The Rest Is Entertainment - Terrible Meetings, Terrible Paparazzi and Nick Clegg

Episode Date: March 14, 2024

What are the biggest waste of time meetings Richard and Marina have sat through? Just what is the paparazzi industry like? And we get to the bottom of empty cup acting. Twitter: @restisents Email: [e-mail] Producer: Neil Fearn Executive Producers: Tony Pastor + Jack Davenport 🌏 Get our exclusive NordVPN deal here ➼ https://nordvpn.com/trie It’s risk-free with Nord’s 30-day money-back guarantee! ✅ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Only at Burger King, where you rule. Hello and welcome to another edition of The Rest Is Entertainment, questions and answers. Just questions edition I think sounds better, doesn't it? I'm never going to get this right, am I Richard? Okay, hit me up with a question. Hello by the way. Hello. How nice to see you.

I have a question question we teased this last week uh we said we were going to answer it yes and it's from jeremy ainsley thank you jeremy he asks what's the biggest waste of time meeting you've ever attended i mean a lot of candidates a lot of candidates i'm trying to think of an interesting one so i've come up with two one of which is during elections general election campaigns you sometimes go on the battle bus which is the sort of touring you know coach of the one of the parties and you watch them do a campaign event and you write about it and you come back to london i went on the lib dem battle bus one day i had to meet at some ungodly early yeah 2015 general election so you know we'd

all been through some stuff. Yeah. And it was with Nick Clegg. And we were told that we were going to watch him do a campaign visit in Cod if you had to present yourself at Trafalgar Square incredibly early in the morning, which I did. By the way, it's like 750 quid a day to go on this bus. You have to pay to go on the battle bus.

Oh, my God, it's insane. Yeah, I don't think you're allowed to say that, but anyway. Like pay-per-view. This is a long time ago. And, yeah, Nick Clegg is now works for... Well, Nick Clegg is now fighting Jake Paul, right? Yeah. Oh, yeah. No, he will be glossing the apocalypse for you.

When the quantum computing era has ruined the world, Nick Clegg will be standing up there for Mark Zuckerberg saying, we will learn from this. We know we have more work to do. Anyway, we went all the way to Cardiff. And it was one of those things where they have sort of little curtains across the bus. We weren't really allowed to talk to him

because we were going to do the campaign visit later in the afternoon. And we're trying to find to him because we were going to do the campaign visit later in the afternoon and we're trying to get find out what was actually going to happen at the campaign visit and it turned out that Nick Clegg would be making a pancake in a test kitchen and you're thinking how the hell is this anything to do with our democratic process like by the way the next day he went to go ape for the afternoon so I can't even I get you gotta have a day off I'm gonna shock you they didn't do very well in that election anyway uh we got all the way to Cardiff and they said oh we've just seen the test kitchen I can't even. You've got to have a day off. I'm going to shock you. They didn't do very well in that election. Anyway, we got all the way to Cardiff and they said,

oh, we've just seen the test kitchen. It's absolutely tiny. No one can fit in there apart from Nick and one person from PA News. So I went to Cardiff to not watch Nick Clegg make a pancake in a test kitchen and then we drove all the way back from Cardiff. So that was an entire day. And you paid £750 to do that. Well, I personally didn't the guardian paid it thank god because but it's expensive to do these things they charge you

you know it's like going to the party conference you actually have to pay to do it I know it's horrifying obviously you should be paid a fortune to do it but on the way back were you able to talk to him or was he busy cancelling student loans I'm trying to remember if there's a sort of one of those kind of coach picnic tables at the back where we went and sort of asked him a couple of questions. But I don't really, I've looked at what I wrote and there are no quotes from him in it. So I'm sort of thinking, was I really annoyed and thought, no, I'm not writing whatever PA have done when they've been, that's the Press Association in the tiny test kitchen watching him do the pancake.

If they've written some stuff, I was not allowed in there and I'm not going to write anything that happened in there. I don't know. I seem to have majored quite heavily on the fact that i went to cardiff to not watch and make a pancake by the way can i congratulate you on your um your column about christian horner and jerry hallywell which you headlined um keeping up with the car crashians well it's an engrossing saga yeah it's uh that's amazing might be might be the best joke of all time this i can absolutely confirm confirm is not the case.

Another type of meeting that I would say is not at all pointless and yet can sometimes see it. My husband said, what about writer's rooms where you spend like weeks talking about something and then in the end you don't do the episode like that at all? And I would say that is not a waste of time. That is part of the process. And it might seem to lots of people like, gosh, you could go down a really sort of blind alley for a long time and then end up and do something completely different.

Some of those things are somewhere where you've sat for many, many hours a day and then you end up doing something completely different. But that is part of the process. So although it may seem in some ways a kind of wasted time, it's not at all. So I would contrast that with Cardiff, Nick Clegg, Pancake. I would say two

particular types of meeting maybe three particular types of meeting that are always a waste of time but they always have to do one any meeting with Americans literally any you know you always back in the days of end of all you'd have to fly over to LA and you know we're going to go great we're going to go pitch to the networks and you'd have four or five things that you know done well in the uk or whatever and you'd pitch before so you know you know you know what you're doing and you know you'd be in la and you know you go to cbs or something you'd have this meeting and you'd pitch some reality show or other and honestly at the end of the meeting, you'd think you were royalty. They would just be like, listen, I've been doing this job for 30, 40 years. That's the single best pitch I ever heard.

That idea, that's the greatest. That is the greatest idea, not just in the history of television, but in the history of ideas. That's like when the Wright brothers went up in their plane. Like, this to me is better. Hold on. I got people in and they say john debbie come in here this these guys here have just made us billions it's the greatest idea i ever heard um listen we're gonna get straight back to you i'm gonna talk to some of the guys here my god oh this is huge uh and you literally never hear again every single meeting you ever have with an American executive is them just looking at you like their child has just been born,

like the greatest joy of their life has just happened. And then the first time you go to America, you sort of come away from the meetings going, oh, my God, this is amazing. I mean, perhaps we have to move out here because... Clearly, this is going to involve a number of life changes. Four shows, we're going to make all of them. And so, yeah, let's start looking at properties.

And then, yeah, you go back to England and you never hear anything. And it's the same, you know, anytime you have a script meeting with an American executive and they're all kind of, oh my God, listen, the script we've just got, I think is just, I think we're ready to go i think it's the best thing i ever read and then you discover they sack the writer the next day and you think okay i mean you could just say this is probably not for us or we've got something a bit like it or i don't know if the character arc really was just say you don't have to be

relentlessly positive so any meeting with an any meeting, there's a sliding scale, the bigger the celebrity, if a celebrity has an idea, dangerous, and they asked to come in. And you think, well, yeah, kind of, by and large, we had a very, very famous American actress who had come up with a show about antiques and wanted to come in. By and large, you don't have people from outside the company come in for lots of legal reasons. But, you know, if it's someone super famous, you want to meet them. There is no point, because you know the show is not going to work. You know that the show is going to be some weird thing that they thought of on the treadmill at 5am,

and they badgered their agent about it. Literally, their agent's just got them three meetings just so they can get it out of their system. And all they're going to do is talk to you about the movies that they're in, and you will never hear about it again. the more famous the person who brings you an idea is the more pointless the meeting i've had lots of pointless meetings but those are meetings about pointless which is a completely uh different thing which weirdly have a point the other one so americans very famous people or hosts you're already working with and your show is a huge hit

have another idea for you but you want you want to say sometimes you know that you didn't come up with this idea that's a hit you know that we did that we've had this massive hit and you're a brilliant presenter you're the front person for our idea yeah we do the ideas you do the stuff that we can't do uh but they'll go i've got another one for you what do you mean you've got another one for you for us you haven't had one in the first place we might have another one for you, for us? You haven't had one in the first place. We might have another one for you, and we don't actually because we need to keep you working incredibly hard on that show. So meetings you have to take.

You have to go to America. You have to talk to Americans about shows. If someone very, very famous wants to come in, you don't have to, but you want to. And if it's a piece of talent you're already working with, you have to take those meetings as well. So those, I would say, are my categories of the biggest waste of time meetings I've ever had. But now I realise I haven't paid £750 to be on a battle bus to not see Nick Thaig flip a pancake. So I have not lived. Thank you, Jeremy. Okay, this is from Maria Mangal. How close to the real thing is W1A?

So W1A is the BBC sitcom, sort of behind the scenes at the BBC with Hugh Bonneville and Jason Watkins about the sort of upper echelons of BBC executives. They try to do very small things and sometimes big things at the BBC and come up against the kind of institutional structure. It's got Jessica Hines, you've said Hugh Bonneville. Sarah Parish. Yeah, Sarah Parish. It's terrific. I would say that it is very close, and that is why it really works. And funnily enough, I was talking to my husband about this in the context of something else, because he works at the BBC, and he said it was so specific and it was so realistic

that they thought at the start, people will just think this is absolutely bizarre. But for the comedy to work, always, you absolutely need the specificity first. And that's what Armando Iannucci says about the thick of it, you know, they really tried to get it like, tell us who would be in this meeting, which people, you know, from the press office would be in this meeting, everything had to be so authentic. In order for it to really work as a satire, you have to make it really, really authentic. And it's funny, because it does sometimes feel like how could anyone be laughing at this. And it's funny, because it does sometimes feel like, how could anyone be laughing at this? Because it's a lot of people in politics, when they first saw

the thick of it was like, yeah, but this is like what an actual day is actually like. And people at the BBC were like, will people laugh at this? I mean, it is our day. It has some eerie similarities with real life. There's the Jason Watkins character who will never come down one side or another on whether something's a good idea or not. There are genuinely people. Well, it used to just be there were people at the BBC who could have a whole career of never sort of really venturing an opinion and just rising upwards and upwards and upwards. And funnily enough, as some of the indies got bigger and bigger and bigger, you started getting people at the big indies who would just sit in a room. I'd sit in a room sometimes.

Talking of biggest waste of time meetings, you'd sit in a room sometimes at sit in a room sunday talking a biggest waste of time meetings you'd sit in a room sometimes at endemol and there was no point being there because you were talking trying to have a creative meeting with people who just wanted to get out of the room without having any extra work to do and wanted to make sure that you weren't unhappy and that's a very bbc thing and it's become a big indie thing as well. So that's very true to life. The Rufus Jones character, who's sort of the entertainment producer,

I think is brilliant, who's always saying, oh, lovely Claire Balding. Oh, we love Claire. You know, that's very true to life. I think it is. I mean, it's like anything else. It's a satire.

And actually, when you go to the BBC, it's full of some rather brilliant people. You know, if you go and talk to Kateate phillips in entertainment you just you just have a brilliant meeting with somebody who's very good at her job but whenever we used to have meetings at the bbc if ever you could tell if you have a meeting with someone high up like alan yentl would always walk past and just knock on the door and just start chatting to them about something else you'd be like okay i mean all right i've loved the bb BBC lamp and this genie has come out. This genie has appeared.

And so the lifers there, I think there was a certain culture. It's quite different now, I think. It's quite lean now, the BBC. I want to say about all of those shows is that the reason they work as incredibly successful workplace comedies, even though they might be in quite a recherche world that's not the same as other people's world, is because people recognise those things from their own offices.

And it might be a paper company in Slough and it might be a kind of rarefied meeting room at the BBC or obviously W1A sprung from the 2012, which is a sort of satire on the preparations for the London Olympics. And actually what makes them work is they're very very specific to their milieu but also there's massive universality where people think oh my god there's someone in my office is exactly there's always someone who hasn't made a decision in my company for 30 years and everyone can see it so they're also specific on a human level and so you need those kind of things that if you've got a very specific world,

that people actually recognise those same things in their companies. So, yeah, the truth is, it's quite close to the real thing. I have a question for you here. Kathy Mottcham asks, In a recent episode, you said that a great film editor can create a fantastic film through the editing. Is this done in conjunction with the director? If not, could it be said that the end film is the vision of the editor and not the director, yet directors have the names on the posters

and win the awards? Okay, well, Cathy, first of all, the director will always edit with the editor, but there are awards for editing, and it is such an unbelievable and brilliant skill. And actually, we talked a bit about, which I thought was so interesting, the stuff you were talking about, editing and even editing live tv in the vision mixer and all of that we talked a bit about that last week in film or even high in television I've scripted you'll have sort of about six stages in the editing and on the

basic level they're taking the dailies they're taking each of the shots that are filmed and then they're logging them and then you'll start getting what's called the first assembly the dailies. They're taking each of the shots that are filmed, and then they're logging them, and then you'll start getting what's called a first assembly. The dailies is just at the end of a day shooting, all that footage goes into the edit. Yes, and the show I'm working on at the moment, there's a system which we all have some quite strong views about called PIX, and you are able to see the dailies, and so everything that's been shot.

I would love to hear a group of writers having a strong opinion about the system. If you want to hide the nuclear code somewhere, put them on PIX because you will not be able to find them anyway sorry no disrespect by the way they have an incredible helpline in los angeles that i've spoken to about 1 million times and they're always right there and they have got to say that is the greatest question i have ever heard in my life i love it i'm gonna get some other people over listen to this question i got from the uk this is amazing no the helpline they are lovely everyone on the pics helpline thank you every time um so then you'll get but then eventually you get a rough cut now this is when the scenes are in order and you'll try for continuity and you might go for different ideas

and then you'll get the first cut now this is accepted by the writer the director the producer that in films often goes out to something like test screenings and it's really interesting this book that I mentioned on the earlier episode this week of the podcast, which is called Hits, Flops and Other Illusions by a director called Ed Zwick, who directed things like Legends of the Fall, Last Samurai.

He's the producer of Shakespeare in Love, Glory. He's really interesting talking about editing and how amazingly you don't really know once the film is up and running in your shooting when you start to edit it things that he'd shot glory which has got denzel washington morgan freeman and it's about an african-american regiment in the civil war now as part of these the different people who in it he thought they were all very religious and it would be helpful to have a scene quite near the start showing how religious they have some sort of religious

ceremony when he came to cut the film at the end he thought hang on to make this matter the absolute most this should do just before the final battle so it's a kind of start of act three thing and it makes it so meaningful and another thing he did when he's got legends of the fall which is a kind of long family saga with brad pitt and anthony hopkins and people like that people like that brad pitt all the big ones julia armand um and people like that. People like that, Brad Pitt, Anthony Hopkins, people like that. All the big ones, Julia Armand. People like that. He took the film out to test screenings, and there's a bit where Brad Pitt kisses his brother's wife,

and people really didn't like it. So he changed the movie. I think he took eight seconds out of it. And they nearly kiss, but they don't. And people loved the movie movie and it's so incredible how these tiny little things whole movies hinge on things like that I've been to quite a few test screenings quite early on and people and the director will often stand up and say look this is a really early car obviously we don't have proper sound on it and there are some

blank scenes where action scenes will go in and then you fill in these cards at the end and you say you know what you feel about it now that's for a um that's that's for sort of probably independent films but in some of the big studio films they do these anonymous things and they'll go out and they'll take it to towns and everyone will get a free ticket and people will write their thoughts down and that is quite brutal and then you will definitely go back and totally re-edit your film because you've got what you've got and you've got to somehow make it into something to an extent that that is the satisfying story that people want to see people didn't want to see brad pickett because his brother's wife they wanted him to

nearly feel he could do it and then not no but certainly not but it's really interesting that so and then you get a fine cut and then eventually you get a final cut and that's the thing that goes out to the theaters but that editing process is happening while you're shooting and it will take a long time to get down to what you finally see so much of it is done afterwards you'll go back and you'll get additional recorded dialogue you'll get all of those sort of things it's a long process and it's an utter art it really is an art and it's the same in tv and in a lot of ways you know i've shot pilots before that didn't work at all in the studio and actually you get the raw footage and you chop it into a different order

and actually you can put together a pretty good tape to give to the channel. Then they commission it. You think, you know what, it really wasn't like that. So it gives you a problem. But yeah, I love sitting in an edit and making something that doesn't quite work really, really work. And as you say, you would think when a script comes in that that's it, you film that script in order

and then you put that out. And actually the things you can do and the emphasis you can put on different things and the emotions you can play with with various editing tricks, you know, it is absolutely extraordinary. But it's the editor and the director, you would say. Absolutely, editor and the director.

But also once something is happening, once you're shooting something, it is different. And a brilliant comedy writer said to me this week, yeah, it's funny, you spend so long, months, maybe years, sort of writing this thing and thinking, yeah, this is what this thing is. And then once the collaborative effort starts and the actors are there and the production design is all up and you're on the sets or whatever, you think, oh, I see this is what it is. It's not that thing I thought it was before. It's this thing.

And so then you'll go back and rewrite because you've now got a clearer idea of what it is but it's so weird it's very odd that and that's because it's not a sort of dictatorial kind of one person's medium even know whatever you've heard about directors they might have a vision but it will never be the thing that is completely realized because that is always a collaboration between so many different amazing craftspeople. It's amazing. So many times on TV, you don't really notice what you've got until it literally is broadcast. You've done everything and so many eyes have been on it and so many people have talked about it. When it goes out, you watch it and go, oh, yeah, that's bad.

I see, yeah. Yeah, that's bad. Of course that's bad. Why couldn't I see that? Yeah. Should have picked up on that. Anyway, thank you for that one, Cathy. Richard, here we go from Megan Friend.

Do you agree with the phrase, everyone has a book in them? Ah, thank you, Megan. Gosh, do I agree with the phrase, everyone has a book in them? No. But any more than everyone has a sculpture in them, you know, or anyone has Fix and a Carburettor in them. I mean, you know, there are things we can do and things we can't. I think an awful lot more people have a book in them than think they do. That's for sure. And I think some people who think they have a book in them don't. I think that's definitely true.

So I think everyone can write. And if you enjoy writing, you can find the version of writing that you enjoy, whether that's a diary, whether it's talking to friends, whatever it is. My aunt used to just text endlessly incredibly long texts and they were great and she loved doing it because she was enjoying the act of writing and she would never be interested in doing considered herself a writer yeah exactly but but but being good on the chat is a real skill yeah but it is a real skill right so if you if you love to write then write in whatever way you want if you don't love to write, then write in whatever way you want. If you don't love to write, don't even dare think about writing a book.

If you don't read books, don't dare think about writing a book. Writing a book is such a long haul that you will need every single ounce of whatever you have in your brain and your heart and your soul to get to the end of it. So you better love writing and you'd better have some aptitude for it anyone who thinks they've got a book in them go ahead just write it you'll find out sooner or later you know either you sell it to an agent or you find an audience online for it you know writing usually finds a home but yeah I think I think that there are many things in life that I do not have in me a painting uh, I'm not going to have it. But I do firmly believe that you can be taught to do many of these things.

And I'm always really sad that we don't teach properly drawing in schools anymore. Everyone can be taught to draw so much better than people are able to. And I've seen these people who teach these incredible techniques. And in the old, many, hundreds of years ago, people would have been taught how to do this. And they would be able to produce competent drawings you hear very many stories about people who say for some reason i decided to take singing lessons they're not a genius at singing but they're you you're taught to be skilled and good at it and you can absolutely be taught to write well and you can be taught to write better for sure to be right to be right

perfectly competently to be right perfectly confidently you can be taught to write better, for sure. To be right, to be right, perfectly competently. To be right, perfectly competently. Sorry, I can't even speak perfectly competently. Sorry, I can't even speak perfectly competently. But yeah, you can be taught to write, to draw, to sing, to ways that are, you know, pretty adequate. And I know that sounds like a faint phrase, but actually people who think, oh, I can only draw a stick, man. No, you could do so much better. If someone properly took the time to teach you and you took the time to learn, you could do far, far better than you would possibly imagine.

Same with singing, same with writing, same with lots of these things that people think are, oh, I have to be possessed by a genius. Well, you can get a lot better just being taught or taking lessons, finding ways to learn online. Yes, please, God, don't be possessed by genius. I mean, we honestly don't want to read books or watch television programmes by people possessed with genius. I would say my basic rule of thumb is if you absolutely love reading and love writing and you don't think you're good enough to write a book,

you are good enough. If you hate reading, hate writing and think you are good enough to write a book, you're probably not. Yeah, you're also a celebrity and probably have a 10-book deal with someone. Are you talking to me? No, I'm not talking to you. No you're probably not yeah you're also a celebrity and probably have a 10 book deal with someone are you talking to me no i'm not talking to you no i'm not talking to you i think it's been proved that you can write has it been proved i'm a celebrity yes yes richard you are a massive celebrity and you're a brilliant writer this is like being in an american

meeting yeah i know you're not going to hear from me i'll ghost you the second exactly yeah how comes the podcast split up i don't know i genuinely don't i've literally sent her 100 texts but she's like that, I guess. Shall we give it a break now, Richard? I think we should. Yeah. Working at your local Tim's is more than serving coffee. It's building connections with a team in a great environment,

connecting with your guests in the community, and participating in programs like Smile Cookie and Hockey Card Trade Nights. So join your local Tim's team today. Apply now at careers.timhortons.ca. Welcome back to the, what I call the questions edition of the Restors Entertainment. I know you like to call it questions and answers. Will we ever agree?

I have a question from Jeff Nicholson. Thank you, Jeff. Is there any reason why, when filming, actors would use an empty cup and pretend there is a drink in it? No actor alive can cover up the fact that it's an empty cup. It immediately brings me out of the story. This is a bold claim from Jeff Nicholson. I hope you can back this up, Jeff.

If you played 100 clips of characters drinking from these cups, I could tell you with 100% accuracy which ones had liquid in it, even if they were just carrying the cups. It is brutally obvious, says Jeff. That's a podcast. Okay. First of all, Jeff, you are not even weird. This is an obsession. People have been obsessed with this for ages. The AV Club, which is a sort of TV cultural arm of the onion there was a guy who used to track empty cups in tv shows now the sort of obvious practical reasons for it are if you can see through the cup it affects continuity so it's just a lot easier not to have anything in it but you can't have an empty glass so they do normally have coffee cups wardrobe would hate you if you spilt it i mean even in the studio we have to have a ridiculous sippy cup yeah little sippy yeah so wardrobe would hate you if you spill tick i mean even in the studio we

have to have a ridiculous sippy cup yeah little sippy yeah so wardrobe would hate you it would cause a lot of trouble you don't know how many takes you're going to have to do so they don't put anything in them i totally agree with you on the weight issue this is also an issue with suitcases that you will see on tv where people are sort of flipping their supposedly heavy suitcase up very early putting on the rack in the train above their head, and you think, you couldn't do this, it's completely empty. I can do that. Now, I do also... Do you know something?

I hate to go off on a sidebar. Why not? But I can stow my luggage on a train or a plane without getting out of my seat. How about that, Chris Gill? And I often do it because I know people get a kick out of it. They go wild for it, yeah. They love it.

Oh, my God. He's, sorry, boarding is stopped while Richard takes a bow for the stowing trick again. Yeah. Okay. The thing that you said about being able, Jeff, that people are able to tell, there's this museum of sort of illusion and perception called TWIST that's at Oxford Circus in London. And there's a really interesting exhibit in there where they make you say,

you listen to the noise of boiling water being poured or cold water. And humans have internalized this so much that 93% of adults are able to tell from sound whether water is hot water, like from the kettle. No way. And if you do it, you get every single one right. And you're like, I can't actually believe I just got sort of 10 out of 10 on this. And 93% of humans, you've internalized this noise so much. You've heard it so many times. And this is a bit like drinks on TV.

No wonder you can tell. I believe you could tell with 100% accuracy that there's nothing or something in those cups. Because these little tiny little quotidian facts of our noises of our day, we are so attuned to them. And you know far more about it. So it is one of those things that sticks out and that i think is the reason why there's like a massive online community of people who talk a lot about cups and i should say that something like 21 people wrote in about cups this week i think i think there must have been a bulletin board somewhere is bulletin board is

that a thing i don't know or or some or something has happened there's been some sort of egregious example of it on some show and maybe but it's it's an ongoing concern amongst people that there's nothing in that cup and it's really annoying me but in general yes you mustn't let talent anywhere near liquid yeah by like genuinely yeah you know on telly because you split it down your shirt and then you've got to stop filming that's why we've always had tippy uh tippy tommy cups on pointless because Zander spilt mint tea down a month, literally on the first ever episode. And it ruins everything. But yeah, that thing of continuity is fascinating.

On panel shows, you always have to have mugs and not glasses because if you use the second answer first and then the first answer, because for various reasons it works better, and the water keeps going up and down, then you can't use it. It's the same thing that if someone's wearing glasses and then they take them off when the camera is not on them and so the next time you look at them they're not wearing their glasses you have to make sure you've got a

shot of them taking their glasses off or putting they just have to make sure you've got that shot otherwise people go well this is insane very important pickup are they wearing it or not wearing it and that's different sort of glasses uh there was a good bit in One Day, funnily enough. One Day is very good for having things like, you know, having to write letters to people and having cassette tapes, all these things that we lost long ago. And there's a great bit where Emma is carrying a really heavy suitcase. And you realize, of course, they didn't have wheels. Yes. It was pre the wheelie suitcase.

Yes. So, yeah. But that looked heavy. Good. It needs to look i've that's definitely one of my bog bears so okay that's a good one jeff thank you okay question on libraries from louise kenny do authors get paid when their books are loaned from a library is it a set amount or a small amount per loan that's a good question firstly support your libraries they're absolutely incredible and there's that people sometimes say i'm afraid i got your book from the library rather than bought it. I'm like, I love it.

I love it if people are getting the books from the libraries. The simple answer is yes, authors do get paid every time you borrow a book from a library. It's not an enormous amount, but it's certainly at the end of a year. The maximum you can possibly get is £6,500 if it's been borrowed lots and lots of times. Per how many libraries? For all the libraries? Yeah, not per library. No, per all the libraries.

No, for the public lending rights. I see, okay. You get a cheque for how often you're, well, you don't get a cheque, do you? It just gets put in your account. Yes. It's not 1983. So, yes, authors do, and it's incredibly useful,

some for them. There was a huge problem recently because the British Library was cyber-hacked and the payments all got held up, and they usually come through just before Christmas, which for a lot of authors is very, very useful, and it got held up. But now it seems to be fixed, so that money's coming through. So yeah, every time you borrow a book from the library,

yes, the author is getting paid, and also you're doing an invaluable job in your community. So do do that. Know that you're contributing, and also to all librarians, thank job in your community. So do do that. Know that you're contributing and also to all librarians, thank you so much for everything you do. We must support libraries. Do you know if you have a library card,

you can also get some free online subscriptions to all newspapers? Oh, can you? Yeah, you get Press Reader because if you go into the library, you can read the newspapers. And so, yeah, you get a Press Reader thing. All you've got to do is put in your library number and you get free subscriptions to the newspapers as well. I mean, they're really good libraries. I was told off in my local library not that long ago.

I was typing in there and someone on the table said to me, sorry, you type incredibly loudly. I was writing my column. And I looked around the rest of the table to be like, you know, typing loudly is not a thing face. And everyone went, you're typing incredibly loudly. And I had no idea. I type incredibly loudly.

Ingrid's always saying it's like there's an elephant typing. It's like I'm using a typewriter, but it's a Mac. Yes. I mean, I'm really quite embarrassed. And I was, I mean, I was, I was chastened, I was shamed, but it was pretty clear. So then I thought, oh, I'm going so slowly. I'm not going to finish my column. I'll have to go and leave and do it in a cafe. Yeah, but do you think that's because we come from an era

where we did have to use typewriters? I still remember using them. Oh, I'm Angela Lansbury every time I'm typing a column in the titles of Murder, She Wrote. I'm just banging away. Yeah, no, I'm shocked. On my bicycle in Cabot Cove. No, I'm...'m anyway but i do type very loudly and i'm quite embarrassed about it now i've got a i'm a loud typer yeah let's um i'll tell you what we'll do we'll go to that museum at oxford circus and we'll both type and people have to guess which one of us is typing

my mind is still blown by your hot water cold water it's fascinating. Do you know that everyone listening to this is going home, unless you've got a mixer tap. If you've got a mixer tap, does the hot water sound, and you put it on hot, does it sound... Yes, it's something... Sorry, now I'm going to really mess up the science. And I don't... It's something to do with...

People can hear some sort of difference in the motion of the molecules effectively. But you'll have to look at it about everyone. I don't want to get the science wrong, but it's 93% of adults. And at this museum, Twist, at Oxford Circus, there's a way of them doing it for you. But you can really do it.

This is definitely an experiment you can try at home. I think that one is doable. But also, every single person that's listening to this at home is no longer listening. No. They're literally, well, they're listening, but over the sound of taps. They've been mandated to make a cup of tea.

Exactly. And everybody listening to this in the car has sped up so they can get home. Make a cup of taps. They've been mandated to make a cup of tea. Exactly. And everybody listening to this in the car has sped up so they can get home. Make a cup of tea. Do we have time for one more? I think we do. I think we do. Come on. Grace Rowan asks Oh, I want to know the answer to this as well. And I bet you'll know. How often

are celeb paparazzi photos staged? And how can we tell the staged ones from the real ones? I'm going to have to think carefully how i answer this question quite often they are staged um it's like you've got a tiny little lawyer on your shoulder yeah it is i have got it's like my tiny lawyer is is on is on my shoulder i mean paparazzi pictures even princess diana towards the end of her life there's recordings of her on the phone to the paparazzi who she worked

with quite a lot at that time, a guy called Jason Fraser, saying, have you got enough? Have you got everything? And I suppose someone who was victimized to a huge extent by the paparazzi, at some point, people think I'll turn the tables myself and I'm going to own my narrative. Nobody said that, by the way, in 1997. But anyway, we say it now. Often, a lot of people used to feel the paparazzi are hanging out on the beach. If I give them one set of pictures and say can you now leave me alone for the rest of my holiday in Barbados then they would do that so you would see a lot of that sometimes people just think I look really good right now and I want to have some pictures done and I will split the money with the photographer if they get into the paper that happens a huge amount really so they do like a

50 I don't know if we can say starlets anymore but but I would say sort of telly starlets. Yeah, and you'll do whatever, they'll work out the split. And there are certain agencies, if you see the phrase backgrid, that's one of the agencies. Okay. I often think that backgrid photos have not been the biggest shock to the person, not all of them perhaps, but there's a lot, whoever runs that agency, I would say that there's not the hugest amount of shock to that person that they've ended up in.

And what sort of photoshoots? Oh my God, you know. But what they do is they take out all the ones where you look like you've got cellulite, they take out, you know, you've sort of got picture approval on them. Okay, yeah, so they can nicely Photoshop. Because anybody can make anybody look dreadful

if they don't cooperate. And I think awfully women got sick of someone thinking, oh, if I get her with a bit of cellulite. There were some pictures of Geri Hall once, and it looked like she had so much cellulite. I think it was just the water reflecting on her. There was a long period in the 2000s, which was an absolute wild west for women and celebrity and paparazzi.

I remember people were wondering whether Britney Spears was pregnant, and a guy upskirted her. the 2000s which was an absolute wild west for women and celebrity and paparazzi i remember people were wondering whether britney spears was pregnant and a guy upskirted her saw period blood on her knickers and the headline was she's not pregnant what i mean there were people who used to trail her around the whole time and obviously if you've seen the britney documentary you hear a lot more about this that was an absolute brutal wild west people sticking cameras up which to me is a form of sort of sexual assault, and publishing those pictures. And I think people felt if they colluded with people,

then they would have some control over this. And instead of spending their whole family holiday thinking, I've got to wear a sarong because I don't want anyone to see me, they think I'll do one set of pictures, then I'll be left alone. A lot of people do use it for marketing yeah as well now quite a lot of paparazzi pictures are a stage if they look good in the pictures I'm sorry to tell you I think they've been staged you see some people sort of um coming out of rival broadcasters sort of by the back entrance you go you know spotted leaving ITV having a meeting yeah only the only person who

you know they there will not be paparazzi normally outside that restaurant. And that person has told them. And then so they can say, oh, yeah, you know, I'm in talks with the BBC or with ITV or whatever. And they're going to use that to get a pay rise. Yeah, because they don't really hang out outside many places. No. Paparazzi is the truth. You don't see it in the same way that you ever did. It's not the same. So you have to think that they're still making money one way or another and they have an arrangement one of the most famous supposedly staged photos

was the one of um tom hiddleston and taylor swift frodocking in the surf is that one staged she had lots of friends didn't she it was some fourth of july weekend i might be getting the might be memorial day something like that labor day and it was in her house near uh in newport rhode island and um he had a t-shirt said, I love TS on it. No, I don't think that was staged. I don't think his agent would be very happy. I mean, you're trying to sell this guy as an action hero. And he's looking completely emasculated, dancing in the sea in a thing saying, I love TS.

I'm sorry. No, I don't think that was staged at all. I think everybody got, I think he had to talk about it. I think he's been sent out by, you get out there and you say how this happened. You say how it came to be that you were pictured dancing in the sea in a T-shirt that said, I love TS. And he said, oh, it was all, we all had these T-shirts for an ironic joke. And of course, I was the only one snapped. And he's had to do a big retrofitting of how it happened.

I would say if I was wanting to be a big action hero, I'd say, yeah, it says, I love torpedoing submarines. Yeah, what of it? Yeah, I mean, that's another quite long interview that you're going to have to give in which you retrofit that you know everything about sort of submarinary. Submarinary? What on earth is that? That doesn't exist. Submarinary is when someone tries to

do a column like one of yours. I think that's very easy to attain in a short interview. Okay. We had paparazzi shots a few times just before I got married to Ingrid. And my favourite one was that we were on our way to the football. And it's just a picture of her. And this is Ingrid Oliver flaunting her sparkler, which is her engagement ring. Journalese, as no one speaks in this way, apart from journalists writing about it.

And if you have the quotes from onlookers and close friends, all of those are made up. Completely made up. Nobody talks like this. An onlooker said they were flaunting it, they didn't care who saw it. No one talks like this. These are all completely made up. Anything that says a close friend is always like... Even my mum said, oh, I thought you met Ingrid here.

It says a close friend said you met at a dinner party. I said, yeah, I have literally told you where we met. so it's and i probably i wouldn't keep it who's his close friend of yours that keeps going to the papers exactly and how come you're going to dinner parties i haven't heard of they only talk in the way that only tabloid journalists talk as well they almost say things like canoodle if there's a specific name that says we were told this then it's right anything else sources close to it's completely embedded because actually news stories look better when they're sort of broken up with quotes.

And that's just been a sort of convention of how reporting happens. And so people have always thought, well, it looks better if we make it feel like it's real and everyone has sort of added into this debate. It's all invented, those things. Not source close to the home office or something like that. That is not invented. But within celebrity reporting, almost 100% of it is invented.

So the basic rule is a source close to the home office that's not invented, a source close to Colleen Rooney that is invented. Two answers for the price of one there. That was fun. It was great fun. Shall we do it all again next week? Let us do it all again. We'll see you all over again next week. Take care. Bye.