Adulting - #78 Living Better with Alastair Campbell

Episode Date: September 27, 2020

Hey Podulters, in this episode I speak to former spokesman for Tony Blair, mental health ambassador, and sixteen times author, Alastair Campbell. We talk about depression, the taboo of mental illness and a little about private versus state education at the very endYou can buy Alastair's new book Living Better: How I Learned to Survive Depression from all good book stores and retailers. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

FanDuel Casino's exclusive live dealer studio has your chance at the number one feeling, winning, which beats even the 27th best feeling, saying I do. Who wants this last parachute? I do. Enjoy the number one feeling, winning, in an exciting live dealer studio, exclusively on FanDuel Casino, where winning is undefeated. 19 plus and physically located in Ontario. Gambling problem?

Call 1-866-531-2600 or visit connectsontario.ca. Please play responsibly. Hey, poddlters. I hope you're well. In this episode, I speak to Alistair Campbell, who's probably best known for being Tony Blair's right-hand man. Funnily enough, I came to know him through his work to do with mental health, and he also now happens to be one of my best friend's dads. We discuss his new book, Living Better, How I Learned to Survive Depression, and lots more. I really hope you enjoy, and as always, please do rate, review, and subscribe. Bye! Hello, and welcome to Adulting. Today, I'm joined by Alistair Campbell. Hello, I'm Alistair Campbell.

How are you? I'm okay. So, for people who don't know who you are, can you tell us and give us an intro to Alistair Campbell? Who are these people? The listeners. But do none of them know who I am? Probably not. Seriously?

No, I'm joking, but you can't make everyone know who you are no I don't um so what do I have to do just say who I am in my own words to somebody who's never heard of me yeah so if you had to describe what it is that you do and what it means for you how would you describe that okay well my website alistaircampbell.org where you can buy my new book uh living better how I learned toed to Survive Depression, it says, Alistair Campbell, writer, communicator, strategist. What I tend to say to people on, happens sometimes on planes when,

where was I recently? I was in Albania. Right. I got on a plane and there was an Italian I was sitting next to. And it's quite, because in Britain, most people do vaguely know who I am. So I can say I'm Alastair, if they say who I am, I can say I'm Alastair Campbell. Then usually they, oh yeah.

Or they know me anyway and they say, oh, you're Alastair Campbell, aren't you? So it's sort of, but with this Italian who clearly didn't have a clue who I was. And so they asked me what I did. And I said, well, I used to be in politics. I was Tony Blair's spokesman. They've nearly always heard of Tony Blair. I was Tony Blair's spokesman and director of communications and strategy. And now I kind of do lots of different things.

So that's what I say. Okay. Was that very long-winded? No, it's an interesting answer. the director of communications and strategy and now I kind of do lots of different things so that's what I say okay was that very long-winded no it's an interesting answer how do you feel when someone doesn't recognize you have you got so accustomed to people knowing who you are that it would shock you hmm no not at all um uh no I quite like it actually I I sometimes like recognition and I sometimes like non-recognition. And I do sometimes quite, like, for example, when Fiona, you've met Fiona, haven't you, my partner, 40 years. Your girlfriend.

My living lover. When Fiona and I were in Germany recently, she had booked a hotel. And so it was in her name, Miller. And so they spent the whole time that we were there so calling me hair miller right which was just funny i find it quite funny and then so then what happened was one of the people in the hotel it was actually the same hotel where the the football wag stayed when drumroll and victoria beckham in baden-baden and they all were spending zillions on champagne and some of the players were nipping in and out and all sorts of stuff so we got to talk to some of the um

some of the uh doodars the staff and but they kept calling me mr mayor miller so i eventually you got to talk they said well what do you you know what's what's your background what do you do so then i sort of said well I kind of was in politics and I was actually I was Tony Blair's spokesman you see oh my god so then of course they went away and they couldn't somebody tried to google you tried to google this you know Alistair Miller who was Tony Blair's spokesman they obviously thought I was a complete liar so eventually I had to explain to them my name and then they could check it out properly that is interesting to have such a big part of your life dictate though how

people view you like have you become accustomed to that to having yeah I think I've kind of yeah I have and and and it's I don't mind it actually I've kind of got you know I can live with it um I mean if I mean, if I do a speech, I mean, there aren't many speeches being done at the moment, but, you know, in the days when that was my main income was going around the world sort of, you know, talking about politics and life and whatever, there wouldn't be a single occasion

on which the word Blair did not appear in the introduction. What's happened since, though, interestingly, particularly on the mental health agenda, they now sort of say... They usually say something like Alistair's best known or Alistair came to prominence as Tony Blair's da-da-da, now spends a lot of his time da-da-da-da-da, which has nothing to do with Tony Blair.

But there's always that pivot. Well, I think, not growing up in quite as a political household as you would have created, I came to know you through you talking about mental health. Wow, OK. I didn't even really realise. And when I met Grace, I didn't even know that... My daughter.

Yeah, I didn't even realise that that's what you'd done. Wow. In fact, when I was writing, doing this book, when I was doing the research for this book, it came out of a TV documentary that I did. And one of the interviews I was doing for the film came at university. And I was sitting interviewing this guy,

Golan Kandika, who's a blood expert about the mental health implications of what you can get from blood tests. And we were doing, you know, classic sort of film, winky-winky thing. They wanted to just do it on a park bench, just like a normal conversation kind of thing. So while we're being filmed talking,

this little gaggle of young guys sort of appears. And I could see they do recognise me and they are talking about me and they're waiting, right? So when the filming finished, they came over, we had a chat a chat and one of these guys said i'm so excited to see you because we're i'm actually finishing my dissertation today and it's about new labor communication strategy i can't believe can i just you know if i can talk to you as an original source like you know wow i'm made i said that's fine so we sit down and chat and at the end of it i said, that's fine. So we sit down and chat. And at the end of it, I said, so what's the politics studies like at Cambridge at the moment?

He said, I don't do politics. I do history. Did that make you feel old? Fuck. Yeah, it did. It really made me feel old. We are now studied by students of history. No, it doesn't bother me, really.

I mean, it's just that uncomfortable bit if you if you sort of have to explain and i do get i know you know you know grace and i think i think grace and the boys and fiona sometimes find it they take the piss out of me because they grace has this thing but when we're out for a walk i will nod and say hello to pretty much everybody if they're looking at me. Right. And Grace says, why are you doing that? They don't have a clue yet.

They don't care who you are. But actually, the instinct is because I think they will think it's rude if I don't, if they do know who I am. No, I think that's true. And on the off chance that they do, you want to seem nice. I don't care, really, but I just don't want to, I just think it's sort of, you know, you've just got to be a bit on, you know, on it the whole time. You certainly don't want people going around saying, God, I've come with such a miserable bastard.

But that is what people thought of you previously, wasn't it? What, miserable bastard? I think people thought you were quite grumpy. And do you think that when you first spoke about your mental health, do you think that was a huge turning point in people's way that they viewed you? No, not... I mean, I don't know is the honest answer, because I honestly don't think about what people think of me in that way. That's an amazing freedom to have. Well, it is really, because I'll tell you why.

Because I think if you think about what the people who matter think about you, then it'll be fine. Right. Now, it's true that if you have a public profile, which I have had for quite a long time and still do, then you will have people who have their opinion of you formed by people who don't know you and don't particularly like you. Newspapers, right-wing newspapers in particular, broadcasters who, you know, a lot of them just have to talk without often knowing what they're talking about. They're just filling space. So I did for a long time, I think, have a profile that I think was, I'm not complaining about it because I don't really care, but it was unfair

and it was inaccurate, but it didn't bother me because I don't think it really impinged upon the effectiveness of what I was doing, which was trying to help Tony Blair do his job, not worry about me. And so, but I think that as long as... Look, if I thought my... If I thought when they were alive that my parents thought I was a war criminal, if I thought that my kids thought I was a compulsive liar, if I thought that Fiona thought I was comparable with Goebbels, I'm just going through some of the

things that have been said, that would worry me. But they don't, so it doesn't. You've got a really strong sense of self then in that sense, because to be able to, I think a lot of people could feel malleable to the views of that many people especially if you're someone that perhaps is prone to falling into mental health that isn't that stable so that's an interesting dynamic it is an interesting dynamic and funny enough i had in in as you know in the book i've got this mental health scale i do one to. One is delirious, ten is suicidal. And I had a guy who wrote to me yesterday and he said, I've had some fantastic feedback on the book and particularly, in fact, on this idea of measuring your own moods on a daily basis.

And this guy said, you know, thanks for writing the book, I've got a lot out of it. And then he just said, I was four or five yesterday, but then, I don't know the circumstances, but then I got a lot of abuse and I plummeted to eight. And I thought, wow, yeah, I can see that. I mean, because I don't get that. It just doesn't bother me if people, you know,

if I get loads of stuff on Twitter or whatever, it doesn't bother me. And then I remember when Grace was at Edinburgh doing edinburgh fringe and she was doing her show and i mean you know it sold out she did well she got really good reviews she got one really really really really bad review and i was really shocked at how much it upsets her i feel the same if i get one bad podcast review i think about about it for weeks. Do you? I really... But that's such a waste of your energy.

It's a complete waste of your energy. And I wonder if, and I don't like to gender things, but I do think that sometimes women are conditioned to feel more impacted by how other people view them than men. But listen, do you know what I think you should do with that?

This is what I do. Okay. I think what you should do with that is actually, this is what we did. Eventually I did, I think I managed to persuade Grace with this review

one I found out that the guy who wrote it went to Eton right so he's a fucking knob and could have been

prime minister without being qualified to be how did you find that out was it on it was a newspaper review

his name was on it and I just sort of you know I think I remember sort of google it blah blah blah and so that was the first thing so that then gives you a sort of you know i think i remember sort of google it blah blah blah and so that was the first thing so that then gives you a kind of you know we've got a bit of a kind of class warrior thing that we can say oh grace is going to eat and he's bound to say that he

doesn't like people like us um but then the second thing i think you've got to do is actually strip away all the rubbish around it like for example i think you could make the case that he probably wasn't reviewing her show he was thinking how can i think you can make the case that he probably wasn't reviewing her show he was thinking how can i have a go at the fact that she's my daughter and that's the only reason why i'm here anyway right okay some of that strip away all that and then actually try to see whether there's any legitimate criticism in there and then think about that i do do that but then sometimes um you can do so i i used to love i used to be on this field i love christian i like picking apart but actually after a while sometimes

you can't be i would be so willing to change when someone else gave me what i took to be constructive criticism that actually in the end you can whittle away so much that you've got nothing left so i think well in which case don't do it so why is it just push it aside both sides do you know what i mean just push it aside then so who came up with your scale how long have you been doing your i i came up with it in over over a period of time it's just like and now it's just it's almost like a momentary thing when i wake up i just give myself a number out of 10 and it helps me kind of frame the day um so like if i'm two which is like mega a bit manic i have to be a bit careful uh because i never i never want to go to one because that's kind of you know you think you can fly airplanes and stuff like that um two's okay three and four

is where i like to be five is what i would call a bit boring, middle of the road, not going to change the world, but, you know, I'll be all right. And then six is when I start to really worry. And then seven, eight, nine is just terrific. And what it does is it just gives me a little sort of start to the day. So, like, today was a good example. I didn't know whether you'd be filming or not. not okay is that why you've got a nice outfit on no it's not a nice outfit it's why i shaved right right and you had your nice glasses which are now not wearing were

they for show were they for the video they're the only glasses i've got so but the thing is shaving is really interesting and men who get, I get a lot of feedback on this. When you wake up, if I wake up and I'm six, I can get out of bed. I can face the world. I can do stuff. But I don't want to do stuff that's tedious. Right. And I don't want to do stuff that's going to make me tired.

Now, so brush my teeth. Yeah, I can do that. But then if I brush my teeth, I can do that but then if i brush my teeth i think i can't be shaving so actually i will if i'm feeling five six i will make myself shave and it'll just lift me a little bit i think i've done that i was good and then things like you know like so today by the way i was four so that's okay so that's where you want to be? It's pretty much where I want to be. And actually then Fiona and I went for a swim in the Lido. I felt good after that.

I'm doing this project at the moment I'm quite enjoying. Fiona wanted me to go for a walk with the dog. I didn't want to go, particularly because I was kind of on a roll. I knew that you were coming. So what I'm doing is I'm just kind of calibrating all the time. If I'd have been on seven, no, if I'd have been on six, I would have gone for the walk because that would have been a way, I think, of making myself feel better.

So I would say what you're talking about now is self-care, which you're right, with depression it's very interlinked and the more that you feel depressed, the less things you want to do that are looking after yourself fewer things fewer things sorry do you mind me correcting no you can correct me yeah can i tell you how to do interviews as well why what do you want to tell me i think i'm doing a great job you're doing okay so anyway what i was going to say you're a natural strategist and you're managing and i guess this is what you talk about in the book you found ways of coping but how how does it throw that feeling i imagine that it exacerbates the

feeling for you when you feel out of control of your mental health because naturally by design you're someone that likes to be in order strategist i think that's why yeah i think that's a very astute observation thank you uh no nay um you're the first person i've met with that name i know i'm so unusual i might be able to say no nay it's actually a able to say it's actually Anoni but it's like Leviosa but it's Leviosa do you know that? You don't watch Harry Potter don't worry we're getting off track carry on um so yeah I think that is a very good question because I I do like to be in control and I don't think that's a bad thing no I like to be in control of my environment I like

to be in control of my emotions and I like to be in control of what's happening around me um and if i'm not i feel a bit edgy um and so when when i do get at either end of the scale but particularly when i'm depressed because i think as grace will tell you when when i'm on the two three four end of the i'm a really good laugh to be with i can you know and i've got loads of energy and I'm funny and you know and I'll do stuff for people and all that um when I'm at the other end I I'm very conscious of not feeling how I want to feel which is a bad start and I'm also very conscious that my mood is having an impact on other people as well for the worse and I feel utterly powerless to do anything about it and I hate that sense of powerlessness

Fiona's spoken really candidly, I've read an interview that she wrote about and I think this is one of the hardest things and I've had friends who've had depression and it can bring out the worst thing is you're already dealing with these inside terrors and then on the outside you're kind of replicating them to the people that you love and I think that's one of the hardest imbalances of probably when you're

feeling really depressed because not only are you going through this really dark moment but you can see watch yourself pushing other people away yeah for sure and also you can see you can watch you can see yourself pushing them down and that's hard you know and and and you know fiona's written a chapter in the book and she makes the point that for a lot of time she blamed herself for my depression you know she lives with me she's meant to the most important person in my life and he's not happy it's my fault and that's a very very very common thing and of course for the depressed person and i did this for i pans up uh i don't feel good about this but i for long time, was perfectly happy for her to think that. Because you feel like the victim?

No, it's just like... Of your own depression? No, because partly you say, well, why can't you make me happy? Right. You know? And if she's saying it, that's reinforcing that sense of... So it's not a victim thing so much as you're trying to find reasons of how you're feeling. And the way, the easy way to do that is say, well, she's, it's not my fault, it's her fault, or it's not my fault, it's not my fault, it's my

newspaper's fault, it's my boss's fault, or whatever it might be. You find ways of sort of, and it's the only, the reason why I think I'm in much better shape than I used to be now with depression apart from maybe age and a bit of wisdom and you know just my life being a bit different anyway but I think actually that was one of the biggest things I did I did an interview recently with a guy who's interested in psychiatry and he asked me what was the most important thing I got from seeing a psychiatrist which to read and I put loads of my psychiatrist in the book and lots of the exercises we've done and so forth but actually when I thought about it I never thought about it before in that in that way the best thing he did I think was Fiona came

to some of my sessions was to persuade her to stop blaming herself for my depression and and also he gave her a book to read about forgiveness which clearly made a big impression on her and also i guess you having to realize that you can't blame yourself either it's kind of like a blameless situation you know well maybe you can sometimes but yeah you can blame i suppose you can blame the behaviors and you can feel just guilty or sorry for the actions that you take when you're in that position yeah but the actual feeling when when was your first ever low point that you can remember at what age or what point was the catalyst for the well I mean what I've recorded in the book and I don't know if this is the very first but it's the first when I first started seeing a psychiatrist and he David asked me that

question what you're very astute and interesting question about when was my first memory I said to him uh it was this which I've written about in detail in the book it was this moment when I was probably seven or eight maybe I can't remember the exact age it was definitely before I was 10 okay I know that because of something else that was going on um and we were in this Hebridean island in Tyree where my dad came from and I've been playing football and in this football match I was having a bit of argy-bargy with this this guy he was bigger than me and we ended up having a fight and I got really quite badly daft up and where the school was where this football match was it was quite a long walk back to where we were staying

and I was on my own and I remember stopping on the way I was I was sort of toughing it out there but I stopped on the way and I sat on this little rock and I remember to sort of cry my eyes out and it wasn't the physical pain of having beaten beaten up it was the it was I had this really strong sense of isolation and what I did I think and you don't know when your child are with you've kind of you know rationalized it after the event and all that but i i do remember saying to myself you're gonna have to learn how to look after yourself physically and emotionally and finally fiona didn't know that story and when she wrote in her chapter in the book she has said that's the first time she'd heard that story but it totally chimes with everything she's ever seen about me that when I get into real difficulties I want to take it all in myself and I want to and I think that has

made my depressions worse I think and one of the best things that the other thing that's changed my approach to depression is now understanding that actually sometimes I can't do it on my own and also understanding it's best to get it out there straight away well I would say and that's that's really interesting I want to go back to how I've been so young um and trying to understand that feeling so I didn't know what depression was and I grew up at that age and I grew up at an age where maybe it was spoken up a bit more but I think for men in general internalizing things is a gendered concept that you're conditioned to do and I think that's why men with mental health illnesses probably like do take longer to come up about and recognize them

because as women we do we are more inclined to share and talk yeah there's there's something in that although conversely i do know women who have been very very secretive about their mental health conditions with you but personally or in like in what in the family and in the workplace it's quite interesting now being kind of out there as a sort of mental health ambassador and stuff I get people who write to me and talk to me and I'm I'm I met a woman recently who she's a nurse and she's bipolar uh and she won't she's not told anybody so you don't think it is gendered then as much as no i think it might be but i all i know men who are very open my women women are not and i think generally yes women are more open and women are more liable to talk about it but i don't think it's kind of um it's as clear-cut as some some people might think and i do think generally if you go

back through a lot of this stuff is about kind of you know the way that man civilization has developed and you know man the man is meant to be strong and he cares for the woman and he hunts for the woman and he and he you know you you have to be strong at all times. You know, you don't cry. But it's bullshit. And it's probably always been bullshit. And I do think that, I think if we can get over this idea that it's somehow weak to be, you know, it can be irritating to people and it can be, it can cost an employer, you know it can be irritating to people and it can be and it can cost an employer you know the labor of his staff and all that stuff but it's not weak um and i think that's the big hurdle to

get over is this is this so i that's why i worry about this gender thing because i think it plays into this idea women are weak and men are strong oh Oh, no, so I would look at it maybe the opposite way. I would say that men under a patriarch are actually one of the things that you lose is this ability to feel as though you're allowed to be emotionally vulnerable. And I think that is a weakness on men's part because it weakens you, whereas women have strength in one of the amazing things you reported.

Right, but I feel stronger. Yeah, because you've spoken about it. And I also feel stronger. And also, I have that sense of it as well i don't feel i don't feel going around the place and funnily enough even with the newspapers who are you know pretty rough in many many ways but on the mental health agenda they give me a pretty good time um and they're quite supportive so and it's you know i think what they you know what they often say about me is oh he's got a rough tough guy and even he can talk about this right then so I think that

strengthens me in a way no I agree what what did you think when you were seven or eight years old definitely before 10 um what did you process that emotion as did you put it aside until it came up again did you have I don't know I honestly don't know it's just that I could remember it and um I don't know I don't know I had I had um I mean the big kind of the defining mental health moment for me was actually not mine it was my brother's when my brother was diagnosed with schizophrenia and it was probably I don't know whether it was wise or not, but I ended up going down. He was in hospital in Southampton. He was in the army.

It was a military psychiatric hospital. And I ended up going down there and staying with him. And that was a real, that was one of the, it was defining. It was a defining period in my life because it was like, I didn't know anything about mental illness really. Although, funnily enough, on that island where i had that incident when i was about seven a few years later i can remember being at my uncle and aunt's croft and the croft opposite what is the croft croft's like a small piece of land, and the crofter looks after that land.

Basically, you're living on a small farm, really. And that's where my dad was raised. And opposite my uncle's croft, there was a guy there who was being sectioned under the Mental Health Act. And that had a... I mean, I can... So I don't know what age I was then but again pre-10 and I watched he was out driving a tractor he was called Sydney he was out driving a tractor and he had his daughter on his lap and the

police there and the health I think it was an ambulance I can't remember um and he was sectioned and I can just remember being absolutely fascinated about what what happened what was that about that he was being taken away from his family and what had he done and and bizarrely this is so weird a few years ago a few years later I was working on one of my uncle's farms on the mainland in a place called Loch Gilphead, near Loch Gilphead. And there was a nine hole golf course that was next to a psychiatric hospital. And the patients used to come round to come down and just watch people playing golf. Wow. And there he was.

Really? There he was. Really? There he was. When you went to see your brother who had schizophrenia, back then, what was the... Because I think even now we have a very limited understanding of what schizophrenia really is, and people use lots of language that actually applies to different mental illnesses.

How did that impact your family? Oh, well, you know, I quote my mum in the book. She said that when she got the phone call to say that Donald was invalided out and taken to hospital, she said, my life changed in that moment. It never changed back again. Wow. Now, in many ways, Donald had a great life, considering his condition, but he would have had a very different and more fulfilled life i think if he hadn't have had schizophrenia and look my dad was a vet so come

of scientific background but we knew nothing about schizophrenia literally nothing and even today as you say i've got a friend who's a psychiatrist who says that when he diagnoses particularly young people with schizophrenia he says one of the hardest things is actually explaining to families what it's not it's really stigmatised it's one of the worst because there's so many films made about it so many stories about it it's really villainised as a mental

it's like psycho killer split personality, Jekyll and Hyde it's not that, what schizophrenia is is when your mind the workings of your mind become separate from the reality around you so donald would have and and grace actually has got film of donald talking about this he would have times when he would think that that radiator button is talking to that light bulb about what we're talking and we're talking about him right when he was really bad

psychotic now a lot of the time he had drugs that kept that under control and so he was lucid mostly it was mainly lucid but it had you know pretty horrific side effects including the fact that it takes 20 years of your life which is why i died aged 62 um so it had a massive effect and it also definitely there's no doubt about this, that was when I became utterly fascinated by mental illness. What's the age difference between you two? Three. Three years. So he was older.

Older. And that's such a hard time to lose a brother. So he saw you speaking about mental health. Oh, yeah. And he was actually really up for, we were talking about making a film about him wow called the happy schizophrenic um now when my mum was still alive she didn't want me to talk about donald because my mum hated me being in the public eye she hated all the shit i got in the press she hated hearing about me on the telly and the radio because it

was usually stress and trouble if i was a hilarious bit in the book where I record a conversation she was so sort of upset and I was telling Tony Blair and he phoned her up and anyway she said to me Tony I'm gonna have to go because I've got to tell you how's to working for you gives me really bad diarrhea that is amazing so um so she she didn't want me to talk about donald because she worried that him being out there in the public eye in any way would be bad for him right he was so up for it it was ridiculous right he really wanted to do it so yeah he was good but there's there's another line in the book i quote where he says oh god i saw you on the telly last night talking about you you had one of those psychosis and you

like missed a bloody mental get them to come and talk to somebody who really knows about what mental illness means which is a fair point but you know he had he's the real when I say to myself sometimes when I do you know you've been out

for some bloody meeting that you agreed to go and do and it's a cold Tuesday night and you've got to get on the train why am I doing this but actually he's the he's the real reason did you have anyone else in your family anyone else your mum or your dad did they ever have I don't my dad no I don't think so my mum was one of the happy you asked Grace my mum was one of the happiest people I'd ever met in my life my dad was you know you'd say my dad was a pretty regular kind of guy i had a cousin i write a chapter about lacking my cousin in the book who killed himself um and that was he was from the island

from tyree um and i wrote about that because he's got three kids now grown up who I know really well and like a lot and I know they've struggled with the consequences of what their dad did right and but the reason I wrote it the chapter was I wanted them to have something in black and white with the observation that he I don't know this because i didn't speak to him when he was about to kill himself but i'd be amazed if he they weren't foremost in his thoughts because i've had that when you get suicidal ideation i can persuade myself when i'm really depressed when i'm like a nine end of my scale i can persuade myself that you know what if you kill yourself Fiona and the kids will be a lot happier you can persuade yourself of that and I suspect Lackey did that

I mean he had a drink problem he had a really bad depression lots of stuff lots of issues and he just I think found the pain unbearable but you know I wanted to write something that said to them you know don't to write something that said to them

you know don't ever ever think it's about you no and i agree i imagine that that is that is the only way because you feel like you're relieving the other people in your life of your presence and it goes back to what you're saying earlier about when you feel like everything you're worthless your life and what that's why i hate this thing about when people say it's selfish no it's not selfish i can i think that's true too and the fact that it was a crime or a sin yeah yeah no that's like this the word i know why people do it and i i shouldn't get pissed off when they do but i really do get pissed off when people talk about committing suicide because you know the language of commit it's called commit suicide because you

commit a crime yeah so what do you say take take your life ended their life by suicide uh kill themselves but i've just you know and it's that's the trouble with mental illness is that we don't like saying what it is um you know again quote my mum in the book when which she had a a relative who had anxiety and depression, and mum said, oh, she must come to stay with us, it would be nice to her, she's having trouble with her nerves. Right, you know, it's like that whole kind of...

Chrissy footing around it. Yeah. When you analytically look at depression, what school of thought do you subscribe to? Do you believe in the Johan Hari idea that depression and mental illness come from a lack of connection have you read his book um chasing the scream that one oh that read that one but have you read lost connections no yeah sorry that is the one

chasing screams a new one isn't it lost connection chasing screams the old one okay read lost connections i think okay i can't remember but he was chasing screams about the drug trade yes and about how um he goes and visits all those different people those different communities yeah yeah they're both very very very good books um but we're talking about my book we're talking about your book but i want to ask you i'm using that as an example because some people would do i think it's about do i think that connection and community is really really important yes but you don't think it's always the cause no i think that i don't think we know necessarily multiple you know always the cause no i think that i don't think we know necessarily multiple you know what the cause is i think there are multiple causes uh i

think for some of us i think i really do think that it's our biology well no some people get it some people don't some people get you know some people are born with weaker muscles now some people are born with weaker chests some people are born with some people are going to get diabetes some people are not and i think that some of it is conditioned um you know one of the people i interview for the book i'll go and see this guy who's i mean his depression when i compare my life story and my upbringing to his, even I think, Christ almighty, what have I ever got to be depressed about? Which is a horrible thing to say, because it's not how depression works. But this guy, I mean, horrific childhood, horrific. And

you think, well, yeah, I can see why he would get depression. I could see why he gets PTSD. I can see why he has all sorts of stuff going on in his head. And yet you might find there will be members of the royal family born into wealth and privilege and all that stuff who get depression. It's not a wealth thing. FanDuel Casino's exclusive live dealer studio has your chance at the number one feeling, winning, which beats even the 27th best feeling, saying I do.

Who wants this last parachute? I do. Enjoy the number one feeling, winning, in an exciting live dealer studio, exclusively on FanDuel Casino, where winning is undefeated. 19 plus and physically located in Ontario. Gambling problem? Call 1-866-531-2600 or visit connects ontario.ca please play responsibly that's why this is that was why i asked the question because i wanted to ask you the follow-up is exactly what you just said is how you feel about when people

i assume would have previously leveled at you you've got an incredible life yeah how can you be depressed and i think this was one of the four uh one of the like biggest barriers to us accessing a better conversation about mental health is people really thought that there has to be a catalyst for it and there isn't always but but with you when you did have a big breakdown it was when you left in verticom as well do you think that would that did that was that a catalyst in bringing it on again probably is the answer or was it that I was already in a pretty bad place and leaving the room yeah and took away the sense of drive and purpose that I had and it went and it's interesting grace as you know who's written a book which she has ordered me I have to plug on this podcast it's and it's interesting grace as you know has written a book which she has ordered me i have

to plug on this podcast it's amazing it's called amazing disgrace and it is amazing and it's very very very funny but also very well written and serious in parts but it's interesting it was quite shocking when i read it because she described what happened to me in 2003 45 as a full-on nervous breakdown right i didn't feel that i feel that the only full-on nervous breakdown i had was in 1986 when i had a full-on nervous breakdown when it was psychosis the lot but it's interesting that that's how grace saw it because what she saw was the person that she thought i was lively energetic funny always trying to you know get things done whatever was now sort of like a bit of a vegetable lying on the sofa all day um or staying in bed and fiona saying you don't disturb

him in retrospect would you call that a nervous breakdown now or not no i think it was a quite severe depressive episode what what tell me about your actual nervous breakdown then. Well, that was a full-on crack-up. Inside of my head sort of figuratively exploded and voices and music and hallucinations and had to be arrested and hospitalised. I didn't know that. I should have read a book, shouldn't I? I can't believe you do an interview. The first thing, if you're going to interview somebody... Look, it only came out last week. You didn't know that I should have read a book shouldn't I I can't believe you do an interview

the first thing if you go to an interview look it only came out last week you didn't send me a copy well one you see Grace quite often you could have said

can you send me never mind a copy a PDF in advance I would have done you know you have to sometimes but you have to sell me the book

I know you millennials sort of think everything should be done for you no I don't think that but I actually want you to sell us the book I like know you millennials sort of think everything should be done for you. No, I don't think that. But I actually want you to sell us the book. I like this. I like hearing about it before you get there. But do you live in fear or worry that that episode, that that could happen again?

Is that something that you... Do I live in fear and worry? No. Do I have fear and worry that it might happen again? Yes. I don't live in fear and worry so tell me now how because this is what the book is about right you're surviving and thriving am i thriving i think you're doing really well in this interview i know it's one of your first so i know i've not

done my interview i'm very nervous are you yeah you look absolutely terrified um. No, so it's in two parts. It's called Living Better, which I think I do. I think I live better than I did. And I think there's lots in the book that I hope will help other people to live better, whether they have depression or they don't. Because a lot of it's about avoiding depression. But so it's in two parts. The first half really is me, life story my depression my family my brother

my cousin Callum our son who is a recovering alcoholic all the sort of mental health bits to my life and then the second half I call it a search for a cure but it's really just an exploration of the science of depression and all the different things some fantastic stuff going on and then the end of the book is me kind of explaining how I think I've and I say learn to survive depression because I don't think you can overcome it no I think you can you can survive it and you can live a good life with it and that's what I that's what I do most of the time but I've got no doubt at all I will have depressive episodes in the future um it's just that I'm better at dealing with them now

you did was that a good sale of the book that was really good we're not finished yet you're trying to leave you're not going out you've written more books than anyone else I know how many books you've written now 16 it's quite a lot isn't it yeah and how did you feel right because this is a you wrote a small book ebook thing about about mental health before right ebook thing was that what it was happy depressive yeah there's a little thing but now this is a proper which was so successful it was turned into a real book was it look at you so how does this feel compared to all of your other books which have been very politics based? You've always been a writer. Do you think that writing has been part of coping with, or have you just always loved writing?

I've always, one of my previous books, number one bestseller, Winners and How They Succeed, quotes Marilyn Monroe. Have you heard of Marilyn Monroe? Oh no, who's she? You have to tell me. She was a very famous actress. Oh was she? Yeah, no I didn't notice. We say actor now. Eh? Male or female, it's just actress. Oh, was she? Yeah, no, I didn't notice. We say actor now. Eh? Male or female, it's just actor.

Okay, do we? Yeah. Well, Marilyn Monroe wrote a poem called Thinking Ink. Okay. I think in ink. Are you going to recite the poem now? No. I just know the title.

I've read it, but I don't remember the poem in detail. I couldn't recite it, but I remember the Thinking Ink. The poem's called Thinking Ink. And I've always done that I order my thoughts you know that's why probably why I keep a diary I strategize in you know if I'm trying to think something through I will write it down I do it my own you know if I've got my own kind of life I do it with the kids I quite often you know if the kids are going through tough stuff or if we're not getting on or something i'll write to them handwritten uh sometimes my handwriting is so bad is your do you still have a diary now yeah and is that handwritten is that typed it's a bit of both i'm more typed now than it was and

you know what i don't think it's as good well because you don't think you get that same feeling when it yeah I think I should go back to it just being a pen but I think the reason I've done that is that when I was transcribing

my diaries for publication it was so balls achy to have to do it all but also it's actually I've kind of forgotten it's so not used to writing by hand that I get like armache if I try to write anything too long

my handwriting is it's always been bad but now I literally I did a dedication the other day in a book to my nephew I sent it to him and he sent me a message he just said thanks for the book I can't read this and I looked at it nor could I I actually don't know what he said you write the specific pen that you have to use use like a fountain pen or do you use a use sharpies for have to use? Do you use a fountain pen? Do you use a... I use Sharpies for signatures. Sharpies? Oh, right, fine. Sharpies for signatures.

I was going to say, you can't write a diary with a Sharpie on it. And if not, I know for that, just a sort of biorefile pen. And do you think those diaries would ever be published? Or those for private? No, no, no. They've been published.

No, but your new ones now that you're writing. Oh, these ones? Yeah, possibly. I don't know. So when... This is what I'm really interested. Because if I was writing a diary and I knew that at some point in time

it might potentially be published, I'd definitely be like editing it a little bit as I went along. Maybe spicing bits up, taking bits out. I don't think I do. Can you be as honest, do you think? Yeah, I think so. I don't think I do do that.

Maybe subconsciously you do. Because when I started keeping a diary, you know, decades ago, I didn't, why would i even imagine no exactly back then you wouldn't write but so maybe i i said maybe sometimes i was worried i mean the fact that i write them in this microscopic shorthand i think was an indicator that i was worried it was code a little bit what if i left it on a train what if it got picked up that could have been a problem but no i don't think't think... And look, there are some...

There is material that I've left out of publication that's either very, very personal, not for me, but for other people. Right. Or sometimes if I've just thought, oh, that's really cruel. And you look back on it and you think, I'm not the person that wrote that.

No, or it's about something that somebody else says about something. Right. that's really cruel and you look back on it and you think i'm not the person that wrote that no or it's about something that somebody else says about something you know um but in the main i mean that's why you know you've you've met fiona right we're very very different people grace is more like me we're both sort of you know put your life out there yeah um once you've decided to do that then part of doing that is actually well life's on the record and also it's I imagine it's very freeing I'm no way near as unguarded as Grace is and I do I do think that she's got that from you and I think it's actually an amazing thing to have because like you say you

can no one can ever judge her. Sometimes she's a little bit more guarded. I know it's so good in the book. Generally. No I love it. What I don't know know. It's so good. In the book. Generally. No, I love it. What I don't know is where she's got her loudness from. Because Fiona and I are both very quiet. You're so loud. What? You listen to you're so loud. Do you mean volume or just general demeanour?

I mean volume. You're very loud. My voice? Yeah. No, bullshit. If you were on a train, three seats away from me, you wouldn't hear what I was saying on the phone. But that's only when you mumble.

When you were talking to me the other day about something, something you were listening to on a podcast, couldn't hear a word. But that's when you were talking like that, because I didn't know what you were saying. No, I'm a very quiet person. Grace is very loud. I think it's back to this thing.

You're quite loud as well. You're really loud. Am I? Yeah, a bit. That's good, though, because that's what my job is now, just talking. All my school reports were, she talks too much, she's too loud. Well I'm a real believer in turning perceived weaknesses into strengths. Exactly that's what I'm...

okay right you're fine you're allowed to leave in a minute but before that... What about the schools thing? Do you want to talk about that first? I don't want to keep you here forever. I don't mind. You told me this is all about stuff you didn't learn at school. It is. But we're learning it through you. Okay so right talk to me about school. What, so right, talk to me about school. What, do you want to talk to me about class and depression and that? Or do you want to go in from... I really want you to answer

what you haven't told me when you first learned what depression was. Like, at what age were you when you learned that word and understood it to be a mental illness? I don't know.

Depression. Probably around the time when Donald was diagnosed because you know they talked about in one of the explanations was that sometimes it'll be like he's going to catatonically depressed um I guess it was around then that's when I started to read about mental illness right um so probably around then when I was at school even then depression was kind of like it's people sort of made up. Yeah.

And a lot of people still think that. A lot of people still think that. A lot of people, you know, I quote in the, do you know who Jeremy Hunt is? Yes. Who is he? He was the health secretary that was awful because my sister was a junior doctor. She wrote him a really long letter. Ah, good for her.

Well, he, I quote him, I him i mean actually compared to what the government is now people are going to look back yeah that's true but anyway um he i had a meeting once with him where he actually said that he he sometimes you know he'd seen a film about me talking about depression and he sort of thought he said to his wife you know he's got such i always thought alistair gump come has such a great life i can can't believe we get depression. So people do still think that, but I think it's going. But I think the big problem, would I think that mental health should be taught in schools? Definitely.

And you can call it what you want. You see, I'll give you an example. Everybody who goes to school is taught that running around the playground once a day is good for them. Playing football is good for them playing football is good for you you know all that stuff we do sport well we should explain why one of the reasons it's good for you is that actually it's better for your mental well-being and your resilience and whether you call it resilience whether you call it well-being call it whatever you want but teach

kids to look after themselves sleep we we know that you you know if you're tired you should sleep but actually i never knew why i've kind of gone and learned a bit about that sleep diet exercise why is that good for you why and here's the other thing from the government i know they try to do some of this preventive stuff but they don't really kind of motor on it we would i save the health service money by looking after myself yeah um i used to cost the health service quite a lot of money because i was getting all sorts of illnesses which i now realize a lot of them i mean i had i had this supposedly incurable i was told it was incurable stomach condition called ulcerative

colitis and it was really really horrible i mean you really don't want it and it vanished and i think it's vanished because i've actually started to look after my mind and body in a different way was it like a stress induced is that the one sometimes you have to have a colostomy bag for not with colitis? You do eventually. It becomes Crohn's disease. Right. And what it is, you just kind of lose control of your insides, to be honest, and the pain is horrific.

And I was told we can manage it. You have to take these drugs probably for the rest of your life. And I was taking these eight pills a day. And it was kept under control and then i bumped into the doctor who'd diagnosed it and he said if you had a you know you should get regular checkups i had a checkup for years when they had a checkup he'd gone but you are very fit now you exercise a lot so fit and you don't drink lots but you used to smoke a lot didn't you and drink a lot yeah yeah but

then again it is a privilege to say you know you just got to look after yourself and you don't cost the nhs money because it's true but then as you say we're not educated to understand why health is important right so therefore and therefore this is where government's got to take a lead so i mean i get and and i understand it when people say it's all right for you you've got a decent living we can't all kind of eat the best food and but actually there's an awful lot more that we can do that doesn't cost money so interestingly about physical health it's very true i went to really sportical i hated sport because i only thought exercise for girls about being about weight loss and if i'd only just realized before that exercising is actually amazing i love it every single day because it's so important to me but i didn't

right so what you were taught at your school and your school had a really good reputation for sport talk was about this is good for the school this is like this is about competition and all that stuff which is i believe in that right but actually explaining to kids kids love knowing why things work explain to kids what are the benefits you know that i grew up in a time i always loved sport right but i can remember a lot of kids at my school who they would associate pe as it was physical education with the rain with getting picked on and bullied in the showers with a sort of brutal teacher who shouted at you all that stuff right if that's what you're associated with you're not going to get into it actually teaching what why that is good for you

I think it's fundamental and we don't do it in schools in the way that we should. But I think that's why Joe Wick's doing his PE class was actually so transformative because it made it fun and people enjoyed it and it was people doing it at home with their parents.

I think also it's mirroring what your parents do. He's what? He's a Tory. Is he a Tory? How do you know? Have you just decided? I don't know.

I think, did I read the back... He definitely came from a very working class background and built his way up and bought his mum a house. Okay. He's a really sweet guy.

Okay, do you know him? No. Has he been on your podcast? No. Why? I don't know. You don't want Joe Wicks? I just don't actually have very many

white, straight men on my podcast. Okay. So you're like... I'm pretty rare. If he is not a Tory and wasn't a Brexiteer, I totally apologise. Okay. If he was then anyway

so I noticed you didn't you know I was trying to dangle out a little bait there when I sort of dropped in your private education because I love talking about private education

let's talk about it you like talking about class you love talking about it with me because you think I'm so posh you are quite posh but technically you're posh now am I? I had a really

do you know who interviewed you and loved this? Guess. Go on. Ash Sarkar. Okay. And we were talking about class and she's talking about how it's really interesting because we've now created this false economy of class where it's not necessarily... Is she the big Corbynista? Yeah, the one that we spoke about before. Yeah, and the one who backed a Labour party that was never going to win power and now we've got Boris Johnson, we've got Brexit. If it wasn't her fault.

No, I'm not saying it was her fault at all. So she was saying, I thought it was really interesting, that we have all these weird markers of what we say, you know, classes, and actually it's been completely taken away from, like, socioeconomic... Yeah, but it's still there, big time. And I'll tell you, private education is a huge...

Oh, yeah, 100%, I agree with you on that. I'm just saying, I think it's really interesting when we talk about what poshness is and what is the working class. Now, really, working class means people who can't work, you know, and people who are perhaps builders, constructors, might actually end up being very wealthy. Yeah. These things are just, I think, quite interesting.

No, the definitions have changed, for sure. And I think there is a sort of romanticization of working classes, meaning, you know, coal miner, shipbuilder, train driver, the sort of traditional working class jobs. Whereas I think in a way, the reason why we still have the labels is because we are still not fully a meritocracy and for me the biggest driver of that is the fact that seven percent of people use private education and that seven percent is part of in the main that's why it makes me vomit the way they go on about brexit was you know one for the people against the elite johnson reese mogg farage all that lot they are the elite and that whole thing

about you know i think i said to you before that ethan one school has produced three times more prime ministers in our history than the labour party yeah now if i look at boris johnson i don't think if he didn't have the background he has the education he has the acts of the posh accent he has the rest of it i think he'd get near to being prime minister so britain is still an anti-meritocratic country he doesn't deserve to be prime minister no he's useless at the job but do you not think you're elite now do you think you can trans what do you think happens do you think what would you say your parents were would you your, well, your dad was a vet. That was a, I'd say, well, my grandparents, as crofters, I think you'd define as working class, quite poor.

My dad, middle class, because he left, he got a scholarship. He actually, because the island he came from, he got a scholarship and actually was sent to a private school. Then he went to Glasgow University, became a vet. He, so I come from a middle-class family. And then the elite thing, am I part of an elite? I guess if you have been in the top levels of government, you would be considered to be part of the elite.

Did Fiona encourage your feelings for education more if your dad went to private school, or did you get that from working within a Labour government that had all these no i i i'll tell you when i got it my hatred of private education came from my time at cambridge right i've i just felt that look i met loads of people who went to private schools that i liked and i thought were clever but i met lots of them that were complete knobs who if they didn't have wealthy mummies and daddies they would be next to nothing in the world and yet they run around the place as though they own it and I'm afraid they're back in charge in this country

and if I think of you know I think one of the tragedies of what you know so we had you know a long time in power for a Labour party Tony Blair won three elections we made a lot of change but the fact that these clowns and charlatans are back in charge makes me think we can't have done everything right well i think that's the biggest fundamental that's what i talk about with ash but you're dealing with really deep historical, cultural, civilizational attitudes and outlooks. And I do think that I think the class system in this country is hideous and it's still there.

You know, I think the other thing where you get class now that it's the whole kind of, you know, there are many, many, many middle class, black and ethnic minority British people and yet there will be an assumption often that they are working class and yet then you have this label the white working class and it's just that it's a mess and one of the reasons the message we're not really a meritocracy we got it in the north-south as well this idea that if you have a northern accent then you're must be working class and all of those things i think they create so much so many problems i know and see the south you look right well here we are in in camden we live in a very very nice part of the town right next to hamstead heath at the bottom of the road that

estate at the bottom of the road you'll have some of the poorest families in the country there tower hamlets is the poorest part of the country in many ways, right? But because it's London, and because you have a government that does all this talk about the metropolitan elite when they are the metropolitan elite, I'm afraid we're being gaslighted the whole time.

And that's what I was going to say before. It's so insidious that people don't even know. Like Nigel Farage, people really thought he was a man of the people because of the way that he carried...'s there's lots of things like that within politics that I think are jarring and and people don't you're right when it comes to private education I mean I've seen it I know that there's so much nepotism I would never now send my kids to private school whereas I would have done good now you see you see I I think it's hard sometimes

it's like I didn't like it when those protesters went and had a go at jacob reese jacob reese moggs kids outside his house it's not their fault yeah right but it will be their fault when they're adults if they think well that's the system we have to perpetuate so do you know zadie smith one of my most favorite authors one of your most favorite yeah she's amazing i was listening to her on adam buxton's podcast and she interestingly said the other day she's like if you think you're one of these young liberal people in your 20s she's like come back and talk to me when you're in your 30s and if you haven't sent your kids to private school then i will believe that you're someone that really cares about people and i was like that's so interesting because i've been talking about it so much

one with the majority of your family that have all mostly been on my podcast and two just thinking about it a lot and i was like it's so interesting and i think it's true it's like you can't buy into a system and say that i really believe in this well i would say if you take our three kids two boys a girl went to the local primary school which when rory was there was got one of the worst offsteads the school can get right and loads of the middle-class parents took their kids out and took them to crap private schools. Fiona became a governor, became chairman of governors,

did it for years. The school is a really, really, really good local school now. They went to senior school, Grace went to Parliament Hill, the boys went to William Ellis. Very mixed intake. And would they have, so Rory got to Oxford,

Callum got to Manchester, Grace, you know, is now a sort of self-styled megastar in her head. And has written the best book ever. She really has. No! But they, I would argue, that even though they might have got a better classical education

in terms of, you know, preparation for exams and all that stuff, had they gone to a private school, I think they are better educated people. I think the fact that Grace, I did an interview about Grace the other day, and I said that one of the things I love about Grace is she's got an amazing capacity for friendship and so yeah I think

my kids are better educated because of going to a state school Yeah but I do think it's true because I think in education now when I look back, first of all I think the syllabus is that kind of thing and we need to change what we're teaching children and the way it's implemented but for me, which is why I do this podcast because all

the things you don't get taught in school i do think as someone who is privately educated i actually came out really unprepared for knowing what the world was like because you're in such a bubble and they are really you're told you can do whatever you can watch and in a funny way if you take advantage of it it can be amazing it's not that it's but fundamentally you're right it doesn't and you're also you're made to feel whether you like it or not you're made to feel that you are somehow superior to people who are not educated to the same level in the same way and that somebody who doesn't sound like you is going to be a threat you know i think there's a lot i think that's the the kind of the demonization of

i know we agree that the label is no longer mean means necessarily the same thing but working class people i think is a real problem and and so all of these things to me are to do with uh the seven percent being educated out with a system that they therefore don't support properly. And the other problem you've got is most of the key opinion formers, editors, commentators, people who run the big media organisations, they're all in that. Virtually all of them. Right. I think I'm right in saying at one point, it might be different now, but there was a one point when there wasn't a single national newspaper editor who either wasn't privately educated

or used the private sector for their own kids. Now, when that happens, they have a vested interest in saying the state sector's crap, that's why we have to make these choices. And it's bullshit. And yes, and I... State and yes and i stay safe as crap because governments make it crap because people aren't investing in it because they're not the

people who maybe have the it's not just a financial investment it's the emotional that's what i mean if everyone's leaving lagging behind and going state schools are shit then there's not going to be no real like union of parents and people saying we're going to make change but the one thing i think private school gave me which i wouldn't say that i inherently thought it was better but you are instilled with this ability to talk so the biggest thing i got from my schooling wasn't necessarily my grades or my academic it's this way that they teach you how to talk to people and network it's like imbued from this day you start going you've got really smart the same thing and so and so that's what's a real um that's your massive advantage because you can walk into any room and you just know how to talk to people.

Yeah, yeah. And that then, the other thing is you use the word network, you know. That's why I don't, I won't do, I do the occasional one, but I don't do talks in private schools because, partly to make a point, but also because I know that those schools can fall over themselves to get interesting speakers to go into them whereas state schools a lot of state schools struggle so if i'm going to put x days of my year into going to talk to kids in schools i'm going to do it in schools where i think they're going to benefit from it hopefully more than somewhere where they couldn't give a damn really whether it was me or you know a footballer or a they can because they can get those people because they they they use those schools

yeah do you know what i mean i know what you mean yeah we've gone completely off topic right sorry about that that's okay have you got it off your chest now yeah do you believe me that i'm not an awful privately educated person no i do I do believe you but the reason is I'm with Zadie Smith is because you said and I'm going to hold you to this you can hold me to it right

if and when you have kids you're going to have to stay alive for ages I'm going to well I will stay alive for a while because I'll look after myself and my mental health

but I'm 63 now so let's my dad was 82 let's say I've got another 20 years so you hopefully I'll try and pop some out by then right so

but they'll have to be four I have to have four children no then they've got to go to state primary school state secondary school oh so you've got to until they're 18

oh for sure so I've got to get them out soon for sure no no as in you've got to be around yeah watch it

no 11 11 11 okay and then Grace will keep tabs on you for the rest of the time okay good idea that's good that's perfect.

Bab, okay, should we shake on that? I'm quite sweaty. Right, okay, last thing now. Genuinely last thing. Books, books. What are your three favourite books? This is so hard to do. So, so hard.

And by the way, we'll probably be three different ones tomorrow. What I brought is my favourite book on politics. Okay. Which is called Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin. It's the story of how Abraham Lincoln became president and then brought his three closest rivals into the key jobs.

And it's just, I mean, it's very, very long. So is the three chapters about three rivals? There's more than three. There's hundreds of chapters. But those sections? No, that's just because what happens sometimes in non-fiction books are knowny is they put pictures

I know I've seen so they're not chapter breaks they're pictures beautiful you have pictures in your books you do picture books don't you some of your earliest books

so that's my favourite that's my non-fiction book although even as I do that I think what about this and what about that what about that but that's the one I'm giving today

thank you my favourite novel is Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert haven't read it right well I think you should I think what about this and what about that what about that but that's the one I'm giving today thank you my favorite novel is Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert I haven't read it right well I think you should I think you'd like it and but this is the book that made me love the French language okay is it in French I've read it about 11 times in French right I've even made Fiona listen to it in English um she doesn't like it did you read it in French the first time yeah when did you learn French by the French in school and I think I did it for my A level so that's when I and I really loved it and it's what made me want to do French at university and then talking of French this is

a book that I now take with me everywhere as you know because I told you earlier I'm doing an advanced German course at the moment and I'm even translating my own book into German very cool right so when we were in France recently we went to the market not the market we went to Vaison La Romaine and they have this wonderful thing in Vaison where they just leave old books lying around the streets for people to take it's called take me away love that and you can take it away you can put it back and bring another book or do whatever you want it's a fantastic thing and i found this one and it's it was published in i need to get my glasses that

you were taking the piss out of i wasn't i just thought you looked very suave it was published published in 1929 in heidelberg and it's a french book on german grammar wow and you just found it and what i love about it look at this so it's got you know the old style german writing that looks like you've seen it in films where it's literally a different typeface they've got that and it's it's it's like just i can i can i can look at this book for hundreds and thousands of writing someone written that this is like just this is a way of showing how german handwriting is different as well and then it's got all it's got hundreds and thousands of tests so it's got like this thing tableau santa nike that's the the the conjugation of nouns and what is this would this have been someone's school book do you think or is it too advanced i just don't know no uh it probably was a school book yeah

it's quite advanced but no but it's very basic it goes through it's that you start with like you know how to write in german and uh so this is this is at the moment I so at the moment I'm traveling everywhere so you're learning German in French learning German and but helping me I've got an English grammar book as well but I'm learning German and it is helping me not lose my French because the reason I'm doing German is because I lost it right oh so you had did actually know before I wonder why you're so good so you'd spoken it before I did French and German at university but then since then I've used my French I've kept up my French but I've never really kept on my German so I'm determined to get back to doing and my ambition is to translate my own book into German and then do interviews on it in German

amazing what's your favourite German phrase? Oh, that's a very good question. My favourite German phrase... The one that popped into my head when you said that was Du bist alles was ich will. What's that mean? You're everything that I want. Oh, thanks so much. But I don't say to you.

You can't say that to me. No, I say it again. I do. I say it again. Du bist alles was ich will. That's cute. You've forgotten. I'll give you... You're allowed one bonus book. probably Claret's Chronicles no

what are you on about no no amazing disgrace thank you so much bye what's that again did you not actually know that that's what I was saying when I gave you an extra book no what was the Claret one you're gonna say Claret's's a history of bandy football club it's got a record of every game we've ever played amazing I'm never going to

read that well thanks so much for joining me I feel a lot better I hope that but I'm only going to be happy if that gets

more listeners than normal do you want me to give you tabs who's been your best listened to most probably the one with my mum so where can people buy your book everywhere shops the the the non-taxpaying amazon if they have to i like independent bookshops yeah so i'd like them to

do there if they can't get any and by the way i do say to people if they're going to shop and it's not there send me a message on twitter and And you'll tweet them? Name the shop. Name and shame. Name the shop, and then the publishers get onto them saying, why isn't your bucket of waterstones in Harrogate? Okay, perfect. We'll do that. Well, thank you, everyone, for listening.

Oh, and also, you're young people, aren't you? It's e-book and audible as well. Okay, thanks. Have you done the audiobook? Yes. And Fiona's done her chapter. Amazing. Thank you so much.

Thank you, everyone, for listening. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.