Latest / UK Column Radio / Kids, Sleep, and Make Writing Great Again | Jerm Warfare Weekly Banter

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Kids, Sleep, and Make Writing Great Again | Jerm Warfare Weekly Banter · UK Column Radio

• 0:05
  Speaker 3: So so.
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: My name is Jerm. This is Jerm Warfare, the battle
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: of ideas. I don't think I have slept this little
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: in years. Not even my first child. Don't worry, Jerm.
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: You've got a flight coming up. You're going to sleep
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: all the way through it. It's going to be fine.
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: I've been practicing. I've been practicing for not sleeping. But
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: in all reality, you guys have also got more than
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: one child. With your second kid, did you have any
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: of those regression issues with the older one?
• 1:02
  Speaker 3: I mean, are you really expecting an accurate sort of
• 1:11
  Speaker 3: memory of anything here would be my question.
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean, first of all, it was 22 years ago,
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: 21 years ago, Jerm, come on.
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: Oh, all right. Okay. But apparently it is normal, though,
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: for the oldest sibling to regress a little bit because,
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: I mean, they're no longer the center of attention. What's
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: the difference in age? Two years.
• 1:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Okay. Well, that's still not too bad. I don't know.
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: I mean, I don't, it won't last long.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: No, it won't last long. But when you're going through it,
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: it's very, very exhausting. Because it's, I mean, you feel
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: so frustrated because, you know, the child doesn't understand what's
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: going on. And it's so easy when you're tired to
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: lose your cool. And then you feel terrible when you
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: do lose your cool. And so you have to, through
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: the whole thing, just restrain, restrain, restrain.
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: It's such a challenge. I think actually you say the
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: child doesn't know what's going on. I think instinctively or
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: intuitively the child absolutely does know what's going on, but
• 2:20
  Speaker 3: is not equipped to communicate those sort of feelings and
• 2:28
  Speaker 3: emotions and whatnot. I mean, I think age is a
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: factor in it, but I think across all species, the
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: arrival of... the arrival of new offspring and the effect
• 2:39
  Speaker 3: that that has on the family dynamic, I think is
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: completely understood by the others, which is why there is
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: a perception of, you know, the craving of more attention
• 2:52
  Speaker 3: in a way that perhaps that hadn't been before and whatnot.
• 2:56
  Speaker 3: But I think we've, you know, it's just, I think
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: it's another, it's just another thing that we've lost touch
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: with in terms of our innate ability to be able
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: to to deal with it because I think we think
• 3:08
  Speaker 3: we can do it by words and we can't. I
• 3:12
  Speaker 3: think so many human behaviors are still actually about not
• 3:19
  Speaker 3: necessarily physical demonstrations, but they're more aligned with behavior. And
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: this goes back to so much of what we talk about,
• 3:26
  Speaker 3: which is why I think the unseen danger of being
• 3:31
  Speaker 3: isolated from other people because we all use these devices
• 3:36
  Speaker 3: and we think we're communicating with one another. I don't
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: think we really are. We hear the words, we say
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: the words, but we are not able to transmit those
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: messages that you can when you're in proximity to somebody.
• 3:50
  Speaker 3: And I think when it concerns dealing with a child,
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: especially if the child does have some language, you think
• 3:55
  Speaker 3: you can crack everything with language.
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: Actually, it's worse than that, Charles, isn't it? Because we
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: don't hear the words. We don't even hear the inflection
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: in people's voices. We read the words and we infer
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: a meaning from those. And 99% of the time, and
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: I say this because we've... The UK column has run
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: a forum or a community kind of thing for the
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: last 20 years. And, you know, in that time, we've
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: pretty much seen it all in terms. And I'm not
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: excluding myself from this in any way. The chances of
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: misunderstanding through text communication are absolutely guaranteed.
• 4:37
  Speaker 3: I couldn't agree more. I think email in particular has
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: so much to answer for because it turned telephone calls
• 4:46
  Speaker 3: into transcribed communications. I can think of masses of people
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: who articulate themselves very clearly when they're speaking, but their
• 4:56
  Speaker 3: written word is absolutely not a representation of the way
• 4:59
  Speaker 3: in which they would have said it. And people miss points.
• 5:04
  Speaker 3: So typically, I mean, right from the earliest days of
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: using email, I think you are asking for trouble if
• 5:10
  Speaker 3: you ask anyone more than one question in an email,
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: because you definitely won't get more than one answer. For
• 5:16
  Speaker 3: some reason, people are only able to apparently give one
• 5:20
  Speaker 3: answer per email. And it just, you know, the increase
• 5:26
  Speaker 3: in frustration, in misunderstanding has just, I mean, I think
• 5:32
  Speaker 3: it's got worse and worse and worse, but also it's
• 5:33
  Speaker 3: made people very lazy in the way that they do communicate.
• 5:38
  Speaker 3: And it's just the time. You know, you think how
• 5:41
  Speaker 3: quickly you can resolve something either in a face-to-face conversation
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: or a telephone call. Whereas trying to write it out
• 5:47
  Speaker 3: in email, particularly, and the back and forth and back
• 5:51
  Speaker 3: and forth and back and forth, you know, for what?
• 5:53
  Speaker 3: It is, it does look very much like a system
• 5:57
  Speaker 3: just designed to make people wade through treacle for the
• 6:00
  Speaker 3: rest of their lives. That's very effective, if that's what
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: it was for.
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: If you take the situation that I'm going through, and
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: I think every parent goes through when they have two
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: kids or more, uh, From like a stoic perspective, there's
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: also an opportunity to see it as an obstacle over
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: which you can climb and learn something about yourself. I
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: have discovered over the last couple of years of having
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: kids that I've learned so much about me as just
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: a person just because of my child and the way
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: in which my child engages with me. It's an incredible thing.
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: I mean, in a way, kids can be the best teachers.
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: Mike no i was going to leave that to you.
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: Yes um i mean i i would agree i think
• 6:56
  Speaker 3: uh i i think it does work both ways i
• 7:00
  Speaker 3: think you even though you might not realize that you
• 7:03
  Speaker 3: do you do get back what you invest into it
• 7:06
  Speaker 3: um i was interested i went out for lunch yesterday
• 7:10
  Speaker 3: and at a nearby table there were six children um
• 7:15
  Speaker 3: as part of a sort of wider family party. And
• 7:19
  Speaker 3: in the first instance, I was really encouraged because the
• 7:21
  Speaker 3: first three children sat down, had stuff with them. But
• 7:26
  Speaker 3: in actual fact, when I look closer, they just had books.
• 7:29
  Speaker 3: And okay, Fair enough, if you're going to sit down
• 7:32
  Speaker 3: and have lunch, you sit down and have lunch, you
• 7:33
  Speaker 3: don't sit there reading a book. But the fact is
• 7:36
  Speaker 3: they were waiting for other people, they had books, and
• 7:38
  Speaker 3: I thought, oh, that's nice. That's really encouraging to see
• 7:42
  Speaker 3: that they're reading books. But then, of course, I don't
• 7:45
  Speaker 3: know if it was because the other family turned up
• 7:47
  Speaker 3: with tech, but after not such a long time, lo
• 7:51
  Speaker 3: and behold, there was, I don't know, some screen or other,
• 7:53
  Speaker 3: I don't even know what it was, but they were
• 7:55
  Speaker 3: looking at this and that, and behavior definitely changed. And
• 8:01
  Speaker 3: it just made me think about basically what will the
• 8:08
  Speaker 3: parents get back from that? That's how they've chosen to
• 8:11
  Speaker 3: manage their children, which is to make them passive. And
• 8:16
  Speaker 3: when I say passive, what I mean is they're receiving.
• 8:19
  Speaker 3: We've talked about this a lot before, but in a book,
• 8:22
  Speaker 3: your mind is doing the work. You're creating something. the
• 8:26
  Speaker 3: pictures from what you're reading, whereas with a screen, you're not,
• 8:31
  Speaker 3: your mind is not active in that way. And so
• 8:34
  Speaker 3: I think in actual fact, you would be doing yourself
• 8:38
  Speaker 3: down in the learning you get from a child, with
• 8:41
  Speaker 3: which I would absolutely agree with you, but that is
• 8:43
  Speaker 3: a dividend from what you hope to impart and invest
• 8:48
  Speaker 3: in the first instance. So I don't want to sound
• 8:52
  Speaker 3: sort of lofty about it in any way, but I
• 8:55
  Speaker 3: do think that in actual fact, it really does need
• 9:01
  Speaker 3: to be a conscious process. I don't think it's a
• 9:03
  Speaker 3: given at all that you will get that back from children.
• 9:06
  Speaker 3: I think they absolutely need the work put in or
• 9:09
  Speaker 3: the right environment created for them to be able to
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: give that off. But when they do, I totally agree
• 9:14
  Speaker 3: with you, yes.
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: I'm sorry, Jim, I was just going to say, I'm
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: not going to attempt to suggest that we did everything
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: or even anything right, the way we brought up our kids,
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: but I think the things that made a difference were
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: And I've mentioned this before, we didn't enforce this as
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: a rule. We had a conversation about it and this
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: was the choice they made. But the first thing was
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: that they didn't have screens. They had computers, but they
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: didn't have tablets or phones until they were 16 or
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: 17 or something like that. That was their choice. They
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: came under a lot of peer pressure on that, but
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: that was their choice. But no, I think the thing
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: that probably made the biggest difference was the decision that
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: we would sit down at the dinner table every night
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: as a family and we just talked. And I think
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: this made a huge difference to the way that they
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: approached life and a lot of families don't do that.
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: And so, you know, we're obviously every parent thinks their
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: kids are the best on the planet, but, but, you know,
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: I look around at some of the troubles that other
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: people are having with, with, you know, older teenagers or people,
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: kids in their, say kids, but relatively speaking in their
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: early twenties or whatever that are struggling at the moment.
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: And I just wonder, I mean, I'm not saying that's
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: the reason for it, but I wonder how much of
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: a difference those two things made. Look, I.
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: I will say that me and my wife are doing fine.
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: We have consciously and very intentionally tried to make sure
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: that the struggles at the moment don't affect our marriage.
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: Because I think this is very obvious that this kind
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: of thing can put a huge amount of tension on
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: your marriage. Especially when you don't know what to do.
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: There's no formula. Everybody has done something different and we
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: all fumble our way through it. Our first kid was easy.
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: And our second kid is easy too, but it's not
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: the second kid. It's the first kid now that doesn't
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: like the second kid's arrival. And what I can say
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: is that it becomes very existential because it makes you
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: make decisions that become very well thought out and intentional.
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: And I think that's a good thing because you think
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: more about being present. And that's something that a lot
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: of us, because of screens, et cetera, we kind of
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: go into autopilot mode. And so I like the idea
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: of sort of manually driving.
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: Well, it's very easy just to shove a screen in
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: a child's hand and say, how about it, and go
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: and do something else.
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: But that's not.
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: We don't use screen time at all.
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: Why have children then?
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: I will say we, we have something called a Tony box.
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: I don't know if you guys have heard of that. Um,
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: it's an amazing little toy. Um, that is basically it's
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: a box. Um, and it's got no screen on it,
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: but it's got, it's got speakers, but it's, the whole
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: thing is, is, um, uh, it's designed in a way
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: that can be dropped and thrown and whatever. So the,
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: the child can't break it. But, It comes with little toys,
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: and you can buy them on Amazon. These little, they're
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: called Tonys, and they can look like superheroes or trucks
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: or anything.
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: We don't buy things from Amazon.
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: Oh, okay. I don't know. Whatever your local toy supplier is.
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: And you buy these little toys, and when the kid
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: puts the toy onto the box, the box turns on
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: with lights, and it plays.
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: Uh, sounds like you can program it. You can, you
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: can read, you can record yourself telling a story or
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: singing a song or whatever. And then it starts playing.
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: And the moment he takes the toy off, it stops.
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: And so it becomes a very interactive device that has
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: no screen. Um, and, but, but he hears the sounds
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: and he, he plays with it and he can touch it.
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: And if he bangs it on the side, it, it,
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: it changes your recording that you made. It's very, very, very, um, uh,
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: what's the word I'm looking for? Uh, it's creative. Uh, and,
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: and the fact is that you can drop it and
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: you can throw it and it doesn't break. It's, it's
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: the most, it's the most fun little, little toy that
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: I've seen. And it's great. No screen. And it, and
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: it keeps him, it keeps him going and you can learn.
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: But if you guys haven't heard about it, then it's
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: very difficult to explain it.
• 14:01
  Speaker 3: I think I get it to an extent. You haven't
• 14:05
  Speaker 3: made the mistake of telling him that it's unbreakable, have you?
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: I have not made that mistake yet. But yes, he
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: can break everything.
• 14:12
  Speaker 3: If there's ever a way to encourage a child. Yeah. Okay.
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: It's audible, and I like that. I like that. It's
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: all to do with sounds and touch.
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: I think one of the best pieces of advice I
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: have received with regard to the management of children and
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: their minds is to allow them to get bored because
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: basically they won't. They will always find something. And the
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: more they find, the more they learn. And I think
• 14:49
  Speaker 3: that is in large part what people have learned been
• 14:53
  Speaker 3: conditioned to completely veer away from. The idea now that
• 14:58
  Speaker 3: a long journey, even a moderate journey, cannot be completed
• 15:02
  Speaker 3: without some form of entertainment is just the most ludicrous
• 15:04
  Speaker 3: thing I've ever heard of our generation. There was no
• 15:13
  Speaker 3: such thing as in-car entertainment. The car itself or the
• 15:17
  Speaker 3: journey or the people you were with, that was entertainment.
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: It still is. Nothing's changed. And yet, for an awful
• 15:24
  Speaker 3: lot of parents, that's a horror show if there isn't
• 15:29
  Speaker 3: something to entertain the children with.
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: It's interesting you say that, you know, because, you know,
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: thinking back to a hundred years ago, whatever, before cars
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: were a thing and motorways were a thing and the
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: sort of length of time that it took to travel
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: from A to B. And you just wonder... You just
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: wonder what people did to pass that time. Yeah, I've
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: also wondered that, Mike.
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: So, for example, flying on an airplane with a toddler,
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's a nightmare. And I wonder what people
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: did for more than two hours of traveling. I mean,
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: I think there's always loads, but then there we go.
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: That's my view. I really don't see how it's possible
• 16:20
  Speaker 3: to get bored on a journey, but there we go.
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: I'll just put it out there and leave it.
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: No, but I mean, if you're in an airplane, right,
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: you're in a very, very confined space, and a two-year-old
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: does not want to sit still after the first hour,
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: and then everybody else on the airplane suffers.
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: Well, okay.
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I realize there's potential for disturbing other people. Yeah, anyway,
• 16:46
  Speaker 3: but no, of course, I get the point. But there
• 16:48
  Speaker 3: is a, I mean, I think usually there's a way
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: that it can work out. I mean, airplanes are quite big.
• 16:53
  Speaker 3: You can do quite a few laps. I mean, it's pencil,
• 16:58
  Speaker 3: doesn't it? But yeah, okay, fair enough.
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: No, but I mean, it's a good point. I mean,
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: I'm thinking of the Boers here. And I mean, the
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: story is the same everywhere in the world. But I'm
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: just thinking, yeah, locally, how they traveled from where I am,
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: Cape Town, to the center of the country. Now, that's
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: almost 2,000 kilometers.
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: Well, they didn't take an airplane. That's the important thing.
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: Exactly.
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So, you know, it swings in roundabouts. You could
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: argue that, okay, it took them three days to get
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: from A to B, but that was a different pace
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: of life. And I suppose there was lots to consider
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: on the way, because obviously if you're traveling for a
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: longer period of time, you've got to think about where
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: you're getting your food from, where you're getting your water from,
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: where you're camping for the night, these kinds of issues,
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: how you're going to stop yourself getting eaten by the lions.
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: and all these types of problems. So, you know, it's
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: a different, it's not quite the same issue as being
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: on an airplane for six hours.
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: I can't imagine being on an airplane for more than
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: two hours with my kids. But you know what's really funny, though,
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: is how society, we could also just be talking about
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: society in general. You know, if you think about how
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: social media has has pushed people into toddler-like mentality on
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: so many things. It's ridiculous.
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: That's what it's for.
• 18:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I would agree.
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 18:26
  Speaker 3: No, it's true in every respect. And actually one thing
• 18:30
  Speaker 3: that does relate a little bit to this, because I
• 18:34
  Speaker 3: was going to say it earlier when you were talking
• 18:35
  Speaker 3: about being short of sleep. You have tried fasting. Periods
• 18:44
  Speaker 3: of time. Have you not?
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: Yes, but it depends on what you mean. I mean,
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: you're talking about not eating from lunchtime today to lunchtime tomorrow.
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: Would you call that fasting?
• 18:56
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I would, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, sort of intermittent. Yeah,
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: I don't mean prolonged fasting, but yes, say for 24
• 19:03
  Speaker 3: hours or a bit more. No, I mean, the only
• 19:05
  Speaker 3: reason I mention it is that that is absolutely, well, okay, again,
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: it completely depends. I know that a lot of people
• 19:15
  Speaker 3: have had success with fasting during periods of sort of
• 19:22
  Speaker 3: prolonged chronic lack of sleep. Because it makes you more awake.
• 19:27
  Speaker 3: make a big difference. I'm not sure I'd really venture
• 19:31
  Speaker 3: into trying to explain the physiology of it, but I
• 19:33
  Speaker 3: don't exactly know why it would work. Perhaps somebody listening
• 19:37
  Speaker 3: does and they can get in touch. But I think, again, it's, sorry,
• 19:41
  Speaker 3: the reason I mention it is because it fits into the,
• 19:43
  Speaker 3: you know, can't do a journey for more than two
• 19:45
  Speaker 3: hours without blah, blah, blah. I think the same thing
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: is is the case with food people now largely because
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: of what they do eat and blood sugar and the
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: sort of demand you know your body's kind of telling
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: you that you need more of it but i think
• 19:57
  Speaker 3: for so many people that routine of having to eat
• 20:01
  Speaker 3: every couple of hours i mean it it to my
• 20:05
  Speaker 3: mind it's completely absurd and the body can and should
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: go for quite long periods without food and I think
• 20:12
  Speaker 3: the benefits of doing that are just tremendous across the
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: piece you know in terms of alertness and and you
• 20:23
  Speaker 3: know everything else that goes with that mentally but also
• 20:26
  Speaker 3: physically as well and I think sleep is a big
• 20:28
  Speaker 3: part of that or at least lack of but being
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: able to to sort of function effectively anyway just a thought.
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: I mean i think fasting is a very good thing
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: uh just in just in general i think i think
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: people probably are better off eating less often uh just
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: as a general rule of thumb i don't think that
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: i mean this idea of eating three times a day
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: i think it's an artificial construct.
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah i'm absolutely certain it is it's completely artificial and
• 21:01
  Speaker 3: um and i think if you Again, I know I'm
• 21:07
  Speaker 3: in tricky territory because I don't want to sound sort
• 21:09
  Speaker 3: of prescriptive and say this is what people should do.
• 21:12
  Speaker 3: But I do think that if you're eating the right
• 21:13
  Speaker 3: thing for your body, and so therefore personally for me,
• 21:18
  Speaker 3: I know what that is. If I am eating what's
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: right for my body, I absolutely don't want to eat
• 21:22
  Speaker 3: three times a day. I wouldn't be able to do it.
• 21:26
  Speaker 3: um and so so this idea of listening to your
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: system sort of and and understanding it again i think
• 21:33
  Speaker 3: people have far and large lost because we've been pushed
• 21:36
  Speaker 3: into processed ultra processed very sugary foods and and that
• 21:41
  Speaker 3: is a that is absolutely a sort of diamond spiral
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: the moment you engage with that stuff you're you're the
• 21:47
  Speaker 3: responses you get mean that you feel like you cannot
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: be satisfied unless you keep eating and um that's a
• 21:56
  Speaker 3: that is a huge problem. But it works both ways.
• 21:58
  Speaker 3: That's a downward spiral. The upward spiral is, I would say,
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: is equally sort of swift or is absolutely as beneficial
• 22:07
  Speaker 3: as the opposite is not the case.
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: You said you know what the right food for your
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: body is. Was that because of experimentation on yourself or
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: was it because of What sort of information or what?
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's an excellent question. It's an excellent question because
• 22:33
  Speaker 3: it's such a... For me, I don't know whether anyone
• 22:38
  Speaker 3: else can identify with this, but when you... when you
• 22:43
  Speaker 3: read or you hear something that sounds compelling or convincing
• 22:48
  Speaker 3: or interesting, and you want to investigate it further, it's
• 22:50
  Speaker 3: so hard to consider that you're being completely objective in
• 22:55
  Speaker 3: your own sort of studies on your body. So for example,
• 22:58
  Speaker 3: one of the things I found fascinating as a guide
• 23:01
  Speaker 3: is the blood type theory, which is written about, I
• 23:06
  Speaker 3: dare say by a few people, the book that I'm
• 23:08
  Speaker 3: most familiar with is by Peter Dodamo, and it's called
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: right for your type, I think it's called. But basically,
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: it splits them. Yeah, it's really good and it splits
• 23:19
  Speaker 3: the blood type down. Just in very simple terms, it
• 23:22
  Speaker 3: explains that the O blood type is the original blood
• 23:27
  Speaker 3: type and that all the others are adaptations according to
• 23:30
  Speaker 3: where people moved in the world and therefore... the necessity
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: to be able to tolerate dairy where previously that hadn't existed,
• 23:39
  Speaker 3: this and the other. So with that in mind, the
• 23:45
  Speaker 3: experimentation for me has confirmed that that does seem to
• 23:51
  Speaker 3: be true. But as I say, I can't say it
• 23:56
  Speaker 3: without any reservation at all because I don't know to
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: what degree I'm experiencing my own sort of confirmation bias
• 24:01
  Speaker 3: because it sounds so sensible and plausible that I think, oh, well,
• 24:06
  Speaker 3: I'll eat that and I know I'll be fine. I mean,
• 24:09
  Speaker 3: that is basically what's happened. So it's both. I have
• 24:12
  Speaker 3: absolutely researched it, but also I have done quite a
• 24:14
  Speaker 3: lot of guinea pig research studies in only eating this
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: or you know eating this but not that and you
• 24:20
  Speaker 3: know and and again um trying that with different um
• 24:26
  Speaker 3: regularities so so the intervals between eating and how and
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: varying sort of sleep length sleep time sleep and and
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: yeah all of this has been it you know, it's
• 24:36
  Speaker 3: quite thorough. But as far as I'm concerned, there's absolutely
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: no doubt that protein, sort of animal-based protein, for me,
• 24:45
  Speaker 3: is the way to go. And if it's the right stuff,
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: eating once a day would be completely fine. And that
• 24:53
  Speaker 3: helps with getting everything else in the right place, the
• 24:57
  Speaker 3: sort of mental acuity and sleep and all of it. Oh,
• 25:00
  Speaker 3: come on, Charles. I can't just say, Yeah, there we go.
• 25:04
  Speaker 3: I've cracked it. Anyone else can do it. We are
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: all different.
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: Charles, it's simple. Just stop doing all this self-research and
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: just follow the science.
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: Trust the experts. Yeah, but you see, this is the... Yeah, yes,
• 25:19
  Speaker 3: I know. Tempting, isn't it? But you see, these sorts
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: of things, they are hard to suppress. Even the BBC.
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: Does still, you know, if you search, you can still
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: find current content on their website that does absolutely dig
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: into some of this stuff. So they can't suppress it
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: altogether because it just, you know, it flies in the
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: face of so many people's lived experiences and just history.
• 25:54
  Speaker 3: I mean, it's so flipping obvious. that what people used
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: to eat is so incredibly different from what people do eat.
• 26:02
  Speaker 3: And what Professor Bottega calls the diseases of civilization were
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: not in existence back then. So this sort of idea
• 26:10
  Speaker 3: that just because we live longer, we are somehow living better.
• 26:13
  Speaker 3: And again, I know we've done this topic many, many times.
• 26:18
  Speaker 3: But it's just such stuff and nonsense. It really is. So,
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: you know, it's there. But, yes, I mean, the experts, yeah, okay.
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: Thanks. I mean, at the end of the day, we
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: must just follow what our grandparents did. We don't have
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: to go that far back in history. Our grandparents generally were,
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: I think, far healthier than what we are today.
• 26:42
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but you see, that's a funny one because I
• 26:43
  Speaker 3: know that one of my grandparents, even as a teenager,
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: so well before being, I can't remember when the age
• 26:50
  Speaker 3: limit on drinking alcohol became 18 in the UK, but
• 26:54
  Speaker 3: certainly one of my grandparents was prescribed, as a teenager,
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: cigarettes and Guinness.
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: That's amazing. Okay, I support that.
• 27:06
  Speaker 3: No, I'm kidding. Yeah. So, you know, isn't that sort
• 27:13
  Speaker 3: of interesting? I mean, I'm not sitting here saying, oh, gosh,
• 27:16
  Speaker 3: how terrible. That's completely wrong. But the science does seem
• 27:21
  Speaker 3: to be anything but settled on any of this stuff. So,
• 27:24
  Speaker 3: you know, tobacco good, tobacco bad, tobacco good again.
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: Well, the thing, yeah, I mean, sorry for jumping in,
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: but I've been having off-air discussions about smoking for a
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: while now. I haven't really been able to get any guests,
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: but I'm searching. I spoke to somebody not too long
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: ago in person who works for Philip Morris. And he says,
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: he won't speak publicly, but he says there's a huge
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: amount of misinformation deliberate coming from the tobacco companies themselves.
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: Smoking has been part of, I'm not, I don't smoke
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: and I'm not in any way endorsing it, but smoking
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: has been part of the human process. for thousands and
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: thousands of years. And there's no real hard evidence of
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: smoking-related cancer from long ago. Cancer is a fairly recent phenomenon.
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: And he says that... I think, sorry to interrupt, but
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: I think that the tobacco companies being mega corporations have
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: absolutely fallen into the same.
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: Yes, of course.
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: No, no, of course.
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: Is trap the right word as the food companies in
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: the sense that they are providing the modern product as
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: a hyper-processed product?
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: Yes, exactly right.
• 28:40
  Speaker 3: Which, of course, causes problems.
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: That's what he said. But he said that's why he
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: won't talk about it publicly because he doesn't want to
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: seem like he's going against his employer.
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: Right, but his employer, I happen to know, is now
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: that the sort of tobacco industry is in the past,
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: is now looking at CBD and other alternative therapies and
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: is looking to do exactly the same thing to those
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: as it did to tobacco and turning them into hyper-processed
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: products branded in a certain way in order to try
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: to capture what is an increasingly burgeoning sort of so-called
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: alternative health market.
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: The point is that smoking itself doesn't necessarily mean poor health.
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: I don't really understand it. I don't know why you'd
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: want to inhale smoke, but I know that it's something
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: that humans have done for, I don't know, relaxation or
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: recreational purposes or whatever, forever. But he was saying to
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: me that... No, well, Jerm, hold on, hold on.
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: Because if I think back to my grandparents' time, neither
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: of them smoked that I remember, but certainly people around
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: them did. And no, in fact, one of my grandfathers
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: did smoke a pipe. But smoking a pipe was something
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: when I was, you know, A very young child was
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: something that, you know, I loved the smell of that. Yeah.
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: That was absolutely something that was.
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: But less processed.
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: Oh, no, it was a different time for sure.
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: So, I mean, that's what he's saying. So it's all
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: the other chemicals that they put into these cigarettes and these, well,
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: the e-cigarettes are also dangerous, you know, for different reasons.
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: But even just, I mean, why would somebody smoke paper?
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: This is the other bit that I never quite understood, cigarettes.
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: If you want to smoke, smoke a pipe.
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: Sorry, go on, Mike.
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: I interrupted. No, I was just saying, if you want
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: to smoke, smoke a pipe because you're then smoking the product.
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: You're not smoking all the other bits that hold it together.
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: But anyway.
• 30:53
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: Just seemed ridiculous to me.
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: Well, yes. And that's what people did a thousand years ago.
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: They weren't smoking paper and they weren't smoking a collection
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: of chemicals that were shoved into that paper. They just
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: found that leaf or whatever, and then they would crush
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: it and then burn that and inhale the smoke from it.
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: And as I said, I still don't quite understand why
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: you would do that, but there isn't any hard evidence
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: that this was killing people en masse like today.
• 31:29
  Speaker 3: And also, I mean, there are endless examples of people
• 31:32
  Speaker 3: who lived to, you know, a hundred and something and
• 31:34
  Speaker 3: have smoked several packets of cigarettes a day since they
• 31:37
  Speaker 3: were sort of 14. So, you know, you could always
• 31:40
  Speaker 3: find somebody to either prove or disprove your hypothesis about
• 31:45
  Speaker 3: smoking i think if you can get somebody on that
• 31:48
  Speaker 3: does have something or more to offer on um on
• 31:53
  Speaker 3: smoking sort of generally but also the the industry i
• 31:55
  Speaker 3: think that would be fascinating but i appreciate this is
• 31:58
  Speaker 3: a bit of an ask to get somebody to come
• 32:00
  Speaker 3: out of the woodwork um so but you know i
• 32:03
  Speaker 3: mean presumably there are plenty of people who've left that
• 32:05
  Speaker 3: industry that would be um well maybe not happy to
• 32:08
  Speaker 3: talk about it, but might consider talking about it. But no,
• 32:11
  Speaker 3: I mean, it is, I think it's just like food.
• 32:14
  Speaker 3: It's just like sort of whole food. I remember, you know,
• 32:18
  Speaker 3: the smell and the, you know, the sort of natural
• 32:23
  Speaker 3: quality of proper whole leaf tobacco is amazing. I remember
• 32:27
  Speaker 3: going into a tobacco auction house in Zimbabwe decades ago,
• 32:32
  Speaker 3: and it was incredible. And to think that horrid um
• 32:39
  Speaker 3: sort of manufactured filtered cigarettes are the product of of
• 32:43
  Speaker 3: that really kind of wonderful plant it just seems um
• 32:49
  Speaker 3: seems a total travesty in exactly the same way as
• 32:52
  Speaker 3: almost anything you take out of a packet in a
• 32:54
  Speaker 3: supermarket will be um a complete perversion of the original
• 32:59
  Speaker 3: food source um so you know it's terrible actually also
• 33:04
  Speaker 3: the i suppose the other thing is um I don't
• 33:06
  Speaker 3: know now, well before the processing stage, what are tobacco
• 33:12
  Speaker 3: plants subjected to? How much engineering has gone in to
• 33:17
  Speaker 3: those plants? How are they treated in terms of pesticides
• 33:22
  Speaker 3: and fertilizers and whatnot? I have no knowledge. But again,
• 33:25
  Speaker 3: I think that'd be an interesting thing to explore. But yeah,
• 33:30
  Speaker 3: it is a funny one. The desire in the first
• 33:34
  Speaker 3: instance Why would you want to breathe in smoke? It
• 33:44
  Speaker 3: does seem somewhat counterintuitive. If someone's able to explain that
• 33:48
  Speaker 3: one at a physiological level, what is it about that?
• 33:56
  Speaker 3: Is it because your body knows that you need to
• 33:59
  Speaker 3: increase your levels of carbon dioxide? Is there a reason
• 34:03
  Speaker 3: for a benefit to inhaling smoke? Yes, I think there
• 34:09
  Speaker 3: is a reason. That is a completely open question.
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it has a psychiatric effect.
• 34:18
  Speaker 3: Okay, but you see, you mean tobacco?
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: Well, yeah, like those shrooms. It has a psychiatric effect.
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: well it's psychiatric the correct word no men like well
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: it has no psychological effect i don't know what what
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: word am i looking for yeah psychosis no that's also
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: the wrong word it does something upstairs.
• 34:41
  Speaker 3: Do you mean do you mean specifically tobacco smoke or
• 34:44
  Speaker 3: do you mean any smoke because because of course there
• 34:46
  Speaker 3: are there's also the tradition of um uh smoke you
• 34:50
  Speaker 3: know wood wood smoke and no no obviously not fires
• 34:53
  Speaker 3: inside certain plants obviously well i mean obviously certain plant
• 34:57
  Speaker 3: well this is why people have been smoking certain plants
• 34:59
  Speaker 3: for thousands of years because they have some some effect
• 35:01
  Speaker 3: on them.
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: Psychoactive maybe psychoactive might be the word yeah it's the
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: same thing as taking but i mean is it but
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: is it not is it not for the same reason
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: that people consume alcohol because of the because of the
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: uh Yeah, probably.
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: With tobacco, there is a natural high. There's other herbs
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: that create natural highs. You can go to the extremes
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: of marijuana plants and so on and others that also,
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: and as you say, consuming certain mushrooms. I mean, let's
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: face it, the mushrooms that people consume for psychoactive reasons
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: aren't being consumed because they're a great gourmet meal.
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, but what I'm trying to say is
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: that that might be the answer to your question, Charles.
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: Why would people want to inhale smoke? Because obviously, if
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: you are standing around a fire, that is not what
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: you want to inhale, and it makes you feel terrible.
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: So that's obviously, it's not smoke in general. No, but
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: I think that's my point.
• 36:07
  Speaker 3: There is a tradition, I think, particularly in North America,
• 36:11
  Speaker 3: where that's exactly what people did do. They would design
• 36:15
  Speaker 3: the whole idea of having smoke in the middle of your... dwelling,
• 36:21
  Speaker 3: there was a theory to that beyond simply having fire,
• 36:26
  Speaker 3: heat and something to cook on. It was also to
• 36:29
  Speaker 3: do with the smoke. But why is my question. I
• 36:34
  Speaker 3: get it with tobacco, fine, but just other forms of
• 36:39
  Speaker 3: wood smoke. What's the answer there? I had a friend
• 36:42
  Speaker 3: who went to.
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: I think Peru or somewhere near the Amazon jungle to
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: stay with some shaman or shaman. I don't even pronounce it. Shaman, shaman.
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: I never know how to say it. For a week
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: in a mountain somewhere. And part of... what they were doing,
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: the rituals and things, was exactly this. It was inhaling
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: certain plants that were burning or whatever. And he came
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: back and he said part of the experience for him
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: was it just allowed him to uh, think creatively about
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: his existence again. Um, perhaps it, perhaps it, it opens
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: or unlocks.
• 37:24
  Speaker 3: I don't know.
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: I'm, I have no experience in this, but perhaps there's
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: some sort of creativity or, um, ability to just to
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: relax and, and think about life differently. I don't know.
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 37:35
  Speaker 3: No, I think that sounds quite credible because I think, um,
• 37:38
  Speaker 3: I think, uh, alcohol sort of naturally occurring alcohol, um,
• 37:44
  Speaker 3: in fruit and whatnot. I understand that that's, you know,
• 37:50
  Speaker 3: there's certainly evidence of that being part of the reason
• 37:56
  Speaker 3: for doing that. It's not just, you know, get wasted
• 38:00
  Speaker 3: and have fun. It was to do with unlocking, yeah,
• 38:04
  Speaker 3: sort of creative processes.
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: It's never about changing the world. It's always about self-improvement
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: from my experience talking to guys who've done this kind
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: of thing. So, I mean, it's a very strange conversation
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: because it's just complete speculation and I have no idea
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: what goes on. But my guess is that it's about
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: self-improvement and self-discovery.
• 38:27
  Speaker 3: Yes, I think so. But, you know, it's funny where the, well,
• 38:34
  Speaker 3: I mean, to me it seems like the line gets
• 38:36
  Speaker 3: blurred because, of course, you go into the 1950s and
• 38:39
  Speaker 3: 1960s and what people started doing with technology with hallucinogenic
• 38:43
  Speaker 3: drugs and that kind of thing. Supposedly some of them,
• 38:47
  Speaker 3: at least for the same sorts of reasons, but it's,
• 38:50
  Speaker 3: I don't know. But that's artificial. I don't know whether
• 38:51
  Speaker 3: one says, yeah, exactly. Yes, it is. Yeah. But they
• 38:54
  Speaker 3: were in effect after the same sort of results. You know,
• 38:59
  Speaker 3: it's just curious where these things go.
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: I mean, I don't, I don't think I've ever had
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: a conversation with someone who has done this kind of
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: thing and come back and said, you know, I feel worse.
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: It's always been a positive experience and it's always been
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: an uplifting experience. It's never been destructive. As opposed to
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: what you're talking about, like artificial drugs and alcohol and
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: the way in which all of that stuff is consumed.
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: I mean, there's a... I'm seeing a line between sort
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: of natural history and artificial modernity. You know what I mean?
• 39:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah. I mean, yeah, we live in a very
• 39:46
  Speaker 3: perverse age where... almost everything harmful is not just legal,
• 39:53
  Speaker 3: but also encouraged. The example I often give for this
• 39:58
  Speaker 3: in the United Kingdom, which is absolutely insane, is that
• 40:03
  Speaker 3: in Scotland, it is perfectly acceptable to drink yourself to
• 40:06
  Speaker 3: death with whiskey or with something called iron brew, which
• 40:11
  Speaker 3: We might see if we can get you a bottle
• 40:12
  Speaker 3: of when you come over.
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: We have iron brew, yeah.
• 40:16
  Speaker 3: Do you? I've got hard luck. Yeah, but if you
• 40:19
  Speaker 3: want to take your chances with raw milk, tough luck
• 40:23
  Speaker 3: because it is not for sale in Scotland. It's illegal.
• 40:27
  Speaker 3: You know, it's just bananas, but it's a very, very
• 40:33
  Speaker 3: strong indication of the way in which the controllers, if
• 40:39
  Speaker 3: that's what we think of them as, want society to operate.
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: Well, Charles, speaking of natural highs, nothing, nothing, nothing in
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: my life can top my experience with my little two-year-old
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: yesterday morning when he came, he walked out of his
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: bedroom about half past six in the morning and I
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: heard it because now he gets up out of his
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: bed and he opens the door on his own. And
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: I heard him and I got up because it was
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: still kind of dark and he didn't make a noise.
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: And I walked into the passage and I saw him
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: standing there holding his little cement mixer truck. And he
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: had this big smile on his face and he said, hello, daddy.
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: There's nothing that I can explain that can top that
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: high in that moment. No drug, nothing, nothing. That is
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: for me, The meaning of life. Because that right there
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: teaches me everything about myself and about why I'm here.
• 41:41
  Speaker 3: That's absolutely lovely. Was he in any way... Inspired by
• 41:50
  Speaker 3: what's happened to your internet cable to go out and
• 41:53
  Speaker 3: pour thick concrete over the place where they keep digging
• 41:55
  Speaker 3: it up. Is that what he was thinking?
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: But my point is no drugs, no alcohol, nothing required.
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: You can get those highs in your own home from
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: your family.
• 42:11
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, there you go. I mean, that's
• 42:14
  Speaker 3: a wonderful thought to bring out. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.
• 42:19
  Speaker 3: But no, this is it. This is where we started
• 42:22
  Speaker 3: to an extent, isn't it? This idea that it's possible
• 42:29
  Speaker 3: to replicate that through synthetic means. It just isn't. It
• 42:33
  Speaker 3: never will be. So the whole idea of... you know,
• 42:37
  Speaker 3: the internet of things and transhumanism. It's just, it's complete
• 42:41
  Speaker 3: and utter rot. It's just, it's not workable. So, you know,
• 42:47
  Speaker 3: well done. That's great.
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: No, I was only saying, I wasn't bragging or anything.
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: I mean, you've also had the same experience.
• 42:53
  Speaker 3: No, no, no, no, no. What I mean is well
• 42:56
  Speaker 3: done for recognizing that that is, you know, that that
• 42:59
  Speaker 3: is the epitome and anything else is a poor relation.
• 43:05
  Speaker 3: That's the significant bit. Because you see, the trouble is
• 43:06
  Speaker 3: a lot of people, sadly... have lost sight of that.
• 43:10
  Speaker 3: They don't realize that and they don't get to experience it.
• 43:13
  Speaker 3: And you're going back to your point about what children
• 43:15
  Speaker 3: give back. If you don't appreciate that in the first place,
• 43:19
  Speaker 3: then my fear would be that you do lose it.
• 43:22
  Speaker 3: And what a tragedy. So it's incumbent upon all of
• 43:27
  Speaker 3: us to make sure that doesn't happen by keeping talking
• 43:30
  Speaker 3: about this, especially to people who are likely to have
• 43:32
  Speaker 3: or have contact with children.
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: Well, I mean, look, I don't really have a choice
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: at the moment. I think right now I'm in a
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: very philosophical existential phase because of lack of sleep. So
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: I'm thinking about these things more than I normally would.
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: But I think maybe that's also a blessing in disguise.
• 43:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but you see, that's another one, actually, funnily enough,
• 43:53
  Speaker 3: going back to the rituals of sort of expanding the mind.
• 43:55
  Speaker 3: I mean, that lack of sleep is another one. That
• 43:58
  Speaker 3: is something that people have experimented with over time in
• 44:01
  Speaker 3: order to see what the mind comes up with. I
• 44:05
  Speaker 3: don't know if anyone else has experienced this, but I
• 44:07
  Speaker 3: have certainly had very strange experiences after periods of being
• 44:13
  Speaker 3: awake for hours. more than two days at a time.
• 44:16
  Speaker 3: And it gets, yeah, it gets quite bizarre. So, so
• 44:20
  Speaker 3: it is interesting, but it's another, it's another avenue to consider.
• 44:24
  Speaker 3: I'm not saying you want to extend it, um, any
• 44:28
  Speaker 3: more than necessary at the moment, but, but, you know,
• 44:30
  Speaker 3: people have over the years.
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: Um, And part of that, I've actually been writing down
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: my experience with my kids so that I can come
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: back to it later on. And when I say writing,
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: I don't mean typing on a phone. I mean writing
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: on paper in little books, little notebooks. And sometimes I
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: page back and I read what I wrote then. And
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: it's actually very revealing sometimes. I think it's something everybody
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: should do, if I'm being honest. Everybody should write in
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: a journal.
• 45:06
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I would second that. Yeah, absolutely.
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: And, I mean, your kids can read it.
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: Do they have to relearn how to write?
• 45:14
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: I mean, I've been practicing. It sounds so funny, Mike,
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: but I've been practicing cursive. Because, I mean, I've been
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: drawing cartoons for my whole life. You know, cartoon text
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: is a very different– it's a very– distinctive kind of
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: writing style and it becomes part of who I am.
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: And so writing cursive has been like riding a bicycle again,
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: you know, like having to learn everything from scratch. It's,
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: but it's a really great experience learning to write cursive
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: because it's very intentional.
• 45:39
  Speaker 2: And this, this, uh, this sort of comes back to the, um,
• 45:49
  Speaker 2: the way travel used to be point again, because of course,
• 45:52
  Speaker 2: in order to write, um, and to write well, you've
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: got to take your time. So everything slows down at
• 45:59
  Speaker 2: that point. And maybe that's not a bad thing.
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: No, I think it's a great thing. Slowing down is
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: a very good thing.
• 46:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 46:10
  Speaker 3: I think it's a very good thing, but I think
• 46:11
  Speaker 3: also one of the points that is missed is the
• 46:15
  Speaker 3: efficiency in doing so. I think... I'm absolutely open to
• 46:21
  Speaker 3: there being disagreement here, but to my mind, either very
• 46:26
  Speaker 3: few or none of the so-called progressions, particularly in communications,
• 46:32
  Speaker 3: have actually made anything more efficient because you're not... taking
• 46:37
  Speaker 3: the time in the first instance and just getting it right.
• 46:40
  Speaker 3: So if you commit something to paper, you're writing it down,
• 46:42
  Speaker 3: you get it right, there's no ambiguity, you send that
• 46:45
  Speaker 3: communication in an active sense. It's received by somebody, they
• 46:49
  Speaker 3: deal with it in an active sense. The whole thing is.
• 46:54
  Speaker 3: Straightforward in a way that.
• 46:56
  Speaker 2: I think- I mean, you're absolutely right because you write
• 46:58
  Speaker 2: down your email, you send it, the person misunderstands it,
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: you spend the next three weeks trying to resolve the problem.
• 47:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean, that is basically, anyone who has even
• 47:08
  Speaker 3: been anywhere near a desk job, that is your life.
• 47:11
  Speaker 3: That is basically how it works.
• 47:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 47:14
  Speaker 3: But you see now with every passing minute, there's yet
• 47:17
  Speaker 3: another platform, let's say, where you can be attacked from
• 47:23
  Speaker 3: the side. It's not just one thing. When it was,
• 47:28
  Speaker 3: when there were written communications, you got your letter or whatever.
• 47:33
  Speaker 3: And that was that. It was that simple. You didn't
• 47:36
  Speaker 3: suddenly get hit in the head by something from the
• 47:38
  Speaker 3: side that you weren't expecting to confuse and complicate matters.
• 47:44
  Speaker 3: And again, forgive me if I've said this before, but
• 47:46
  Speaker 3: I do think it's just a terrific statistic. I was
• 47:50
  Speaker 3: reading a book a while ago about that crazy period,
• 47:56
  Speaker 3: not at all dissimilar to the crazy period we're going
• 47:59
  Speaker 3: through now with the build-up to the outbreak So the outbreak,
• 48:03
  Speaker 3: the start of the First World War in summer 1914.
• 48:10
  Speaker 3: And of course, in the day where the majority of
• 48:13
  Speaker 3: communications not in person were conducted by letter. And in London,
• 48:19
  Speaker 3: I don't know how it compared outside of London, but
• 48:21
  Speaker 3: in London at that time, there were 14 postal deliveries
• 48:26
  Speaker 3: per day. So the idea that now, you know, oh,
• 48:30
  Speaker 3: sending an email, yeah, it's just so quick and easy
• 48:32
  Speaker 3: and it'll be there in seconds. Well, yeah, maybe, but
• 48:35
  Speaker 3: say with a pile of absolute rubbish from somebody trying
• 48:38
  Speaker 3: to sell you curtains and business email addresses, you know.
• 48:42
  Speaker 3: So you have all of that. But in actual fact,
• 48:46
  Speaker 3: if you just sat down and took a minute longer
• 48:49
  Speaker 3: to just compose your thoughts, write it down, send it,
• 48:52
  Speaker 3: and you've got... if you need 14 goes a day
• 48:55
  Speaker 3: i mean that's amazing to me that is absolutely amazing
• 48:58
  Speaker 3: and i think we have we have absolutely regressed hugely
• 49:02
  Speaker 3: from from there in every sense.
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: But charles it gets worse uh our typing um and
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: the way in which i don't know what it is
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: but the way in which a keyboard is designed and
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: let's not even talk about a phone which has no
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: keyboard Our typing is generally terrible. I mean, how many
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: times– If you're typing an email, how many times do
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: you make a spelling error? I constantly am making spelling errors.
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: And on a phone, it's ridiculous. Almost every second word
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: is auto-corrected and it's wrong. And then you're typing wrong
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: because you have to touch the little square and then
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: you're missing it and you're doing the one to the
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: left of it or whatever. And then you end up
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: sending a message that's got random letters in it. It's
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: just like the communication seems to just be worse than
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: what it's ever been. And you have to use a
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: spell checker. That's how bad it is.
• 49:56
  Speaker 2: Don't even get me started on emojis.
• 49:58
  Speaker 3: Oh, yes.
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: And this sort of SMS language, lol, and that kind
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: of thing, you know. And, I mean, it appears to
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: me that, like, you're right, Charles, we've gone completely backwards
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: in straightforward communication.
• 50:16
  Speaker 2: Why is it?
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: But let me ask you a question.
• 50:20
  Speaker 3: An argument from me.
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: Let me ask you a question. Mike and Charles, when
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: last did you write, physically write a letter?
• 50:29
  Speaker 3: Yesterday, in fact.
• 50:30
  Speaker 2: About 1979.
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: Did you write one yesterday, Charles?
• 50:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I did.
• 50:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: Like an actual letter? On like a full page?
• 50:40
  Speaker 3: Yes. I don't. Yes, I thought I might have a...
• 50:43
  Speaker 3: What was the context? I take a letter writing kit
• 50:47
  Speaker 3: with me. everywhere i go with um with proper thick
• 50:54
  Speaker 3: um paper and envelopes and stamps and a fountain pen
• 51:00
  Speaker 3: i also have a fountain pen where is it i
• 51:02
  Speaker 3: got it yes it's not actually my it's i just
• 51:05
  Speaker 3: have a yeah a sort of um a kind of
• 51:08
  Speaker 3: travel fountain pen.
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: Yes, I have one too.
• 51:10
  Speaker 3: Actually, I think Mike, is this to say, is that
• 51:14
  Speaker 3: Parker one, Mike? Did I copy it from you? I
• 51:17
  Speaker 3: think you have the same one.
• 51:17
  Speaker 2: No, no, no, I don't have that one, no. I
• 51:20
  Speaker 2: can't remember what mine is.
• 51:22
  Speaker 3: I quite like it. I needed a fine nib. But yeah,
• 51:27
  Speaker 3: I mean, I, yeah, that's something that I, I've never lost.
• 51:33
  Speaker 3: I mean, admittedly, I do do it less frequently.
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: This one's called a Lamy. L-A-M-Y.
• 51:40
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 51:40
  Speaker 2: I think mine's Lamy or Lamy as well, whatever. And
• 51:44
  Speaker 2: you can buy different nibs, different sizes.
• 51:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 51:49
  Speaker 2: Indeed.
• 51:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah. And I think.
• 51:53
  Speaker 3: Well, actually, I would say pencil, similarly, is very good
• 51:56
  Speaker 3: for handwriting.
• 51:57
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 51:58
  Speaker 3: But anywhere, anything in between, if it's not a fountain pen,
• 52:02
  Speaker 3: it's not a pencil. I mean, I don't know. Personally,
• 52:04
  Speaker 3: I've always struggled to retain form handwriting-wise.
• 52:09
  Speaker 2: But the best pen I have is a Rotring Art pen,
• 52:12
  Speaker 2: by the way. But it just looks a bit silly,
• 52:14
  Speaker 2: so I don't use it in public very much for that.
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: But this for me is great. I love this because
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: this is what we should be doing more of. I'm
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: just amazed that you wrote a full letter. I haven't
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: got that far yet. Well, you know, funnily enough, we
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: go back to long journeys. I have undertaken....
• 52:39
  Speaker 3: A lot of long journeys. That's absolutely one of the
• 52:43
  Speaker 3: ways I would pass the time on long train journeys
• 52:46
  Speaker 3: or flights. I would write letters. So, you know, there's always,
• 52:51
  Speaker 3: there's absolutely always something to do. And I think it's
• 52:55
  Speaker 3: a joy. I think being able to get your thoughts
• 52:56
  Speaker 3: down through the nib of a pen or pencil is... Well,
• 53:01
  Speaker 3: you know, it will never stop being satisfying and enjoyable.
• 53:06
  Speaker 3: And it's, you know, it's real. Somebody gets a letter
• 53:10
  Speaker 3: at the end of it. So it's terrific. And I
• 53:12
  Speaker 3: think I've probably talked about this before, but the other
• 53:14
  Speaker 3: joy as well is being able to use interesting stamps.
• 53:18
  Speaker 3: There are, I mean, I'm afraid the whole... Royal Mail
• 53:22
  Speaker 3: and Post Office saga in the United Kingdom is almost
• 53:25
  Speaker 3: too grim to talk about. But one of the bits
• 53:28
  Speaker 3: of areas of joy that's been completely sabotaged is stamps.
• 53:34
  Speaker 3: First of all, they became self-adhesive, so you didn't get
• 53:39
  Speaker 3: the pleasure of licking against the hat, but getting that
• 53:42
  Speaker 3: slightly peculiar taste. So, you know, we're not too flipping
• 53:48
  Speaker 3: stupid to be able to lick the back of a stamp,
• 53:50
  Speaker 3: so they're all stickers. But also they took all the
• 53:55
  Speaker 3: interesting pictures off them. There's this very, very banal thing
• 53:59
  Speaker 3: with a horrid, whatever it's called, QR code. I think
• 54:02
  Speaker 3: it is beside it now. But you can still get
• 54:06
  Speaker 3: stamps printed you know, with a value, a money value
• 54:10
  Speaker 3: printed on them. And then you just, you know, you
• 54:12
  Speaker 3: have the fun of adding them up to the exorbitant
• 54:15
  Speaker 3: cost of either a first or second glass stamp. So yeah, again,
• 54:20
  Speaker 3: it can be a real work of art. And something
• 54:21
  Speaker 3: I used to do that I do less so now
• 54:23
  Speaker 3: is to paint in watercolour on the front of the envelope.
• 54:29
  Speaker 3: But a simple thing so that the stamp itself becomes
• 54:33
  Speaker 3: part of a picture so whether it's you know it
• 54:36
  Speaker 3: could be the back of a lorry or or an
• 54:38
  Speaker 3: easel or so you know just something rectangular uh just
• 54:41
  Speaker 3: for you know just for extra amusement but it's just
• 54:44
  Speaker 3: just a kind of doodle but yeah so there's a
• 54:47
  Speaker 3: you've silenced yourself john.
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: Sorry i said i like that you said watercolor because
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: i do exactly the same this is a watercolor brush
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: that i carry with me so there's water in here
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: okay so there's water in here so i don't have
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: to have water And then I take with me everywhere.
• 55:02
  Speaker 3: So I can also mess around. Yeah, so I can
• 55:03
  Speaker 3: show you my deployable kit. I have my bag next
• 55:06
  Speaker 3: to me. I have my watercolor set with me right now.
• 55:10
  Speaker 2: I take it everywhere.
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: That's my one.
• 55:12
  Speaker 3: It's even smaller. You know, I'm not bluffing it. And
• 55:14
  Speaker 3: then I've got, here's my address book. So, you know,
• 55:17
  Speaker 3: it's all, it's all here. I also have one, right?
• 55:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 55:22
  Speaker 3: There we go. This is great.
• 55:23
  Speaker 2: Good.
• 55:24
  Speaker 3: I hope you're bringing it next week. Yeah.
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: Come on, Mike.
• 55:32
  Speaker 3: Time to recover.
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: But Charles, I also carry little watercolor books with me,
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: but this is okay.
• 55:38
  Speaker 3: All right. Yeah.
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: Unfortunately, they're a little bit thick because of the paper
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: because it's watercolor paper, but they're great.
• 55:43
  Speaker 3: Yeah. That's fantastic. Yeah. I got this on TV actually.
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: So it's cheap.
• 55:46
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 55:49
  Speaker 3: I don't know what that is, but good.
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: Timu is the Chinese online shop.
• 55:54
  Speaker 3: Oh, is it? Okay, yes.
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: Not much call for it around here. It's kind of
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: like Amazon, but like the low-quality version.
• 56:07
  Speaker 2: That's debatable.
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's probably debatable. So I don't know what these
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: kinds of things cost in your side of the world.
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: But here, I'm sure you will agree that art stuff
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: generally is expensive. So watercolor paper, I'm sure you will
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: also agree, is generally expensive. This is probably about three
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: times cheaper via TMU. And it's exactly the same quality. Okay.
• 56:35
  Speaker 2: Okay. All right.
• 56:37
  Speaker 3: I'll have a look.
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: But now it sounds silly that I'm hard-selling it. I'm
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: not trying to hard-sell it. It's cheaper.
• 56:47
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: Well, so listen, guys, when I record with you next,
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: I'm going to be with you. I'm going to meet
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: up with you guys literally this week. I'm so excited.
• 56:56
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I know. Yeah, also a week. Yes, I mean,
• 57:01
  Speaker 3: I probably said it last week, but I certainly can't
• 57:04
  Speaker 3: believe it's now this week. It's, yeah, it's great. It's
• 57:08
  Speaker 3: very exciting.
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: And we were talking about... So we'll see you on... Yeah,
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: in a few days. And we were talking about diet. Now,
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: I know what we're eating this weekend, and I can
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: tell you right now that whatever I chose definitely suits
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: my body. Okay.
• 57:24
  Speaker 2: I don't know what I chose because Charles chose swimming.
• 57:26
  Speaker 2: This is problematic. I have to admit, I'm kind of panicking.
• 57:30
  Speaker 3: I think I chose for you what's suitable for my body,
• 57:33
  Speaker 3: which is.
• 57:35
  Speaker 2: Well, that's okay, Dad.
• 57:35
  Speaker 3: If it's pretty carnivore, then that's fine. Yeah, no, it'll
• 57:39
  Speaker 3: be fine. I think you'll be all right.
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: So I'm just going to quickly use this opportunity to
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: say for the last time, whoever's listening right now, please
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: go to ukacardem.org and get tickets. If you can't come
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: in person.
• 57:51
  Speaker 2: Well, either in person or for the live stream.
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, or for the live stream.
• 57:54
  Speaker 2: Don't forget that. Yeah, please do.
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: I'm really looking forward to meeting not just you guys,
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: but everybody else that's going to be there. I know
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: some of the guests who've been on my show are
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: going to be there also. It's really, really great stuff.
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: Like people coming from all over the world.
• 58:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 58:10
  Speaker 3: No, they are. And I think the great thing is
• 58:13
  Speaker 3: that over the course of three days, that there was
• 58:16
  Speaker 3: actually a lot of opportunity to talk to a huge
• 58:19
  Speaker 3: number of people. So I think it's not unrealistic to
• 58:22
  Speaker 3: think that by the end of the weekend, you will
• 58:24
  Speaker 3: have had a chance to talk to pretty much everybody there,
• 58:28
  Speaker 3: even if it's only in passing, but that is such
• 58:32
  Speaker 3: fun and such a fun prospect and just really sort
• 58:36
  Speaker 3: of heartwarming. And I think it touches on so many
• 58:38
  Speaker 3: of the things we've discussed today, that human interactions, it's
• 58:43
  Speaker 3: so important.