THE ADAM BUXTON PODCAST - EP.163 - LAUREN PATTISON AND SAM LEE

Episode Date: October 5, 2021

Adam talks with British comedian Lauren Pattison and there's singing from folk singer/traditional music specialist Sam Lee.Conversations with Lauren and Sam recorded remotely in April 2021 Thanks to Séamus Murphy-Mitchell for production supportPodcast artwork by Helen GreenHELP PREVENT HOMELESSNESS - PLEASE DONATE TO ST MUNGOSLAUREN PATTISON RELATED LINKSLAUREN PATTISON - LADY MUCK (COMEDY SPECIAL) - 2017 (AMAZON)CONVERSATIONS AGAINST LIVING MISERABLY PODCAST - 2019 - 2020 (ACAST)THE MOST GOOGLED QUESTIONS ON GOOGLE PODCAST - 2020 (ANCHOR)SAM LEE RELATED LINKSSAM LEE WEBSITESAM LEE - THE MOON SHINES BRIGHT FEAT. LIZ FRASER (LIVE AT RAK STUDIOS) WITH BERNARD BUTLER - 2019 (YOUTUBE)SAM LEE INTERVIEW - 2020 (EVENING STANDARD)SINGING WITH NIGHTINGALES (SAM LEE AND THE NEST COLLECTIVE) - 2020 (YOUTUBE)4 HOURS OF NIGHTINGALE SONG (YOUTUBE)NATHAN EVANS - WELLERMAN (TIK TOK SEA SHANTY) - 2021 (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.

you doing, podcats? Adam Buxton here. As you can probably hear, I am not walking along the farm tracks of Norfolk with my dog friend Rosie. Rosie's at home in Castle Buckles, probably on the sofa, multitasking, doing some toxic farts and lovingly attending to the cleanliness of her privs. I am out in Bexhill-on-Sea. Right now I'm looking at a dramatic cloudscape. Big, angry, dark clouds out there above the sea but the sun is going down shining through them it's quite windy right now i'm out here doing one of my book tour shows very nice to see some of you at the shows i did in brighton over the weekend and in Farnham last night. A few people heard the last podcast with Vic Reeves and bought tickets for those for the Farnham show.

So thanks. Good to meet you. Oh, I'm quite cold now. I'll take a picture of this dramatic scene for you and post it on my blog when I upload the podcast. It's really kind of amazing, but it's a little bit lonely. I miss my dog friend and my wife, my wife and team Buckles, but I'm going to see them tomorrow. Okay, look, let me tell you a little bit about podcast number 163, which not only features a rambling conversation with British comedian Lauren Patterson, it also contains beautiful music

from the heavenly throat pipe of British folk singer and traditional music specialist Sam Lee. Is that a good phrase? From the heavenly throat pipe of Sam Lee. It's probably not going to be turning up on his next album. Look at the sunset. Oh, it's a peach. Take a picture of that. For my sunset collection. Let me tell you a bit about Lauren Patterson. Patterson facts. Lauren, currently aged 28, I think, is from Newcastle in the northeast of England. After a stint at drama school, she started her stand-up career

in her early 20s and by 2017 found herself nominated for an Edinburgh Fringe Best Newcomer Award for her debut show Lady Muck. Link in the description of the podcast. As well as increasingly frequent appearances on British TV, Lauren is also the co-host of the Conversations Against Living Miserably podcast, with comedy writer and author Aaron Gillies, in which they talk to a variety of comedians about the funny side of attempting to steer clear of misery. Again, link in description. My conversation with Lauren was recorded remotely towards the end of April this year, 2021,

with me in my nutty room at Castle Buckles and Lauren in her new flat in Newcastle. We spoke about the perks of Lauren's various day jobs, the challenges of live streamed stand-up comedy during lockdown versus awkward moments with audiences in an actual room. And I unveiled a great new idea for a TV show. I expect a call from an executive very soon. But we began by checking microphone levels and ensuring that Lauren's dog, Ralph, was happy with everything. Back after my conversation with Lauren for a very brief introduction to my musical guest this week, Sam Lee, but right now with Lauren Patterson.

Here we go. Ramble chat, let's have a ramble chat We'll focus first on this, then concentrate on that. Come on, let's tune the vat and have a Ramble Chat. Put on your conversation coat and find your talking hat. Yes, yes, yes. 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, 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, 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, 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, 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, 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, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la when you speak just say like say what you had for breakfast and just check that it's not peaking check that it's not going right to the end yeah for breakfast i had a banana and yeah that's that seems like it's going all right cool and you know you're not are you someone that's prone to sudden loud outbursts when you're

speaking no not unless the dog barks but he is snoozing next to me, so it looks like he's going to be quiet. All right, cool. Ralph. Good boy. How is Ralph? Well, I came back from work to find out that I didn't shut the bathroom door before I left, and he has eaten three toilet rolls, so that's excessive. Ralph.

How much, like, when you say eaten, he's just sort of mangled them. Like, shredded them. Yeah. Like, my house looks like a frat party has been in or something and so he's not actually digested the paper I hope not although if he has I hope that it's like almost self-cleaning on the way out which would be quite handy for me it's been a long year hasn't it yeah this is where my brain's at I know well this is where my head's always at we got off on the right foot and um we've established the tone

that I now wish to follow for the rest of the conversation so that's amazing that's good thank you for having me no not at all I listened to you on Richard Herring's podcast that's where I first came across you and I really enjoyed it. And I thought, oh, well, Lauren sounds like a good person. That was when I was still cooped up in my parents' house. Oh, yeah. How long ago was that then? It would have been end of May

because I also remember during the podcast all of my possessions from London arrived back up north because I finished the podcast and came downstairs and I was like, oh, that's a lot of boxes. That's a lot of things to sort. now where are you now then still in Newcastle but I'm in my own place with my dog I feel very adult I'm excited that the charity shops are open now again so am I a charity shop I have so much stuff accumulated from the last year not least because I took delivery of all my mother's possessions after she died and they all turned up in a in a van i've been sorting through them and so i've got boxes

and boxes and boxes quite a lot of yes quite a lot of clothes and shoes and belts she was big into bags and belts my yes yes holy shit how many bags and belts does one person need see I've never really been like a girl who's into like bags and shoes um I've always been very I want to say low maintenance but then I think that sounds quite bad as if there's something wrong with being high maintenance but then I think within the last annoyingly just before lockdown I got really into getting my eyelashes done, getting my hair done blonde. And I was like, I can see why people spend money on this. I feel amazing.

And then a lockdown hit and I spent a year looking like a potato. And I was like, this was the wrong time to really get into maintaining my appearance when suddenly all these places are shut again. Yeah, but you have been doing online shows and looking good in those, right? I know. A ring light has done wonders. It is the best £30 I have ever spent. Honestly, the first month of Zoom gigs where I didn't have a ring light, I was like, what have I been doing with my time?

I don't like my ring light. I don't find it particularly attractive. Do you use the warmer light setting on it? Yeah, I've got like a warm light setting and then I've got a desk lamp. So it's like double, double lit. And every time I take a picture when I've got the ring light on, my friends will just messages and be like ring light doing wonders. And I'm like, the ring light is doing wonders. Thank you for being true friends who know that that isn't how I really look.

For anyone listening who hasn't spent too much time on zoom in the last few months or doesn't necessarily obsess over the way they look on zoom a ring light is literally a circle of led lights that you can mount on it comes with a little cheap tripod i don't know which one you got but mine did yeah mine's on a very cheap tripod and it tips over all the time i have to just yeah i have to get some gaffer tape and glue it down if i want yes i'll be trying to do self tapes and obviously i live on my own so i don't have anyone to like read lines or hold the camera so i'll put it on the little tripod that my ring light came with and i'll be like 10 seconds away from finishing a brilliant take and suddenly the tripod will just collapse and off goes my phone and i'm like oh now is this future is this you doing auditions for uh tv shows and films and things like that i mainly get auditions for adverts i think because of the northern accents

everyone wants but i've done i've done loads of voiceover but not loads i've done two voiceover this lockdown and obviously i work a day job as well at the minute i work in morrisons so i'll just be sat in the canteen and someone's like do you do the voice of Mecca Bingo and I'm like yeah I do the voice of Mecca Bingo and then someone else be like and you do the voice of Drain Cleaner and I'm like I do do the voice of Drain Cleaner voiceovers are great that is my favorite thing to do I love them yeah and then I practice when I'm doing the tannies at work that's when I practice my like my speaking voice and my clear voice. Because no one else really likes doing the tannys. So I like doing the little customer announcements.

And I think, you know, like, when girls wanted to go to, like, Topshop to be scouted by a model, I'm always like, well, maybe if I do a really good tannoy, what if there is somebody shopping in Morrisons at this precise moment who's like her I want her voice to advertise my very well paying product yeah exactly I always do my best voice and what do you do at Morrison's I do a bit of everything so obviously there was the whole comedian should go and retrain and get another job so I got a job in Morrison's cafe and then all the cafes had a shut so that was a fun retraining both of my jobs were useless so I do a little bit of checkouts um I do the cafe when it's open and I do the um the phone lines for the old people who ring up and order their shopping I love that I love that because I don't have any grandparents anymore so I just like being on the phone to all these like nannas who are all like stuck inside and so bored

and but I always think I'm so soft and I always think what if I'm the only person they're going to talk to all day like yeah the last thing I want to do is be rude and rush them I've had I've been someone try to convert is to um Christianity had a nice chat about Jesus I just let her talk about Jesus to me I've had people tell me about like their families about I had a man who used to be in the army and he told me all his stories. I just let people chat away. I'm like, I'm literally getting paid to just listen to you. So honestly, chat away.

That's cool. And there's no one looking over your shoulder saying, come on Lauren, you need to speed up these calls. Well, see, they made the fatal mistake of in the very, because I did it like right from the beginning back in May. And they were like, yeah, we're not timing the calls. Like we're not bothered about how many you get done. Like just give a good service.

And I was like, I am absolutely going to take that, that I can just chat to all people all day. Like that is very much what I want to do. Yeah. You used to work at Boots, right? You talk about that in your show. I did. When I was in my first year of university, I worked in Boots.

I would have started when I was 18 and then sort of turned 19 when I was there and then I think I left sort of not long after my 20th birthday and whereabouts was this then this was in Newcastle was it that was in Newcastle yes we've got we've got big boots and little boots in the city centre and I worked in little boots which was quite nice because it was a very like little team and I think I was probably the youngest person there by a good 10-15 years and I remember there was one woman who would always hide ginger biscuits for us okay because I think she was worried that being a student I wasn't eating enough and she'd be like there's some ginger biscuits behind the shampoo for you and I'd be like thank you and I'd go on my little treasure hunt to collect my ginger biscuits.

Did you ever used to get up to other stuff to help the time go a bit quicker i remember the staff night out was fun right on a we had like a christmas party obviously i was like again the youngest person so there was nobody my age there remember one of the women had emptied a perfume bottle and put her own alcohol into a perfume bottle and then snuck it into the pub so she's just under the table with a pint glass like spritzing spraying it out very chemically whatever was in there looked like vodka or gin it was clear and i remember thinking it being what like say like a teenager at the time and just being like oh we don't grow up oh we don't but these adults who say they've got their shit together they they don't they're sneaking alcohol and perfume bottles how old do you think she was oh in her 60s like she was 60s she was

older yeah come on mate you have learned nothing in your 60 years thing is i used to work in a bar as well that's where i worked after boots and it's it's so obvious when people if i could suss it 19 years old 20 years old that people were doing it it would be like a group of four would come to the bar but i can i have one vodka and coke and three cokes i'm like yeah friday night in newcastle and only one of you is drinking of course and sure enough you watch them over the night you're like funnily enough they're getting drunker but that glass of diet coke has never decreased in quantity and they're obviously just sneaking off to the toilet and topping it up with but you think yeah okay i probably should have cared but i did not care no as long as they're having fun that's the main thing yeah we used to travel quite a lot me and my family when we were younger my dad was a travel writer and um i remember being in Maine in the northeast of the United States.

Oh, yes. We were in a restaurant and you weren't allowed booze in the restaurant. Oh. I think, is this right? Maybe it was the case that you weren't allowed to bring in alcohol because obviously they wanted you to buy them. Spend your money there yeah fair enough anyway my dad got it into his head that he was going to sneak in some booze because i think maybe they only served wine or something like that oh yeah he was in the mood for some jack daniels so he poured it into a coke bottle and sneaked it in that way.

And he was so pleased with himself. Yeah. I think he ordered a Coke and then he swapped it out for his booze bottle. Yes. Oh, the old bait and switch. Yeah. Nice. And I remember thinking, you're the best, Dad.

You're so cool. You have absolutely punked these guys in this no spirits restaurant. I don't know if that was a good example to set or not. I mean, I don't, I haven't been doing that myself too much, but it is fun getting around the rules in that way, isn't it? Yeah, same with like at festivals. I used to go to a lot of festivals as a teenager

rather than like a lot of my friends would do the girls holidays and like Magaluf or Malia but again this is probably being a girl who didn't like shoes and handbag I was always a bit scruffier like I wanted to go to a festival and get muddy and messy like that kind of way yeah but obviously like didn't have much money then still don't but had even less then so I remember in order to get the alcohol from the camping bit to the bit where the barns are I would tuck a can under each or a bottle of whatever under each armpit but then I would put my arms in front of this and make it look like I was texting so from the security's point of view they can just see a girl walking towards them texting my pockets are empty there's nothing in my pockets but it was like nestled in my armpit and I was like pinning it to my body and it worked every single time no one

ever said every time can you just raise your arms please no nobody ever if they ever had would have broke my toes with two bottles of vodka falling on them but I don't know if it's because I'm quite little and unassuming or maybe because I was just, I think maybe if I looked suspicious, but because I was just like on my phone texting, maybe I just looked very like game face, very chill. But it was a foolproof method for five years or however long I went. That is impressive. How long were you a bartender? I worked in the bar for a year. That's how long I worked in the bar for a year that's how long I worked there but that was an experience because it was um the one it's like one of the closest pubs before you get to St James's Park the football ground okay and we were very much it's changed now it's a fancy gin bar now but it used to be

like a sports pub when I worked there so uh when the World Cup was on it was heaving and like Derby Day in Newcastle versus Sunderland. But that was quite like Derby Day. I was just on about this with someone the other day. When Newcastle played Sunderland, we had to spend the night before removing every table and chair from the premises. Because we weren't allowed, basically anything that wasn't nailed down wasn't allowed in the bar or on the public side of the bar. You had to get rid of all the glasses nothing was allowed to be served in just in case it all kicked off just in case it all kicked off

and i remember being like this is because i obviously i hadn't been big into football so i didn't realize how messy it could get but i also think this was around the time that man punched a horse so i think they probably were wait i didn't get that I didn't get that memo. You don't know about the man punching a horse? No. It was when Newcastle played Sunderland. And I think we lost. We probably lost from the reactions of my friends. I think we lose a lot. I don't follow football.

But I think Newcastle had lost. And they were going and, like, basically smashing the city up after. And this bloke punched a police horse. What? Like, full on just decked a police horse. And it was all over like the news and everything have been like this this man has literally punched a horse so i think after that everybody got a way more stricter of trying to minimize any possible violence horse punching that is not cool what's going on in his head He just thought, well, it's a police horse.

So I don't have any respect for a horse that works for the police. Look at you, horse with a job. I don't respect that. Fascist horse. That horse is out there earning a living. I think it died a couple of years ago. Nothing to do with the punch. But again, Newcastle's not that big.

And I'm sure it was literally like newspaper, newspaper-worthy news when the horse died, and we all had a day of mourning for a punched police horse. I mean, what kind of a guy punches a horse? That is no good. What's the dog growling at? What have you seen, Ralph? Ralph. Oh, he's growling at his own reflection.

It's you. Ralph. We don't have two dogs. We just have two dogs ralph what kind of dog is ralph he's a jackapoo which i didn't even know was a thing what is a jackapoo i don't know much about dogs so his mummy is a jack russell and then his dad is a poodle oh so he's a fluffy little fellow he's fluffy he's smart and he's stubborn which is he's he's me that is i have me as a dog that sounds a bit like me too very good how old is ralph yeah he is six months old it's that baby i think i saw ralph with you the first time i inverted commas met you we didn't actually speak but we were on the same bill earlier this year.

The COVID arms. Yeah. He popped up there. And it was very nice to see him. I was so impressed by how unfazed you seem to be by the weirdness of doing a stand up gig from an empty room on a webcam. Yeah, I think at first I was so not against doing them but this was like within the first couple of days of obviously everybody losing their work and I can understand people like not comedy people were very well mean and being like well could you not just like do

something on the internet and I was like I don't know who was going to want to watch just just me like in my room and then obviously promoters and clubs started coming together and being like no we're gonna replicate actual gigs so it isn't just gonna be you it's gonna be like a lineup and I was like that feels less scary than just me being like no one wants to watch I'm just gonna be in my room for an hour so I think the first one I did was for good ship comedy Ben Vanderwaal's gig and that was nice and i did one for dullich hamlet's comedy club and again i was like oh these are less scary and i think the more i got into the swing of it and i was like you can't necessarily just do stand-up like some people can but i thought it does just

feel awkward i was like you just need to be a bit more chatty and conversational or at least that's what I found worked for me and I've quite enjoyed it because I can't emcee I can't compare I hate it but from doing these zoom gigs I think I've become a little bit more like I think there's like comedy Lauren and there's real life Lauren but from doing these zoom gigs I've let a little bit more of like real life Lauren come into that on stage but I actually do like I really enjoy them now yeah well you're very good at them I must say I was on after you at that COVID arms gig and yes I was sort of looking at you and I was thinking wow she's good at this and then I thought I'll be fine I'll be fine I'm really good yeah and then and then I just immediately got tongue-tied and just felt

embarrassed really I did have one really awkward one I'll not I'll not name the gate because it wasn't the fault of the person running it but a lot of the people watching seem to think that they could just chip in whenever they fancied but obviously there's a delay isn't there with obviously doing it all by the end so I'd be like doing a bit and then all of a sudden I'd hear someone saying something but then I would have already moved on so I'd be like I don't know what bit they're referencing and I would be like and then knowing you're like oh who said that and you're like looking through all the faces on the screen but then everybody shies up and goes quiet and I'm like oh great now you've made it awkward that's a disaster area because one of the first things you learn,

like not that I am a particularly seasoned stand-up, but one of the few things I did learn from doing live shows was if you hear someone saying something in the audience, just let it go. Yeah. Unless they really are shouting loudly and they have got a point that they definitely want to make and that needs to be heard. Yeah. My sort of rule is unless the person who is talking is talking to the extent that is disrupting others in the crowd

and the venue haven't stepped in, because I'm always like, well, why should people who are enjoying it suffer? And then also the people who are enjoying it are looking at you like, why are you not addressing it? So that's because I'm not very confrontational either. So I'm always like, I want to avoid it until it's unavoidable Edinburgh 2015 so I would have been very young I would have been 21 and I was doing like a triple header with some people from Newcastle just on the free fringe and we were having a pretty rough month anyway like you know getting six people coming in and watching or whatever and then we had this one day in particular where I swear there was maybe nine people in the room

and not one of them wanted to be there it was like we'd press gang them all into coming they just looked miserable first guy goes on people spoke all the way through really difficult girl goes on a lovely girl in the middle again they were just sort of like talking through her like dead crowd it was awful and I was in the back like getting angry you know the point of the festival where you're just angry to be alive like I was very much at that point I thought now this is this is just despicable it's a tiny room you know they haven't paid they've talked through him they've talked through her so I came out and I'd on, on stage, I'd maybe been in the front of the bar for about 30 seconds, and sure enough, this couple in the front literally sat as close as like I am to my laptop, start chatting in the

front, and I went, look, I'm not being funny, but you are so rude, I went, you have spoke through this entire show, if you're not enjoying enjoying it you are totally free to go and i would rather you leave than me have to do this with you talking and i really gave them a full bollocking and then oh i'm still cringing thinking about it this guy went oh she's spanish and her english isn't great i'm translating the word she doesn't know and 50 of us was like well why have you sat at the front so like sit at the back but then the other 50% of us was like you have just made an unplayable gig even more unplayable because the other like seven people in the room were like what a bitch you know she's but that that poor girl who

just wants to practice her English and that little bitch has just come out and I was like I'm so sorry well you say that it was the other seven, but I think that's the kind of thing that would divide a room anyway. I mean, I kind of agree with the 50% of you that thought, don't sit in the front then. Yeah, sit in the back. There's a part of me that kind of thinks,

don't go to a comedy show then, especially one in a small venue. And especially one where the acts are three Geordies and it was very clearly advertised that we if you want to practice your english practice with a better accent than this because that's gonna be a difficult one to start with because that's the kind of thing that does require a little bit of peace and the person on stage does need to concentrate and sure great it's nice that you're enthusiastic and you want to understand and also brush up your english that's impressive most english people uh wouldn't even bother if they went to another country so yeah but on the other hand shut up i remember i came off and

the other two had taken a selfie while i was on stage of them two just pretending to cry in the background and every year it comes up on you know like my Facebook memories and it's like because obviously at the time I was like this is horrific and this comedy thing I love it so much but this isn't gonna go anywhere and I love now when that picture comes up in my memories because I'm like remember how far you have come from that gig yeah no matter how bad a day you are having you have come from that gig. Yeah. No matter how bad a day you are having, you have come so far from gigging to seven people in the side room of a pub

where two of them are treating it as an English lesson. Well, and also you didn't swear. You didn't use the C word or anything, right? Because in your show, you talk about using the C word when you were at Boots. Is that true? Or is that a bit of embellishment? A bit of embellishment, bit of embellishment but i've definitely been like i think for me it's a nervy thing is i think

it's partly a nervous thing and partly do if they start doing comedy at 18 so i spent a lot of times around boys and like laddy lads i think as a result i have come a little bit like i've been working in the pub like working in that kind of atmosphere, I've become quite sweary. But I like it. I think it adds like, I think of it as like seasoning. It adds like, and especially in this accent, I think swearing sounds lovely.

Seasoning is a nice analogy. A nice little bit of swearing is nice. Isn't it? Just a little, just a little garnish. Make things a little bit fucking spicier. That's all. Exactly. You mentioned as well that when you have been at the checkout,

you enjoy kind of judging your customers by their purchases. I do, yes. But do you comment on them? No. Unless, not so much when I worked at Boots, it was very silent judgment. But now I'm on the checkout, I try and work out what people are having for dinner. You know what I mean?

Or what people, a bit like ready, steady cook. So like if I'll see like spaghetti and like bolognese sauce coming down, I'm like, they're having spag bol. The only time I'll comment is if, and I'm such a good chef. Can you tell? I really know my food. I've got a suggestion, a serving suggestion. I couldn't help noticing

you've got some pasta and some spaghetti sauce. Have you ever had a spaghetti bolognese? I don't know if you've heard of it but it's quite popular. It's a foreign dish. It's a fancy,

don't be put off by the fancy foreign name. It's absolutely delightful. But don't comment on it unless it's a food that I've been wanting to try but haven't tried right okay so nice and then keep it positive exactly so like someone i'm trying to eat more vegan at the minute to try and eat vegan like once a week i'm having vegan tonight i'm having mango chutney

tofu yes please um but especially like vegan and vegetarian stuff it comes down i'll be like oh is that nice what's that like um i've been meaning to try that but no i never like to be too like common tea because some people obviously get a bit like weird about it yeah this guy yeah this guy gets weird about it i don't like it at all in fact i was on room 101 oh yeah uh in 2017 and was, I actually found it quite difficult to think of things that genuinely upset me or that I would want to banish forever. But that was top of my list, really, was all service stuff, you know. Yeah. And I went into Sainsbury's one morning. I'd done the school run and I thought, I'll swing by sainsbury's and i'll get on top of the

shopping for this week and part of what i purchased was my week's supply of beer and so i bought a six pack of lager put it on the actually no maybe i bought maybe i bought two six packs right so i had that and then not that much other stuff and the person at the checkout you know rang the beers through and went bit early oh say no that would bother me yeah and i was like that's not good because essentially what you're saying is are you are you a real alcoholic or yeah just a kind of part-time one and you know i might, I might be an alcoholic. I might be. I was going to say, and if you were, yeah, that's not going to help things. No, it's not, I don't think. No.

No, thank you. No. No. now i've come up with an amazing idea for a tv show i want you to tell me what you think of this and also if you think like i haven't spent very much time on it so there's some yeah potential problems with it but my idea is tv show based on google searches it's what i mean it is so blindingly obvious that yeah i mean i i i googled it i couldn't find evidence of a tv show based on google searches as far as i'm aware i'm sure that podcasts have maybe done one or two episodes. I'm sure people have talked about this before. I'm not claiming this is entirely original, but no one seems to have done a long running podcast or a TV show based on this idea.

The idea essentially is that you just talk about Google searches because I find that interesting. Yeah, I think it's a good idea. It's like my, I'm'm not stupid but I've got no common sense so I'll google like the most ridiculous things but I'm like well I need an answer and I went on a date in the summer and I remember he'd like come round and he was like can I borrow your like laptop to look for a film to watch or whatever and I was like yeah yeah cool my last google search was like how to put out a fire and he was like what what has happened that he was like was something on fire and you are that much of a millennial you googled how to put it and i was like no no nothing was on fire but i think i was writing something and i was trying to think

of a metaphor for like putting out a fire so i'd looked it up and i was like i'm aware out of context how strange it just looks to have googled how to put out a fire yeah out of context google searches are because you do google all sorts of mad things and as you say it depends on the context it also it's you know that's a reasonable question there's all different depends what's on fire so you have all sorts of different uh approaches to this obviously like. Like, for example, most Googled TV shows in 2020. Right? It's just interesting to look at this stuff. Yeah, I like data.

I like stats. Who do you think is top of most Googled TV shows in 2020? Quite an easy one. 2020. Oh. It was the year of... Was it Game of Thrones?

No. No? No, what was on TV? That finished before 2020, didn't it? Oh, yeah, I think it was the year before. Tiger King. 2020 is a... Tiger King, of course.

Tiger King. Oh. And then number two most Googled show in 2020, Cobra Kai. Oh, yeah, that's another Netflix one. I didn't watch that one. I've not seen that one. No. And then it's a load of stuff I didn't watch.

Ozark, which people say is good, but I didn't watch that one. I've not seen that one. And then it's a load of stuff I didn't watch. Ozark, which people say is good, but I think, no, thanks. Umbrella Academy. No, I'm fine. I didn't watch that. The Queen's Gambit, I did watch. Did you watch The Queen's Gambit? I say I haven't seen it.

I'm always really late to the party with things. Same here. This is how late to the party I am. I have just watched, within the last month for the first time, Lord of the Rings. It came out 20 years ago Adam and so in 20 years I will have seen all of the shows you've just mentioned did you like it very I loved it you know I only watched it to impress a boy was the boy a little hairy person with no shoes and hairy feet this this is funny you should say why do they not wear shoes that was my biggest thing I don't know if it's just because i'm a girl but at the end of the film i was like you know i really enjoyed that but surely that quest would

have been more comfortable if they had shoes i guess that i mean it's like dogs they just get very tough used to pads on their but imagine giving a hobbit a shoe for the first time they'd be like one thing i did find was a podcast but it only has five episodes as far as i can tell and there's just and they're only a few minutes in length and it's called the most googled questions on google podcast so i thought oh no someone's done it but actually as i say there's only five episodes i can find and they're between two and six minutes in length oh yeah and it seems to have been made by school children in america oh it's really quite sweet i'll put a link in the description of this episode that sounds cute if you want to hear it and they're asking each other

questions uh you know like why is the sky blue why do people burp things like that and many of which i have googled in the past I think any parent finds themselves googling those kinds of questions that their children ask and you know I don't know yeah it's sky blue my google search history has definitely gone weird since I got the dog oh yeah because I've never I've never had a dog before obviously I live on my own so there's not really anybody I can ask and my search history has gone like very bizarre in the last six months it's like what happens if my dog eats a dorito what happens if my dog eats my contraceptive pill how do I trim my dog's willy hair which is not something I ever thought I'd have

to google but the internet knows all these things the other day i was like how do how runny is too runny for a dog's poop and there was pictures there was very detailed descriptions and i was like god bless google thank you you're whizzing past all these questions without providing the answers okay they said it was fine well not fine but nothing to worry if your dog eats a contraceptive pill because the hormones are so low um and at least i know that for one day ralph wasn't gonna get pregnant so that was good um the the dorito i think was inconclusive but again it was just a little bit of dorito so i was like you'll be fine we feed uh rosy doritos all that we don't feed them but she has the odd she likes them i think chocolate's the only thing that i'm aware of the main's the main worry. That you have to avoid. And chicken bones. Can't have chocolate.

Oh, yeah, bones. Little bones. And then what was two... Basically, if it looks like a puddle, you're in a muddle. That is my new way of identifying dog poo problems. Some of my recent Google searches include, does accidentally swallowing chewing gum lead to farting oh i hadn't thought about the link between those no when i was little it would be like you can't swallow chewing gum it'll gum up your insides you'll die yes yeah it'll i just always pictured chewing gum stretched between my

ribs you know what i mean like a little chewy guitar yeah my mom used to tell me if I swallowed, you know, like the pips in an apple, and she said an apple tree would grow in my belly. There you go. That's another one. If you swim after you've eaten a meal, you'll get cramps and die. Right. Again, I know I've just said I'm not thick, and what I'm going to say makes it sound very thick.

So I can't swim. I'm always very nervous in water. A couple of years years ago me and my ex-boyfriend went on holiday and there was a pool and I was like will you teach me how to swim and he was like yes of course I will um and then I think we'd had like lunch one day and he's like should we go in the pool I was like can't go in the pool I've just eaten and he was like you'll be fine and I was like no but I thought you couldn't go in sorry I'm just thinking about the fact I was a 25 year old adult woman thought this. I thought the reason you couldn't swim after eating was because your belly would be heavy and you'd drown.

I don't think that's unreasonable. That seems rational to me. I only found out that that is a kind of urban myth. Yeah. In the last 10 years. Is it? I am now 51. Exactly.

It made sense to me. It's one of those things you don't question or i didn't question because i thought yeah fair enough as you say you got food in you you're gonna sink yeah got food in my belly my belly's heavy i'm gonna drown or or cramps that's what people told me it's like only your your stomach's gonna start cramping you know it didn't even occur to me like i've never thought about i mean my stomach's never cramped after a meal before I don't know why it would suddenly start because you're surrounded by liquid but anyway that is my google show which I'm going to make a lot of money from because people I think

your google searches as well like give away a lot about you and people are like inherently nosy aren't they like if I could I was like dating a boy last summer and if i could have been chose between reading these text messages or seeing these google search history i would have picked these google search history every time i want i think that's how you get to know a person yes and i mean we're recording now in uh mid april 2021 and this will probably go out later in the year and who knows how things are going to be by the time the autumn rolls around at this point just right now it could go either way i'm obviously like most people hoping that things are going to continue to get more and more like they used to be and i feel weirdly optimistic

yeah in a positive way i am not an i am not an optimist at all but i feel like i feel quite hopeful yeah right but then there's been rumblings of variants see this what you should do is what i do which is whenever the news starts to say something i don't want to hear I turn it off I'm like no no no I like the bit where you were talking about a fun cat getting rescued from a tree I was on board with that but I don't want to hear about new Covid cases no thanks

it is the fingers in ears approach and it is serving me I mean I'm ignorant but i'm happy whoa he's gone off i mean i'm pleased he's waited two hours yeah that's impressive perfect timing why are you barking at ralph oh it's birds there's birds going past he doesn't like birds no they're twats hey welcome back. Podcat's Adam Buxton here, still standing on the beach,

watching the sun go down in Bexhill-on-Sea, on the south coast of the United Kingdom. That was just a bit of bird bants there before that wood pigeon jingle. I don't think birds are twats, of course. Well, there's a couple of quite aggressive Egyptian geese who hang around castle buckles, but I certainly don't want to get in a fight with them. Someone who gets on particularly well with the bird community is British singer, folk song interpreter, conservationist, song collector and creator of live events, Sam Lee. A couple of very brief facts about Sam before we go over to him. Sam is currently in his early 40s, I believe.

Alongside his organisation, The Nest Collective, Sam has shaken up the music scene, breaking boundaries between folk and contemporary music and the assumed places and ways folk song is appreciated. That's a quote from his website there. Sam's third album, Old Wow, was released last year, 2020, and this year, 2021, saw the publication of Sam's debut novel, The Nightingale, Notes on a Songbird, telling the epic tale of this endangered bird and their place in culture, folklore, folk song, music and literature throughout the millennia. I spoke with Sam remotely in April of this year, and though the line for our short conversation was a little raggedy. Apologies for that.

We were able to ensure that his very beautiful singing came through just fine. Back at the end for a tiny bit more waffle. But right now with Sam Lee. Here we go. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, Can you tell me a little bit about why you are particularly fond of the nightingale and what your relationship with it is, if that's not too strange a question?

Well, that's a very personal question. But the nightingale is obviously a bird that we all know by name. Maybe not all of us know by song, but is actually one of the most exquisite singers amongst all species. And has been an inspiration for literature, prose, folklore, folk song for thousands of years across the whole of the Northern Hemisphere. So it's a very significant bird. And I've been leading concerts with the birds for six years or so, bringing musicians into the woods at night to collaborate and play in duet with the bird.

And it's led me on to go on this amazing journey with spending many nights with them under the cover of darkness and audiences and to write a book now about their role and their place in our world. And forgive me for sounding like a kind of dickhead, but how do you know that the birds like it when you come and do duets with them in the woods? And they're not just thinking, can you go away, please? Well, that is one of the hardest questions to answer because in all honesty i have no idea what i do know is that

we've done a lot of research into the musicality and their ability to be affected or whether they like it or not they're very very collaborative but they sing with each other and they love noise they've always lived very close to humans but the actual making of music we we do it in a very sensitive way that actually ends up being quite a kind of trance like experience of the bird really falling into key and rhythm with the musicians and it's very playful these are human qualities that i'm projecting on the bird but nothing about what we're experiencing stops the bird from singing or has had any impact on their breeding. So it's relatively safe, I like to think. Oh man, it just sounds so amazing. I want to go. How often do you do them? Well, they start singing in middle of April and I do these concerts, the Singing with Nightingales

concerts through to the end of May. And they're mainly in Sussex. I've got one that's happening in Suffolk and they'd be in Gloucestershire as well. This year's all been a bit messy because of COVID. We're doing them. We've live broadcast as well. We've got loads of amazing musicians joining in online for live streams of the experience. I really want to check that out. I mean, that just sounds magical. I've only recently, I think, started to get more interested in birds like i've never been much

of a a kind of wildlife fanatic even though i've lived in the country now for over 10 years and but it's only recently occurred to me to actually start finding out more about them like i downloaded an app called chirpomatico-matic that helps me identify the the bird song you know what i mean you can't go wrong with chirp-o-matic you'll be an expert i'm sure you can go wrong with chirp-o-matic so far i've correctly identified a lot of robins a yellow hammer and a skylark hey these are great birds to begin your journey on. I will say the nightingale, although very rare now and probably going to be extinct within the next 30 years in this country, is it's not a you don't have to be a bird nature lover because it's a little it's a little bit like taking drugs.

Listening to nightingales is the closest thing to that sense of falling down the rabbit hole of nature experiences. That's not about knowing the species, the Latin names. It's just a visceral drenching in this song. It's quite profound. I'll drag you along to one of them, Adam, someday. Please do. Well, if we can't tea as drugs, then I'll take some drugs and you sing a song. How about that? Okay. Well, take a sip. This as drugs, then I'll take some drugs and you sing a song. How about that?

Okay. Well, take a sip. This is an old English folk song. As I was a-walking one morning in May To view the green valleys and meadows so gay It is there I did hear those charming birds sing Did you ever hear so sweet? Did you ever hear so sweet?

Did you ever hear so sweet? As the buds in the spring As I sat myself down to view all around And the song of the nightingale Why he echoed all around. His notes were so charming, his voice so sincere. No music, no songstress. No music, no songster No music, no songster

No music, no songster Can with him compare. So all of you here, Them small birds to hear, I'll have you pay attention, Now listen, draw near. That when you've grown old, you'll have this to say. That you never hurt so sweet.

That you never hurt so sweet that you never heard so sweet that you never heard so sweet as the birds in the spring

Thank you so much, Sam. That was lovely. This is a first for me. I've never been on a call with someone and they have sung to me. And it's great. That personal one-on-one experience of folk songs is very special. It's amazing. I mean, there's a special thing about when it's just a person singing unaccompanied because it requires special powers of the person.

Most people are too shy or diffident or self-conscious to be able just to sing in that way you know often or maybe singing to your child that's perhaps um a little bit closer to what you're doing yeah but most people i don't think would be happy just as just to sing unaccompanied in that way well it's an old way of doing it that sadly yes we've we now lean on orchestration and i think one of the beauties of it is that that's how we've always sung you know for thousands hundreds of thousands years we've heard just the voice alone so we've evolved to it so it touches us deep in that way what are your fondest memories of being sung to personally well i mean i love the solo voice or solo instruments

as well but i spent many years i spent 15 years song collecting so traveling around mostly the gypsy traveler community of britain ireland and scotland recording the last elders of those communities who were the last links for us into our oral tradition of songs that have been sung like that one for thousands of years so i've spent some incredible times amongst the elders our kind of ancestors and keepers of old lore and old song listening to songs that have never been written down and that experience of being in the presence of one of these wise old people and falling down the well of time into their into the ancient world and hearing a song that has not changed very much

since their great-great-great-great-grandparent would have sung it is quite a phenomenal thing and something that we really don't get the opportunity now anymore because most of them have passed on. So those are my fondest memories, really, with those old people and partaking in that transmission, that ancient way of transmitting songs. And what's happened to those recordings? Are they archived somewhere?

They are, they're all online. And the films that I made in the songs of those singers are all on songcollectors.org, which is my kind of online archive. Yeah, amazing testament to a world, a culture that has now almost gone extinct in its way and um a people that uh you know the travelers fighting to hold cultural autonomy still the songs are the some ways the heart of that culture and alas very few left to remember the music so we're speaking in early april 2021 in the last few months the sea shanty has become an unexpected uh musical phenomenon wow i you know it's so fun i did a gig with nathan just last week um for sky and that you know this man in his 20s this kid has done more for folk music than the english folk dance and song society

than the whole of you, all the bands put together have been slaving away to try and promote folk music. That guy's just got it to number one in the charts, just boom, overnight. So, like, you know, he deserves a sort of, not a knighthood, because he's probably a Republican,

like most of us folkies. But it's amazing. Like, that's it. That's what folk music is it's viral it's just never usually gets caught catches on quite as fast as it has it's a great song he's a great singer let's hear more let's have more folk virality i know it's cool um now would you be happy just to sing one more thing before we say goodbye with With pleasure, yeah. I'll sing just a chorus of it. I won't bore you with a whole song.

This is a song from the Scottish Travellers, from my teacher, the ancient balladeer, Stanley Robertson, the last of the Robertson lines. So when would this song perhaps have first started being sung? We think around 1700s, maybe. Can't really carbon date songs, that's the problem but sure we suspect and actually alan lomax himself did first record this song from the family back in the 1950s and uh stanley passed it on to me this is just the verse and it is a real it's a lament but it's also

it's about the return of birds about the migration and parting and love and all that sort of stuff so it's called lovely molly oh molly lovely molly i delight in your charms and as many a long night you have laid in my arms, But if ever I return again, It will be in the spring, Where the mavis and the turtle doves and the nightingales sing. 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. of success on your face with Squarespace.

Yes. Continue. so so Hey, welcome back, podcats. There's a little bit of Nightingale song for you there that I popped in. That's all right, you're welcome. And in the description of this podcast, I've put a link to one of the many videos that you can find on YouTube, which are just hours and hours of bird song, and the nightingale in particular. Quite relaxing, I would imagine, just to have on in the background while you're working, or if you're feeling a bit stressed out, close your eyes and stick that on.

Thanks very much indeed to Sam Lee and to Lauren Patterson for making the time to talk to me on the podcast. Very grateful indeed. Right. Clouds here in Bexhill-on-Sea are getting a bit more threatening. So I guess I better head back to my hotel and get my stuff together and go over to the Delaware Pavilion for tonight's Adam Buxton Rambles extravaganza. Back next time from Norfolk. And I'll be with Rosie, unless she refuses to come out with me, of course.

Always a possibility. But before I go, I wanted to just give a shout out to St. Mungo's, an organisation helping homeless or houseless, if you prefer, people. Each night, St. Mungo's outreach teams go out to meet people in the south and southwest of England who are homeless and, where possible, offer them a bed, support and the option to get off the streets. And because they appreciate how important the bond between a person and their pet can be, St Mungo's are one of the few charities that accepts pets in their hostels. They're also working to prevent homelessness and to support those who want to make the journey out of a life on the streets. If you were able to

make a donation to St Mungo's Winter Appeal this year, that would be a huge help with all their ongoing efforts. There's a link in the description of this podcast for donations if you're able to make one I just did and it would be very much appreciated thanks thanks as well to Seamus Murphy Mitchell for his production support on this episode thanks Seamus

you're the best thanks to Becca Tashinsky for her ongoing production support. Thanks to Helen Green, who does the artwork for this podcast. Link to her fantastic illustrations in the description. Thanks to ACAST for all their help. And thanks especially to you for listening. Really appreciate it.

And it's been really good meeting some of you out on tour, getting books signed. And I really appreciate all the kind things you say when we do meet. Don't worry if you don't say kind things to me, that's fine. It's nice to meet you too. Now I'm just a bit self-conscious because there are a few people on the beach with me. Walking their dogs. So I'm just going to try and find somewhere to shout my traditional farewell to you.

Just heading over to these ancient wooden seaweed-covered groins. It's a sexy sentence, isn't it? All right. Now lean into the wind. Let's have an elemental hug. I feel alive until next time take care I love you

bye Like and subscribe. Like and subscribe. Like and subscribe. Please like and subscribe. Give me a lick of smile and a thumbs up. Nice lick of fun when my bum's up. Give me a lick of smile and a thumbs up. Nice lick of fun when my bum's up. Like and subscribe. Like and subscribe.

Like and subscribe. Please like and subscribe. Give me a lick of smile and a thumbs up. Nice lick of fun when my bum's up. Bye. Thank you. Bye.