WEBVTT - Stephen Fry (Part 2) 0:00:02.120 --> 0:00:04.520 Steer when I end up that so much I had, 0:00:04.559 --> 0:00:07.080 I had awesome wells reading a selfish giant on a 0:00:07.200 --> 0:00:09.880 raca that I listened to, and I was about five 0:00:10.119 --> 0:00:15.680 or six. And this is my garden. It is. It 0:00:15.880 --> 0:00:21.079 is so brilliant. Anyone find it for everybody should listen 0:00:21.079 --> 0:00:27.360 to it. The children are my flowers. Yes, I only 0:00:27.440 --> 0:00:30.680 have to hear those. And I can smell an old 0:00:30.720 --> 0:00:34.000 fashioned gramophone and the reference that went on, you know 0:00:34.120 --> 0:00:40.159 that dusty smells. It warmed up with the crackle. Hello, 0:00:40.320 --> 0:00:44.360 I'm mini driver and welcome to many questions. I've always 0:00:44.400 --> 0:00:48.160 loved pruce questionnaire. It was originally an eighteenth century parlor 0:00:48.200 --> 0:00:51.720 game meant to reveal an individual's true nature. But with 0:00:51.760 --> 0:00:55.000 so many questions, there wasn't really an opportunity to expand 0:00:55.000 --> 0:00:58.000 on anything. So I took the format of Pruce's questionnaire 0:00:58.400 --> 0:01:01.240 and adapted what I think seven of the most important 0:01:01.320 --> 0:01:05.480 questions you could ever ask someone. They are when and 0:01:05.480 --> 0:01:09.160 where were you happiest? What is the quality you like 0:01:09.319 --> 0:01:14.640 least about yourself? What relationship, real or fictionalized, defines love 0:01:14.680 --> 0:01:20.720 for you? What question would you most like answered? What person, place, 0:01:20.920 --> 0:01:24.960 or experience has shaped you the most? What would be 0:01:25.000 --> 0:01:28.800 your last meal? And can you tell me something in 0:01:28.840 --> 0:01:31.800 your life that has grown out of a personal disaster. 0:01:32.920 --> 0:01:35.520 The more people we ask, the more we begin to 0:01:35.560 --> 0:01:38.600 see what makes us similar and what makes us individual. 0:01:39.840 --> 0:01:42.640 I've gathered a group of really remarkable people who I 0:01:42.640 --> 0:01:44.840 am honored and humbled to have had a chance to 0:01:44.880 --> 0:01:49.360 engage with. In last week's episode, we heard Steven's answers 0:01:49.400 --> 0:01:52.480 to when and where were you happiest. You think of 0:01:52.560 --> 0:01:55.880 something a sunny day on the beach or in a park, 0:01:57.160 --> 0:01:59.640 maybe that you're very young, to your mother's let you 0:02:00.040 --> 0:02:03.080 skip along to buy an ice cream, and you're looking 0:02:03.080 --> 0:02:06.120 down at the ducks with your brother and everybody's with you, 0:02:06.240 --> 0:02:09.320 and you're content. You then do something physical like pull 0:02:09.360 --> 0:02:11.760 out your ear lobe the idea of being. All you 0:02:11.800 --> 0:02:14.960 have to do is twist your ear lobe and you 0:02:15.000 --> 0:02:18.360 will get that memory. What relationship real or fictionalize. It 0:02:18.400 --> 0:02:21.720 defines love for you and love love love, and all 0:02:21.760 --> 0:02:23.680 you need is love and love this and love that. 0:02:23.760 --> 0:02:26.919 And it made no sense. And then suddenly it hit 0:02:27.000 --> 0:02:29.000 me that it was the only thing in the world 0:02:29.040 --> 0:02:33.000 that mattered, That nothing else had any significance at all 0:02:33.120 --> 0:02:37.400 except this absolute loss of self into the idea of 0:02:37.480 --> 0:02:40.840 someone else, and what person, place, or experience has most 0:02:40.880 --> 0:02:43.600 altered your life. I said, I've seen this thing, and 0:02:43.639 --> 0:02:46.160 I explained it. She said, oh, that was the importance 0:02:46.160 --> 0:02:50.359 of being earnest. Here is the last part of our conversation. 0:02:54.240 --> 0:02:56.400 She could have any question answered, what would it be 0:02:57.840 --> 0:03:05.280 such a good question itself? This one answer this question 0:03:05.360 --> 0:03:12.320 for me. I mean, at the risk of sounding very uh, 0:03:12.520 --> 0:03:15.360 I've always got to sound pompous, but the extra pomp 0:03:15.400 --> 0:03:20.120 us I am very interested in those called philosophical questions. 0:03:20.360 --> 0:03:23.720 Instantly makes them sound like a sort of game or 0:03:24.160 --> 0:03:27.120 intellectual quest, and I think they're more exciting than that. 0:03:27.480 --> 0:03:30.600 Although those are exciting things in themselves, those do actually 0:03:30.600 --> 0:03:32.919 sound quite fun. Yeah, they do, I hope, so an 0:03:32.919 --> 0:03:37.600 intellectual quest. Yeah. It is the nature of consciousness. It's 0:03:37.640 --> 0:03:42.360 how it is that we can have this sense of self, 0:03:43.240 --> 0:03:47.680 of who we are manufactured in a wet but electrically 0:03:47.720 --> 0:03:52.560 sparkling object like a brain in our heads, that it 0:03:52.600 --> 0:03:56.480 can create such a powerful sense of self that is 0:03:56.520 --> 0:03:59.360 not just the thing you see in the mirror, whose 0:03:59.480 --> 0:04:02.760 voice you hear in your own ears, and whose effect 0:04:02.880 --> 0:04:09.040 you see in other people. That it's also the entire 0:04:09.680 --> 0:04:15.960 sense of moral obligation, guilt, shame, love, passion, all these 0:04:16.000 --> 0:04:19.960 things that animate us, and that drivers and I just 0:04:20.400 --> 0:04:24.400 feel very strongly that it won't survive after my heart 0:04:24.440 --> 0:04:30.400 stops beating, excepting other people's memories or recordings of this podcast, 0:04:30.760 --> 0:04:35.200 all the rest of it. And yet that that isn't satisfactory. 0:04:35.240 --> 0:04:37.760 It's still a mystery, and it is still the mystery. 0:04:37.960 --> 0:04:41.120 It's known in philosophy is the hard problem, the hard 0:04:41.240 --> 0:04:45.120 problem of consciousness, and people have come up with ideas 0:04:45.120 --> 0:04:48.440 that are crazy. I mean they're matrix like the universe 0:04:48.440 --> 0:04:52.000 itself is conscious. That there is a consciousness in the universe. 0:04:52.000 --> 0:04:54.640 And this is said by philosophers of great a clap 0:04:54.800 --> 0:04:59.679 in universities around the world. It just fascinates me because 0:04:59.720 --> 0:05:03.359 I good animals and I love animals. We have a sense, 0:05:03.440 --> 0:05:07.000 don't we. It's very hard to prove, but I think 0:05:07.000 --> 0:05:09.680 we prove it to ourselves in all the ways that matter, 0:05:10.480 --> 0:05:16.760 that animals don't share this particular quality of self consciousness. Yes, 0:05:16.800 --> 0:05:19.240 we've all seen a cat look a bit ruffled and 0:05:19.400 --> 0:05:23.039 embarrassed when it's fallen over, and it's sort of sort 0:05:23.080 --> 0:05:26.080 of proudly sits up, so you know, we impute very 0:05:26.680 --> 0:05:30.880 human ideas of dignity and self regard to certain animals 0:05:30.880 --> 0:05:33.080 that we live with closely. And of course animals that 0:05:33.120 --> 0:05:35.600 live with us closely mimic us in just as we 0:05:35.800 --> 0:05:40.160 mimic then, But the animal kingdom generally, I look, say 0:05:40.880 --> 0:05:42.880 this is the animal use because I'm so fond of them. 0:05:42.880 --> 0:05:46.760 But an Amazonian tree frog on a branch with that 0:05:46.920 --> 0:05:50.160 enormous grin on its face, and there's wonderful sort of 0:05:50.279 --> 0:05:53.680 silicon rubber fingers with a little round ends clutching onto 0:05:53.680 --> 0:05:58.880 the branch, And I see in that tree frog an 0:05:58.920 --> 0:06:04.760 animal that spends one of its time being a tree frog, 0:06:04.880 --> 0:06:10.080 achieving tree frog nous completely. And I am as certain 0:06:10.120 --> 0:06:12.280 as I can be of anything that it doesn't wake 0:06:12.400 --> 0:06:14.800 up in the morning thinking I was a terrible tree frog. 0:06:14.839 --> 0:06:18.159 Ust today I hate myself. Look what I did to 0:06:18.160 --> 0:06:20.680 to to my to Mrs tree Frog. Look Look how 0:06:20.720 --> 0:06:24.160 I ignored my children in any sense like that. And 0:06:24.200 --> 0:06:26.719 you laugh because it is of course preposterous to imagine 0:06:26.760 --> 0:06:30.840 a tree frog thinking that. But every single human being 0:06:30.839 --> 0:06:34.560 on earth does that all the time. We don't feel 0:06:34.640 --> 0:06:37.320 we are a hundred percent what we could be, and 0:06:37.400 --> 0:06:41.479 that's a most peculiar thing, a very very strange thing. 0:06:41.880 --> 0:06:44.479 If we accept that no animal has this sense of 0:06:44.760 --> 0:06:48.920 yearning to be better, yearning to have a greater moral force, 0:06:49.400 --> 0:06:52.719 yearning to to achieve more. Yes they want to have 0:06:52.800 --> 0:06:55.080 a full of belly. Yes they want to get their 0:06:55.200 --> 0:06:58.080 rocks off. Yes they want to protect that brood. Of 0:06:58.120 --> 0:07:01.640 course they have these urges instincts, but they're very clear, 0:07:02.120 --> 0:07:07.719 very evolutionarily and necessary and transparent as motives and energies 0:07:07.760 --> 0:07:10.800 as it were. But what philosophers called our deontic sense, 0:07:10.880 --> 0:07:14.160 this sense of obligation and moral purpose that we have 0:07:14.600 --> 0:07:17.800 within us. What the matter count said, this moral law 0:07:17.920 --> 0:07:22.360 within me. It's a very strong sense. And we can 0:07:22.440 --> 0:07:25.160 argue that it's all kinds of people do. There's a 0:07:25.200 --> 0:07:28.720 Freudian argument about it. There's a religious argument about it. 0:07:28.760 --> 0:07:31.920 There's all kinds of explanations for why we might have it, 0:07:32.080 --> 0:07:34.720 and they go back to Genesis. For Genesis is because 0:07:34.760 --> 0:07:38.480 they are the fruit. It's part of our particular evolution. 0:07:38.760 --> 0:07:41.320 It is it is something that evolved that the tree. 0:07:41.400 --> 0:07:46.040 For our gwen namic, I'm not evolving any moral nightmare. 0:07:46.920 --> 0:07:50.040 I'm not going to judge anything except how much I 0:07:50.080 --> 0:07:52.640 think I'm going to get to eat today. I feel 0:07:52.640 --> 0:07:55.240 like it's the gift and the curse that we carried 0:07:55.280 --> 0:07:59.000 on exploring. We carry it on growing, we carried on expanding. 0:07:59.120 --> 0:08:02.240 This speech is that we are part of and there 0:08:02.360 --> 0:08:06.440 is great joy on that, and there is awfulness in that. 0:08:06.640 --> 0:08:10.000 It's the experience. It's the will cut idea of learning 0:08:10.000 --> 0:08:13.360 to love the questions. Yes, no, that's right. We made 0:08:13.400 --> 0:08:16.560 at some point in our history what's some people called 0:08:16.600 --> 0:08:21.160 the cognitive leap, which involves both behavioral modernity. I think 0:08:21.280 --> 0:08:24.920 is the correct phrase for it, I tool making. So first, 0:08:24.960 --> 0:08:29.080 we started altering the environment around us to create objects 0:08:29.120 --> 0:08:31.960 and spaces that were useful to us in a way 0:08:32.000 --> 0:08:34.960 that was beyond animals. An animal might make a nest, 0:08:35.000 --> 0:08:38.360 but it's the same nest through the generations. That's how 0:08:38.360 --> 0:08:41.760 bluebirds make their nest. Whereas two different humans in just 0:08:41.840 --> 0:08:44.080 two generations can say, no, I'm going to build my 0:08:44.200 --> 0:08:46.440 nest like this and I'm going to use this, and 0:08:46.480 --> 0:08:48.839 another one will say I'm going to repurpose this whole 0:08:48.920 --> 0:08:52.040 in the ere I'm going to that's behavioral modernity, which 0:08:52.080 --> 0:08:56.480 is one branch of our evolution, and another, of course 0:08:56.840 --> 0:09:00.240 was language. But the big question, and part of the 0:09:00.280 --> 0:09:03.080 hard problem is did language come as a result of 0:09:03.120 --> 0:09:06.960 self consciousness or did self consciousness come as a result 0:09:07.000 --> 0:09:10.400 of language, which is what James would say, who wrote 0:09:10.440 --> 0:09:13.040 this fantastic Boo, which is a huge influence on me, 0:09:13.600 --> 0:09:17.199 called this is such a terrible title, that the origin 0:09:17.280 --> 0:09:22.680 of consciousness in the breakdown of the bicameral mind. I 0:09:22.720 --> 0:09:25.199 know it's an absurd title. I bet that doesn't come 0:09:25.200 --> 0:09:30.199 in a paperback. No, it's I think it's so inaudible. Okay, 0:09:30.240 --> 0:09:32.360 are you reading it, because I'll get it if you are. No, 0:09:32.480 --> 0:09:36.600 I'm not. I'd love to if it's but I'd recommend 0:09:36.640 --> 0:09:39.560 anyone to read it. It's not too tougher. It's beautifully written, 0:09:39.720 --> 0:09:41.560 and I'm not saying I agree with all of it, 0:09:41.600 --> 0:09:45.360 but it probably expresses these questions I'm trying to articulate 0:09:45.800 --> 0:09:48.520 better than any book I've ever read. And, like all 0:09:48.600 --> 0:09:51.360 things to do with learning, the more you know, the 0:09:51.559 --> 0:09:55.280 more filled with wonder you are, not the less explanations 0:09:55.320 --> 0:09:59.040 don't close down beauty and miracle, they open them up. 0:09:59.400 --> 0:10:02.760 That's my firm conviction. Another great here in mind, Richard 0:10:02.800 --> 0:10:06.440 Feynman had a fabulously famous not rant but sort of 0:10:06.520 --> 0:10:11.320 spiel about this where he's explaining to an artist why 0:10:11.400 --> 0:10:14.720 he finds a flower more beautiful than the artist does. 0:10:14.840 --> 0:10:18.640 And in fact, Fineman curse him was a wonderful draftsman 0:10:18.679 --> 0:10:21.440 that drew and painted fabulously, as well as getting a 0:10:21.480 --> 0:10:24.320 Nobel price physics and all the other things he did. 0:10:24.360 --> 0:10:27.520 But he explained how he had the sense of the 0:10:27.520 --> 0:10:31.160 flowers fragility, the beauty, the shimmering of the color, the 0:10:31.480 --> 0:10:35.240 erotic quality like someone like Mattlethorpe found in flowers, you know, 0:10:35.320 --> 0:10:38.000 all these things he could see. But then he also 0:10:38.320 --> 0:10:41.880 knew enough biology to have an understanding of the sepals 0:10:41.920 --> 0:10:44.680 and stamens and all the other But he could go 0:10:44.760 --> 0:10:46.960 deeper than that. He could look into the compillary system 0:10:46.960 --> 0:10:49.280 and see how the energy of the food and sugar 0:10:49.360 --> 0:10:51.559 and starches that were going from the ground, and how 0:10:51.600 --> 0:10:54.320 they were selected by the flowers roots and how they moved. 0:10:54.440 --> 0:10:56.360 And he could go deeper into that, and he could 0:10:56.360 --> 0:10:58.760 see the protons and the positives, and he could see 0:10:58.760 --> 0:11:02.720 the electrons. He see the whole miracle of the universe 0:11:03.200 --> 0:11:08.000 focusing its astonishing nature into the creation of a flower. 0:11:08.360 --> 0:11:10.880 And as he says, you know, we stop and look 0:11:10.920 --> 0:11:13.920 at a red flower? How is it red? When it's 0:11:13.920 --> 0:11:16.000 all very well to say it's DNA tells it to 0:11:16.040 --> 0:11:18.840 go red, But how does it then do it? It 0:11:19.000 --> 0:11:22.040 has to select out of the chemicals that are in 0:11:22.080 --> 0:11:26.240 the earth, only the ones which, when put together in 0:11:26.280 --> 0:11:30.200 its little factory, make the color red. If I took 0:11:30.200 --> 0:11:32.360 a handful of earth, I couldn't make a red diet 0:11:32.400 --> 0:11:35.719 of it, not as red as a dahlia. And it's 0:11:35.720 --> 0:11:39.000 two of the animals. All those colors come from the 0:11:39.080 --> 0:11:42.880 food and drink that they eat, energized by the sunlight, 0:11:43.000 --> 0:11:47.319 and and they can be that blue or that yellow, 0:11:47.880 --> 0:11:50.440 and they're just growing out of a garden in Dorking. 0:11:51.240 --> 0:11:54.560 You know, there's that color, and we don't even stop 0:11:54.559 --> 0:11:58.400 to think about where it actually comes from. It's fantastic. 0:11:58.600 --> 0:12:02.120 We are distracted. Yeah, And so I'd like to know 0:12:02.200 --> 0:12:04.240 why I'm aware of this. I'd like to know where 0:12:04.280 --> 0:12:07.680 my awareness comes from. I'm just so fascinated by it 0:12:07.720 --> 0:12:11.160 because it's so possible to live fabulous lives as a 0:12:11.200 --> 0:12:14.800 tiger can without it. I like that. I like that 0:12:15.040 --> 0:12:30.319 very very very very much. Can you tell me about 0:12:31.360 --> 0:12:36.040 one particular thing that has grown out of a complete disaster. 0:12:37.000 --> 0:12:42.400 Well yeah, I mean my whole life. Alan Cumming. I 0:12:42.400 --> 0:12:44.880 asked Alan this question and I said, so, so can 0:12:44.880 --> 0:12:46.680 you tell me something that's growing out of personal disaster? 0:12:46.679 --> 0:12:52.480 And he was like yeah, me, Well, yes, I've read 0:12:52.520 --> 0:12:55.680 his I read his incredible book about his father. I mean, 0:12:55.760 --> 0:12:59.000 the bottom man he is. He's such a fabulous Oh 0:12:59.160 --> 0:13:02.240 he's a man, amazing, he's amazing. But again, if you 0:13:02.240 --> 0:13:05.560 haven't read Alan Cumby's book, Not My Father's Son, heart 0:13:05.600 --> 0:13:09.240 wrenching and brilliant it is. And of course he's produced 0:13:09.240 --> 0:13:12.360 a line of fragrance. Yeah, of course he has. If 0:13:12.360 --> 0:13:15.079 your name was coming, you would want to advise people 0:13:15.160 --> 0:13:20.920 to spread coming all over their face when it's not 0:13:21.880 --> 0:13:26.800 tell me about growth and personal disaster. One of my 0:13:26.920 --> 0:13:31.040 passions was Sherlock Holmes at school, and I had been 0:13:31.120 --> 0:13:33.760 the youngest member of the Sherlock Holmbs Society of London 0:13:33.840 --> 0:13:37.160 and I got this request, not request, It was an 0:13:37.160 --> 0:13:40.480 invitation to all members to go to a meeting in 0:13:40.559 --> 0:13:43.080 London of the Shallockomb Society. And I was going to 0:13:43.120 --> 0:13:44.959 present a paper. I was going to do a talk 0:13:45.080 --> 0:13:49.160 on the correlation between T. S Elliott and Mariarty. Oh 0:13:49.160 --> 0:13:54.320 my god, yes, It was the fact that mccavity the 0:13:54.520 --> 0:13:58.040 Mystery Cat is directly based on Mariarty. A lot of 0:13:58.240 --> 0:14:00.960 not people hadn't noticed that, and I had. I didn't 0:14:01.000 --> 0:14:04.960 know that anyway, So so that was my big thing. 0:14:05.200 --> 0:14:08.920 And I got permission from my house master to go 0:14:09.080 --> 0:14:11.440 to London. People who read Harry Potter now what house 0:14:11.480 --> 0:14:13.840 masters are now, Thank goodness, they don't have to explain 0:14:13.920 --> 0:14:18.760 it's my Minerva McGonagle or whatever. My Severest Snape signed 0:14:19.040 --> 0:14:21.680 Maggie Smith. My Maggie Smith signed a chit so that 0:14:21.760 --> 0:14:23.720 I could go to London anyway. The idea was I 0:14:23.760 --> 0:14:26.720 go for this event, stay overnight, and then come back 0:14:26.760 --> 0:14:29.360 the next day. Well, the next day I went to 0:14:29.360 --> 0:14:31.120 the cinema. And in those days you could go into 0:14:31.120 --> 0:14:33.680 a cinema and sit there all day, and they just 0:14:33.760 --> 0:14:35.880 want to show the same film again and again. And 0:14:36.000 --> 0:14:38.680 I saw the film Cabaret again and again and again. 0:14:38.720 --> 0:14:41.440 It was absolutely overwhelmed by it. And then I went 0:14:41.480 --> 0:14:43.240 to the Sea the Godfather, and then I went to 0:14:43.280 --> 0:14:46.720 see Fritz the Cat, which was an animated adult cartoon. 0:14:47.040 --> 0:14:49.640 Rember that I was fifteen, but somehow I could pass 0:14:49.640 --> 0:14:52.000 his eighteen if I had quite my voice had just 0:14:52.120 --> 0:14:55.480 broken and it was quite deep. And anyway, I got 0:14:55.480 --> 0:14:57.840 expelled from the school. I was sent to another school, 0:14:57.840 --> 0:15:00.080 which I got expelled from, and then another one, and 0:15:00.080 --> 0:15:02.800 then I ran away to London, and then I stole 0:15:02.880 --> 0:15:05.600 some credit cards from a coach in a pub, and 0:15:05.840 --> 0:15:09.040 eventually I was caught by the police in Swindon, of 0:15:09.080 --> 0:15:14.520 all unromantic towns, and sent to a prison to await trial. 0:15:14.720 --> 0:15:18.560 How old were you by this time? I had seventeen 0:15:19.280 --> 0:15:23.280 a baby, yeah, I know, and you were sent a 0:15:23.320 --> 0:15:26.800 proper prison. Yeah. And I had spent this credit card 0:15:26.920 --> 0:15:30.680 over so many different counties that it took about two 0:15:30.720 --> 0:15:33.480 and after three months for all the paperwork to be 0:15:33.520 --> 0:15:35.920 assembled by the police for me then to go to 0:15:36.320 --> 0:15:38.680 a court. Now, because I'd run away from home, I 0:15:38.800 --> 0:15:41.120 originally not told them who what my name was because 0:15:41.120 --> 0:15:43.000 I didn't want my parents to get involved because I'd 0:15:43.000 --> 0:15:46.480 already called them enough trouble with all these expulsions. But 0:15:46.800 --> 0:15:49.880 eventually they found out who I was, and my parents 0:15:50.000 --> 0:15:51.920 got a friend of those who was a barrister to 0:15:51.960 --> 0:15:54.000 come and represent me when I was in court. And 0:15:55.000 --> 0:15:57.600 the fact that I've done three months in prison on remand, 0:15:58.200 --> 0:16:00.520 and that it was the first offense, and I guess 0:16:00.560 --> 0:16:04.000 that I had an expensive lawyer, which my parents tally 0:16:04.080 --> 0:16:07.120 wasn't charging. He was being a friend. Meant that instead 0:16:07.160 --> 0:16:11.200 of going down for two years detention center or Boston 0:16:11.400 --> 0:16:15.160 or anything like that young Person's Offenders institution, I was 0:16:15.200 --> 0:16:18.200 put on two years probation. And you can imagine the 0:16:18.240 --> 0:16:21.840 car drive home from Wiltshire to Norfolk, and that's just 0:16:22.120 --> 0:16:26.080 I mean. And my parents, you know, they're just wonderful, supportive, 0:16:26.120 --> 0:16:29.120 lovely people, and my mother never doubted somehow everything would 0:16:29.120 --> 0:16:32.200 turn out right, and my father was more taciturn about it. 0:16:32.240 --> 0:16:34.440 But they basically said it's up to me now. They 0:16:34.640 --> 0:16:37.640 put me through enough schools. And it was while I 0:16:37.680 --> 0:16:39.880 was in prison that something had snapped, and I think 0:16:39.920 --> 0:16:41.880 it was really that for about a month I was 0:16:41.920 --> 0:16:44.920 sharing a cell with this kid from Wales who was 0:16:44.960 --> 0:16:48.080 about sixteen and a half seventeen, was just a bit 0:16:48.120 --> 0:16:51.200 younger than me, and he couldn't read. He literally was illiterate. 0:16:51.360 --> 0:16:53.280 I had never seen anything. I just never occurred to 0:16:53.280 --> 0:16:56.160 me that someone would be and I taught him. I 0:16:56.200 --> 0:16:58.160 taught him the alphabet, I taught him to write it out, 0:16:58.200 --> 0:17:00.360 and I taught him basic words in that time. It 0:17:00.440 --> 0:17:03.640 was an extraordinary experience, and it hammered home to me 0:17:03.720 --> 0:17:09.240 like a sledge Hammond extraordinary, just how I had wasted 0:17:09.480 --> 0:17:12.600 these golden opportunities. Because you know, I'm not painting myself 0:17:12.600 --> 0:17:15.639 as some Francis of ASSISI or some albich fights. So 0:17:15.760 --> 0:17:19.840 you know, I wasn't suddenly turned into this humanitarian philanthropist. 0:17:19.920 --> 0:17:22.840 But I did see that my opportunities had been so 0:17:22.920 --> 0:17:25.199 much greater than anybody else's, and that it was a 0:17:25.280 --> 0:17:29.640 disgrace for me to moan inside and to think that 0:17:29.680 --> 0:17:32.320 the world was against me. I needed no more education 0:17:32.359 --> 0:17:34.480 than all of that, and so I said that if 0:17:34.480 --> 0:17:35.920 I get out, when I get out of this, I'm 0:17:35.960 --> 0:17:38.280 going to put myself through and get to university. And 0:17:38.320 --> 0:17:40.720 I'd always set my heart on Cambridge. A lot of 0:17:40.760 --> 0:17:43.240 my sort of hearers e m forced people like that. 0:17:43.640 --> 0:17:45.679 So I went to the library and took out past 0:17:45.720 --> 0:17:50.520 papers on Oxbridge Entrance and paid someone. I took jobs 0:17:50.640 --> 0:17:53.639 in restaurants and bars and things, and paid someone to 0:17:53.720 --> 0:17:57.760 invigilate because they didn't at the local college do Oxbridge Entrance. 0:17:58.359 --> 0:18:00.679 I paid him to invigilate, so he get the papers 0:18:00.720 --> 0:18:03.000 and make sure I wasn't cheating, and I'd hand him 0:18:03.080 --> 0:18:06.240 them and he'd send them. And my parents knew I 0:18:06.520 --> 0:18:08.240 was doing this and they were very supportive. So I 0:18:08.280 --> 0:18:10.640 was still living at home. And then I got fed 0:18:10.720 --> 0:18:13.600 up waiting for the results to come through my camidg entrance. 0:18:13.600 --> 0:18:16.000 So I went into Norwich one day and I was 0:18:16.040 --> 0:18:17.720 in a cafe and I told my mother, I said, 0:18:17.720 --> 0:18:19.840 I'm going in. If a letter comes for me and 0:18:19.880 --> 0:18:21.919 it looks as if it might be the results, you 0:18:21.960 --> 0:18:24.520 can open it and ring me at this cafe. And 0:18:24.600 --> 0:18:27.719 so she called. I was in the cafe with friends 0:18:27.720 --> 0:18:29.320 and I said, how did a letter I and she 0:18:29.320 --> 0:18:31.840 said no. I said, what are you calling me? She 0:18:31.840 --> 0:18:34.679 said no, it wasn't a letter. Was a telegram? Is 0:18:34.680 --> 0:18:38.560 it a telegram? What? My immediately feeling guilty, I've been 0:18:38.560 --> 0:18:42.600 found out about something, EXTRA said no, it says congratulations 0:18:42.680 --> 0:18:47.480 awarded scholarship Queen's College admissions tutor. I said, read that again. 0:18:47.960 --> 0:18:50.919 She read it again and not just got in the 0:18:50.920 --> 0:18:54.919 scholarsh And I said, slightly, making me cry remembering it, 0:18:54.960 --> 0:18:59.840 because it was those moments that there were the pivot 0:19:00.040 --> 0:19:03.520 which my whole life turned from from what had been 0:19:04.280 --> 0:19:09.080 failure and disgrace and sliding down into a sort of 0:19:09.119 --> 0:19:12.760 self pittying mess. I had just pulled myself up by 0:19:12.840 --> 0:19:17.040 by my fingernails in time, and then really going to 0:19:17.280 --> 0:19:19.880 Cambridge and as the same meeting Emma and then Hugh 0:19:20.119 --> 0:19:24.239 and loving it so much and feeling a part of it, 0:19:24.280 --> 0:19:26.840 feeling as if I belonged for the first time in 0:19:26.880 --> 0:19:30.159 a world where ideas were spoken about, and where I 0:19:30.160 --> 0:19:33.960 could perform and feel natural and be out. I could 0:19:33.960 --> 0:19:36.480 be gay and nobody minded. And so it was that 0:19:36.600 --> 0:19:40.639 it was being it was I presented as a cartoon 0:19:40.800 --> 0:19:45.320 of me lying face down on stone flags with straw 0:19:45.480 --> 0:19:48.400 and the shadows of the prisoner and a rat crawling 0:19:48.440 --> 0:19:50.800 over my back. It wasn't quite that bad, but you 0:19:50.840 --> 0:19:53.280 know what I mean, From that low point, it was 0:19:53.840 --> 0:19:57.520 a miracle that I was able, and fully aware that 0:19:57.560 --> 0:19:59.560 a lot of it was the advantage of my upbringing. 0:19:59.600 --> 0:20:01.640 But but I just don't think you can have one 0:20:01.680 --> 0:20:03.760 without the other. I just I don't think of it 0:20:03.760 --> 0:20:07.040 in terms of payment, that those hardships our payment for 0:20:07.080 --> 0:20:11.480 the good, but that they are inextricably linked. They are 0:20:11.600 --> 0:20:15.040 they are part of the same experience. I do wonder 0:20:15.080 --> 0:20:18.880 what happened to that Welshman who you taught to read. Yes, 0:20:19.040 --> 0:20:20.879 I lost touch with him. Of course, it must be 0:20:20.880 --> 0:20:23.199 funny for him to see you, because I'm sure that 0:20:23.240 --> 0:20:28.080 he's seeing you in his life. And yeah, they called 0:20:28.119 --> 0:20:30.600 me in prison, they called me the professor. That was 0:20:30.640 --> 0:20:33.680 my nick because I'm sort of new things and had 0:20:33.680 --> 0:20:36.959 read books. And I'm imagining you rather like Hugh Grant 0:20:37.000 --> 0:20:41.960 and Paddington too. I'd love to think I was a 0:20:42.040 --> 0:20:44.080 stylish but there was an element of that. And I 0:20:44.119 --> 0:20:47.600 also played the piano of the Sunday there were hymns, 0:20:47.680 --> 0:20:50.800 voluntary hymns in the association room, and I used to 0:20:50.840 --> 0:20:53.040 play the piano. And I'm not at all good, but 0:20:53.840 --> 0:20:56.080 you know, I'm a typical show off, so I you know, 0:20:56.320 --> 0:20:58.480 I learned these kind of our pagis and things. So 0:20:58.800 --> 0:21:02.480 I would end these ordinary hymns with this, these huge 0:21:02.800 --> 0:21:11.280 p edges, and then dumb, dumb the chaplain would look 0:21:11.280 --> 0:21:15.040 at me to check whether I'm finished. Very silly, but 0:21:15.240 --> 0:21:29.000 of course you know that fun in its way. So 0:21:29.680 --> 0:21:33.880 what would be your last meal? I love it because 0:21:33.880 --> 0:21:37.119 it's a pristing question, but it's also so fundamentally human. 0:21:37.720 --> 0:21:40.520 Yeah it is, isn't it. And I go two ways, 0:21:40.640 --> 0:21:42.480 and that strikes at the heart of what a lot 0:21:42.480 --> 0:21:45.160 of us are like. I think is that one part 0:21:45.200 --> 0:21:49.760 of me wants to say he had to vote ala 0:21:49.920 --> 0:21:54.720 Veronique or whatever, you know, some fantastic meal that I 0:21:54.840 --> 0:21:58.120 once had at the water side or the fat duck 0:21:58.240 --> 0:22:00.320 or some you know. And I've been lucky enough to 0:22:00.359 --> 0:22:03.440 have some great food in my time. But another part 0:22:03.440 --> 0:22:06.879 of me wants to say, I want beans on toast 0:22:06.920 --> 0:22:09.439 with a couple of poached eggs. Yeah, I want that 0:22:09.560 --> 0:22:12.199 right now, And yeah, I think I would probably go 0:22:12.280 --> 0:22:14.360 for that. And you know what once like that with 0:22:14.760 --> 0:22:17.360 music and literature, Do I want to listen to Wagner 0:22:17.440 --> 0:22:23.480 now or actually would just yeah exactly, with just some 0:22:23.480 --> 0:22:27.600 some silly, silly, charming music, do me quite happen it, 0:22:27.680 --> 0:22:30.359 but on the kinks, just for fun, you know. And 0:22:30.760 --> 0:22:33.000 the point is we're lucky because we can have both. 0:22:33.200 --> 0:22:35.560 I remember Richard Curtis set saying this to me, you know, 0:22:35.640 --> 0:22:38.160 the great writer of so many popular British films and 0:22:38.480 --> 0:22:40.800 of course a colleague of Roan's in the early days, 0:22:40.840 --> 0:22:43.800 and the found of comic Relief, and much as he 0:22:43.840 --> 0:22:46.480 has a passion for pop music, and in his youth 0:22:46.720 --> 0:22:50.359 he once it was possible. He recorded every single Top 0:22:50.359 --> 0:22:54.239 of the Pops and his close friend at Oxford with 0:22:54.359 --> 0:22:57.359 Rowan was Howard good All, the composer who wrote the 0:22:57.640 --> 0:23:00.960 Blackadder theme and the theme and other things that Richard 0:23:01.000 --> 0:23:03.640 had done, as well as many many other successful things. 0:23:03.680 --> 0:23:06.720 Is wonderful, talented manner, and of course he's also done 0:23:06.760 --> 0:23:09.800 documentaries about classical music for PBC two and Channel four. 0:23:10.359 --> 0:23:12.919 And I remember sitting in I was a bit junior, 0:23:12.960 --> 0:23:15.159 because I was two years below then when I was 0:23:15.200 --> 0:23:17.200 at Cambridge, and I've only just got to know them, 0:23:17.560 --> 0:23:21.400 and Richard was saying, how you know he was going 0:23:21.440 --> 0:23:25.240