Speaker 1: The Craig Ferguson Pants on Fire Tour is on sale now.
Speaker 1: It's a new show, it's new material, but I'm afraid
Speaker 1: it's still only me, Craig Ferguson on my own, standing
Speaker 1: on a stage telling comedy words. Come and see me,
Speaker 1: buy tickets, bring your loved ones, or don't come and
Speaker 1: see me. Don't buy tickets and don't bring your loved ones.
Speaker 1: I'm not your dad. You come or don't come, but
Speaker 1: you should at least know what's happening, and it is.
Speaker 1: The tour kicks off late September and goes through the
Speaker 1: end of the year and beyond. Tickets are available at
Speaker 1: the Craig Ferguson Show dot com slash tour. They are
Speaker 1: available at the Craig Ferguson show dot com slash tour
Speaker 1: or at your local outlet in your region. My name
Speaker 1: is Craig Ferguson. The name of this podcast is Joy.
Speaker 1: I talk to interest in people about what brings them happiness.
Speaker 2: Ah.
Speaker 1: Yes, My guest today is one of my oldest friends.
Speaker 1: When I say one of my oldest friends, she's younger
Speaker 1: than me, but I've known her for.
Speaker 3: A very long time.
Speaker 1: She gets very uncomfortable when I say how clever she is.
Speaker 1: But she's very clever. She's a great writer, and she's
Speaker 1: a great person. And her name is Please Minor.
Speaker 4: Hello, Hello darling.
Speaker 3: How are you doing? You know, I'm okay. How are
Speaker 3: you doing?
Speaker 4: Yeah? I'm not bad at all. Yeah, not bad. I've
Speaker 4: got massive gosses on and I don't know what you're
Speaker 4: I'm just going to be like Deardrey barlowing it the
Speaker 4: whole time.
Speaker 1: Well, I think for American listeners we have to explain
Speaker 1: who Deardrey Parlow is before we go any further.
Speaker 4: She was a soap star in Britain in the seventies.
Speaker 4: He was famous for wearing gigantic eye obscuring glasses, so
Speaker 4: she looked like a serial killer. But she did She
Speaker 4: didn't kill anybody.
Speaker 1: I don't think, well, I would say, I think the
Speaker 1: show she was on was Coronation Street, right, and Coronation
Speaker 1: Street is the longest running soap opera I think in
Speaker 1: the world.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think. I think you're right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think that by now they've probably had
Speaker 1: at least one My guess is they've had at least one.
Speaker 3: Serial killer storyline by now.
Speaker 4: No, no, you don't understand. Nope, you're wrong, or you
Speaker 4: have to stay on brand, you see. So it's like
Speaker 4: certain certain magazines will only have people falling over. They
Speaker 4: won't have they won't have violence, they won't have So
Speaker 4: maybe someone fell over, or maybe several people fell over
Speaker 4: in the vicinity of the same person, but I very
Speaker 4: much doubt they had a serial killer. It's so off brand.
Speaker 1: Well, but I see, I think that if someone falls
Speaker 1: over and dies, maybe towards the end of a season,
Speaker 1: and that happens a few times, we've got to think
Speaker 1: we might have a serial killer on our hands, a
Speaker 1: serial toppler.
Speaker 3: Pushing people over.
Speaker 1: Look, I'm not trying to steer your career anywhere, but
Speaker 1: I think an idea for a book next book could
Speaker 1: be the pushing people over, making it look like they
Speaker 1: fell serial.
Speaker 4: Killer in real life. There probably has.
Speaker 1: Actually one of the things that I really can't because
Speaker 1: you and I have known each other since I think
Speaker 1: even before you wrote your first book.
Speaker 4: Actual, yes, that's.
Speaker 1: Well, so, I mean there have been times when you know,
Speaker 1: I've thought, because I've known you for such a long
Speaker 1: time that you I read everything you do because I
Speaker 1: like it, and it's it's tricky because sometimes when you
Speaker 1: have a friend who writes and you're like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: that was good, but it wasn't that good. But I
Speaker 1: have read everything you've done, and I.
Speaker 4: My whole career.
Speaker 1: It's like your whole career. This is the opposite of that.
Speaker 1: What I'm saying as I've read it all, and what
Speaker 1: I was trying to get to is was the the
Speaker 1: you are. I always think of someone who's very positive
Speaker 1: and cheerful, and you kind of you head towards positivity
Speaker 1: all the time, and you've always done that and all
Speaker 1: the time I've known you, And yeah, some of your
Speaker 1: work is the darkest I've ever read, as part of
Speaker 1: the reason why I love it so much.
Speaker 4: And I wonder if what do you think that is?
Speaker 1: Do you think you get out all your dark shit
Speaker 1: when you're writing?
Speaker 3: Is that what it is?
Speaker 4: I don't think so. I think we tend to think
Speaker 4: of light and darkest binaries, and actually there's a lot
Speaker 4: more mix. And I see that in your comedy all
Speaker 4: the time. Thank you, and you really really really funny,
Speaker 4: are very very dark. Like I mean, I remember you
Speaker 4: being unable to stop laughing because you were describing yourself
Speaker 4: sitting on the end of the pit in Yours pants
Speaker 4: happing the breakdown. Yeah, you know what I mean? I think, actually,
Speaker 4: what does what does? What does lightness do? Do you
Speaker 4: know what I mean? It makes the dark bearable? And
Speaker 4: actually it's kind of like it's like only eating salt
Speaker 4: or only eating meat. I mean, you really want them together,
Speaker 4: do you know what I mean? And I think people
Speaker 4: people always say that to crime writers, you're also jolly,
Speaker 4: do you get all your darkness out of the page?
Speaker 4: And it's like, no, we're really kind of thick fox.
Speaker 1: Or very well adjusted in the fact that you understand
Speaker 1: because what you what you described the idea of being
Speaker 1: able to keep light and darkness and you know, and
Speaker 1: it's all you know, it's a spectrum or a or
Speaker 1: a flavor and a recipe. I think that's a very healthy,
Speaker 1: well adjusted way of looking at things. But but I
Speaker 1: think that there's a couple of times. There's a couple
Speaker 1: of instances I can't remember. Oh god, there was one
Speaker 1: of the books. I can't remember the exact book, but
Speaker 1: it was about a horrible kelly person that was going
Speaker 1: into a room to and he didn't know what he
Speaker 1: was going to in, but he was going to fuck
Speaker 1: it when he got in there. That was the phrase,
Speaker 1: and that said, do you remember that that book? That's
Speaker 1: that's about as as twisted and hard as anything I've
Speaker 1: ever read.
Speaker 3: And the knowledge of that.
Speaker 1: See, I think I try and keep darkness away by
Speaker 1: what I do, and I think you're quite brave.
Speaker 3: I think you just like let it roll in.
Speaker 4: I don't think you are keeping I mean in front.
Speaker 3: I'm just saying that that is what I'm trying.
Speaker 4: I don't know. I mean, I think I think if
Speaker 4: you really of the world, and you really love life
Speaker 4: and you really love people, you have to be able
Speaker 4: to see both sides, do you know what I mean?
Speaker 4: And everything gets heightened if you go through if you
Speaker 4: have a very kind of you know, boring narrative and
Speaker 4: it's you know, the steaks are low and do you
Speaker 4: know what I mean, It's like everything's very heightened if
Speaker 4: you I mean, that's one of the reasons I love
Speaker 4: horror so much is because everything very things are funnier,
Speaker 4: you know. I mean, I don't think you really do
Speaker 4: you know yourself any favors by trying to sanitize everything.
Speaker 4: Life isn't vanilla, you know. Yeah, I mean, I know
Speaker 4: I can't think of anything darker than standing up in
Speaker 4: front of an audience fill of people and trying to
Speaker 4: make them laugh.
Speaker 1: Well, certainly it has. Have you never tried it?
Speaker 4: I couldn't do it because if the audience hate me,
Speaker 4: I just I don't care. I've died really talking oh
Speaker 4: so badly. I was in front of five hundred people.
Speaker 4: There's a whole lot going on. I gave an after
Speaker 4: dinner speech and everyone hated me. I mean, I mean
Speaker 4: it was tangible. You could feel the hate, and I
Speaker 4: insulted everybody, and then I doubled down on it by saying,
Speaker 4: I don't care what you think. And then I said
Speaker 4: thank you for giving me this appalling experience. To tell
Speaker 4: on another account.
Speaker 1: Thats like a lot of stand up comedy performances, particularly
Speaker 1: in the early years, that when you start to love it,
Speaker 1: so when you start to look for that failure, I
Speaker 1: think that that's that's what it is.
Speaker 3: That's when you know you are.
Speaker 4: I don't know. I wouldn't give up on your stand
Speaker 4: up career.
Speaker 3: Just yeah, I think I think it might be one.
Speaker 1: But it's part of life now for authors, isn't it
Speaker 1: that you have to do all that you have to
Speaker 1: be much more social.
Speaker 4: Much more social. And I've got a bit two in
Speaker 4: a quarter hours of social in me, and then I
Speaker 4: start to actually kind of see things or epic to
Speaker 4: go to the toilet because I'm really introversive. There's a
Speaker 4: thing at London Book Club and it was a post
Speaker 4: on the back of the wall from the Finnish Book
Speaker 4: Society and it was a picture of a woman with
Speaker 4: her kN knickers around her ankle, sitting on the toilet
Speaker 4: and it said, thank God, I'm finally alone.
Speaker 3: I understand it, I understand why. Why is what?
Speaker 1: Do you think the thing is that people have to
Speaker 1: have a connection par certainly with crime writers. I think
Speaker 1: that although I feel like, and I mean this is
Speaker 1: one hundred percent as a compliment, I feel you've kind
Speaker 1: of transcended that a wee bit. You you've kind of
Speaker 1: brished out a little bit from only writing about you know,
Speaker 1: you never really only wrote about crime anyway, because it
Speaker 1: was always at of psychological and a and a personal
Speaker 1: kind of depth to it. It wasn't kind of like
Speaker 1: just procedural. But with crime writers, if you're perceived to
Speaker 1: be a crime writer, you have to go to these
Speaker 1: conventions and and and people need a connection with you.
Speaker 3: Do you think that's about.
Speaker 4: I have no idea because these audiences are not really
Speaker 4: our readers. It's all women who look a bit like me.
Speaker 4: So I'm just in a room full of women of
Speaker 4: my age who look a bit like me. That's not
Speaker 4: who reads my books. And and I'm not that interesting
Speaker 4: on stage. You're listening right now. It's quite banale. Do
Speaker 4: you know what I mean? I don't have the answers
Speaker 4: to anything. Yeah, I don't really don't know what it's
Speaker 4: about it. There's a lot of.
Speaker 1: Collectors, does that And do you think maybe that it's
Speaker 1: aspirational if you're talking about there's a lot of women
Speaker 1: who look like you and the audience, but they don't
Speaker 1: buy your book.
Speaker 3: Do they want to be writing your book? Do you
Speaker 3: think that's what it is?
Speaker 4: There's a lot of questions about how do you do
Speaker 4: you write with the pen or a pencil? Do you
Speaker 4: where you get your ideas from?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 4: All that stuff to my next question. I remember one
Speaker 4: hundred years ago you said to mate for did you
Speaker 4: get your ideas for your feminism from? After somebody been No?
Speaker 4: I say that, say that you know you're confused mabe
Speaker 4: somebody else.
Speaker 3: I feel like I know where you get.
Speaker 1: I feel you've never been kind of reticent about telling
Speaker 1: me where you get your ideas for your feminism.
Speaker 3: Bro, I don't think I need to push you for it.
Speaker 1: Funny though, I mean, it's such a strange thing though,
Speaker 1: because I was thinking today before we started talking about
Speaker 1: when you and I met, like, which is you know
Speaker 1: it's about thirty something years ago now, like it's really
Speaker 1: a long time.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and that strang we're so old.
Speaker 3: Well yeah, but we look fantastic, So I think it's okay.
Speaker 4: We kept her here, croik.
Speaker 1: We kept her hair and we both moisturize, and I
Speaker 1: think that's that's the key.
Speaker 4: And we can't take the sound. I had to move
Speaker 4: from La it was too much.
Speaker 1: I've had that. You ever had things that toffee? I've
Speaker 1: got age spots that I've had to have taken.
Speaker 4: Off from being in l A.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, as well from driving.
Speaker 1: Wow, you sill like that and your knuckles got all
Speaker 1: age spots on them.
Speaker 4: Wow. I live where the sun don't shine, so you do?
Speaker 1: You live in Glasgow, which I'm always I've always been
Speaker 1: very envious that you. I like, I love Glasgow but
Speaker 1: I always have a complicated relationship with it.
Speaker 3: You seem to be very at home there, like you,
Speaker 3: you know.
Speaker 1: I mean I've seen you ride about your bike and
Speaker 1: you wave to people and you're kind of quite you see,
Speaker 1: you're not social, but I feel like you're very social
Speaker 1: in Glasgow.
Speaker 3: I feel you're very much part of the community.
Speaker 4: Well, yeah, it's so. I mean, I didn't drow up here.
Speaker 4: So my dad is an engineer, and I grew up
Speaker 4: in Paris and Norway and London and Amsterdam because he
Speaker 4: was a draftman. So Glasgow sort of where I chose
Speaker 4: because I grew up in South London as well. So
Speaker 4: like you probably feel the way I feel the way
Speaker 4: about Glasgow that you do a bit of places that
Speaker 4: you choose to stage, you know what I mean, it's
Speaker 4: a different relationship.
Speaker 1: That's funny because you've got a very Parisian and Norwegian accent.
Speaker 3: I think, do you speak Norwegian?
Speaker 4: Yeah? The Janahan snickers.
Speaker 3: That was is that true?
Speaker 4: That is true? That's me asking for snickersners.
Speaker 3: That's that's the extent of my Norwegian.
Speaker 4: But that's as much as you get out. Because if
Speaker 4: you even get on the bus and say in a barn,
Speaker 4: they say, oh, English speaker, because they know your accents
Speaker 4: rubbish and everyone's everyone's fluent, you know.
Speaker 1: I know Mexican people do that to me and Los Angeles.
Speaker 1: I try and speak Spanish and they just they smile
Speaker 1: indulgently and then just speak English to me, which is
Speaker 1: kind of embarrassing, but also there's a kindness to it
Speaker 1: as well.
Speaker 3: But why did you choose Glasgow? Then?
Speaker 1: If you went because your because your family was from there,
Speaker 1: as that one, well.
Speaker 4: To be honest, I took a lot of drugs and
Speaker 4: I kind of black shout and woke up here. That
Speaker 4: is essentially what happened. And my mom was here because
Speaker 4: my parents had just split up, and she said you
Speaker 4: can sleep on my couch. So it's a very thought
Speaker 4: out life plan. I mean, I had yacht.
Speaker 1: I've taken a lot of drugs and woken up places
Speaker 1: and thought I don't want to live here.
Speaker 3: I want to live somewhere else but Glasgow.
Speaker 4: At that time it was the eighties, right, So everyone
Speaker 4: with any ambition left and they all went to where
Speaker 4: I'd been living because I'd been living in South London,
Speaker 4: which was a thatcher, you know, And then it was
Speaker 4: like you know, capitalism on steroids. And I came to
Speaker 4: Golasgow and it was there were all these beautiful buildings.
Speaker 4: You couldn't get anywhere to live in London as well.
Speaker 4: We were all swating and you came to go Husgo
Speaker 4: and it was like you know these you could get
Speaker 4: these rooms that were like ballrooms and you could rent
Speaker 4: them for twenty quite a week, and it was like
Speaker 4: West Berlin. It was like an abandoned city that nobody
Speaker 4: wanted to live in. And you know, there's a lot
Speaker 4: of freedom in that, you know, and I just completely
Speaker 4: fell in love with it. And also people were quite
Speaker 4: kind to each other. You know, they would chat to
Speaker 4: each other and they would, you know, ask how you
Speaker 4: were and then they would listen to how you went.
Speaker 4: I mean, it was just a really odd place. You
Speaker 4: know it still does it still have that? Because it's funny,
Speaker 4: I don't. It's my hometown, but I don't feel that
Speaker 4: way about it at all. I mean, and it's does
Speaker 4: it still have that? You think it really has that?
Speaker 4: But I have to say, you are from Cumbernauld, which
Speaker 4: is like.
Speaker 1: Well, I know, I'm from springber but I grew up
Speaker 1: in Cumbernauld, which is it's not not good.
Speaker 4: No, I'm from easco Bride, right, very similar. I didn't
Speaker 4: move back too right. I think he's scow Bride was
Speaker 4: a Catholic version of Cumbernauld. I think there are.
Speaker 1: Catholics in Cumbernall that would be outraged by that statement.
Speaker 4: But I think a lot of the Catholics moved to
Speaker 4: go Broad and a lot of it. And these are
Speaker 4: new towns. These are like seventies towns that were built.
Speaker 4: He's the housing sortage, and they're quite far away from
Speaker 4: the city and they're very different than the actual city.
Speaker 4: The actual city feels very glamorous in comparison.
Speaker 1: I always thought that. I always thought like the West
Speaker 1: End of Glasgow. To me, it still kind of does.
Speaker 1: Actually when I go there, I feel like it has
Speaker 1: a kind of it feels like Paris, or or or
Speaker 1: the Upper West Side of New York or something like that.
Speaker 3: It's got sort of glamor about.
Speaker 1: It, which is strange, but it's true. And you and
Speaker 1: I both worked in the ubiquitous chip Bar as well,
Speaker 1: which seems and Kelly McDonald worked there as well. And
Speaker 1: I think I think if you were, if you were
Speaker 1: an artist of a particular type, you had to spend
Speaker 1: it at least a year working as a waiter.
Speaker 3: And the Ubiquitous Chip.
Speaker 4: Everyone I know works in the Chip. Everyone I know
Speaker 4: works in the Chip. For people who don't know that,
Speaker 4: it's a restaurant, and it was named after a line
Speaker 4: in a play about Scottish cuisine, and the line was,
Speaker 4: you know, over boiled potatoes, ruined vegetables, and of course
Speaker 4: the ubiquitous Chip. So it's a fine dining restaurant called
Speaker 4: after that. It's called the Ubiquitous Chip. So it's quite pretentious.
Speaker 4: And it was full of pretentious whankers like us. They
Speaker 4: had aspirations, do you know what I mean? We had aspiration.
Speaker 3: But you were sober when you worked there. I wasn't.
Speaker 4: I was.
Speaker 1: I was still drinking when I was working there, because
Speaker 1: I remember how much I it was a real illustration
Speaker 1: because I would work in the bar.
Speaker 3: I wouldn't be able to drink that much while I
Speaker 3: was working the bar.
Speaker 1: And I would see people drink that first and for lagger,
Speaker 1: and it was like people that would come win normal
Speaker 1: and go fucking crazy after like four pints. And and
Speaker 1: I kind of think there was some information about me
Speaker 1: about this is what you are like Craig when you
Speaker 1: start drinking it. I think it began to kind of
Speaker 1: sink in a bit because there's a lot of back
Speaker 1: and alien behavior in that. I don't know if there
Speaker 1: still is, but there certainly was in the eighties. There
Speaker 1: is it still there?
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, it's still mental. And there's a roof garden
Speaker 4: now where everyone goes up and smoked hash and pretend
Speaker 4: they're not smoking hash. But there used to be a
Speaker 4: spiral staircase down to the toilets, and we installed a
Speaker 4: video camera. I'm sure you remember. I'm sure your face
Speaker 4: remembers it. Video camera, that's all. And at the end
Speaker 4: of the night you used to say time, gentlemen place
Speaker 4: and the bar would empty, and then we'd all stand
Speaker 4: and watch the video monitor and killer still lot.
Speaker 3: I remember working there.
Speaker 1: You would get an extra four pounds on your shift,
Speaker 1: an extra four quid if you cleaned up, if you
Speaker 1: took the bucket and cleaned up any sick so if
Speaker 1: there was any lying around, you would get an extra
Speaker 1: four quada on the top of yourself.
Speaker 3: I always would do it. Oh yeah, oh yeah, sometimes
Speaker 3: it was my sick.
Speaker 4: Well. Just to give you some idea of the management
Speaker 4: of that place. They adored you, right because you weren't
Speaker 4: even famous when I worked there. I worked there after you.
Speaker 4: I was not drinking. They hated me. They could never remember.
Speaker 4: They did not like me. Thought it was a torn
Speaker 4: face bitch. Every time they had a parsy, they'd get
Speaker 4: you all presents and everybody would get whiskey and I
Speaker 4: would get a bottle of blank de blanc because they
Speaker 4: couldn't remember that I didn't drink. I mean, it was
Speaker 4: just like you just we're very suspicious of me.
Speaker 1: You have just described my exact experience of twenty three
Speaker 1: years in Hollywood.
Speaker 4: Oh really yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: I felt like like it was there and they kind
Speaker 1: of tolerated me, but it was like, no, you are
Speaker 1: not part of this.
Speaker 3: We are a different gang to you.
Speaker 1: And and it's but I wonder if that's if you
Speaker 1: choose that a little bit, because you and I are
Speaker 1: quite similarly.
Speaker 3: You and I could be brothers and sister. Really, I
Speaker 3: think people have said that.
Speaker 4: I think it might be some way back, which is.
Speaker 1: Great because I'm glad that we never like kissed her anything.
Speaker 3: When we were drinking.
Speaker 1: That that would have been bad.
Speaker 3: Although I would have done it, but I don't think
Speaker 3: you would have done it. I don't think I remember.
Speaker 1: Because you and I didn't even know this until years later,
Speaker 1: that you interviewed me for boyfriend job.
Speaker 3: And I've failed terribly.
Speaker 4: Because yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I remember, like when we went to Saint Andrews, remember,
Speaker 1: and we had a drag.
Speaker 3: We drove up to St.
Speaker 1: Andrews and walked around the graveyard, and I thought we
Speaker 1: were on a day out. And then you told me
Speaker 1: when you were on the late night show that you
Speaker 1: had interviewed me. You may have just been kidding, may
Speaker 1: though I think now is I think about it. I
Speaker 1: think it was just fucking with me. You said that
Speaker 1: I was interviewing you for the job of boyfriend, but
Speaker 1: you just talked about yourself the whole time, and I
Speaker 1: got bored. So I do sound true what I could
Speaker 1: think about it at the time.
Speaker 3: I mean, I struggle with it now.
Speaker 1: But did all the way to s I think we
Speaker 1: did because I remember I remember specifically. It was we
Speaker 1: remember that big old Mercedes that I had. It looked
Speaker 1: like I was an African ambassador or something.
Speaker 4: That was a lovely car.
Speaker 1: That great car, and I we drove it up to
Speaker 1: Saint Andrews, and we were walking around the graveyard, because
Speaker 1: I think that's we were both.
Speaker 4: Do you don't remember any of this. I remember being
Speaker 4: stuck on the wall and thinking I should have thought
Speaker 4: this when I got on the wall. I was freezing
Speaker 4: on a wall. It's too high. We were fish and chips,
Speaker 4: and I remember saying, so, that's kind of but I
Speaker 4: do remember that car.
Speaker 3: It was lovely and well.
Speaker 1: I remember walking around the graveyard and you saying, look
Speaker 1: at all these poor bastards. They all thought it was
Speaker 1: so important and I and I thought, God that it
Speaker 1: really stuck with me. It's one of those things because
Speaker 1: I was I was still vibrating. You had been you
Speaker 1: had cleaned up your life a couple of years ahead
Speaker 1: of me, and I was still vibrating from like coming
Speaker 1: off the alcohol and drugs and thinking trying to figure
Speaker 1: out how how you could possibly live a life and
Speaker 1: be creative and all that old shit that people believe
Speaker 1: about alcohol and drugs.
Speaker 3: You know that, you know. I love the fact that your.
Speaker 1: Output certainly mine, but yours it seems to be all
Speaker 1: post sobriety, all your like the real surge of of
Speaker 1: what you do is after you go sober.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I mean I just wasn't capable before. I
Speaker 4: find it hard enough sober to be honest with you
Speaker 4: because it's do you know what I mean? It is
Speaker 4: like you're going to face to face with your own limitations,
Speaker 4: and if you're drinking on top of that, you just
Speaker 4: quite have an affair, do you know what? You just
Speaker 4: find some other way to distract yourself or getting bold
Speaker 4: in a fight. Well, yeah, we can do both in
Speaker 4: the same night.
Speaker 1: It's funny though, because I think of you as being
Speaker 1: someone who is like your output is prolific and has
Speaker 1: never I mean, I know it makes you uncomfortable when
Speaker 1: I say how much I enjoy your work, And that's
Speaker 1: pretty much.
Speaker 3: That's one of the reasons why I bring.
Speaker 1: It up so often, because I enjoy.
Speaker 4: I just think you're lying.
Speaker 1: Just you're not lying right here, I'm right here.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm not going to say that.
Speaker 1: I remember because and it's an interesting thing because I
Speaker 1: had to train myself and stop doing something similar. Like
Speaker 1: if somebody came to see me in a show and
Speaker 1: then they came backstage afterwards and they if they said
Speaker 1: something like that was a great show, I would tell
Speaker 1: them why it wasn't a great show.
Speaker 3: I would say, no, it wasn't a good one tonight.
Speaker 1: Should have been here last night or and I had
Speaker 1: to stop doing that because you take people's enjoyment away
Speaker 1: a wee bit from it. And I wonder, it's quite
Speaker 1: an interesting thing because with the writing Seve writting a
Speaker 1: wee bit bit, but the writing that you do is
Speaker 1: so I can imagine it like, and maybe I'm wrong,
Speaker 1: you tell me, but it seems like it would take
Speaker 1: over a your every thought process you had going. It'd
Speaker 1: be very kind of insular, and then it belongs to
Speaker 1: everybody else and they have to tell you what they
Speaker 1: think about it and how, and they're part of it now,
Speaker 1: but they weren't really part of it. They're just going
Speaker 1: to consume it. It's a different it's a weird thing.
Speaker 1: I think it must be strange to discuss your work
Speaker 1: with people who have different opinions about your work than
Speaker 1: you do.
Speaker 4: Do you know, even if it's the same opinion, it
Speaker 4: is like, I mean, I can see goodwards kind of
Speaker 4: it is like something appearing at your house to discuss
Speaker 4: your masturbatory style. It's kind of like, how the fuck
Speaker 4: is this anything? Do you which leads me to my
Speaker 4: next question. But do you know what I mean? It's like,
Speaker 4: you know, you work on something really intensely for a
Speaker 4: year and a half, your research, and you go in
Speaker 4: that world, you create a world, you know all the
Speaker 4: people in it, you're really, really involved, and then a
Speaker 4: journalist writes two paragraphs telling you what they think of it,
Speaker 4: and you're kind of like, fuck are you to me?
Speaker 4: I don't know? You off? And then you meet them
Speaker 4: and they're lovely and you have to say, oh, answer,
Speaker 4: the great review you past, remarkable, bastard.
Speaker 1: I know it's a very it's a conflicting opinion.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 1: What I hate is the tendency now to the top
Speaker 1: ten list of everything, like so the I mean, it's
Speaker 1: really bad. I think in the world of books, where
Speaker 1: it's you know, the best sellers. So if a book
Speaker 1: sells more than another book, it's a better book than
Speaker 1: the other book, which I think is beyond fucking ludicrous.
Speaker 1: But it's with everything. Everything has that, And.
Speaker 4: That's just saying that the market is the measure of everything.
Speaker 4: That Like, you must see stand ups who are terrible
Speaker 4: and they're just doing a small echo brilliant work and
Speaker 4: they're copying other people. Sometimes they're lifting jokes and they're storming,
Speaker 4: and everyone thinks they're a genius. And you know, I
Speaker 4: think there are comedians who are they really there for
Speaker 4: people who don't have a sense of humor?
Speaker 3: Oh, that's mostly what it is.
Speaker 4: But they like laughing, do you know what I mean? Yeah,
Speaker 4: So they're kind of doing us performance of stuff other
Speaker 4: people do. And that's the last market, you know.
Speaker 1: Right, does that happen? Does that happen? And well, I
Speaker 1: guess that does happen in crime books for sure. I've
Speaker 1: read crime books and I've been like, wait a minute,
Speaker 1: this is you know, I've come across this style of this,
Speaker 1: even this story before you get do you get antsy
Speaker 1: about about people necking your stuff?
Speaker 3: Stand ups are paranoid about it all the time.
Speaker 4: Yeah, now you can't, you'd go mad. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 4: sometimes I do actually take photographs of massive best sellers,
Speaker 4: paragraphs on them, and and I read them over to
Speaker 4: give myself a good laugh, because it's like if pharaoah
Speaker 4: that I'd be too embarrassed. Quite the house. You know,
Speaker 4: we're trying to do different things. You must get, you
Speaker 4: must get, like you know, those those best seller a
Speaker 4: lot of those are manipulated. It's about the number they produce,
Speaker 4: it's about the number, you know who they buy them.
Speaker 4: New York Times Bestseller, the actual bestseller thing. I think
Speaker 4: it's heavily manipulated.
Speaker 1: Oh sure, yeah, yeah, I've been on the receiving end
Speaker 1: of it both times. I mean, you know, where when
Speaker 1: my book wasn't being so in the right place and
Speaker 1: when it was.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and you know, I mean I see a lot
Speaker 4: of books on that that you don't see anywhere in
Speaker 4: anyone's house. No one's reading them, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4: So you don't want to worry about the market, because
Speaker 4: it's a one to one relationship. If you're writing books,
Speaker 4: it's you and the reader. And I always kind of
Speaker 4: imagine they're reading in a really comfy chair and I'm
Speaker 4: sort of leaning over their shoulder and whispering the story
Speaker 4: in their ear.
Speaker 1: Okay, that's quite creepy, especially with some of the stuff
Speaker 1: that you write that's very bad.
Speaker 4: When you're writing something scary, yeah I do, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 4: I do, yeah, really scared. And then I think that
Speaker 4: I think that's brilliant. I think I might have done
Speaker 4: something really clever there. And then I go to bed
Speaker 4: and I get on the next morning, read it, and
Speaker 4: it's usually absolutely.
Speaker 1: I think that, Yeah, it's anything written after sundown is
Speaker 1: and I've written after sundown.
Speaker 3: It's shy. Really Yeah, if I write, in fact, I won't.
Speaker 1: I'll never send a text to an email after it
Speaker 1: gets dark because I'll probably regret it.
Speaker 4: What a module.
Speaker 3: I never read any claim.
Speaker 1: And in the thirty plus years and years have known you,
Speaker 1: I've never said at any point I'm a fucking barometer
Speaker 1: for mental health.
Speaker 4: I've never said that.
Speaker 3: I never said that to anyone.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 4: That. You never text someone to say, are you watching Bakoff?
Speaker 3: For no? No? You? You and Meghan do that?
Speaker 4: You like?
Speaker 3: You?
Speaker 1: You have that kind of you talk to each Meghan
Speaker 1: of course being my wife.
Speaker 3: You guys talk to each other in a way that
Speaker 3: I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't do that, maybe with Meghan, like because I'll
Speaker 1: text it if I'm on the road, I'll talk to
Speaker 1: her in the text and stuff like that.
Speaker 3: But that's that's about it.
Speaker 4: How do you know who to hate on Bakoff then atract?
Speaker 3: I can't.
Speaker 1: I don't hate the Bacoff is one of the few
Speaker 1: things that I can watch without any negative feeling at
Speaker 1: all other than sadness for the people who are leaving.
Speaker 1: It's a it's a fucking national world treasure, the Great
Speaker 1: British Bakeoff.
Speaker 4: I'm worried about the waste. It's so wasteful. They're always
Speaker 4: saying I need this corn ucopia of short bread yesterday,
Speaker 4: and I'm like, what what happened to that one?
Speaker 3: Well, they give it to the crew. Do you know that?
Speaker 4: Because I thought about that, did you? Yeah, the crew
Speaker 4: gets it.
Speaker 1: The people who work on the bake off that they're
Speaker 1: all like, you know, five hundred pounds.
Speaker 4: You've made that so much better for me, un delightned.
Speaker 3: No, no, no they don't. They don't throw it out.
Speaker 3: People eat it and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: Or I think they give it to needy, you know,
Speaker 1: people in society.
Speaker 4: Homeless people that need a cake that's homeless people need
Speaker 4: a gasso in the shape of anywhere.
Speaker 3: They are lovely though, I think that do you bake?
Speaker 4: I used to bake, but I'm so compulsive. I would
Speaker 4: like make a tree bacon. Then I would eat the
Speaker 4: treat back and then I would be sick and of a
Speaker 4: bitch of mother.
Speaker 1: Very much ident with that. But I think because every time,
Speaker 1: like in the last I don't know, four or five
Speaker 1: years of or more. Every time I've seen Most of
Speaker 1: the time i've seen you is in your kitchen.
Speaker 4: You know, Parliament, the parliament of the.
Speaker 3: House, it really is.
Speaker 1: I mean your kitchen in particularly have a giant teapot
Speaker 1: and usually good cakes and then you know, very deep
Speaker 1: because it's a salon environment. They do you have Do
Speaker 1: you have other writers in there for like Dorothy Parker
Speaker 1: type round table shit?
Speaker 4: Well, you know, because I mean I'm quite dull because
Speaker 4: I don't drink. So we do have soup Sunday, So
Speaker 4: we do have like once a year, we'll have a
Speaker 4: lot of risers around and we'll all eat super complain
Speaker 4: about our income and u and tip. Actually it's weird
Speaker 4: because you would think that we would be making statements
Speaker 4: about the nature of life for talking about literally are
Speaker 4: mostly what we're talking about is times we made fools
Speaker 4: of ourselves over the course of the year. So the
Speaker 4: winning prize this year was Louise Well. She's a fantastic
Speaker 4: Scottish writer. He was telling the story about being She
Speaker 4: was being translated during a tour of Germany by someone
Speaker 4: who was also a clown. But in the old tradition.
Speaker 3: That's so.
Speaker 4: It's fantastic. But he didn't. He didn't clown up until
Speaker 4: the very last and then on the very last event,
Speaker 4: which is a big deal in Berlin, he said, I
Speaker 4: want to do my act before you come on and
Speaker 4: talk about literature. So he clowned up, died because the
Speaker 4: audience went there to see a clown, and then it
Speaker 4: shifted on remaining in his clown outfit. To translate what
Speaker 4: we've Oh geez, that seems waiting make it about you.
Speaker 1: I think if you're the translator, you shouldn't really be
Speaker 1: trying to make it about I want to be a clown.
Speaker 4: I mean, it's not your day.
Speaker 2: But as Louise says, we're all quite mild people adventures,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean.
Speaker 4: So mostly it's like one of us falling over and
Speaker 4: someone coming over and kicking in, and a dog humping
Speaker 4: your leg, and then people que up and buy your book,
Speaker 4: and then the conclusion, oh, do you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: The clown thing is great? Did you ever write about it?
Speaker 1: I feel like clowns are I'm one of the people
Speaker 1: that believes that clowns are intrinsically you know, it's an
Speaker 1: evil thing.
Speaker 4: It's a way to hide maybe even stand up.
Speaker 1: Do you think have you written yet the serial Killer
Speaker 1: clown book or are you working on it right now?
Speaker 4: I'm working on it right now. Obviously this is my
Speaker 4: that's my next pitch. No, I'm not, are you?
Speaker 1: Because I really liked the book you wrote about Mary
Speaker 1: Queen of Scott's pal Rizzio, right, Razio, Yeah, Razio, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that was I really love that And you actually
Speaker 1: turned a corner for me because through that, because it
Speaker 1: was your as far as I know, that was your
Speaker 1: first historical fiction. The Long Drop was sort of set
Speaker 1: in a period in time, but that was the nineteen sixties,
Speaker 1: so it's kind of, you know, sort of in living
Speaker 1: memory sort of thing. But Razio was Mary, Queen of Scott's.
Speaker 1: And because I love that so much, you know, what
Speaker 1: I started doing is reading Gorvi Dall's historical novels.
Speaker 3: Fantastic.
Speaker 4: He's such a great writer.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I mean amazing. I'm reading right now.
Speaker 1: Creation. Have you read Creation? No, It's set during the
Speaker 1: Persian Greek Wars five hundred years BC. It's fucking amazing, Dan,
Speaker 1: I mean, because you're right, it's not in it, you know,
Speaker 1: it in the sense of like the other Billin girl
Speaker 1: and oh, I mean it's really it feels I mean,
Speaker 1: there's a bit of that, but it's more kind of
Speaker 1: it's so vivid and contemporary.
Speaker 3: That you really believe the people.
Speaker 1: And that's why I wanted That's why I wanted to
Speaker 1: because I feel like it's part of my job as
Speaker 1: your friend to push you and annoy you into directions
Speaker 1: so that you actually think about doing work that I've
Speaker 1: enjoyed before. And I think that I'd like to push
Speaker 1: you into more historical work because you have that excuse me,
Speaker 1: you have that gift of making people who have been
Speaker 1: dead for hundreds and hundreds of years like they're in
Speaker 1: the next room with a fucking iPhone.
Speaker 3: And that's great.
Speaker 4: That's a rare talent and you should do more of it. Okay,
Speaker 4: that's great to talk tip, very good. So that's really
Speaker 4: and also put in so I tell you the truth
Speaker 4: about that, tell the truth about it, right, Yeah, you
Speaker 4: can't really make a living doing that, right, So publishers
Speaker 4: and readers who read crime fiction, we are really greedy readers, right,
Speaker 4: So that's a living. Okay, So, but rising kind of
Speaker 4: you know, very formed historical fiction. I wrote a book
Speaker 4: called Three Fires, which was about Savonarola and Florence. Those
Speaker 4: books are really precious and I really love doing them,
Speaker 4: but you can't make a living doing that. So if
Speaker 4: you want to make a living and actually you want
Speaker 4: to talk about big themes, the vehicle for that is
Speaker 4: crime fiction. And I think crime fiction because it's so familiar,
Speaker 4: we take it so for granted, but actually there is
Speaker 4: it is a very very very difficult thing to do.
Speaker 4: So for example, what I'm writing at the moment is
Speaker 4: a book about a forensic scientist too discovers that her
Speaker 4: discipline is built it and which is quite this is happening.
Speaker 4: I mean, science changes all the time, but what we're
Speaker 4: discovering now is that law is staffic. Science changes, and
Speaker 4: you couldn't do that in any other context, you know
Speaker 4: what I mean. You're right, yeah, But I mean I
Speaker 4: love doing I mean, for me, writing historical fiction or
Speaker 4: historical non fiction fiction is as just as delicious as
Speaker 4: writing crime fiction. But they just aren't the sales in it.
Speaker 4: You might get one big book, but you don't get
Speaker 4: you don't get like a readership or a dialogue.
Speaker 1: I get, yeah, I do, and I think it's an
Speaker 1: interesting thing because I think that, and I'm certainly guilty
Speaker 1: of it right right now in this conversation.
Speaker 3: You forget that people have to make a living, you know.
Speaker 1: Particularly the artistic endeavors you You forget about that like
Speaker 1: there are bills to pay.
Speaker 3: It's a job, it's your life.
Speaker 4: And you know we I think because of Byron if
Speaker 4: you I read a brilliant biography of Byron, and he
Speaker 4: came from money and refused to take money from his
Speaker 4: books being published, and that is the model we all
Speaker 4: act as if no one's from a blue collar background.
Speaker 4: We've all got a trust fund as you and I
Speaker 4: both have nature scum, big old Irish based Obviously we
Speaker 4: don't come from money, do you know what I mean?
Speaker 4: I mean, I think you know what.
Speaker 1: Because I remember, even like when I was a kid,
Speaker 1: people saying, you know, like you would get asked in
Speaker 1: the interviews, why did you take the part? And I
Speaker 1: would always like make up things like oh I really
Speaker 1: liked the script.
Speaker 4: I never read the fucking script. Read my lines?
Speaker 1: How much I would have to do because what you're
Speaker 1: really doing is money, is to.
Speaker 3: Make a living.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's that, but you your degree is in criminal
Speaker 1: A lot of though, isn't it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's criminal lot and friends. So I did forensic
Speaker 4: science as honors. Yeah, and I won the prize. Actually
Speaker 4: I won the Gilbert port. Actually the door was knock
Speaker 4: after I graduated, and it was the posty, and I
Speaker 4: thought we were getting evicted from the dirty flat I
Speaker 4: used to live in.
Speaker 1: I wanted to talk to you about the sleepy chair
Speaker 1: in that flat because a lot of people don't know
Speaker 1: about the sleepy chair, and I think for I think
Speaker 1: the statute of limitations is up. You can talk about
Speaker 1: that flat. But tell me what happened the door. The
Speaker 1: door get knocked and what knocked?
Speaker 4: And it was a it was I had to sign
Speaker 4: for a parcel and it was I had won the
Speaker 4: prize for forensic Science, the Gilbert Board's Gold Medal, and
Speaker 4: I was like, they'd forgotten to give it to me
Speaker 4: a graduation so I still know that I've got it
Speaker 4: my my medicine cabinet.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's but that's fabulous. Congratulations. I didn't know you'd
Speaker 1: won that prize, and I feel like.
Speaker 4: I believed I wink the wrong eye there.
Speaker 1: A wink in a salute is always a way of
Speaker 1: proving your cooler than any one else in the room.
Speaker 1: M let's talk about the sleepy chair in your flat,
Speaker 1: because I think it's a story that have you written
Speaker 1: that in a book yet?
Speaker 4: And I've only just told you.
Speaker 3: Oh really, I think it's such a great thing. So
Speaker 3: there was a chair in your flat and.
Speaker 4: I was so I was living in a flat that
Speaker 4: was basically falling apart, and you were up in it,
Speaker 4: and it was we were so poor. It was me
Speaker 4: and like four guys. We were so per We had
Speaker 4: done some decoration that we used knitting patterns for in
Speaker 4: the ship across the toilet, but anyway, it was, you know,
Speaker 4: we were all I think we were all like kind
Speaker 4: of depressed and we're kind of like watching TV. And
Speaker 4: you know, we had this chair and we called it
Speaker 4: the sloopy chair because every time anyone sat in it
Speaker 4: they fell asleep. And we were like, yeah, that's the
Speaker 4: sloopy chair, and don't sit in the sleepy chair. And
Speaker 4: then my partner and I bought that flat, did it up,
Speaker 4: and when they when they came up to look at
Speaker 4: it the place where the sleepy chair was, they discovered
Speaker 4: there was a massive Catholic.
Speaker 3: You're so lucky nobody died in that chain.
Speaker 4: The hope that could have blown up because I know
Speaker 4: we didn't have any heating in Scotland. So what we
Speaker 4: were doing was we were taking We thought we were
Speaker 4: being very modern and we were taking the doors off
Speaker 4: the oven and just lighting it into the room and
Speaker 4: we were warming ourselves right next to the sleepy chair smoking.
Speaker 4: Of course we were all smoking. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I miss smoking, I really do.
Speaker 1: I don't miss alcohol at all, and I don't miss drugs,
Speaker 1: well maybe drugs a little bit, but fucking smoking.
Speaker 4: Oh miss it every day every day. At some point,
Speaker 4: I think I love a cigarette right now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's weird as I haven't so how long since
Speaker 1: you smoked a cigarette?
Speaker 4: Oh decades? Yeah, me too, And I'm still I'm still
Speaker 4: on the patches. Yeah, still messing about trying to find
Speaker 4: a way to keep nicotine. I actually got so addicted
Speaker 4: to nicotine chewing and I ended up buying out of
Speaker 4: date nicotine chewing. I'm from a dodgy chemist because it
Speaker 4: was and it was usingly three times as it's as
Speaker 4: you're legally supposed to.
Speaker 1: But that's okay because it's probably if it's out a day,
Speaker 1: it's half life is diminished, which means that you're probably
Speaker 1: just taking the regular amount.
Speaker 3: You and I should never enable each.
Speaker 1: Other that.
Speaker 4: It's like cheers. And then two minutes last to a
Speaker 4: robbing a post office. But I was on. I was
Speaker 4: telling somebody once about being on this TV show and
Speaker 4: I said she wasn't very nice to me. It was
Speaker 4: a producer. I said, it was, you know, it was
Speaker 4: a live TV show. It was going at eleven o'clock
Speaker 4: on a Friday. And then I sort of told the story,
Speaker 4: and I sort of realized that I was really really
Speaker 4: at fault because I've been on with this Icelandic band
Speaker 4: and they they were very clearly fans of substances. So
Speaker 4: they sort of said johantson of johants some of that,
Speaker 4: and then they said, did anyone want some snuff? And
Speaker 4: a roller decks through what I was allowed, and I
Speaker 4: was like, I'm allowed snuff. Give me too much, give
Speaker 4: me so much that I'm vomiting at the side of
Speaker 4: the sound stage and I've been two minutes before we
Speaker 4: go out lotch.
Speaker 3: There's no reason to be rude to someone.
Speaker 1: If they did, Yeah, Jesus.
Speaker 3: Stuff tobacco.
Speaker 4: I don't think I've had snuff don't take snuff. I'm
Speaker 4: not going number one. Don't take nothing difficult to get
Speaker 4: hold of. And it makes your hair fallout, it makes
Speaker 4: your hair thin, it makes you put on a lot
Speaker 4: of weight as well.
Speaker 3: That does not sound like anything I'm interested in.
Speaker 4: You wouldn't like that.
Speaker 1: I'm looking for a cross between rogaine and cocaine. That's
Speaker 1: what I want, and that is the opposite of It's funny, though,
Speaker 1: I do you still get snobby about drugs because I
Speaker 1: do like when people are like, because everybody smokes weed
Speaker 1: on the street in America now, and everybody's you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's everybody. The smell of weed is everywhere in
Speaker 1: New York City, and I think, you know, get yourself
Speaker 1: a proper drug. I find myself like that. I know
Speaker 1: it's very pathological and like, that's not a proper drug.
Speaker 1: Take a proper drug cocaine or heroin or something. But
Speaker 1: I suppose that's not a healthy attitude.
Speaker 4: It's not a healthy attitude.
Speaker 3: I aware that.
Speaker 4: Do you know, we're so vanilla. We don't really know
Speaker 4: what drugs are now. Drugs are very different, really bad ones,
Speaker 4: you know what I mean. We would not be alive
Speaker 4: now all these young ones. Do you know what I mean.
Speaker 4: I mean, it's so it's it's a serious business. The
Speaker 4: minute to start taking it. We thought it was serious,
Speaker 4: but it was a moral panic. It wasn't really a
Speaker 4: physically dangerous thing. Every time you took something in us.
Speaker 1: Now that's true with the Fennel thing, you could just
Speaker 1: like the first time done.
Speaker 4: Kids, you know, And so we got off lucky. I mean,
Speaker 4: I think the reason we're both here is probably because,
Speaker 4: you know, because I mean, who a party back in
Speaker 4: our day, somebody handed you something and you took it,
Speaker 4: you didn't know what it was.
Speaker 1: I mean, it terrifies me now because we both you know,
Speaker 1: have young adults, and it's it's terrifying. It's terrifying that
Speaker 1: it's out there like that. And I think the drugs
Speaker 1: are so good now as well in terms of like
Speaker 1: potency and uh, you know, like people will say things
Speaker 1: like strains of marijuana.
Speaker 3: It doesn't make any sense to me, you know.
Speaker 1: It's like you know, they'll say, because I remember, like
Speaker 1: the when I took marijuana, the hash was hashed.
Speaker 3: Marijuana was grass was grass, hash was hashed. That was it.
Speaker 1: And I remember once having a my one of my
Speaker 1: few homosexual encounters when I was a young man and
Speaker 1: I said to a gay friend later, it's not really
Speaker 1: for me, and he said it was probably the wrong one,
Speaker 1: and I said, no, I don't think there are a
Speaker 1: strains sufficient. Look, I tried it and it's not for me.
Speaker 1: But but hash now you can. There are so many
Speaker 1: different strains about it that the people will say, oh,
Speaker 1: because I got psychotic from marijuana, like crazy, really, but
Speaker 1: apparently that's certain strains do that to people, and other
Speaker 1: strains don't.
Speaker 4: It's too late for me now, and I'm glad of it.
Speaker 4: But gone on the days of you know, going up
Speaker 4: to the Trossus and sitting looking over the city and
Speaker 4: taking what turned out to be half an Afroy quick
Speaker 4: Ford again.
Speaker 1: Now, do you remember Dodo tablets? Do you ever take
Speaker 1: Dodo tablets? We used to take Dodo tablets where I
Speaker 1: think we're a bronchial thing that they were in Scotland.
Speaker 3: There was some kind of bronchial thing.
Speaker 1: But if you took Doro tablets and drank cheap wine
Speaker 1: and then sat on the train in Springburn, the vibrations
Speaker 1: felt really fabulous. Yeah, I mean, it's such a mess,
Speaker 1: but it's funny I think of like those days because
Speaker 1: you and I never really we never crossed paths until
Speaker 1: we got sober. But the darkness in that you described
Speaker 1: the kind of comic darkness of drinking and using in
Speaker 1: those times.
Speaker 3: I think we both ended up where we were because of.
Speaker 1: That influence of that kind of hilarious despair of the
Speaker 1: kind of the mid eighties.
Speaker 3: If you were like in Scotland, it was terrible but awesome.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean it's awesome because of the past.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was grim and we were very depressed. Let's
Speaker 4: remember that. Yeah, it was a sure, I'm sure there
Speaker 4: were people. I mean, you know, young people now dress
Speaker 4: as if they're in the eighties. Sometimes I get, you know,
Speaker 4: it gives me the hey gbs paste pink lemon yellow.
Speaker 4: If I see someone in lemon yellow, I feel like
Speaker 4: I'm about to get the sack for being cheeky. You know,
Speaker 4: wedge wedge cut, you know. Yeah, our shoulder pads back,
Speaker 4: shoulder pads aren't back. They shoulder pads. They came back
Speaker 4: very briefly here about a year ago. I quite like
Speaker 4: a shoulder pad.
Speaker 1: I don't mind that I've reached the point in my
Speaker 1: life now where it's actually I'm kind of thinking about
Speaker 1: putting them in my shirt like Larry King used to do.
Speaker 3: So what's happening with you and now? And then what
Speaker 3: you're doing?
Speaker 4: Are you?
Speaker 1: Are you off on because you still travel so much? Yeah,
Speaker 1: you still do that.
Speaker 4: I'm just about to I'm just finishing a book first
Speaker 4: week and then we're going to the q E two.
Speaker 4: Are having a festival.
Speaker 3: On it in Los Angeles?
Speaker 4: No, No, We're going from Southampton to New York. We
Speaker 4: get get it free. We give a couple of workshops,
Speaker 4: and I'm saying we I'm not using the Royal way.
Speaker 4: It's like me and Christopher and Mark Billingham, me and
Speaker 4: Stevie are getting the yeah right, and then they fly
Speaker 4: you back business class. So we're saying we're going to
Speaker 4: do that. That'll be lovely. And then yeah, so we're
Speaker 4: just traveling around a lot.
Speaker 3: Wait. Wait, so you cross the Atlantic on the q
Speaker 3: E two.
Speaker 4: Yeah, in November?
Speaker 3: And where do you end up New York when.
Speaker 4: On the twenty third of November a year round.
Speaker 1: I fly from I'm going from Atlanta to Paris on
Speaker 1: the twenty fourth.
Speaker 4: Are you doing Paris?
Speaker 1: I'm meeting Meghan because I'm doing I'm doing stand ups.
Speaker 4: Do you want to come to you Stevie County, Paris
Speaker 4: and we'll go out and eat. Well, we're staying in
Speaker 4: the Chelsea for a few nights and then we're going
Speaker 4: to fly back via Iceland and then I think we're
Speaker 4: all going to go to.
Speaker 3: Iceland.
Speaker 4: Oh it's great.
Speaker 3: It's good, isn't it.
Speaker 4: It's great. Yeah, it's great, but like all Scandinavian board countries,
Speaker 4: ultimately really boring.
Speaker 3: How dare you?
Speaker 4: I like messy places. I like Nepal and you know,
Speaker 4: Milwaukee and places that have got a bit of mess
Speaker 4: about them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've never I've never been in the poll, but
Speaker 1: I've been in Milwaukee a couple of times. But now
Speaker 1: if it's like, if Nepole is like Milwaukee, I I
Speaker 1: don't need to go.
Speaker 4: It's not like, No, it's not like there's a lot
Speaker 4: more decapitated animals in the street from my.
Speaker 1: I've never seen that. I'm not saying it's not there.
Speaker 1: But are you following? You following the political climate in
Speaker 1: the United States right now?
Speaker 4: I do believe there is an election.
Speaker 3: Actually by the time this goes out.
Speaker 4: I love going on Oh really, Okay, I think, yeah, so,
Speaker 4: and how are you feeling about that? Because you're actually there,
Speaker 4: I kind of it's funny.
Speaker 1: I I steer away from publicly I mean, you you
Speaker 1: know how I feel about politics and stuff, but I
Speaker 1: stay away from publicly discussing it because it's such a
Speaker 1: divisive tool, you know. I mean, it seems like the
Speaker 1: only thing that anyone agrees on is that you can
Speaker 1: use someone's political opinion to shame them. But I think
Speaker 1: that what I've taken some solace from funny enough, it
Speaker 1: goes back around to that resio thing of yours, because
Speaker 1: because I get into these historical novels of Gourvi Dal,
Speaker 1: I read the Narratives of Empire. You wrote seven historical
Speaker 1: books about the United States from seventeen seventy sixty nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty four. Yeah, And what was fascinating about it is
Speaker 1: that there's nothing fucking new about this.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Nothing. I think that America to me is.
Speaker 1: One of the things about America is it is a
Speaker 1: national expression of Youngian duality.
Speaker 3: It's always been at war with itself. It's always had
Speaker 3: this fucking you know.
Speaker 1: Pushball, and I think it's I think it's no different
Speaker 1: but it's it's it's kind of.
Speaker 4: Frightening, though it kain of it gets your attention.
Speaker 1: Because there's a lot of hyperbole in fear and you
Speaker 1: don't know how much of it is real, you know.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean I think if you look at it
Speaker 4: in historical context very importantly, people are much easier to
Speaker 4: control if they're very frightened. Yes, and that's both sides
Speaker 4: of doing that hyping people up. Totally obsessed with the
Speaker 4: Civil War? Are you interested in the Civil War? Yes?
Speaker 4: I am.
Speaker 1: Actually I became fascinated by it through the I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm actually right now, I'm still kind of stuck on
Speaker 1: the Revolutionary War, the first one. But yeah, but have
Speaker 1: you been around the Civil War battle sites or all
Speaker 1: like that?
Speaker 4: You know, But me and my cousin are going to
Speaker 4: do it may my cousin are.
Speaker 3: Yeah, amazing.
Speaker 4: It's a weird thing that you get so interested in
Speaker 4: the Civil War at age fifty two and a half.
Speaker 4: I think that's right, isn't it. But you can see
Speaker 4: the whole world in that, You can see the whole
Speaker 4: you know, the impossibility of victory and suddenly victory because
Speaker 4: a drunk guy just sit far to everything, because the
Speaker 4: drunk guy started fight, and you know, and how spoiled
Speaker 4: that became afterwards. And it's funny because I was trying
Speaker 4: to write something for an Alista Greyson about Contraband camp.
Speaker 4: Do you know Contraband camp is?
Speaker 3: I don't know where that is.
Speaker 4: Slaves that ran away during the Civil War were called
Speaker 4: contraband because they were a contra band of war. So
Speaker 4: they sent up camps everywhere, and all these incredibly well
Speaker 4: meaning white women like me went to work in contraband
Speaker 4: camps to teach people to read, and they had all
Speaker 4: these really sort of idealistic ideas about how they were
Speaker 4: going to save everybody, and then they got there and
Speaker 4: they just realized how grim it was and how it
Speaker 4: was systematic, and you know, it didn't matter what people
Speaker 4: saved or if they got jobs or anything like that.
Speaker 4: They just looked all the whole system was up against them.
Speaker 4: But I mean, I thought, you know, I can't even
Speaker 4: identify the language to use about people of color in
Speaker 4: that context, or I don't even know how you could
Speaker 4: speak about that. But yeah, but yeah, but I mean,
Speaker 4: there's nothing new, and you know, just be kind of
Speaker 4: the people you meet, even if you don't agree with them.
Speaker 4: I think there's maybe like three or four percent of
Speaker 4: people who really are trouble and mental and you know,
Speaker 4: really do want war, and the rest of us are
Speaker 4: just trying to look after our mum and keep the
Speaker 4: house tidy.
Speaker 1: It seems to be my experience because I go to
Speaker 1: like I do, stand up in you know, very different
Speaker 1: you know, you know, kind of political environments in the
Speaker 1: United States, like geographically, and you know, my rule and
Speaker 1: my my deal with the audience that I've had since
Speaker 1: about twenty sixteen is for the hour and a half
Speaker 1: i'm on stage, We're going to forget about it.
Speaker 3: I'm going to do something else.
Speaker 1: So all the shit that you're angry about, I'll still
Speaker 1: be there when you leave the theater, but we're going
Speaker 1: to take a break. I need a fucking break, and
Speaker 1: you know, and so I'm not going to do it
Speaker 1: because I'm I'm even at the stage now where I'm
Speaker 1: sick of the people I agree with.
Speaker 3: I'm like, you know, when they talk, I'm like fucking shop,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: Even if I agree with what they're saying, I'm like sake.
Speaker 1: And it is it is an odds it's an odd time.
Speaker 1: But when it's fucking odd time nobody.
Speaker 4: I have to say. Politicians of this generation are crap
Speaker 4: at their job because they have a job to do,
Speaker 4: and your job is to run things. Shut up, stay
Speaker 4: over face and let us make films, write books. Why
Speaker 4: are we talking about you doing your job all the time?
Speaker 4: Do your job? You know what I mean?
Speaker 1: I feel the same way as like, shut the fuck
Speaker 1: up and get the bills paid, keep the lights on.
Speaker 4: You know you're you're an administrator, your nuts and do
Speaker 4: your job.
Speaker 3: Well, we got that, And.
Speaker 1: I feel like I've spent half an hour in your
Speaker 1: kitchen and I feel I always feel the better for that.
Speaker 3: Thanks very much.
Speaker 1: And you look amazing, by the way, have you been
Speaker 1: are you using collagen or something?
Speaker 4: You look Yeah, this is actually the back of my head.
Speaker 4: I just shaved my head.
Speaker 3: All right, it's lovely.
Speaker 1: So you give my best day to Stevie and in
Speaker 1: a way, and I'll Megan, I know, wants to talk
Speaker 1: to you, but she can't do it in the podcast,
Speaker 1: so I think she is.
Speaker 4: Tell her to get me a wrong. Well, let me
Speaker 4: see you were Christmas pals.
Speaker 1: Definitely all right, Yeah, yeah, I have a lovely time
Speaker 1: on the boat.
Speaker 3: I'm sorry, I'm going to miss you in New York.
Speaker 4: I think we might be just be being stickle the time.
Speaker 3: All right, it's lovely to see you.
Speaker 1: Take care, Okayrryn, Bye bye bye bye bye ye