The Unmade Podcast - 18: Stuck on an Island

Episode Date: October 17, 2018

Tim and Brady spend the day on the island of Steep Holm - and discuss four new podcast ideas. Get 10% off your first domain purchase at https://www.hover.com/Unmade Suggestions include Photo Roulette, modes of communication, and favourite stories. Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/unmadeFM Join the discussion of this episode on our subreddit: https://redd.it/9oy847 Pictures from our visit: https://www.unmade.fm/steep-holm-pictures Tim's dog Spindles from Photo Roulette: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5990824849fc2b4c4fe4211b/t/5bbe7293f4e1fc93bd98126e/1539207838368/spindles.jpg Check us out on iTunes and elsewhere... Details here: https://www.unmade.fm/how-to-listen/

We're literally under attack. Alright Tim, an idea for a podcast. How about this one? You'd call it something like Islands or Castaway and every single episode is set on a different island somewhere in the world. So our intrepid host or hosts one day could be in some exotic island in the Pacific Ocean, and then some stormy island off the coast of Wales, things like that, episode on episode. And before I talk about this idea, I should point out we're kind of trying it today

because today Tim and I have come to an island in the Bristol Channel called Steep Home or Steep Home. And we're going to be here, well, all day basically. I think we're going to be here for something like nine hours. I know, which is a fair while once you get here. It is. Basically, this little island in the channel that we'll talk about more throughout the episode is not open to the public, kind of, except on special days when they bring people over. So today they've brought about, I don't know,

about 40 people or so over in three little boats. And we all jumped off and ran up the beach and ran up the stairs up onto the island. And now we're here for the day. And we are kind of trapped because you can only get on and off the island at certain times due to the tide. The Bristol Channel has this famously extreme tidal range. So we came up onto the island at high tide. And then we have to get back off the island at high tide. And there's no going nowhere. We're here on this desert island

here we are so we're thinking about building a fort and starting a garden and bunkering in for the long winter yeah we've got our we've got our volleyball called wilson or whatever that's you're my wilson i'm your wilson how would you describe this island to someone who's doing nothing about it? And you didn't know anything about it really until today. Just paint a picture, Tim. Well, if you said, you know, well, as you did say, we're going to an island. I'm off the English coast.

I'd imagine something very green and lush. But, of course, it's summer. This is actually quite arid. It's very stony and arid. It's very beautiful coming up on it on the boat. It just looks gorgeous. There is a lot of vegetation. Like, there's a lot of vegetation on this island, but you're right. It's not really lush and verdant. No, and a lot of it's yellow as well,

because there's not a lot of water on the island by the looks of it. And then, of course, there's ruins and rocks and things from batteries and things from wars and old cannons laying around. And that's interesting. But there's also a humongous amount of seagulls flying overhead. And you can probably hear them, hundreds of them, just circling around the island. Yeah, thousands even, I would say. I mean, we're right in the height of kind of the breeding time for them. So they're all making a right racket looking after their babies and stuff as well. The thing about Steep Home, and the clue is in the name,

for me, is also how dramatically it rises from the water. There are a few little islands dotted through the Bristol Channel. In fact, our next-door neighbour's one called Flat Home, which is quite a flat island, like a little pancake in the sea. But Steep Home is like this big jagged tooth that's almost as high as it is wide it seems in some ways so it's really dramatic like even when you see it from the coast it's i've always been fascinated by it because it sort of sticks out of the sea in this really dramatic fashion like the peak of a peak of a hill or mountain poking

out from under the water so getting up onto it has been something that's always been really interesting to me it's like it's almost entirely surrounded on all sides by like cliffs it's basically all cliffs there's only one little beach where these boats are able to deposit us and then we can climb up some steps and things to get up up the cliffs and up onto the island so it's very dramatic looking i was as i joked as pulled up in the boat, I was looking at the cliff face and thinking, this is going to be like from the Guns of Navarone where we're going to have to shimmy our way up the cliff face to get onto the island.

So we're going to walk around the island for the next hour or two, and I guess we'll talk a little bit about it, but we'll also have some of our usual podcast ideas as we go. But let's talk about my island idea, Tim. What do you think about a podcast where, say, two people, say like you and I, did different episodes on different islands every week or every month or something like that. Do you think that's something that would have legs

or would it get a bit repetitive? Well, it depends what you're talking about. I mean, there is something interesting in knowing how many, you know, the different islands, particularly if they're dramatically different. You've got a Caribbean sort of island, and then you've got off the coast of Scotland or something like this. And, you know, and you can describe them.

But there's, I guess there's a nature idea in walking around describing the island, the uniqueness of how it's here. Has it ever been inhabited? I mean, you were looking something like where we are today. There's a history of a small spiritual community, a priory, going back from the 12th, 13th century. And then there's, you know, wars and different parts. So there's a podcast to be made in exploring that kind of stuff.

But there's also the other kind of desert island or island sort of idea, which is the sort of analogous idea of what would you take to a desert island? And you know what I mean? If you were here, what would you want to have or how would you live on a desert island and that's a bit of a fantasy idea i guess isn't it and there's conversation in there about life and your priorities and things you like are you much of an island guy like i don't know i've never really thought about you in this way but now i think about it more than i realized you're probably quite an urban guy you're more of a city dweller you're not you're not such an outdoorsman are you i mean i know you like being outdoors but like i don't feel like you're a guy that's going to enjoy being stuck on this island for nine hours i feel like after a few hours you're going to want to you know watch

a movie or read a book or i don't know yeah i that's true my favorite island is manhattan yeah apart from australia our island home, yeah, I guess that's probably true. I do like going out in the fresh air and all that sort of stuff, but I like it as, oh, that was a lovely day, now let's go home. Yeah. Like, I'm a city dweller too, but I think maybe I'm a little bit more willing to spend a lot of time doing something boring.

Like, I would quite happily get my camera and go photographing things for like seven or eight hours. But I feel like, oh, I don't think Tim would enjoy that very much if he just had to put up with me. Because I'm willing to wait two hours for that perfect photo of a seagull sitting on that rock and things like that.

But I feel like maybe you're someone who's like, yeah, this is nice. I like this. Now what? What's next? So maybe you're not the guy to make this an island podcast. No, no. I'm happy with you.

I'm happy to sit there and read a book while you do that. That's great. Have a coffee. Yeah, it's a little bit different. But you go off on adventures and this sort of stuff, don't you? You go to Everest and you go all over the world, to Antarctica, as you've done. I don't think about, oh, where could I go next in that way? I think about urban environments and cities and stuff like that when I think about travel.

I love it. I really love it here. So where we are at the moment, we're at this little kind of, we're sitting in the shade of some kind of little battery or military fortification. Because this island is so strategically placed in the Bristol Channel, kind of guarding Bristol from anything that may come in from the Atlantic, this island has a long history since the 1800s

of being used as sort of a military base and there are ruins of military barracks and old cannons and things like that that are gradually being swallowed by the vegetation but the trust that's responsible for the island is trying to keep them alive and keep them looking as good as they can for people to come and enjoy. As you can hear, the birds have very much made them a home of their own. There's bird poo over absolutely everything. There are dead birds absolutely everywhere because we're in the middle of a heat wave

in the UK and the birds have been struggling. So you've got to watch where you step for dead birds. But there's also plenty of alive ones. I'm keen to have a look down to our left, underneath this military thing. It's got steps, old stone steps that go down and seem to go into some sort of fort that's partly underground or into the cliff face. I'm keen to explore that.

Yeah, I think there's like a basement down there that they used to keep ammunition in, so we can go and have a look. Again, you seem to be more intrigued by the human-made things that are on the island, like the old priory and the military stuff, whereas I'm really into the cliffs and the animals and the geology of it. But maybe that's a reason that this podcast would work with two people like that.

So every island you go to, you've got your nature hound who wants to just talk about the deer that's on the island and the way that the sea has eroded it. And then you've got your cultural presenter who's like, oh, this is really interesting, let's go and visit the old church that's on this island. Yeah, that's true. I do like the built environment much more.

I'm more intrigued by it. The island podcast would be good because sometimes you could do something that's very deserted and very inhospitable, but other times you could do a Manhattan or, like, you know tasmania or something like that you could do like you could throw in a curveball people could also request places where maybe they can't go or they can suggest you go go to this it's the fourth island

across from the edge of you know this point in canada or something like that there's this particular there you could go and search it out and talk about it if that's of interest. Island Hopping would be a good name for the podcast, wouldn't it? Island Hopping, yeah, yeah. Yeah? Oh, Island Podding? No, Island Hopping. Tim's looking a little bit suspiciously at the birds because they are looking at,

they've gotten used to us being here now and now they're being like, hang on, who are these guys and are they here to steal my eggs? And Tim has confessed that he's not entirely comfortable with birds due to a childhood incident. So he's a bit worried about being swooped, I think. But they're seagulls. I know they're not going to swoop. I mean, we have seagulls all over the place.

There are birds that swoop on this island. When you read the warning information, there are certain places where they say make sure you wear a hat because you could get swooped here. I probably shouldn't have told you that let's just pretend they're all uh they're all seagulls and if we had hot chips they'd all be all over us but we don't have hot chips with us so they're all it's just like being at the seaside they are actually very beautiful and they are all peppered all over the sort of cliff face around about us and stuff oh

it's fantastic like seriously we're like there are just birds everywhere when we first got to the island and it was like circled by a thousand seagulls, the first thing Tim said to me was, someone must have some hot chips somewhere on this island. You don't see seagulls if there's no hot chips. So what's more in this? This is really about islands. You're not thinking about, there is, and we have to mention the classic

Desert Island Discs, a very famous British radio show and podcast about what you would take to an island in terms of songs. Yeah, yeah. It's not that, none of that is in this idea for you no no this is more my idea is more it's basically a travel log travel type podcast except with this kind of structure or restriction that you're always on an island oh it's kicked off again there are some birds having a fight oh careful man this one it's gonna swoop watch out man there are a few factual things you could explore as well like what is the smallest habitable island um the most remote the most remote island and things like that yeah yeah you can buy islands can't you is that right like real estate you're on an island that's been bought

this island was put up for sale and this trust, this nature trust, it's called the Keith Alsop Trust, I believe, named after this conservationist slash journalist. He died and in his memory they wanted to conserve something and they didn't even know what they wanted to conserve and this island came up for sale and the trust bought this island and have made this their project. Oh, right. I'd love to own an island.

I would really love to own an island. There's something about it. I would really love to own an island. There's something about it. It's like a kingdom. Yeah. I wonder if you can get them cheap enough that normal people like me, I wonder if you ever get them for house prices. Obviously, it's not going to be like a luxury Caribbean island, but I wonder if you can get some rubbish piece of rock somewhere in the middle of nowhere

where someone will say, oh, yeah, you can have that for 50,000 pounds or something and you could just buy an island. And that's Brady Island. Yeah. I don't know if I'd call it that. Harrenland. I would call it Brady Island. You would call it Brady Island? What would you call an island if you bought an island?

I don't know. I'd just call it Ireland. Ireland. Ireland or Ireland? Ireland. Ireland. Ireland. Or Australia too. I mean, I'll tell you what island I'd love to really go to.

Is it Nubla or Numbla? Where Jurassic Park's set. Oh, right. Whereabouts is that? Which continent? Well, in the book, it's off Costa Rica, isn't it? But I don't know where they... I mean, most of the film was filmed in Hawaii, but I don't know where they filmed the exterior shots the film was filmed in hawaii but i don't know what where they filmed the exterior shots of the art of the island i love i still love those um

chopper shots the helicopter coming through and the music playing as they go through there nice nice be cool to do that every single day because you need a helicopter to do that as well you would need a helicopter well i wanted to bring my drone here today but because of the uh all the birds it's like peak bird season you can't put a drone up because it's really disruptive to them and there's a peregrine falcon here and stuff but i was talking to the lady from the trust and she said maybe if you come another time when the birds all leave in about a month or so the birds actually all leave and then maybe she'll let me put a drone up and get some drone shots because this island would look awesome from the

drone so where do the birds go just back to the mainland where do birds go don't birds fly south or something isn't that but not all birds do that like do seagulls do that i don't know maybe they just don't maybe they just fly around less because they're not so worried about the babies i don't know man you're asking me technical questions here though i don't know the answer to you you were reading that little book before i assume you know all this stuff i didn't yeah i didn't really get to the natural history part. Do you want to go down these stairs and have a look

in this basement? Let's have a look. Should we keep the recorder rolling while we do it? Let's do it, let's do it. Alright, you lead the way. So here we go. There are stone steps

and they're kind of broken with fragments and bits and pieces. It's getting echoey, damp as we come down. A low roof. Okay, oh yeah. And we go in.

Oh, it's dark. Hang on. And immediately cold. I'm going to get my phone out so we've got a torch roof okay oh yeah and we go in oh it's dark hang on and immediately cold i'm gonna get my phone out so we've got a torch because it's getting really dark now this is cool you can see all the bits where you'd be doing some defense with a rifle or something like that so this is this this is this stone battery that's on the cliff overlooking the bristol channel and now we're underneath it we definitely below, so we're about 10 feet down, and we've come into a cavern. Oh, wow. So this would have been where they would have stored all the artillery,

I imagine. This is where all the shells were that they would take up to the cannon above. There's nothing in here now, but it's bricked. It's pretty nice brickwork, I have to say. You can probably hear the echo. Yeah. And it's got a nice curve. It's actually a really well-structured, neat room. Dirt floor, stone floor, and it's got a nice curve it's actually a really well-structured

neat room dirt floor stone floor and it's totally barren there's bits of white that you can see the brickwork is red but there's bits of white it was obviously painted white oh yeah it's been whitewashed or something whitewashed yeah cool it's nice uh let me take a picture for the show notes so people can see tim in the uh hang on i'll turn my flash on so if you picture for the show notes so people can see Tim in the... Hang on, I'll turn my flash on. So if you go to the show notes, I'll show you a picture of Tim down in the... OK, hold your microphone. There we go. All right, so we're going to go back up the ground. We're going to walk around the island to some of the more scenic spots. And when we get to the next spot,

Tim is going to tell us an idea for a podcast, his own idea. And we'll continue with a normal episode. But with lots of birds in the background. Hi, everyone. Thanks for listening. I just want to take a quick break to thank today's sponsor, Hover. If you've got an idea for a podcast or a business or anything else, it's almost certain you're going to need a website. You might not need the website now, but you will in the future. And when that time comes, you're going to need a domain name. Now, I can tell you from experience,

there's nothing worse when it comes time to register that domain name to find that someone beat you to it, maybe just by a few months or maybe even weeks. So if you've got an idea sitting in the back of your head and you know it's a good one, register your domain name now and do it with Hover. That's who I register my domains with. It's a fantastic service, great prices, really great interface. It's really easy to manage all your domains. All of mine are sitting there in my account. Some of them are now linked to websites. Other ones are kind of like sitting on the bench in a soccer match, waiting for their big moment, waiting to become active. But I've got them. I've got them safe. I know no one else can get it. Hover, I've got all the extensions like.com and.net, but they've also got all the obscure niche ones you might want.

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Let's get back to the show. We've walked around to another part of the island now. I think we're near Rudder Rock. We're in another battery. Tim's comparing it to Call of Duty because we're like in one of those, what do you call them, like sort of a foxhole-y type thing where you're looking out through a little slot that the guns would point out. Like a bunker.

Yeah, it's a bunker like. We also now have a gorgeous view across to the coast of Wales. We can see the city of Cardiff. More birds, blue sky, some lovely billowy clouds in the distance. I guess at this point, Tim, it's worth commenting on the sort of person who comes to an island. I feel like we had a bit of a snapshot of that this morning when we saw the other people we're sharing the island with.

We all came over on the boat together and I felt a bit like we were the odd guys out to some extent. Did you feel that way or do you think maybe we weren't? I don't know. There was a few sort of young guys like us and stuff, and there were a few families and things. They seem like they are wearing hiking gear that's well used. Yeah, there is a certain preparedness about them.

They all looked more prepared than us. We just had a plastic bag full of stuff we quickly grabbed from the grocery store, but they all have their thermoses and berghaus coats and their hiking boots and they look like you know this is not our first island trip that's right this is not their first island and there's like a certain personality type isn't there you know that you can tell they know a lot about birds like they're not just looking at these birds and going oh look seag, seagulls. They're like, oh, that's a yellow-tipped, red-bellied, double-breasted, black-tipped-winged cormorant and things like that. They know their birds.

They know their plants. Apparently, this island's very famous for its plant life. It's got some really unusual and rare plants, and they're probably getting really excited about that while we're just sort of trampling our way through where we can. It is interesting. I've always been mystified by the bird watching phenomena but um and i have some friends that that are bird watchers um and go to all sorts of you know travel to all sorts of places to um find a

particular bird just to look at it photograph it just to see it but i and i never quite got it until i was reading an article and several articles actually, on from an author I like, Jonathan Franzen, very famous author, and he is a bird watcher. And I was reading, just I guess because he's a great writer, he was talking about the quest and the glory of being outside and going after looking over a bird. And I was totally caught up. So I could read him writing about bird watching

more than I could go birdwatching. But that book didn't cure you of your dislike of our feathered friends? I guess it was more about him and the journey and all that sort of stuff. It wasn't so much about the birds. The birds were sort of the reason to be out there as a way to cope with life, deal with life, experience and thrill in life. Is there any animal you like less than birds? I guess, I don't, that's a really good question.

No? I want to say emus, but... Emus, fair enough. I don't like emus. No one likes emus. The funny thing about emus is they're our height. So their heads, you know what I mean? They're sort of, their heads are around.

There's a very famous moment. I remember being at a place with my mum and extended family at one stage and an emu just was, I looked across and my mum and an emu were face-to-face looking and then my mum just turns and looks at me and the emu sort of turned at the same time, like they were having a conversation and they looked up at me. And it's one of the funniest things, how wide my mum's eyes were. It's so funny. Emus are are nasty they're nasty pieces of work oh they can lash out they got big nails haven't

they and they just look mean you can that you can just tell in their eyes they're thinking of ways to attack you wow yeah so i'm a little bit fascinated by the relationship between even though these two things don't have a relationship between flat home which is the island you can see out there tim oh yeah with the lighthouse on it and steep home which we are on because obviously steep home is more spectacular looking but flat home is obviously easier to inhabit and it's got the lighthouse and i know people are on it more often and i kind of wonder if they're like i can't decide if i feel like these two islands are friends or like rivals like are they like you know two brothers or are they like you know i don't know what do you what what are you feeling you're getting a vibe well i'm

looking at flat home and realizing now that it has a lighthouse and that and i think oh that's lovely i'd love to go over there and check out that lighthouse lighthouses are cool you know okay when you read old famous five books, I was going into a lighthouse and going up the top and exploring. I tell you what, that would be a good podcast, staying in lighthouses. I actually do often stay in lighthouses. All up through Devon and Cornwall, there are a lot of lighthouses that now have accommodation built into them or at the bottom in the Keeper's Cottage. And staying at lighthouses is one of my favourite weekend break things to do. And that would

be a cool podcast. Are they working lighthouses is one of my favorite like weekend break things to do and that would be a cool podcast are they working lighthouses some of them are some of them aren't some of them have got like fog horns and occasionally there's really loud noises that they some some of these cottages will come with earplugs in case the fog horns start going off and the light you know most of them still have the light working and things like that oh i love it i love taking pictures of them so even in our world of gps lighthouses still have an operational value out on the ocean? Yeah, they do. Well, obviously they do. They still run them.

Yeah, definitely. Oh, I love a lighthouse. Oh, you're right. Maybe that's it. Maybe a flat home gets the glory because of the lighthouse. But I'm definitely a steep home, man. The grass is always greener on the island next door, isn't it, man? We've come all the way out here to this island.

We just climbed it, got to the top, looked across. Oh oh there's another island that we want to go well we're over there well it's showing what a great idea my island hopping podcast is but i for me it's always going to be steep home because you know me i like mountains and i like height and altitude and steep home has like you know a summit which we are going to head towards eventually so anyway while we're here admiring Flat Home and the Welsh coast and all these birds, do you want to share a different idea for a podcast? Have you got one from your magic list you want to share with us?

I do, actually. This is an idea that has nothing to do with islands, but I think might have some real merit. My idea is called Photo Roulette. And what you do with Photo Roulette is, of course, everyone carries all their photos around with them now because of their phones and there's a feature at least on mine and i'm sure on all the other phones as well where you can scroll through at great speed across the days

and then months and years even so you can speed through them so i was thinking about a podcast where you close your eyes and scroll, you know, three or four times on one of those features, months or years, probably years is better. So you cruise right across, up and down or whatever, and then you bang your thumb down on something, and then you go in and look at that photo and discuss that photo. What was happening on that day? Who's in the photo? What were the circumstances around it? And that's a podcast idea. So photo roulette. I mean, you wouldn't necessarily do that with the same hosts each time.

That would be something your guest would do. Like your guest would bring in their phone, do a few swipes. And it'd be, oh, today we've got Tom Hanks on the show again. Tom, can you do the photo roulette on your phone? And then he's like, bang. Oh, that's my Uncle Bill. That was when I went for his birthday. Oh, Uncle Bill, what a character he is.

Let me tell you a story about him. This picture was taken when I went to his house, which is on the coast of Maine and, you know, things like that. That's right. Yeah, yeah. It could be, well, you could have a different person each time and they do it with their phone and do something. But, of course, if someone is really great at talking about

and telling stories, then you get them back again and again. Let's play photo roulette again. And we scroll through and you know what I mean? Or you could have different people on different ones. Of course, it's another one that has a visual side. Eventually you need to put the photo online so people can see it, but you could almost do that afterwards as well. So the person could describe the photo or maybe not at all. Maybe it's just the conversation that the photo sparks and you never get to see the photo you're going to give us a roulette you're going to give us a go should we do a little demo you're going to tim tim's got his phone out in his hand at the moment so i'm going to get him to he's now got his eyes closed and he's thumb swiping through through the

ears he's pressed down we're going to zoom in and see oh what have we got photo of i've got my dog oh oh that's so tim that's awesome tim's staying at my house at the moment and people who know me well will know that i have a little uh fawn colored chihuahua named audrey and the only other person i've known that had like a dog a bit like that was tim when he was young he had this little tiny dog called spindindles that was half Chihuahua. No, he's not half Chihuahua. He's half Pomeranian and with a little bit of terrier in him. Oh, well, he kind of looks Chihuahua.

He does. He kind of looked a little bit like Audrey. And we've been talking about that over the last few weeks. And Tim, I mean, this is such an old photo. This obviously isn't a photo you took. This is a photo of a photo that's in your phone. That's right. This is probably from the late 1980s.

And it's one of those ones where you're going through your photos and you scan them in. I scanned this in a long time ago. This is back in the section. That's like a famous photo. I know that photo from knowing you. Because that photo was taken before I ever knew Spindles. Spindles has died now. But when I knew Spindles, he was an old dog.

But this is the picture of him as a puppy that you used to show me to say, look what Spindles used to look like. Yeah. Well, I had this on the wall at some stage. It makes me so happy to look at this photo. It really does. That's Spindles. And I've been thinking about him all week because I've been hanging with Audrey and she's been jumping around. So cute. Cute dog. And it's really funny as well well looking where he's sitting like he's sitting on this chair sorry he's sitting rather on this table that was our outdoor table you know an outdoor setting and just looking at the colors the blue and white stripes and that just brings back memories of the backyard as a kid and all that kind of great stuff um so there we go

spindles what a great dog spindles was look at at that. That is a cute picture. Why was your dog called Spindles? Well, Spindles comes from a book series by an author called Barry Chant. And I loved these books. And Spindles is a character, it's the name of a boy whose real name is Timothy, which is another lovely connection when you have a character in a book with your name. But his nickname is Spindles. And he lives on an outback station in the australian outback and he has he goes off on his horse during the day and he's off to this sort of deserted creek area and he has all these friends

there's an emu called hippie who's a really lovely emu not a scary emu emu like in your mind but um he has all these wonderful animals tank the the Goanna and Roo the Kangaroo. But around them all is this big, wise tree called Red Gum. And Red Gum gives advice about all the lessons that Spindle's learning in his life. And it's a beautiful, awesome story. And I love them so much that I named my dog Spindles. I remember the character Spindles in the book is nicknamed Spindles because he has quite spindly thin legs. That's right, yes.

And your dog Spindles had quite thin legs, but there's no connection there. You just loved the name Spindles from the book and you could have had any animal and you would have called it Goldfish Spindles if you could. That's right, that's right. It was just like this is my favourite character. I could have called it Tintin or something like that

because I just love Tintin so much as well. But yeah, it was just a favourite character. Should I do a roulette? Yeah, do it, do it. All right, I'm doing it. I've got my phone in my hand now. I'm thumbing up and down through the years and I'm stopping here. Oh, no.

My phone, my pictures are all in the cloud. Are you seriously not downloading? And we're on a desert island. There's nothing. Hang on. If I go into... I think there is a little bit of 4G here. So I've switched on my...

I'll see if we get 4G here in this military bunker in the middle of the channel. I've got a bit of 3G. Let's see if I can get the picture. I know it's from December 2008. Are you going to wait for this one to come up in particular?

Yeah, it's the one that Fate chose. All right, all right. Buffering. Buffering. Buffering. While I think your podcast idea is good, maybe it's not good for desert islands where you have no connectivity. So you don't have them sitting there at all,

or even... See, mine are all sitting there. If I wanted to click on it and look at it properly, or it would then download all the... Yeah, that's true. There's not even a thumbnail, which surprises me. Thumbnail, that's what I'm thinking. All right, Tim, I'm going to ditch that one.

I'll favourite it so we'll find out what it was later. Oh, okay. But let me see if I can go to more modern times where there might actually be a thumbnail. Okay, here we go. There's some colour there. They're all scrolling. All right, here we go.

I'm going here. Okay, this is a picture of a friend of mine called Amanda who's sitting on a plane because because Amanda's an astronomer, and we flew together to China to make a video about a solar eclipse, because the solar eclipse of 2009, the path of it happened to go over the University of Nottingham's campus in China, so I used that as an excuse to tell the university, well, you should send me to the eclipse to go and film it.

So I went with Amanda, the astronomer who was like, you know, the star of the videos and we flew over to observe the eclipse. So this is just a picture I took of Amanda sitting in her seat on the plane on the flight over. Is it on the flight or you're about to take off? I think we've already taken off. And then like, you know, a day or two later, we were in China watching the eclipse. Tell you what, seeing a solar eclipse, that's a podcast. Every time a solar eclipse happens, doing a podcast about that. Because there are eclipse chasers who make sure they go to every eclipse that happens. Sometimes you only get one a year or two a year or none a year.

So it would be a very occasional podcast. But doing a podcast of each eclipse would be quite good fun as well. So what do you think? Photo roulette. This is a thing that can work definitely doing a podcast of each eclipse would be quite good fun as well so what do you think photo roulette this is a thing that can work definitely as a podcast i think it's also a it's good dinner table conversation like with people and stuff pull out your phone scroll you're right eyes closed bang tell us you're right you're right it's also a good game to do at the dinner table i mean this obviously appeals to me i do a series on one of my youtube channels called objectivity where every few episodes at the Royal Society,

we close our eyes and open up the catalogue drawers for the Royal Society and just pull out a card at random with your eyes shut and whatever card we pull out, we then go into the vaults and the archives and make a video about that item. So fate just decides what the item is. So this clearly appeals to my brain.

It's sort of a similar a similar idea in some ways yeah very nice here we go nice photo roulette so whoever you are listening at the moment take out your phone sort of scroll to the bigger picture so maybe you know you're going over months and years with a single swipe and no cheating no cheating do a bit of upy downy swipiness whack a photo have a look at it and think about what what was going on at the time maybe even you can go into our reddit and tell us if you want but yeah you're right that would be a good game to do with friends like i i enjoyed just doing it then like saying saying to you oh look there's my friend amanda and we went to see eclipse and yeah you're right there's it's a good way to kind of

reminisce and tell stories about your life with your friends but in a really arbitrary way it's also a great way to enjoy your photos from years ago. You know, we take a lot of photos, probably too many photos these days because they're with... And it's funny because they're with us all the time. So you've always got your photo album. And so there's a way of enjoying them again. Often you might kill time just scrolling through and smiling,

but this is a way of actually going right back and... And photos you'd never look at. Like that picture of a man... The picture you came up with spindles is like an iconic photo from your life to the point where it used to be on your wall but that one of a man they're like it's actually a bit out of focus it's a terrible photo it was just one i took for fun and then like probably thought nothing of again that's like a moment in time that really was supposed to have been forgotten and yeah it's like it's come back to life. I remember taking it. I think I'd just gone to the bathroom

and I was walking back down the aisle and I just said, oh, I'll take a picture of you while I'm standing up in the aisle. And like, obviously I remember the moment of the eclipse. It was such a big deal. But the moment of just sitting on like the boring flight and just hanging out for 12 hours,

that kind of stuff gets forgotten. But no, why should it be forgotten? You could also investigate the photo even more. Like if I was to say, okay, on that flight What films did you watch? Can you remember? No, I don't even remember if we watched a film Or a book

Because sometimes you're like, oh, that was when I read this Or I saw this Or I remember this incident happened where the lady poured You know, the hostess poured accidentally wine on my lap You know what I mean? No, nothing I don't remember anything about that flight Except taking that photo the hostess poured accidentally wine on my lap or you know what i mean like there's some nothing i don't remember anything about that flight except taking that photo i remember the seats were a little bit uncomfortable and the plane was quite full i remember when we got to the airport it was

during a time when there was some health scare going on in the world and when you walked in through the china airport they had all these heat sensor cameras on everyone who was walking into the airport so if someone was like glowing on the thermal imaging camera they would know that person had a fever and was sick and would be taken aside so if you were like trying to hide the fact you were sick i remember they had cameras there to to get to pull you out so you couldn't like be sick and sneak into the country and the other thing i remember was that the the driver that was supposed to pick us up from the airport wasn't there and we had to go a really long way to where we were going and i couldn't get anyone on the phone and i only spoke english and it was

really hard for me to arrange i had to like try and figure out how to get a taxi which would cost a fortune across to this place that was hours away in china but i sorted it out but i don't remember the flight there we go there we go there we go but it leads to stories doesn't it it's like i'm dredging up every single memory from that trip. So the thermal imaging camera is an interesting memory. All right, man. Shall we continue our little journey around Steep Home, the island? And when we get to the next stop, I'll come up with another podcast idea.

Let's do it. We are literally under attack. Oh, jeez. The birds are attacking us. We must be near their nests. How can we get out of here then? We gotta keep going Why? Look out!

Woah! Woah! Woah! Woah! I've never seen seagulls do this They're protecting their babies Look out! Woah!

Hahahahaha They're sweeping low. We're obviously near some nesting grounds. That's where we want to go. There's the trig point. We're approaching the highest point on Steep Home, 256 feet. It's basically just on a plateau across the top of the island with lots of kind of scrubby bushland here.

There's a trig point used for measuring, so we'll stop at the trig point and do a bit of recording if we can. What's a trig point? So a trig point, or a trigonometry point, these things are scattered all over the country. They have them in Australia too where they look different. And these are used by surveyors, so when they're measuring distances and elevations and heights and that,

and one person has to stand at point A and another person has to stand at point B and another person has to stand at point B and you measure all the angles and things like that. The trig point is one of the points you stand at plotted on a map. So it becomes just like a reference point of known height and location. This is the summit, is it? This is as high as it gets on Steep Home. Well, it would be a picturesque location if it wasn't for all the seagulls overhead

that are most displeased with our presence. They are. It's full on. But here you can see both sides of the channel. We can sort of see the full 360 panorama. Now over there on one side we can see Cardiff, Flat Home, all the Bristol Channel stretching inland towards the centre of England. And then if we look across the other side of the island, we're looking further down the channel out to sea, out to the Atlantic.

Oh, it's a beautiful view. Tim is waving his hat above his head the whole time because he's worried about getting swooped. But I reckon if we just stay still here for a while, they'll get used to us and see us as less of a threat. I don't. I think they'll see us as an easy target. They already see us as that. So obviously here up in all this sort of flat scrubland,

I'll take a picture of this, people, so if you go to the show notes, you'll be able to see what I'm talking about. Obviously here in all these bushes and all this land, there's obviously a bunch of nests and babies I'm imagining, so they're just guarding all that. All right, so time for an idea from me. My idea for a podcast... You're not going to get swooped, man, don't worry.

No, I know. No, we're all good. No, we're good. I can see they're calming down now. They are calming down a bit. So my idea for a podcast, I haven't got a good name for it yet. Let's call it Mode of Communication. Right.

And the idea here is that every episode features a different way of voice communication. So I'm thinking ham radio, CB radio, old telegraphs, walkie-talkies, different types of telephones, radios into space, all ways that you can communicate a voice. And each episode is about a different one. But the novelty is you also record it on that type of communication. So the walkie-talkie episode would be recorded by the two podcasters using two ends of a walkie-talkie. Because usually you can find some of this old technology somewhere in use, like an old telegraph or an old-style phone and things like that.

So you say, today we're going to feature this old type of analog phone, and we're going to record the episode on that type of phone. So when you listen to it. You could also do, today's episode is all about cassettes or vinyl records or things like that, and you record it in that way. I'm not talking about selling vinyl records of a podcast, which is something I have some experience with, but that you would record it onto vinyl and then play the vinyl recording as a podcast and things like that.

So every episode not only is about a different way of communicating voice, it showcases that way of communicating voice. That's a good idea. That's a good idea. And you could put the sound effects of dropping the needle and hearing the sound of the vinyl going around, and then there's the podcast. I love the idea of one recorded on walkie-talkies.

I also like the idea of trying to record a podcast episode between two people who are at opposite ends of, you know, those tins you connect with string when you're a kid. That would be quite a technical challenge. But I'm sure you could rig up kind of microphones inside the tin and say, today's episode is being recorded between two tins connected by 20 metres of string. Who hasn't done that, hey? I mean, that's amazing.

I don't think I have. Oh, really? No. Oh, right. No, I remember seeing it in an encyclopedia, like a kid's encyclopedia of things to make and do. Yeah. And I definitely did it. It was not very satisfactory in its results.

No? So it wouldn't make for a good podcast? If you're more than a few meters away, I think you're going to be struggling. Okay. There we go. I like that one. I like that one. I thought you might like that one too, being a bit of a, you know, having a long and interesting history with audio.

You know, being someone who always was into music and buying his cassettes and vinyl and things like that. I like you could do a Morse code episode. For novelty value, surely. But it could be tapping along in the background as you speak. Yeah. Yeah. That's a fascinating, yeah, it is a fascinating idea. Real to real.

Real to real is actually the name of a podcast idea on my list of ideas, which would be an entire podcast that was going to be just filmed on real to reel but i'd absorb it into my communication mode maybe oh yeah yeah yeah and so you would also you could get in an expert you could do a bit of a history on it uh when did vinyl start when did it cease why has it had a renaissance all that kind of thing yeah it's interesting with something like i was thinking the other day about my old ipod which is in the drawer which is sort of it's not really a mode of communication, but it's in the similar vein. Yeah, you could do it. The MP3 and the way it's on an iPod. And I was thinking how obsolete, how quickly the iPod was obsolete. It came, revolutionized everything. And then suddenly we had phones and it was

only about a five, six year sort of window that it was, um, Well, it was absorbed into the phone, wasn't it? I mean, your phone still is an iPod, but it's still an MP3 player, but yeah. Well, that's right. Yeah. Yeah. It's just become, well, the actual object itself though, I've still got at home with that little click wheel. The click wheel was so awesome. Yeah, yeah. And then it's redundant. Yeah. I like the idea of a special episode, like you could do one where you talk to people

in space, like on the space station. Oh, wow. Yeah. That kind of stuff can be arranged if you're organized. If your podcast is successful enough, they might help you out. Because sometimes the people in the space station do communicate with ham radio people. Oh, really? Yeah. Incredible. What else could you do?

What else is there? What's the language that you use in CB radio? You know, the Victor Charlie Charlie, Mike Cera Foxtrot. What's that language called? Yeah, the military one. The military language. I mean, that's letter by letter. Yeah, I don't think somewhat the whole podcast would be,

how are you going today there, Tango India Mike? That's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, Morse code is like that, although a little bit quicker. I remember when I worked at the BBC, when I was working for the website, I did a feature all about Morse code and, you know, who still uses it and things like that

and I went and saw this Morse code enthusiast who lived out in the countryside and I did a story with him and I did an interview and took photos and made it a feature on the BBC website but because I was a bit of a nerd and I loved doing things a bit different I also made a second version of the article

written all in Morse code and at the bottom of the article it said press here to see this article in Morse code and And if you pressed it, a clone of that BBC page came up, but the whole article was rewritten all in Morse code. That's nice. I remember sending it to my boss thinking he'd be really impressed. And the reply just said, you're bonkers. Which I took as a compliment. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's great. But they did it. So that's cool. They did it. They let me do it. Did you ever, were you into walkie talkies as a compliment. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's great. But they did it, so that's cool. They did it. They let me do it.

Did you ever, were you into walkie-talkies as a young'un? Yeah, I did. I mean, I'm an only child, so I didn't have a sibling to walkie-talkie. So there was a lot of one-sided conversation. Are you there? Over? I remember I used to do that. And all my life of owning a walkie-talkie, there was one time when I went on the walkie-talkie

and said, is anyone there? And like a boy from a few streets away answered and we spoke for like a few minutes and it was it was amazing i thought i've got a new friend this is going to be like a big thing and i never ever spoke to him again or heard from him again he could have been perhaps he was in space maybe maybe it was one of those rare times it was coming from someone on the space shuttle he was pretending to be a kid a few streets over. Hello, Brady. There's a novelty value in this.

There's an enthusiast angle to it. There's the history angle to it. This could be a bit of fun. The reason this podcast has a half-decent chance of success too is that the sort of people who are really into communication and voice communication and things like that, I can imagine might actually be a little bit into podcasts as well. And they're a little bit tech savvy. So the problem is if you're making a podcast about something like knitting,

a lot of your constituency might be older people who don't, well, listen to podcasts. Whereas if you are making a podcast about electronic communication and technology and geekery like that, I'm hoping there's a fair chance these are the sort of people that will be listening to and sharing podcasts. Wow, that bird so nearly sweeped you. Yeah, I know, I'm hoping there's a fair chance these are the sort of people that will be listening to and sharing podcasts. Wow, that bird so nearly swooped you. Yeah, I know. I know. I don't think it was attacking you though because it didn't make any noise.

I think it just happened to be close. Just likes me. Yeah. It looks like that's a nest over there on the ground. Yeah. We won't be going over there. No, no, no. This is where we need a CB radio to go down to the other folks.

Can we have some decoys, please? We need to call in some artillery. Let's try and back up. We're under attack. If you do think Tim has seemed a little uninterested in my idea, he's not being rude. He is seriously keeping an absolute vigil of all these seagulls the whole time I'm talking.

I've always thought of seagulls as being the most benign bird ever. No. Have you ever seen them fight over a chip? No, but over a chip. They stand patiently and whinge nearby. It's not like they come and attack you. We're on their turf now, man. You don't normally walk into their baby zone.

We are the chip. We are the chip. That sounds really philosophical, like I am the walrus. That's right, we are the chip. If you don't know where the chip is, you're the chip. You are the chip. That's right. This whole island is just one big bag of chips.

It's like most of the seagulls have stopped flying now, but they're all just sitting in the bushes and on top of trees just looking at us, waiting for our next move. They are. Vultures couldn't look more predatory than these guys do. They are. They don't like us, that's for sure. For amusement's sake, I'm going to do your idea here as well, so that you

can have a break from it. Instead of walking somewhere safer, while we're here at the trig point on top of Steep Home under constant threat from seagull attack. Well, we may as well record a podcast while we're here, because we're never leaving. I'm not moving. Running the gautland back down the hill again is going to be scary imagine if we were found here like pecked to death and like the and the investigators just found this

like zoom recorder rolling with two microphones and they're like how did these guys die what did they do look at this officer i think we've got their answer here and they could play it all back this is our black box voice do look at this officer i think we've got their answer here and they could play it all back this is our black box voice all right all right listen yeah no look i do have another idea and it has nothing to do with birds uh and heading to the nothing to do with the island however this experience may turn into uh an idea for podcast. My podcast idea is called That Story You Tell. Yeah. The premise is that everyone has a story that they tell, and it's the first story cab off the

rank in a storytelling situation. It's like the story equivalent of your favorite pair of underwear. That's right. Right. It's your go-to story at dinner parties you know you'll get a laugh you know it's sparkling and interesting or yeah oh yeah and if you have people that you know well and you're around regular friends you know at the first word when one of your friends is starting their story and you've heard it a million times it's like oh even you can hear someone else telling a story vaguely related to golf and you know that Bill's golf story is coming out next.

And you can see him in his chair. He's getting ready to tell it. This is the story your wife has heard a million times. That's right. That's right. Yeah, yeah. I also have jokes like that as well. Like every time we're at a restaurant and the waiter says,

oh, would you like to try the wine first? And I have a sip. I used to have this joke where I'd take a sip and go, oh, oh, would you like to try the wine first? And I have a sip. I used to have this joke where I'd take a sip and go, oh, it's disgusting, like as a joke. Yeah, and although I haven't done it for 10 years, I can't have a sip of the tester sip of wine now without my wife giving me the look. You're going to do it, aren't you?

I can tell you're going to do it. That's right, yeah. That's a really good idea. I mean, people coming on to this podcast to tell that story they tell are obviously going to have to have some degree of self-awareness that this is my story I've told way too many times, but I think we're all self-aware enough to do that.

That's right. Or they're coaxed on by a friend or a partner. That's right. Go and tell them that story. And they're like, oh, that is a good story. And usually they won't need much coaxing. No. It's like, ah, that is a great story. I usually they won't need much coke. No. If it's their story, it's like, oh, that is a great story.

I think you don't really have one, though, do you? You normally have like a suite of three or four, like depending on the situation and like, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's actually really hard to think of them. When I was thinking about this idea, I was thinking, oh, so what's my story or stories? And one came to mind. I might share that in a minute. But you know what I mean?

Like I'm sure I've got lots of stories that come out of experiences things i've done with you that were lots of fun or funny things that happened or coincidences but it's hard to think of them without a context that triggers them that's true and also quite often that story you always tell isn't necessarily your story sometimes it's something that once happened to a mate of mine and i've got a few things that happen to mates of mine that are way better stories than have ever happened to me and i wheel those ones out all the time like and they become better in the telling i have a friend that does that he also sometimes like the story morphs over time where it becomes his story and i was once i was once i was once at the pub and he started telling the story of something that

happened to him and halfway through i realized it happened to me it was the pub and he started telling the story of something that happened to him. And halfway through, I realized it happened to me and it was my story. And he forgot that he'd stolen it from me. And halfway through, I said, Michael, that's my story. And then he looked at me and realized completely. And he went, oh, my God, I'm so sorry. You're right. I've been stealing that story for years and I forgot it was yours. So he wasn't being deceptive.

It had morphed into his collective memory. And he was telling the story like, I remember a story and it just remembers it so well it's happened to him. I actually think he deep down knew it wasn't his story but he didn't know who he'd stolen it from and he'd been caught with his fingers in the story cookie jar. It's too good a story to pull back.

And he just looked at me really sheepish like he didn't even try and like wiggle out of it. He was like, oh you're right, you got me. That's fantastic. Go on then. What's a that story you always tell? Well, I'm not even sure it's that story. This is one thing where you don't know yourself.

You just think of what a good story is. But others may be able to say to you, no, that's not it. It's that other one you tell. But anyway, this is the only one that came to mind when I was thinking of this. It's sort of a curious story in a way. it starts off in my hairdresser and then it goes somewhere else i was at my hairdresser i was at a new hairdresser this is years ago and we're getting to know each other and chatting and all that what are you going to do with your hair and what's going on with your hair and all that and i said oh look the usual conversation i want to cut it

you know so it looks stylishly good and i don't have to do a lot to it and don't feel like i'm spending ages on it in the morning and i was riding a scooter at that time like a little you know motorbikes i was wearing a helmet and all that sort of stuff and he goes nah don't be you know come on have a bit of imagination you know and he says and so we had this back and forward and i said i don't know i felt weird and pretentious being too imaginative and descriptive about my hair because it's cooler to say you don't really care about your hair yeah but then he sort of pushed me and he says okay if you could have anyone's hair, who would it be? And I thought for a moment and pretty quickly it came out, Morrissey.

Like Morrissey has awesome hair. And I'm like, I would look like Morrissey. So he says, all right, playfully, let's give you the Morrissey. And I'm like, well, this is ridiculous. I don't look anything like Morrissey. And, you know, so he gave me this haircut and I was like, I don't think that's Morrissey. He goes, no, we've got to give it a few months you know come back we'll work on it some more and I'm like

okay it was kind of a fun thing I walk in give me the Morrissey and away we go several months later I was over in New York City and I was walking through Greenwich Village really late at night looking for a place called the bitter end a classic coffee shop where Bob Dylan used to play and I walk in there and I go up to order a drink. And this girl at the bar, a counter, turns around to me and says, Oh my God, you look so much like Morrissey. It was the most satisfying moment of my life. I can't believe it. Nice.

So anyway, I got a picture with this girl who called me Morrissey. We got a selfie together and I sent it back to my hairdresser and said, Success, you've done it, well done, great achievements. I've become quite loyal to him for what I consider to be his monumental achievement. That is, I wonder if he tells that story. I get the feeling he has many victories and this would be merely a small victory for him, but it's been a glorious one for me. It perpetuates me living in some

kind of delusion that i have hair a bit like morrissey who's your current hairstyle based on or are you currently is this the current is this the morrissey one i'm looking at this is the morrissey one what are you saying sorry sorry this was some years ago but it's well it's not i mean it's just sort of a kind of wavy shot back in sides, really. There's nothing too dramatic about it. Thankfully, Morrissey's like 20 years older than me, so he's getting older and I'm catching up, which is suitably helpful for me.

The funny thing is Morrissey goes to his hairdresser and asks for a Tim. Yeah, I'm sure he does. That's right. Tim from Tim and Brady. So, yeah, that's a story I tell. I've never heard that story. Oh, really? You've heard all the stories I tell lots of times,

probably more than anyone on earth besides my wife. And also probably people who listen to this podcast and other media I produce have probably heard all my best stories already because I've done too many podcasts. But do you know what? One of my favourite stories to tell, and I use it all the time, and I use it for quite altru I use it like for quite altruistic

motivational reasons is a story about you and it's a story I tell all the time oh no here we go and the story is and it's usually a story I tell about being rewarded for being brave and giving things a go because back towards the end of high school we Tim and I went to a school with quite small classes and we had an end of year kind of swimming carnival. It was like a swimming carnival competition between the different houses at school. Who's the best swimmer? And at the time, Tim was also like the captain

of the school sort of sports team because he was like the leader and therefore he had to set a good example and enter everything. Well, it was made clear to me I was chosen as this captain, not for my sporting prowess, but for my organisational ability. Exactly.

It was more of a leadership role. In all fairness to Tim, he's not like a – he's fine, but he's not like a really blessed athlete. That's kind of part of the story. He wasn't like a particularly strong athlete, and he definitely wasn't a particularly strong swimmer. That's an understatement. Yeah.

So, anyway, it was the swimming carn carnival because we had quite a small class all the races only had like a handful of males in it and also there weren't many boys in the class and we're all pretty proud and stuff like so we did like the freestyle and like five or six of us entered and i'm sure tim came near last and then and then we did like the backstroke and breaststroke and a few people entered and i entered some of these races and i think tim came pretty near last in all the races but because there weren't many people in it and you got points tim was accruing points for his team and doing the right thing and you know being a good leader for the sports team and then the final race that had to be swum was the butterfly and the butterfly is a really difficult stroke to do

as as most people know and none of the boys were willing to do it because we didn't want to look foolish in front of all the school who was sitting in the stands and things like that so there was no one to enter the butterfly race but tim because he was you know he was brave and was willing to give it a go and didn't care what people would think and wanted to do the right thing for the sports team said i'll do the butterfly i don't care what people think of me but they didn't want to put him in the pool on his own so they put him in the girls race on a on a lane all on his own and it just so happened that a few of the girls in our age group were very good swimmers like like competitive swimmers so they were really good so all the all the girls and tim get on the starting blocks and they fire the starters

gunner whoever the races were starting blew a whistle and they all jumped girls and Tim get on the starting blocks and they fire the starter's gun or whoever the racers were starting, blew a whistle, and they all jumped in. And these girls went streaming down the pool, magnificent swimmers finishing in near record time. And seriously, Tim looked like he was drowning. Well, I think I was nearly drowning. As he found it in the water and coughed and spluttered and did something vaguely.

I'm sure he would have been disqualified if we were being really strict about the butterfly. But anyway, he made it to the other end and he came first. He got the first ribbon. He was the first male to finish. And he got whatever amount of points you got for finishing first as the first male butterfly swimmer. And because he had accrued enough points in those earlier races and he got a first and no one was in that race, he actually accrued enough points in those earlier races, and he got a first, and no one was in that race, he actually accrued enough points to become the swimming champion. And when they did the points at the end,

and they had to give out the medal for the year 12 male swimming champion for the year, and we're all like, oh, I wonder who's going to win that. It's Tim Hine with X number of points. And you got up the front, and you got your, I don't know if they gave you a trophy or a medal or whatever. It's a medal. I'd forgotten all about this. And you got up the front and you got your i don't know if they gave you a trophy or a medal or whatever it's a medal i've forgotten all about this and you were like you were like the swimming champion and like and you make all the jokes you want and i can sit here and laugh at

you coughing and spluttering but because you were brave and you didn't care what people thought and you were willing to give it a go you got a medal and like all these years later no one remembers that you like coughed and spluttered down the pool except everyone listening to the and everyone you've told yeah but you got the medal and you were that you coughed and spluttered down the pool, except everyone listening to the Unpaid Podcast. And everyone you've told for 20 years. But you got the medal, and you were the champion, and no one can take that away from you. And I love telling that as a story to people who are scared to do things because they worry about what people think.

If you give it a go, you can be a champion. And I tell that story about you all the time. Oh, that's lovely. I had forgotten all about that. The stories we tell. Yeah, that story you tell. My grandmother had one that you remember well. Your grandma?

Yes. Yeah, because when she was a very young woman, she was out for someone having a, it was like a dinner, and this guy ordered wine, and he was really pretentious, and they brought out the wine. Oh, it's funny, it's about tasting wine again. I didn't even think of that. And he would bring out, the wine was brought out to this guy,

and he tasted it, and then he sent it it back insisting that it be half a degree cooler, that the wine was cooled by half a degree. My nan told that story so many times that Tim knows that story. I do, I do. It's like whenever you think of my nan, you think of Nan's story. That's right, that's right. Yeah, I know that story from her telling it and I know it from your mum telling it about her. Yeah. And Nan tells that story, and I know it from you telling it. Yeah.

There we go. Great idea. Great idea, Tim. So everyone's got a story. Yeah, yeah. This is another one where I'd love people to go to our subreddit and let us know what your story is. Keep it to, like, six or seven sentences maybe.

Like, if you go there and write, like, a wall of text. In fact, here's a question. Is that story you tell always a good story or are they, or is it like people recounting their dreams or boring stories? Like, is that story you tell by definition a good story worth telling? Because it's, you know, you've chosen the wheat from amongst the chaff or are they still sometimes really boring stories that you just tell too often? That's right. People have a story. They're going to tell this story now.

And you know, this is not a great story, but they love telling the story. They love this. The story is their story. Here's another question. When you're with friends and family and people who have those stories and they start telling it to you and they forgot that they've already told you, do you tell them, oh, I've heard this one, mate? Or do you just let them go and laugh again and hear the story again?

I must do it to you all the time. Every time you see me, I must tell you stories you've heard before. Do you call me on it or do you just pretend to not have heard it? No, I go with it. I go with it. I'm polite. Thank you. No, no, not just with you.

I mean, like you've asked me that question before. I'm just answering it again. So, Tim, what do you do if you've heard the story before? Interesting question, Brady. You've thrown some curlers at me today. I think you tend to over-nod while they're telling the story. Like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Get it done quickly.

It's sort of subconscious. But you've got to let them tell the story again. Because I think often they know they've told you this story before, but their mouth won't stop. It's muscle memory. Your tongue and lips and throat remember the story so well, it just happens as a reflex. I get paranoid about that, though.

I was going to say, most of that story you always tell do often begin with stop me if i've told you this before or i've probably told you this one before oh yeah yeah yeah there's a lot of that goes on sometimes you have like stories like that like i have you know i have a few of my favorite stories and my wife's heard them a million times and sometimes we'll be at a dinner party and the as you were alluding to earlier the door is suddenly left wide open for your story right and like this is this is your moment but sometimes if i'm feeling a bit introverted or i

just don't feel like telling the story it becomes awkward because the story is there to be told and my wife turns to me with that look and then she'll say brady's got a great story about that or she'll say go on brady you've got to tell that story and then like i'm like i'll look at her her and think, oh, I don't really want to tell her. And I'll sort of, I don't think it's a very good story or I'm not in the mood. And then I'll say, why don't you just tell it? And then she'll like, she's kind of in a difficult situation. So she'll start telling it. But then halfway through, you suddenly think, oh no, you're telling it all wrong. And you always end up like jumping on halfway through anyway so sometimes your wife will start that story you always tell

and then you you bring it home that's right that's right that's totally right and because they always tell it from the wrong perspective like they're not in the story they're sort of describing it's like well what happens is brady says that he you know you know what i mean like they're sort of describing it like an onlooker. Yeah. You're like, oh, come on. You haven't got energy. The pace is all wrong.

They haven't told it. They miss a crucial detail. It's like you've got to get inside the story. There are some people that have those stories they always tell that they tell badly. Like I've got, we have a friend who is no doubt listening to this podcast, who is a very dear friend of ours. He tells good stories badly because he's a real details man. He's a details man in life,

and he loves putting every single detail into the story. It's like, and like, probably you and me who are more like storytellers, raconteurs, I like to think. We've learned what details to leave out, what lies to tell, what little embellishments are okay. But he's like, he won to tell, what little embellishments are okay. But he's like, he won't tell a lie or embellish. So he'll tell every single detail of the story to the point, I've heard some of them so many times. In fact, we were with him recently, weren't we? And he was about to tell this story to you. And I was like, you know, whenever

he starts to tell a story, we joke to him, like he knows we joke about this. We'll say, oh no, you know, hang on, let me go and get a cup of tea. And he was about to start telling you this story. And I said, oh, man, don't tell Tim the story. It's going to take forever. And he's like, it has to take forever. That's how the story. And I said to him, man, I could tell that story better than you in about 40 seconds.

And he said, you could not. And then he said, go on, then do it. So I turned to Tim and told his story in about 40 seconds and he said you could not and and then he said go on then do it so i turned to tim and told his story in like 40 seconds and tim like laughed and said oh it's a good story and then we looked back at him and he said like wow that actually was like loads better i hope he's learned from that like and i said to him afterwards see i left this out and that out and this out and he's like little details i bet he still tells the long version though that's right yeah well let's see part of the story is the enjoyment of telling the story as well yeah he has great company for that because he loves you know he knows that he does it and

it's great oh he loves it he loves it yeah and he has heaps of stories too he does he does have good stories yeah all right very good idea tim i this is a podcast i would love this is a podcast made for having guests on as well. Because half of the challenge of a podcast is thinking, how can I get the best out of my guest? How can I get the best stories and anecdotes? And here, the whole premise you've created is, come on the show, don't tell me anything boring,

just give me your gold. That's right. Yeah, that's right. The one story. Here it is. So, are we going to finish our story on this island now and try and get away from all these seagulls? Well, this is going to be a story, isn't it?

It's probably not the one we're going to tell every time. By the time we got ambushed by seagulls running to the, what is it? The trig point? It's a trig point, yep. The trig point, which is sort of something it's about four foot high and it's square and it's a bit like a concrete edifice.

Our recorder is literally sitting on top of the trig point while we hold the microphones. So, Tim, here are our choices, here are our options. Go back the way we came, which, you know, obviously was pretty challenging and we got swooped. We could go back that way to the other end of the island and loop around, but that means we're going to have to walk where all those birds are sitting in trees,

which means they've probably got nests in all those trees there. Yeah. Or... Some of those birds have machine in trees, which means they've probably got nests in all those trees there. Yeah. Or... Some of those birds have machine guns, I can tell. I actually think maybe we have to go back the way we came. I think we do too. At least we know we got that way without being struck once. That's right.

I haven't done much to help you get over your fear of birds today, have I? I think if anything, I've reinforced it or exacerbated it. It's not a fear of birds. It's a dislike of birds. I'm not scared of them. I mean, it's unpleasant to be swooped, and I don't want to be swooped. Is that like saying, I'm not afraid of ghosts, I dislike them? That's right.

Like, I'm good friends with them. We just don't get along. That's right. All right. Let's do it. Let's do that, and then we're going to go back and have some lunch and enjoy the rest of our day here on Steep Home. Have a look at the show notes, everyone, for more details about Steep Home and pictures and things like that.

It's been a good day. It's been fun, this. I've liked it. Have you liked it? Oh, yeah. No, this is cool. But if you don't hear from us, if there's no follow-up to this particular podcast, send a search party. That's right.

Tell them to go to the trig point. Go to the trig point. That's where we left a search party. That's right. Tell them to go to the trig point. Go to the trig point. That's where we left our black box. That's right. For people listening, by the way, it's not like we're near the nests. We're not going to step on them or anything. We're on a pathway that we are supposed to walk on. We're on a clearly marked public path supposed to walk on like we're on a clearly marked

public path we are not doing the wrong thing the seagulls don't seem to be appreciating that fact though yeah go down there yeah No, you're okay. There's no one near you. That's your hat.