THE ADAM BUXTON PODCAST - EP.48 - HOLIDAY TIME - SKIING (WITH DOUGIE PAYNE)

Episode Date: September 14, 2017

Join Adam & family as they go on their first skiing trip with friends including Dougie Payne of the band Travis. Find out how the Holiday Team got on when they visited the French resort of Morzine in January 2017, plus Adam & Dougie enjoy a rambly conversation halfway up an Alp. Thanks to Alikats Mountain Holidays https://alikats.eu/Thanks also to Seamus Murphy Mitchell for production support. 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 listeners? Adam Buxton here.

Nice to be back with you again. I'm out for a walk with my dog friend Rosie. She's up ahead. She just looked back at me when I said that. What? What are you talking about me for? She's bouncing in the fields there. She's got a good attitude. She doesn't care that the weather is currently non-clement. Anyway, despite the summer being over, in podcast world, it's still holiday time. That's right. Welcome to this first Adam Buxton podcast holiday special. Holidays used to be a miracle. Now, if you listen to a

rising clamour of protest, they are the destroyer of worlds. So is tourism a force for good or a beauty-destroying, culturally emulsifying, planet-trashing nightmare? Whoa, steady on, Michael Burke, on my favourite Radio 4 middle-class worry programme, The Moral Maze. Those are, without doubt, questions it behooves all of us to consider, especially privileged people like myself who can afford to travel and love to do so. But today, I'm just inviting listeners to join me

and the rest of Team Buckles on an audio holiday, much less damaging for the planet. And I'm going to do this via some recordings I made in January of this year, 2017, when we got the opportunity to go skiing together as a family for the first time. It is philistinism. It is a recipe for a global disaster. All right, Charles Fraser. Anyway, the first half of the podcast, you'll be hearing how our trip went.

And in the second half, you'll be hearing a rambly conversation recorded on a mountainside with one of the people who came with us on holiday, my old friend Dougie Payne, who plays bass in the Glaswegian Why Does It Always Rain On Me band, Travis. Dougie and his son Freddie, who also joined us, were, like several members of our party, new to skiing, so we discussed how it had gone, as well as talking a bit about the time at the turn of the century

when Travis found themselves on the turn of the century when Travis found themselves on the cover of pretty much every other music magazine in this country hailed as the biggest band in Britain. Ah, Y2K. Never mind Y2K buckles. What about Y skiing? Well, I'll be answering that question when I return to my nutty room and switch to narrator voice mode. But first, holiday jingle. a carrot, have two carrots. Go to the toilet, take your time. Holiday time. In his travel writing capacity, my dad took me, my brother and sister and my mum on several European ski trips in the 80s, and I went with friends a couple of times thereafter. But it wasn't something I'd ever considered doing with my own family. Yes, it was occasionally great fun, but to organise too much hassle,

too much expense, with too much potential for things to go wrong. You might have problems with all that costly gear. You could fall and break your scrotum badly. You might get trapped in a crap nightclub with a gang of drunk toffs and be forced to sing along to Barbie Girl, or worse. Then, late last year, I was contacted by Al Judge, a listener to this podcast who, along with his wife Kat, runs a chalet business in the French ski resort of Morzine,

under the name Ali Cats, which is slightly cheating because he's called Al, not Ali, but I let that slide. Aware of the awesome commercial power of this podcast, Al and Kat invited us to stay in one of their chalets as their guests in return for a mention. I consulted my wife, and we had a look at the Alley Cat's website. The chalet looked considerably more luxurious than anywhere I'd stayed on skiing trips in the past. We decided to accept Al's generous offer.

Wary of taking the piss, but not excessively wary, I asked if we could bring some friends. Al said yes. The chalet we'd be staying in, Riverwood Lodge, sleeps up to 16 people, so, as well as Dougie, I called my friends Lydia and Chris. They live in Spain, Lydia is Spanish, you see, and they have two boys, Ale, who was 16 at the time, and Liam, who was 11. Apart from Chris, none of them had skied before. Liam had never even seen snow. We were also joined by our pal Danny. You may have heard Dan playing eight-line poem at the end of the first part of my Bowie Wallow podcast. As well as being an excellent skier, Dan is also reliably good company, happy to play games with the children endlessly, and doesn't make you long for death when he picks up a guitar and starts singing. The holiday team was assembled.

The first few days of 2017 were spent ensuring that we had all the gear we could possibly need for five days on the slopes. Skis themselves, along with boots, poles and helmets would be hired in Morzine, but jackets, gloves, thermal leggings, trousers, slash salopettes and vests all came with us. Some of these were borrowed from friends and family, but my wife insisted on buying other items new. I felt it my duty as a grumpy husband to shake my head at the expense of each purchase she proposed. Do we really need all this new gear? Couldn't the children just stuff their jeans with toilet paper? That would keep them warm, surely. Plus, if they need toilet paper, they're sorted. When it came to buying myself a pair of gloves, however,

I was assured by the shop assistant that only an idiot would skimp on the price if they could afford not to. Freezing fingers on a frosty mountain are a recipe for guaranteed misery. Unless you're talking about fish fingers. In which case, yum, bready fish lolly. I bought the expensive gloves and the shop assistant nodded his approval. You, sir, are not an idiot, he seemed to be saying, as he asked if I also wanted some fluffy chalet slippers. Not being an idiot, I said, yes, gimme dem slippers, please.

It's the day of our departure in early January. Yes, I've shifted tents. Watch out! And we're driving to Stansted Airport in order to catch a flight to Geneva where we'll meet Dougie and his son Freddy. From there, a minibus from a transfer company worryingly named Skidi Gonzales will take us to Morzine, about a couple of hours across the border in France, where we'll meet the others. I'm sat in the passenger seat, fumbling with my camera, a giant heavy DSLR, that I decided to bring at the last minute because, I told myself,

the quality of the shots is going to be just that much better than with the phone. Yes, it's going to be a pain to carry the big boy around. I don't usually call it the big boy, by the way, and retrieve the big boy from my backpack each time I want to take a snap. But consider the superior clarity, the colour, the depth, the light. I start thinking about clarity, depth, the light. I start thinking about clarity, colour, depth and light. And then I imagine the kinds of pictures that over the next five days I'll be taking with the big boy. Alpine vistas in bright sunshine, some with children in the foreground, group selfies on a ski lift, everyone sat outside at lunch waving over plastic trays laden with cokes, burgers and chips. I imagine showing the pictures to my mum when we return.

I imagine looking back over them when it's time to compile the next family photo album, and printing some of them out to put in frames. I imagine there being lines in the printouts, and spending about an hour and a half running the printer through its cleaning cycle, and printing test page after test page until at last the lines have vanished or I've bought a new printer. Finally, I imagine hanging the pictures on the wall and passing them regularly for the next however many years until they get swapped out or we move or I'm getting ahead of myself. And look, we've arrived at Stansted Airport.

Welcome to Stansted, Stansted Airport. Stansted Airport is about 30 miles northeast of London in Essex. In 2015, it was the fourth busiest airport in the United Kingdom after Heathrow, Gatwick and Manchester. Looking at Google reviews of the airport, a theme quickly emerges. People generally don't enjoy going through security. Some of these reviews have been edited, but they are genuine. Marianne says most of the security personnel seems to never heard about human dignity and basic human rights. They are so scared about terrorism, so they allowed those guys to behave like fascists in the name of safely. Is that good?

in the name of safely. Is that good? I don't think so. And Dean says, horribly experienced. The security staff thinks they can behave in a military attitude. Without asking, they just grab your stuff without telling you why. Only after challenging the tart

and threatening to call the manager, you get treated respectful. And finally, Sophie says, good flooring, nice lighting, toilets clean. Mary in WH Smith had good teeth and a chipper disposition. Have you got an iPad? Thank you. Once through security, which on this occasion is perfectly fine, we find a spot to sit down and wait for our gate to be announced.

With my eldest son investigating Stansted shop opportunities with my wife, I checked in with the other two children about their holiday excitement levels. Which part of the holiday are you looking forward to? The beds. Why the beds? Because they just look really cool. What, because they're sort of recessed in the walls? Yeah, and the hot tub looks really nice.

Yeah, there's a hot tub. I know, but why is it outside? Because if you had it inside, it would splosh everywhere. I know, but isn't it, like, freezing cold outside? It is freezing cold, but that's the nice thing about it, because you have the contrast of how cold it is outside with how warm it is in the hot tub. Good point.

I have another chip. If you want to do a widdle. A widdle? What goes up but never comes down? Um... Your age. My age. Are you excited about getting on the plane?

I love aeroplanes. I'd love to live in an aeroplane, to be honest. Why would you want to live in an aeroplane? I'm just, like, sitting down next to the window and watching the clouds. Do you like flying, Natty? Yeah. What's the best thing about it? Flying. As opposed about it? Flying.

As opposed to what? Nothing. What? No. As opposed to nothing. You're flying. There's nothing else. That's it.

Sitting in a chair and you're flying. This is an airport announcement. you're flying. This is an airport announcement. Please put all the passengers for the holiday go onto the plane. Thank you. At Geneva Airport, we meet Dougie and Freddie and look around the arrivals lounge for the man from Skidi Gonzales, the transfer company who've been booked to take us to Morzine. Dougie spots a man wearing a large multicoloured sombrero and holding a piece of cardboard upon which someone has scrawled the name Barksdale.

I bet that's our guy, says Doug. I certainly hope not. The only Barksdale I know was a naughty man in the wire. What's more, I suspect the sombrero fellow is not a native of Mexico, and yet he's wearing traditional head furniture originated by the mestizo cowboys of central Mexico. There's no way I'm getting in a van driven by someone who's comfortable with that level of cultural appropriation. Before I've had the chance to share my concerns with the rest of the group, they march off behind the smiling not-Mexican man to this Skidi Gonzales minibus waiting in the car

park nearby. I wonder if there's time to shame the driver on social media, but it's taking too long to log into the airport Wi-Fi, so reluct, I pile into the minibus with everyone else. About an hour and a half later, the sun has set, and we're winding through the streets of Morzine, dropping off a few other passengers before arriving at our chalet. I'm aware that a little knot of anxiety has tied itself in my stomach. It's not the cultural appropriation, though of course that still hurts. Now I'm more worried about climate change, specifically the pronounced lack of snow.

There are desultory patches of white here and there, but mostly it's just dirty curbside slush, and most of that's melted away. But the twinkling Christmas lights make everything look lovely, and soon we're pulling up outside our chalet. Flanked by similar-looking houses on a hillside road overlooking the rest of the town, Riverwood Lodge looks typically alpine, clad in light-coloured wood with sloping roof, and a balcony from which our friends Dan, Lydia, Chris and their boys wave to us as we emerge from the minibus. I may have imagined them waving to us from the balcony, but that was the general tone of the arrival.

Inside, we struggle up the narrow wooden staircase to deposit our bags in our very comfortable looking rooms before gathering in the lounge slash dining area for a welcome glass of champagne served to us by Caroline and Mark, a married couple in their early 50s who are spending the season working as live-in hosts for Alleycats and will be providing us with most of our meals for the week. We're all excited to see each other and impressed by the place, which, in the best way possible, is like a cliché of alpine comfort. My dad was fond of a German word that describes this kind of scene. Gemütlich. In recent years, the Danish word hygge seems to have been doing a similar job, conveying a sense of cosy conviviality with whole books being written about the world of Hygge as if the Danes invented the concept of soft twinkly lighting

wood stoves and having friends. Caroline and Mark bring out little plates of delicious canapes to go with the champagne which we demolish as the children explore the place. There's a TV room down here with loads of movies. They've got a Wii. I found the code for the Wi-Fi. Can we go in the hot tub? My wife tells me to calm down and stop shouting,

just as Al from Alleycats arrives to welcome us personally and give us a brief orientation talk, including information about local night spots, advice on which slopes might suit us best, and most importantly, where to write down which drinks and snacks we've snaffled from the well-stocked bar. Then he outlines for us the daily timetable. The day starts with breakfast.

We do breakfast from 7.30 to about 9.30, 10 o'clock, and then we do lifts up to the slopes. The van that's outside the chalet is exclusively for taking you guys around between the hours of 8.30 and 10.30 and then 4 and 6. And between those times, we have an encore driver which is shared across our three catered chalets that can come and pick you up. So when you get back from skiing, there will be tea, coffee and cake laid out for you. And then we will do kids' dinner at 6, if that works for you guys. Perfect. Main dinner at 7.30.

The timetable sounds good. I'm excited about the daily cake, but I'm even more excited by the on-call van to ferry us to and from the slopes. If you've been skiing before, you'll know that one of the less enjoyable parts of the experience is standing around cold, wet and tired at the end of the day, in a scrum of people waiting for a bus to take you back into town, where you'll have to trudge uncomfortably back to your chalet in your heavy boots while the children complain about being

made to carry your skis. The Alleycats van eliminates all that and takes us from our door to the lifts and back again as if we were giant movie star ponces. What's more, the tedious business of hiring our gear has also been made easy, thanks to a local company called Ski Mobile. By the time Al's talk is over, the Ski Mobile van is parked outside our chalet. Inside the van we're each fitted with skis, boots, poles and helmets by cool young Scottish and Australian guys. Oh mate, it's convenient.

Giddy with our good fortune, we say thanks to Al and sit down to a delicious supper followed by a few rounds of The Name Game. You know, The Name Game, a simple game that's fun for all the family. Liam. What? Are you Ronaldo? No.

Dad. Ronaldo. Dad, are you Hitler? No. Several rounds of the name game later, the young children head to bed, Dan gets his guitar out and goes into late-night Lou Reed mode, and I take advantage of the cold I've had since before Christmas to re-enact aftershave voiceovers of the late 70s. Denim. For men who don't have to try too hard. I'm dying.

Good night, sweet ladies. Oh, ladies, good night. It's time to say goodbye. Bye-bye. It's time to say goodbye. That night, as we lie sleeping, something wonderful happens. It snows. And when we wake, Morzine lies beneath what looks like a beautiful white duvet that's only been used once and hasn't gone all grey and weird after being washed with the other clothes. 11 year old Liam barely touches his breakfast and rushes out to build his first

snow person. How is it two balls or three balls? I mean you can definitely get away with just a big ball for the body and a little one for the head? Yeah. Any way you want. Oh, we'll see. I think it'll be a ball like that for the body, then another ball like that, and then a ball like that for the head. I like it. I think.

It's really good snow for snowballs, isn't it? It's sticking together nicely. It's the first time I see snow. First time you've seen snow? Yeah. Wow. Because you live in Spain normally, right? Yeah. First time you've seen snow? Yeah. Wow. Because you live in Spain normally, right? Yeah.

What do you think of snow? It's amazing. It is amazing. Especially as when we arrived, it looked as if we were completely fucked on the snow front. In fact, it didn't snow until the third day of our visit. I just thought saying it was the first night would be more magical. Before the snow arrived, there were still many skiable slopes higher up the mountains, and the beginners were able to attend lessons on the nursery slopes

thanks to a snow cannon spraying out pressurised water that freezes before it hits the ground. Morzine is one of the larger mountain villages in the area known as Porte du Soleil, or Gateway to the Sun. From there, you can ski up and across to several other resorts, making it one of the largest skiing areas in the world. After only a couple of days of lessons, my son Nat was confident enough to join Dan and myself for a few afternoons on intermediate blue runs up above Morzine and around the spectacular village of Avoriaz. Built in the 60s, Avoriaz is a weird retro-futuristic collection of wood-covered apartment blocks that, from a distance, look rather like termite mounds. If you're not familiar with termite mounds, they look a bit like apartment blocks in a weird retro-futuristic ski resort.

There are long, satisfying runs in and out of Avoriaz that manage to suit all three of us, Nat the beginner, Dan the expert, and Buckles the Olympic champion. In truth, I ski rather like I drive. I get the job done, but I don't get many high fives for style or technique. Okey dokey. Scrapey. Flipping it. This is steep. There are times when the weather gets bad or you find yourself on a run too bumpy or too steep for your skills,

when skiing gets exhausting, frustrating and sometimes a little frightening. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Oh, man. But when conditions are fine and you discover a long sun- dappled run down through the trees and across wide gently sloping expanses overlooking the villages far below, it feels like nothing else. I think they're made of fiberglass. Woo! smile One of my favorite parts of the skiing day, or any day really, is lunch. Inside the restaurant slash cafe, it sounds like the Robocop family have come on holiday

as people stomp about awkwardly in their ski boots. So we are here in Avorias having a spot of lunch. Myself, Nat and Dan. Nat's just polished off his burger. I'm having my jambon sandwich. And we were talking about Michael Fassbender, the actor. And Nat, you're a fan? Yeah. I didn't know that. What do you like him in? Steve Jobs. The film Steve Jobs? Yeah, the film Steve Jobs. Why do you like that? Because I like Steve Jobs. He's a good guy. And I like the story behind it as well.

You like the story of a man crazed by power to the extent that he neglects his responsibilities to his daughter and his wife. I like that. It's true to life. It's tense. Why do you like that? It's tense.

Yeah. Shut up. I'm just curious because it's a very sort of adult, dramatic, relationship-y, stage-y film. You know, it's quite theatrical. But it gripped you, did it? Yep. Right.

I think Steve Jobs was chill through the whole film. That's why I liked him. Chill? Yeah, chill. I'm going to let that slide. Back at the chalet, Liam and Hope resume construction work in the snow. But their job is made more challenging by the presence of Al and Kat's big, friendly dog, who would certainly never attack a human.

But when it comes to snow people, watch out! Oh, dog, dog. Look at what the dog does, look. Dogs just trust you. Look at what the dog does. Dog's just trashed your... Look at what it does. Look! Sit! The dog jumps for snowballs in a very endearing way.

Snowball. The dog attacks my snowball. What's the dog's name? Murray. Murray. Murray's very sweet. What kind of dog is name? Murray. Murray. Murray's very sweet. What kind of dog is he? I have no idea.

A nice one. Yeah, he's nice. He's a nice black and white furry one. Yeah. I know a lot about dogs. I can tell that's the breed. Nice, black and white and furry. And he jumps for snowballs, doesn't he?

I know, he can sit for snowballs too. Does he? Yeah. He absolutely loves snowballs. And he destroys snowmans. He does destroy snowmans. Snowman. Don't destroy the snowmans, okay?

You destroyer! Look mum, I'm making a snowman and also look at this. Sit! Sit! Good girl! It's a boy! Mummy, it's a boy! I would call that Liam. That's brilliant. It's a boy! Mummy, it's a boy!

Liam, Mummy's a boy! Liam! Why did you say love? I don't know. Sit! Sit! Sit! Good girl, good boy! Evenings at the chalet unfold as I imagine they would

for your average Russian oligarch, East End hoodlum or gangster rapper. Cake, hot tub, canapes, supper, name game and Jenga tournament. Oh, weird Al, don't weird Al. No, do that method with your index. Oh, yes. Dreamlike. No, he's going on the side.

26. Didn't want to see that. 26. Did not want to see that. Then it's time for a family sing-along, this time led by 16-year-old Ale, playing guitar and singing inappropriate songs with his 11-year-old brother, Liam. I am aware that I left the poor girls out

Now I've died, with messes to the town This what happens if you fuck around So I'm never gonna travel, travel to the mellow Don't ever, never, ever stop Bravo! Where's everyone recording? Who's that by? Jamie C. Jamie T?

Yeah. Jamie's got some good records. Does he? Yeah, this is off his third record. No, second though. Yeah, this is his second. As ever, with all good holidays, the time goes too fast. But before the week is up,

myself and Dougie seize an opportunity to take one last chairlift up to a bar halfway up the mountain above Morzine for a drink and a rambly chat. Ramble Chat, let's have a Ramble Chat We'll focus first on this, then concentrate on that Come on, let's chew 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 la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la I'm on a bus. I'm on a bus. You're not on a bus. I'm not on a bus. You're very not on a bus. Well, in a way, I'm on a ski airbus. Also known as a chairlift. And it is coming towards the end of the day. Sun is low in the sky. The children have gone off to take the telecabine gondola thing down the slope. They're going to get picked up and go back to the chalet in Pont-sur-Ain. Myself and Dougie are taking advantage of a little childcare window because my wife is looking after Dougie's son, Freddie.

Yeah. And we're going to have a little sneaky beer drink. What an absolute treat. Yeah. It's unbelievable. Because it is. Describe the scene for us, if you will, Doug. This, having never been skiing before

or been to a place like this before, it is one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen, this landscape. It's extraordinary. There are huge Christmas trees covered in snow. The Alps are... It is the Alps, isn't it? I'm pretty sure it's the Alps.

I think it's the Alps. They're kind of towering above us on all sides. You can see Mont Blanc over the hill. Because we're very close to Switzerland, so it's real Toblerone country around here is what I think about it. Toblerone and Heidi. Toblerone and Heidi. And it is, as you say,

spectacularly beautiful. And we got lucky because it snowed a couple of nights ago. Before then, everything was a little bit bald and brown. Like my... I don't know where you're going to go with that. What do you think?

You can't go anywhere after that. I'm going to die. Die in a chairlift. What a way to go. Having a little coffee there. Yeah. You had the same cough as me, right? Yeah, we've been having sympathical illnesses.

I think a lot of everyone in the UK, a lot of people in the UK got this same ailment before Christmas. I don't know if it's the same sort of thing that the Queen got. Maybe. I hope the Queen's okay, man.

She's 90. She's 90 and she's suffering from a heavy lingering cold. And it's, you know, after 2016, every time a legend or a famous person or a, you know...

Complains of a sniffle. You just think, see it. Do you think it'll make people value their celebrities more, maybe be a bit less cynical about... You would hope so, but you also think maybe it just increases bloodlust. Right. As people become kind of desensitised to the volume of... Yeah.

...carnage that goes on. I've noticed that BBC Online seem to report more minor celebrity deaths than they used to, just to sort of feed the appetite. It seems like, yeah, 2016 created this appetite, which is increasing exponentially. Exactly. You wake up in the morning and you're like, right, come on, who's died? So there's a kind of vague feeling of disappointment.

Yeah. Oh, Adam Buxton. I saw the Adam and Joe show once, but come on, there's got to be someone better than that. I heard him coughing in a chairlift, but I didn't think it was that bad. But yeah, it is amazing. And this is one of the most beautiful sites in the world and i was saying to

doug that i think one of the great things about skiing if you're lucky enough to be able to do it is that you are interacting with some of the most spectacular scenery in the world in a way that i don't think you do with other holidays you know you might go to some beautiful island or something and i guess you're interacting with that aren't you going swimming but you're not traveling around in quite the same way as you do when you're skiing and it's kind of that thing where it's intense bursts of exercise or kind of effort and mild terror and then long periods like this of total calm and beauty. It's a very unusual dynamic. Because having never done it before I didn't really know what to expect and it's just it has been unbelievable. What was your impression of skiing beforehand then? Did you have some sort of vague prejudice about it?

I think I had a vague kind of inverse snobbery about it. It was a kind of thing for totties. For annoying toffs. Yeah. Which is sort of true. I mean, it is, you know, it's not the cheapest option for a holiday. There's all the gear and there's ski passes and it's an expensive business. That was the other thing. I also just thought it would be an enormous amount of hassle yeah for not a lot of reward like like all the carrying stuff around and all they're not knowing

where to go and just huge expanses of area that you're kind of a bit lost and which it can be i mean it very easily can become that i think the thing with skiing holidays is you've got to get used to the idea that you will have good days and bad days some days will just be a disaster either because of the weather you'll go up and it's really there's no visibility and it's really cold and it's snowing or it's windy and you get wet and and oh it's all you want to do is get back and go to bed get in the hot tub yeah and then and you're stomping around in the boots and the trying to carry your skis and you're skidding over. They are hard to walk in these boots, but that aside, me and Freddie haven't actually had a bad day. It's the last day tomorrow, and it has just been completely brilliant.

And this is the first time either of you have skied, and you've done really well. Did you find it a frustrating process to get going? No, I really enjoyed every bit of it. And Freddie's, I mean, part of, you know, my anxiety beforehand was maybe about how Freddie would get on with it. Yeah.

But he loves it and he seems very into it and really, he said in the chairlift on this one, actually, on the way up earlier on, he said, skiing is like magic. I feel like I am a wizard so it's really it's been really sweet and it's been a lovely thing for us to do there are frequent magical moments i think when you are skiing and you've got a good day and you're going down and it's a

pretty easy run maybe through the trees and the sun's shining through the trees and it is like being in a dream yeah absolutely There is something quite unreal about it, particularly here. I mean, I don't know about anywhere else. I would say this is one of the prettier places I've been to, to go skiing. Because you can get some very modern places which are very high,

which is good for the skiers, but they tend to be a bit brutalist. Right. And, you know, it's like big, giant giant white dunes almost where you go skiing and here it's all little christmassy enclaves yeah it's very very christmas okay oh we better let's get off the thing this is where we actually yeah have to do something oh mate Oh mate! A couple of people got off the lift there and cruised right into the netting barrier,

fell over. They were being helped up by the lift operator. And here is, I mean this is like, it's like a joke how picturesque and postcardy this little restaurant slash cafe is up here on the top of the mountain it's called uh i don't know what that means. Right, so we are sat outside this incredibly cutesy, well, it looks like a kind of gingerbread house from a Hans Christian Andersen story. Love hearts on the eaves, little birds and that.

It's all very, very sweet. And there's some, as Dougie says, Christmas trees. Do we know the names of the actual trees? some kind of spruce Nordman pine I don't know do you know the names

of trees? no neither do I I'm not one of those guys neither am I I don't know the names of many things I don't know the names

of trees flowers no cars no you don't drive do you? no I actually failed my test recently do you? No I actually

I failed my test recently Did you? Mate I know It was a shame for me Yeah It was quite humiliating really Did you fail badly?

Yeah quite badly I'd just got back from Japan The day before So I was so jet lagged I could barely think Yeah Let alone drive That's my excuse.

Sure. And, yeah, it was one of those where he had to take over the brake because I was about to just smash into kind of somebody's big 4x4, which had suddenly appeared. Yeah. And it was about halfway through, and I thought, well, we should just stop now. We should just not continue with this.

Yeah. There's no point. I know, I remember. I fell twice, I think, before I passed. And I had those moments. And I just thought, come on. I've mounted the curb. Who are we kidding?

There's no real reason to carry on with this charade, is there? Just get out while the car's still moving. Let him take over. I had this instructor called Kwame from Nigeria. He was a very serious person and, you know, just into the whole hard work and taking the whole thing seriously angle, which is quite right.

But he was a little bit terrifying as well. And it was very stressful, the whole shebang. Although, finally, he was... This is a boring story. I'm not even going to finish it. The story finishes with me passing the test. Hooray! Which I know you did. And I gave Kwame a present to say thanks.

End of story. Well, it's better than mine, because my driving instructor just quit. Oh, did he? She, Judy, she just quit oh did he she Judy she just quit immediately after I failed my test and I don't know

if it was me that drove her over the edge as it were as it were but yeah she just I said

okay I'm ready to start again she said I'm not doing it anymore I'm doing a different job right I was like oh yeah that's a shame

so I've still to find another you are going to get back on the horse I'm shame. So I've still to find another driving stop. You are going to get back on the horse, though, so to speak. I'm going to try and get back. If I can ski, I can drive, surely. Right. Yeah, yeah, because there are people who are, you know,

they're going to flap whatever situation you put them in. Yeah. And they maybe know that themselves, so they decide, man, driving's probably not for me. And so you could have been one of those people you could have come out here and taken one look at all the gear and the boots and the poles and the this and that and all the getting on the lifts every little bit of beginning to ski is challenging yes it's the first day you're kind of what how does this work yeah but um yes just

allowing it's yourself to go with the the flow i think that's probably a lesson learned for driving and you and freddy just adapted brilliantly to the world of skiing well it was just what you see what everybody else does and do that and you had a nice instructor right pietro was fantastic my wife certainly seems to think yes i think there's quite a few crushes on pietro yeah where's he from italy italy he has a house on the italian side of mont blanc oh mate he's extremely good looking he really is yeah extremely handsome yeah very good no he's a charming fellow so he speaks like five languages and he's nice and he's very good with children. And, yeah, my wife and Chris's wife, Lydia, they were just very excited about going back

and doing some more lessons with Pietro. Understandably, he's delightful. I think skiing nowadays might be easier than it was when I did it because the last time I went skiing was about 20 years ago. And everything, like, the skis are shorter now than they used to be. I think they realized that actually they could make them just as fast, but less unwieldy if they shortened them. So everything's a bit more manageable?

Yeah. And you can get started that much quicker. Because when we started, me and my brother and sister, when my dad took us for the first time. What age were you? and you can get started that much quicker because when we started me and my brother and sister when my dad took us for the first time what age were we must have been about freddy's age you know eight or nine it was a whole week of lessons before we were able to go on any runs ourselves and every lesson was like okay this lesson we are going to edge down bit by bit for the whole day you put your skis parallel and you go tiny little bit down the slope brutal yeah you dig your sides of the skis in and this teaches you

going down bit by bit it's useful and tomorrow we learn turning round and facing the other direction. Okay, see you then. So it wasn't really thrill-packed. Not fun for a good seven days. No. No, and that's the thing. It seems like they just want to make it fun immediately. Yeah.

And kind of actually get you moving. So it's been great. Except for the one moment woman who shouted at Freddie what happened there? it was his first literally his first day and he was going down and he was doing alright

didn't have any poles and he was doing okay and then he fell on his bum and just kind of sped up and kind of was veering towards a group of

three kids that were getting on top of this woman and he barely kind of bumped into her but this woman and he barely kind of bumped into her

but she turned around and started kind of yelling at him in French whoa and like giving him a big bad hard time and he was just like freaked out

so you went over and so I I still couldn't move very well in the skis at that point it was only your second day was it yeah

so I think first or second day right so I was kind of trying to get over there to stop this situation. You know, it was like, bad thing happening over there. And I couldn't move across.

It was like a dream. And eventually I got there. And then she said, she started shouting at me, saying, two years ago I had my leg broken by a boy, an English boy. Because she was saying, you English. And then she went, an English boy broke my she was saying, you English. An English boy broke my leg and I now have a metal knee. You English,

you go too fast, you English. And I was like, okay, just don't stop. You need to stop speaking now. I'm just going to make sure that my son's okay.

And did you get all braveheart on her? How dare you call me English. I didn't. I was that close to kind of pulling that card out. And going, well, actually, love,

I think you'll find I'm fucking Scottish. But I didn't go for that. I just went over and made sure Freddie was okay. Because I knew it was just, she looked a wee bit naughty. Right. I felt like it would... It's got to be a stressful job, eh? Oh, yeah.

Oh, absolutely. Maybe she was just having an off day. Having an off day, but with a metal knee. With a metal knee because of the English. Yeah, because of the English. You should have said, this is exactly why we just left the EU. Now I'm happy about that.

The cliché is that the French are kind of grumpy and they don't really like the English but it's really not true. It's not true at all. They're nice people. Yeah, I love France.

I love it. I could see myself one day spending quite a lot of time there. Yeah, a lot of Brits end up in France

don't they for good reason and you've played a lot of shows in France presumably? In France, yeah, quite a lot.

We played in Paris this year or last year rather. I keep forgetting that New Year's been. Yeah. Yeah, we've played a lot of shows in France, presumably? In France, yeah, quite a lot. We played in Paris this year, or last year. I keep forgetting that New Year's been. Yeah. Yeah, we've played a lot of times in France. We've had some amazing shows, particularly in Paris. I mean, we played in Bataclan.

That was one of our top five ever shows at the Bataclan. Right. It's amazing. When did you play there? This is quite sad. I work out when shows were by what my uniform was for that tour. So I guess that was 2007. Boy With No Name tour, probably.

You don't do the Coldplay uniform thing, though, do you? No, all of us matching. That would be absurd. Have you ever sat down as a band and had a sartorial discussion? Like, come on, guys. No. Fran comes out with some sketches here's the new direction i think we should all do our hair a little bit like this and spray big

pink blobs on our trousers and have big pink beers yeah he's done that he has done that it's true but um no we have never sat down and very obviously we have never sat down and, very obviously we have never sat down and arranged how we look. Right. It's always just... You're just regular guys. We're just regular guys. But I have this thing where I just can't be bothered thinking about what I'm going to wear on stage every show.

So I pick something at the start of a tour and just, that's me. Oh, that's your uniform. That's my uniform for that tour. So then do you take out multiple items? Right. Multiples of whatever it is that I've chosen. Brilliant. And I just stick to that.

It's very easy. It makes things very simple. Of course, because if you're on stage, then you don't... I mean, I end up... I've just lost it completely as far as... I've made some terrible decisions for things I wear. At one point, I thought that it would be a good idea. Someone paid me a compliment on my legs.

On your legs? Yeah, because I did a thing on the Bug TV show where I danced around in stockings and high heels. I think I was trying to be Grace Jones a little bit. All right. And someone said, Oh, you've got nice legs. I was like, Oh oh I've got nice legs

this isn't you that's good I've never had a nice thing on my body before I'm gonna work this and so I had these kind of cycle what they call cycle leggings right

right well you are a cyclist right so you know sometimes I wear them when it's cold Cycle leggings, right? Right. Well, you are a cyclist. Yeah. You know, you cycle a lot. Right. So, you know, sometimes I wear them when it's cold. So I thought, I'm going to wear these on stage. For bug shows? Yeah.

Like when I do shows. Because then people will be able to see my legs. And also at the time I was wearing these blue... You didn't, did you? Yeah. I was wearing these blue boots. They're all blue. Uh-huh. And also I had quite a blue boots they're all blue uh huh and also I had

quite a blue jacket which I still wear sometimes um so I look like a kind of that's an extraordinary decision

yeah so I look like this weird creepy old smurf with max wall legs yeah

and I just had it in my head this is a good look and then of course you know i saw a picture of myself and what did it look cried i'm trying hard to picture it looked hot it looked grotesque it was horrible and so um but you know i've never really had a look where i've seen a picture of myself and thought oh oh, yeah, brilliant stuff. Just keep it simple. I mean, the last show I did with Joe, actually, before Christmas, I ended up, partly because I sort of ran out of time to think about what I was going to wear,

I just ended up going on stage in, you know, my kind of fleece top and jeans, looking like one of Time Team, basically. That's OK? I suppose it's fine. But, you know, when you're younger, you have dreams about like, oh, you know, if you're going to be on stage... You really should think about it. Yeah, you're going to have

a look. Especially in comedy. Look at Noel Fielding and Russell Brand and all these dandies of comedy. The dandies of comedy? There are quite a few of them. There's loads. Tim Minchin, he's a dandy of comedy. Right, right. They've got a look. They've got a strong look

but and you know sometimes that's half the battle isn't it well people like to feel like oh well I know what this is I know what this is going to be

just and I don't have to really do it's like a lot of work is cut out for me you know especially if you're an individual I think it really helps

the audience as well and also you're being a bit clownish I guess that's one thing i was thinking when i was putting on my leggings was like well if i look a bit ridiculous that's okay because i'm a silly person but then that feeling didn't last when i saw the pictures when you saw the picture it was genuinely i just thought well this is silly and this sad and I've gone too far into the sad. You're listening to Adam Bigstone's podcast. It's a brilliant and intelligent podcast.

And you're intelligent to listen to. Well done to you. You don't have poopy-pins or poopy-pins. When did you get signed? September 96. So I joined, I actually joined kind of in the spring of 96. We moved down to London. About a month after I joined, we all found a house

and found managers, Ian and Colin, and a rehearsal room. Went down to London and just started getting ourselves together. And did you have, as art school boys, highfalutin ideas about, this is how our album covers are going to look? And, you have, as art school boys, highfalutin ideas about this is how our album covers are going to look? And, I mean, we've established that you didn't have ideas about how you should present yourselves, necessarily.

No, we never really had that. It was very much two separate things. It's strange, the visual side of the visual art side of things was always a separate thing for me because i did sculpture and music and the two music and art kind of ran in parallel and for franny it was like he quit art school in second year and so and to to commit to the band

so it was like music took over from that side of things for him. And for Andy, music was always the primary thing. He was doing the jewellery and silversmithing, which is not... Really? Yeah, which is not ideal for record covers. Yeah. So in different ways for the three of us, it was two separate things.

So we then decided to pin our flags to the mast of the band. And you were always sort of straight ahead, just blokes playing. All you wanted to do was rock, right? All we wanted to do was rock. That is still, as Franny says on stage, if that were Travis for a country, that would be our national anthem. And that's despite the fact that all of you are into lots of different music. I mean, you, like me, are a big Bowie fan and you like your art rock

and all that sort of experimental stuff, but you keep coming back to sort of solid Beatles-type... Yeah, I think... ...way of going about things. Yeah, we're into kind of similar stuff and you've got Neil who's into jazz and fusion and Andy who's into all kinds of bizarreness. So we all have our kind of left field areas,

but the thing that we do best together and the thing that we kind of enjoy doing most together is pretty much kind of the simple pop song. I mean, personally, I love a pop song and I love the act of writing three-minute pop songs. It's exciting to kind of find new melodies or new chord structure that you haven't done before or a turn of phrase.

I still see a lot of area to explore just in that little art form. Exactly, and it's quite fun, in fact, having those boundaries and sometimes working within those strictures. First chorus, first chorus, middle eight, first chorus. You know, it's fooling around with that and seeing what you can do within that is terrific. Well it's funny you should say that because when making this, the most recent record

Everything at Once Fran and I kind of had a, we'd sit down before, after we'd finished touring Where You Stand and the hardest thing about making Where You Stand was the fact that when we took the songs to radio they were like, yeah they're great the first two singles, took the songs to radio, they were like, yeah, they're great.

The first two singles, Where You Stand and Moving, they were like, yep, great, but you need to take a minute and a half out of them. They're too long. Right. And we were like, oh. And that took ages. It was me, Michael and Fanny just emailing back and forth

versions that we'd edited. Michael, your producer? Yeah, Michael Elbert. And just couldn't get it to work. And, you know, once you've spent all that time, weeks and months, writing and making something, producing something that you think is as it should be, to start chopping it up,

you end up giving the radio a version of a song, but not the actual thing. So when Franny and I had to sit down before we made everything at once, we said, OK, let's try and make them as close to three minutes as we can. And that was the only time we've ever done that, given ourselves a kind of a limited palette or an instruction, if you like, an oblique strategy, before we even started writing. But it really worked and I really still enjoy doing that thing.

Maybe it's a lack of imagination or a lack of ability to kind of branch out, but I still feel like there's a lot in there. No, I think so. So, you get signed in 96. First album, Good Feeling. Pretty straight ahead, solid rock, pop fun. How'd you

hook up with Nigel Godrich? There was a journalist called Leo something, I'm ashamed to say, I can't remember his second name, Leo, who died and there was a benefit in London for his family and Franny and I

were there, we'd been interviewed by him and this was in 98 so this was the year after Good Feeling came out and Nigel and Colin Greenwood were there and Colin started talking to us

Colin from Radio Day and Colin started talking to us and he was being really nice and asking about the band and I was like oh it's yeah blah blah blah

chatting away and then I said and what do you do and he said oh I'm in a band as well and I was like oh great

what do you call it and he went oh Radiohead and I was like oh don't it was one of those kind of please swallow

let the ground swallow me up kind of thing but he was so nice and then Nigel got chatting It was one of those kind of please swallow, let the ground swallow me up kind of thing. But he was so nice. And then Nigel got chatting and he was brilliant and really interesting and fun. And him and Franny really bonded actually. And so when we started working in the Man Who, we were working first with Mike Hedges in France.

That was kind of the first sessions. And then Nigel came on board after we got back to London and he really took it into another realm, kind of sonically. So did he retain any of the work that Mike Hedges had done? Yeah, some of the basic tracks, but maybe two or three of the basic tracks were kept. It was really fantastic working with Nigel. Obviously we've worked with him since The Man Who. We did the Invisible Band, the whole thing together. He worked with us a bit on The Boy With No Name.

How would you characterise then what he did for you when you were doing The Man Who and how he changed things? He actually just made things more interesting. He brings his slightly left-leaning, left-fueled tastes and ways of working to our slightly more conservative, if you like, ways of doing things. And it was just at that point, it was a really perfect marriage. It was an ideal mix of the two ways

of approaching how to make music and he kind of took us out of our comfort zones and made us do things that we wouldn't otherwise have done

and the studio became a much more creative place can you think of any examples of those I think when we were doing Driftwood

I remember after we got the basic track the basic backing track it was just like ok well it's a bit of a free for all so you're playing the glass harmonica

and it was basically just wine glasses but lots of them tuned to different things and just making things that didn't really make any sense in the context of the song but just lots and lots of Andy was doing loads of stuff Franny was doing loads of stuff Neil was doing percussion there stuff, Franny was doing loads of stuff,

Neil was doing percussion, there was things just kind of happening, and with synths and, you know, space echoes and all this stuff. And then he was like, okay, off you go. And I was like, what? And he's like, yeah, just leave me, give me an hour. And I was like, okay. And then, so I went out, we went out for a beer, like yeah just leave just leave me give me an hour and I said okay and then so

I went out and we went out for a beer and then I had to go back I left my wallet or something and I went back in and it was like

as I remember it it's probably not right but it was like he was clambering over the mixing desk just like almost like he was using all four limbs to mix

and I was like what are you doing Nigel and he was like I'm just making it amazing and it was like what are you doing Nigel? and he was like I'm just making it amazing and I was like right I'll leave you to it, that's fine and that was kind of what he did he just made, we know

we knew we had something together before it was, he just elevated it, you know, he made it amazing yeah he's got an amazing way of recording things to make them sound very otherworldly and and but still very warm and yeah yeah warmth is a good a good word to use well i remember that he and i talked about hunky dory and that was a touchstone for him was how warm that record is

for bowie you know and that he he wanted to bring some of that to a lot of the stuff he worked on his favorite ever drum sound. Is it? Yeah. And it is a great drum sound. It's just that real kind of dead, you can feel it in the room, you know. That's Ken Scott, isn't it, who did that one? Ken Scott, who did Hunky Dory, yeah.

Yeah, clever man. I know, brilliant. So, 99, The Man Who Comes Out. Mm-hm. And did it hit pretty fast, or was it...? No, it was a bit of a slow burn. What was the first single from there? The first single was Right Into Reach You, which went to 14, something like that, I think.

And then Driftwood was 13. But that was kind of how it worked. In the first album, it was You 16 Girls was 40. All I Want To Do Is Rock was 39. all i would do is rock was 39. titan heights was 30. it was like it was like it was always going to be a a long slog a long trudge yeah but yeah the the record i can't i can't remember what number it went i think it went top 10 as far as i remember the album and um and then it just started kind of plummeting down

quite quickly but then a few wee things happened really odd little things when we played Glastonbury in 99 it was all beautiful sunshine and then we played Why Is It Always Raining Me and it started raining it was like just one of those

bizarre little you know, accidents. So everyone hated you? Everyone hated us, yeah. Everyone was standing in the audience just looking at us, kind of glaring. Thanks, Scottish guys! You've ruined our weekend, you bastards! Thanks for ruining the fun, Scottish men!

All in the kind of summer clothes. Like, you fucking pricks. And actually, we didn't have a very good show that day. We were kind of, we came off stage going, oh man, okay. At least nobody's going to watch it on the telly. And then we got back home that night, and it was all over the telly,

because everyone was like, oh, Travis made it rain. It's like, oh, what a peculiar thing. So that performance is just getting shown over and over and over. And that was a very peculiar moment because then it suddenly switched and the record stopped falling down the charts and started kind of climbing back up and so by the time we got to V, first of all, I think,

it was number one. I mean, thinking about it, you're like, that can't possibly have happened like that, but that is right. And it stayed at number one for a while, right? For ages, which it went back to number one

three times I think it was number one at New Year going into 2000 so it was like these funny little landmarks

when it was number one at the change of the millennium it's a very strange little thing but I remember Andy Mac being

delighted Andy MacDonald who was boss of the record company at the time he was just delighted by that he wouldn't stop going on about it

It's history, you're number one at the millennium Yeah So much of it is your luck you know, you work as hard as you can and you do the best stuff you can do, but so much of it is luck and happenstance There was a certain point at which

Coldplay suddenly emerged on the scene. And as far as outside, some outsiders looking in might have thought, oh, Coldplay have come along. They've kind of stolen Travis's thunder. Was that something that you guys were thinking? Were you stomping around going, oh, damn it? I'm really trying, genuinely trying to think if there were points where we thought that.

I think maybe, maybe there were points where you were like, oh, man, they're becoming absolutely massive and that was our ball, you know? But you couldn't actually find two more different bands than us and Coldplay in the way that we go about things. Because Coldplay very much have a plan in place.

I remember talking to Chris Martin, he was saying about writing songs with a massive audience in mind. He's a great melodicist, but he's very much a magpie in that they will take little bits of what's happening at that moment, what's successful at that time. So, you know, when they started, we were kind of, I guess, the biggest band in Britain. And so it was, OK, we'll take a bit of that.

And then it was take a bit of U2, a bit of Arcade Fire. And that's the way, I mean, that's the way Bowie did it. Yeah, of course. Taking bits and pieces and putting and stitching it all together. So it's not a bad thing, but it's just a different way of doing it. We've never really done that. We've always, I suppose it's maybe one of the things that people find irritating about it,

is that it's not earnest, but kind of heartfelt. We always write to one person with somebody in mind. So that's why the songs are the way they are, because they're personal. And so over the years, you must have come across some extraordinary people here and there, playing festivals and just bumping into people wherever you go. Are there any memories that stand out? Meeting Bowie was one of the great... I mean, we met him three times, I think.

Did you? And did you? hmm and and did you ever have any sort of meaningful conversations because presumably a lot of these meetings

take place kind of backstage or whatever awards and stuff parties and things like that when everyone's in a slightly weird altered state anyway you're not really able

to have proper meaningful discussions it's almost always like that but with Bowie it was the best one was when I went to see him play at Wembley Arena

on the reality tour. Oh, so 2004? 2004, yeah. And went backstage, because some of our crew were working on that tour, and so we had the passes and all that, and went backstage, and before the show, and I was talking to Mike Carsonon and galen dorsey and

i was like this is brilliant you know because like yourself just extreme boy file yeah you know and mike garson was talking about the fact that they've been doing the laughing gnome at soundcheck which i thought was hilarious and he was laughing away and then after the show we went backstage and David came in and he came over and said hello, it's nice to see you and I was like hello and I kind of was thinking

what am I going to say so what was this Mike was saying about you doing the laughing gnome soundcheck and he was like oh yeah that's right we were trying it out and it was quite enjoyable quite a lot of fun I said are you going to put it in the set

and he went oh I don't know we're in Glasgow tomorrow maybe we could give them a couple of verses a taste of the gnome they'd like that the glass blowers

glass blowers Glasgowers that's not what you call it is it I was just ending myself he never played it though no he didn't. And then we got a photo taken,

and it was funny, he had his arm around me, and he just kind of quietly said to me, he said, Chin down. No cap. Choose an expression. Stay still. I was like, that's brilliant.

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There we go. That was Dougie Payne of Travis there with some top posing advice straight from the mouth of David Bowie himself. Thanks to Dougie for talking to me. And thanks, big thanks to Al and Kat from Alley Cat's Mountain Holidays for being our hosts and looking after us so well.

We had a wonderful, memorable time, all of us, and we felt very lucky to be there. Apologies for the occasional weird audio quality during my conversation with Dougie just there. Went a bit sort of weird and robot-y a couple of times. Only on my voice, though, I noticed. There's my inner robot coming out there. The thing is that my regular audio recorder, the one that I'm using right now, the Sony PCM-M10,

now sadly discontinued, malfunctioned temporarily shortly before we left for Morzine. So I picked up a very small dictaphone. This is a good story, isn't it? This is a story for dictaphone fans, for digital recorder fans. Anyway, I picked up a small dictaphone to take out to Morzine. And only when it came to actually editing the stuff that I'd recorded

did I discover that not only was the quality not the best, but some of the files were also irreparably wonky, like the part of the interview with Dougie. It was distraughtening, but I hope not too distracting. So, listeners, podcats, quartermasters However you identify How you doing? It's been a while since the last edition of the podcast went up And I mean, it's been pretty quiet I mean, yeah, you know, there's the apocalypse You've got to say that, don't you?

That's the thing to say Oh, it's the apocalypse That's the fashionable stance you can't say oh no you'll be all right because then you look like you're naive and um you're a rube which may be true but i did read a thing the other day where this psychologist amos Tversky was talking about pessimism and saying the thing about pessimists is that they end up living the bad thing twice. The first time when they worry about it and the second time when it happens. So you may as well be an optimist. I thought that was quite a good way of looking at things. Although the pessimists will tell you,

ah, yes, but if you're an optimist, then you'll sit back and you won't do anything about the bad situation. So the pessimists, you need the pessimists to keep things in check. There's two ways of looking at it, you see. All right. What was I going to say oh yeah so as far as the podcast goes we'll be back to kind of the conversation format next week and i can tell you now that next week's guest will i think be louis through yay mixing things up and then i'll just go back to surprising you guest wise from then on the main thing i wanted to tell you about that's been happening over the last few weeks is that a

small company called really quite digital have been putting together a new adam buxton app aimed mainly i guess at listeners to this podcast and the app will enable you to browse all the previous episodes of the podcast, as well as downloading new ones for you automatically. And it will provide one convenient place from which to access posts on my blog, and to check out my YouTube videos, and my scintillating tweets, that kind of thing. It will also link you to a site from which you can purchase specially created Adam Buxton podcast t-shirts, prints, mugs, etc. Those are in production as I speak, should be available in the next few weeks. And there'll also be various bits of exciting bonus content for app users. For example, many of the jingles and bits of music that I've made for this podcast will be available to browse and listen to.

And there'll be some old Adam and Joe podcast jingles there too. old Adam and Joe podcast jingles there too, and a few little videos and bits of bonus audio that are exclusive to the app. Most of that stuff will be free, but there will be some extra, extra content that will live behind a tiny paywall, and that will enable us to pay i hope for the construction and upkeep of the app as well as to help fund the production of future episodes and keep me in middle premium puddings speaking of middle premium pudding the live show that i taped at the beginning of the year at the bfi south bank will also be seeing the light of day in the next few weeks, I hope, just finalising things with Go Faster Stripe. My fault there, dragged my heels over the summer. Buckles! I'm sorry. Anyway, so all that is to come. Gosh, by Christmas, the mere mention

of my name should make you physically ill. Anyway, I'll let you know when the app is up and running. But in the meantime, I think that's probably enough, isn't it? Thank you very much to Seamus Murphy Mitchell for production support. Thanks to ACAST for hosting this and many other great podcasts. And thanks to you for listening. I appreciate all your messages, which I continue to receive and enjoy coming in via my SoundCloud page,

via the blog, and I hope once the app is up and running, that'll be a good place to leave messages too. Anyway, till next time time we're together i hope uh all goes well in your corner of the universe take care i love you bye Bye. Thank you.