I see success. Yes, success. The way that you look at the world makes the world want to say yes. It looks very professional. I love browsing your videos and pics, and I don't want to stop. And I'd like to access your members area and spend in your shop. These are the kinds of comments people will say about your website if you build it with Squarespace.

Just visit squarespace.com slash Buxton for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, because you will want to launch, use the offer code Buxton to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. So put the smile of success on your face with Squarespace. Yes. Continue. Dear stupid people of the future, you guys are dicks. Hey, welcome back, podcats. Tony Law there.

It was very nice to talk to Tony. Great to see him again, and I'm extremely grateful to him for making the time to Zoom with me. Oh, man, it's cold out here. It is pretty dark right now. and I'm going to get back, check on Rosie, play some Pikmin with my son, have a large bowl of tea and upload this podcast. Check out the links in the description this week. You'll find links to Tony's Twitch TV show, The Tone Zone, and previous episodes of the show he did with Phil Nicol. You can also find that video that I mentioned that I shot back in 2006

at my comedy evening with Tony taunting the people of the future. It's really a great bit. And there's a link as well to Tony's support page on Ko-Fi. It's a bit like Patreon, I think. It's a web platform that enables people to take donations from people who enjoy their work that help to cover the cost of whatever they happen to be producing there is a link to that video series that i was watching about synecdoche new york there's quite a few i mean there's there seems to be a little cottage industry on YouTube of people analysing that film and suggesting their own theories for what it means and its philosophical implications.

It's a bit of a rabbit hole, and I got sucked right down it last year, as you could probably tell from my conversation with Tony. it last year as you could probably tell from my conversation with Tony. I mean I came out of it but maybe don't investigate if you're feeling a bit bleak and fragile. You will also find links in this week's description to Alexei Sayle's new podcast and one of his videos of him riding around on his bike from Hampstead to King's Cross. I wanted to give it a mention because I'm a great admirer of Alexei Sale. His new podcast features Alexei dissecting British politics, telling stories from his long and illustrious career, and sometimes he has discussions with people that he's worked with such as david renwick and andrew marshall who wrote alexi sales stuff that was the sketch series

he did back in the day and a really amazing show so much funny stuff in it um and i believe Stuart Lee is going to be joining Alexei at some point in the near future on his podcast. Alexei also responds to listeners emails every week. This is information that I got from Talal, Alexei's producer. You can also check out Alexei's YouTube channel which is called simply Alexei Sale and you can find the podcast there as well as his lockdown bike rides. Says Alexi's producer Talal, we mount some GoPros onto his bike, mic him up and send him on his way around various London routes, planning to expand to other parts of the country in the future.

Alexi tells stories and rambles on in a very zen, hypnotic way. It's fun. It is fun. I watched a few of them. I really recommend them. There's a link in the description to Alexei cycling from Hampstead to King's Cross while he chats away to himself. All right, that's it for this week, podcats. Hope things are okay with you, All right, that's it for this week, podcats. Hope things are okay with you, especially if you're out there on the front line or working in a hospital or helping out in some other way with the COVID situation.

We remain grateful to you all and hopeful that things are beginning to get easier for you out there, whether you're on the front line or not a few thank yous before i say goodbye thanks very much indeed as ever to seamus murphy mitchell for his production support and to owen donovan as well thank you owen for your help with this episode and to Annika Meissen for additional editing. The artwork for this podcast is by Helen Green. Thanks very much indeed to all the hard-working folks at ACAST.

Thanks most of all to you for listening and continuing to be encouraging. Do you want to hear some ice cracking? And then we'll have a hug. Yeah. You're welcome. Hug? Come on.

Hey. All right, mate. Look after yourself. I'll let you how rosie's getting on next week until then take great care and uh hey for what it's worth i well i love you bye Bye. Like and subscribe. Like and subscribe. Like and subscribe. Please like and subscribe. Give me a little smile and a thumbs up. Nice, like a smile and a thumbs up.

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