Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford - Poles Apart: How A Journalist Divided A City

Episode Date: August 4, 2023

Heroic explorer Frederick Cook has just returned from the very roof of the world, the first man to reach the North Pole. Or so he says. Journalist Philip Gibbs has been watching him, and he’s convinced he’s lying. When Gibbs publishes that belief, he stands alone. Cook has a gripping manner and an excellent reputation: his winning tale must be true. Diners boo Gibbs at a restaurant, newspapers publish sly-looking caricatures of him, and he even receives threats of violence. But then, everything changes. We often think of polarisation as a modern problem — but the story of Cook and Gibbs has much to teach us here. For a full list of sources for this episode, please visit timharford.com.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hi, I'm Michael Lewis. My first book, Liars Poker, told the story of my time in Solomon Brothers, which was then one of the world's most powerful banks. In three years, I went from trainee to successful banker. It felt back then like a modern day gold rush. I thought at the time I was documenting a like an unprecedented event that would never repeat itself. It turned out it was just the beginning of an era that never ended. I've recorded for the first time a full audiobook version of Liars Poker. You can get it now at pushkin.fm. Pushkin.

Pushkin. Off the coast of Helsingor, 30 miles north of Copenhagen, a small boat sails up alongside a big one. On the small boat are a few Danish journalists and one English journalist. The Englishman is feeling cold in his excitement at getting on board. He forgot his coat. It's chilly, early on a September morning. The year is 1909. Down from the deck of the large ship,

snakes are rope ladder. The Danish journalists leap confidently, grip the rope ladder and shimmy up onto the deck. The English journalist, Gulps, he's not used to this kind of thing. He stands on the side of the small boat and tries not to look down at the swirling sea. He screws up his courage and jumps, grabs at the rope and dangles his leg, frantically searching for a rung, at last he finds one and hauls himself up the ladder. On the deck of the big ship he's greeted by a big man, an American, in baggy, well-worn

clothes, with unkempt hair and a warm smile. The man extends his hand. I guess you're the first Englishman to give me a greeting, he says. The big man on the big ship, his Frederick cook, an explorer. He's just come back from the Arctic, where he says he set foot on the very roof of the world, the North Pole, the first person ever to do so. It's a historic achievement and a huge new story. Every journalist in the world would wish they were on cook ship, getting an exclusive chat with the explorer as he sails those last 30 miles into Copenhagen where Danes are preparing a heroes welcome.

The English journalist is called Philip Gibbs. Over the next five hectic days in Copenhagen, a bitter divide is going to open up between the enthusiasts and the doubters on the question of whether or not Frederick Cook really did reach the North Pole. Philip Gibbs is going to cause that divide. This is a story if you'll forgive the pun about the pole and polarisation. I'm Tim Halford and you're listening to cautionary tales. Philip Gibbs never really wanted to be a news reporter. He preferred descriptive writing. He started his career as a literary critic, and he took some time off and rented a Coast

Guards Cottage for the peace and quiet to write a novel, his first. The Coast Guard's cottage turned out to be next to a fun fare. Somehow he still managed to write the novel. But while he looked for a publisher, he had a wife and newborn child to support. London's daily chronicle needed a reporter. Gibbs was hardly a natural. New sounds should be confident.

Gibbs was painfully shy. But he got the job. And now his editor told him to go to Copenhagen because that's where Frederick Cook was about to arrive. More than two years had passed since the American explorer set off for the North Pole. He should have got back a year ago. No one had heard from him. People assumed he was dead if they thought of him at all. But no. In a tiny town, on a remote North Sea island, Cook had just turned up at the telegraph office clutching a 2000

word draft about his epic trek to the pole. He telegraphed a newspaper in New York. Would they like to pay him $3,000 to print his article? They would. That's hundreds of thousands of dollars in today's money, but it was worth every cent. The news was sensational, and Frederick Cook was a pretty good descriptive writer himself. With a single step, we could pass from one side of the earth to the other, from midday to midnight. A sentiment of intense solitude penetrated us while we looked at the horizon. to the harrissing. In London, a rival newspaper to the Daily Chronicle bought the rights to Cook's definitive account. The Chronicle would have to play catch-up.

Go to Copenhagen, said the editor to Gibbs, maybe you can get an interview with Cook, find some kind of fresh angle. Gibbs wasn't keen. He'd rather be at home with his wife and child. He knew nothing at all about Arctic exploration and cared even less. But he was a news reporter. He had to go where his editor told him. The story of Frederick Cook and Philip Gibbs is told in a new book called The Explorer and the Journalist by Richard Evans. The Chronicles editor gave Philip Gibbs a bag of gold coins for expenses, Gibbs took the razor and toothbrush he kept in the office and hurried to catch a boat to Copenhagen.

He arrived in the early evening and got in a taxi. "'Take me somewhere I can get a coffee,' he said. In a smoke-filled cafe, he found a waiter who spoke English. "'I'm a journalist,' he said. "'Oh, yes,' said the waiter. There are many journalists in Copenhagen today. Has Dr. Cook arrived yet? No, he hasn't. He should have, but it's too foggy.

His ship has mored for the night near Helsingor 30 miles away. He'll arrive in the morning. Gibbs sipped his coffee and leaped through a Danish newspaper. He didn't understand a word except for Dr Cook. Then a glamorous looking woman walked into the cafe with two companions. The waiter said to Gibbs, that's Dagmar Rasmussen, the wife of Knud Rasmussen. Knud Rasmussen?

Gibbs was baffled. Knudd Rasmuson, the famous Danish explorer. Everyone in Denmark knew all about the dashing young Knudd, who'd long dreamed of being first to the North Pole himself. In his article for the Chronicle, Gibbs later misidentified the woman as the wife of Roweld Amundsen, the famous Norwegian explorer who would later be first to the South Pole. We heard all about Amundsen in our previous cautionary tale's trilogy, South Pole Race. Rasmussen, Amundsen, Danish, Norwegian, close enough, as I said, Gibbs knew nothing about

explorers. But he knew enough about news reporting to realise that he probably ought to try to talk to this woman in the white fox fur, whoever's wife she was. But the woman was so forbiddingly beautiful, and Gibbs was very shy. He screwed up his courage and went to introduce himself. "'My husband,' said the woman, was the last man to see Dr. Cook and his inuit guides before they set out for the pole. I wish I could be the first to welcome him to Denmark." Well, then, said Gibbs. Why don't we all go to Helsingor? We can stay in a hotel and

take a boat out to meet his ship first thing in the morning. That's a nice idea," said Dagmar Rasmussen, but we've missed the last train. What about a taxi? No, that doesn't work. You see, there's a law against driving outside the city at night. You can be fined. Gibbs thought for a moment, and remembered his bag of gold coins. How much is the fine? They found a taxi driver who was willing to risk it for a price. He hurtled them at break

next speed along the dark road between Copenhagen and Helsingår. They ran over a cyclist. Luckily, the man wasn't badly heard. And as dawn broke the next morning, Gibbs got his reward for overcoming his dividends. He stood on a small boat with a couple of Danish journalists who've had the same idea, approaching the big ship that would soon take Frederick Cook into Copenhagen. After the Danish journalists and Gibbs had ascended the rope ladder, Cook invited them into his ship's cabin for breakfast. The journalist sat and listened,

as the American held court. It was always the same, one day like another, going onwards to the north with nothing inside upon the great white desert. And then the chance for questions. What evidence are you bringing, asked Gibbs, that you really reached the North Pole? I bring the same proofs as every other explorer. I bring my story. Do you doubt that? The ship steamed slowly into Copenhagen. And there, in the harbor, was an incredible scene. 50,000 people, hundreds of boats, including the Royal Boat, on it the Crown Prince of Denmark the American flag flying horns and whistles a band playing see the conquering hero comes Gibbs watched cook take in this incredible

welcome was that a nervous look in the explorer's eye. Philip Gibbs thought it was. He decided that Frederick Cook was lying. Portionary tales will be back after the break. Unpalmoldo, a poet who over the past several years has had the good fortune to record hours of conversations with one of the world's greatest songwriters, Sir Paul Piccartney. The result is our new podcast, McCartney, A Life in lyrics. Listen to McCartney, A Life in lyrics on the iHeart radio app Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Why had Philip Gibbs decided that Frederick Cook was lying about his epic journey to the North Pole? Gibbs himself later said it was, in tuition, some quick instinct of facial expression, some sensibility to mental and moral dishonesty. And maybe it was. But there's another more prosaic explanation. Gibbs was a young, unknown journalist with a novel to promote.

If he filed the same stories as every other journalist, waxing lyrical about the waving flags and cooks compelling story, he wouldn't stand out from the crowd. Maybe it was worth the risk of writing something different enough to get him noticed. Not too much risk though, Gibbs couldn't flat out a cues cook of lying with no evidence at all. If Cook actually had been to the pole, he could see the Chronicle for libel. So Gibbs wrote an article that would pass the libel

lawyers, but in a tone that dripped with disbelief. His eyes would not look into mine. He smiles when a man speaks to him for quite a long time before he answers. He seems to be cautious with words. Gibbs recalled Cook's answer to his question about evidence. I bring my story. Do you doubt that? It seemed to Gibbs that Cook had said that with a flash of anger. I thought, Hello, what's wrong?

This man protests too much. Cook explained, wrote Gibbs, that he had, of course, taken scientific instruments with him and made observations as every explorer does. That's how it works. Explorers make records of their journeys and then some august scientific institution forms a committee of experts to check those records and say they're satisfied the story stacks up.

That the evidence suggests the explorer is telling the truth. Cook assured Gibbs that he would present the usual kind of records to some appropriate scientific body in due course. But he didn't have his instruments or records with him now. He'd left them in a settlement in Northern Greenland, a kind of base camp for Arctic exploration. Another explorer had promised to take them directly to New York. To Gibbs, that didn't make sense. Surely he should have retained the strongest proofs of his claim so that it might be immediately established. That was a fair point. Some other doubts Gibs raised were not so fair. At one point, Cook made a throwaway remark about not having worn a beard for 15 years. Gibbs picked him up on it. Was he saying that he'd been able to shave while

at the pole? Of course not, Cook laughed. He explained that you don't want a beard in the Arctic because icicles would form on it. You hack off your facial hair as best you can, with an eye for scissors. Gibbs thought that sounded fishy. He might not know his rasmusons from his ammonsons, but had seen photographs of explorers before, and he was sure that some of them had beards. Something else Cook said made Gibbs suspicious too. He'd been to the pole with two Inuit companions, then widely known as Eskimos, and he praised them wholeheartedly. The Inuit are an intelligent and cultured people, he said.

That didn't sound right to Gibbs. Art always thought the Eskimos were the most primitive and ignorant race on Earth. The primitive ignorance here was Gibbs' racism, but it all added up to make Gibbs convinced that the cook was bluffing. He didn't want to risk saying that explicitly, but he made it clear enough. Whether his answers seem satisfactory, I will leave my readers to judge. Gibbs wired his article to the Chronicle and news of what had written soon got back to Denmark, where the Danes had taken cook to their hearts.

It caused an uproar. The shy, retiring Gibbs became instantly notorious. He roughly described himself as the most unpopular man in Copenhagen. Diners booed him in a restaurant, a newspaper published a caricature depicting him with a darkened face and a slightly evil look. He even got threats of violence. Faced with this hostility, Gibbs felt there was only one thing to do. Double down. He sought out any expert he could find who might help him pick holes in Cook's story. He followed Cook to events, observing him closely. This wasn't always easy.

Some of those events were black-tie and Gibbs hadn't brought his dress suit with him. He borrowed one from the waiter he'd met in the café. It was stained with grease, and far too big, he had to hold the trousers up as he walked. When Cook gave speeches, Gibbs seemed to notice things others didn't. There were many awkward pauses, he informed his readers. Dr. Cook stumbled badly, his face was flushed, his forehead beaded with perspiration. Another journalist described the same speech as given coolly and without hesitation. Cook struck most people as charming, fluent and plausible.

But also, cook wasn't just some random person who'd appeared from nowhere, other explorers knew him and they mostly seemed to like him. None more so than Rold Ammonson, the famous Norwegian. Frederick Cook is the most honest man I've ever met, said Ammonson. If he says he's reached the pole, I believe him. Ten years earlier, Cook and Ammonson had become firm friends on an epic voyage to the Antarctic, when their ship got stuck in ice for an entire year.

Manson, then young and unknown, cooked the ship's doctor. They had saved each other's lives, roped together on a perilous trek across a glacial crevasse. They had discussed ideas to improve equipment for explorers. When Amunson later reached the South Pole, it was with snow goggles and a wind deflecting tent he'd made from designs that Cooke suggested. When some of the crew on the ice-bound ship got scurvy, Cooke cured them. He'd noticed that the Inuit never got scurvy and he guessed that might be because they ate fresh seal meat. He insisted the sailors did too. He was right.

After months stuck in the ice, when they started to fear that they might never get free, it was Cook who came up with a plan. Cutting out blocks of ice between the ship and the open water, so when the ice moved, it might crack and form a channel. It seemed like a mad idea at first, but it worked. It was like a miracle. Amunson said of cook, he of all the ship's company was the one man of unfaluring courage, unfailing hope, endless cheerfulness, and unwirid kindness. His ingenuity and enterprise were boundless. So yes, if Frederick Cook said he'd been to the North Pole, Rwold Ammonson believed him.

And what of Knud Rasmussen, the famous Danish explorer? The husband of the beautiful woman Philip Gibbs had met on his first night in Copenhagen. Knud was still in the North doing exploring of his own. Gibbs bumped into Knud's wife Dagmar Rasmussen. She pulled out a long letter she had just received. She let Gibbs copy part of it and have it translated. My first feeling when I heard about Dr. Cook was an immeasurable disappointment and sorrow. Everyone who knew Knud Rasmussen would have understood. The young Dane was downcast because he had long dreamed of being the first man to reach the pole himself. Cook had taken that place in the history books. Or so, Rasmussen assumed, because he liked and trusted Cook too. But Gibbs didn't know

Knud Rasmussen and didn't understand what he meant. He just thought it sounded vaguely negative. He reported that Rasmussen was not supporting Cook. Gibbs was jumping to some wrong conclusions. But he was also asking the right questions of the right people when no other journalist would. When the University of Copenhagen announced it would give Cook an honorary degree, other newspapers reported that Cook had shown his records to the university's top astronomer. Gibbs sawd the man out. I hear you've seen Cook's records. What? No. Cook told me they're in a box in Greenland. So, you haven't seen any astronomical observations from cook?

Not at all. And without those observations, there's no way to be sure that cook story is true. That's right, said the astronomer. By now, Gibbs was ready to throw caution to the wind. His reporting for the Chronicle was no longer inviting readers to judge for themselves. He flat out accused Cook of fraud. If Gibbs had called this wrong, Cook would surely sue for libel. One distinguished fellow journalist was horrified. A young man, he said to Gibbs, you have not only wooed yourself, which does not matter very much,

but you have also wooed the daily chronicle. The Danes, meanwhile, were embracing cook uncritically. The mayor of Copenhagen threw him a banquet, the king of Denmark invited him to dinner, with every negative article Gibbs published in London, his notoriety in Copenhagen grew. It must have been disconcerting for Gibbs, reading articles about himself in the Danish newspapers, Mr Gibbs, with the only words he understood. He asked someone to translate. "'Dagmar Rasmussen,' says your wrong, Knudt does believe Cook.

Oh, and the explorer Norman Hansen says you've insulted Cook's honour. That means he's challenging you to a duel.' A duel? Gibbs had seen Norman Hanson, his six-foot tree in his socks. I'm five foot six in my boots. Corsary tales will be back in a moment. I'm Paul Monding, a poet who over the past several years had the good fortune to spend time with one of the world's greatest songwriters, Sir Paul McCartney. We talked through more than 150 tracks from McCartney's songbook, and while we did,

we recorded our conversations. I mean the fact that I dreamed the song yesterday leads me to believe that it's not just quite as cut and dried as we think it is. And now you can listen to our conversations in our new podcast McCartney, A Life in Earth. McCartney's been asked many times to write his autobiography, and he's always declined. But as we ventured on this journey, line by line, it became clear how much of McCartney's life is indeed embedded in his lyrics.

It was like going back to an old snapshot album, looking back on work. I hadn't thought much about for quite a few years. Listen, wherever you get your podcasts and if you want to binge the entire season, add free, right now. Sign up for Pushkin Plus on the McCartney Aliphonderic Showpage in Apple Podcasts or at pushkin.fm-plus. Your membership also unlocks access to ad-free binges from Malcolm Gladwell, Dr. Laurie Santos, and many other top hosts. We think of polarisation as a very modern problem, and in some ways it is. The study after study finds politics in the US and Europe going further to extremes,

and it's not just opinions that divide us, it's what we believe to be true. Think of the first few months of the Covid pandemic when we faced so many entirely new questions, how much worse was Covid than flu? How well did masks work? Did the virus come from the market or the lab? These new vaccines? How safe were they? The best response to all these questions was, let's be guided by the evidence. But for many people, that was hard, they committed early to one belief or another. We divided into tribes. It's easy to blame social media. You state a view, it brings you followers, clicks, maybe even advertising revenue. You stop being objective and start telling your new followers what

they want to hear. But the polarisation of the pole debate in Copenhagen in 1909 suggests the problem may be older than we think. Just as with Covid, here was a brand new question nobody had ever had to think about before, had Frederick Cook set foot on the North Pole. And just as with Covid, the best response was, let's be guided by the evidence. But that was hard, especially if the evidence was supposedly in a box in Greenland and Cook wouldn't send it to the University of Copenhagen for months. Still, let's be guided by the evidence was the best response, and it was the one Philip Gibbs started out with. He declared, as one of the reporters of the world's history, I must be skeptical until the facts are proven.

Quite right. But Gibbs shifted quickly from skepticism to cynicism. Why? We can see the same dynamic at work on Gibbs that we see in today's social media world. Gibbs had an initial incentive to be opinionated. It was risky, but it got him noticed. Once he'd committed to a view, it coloured his judgement. Right from the start, when he unfairly dismissed the explorer's well-informed opinions about the intelligence of the Inuit and the advisability of facial hair in the Arctic. Skeptical until the facts are proven.

But it would take months for the facts to be proven. Gibbs lasted only a couple of days before he'd healthy skepticism for mocking stone-cold certainty. His claim to have reached the North Pole belongs to the realm of fairy tales. But just as Gibbs rushed to extremes, so did Cook's supporters. Gibbs was right to keep pointing out that Cook had arrived in Copenhagen with no scientific observations to back up his story. Why was the King inviting him to dinner? Why was the University rushing to give him an honorary degree? Why weren't they being skeptical until the facts were known?

To start with, Dane's must have been flatter. Cook could have chosen to go straight back home to America after all, but there he was in Copenhagen, bringing the city the attention of the world and saying lovely things about how the Danish had always supported Arctic explorers. Of course course they wanted to believe. Richard Evans, the author of the Explorer and the journalist, says the reaction of the Danes reminds him of a line from the great psychologist, Daniel Kahneman. When faced with a difficult question, we sometimes answer an easier question without noticing. The hard question had cook really been to the pole.

The easier question did cook seem nice. But there's another reason cooks supporters doubled down as one of them later explained. The attacks on him were both indecent and ill-founded. Isn't that how polarisation works? Philip Gibbs pushes further than the fact yet strictly justify. Cook's affronted friends push back harder than is justified too. The cycle continues, the two sides get further and further apart.

In just five days, the world had divided into tribes, cookites and anti-cookites. A handful of journalists held the line that we should wait for cooks' evidence, but it was hard to hold that line. The task of forming a sane opinion, wrote the Times of London, is more than usually embarrassing. A thousand people attended Cook's honorary degree ceremony at the University of Copenhagen, royals, the great and the good of Danish science. In his acceptance speech, Cook promised yet again to send the University his observations just as soon as he could. Then he got emotional. I can say no more, I can do no more, I'll show you my hands.

And then it was over. After five days in Copenhagen, Cooke set sail the home. Thousands of people came to the harbour to wave him off. A dignitary gave a farewell speech. We in Denmark believe in you absolutely. As Philip Gibbs watched Frederick Cooke's boat depart, he had no idea if he'd ruined himself and the daily chronicle. Were there really compelling scientific observations in a box in Greenland

that would confirm Cook's story? Gibbs could only wait until Cook sent his papers to the expert committee assembled by the University of Copenhagen. Gibbs turned from the harbor and ran straight into the one man he didn't want to see, the man who challenged him to a duel, the six foot three explorer Norman Hansen. Gibbs must have looked terrified, because Hansen roared with laughter and held out his hand. We will fight with our pens, he said. There was only one thing left for Gibbs to do. He visited the office of the newspaper that had published the challenge to the duel and

gave them a quote. Tell Norman Hanson that I am ready, he need only name his weapon. The shy and retiring Gibbs had found his confidence. But just in case Hanson might change his mind, Gibbs got straight on the first boat back for London. Three and a half months later, Frederick Cook sent some papers to the University of Copenhagen. Expert committees usually take their time to pour over evidence from explorers, but after just four days, word got around that the verdict was ready.

Danish journalists rushed to gather in a high-ceiling wood-panelled room at the university. In walked a functionary, carrying a pile of reports. He handed each journalist a copy. They avidly started to read. The records submitted, said the experts report, were completely valueless for the determination of the question whether Dr Cook could reach the North Pole. Right. What does that mean exactly?

He didn't get to the Pole? He might have. The journalists seek out the experts and ask them to explain. Remember the universe to his astronomer who told Philip Gibbs he needed to see Cook's records to be sure of his story? Well, he's seen them now. There is not a single astronomical observation. The astronomer tells the Danish journalists, just remarks on weather and wind and ice and snow.

That's not proof. Also on the expert committee, the famous young Danish explorer, Knud Rasmusen, who'd initially assumed Cook was telling the truth. Knud is scathing. Such a pathetic submission, he says, has probably never before been submitted to a scientific society for investigation, I have completely lost faith in his claim to be the discoverer of the North Pole." Another expert on the committee, Lycan's cook submission to a student, handing in an answer without showing his calculations. The professor, he says, would give the student a zero. And we have done the same. student a zero. And we have done the same. The news gets back to London. At the office of the Daily Chronicle, Philip Gibbs breathes a sigh of relief. He knows things might have

turned out very differently. I took a big chance, Gibbs later recalled, looking back on it, one which was too dangerous and not quite justified. Gibbs's reporting on Frederick Cook became a legend of the British news industry. Gibbs became a well-known war correspondent, a modestly successful novelist, a campaigner for peace, and a knight of the realm. Sir Philip Gibbs had gambled and won. And what a Frederick cook. He made some money on the lecture circuit, while enough people still believed him.

He checked into a sanatorium with nervous exhaustion. He disappeared for months. He returned to Copenhagen to give a lecture. It was interrupted by a six foot three heckler. You scoundrel!" shouted the explorer Norman Hansen. You betrayed the trust of the Danish people! Cook moved to Texas, and reinvented himself as an oil man. His promises to investors never seemed to come good. He was arrested and charged with fraud.

I've done nothing wrong!" cooked all the police. Tell it to the Danes, they said. Cook served seven years in prison. He was visited by his loyal old friend, Rold Amanson, who spoke to reporters afterwards. "'Cook is a genius,' said Amanson. The finest traveler I ever saw. I still find his story plausible. Cook himself never stopped making his case. "'I'm getting old. I want you to believe that I told the truth. Our children's children will give me a fair verdict.

We're a generation or two on from that. So... Did Frederick cook reach the North Pole? He never produced convincing evidence that he did. But then... Nobody proved he didn't. He went somewhere for months with his inuit friends. He maintained that he had proof in a box in Greenland, but the box never got to America

and never could be found. Did he genuinely believe that he'd made the poll? Did he naively expect to be trusted? Or did he know he was bluffing and hoped to get away with a winning manner and a gripping story? As Philip Gibbs once wisely advised, we must be skeptical until the facts are proven. The facts aren't proven yet. Perhaps they never will be. Thanks to Richard Evans for giving us permission to base this cautionary tale on his new book, The Explorer and the Journalist.

It's already available in the UK and elsewhere, and will be published in the US in November 2023. Corsionary Tale is written by me, Tim Halford, with Andrew Wright. It's produced by Alice Finds with support from Edith Husslo. The sound design and original music is the work of Pascal Weiss. Julia Barton edited the scripts. It features the voice talents of Ben Crow, Melanie Gutridge, Gemma Saunders and Rufus Wright.

The show wouldn't have been possible without the work of Jacob Weisberg, Ryan Dilly, Greta Cohn, Lytel Moulard, John Schnarrs, Carly Migliori and Eric Sandler. Corsary Tales has a production of Pushkin Industries. It was recorded in Wardle Studios in London by Tom Berry. If you like the show, please remember to share, rate and review. Go on, you know it helps us. And if you want to hear the show, add free. Sign up for Pushkin Plus on the show page in Apple podcasts

or at pushkin.fm slash plus. Business notifications getting out of hand, buried under an avalanche of customer emails, texts, and social media messages, keep your edge with Thrive Small Business software and never miss a message again. Thrive offers one solution to communicate, market, and run your business, but simply, small businesses run better on Thrive. Get Command Center for free today at thrive.ca. That's THR-Y-V dot CA. Terms and conditions apply, free plans have limited functionality. I'm Paul Muldoon, a poet who over the past several years has had the good fortune to record ours of conversations with one of the world's greatest songwriters, Sir Paul McCartney.

The result is our new podcast, McCartney, A Life in lyrics. Listen to McCartney, A Life in lyrics, on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. Apple podcasts, Amazon music, or wherever you get your podcasts.