Latest / My Favorite Things / My Favorite Things Episode 13: Jono Hey

Transcript

My Favorite Things Episode 13: Jono Hey · My Favorite Things

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Jono, hey, thanks for being here.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for having me.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: Can you tell us a little bit about who you are?
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, sure.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_01: I am a designer.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_01: I worked in engineering and product design for many years,
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_01: and I have worked in various tech startups,
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_01: designing things,
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_01: running software and all that kind of thing.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_01: And I
• 0:27
  on the side from for over a decade now i started a newsletter
• 0:31
  where i explain
• 0:33
  things in a sketch uh once a week so that's been going for
• 0:37
  quite a long time and
• 0:38
  actually that's you know now more or less most of my focus i
• 0:42
  had a book come out a
• 0:43
  few years ago called big ideas little pictures which had a
• 0:46
  bunch of these in and
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: i'm like actually you know what i'm
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_01: I think I've got a lot to give here.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_01: So that's kind of where most of my focus is.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_01: I live in England.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_01: I lived in San Francisco in the Bay Area for a good seven years.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_01: And I've lived in France and so on.
• 1:05
  But right now I'm working on Sketchplanations and enjoying life
• 1:09
  on the edge of London.
• 1:11
  I think that's where you and I come together is where we've
• 1:14
  encountered each
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: other's stuff is that,
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: you draw these,
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: you communicate these ideas through drawings.
• 1:21
  And I do sort of the same thing with ideas,
• 1:24
  but my ideas are not as smart.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: and completely made up and just funny.
• 1:29
  But a lot of years have a lot of the concepts in your book and
• 1:32
  on sketchplanations
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: stick in my head because of the fact that they're illustrated.
• 1:37
  And I don't know that they would otherwise if you just texted
• 1:41
  me the quote or the
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: concept or something like that.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: So it's pretty fascinating.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe we'll get into a little bit of that later on as we talk.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: Should we get into your list of your five favorite things?
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 1:58
  Number one,
• 1:59
  and these are in order of when you encountered them in your
• 2:02
  life.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: Calvin and Hobbes.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: Can you talk about what was your...
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: Did you first encounter Calvin and Hobbes in a newspaper,
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: a book?
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: What was it?
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: Do you remember?
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_01: I do remember, yeah.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_01: And for those who don't know, Calvin and Hobbes is...
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_01: This cartoon strip about a young boy and his pet tiger,
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_01: which I think ran mostly through the 80s,
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_01: maybe even late 70s.
• 2:31
  And I was pretty young and I encountered it first at a friend's
• 2:36
  house where I used
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_01: to go play and do...
• 2:40
  dumb things messing around in his garden and he had a bunch of
• 2:43
  the calvin and hobbs
• 2:43
  books and i actually remember picking them up and reading them
• 2:48
  and not really
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_01: getting it at all i think i was i was just too young so i would have been
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_01: elementary school age in the us so you know eight or something and um
• 3:01
  I don't know maybe some of the the sort of slapsticky jokes I
• 3:04
  might have got but
• 3:06
  actually loads of it and about the this tiger this toy tiger
• 3:10
  who's like comes alive
• 3:11
  when he's around Calvin kind of went over my head and so I
• 3:15
  encountered it quite
• 3:16
  early but I kind of didn't really appreciate it until I was a
• 3:23
  good 10 plus years
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_01: older I think and then I started to get
• 3:28
  i don't know get get all the enjoyment again out of it and so
• 3:33
  much more and so many
• 3:34
  at so many levels which i think is kind of the genius of calvin
• 3:37
  and hobbs if you i
• 3:38
  don't know if you've got any calvin and hobbs books in your
• 3:40
  house but if if anybody
• 3:42
  doesn't i always say like that's the first thing you should go
• 3:44
  do is go get go to
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_01: the bookstore
• 3:46
  we do and i was reading them to our little guy he's three and a
• 3:49
  half and he was
• 3:50
  like three and he's like i want to read this one i start
• 3:52
  reading i'm like man this
• 3:53
  is actually a little a little adult for you some of the themes
• 3:58
  and some of the the
• 3:59
  concepts and stuff like that uh which to your point you know
• 4:03
  yeah maybe it's more
• 4:04
  like when you're 10 or 11 you start getting it more but why do
• 4:08
  you think it why do
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: you think it um
• 4:12
  made an impact on you when you were just like eight years old
• 4:14
  or six years old or
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: whenever you did first see it?
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: Just like a boy with a stuffed animal, maybe?
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I don't know.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_01: I mean,
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_01: one of the things that's wonderful about Calvin and Hobbes,
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_01: I think,
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_01: is that the art is...
• 4:30
  beautiful um and it can be quite simple in places and some of
• 4:33
  it's just you know
• 4:34
  just like classic comic strip stuff there's one or two
• 4:37
  characters and they're
• 4:38
  mostly speaking for three frames and that's kind of it um but
• 4:43
  even then i think the
• 4:43
  characters are good and i think if i think back to where what i
• 4:46
  was familiar with
• 4:48
  maybe around the time i guess there were things like peanuts
• 4:50
  which was out and
• 4:51
  there was garfield and and particularly as i as i look back on
• 4:56
  it now i just think
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_01: calvin and hobbs is just like a
• 4:59
  massive level up on the art and the,
• 5:02
  and the imagination and the world that he created there.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_01: So I sort of feel like even if you,
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_01: even if you don't get all the jokes,
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_01: you can still enjoy the,
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_01: the pictures of it and the,
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_01: the boy's imagination and admire the,
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_01: the quality and simplicity of his drawings.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_01: You know, he does these beautiful snow scenes, for example, and, um,
• 5:25
  you know it's on a white page and almost all the page is white
• 5:30
  and yet he does like
• 5:31
  a few strokes with a brush it's like some japanese sort of zen
• 5:35
  meditation picture
• 5:36
  and you conjure up this forest of silver birches with shadows
• 5:41
  in the snow and
• 5:41
  you're like wow i wish i wish i could do that and then other
• 5:45
  times it's like these
• 5:45
  big grand landscapes where he's like landing on another planet
• 5:49
  and then um you know
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_01: he's
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_01: He does these incredible drawings of dinosaurs as part of it,
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_01: which is,
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_01: Calvin's imagination coming to life with dinosaurs,
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_01: like sat in the kitchen or flying F-15s,
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_01: you know.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think you can,
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_01: I think that was one of the things that struck me then going like,
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_01: this is a,
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_01: this is,
• 6:11
  This is different and in my mind was much better and stronger
• 6:16
  than like Garfield,
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_01: which might have had some silly jokes that occasionally made you laugh,
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: but didn't have like that depth and quality of the art to it,
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_01: I think.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_01: And I think you can enjoy that as a kid and even more so as an adult.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 6:35
  feel like i went through a period of garfield i thought going
• 6:38
  to our library when i
• 6:39
  was like probably five or six and like just reading the shit
• 6:43
  out of garfield like i
• 6:45
  can't remember a single i mean i can remember garfield like
• 6:48
  lakes lasagna and um
• 6:50
  hates mondays specifically monday the 13th is his least
• 6:54
  favorite thing but calvin
• 6:56
  and hobbs i think you're right it is such a huge level level up
• 7:00
  you know as far as
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: those sort of four three or four panel comic strips go um oh go ahead
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_01: I was going to say,
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_01: I think also if I bring it back to those kind of cartoons,
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_01: Garfield and Peanuts are incredibly successful,
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_01: but Calvin and Hobbes spoke to me so much more than those.
• 7:23
  And I think about the kind of topics and the characters and I
• 7:29
  think the outlook of
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_01: people and Calvin as a person –
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_01: and obviously Bill Watterson,
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_01: who created it,
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_01: sort of comes through in the topics that he picks.
• 7:43
  So Garfield is always grumpy and drinking coffee on Mondays and
• 7:47
  doing something
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_01: kind of obnoxious and then swallowing loads of lasagna.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_01: And that's sort of,
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_01: sometimes it's a little bit funny,
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_01: but that's kind of the messages you get from Garfield.
• 7:57
  And I don't know,
• 7:58
  I never,
• 7:58
  as a kid at least,
• 8:00
  I never really got the Peanuts ones.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_01: And yet I think,
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_01: You read Calvin and Hobbes and he covers so many themes.
• 8:10
  And some of it is just like a little kid annoying his parents
• 8:13
  or like using his imagination.
• 8:14
  But it's also about nature and enjoying that and the enjoyment
• 8:21
  of childhood.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_01: And then he covers, you know, all these things about...
• 8:25
  the evolution of art and and he obviously like hated tv and
• 8:30
  what media was becoming
• 8:33
  and you get all of those sort of commentary which are really
• 8:35
  quite high brow in
• 8:37
  there as well and still able to enjoy so like if i if i
• 8:40
  contrast those i'm like
• 8:43
  cavern and hobbs is amazing i still think that yeah yeah was
• 8:48
  humor a big part of
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: your your family growing up
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, yeah, yeah.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_01: But, you know, was it any more than anybody else's?
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um,
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_01: more,
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_01: we did more humor from like TV shows and things,
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_01: I guess,
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_01: um,
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_01: watching sitcom sitcoms on a,
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_01: on a Friday evening and then friends and that came around and,
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_01: um,
• 9:19
  My parents had a bunch of cartoon books of more like slightly
• 9:23
  more adult cartoons,
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_01: like the sort of ones you get in the newspaper,
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_01: which were definitely topics that I didn't always follow,
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_01: but were pretty funny,
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_01: I think,
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_01: certainly if you're an adult.
• 9:35
  But I think Calvin and Hobbes is more humorous,
• 9:40
  sort of more generally applicable.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_01: And I think about whenever I'm doing sketches, I think about
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_01: You know, how would how would he have covered this?
• 9:48
  And every now and then I think I really want to make something
• 9:51
  that's both sort of
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_01: beautiful and optimistic like his,
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_01: but also sort of like Riley,
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_01: funny,
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_01: but charming.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't know how he did it.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_01: It's really hard to do.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_01: And I can't really do it,
• 10:06
  but very often I think to what would he have done that would
• 10:10
  have made this topic
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_01: not dry and boring,
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_01: but funny and charming at the same time,
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_01: because he did it over and over again.
• 10:18
  Have you experimented with fictional characters in your
• 10:22
  drawings,
• 10:23
  or did you as a kid?
• 10:28
  As a kid,
• 10:28
  I was never good enough,
• 10:29
  and I'm still not good enough as like a...
• 10:33
  cartoonist and I never considered myself a cartoonist but I had
• 10:38
  a friend in I guess
• 10:40
  secondary school here and he was he was a really talented
• 10:45
  cartoonist and I think it
• 10:47
  was you know reflected a bit of my career growing up I'd sort
• 10:49
  of associate myself
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_01: with really smart talented people and then
• 10:54
  help organize and direct the work a bit and he would make these
• 10:58
  cool comic strips
• 10:59
  and we'd talk about them and there was ones like um and we had
• 11:02
  like robo duck i
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_01: remember and we'd like fold these little um like
• 11:08
  take a piece of a4 and fold it down really small and make like
• 11:11
  eight pages but he
• 11:12
  did pretty much all the drawing but we had these characters and
• 11:15
  they were they were
• 11:16
  they were kind of funny and i i guess i do i do think yeah like
• 11:21
  you know after a
• 11:21
  while you associate with the characters in all these fictional
• 11:26
  stories films comic
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_01: strips like that
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_01: And I definitely don't have that in mind.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_01: I probably should.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_01: I probably should.
• 11:34
  I get that as far as sort of adding the odd pet here and there
• 11:37
  that you can relate to.
• 11:40
  It might be freeing just because you're able to make fictional
• 11:42
  characters say
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: things that aren't necessarily true.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: Like you're just working in nonfiction, I feel like.
• 11:48
  And that's kind of a maybe limiting or maybe difficult
• 11:54
  constraint to work within as
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: opposed to just being able to make it up.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: But you know what?
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not either, so I'm not telling you what to do with your life.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 12:05
  Um,
• 12:06
  number two is,
• 12:09
  you know,
• 12:10
  same vein as Calvin and Hobbes,
• 12:12
  Bill Watterson.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: Number two on your list is Da Vinci's notebooks.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um,
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not familiar with where you access Da Vinci's notebooks,
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: but can you tell me about how,
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: how these came into your life?
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_01: And, and actually it's a, it's a good point because, um,
• 12:35
  It's not really very straightforward or it's not like you can
• 12:40
  buy copies very
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_01: easily of like these are his notebooks and you can flick through.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_01: So most of my exposure to Leonardo da Vinci's notebooks is through,
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 12:50
  excerpts and examples of pages and through exhibitions that
• 12:57
  we've been to.
• 12:59
  um i read a book once which is like how to think like leonardo
• 13:02
  da vinci and it had
• 13:03
  loads of examples in um i have seen you know seen a bunch of
• 13:07
  the notebooks but
• 13:07
  they're notebooks you know if i look at my notebooks every now
• 13:10
  and then there's
• 13:10
  something that looks kind of interesting and and then there's
• 13:13
  pages and pages of
• 13:14
  stuff that is boring and mundane and messy and so you know
• 13:18
  maybe that's maybe it's
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_01: a better way to experience it where you get this sort of
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_01: Excerpts.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_01: I do have some things.
• 13:25
  So,
• 13:25
  for example,
• 13:25
  we've been to some exhibitions and I've got a really nice
• 13:29
  collection.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_01: I've got Leonardo da Vinci's The Graphic Works,
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_01: which is not his end paintings,
• 13:36
  but all of the sort of sketches and preparatory drawings and
• 13:39
  things he did in his
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_01: notebooks,
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_01: which they've laid out.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_01: But it's across his whole career.
• 13:45
  So you're flicking through,
• 13:47
  I guess,
• 13:48
  pages from different notebooks as you go.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah,
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_01: I wish I could,
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_01: on the bookshelf behind me,
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_01: just have his 10 notebooks and flick through the real things.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_01: But those are quite hard to get hold of, it turns out, I think.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_01: But I've seen...
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_01: Hundreds of pages of his notebooks.
• 14:11
  And I think it's pretty hard from the first time that you see
• 14:17
  them to not realize
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_01: there's something special there,
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_01: which is unlike almost anything in the history of the human race.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: So your first encountering these, were you in a museum somewhere?
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: Was there a page of one in a book you're reading?
• 14:40
  Do you remember how you were aware that this was a thing you
• 14:43
  could actually view?
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, not specifically.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_01: It's one of these ones where everybody...
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know when the first time is you hear about Leonardo da Vinci,
• 14:56
  but everybody kind of hears about Leonardo da Vinci at some
• 15:00
  point in their
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_01: childhood.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_01: I did design engineering as my degree and...
• 15:10
  One of the things that I loved and still love is essentially
• 15:14
  creative problem solving.
• 15:17
  And like it always used to bug me a bit because in that
• 15:21
  whenever people talk about
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_01: creativity,
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_01: they tend to talk about the arts.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_01: And what I was seeing in,
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_01: products that we interact with every day and all these things
• 15:35
  decisions you have to make as as an engineer or design
• 15:39
  professional like loads of
• 15:40
  creative problem solving things so i was always drawn to like
• 15:43
  how do you how do
• 15:44
  people come up with these creative solutions to difficult real
• 15:47
  world problems when
• 15:48
  they're coming up with new products or or trying to design
• 15:51
  something and i think
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_01: like during your during my degree
• 15:57
  Definitely I spent a fair bit of time and it comes up in your
• 16:01
  courses where you see
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_01: like just the sheer range of inventions this guy came up with.
• 16:08
  And I think,
• 16:09
  you know,
• 16:09
  I think a lot of people know Leonardo da Vinci mostly for his
• 16:12
  art.
• 16:15
  because obviously he was an incredible accomplished artist and
• 16:18
  he's so unique in so
• 16:20
  many ways and that he was you know an incredible artist but he
• 16:24
  was also a musician
• 16:25
  and he was athletic but he was you know his his engineering
• 16:30
  inventions are kind of
• 16:31
  incredible but he was also able to communicate them in amazing
• 16:35
  ways and he was a
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_01: scientist and he was like
• 16:38
  dissecting bodies and drawing like oh yeah look at this is how
• 16:41
  the eye might work
• 16:42
  and you know these incredibly complex problems and i just think
• 16:48
  what you see in in
• 16:50
  his drawings which which i really admired particularly during
• 16:54
  my degree when i'm
• 16:55
  looking like how do how do creative people think and how do
• 16:58
  they solve problems and
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_01: come up with new new ways of doing things
• 17:02
  his notebooks are like a window into him thinking his way
• 17:06
  through things and and
• 17:09
  communicating it in these these drawings of you know whether
• 17:13
  it's like screws or
• 17:15
  wheels or mechanisms or flying machines in just such an instant
• 17:20
  way compared to you
• 17:22
  know reading a book or diving into some research paper or
• 17:27
  patent or whatever you
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_01: just you glance at this and you go oh wow
• 17:32
  I get it and that's amazing and I want to do what he does and I
• 17:36
  still want to do what he does.
• 17:38
  yeah i was gonna say do you find well do you did you and do you
• 17:42
  still find him like
• 17:44
  influential as far as a person who's a polymath like does he
• 17:50
  does he make you think
• 17:50
  well maybe i don't have to just stick to one thing and try to
• 17:54
  be very good at the
• 17:55
  one little thing the one single lane niche i can try these
• 18:00
  other things and and
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: attempt them and
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: you know, everything is just a branch of my creativity.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: Do you think like that way?
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: Was that influential for you?
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I do think that that way.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_01: Like I've always had trouble trying to
• 18:14
  pick what i really want to focus on because i enjoy and get
• 18:19
  interested in so many
• 18:20
  things and you know and you know maybe it's more difficult now
• 18:24
  and that the the
• 18:25
  depth of knowledge you have to cover in order to get to be an
• 18:30
  expert in something
• 18:31
  is so much further than it was you know back in the renaissance
• 18:35
  italy um that said
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_01: what i think is is brilliant about him and i think is uh
• 18:46
  aspirational for me and maybe others is what what he did with
• 18:51
  his progress in one
• 18:53
  field was it supported his progress in others so for example
• 18:57
  his art is partly so
• 19:00
  incredible because he did things like inventing how to draw in
• 19:04
  perspective
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_01: You know,
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_01: his mathematical techniques for like laying out pictures,
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_01: but also thanks to his study of biology and the human body and stuff.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_01: So all his figures are drawn anatomically perfectly.
• 19:23
  and then also like his his progress with like engineering and
• 19:27
  design is massively
• 19:31
  supported because of his skills in art and being able to
• 19:34
  communicate and think
• 19:35
  visually through these things and so so i do think that you get
• 19:40
  this kind of boost
• 19:43
  you you you're good in one area and then you apply those skills
• 19:46
  in another and
• 19:47
  it's not like the previous skills are useless and i think he
• 19:50
  shows that they can be
• 19:52
  additive and make you unique in this other area which is you
• 19:55
  know i i often think
• 19:58
  that kind of thing with the sketchpanations with my project
• 20:01
  where um you know i am
• 20:05
  not the greatest business thinker or whatever and i'm not the
• 20:08
  greatest artist but
• 20:09
  if you put these kind of things together then maybe there's
• 20:12
  something which is a
• 20:14
  makes it a bit bit more unique than it would have been
• 20:16
  otherwise right a bit more
• 20:18
  unique is not a funny way to say it but but yeah and so i do
• 20:23
  think that a lot about
• 20:24
  like how do you take your skills in one area and your
• 20:27
  fascination in that and apply
• 20:29
  it in the other and make something that other people who are
• 20:31
  just focused in one
• 20:32
  area are not going to be able to do um and that's yeah
• 20:36
  massively aspirational to me
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_01: i do think about that
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, maybe the most famous polymath or the...
• 20:44
  polymath has been famous the longest i feel like he's on my
• 20:47
  list of people when i
• 20:48
  say none of us are going to be famous none of us are going to
• 20:51
  be known more than
• 20:52
  like 100 years like who who can you name who was alive 500
• 20:55
  years ago and it's like
• 20:56
  shakespeare da vinci and then like various religious figures
• 21:01
  and people who have
• 21:02
  murdered millions of people like that's who you remember you
• 21:04
  know it's like so yeah
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: those two and a few a few others of course so
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_01: I think he's interesting also just really quickly as a character in that,
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know,
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_01: the more you learn about it...
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_01: He does all sorts of things wrong as well in many respects.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_01: Like he's massively ahead of his time and in so many things,
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_01: which is not wrong per se,
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_01: but like as a result,
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_01: he has so many incredible but unfinished projects and,
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 21:37
  enormous amounts of his invention and attention went to like
• 21:41
  military inventions at
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_01: the time.
• 21:42
  And,
• 21:42
  you know,
• 21:44
  sponsors who are,
• 21:45
  you know,
• 21:45
  essentially precursors to the Mafia and
• 21:47
  things like that so there's there's all sorts of you know
• 21:51
  difficult contradictions
• 21:53
  about him as a person but that's also like how it's easy to
• 21:56
  look at any historical
• 21:59
  artist and think oh yeah they just spent their life painting
• 22:01
  but no they had to
• 22:02
  like earn a living and find some reason to do this art that
• 22:08
  they could still you
• 22:08
  know buy breakfast and i think you see a bit of that in all his
• 22:12
  work as well which
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_01: is kind of fascinating
• 22:16
  should move on to number three uh which is classical land um i
• 22:23
  just when you sent
• 22:24
  me this list over i just started it up for a few minutes before
• 22:26
  we got on because
• 22:27
  i'm like very ignorant of classical music in general um what if
• 22:35
  you have to
• 22:35
  describe the sound how would you how would you describe it how
• 22:39
  would you describe
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: the music
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so L'Onde is a piano piece by Ludovic Einaudi and it's solo piano.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_01: And I picked it because it's interesting you mentioned classical because,
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know,
• 22:58
  it sort of defies normal classification somewhat because it's
• 23:06
  not classical in that
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_01: it's modern,
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_01: right?
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_01: Like he's still alive making music.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_01: It sort of sounds sort of classical, like it's not pop music.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_01: It's just him and a piano.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_01: And yet it's very sort of melodic.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_01: It's very rhythmic.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_01: It's harmonic.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_01: It's peaceful.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_01: It's very beautiful.
• 23:33
  and so it's funny but it's also quite simple in its sort of
• 23:38
  structure and rhythms
• 23:39
  and forms and that also I think makes it quite different from
• 23:43
  what you might often
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_01: listen to as classical music so
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know, if you listen to it, I think it's a beautiful piece.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_01: And,
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_01: Ainaudi has written a lot of music before and since,
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_01: but this was one of his earlier ones,
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_01: which was,
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_01: I guess,
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_01: a big success.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_01: But they're kind of like if you were to take...
• 24:08
  like Chopin and Beethoven but make it like melodic and harmonic
• 24:13
  and a bit more like
• 24:14
  that easy pop sound but keep it like a solo piano piece which
• 24:21
  is you know just some
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_01: really beautiful beautiful pieces to listen to so yeah
• 24:27
  that's not a great description but it may be an easier way to
• 24:30
  say london means the
• 24:31
  wave and it the piece sounds i think very much like a wave it
• 24:36
  has these sort of
• 24:37
  flowing lines from the left and the right hand which you know i
• 24:41
  can imagine them
• 24:42
  being waves at the beach and did you were you following him
• 24:48
  when this came out like
• 24:49
  did you how did you how did you come about how did you find
• 24:53
  this music how did the
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_00: music find you i guess
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 24:58
  So it's part of the reason I picked this one is because I
• 25:02
  remember the moment that
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_01: I came across it very distinctly.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I was probably in my early 20s and I was like,
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_01: I think I was in the summer and I was back at home at my parents' house.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_01: I was in my bedroom, probably lying in late.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_01: And I had an alarm clock at the time.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_01: It was the Sony radio alarm clock.
• 25:26
  And it would come on with the radio instead of beeping at you
• 25:29
  as a kind of gentle way in.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_01: And because I liked a sort of peaceful wake up,
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_01: I would have it coming on with a classic FM radio.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_01: which can be all sorts of stuff.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_01: Some of it not so approachable.
• 25:43
  And I remember the radio came on and I woke up and then this
• 25:47
  piece came on almost immediately.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_01: And I just remember being really struck by...
• 25:57
  how beautiful it was,
• 25:59
  how simple it was,
• 26:00
  and how I'd never really heard anything quite like it.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_01: And I have played the piano for years,
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_01: and I didn't profess to be a great piano player,
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_01: certainly not in the classical tradition,
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_01: because some of the pieces are incredibly technically hard.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_01: I remember listening to this piece going, that is a beautiful piece.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_01: It's just him and a piano.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_01: And I think I could play that.
• 26:28
  like i remember going do you know what i i need to go buy the
• 26:32
  music and i went out
• 26:32
  and i bought the music and i sat down and tried to play it and
• 26:36
  i could and i don't
• 26:38
  come across very much stuff like that where you're like that is
• 26:42
  beautiful and it's
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_01: this whole package and it's accessible and i think
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, I now do much of his music is, is like that.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so that was, that was my, my moment.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_01: And I still listen to him now,
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_01: that's 20,
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_01: 20 plus years later and still listen to what he does.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_01: And it's still,
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_01: it's,
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_01: it's like one of these things a bit like you go to Calvin and Hobbes,
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_01: you,
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_01: you,
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_01: these things are very,
• 27:06
  he manages to keep it so simple and then when you try and write
• 27:11
  something like that
• 27:12
  yourself you realize how actually how difficult it is to create
• 27:15
  like a simple
• 27:15
  melody like he does um so that yeah that's where i heard of it
• 27:21
  right so you can
• 27:22
  play it like do you play it now for your family just sit down
• 27:25
  and do it now
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I sometimes play that piece.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_01: I play a lot of pieces and I have a number of his other piano books.
• 27:36
  I think what was interesting to me about it was because I felt
• 27:43
  like this was a
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_01: beautiful piece that was on the radio.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_01: In that it was...
• 27:51
  It was professional and complete enough to make it onto a
• 27:55
  national radio station.
• 27:57
  And it made me think that this was something that maybe in the
• 28:02
  future I would be able to do.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_01: And so what I do now is I compose a lot of music.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_01: And one of the things,
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 28:09
  one of the reasons I changed from doing my sort of product and
• 28:11
  engineering jobs was
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_01: to be able to spend more time making music.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_01: And I think in a way, this piece was such an inspiration in
• 28:22
  starting that composing journey i think if you're learning
• 28:25
  piano you tend to learn
• 28:29
  an instrument by playing pieces of music that other people have
• 28:33
  written and you
• 28:33
  just do that and and i remember thinking like at some point how
• 28:36
  on earth do you
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_01: make stuff up yourself that's supposed to
• 28:40
  sound good and this was like this sort of gateway to be like
• 28:43
  you know what maybe i
• 28:45
  could write something like this in the future and so it was a
• 28:50
  long answer to the
• 28:50
  question is i do sometimes play this piece i do sometimes play
• 28:53
  his other pieces but
• 28:54
  most of the time i'm composing my own music i'm just sitting
• 28:57
  down and playing
• 28:58
  something and making something up but it's very much drawn from
• 29:02
  a lot of the style
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_01: and what i've learned from him and how and how he writes music
• 29:08
  yeah you seem like um there's a chapter in um oliver berkman's
• 29:14
  new book new newest
• 29:16
  it's a couple years old now but it's basically the theme of the
• 29:20
  chapter is like
• 29:22
  humans did this humans made that and it seems like you have a
• 29:26
  pretty good um
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_00: Like when you see something,
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_00: you,
• 29:30
  you realize that it wasn't like a necessarily someone special
• 29:34
  or elevated.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's like they made it, I can make something too.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's not as good as Calvin and Hobbes,
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_00: or maybe it's not as,
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_00: good as Da Vinci,
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_00: some of Da Vinci's more famous creations,
• 29:45
  but it seems like these things all have kind of like made you
• 29:49
  think or motivated
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_00: you to do things on your own.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_00: Is that, does that sound accurate?
• 29:56
  yeah yeah very much so i didn't you know i i don't profess to
• 30:02
  get anywhere near any
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_01: of these you know pieces of art individually but i do
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_01: They are so aspirational and inspirational to me that you go,
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_01: you know what,
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_01: some human managed this and like,
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_01: wow,
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_01: how did they do that?
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_01: That was amazing.
• 30:20
  And then you'd,
• 30:22
  and like,
• 30:22
  you know,
• 30:23
  Da Vinci's notebooks,
• 30:23
  you see him thinking this through.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_01: I just, I love...
• 30:30
  I just love the making of things and seeing behind the scenes
• 30:33
  of how people do it
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_01: in a studio tour or whatever,
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_01: or somebody breaking down a music track.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_01: Calvin and Hobbes, there's one book which has an interview with him.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_01: He was famously...
• 30:48
  stayed away from all media and it's just brilliant to see his
• 30:51
  process and yeah i
• 30:53
  don't ever i strive i strive to learn from what these people
• 30:59
  have managed to do and
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_01: take the best of it and you know who knows keep at it yeah yeah
• 31:07
  uh speaking of things we can all do uh harry potter is the next
• 31:11
  thing on your list
• 31:12
  and you know of course we can talk about your career as a
• 31:15
  wizard um how how this
• 31:19
  actually that's probably not correct um harry potter are we
• 31:23
  saying books or movies
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_00: or both and what age are you when you when you encounter harry potter
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so mostly I'm talking about the books.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_01: But I do think there is this...
• 31:40
  whole ecosystem which all has things to recommend it we have
• 31:45
  spent a lot of time
• 31:46
  with the audiobooks which are read by Stephen Fry in the UK
• 31:52
  beautifully read and
• 31:53
  those are brilliant there is also a Harry Potter world on the
• 31:57
  edge of London which
• 31:58
  is also fascinating because it's about like how Harry Potter
• 32:02
  studio tour I guess it
• 32:04
  is about how they made the films which is exactly like I love
• 32:07
  seeing how people did
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_01: this
• 32:09
  um so yeah it's but it's mostly the books and it's a funny one
• 32:13
  because i i guess i
• 32:15
  think i missed harry potter as a young kid like i found it in
• 32:23
  you know when i was
• 32:23
  at university or something and i actually found it because i
• 32:27
  have a younger brother
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_01: and my dad was reading it with my younger brother and
• 32:33
  and and they were the first books which are much more like kid
• 32:36
  books and and they
• 32:38
  seemed kind of fun but i didn't really know much about them and
• 32:42
  then i i guess they
• 32:43
  carried on reading them and they were like these are really
• 32:46
  good and so so i sort
• 32:48
  of started reading them but i i think i must have been you know
• 32:51
  at university kind
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_01: of age not at like
• 32:55
  10 or 11 sort of age when I think a lot of people might have
• 32:59
  been first introduced
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_01: to them so yeah in some ways I didn't come to them as a kid so much
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_00: And so are you reading them at university recreationally?
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's like a thing you're doing outside of studies.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_00: This is like a, like a break for you maybe.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, definitely.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_01: I was, I mean, I was just catching up.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_01: So,
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_01: I think it was like,
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_01: they'd already done two or three books by the time I,
• 33:26
  I started the first one and I was never camping outside
• 33:30
  bookshop bookshops before
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_01: the release of the next one.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_01: But I think,
• 33:38
  I have read them a lot and listened to them a lot,
• 33:43
  both as an individual and also as a family.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_01: We've listened to the audiobooks in the car a lot.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_01: We've watched films a lot with my kids.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_01: I found it was great.
• 33:56
  I speak a bit of French because I lived in France and I bought
• 34:00
  the one in French.
• 34:00
  And so I read the first one in French as a practice to try and
• 34:05
  keep your reading up.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_01: So I know the story is really well now.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_01: But there's something to me about the...
• 34:17
  It's another one a bit like Calvin and Hobbes where I feel like
• 34:19
  there's a lot of
• 34:20
  layers to the books and you can enjoy it as a 10-year-old kid
• 34:24
  and you can enjoy it
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_01: as an adult.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_01: And I respect it so much as a...
• 34:32
  well actually as the work of an author to be able to do this i
• 34:36
  just immensely
• 34:38
  impressed forever and you know i also think it's just so it's
• 34:41
  one of these ideas
• 34:42
  where once it was out there you're like how did nobody do this
• 34:47
  properly before you
• 34:48
  know everybody loves magic everybody wishes they could do magic
• 34:53
  tricks uh and go to
• 34:55
  a magic school or something like that sounds amazing of course
• 34:57
  that would be a
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_01: brilliant story
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_01: And yet nobody had really done it nearly as well before somehow.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_01: So I think she's like in the same vein,
• 35:07
  I was a bit torn between bringing in kind of Lord of the Rings
• 35:11
  and the Tolkien
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_01: books where he very much created a whole world and,
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_01: you know.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_01: a set of characters and languages and, and all sorts that come with it.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_01: And I think she did kind of this kind of the same.
• 35:27
  And it's,
• 35:28
  I think it'll be,
• 35:29
  it has been enduring and it still will be enduring,
• 35:32
  you know?
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_00: Are your kids into them then?
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_00: This is the thing you've introduced to you.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_00: There was a decision where you're like, Hey, we should do Harry Potter.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I guess so.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_01: I don't.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_01: They know them really well.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_01: And as I say, the audiobooks are brilliant for car journeys.
• 35:54
  And they're one of the few things,
• 35:56
  I think,
• 35:56
  where everybody kind of enjoys it.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_01: We've listened to lots of audiobooks and there are some like...
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_01: Lots of little kid ones.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_01: There are ones where you sing along and stuff.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_01: And Winnie the Pooh is about the closest,
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_01: I think,
• 36:10
  that you get otherwise where the kids enjoy it and adults
• 36:13
  manage to get a lot out
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_01: of it if you read the original books.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, so we've listened to it.
• 36:20
  a lot together but i i don't know i i listen i'm i'm
• 36:23
  continually amazed at how um
• 36:28
  you know how she had this vision writing the very first story
• 36:33
  and i think about you
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_01: know how the publishing industry
• 36:35
  was like you have to you have to submit a book that is complete
• 36:39
  as a story by
• 36:39
  itself and a fun thing if you want to get your first book and
• 36:43
  she was rejected tons
• 36:44
  of times and eventually this came in and yet there are things
• 36:48
  in the final books
• 36:49
  that explain something that happened in the first book when she
• 36:52
  hadn't even had a
• 36:52
  book published and she was submitting this thing like she had
• 36:55
  this grand vision for
• 36:57
  this set of stories and i think that's quite rare like it's
• 37:00
  much it's much easier
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_01: to do something like i'm doing which is
• 37:05
  Every week I take this new thing and it's kind of standalone
• 37:08
  and I'm going to do this.
• 37:09
  And she managed to make something that was standalone and yet
• 37:13
  also had this huge
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_01: arc of a story with it,
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_01: which was going to play out over the next 10,
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_01: 15 years of her life that hadn't even been written.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_01: But she thought about it before she even wrote the first one.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_01: I find that still kind of amazing.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's not like the TV series that they're like,
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_00: oh,
• 37:34
  I guess we're going to have to do five more seasons and we
• 37:38
  better do some things
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_00: with these characters.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_00: I think of soap operas in the U.S.
• 37:42
  and then the Fast and the Furious film franchise where people
• 37:45
  just have these,
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_00: like,
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_00: oh...
• 37:48
  i know they died in the fourth one but they're not dead turns
• 37:51
  out they're not dead
• 37:52
  or she has amnesia you know and like in like it's just like the
• 37:56
  crazy things
• 37:57
  they're like i guess we're gonna make one more movie and they
• 37:59
  just keep adding on
• 38:00
  they're just tacking stuff on you're like okay i guess i kind
• 38:03
  of believe that but
• 38:04
  like yeah the grand vision to like keep it and have it all work
• 38:07
  so well is is
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_00: pretty fascinating
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think there were very few things like that.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_01: I think Tolkien had a little bit of it.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I think Star Wars has a little bit of it.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_01: Like,
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_01: I think if you think back to the first film that was released,
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_01: it's kind of crazy to release book four,
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_01: essentially film four is the first one.
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_01: You know,
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_01: like that shows some grand sense of vision,
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_01: but I don't think it's sort of tied together in the same way.
• 38:37
  quite the same coherent way uh as harry potter is and also she
• 38:43
  was just like one
• 38:44
  person doing all this yeah which is i just think yeah mega
• 38:49
  impressive and there's a
• 38:50
  lot of other things i like about the book i like that i like
• 38:53
  the characters i say
• 38:53
  the world is fun and i think i think her actually her writing
• 38:58
  is is really
• 39:00
  good in the sense that it's just so clear i've read you know i
• 39:03
  read a lot of books
• 39:05
  and some things are hard and books are never hard to read i'm
• 39:08
  never confused about
• 39:09
  what's going on i'm intrigued and there's a bunch of stuff
• 39:12
  that's not answered yet
• 39:13
  SPEAKER_01: but i'm never confused and
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_01: So I just think,
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_01: actually,
• 39:18
  she did a lot of things right and created something which very
• 39:25
  few people manage to
• 39:27
  SPEAKER_01: do that I'm really grateful for,
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_01: that our kids can enjoy and we can enjoy.
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, number five.
• 39:38
  SPEAKER_00: The Voyage of the Beagle, a book by Charles Darwin.
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_00: It just came up a few weeks ago,
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_00: so there's a substat called Letters of Note,
• 39:48
  SPEAKER_00: and they had like...
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_00: All these times where they were just quoting Darwin,
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_00: just like hating everything during his career.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_00: And it was hilarious.
• 39:57
  SPEAKER_00: It was just like, I hate this.
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_00: This is awful.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_00: I'm having a terrible time.
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_00: And it was these snippets of this was like pretty, pretty amazing.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_00: When, when do you think of how elevated we think of him and.
• 40:08
  uh and all this and like he's just a brilliant scientist but to
• 40:11
  get this window and
• 40:11
  be like yeah he had some bad days too you know it was hilarious
• 40:16
  um why is this why
• 40:17
  is this book on the list and why is it number five yeah it's
• 40:22
  number five because i
• 40:23
  came to it really recently uh in the last past past three or
• 40:29
  four years um
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_01: It's one of these ones I'm always,
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_01: when I hear a recommendation or about a book,
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_01: I have a books to read list and I jot something down.
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_01: Eventually, maybe I get to it.
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_01: And this was one where we had some spare credits on Audible and I'm like,
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_01: okay,
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_01: well,
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_01: I'll try this one.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_01: It's a good one.
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's a good one to read as an audio book because...
• 40:53
  you know i don't know if i can read it as i'm going to bed it
• 40:56
  sounds a bit heavy
• 40:57
  and i didn't really know what to expect and it was just
• 41:04
  fascinating start to finish
• 41:06
  and i would probably probably would recommend if you want to
• 41:09
  try it the audiobook
• 41:11
  because it probably is a bit heavy like it's very i think it
• 41:14
  was published like
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_01: 1839 and
• 41:17
  is very sort of precise Victorian language with long words and
• 41:24
  long sentences,
• 41:26
  SPEAKER_01: which is also interesting,
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_01: I think,
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_01: in its own right of seeing like a window into,
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_01: what it's like as an author in those days.
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, so I read it fairly recently.
• 41:39
  SPEAKER_01: And,
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_01: I think everybody kind of knows Darwin as,
• 41:43
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_01: the origin of species and evolution primarily.
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_01: but maybe not actually that much beyond that.
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, he was bald and he had a big beard and he was old.
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_01: And what this book did,
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_01: I think when I read it,
• 42:00
  so basically it's an account of when he was the naturalist on
• 42:04
  this ship called the
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_01: Beagle,
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_01: which was doing the circumnavigation of the world,
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_01: which took multiple years.
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_01: And I think he was like 22.
• 42:13
  SPEAKER_01: So as a thing to do in the mid-1800s,
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_01: to get on a ship as a 22-year-old and travel the world for years,
• 42:24
  SPEAKER_01: it's kind of an incredible thing to do in its own right.
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_01: And I think when you think of Darwin as bald and with a beard and old,
• 42:36
  SPEAKER_01: Actually,
• 42:37
  what this book did was completely change the picture of that
• 42:40
  for me because it's
• 42:45
  SPEAKER_01: basically his journals.
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_01: But it's his journals, he's got a job to do.
• 42:49
  SPEAKER_01: So he's been very precise.
• 42:51
  SPEAKER_01: He's like noting down all the plants and all the animals.
• 42:54
  SPEAKER_01: He's taking endless samples.
• 42:56
  SPEAKER_01: He must have killed hundreds of animals because he was always,
• 42:59
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 43:00
  SPEAKER_01: putting them on a ship or stuffing them or whatever.
• 43:05
  But he was also out exploring these wild places down around the
• 43:09
  coast of South
• 43:09
  SPEAKER_01: America,
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_01: Tierra del Fuego,
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_01: the islands in the Central Pacific and and crossing the Atlantic.
• 43:18
  And he was he was like riding on horses with gauchos and
• 43:23
  sleeping out in the open under water.
• 43:25
  SPEAKER_01: blankets around a fire, crossing rivers.
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_01: He was canoeing down channels in Tierra del Fuego.
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_01: And also always with this kind of
• 43:35
  eye on what can I learn from this you know like he's never he's
• 43:40
  never like oh I
• 43:41
  just went hiking and it was really pretty he's like oh yeah
• 43:44
  look we passed several
• 43:47
  depressions along the way none of them were more than one and a
• 43:49
  half miles long and
• 43:52
  some of them were up to 20 meters deep and the rock was a
• 43:54
  different type of rock
• 43:55
  than it was previously and the vegetation gradually changed as
• 43:58
  we went up from this
• 43:59
  SPEAKER_01: altitude to this altitude while he's doing this incredible
• 44:03
  active adventure journey in the wild you know to 200 years ago
• 44:08
  um so it just gave
• 44:10
  me a completely different view of this guy who i think is
• 44:14
  really easy to think of
• 44:15
  as a a science boring scientist somewhere in victorian england
• 44:20
  with books and
• 44:21
  things he wasn't he was like riding horses and swimming and
• 44:26
  canoeing and that was
• 44:27
  the kind of naturalist he was and that was the stuff that led
• 44:30
  to you know some of
• 44:31
  SPEAKER_01: his
• 44:32
  incredible insights and theories there's so much to it yeah how
• 44:37
  is this how is
• 44:39
  encountering it this way with the audiobook at this age how is
• 44:43
  that affecting you
• 44:45
  in the way you do things or the way you're looking at the world
• 44:48
  now yeah I think
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_01: there's some there's some beauty in it like I as you could probably tell
• 44:59
  SPEAKER_01: I haven't studied like engineering and things.
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_01: I was more on the science and maths and physics kind of side of things.
• 45:07
  SPEAKER_01: And,
• 45:08
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 45:08
  SPEAKER_01: there are some great,
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_01: obviously there are great scientists in all sorts of other fields.
• 45:13
  SPEAKER_01: And many of them though,
• 45:14
  SPEAKER_01: however,
• 45:15
  SPEAKER_01: like in physics,
• 45:16
  SPEAKER_01: for example,
• 45:17
  it's difficult to follow a lot of their work because you need
• 45:21
  this depth in
• 45:23
  SPEAKER_01: mathematics.
• 45:24
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's not that accessible to,
• 45:27
  to people trying to understand this and I think one of the
• 45:30
  things uh that that how
• 45:34
  this affected me was um I mean Darwin's a good writer so he's
• 45:40
  very he's very clear
• 45:41
  in what he does but he just approaches everything from the very
• 45:45
  first principles
• 45:47
  SPEAKER_01: point of view and you also learn the sort of
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_01: I learn that the depth and the dedication and the eye for detail and the
• 45:58
  observation and the collection of an organization of facts and
• 46:03
  everything that he
• 46:06
  SPEAKER_01: does to
• 46:07
  build up this this picture you know comparing stuff from this
• 46:10
  part of the journey
• 46:11
  to another or this land to another where plants grow in a
• 46:14
  different way or whatever
• 46:15
  um and he does it from very first principles and it's very
• 46:19
  understandable like he
• 46:20
  just walks you through the logic like oh it was very strange
• 46:22
  that we found this
• 46:23
  here when in other places we didn't have it here and then later
• 46:25
  on he comes back to
• 46:26
  it and sort of figures it out and it's sort of showing you this
• 46:30
  thought process and
• 46:31
  SPEAKER_01: dedication that
• 46:34
  it feels like ought to be accessible to all of us and I think
• 46:42
  that's quite rare in
• 46:44
  the view of a scientist because as I say with a lot of science
• 46:50
  it's really hard to
• 46:51
  get into it at all because it's sort of going over your head
• 46:54
  whereas none of this
• 46:55
  SPEAKER_01: really goes over your head
• 46:56
  SPEAKER_01: It's just he shows you how to do it really well.
• 47:02
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that,
• 47:05
  SPEAKER_01: yeah,
• 47:05
  SPEAKER_01: that inspires me in how you can approach things and really,
• 47:15
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know,
• 47:15
  SPEAKER_01: make a difference in the world.
• 47:16
  SPEAKER_01: You have to be as dedicated and as expert as he is.
• 47:22
  SPEAKER_00: And accessible, it sounds like.
• 47:25
  SPEAKER_01: And accessible.
• 47:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 47:26
  SPEAKER_01: Sorry.
• 47:27
  SPEAKER_01: One second.
• 47:27
  SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah.
• 47:34
  SPEAKER_00: Sorry about that.
• 47:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 47:37
  SPEAKER_01: And as accessible, I think that, that helps.
• 47:41
  SPEAKER_01: It's,
• 47:42
  SPEAKER_01: it's sort of,
• 47:43
  SPEAKER_01: sort of amazing to what,
• 47:44
  SPEAKER_01: again,
• 47:45
  SPEAKER_01: like watch the,
• 47:46
  SPEAKER_01: the mind work of a remarkable,
• 47:50
  SPEAKER_01: uh,
• 47:51
  man and see his thinking as he explains it on the page in a way
• 47:57
  that you can
• 47:57
  understand and follow there's there's a couple of passages in
• 48:01
  it in particular
• 48:02
  where i was i was like just i find remarkable that he goes to
• 48:07
  the galapagos islands
• 48:09
  and there's a section towards the end of it where he goes it
• 48:13
  like on the tameness
• 48:15
  SPEAKER_01: of the birds and i thought that's a really funny thing to
• 48:19
  to discuss uh but then he goes into this sort of like really
• 48:23
  logical really
• 48:24
  understandable view of like how it's so interesting that you
• 48:27
  know these birds you
• 48:28
  can get to within this distance distance of but these birds you
• 48:32
  can't and then
• 48:33
  these birds only pass through the islands and you can't catch
• 48:36
  them at all perhaps
• 48:37
  SPEAKER_01: they're bringing some knowledge from elsewhere but this type of bird
• 48:40
  SPEAKER_01: on the Galapagos Island is really tame,
• 48:42
  SPEAKER_01: but on the Falkland Islands,
• 48:44
  SPEAKER_01: where we passed it before,
• 48:46
  SPEAKER_01: it's much less tame,
• 48:47
  SPEAKER_01: but they have predators there and they don't have here.
• 48:50
  SPEAKER_01: And he's just like putting together this picture of this very,
• 48:55
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know,
• 48:56
  SPEAKER_01: very straightforward sounding thing,
• 48:58
  SPEAKER_01: like how tame the birds are and trying to figure out like,
• 49:02
  SPEAKER_01: why does this happen?
• 49:03
  SPEAKER_01: And you can sort of see all these like glimpses of
• 49:07
  why his theory about evolution and the origin of species and
• 49:11
  that this one became
• 49:12
  different from that one and how how knowledge is transferred
• 49:15
  between one generation
• 49:16
  to another and and and diversifies in different places uh it's
• 49:21
  yeah it's just
• 49:22
  fascinating he does another one which is really similar like
• 49:25
  passing like atolls
• 49:26
  and coral reefs and going how do these things form and he talks
• 49:29
  you through his
• 49:29
  thought process pulling together all this data and you're like
• 49:33
  oh yeah that makes
• 49:33
  SPEAKER_01: tons of sense but
• 49:35
  SPEAKER_01: I've been to some tropical places which were nice,
• 49:38
  but I wasn't measuring the height of the island or wondering
• 49:42
  how this compared to
• 49:43
  the other one or this mystery of why this is in the middle of
• 49:47
  the ocean in this
• 49:48
  SPEAKER_01: form and yet in a different form somewhere else.
• 49:51
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what he's doing.
• 49:52
  SPEAKER_01: It's really quite remarkable.
• 49:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 49:56
  SPEAKER_00: I mean,
• 49:56
  it kind of feels like in a way that's some of what you do with
• 50:00
  sketchplanations
• 50:01
  where you make it accessible and you make it actually readable
• 50:06
  for people who maybe
• 50:08
  don't have a ton of time to actually dive into topics and
• 50:14
  figure things out and
• 50:16
  SPEAKER_00: devote all this time to reading maybe inaccessible things.
• 50:19
  SPEAKER_00: Is that at all accurate?
• 50:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 50:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 50:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, that is.
• 50:25
  SPEAKER_01: I like to,
• 50:26
  SPEAKER_01: what I often think of with Sketchplanations is it's,
• 50:29
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 50:29
  SPEAKER_01: it's things that I have found interesting.
• 50:31
  It's like the insights or ahas that I've had and trying to find
• 50:35
  a way that sort of is able to...
• 50:40
  have that reconstructed in somebody else's head so they can see
• 50:43
  the thing that i
• 50:44
  thought was remarkable about it and i think that is this is
• 50:47
  also what he's showing
• 50:48
  us in this book as you know he's like this is remarkable how
• 50:52
  we're gonna figure
• 50:52
  this out and he walks you through it and then he goes like and
• 50:55
  said that now it
• 50:55
  makes sense um and so yeah it's it's something that i think is
• 51:01
  amazing and i guess
• 51:02
  SPEAKER_01: i do yeah i try to do but you know i wasn't darwin
• 51:07
  well well for for the for the 21st century maybe all right
• 51:13
  maybe it's maybe it's
• 51:14
  like if if you could just interrupt every time every dinner
• 51:17
  party with non
• 51:17
  sequiturs of did you know and then go on and explain something
• 51:21
  but you don't do
• 51:22
  that you have you have sketch explanations instead so it
• 51:25
  arrives in your inbox
• 51:26
  every you know every time and it's like did you know i didn't
• 51:29
  know that john oh
• 51:30
  SPEAKER_00: thank you that's amazing and i'm gonna remember yeah you risk becoming a
• 51:36
  terrible bore but yeah gradually all of the all of all of these
• 51:39
  little ideas that
• 51:40
  i've pieced together it's like okay there's a sketch for that
• 51:43
  now um i can always
• 51:44
  go refer to it but you know it's also doing the sketch helps me
• 51:49
  understand it and
• 51:50
  and learn it better um and people you know when i get stuff
• 51:53
  wrong people tell me
• 51:54
  and so i learn and get learn more about it you know and get
• 51:57
  better so um as a as a
• 51:59
  SPEAKER_01: process it's kind of a it's kind of a neat thing
• 52:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's fantastic.
• 52:05
  SPEAKER_00: Man, this has been super fun.
• 52:07
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks so much for taking the time.
• 52:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, my pleasure.
• 52:11
  SPEAKER_01: As you asked me, like, was it hard to do?
• 52:13
  Yeah,
• 52:13
  it was really hard to pick your top five,
• 52:16
  but it's also a brilliant activity.
• 52:17
  So I highly encourage people to think of their own or ask their
• 52:22
  friends what their
• 52:22
  SPEAKER_01: five would be.
• 52:23
  SPEAKER_01: It's kind of a cool thing to do.
• 52:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, super fun.
• 52:26
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks so much, dude.
• 52:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, thank you.