THE ADAM BUXTON PODCAST - EP.53 - MIRANDA SAWYER

Episode Date: October 20, 2017

Adam swaps mid life crisis notes with British journalist Miranda Sawyer. Thanks to Seamus Murphy Mitchell for production support and Matt Lamont for additional editing. Music & jingles by Adam Buxton 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, out for an afternoon walk on a rather cloudy, gloomy day. And I find myself stood next to a beautiful wise old tree, an oak,

that has stood here for probably over a hundred years. And what kind of week have you had, wise old tree? Load of shit. Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. How come? I didn't like it when the sun went red. Right from Hurricane Ophelia. But you must have seen many strange weather phenomena over the years, wise old tree. Yeah, but I never got sand from the Sahara up my cracks before. OK, and that makes you worried about climate change, does it? No, it just makes me feel like I've been on holiday, and it's quite sexy. All right, well, nice to see you, wise old tree. Take care of yourself. I'm just coming rose rose is

looking at me like what are you doing why are you talking to that tree come on let's go for a walk all right i'm coming anyway how are you doing listeners how did you cope with the the red sun i'm focusing on the weather it weather. It's the least controversial and upsetting thing that's happened this week. I read this on the Sun website, appropriately enough. Social media users spiralled into a frenzy today as Hurricane Ophelia brought an apocalyptic yellow sky and red sun to Britain. People from Twitter said, and I'm quoting verbatim from the site here, and this is also a very useful lesson into how journalism works. You come up with an assertion and then you back it up with quotes and reported speech. People on Twitter said the sky looked like it had come from movies

Independence Day or Blade Rubber. They spelt it wrong. Or maybe they're referring to the film about the moody graphic designer. And then they quote their sources. Twitter user 40 something mister tweeted, the sky has turned orange and feels like Blade Runner. Mark Russell tweeted, London sky has gone a shade of orange, like something from Independence Day. See, it backs up what they said initially. That happened this week. I also went on Room 101, the TV panel show. Well, it's like a chat show, really, about people's pet peeves, hosted by Frank Skinner. Maybe I'll talk a little bit about that at the end of the podcast. But right now, let me tell you about this week's episode, number 53, which features a conversation between myself and British journalist and broadcaster Miranda Sawyer.

I used to read Miranda's columns in Time Out in the mid-90s, towards the beginning of her career. I was an avid Time Out reader in those days, and they always had good people doing columns as well. John Ronson victor lewis smith i remember and miranda then wrote for publications like mix mag and the face which i wasn't allowed to buy because i wasn't cool enough and they were printed with special ink that burned you if you hadn't taken enough drugs and And ever since then, it seems that Miranda has popped up from time to time interviewing people that I'm interested in. She's very obliging for TV arts shows or in newspapers and magazines. And I'm always up for what she's writing and

the way she writes it. She's one of the good guys in my book. Last year, her book Out of Time was published, and it was described as a modern look at the midlife crisis, delving into the truth and lies of the experience and how to survive it with thoughtfulness, insight and humour. I really enjoyed reading Out of Time, and it seemed perfectly timed to coincide with all sorts of unsettling thoughts and feelings that I've been experiencing for the last year or two in that area. I am processing a number of unsettling thoughts and feelings. What do they mean? Anyway, it was quite good to get a perspective on some of that from Miranda's book and to pick up a few valuable tips for positive attitude adjustment.

I was going to say life hacks there, but I didn't because I wanted to avoid being sick on myself. Anyway, so Miranda and I met up in May of this year, 2017, and we swapped midlife crisis thoughts, which included, towards the end, a short mention of the artist Michael Landy. He suddenly gets brought up a little bit out of the blue, so I thought I would put him in context for you briefly.

I've thought about Michael Landy's work a lot over the years, especially, and I've probably mentioned it before on this podcast, a piece from 2001 called Breakdown, in which people were able to watch as Michael methodically destroyed every material possession that he owned. And being a kind of silly materialist monkey man, that struck quite a deep chord with me, and I think about it a lot. But first, and since breaking out of the routine is something of a motif in this episode, here is a special new version of the Ramble Chat jingle, created with the help of a listener to this podcast, Ben Cooper, who very kindly sent me a piano version of the jingle, which I sang over.

He just sent me a message through my SoundCloud page saying, hey, look, I've done this instrumental piano version. It's yours to do what you like with. So thanks very much, Ben. I sang over it. It's not a replacement for the other version. It's just a bit of fun. Okay? So, you don't need to write in. What's happened to the normal version of Ramble Chat? I turned on the podcast this week only to be very disappointed with a new, different version of Ramble Chat. It's different and not the same as the other one, which made me anxious and depressed

for quite a long time. Please rectify it immediately. So you don't need to write that. Here we go. Ramble chat, let's have a ramble chat. We'll focus first on this, then concentrate on that Come on, let's chew the fat and have a ramble chat Put on your conversation coat and find your talking hat Nice! how do you think of your book out of time do you you think of it as a, where does it sit in the genre? In the canon of Midlife Rises. In the shelves, like, is it a self-help book? Is it a psychology book?

Is it a autobiography? I tell you, that's quite funny, because in terms of how they market it, they find it really hard, so they don't know where to put it. It's quite often you go to a bookshop and you say, well, you don't know where it is. I don't think of it as a self-help book I mean it is but all books are self-help books aren't they you know because if you read a book and it's a good book and it inspires

you that helps you but it's not you know I'm not certainly not a qualified therapist or anything what inspired you to write it I was having a midlife crisis, but it was a really undramatic one and slightly pathetic. And I couldn't work out what to do with it. And it was really sitting, you know, heavy on my head. I just wrote about it because I, you know, that's my outlet for creativity, I suppose, really. And then I wrote about it for The Observer and then I carried on writing because that didn't seem to solve anything. And what I found as I was getting up in the morning and writing this stuff which was just you know painful and putting it away because it was just too painful and then I looked at it about a year later and kind of thought well some of it's interesting it was awful and some of it is

interesting what I was trying to do was grapple with the idea of midlife crisis because we have a very strong kind of trope about midlife crisis, and it's all funny, you know. Yeah, well, it's mainly aimed at kind of loserish men. Yes, exactly. And it's kind of 70s, I think, really, isn't it? And I didn't feel like that's what I was feeling. So I felt I was very shocked by working out how long I had to live

and how far I had gone along that timeline and what I had, in inverted commas, achieved. Which you refer to as death math. Yes, death math. I was doing death math. So I kind of, you know, looked it all up and worked out that people who were born around the time when I was born, I was born in 1967, your life expectancy if you're a man is 80 and if you're a woman it's about 82, 83. And you kind of think, okay, well, you know, if I've looked after myself and had a nice life then I could probably add about three or four years so you know really once you're past your mid-40s you're way over the halfway line and that's quite a hard thing to get to grits with and at the same

time and this is quite common about midlife crises something happened so basically I had a child and I had our second kid and I had her quite late when I was 43 and that obviously messes with you anyway because you had a kid but then I really started doing death maths because I kind of was working out how long I'm going to be bringing her up and what I had left and it was minimal you know I shouldn't be out the door till I was in my 60s and I was thinking well this is it then this is it there's nothing left I'm going to be bringing up kids and then I'm going to die yeah and that sounds absolutely ludicrously pathetic and selfish but that's what I felt like I felt like I've done it all wrong I haven't achieved anything my potential is just gone this is it I basically I'm on the long slope

down to death and it was a really strong feeling I would wake up in the middle of the night I'd have to wake up in the middle of the night because i had a baby but you know i'd just rip my life to bits sit there feeding her ripping my life to shreds you know oh if you hear scratching that's my dog that's cookie yes having a little scratch scratch there oh my god is she gonna rip the carpet don't do that um yeah so i didn't really have it i mean you have a crisis once you have a child because it's especially you know if you have your kids late which i did and that's quite a common trend you know you spend a lot of time not having kids and so to actually get to grips with bringing a child up is quite hard but i kind of knew how to do that because we'd already have a kid it was much more to do with the time left and i think

that midlife crisis quite a lot of it is you can kind of put it down to two things one is is this it like I'm middle-aged you know something should have happened shouldn't this be great and I've done it all wrong that's the other feeling and if you have those two feelings quite strongly which I did I just thought this is a disaster and I could really understand why people would go you know the traditional midlife crisis is you chuck everything up in the air and you just go and start your life again and that is exactly what i felt like i wanted to do but i couldn't do that because i had a baby and actually i still love my husband so it's a bit you're a bit like well what do we do what do i do have an affair yeah but that's rubbish i mean that's just so rubbish yeah exactly go hang gliding get your ear pierced or your nipples

pierced or something. I don't know. Discover yoga entirely. I mean, all the options were so naff. Plus, I had to bring up a kid. Get a VR headset. Yeah. It's just like, I remember saying to my husband, I said, look, you know, because I looked around and it seemed like one of the ways that people, you know, kind of got over midlife crisis

is they went away and they talked to people wiser than themselves and they went on long walks, you know. And I said, OK, so can I do that? And I'll go for like this kind of trip and discover myself. And he went, yeah, just take the kids. I was like, well, that's not the point, is it? Discover yourself at centre part. I was like, well, i'm doing that anyway so yeah in the middle of your life you're quite tied down to things and you can feel very trapped by that and you have to basically i think to get through a midlife crisis you have to work out what you want to be trapped

by and what you don't but when you're in the middle of it it's really hard to work that out which is why i think everyone just goes oh sod it throws it all up in the air and goes and has an affair with somebody or moves house or you know some people literally just walk out and never come back don't they mm-hmm the Reggie Perrin yeah which is yeah exactly which is terrible but it was weird I could really understand it at that point I just thought that seems to be the only option yes was there something that brought it on then because i've i've started wrestling with all these thoughts since my dad died yes and that really yeah starkly brought the whole concept of mortality and and the time remaining into focus my dad and bowie two people i mean i knew my dad was going to die i was very

surprised that bowie died i know and the two look kind of loads, aren't they? They're like, you know, what are you going to do? Which two stars do you follow now? What? So that's what got me thinking about all this personally. But did you have that? Did someone die? No, it was to do with having a baby late.

It was definitely that trigger. But there are a lot of triggers around middle age. So your parents dying is obviously one. And having kids late, which people do now. Yeah. And also, actually, weirdly, your kids either leaving home or becoming teenagers when your kids move into that phase where they're not that keen to see you you know it's kind of heartbreaking and so then they have the same thing it's like what am i going to do with the rest of my life

what am i here for what's the point emptiness syndrome is that yes it's an awful you know awful phrase but like you know it's it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. And then there was a whole other factor which I hadn't really realised until I started thinking about it. But it was to do with, you know, if you had a good time in the 90s, which I think people who are my age and around probably did, there was a sense of alternative culture winning. People on the outside that were coming to the mainstream weren't normally let in. So Jarvis Cocker would never normally have been allowed in somehow. And something happened in the 90s and all these people, Kate Moss, she shouldn't be a model.

She was allowed to be a model. Irving Wells, she shouldn't have made, you know, the people like that who shouldn't really have succeeded did. And so you felt like, oh, these are people that I know, that I understand, that are expressing things I feel. And they're winning. We are winning. This is right. things that I feel. And they're winning. We are winning. This is right. So everything will change. And we have won. We are winning. This is brilliant. And then all that just went away. And partly the reason it went away was because people got older. But actually it went away because of the internet. So all these jobs that people had taken on, like, I don't know,

fashion designer or writer or magazine illustrator or comedian or filmmaker. Those jobs which seemed possible in the 90s now looked absolutely a ludicrous decision. You're in your 40s and, you know, journalism is dying. Music journalism, are you kidding me? You know, music is dying, journalism dying. There is no money for you now. Or comedian. You know, if you're a comedian in your 20s and you're driving

around the country in the middle of the night to tell people jokes that's brilliant if you're doing that in your 40s it's really hard you know you've got a mortgage and stuff and so all these jobs or ideas that seemed really attractive in the 90s and actually did win in the 90s and change the country now looked very unstable very difficult to maintain also noel gallagher was having champagne with tony blair at number 10 yeah there was a sense of winning that that kind of made it the whole thing seem less attractive but yeah i know what you mean it was weird you had to kind of redefine yourself and it did make you feel very old and there was suddenly a whole new language that was being spoken online yeah i mean it still feels like that a lot of the time yeah and i don't mind i actually knight new things i mean you know i'm very yeah i don't want

to go back to the past or any of that but it's more to do with the ability to be paid for your creativity and it just seemed that you know as with many things in life that unless you were really really at the top of your game and you happen to hit the zeitgeist and you happen to get it completely right then you were kind of futtering around looking for money and getting to your tax bill and thinking I can't pay this you know and that's quite hard yeah so what did you do how did you solve that problem well I think generally with freelancing you just have to keep going you know really it don't be crap and sit at home I mean in terms of me writing a book absolutely helped me because it means that you can legitimately go out and talk to people about it you don't be crap and sit at home. I mean, in terms of me, writing a book absolutely helped me because it means that you can legitimately go out and talk to people about it. You don't just have to sit at home and moan.

You have to go out and say, I feel like this. What do you feel like? And then you have to go home and try and make sense of it. And you have to read around the subject. And there's loads of cleverer people than me that have thought about it, you know. And so that really helped. What was the best thing you read in that period that you thought hey this is useful there's this writer he's a psychotherapist called irvin yalom and he's older now he's like in his 70s i think but anyway he his psychotherapy must have been really

tough he basically thinks that nobody can confront their demons whatever it is unless they confront the fact that they're going to die and he he wrote a book called Staring at the Sun. That was really brilliant. And a bit of Jung helps, you know. He's got this brilliant idea that everyone in middle age should go to some kind of middle-aged university. That would be quite nice, wouldn't it? It sounds like a Will Ferrell film. Middle-aged university. Yes, it sounds terrible, actually. Yeah, that would be awful. It doesn't sound that terrible to me. But if it was a middle-aged actual, yeah, middle-aged university.

That's the dream, isn't it? To go back and relive those years, but do it right this time? Yeah, exactly. Not be such a tool. Not be a fucking wanker. And also the thing that I've always just sort of lazily thought that stopped me doing a lot of things was like, well, my brain physically can no longer learn things the way it used to. Yeah.

Probably. So all those dreams I had about one day learning the guitar and things like that they're all down the lavy but actually recently i've i've just thought oh screw it and and i'm getting guitar lessons yeah that's good and actually that's really weirdly that's really important if you don't want to kind of slide into decrepitude the main thing is you can change the way you think you know really basic things like at my kids school they were not very good at teaching the kids computer coding and I knew it was going to be quite important.

So I said, we should get a code club and they just couldn't. They had no idea how to do it. So I started it and I had no idea how to do it, but I had probably a bit more time. So I started it and I went on Twitter, which obviously the school would never do. I went on Twitter and said, is there a computer boffin who will help me?

Are there any internet nerds out there? Yeah, exactly that. And this brilliant computer programmer came and helped me. And then after a while, he had to leave because he had to work. But now I can do it myself. Yeah. And so now then, so you feel like, actually, I have learned something without even meaning to, just because I bothered to think, OK, well, you learn.

And most things you learn in the doing, don't you? Yes. So there's no point in sitting thinking about it you just think okay if you want to learn the guitar then you have to pick up the guitar and learn it yeah don't just do it in your head i know the other thing is that you don't make time for these things because you think it's not a good use of your time you think oh there's more important things that need to be done i'm so behind on everything else yeah how can i go off and start getting guitar lessons and doing these other silly things? Yeah.

But actually, it's really useful and it's really good. It's like not making the time to read a book or whatever. Yeah. And it changes your brain. And if you change your brain, that's quite important. You know, as you get older, it sounds awful. I sound like a kind of woman's hour thing. But, you know, like, you know, it's quite important to change the way you think because especially actually if you're feeling down yeah yeah because

that's just a kind of habit of your the way your mind is thinking and one of the things i found quite useful was um i said to somebody i said oh i feel like i've reached the top of the hill and it's all the way down and you know that's the only way it's done she went that's just a metaphor you can change it i was like oh yes the thing that it's hard to come to terms with or think of a new metaphor a new positive fun metaphor for is death and that's kind of an immutable fact yeah obviously there's relatively speaking there's good ways to go and bad ways to go yep and i definitely think that you can probably learn how to meet it in a better way than you might otherwise if you just totally ignore it and stick your head in the sand

and get really alarmed when it comes a knocking but the fact is that it's probably not going to be great no and it would be great if it didn't happen, but it is going to happen. So, I mean, the midlife crisis is to a large degree about that, isn't it? And as you said, it's about coming to terms with death. And also the weird thing, I think that we have, you know, obviously everyone has cliches about death. But the cliche that was coming to me was like, oh, it doesn't matter. You know, I don't care about dying. You know, as long as I die well, you know, that's fine because, you know, we have to die and that's OK. And actually I thought, no, that's not true. I't care about dying you know as long as i die well you know that's fine because you know we have to we have to die and that's okay yeah and actually i thought no that's not

true i really care about dying i don't want to die yeah yeah i'd really rather not i'd really rather not do that so for people to say oh it's just you know i just want to be knocked down by a car or something i think no i just don't want to die yeah actually i don't want to die i like it here i love my kids i love my husband you know obviously he gets on my nose sometimes and so do i with him but you know genuinely i like being here and i want to do more of it but what about when you get to the end it probably won't be as fun anyway no it won't it's like i always think of it as like being at a party yeah and the early part of the party is fun and there's all your friends there.

But then everyone starts buggering off. Yeah. And it gets a bit boring and you realize that. You're only with the drunk people. Yeah. You're just with the drunk, boring people or the people on Charlie. And you don't really want to talk to them. And the person that you wanted to snog has left.

And then you just sort of think, oh, well, I'll have one more. And then you call a taxi think oh well i'll have one more and then you call a taxi and you wait for the taxi it takes ages or you or it's really difficult to find actually this is this is an old party this is a pre just get an uber this is a pre-uber party i'm thinking of this is what used to happen when i went to parties it was like trying to get home was was uh you sit on the night something you started calculating. Walk the wrong way. Exactly, the night bus. Wait for the night bus. But then, you know, it's no good as a metaphor

because actually once you're in the taxi, that's often the best part of the evening. Is it? Yeah, if you're a bit pissed and they start playing Magic FM, that's just brilliant. That's the best. All right, well, this is a bad metaphor. I think the awful thing about debt is obviously the dying bit but

there's there's there's a reassuring element to it which is that genuinely they've done loads of research into people in western cultures and also different other cultures as well and indeed into orangutans and they say that essentially if you're lucky enough to live a long life so you're not knocked down by a bus or whatever then you're happy when you're very young and you're happy when you're very old and there is a dip in the middle there's definitely a dip so it's like a u-shape of happiness and the u-shape the dip is in your 40s right that's it we're in the u-bend yeah we're in the u-bend you literally are and so what's weird about that is i thought oh yeah right and i thought oh it's to do with consumerism or whatever but it happens to

orangutans. What are they worried about? Well, they're worried about the younger orangutan being, like, cooler than them. You know, so they come in, he's looking really great and nobody fancies him anymore. They're getting ignored because it's a bit boring. Everyone's heard their old jokes. You know, it's the same thing. Or they realise they're never going to get that orangutan award.

Yeah, they're always going to be second best because that one's always bigger and the lady's like a month and more or whatever you know i'm never going to appear in a documentary i'm never going to meet david attenborough and like all your you know your kids are a disappointment or whatever and that hits orangutans in their 20s because they live too little but they're about 50 but it hits them they've observed them so what do they do do they they mope mope around yeah and get a bit snappy at people they don't stop going out with much younger orangutans no because they're new because sadly they might chase them but sadly the younger orangutans are not interested yeah so yeah they

mope and get really upset and so it's it occurred to me that it's it's an existential thing like it happens if you exist you know with most things if it's a genuine crisis and you know there's an element of having a child that is a genuine crisis and obviously there's elements of people dying that's a genuine crisis or if you're just having a crisis then you might as well think about it really because if you don't think about it it'll just come out sideways you know and which you know it comes out in all sorts of awful ways you have an affair or you blow all your money on something ludicrous yeah and i don't want to out sideways, you know, which, you know, comes out in all sorts of awful ways. You have an affair or you blow all your money on something ludicrous. Yeah.

And I don't want to be boring, but, you know, there's quite a lot about my life that I really appreciate and I don't want to be awful to the people that I love. So the problem with that is you're actually having a really small, very tight, boring midlife crisis. Yes. And, you know, because you can't be dramatic and I can't go off and, you know, make a fabulous documentary about something because I can't do that. And so you

just have to get to grips with it yourself. You could do that. I could, but it would be, you know. No, exactly. Of course I know what you mean. It would be a total upheaval in that you're also overwhelmed with the fact that it takes ages to do anything well you know yeah like you just have to do it really badly for a long time before it starts getting anyway good for most people that is well it's true i mean i wrote this book and it took me ages to write it and people kept saying well you're not done yet and i was like it's just no i haven't got a clue i don't know how to write the thing I was talking to a friend of mine the other day who's a filmmaker or he has made one or two films and he was doing the maths about how long it takes to actually get a film made. You know, he's working in the kind of lower budget indie film world.

And to actually get this film made and written and cast and financed and then shot and edited, the whole process probably takes around seven years. I'm not talking about Joe here, by the way. But yes, it takes absolutely ages. And so you realise, realize gosh i've only realistically if everything goes well yeah i've only got another three or four of these in me i mean that's the most terrifying yeah plus you've got to do all the other stuff you gotta do all the other stuff

plus you know that the way things go they'll probably come out and, yeah, they'll be okay. It's that weird... They won't be that good. You have to have that weird acceptance about your work. Three stars. Yeah, three stars, well done, you know, maybe if you're a bit bored. It's the same with everything. It's like you write a book and, like, you know, I am definitely old enough and I've written for long enough to know it's not a big deal to anyone else other than you.

And what you have to accept is actually although there is a product and the product is very important because it means that nothing would happen without the product it's the process that matters it's always a process that matters i mean i find it quite interesting as a journalist because obviously i talk to lots of people and now i nearly always talk to them about their process because the gift that they give you whatever that is whether it's a beautiful pot or a film or a piece of music is not what they wanted it to be it's something different so something happened between their idea which started over here and what they give to the world something happened and it wasn't quite what they thought and then they made it and that bit is the

interesting bit yeah you know the bit that where it goes a bit wrong and they're really desperate and they didn't and then suddenly they have a kind of inspiration. It becomes a different thing. Yeah. It's not what you thought it was going to be at all. Like, I thought my book was going to be just loads of jokes. And there just aren't that many jokes in it. I was actually having a crisis.

So there's like a few jokes, but not as many as I thought there might be. You know, it's just things like that, you know. And then you have this little thing, whatever you've made, that you offer as a gift to the world and the world mostly ignores it, which is fine. Yes. But then you do those things, you know, you do this all the time anyway with Bug, but you go out and you talk to people and that's nice. You know, mostly people are all right, you know,

because if they turned it, they're probably quite interested. Oh, yeah. People are always nice in IRL. Yeah, they are. And they're they're fine and so you feel slightly heartened just by the really minor encounter of like say 30 people turning up to a reading and three people buying a book and you come away and you think well we had an exchange and it was really interesting and that was worth it exactly it's what it's all about isn't it reaching out and communicating and sort of holding hands and saying we're all in it together yeah it's why i actually

quite you know everyone's really snotty about social media and stuff like that but i actually like it because there's points where you just go i feel really rubbish and people go it's all right i felt like that as well yeah no of course it's nice when it works like that the problem is that all too often in my experience it has the opposite effect and you end up feeling more isolated i think because you don't feel under you don't feel properly understood you've got real friends real friends hmm I worry sometimes that I've lost the art of making really good friends not only that but actually maintaining the ones that I have so even though I always thought of myself as quite a gregarious sociable person with good friends and even though my dad always used to go on and on

at me about how important it was to maintain friendships you know i now the other day i suddenly had an image of myself as an old man just totally isolated and totally you know with with no one around like a lot of my good friends had just died or or It's like a film scenario. It's just like an apocalypse, isn't it? This is one afternoon after lunch. And I just thought, God, yeah, I'm just no good at making friends anymore. You know, I have made friends recently,

but they're a different type of friend. They're like friends I generally see in work scenarios. They wouldn't necessarily come and spend the weekend, for example. But it takes a while to become friends and i think it takes quite a lot of contact with people actually when you're freer when you're younger in your 20s you know you become friends with you know i used to go i was just out all the time so you become friends with people without even noticing because you just keep seeing them it's the regularity of contact that is hard to establish yes in your

middle age you know people go oh hey join a salsa class or something awful you know maybe i mean i don't know who's teaching you guitar but if it's something that you liked and you talk and you learn guitar over a period of years and they will become a friend but it's going to take quite a while isn't it that's the problem we don't have any time no that's the thing he was the guy that gave me my guitar lesson was obviously very busy there was he had someone in before and there was someone waiting there after our slot like a doctor like a doctor exactly dr rock and i was there with my son he was really good and he taught me more in an hour than i tried to teach myself in about 10 years when i back in the day when i was trying but i was frustrated that he wasn't more friendly you know like he didn't sort of i i want I did want to become mates with him.

You want to be his friend. Yeah. Form a band. That's the midlife answer, form a band. Here's a midlife crisis story for you. Although this is a happy midlife crisis story. The other weekend, we had a load of people come and stay. And my friend Garth Jennings came along with his family and Julian Barrett.

Yeah, I heard the podcast. Right. Actually, this was another time. Another time. They're always there. They won't leave you alone. Well, we usually get together around Easter time. And so they came along and my friend Danny was there and they all play instruments like Garth plays drums because his son's learning to play the drums. So Garth's been joining in and Julian is a multi-instrumentalist did all the music for the bouche and stuff plays bass very well and my friend Dan is brilliant singer guitarist so we got a band that's so brilliant we played the whole weekend it was so

fun what did you play I was playing maracas and I was doing some backing vocals we played you were bears i was spares essentially yes i was like bears but shouting yep good so i did um vocals and a lot of shouty songs we played wild thing this is the best even as i was i was thinking what's easy to play why we could do wild thing and i was cringing when i suggested it because it just seemed like the most loserish option brilliant wild thing is barely music really it's like it's two chords and it's reg presley it's all about reg presley's uh weird vocal wow i think i love you but it was really fun and then we did we did roadrunner which again is more or less two chords god it was fun it was so fun and what else did we play we played we had a jam we did it anyone record it no there's little snatches of it and of course

even watching back like two minutes of it to play to our partners in the evening. It sounded horrible. I mean, absolutely shocking. We're halfway through the podcast. I think it's going really great. The conversation's flowing like it would between a geezer and his mate. All right, mate. Hello, geezer. I'm pleased to see you. There's so much chemistry. One of the things you talk about in the book, which I found very useful and it had never really occurred to me, was the extent to which your life can become dominated by routine and the effect that that has of speeding up time and making it pass quicker and quicker.

speeding up time and making it pass quicker and quicker and obviously routines are something that are on the one hand useful and comforting and the older you get that that becomes more the case but on the other hand it's deadly because that's one of the things that makes time just feel as if it's evaporating and you're hurtling towards death yeah i know and also some of it is not your fault so the thing i find very hard about routine, and I find it particularly hard, you know, when kids are little and stuff, and particularly now, you know, we live in London, which means you can't let your kids out wandering the streets too young. So they're constantly in clubs.

So I constantly have to get them to clubs, take them back from clubs. Fabric. Yeah, they're always there. Does that even exist anymore, fabric? I think it came back. But, you know, so they're in football things, they go swimming, all that kind of stuff that you have to do. And it's fine, but, you know, it just eats up your life. Yes.

And then you're sitting in the middle of it, you know, between 10 and 3, thinking, ah, I've got to do something now. What is it and your mind is so um taken up with the the difficulty of of keep maintaining the routine yes and then when you have those hours those few hours that are in theory your own to do whatever you want with the energy and enthusiasm required to actually begin a project or or continue with the project is is huge isn't it yeah and you have a different energy in middle because i think a lot of the energy that you have when you're younger or the a lot of the energy that i had in my 20s was i mean obviously it was fueled by

drinking drugs and not sleeping and not eating that's a factor but it's quite a hyper energy i was really up and actually that energy gets you nowhere in middle age because you can't maintain an energy like that and you are the person who has to get the gate mended or talk to bt and you have to you know and you can't if you are that hyper nothing happens because you have to sit on the phone to bt for over an hour and if you put the phone down you're gonna have to do it again so it's like you have to discover this energy that you never had before, this kind of low maintenance energy, the boring adult energy that means that you get up at the same time and you make sure that everything's OK and things happen and that, you know, the washing's done. And then when you're outside work time, when it's supposedly leisure time, it's very easy to fall into routines in that part of your life as well yeah and then those evenings just disappear yeah so you have to be it's

interesting i spoke to you know obviously i spoke to a few people about this and one of the ways you can do it is you just change your routine a bit and you can do really small things like literally take your dog to a different park buy a different sandwich, walk slightly differently back from work. You know, take your kids... With your legs wide apart. Yeah, exactly. Balancing from one foot to the other. You can hop home. Try walking on your hands.

That'll do it. But that will make a difference because you'll remember it. And that's why we remember holidays. So you just have to make sure that you do the odd thing and think, OK, we are going to do that because the other the genuine problem in middle age is you get a bit tired and so you think oh i'll do that because i know i quite like it but actually you have to go and do something that you are a bit scared of you might not like just so that you remember it because then your time will

stretch yeah i guess the thing i was going to say though was that the the routines that you get into that you discover because you take a pride as well in in establishing a routine that works yeah but the problem is that it's as we've said speeds everything up and also that the whole passage of time is so alarmingly fast with children because they're changing right before your eyes from week to week in every way physically emotionally but the weird thing about is you think you're staying the same uh-huh and you're not so of course what happens is they get older and you get older too right right and that's the weird thing because there's something in our makeup i think that we think we kind of stay the same from about 35 yes you know you think you know i've got about 35 i'm

thinking well i'll stay i'll probably look like this until suddenly i'm 80 you know you don't think that you'll change yeah yeah and of course you change i think you i don't know what it's like for blokes but for women you change very rapidly in your 40s actually and it's a massive shock you go through phases though don't you find like yeah you You can look more or less the same. It's like byline photos. Then they make you take another one like five years later. Who are you? You can use the same byline photo or avatar or whatever for about five years or something.

And then at a certain point, you look in the mirror and you're like, oh, mate. That's not you anymore. Exactly that. Suddenly, over a few months, you're like, whoa, I've got to get a new avatar. Yeah, but it's literally like your hair changed color you're like what happened or your your shape changed it's really odd and also there's something about a middle age that makes you i mean it does something to your emotions i'm not quite sure i get angrier very quickly and then it subsides very quickly and uh you know i've always been a crybaby, but I cry really a lot. Oh, yes. Well, regular listeners to this podcast will know that they've heard me blubbing on several occasions and probably will do again. But it's getting to the point where it's a little bit annoying.

You can't get on with your day. Yeah. Because my wife was always quite a crier and would cry in commercials and things like that, you know, which I always thought was sort of... I'm sorry, that's a reasonable reaction. I agree. Yeah. No, I always thought it was sort of sweet, but a little bit sad. But now I'm the same and I can completely relate. And it's annoying because it's like a disability.

There are certain things I can't talk about. If I start talking about them... Yeah, you're done for. I know. Yeah. I mean, but I get it from Tom and Jerry and my it's appalling my kids love Tom and Jerry I cry the way that Tom is treated it's just really sad I feel sorry for him are there any poignant moments in Tom and Jerry yes I feel sorry for him because Jerry always wins you know that is just terrible. Yes. So let's think about some of the positive aspects of getting older.

Yeah, there are several. What have been the more positive aspects of getting older for you? There's an aspect which I found quite interesting, which is if you are female, then all the way through your youth, even if if you're no matter what you look like from about the age of 15 onwards you just get bothered i mean you just get bothered by blokes sorry and yeah i wish you'd stop it it's um it's we are programmed we have to comment on ladies it is an ancient urge we are sorry but it's just i mean it just happened it's unbelievably tedious i can't tell you because

it's just not sexy it isn't fun it breaks you out of whatever you're thinking you're doing it's just boring yeah and it's quite nice to get to a point where people don't do that because that you look grumpy even when you're not you know once you're middle-aged, you look grumpy even if you're not grumpy. And you're way past the idea of them fancying you. And you feel like a ninja. I feel like the invisible man. Right. I've heard women talking about this before that they suddenly feel invisible.

You feel like, well, yeah, but some people don't like it. I like it. Because you can zoom through the world like a ninja. If you want attention, you can get attention by talking to people that's not hard but if you don't want attention you just get on with your life it's just so freeing i really enjoy it and it sounds a bit odd and i know that there's lots of people find it very hard if they feel like they're losing their looks or their sexual uh power but i never felt like i had much of that anyway so it kind of for it to have gone and it doesn't really bother me you know so I'm not in mourning not at all to stop being mithered by

irritating blokes is just great it's just really good so I enjoy that very strongly I enjoy that because it just feels you feel like you meet people as absolute equals because you're just talking to them and none of that is relevant. And then there's something that happened through writing the book where I did feel I just came out of it happier, really, because I kind of adjusted my head because I thought, OK, what are the bits that you can change about your life that you want to change? And there are some things that you can't do anything about. You know, I can't do anything about the housing situation in London you know how do you alter that I don't really know so I stopped thinking that I was a failure because we live in a flat rather than a house because that is partly to do with the economic times that we live in and the fact that we live in Brixton

that's suddenly really trendy so if we wanted to buy a house we'd have to move out of London and we don't want to move out of London so suck suck it up. You know, you kind of have to get on with it. You know, like if you think about all the options, you think, actually, it's not that bad. We live in quite a nice flat. We love where we live. It's OK. You know, so there was kind of adjustment to your head that made a lot of difference. And I just started doing some of the things we've been talking about. So I started going to art galleries and I started going to gigs and i started doing things that were slightly off my out of my comfort zone like you know hosting a code club running also all those little things that just you know because basically if you have one joyful moment a day that's pretty good yeah yeah that is genuinely

pretty good that's not a bad life is it if you have one joyful moment I get a lot of joy out of we've just got a dog I get a lot of joy out of this is the kind of thing

that makes me cry watching her run yeah because she's just having the best time in her life she's just absolutely brilliant watching her run

I mean this is going to make me cry just thinking about because they're so happy it's just a happy dog makes me cry just thinking about it. Because they're so happy. It's just a happy dog makes me cry. I am literally blubbing now. Gets me every time.

And so, you know, and she does. She meets other dogs and she's so happy to meet them that sometimes she gets overexcited and jumps over them. That'll get me through about four days thinking about her jumping over another dog that's so great so um i found that little things like that have really perked me up and just generally let going of the fact that you know that i'm a failure because i don't live in an amazing house with a big glass box in the back which is very strong for me for quite a while i just thought i've just done it all wrong with a what a big glass box you know those ones that you get you know in grand

design so always put a big glass box that's your idea of success yeah you've got a big glass box? You know, those ones that you get, you know, in Grand Designs. They always put a big glass box on the bed. That's your idea of success. Yeah. You've got a big glass box. Jesus Christ. It's the size of your glass box. That's the kind of thing that somehow in my head, you know, the fact that you were able to extend your kitchen. Yeah, yeah.

Meant that you were a success. And we've never been able to extend our kitchen because we live in a flat. So, you know, all these kind of ideas that weren't helping. They just weren't helping me. They weren't helping anybody. Kind of, I got rid of them a bit. And that has definitely cheered me up, you know. You just have to face it, don't you?

Embrace and commit. This is my new thing. So, you know, there's lots of people who told me not to get a dog. They're like, oh, it's like having another baby. That's part of the fun, the dog baby. Yeah, hairy baby. How great is that? It's like curling up on the sofa with the dog baby.

Yeah. Who absolutely loves you. Exactly that. And looks in your face. And actually, they're pretty much easier to maintain than a baby as well. They're so much easier than a baby. I just like, people go, oh, it's like having a baby. It's not like having a baby. Babies are really hard work.

Dogs are not hard work. You can leave them in the kitchen for a couple of hours and nobody comes around to take them away. So there are definitely things that have helped. And I would say that changing your head is the single most important thing. So that's like music or running or going to art galleries or doing something that you're a bit frightened of. Learning the guitar,

anything that'll just change you out of what you were thinking before, getting a dog, going for a walk. Skydiving? Oh, God, can you imagine? No, none of that. Actually, I'd quite like to go skydiving. Oh, don't be mad. I remember once hearing an interview with Salt-N-Pepa, who are obviously one of the greatest pop acts ever.

And they said, what is it with all you white people I remember once seeing an interview with Salt-N-Pepa, who are obviously one of the greatest pop acts ever. Sure. And they said, what is it with all you white people and, like, climbing things and jumping out of things? Why do you want to do that? Why do you want to climb Everest and jump out of airplanes? Is that a peculiarly white thing? I suppose it is. It's really white. Dominated by white people, yeah.

Hmm. What is it? Just because we think, oh, it's, you know, it's always what people go, why did you do it? Because it's there. And I just think, oh, don't be a tw yeah. Hmm. What is it? Just because we think, oh, it's... You know, it's always what people go, why did you do it? Because it's there. And I just think, oh, don't be a twat. Yeah.

Why do you climb it? Because it's there. Oh, just look at it. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no I know you wanted to talk about Michael Landy and I went to see that exhibition that he did, God, it was years ago, called Breakdown. And it was in this old C&A shop on Oxford Street in London. And it was definitely one of the most brilliant art shows I'd ever seen. So you just went into this old C&A shop.

It was on the ground floor on the corner. And there was this like kind of factory of destruction. It was just brilliant. It was like a conveyor belt. And things went on it. And they went into this kind of, it's really like a kid thing, you know. It went into a big thing that kind of chomped it up. And then it went a bit further around and it was chomped up a bit more.

And it came out and it was just nothing. And then it went a bit further around and it was chomped up a bit more and it came out and it was just nothing and then it went in the bin. And Michael Landy was slightly higher up as this machine went round and round, putting the thing in the machine. And the only thing he said that he felt really awful about was his dad's sheepskin coat.

Because I think his dad was dead. And he got rid of everything. He destroyed everything. Physical, personal possession, material possession. And what's... You know, he had... Because he was a young British artist, you know, part of that crew,

he had an amazing piece of artwork that he destroyed that would now be worth loads. And he just got rid of all... And he was living with... His partner is Gillian Waring and they lived in quite a small flat in, uh, South London. I remember going to see the guy afterwards. I was like,

it's not much in this flat. And she was going, no, there isn't. She was like, cause also the question was then, does he get rid of her stuff? And she was like,

well, which is her stuff and which is his, you know, like, you know, like a kitchen implement that you might really want to keep. Yeah. You know,

do you argue about the juicer or whatever? Because he's going to get rid of it. So it was really it was an amazing i went back a couple of times because you just because also you have to kind of sort out you had people sorting them out so they could actually go in the machine to be destroyed yeah you know books and i saw some footage on youtube of yes people stripping down cookers and things like that it's completely amazing assembling them and people it's such a, it's completely amazing. Disassembling them and people with grinders. It's an absolutely great piece of work because essentially he's saying, in the end, it doesn't matter.

It's just dust. But the piece was called Breakdown. Yeah. Presumably because for a lot of people to do something like that, you need to be going through a breakdown. I think he had a breakdown afterwards. Right, right. I do think that.

I think he kind of lost his mind a bit because for better or worse you know you do define yourself somewhat the the physical detritus that you accumulate is really you know it's easy to think that it's the only evidence that you've existed yeah and once you get rid of that you it's like you're erasing yourself i find the thing that's hard to get rid of is stuff to do with your kids. Oh, yeah, yeah. It's not really my stuff. It's stuff around them I find it really hard. I know.

For a long time, I just had, you know, because we're lucky we've got a lot of space where we are. We've got sheds and things. You see, if I had a shed, I'd just shove it full of all that stuff. I'd just put everything in there. Yeah, quite right. I would definitely you know i went out and i'd get like crates from staples and come back and they would be full of their baby clothes and their little shoes and their uniforms from school and things like that and i just couldn't imagine getting rid of any of it and as you say eventually you do and then i mean there haven't

been too many days when i've been rocking back and forth thinking baby shoes where are the baby shoes when i need them that's the other thing is from a practical point of view i was always fooling myself i think maybe this as a generalization is perhaps more of a male thing but you think i'm a practical person also i don't like waste so i'm not going to get rid of any of these things because they may one day be useful you know then we'll be laughing that's also a generational thing because it's basically your parents are like my parents are like that like you never got rid of anything not even a bit of silver paper i mean nothing yeah folded over oh my god did you have the thing at christmas when my dad used to do this thing of like taking about 15 minutes to open a present.

Yeah, because he wanted to keep the paper. He'd be peeling off the, he'd be sort of teasing off the sellotape. And then he'd be folding up the wrapping paper. And there's some residue that's still left in us. But we're entirely surrounded by consumerism. So we've just got loads of crap in our house that we think somewhere in our, that we're going to repurpose. You know, I mean, genuinely what used to happen with old pairs of pants is that we use this dusters weren't they but i don't really want to use old pairs of pants as dusters no but but but i mean that is an admirable instinct though and michael landy made another piece called which he called landy phil i think maybe that was

just a sort of nickname he gave to this piece where he created maybe the piece was called Art Bin. What's that one? It was a it was like a giant skip made out of reinforced glass. So in a large exhibition space in a gallery or museum or whatever, he would construct this transparent skip, huge, you know, and there would be a flight of steps at one end and you'd go up there and you would be able to toss in a piece of work that you felt had been a failure. Oh, that's so great.

So it was full of aborted sculptures or paintings or... And then sometimes they were just perfectly good you know there's a few paintings but yeah like Damien Hurst had donated a few bits and pieces which looked like a lot of his other stuff and he was bunging them in there and you're thinking no that's expensive I'll have that it's interesting that idea of failure as well isn't it because you know there's so much I've got so much stuff on my computer that i've started oh god this is awful yeah you read some kind of script that you wrote and you think oh god this is just i mean just terrible the problem with the digital age as well is that there is no real pressure to bin things

it's so easy to back things up and compression only gets more and more efficient you can go out and get a thumb drive that will store absolutely everything you did on a computer in the first 10 years of your computer life and the the feeling that i've had once or twice of losing a drive and the backup's just gone of all this work that you've done over a period of weeks or months or whatever and it's just a horrible nauseating feeling but then of course it doesn't matter at all really like no one cares and yeah but you care you care for that little moment but you get over it and of course it doesn't really matter and it's basically comes down to the old thing of living in the moment isn't it i know but i'm you know the problem with living in the moment i do have a bit of a problem with this is if you live in the moment all the time nothing gets done

so you know if i choose to live in the moment all the time then you know really the kids won't be picked up and nobody you know i mean nothing will happen so i do find kind of telling everyone to live in the moment a bit annoying but I do think if you can adjust your life a little bit so that you alter some of your routines and bring in new experiences that make you happy that is good and I also genuinely think you can change the metaphor for your life so if you've decided that you're sitting you know say you think i am at the top of the hill and it's all downhill from now well you could think okay well i'm at the top of the hill it's quite a nice view i can see the past and i can see the future i can talk to young people i

can talk to old people that's pretty nice or you just change the metaphor completely and just think you're on a rocket up to the moon or you're on a boat on a choppy you know you can just change you can change it completely and that i found has really helped you know that has that has really helped and you just try and do something i genuinely think sometimes as well if you're lucky you know if you're not ill and you're not you know your circumstances are all right you can just say well today i choose to be happy i'm going to be happy and you know obviously that doesn't work if you've got depression and it and it didn't really work for me when I was feeling bad. But after a while, it did work.

I just thought, well, today I'm going to be happy. I'm going to be happy when I go to the park. See what happens. I think, you see, that's what I think of as living in the moment. I think it's just sort of changing the script a little bit and also not pinning all your hopes on some reward in the future. Yeah. Yeah, that's a bad idea.

That never works oh i'm doing this and it might not be fun at the moment but that's gonna pay off one day one day my ship's gonna come in that was another one of my dad's catchphrases like well when my ship comes in you know whenever that one and it really that was right and it just used to break my heart it was like well don't worry too much about the ship like we're all here now yeah just enjoy the view yeah yeah it's a yeah it's a funny thing isn't it you get lots of middle-aged people say that i'm gonna make an app i think oh don't make it really don't waste your time making an app and then you make an app and it's have you have you played do you play games

on your phone i'm not a very big gamer. No, what is the app? You're lucky. I mean, I hesitate to even mention this. Okay, am I going to get addicted? It was introduced to me by someone I do voiceovers with. And he kind of, he said, oh, I played this game the other day on my phone. It's called Balls. So I reined myself in and was able not to make a joke about the fact that it was called balls

and it's just a variation on breakout you remember breakout with the little bouncy ball going and destroying loads of bricks as they gradually descend or whatever or rather this one was anyway this one you got bricks they're gradually descending they've got different number values if the block says 27 the ball has to hit it 27 times before it disappears okay and you get more and more balls as you go along your face if only people see your face you're so excited so he really lit up if you if you do it it's like i'm telling miranda the meaning of life here um so miranda it turns out that after if things go well after only a few seconds, you might have about 15 balls and they'll go ricocheting around the bricks. And it's tremendously rewarding.

Also, time evaporates. And you can be playing balls for what seems like two to five minutes, but an hour has gone by. Don't play balls. That's terrible. I mean, it's just mortifying after all we've been talking about. Yeah, and your life is disappearing. How do you make time slow down?

Well, if you don't like time, get balls. 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.

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Yes. Continue. Yes, I will. Hey, welcome back, listeners. Hope you enjoyed that conversation between myself and Miranda Sawyer. Thank you very much indeed to Miranda for her time and for her book, Out of Time. Rosie is over in the field, boinging around. Hey, Rosie, Rosie, come and say hello. around. Hey Rosie, Rosie, come and say hello. Oh, she's bouncing, jumping over some lettuces.

I don't know what they are. Are they lettuces? I don't think so. Rosie, come here and say hello. I'm doing a poo in the lettuces. Mmm, plop salad. Bit of balsamic, some sesame seeds. Very nice. Hey Rose, Rose, run up and say hi. Prove to the listeners you're real again. That was very brief. Yeah, well, she gets out in the country and she just wants to maximize her outdoor time and she doesn't really need to chat with me too much. That's what evenings are for.

On the sofa is just looking longingly into each other's eyes. Anyway, in the name of interacting with other human beings, this week, I went out and appeared on Room 101, the TV panel show, chat show, whatever you want to call it. TV panel show, chat show, whatever you want to call it. But I was asked and I was flattered to be asked and I like the show. I like Frank Skinner very much. So off I went, ignoring the little voice in the back of my head that said, you know, you're not that great at being on those shows. You're not like one of the other comedians. That's what the voice in the back of my head sounds like. It's pretty annoying. You're not like one of the other comedians that's really cool and they go on them a lot and they can think quickly off the top of their head about fun stuff to say and you're not like that. So off I

went to Elstree Studios. I had picked my pet peeves in advance, obviously, and you have to clear them with the producers on the show just to make sure there's no crossover with other guests and to make sure they haven't been done before. And at this point, I mean, they've done many, many series of that show ones have gone. Most of the ones that everyone can agree on, you know, things that are just universally reviled, have already disappeared into Room 101. So now you're left with quite esoteric pet peeves. And that's not to say that some people can't still hit upon things that everyone can relate to, but I don't think I did. I probably shouldn't say too much about how my episode went, but I will tell you that one of my hates was people commenting

on my purchases in shops. This was inspired by a time when I had gone to the supermarket in the morning to do a shop for the week, which included some tins of lager beer and the person at the checkout when they scanned the beer raised their eyebrow and looked looked at me and said it's a bit early isn't it and I just thought that's kind of a weird thing to say because how do you know I'm not actually struggling with a serious alcohol problem and so when they asked me what I would like to put into Room 101 when we were discussing it beforehand, that was just one of the things I kind of reached for. And they said, yeah, fine, that'll be good. So of course, suddenly you find

yourself on the program with an audience in front of you. And Frank's going, I'm sat between the two other guests who were Jerry Horner, better known as Jerry Halliwell of the Spice Girls, and Catherine Ryan, the comedian. And I was sat in the middle. And, you know, Frank comes to you and says, so what do you want to put into room 101? And then you go off and make your pitch. then you go off and make your pitch and as soon as i started saying that people in shops commenting on my purchases you know you look at the audience whoa there's a big old pheasant just flew overhead rosie presumably will be somewhere yeah you missed you missed that one didn't you rose yes i did anyway so as soon as i i Oh, look, there's another one up there. Whoa, it's pheasant party time. Rosie is in no danger of catching any of those

listeners, so don't worry on behalf of the pheasants. So yes, I'm in the studio and I'm stating my pet hate. Oh, I hate it when people in shops comment on my purchases, looking at it, a completely baffled audience or at least expressionless audience. They're like, I don't know what that means. So then I try and explain, tell my story about the beer. It's a bit early, isn't it? And as I was saying, I just thought, I don't really mind when people comment on my purchases. Sometimes it's a little intrusive, but it's not the end of the world. And it's not something I've ever lost a lot of sleep over. And usually it's quite nice to have a bit of interaction with a person in the shop. And of course, that's what the other people

on the show said to me. Yeah, but it's just people trying to be friendly, isn't it? which i thought yeah yeah you're right it is it's just it's nice people just being nice and that's the problem because i'm cursed with this wishy-washy desire to see both sides of any uh particular problem and that's not really good for appearing on Room 101. You have to be decisive and committed to your pet hate, which I'm really not. So it was a little bit weird. I don't know. I mean, we shot for what seemed like about 10 hours. So presumably they'll edit it down to something which makes a bit of sense. And there were some funny moments. which makes a bit of sense and there were some funny moments I bellowed at a woman in the front row uh in the voice of Brian Blessed to illustrate my problem with

actors interacting with real human beings and that was enjoyable I don't know if that'll make the edit or not though it certainly didn't make me feel like I should be on these shows much more often you know watching Katherine Ryan at work it's always I always find it very difficult to think of things to say on those shows because I'm so impressed by everyone around me and you realize it's such a different thing to watching people on tv where you can dismiss people and personalities very easily and just say, oh, no, they're not funny. Or no, I don't agree with that. But when you're actually sat next to them, you see what's going on and watching Catherine Ryan sort of time the way she interjected and the

rhythm of her statements was so spot on and her delivery was so excellent. I mean, you know, she works all the time. She's on lots of these shows and she does live shows all the time and that's her whole life. But she's very good at it and it's really impressive to see how it works. She's very good at it and it's really impressive to see how it works. You realize, oh, this isn't just a person bullshitting on. It's just a person with a skill. You may or may not like that skill, but it is nevertheless a craft that she is engaged with. And it's quite impressive.

Geri Halliwell was really nice. She's tiny. But, I mean, even smaller than me. And that's quite impressive. Geri Halliwell was really nice. She's tiny, but, I mean, even smaller than me, and that's quite small, but she's, unlike me, very well proportioned. So she's one of those people that appears giant, you know, when you see a photograph of them. I don't know if she appears giant, but she doesn't seem tiny.

But I really liked her. You know, she's one of those people that immediately she was asking everyone questions and engaging with everyone. And she's very sparky and interested. And it's very beguiling. So it was nice to meet her. Very nice to see Frank skinner as well we talked about podcasts and he was saying i got him into kind of well not podcasts necessarily but audiobooks years ago i recommended a book audiobook to him called 50 psychology classics party time it is

quite good though i I recommend it. The reading of it is rather dry. But it's got a lot of interesting stuff in it. If you are into that sort of thing. But Frank followed up on the recommendation. And is now quite a big audio book and podcast aficionado. And of course he's quite. Well he's different from me in that he is quite opinionated and he does like to come down fairly hard on things he disapproves of, which includes many of the things that I rather like and rely upon in my life, like gadgets and devices and phones. funny way anyway don't know when that'll be on but sometime that was a fascinating story buckles thanks very much you're welcome well that's quite enough rambling from me for this week thank you

very much indeed once again to miranda sawyer thanks to seamus murphy mitchell for his invaluable and continued production support with this podcast thanks Thanks to Matt Lamont for his edit skills. Thank you so much to you for listening. I hope you enjoyed it. And I'll be back with another rambly conversation next week. And I hope between now and then, things go reasonably smoothly for you, wherever you are, whoever you're with.

Take care. I love you. Bye! Bye. Thank you.