Hello Internet - Ten Lords A-leaping

Episode Date: January 3, 2019

Grey's just opened an envelope. Did you get a good one or not? I was distracted trying to, any spare moment, open envelopes in this mountain of envelopes that we have. So Grey, here's one I just picked up at random. I don't know who it's come from. They didn't sign it. It's a really cool picture of the Museum of Flight in Seattle. I'd love to hear about the paper cuts related to living abroad and the paper cuts you have now when you visit home. Paper cuts is my favorite section of the podcast. Do you get any paper cuts when you go back to America

that you wouldn't have had before? Like it's easy to complain about things in England. It's great fun. But do you ever go back to America and think, you know what, America doesn't do this thing well. Everything related to payments in America is a real paper cut just everything that you have to do with a credit card and signing slips of paper and also the thing in restaurants which seems so archaic now that you just hand a waiter your card and they whisk it off to some back room where

like I presume they have a machine that makes 10 copies of your card that they hand out to their friends and then you come back and just sign the bill it seems like a trust-based system built in the 1700s as opposed to in the uk where a man brings you a little computer you verify that it's you and write the exact amount and just go for it so i feel like everything about payments is really annoying in america the paper money is all the same size yeah the whole money situation in america is really annoying that'd be my paper cut for returning all right you for australia actually it's something for australia and america it doesn't annoy me but i find something that i've drifted away from as i've become more and more anglicized living in england is like the brashness and the confidence of Australians and Americans I mean maybe people perceive me this way

too still but like I do find like the in your faceness of Australians and Americans like I find it charming but I do find that like it rattles me how friendly and how conversational everyone is. I think I've become a lot more British, stare at my toes, stand in a queue. So I do notice that because you notice it so quickly. Like when you go back to Australia, when you pick up your hire car, you're already getting it. G'day, mate.

How are you doing? And they're really friendly. Where are you going? What are you doing? What are you doing on the weekend? Whereas here in England it's just like there would be no talking and they would just say, car three is yours. They don't want anything to do with you. But in America and Australia, customer service is so friendly and the people are so outgoing. It's not paper cut, but I just find it disorienting it's disorienting yeah part of the advantage of living abroad is actually all the paper cuts in a way like i think the interesting experience of living abroad is the fact that all sorts of things that you would never expect are different yeah i think

that makes it a more engaging thing for your brain instead of just living in the same place all the time like i think it's good for brains to have that jarredness. But the downside of it, and I think especially for people like us who have lived abroad for such a long period of time, I always describe it as living abroad for my entire adult life, which is true, that you become like a man without a country in a way. And so the past few years in particular when i travel back to america it more and more feels like visiting another country and so it becomes that like there is no country that is

home there's just countries and so the uk is not home for you now you don't feel at home in england i think if i spent the whole of my life here it would still always i would still always feel like what i am like i'm an immigrant to this country and i live here and i know how to make things work here but i'm always going to feel like an immigrant and it's just a funny feeling that when i go back to america that like i said particularly in the last few years it feels more and more like a different place i don't mind being a man without a country but it's just an interesting thing to note that it just it feels like almost like i'm going to can a country, but it's just an interesting thing to note that it just, it feels like almost like I'm going to Canada, right? Like, oh, it's a place that's very

similar to where I grew up, but a lot of things are just a little bit off or different. Should we open one from Australia? This one here? Oh, yeah. I'll open this one from Australia because it says on the outside of the envelope that it's come from Brisbane. I'm sure it will be very friendly. It's got a wreath on the front, but it's made from eucalyptus leaves and koalas. And a platypus.

Oh, yeah, and a platypus. You're right. Dear Graeme Brady, I hope you both have a lovely Christmas season and a wonderful new year. Have you ever thought of doing a live stream Q&A from the Antipodes? I haven't thought of that from brisbane

and there's a piece of paper inside oh it's a family picture don't read this out oh i just read it out but the part i'm not supposed to read out is everyone's names there's a picture of them all from brisbane that's very nice thank you for your family photo we have thought about doing live shows, like recording live, and then we immediately realized it's a terrible idea because we mess up so much when we're just doing the show anyway.

Hello Internet is fundamentally not a live thing. It is for your benefit that it is edited and you listen to a polished version of our conversation. And you don't have to listen to our false starts and stops or anything else like that this is true and audrey's very worst snores yes oh yes only the absolute uneditable stores make it in she has been snoozing all afternoon over there terrible she's a very tired little dog trying another random one this is a very thick envelope from Canada. Very thick usually means glitter.

Oh, but this time it means adorable Star Wars themed stockings. They're excellent. There's an R2-D2 stocking, a Darth Vader stocking, and a Chewbacca one. And I love all of them. That's awesome. That's great. Is that a purchased card? Oh, it's got like an official logo on it.

Yeah. It looks really nice. Many thanks for all the countless hours of entertainment from canada tim tim and millie thank you very much here we go this one's come from matt dear brady and gray matt from vancouver british columbia here currently studying astronomy at the university of british British Columbia. My idea for a topic is city planning. Of all the cities you've visited, what are some that stood out in terms of layout and design? Furthermore, what types of things do you look for in an ideal city? Greg, do you know what the world's best city is for layout and town planning?

Oh, damn it. Is it Adelaide? It is Adelaide. Okay, tell me why it's Adelaide. Have you not heard of Colonel Light? I have not heard of Colonel Light. Colonel William Light, who designed Adelaide? It is Adelaide. Okay, tell me why it's Adelaide. Have you not heard of Colonel Light? I have not heard of Colonel Light. Colonel William Light who designed Adelaide. Okay. Amazing town planner.

In Adelaide, there's a hill that overlooks the city close by called Montefiore Hill, and there's a statue on top of Colonel Light pointing at the city that he designed. It's the iconic Adelaide statue. It's wonderful. Adelaide is brilliantly designed. Okay.

Beautiful grid layout with these special parks in certain, in four quadrants and a park in the middle and then surrounded by a park that they're not allowed to build on. They're not allowed to build on the Adelaide Parklands. That's like a real condition of Adelaide. Gradually it's all being built on like as the compromise, after compromise is made. But Adelaide is like famed for its design like that's one of adelaide's claim big claims to fame is like the hell i mean there's so many how can one get track of because it was a very planned

city as you know he it was planned but a long time ago so it didn't just kind of evolve out of sprawl like london and become this like crazy thing that you're having to continually compromise and patch up and fix it was he said this is the way we're going to do it this is going to work for all time and it kind of did i think grid cities are so overrated i think the grid design is really really overrated yeah it's one of the things i like least about cities i've seen places do it well but i think that's the exception yeah it's like there are many public spaces that i will go into it's not really city design but i think it's the same thing where you go to like a new development and it's a public space and i often think this must have looked amazing on architectural drawings but that's a very different question

from how does it feel to be in the space and grid cities strike me that way it's like this looks great on paper but as a person who's actually in the city i generally don't like grid layouts i will give one exception to the city of salt lake city which has a grid layout and i think is like the perfect it's like a small city in america but it feels reasonably big and they did a very good job with the grid layout for complicated reasons and they have trams that run up and down the center of the grid because they have super wide streets like i happen to like that one sounds just like adelaide does it now okay it is nice i give it as an exception but in general i think there's a certain kind of person who goes like oh this grid is great and orderly and it's going to be perfect.

And I much prefer the cities that have an organic feel to them. It's also the thing that I know the grid looks good on paper, but I have a feeling that there's something about the organic layouts which still does work. There's something natural about like where do the wide streets end up being and then they filter out like capillaries into smaller regions when i look for in cities is i look for something that feels more organic as opposed to something that's a grid but maybe one day i'll have to visit adelaide and see see how it compares to salt lake city oh man imagine if you went to adelaide how that'd be so exciting wouldn't it no i think it's better that you don't oh yeah you think it's better that it just exists in my head as the place that you describe well no i'd just rather that you don't. Oh, yeah? You think it's better that it just exists in my head as the place that you describe? Well, no, I'd just rather that you picked on it

for the sake of giving me a hard time rather than picked on it from a position of knowledge. Oh, okay. Right. Because this way you can always say, oh, Grey doesn't know what he's talking about. Exactly. He doesn't understand.

If he went, then he'd love it. Right. But if he went and hated it, then where do I go from there? Right. I understand. You want to keep that open. Exactly. Oh, if he went, he would love it. Right. But if he went and hated it, then where do I go from there? Right. I understand. You want to keep that open. Exactly.

Oh, if he went, he would love it. He would. He doesn't understand. Oh, we got a bunch of glitter. Glitter has been a professional hazard of opening these Christmas cards. There has been a bit of glitter. Hi, CGP Grey and Dr. Brady Heron. My question for you is, as the year comes to its end,

it's the perfect time for some reflection. What will you remember 2018 for? This is from Sean in Reading. This is a good question, isn't it? I will remember 2018 as the year that I went to Antarctica. It feels like a million years ago now, but it was in march and like i do a lot of trips and holidays and a lot of them i think this is a once in a lifetime

opportunity for me but it is possible that i will never go back to antarctica and certainly even if i do there will only be the first time i went there that made a mark on me what will i remember 2018 for the start of operation the start of project cyclops like well this is again i have such a hard time looking back that i feel like in order to answer this question i would have to pull out my calendar on my computer and like flip back through the day it's like i just don't think that way and it's like and everything that i think of is things that happened in the past couple weeks right or like you know i just happened to do this big interesting trip that we may talk about at some point in the future on the show and it's like well i'll think of that

as as 28 is like oh but that's the only reason i'm thinking of that is because it happened a week ago i mean uh it happened closer to three weeks ago because this is january 3rd so yeah 2018 it's a year and it's great i'm really bad at remembering years and in like five years if you say to me what year did you go to Antarctica? I won't remember that it was 2018. But that was definitely my highlight of the year. My highlight of the year has been the 12 days of Hello Internet, for sure. 12 days of Hello Internet.

It did start in 2018. Yes, it did start in 2018. It will finish this year eventually, soon. I'm opening one from Spain. All the Spanish teams right now are thinking, this could be mine. Did you send yours in a yellow envelope? It still could be yours.

Did you put a Christmas tree sticker on the back? It still could be yours. Did you not send a proper card and a piece of paper? Oh, no, look. It says, Merrymas from our family to yours and it's a picture of i think that's me yeah that's you that's caveman brady is robot gray and there's a little snowman yeah kind of like cute but horrifying but horrifying in like a wonderful way it is i think it's very cute yeah And on the back we have a couple of questions.

This is written in adult handwriting. This has come from Tim. I presume Tim is in just like overarching Tim. Abby Dahlia, aged four, who I'm going to attribute the picture to. Her signature is on the back there. Oh, yeah. Yeah, it is Dahlia then. And Cleo, aged one. Here's a question from Dahlia, who drew the picture.

Do you want to build a snowman? Do you like building snowmen? Snow people? You know, I don't want to upset anyone. Oh, you always say snowman. Snow person. I do want to build a snowman, but it never snows enough in the UK. Have you got experience building snow people?

I mean, I have built snowmen in the past, you know, in New York when it snowed more. I don't think I've ever done it in the UK, and I don't think there was ever really enough snow to do it. I don't think I've ever built a good one. You didn't specify have I ever built a good one. That's a very different question. The answer is no. Do you get excited by snow still like if it's yeah so snow is always exciting how could snow not be exciting it is amazing how snow is always

exciting no matter how many times you see it yeah here's another question on the same letter and this question has been asked by many people so let's let's ask you how is mr chompers you haven't spoken about mr chompers for a while he's doing very well mr chompers he's grown up and he spends more time with his biological family now yeah but we do see him and we do take care of him and i'm always happy to see mr chompers we have him on some days of the month and also what is one of the pure delights of my life is that sometimes I'm out in the park and you're just walking along and up runs a Mr. Chompers. Oh, like it's not your day. Yeah, it's not our day.

Right. But we're just out in the park and you run into a Mr. Chompers and he is so happy. He is so happy. So I'm very happy to see Mr. Chompers whenever I can. And he is so happy so i'm very happy to see mr chompers whenever i can and he is doing very well he is very big he's not living the fitatron lifestyle no he's made of muscle like he's a he's big he is made of muscle he can when uh if i don't see him coming in the park he can totally knock me over oh wow so he is he is very. Nice. And he is the biggest example of his breed that his vet has seen. So he really is.

He's an enormous dog that is made of all mouth. He's a record breaker. Yeah. And actually, I should be seeing him in just a few days, I believe, is his own schedule. So he's doing very well.