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Happy New Year, everyone.
Happy New Year.
We're coming to you live from Dover, the capital of Delaware.
Wait, what? Okay.
No, we're back in London, Brady.
No, we're not in Dover.
That's an excellent joke, Brady, pretending that we're somewhere that we aren't.
No, we're actually in London on New Year's Day.
No, we're in Bristol. I've come up to visit you.
We're still in Bristolistol underneath the christmas tree still here with our pile of christmas cards sent in from well from all
over the world but i did promise that i was going to show you for the first time in real life
the golden hot stopper i haven't shown it to you have i no i have not seen in real life i've only
seen the video all right i'm gonna get it okay i might switch that main light on so we've got
maximum yeah you want to have maximum sparkles all right, I'm going to get it. Okay. I might switch that main light on so we've got maximum spark.
Yeah, you want to have maximum sparkles.
All right, I'm going to get the light switch on.
This is very exciting.
You ready?
I don't know if I can ever be ready.
Here it comes.
Oh, wow.
This pillow is fantastic.
It smells of lavender too, just for the record.
I can confirm that it does smell of lavender, this pillow.
Wow. You can hold it. Ooh, it that it does smell of lavender, this pillow. Wow.
You can hold it.
Ooh, it's way weightier than I would have thought.
It's solid gold.
I know it's solid gold, but still, hot stoppers,
unless they are six, seven feet tall,
I don't think of them as very heavy objects.
Yeah.
Very nice.
Forged in timness.
It looks great in person.
Yeah.
It really does.
I almost feel like I'm gunking it up by touching it.
You are.
I'll be sterilizing it later.
Yeah, it needs to be cleaned to remove the fingerprints.
But it looks great.
This is so nice.
I mean, that's going to be a centerpiece of the HI Museum, clearly, isn't it?
Like it's going to be in the center of the room.
Yeah.
Spotlights coming down on it.
So nice.
Very cool. And the pillow, Brady. coming down on it. So nice. Very cool.
And the pillow, Brady.
The pillow.
I don't know.
I can never say enough about how much this pillow acts
as a magnification of the beauty and magnificence of the hot stopper.
It does.
It makes it far more regal.
It really does.
There we go.
All right.
Thank you for showing it to me in person.
That's all right.
That's all right.
So it's a new year, but let's continue With our Christmas cards and messages
From Tim's, we've got knives everywhere
That we're using to cut open these envelopes
It's been a frenzy of knives and paper
And we're surrounded by
Stamps and envelopes
It's like a mail sorting office here
And Christmas hot chocolate
We're having a
I've introduced Grey to the joys of Ovaltine.
I didn't think you'd like it.
You got here and I said, oh, do you want a coffee?
And you said, no, I don't feel like a coffee.
I'll have a tea.
And then I decided to make myself an Ovaltine.
And I said, do you want one of these, Grey?
Just to be polite.
You were like, you know what?
I will.
And you had one.
And then later on, we came home and then unsolicited, you said,
I could go another one of those Ovaltines.
They feel very
appropriately holiday it's a good little holiday drink to have there's super super christmasy not
very fitatron but yeah but the holidays are opposed to fitatron so we've had a number of
questions and postcards sent in by people who like sent in repeat cards they've been like they're
trying to make a joke by sending in loads but there's no rules against that yeah no no it's
it's not like they're stuffing the ballot box.
So this is one person whose name I don't have here,
but they sent in lots of questions.
But some of them are quite good.
I liked this one.
If the other person, so presumably this is between you and I,
if the other person called you and said,
I need your help to hide a body,
what would you each think had happened?
What would you think had happened?
So if I phone you and say, great, I need your help to hide a body.
I mean, obviously someone wouldn't have treated you with the respect that you deserve.
That's what I would assume.
Like, I don't really know how we should answer that or discuss it, but I do think it's a
really fun question to like, it's probably more or not of a podcast question but it's a fun question
the other person just said i need your help hiding a body like what do you start straight
away start thinking happened i kind of feel like if you did get yourself into a tangle and had like
a body to dispose of which is a pretty serious tangle to be fair i'm not sure you'd call me
i'm not sure i'd be your guy i mean why would you
expand the circle of people who know you're rethinking it thinking it through why would
i have expanded i mean why would i expand another question asked by the same person
what extinct animal would you de-extinct right now if you could okay tyrannosaurus rex really imagine one of those bad boys walking
around i mean are we de-extincting it in jurassic park or is it just like running free in the world
well i'm not i'm not like advocating releasing it into places where it's going to cause problems
but i just want to see what they look like and smell like and sound like and that's just got
maximum wowness well again always with these questions
what are the parameters do a bunch of t-rexes just appear dispersed across the world that seems like
a bad idea do we get one in a zoo that's a pretty awesome oh yeah i was thinking it more as a one-off
science project you're thinking that they're saying de-extinct it sounds a bit like we're
reintroducing it to the world oh yeah right yeah. Right? Yeah. If it was still going to exist in the world,
I would want something like a woolly mammoth.
Yeah.
I think a pack of woolly mammoths would be pretty cool.
Yeah.
And I figure that's mostly Canada's problem.
You could just go up there and see what they look like
on a nature preserve, something along those lines.
All right.
Yeah, you can have mammoths.
Thanks.
But if it was just going to be one in a zoo
I think I agree with you
like T-Rex
and that is the dinosaur you'd go for
you wouldn't go for like a Brachiosaur
or Triceratops
it's king of the dinosaurs
king of the dinosaurs
you know you gotta
you gotta pay respect to the crown
was T-Rex the king of the dinosaurs at the time
or have we kind of kingified it in
our modern culture
or was it like top dog
king is a constructed office
and we have constructed it around the T-Rex.
Now this one that you've just opened,
I put on the pile, especially for you.
I thought you would appreciate
the efficiency of this contribution.
I mean, it looks all business, this envelope.
This looks like something that a computer
would print out in the 1950s.
Yeah, it looks like a check or a bill or something,
doesn't it?
And have a look at the card and what's on the back of it oh wow okay here we
go so this is from robert in virginia okay so it's a card that lets you tick 10 boxes
to for each of the things that you want it to be. So check one, and they wrote, they checked the box labeled dear versus hi
or to whom it may concern.
So it's dear Brady and Gray, box two.
How are you?
They've checked and it keeps going through.
So it's like, what's it called?
Does it say on the other side?
Is it the process letter or it's kind of-
The process letter, stationary for the busy person.
So it's like, it's the most impersonal way you could possibly send someone a letter with just a bunch of tick boxes and pro forma fields and things like that.
You know, when you get a form letter, it has that form letter feel.
But this is a form letter that lets you see all the other possibilities for each of the form, which makes it even less personal.
It kind of wears its form letterletteness on a sleeve.
This is obviously like a joke thing you buy in a shop
and then you send to people.
Okay.
I thought you'd appreciate the efficiency of it.
And at the bottom they said,
P.S. I found a stack of these and thought you would like it.
And the answer is correct.
I do like it.
All right.
So the plan is hopefully with some of these cards and notes
and things that we've been sharing over the course of the 12 days
of Hello Internet that some of these will find their way
onto our podcast postcards website where I've been uploading ballots
for the last couple of years.
So we'll include links and stuff and you can go and check out that site
and have a look at some stuff.
All right. include links and stuff and you can go and check out that site and have a look at some stuff all right this is another one that looks like maybe it's a card that is being sent for christmas to
people by like a couple there's a picture of this couple and they have like photoshopped santa hats
on so they're obviously the couple eric and rajni hi brady and. What do you think of the Norwegian municipality shields?
I think they're great and show you how limitations on colors
and simplicity breeds greatness.
There are a number of rules for them,
and the two most important being, one, only use two colors,
and two, only having one motif, which can be repeated.
There is a bit.ly slash Norwegian shields, or you can find them another way, but. There is a bit.ly slash Norwegian Shields,
or you can find them another way, but he's created a bit.ly.
Whoa. Okay. I pulled up the link. I'll let you just quickly scroll up and down here.
There is an overwhelming number of these shields.
Oh yeah. Wow. Gosh. They are good.
I mean, there must be a hundred on here. There's just way too many to review.
And some of them do not look so great.
Some of them do.
It's very hard to make a general statement about them.
But I like at least that there are rules for how the municipalities are supposed to design their shields.
Yeah.
I guess I'm giving a plus one to rules is the way I'm going to vote on this one.
Okay.
Oh, there's one that has a beehive.
I like that one. Oh, who's that for? Who are they who are they less about i'm not quite sure how to say it but okay
yeah they've got a beehive on there all right it caught my eye all right well well maybe maybe one
day we'll have a closer look at the norway shields uh i like at the end here eric and rajni say if
anything they're better than the swedish shields And they have a link to the Swedish shields.
I don't want to start like a whole, you know,
Sweden versus Norway
municipal. Oh my goodness. Okay.
So these are the Swedish shields
that I'm looking at, that I pulled up on
that link, because I only saw the one.
Okay, so now, give me
this back. Oh, hang on. Oh dear.
No, this is... The Norway one's at the top.
Oh, you made a right mess of it
no but okay oh but now we might contribute to arrival so just to clarify people gray called
up the link for the swedish municipal shields luckily people from norway and sweden don't
really mind when you get them mixed up and stuff yeah no i think they're they're all pretty good
about yeah yeah like when i jokingly said magnus magnus the chess master was from
sweden i still hear about that oh i think i think the norway ones are better all right i'm having a
look just glancing at them again there's still a bunch but i think the norway ones are better
norway ones are more consistently simple yeah they're nice i liked the swedish ones too but
yeah i mean i don't want to start another war between Norway and Sweden,
but I'm going to point to Norway on their municipality shields.
Don't see any bees though.
No beehives?
I don't see any beehives.
No beehives, but better shields.
Oh, hang on.
He says here, so they're from Oslo,
and apparently Oslo's shield was made before the rules.
I have to see the Oslo.
This is the most complicated card.
He puts at the end of his cards,
greetings from Oslo, whose shield was made before the rules,
so it stinks.
Oh, I see.
And he says it stinks.
Here you go.
I found it for you.
Oh, yeah.
And Oslo looks like it belongs on an American state flag.
I was just about to say,
it does not look very far from New York Excelsior.
And yeah yeah it's
why don't oslo fall into love oslo yeah get with the times oslo i don't know what your problem is
here great i think it's time for me to show you something okay yeah don't panic instantly panicked
this has been something that people have been wanting me to show you for a long time
and like i've delayed it because we talk about
flag design quite a lot and we also talk about how much i love adelaide quite a lot and a lot
of people have been pretty keen to point out that adelaide city has its own flag so south australia
has a flag and australia has a flag but adelaide the city municipality has a flag have you seen it
yet i don't i know nothing about this many people have been wanting me to show you the adelaide, the city municipality, has a flag. Have you seen it yet? I know nothing about this.
Many people have been wanting me to show you the Adelaide flag.
Okay.
I have not wanted to show you this flag.
Okay, all right.
Which probably tells you a lot.
Yeah.
So, people, by popular demand, at last, I am showing Gray what the Adelaide city flag looks like.
Well, that's very sweet of Adelaide.
This is not a proud moment for me.
Oh, I didn't realize it has this border around it.
Oh, it's a dog's dinner.
There's a big red English cross through the center of it.
It's a thick red cross,
which divides the flag into four.
And then there's drawings in each of the four my gut reaction was to say that they're childish but they're too good
for children but there's this unhappy place where you need a certain amount of skill to be able to
draw something poorly they're like they're very clip art aren't they it is clip art the cow in particular and is that a sheep being hoisted by something i was gonna ask i said
there's a ship there's a bundle of wheat the wheat is the best clearly there's a cow that's poorly
drawn and there's there's a sheep that is being pulled up in the middle by something. I don't know what.
And then around the whole flag is this horrible yellow and blue diagonal border.
Also, at this very moment, Brady is sitting down trying to pretend like he didn't just sneak off to shush Audrey.
Audrey had wedged herself between Lulu and a heater and she was snoring very loud
you know she's very happy though is the sheep being like pulled up it looks like onto a ship
or something or like it's being i mean maybe it is but they haven't drawn the ship that's being
pulled up onto it's just a sheep suspended in nothing by a belt and a little eye hole for a
hook around it so it's not it's not good it's not a good flag i'm very used to it i used to cover the adelaide city council as a journalist so i was exposed to this flag a hook around it. It's not good. It's not a good flag. I'm very used to it.
I used to cover the Adelaide City Council as a journalist,
so I was exposed to this flag a lot.
So to me, it's kind of quite acceptable.
And it's only now, I suddenly have this epiphany that,
no, you can't do that.
That border.
The border is bad, but it's also that blue,
like that particular shade of blue that so many places use,
just a bad color blue for the background.
The armorial flag
of adelaide was approved on august the 2nd 1982 oh oh god it replaced the de facto decoration of
the coat of arms the new flag was prepared by the college of arms and took its symbols from the
city's coat of arms i can't really find out much more i'll have to just look anyway that's people have been wanting me to reveal this to you for quite some time
like you know because i'm always bigging up adelaide so i thought people thought this was
a chance to you know for you to have a swipe so there you go he's seen it now people you can stop
asking thank you for showing me that let us not speak of it again i understand this is a difficult
moment for you. Yeah.
Do you want to just pick one and pass it to me?
You pick one at random.
Oh.
Oh, I like this one
because this has got a picture
of a little cute girl on it
that looks like it's being terrorized
by some kind of demon.
Right, the Krampus.
The Krampus.
I love the Krampus.
I love myself some Krampus.
Good handwriting too.
It is good handwriting on there. The Krampus. I love myself some Krampus. Good handwriting too. It is good handwriting on there.
The Krampus, I also had, like I squint my eye out a little bit
because I don't know how much is this an actual historical thing
or how much of this is a modern creation
that people like to pretend is a historical thing.
Okay.
Something about the Krampus feels a little bit constructed to me,
but I don't know if that's true or not.
What does this say?
Dear CGP Grey and Dr. Brady Haran.
Of course.
I think Brady got rid of all of the cards that didn't say doctor.
Merry Christmas from Germany, where Christmas is not always so merry, especially for naughty girls and boys who get a visit from Krampus instead of St. Nicholas. Krampus will whip the misbehaving children,
stuff them into his basket,
and then take them straight to the fires of hell.
Merry Christmas.
Merry Christmas.
So this question that's now being posed as a result
is kind of like, you know,
I think if we take it as fun and not imbue too much meaning in it,
it could be interesting.
Because this says,
since you two boys have been very naughty all year,
I expect your fate has already been determined,
which is why I have decided to ask you this question.
And here's the question.
What five objects need to be placed at the five points of a pentagram
in order to summon your spirits from the beyond?
So what five objects would be used to summon a grave?
Yeah, we're thinking like what are the totemic objects yeah
like horcruxes or something you know like yeah i mean i can think of some for you already i mean
obviously an iphone is going to be one of yours okay well i feel like that is unfair but probably
accurate so an iphone i mean i would want a caveman club for you okay a club that's what i
want no instead of a club i feel like almost a wooden
toothbrush even though this is an old this is an old brady but it still would be an object
right that could summon a brady for you i would have a hot stopper i think a hot stopper could
count for both of us yeah because you like a coffee so that is true a hot stopper that is true
it's hard coming up with objects for you.
I think you need a camera, like the camera that you use to record your videos.
Yeah.
Like an interviewer camera.
Yeah.
Or maybe a copy of that Adelaide newspaper that you worked for, the Adelaide Observer or whatever.
The advertiser.
The advertiser.
I was so close.
For you, I would also have like an eye pencil, whatever they –
just because I think – they're not nice objects, those eye pencils.
But an eye pencil.
I think maybe you could leave one of my pentagram points blank
just symbolically because there's not an object there.
No, a lack of objects.
A lack of object would be one of the objects, maybe a little bee statue.
That would be great in a movie about, like, you know,
trying to solve the puzzle of bringing you back,
and they keep rearranging the five objects,
and then it's not until some genius says,
no, the key to bringing Grey back would be to leave one object out.
Right.
And then suddenly you just, like, appear from below.
I could see that as the resolution to a movie.
I like that.
That's good. i do like the
idea of the five objects to summon us back but you know you could have a million objects for me
it's not it's not really fair but this is also like a an assignment for the tims in feedback
for the show because also like the way we know each other i think can sometimes block these sort
of thoughts sometimes like it actually makes it harder yeah and so other people might be able to think of the objects more
easily but i like that that's a fun question like because there are things that i would think of you
like i could think oh a big black coat because sometimes i see you wearing a big dark coat or
something but then like that's not really a very fun object to be putting like down to summon
someone on the you know my glasses right yeah you need the glasses i think that's a that would be a
winner for that yeah yeah that's true that's kind of yeah i like a microphone for you as the winner
of the radio and podcast championship a cgp gray mug would be a good one for you because i very
much associate you with that and it's got your cgp gray logo on it and it appears in your videos
all the time and that so it's like that's a very you object brady brady how could i not think of
this white gloves of destiny white gloves of destiny that seems like it should 100 be one
of your objects yeah maybe no you don't like it it's like the white gloves no that's so brady
yeah just just if we could somehow put the channel objectivity on one of the corners
but like that's a small channel isn't it you'd want to roll a brown paper. No, but it may be
a smaller channel,
but it's so you.
It's the most you channel
that can exist.
Okay.
So you need to put objectivity
on one of the corners.
A pair of white gloves.
All right.
I like it.
All right,
well, maybe people
put together your list
of five objects,
but also I'd like to see
people saying
what their own five objects are
because that would be
an interesting little insight
into how people
perceive themselves. So go into our, you know reddit and do that list of five
objects so grey it's a new year it is a new year it's a new year and famously and one of the reasons
we're going through all these cards right now is because of project cyclops i don't know what
you're talking about project cyclops where you went offline in many ways.
You've been off Twitter, been off Reddit.
You weren't listening to podcasts.
I wasn't really clear how long you were doing it for,
but I was under the impression maybe it was going to be ending
at the end of the year.
Yeah.
So as we go forward now into 2019.
Since it is a new year.
Since it is a new year.
First of all, what are you doing?
Is it going to continue?
Are we going to start seeing tweets again?
Are you going to start lurking in Reddits?
Are you going to start listening to podcasts again?
Do you know yet?
It was supposed to end at the end of the year.
I was going to do it for the remainder of the year.
And now that, as we're recording, it's January 1st, 2019,
all I can say for sure is I'm not ready to come back.
You're not coming back yet?
I'm not coming back yet.
I don't have any more plans than that,
but I figure people might want to know what's going on. I have no easy way to tell them.
So yeah, I'm not ready to be summoned back at this point.
No five objects will do it maybe
if someone comes up with the list in the subreddit gray would just magically come back like yeah some
maybe some spells are powerful enough but for the time being i'm still staying away and i'm not quite
sure how long how come like just because it's working i just don't feel ready to return i have
no better answer than that except it's just like the remainder of the year,
which seemed like a long time when I started it,
went by very fast.
And I just have a feeling like
whatever I'm trying to achieve with this,
I haven't quite achieved yet.
So I'm not ready to cut it.
What now seems short.
I'm going to let it run for a little while longer.
I don't know how much longer.
I remember when you started it,
it felt like one of the real things
you were trying to achieve was somehow improving or regaining like your attention span
and your ability to concentrate have you noticed that changing can you read for longer periods of
time now is it are you feeling a healing i can say yeah that that is one of the things that i feel
like i've noticed a difference with that I've noticed a difference in my work, particularly with like reading and researching for videos, that I'm able to do it for much longer stretches
of time. And there's a particular feeling of concentration that's hard to articulate. But yeah,
that feels like it's returned or it's back to a large extent.
Is that why you want to continue? Or is there other reasons?
That's part of it. That's part of the reason that i want to continue is that in some sense i can say it's been successful but it still feels like
that success is maybe a little bit fragile and so coming back when it feels like it's too soon to
come back just because like oh past me set a date like i don't really care what past me had to say
about anything and so it's like no i'm not going to come back yet if people out there were
waiting until january 1st to tell me something yeah sorry you have to wait a while longer yeah
hopefully you sent a christmas card yeah that was your chance that's exactly it that's why we're
going through these cards is there anything you're missing about it the thing that i miss
and which is kind of these christmas cards is some level of feedback and interaction like there have been a number of times where i
felt like oh it would be useful to be able to reach out to the audience for something
or to just have a sense of how things have gone but overall the benefits out outweigh so i'm
gonna stay away for a little bit i'm scheming about how to come back in a gradual sense in
the future but it's all very vague right now.
What about like Tuesday tweets with Gray?
And it's like, that's the only day you tweet.
Maybe in the future.
Tuesday tweets is not a bad idea.
Is there anything about the process that like has surprised you
in a way that it's harder than you thought, easier than you thought,
you've liked more than you thought?
Like was anything unexpected?
Or has what has happened been exactly what you anticipated i think the thing that's unexpected
is after maybe two months maybe two and a half months it just felt like everything was kind of
the same it wasn't harder it was just oh this stuff is not a part of my life anymore. And so I just don't often
think about it. And so I don't think it would be harder to do a year versus six months versus four
months. Like I think at some point you just hit a threshold where you just kind of forget about it
and it's not part of your life. And it's just like, oh, this is not a thing that I'm involved
in anymore. So I think that's been a surprise. I might have expected to be really itchy
to get back. And I'm shocked that as the year has come to an end, it's mostly been a feeling
of dread of like, oh, I don't want to go back. And I'm just going to keep doing what I'm doing
because I don't feel like it's quite done yet. And it would feel silly to cut it short sooner
than I think it needs to be. But I don't know how long it's quite done yet. And it would feel silly to cut it short sooner than I think it needs
to be, but I don't know how long it's going to be. Does it ever make you feel silly that it ever was
such a big deal in the first place? What do you mean by such a big deal? There was a time when,
you know, being on Hacker News and Reddit was, you gave a lot of your time to it. You gave a lot
of your brain space to it. Hanging out on Twitter, you gave a lot of time and your brain space to it.
Now that you're not doing it, and it's almost like it doesn't exist. Do you think,
bloody hell, what an idiot? Why was I giving it so much in the first place? What a lot of time and your brain space to. Now that you're not doing it, and it's almost like it doesn't exist, do you think, bloody hell, what an idiot? Why was I giving it so much in the first place? What a waste of my time? No, it doesn't feel that way, because there is some value as a
person who makes things for the internet to be part of the internet. And there is some time
horizon where I feel like if I did this indefinitely, it would eventually become more net negative than net positive.
Like if I didn't go on the internet for three years, I think at that point I would just be so disconnected that it would be like making things in a total vacuum.
You need to have some kind of connection with the world.
So no, I don't feel like it was silly.
And I also just like love meme culture and I love a kind of crazy Wild West cowboyness of the world. So no, I don't feel like it was silly. And I also just like love meme culture. And I love a kind of crazy Wild West cowboyness of the internet. There's something about that,
that just like really lines up well with my personality. So I don't feel like it was silly.
But that's a different question from is stepping away for a while net positive,
and I still feel like I'm in net positive territory.
Has there been much lobbying for you to come back that you've been exposed to,
like whether it's from friends and stuff, like people going, come on, great, come
back on Twitter and Instagram. It's good fun. Or do people not talk to you about it? Or do people
say, this is brilliant, you should keep doing it? I would say the near universal thing from
colleagues and friends who work in the business is one, intense interest, and two, a desire that
they could do it. But everybody has some reason why they say
they can't do it even though with rare exception i don't think they're right i think many many of
like friends and colleagues in in the industry dramatically overestimate how much they need to
be online as part of their work but no most people are very interested i can say no one has mounted a lobbying campaign for twitter is a great
idea to spend more of your time on right no like no one has even brought that up as an argument
fair enough all right i thought you were going to announce to the world you're back and you've
just like gone nut no i'm not back if i had to put money on when you'll be back, what should I bet on?
If like bookmakers were taking bets like June?
What are you looking for insider information about how to take bets on the very active
Hello Internet betting market?
Yeah, like because you say it can't be three years, right?
Right.
And zero time was not satisfactory to you.
Three years is too much.
So I'm guessing 18 months is the smart bet.
When would 18 months be?
That would be like the
start this would be about this time next year i guess so if that's where you want to place your
bet this suddenly feels like one of those baby betting pools of like what's the arrival date
yeah all right there you go you heard it here first well where else were you gonna hear it
all right well happy new year's Day to you, Brady.
Yes, yes.
And like, well, let's not talk about New Year's resolutions.
And New Year's resolutions are dumb anyway.
Well, I'm going home and I'll come back and talk to you tomorrow.
Yeah, it was lovely here in Dover, wasn't it?
Wait, where are we?
Dover.
Delaware.
Delaware.
Oh, Delaware, not Dover, England.
Okay.
No, no.
Of course not.
That was my whole joke
Because we didn't say
The capital of Dover
The first time
Right no
It was a very good joke Brady
Wasted
Wasted on you