THE ADAM BUXTON PODCAST - EP.195 - RAVI & GBENGA ADELEKAN

Episode Date: November 21, 2022

Adam talks with musician Olugbenga Adelekan and his 7 year old son Ravi about brain surgery, child YouTube millionaires, sport that Adam doesn't care about and Ravi's charity single. Conversation recorded remotely on November 9th, 2022Thanks to Séamus Murphy-Mitchell for production supportPodcast artwork by Helen GreenRELATED LINKSRAVI'S WEBSITEWatch the video for A Million Dreams here and find out more about the charities he's supportingDONATE TO RAVI'S DREAM (BRAINTRUST AND THE BRAIN TUMOUR CHARITY)BRAIN TUMOUR RESEARCHCOLDPLAY AND BASTILLE HELP BRIGHTON BOY TO RELEASE NEW CHARITY SINGLE AFTER UNDERGOING BRAIN SURGERY - 2022 (ITV NEWS)THE BOOK THAT NO ONE WANTED TO READ by Richard Ayoade with illustrations by Tor Freeman (VIDEO TRAILER) - 2022 (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.

And I'm joining you on quite a nice but cold morning here in mid to late November 2022. I'm out in the beautiful Norfolk countryside in England, UK. I'm walking along a farm track and it's frosty this morning, let me tell you. I am wrapped up. Winter coat. Fluffy hat with flaps. I got the gloves. It is full winter mode and it's getting bitey.

Up ahead on the track, I'm happy to say, is my best dog friend Rosie. Who is in a good mood this morning. Regular listeners will know that these days Rosie is not quite as enthusiastic about walks as she once was. She's 10 now so the prospect of curling up on a sofa in a non-freezing room is just as appealing as going out and bouncing. Fair enough, isn't it? But this morning, she's very perky. Perhaps it's because we had some friends to stay this weekend and there were two extra dogs in the house,

big bouncy dogs, and Rosie was a bit alarmed. She sat there imperiously on the sofa surveying the situation, just going, who are these people? Why are they over there with my bowl? Why has one of them done a wee upstairs where only I am allowed to do a wee normally? Yes, it was fun to sniff a new bum, but now I'm looking forward to order being restored.

Anyway, listen, how are you doing? That's the more important question. I hope you're all right. Welcome to this slightly unusual episode of the podcast, in which I waffle with Olug Benga, or just Benga, Adela Khan and his seven-year-old son Ravi. Now I know Benga a little bit because he is the bass player for Matronomy, the band, with whom I am friendly and of whom I am a fan. But today I'm not talking about Matronomy or Benga's musical career. Instead, I'm talking to him and his son Ravi about the brain tumour that Ravi was diagnosed with last year and Ravi's efforts subsequently to raise money that will support Brain Trust and the Brain Tumour Charity. They're just two of the organizations working to help individuals and their families who find themselves dealing with a similar diagnosis. And it's one more area

of medicine where critical research and treatment is badly underfunded. Now, in case you're thinking, and I would understand if you were, I don't know if I can handle a child with cancer story today. Let me tell you, this is not a depressing conversation. I'm not going to make you listen to the episode to find out if Ravi is okay. I'm glad to say that he is okay. His tumor was successfully operated on and he continues to do well. But the other reason to listen to the episode is that Ravi is one of the most upbeat and together people that you are likely to meet and the fact that he's only

seven makes him even more extraordinary so I think despite the subject you're going to enjoy spending time with Ravi and Beng Benga, of course. He's all right, too. There are links in the description of today's episode to Ravi's web page, where, if you're in a position to do so, you can donate to those charities. That's what it's all about. And where you can watch the video

for the single that Ravi has recorded, a cover of A Million Dreams from The Greatest Showman, which features contributions from Bastille, Paloma Faith, Damon Albarn, he's on synths, I think, Jimmy Somerville, and of course, the members of Metronomy. The video also features cameos and words of support from Hugh Jackman, Coldplay, Mary Berry, Bjorn Olweus, Of Abba, De La Soul, and many more. So here's Ravi and Benga chatting to me via Zoom earlier this month, November 2022, with me in my Norfolk Nutty room and them in a room in Iceland

where Metronomy had just played a festival show. Benga had taken his family out for a break to coincide. 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 fat And have a Ramble Chat

Put on your conversation coat And find your talking hat La, la, la, la, la, la La, la, la, la, la, la Hello Ravi, nice to meet you. Nice to meet you too. Let's shake hands even though we aren't actually shaking them. Okay, I am shaking your hand. There you go.

We're doing a virtual shake. Everybody, virtual shake. It's really nice to meet you Ravi. I've heard a lot about you from your dad. And I've seen your video with you singing. It's quite exciting, isn't it? Mm-hmm. Do you like seeing yourself on video?

Not particularly, but... What don't you like about it? Probably how my face looks. How does your face look? What are you seeing? Well, I don't like my practically one-sided smile. Your one-sided smile. So which side of your face is smiley? My right side.

And the other side has been affected by your tumour, is that right? Yes. Yes, it is. And when did all that start? What was the first indication there was something up? Well, about... Just over a year ago. Yeah. A year and three months ago or so.

It was my block tears that the doctor suggested an MRI, which showed that I had a bone tumour. Ah. He had also, he had started getting a kind of weakness on one side of his face. And we didn't know if those two things were related, but we were kind of concerned. Because, yeah, he wasn't hearing very well out of his left ear. The thing is, the Rav man gets extremely waxy ears.

And in the past, he has needed to have his ears kind of hoovered. So we weren't sure if it was just a crazy buildup of wax. But yes, we took him to an ENT who thankfully thought it needed a bit more investigation and suggested an MRI. And then what did they come back and say to you after the MRI? Ravi is looking at me because I'm the one who took the call. So Ravi had his MRI during the day. And the same day at about 7.30 in the evening, I got a call, a direct call from the ENT who had suggested doing the MRI. And soon as my phone started ringing,

I just had an inkling that it was not going to be good news because why would he be calling me at 7.30 at night? And yes, he called to say that the MRI showed a growth near Ravi's brainstem and he needed to go to the hospital immediately so they could check it out properly. What was the MRI like? Do you remember, Ravi? Was it one of those big old machines they roll you into and it's like a tube

and it goes bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang? Was it that kind of thing? Well, yes, it was. Oh, they're horrible. I had one of those. Not horrible. Completely fine. Really? Were you not worried about that? That's freaked me out when I had one of those. Were you not worried about the whole process of getting the tests?

No. The doctors always say I'm one of the best patients they always have. Good one. Because Ravi can lie very, very still. So sometimes children need to be sedated when they go into the MRI. I imagine there's a few adults that need to be sedated as well. Yeah, probably. I might be one of them. So you were not freaked out by the MRI and the tests.

And then what happened after you got the call, Benga? Did you immediately talk to Ravi or what was the process? So I spoke to my wife Bethan and Ravi had already gone to bed because Ravi's very good at going to bed on time most of the time. So we had to wake Ravi up and he was still in his pajamas and Bethan and Ravi packed a bag super quickly and you guys got in a cab and went to the hospital we have two kids so i had to that night i stayed at home with our daughter maya so the next bit of the story i can't recount to you firsthand because i wasn't there hand it over to me i'll hand it over to you ravi so once we got

there we're in the any obviously so we had to wait for a little while. But it was like, I got to watch a movie, the ENT guy came to visit. It was pretty normal because every like half an hour, a nurse would come in and do the exact same checks as the one before. Right, okay. And what kind of checks were they doing? Do you remember? Well, yeah, they were doing like...

The one thing they did know is that the tumour was on my brain stem. So they did this test where I had to run both hands, obviously one by one, down my knee and onto my foot and out. And that was to test how shaky each one they did. Okay.

And they tested my reflexes, my eyes. They tested my heartbeat and my temperature. And that's what they did every single time. And they did it literally every half hour. And how are you feeling at that point? Are you sort of interested in it? Or are you feeling worried? Or what's going on in your mind?

Well, it's like, obviously I am. Like, this is new. This is a bit shocking. But really I was quite chilled and excited. this is a bit shocking but really i was quite chilled and excited i'd had obviously appointments at the hospital before but i'd never actually been there for a long for a like you've got something wrong with you you need to go to the hospital that kind of thing. An emergency, yeah. Yeah. So I was, like, excited because I didn't know what was going to happen. And also, he was only six years old

and it was one of the latest times he'd ever been able to stay up to in the evening. So, you know, being up at night is always exciting for kids. Sure. Can I ask you, Benga, though, how are you dealing with it at that point you're at home probably having one of the less enjoyable nights of your life yeah i i think the unknown was the thing that was worst about it because you hear brain tumor

and you you think the worst It's not a great phrase. But also, again, because we have two kids, it was also thinking about the logistics of what was going to happen the next day, like who was going to look after Maya. I had a feeling I was going to have to go up to London and then we didn't know how long we were going to be staying in the hospital and all that kind of stuff. So think like as a parent your brain you're kind of half

half worrying and half thinking about logistics yeah Ravi where do you think you get your chilled disposition do you think it's from your mom or your dad or is it both of them are they both quite good in stressful situations like you yeah i mean yeah ravi is a very um at at times he can be incredibly mature for his age and i think this is one of those times when his maturity kicked in for sure i think he was probably the least least worried out of any of us even though he was the one going through it but i bet that comes from somewhere i bet you and bethen have a bit more stoicism in you than you give yourselves credit for gotta get poker face is what it is. Except when I'm actually playing poker,

then I'm just terrible. Then you're transparent. And then he's just like... Ravi is making weird faces. Just like that. And so how soon after all that did you get an operation? And was it a series of operations or just one well the next day as expected we got sent up to kings but and then about a week after we'd gotten up to kings they

did the operation and it was just one operation took about nine hours but i was actually in the theater for about 12. Oh, yeah. What did you see? It's a great dad joke for you there. I like what you did there. I mean, Bethan and I did actually go and watch. We went to watch the then-new James Bond film as one of the things that we did to pass the time while he was in the hospital.

So we went to the theatre as well. Yeah. What was the nature of the operation? What were they doing? Because the diagnosis you got was that it was a benign brain tumour. I mean, I would say it stretches my definition of the word benign. But still, it is not one of the more aggressive tumours that's going to clobber you imminently. So that's good.

But what were they trying to do in the operation? Well, it was a debulking operation so they took like I'd say roughly 70% of the tumour out. That's right Professor Abbey. And then they said they were going to see if the see if the rest was stable and if it wasn't stable worst case scenario they would have to do another operation to take it out but thankfully so Ravi's had two scans since then and it's been stable it's been stable it's behaving itself it is although you are having another operation in a couple of weeks time and it's related to the tumour but it's not actually on the tumour. Yeah. What's that one going to be doing? Well it's four different things in one. We're very fortunate that we live close to

a place called East Grinstead that has an amazing hospital called the Queen Victoria Hospital that is really good with people who've been burned and people who've had strokes and anything to do with kind of facial palsy and skin and face injuries. And over the course of a couple of surgeries, they're going to help Ravi with his facial palsy. So what we were talking about before, where he's got a weakness. He still has a weakness on one side of his face, and they're going to move a couple of sections of nerves from his leg into his face. No way. They're going to reroute the signals in his face

so that when his brain tells his eye to blink, his left eye blinks a little bit more than it does now. That's amazing. How long have they been able to do things like that? It's a very new or relatively new procedure. So this surgeon has only done it three or four times. And we're, yeah, it's one of those things that we're just, and this is happening on the NHS, I should say. All this happened on the NHS. His initial ENT appointment we did do through private health insurance, but apart from that, his brain surgery and this surgery he's having in a couple of weeks

and the time he was in the hospital, it's all happened on the NHS, which we're incredibly incredibly thankful for sure and so ravi it's your sight and your hearing on your left side that have been affected right well yeah because my left hearing as we told you before it was still it was still very waxy and blocked and And it's still waxy and blocked. But also he's had some nerve damage in his left ear. So he's a bit like a 50-year-old person

who's been going to raves since they were in their 20s. And some of the high end, some of the top end of his hearing is a bit gone and is not going to come back. Top end's the worst end anyway, I wouldn't worry about it. Anyway, to answer your question about the eye, that was all good coming up to the operation. And after the operation, I think that was when the ulcer started growing. So you need to explain what the ulcer is, Ravi.

Well... You've got an ulcer as well? Yeah, so most people think of ulcers as things that you get, like, you know, inside your mouth or in your tummy. You can also... Tongue. Or in your tongue, of course, yes. You can also get them on your eye, it turns out. also get them on your eye it turns out um and one of the side effects of having kind of reduced sensitivity on his left side is that when Ravi gets a bit of grit or something in his eye he

doesn't feel it and his eye doesn't blink his eye his eye doesn't kind of blink as often as it would normally and so when we got out of hospital, they did not tell us that we needed to be, like, super, super careful with Ravi's left eye. And so he ended up getting kind of a super dry eye, and his eye was rubbing on a kind of little scab that formed on his eye, and eventually he kind of got an ulcer on his eye. Which would have been painful,

but because I had reduced sensation I couldn't actually feel the ulcer. Got you. But your vision was being impaired or had it already been impaired in that eye? Before I was approaching and leading into it both eyes were the same. Mm-hmm. But then, because of dryness, the left eye got an ulcer. Mm. But also, the thing that we found is Ravi has been so amazing at compensating for what's happening on his left side.

And Ravi, he's right-handed anyway. So he has always kind of favoured his right side is kind of stronger than his-handed anyway. So he has always kind of favored his right side is kind of stronger than his left side anyway. So his vision in his right eye is absolutely perfect. And his body, I think, just compensates for kind of how it's... And same with his hearing on his right side is pretty much perfect as well. And so your brain has just been doing this amazing

job of filtering the information so that he doesn't really notice so much that his left side, you know, he's seeing less on his left side than his right side. Good for you, brain. And then how do you feel about it now, Ravi? I know that some people who get cancer or a tumor or things like that sometimes they start thinking of them as almost like people that they are now living with and they have a weird sort of relationship with that new person within them do you know what I mean well you gave your tumor a name didn't you Ravi yeah what your, may I ask what you called your tumour? Jolinton's Zivir. Say that again, what's the name?

Jolinton's Zivir. Jolinton's Zivir. Where did you get that name from? Well, Jolinton's a football player and because a brain tumour's always been a mystery for us, the weird just sort of sued it, and then we put the weird in a French-sounding accent, and then out you come with it. Jolinton, c'est weird.

Ah oui, Jolinton, c'est weird. It's a bit kind of Count Dracula from Sesame Street as well. That's how I think of it. Although, of course, Ravi doesn't really know what Sesame Street is. I've watched some Sesame Street before. Yeah, but it's a bit like me trying to get you to watch a black and white film, Ravi. It's just so different to the shows you kind of grew up watching. Did you see any of the music in Sesame Street, Ravi?

Because Sesame Street was known for involving some really amazing musicians at the time. Have I, Daddy? So we watched a performance of Stevie Wonder on Sesame Street. Ravi's unmoved by this. It's like, obviously for me, it's like Stevie Wonder on Sesame Street. Amazing. Yeah. I think it just seems very old fashioned to him. Kids these days, though, they me, it's like Stevie Wonder on Sesame Street. Amazing. Yeah. I think it just seems very old-fashioned to him.

Kids these days, though, they take everything for granted, don't they? Not true. Fair enough. What was the last thing that you watched on YouTube or on TV, Ravi, that really knocked you out and you thought, wow, that was amazing? knocked you out and you thought wow that was amazing probably this thing on youtube it's called like it's like someone's world where it's a series of episodes on youtube where it's like all right great we're gonna make some christmas cookies and at the end they're like my one's definitely the best it's just so good is it gb news no i've got to say ravi you're not you're not really selling it to us i need more to go on than that

but then you put green food coloring and milk you got green milk. You put it over someone's head and you try and hit it. Hit the bullseye, then the milk comes down. Isn't that enough to convince you? I mean, I'm convinced. It sounds great, but I just don't know what it is. I'm looking for a title. It's... I think his name's Tom.

We're just going to consult with Ravi's sister, Maya. Have you watched this, Benga? No, so during half term, my parents very kindly took Ravi and Maya for the week. And God bless them. When my kids are with my parents, they watch a lot more YouTube than when they're at home. Yeah. They discover all these shows that we've never heard of before. Oh, Question of Sport.

There you go. They're watching Question of Sport, which Ravi's like a 40-year-old man trapped in a 7-year-old's body. 40-year-old. Whoa, he's down. He just slipped over on his way back to the chair. You okay, right, man? He's back. It's called Ryan's World.

Ryan's World. I'm Googling. Ryan's World. Yeah. Okay. Ryan and Gus saw a yeti in the Arctic. I'm just looking at some of the videos here. Ryan's copying his parents for a 24-hour challenge.

That sounds good. Ryan's world's net worth has been significantly growing at a steady rate from the beginning. Between 2016 and 2017, only two years since starting his channel, Ryan has already made $11 million in revenue. In 2018, his annual income had doubled to $22 million, and in 2019, he earned $26 million. Ryan's a multi-millionaire. And he's only a kid.

He's only a kid. He's just dyed some milk green, poured it over someone's head, copied his parents, and earned 26 million in a single year. Those videos were taken probably like 2020. Yeah. I think they probably did it as something to do in lockdown.

Is that so? So he was about, he was six then. So he's only eight and he's already a multi-millionaire. I mean, it's about the art though, isn't it? I'm sure Ryan, like every great artist, was focused on the work before he even started to consider the financial rewards. You don't want to get the cart before the horse do you make videos like that ravi what do you want to do when you're older well i mean my dream is always to be in some sort of like football or

tennis but that's more unlikely now so probably like stuff like singer, teacher, doctor, sewing teacher. That's a great thing to aspire to, to be a teacher. We need more teachers. It's true. We need to pay them more, but we need people who want to be teachers. I bet you'd be a great teacher. And we know you're a good performer. We know you're a good singer.

Do you aspire to being on stage like your pa well yeah it does seem sort of cool so probably yeah do you like going to see metronomy play well yeah i went to one because we're here in iceland because of daddy's gig here how was that was that did you play last night? We had a show at the Iceland Airwaves Festival a few days ago, and it was a very fun time, and Ravi got to stay up late and come to the gig. Well, I did have two naps in the day. He had two disco naps. This is true.

Double naps. And someday I'm going to invent an app that you can have on your phone where you can do everything you need to do so it's like 24 hours of nap beep and then you do everything you do in the day but you're just actually napping the whole time the nap app app nap yes i think we could rival ryan's world's net worth if we actually get this app off the ground maybe we could rival max verstappen oh yeah thank you very much that's a sport reference isn't it that goes over my head if so okay i was gonna say do you know who max verstappen is no who's max absolute cheater of the f1 world oh no before we get uh adam's lawyers involved so max verstappen drives for red bull racing

who are absolutely down in the dumps he just won the f1 driver's title he cheated he spent too much money on his car! And Ravi gets very upset because they were found to have breached the spending cap for this season and last season. Oh, not the spending cap. The thing is, Rev, Adam is not massively into sport. Yeah, no! Wow. He's not massively into sport. Yeah, no. Wow. He's not even into football.

I'm not even. I was going to defend myself there and pretend that I was massively into sport, but I don't think there's any point. The fact is I'm not even into the sport my children play. I zone out when they start talking about it. I'm exaggerating now. I went to see my daughter playing basketball, basketball, playing netball last night. And she is fantastic. And her team are amazing.

Have you ever watched any netball, Ravi? No way. No way. I'm not into that kind of sport. It's football, tennis, F1,

rugby, hockey, and swimming. And I'm out. Yeah. Hockey's fine, tennis, F1, rugby, hockey and swimming and I'm out. Hockey's fine, of course. He likes only the public school sports. Okay. Rugby, rugby, hockey, tennis. Golden Pog, Sprinto.

Quidditch. Quidditch. Fine, I have read the whole Harry Potter series so give me Quidditch when I play it and give me a teacher to teach me Have you read the whole of Harry Potter? Did you read that yourself or was that read to you by

your parents? Both Good one. And yes I have read the whole series. One to seven. Nice. Hey I'll tell you a good book this is a good opportunity for me to plug a book by a friend of mine do you know who richard ayawade is he has not written a children's book before but he just wrote one that came out recently and it is called the book that no one wanted to read all right i'm'm in. I'll read that. It's really good. It's so funny.

It's... Are you familiar with the term meta? Ravi has just pretended to faint with boredom at the mere mention of the word meta. Well, it's written from the point of view of a book, and the book is kind of

complaining about how hard it is to be a book. And no one takes you seriously unless you've got a fancy cover or you're a bestseller. And the book doesn't like it when it's left underneath a pile of stinky washing. And the book doesn't like it when you open it too far because it hurts its spine. And things like that. So it's lots of jokes and stories about what it's like to be a book and it's really funny and interesting well spine hurts because you've opened me way too far exactly there you go so i recommend that the book that no one

wanted to read by richard iowady we'll check it out so anyway look you've got this single coming out right towards the end of november yeah and the single is to encourage people to make donations if they can but to what well the money is going to be split evenly between two brain tumor charities and where's the best place to watch the video and donate and i've got my own website and so people look at the website watch the single and then on the website there's a donate page and then hopefully they watch the single think it's really good and then they donate well also they watch watch the video and know a bit about your story and how much of an inspiration you are to all the grown-ups who've gotten involved with it and it's a cover of a million dreams from the greatest showman which is one of ravi's favorite songs and between us and our kind

of great community of creative people who live in our neighborhood in Brighton and some of mine and my wife's music contacts. We've kind of got a nice group of people who've like sung and played on the single. So Matronomy, obviously, Bastille, Paloma Faith, and this great new band called The Big Moon. Thumbs up for The Big Moon. Yeah, and in the video, we've got kind of words of support

from Hugh Jackman himself. Huge. And Coldplay and Mary Berry. Massive. Yeah, really interesting, varied collection of people. This all kind of came from an offhand remark pretty much Ravi made to Bethan, my wife, about wanting to do something positive to mark the anniversary of his brain surgery.

And he thought of doing a charity single. And he wanted to do A Million Dreams. And things kind of snowballed from there. And it's worked out really nicely. Well, I'm going to donate. And I hope people listening to this will also be able to donate if they can thank you very much adam how do you like iceland by the way it's lovely bit cold bit blowy but it's lovely that's a good slogan for the tourist board what did you say the

official what the semi-official name was for ic, Rav? The Land of Ice and Fire. Yes. It's the kind of place where dragons go on holiday. Really good to talk to you, Ravi, and you, Banga, and hope to see you at Matronomy Thing before too long, I hope. Well, Joe's been telling me a bit about the album that you're chipping away at as well. Yeah, it's history's slowest chipping away process.

I think when something actually does see the light of day, the way out as well. Yeah, it's history's slowest chipping away process. I think when something actually does see the light of day I can imagine doing an interview where someone says, so this record took nearly seven years and yet it doesn't sound that great. What happened? You can't rush a masterpiece, Adam. No, that's true, isn't it?

Neither can you rush something that's not a masterpiece. That's my entire career in a nutshell. 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.

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with Squarespace. Yes. Continue. Hey, welcome back, podcats. That was Ravi and his dad, Benga Adelakarn, chatting to me there earlier this month of November. 2022. How's it November? Rosie, what's the deal? It was not November just a few weeks ago.

Now it's nearly Christmas and It was not November just a few weeks ago. Now it's nearly Christmas, and I am not organised, and I am feeling very much on the back foot. Sympathy? No, thanks. I love you. Oh, Rosie. Give us a hug. Will you say hello to the podcats?

I love you, dog. Come on, dog eyes. I think she's so relieved not to have other dog competition around. Even though they were lovely dogs. Don't get me wrong. These were not yobby dogs that were staying with us over the weekend. But they were a bit younger and a bit more bouncy. Than Rosebag.

Anyway, welcome back. That was Ravi and Benga Adelikan. Did I say that? And yes, if you go into the description, the show notes, whatever you want to call it, of today's episode, you will find a link to Ravi's page where you can donate to those charities and watch the video for his cover of A Million Dreams. I have donated. If you're able to do so, it would be great if you could too

all right rosie let's head back shall we it's frosty oh the shooting men are out let's get back before we get shot and munched by gun guys thank you very much indeed to Seamus Murphy Mitchell for his help with this episode. Much appreciated. Thank you, Seamus. Thanks to the artist Helen Green. She did the picture of my face that accompanies this podcast

and did the artwork for my book, Ramble Book. You haven't got Ramble Book? Come on, mate mate Christmas is coming up that's going to make someone very very very happy I recommend the audiobook hey I tell you what

here's someone who doesn't really need a plug for their audiobook but my friend Ed former podcast guest radio head Ed he's a big U2 fan and he knows I like music nerd audio books and biographies and he said, oh, I'm enjoying Bono's Surrender autobiography slash analysis of 40 U2 songs. I've never really been a U2 fan.

Not a massive one, anyway. I like some of their stuff. Unforgettable Fire, the song. That was a pivotal, emotional anthem for me as a young man. Anyway, I got the audiobook. It's quite good. I mean, if you like music waffle, I recommend it. Barnall is a good narrator.

And the book is well written. It's really well produced, though, the whole audiobook. I guess he's got a bit of money splashing around, so they've been able to get the rights for a lot of songs that they mention. You know, so he mentioned some of the songs that were an influence on the band in the early days, punk songs, et cetera. So you get little clips of the actual songs.

I know, it's very exciting, which normally you never would, obviously, for rights reasons. And then he's re-recorded. I can't believe I'm plugging Bono's audiobook. Anyway, I'm enjoying it. In case you want to pull a musical duvet over your head for a bit. Yes, so thank yous. Thanks to ACAST as well for their

support of the podcast and thanks most of all to you though you're terrific, you're fun you're good looking you're open minded I love what you're wearing and I hope

that you will join me again for another waffly ramble. Frosty hug. Come here. Right. Hope your stress levels are within acceptable limits. Stress levels are within acceptable limits. And for what it's worth, I love you.

Rosie, cover your ears. Bye! Bye. Subscribe, like and subscribe, like and subscribe, please like and subscribe. Give me a big smile and a thumbs up, nice like a pat and put me thumbs up. Give me a big smile and a thumbs up, nice like a pat and put me thumbs up. Like and subscribe, like and subscribe, like and subscribe, like and subscribe. Give me a big smile and a thumbs up, nice like a pat and put me thumbs up. Thank you.