THE ADAM BUXTON PODCAST - EP.219 - AYISHAT AKANBI

Episode Date: February 14, 2024

Adam talks with British fashion stylist, writer and social commentator Ayishat Akanbi about the life-changing epiphany that led to her wanting to change the tone of the conversation around social justice and the 'Culture Wars'.Plus, in the outro, a listener response to the Werner Herzog episode and Adam solves a few mysteries from the Christmas podcast.The conversation with Ayishat was recorded face-to-face in London on 28th August, 2023.Thanks to Séamus Murphy-Mitchell for production support and conversation editing.Podcast artwork by Helen GreenJON RONSON - THINGS FELL APART - 2024 (BBC SOUNDS)RELATED LINKSAYISHAT AKANBI - THE PROBLEM WITH WOKENESS (DOUBLE DOWN NEWS) - 2018 (YOUTUBE)EMPATHY IN BLACK AND WHITE FROM THE US TO THE UK (AYISHAT AKANBI AND JOHN WOOD JR.) - 2020 (YOUTUBE)IDENTITY AND EMPATHY (AYISHAT TALKS TO DAVE FULLER OF REBEL WISDOM) - 2020 (YOUTUBE)AYISHAT AKANBI - GUARDIAN INTERVIEW - 2019 (GUARDIAN)AYISHAT AKANBI - V&A INTERVIEW - 2016 (V&A WEBSITE)AYISHAT AKANBI - THE PROBLEM WITH CANCEL CULTURE (DOUBLE DOWN NEWS) - 2020 (YOUTUBE)A HISTORY OF WOKENESS by Aja Romano - 2020 (VOX WEBSITE)THE MYSTICAL POEMS OF RUMI (RUMI.ORG)AMERICAN FICTION (TRAILER) - 2024 (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 you doing, podcats? This is Adam Buxton here.

I'm on a windy hill in Norfolk. I'm here with my best dog friend, Rosie Buxton. Half whippet, half poodle. Oh, groovy. Not looking too happy today. Come on, Rosie. We're not going to go out that long, I promise. It's a little bit Michael Parkinson out here.

I am regretting not bringing my gloves with me. And it does look as if it's going to start raining. But how are you doing, podcats? Not too bad, I hope. I'm not going to waffle too much at the top here. It is a little on the chilly side. So instead, I will tell you a bit about podcast number 219, which features a conversation with Nigerian-British fashion stylist, writer and social commentator, although I do get the impression she's not entirely comfortable with that tag, Ayesha Akanbi.

I'm quoting now from the blurb on the Found website, where people can go to hire Ayesha as a stylist, although this blurb covers the side of Aisha which is more the kind of thing I'll be talking to her about today, Aisha's writing positions her as a cultural commentator motivated by a strong belief in the value of open conversation and looking beyond echo chambers. She most often speaks on the ever-shifting cultural and social landscape, particularly around identity-based narratives and their potential limitations, always in an effort to combat division, extremism and polarisation. As you'll hear, Aisha describes herself as a bit of a hippie,

keen to reintroduce some peace and love into a culture wars discourse that sometimes can lose sight of both. I first came across Aisha in 2020 and I saw her talking in a video made by the Double Down News Channel. They described themselves as an independent progressive media outlet. Their stuff is very well put together. I recommend it. But I was struck by what Aisha had to say in this video I was watching and how different it was in tone

to so much else that I was seeing online during the pandemic. When, of course, feverish fury levels were peaking around issues like race and gender and all things COVID-related. It's changed a little bit in the intervening years, but it's hardly calmed right down. Here's a few clips from that Double Down media video

that introduced me to Aisha. I think wokeness has robbed many a people of compassion and replaced it with moral superiority. Compassion and empathy is paramount to any social movement and to any form of progress. Once you have compassion and empathy, you can often see that you have a lot more in common with people than you do apart. And it's the system under which we live in that forcefully tries to group us on our differences. What is radical is kindness. What is radical is understanding.

That's the one thing they don't want us to do, is to understand each other. Arguing with each other isn't actually radical at all. It's very conformist, actually. I do think that wokeness does run the risk sometimes in reducing very complex issues. I don't want what I'm saying to come across as those Generation X baby boomers who are talking about wokeness in a very critical way because they are sad that they no longer have their time when they can say things with impunity, where they can be racist and make

homophobic jokes. That's not it. I'm just asking for us to be more honest with ourselves, to think about why these issues are happening and to be responsive and to be critical. You know, maybe in Wokeness 2.0, which is the second stage of the anger, in this new stage, the focus is a lot more inward. Once you understand yourself,

it's very easy to understand everyone else. So easy, because we're actually not that different. We're actually painfully quite ordinary. How our ordinariness and our traumas and our pain manifests is very different, but the root cause as to why we act in the ways that we act often is insecurity. We want belonging, we want acceptance, fundamental things to a human. If we are more understanding of at least ourselves, you know, it's so hard to judge other people.

It's a few moments there of Aisha Akanbi talking in a video produced by Double Down Media called The Problem with Wokeness. It was actually made around 2018, when the whole concept of woke was still relatively new. But of course, by 2020, it was already becoming weaponised. And so with a title like The Problem with Wokeness, it was perhaps inevitable that in 2020 and beyond, Aisha would find herself being invited onto a lot of internet interview shows, sometimes hosted by

right-leaning hosts keen for Aisha to endorse their frustrations with what they saw as the madness of the woke mob. And one of the things I spoke with Aisha about in this conversation was why she chose to accept and why she continues to accept some of those invitations and whether she's worried that her message may be twisted to suit other people's agendas. But as well as talking about culture wars politics, Aisha told me about her own background and how her mother feels about Aisha's mission and the circumstances that led to the life-changing epiphany that made Aisha want to add her voice to the social justice conversation in a way that

might make it more effective for all of us. My conversation with Aisha was recorded face to face in London in late August of last year, 2023, and she had travelled across town to meet me from where she lives in Croydon. So I began by asking how Croydon is these days, which is, I think, a very good question. And I might start all my interviews from now on by asking how Croydon is these days. Back at the end for a couple of recommendations, as well as a bit of listener communication about my podcast with Werner Herzog and some mysteries from the Christmas podcast, Solved. But right now, with Ayesha Akanbi, here we go. See the VAT and have a ramble chat. Put on your conversation coat and find your talking hat.

Yes! How's Croydon these days? I quite like Croydon. Croydon has its charm. It gets a lot of hate, but I quite like it. It feels like one of the few areas in London that's still, I don't know, quite similar to how it's always been. You know, it hasn't been massively gentrified yet. A lot of the local community is still there. Many eccentric characters

and I like to people watch. It's an amazing place to people watch. Yeah. But did you grow up in Southampton? I was born in London. I was born in East London in Newham, but I grew up in Southampton. Oh, right. So I spent most of my life in Southampton and then came to London for university and study I went to Kingston and I was always really itching to get out of Southampton all my family lived in London and as much as you know Southampton wasn't very diverse you know in the school that I went to I was like you know one of the only black kids

which wasn't a bother you know actually it didn't strike me as weird because that was all I knew. But I'd come to London and I would see a lot more people who we'd have a similar background. And I was always intrigued by what being around lots of people like that would be like. Yeah. What were you studying at Kingston? I did media and cultural studies. 2008, 2009, probably. And so when did your fashion work begin? So that began whilst I was in my final year of uni so I never quite knew what I wanted to do I had there was areas that I was interested

in I was interested in music and when I was a kid I thought I might be a DJ just because I liked music so much and then I thought maybe a producer I wanted to be a rapper. And I also was interested, I guess, in style. I didn't ever think of myself as interested in fashion. But, you know, as a young girl growing up, I was never, and I'm still not, the traditional image of femininity. And when you're a kid, that's pretty hard when you go against whatever norm is set. And so I was like, you know, how am I going to, what is the way to do this, you know, where I don't get bullied, you know, because I can't do what the other girls are doing. So what is my way? And so I sort of started developing, I guess, yeah, my own sense of style, probably based on many things I'd watched and everything I was inspired by.

And eventually, I guess I was never expected to look like my peers. And that was always really helpful for me. I was kind of able to do my own thing, carve out my own world, so to speak. And so by the time I got to university, I was still massively interested in style. And specifically, why do we buy what we buy? You know, I noticed that presenting yourself maybe differently to the ways people expected you to dress allowed for certain type of interactions that were maybe unusual or not so common. I always found that I was speaking to people from all walks of life.

And yeah, I would be offered opportunities. And I thought, wow, this is a really incredible thing. You know, maybe I could give this to other people. Maybe I could help other people with this. Yeah. So I've met you once before, very briefly, and it was in a clothes shop in the West End. And it was next to Third Man Records a year or two back when I was recording an episode with the band Spoon. They were about to play at Third Man. And as I was arriving there, I passed a clothes shop and I saw you, recognized you. And it seemed very, what's the word? Serendipitous. Yeah, there you go. Serendipitous. And so I popped in because

I'd been watching your videos. I think this was in late 2021. Still felt very much like coming out of the pandemic years. So I went in and said, hello, introduced myself, said, I hope that you might come on the podcast sometime. And you said you were writing a book. You said, maybe when I finished my book. So how's that going? Oh, well, the dreaded question. So writing a book. Yeah, that was a challenge. I think I always expected that, but I didn't quite anticipate how much of a mental and personal and emotional exercise it really was, especially because there were so many biographical elements about my life in the book, biographical elements about my life in the book as well as commentary on things that were happening in the culture. I've always been quite reflective and self-exploratory and that can sometimes be

challenging because you spend a lot of time just going over your thoughts instead of expressing them sometimes you know you're always thinking about different sides of the argument and different counter arguments and I felt like I wasn't in the right space mentally to write it there was still a lot that I was working out and also the pandemic everything that was happening, like collectively there, you know, there was a collective kind of mood. I think we all sort of felt a bit out of sorts. And yeah, I wasn't in the right headspace. And so what I'm doing now is taking a break from that and just reflecting.

It was a hard decision to make because, you know, it was advertised, you know, it was going to be out, you know, people were asking me weekly, when is it coming it coming out when is it coming out and I think that also got to me as well I think my emergence let's say in the public sphere was really accidental I don't think I expected everything to happen yeah because because how did it sort of evolve so okay where do i start with that because yeah i guess there's a quite a big backstory that led up to you knowing who i am and i think maybe the easiest way to put it but still quite peculiar is in 2013 i had a huge psychedelic experience but a naturally induced psychedelic experience so i've never taken psychedelic experience. So I've never taken acid or anything like that. But from everything I've read around people who take

acid and other types of stimulants like that, I had all of those symptoms quite naturally. And this experience lasted for about six months. So for six months, I was in a state of euphoric bliss. You know, it felt incredible. I started talking differently, thinking differently. Suddenly, my speech felt a lot more clearer. I was having all of these ideas and things that would occur to me out of nowhere that felt true. And it was scary because it's like, is there someone speaking through me? You know, I really didn't understand it.

But you weren't like literally hallucinating. No. So it wasn't like I was seeing figures of people or hearing voices. Yeah, or crazy colours. No, it wasn't like that. I definitely was a lot more animated than I've ever been. Like an extended bipolar high, maybe. Exactly that. And so it was incredible.

It felt great. But the way that I saw other people completely changed. When I went through this experience um I realized that I just had so much more in common with people than I thought of all different backgrounds and I was really quite able to see myself in everyone that I met including the worst parts of people um and in this experience I remember the one thing that happened before was that I remember having a night where I couldn't sleep. And for some reason, my brain gave me like a slideshow, clearly, of everything I'd been

avoiding. So all of these existential and personal uncomfortable questions came up about what I'm doing and why I'm doing it. And what is success? And why is that success to you? Who are your friends? Why are they your friends? You know, why are you dressing in the way you do why do you shop there what do you think these labels or names say about you and why do you need them to say anything about you I don't know there was a lot going on and all I remember is the next day I just stepped into a new world and so that happened and that lasted for about six months it was scary I often thought that I was going to die or maybe losing my mind. But overall, it was a good experience that allowed me to know myself in a much deeper way.

And then I guess like any high, it ended. You know, all of a sudden it was gone. And I didn't anticipate that. And, you know, I guess anyone who's taken drugs or experimented knows there's a come down. And so even though this was a naturally induced high, there was a comedown that lasted a lot longer. And that took me on a journey to work out what had happened to me. Because at this point, you know, from doing research,

you recognize this really wonderful transcendent experience you had also is categorized by some people as a form of psychosis, you know, or maybe an early sign or a warning sign of bipolar schizophrenia, maybe something more severe. And so yeah, I kept that in mind. But there was always this thing in the back of my head that was like, but what if it's something else? You know, so you hadn't, sorry to interrupt, but you hadn't seen a doctor or anything, you hadn't been advised by people around you like, oh, there's something going on with you. I think you need to see someone. As much as I was in a really heightened state mentally and was doing things that weren't quite the norm or what I would usually do I still had some sense that if I was to speak to a professional at that time

The likelihood that they would tell me that I was having some sort of mystical experience was slim and so I had a sense that they what they might tell me and so I always Because I was always aware of that and I didn't discount that possibility But there was also something else here that I don't think they would have been able to investigate for me so you wanted to protect it yeah so I wanted to protect it and so I needed to investigate what this was for myself because I'd recognized that there were so many other people had similar experiences to me in fact sometimes the exact same experiences but the outcome was different they ended up in different places sometimes that experience would lead them to a psychiatric facility sometimes it would lead them to being on medication their whole lives

and it led me to a new way to see myself other people and my environment and I wondered what is the thing that stops it from happening in that way you know or what what happens in this process that sometimes makes people go in the direction where they now need psychiatric help and a lot of professional assistance and it's a negative experience and what do you what are your ideas of what triggered that episode so if i'm honest i think there was a probably a fairly clear trigger for me even though at the time i wasn't quite as aware of it because there was still some distance between the incident and this event happening uh but a year prior to that my brother had been stabbed and killed and so it was completely unexpected and he was quite young at the time he was 26. And the person that took his life was 21. And the person did it just because he wanted

to steal my brother's stuff. You know, like iPhone, MacBook, designer clothes. A stranger. Yeah. Although the stranger was someone that my brother had been getting to know, they'd been speaking on Facebook and things like that. So he wasn't a total stranger, but not someone he knew very well. And I after that happened I think I had a lot of conflict about my work working as a stylist working in fashion knowing that there are people out there who have in their minds that these designer labels are so important that they're enough to kill for and i really felt like i was potentially playing in to this collective idea that your worth is dependent on you know what you can afford and

what you can own and your status and so yeah that i had a massive internal conflict around the work i was doing as a stylist after that and you saw it in those terms rather than it just being a senseless act of violence that your brother was caught up in i think so at that time and it may not have been the right framing but that's immediately where my mind went because this person was 21 and i guess we're all aware that when you commit an act like that there's a chance that you'd be caught um and so he was willing to take the risk you know he's willing to take the risk for this material stuff. And I just really wondered, I was in a state of reflection about what is the value that we've put on material that, you know, some people are willing to kill for them.

And what is it that these things are giving people that they need to possess them at such a desperate level? And why don't we have that internally? Why isn't that something we can access within ourselves? So I remember those were my early thoughts about it. And they did actually catch the person that killed him. And I remember being in the court case and seeing him for the first time. And most people, I guess, aren't in situations like this where they ever come face to face with someone who has killed a loved one. so I didn't necessarily know what to expect or what to think but coming face to face with this person didn't do maybe what I'd seen on TV

maybe I expected to have some hatred or to feel like a burning anger or stuff like that and I was really surprised to find that all I had was like a curiosity about his mental state and his psychological well-being. I really was quite desperate to understand the mental process that led to that decision. That then expanded to the broader cultural context, the world that we're living in that potentially makes people feel this way. What's happening culturally, politically, economically and psychologically. To try and make some sense of it, I guess. Yeah guess yeah i guess so that was my way of trying to make sense of things i didn't know that that was my way of grieving because i'd never i'd never experienced anything like that at that point and i still think now i learned from that situation that's my way of

dealing with complicated emotions and feelings is to get quite curious about them and to work out what's what's happening here you know and then the next stage for you is this sort of overwhelming epiphany where all these ideas suddenly rush in and converge and and you open yourself up to them rather than closing yourself off yeah exactly like i said so before this euphoric shift happened you know i refer to it as the shift because that's the most neutral way of describing it. I know some people might describe this kind of experience as a spiritual awakening, a psychological rebirth, which is a Jungian kind of framing, you know, psychosis or, you know, there's lots of different interpretations about this type of experience. But I think the most neutral is just it was a shift it was a shift in my psychological landscape and before that I had uncovered all of these parts of me in the time that I was having this this confrontation with myself the night

before you know when I said I couldn't get to sleep and the answer to so many of the questions that came up revealed a person that wasn't really pleasant to look at um i was a much more murkier morally ambiguous person you know and that wasn't the framing that i had of myself but all of this stuff emerged and i realized oh there's some some gross stuff here and that changed me in many ways as well because i think once you see that in yourself you can't ignore it then i mean obviously now i'm just thinking about all your moral murkiness yes of course oh i don't know i mean it's the stuff that i guess we all have you know understanding that you're maybe more manipulative than you thought you right okay you know or maybe

understanding that you wanted to do something because you thought it was, I don't know, made you a good person, but actually you're doing it for other, maybe more nefarious reasons. Reckoning with everybody's, yeah, all your kind of selfish motivations and the extent to which you're prepared to not tell the truth completely sometimes or be dishonest with people and yourself about certain things that you want and ways that you're cowardly about things. And yeah, I guess all those things.

Yeah, and in particular, I think it was almost learning that almost everything that I had been sort of portraying outwardly wasn't quite me, you know, almost everything. And I think you come, you you know after a few years of having an experience like that you sort of remember yourself it's like you you lose contact with who you are maybe through just you know growing up um the expectations of your peers your family the things that you digest from culture from tv all of these things maybe make it easy to forget who you truly are, so to speak. And it's like these experiences kind of just, you know, remove the veil. Right. So this is in 2013. And

when did you start writing about society and moving into your social commentator phase, as it were? Yeah, it's's interesting because I had no interest in politics at the time or at least not an active interest I was always one of these people who didn't follow politics but had this idea that I should maybe you know because it's the idea that you know every sort of responsible sophisticated person should be engaged with the news so I definitely felt that but even from a really young age that I should know what's going on so then I have this experience I come out of it and I realize okay the world hasn't changed I have now how do I exist in you know the same

environments I've been massively stretched and changed I don't know how or why I don't know at this point if I'm crazy. I don't feel crazy, but many people would probably look at some of what's happened to me and say that. What do I do? I'm not interested in the same things anymore. I recognize that there's something to our human experience that we haven't tapped into that could be really transformative. I want to do something with this or I want to keep thinking more about this and so I was reading a lot of the time and reading a lot of philosophers and if I wasn't like reading like their full works I would just whatever I was on my mind I would type in the keywords and just find

quotes from people and really take that in and if I liked enough from someone I'd start reading their work and eventually I just started expressing things myself. And then the culture shifted. I felt distinctly maybe in around 2015 and 16, my friends were speaking differently. All of a sudden certain words were coming up that were triggered. I'd never heard people use this so casually and frequently in language. And that was all of a sudden there. Things were traumatic and things were problematic. Everyone was using very similar language and I think because one of the things

that happened in this shift when it was still in the good stage was I was very focused on language and it dawned on me that being able to articulate myself clearly was very important um and I guess I wanted to if I'm going to be here and I'm going to be alive and it's only for a short while, I want to really know people. And I want the opportunity to, I want them to know me and I want to know them. So I guess that's why it was important for me that we speak in our own words. That makes sense. But that coincides with a revolution in the way people use the language and a far more intense focus on how people are talking and the words they use. And you shouldn't say that anymore. You shouldn't describe this group with that term

anymore because it's offensive. And all that sort of focus on the way the language is used really started to bite. I mean, you know, it always happens. It comes cyclically every few years. You get a greater focus on these kinds of issues and they're called different things. When I was growing up, it was political correctness and now it's sort of woke or whatever. language as part of it, because obviously that's how we communicate. And it's always been a factor of that, that people are going, well, you can't say anything anymore. Oh, you're not allowed to say this anymore. And you're not allowed to say this. Bummer. And it goes on. I had a talk the other day with a friend of mine. We were talking about movies. I was referring to Julia Louis Dreyfus, I think. And I kept on saying, what a good actor. I thought she was. She's a great actor.

And then my friend was like, you keep saying actor. What's wrong with actress? She's an actress, isn't she? Why do you keep saying actor? And I was like, oh, well, you know, I'm just, it's just a thing I've picked up. Someone pointed out to me once, like, we don't say doctor and doctoress. Why do you say actor and actress? It seems a bit reductive and

patronizing. And I say, yeah, that's a good point. I want to get on the bus with the movement of not being patronizing if I don't need to be. So, okay, I'll try and make a point of saying actor whenever I'm talking about a woman actor. But my friend was just like, he, I think, had identified that I was doing it quite self-consciously. Also, I'm a bit inconsistent. Sometimes I'll slip and there'll be an actress will pop out. But I was trying to justify myself. And so I said the doctor and doctoress thing. And then I said, you know, I think that's just the way things are moving. I think they're removing the distinction between actor and actress in a lot of awards categories now as well.

But then my daughter said, yeah, I don't know if that's any good, because that just sort of means that you're reducing the amount of people who get recognition for their work. And it's not helping anything overall. Anyway, it was one of those conversations, a kind of culture wars conversation. But I was reminded again of the strength of feeling around all that stuff. And I really felt like I think my friend was being polite. But in that moment, you know, he's a good friend. But in that moment, I could see he was really annoyed. He was just like, life's too short. Who gives a fuck if it's actor or actress?

Just say what you mean. It's not the end of the world. There's a line in terms of, you know, we learn more, language moves on naturally, we just become more educated around different things and we question ourselves more because you're right, why is there necessarily a distinction between actors in terms of actor and actress? We don't do that anywhere else.

So much of language is arbitrary in that way right exactly and so you know with that one it's a fairly sort of it's quite harmless like so i would adopt actor now you know because i you know like you i had a similar situation where i think i was referring to someone as an actress and i noticed that they kept on referring to them as an actor you know and i was like this is deliberate you know like they're they're trying to communicate something here. And it's not like I cringe when I hear, and many female actors call themselves actresses. And it's not like if someone says, oh, she's a good actress. I'm like, oh dear, you're not allowed to say that. No, exactly. Sometimes, you know, you've been saying something a particular way and then someone

tells you, oh, actually, can you consider this and blah blah blah and it just makes sense and you adopt it and so yeah i'm fine to adopt any new language that makes sense to me and that's not because i feel some kind of this isn't anything to do with being woke or being you know or feeling like a social pressure or that i'm a bad person if i don't adopt that language it just makes sense to me. But then at the same time, of course, there is this other side where people do feel an incredible amount of pressure to say things and to caveat and to all of these qualifiers. I know I'm a white male and, you know, like I'm privileged and, you know, I haven't experienced this and that. and that we're living in a time where it does feel like because we live so much of our lives on the internet and that means anyone has access to us and can tell us just exactly how much of a twat they think we are we're a lot more hyper conscious of how we speak but at the same time i am one of these people who is quite conscious of saying oh you can't say anything anymore

because that's not true necessarily either i think you can say what you want you can't say it any way you want that's the thing you know I pretty much say what I want I can't say it any way that I want though if I want to be heard if I want to be understood or listened to rather than heard because maybe that's the thing you know lots of people are heard but they're not necessarily listened to and so for me I've put out thoughts that are somewhat critical of what some people might conceptualize as contemporary activist culture and I've critiqued a lot of that but I don't get much pushback and I think the reason why I don't get much pushback is because I try to speak in my own words. So as soon as, let's say, you start picking up the language of your tribe, so let's say on the left, broadly speaking, there are certain

words that you may use that may out your political position. So if you're quite eager or you're quite quick to call something problematic, if you're quite quick to label something bigotry and stuff like that but equally on the right if you are someone who will kind of use the term virtue signaling you know or if you're someone who indeed woke exactly you know people focus on those words not what you're saying yeah you know they've made their minds up just by the language that you've used and so i try not to do that because you know still if i'm honest I'm still working out where I am politically although I have definitely a lot of liberal sensibilities because of my identity in the sense that you know I'm not straight I'm a woman I'm black I understand

where a lot of contemporary concerns and issues I understand where people are coming from and it exists on both sides there's a script on both sides. There's a, you know, what some people would term as a woke script. And then there's an anti-woke script. And I don't want to be on the script. For a long time, I was quite intent on, or it was quite important to me to find a tribe of people that I felt some sort of, I don't know, shared values with, shared ideas maybe, or working towards the same thing. I found that really difficult. But also I find that difficult because I feel like once you are quite immersed in a group, I think it can be suffocating for your voice in many ways. Because, you know, we all want belonging and we all want community and we want to be liked and loved and adored.

And you get that on social media a lot of the time. And then you get enough of it. And then all of a sudden, oh, can I say this thing? You know, like the people who now respect me, who I'm now getting these dopamine hits from. They don't seem like they like this kind of stuff. No, you'll get a yikes. Yeah, right. Yikes. So disappointed. Oh, my God. Exactly. And I didn't I didn't like that. like they like this kind of stuff no you'll get a yikes yeah right yikes so disappointed oh my god

exactly and i didn't i didn't like that i started noticing when those kind of thoughts were coming even the whole time that i've been on social media and even though like most of the reception to me has been overwhelmingly positive it still didn't feel quite right it didn't feel right to kind of post sometimes i'd post you know 10 15 tweets in a day so this is primarily how you were putting your ideas out there through twitter through twitter and then through twitter um people would ask to interview me um I would do talks and things like that but I never set out to do this I never set out to be thought of as a cultural commentator or anything like that I just knew I needed to express myself and I wanted to express myself honestly. I think part of the reason why I've had a fairly positive reception

when I was tweeting the most was because I don't use a certain language. But even though I've had a positive reception, I've always been quite suspicious of what it might be doing to this human psyche to come online every day and have people blow smoke up your ass yeah even if they're not intending to blow smoke up your ass but just you know being complimentary and telling you that like they really agree yeah i mean are you are you on twitter still i'm i still have an account there but i haven't tweeted in the ways that i once did for a few years now yeah you know x we're supposed to yes i don't know if i'll ever be calling it x no i don't think anyone ever will right so twitter i haven't used twitter in that way in maybe about three

years now every now and then i might share something yeah so the landscape changed the culture changed definitely between around 2014 and then 2016 bre Brexit, Trump, etc. And that felt like a massive sea change, especially online. And that's where you started to see polarization really taking hold and people taking sides and the stakes being much more serious. And then, of course, police killings of black people still going on. But then in the pandemic in 2020, when George Floyd was killed, then it went to a whole other level again. And that's when I became aware of you online, when people were having conversations in the wake of George Floyd's death, Black Lives Matter, etc. And there was a sense that you had to pick a side and you were in trouble if you didn't pick the

right side and even just not saying something was a problem you know there were stories not people i knew but i was listening to podcasts where people would do a whole podcast about i got cancelled because i didn't do the like there was one day when you had to the black square have a black square right i didn't do the black square. And my work colleagues found out and I was fired and ostracized from my friendship group. And that particular podcast I was listening to was from someone, an American, who was still on board with the whole kind of progressive project and still clearly felt that actually there was a lot of, it was quite reasonable that they had been ostracized. They were just talking about the fact of being cancelled and how they moved on from it.

But you could still sort of tell, like, they thought, yeah, well, okay, I understand that you've got to punish people. There just seemed to be a kind of prevailing madness about a lot of what was happening around that time, that you were offsetting with some of the things you were saying and not using all the kind of prescribed terminology and talking in far more inclusive and humanist terms and avoiding some of the things that everybody else was saying at the time, for better or worse, right? It's interesting that you use the term humanist because I've often thought a lot of the

progressive project in its current form and of course that's not the entire thing but I've often thought of it the way it operates it's quite anti-human in many ways and I say that it's quite anti-human in the sense that it doesn't appreciate human complication, moral ambiguity, the fact that we all have a light and a dark side, if you like. I'm interested to know to what extent you felt that it was impossible for you to move politically without being co-opted by one side or the other. Like that person who didn't use the black square. You're damned if you do, you're damned if you don't and people on one side or the other were going to resent the fact that you didn't take sides or you didn't say the

right thing or you you were equivocating about certain aspects of what was going on you know obviously i think it was sort of taken as read that you would be on board with the general goals of the progressive mission woke culture whatever you want to call it but i think there's also a feeling that you still feel today from a lot of people that you are who you associate with you shouldn't go on certain podcasts hosted by centrist or right of center white men and you are actually harming the people you should be helping if you do because basically what you might be doing is making people who don't care to examine their prejudice feel good about themselves and it's all dressed up as like look at us aren't we great for

having a reasonable centrist conversation and agreeing to disagree but actually the net result is you're just letting some of the people watching off the hook and they are not inclined to re-evaluate their prejudices that's the biggest problem i think people have had with me uh like i said i don't get much direct attacks but you know when i've had conversations with friends behind closed doors it's often you know Aisha it's not that I disagree with you it's who you're saying it in front of it's the fact that you have Piers Morgan retweeting you and as far as I know at least I think Piers Morgan would identify himself as a liberal but still I get it and you know at one point Andrew Neil retweeted you and all of these kinds of people and like like, don't you think, yeah, as you said, you're allowing them off the hook.

And I don't know if I see my job or my role is to keep people on the hook. That's not what I'm trying to do. But at the same time, of course, it was it definitely was something to me when I noticed that I was accumulatingulating you know a big right-wing audience I I recognized that you know um people who were at least right of center were much more interested in a lot more of what I had to say but yeah I guess I didn't I wasn't I wasn't prepared for that and it was tough only because I knew that the more I developed that kind of following than the people that I wanted to hear me would struggle to. Because I know we live in this culture where, as you said, you know, who you're

associated with takes president sometimes, and it overshadows anything else. Especially now that the Republican candidates in the US are kind of running on an anti-woke platform. Right. And so you in the past have done kind of the problem with wokeness videos and things like that. So you're bound to be just bundled in with them. But at the same time, I think people know that I'm not. Yeah. And I think they know that I'm not as well.

I've never really, you know, like I said, I think it's clear that I'm speaking from a different place. It's not political. I'm interested in the psychological. Yeah. that I'm speaking from a different place it's not political I'm interested in the psychological yeah have you felt specific instances of your opinions and your pronouncements on wokeness or whatever being taken out of context and kind of used against you by bad faith yeah but then I don't necessarily trust that everyone on the left who is in support of the political project

or the progressive project i don't necessarily believe that everyone is a good faith actor i think that if i am not to say something simply based on how other people could misuse it then none of us would say anything people misuse many texts that are intended to be decent the bible is a good example you know many religious texts i don't know if that's a good enough reason for me to not say what I think is honest or what I can observe more specifically so that hasn't mattered to me I can't prioritize the feelings of people who are ill-intended over I don't know you know observations or insights or perspectives that may be valuable

to, you know, to other people, you know, they're not introduced too often. There's a dearth of perspectives out there. And so I do think it's important, especially if I'm honest, for minorities in particular, whether you're a sexual minority or racial minority, to know that they're available to them. I think it's particularly cruel to, I don't know, to suggest that, you know, because you are different from the majority that you have to think like, you know, everyone in your minority group. Yeah, so I don't think I mind about that so much. I think the only part that I mind about in terms of people who I don't align with, with everything, and I might align with, you know, some right-wing people on some

things. I might, you know, I'm sure there are because that's the nature of being human a lot of the time. But I don't think I worry about that too much, or at least I try not to. I think it's distracting. Yeah. Of course, there's going to be crossover. I mean, you can see in the way that the Conservative Party borrow elements of Labour Party policy when it suits them. And of course, there's going to be crossover. I mean, you can see in the way that the Conservative Party borrow elements of Labour Party policy when it suits them. And of course, it's always going to be crossover. So, yeah, I want to work out what is the most productive and useful way of speaking to the people who I think are most affected by ideas that I think can be quite self-sabotaging and anti-human. ideas that I think can be quite self-sabotaging and anti-human and by anti-human what I mean is you know as I said I'm someone who finds one of the most fulfilling things in life is genuine connection with people and so anything any ideas in the culture that prevent that from happening

because we're focusing too much on what we are rather than who we are I'm probably going to have a problem with you know and ideas like that don't just come from the left. They come from all types of places. Yeah, that's my issue. I'm not someone who is anti-wokeness. I'm anti sort of, and maybe even anti is a strong word. But let's say I have problems with movements, belief systems, ideologies that present themselves as radical, but are actually, you you know based off of like lots of insecurity and a lack of self-awareness and resentment that's my my main issue that's my

gripe i drink your milkshake i drink it up Your milkshake! I drink it up! Oh! i drink it up so how long do you feel like you've been in the public eye a little bit more like as a public speaker i think that wokeness video happened in 2018 so was it 2018 the wokeness video happened in 2018. So was it 2018? The Wokeness video came out in 2018, but I guess in 2020, when everything was happening around George Floyd,

it resurfaced again. So it might've seemed like it was done then. But I think since around 2018, people have been more familiar with me for my musings on the culture, let's say. And was there anything that you said in that video that you've changed your mind about now? There's definitely ways I spoke that I probably wouldn't speak now. I was a bit younger at the time. And again, like I wasn't very well versed in politics and I still don't actually think that I

am, but I was, yeah, there was language language I would have changed the framing of certain things but no fundamentally I do feel like we can often use politics as a stand-in for a moral compass you know or actually knowing ourselves or actually we use our political beliefs to signal that we're good people yeah I still believe that ultimately I think what I was trying to say probably not so eloquently in the video is that I do think a lot of the ways that we're thinking about progress, particularly around identity, I think is narrow, I think is limited, and I think will backfire in many ways, actually. a problem with the casual denigration of white people you know the fact that I could probably go maybe not me because of the kind of audience I've built up but the fact that anyone with a large following or even not a large following can go online and be like oh my god white men are the bane of my existence you know thousands of retweets or they can say that about white women

and I was always like this is clearly not right for all the obvious reasons but beyond that I was always like, this is clearly not right for all the obvious reasons. But beyond that, I was like, I know me. If I was a white person, like regardless of what's happened in history, regardless of what my ancestors have done, I'm not going to be OK with people denigrating me who don't know me based on my skin colour. There's no story that you're going to tell me where that's going to be okay there's no type of oppression that you're facing where i'm going to be okay with that that's the truth i know i'm like that as a person and there must be people like me i'm not not me yeah yeah you know um but yeah i know there's people like me and i know there are people who may be less diplomatic than me who have this disposition sure and so you keep kind of making it acceptable

to say this and that about white people eventually a group is going to emerge who are going to want to be able to exercise their right to talk about certain groups in any way that they want and that is happening now i'm very aware of that you know there's certain corners of twitter that are very openly racist proudly proudly so. It's become quite an edgy thing in certain circles. Well, especially in the Musk era. Right, right. Exactly.

There's a side of Twitter where it's edgy to be racist. You know, it's cool. And I've been looking at that. I'm quite interested in that corner of Twitter just because, again, I'm interested in what leads people to loads of crazy things that's just always been a curiosity of mine or has been for a while now so there is this backlash and I don't know where I'm also interested because I don't know what's going to happen in that movement where is it going to grow is it going to grow in the way that you know the progressive movement has grown and it might it looks like it has legs so it's often very openly racist it's

cool to be that and openly misogynistic and like it has a lot of intelligent people within these groups and i know it may be hard to think of people like that as intelligent but let's say at least well read intelligent in the way that the world understands that articulate articulate well-read phds degrees you know all of that kind of good at arguing yeah all of that stuff and it might grow because a lot of people feel disillusioned with mainstream politics you know a lot of men in particular feel disillusioned with some of the messages that they believe that feminism is putting out in the world and so a lot of people feel disillusioned a lot of people feel like their identities are being attacked and so this movement

definitely has uh the potential to grow into a new form of wokeness in an opposite form and i thought something like that would happen you know it makes sense it's just human nature i think you know equal and opposite reactions exactly what were your parents like when you were growing up were they conservative or were they sort of uh did they talk about politics yeah my mum so i grew up with just my mum my dad lived in nigeria when i was growing up so it's just me and my mum in south ampton and she always had cnn on you know she always um had a news channel on we didn't speak about politics that much together but But she was definitely a liberal. Let's say in terms of.

Well she would vote Labour. But vote Labour based on. The practicality of the things that her life required. In terms of values. Values are conservative. I think most people that come from Africa, you know, South Asia, I think most of our cultures are quite socially conservative, because we grew up quite religious. And even though I didn't grow up in a very religious household, my mum is Muslim,

my family's Muslim. And so that's naturally there. So yes, so let's say she would have quite traditional ideas on what a woman should do what a man should do you know the roles that happen in marriage and things like that certain thoughts around people who are gay and things like that everything that you would expect maybe someone who isn't maybe hyper progressive to think they were like that but you know again i've always on some level i think growing up predominantly around white people in southampton because their families weren't like that i just was always very resistant to any part of my culture that felt suppressive so she wasn't super strict with you no not really i never had to go to the mosque or anything like

that the only thing that she enforced is like you know we didn't eat pork and i didn't drink alcohol and i still don't drink alcohol to this day uh i mean i do like a bit of pork every now and then but that's about it so no they weren't massively political now me and my mom speak about political issues quite a lot it took you know she did she at one point she quite agreed with my stance on racial issues. Like, I think we both agreed that a lot of the ways that black people are characterized in the West is quite patronizing and belittling and not very nuanced. We both agreed with that. And I found it really interesting because when George Floyd happened my mum completely switched you know I think the for want of a better word the programming or the narrative was so strong about how you had to feel and if you didn't feel that way that you were a terrible person you know

I remember me and my mum having arguments then because all of a sudden so much of what I'd said then suddenly became dangerous to her Aisha look what's happening to you know black people in America like you can't be saying all this stuff that you're saying anymore and I remember having quite tense arguments about that with her she's since come around because I do think 2020 was a moment that so many people got swept up in and I actually think we got swept up in something you know because I've spoken to loads of people now who look back on that time and were like, I can't believe I said this. I can't believe I fell out with a friend, you know, a long term friend because he didn't post a square. You know, yeah, we were sort of intoxicated by, you know, what was happening culturally. Yeah. Well, the lockdown didn't help, I guess. I mean, there was just a general.

Yeah, no, exactly. Literal and metaphorical feverishness about the whole time. Right. Exactly that. How was your ma when you started having relationships with women then? a general yeah no exactly literal and metaphorical feverishness about the whole right exactly that how was your ma when you started having relationships with women then um she i didn't tell her for a long time and when she first found out so i didn't come out she found out and she first found out it was not a good situation you know she was very upset i was young at the time i was 16 and so i think I remember like saying to her that you know I'm never going to do it again it's just a phase I never felt like I would ever

be able to comfortably tell my Nigerian Muslim mum you know that I wasn't straight and you'll notice I often say the word not straight as opposed to queer bisexual or lesbian just because sometimes that just feels like the most honest queer Queer to me, as much as I understand the appeal of the word because it's somewhat vague, I think that's the appeal of it in its vagueness. It just means you're not straight. I often think that word tends to come with a particular belief system.

You know, a lot of people who call themselves queer, there's often a worldview that accompanies it that I don't generally share. And often, you know, with the word lesbian, I don't tend to use that word know with the word lesbian I don't tend to use that word because as much as like my relationships are predominantly with women and I've only ever fallen in love with women I wouldn't say I don't have an attraction to men I just don't tend to find myself in relationships with men so anyway I just did a little bit of a detour but

yeah so my mum was not happy about it in the beginning and so it's taken a a while. And me and my mum are in a great place with my sexuality. She completely accepts me. I could talk to her about anything to do, you know, with a relationship with a woman. I think, you know, of course, she's Nigerian and Muslim. And I think a lot of African people, from my experience, very much care about what the rest of the family thinks. So even if they're OK with something, how, how you know how is the extended family going to feel what are the you know what is going to be the talk I think she still has a bit of that sometimes but one thing with me that is very important in my life is to not seek validation from who I am from anyone else it's also a big

part of my own personal philosophy and what I'm sharing with people I don't care necessarily what white people feel about me you know what I mean or I don't care what a racist even thinks about me just don't make it my problem you're entitled to all of that but you know even my gender or how I feel about it like that's not something anyone else can affirm or validate that's something for me to know yeah I mean obviously that's the way we would all like to be yeah you know like I said it's a it's a process and a journey yeah yeah what what is it like on days where that's the way we would all like to be. Yeah, like I said, it's a process and a journey. Yeah, yeah. What is it like on days where that's not working? What does it look like when you have a bad day? What do you do?

What are the things that cheer you up reliably? Sometimes I just dance around my room. You know, there's something really important about movement and about dancing. You know, I can see why there's been a few philosophers who've spent time talking about dancing and the importance of dancing. Yeah, I think it might have been someone like Nietzsche who might have said, like, you know, every day that we haven't danced is a mistake. You know, and I really, really understand that.

Wow, that doesn't sound like classic Nietzsche. It might not have been him, but it's someone of that ilk. I don't know. Maybe it is, but it's not what I would associate with him. Yeah, but I think it actually might be. And so, yeah, dancing, music, that can definitely help. Reading the words of people. I have this thing in my phone called Food for Thought. It's just my favorite quotes from anyone, anything that stirs me.

Some stuff comes from books. Some stuff comes from, I don't know know snippets from films but would you be able to read me a couple yeah okay sure some of them aren't always maybe meant to inspire some of them are just thought-provoking yeah to me um okay for instance okay this is one that would just be thought-provoking this is the first one that's there. And this is from a writer and feminist called Camille Paglia. And she says, repression is an evolutionary adaptation, permitting us to function under the burden of our expanded consciousness, for what we are conscious of could drive us mad. for what we are conscious of could drive us mad. And I think I saved that because I've been thinking about self-awareness and why it's crippling. And yeah, that seemed to explain that.

So that was just one that's maybe food for thought. And then in terms of ones that may be, so I'm seeing, let's see who else here. You know, I've even got some Rumi in there. The beauty you see in me is a reflection of you. Who's that? Rumi. I even got some Rumi in there. The beauty you see in me is a reflection of you. Who's that? Rumi. I don't know Rumi.

Rumi is like a mystical poet. And yeah, check out some of his stuff. Yeah. I've got some Oscar Wilde in here. I've got, let's see, what else? That's interesting about the self-awareness thing as well. I think, like my theory of that in my own life was that it began i guess it's always been there a little bit thinking too much about stuff but then it really

ramped up when i read the tipping point by malcolm gladwell okay and you know that book i do know i haven't read it it's good i think it's best book. And that book really sort of encouraged me to look more deeply at everything. And it was saying that small things make a big difference. A kind of butterfly effect way of looking at the world and considering every tiny detail because it will, some way down the line, have a much larger and unforeseen effect. And once you kind of take on that way of looking at the world it's overwhelming because you're you're suddenly paralyzed because you know you're thinking

about every tiny little thing right which is probably why they say the more you know the less you speak uh-huh you know because yeah you're there's too much to consider or why they often say a lot of hyper intelligent people are crippled with self-doubt yeah that's me of course it is i can see that um so yeah it it does definitely it definitely tracks um so yeah looking at things like that i think maybe one here that i will read is from leo tolstoy and it's a simple one everything that I understand I understand only because I love and I think that's an interesting one to me because I think a lot of my understanding about things just you know I have a I'm a bit of a hippie you know like I love people truly like I'm really curious about everyone doesn't mean I like everyone but you know just for us being here with everything that we have to go through it's hard not to consider all

of those things and we're all still standing without some degree of love for everyone and I do really think that is what pushes me to understand so just you know coming across something like that on a day that I'm feeling bad is you know just to, you know, keep love at the forefront of what you're doing. 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. 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, 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. Hey, welcome back, podcats. Now, Rosie, I am going to unclip you as there's no one around.

And we will head back. Hang on. There you go. Now gamble gamble gamble like the wind oh it's a little bit cold anyway that was Aisha Akanbi there of course talking to me I really enjoyed meeting Aisha and I hope our paths will cross again many of the themes that we touched upon in that conversation come up in a couple of the things that I've particularly enjoyed over the last few weeks, so I thought I would recommend them in case they sounded interesting. One of them is the second series of John Ronson's Things Fell Apart radio show. It's on Radio 4, but there's also a podcast

which you can hear on BBC Sounds. There's a link in the description. I'm sure a lot of you are across that already. But for those of you unfamiliar, it's a show in which writer John Ronson traces the roots of culture wars, clashes of various types. This time, John focuses on the stories behind conflicts over Antifa, the anti-fascist movement in the US, Black Lives Matter,

anti-vaccine conspiracy theories, and transgender rights activists, amongst other stories. I love John's work. He has been on the podcast a couple of times, I think. And the stories he finds are always grippingly told without being sensationalist. And he always does his best, I think, to not lose sight of the humanity of the people he's talking to, whatever side they happen to be on. In fact, I'm going to record a conversation with John in a week or two that will eventually appear as a bonus episode for the Things Fell Apart series, I hope. That's the plan anyway, unless I massively screw it up.

Louis Theroux did a conversation with John for the first series as a bonus episode. So I'm honoured to be doing it this time round. I also saw a fantastic film on the weekend, which you may have read about, called American Fiction. Directed by Cord Jefferson. I think it's his debut feature. I think Cord Jefferson was one of the writers on Aziz Ansari's show, Master of None. Which I always quite liked. Anyway, this is great American fiction. It stars Jeffrey Wright, who's always good.

Basquiat, he was. Have you seen Basquiat? It's worth seeing. I'm not saying it's perfect, but it's quite good. And Zayvid is in it, of course, as Andy Warhol. I like your painting. Carton balls. Jeffrey Wright also played Felix Leiter in No Time to Die, although he was one of the ones who discovered that actually it was time to die. It's just a bit sad. I was like, don't get rid of it. He's the best guy. Anyway, in American fiction, Geoffrey plays a frustrated novelist,

monk I'm reading from some internet blurb now, who's fed up with the establishment that profits from black entertainment that relies on tired and offensive tropes to prove his point. He uses a pen name to write an outlandish black book of his own, a book that propels him to the heart of hypocrisy and the madness he claims to

disdain. So that's the kind of topical conceit, I suppose you could call it, which is very good. I think it's thought-provoking and funny and interesting, but there's also a whole other dimension to the film, which is more of a family drama. And it's got some really nice observations about sibling dynamics, especially in middle age, and the painful process of dealing with ailing parents. And I thought it was great. It was handled really nicely, not too grim.

And it was quite funny. Monk, Geoffrey Wright's character, makes the decision to get his mum into a care home. And the mum, played very well by Leslie Uggams, reminded me a lot of my mum towards the end of her life. But the care home is expensive, and that's the reason that Monk is put in a difficult position when he starts getting offered big money for this book that he has written to take the piss out of

what the industry considers worthwhile black narratives. American fiction. Enjoyed it. I got a message from a listener about the podcast with Werner Herzog last week, and it was about Herzog's attitude to therapy in general. And I'm going to quote a little bit of this message, which is from Paul carr and paul says herzog's perspective fails to acknowledge that many people undergo analysis because they and just as often others have reached the end of the road with incredibly destructive behaviors and they cannot move forward without first gaining a new understanding of the causes of these. Analysis often comes into play during crises,

not when individuals are functioning well. Herzog's advice against analysis for those in turmoil and their families is naive and unhelpful and shows a misunderstanding of the breadth and complexity of people's psychological problems. Thanks for the message, Paul. I wrote back to Paul and I did say that actually I think Herzog himself acknowledged that there are times when

therapy can be useful. But yeah, he's certainly not pro-therapy, I think we can say. I also said to Paul that me and Joe Lysett talked a little bit about Herzog and therapy in our conversation a few episodes back and Joe Lysett very entertainingly pushed back on Herzog's position uh Paul actually Paul also sent a message off to the Christmas Day podcast. And he pointed out that because we played some clips of old films that we used to like, me and Joe, back in the 80s. And films that had little bits of dialogue that had become part of our bants over the years. Including the bit from Ferris Bueller's Day Off where they're watching the baseball game, Cameron and Ferris, and they're going... They're saying, as Paul pointed out,

he can't hit, he can't hit, he can't hit. So wing batter, he can it, he can it, he can it, he can it. He can't hit. In an American accent. So, yeah, cleared that up. Also, a couple of other mysteries that I talked about in the outro for the Christmas podcast that I'm sure you will have been worrying about and I'm glad to be able to clear up now. I found the details of the person who sent me the Neil Young doc.

It was Lindsay Sinclair Fallis. Thanks, Lindsay. I loved it. I sent you a thank you card. I hope you got it. And the other mystery from the Christmas episode was who sent me a lovely blue beanie hat a few weeks before Christmas? It was Seamus Murphy Mitchell, who I am about to thank for his invaluable production support

and conversation editing on this and so many other episodes. Thank you, Seamus. Seamus didn't realise that he hadn't included a card with the hat. Yeah, I'm sure you're all relieved about that. Thank you once again to Aisha for making the time to talk to me.

Thanks to Helen Green. She does the beautiful artwork for this podcast. Thank you to ACAST and everyone there for their continued support. But thanks especially to you. Appreciate you coming back and listening right to the end. You've got a busy life. Anyway, I'm honoured that you would spend more time in my company. And for that reason, I'm wondering if I could sort of lean in and creepily give you a hug. Oh, good. I'm glad. How are you doing? Nice to see you. Till next time, take care. I love you.

Bye! Like and subscribe. Like and subscribe. Like and subscribe. Please like and subscribe. Give me like a smile and a thumbs up. Nice like a pat when my bum's up. Give me like a smile and a thumbs up. Nice like a pat when my bum's up. 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 pat with a thumbs up. Give me a little smile and a thumbs up. Nice like a pat with a thumbs up. Like and subscribe. Like and subscribe.

Like and subscribe. Like and subscribe. Give me a little smile and a thumbs up. Like and subscribe. Give me a little smile and a thumbs up. ស្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប Thank you. Bye.