0:00

Hello, I'm Ken Bruce. I appeared as a

0:02

guest on my time capsule, and

0:04

after that I had to give up a job I'd had for 46

0:06

years. Anyway,

0:09

they want me to tell you that

0:11

they've started a thing called Acast Plus,

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where for a small monthly fee you

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the best thing in it. That Fenton

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Stevens, he does drone on a bit.

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Anyway, whatever you like, do something and

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have a go at it. Acast Plus,

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0:44

Thanks. Bloody Ken Bruce, what a

0:46

cheek. As

0:49

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0:51

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Taxes and fees extra. Additional restrictions apply. See

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full terms at mintmobile.com. My

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name is

2:40

Mike Santee Stevens and My Time Capture is

2:42

the podcast where people tell me five things

2:44

in their life that they wish they had

2:46

in a time capsule. They

2:49

pick four things that they cherish and one thing

2:51

that they wish they could bury and forget. My

2:54

guest in this episode is the

2:56

wonderful Greg Jenner. Now Greg is

2:58

a public historian, an author and

3:00

a broadcaster. He hosts the chart-topping

3:02

BBC podcast You're Dead to Me, was

3:05

a key part of the multi-award winning BBC comedy

3:07

TV show Horrible Histories, being

3:10

solely responsible for the factual accuracy of

3:12

over 2,000 sketches and 150 plus comedy

3:14

songs. He

3:18

also was a key member of the

3:20

team on the BAFTA nominated film Horrible

3:22

Histories, the movie Rotten Romans and

3:24

is the author of four books. His

3:27

latest is a funny and colourfully

3:29

illustrated children's book called You Are

3:31

History, all about the global

3:33

history of 50 objects children might use every

3:35

day. Greg was the presenter

3:37

of BBC Radio 4's Path Forward, A

3:40

Century of Sound, the

3:42

BBC's award nominated children's podcast Home School

3:44

History and the

3:46

Audible series A Somewhat Complete History of

3:49

Sitting Down. He guessed

3:51

it four times on the award-winning QI podcast

3:53

No Such Thing as a Fish and

3:56

once on the Do the Right Thing podcast. And now

3:58

I'm getting a little bit of a break. I wanted

4:00

to say he's joining me to reveal

4:02

the five things he'd want in a

4:04

time capsule. So here is the brilliant

4:07

Greg Jetta. Greg,

4:12

my dear man. Hello. Hello,

4:14

how are you? There's you surrounded by

4:16

the enormous amount of work that you

4:18

do. Well, well,

4:20

some of it, yeah. Some

4:23

of it. I can't believe you found the time to do

4:25

this. I mean, I know you said you would, but

4:27

I thought to self, I can't imagine

4:30

that you're ever going to find a

4:32

spare hour in your day. Well, I

4:34

felt bad that I was always saying,

4:36

not now, later, now, later, maybe, maybe

4:38

later. But funny enough, actually, this sort

4:41

of post-Christmas lull, yeah, seems to have

4:43

been quite a good little spot for just popping in a

4:45

couple of fun things where I don't have to think. And

4:49

then suddenly, I had an email saying, you

4:51

just need four things. And one thing, and I was like,

4:53

Oh, no, I have to think. Oh,

4:55

no, sort of struck between rocking

4:57

a hard place on wanting to do a lovely jolly

4:59

chat, but at the same time, suddenly having to think

5:02

about what would I want to consign to future

5:04

hereafter. Yeah, I mean, really, it's just a

5:07

way of having a lovely jolly chat. Yeah,

5:09

nice. So don't feel any pressure. Okay. It's

5:11

amazing to have you on that. I'm an

5:13

enormous admirer of all the things you've done.

5:16

And I'm very jealous that you spent quite

5:19

so long working with the wonderful people of

5:21

horrible histories. Yes,

5:23

that was a real treat. I've

5:26

been to, I saw Richard Herring last night, and he

5:29

sends his love. Oh, lovely. Yeah, we went to see

5:31

him talking to Bob Mortimer. Oh, love

5:33

him. Yeah, I know. And he had

5:35

to explain that Bob Mortimer was a stand-in, and

5:37

most of the audience have bought tickets to see

5:39

Bill Bailey. And Bob Mortimer was saying, I'm really

5:41

sorry. I didn't know that. What?

5:44

You're joking. Yeah, that's not a

5:46

stand-in, is it? Not really. And

5:48

it's not an upgrade, because Bill Bailey is amazing. It's

5:51

like saying, oh, I really want to see Elvis. Oh,

5:53

no, the Beatles. Indeed.

5:58

Joy. It was fabulous. Yeah, Bob

6:01

is someone we have long tried to get

6:03

onto Your Dead To Me on the podcast

6:05

because I'm such an enormous, not

6:07

just fan of his work, but I just

6:10

hugely admire his, I mean I loved his

6:12

book, his memoir. Yeah. And

6:14

he seems to have found this sort of

6:16

national treasure status quite late in life, which

6:18

is quite nice. It's interesting, isn't

6:21

it? Ever since, in fact, he stopped working with

6:23

Jim. They sort of stopped,

6:25

didn't they? As if they stopped. And then somebody said

6:27

to him, Bob, do you fancy doing this? He said,

6:29

but all right, I'm free. Yeah. And

6:31

I guess it may be the health crisis thing,

6:34

maybe it's the fishing show, maybe it's simply that

6:36

we expect men of a certain age to

6:38

get increasingly more angry and touchy

6:41

and shouting at clouds. And

6:43

he seems to have got more cuddly

6:45

and more sort of warm and sort

6:47

of gently cheeky rather than... Yeah,

6:50

my son, John, who I think you know,

6:52

who's a friend of Seb, your brother. That's

6:54

right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Small world.

6:57

Tiny world. Small world, but I wouldn't want

6:59

to paint it. That's

7:01

a good joke. But

7:04

he was... It's interesting, he said that he'd

7:07

heard Bob talk about the fact that it

7:09

came as a surprise that it suddenly happened. And

7:11

actually, it was only when he was a

7:13

guest on Would I Lie To You? Oh,

7:16

yeah. He started talking and then

7:18

everybody started to roar with laughter at him. And

7:20

he thought, oh, I can be funny on my

7:22

own. Isn't that interesting? I

7:25

mean, what, three decades of being in a double act?

7:27

That must be so... I mean, obviously, you saw Richard

7:29

Herring last night, who was in a double act for

7:32

a long time, but has since been a solo

7:34

act for a long time. But when

7:37

you're so intrinsically attached to somebody else,

7:39

not just in terms of how the public sees

7:41

you, but in how you create, how you

7:44

perform, the dynamic that you put... If you've

7:46

got a buddy, to suddenly

7:48

not have the buddy must be so daunting.

7:51

Very weird. Yeah. And

7:53

you see that again and again with acts that have

7:55

done that. You look at, for example, Ernie Wise, who

7:57

sort of went, well, what do I do? I can

7:59

sing and sing. But actually in the history of

8:01

comedy, Only Wives is probably one of the

8:03

greatest set-up people in the world.

8:06

It's an amazing skill to say things in a

8:08

very serious way that Eric Wuncombe could knock down.

8:11

And again and again you see that. But

8:14

they sort of slightly underestimate their own skills, don't

8:16

they? That's interesting. And also Vic

8:18

and Bob, neither of them was the straight man. And

8:21

neither of them

8:24

were any sort of man. They kind

8:27

of innovated their own ludicrous dynamic,

8:29

but they're both just stupidly silly. But yeah, and

8:32

I think it's one of them. Listening to Bob

8:34

Memoir sort of explained a little bit about why

8:36

we haven't been able to get him on the

8:38

show. He said he's got a profound fear of

8:40

being made to look stupid. And he

8:42

says he finds it very anxious,

8:45

anxiety-making, to be in a room with people

8:47

who are cleverer than him. And it's such

8:49

a shame because A, he's obviously incredibly

8:51

clever, and B, obviously that's not

8:53

something we'd ever want to do. We always

8:56

want our guests to feel super relaxed and comfortable and

8:58

having a good time. And we've

9:00

chosen a guest to be with them

9:03

for a reason because it's almost matchmaking. You're

9:06

trying to put together two strangers to have a conversation, as

9:08

you're doing today, right? Well, but

9:10

I think you do it beautifully, really. I mean

9:12

it's very interesting how quite often the person who

9:14

becomes funny is the expert. And

9:17

the comedian is the person who's fascinated by

9:19

the facts. That's what I love about the

9:22

show. It's my favorite thing, is that historians

9:24

are – they're very similar

9:26

to comedians. And we never

9:28

assume that. We always assume that there would be

9:30

some sort of radical difference between them because on

9:32

the one hand, a historian is meant to be

9:34

studious and serious. And comedians

9:36

are meant to be silly and

9:39

flippant and clowns. But

9:41

obviously, if you know the history of comedy, you

9:43

know that the clown is often the truth speaker.

9:46

And actually, historians, often

9:49

you end up in that position because of deep

9:51

passion. You've committed your life to one

9:53

thing. One thing that happened centuries ago, no

9:55

one else cares. And for you, it's the

9:57

most important thing in the world. So

10:00

the fact that they are often funny off the cuff

10:02

or they are often passionate or people

10:04

want them to go, wow, that guy's so

10:06

amazing, she's incredible, isn't surprising to me because

10:08

this is someone who has spent

10:10

years trying to master the subject and then learn

10:12

how to communicate it to others. And

10:15

then if you put them in a room with someone

10:17

who's professionally funny and curious, which is what comedians are,

10:19

you're going to get a great conversation. And yeah, I

10:21

love the way that dynamic changes through

10:24

the episode and they both relax into

10:26

each other's company and I do much

10:28

less heavy lifting and I can

10:30

be a third wheel who's not needed sometimes, which is great

10:32

because I could just sit there and have a front row seat. I've

10:35

got all these facts. I don't need to

10:37

say them. Exactly. I've got a script

10:39

if I need it, but sometimes you just let them

10:41

have a chat. What a lovely idea. You don't think

10:43

about the idea that the fall in history has always

10:45

been the truth speaker. I think that's a great thing

10:48

to point out. The thing of Shakespeare, of Green

10:50

Lear, the fall and Feste in

10:52

fact in 12th century. Same

10:54

thing. And obviously that is

10:57

to a certain extent, something drawn from

10:59

actual history. You see it in certainly

11:02

in the kind of Jacobean court. There

11:04

was this notion of the jester

11:06

who was allowed to be a

11:08

lot more cheeky and subvert power

11:12

and there was a famous one

11:14

called Will Kemp, I think it was,

11:16

but there was this sort of understanding

11:19

that within the limits of decency,

11:21

the clown, the jester, the

11:23

fool could mock the

11:25

king, have a go at the queen,

11:28

raise his eyebrows towards

11:30

the latest religious policy,

11:32

king of bishop up the arse, all that sort of

11:34

thing. And it's a really

11:37

interesting dynamic that you see obviously in Inca

11:39

Medio De La Arte and it's sort of

11:41

classic theater. But I think

11:43

it's then gone into the tradition of the

11:45

sort of mid 20th century satire, you know,

11:48

the classic establishment club, Peter

11:50

Cook Dudley Moore, our idea of satire that

11:52

even now ends up with the Ian Hyslop

11:54

tradition of the righteous giggler

11:56

who is on the one hand very funny, on

11:58

the other hand. indignant with

12:01

rage. I think you find

12:03

that tradition going back to medieval

12:05

times, but obviously the comedic tradition

12:07

of comedy as a political tool is an

12:09

ancient Greek idea. And

12:12

you get that in the kind of Aristophanes plays,

12:14

which we don't have most of them, but we

12:16

have some, The Cloud is the most famous one,

12:18

but he's absolutely ripping the piss out of Pythagoras

12:20

and Socrates. And these men who were

12:22

known and were famous and were so important and

12:25

he's going, this guy, what an absolute bellend. And

12:27

that's 2,400 years ago.

12:30

So yeah, it's very strange,

12:32

isn't it? You've discovered now of course,

12:34

that actually the real dictators of recent

12:37

times have been even more skilled at

12:39

cutting that off. Yeah. That actually one

12:41

of the important things they do is

12:44

they either use their own form of

12:46

satire to ridicule a minority or

12:49

they cut off every other form of comedy.

12:51

Yeah. It's hard to have faith in modern

12:53

politics, I think, the state of the world.

12:55

But as a historian, we're meant to have

12:57

the roadmap. That's the thing is what you're

12:59

meant to, the argument is you study

13:01

the past and know the future. I just

13:03

don't think that's true anymore. I just

13:06

don't think, I mean, you definitely see cyclical patterns.

13:08

You definitely see there are loops and repeating echoes.

13:10

And I've seen things many times before and gone

13:12

the air. I know that one, but

13:15

I just don't think it's, I don't

13:17

think we're living in an era of

13:19

predictable events anymore. And I

13:22

think that's terrifying in some

13:24

ways. But yeah, we've

13:26

gone dark. You're right. No, no, no,

13:28

no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

13:30

no, no, you're

13:33

absolutely right, Greg. And therefore we

13:35

should look back. We should look

13:37

back as all sensible people

13:39

do and as you've done for your whole career.

13:42

Yeah. Yes. Look back in anger or look

13:44

back in glee. I can't tell. Yeah. I'm

13:46

mostly looking back with a giggle. That's mostly

13:48

my career. But yeah, yes. Well, it's a

13:50

fantastic career. So did you want

13:52

to talk to about anything that you've got coming out

13:54

at the moment? Oh, yeah. I mean, just I mean,

13:56

as a general thing that the new series of You're

13:58

Dead To Me is on there at the moment. Series

14:01

7, we've just had our

14:03

100th episode about the Bloomsbury Group which was

14:06

an absolute joy to record. We'll

14:08

be finishing the series with a live special

14:10

about Mozart. We'll be

14:12

joined by the BBC Concert Orchestra which is

14:14

incredibly exciting. We'll be playing

14:17

some Mozart tunes and that

14:19

series will continue with the Series 8 as well later in

14:21

the year. There are two versions of the show, there's a

14:23

longer podcast version which is an hour and

14:25

it's a bit naughtier and a bit ruder and a

14:27

bit swary and more detailed. There's a 28 minute radio

14:29

edit for Radio 4, they go out on

14:31

Saturday mornings and that one's got no swearing. So

14:34

if you've got kids in the car or you

14:36

don't want a long podcast, the 28 minute one

14:38

is sort of easier. But

14:40

yeah, you're dead to me on the BBC. Actually, you can

14:42

get it anyway, you can get it any podcast app but

14:44

that'll be lovely. And if anyone's

14:46

got kids, I write books for

14:48

adults too but I've got a brand new series of

14:50

children's books coming out in April. Book

14:53

1 is about ancient Egypt and book 2 comes

14:56

out in October about Rome and Britain and it's

14:58

called Totally Chaotic History. Fantastic.

15:01

I can't wait to see them. Thank you. So let's

15:03

look at the things that you're going to put into

15:06

a time capsule. Great. So what

15:08

do you want? Do you want one at a time or do

15:10

you want all four? No, let's do

15:12

one at a time and we'll see

15:14

what each one brings up in conversation.

15:16

So what's the first thing? First on

15:18

the list is my

15:20

favourite movie of all time. It is a

15:23

masterpiece of cinema. It

15:25

is incredibly funny. It's technically dazzling.

15:27

You can play it to anyone of any age

15:29

and they will be delighted by it because I

15:31

have done this because I have played it for

15:34

my then two year old, she's now four and

15:36

I've played it to all manner of friends and the

15:38

film is Singing in the Rain. Oh. And

15:41

it is... Has that worked for a two year

15:43

old? Oh, she loved it. Wow.

15:45

Absolutely adored it. She learned all the dance

15:47

routines, well, you know, as best as a

15:49

two year old can flailing her limbs. But

15:52

she knows lines in the movie, she

15:54

knows the classic umbrella

15:56

scene, she knows, you know, make him

15:58

laugh. Yeah,

16:02

it's an astonishingly good piece of

16:04

filmmaking in every direction.

16:07

And I bang on about it all the time. I'm

16:10

always talking about this film and I'm sure people are

16:12

sick of hearing about it. But I

16:14

just think it's incredible. I just think it's

16:16

an incredible movie, made

16:18

in 1952 I think off the top of my head, but

16:21

I think it's one of those extraordinary films that should not

16:23

work. Because it's

16:25

a lazy jukebox musical. They

16:28

did take tunes from other shows, didn't they?

16:31

And put them together. They not just took

16:33

other... So it's the producer took his

16:35

own tunes. So

16:38

he remunitized his own back catalogue.

16:40

Brilliant. It's the

16:42

Mamma Mia of the 1950s. It literally is.

16:45

And they took songs from the 1920s

16:48

and they took songs from his back catalogue and

16:50

they mushed them together. And he said to the

16:52

two screenwriters, the movie plot needs

16:54

to involve a man singing in the rain. That's

16:57

it. That's your mission. It's

16:59

to write a movie where a man sings in

17:01

the rain. Go. And

17:04

from that incredibly cynical position of a

17:06

Hollywood producer saying, right, what we need

17:08

here is a sort of lazy cash

17:10

cow that remunitizes work I've

17:13

already done. In fact, there's

17:15

only I think there's only one original song

17:17

in the movie, which is itself a complete

17:19

ripoff of an existing movie called Be a

17:21

Clown. Make him laugh. I

17:23

love the song Make him laugh. It's a total ripoff of

17:26

Be a Clown. Who does Be a Clown? I

17:28

think it's Cole Porter. But

17:30

when you listen to them too, side by side,

17:32

it's an incredible ripoff. Like, you know, like no

17:34

judge in the land is letting you get away

17:36

with that one. So

17:39

this is a movie that's completely compiled

17:41

out of spare parts with

17:43

the cynical undertaking of like, let's just make a movie

17:45

with Gene Kelly in it. And it's got to be

17:47

about a man who sings in the rain. So from

17:49

that from that starting position, you're going, oh my God,

17:52

this is going to be so kind

17:54

of devoid of creativity or innovation. But

17:57

where you end up is a film about film about

17:59

film. It's an

18:01

extraordinarily clever, funny, still

18:04

observation of the film industry of the 19... Well,

18:07

it's about the coming of sound. So it's

18:09

about the invention of sound cinema in the

18:11

1920s whereby the studio suddenly realized this new

18:13

technology is going to revolutionize cinema and suddenly

18:16

the actors have to learn how to speak.

18:18

But also you get these sort of

18:20

transitions in the filmmaking process where the

18:23

hierarchy of the set changes because suddenly

18:25

the guy who does the sound becomes

18:27

the king. Yeah. The director is no

18:29

longer the king. The sound guy is

18:31

the king. He's the guy who... So you

18:33

get this kind of fascinating subversion of the

18:35

ranks. But the movie

18:37

is about the making of a movie

18:39

musical called Singing in the Rain. Well,

18:42

called the Dancing Cavalier actually.

18:45

So it's a sort of movie within the movie. That's

18:47

the character that Gene Kelly is famous for, isn't it?

18:50

In movies. That's it. Yeah.

18:52

He's famous for being this swashbuckling character. So it's in a

18:54

way, it's Errol Flynn, isn't it? Right. He'd

18:58

already been in The Musketeers. So he'd

19:00

already done a swashbuckling movie. And

19:02

so he's playing an American actor who

19:04

has himself climbed the greasy

19:06

pole from kind of being a kind of

19:08

low rent vorville hoofer and then low rent

19:11

stuntman who did any stunt that you needed

19:13

doing. He'll crash your plane for you. He'll

19:15

go into a burning building. He'll fall off,

19:17

he'll get punched off a bridge, whatever. Doesn't

19:19

matter. He climbs the ladder and ends

19:21

up as a star. He's then paired

19:23

with Lina Le Mont, the kind of major female star of

19:26

the age, who's obsessed with him and thinks that

19:28

she's in love with him because she's read it in

19:30

the fan magazine. So there's sort of these incredible jokes

19:32

in it about the kind of the

19:34

falseness of Hollywood, the artifice.

19:37

The film itself is a movie about you

19:39

should not trust anything you see on screen.

19:42

It's all fake. All the relationships between the

19:44

stars, the set behind them, the cars they're

19:46

driving are fake. The songs aren't real. Nothing

19:49

is real. Stop putting so much

19:51

stock in this as, you know, stop caring

19:53

so much about this thing. Yes. It's

19:56

a movie. Of course you care. You deeply care.

19:58

You're obsessed with Gene Kelly. You want them to

20:00

get together. Debbie Reynolds is playing the star. She's

20:02

so young in that film. It's just 19, 13

20:05

movies. She's just

20:07

beautiful and wonderful in it. And

20:09

that's the person you fall in love with. You fall in love

20:11

with her relationship with Jean Kelly. She's

20:14

the girl who in the end looks

20:16

as if she's being used because she's

20:18

the voice of the star who can't

20:20

do it. She does that amazing scene.

20:22

I can't stand it. I can't stand

20:24

him. Yeah, yeah, it's incredible. But

20:27

obviously if you know the movie, you know that the

20:29

irony is that Jean Hagen, who plays Lina

20:31

Lamont, so Jean Hagen, this wonderful actress

20:33

with this gorgeous voice, plays this actress,

20:35

Lina Lamont, who talks like that from

20:37

New Jersey, and who has

20:40

this sort of horrible grating voice not

20:42

suitable for sound. But Jean Hagen dubs

20:44

Debbie Reynolds. But Debbie Reynolds

20:46

is playing a character who's dubbing Jean

20:48

Hagen's character. Oh, I didn't know that.

20:50

That's amazing. So it's this incredible thing

20:52

where the actress playing

20:54

the person who can't sing is the

20:57

one dubbing the actor playing the character

20:59

who can sing. So

21:03

singing in the rain is this sort of

21:05

inception-level movie about movies, about movies. And

21:08

it's also so interesting as a document

21:10

on the film industry of the 1950s.

21:14

Yeah, this is a time when Gene Kelly

21:16

was a superstar and MGM was incredibly successful

21:18

in lucrative. But very soon after, it all

21:20

fell apart. Yeah. You know,

21:22

he had maybe five, six, seven more years

21:25

of A-level fame before his career started to

21:27

fall away. And he became almost a nostalgia

21:29

act. So this is him at sort

21:32

of his very enormous peak of

21:34

creativity. You know, he co-directs the

21:36

movie. He choreographed the movie. He

21:38

is so innovative. It's an extraordinary,

21:40

I keep saying extraordinary, but it

21:42

truly is jaw-dropping how clever it

21:44

is. The dance routines are just stashing.

21:47

Well, good morning is one of the greatest

21:49

dance routines has ever been done. It's incredible.

21:51

And make him laugh. You know, I learned

21:54

as a kid, as a teenager almost, I

21:56

learned to do the somersaults off the wall,

21:58

the Donald O'Connor does. where

22:01

it eventually goes through the set. And

22:03

that's it, right? The

22:05

rule of three in comedy, better than me, but the

22:07

rule of three is that your punchline's

22:10

on the third beat. So you

22:12

go one, two, gag. And

22:14

in Make Him Laugh, Donald O'Connor

22:16

does this amazing slapstick routine that

22:19

was written for him, was choreographed for him by

22:21

Gene Kelly because Gene Kelly knew Donald O'Connor was

22:23

a hoofer. He knew that he was a vaudeville

22:25

comedian who had been in a

22:28

family kind of traveling act, doing

22:30

slapstick and knockabout. And Gene Kelly was like, well,

22:32

let's use it. And

22:35

that's an amazing, Gene Kelly was a hard,

22:37

difficult man, apparently. He was a taskmaster. He

22:39

had no sense of humor. He

22:41

was sort of quite fierce. Fred

22:43

Astaire apparently as well. Yeah. Maybe

22:46

that's where people get to that sort of

22:48

height through that determination. Maybe you're

22:50

right. But for a man who's renowned for his

22:52

comedies, Gene Kelly apparently didn't have a sense of humor at all.

22:55

He had to be told how to be funny. But

23:00

he was wise enough to say, well, look,

23:02

I'm not going to take all the limelight.

23:04

Let's give set pieces to other people too.

23:07

So you've got this incredible array

23:09

of acting talent doing great gags.

23:11

Lina Lamont is a very funny role. She

23:14

gets loads of jokes in it. And Donald

23:16

O'Connor gets so many gags and then gets this

23:18

amazing slapstick number, Make Him Laugh, where

23:20

he does the somersault off the wall.

23:22

So he runs up one wall, does a backflip, runs

23:24

up the other wall, does a backflip, runs up the

23:27

third wall, goes through the wall. And

23:29

it's an amazing thing because it's all in one

23:31

take. So much of that song is hardly any cut

23:33

in it. He never gets out

23:35

of breath. It's astonishing. He's so

23:37

fit. I mean that Make

23:40

Him Laugh, somersault, Make Him Laugh,

23:42

somersault, Make Him Laugh, smash. Smash,

23:44

yeah. It's perfect. I think

23:46

he was hospitalized doing it. But I think it's... I

23:49

mean, because there's no stunt performer

23:52

there. He's just... He's throwing

23:54

himself into the floor, into the walls. He's

23:58

wrestling with a dummy. kind

24:00

of an amazing piece of physical comedy. So the

24:02

reason I want to put it in a time

24:04

capsule is because I think it summarizes a huge

24:08

amount of our cultural legacy and the

24:10

way we engage with art and

24:13

popular movies and popular culture. It

24:16

satirizes it and it also

24:18

represents it. So it's this

24:20

sort of, it's a kind of prismatic movie. You can

24:22

look at it from different lens, different angles and the

24:24

light shines through at a different angle and you sort

24:26

of go, oh, hang on, is it

24:28

a satire? No, it's not a satire. Is it telling

24:30

it straight? No, it's not. No, it is a satire.

24:33

It's a satire. Hang on a minute. No, that bit's

24:35

straight. So there's this sort of, there's a cynicism to

24:37

its creation, you know, jukebox musical makes the money. There's

24:40

this incredible execution of quality where

24:43

it is hands down the best musical ever made, you

24:45

know, and arguably the best movie ever made. It's often

24:47

in the top sort of five best ever movies, but

24:50

it's commenting on Hollywood of the 1920s.

24:53

But at the same time, it's clearly commenting on Hollywood

24:55

of the 50s. And in

24:57

so doing, what you're actually seeing is

24:59

in many ways, a really subtle

25:01

and thoughtful analysis of

25:03

where we've ended up now with

25:06

popular culture and fan culture and

25:08

celebrity culture and the

25:10

dynamics of what's called parasocial intimacy,

25:13

where fans think they know

25:15

the stars. But it's a

25:17

one way conversation. It's a one way relationship. You

25:19

know, we know everything about our favorite actors and

25:21

our favorite sports people and our favorite politicians, and

25:23

they don't even know our name. Yeah. And they're

25:26

sort of in balance. And so

25:28

I wrote a book about four years ago, probably

25:30

called Dead Famous about the history of celebrity culture.

25:33

And yeah, while writing it, I just realized that

25:35

singing in the rain is so

25:37

much better than it has any right to be. But

25:40

it's also so perceptive on where we've got

25:42

to now in 2024. It's

25:45

already spotting so

25:47

many of the rhythms of fan campaigns,

25:50

of cancellation, of marketing of stars believing

25:52

their own hype of studios cynically moving

25:54

in one direction because all the others

25:56

are not sort of, you know, that

25:58

kind of herd mentality. Yeah, it's

26:01

very very perceptive on all sorts

26:03

of really cute clever little quirks

26:05

that you when you start to notice them You

26:08

start to see them in singing in the rain

26:10

And so although it feels quite dated because it's

26:12

a 1952 movie about the 1920s about 1926 Actually,

26:16

I think it's incredibly forward-thinking So

26:19

I think if you pop it in a in

26:21

a time capsule and come back, I

26:23

suspect it will still feel relevant Hmm, I

26:25

hope yeah strangely enough. I watched it again

26:27

quite recently I did you just

26:29

because I like you love it and I realize

26:31

I hadn't seen it for many years and I

26:34

was astonished at how brilliant it is that

26:36

every moment of it is overwhelmingly

26:39

skillful and That

26:41

centerpiece which strangely is the thing that almost

26:44

the one thing you haven't spoken about That

26:47

centerpiece of him dancing in the

26:49

rain. He all right. Yeah, just

26:51

really beautiful It's incredibly beautiful

26:53

and obviously it is icon You know, we use

26:55

the word iconic now to I mean these days

26:57

we talk about iconic sandwiches and I could you

26:59

know We use it in such a

27:01

sort of lazy like what an iconic performance, you

27:03

know, like Sorry,

27:06

and I tend to get a bit like well

27:08

icons are quite specific form of Byzantine art, but

27:10

still I Think singing

27:12

in the rain the dance routine is

27:14

iconic. I think it actually is such

27:16

a Specifically

27:18

well beloved but also frequently

27:21

mentioned or referred to piece

27:23

of dance But you see

27:25

it in adverts you see it in other

27:27

movies you see it in Parody

27:30

in in love letters. It's

27:32

this incredible set piece where a man in

27:34

love doesn't mind that it's raining It's a

27:36

really simple metaphor, you know, it's not complicated.

27:38

He's in love. It's raining. He doesn't need

27:40

his umbrella You know he's fashioned about in

27:42

the puddles because he's like a big kid

27:44

But the way they light it the way

27:46

they film it the way he choreographs it

27:48

and of course he danced it with a

27:50

sort of Incredibly terrifying fever, you know, I

27:52

think he was again his

27:55

hospitalizer Thanks soon after with hypothermia or pneumonia or

27:57

something other and he was really poorly but

27:59

it's just just this effortlessly light

28:02

playful thing. And yeah, my little girl, you

28:04

know, when she was two, immediately took to

28:06

it, just automatically saw it once and was,

28:08

you know, went off to fetch

28:11

her little umbrella and come back and started doing it.

28:13

And you just sort of, I

28:15

don't think you can generate that

28:17

sort of beauty easily. And

28:20

that's why I mean, when I say that singing

28:22

the rain should not work, what

28:24

I mean by that is that when you look

28:26

at the cast and the crew, it is incredibly talented people

28:28

in every department. So it's not like

28:30

they've hired a bunch of hacks, but

28:32

it shouldn't have the resonance and the

28:34

elegance and as you say, the romance

28:37

at the heart of it works. You

28:39

do feel, you come out feeling euphoric,

28:41

but also loved up and whatever, but you've

28:43

also giggled your ass off for an hour

28:46

and a half because there's so

28:48

many gags in it. So it's

28:50

just, it's so incredible in

28:52

its execution. And the only

28:55

film that comes close for me in terms of

28:57

the should not work is a masterpiece. For me

28:59

is the Lego movie, which I realize

29:01

is a very different, but the

29:03

Lego movie should not work. It is a sort of,

29:05

you know, lazy tie-in by a toy company saying, we've

29:07

got this brand, can you do something with it? Yeah,

29:09

okay, we'll do a movie, I guess. And

29:12

you end up with one of the sort of funniest, most inventive,

29:14

brilliantly animated, brilliantly scripted, brilliantly voice acted,

29:17

masterpieces of modern cinema. Right, I've not

29:19

seen that on half an hour book.

29:21

It's so funny. It's like people have

29:23

said to me that the Mario Brothers

29:25

film recently. It's great.

29:27

Yeah, it's really funny. Yeah. But

29:30

then I saw Wonka the other night

29:32

and with lots of people you'll know

29:34

in it. Yeah, I loved Wonka. It's

29:36

just fantastic. It's gorgeous. Simon Farnaby has

29:38

this ability to somehow be

29:40

very straightforward and hardly do anything, but

29:42

really tug at your heartstrings. Yeah,

29:45

there's something about, I mean, obviously that whole

29:47

gang, you know, I had the incredible privilege

29:49

of working with him for five years on

29:51

horrible histories. And actually I hadn't really met

29:53

Simon. He's quite quiet. He's quite

29:55

shy. He's a lovely guy, but he's not

29:58

the big clown that you might assume. is because

30:00

he's often playing the kind of manic, bloody

30:03

batty one on screen. In

30:05

reality, he's actually quite

30:07

demure and peaceful and polite and sort of

30:09

quiet, you know, hello. But

30:11

the sort of first time I probably had to chat with him, or

30:14

at least work with him, we were both dressed

30:16

in chain mail. And he was

30:19

William the Conqueror. And I was his

30:21

dancing squire. And we had to do

30:23

a sort of dance routine, improvise a dance routine. We didn't

30:25

have any choreographer, we just had to improvise a dance routine

30:27

for Horror history. So this big song where we did all

30:29

the kings and queens of England in a row from 1066

30:32

through to Queen Elizabeth. And

30:35

it's one of my most famous songs. It's

30:37

very long. And if you watch the

30:39

thing closely, you can see me and William

30:41

the Conqueror, me and Simon Farnaby, doing

30:44

this sort of ridiculous dance routine that we've

30:46

had to improvise ourselves. And

30:48

it's sort of the first time I'd really met him properly.

30:50

And this was quite awkward to

30:52

be like, Hello, I'm Greg, I'm the historian. Shall

30:56

we try some sort of elbows out, knock me

30:58

kind of Cockney dancing? How about, you know, if

31:00

we link arms and no see

31:02

dough? I mean, yeah, quite strange. But to

31:04

watch Paddington, Paddington 2. I mean, Paddington 2.

31:06

Yeah. I mean, if you made me

31:08

fight it out, I'd probably say Singing in the Rain is my

31:10

favourite movie all the time. But Paddington 2 might be up there.

31:13

And they've all rediscovered the skill of Hugh

31:15

Grant. That's the great yes, but also Hugh

31:17

Grant as the kind of baddie. He's so

31:19

good. He's so good as the baddie, isn't

31:21

he? He's such a he's such a delightful

31:23

grump. The same as the Oompa

31:26

Loompa. He's brilliant in it. He steals the film,

31:28

I think. Yeah, it's just

31:30

a one. It's a lovely, lovely movie. And it

31:32

should have got more BAFTA Awards or BAFTA nominations.

31:34

But yeah, Lego movie, check it out, Mike, because

31:36

I will do. But I'm also going to

31:38

I'm going to waste some time. As people say,

31:41

but it's not wasted. I'm going to watch it

31:43

again. I'm going to watch Singing in the Rain

31:45

and just indulge myself with skill of it and

31:47

the beauty of it. Good. Thank you very much.

31:49

That's a fantastic thing. That's number one, Greg. That

31:52

is number one. Yeah, what's number two? Right,

31:55

it's ad break time. So We'll be back. After

31:57

the ads that may or may not play in

31:59

the. This gas which will be a

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34:25

Welcome back. How was your individual

34:27

ad break? Fun, I hope. Still, let's get

34:29

back to Greg Jenner and see what else

34:31

will come up as he puts his things

34:33

into a time capsule. Well,

34:36

number two is quite

34:38

different, really. Number two, the

34:41

concept of Twitter when it was good. Happy

34:44

days. Can I put that in? You can

34:46

indeed. It's a sort

34:48

of in effusively delightful

34:50

but mysterious thing. The

34:55

reason I'm putting it in is Elon

34:57

Musk has made it terrible and I can't

34:59

stand that man. But

35:02

also it's been so important to my career, but

35:05

it's also been so important for me

35:07

just as a person individually as someone

35:09

in the world. I

35:12

think Twitter is amazing when

35:14

it works as a

35:16

place for bringing people together with

35:18

like-minded perspective or in the same

35:20

community. It's also an

35:22

incredible place when a story

35:24

breaks, a political story or

35:26

a slightly unusual news story.

35:28

You just see these extraordinarily

35:30

quick-witted people react just

35:33

in the instant with gags

35:35

and puns and memes. Within five

35:37

minutes, someone has knocked up a

35:39

Photoshop of

35:42

a wanted poster or they found a

35:44

way to subvert whatever has been put

35:46

out. What

35:49

I loved about Twitter, and now it's

35:51

been tarnished and damaged, was

35:53

this sense that you were part

35:55

of something. It was a kind

35:58

of organic crowd. And

36:00

the we'd all gathered that each twitter quite self

36:02

selecting in a you very much a crowd. Not

36:04

a mob can be a mob and it couldn't

36:07

be a Muslim is more more becoming a mob.

36:09

That's the problem I think can a new and

36:11

that's it was a problem is know any any

36:13

place where people gather can become a mob. and

36:15

yeah I'm in. There are always going to be

36:18

places. A on the white

36:20

guy on the white middle class guy

36:22

on of it I I I don't

36:24

get one percent of the abuse the

36:26

people of color, women, trans people and

36:28

gay people get. You know, I'd Muslims

36:31

Julia, You know, I'm very very privileged.

36:33

So I have always had a nice

36:35

time on Twitter. even when it's toss,

36:37

I'm very aware that and lots of

36:39

friends whom Twitter is not pleasurable. So

36:42

I guess what I'm saying when I

36:44

say I want to put the the

36:46

concept the Twitter is good in it.

36:49

Will I mean by that is what's

36:51

with the could be known as very

36:53

what it is what it was. but

36:56

my brother on the good days where

36:58

you saw everyone just sort of. The

37:01

kind of just that was thrilled by

37:03

the awareness that we will all their

37:05

together just going. While have you heard

37:07

this thing? I know everyone's doing gags,

37:09

never of the punch lines and everyone's

37:11

doing means and jokes but with the

37:14

people thus of throwing in you know

37:16

they're finding videos from twenty five years

37:18

ago in going reminds me of this

37:20

thing and he got all you remember

37:22

that man that that ability I think

37:25

just for strangers who connects over ideas

37:27

stuff. the thing that know what the

37:29

social apps or platform. can do instagram

37:31

can't see why does know facebook is

37:34

dreadful ideas because to get his to

37:36

so static and so close in his

37:38

his little com in some places have

37:40

been switzer was in of was an

37:43

amazing engine before getting people to argue

37:45

and sometimes this argument become incredibly heated

37:47

and a nasty and horrible and trolling

37:49

i completely understand that and that's why

37:52

some people say to twitter and they

37:54

want to be honest but it also

37:56

with this amazing place for me as

37:58

a historian to, I mean, I

38:00

follow 10,000 people on Twitter. I'm still on there.

38:02

I'm not calling it it's called x now but

38:05

only losers call it x. I'm going to Twitter.

38:07

Always with a brackets Twitter next

38:09

to it. Always. It's a complete

38:12

failure. Called again. Totally, totally. But

38:14

I followed 10,000 people on there. Probably about 7000

38:17

female historians, I'd reckon.

38:20

And I can get any question answered in half an hour. Anything,

38:22

anything at all. You know, what

38:24

kind of hats people wear in Japan in the 1240s? I can get answered

38:28

in the afternoon. And it's just what an amazing

38:30

network. One extraordinary thing that you could spend your

38:32

whole life desperately. You know, when I was, you

38:34

know, I'm 41. So when I was young, if

38:37

you wanted to know something, you get to look

38:39

it up in an encyclopedia. And

38:42

then along came the internet. And suddenly you could

38:44

maybe look it up on an online encyclopedia. Okay,

38:46

great. And then Wikipedia and you're like, Oh, this

38:48

is good. But Twitter, I could

38:50

literally talk to the expert who wrote the

38:52

Wikipedia article or, you know, like I could

38:54

get anything answered. Yeah, which is a you

38:56

know, working on horrible histories where I was

38:58

the, you know, the only guy doing the

39:00

history research for the first five series. You

39:03

know, I was in charge of the history of the world,

39:05

I could get anything answered. So if I if I didn't

39:07

know if something was true or not, I just asked an

39:10

expert, yeah, hi, sorry, I'm working on horrible histories, would you

39:12

mind and they'd be like, Yeah, no worries. Here it is.

39:15

And it just was amazing for that. But

39:17

also it was, you know, I grew as

39:19

a person, I got better as a person,

39:21

because I read other people's experiences. And I

39:23

became more aware of what it

39:25

was like to not be me. Because I

39:27

was living in a little bubble. I was

39:30

a little, you know, I was working in

39:32

TV, I was a, you know, grammar school,

39:34

educated white guy who had very limited life

39:36

experiences. And just to be able to read

39:38

the experiences of other people in the same

39:40

country, or some different countries of

39:42

different backgrounds, different heritage, different

39:45

training, different interests, different gender

39:47

class, all of that. And

39:49

sometimes it's useful to see the

39:51

bias in other people, actually, I think sometimes

39:54

when you see the vitriol, it's

39:56

important to know that it's there and to wonder

39:58

where it came from, I think. Yes,

40:00

and you can see people get radicalized

40:02

and you can see people lose their

40:04

minds and become monomaniacal and obsessed.

40:07

And that's really sad sometimes, but also grimly

40:10

fascinating, I think, to see someone start from

40:12

a position of being fairly

40:14

broadly open-minded and then they get increasingly

40:16

more and more dogged and start

40:19

to lose perspective. And sometimes they're on the

40:21

right side, they're chasing the right cause, but

40:24

there is a sort of embattled nature

40:26

to Twitter. It's

40:28

hard to be on Twitter a long time and not

40:30

be at war constantly. I'm very lucky

40:32

that I've never really had that experience because I'm

40:34

just not wired that way. I'm

40:36

very uncomfortive. I'm a sort of terrible

40:40

fence sitter is probably the sort of polite

40:42

way. But it's

40:45

not a position of cowardice. I'm

40:47

just naturally very woolly.

40:50

I'm just very floaty, floppy, just like, well,

40:52

let us all just be friends. And I

40:54

suppose really you sort of go, that's

40:57

what history would have taught you. And the study of

40:59

history is, I can tell you this

41:01

is a fact. And next year, I'll tell you that

41:03

it's not a fact. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's

41:06

very true. And that's one of the things that's

41:08

funny about Twitter is people, the certainty. There's so

41:10

many people who are certain on Twitter, whereas I

41:12

spend my life realizing it's hard to

41:14

be certain about anything. But yeah, I think

41:17

I want to put the concept of good

41:19

Twitter into the time capsule because I think

41:21

for a little while, it was this definitely

41:24

not a utopia, definitely not to kind of house

41:26

young. It wasn't a kind

41:28

of academia, ancient Greek meeting of minds

41:30

philosophy arena. But

41:32

it was a place where every day something would make

41:34

me laugh. Every day something would

41:36

change my mind. Every day I would

41:38

learn a new thing. Every day I

41:41

would make a new friend. And

41:43

that's an amazing thing, right? To have a place,

41:45

you know, a place you don't have to pay

41:47

to and you know, it's free, doesn't cost me

41:49

a thing to just go there and every day

41:51

to have your mind changed. And to maybe, yeah,

41:54

I've got really good friends who I've met on Twitter. And

41:56

I say when I say really good friends, I mean came

41:58

to my wedding. I regularly hang

42:00

out, call them up on the phone and say, how

42:02

are you doing friends? And yeah,

42:04

I met them through Twitter. That's how we first

42:06

met. And what I loved about Twitter, what I

42:09

found extraordinary about it is I've met, easily I've

42:11

met hundreds and hundreds of people. I probably into

42:13

the thousands now of people I've met through Twitter

42:15

and then met them in real life. They're

42:18

always exactly as I assume they will be.

42:20

Yeah, yeah. They're never a surprise. They're

42:22

never a shock. It's never like, oh, I

42:24

thought you'd be kinder or less. They're

42:28

always exactly that. And I think

42:30

that's what I find interesting about Twitter is that

42:32

yes, Twitter can be a nasty, horrible, squatted

42:35

place of infighting and brutality

42:37

and closed-mindedness. It absolutely can.

42:40

But you can also get a sense of someone

42:42

on Twitter. It's quite hard to mask who you

42:44

really are. And I

42:46

think when people meet me, they often go, oh,

42:49

you're shorter than I thought. And I'm like, yeah,

42:51

yeah, I am a lot shorter. Skinny,

42:53

I sort of look like a human weasel. But

42:57

they often meet me and go, I know you

42:59

from Twitter. And what they mean by

43:01

that, I think, is they know me from Twitter. It's

43:03

not that they know me off Twitter. They've

43:06

already got a sense of my personality

43:08

off Twitter. I'm an idiot. I do

43:10

puns and jokes. I tend to

43:12

react to serious things in a sort of slightly

43:15

flippant way sometimes as a coping

43:17

mechanism. But also I have an interest in

43:20

all sorts of things. I think if

43:22

you're a historian, it helps to be

43:24

interested in everything. And so I

43:26

take an interest in as much as I can. And

43:29

if I'm not interested in something, I'll sometimes try and

43:31

figure out, why aren't I interested? Maybe

43:34

I should be. And I'll try and convince myself to be

43:36

interested. So I'll give most things

43:38

at least two, three attempts before I go,

43:40

nah, no, it's not for me. And

43:43

Twitter was very good at that because every day

43:45

I'd be exposed to new things. And sometimes

43:47

I'd look at them and go, what's this? I've

43:50

never heard of this. And so you're learning new

43:52

words, you're learning new phrases, you're learning new ideas,

43:56

things like event skills, things like behavior switching, things

43:58

like mental Chosen Things. somebody

44:00

will say something aggressive or

44:02

nasty towards you and you can very quickly

44:05

divert that by saying, so I

44:07

did, I mean look at my timeline, do I look

44:09

like the sort of person who enjoys this sort of

44:11

conversation? And they'll usually write

44:13

back saying, no, sorry. Yeah,

44:16

yeah, I've, I don't think I've ever

44:18

had a Twitter argument. Maybe

44:21

I'm not doing it right. No, no, no,

44:23

I mean, in a way that's how it would

44:25

be perfect if everybody just went, okay, look, you

44:27

say your thing and if I disagree with it,

44:29

I'll just move on. Yeah, I mean, of course,

44:31

of course, there are points of principle where you

44:34

absolutely vehemently believe in something and someone is saying

44:36

something, you say, no, I absolutely do not, I

44:38

fundamentally disagree with you. But there comes a point

44:40

where you just have to back away because that

44:42

person is not going to change their mind or

44:44

they sometimes they're there just to piss you

44:46

off. But sometimes they're just to rile you up. You know,

44:48

that's the fun for them. That's what trolling is. But

44:51

I think I've always found Twitter as a place

44:53

where I guess quite early

44:55

on I went in going, I'm open to

44:57

what you want to say and I'll listen.

45:00

And if you convince me, well done. And if you

45:02

don't convince me, I'm not gonna turn against you or

45:05

declare war. I just you know, there are people on

45:07

there who are literal fascists, I'm never going to engage

45:09

with them. But if there are people in

45:11

there who I disagree with, I'll read what

45:13

they say, and I'll think about it. And

45:15

I'll ponder it. And I probably won't engage

45:17

because I don't have time. But sometimes it's

45:20

helpful to just check in and go, do

45:22

I still believe what I believe? Is that

45:24

position? Has my position changed? Has their position

45:26

changed? No, still where I am. Okay, I'm

45:28

still I still fundamentally believe in this. But

45:30

yeah, I think Twitter for me was a place where

45:33

every day I changed my mind. And every day I

45:35

learned something new. And that to me is an incredible

45:37

privilege. And you know,

45:39

that's what universities for that's what you're meant to go

45:41

to university for to go and study and to learn

45:43

and to learn to be wrong and then be right.

45:46

And Twitter was kind of like that. Now I,

45:48

I realized it's a very personalized experience for me.

45:51

And I'm really aware that that's not universally shared

45:53

by most but no, but that's what it is

45:55

because it would be nice if the world

45:57

could see it and go, Oh, you know what, it can be

45:59

this way. And I also worry that quite

46:02

soon Mr Musk will just destroy it in

46:04

such an enormous way that people will go,

46:06

I can't do this anymore. And that's sad.

46:08

It'd be sad to lose it. You're right.

46:10

It can be a wonderful place. You

46:12

can. And it's already so damaged and so many

46:14

people have gone already, which is really sad. But

46:17

yeah, I mean, you just, you see,

46:20

I don't know, the Prime Minister puts out a statement

46:22

and you just see people immediately respond and you sort

46:24

of go, yeah, I think he maybe, maybe he's

46:26

not going to win the next election because you could just see people

46:28

are like, this guy can

46:30

just get in the bin. He's, you know, we're

46:32

not tolerating anymore. That's a nice thing to see.

46:34

Yes. So let's put that in as a second thing then,

46:37

Greg. Okay. Wonderful. Number

46:39

three. Number three on the

46:41

list. Right. I'm going to put in

46:43

a song that I adore by

46:46

a band that I do not adore. Now,

46:49

I don't know if this

46:52

is a sort of strange thing to do, but

46:55

I couldn't tell you more than five of their songs. If

46:58

you put a gun to my head, I could probably get to seven. But

47:00

the band is diastrase and

47:02

the song is Sultan's The Swing, but

47:05

it's a live version. So it's

47:07

Sultan's The Swing from the live

47:09

alchemy gig. And this song is

47:11

really meaningful to me. It's really

47:13

important to me. And

47:16

it was kind of transformative

47:18

in my youth, I think. And

47:21

what I love about it is it's obviously

47:24

a personal thing. I think it might

47:26

be the greatest live performance by musical

47:28

acts of all time. I mean,

47:31

there's bands I love more. You know, there's many

47:33

bands I love more. There are many bands. You

47:35

know, I know the names of the members, for

47:37

example, whereas Mark Knopfler and other people is how

47:39

I know diastrase. But this

47:41

particular live performance is

47:44

just incredible. And

47:46

it's such a stupid song. It's

47:49

a song about nothing, really. It's a song about some

47:51

guys who are in a band. So

47:54

it's not Romeo and Juliet, another song I do

47:56

know. It's not a love song. It's not a

47:59

political... Credegere. Did you hear

48:01

it just on the album or were

48:03

you there? So no I was

48:05

not there for my time I think. I don't know when

48:07

it was recorded. I mean as I say I don't know

48:09

anything about that. Well

48:11

I don't blame you. Money for Nothing, Solvents of

48:14

Swing. That's about it. I think that, god there

48:16

must be another song. Brothers in Arms, that's a

48:18

song isn't it? Brothers in Arms yeah. Okay all

48:21

right. I think it was my dad's LP but

48:23

I was asking, I asked him about it recently.

48:25

I said to him, oh do you remember when

48:28

you played that Solvents of Swing track all the

48:30

time and he was like, oh that's not my

48:32

LP. I was given it by someone and

48:34

so I just sort of played it for a bit

48:36

and so in my head, in my sort of memories,

48:38

it's like my father's favorite album and

48:41

he's like, no I borrowed it

48:43

for like a week or something and just

48:45

put it on for a bit. Because I had a limited amount

48:47

of time to listen. Yeah and he just, I

48:50

think maybe some people just hand it, I can't remember

48:52

who it was. They just went, have a listen to

48:54

that, what do you reckon? And so in

48:56

my head, I've sort of turned it into this sort of edifice

48:59

of my childhood. This sort of, you know, kind of like

49:02

a tablet on a mountain of

49:04

Moses saying, behold. But of course that is

49:06

what music is. I mean, it is not

49:08

just the music, it is where you heard

49:10

it, who you were with, what it reminds

49:12

you of. Yes exactly. Of course

49:14

music is memories isn't it? It's the

49:16

power of nostalgia and the sense memory

49:19

and of who you were. Which is

49:21

why sometimes you go back and listen

49:23

to music from your youth and you

49:25

can be transported back and it's very

49:27

priestly and sometimes you're not transported at

49:29

all because you've changed and

49:32

the music hasn't changed and you're like, oh no.

49:35

That happened to me just last night Greg.

49:37

Oh really? Yeah I heard while sitting in

49:39

an audience, the music was playing, on came

49:42

Don't Go Breaking My Heart, I'm John

49:44

Kiki Dee and as a young

49:46

man, I know exactly where that takes me, that

49:48

song. And it reminds me of

49:50

something very powerful, but actually I listened to it

49:53

for the first time in a long time and

49:55

thought, what a dreadful song. Poor

50:00

Elton. Yeah, I

50:02

don't think I've had that level of

50:04

vault fast change. But what's interesting is

50:06

I went back and I listened to

50:08

the Salt and Swing live version maybe

50:10

a year ago. Just to check. I

50:12

was like, is he as good as

50:14

I remember? It's better than I remember.

50:17

And the reason I've chosen it is

50:19

that I am not a musician. But

50:22

when I was 13, my brother, my

50:24

younger brother, who knows your son, he

50:27

started doing classical guitar lessons at

50:29

school. And he's five years younger than me.

50:31

So I was 13, he was eight. And

50:34

he sort of brought a guitar into the house. And

50:36

I had never had a musical instrument in the

50:38

house. My parents are not musically trained. You know,

50:40

they like music, but only as you know, people

50:42

who listen to music. I grew up

50:44

on the Beatles and I grew up on my parents

50:46

music. I didn't buy my own CD till I was

50:48

14 probably. So

50:51

I totally grew up on like 60s and

50:53

70s rock, rock and roll the Beatles and stuff like that.

50:55

And said brought a classical guitar

50:57

into the house. And I went,

50:59

huh? This is something I'm interested in.

51:02

I picked it up and started filling about

51:04

and he was learning classical guitar. That's not

51:06

what I was going to learn. I was

51:09

going to try and teach myself rock guitar, you know, the

51:11

music I like. And I just

51:13

remember my dad put on Dire Straits,

51:15

Salt and Swing, the album that I

51:17

thought he was obsessed with and clearly

51:20

wasn't obsessed with at all. He clearly

51:22

wasn't even that bothered, but he just

51:24

popped it on. And I just remember

51:26

being electrified, transfixed, astonished

51:28

by this particular piece

51:30

of music. I don't remember

51:32

any of the other songs. I could not tell

51:34

you what the other songs are on the album. I'm guessing Brothers

51:36

in Arms and Remy and Juliet is probably on there. But all

51:39

I know is that Salt and Swing, the live

51:41

version 10 minutes is on there. And

51:44

it's got this feral

51:46

magnetic, hypnotic energy

51:48

to it. The drummer has

51:50

clearly taken an awful lot

51:52

of cocaine. He's going, he

51:54

is drumming so hard and

51:56

so fast and so big.

51:59

Like it's. he's doing

52:01

huge fails massive symbol crashes

52:04

like the song on the album the recorded

52:06

one is sort of quite gentle groove to

52:08

it is sort of you know it's it's

52:10

it's almost a country feel to some of

52:12

it is almost it's almost a twang yeah

52:14

you're right there is a sort of not

52:16

quite jazzy but country is kind of the

52:19

vibe. The live version is he's

52:21

i mean i don't know yeah i don't know what

52:23

he's taken but he's had a good time cuz

52:26

he's going for it. I love your music isn't

52:28

it now i did read you like i need

52:30

to have a metal heavy metal metal and about

52:32

like thrice i heard yeah so

52:34

i love the band thrice i love the

52:36

band machine head and i grew up on

52:39

metallic car. I like other bands

52:41

you know the radio head and all sorts of

52:43

things that i like loud heavy guitar music songs

52:45

of swing was the first time i

52:47

heard rockified had led zeppelin and all sorts

52:49

of things but that was the first time

52:51

i heard live band who were so in

52:54

sync that they drag the audience with them.

52:57

I need to sort of form of mesmerism like

52:59

this this incredible energy in the room you can the

53:02

way they might stop. They sound

53:04

brilliant they sound absolutely brilliant all

53:06

the instruments sound incredible beautifully live

53:08

mixed. Mark Knopfler sounds great

53:10

but he's got this very sort of casual

53:13

like hey i'm lovely chocolate talk talk things

53:15

doesn't it does yeah which is quite it's

53:17

quite interesting cuz it feels quite conversational. You

53:19

can hear the audience you can hear them

53:22

whooping and clapping and they're in perfect time

53:24

with the band which is so rare cuz

53:26

audiences usually are rubbish no funny audiences away

53:28

out and someone's at the back clapping in

53:30

the wrong time this audience clearly die straight

53:32

this audience are musos cuz they're all

53:35

they're all in perfect time. But

53:37

the band they've got this sort of section

53:39

in the middle where the band slows right

53:41

down and plays the refrain slow and quiet.

53:48

Like that and it just sort of slow and slow and

53:51

slow but it's build and it builds and it builds and

53:53

it builds and suddenly there's a keyboard there and then suddenly

53:55

the bass kicks in and then suddenly the guitar kicks

53:58

in and then suddenly and then Mark Knopfler's doing this.

54:00

this ludicrous solo that I still for this day cannot

54:02

play. And I

54:04

just remember being hypnotized by it and staring

54:07

at my brother's little classical guitar going,

54:10

how do you make those sounds? But

54:12

also how do you make those sounds in a

54:15

way that makes me feel like this? Because when

54:17

I make the sounds, I don't feel

54:19

like that. It's just sound, it's, you know, da

54:21

da da da da da. I don't feel anything.

54:24

I just remember being transported into a

54:26

different spine-tingling, you know,

54:28

down the spine level of chills

54:31

of like, this feels more

54:33

than music. This feels like a spell. This

54:35

feels like I've been hypnotized or I've been

54:38

bewitched by a band

54:40

at the absolute pinnacle of their powers. And

54:43

it's weird because I still know nothing about diastrates

54:45

and I couldn't tell you anything else about them,

54:48

but that one song, I

54:50

just think it's incredible. I wonder how often

54:52

they achieve that in their careers. I

54:55

suspect it might be the best they've ever played

54:58

because I feel like that album, I

55:00

tweeted about it a year ago or so and people were

55:02

like, oh my God, yeah, that album is, that's

55:05

the one. And I was like, okay, maybe this

55:07

is it. Maybe this is the absolute apogee of

55:09

their skills. I know they're quite

55:11

rucious as a band. They fall out of it and I

55:13

don't know if they're still together,

55:16

but that one song is

55:18

10 minutes of absolute joy. But

55:20

also going back to it, I realized that

55:22

song was so important to me because it

55:24

inspired me to pick up a guitar and

55:26

start teaching myself. I've never had a lesson

55:28

in my life, but I taught myself guitar.

55:31

And I then joined a band with mates at

55:34

school and I was cripplingly shy.

55:36

I was incredibly shy. I could

55:38

not talk to strangers. I was absolutely terrified

55:40

of public speaking. And by joining

55:42

a band, I had to then perform, the

55:45

first in front of your mates. When you write,

55:47

I was writing songs. You write a song, you've got to show your mates.

55:50

That's performing. Then they're like, yeah, that's quite good. All right,

55:52

we'll play that. Then you can perform in front of strangers.

55:54

Terrifying. Then I ended up as the front man because our

55:56

singer left and they were like, all right, Greg, you did

55:58

it. And I was like, oh God. So

56:01

suddenly I'd gone from being someone who could not, I

56:03

couldn't do anything, I couldn't pick up a phone, I

56:05

was so scared. Suddenly I was fronting

56:07

a band and it was so

56:09

important to my development. There's absolutely no way

56:11

in hell that I end up in this

56:13

career if I don't pick up

56:15

a guitar at 13 because the guitar was

56:18

my gateway into having to learn to be

56:20

a part of a gang,

56:22

part of a group, a band, but

56:24

also learning to perform, learning to

56:26

tell stories. When you write a song

56:28

you're telling a story and you have to learn structure. Where

56:31

does the song start? How does it end? Where are the

56:34

high pits? Where are the kind of refrains, the choruses, the

56:36

bits that are euphoric? Where are the bits that sort of

56:38

slow down? When you write a book you

56:40

realise you're writing a song. The

56:42

easy thing when you're writing a book is just

56:45

to start at the beginning and just start writing.

56:47

But it doesn't work. What you're writing is something

56:49

that's got a rhythm to it and it's got

56:51

to have peaks and troughs and it's going to

56:53

have exciting bits and slow down bits. I

56:56

suddenly found myself quite recently saying I learned

56:58

to do podcasts and I learned to write

57:00

books by listening to Dire Straits because of

57:02

that 10 minutes of glorious audio where they

57:04

slow it down and they bring the audience

57:06

with them and then they gradually speed it

57:08

up and they bring the audience with them

57:10

and then they suddenly they're at their absolute

57:12

pump and the audience is absolutely in the

57:14

moment with them and everyone is unifying going

57:16

this isn't the best night of our lives.

57:19

That's storytelling and you can

57:21

apply that to anything. You can apply that

57:23

to filmmaking, podcast, salesman, you

57:25

know you can keep selling a car, selling

57:28

a house, whatever. If you're telling a story you

57:30

have to modulate and introduce

57:32

ideas and then reinforce them and

57:34

then subvert them and surprise and

57:36

then finish on a high note.

57:39

I learned it from Dire Straits. Right. Well

57:42

we'll try and finish on a high note

57:44

but in the meantime you're absolutely right and

57:46

it's a wonderful thing and also that thing

57:48

of performing and suddenly realising some people are

57:51

going to like it, some people aren't but

57:53

actually it doesn't hurt me particularly if they

57:55

don't. I'm all right. I'm going to have

57:57

a go and learning that confidence through all

57:59

that. that. That's absolutely fantastic. So yeah, let's

58:02

put songs of swing by Dire Straits. I

58:04

never thought they would go in. In

58:06

they go. They're

58:09

not cool anymore, are they? They're not cool. But

58:12

not really. And also as a fan of

58:14

heavy metal saying, that's definitely

58:16

not cool. You've absolutely blown it.

58:19

I have. I've shredded all of my street

58:21

creds. But I didn't want to

58:23

lie about it. For me, that's

58:26

the moment. Fantastic. So we've got two

58:28

left. We've got one good one and one

58:30

we want to get rid of. Okay. You

58:33

choose. The good one, this is

58:35

a very cheap piece of technology. I have

58:37

some very, very crap little headphones that

58:39

are made by the company JVC. They're called

58:42

JVC Marshmallows. They cost £8.99.

58:45

They are really bad audio quality, but

58:48

they're really, really squishy and

58:50

soft. And they fit in

58:52

my ear perfectly when I sleep. And

58:55

the reason I've gone for them is because

58:57

I'm a chronic insomniac. And I have been

59:00

since 14. Since

59:02

Dire Straits, clearly. I had chronic insomnia

59:07

my whole life. And it was really,

59:09

really bad in my 20s. And

59:11

I'd often go three days without sleep,

59:14

which was maddening and very difficult trying

59:16

to hold down a job. I was

59:18

doing this incredibly high level, very, very

59:20

difficult show, horrible histories where I was

59:22

the only historian. So having

59:24

to be incredibly precise about facts and figures

59:26

and being totally sleep deprived for days on

59:29

end. And that was

59:31

massively debilitating and life changingly bad. And

59:33

in my late 20s, it got so

59:35

bad. I was on

59:37

the verge of taking my own life to

59:39

be honest. I was very, very ill. And

59:43

the thing that sort of

59:45

saved me was podcasts. Because

59:48

I can't switch my brain

59:50

off at night. I just can't disengage

59:52

it. I can't. I

59:54

can't put pause on ideas. They

59:57

just bounce around my head. sleep

1:00:00

to me was just this hated

1:00:02

it. I hated going to bed because it was

1:00:04

so terrifying to daunting because I knew I wouldn't

1:00:07

get any rest. And I knew my brain wouldn't

1:00:09

let me relax. And I grew

1:00:12

to fear it and loathe it and it became

1:00:14

it came almost a punishment to

1:00:16

go into bed became like a jail sentence, which

1:00:19

is you know, really difficult when you're in a relationship with

1:00:21

someone and you're like, should we go to bed? It's late.

1:00:24

You know, let's let's go sleep. And I'd be like, no,

1:00:26

no, no, I can't. I

1:00:28

absolutely can't. I was scared of sleeping.

1:00:31

Because I wasn't sleeping, you know, ironically. And

1:00:35

then podcasts started to come out about 10

1:00:37

or 11 years ago, they started to go

1:00:39

a little bit mainstream, and I started to

1:00:41

come across them a bit. And

1:00:43

I suddenly realized this was the key.

1:00:46

This was the secret. I,

1:00:48

you know, I don't respond to meditation or

1:00:50

hypnosis mindfulness, it doesn't work for me at

1:00:52

all. I've tried and I can't the

1:00:55

thoughts out outwind the kind of the lack

1:00:57

of thoughts. They you know, they're much more

1:00:59

muscular think about this one thing. No, I

1:01:01

can't. Sorry. Yeah. But

1:01:03

what I can do is tune myself

1:01:05

into someone else's thoughts. And

1:01:08

let them take me somewhere else. Right.

1:01:10

And so what I found is that

1:01:12

by listening to people speaking

1:01:14

quietly for about three hours, I would

1:01:16

start to fall asleep. And

1:01:19

so those podcasts were speech

1:01:21

podcasts, often politics and philosophy,

1:01:24

cell biology, astrophysics,

1:01:28

engineering stuff I don't know much about.

1:01:32

And by choosing those sorts of things, either

1:01:34

I'm learning something new, because I can't sleep

1:01:36

and so okay, I'm spending three hours learning

1:01:38

about cell biology, great. Or

1:01:40

I just go, I don't know anything about cell biology, I'm

1:01:42

going to sleep. So

1:01:44

either way, it worked out either way, I was either

1:01:46

I was either learning something new or I was drifting

1:01:48

off. And the thing that

1:01:51

made that possible with these very, very

1:01:53

cheap crap little squishy headphones that

1:01:55

can fit in my ear and never fell out,

1:01:58

never fall out. And they are not

1:02:00

uncomfortable to it. You can sleep on them, head

1:02:02

on the pillow with the earpiece in

1:02:04

and you don't feel it. There's no

1:02:06

discomfort. And I wake up every morning

1:02:08

with their headphones still in. I only

1:02:10

have one in just in case my

1:02:12

daughter cries and I have to sort

1:02:14

of run to her, but one's enough.

1:02:16

So very low volume, very low speaking

1:02:18

voices. I can't do comedy shows because

1:02:20

there's too much laughter and too much

1:02:22

energy. One is, ideally what

1:02:24

you want is three people discussing, you know,

1:02:26

the Republican primaries or someone

1:02:29

trying to explain the concept of

1:02:31

the universe, you know, the physics of

1:02:33

it. And that is what works for

1:02:36

me. So these super duper cheap, crappy

1:02:38

little headphones, marshmallow JPCs, life

1:02:41

changing for me, possibly life saving. Yeah, so

1:02:43

brilliant. Because it is one of those things.

1:02:46

People may disregard it, but actually like

1:02:48

pain, the lack of sleep

1:02:50

can eventually drive you to distraction to the

1:02:52

point where as you say, you feel what's

1:02:54

the point? Yeah, I mean,

1:02:56

it's a torture. I mean, literally, this

1:02:58

is what horrifically was done to people

1:03:01

in Guantanamo or wherever CIA black, black

1:03:04

sites, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah,

1:03:06

keeping people awake against their will is a

1:03:08

form of torture is is

1:03:10

horrific. And the consequences are really

1:03:13

interesting. For me, I, I

1:03:15

tend to get giggly. So

1:03:17

in some ways, it's quite helpful. In

1:03:20

my 20s, I was working on a

1:03:22

comedy show, and I was hysterical most

1:03:24

of the time. And I mean, that

1:03:26

literally, I mean, I was I was

1:03:28

having fun, but I was like, I

1:03:30

was in a completely almost manic, almost

1:03:32

manic state, which meant

1:03:34

that I was very receptive to comedy ideas of very, it's

1:03:36

like being in an improv group and being very yes and,

1:03:39

except you're yes, and in yourself, you know, sort of

1:03:41

slightly manic energy. But obviously, yeah,

1:03:44

over time, it just was devastating. And

1:03:46

and very, very hard to explain to

1:03:48

people very hard to explain to my

1:03:50

partner very hard to explain to my family.

1:03:52

They're like, just go to sleep. It's like,

1:03:54

I can't, I can't, I cannot get to

1:03:57

sleep. I've tried everything hot bars, warm bars,

1:03:59

cold bars, bars, exercise, not exercise.

1:04:01

I've tried all the herbal remedies,

1:04:03

everything like that. And

1:04:05

it's just my condition. I'm just, this is who

1:04:08

I am. And it's still kind of that way.

1:04:10

I still go to bed at 2am every night.

1:04:13

And any earlier than that is a real

1:04:16

roll the dice. I

1:04:18

remember the first time somebody on

1:04:20

Twitter, interestingly enough, as we go full circle

1:04:22

in these things, somebody

1:04:24

tweeted me to say, thanks

1:04:27

very much for your podcast. I always go to sleep

1:04:29

to it. Oh, I love that. Yeah. Yeah. At the

1:04:31

time, I thought I wrote back saying, Oh, thanks very

1:04:33

much. And they went, No, no, it's

1:04:35

lovely. It really relaxes me. No, we get a lot

1:04:37

of that. And you're dead to me. And then people

1:04:39

say I go to sleep with your voice in my

1:04:41

ears. I'm like, that is, for me, that is such

1:04:44

a beautiful thing to hear. Well,

1:04:47

you know, yeah, I mean, I wouldn't

1:04:49

listen to our show because it's a comedy show. And

1:04:51

so it for me, it would not work.

1:04:54

But I'm so grateful that it has

1:04:56

a place for other people. And I

1:04:59

was able to make a show that has meaning.

1:05:01

Because for me, many people's shows have meaning, you

1:05:03

know, and to be part of that continuum, part

1:05:05

of that tradition, and to be able to be

1:05:08

the voice in someone's ears, incredible privilege. It's so

1:05:10

you know, that's what's lovely about podcasting. That's why

1:05:12

I enjoy about your show is, you know, it's

1:05:14

lovely to hear people, and to

1:05:17

listen and to, to just focus

1:05:19

on something that isn't your own

1:05:21

thoughts. And podcasting is

1:05:23

very intimate. It's different to radio

1:05:25

radios on radios always on,

1:05:28

you know, you turn on the radio, something's happening,

1:05:30

turn off the radio, it's gone. But podcast, you

1:05:32

choose, you opt in, you select

1:05:34

it, this is what I want right now. This

1:05:37

is the volume level, I'm gonna skip

1:05:39

that bit, fast forward, listen on 1.5

1:05:41

speed, you know, it you get to

1:05:43

have autonomy over it. Yeah,

1:05:45

even when you're listening to someone else's ideas,

1:05:47

or something that's heavily scripted, or, you know,

1:05:49

you're not in control, but actually, you are

1:05:52

in control. And for me, podcasting

1:05:54

has become my career, but actually, in some

1:05:56

ways, it saved my life, which

1:05:58

is fabulous. fabulous.

1:06:02

We've all got a set of headphones like

1:06:04

that. Actually the ones that we bought in

1:06:06

a station or we haven't got any headphones

1:06:08

and then to discover these are the perfect

1:06:11

headphones. How fabulous. How lovely for you. That's

1:06:14

a gorgeous thing to put in. Thanks Greg.

1:06:16

Thank you. I'm delighted that you've found a

1:06:18

solution as well. Thank you. Yeah I am

1:06:20

too. And I go through them

1:06:22

one set per year because when you sleep on

1:06:24

them you tend to rip them. The body weight

1:06:26

tends to sort of pull the little socket out

1:06:28

from the actual wire. Yeah. They are a sort

1:06:30

of ongoing expense but I think I can just about afford £8.99

1:06:32

a year. Fantastic.

1:06:37

So sadly just one thing that you want to get rid

1:06:39

of but maybe this is a good thing. We can clear

1:06:41

this from your life. I struggled

1:06:44

then. I mean I really struggled on this one

1:06:46

because to a certain extent

1:06:48

everything has contributed to who I am

1:06:50

and I don't really want to erase

1:06:52

memories or well to be honest the

1:06:54

sleeplessness means that actually I do have

1:06:56

a lot of erased memories. I have

1:06:58

real struggles remembering where I was for

1:07:01

several years of my life. Which

1:07:03

is weird because I have a really good memory

1:07:05

as a historian. I can do facts and figures

1:07:07

and dates and names from all over the world

1:07:09

quite easily. I read you sat in a room

1:07:11

with Stephen Fry with him throwing dates at you.

1:07:13

Now that's terrible. That was really daunting.

1:07:16

That was a horrible history. So we

1:07:18

did the TV show spin-off for BBC,

1:07:20

for the kind of grown-up BBC audience

1:07:22

and Stephen became our rat you know

1:07:24

and Stephen's an incredible man and the

1:07:26

clapperboard was throwing out random

1:07:28

dates. Like you know when you put the

1:07:31

clapperboard scene 12 take 6 whatever

1:07:33

so 1206 and he'd be like Greg what happened

1:07:35

in 1206 and I'd

1:07:37

be like oh god. So he was doing that

1:07:39

all day. That is something I can do but

1:07:41

I couldn't tell you where I

1:07:44

was in 2007. So I mean I

1:07:46

could probably figure it out but

1:07:49

off top of my head I don't know where.

1:07:51

I had sleep deprivation for you. Yeah I mean Keith

1:07:53

Richards has the same but his was mostly drugs I

1:07:55

think. Sex

1:07:57

and drugs are rock and roll whereas mine is mostly just. complete

1:08:00

insomnia crisis. So the thing that is difficult

1:08:03

for me I suppose to do is I

1:08:05

don't want to throw away more of my

1:08:07

life because I've already lost quite a lot

1:08:09

of it. Right. Now I understand this my

1:08:11

wife has a period where she was studying

1:08:13

for a PhD in biochemistry. Because she was

1:08:16

studying so hard and so intensively on this

1:08:18

thing that's what she remembers from

1:08:20

that time. She doesn't remember anything else that happened.

1:08:23

In a way her brain has shoved it so far to the

1:08:25

back to make room for all this stuff she had to put

1:08:27

on her face. I think that does happen. That's a Homer Simpson

1:08:29

joke isn't it? When he

1:08:31

learns something new and you forget something else like

1:08:34

it's automatically like a one-in-one policy in a nightclub.

1:08:37

Yeah so I'm gonna be really really lazy

1:08:39

here and I'm just gonna pick an item

1:08:41

of clothing that looking back I

1:08:43

feel was not a good choice

1:08:45

in terms of aesthetic fashion taste.

1:08:48

This is not a well thought through

1:08:50

answer but I'm just gonna go. This doesn't

1:08:53

have to be life-changing. This is

1:08:55

only your life-changing. So

1:08:57

when I was at university when I was

1:08:59

trying to figure out who I was you

1:09:01

know as a person whatever I was obviously

1:09:03

listen to this alien music and I had

1:09:05

blue hair I had black nail varnish and

1:09:07

eyeliner and I don't regret the blue

1:09:09

hair I don't regret the nail varnish the eyeliner

1:09:11

whatever but what I do regret is I had

1:09:13

these jeans that were enormous

1:09:18

and I'm such a skinny

1:09:20

guy I'm so wiry and

1:09:22

thin and even

1:09:24

more so then but these days I'm about 70 kilos which

1:09:27

is a sort of average I guess for a guy with

1:09:29

my height but I was 58 kilos

1:09:31

probably back then I was really really slim

1:09:34

you know if you'd met

1:09:36

me you'd have gone like are you right

1:09:38

really really skinny it's quite sporty but I

1:09:40

just I could not put on muscle mass

1:09:42

and couldn't put on but

1:09:45

the fashion of the times to

1:09:47

wear these enormous baggy jeans when

1:09:50

you went to some metal clubs and and whatever but

1:09:53

the problem is is that when you're

1:09:55

a skinny wiry dude When

1:09:57

you wear clothes like that, you just look like a

1:09:59

child. While wearing your dad's clothes a cousin

1:10:01

another cool. If you don't look, you don't

1:10:03

look like you can for Sally us and

1:10:06

and you know take no shit from the

1:10:08

man. He just looked like a toddler who's

1:10:10

the the trying to try on substances, close

1:10:12

and so dragging them around the house in

1:10:14

a long sleeves and whatever. And this particular

1:10:16

pair of jeans were very them sort of

1:10:18

bell bottoms. the bottom. But. They were

1:10:20

incredibly baggy through the like as well,

1:10:22

if you imagine incredibly baggy jeans. With.

1:10:25

Even fled wider ankles sort of sex and

1:10:27

severely just drags on the floor. They the

1:10:29

seems like it was like I had just

1:10:31

access fabric from every direction of my legs

1:10:34

the i went through the flares rise as

1:10:36

a young man and a now looking back

1:10:38

on it almost every such a i think

1:10:40

of the hell am I wearing yeah the

1:10:43

says at least tapered in on the a

1:10:45

bomb on the thighs yeah and fled other

1:10:47

bosses that as a sort of the sort

1:10:49

of elegance to the way they just be

1:10:51

and went up at our little slice of

1:10:54

the and spurs. These would just vast they

1:10:56

were like of like I was wearing

1:10:58

a dismantle the tent and put one on

1:11:00

each leg. yeah maybe it's just that is

1:11:03

as stupid and so impractical because so filthy

1:11:05

driving through the mud in the dirt of

1:11:07

a city of York where I lived as

1:11:09

a student and I didn't want to buy

1:11:12

them it's hind but I think her my

1:11:14

ex girlfriend was like you should get these

1:11:16

not like yes I would be cool yes

1:11:19

and I i just the i had thoughts

1:11:21

little confidence in my body know hated the

1:11:23

were lots of so self. Aware of how

1:11:25

skinny I was, I didn't feel like a

1:11:27

man. I felt like little boy

1:11:30

because whenever I tried men's clothes on

1:11:32

they just were too big and forty

1:11:34

eight hour and and so I think

1:11:36

I convinced myself to go the other

1:11:38

when go like rights in a case

1:11:40

by deliberately vague clothes. And then

1:11:42

since tell everyone this is the trend,

1:11:44

this is me saying fuck you I'd

1:11:46

idea of footnotes. I've learned back. All

1:11:48

I can see I suppose it's just.

1:11:51

Someone. Just completely lost trying

1:11:53

to figure out. I. don't

1:11:55

wanna look like them at i'm going to look

1:11:57

like you but i don't know how to like

1:11:59

me The blue hair I like,

1:12:01

I'm not afraid of the blue

1:12:03

hair, that's fine, that's whatever. But the clothes, I

1:12:05

just didn't know what I was doing. I was

1:12:07

just desperately trying to not dress conventionally, I guess.

1:12:10

And it was just really interesting that I suppose at the

1:12:13

time I was so lacking in confidence, I

1:12:15

couldn't figure out even how to rebel properly.

1:12:18

Just even

1:12:21

the act of rebellion. Well, they're back. Yeah,

1:12:23

right. They're back. They're back. I

1:12:26

know. My grandson just the other

1:12:28

day turned up in enormous clothes. I know. I'd

1:12:31

offered him a set of clothes that were

1:12:33

too big for him. He wouldn't wear them.

1:12:35

But he actually is buying clothes that are

1:12:37

just wide everywhere. Yeah, I know. And I'm

1:12:39

seeing it all the time on TikTok and

1:12:41

as you say, like the Gen Z hipster

1:12:43

kids who are wearing these enormous baggy jumpers

1:12:45

and these huge, sort of shapeless, you

1:12:47

just go, oh no, I thought we can

1:12:49

sign those to history. In

1:12:52

a way, that's a gift for all teenagers

1:12:54

because every teenager, no matter how gorny you

1:12:56

are, you look at yourself and think, oh

1:12:58

my God, I'm a mess. I'm no

1:13:00

good. It's interesting, isn't it? Do

1:13:02

you have the you look back and have you

1:13:04

had a sort of cyclical journey on looking back

1:13:06

at old photos of yourself and gone? I

1:13:09

looked better there than I realized. Mostly I look

1:13:11

back and think if only, if only I'd known.

1:13:14

Oh my God, look at me. I'm gorgeous. But

1:13:17

because I look at most young people and think

1:13:19

you look gorgeous. Yeah. You're full

1:13:21

of potential life and energy

1:13:23

and it's all starting and

1:13:25

that emanates from them this

1:13:27

gorgeousness. And so I wish

1:13:29

I'd known at the time that that's what the

1:13:31

world was rather than, oh my God, I need

1:13:33

to do something to make myself

1:13:36

not me. Yeah, that's such

1:13:38

a well phrased observation. I've

1:13:40

seen that a huge amount from lots

1:13:42

of particularly women. I know they've gone back and gone,

1:13:44

oh God, I looked great.

1:13:47

And I was so they often say,

1:13:49

I thought I was so fat. I thought I was so

1:13:52

ugly. I thought I was so unlovable.

1:13:55

And they look back at themselves and realize

1:13:57

they were beautiful. They were full of life. They were,

1:13:59

you know. And I

1:14:01

guess I have that too, but I

1:14:04

look back and I see photos of me and go,

1:14:07

I just didn't know what to do with myself.

1:14:10

I just didn't know who to be. Yeah, but

1:14:12

at the same time we also remember those people

1:14:14

who looked at themselves in the mirror and thought,

1:14:16

my God, I'm going to. They

1:14:19

were lonesome. Yeah, that's true.

1:14:21

I struggle to be around anyone

1:14:23

who has confidence. I'm just like, how are you?

1:14:25

But it's interesting. I've got

1:14:27

to a point now where I have settled

1:14:29

on a look that I'm quite happy with.

1:14:31

And it's not necessarily the best look in

1:14:33

the world, but it's just me. It's who

1:14:35

I am. And so I'm

1:14:37

a skinny guy and I will always be a

1:14:40

skinny guy. And so I dress in

1:14:42

a way that's quite accentuating off that. I

1:14:44

wear skinny jeans. I wear very slim fitting

1:14:46

t-shirts and jumpers. And as time goes on,

1:14:48

more and more people become jealous of it.

1:14:50

Oh my God. How do you do that?

1:14:54

Maybe, but I think for a long, long

1:14:56

time I was hiding and now I guess

1:14:58

I'm accentuating, but I still don't feel

1:15:00

incredibly confident about it. I think I've just given up on

1:15:02

resisting. I think I've just gone like, all right, look, this

1:15:05

is it. This is the frame I've got. I'm

1:15:07

a skinny guy. There's a little

1:15:09

bit of middle age weight starting

1:15:11

to arrive on the old tummy.

1:15:13

Oh, congratulations. That

1:15:16

was lockdown, just a lockdown. Just eating dairy

1:15:18

milk every day while writing two books simultaneously.

1:15:20

I think I gained about six kilos. But

1:15:24

I think it's that ability to look

1:15:26

back at yourself and learn from it, but

1:15:28

also the regret of not having the knowledge and the wisdom

1:15:30

at the time. I think it's a very human response, isn't

1:15:33

it? But it's

1:15:35

also really interesting to, I

1:15:37

remember Dickens was so desperately in

1:15:39

love with a young woman when he was young, and

1:15:42

he was desperate to marry her and he wasn't good enough for

1:15:44

her father. And he was heartbroken

1:15:46

when she dumped him. And

1:15:48

then he became a superstar writer, incredibly famous, the most

1:15:50

famous man in England probably. And

1:15:53

then he looked her up and he wrote

1:15:55

to her. And you see the letters and

1:15:57

they're full of his passion and his

1:15:59

honor. But he's still, you know, he's writing

1:16:01

to his ex sort of going, oh, it's so lovely to

1:16:03

see you. So lovely to see you, whatever. And then they

1:16:05

do meet. And the next letter is so cold.

1:16:11

And it's so brutal. And it's so horribly. Dear

1:16:14

Madam. And

1:16:16

it's like, you

1:16:18

can see that he's met this woman who

1:16:21

in his head is still this gorgeous 18-year-old. But

1:16:23

of course, she's, you know, she's 42. She's had a couple

1:16:25

of kids. She's had

1:16:27

a couple of health scares, whatever. She's lived a life.

1:16:30

She's an attractive woman in her

1:16:32

40s, but she's no longer this angelic.

1:16:35

And it's just fascinating the way we carry around

1:16:37

these young versions of other people in our heads.

1:16:39

Also young versions of ourselves in our heads. And

1:16:42

we sort of are constantly measuring ourselves against who

1:16:44

we think we were, who we wanted us to

1:16:46

be, who we never were.

1:16:49

It's just it's really, yeah.

1:16:51

And expectations. Yeah, because,

1:16:53

yeah. Yeah. Fabulous.

1:16:56

It's been so lovely of you to give me

1:16:59

your time. And I really look forward to seeing

1:17:01

and listening to the rest of Your Dead To

1:17:03

Me, which is just the most fantastic podcast. And

1:17:07

it's lovely to see you again. Thank you very much.

1:17:09

It's been a joy to talk to you. Thank you

1:17:11

for having me on, lovely the waffle. You

1:17:18

have been listening to my... with

1:17:21

me, Mike Fenton-Stevens, and my guest, Greg

1:17:24

Jenner. I hope you had fun. Fascinating

1:17:26

man. Great as me. Do

1:17:28

tell your friends if you enjoyed it and do add

1:17:31

to the likes or ratings or comments that we've already

1:17:33

received. The more the merrier. So

1:17:36

thank you very much. You can follow

1:17:38

me or even lead me in my

1:17:40

time caption on social media, where we

1:17:42

are very happy to be contacted and

1:17:44

have a chat. You'll also discover all

1:17:46

things happening on the podcast and what's coming

1:17:48

up. All true fans,

1:17:50

of course, would have undoubtedly downloaded the

1:17:53

theme tune and now be using it

1:17:55

as a ringtone. If you haven't, it's

1:17:57

available on Spotify. I'm going to

1:17:59

release a stain removal. through Spotify and

1:18:02

I've suggested we call it Spotify.

1:18:05

What are you rocking? Oh

1:18:07

okay, nevermind then. Still has that

1:18:09

idea copyrighted. If you've missed our

1:18:11

weekly bonus podcast, then you can

1:18:13

hear them if you subscribe to

1:18:15

A-Class Plus. You'll also get the

1:18:17

podcast ad-free. And finally, this

1:18:19

cast-off production for A-Cast was produced by

1:18:21

the one and only John Fenton Stevens.

1:18:23

Right, I'm going to listen to the

1:18:26

brilliant You're Dead To Me podcast now

1:18:28

and try and discover a bit more

1:18:30

about history. I didn't really pay much

1:18:32

attention to it when I was a

1:18:34

school. Then again, that was so long

1:18:36

ago, they didn't call it history. They called

1:18:38

it current affairs. Oh,

1:18:40

talk to me a witch. Did he hear about the man who had

1:18:42

sex with a hot cross bun? Current

1:18:46

affairs. Oh come on,

1:18:48

work it up yourself. No,

1:18:50

don't mind. Bye! Do

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