How To Fail With Elizabeth Day - S1, Ep4 How to Fail: Sathnam Sanghera

Episode Date: August 1, 2018

This week, journalist and author Sathnam Sanghera joins How To Fail and kicks off by saying how flattered he was to be asked to contribute to a podcast on failure because he hates hearing nice things said about himself. So that’s good.As well as discussing his failure to take a compliment, Sathnam talks movingly about growing up in a household where both his father and his sister had schizophrenia. At first, he tried to run away from accepting it and then when that didn’t work, he wrote a brilliant, award-winning memoir called The Boy With the Topknot which was later adapted for the BBC. (Harry Potter author J. K. Rowling is a fan).Sathnam talks about his social failure at university (and his inability to get a girlfriend for three years), as well as his failure to learn an instrument,  his failure to score a high Uber rating and his failure to read back his own handwriting moments after he’s written something down. Along the way, we cover his childhood job in a Wolverhampton sewing factory, the modern tendency to confuse anxiety with serious mental health issues, grief and how he coped with the death of his best friend, heartbreak, success, the concept of 'negative mindfulness', racist dogs and Sathnam’s undying love for George Michael and Club Tropicana.We also spend longer than necessary trying to remember the common colloquial phrase 'prepare for the worst, expect the best' which is embarrassing given that we both make a living from words. How To Fail is hosted by Elizabeth Day and produced by Chris Sharp  How To Fail is sponsored by Moorish The Boy with the Topknot is published by Penguin and available to buy here. Sathnam Sanghera’s website is here. Social Media: Elizabeth Day @elizabdaySathnam Sanghera @sathnamMoorish @moorishhumous Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Let's go seize the night. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Visit amex.ca slash yamex. Benefits vary by car and other conditions apply. Hello and welcome to How to Fail, the podcast that celebrates the things that haven't gone right. Hosted by author and journalist Elizabeth Day, that's me. This is a podcast about learning from our mistakes and understanding that why we fail ultimately makes us stronger. Because learning how to fail in life actually means learning how

to succeed better. My guest this week on How to Fail is the author and journalist Satnam Sanghera. A stellar columnist and feature writer on The Times, he's also the author of two books. His 2008 memoir, The Boy with the Topknot, recounted his discovery in his 20s that his father and sister were living with schizophrenia. It was moving, profound, and often unexpectedly comic, and was shortlisted for the Costa. When the TV adaptation aired last year, Satnam had the slightly surreal, if not entirely unpleasant experience of seeing himself portrayed on screen by actor Sacha Dwan. As an award-winning journalist, Satnam has interviewed everyone from Sadiq Khan to Samuel L. Jackson, but before

becoming a writer, he also worked in a sewing factory, at a burger chain, a hospital laundry, and once dressed up as a news bunny for live TV. Oh, and he graduated with a first in English from Cambridge. He's also someone who is constitutionally incapable of taking a compliment when it's delivered in person. So he's currently squirming with embarrassment opposite me. Yeah, can we get on to the failure? You're more comfortable talking about your myriad failings. Yes, I feel flattered that you've asked me that you thought of me when you had to do mean you're the first person who came to mind no I'm joking um but why do you think you're so resistant to having nice things said about you it's partly this Englishness isn't it you're the same you're very bad at taking a compliment but also it's the

Indian thing because my mum always always say, whenever someone praised you, or if you laughed, she would always say, you'll cry twice as much later. And it's that Indian thing. I think it also exists in Turkish culture, where if you're a very beautiful baby, they put black mark on your face, because to be admired is to attract the evil eye. And so to be admired is just not something I enjoy. the evil eye. And so to be admired is just not something I enjoy. That's so interesting, because I would have thought that then writing a memoir would be entirely counterintuitive, because you're drawing attention to yourself. Yeah, but you're drawing attention to all your failings, mainly. And also, with your first book, I don't know if you had this, I just didn't really expect anyone to read it. I wrote it for my mates. I think if I'd known it would turn into what it turned into,

it would have completely paralysed me. I think writing with an audience in mind is very different to writing, you know, for yourself. Because it is an amazing book and the TV adaptation was beautifully done and critically acclaimed and BAFTA nominated. I can take the credit for the for the film because I didn't make it. So I. So I can take the compliments when it comes to that. But yeah, another book. It's like having a baby. Not that I've had a baby, but you know what it's like. You write something and it has a life of its own.

And it's been 10 years since I wrote it. So it's weird that last night it was the BAFTAs and Arnold Palmer played my dad was up for a BAFTA. And it feels completely nothing to do with me. It kind of has a life of its own, doesn't it? But I read somewhere that at the first read-through, it was very emotional for you when you saw these actors basically playing parts of your life.

Well, yeah, and it was really intense, partly because I chose not to be involved, or I only got involved for short times. So I read the script and then I go to bed for three days because it was so stressful to read. You know, it deals with the most painful things I have ever been through. So it wasn't a massive amount of fun in that way. And it's, everyone's alive, fortunately, all my family. So it was weird walking into a room and seeing 10 actors sitting opposite me who were all playing members of my family. So how did you find it in preparation for this interview coming up with

incidents of failure in your life? Well I started off thinking god I can't think of any failures and I was literally going to talk about my Uber rating which is higher than yours right? No no we've had this discussion. Have we? I think yours is lower. No I'm 4.67. I'm 4.66 so we have similar levels of failure. I mean mine's's higher, so not that similar. But that's quite low for Uber, isn't it? I think that... I don't like to think of it as low as much as there's room for improvement.

There's room for betterment. I'm actually massively offended that my Uber rating is that low. Yeah. Because I think I'm a really nice passenger. I can imagine you'd be quite bossy when needed. What? I can definitely be bossy at

all I have no I don't care what route we take I'm completely in the hands of the driver it's just I don't like to talk that much yeah because I talk every day of my life for a living and ask people questions I don't want to have to do it in an uber we can stop this now if you want can we so much better um no so I was thinking I've got to talk about Uber rating. But actually, when you start writing down your failures, before I knew it, I had five sides of A4. And yeah, there's a lot of failures. Were they typed or handwritten? Oh, handwritten.

But in a way, because one of my failures is handwriting. Right. I can't read back my handwriting 10 minutes after I've written it. You can't read back your own handwriting? I've never heard of that before. Yeah, I don't know. There must be a word for it. Yeah, auto something. Either that or it was the beginning of dementia or something do you think

your handwriting used to be better it's excellent yeah yeah and then i learned shorthand as a reporter did you um i taught myself a version of shorthand that is it's probably legally not permissible in court no but it leaves me a lot of leeway for making up symbols myself and saying that they mean something. Yeah. Yeah. That sounds pretty mad. But yes, so it got worse with shorthand. And now I write this weird form of writing, which is a combination of shorthand and handwriting, which I can make sense of for 10 minutes. So you were very good at school. That's something I gleaned from your memoir. So were you, double first from Cambridge. But let's talk about you. No, thank you though. But you were very good at school. And one of the things that you want to talk about as being one of your failures is your time at Cambridge, because

it was pretty amazing for you to get to Cambridge, wasn't it? Yeah, I guess I was the first person in my family to go to university of my siblings and I was the youngest of four yeah and the first one in my entire massive extended family to go to Oxbridge so it was intense do you remember getting the letter saying that you got in yeah I remember really well I can remember everything about it it was a morning I opened it I remember my dad saying why can't you go to Wolverhampton which is a very sweet thing to say yeah because he just wanted me to stay I remember my dad saying, why can't you go to Wolverhampton? Which is a very sweet thing to say. Yeah. Because he just wanted me to stay.

I remember one of my sisters saying, where is Oxbridge anyway? And I remember my brother being almost in tears. And she's quite, I find it hard to think about it. It's quite emotional. And my mum was obviously delighted because she knew what it meant. But she'd not been there. But equally, it was a very sad time because I was leaving home. I was the first one to, you know,

the son leaving home was quite a big deal in a Punjabi family because you're meant to stay and look after your family. And my family were going through a really bad time then. So I felt delighted, but also really guilty. And I think everyone was happy for me, but equally there was a huge amount of poignancy about the whole thing. And they were going through a bad time just then because? My sister had just been committed.

So yeah, it was really painful. So my last year of school, A-levels, technically I was doing really well and I was head boy. I'd got a 2E offer for Cambridge. Everyone else envied me. But at the same time, my sister was falling apart and our family were completely falling apart. I didn't even have the word schizophrenia because I didn't look into it that much. All I knew is that, you know, there had been violence and it'd been very difficult and she'd been dragged away. And oddly, that summer, I ended up working in the hospital

laundry. So I was working this quite grim job, cleaning sheets that were covered in blood and guts. And my sister was in the same hospital, committed, in a psychiatric unit. And I'd go to see her at lunchtime in my white coat and people would think I was a doctor because I was Asian. Oh my God. It was quite surreal. And I found it very difficult to navigate. think I was a doctor because I was Asian. It was quite surreal. And I found it very difficult to navigate. So it was a really painful time. And actually, my parents went to India, which they'd never done before. They hadn't done for a very long time. I think that was their way of dealing with it. They didn't want to see me leave home. So actually, it was my English teacher who drove me to Cambridge.

It sounds like there are so many different lives going on there for one person, like a lot of plates that you were juggling, even the journey from the hospital laundry up to the ward where your sister was, the journey between your house in Wolverhampton to Cambridge. What was it like then arriving to this institution of higher education, which is amongst the most elite in the world. The one you went to. Yes. I was really excited, you know, in many ways, excited.

But I found it really socially bewildering. I think it's taken me 20 years to understand what happened. And there were kids there who were middle class who were pretending to be poor because that was a cool thing to do in the late 90s, right? Because Oasis and Bl blur and all that stuff. I was poor. I was on a full grant. And I was aspirational.

So I was pretending I wasn't. I didn't particularly want to talk about it. I couldn't even make sense of it. There was that weird thing also. I don't know if you had this. As soon as you arrived, somehow everyone else seemed to know each other. And then now I realize what happened. They all went to similar schools.

They literally knew each other. Having done very well at school in my grandma's school and being head boy it was a completely different social milieu and I just didn't understand it I don't think I did particularly well I made a couple of efforts I remember running for what's it called the union the college union yeah union. Yeah. I think I came last. Yeah. And I wrote, I ran a joke campaign and came last and I ran for varsity editorship. I mean, I was a music editor and I ran with the news editor at the time, Dan Roan, who's now a sports editor at the BBC. And he had a similar background to me. And I remember them saying, we don't believe a word you said in that interview. And we didn't get it. I was like, what the hell? I just didn't understand what was going going on and I think it's taken me a long time to understand actually it was back class

that's so interesting so this is one of your failures that you've you've um told me about which is the social failure at Cambridge yeah although I basically made three friends right and they've all felt the same so that there was solidarity in that and all of us have ended up doing very similar things in the sense that, one of them was John Oliver, who's now gone on to be a massive TV star. Never heard of him. Yeah.

I mean, he did quite well at Cambridge in that he was, I think, president of Footlights, but he never enjoyed it. He never felt part of it. He was from Bedford. Lachlan from Scotland, now TV presenter too to an artist. I think what happened as a result of us not being massively socially engaged

is that we put all our efforts into developing our passions. Yeah. You know, so I was freelancing for The Telegraph in my second year. Lachlan was painting, doing exhibitions. John was performing. And so it was actually a real gift to be rejected by the Cambridge establishment because I think I did a lot of bad writing and career in my system. I think there's something so interesting about British class because it's about people who know

the rules and the stuff being left unsaid that is almost as important as the stuff being said and it sounds to me like you've had quite a lot of that in your in your life of stuff being left unsaid that sometimes the most important thing yeah it's different forms of inarticulacy I think the British Punjabis are very inarticulate I can't particularly talk about mental illness or money and things like that but they're quite articulate with emotions whereas the English aren't particularly good at emotional stuff. So if you add it all together, you get a lot of unsaid things. So were you unhappy at Cambridge? I think I was confused and homesick.

But I loved the course. So I loved the course. And so I read a lot, studied a lot, and did a lot of journalism. Did you do a dissertation? I did. What was it on? I did London in the Modern Novel. Yeah. Yeah. Have I told you that before? You've told me that before, sorry. I didn't realise I'd asked you that before as well. I'm not from London and weirdly I've always been in love with London. I've always wanted to come here. I think you do if you want to live a life of the mind and you grow up in the provinces like you did um and i did your escape is london right

it's a world city at the end of the railway and so always wanted to be here you talk in your memoir about part of your social failure in cambridge being just not going out with anyone oh yeah i mean i i didn't have a girlfriend for three years that's kind of bizarre because i had one before at school and i had one straight afterwards. And so did Lachlan. He had one. Once the week we graduated, we all got girlfriends. I think that was partly, there were three of us and we needed each other and we just didn't want to lose them.

So we stopped each other. We jeopardised each other's love lives just so that we had a mate. It's a bit like the in-betweeners, but at Cambridge. Do you think you learned anything from from not academically obviously you did learn something academically first but do you think you learned anything from those three years of social failure oh absolutely I learned so much about how the upper middle class people work without even realizing I was learning it and it

was a great preparation for Fleet Street which is is full of these people. And so that was really useful. And also, I put my effort elsewhere. And so I'd rather be slightly miserable for three years at university, and then love real life. And occasionally, I meet people who were there with me, and they look back at their university years as the greatest years of their life. And I just think that's a bit sad. You wrote an amazing piece recently for the Times about access to Oxbridge. What do you think, are those universities doing enough right now to encourage access? It's taken me so long to understand what's going on there. Because if you've personally come from nowhere, and you end up at Oxbridge, and you end up at Plea Street, and you do quite well, it's very hard to realize that you're just an exception to the rule. So I used

to believe in grammar schools. I thought Oxbridge was fine. I thought Fleet Street didn't have a problem. And now, 20 years later, I'm like, oh, actually, grammar schools don't work. They allow a few tokens like me. Fleet Street has a massive problem with diversity. And Oxbridge, basically, the odds are against you if you didn't go to certain public schools but now I can see it very clearly and I love doing that piece because I think something is about to change you know and it's good to be part of the building momentum. Did your parents come and visit you in Cambridge? Oh god yes yeah they did my brother also very sweetly drove me down every term unbelievably painful because my mum would just sit there and cry.

Because she was so sad that you weren't living at home. Even now, all my nephews and nieces, I've got six nephews and nieces, all at university, and she was saying the other day, she was like, oh, my God, I'm so sorry I cried so much because now I don't care that they're leaving. I know they're going to come back. It's because you were the first. And it wasn't just her.

It was like my brother was crying too. Everyone just got really upset. Constantly. They already calmed down in the third year. By which point I was like, Jesus, this is leaving a bit late. So it was just fraught with guilt and pain for no reason.

We didn't achieve anything. Yeah. I'm sure you've been asked this several hundred times, but I'm just going to ask you it again. How has your family reacted to the tv drama they loved it probably more than me because with the book too I spent majority of my energy went into making sure they were happy with it so everything in the book is there with their permission I added things they wanted me to I took out things they wanted me to

with the script I sat down and talked to them at length. My mum only realised, I think, halfway into a four-hour conversation that it wasn't a documentary. And then she was like, I don't care, it's actors. But they all loved it. And I really wanted to make sure they were part of it. And so they came to a couple of the screenings and they loved it. My brother was a bit upset that the actor playing him wasn't built enough because my brother's a bodybuilder. That was the only complaint really. But yeah, it was an amazing experience for them. For me, mainly much more stressful because I felt

responsibility. Because your dad doesn't read English, so he hasn't read your book. My dad, he's very unwell. So he's got one of the symptoms of schizophrenia is that some people have awareness, some people don't. He doesn't have much awareness. So he's unaware of the whole thing. His life is unchanged by my career and my writing. So, you know, it makes no difference to him, really. Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest? This is a time of great foreboding.

These words supposedly uttered by a king over 800 years ago. These words supposedly uttered by a king over 800 years ago set in motion a chain of gruesome events and sparked cult-like devotion across the world. I'm Matt Lewis. Join us as we unwrap the enigma and get to the heart of what really happened to Thomas Beckett by subscribing to Gone Medieval from History Hit. Hi, I'm Matt Lewis, historian and host of a new chapter of Echoes of History, a Ubisoft podcast brought to you

by History Hit. Join me and world-leading experts every week as we explore the incredible real-life history that inspires the locations, the characters and the storylines of Assassin's Creed. Listen and follow Echoes of History, a Ubisoft podcast brought to you by History Hit, wherever you get your podcasts. casts. Do you think thinking more broadly, because you've done an enormous amount of work, unconsciously and otherwise, in raising mental health as a necessary thing to talk about, and not to hide and not to feel ashamed or secretive over. Is there a broader point to be made here about does society as a whole view mental health issues as a failure of some sort? I feel like I haven't done a massive amount mainly because I ran away from it for such

a long time. I mean I vaguely knew my father and sister were unwell and I ran away to London and wrote about the media and celebrities. Also when I'm offered opportunities now to talk about it or go on to boards of charities I almost always say no because it's cost so much of my personal life. I can't stand spending any more energy putting any more energy into it. I find it drains me. I find it exhausting because two of the closest people in my life have a very difficult disease. So if anything, I feel bad I'm not doing enough. In terms of awareness, I tend to do one thing a year. I agree to one thing. So I'm doing something this year. I'm doing a keynote address at the Royal College of Psychiatrists annual convention. And I'm talking about this, about mental health awareness.

I actually think some of the campaigns haven't had positive results. People are more aware. But it's also created confusion. I mean, people confuse anxiety, schizophrenia. They're two very difficult, different illnesses. And actually, you could say they have opposite symptoms. And I think when you're talking about severe mental illness, it's much more difficult than depression,

which has lots of advocates, almost no advocates for schizophrenia because a lot of people who have it can die young. The symptoms are really difficult. These are people, more often than not, you will cross the road to avoid, and they often don't turn into celebrities who are going to have massive campaigns, you know?

So, yeah, it's difficult. I think it's much more complicated than it seems. And also for people with my father and my sister's condition, it can be slightly annoying that there's been increased awareness and therefore more need for resources. And the resources remain the same. So you've got people with very serious illnesses chasing the same resources as some people with mild anxiety.

And I think that hasn't helped. Cont realize to say that's fascinating yeah how will you write that speech how long does the speech have to be well as ever anything to do this subject I'm leaving to the last minute because it's not a fun thing to say but I think it's important I think there's also this whole it's become an industry. The wellness industry is trading off this mental health thing. And wellness and mindfulness is completely different from depression. I mean, there's so much confusion happening at the moment. And there's always like magazines now, like Happy Happy Fall magazine, where they talk about depression like it's something you can just get out of your head by being positive. So I just think it's created a lot of confusion.

you can just get out of your head by being positive. So I just think it's created a lot of confusion. One of the things that you mentioned in your memoir, and anyone who follows you on social media will know, is that... Brexit. I was actually going to say George Michael. Is that George Michael got you through some of the dark times of your life.

See, I'm laughing, but it's deadly serious. Yes, I know. I'm very wary of bringing this up because I don't want to make you emotional. I have irony about George. I know what people think. I know people think he's ridiculous. He was ridiculous.

His music was a bit silly. But I will never disown him. He did amazing things to people. When he died, the stories that emerged after his death about the fact that he'd paid for a couple's IVF. It's not about him. For me, it's not about the person. I could have met him several times and I never did.

I always left the room. Because for me, it's not about the person. It's not even about the image. For me, it was about the music. Because basically, you're growing up in an immigrant household, right? This is my justification. You don't have people in your life to tell you what's tasteful and what's not tasteful.

You just respond to things in a pure way. So we heard Club Tropicana and I was like, to tell you what's tasteful and what's not tasteful. You just respond to things in a pure way. So we heard Club Tropicana, and I was like, that is the most amazing sound I've ever heard in my life. I then grew up, and you go to grammar school in Cambridge, and you end up on Saturday Review, and you're like, I know the artistic reasons why Club Tropicana is not great art, but still it meant a huge amount for me I will not disown the effect that you had on me you know I just also growing up in a very difficult household

it was pure escapism you want pure pop music which is why Bollywood is just so well in India I mean Bollywood fans suffering in extreme poverty and yet they still want to go and watch an escapist bullwood movie so that's what it means to me it's escapism and also actually he went from writing really cheerful pop music to really depressing actually quite good soul music that's probably the journey of my teenage years what's your all-time favorite george michael track oh god see i detect mockery in your question no that is not i was thinking what mine was that's I detect mockery in your question. No, that is not. I was thinking what mine was, that's all. No mockery. I had a piece of Kylie on my wall, so. I love Kylie too.

Well, I mean, that's correct. You're right to love Kylie. The thing is, I think you can love Jay-Z and you can like George. Both things are possible. My favourite George song. That's difficult, man. I can't, I can't. That's the question causing you most trauma. this is the one I'd pick

because everyone knows it's freedom probably love that one yeah come on okay no one dislikes that surely

no it's excellent and the video was amazing as well yeah it wasn't in it for one thing was that the one with all the supermodels

in it yeah because one of your failings you've said is that you failed to learn an instrument yes I did if I'm allowed to be a bit earnest I went to a private school on a fully assisted place

so Mrs Thatcher paid for my fees my parents couldn't the annual fees were more than my parents earned in a year a lot of the kids in my year were middle class kids and they all learned instruments and a lot of them did. And I remember desperately, because I was really into music, stuff beyond George. It was like the thing in my life that I adored the most. I remember asking my mum if I could learn an instrument, and she said, no, we can't afford it.

I don't think my childhood was actually quite happy in many ways, but that's the one thing I feel bad about. I just, I actually occasionally think, God, I wish we weren't so poor. What instrument would you have learned? Piano, probably. But I actually think it's worked out okay. Like many journalists, I began as a music journalist. Did you?

No. No? Were you a literary journalist? No, I was a diarist oh yeah a lot of male writers are frustrating musicians in my experience and a lot of journalists feature writers started off as music journalists so I'd met a lot of musicians wrote a lot about music had a relationship with a musician and I realized something now which is writing is better. Writing is better than being a musician. It just involves more intellect.

I mean, in a way, you're creating your own symphony from words. Yeah, your own terrible sound. Also, one thing I've really realised about so much art is that being a fan is a wonderful thing. You don't have to meet George Michael. You don't have to meet your favourite writers. Actually, meeting them slightly ruins your enjoyment of the work. I've interviewed authors I've admired for decades

and then you can't read their book for a couple of years. Have you interviewed Salman Rushdie? Yes. It's weird how you knew that. Yes, I have. You've never told me that, by the way. I just know that you like Salman Rushdie's work. Yeah, I do like his never told me that by the way i just know that you like someone rushy's work yeah i do like his work and that's the thing i mean you don't need people are imperfect people are imperfect yeah you know and it's definitely the case with music i do think one of the greatest

pleasures in life is to go to a gig and not not go backstage you don't know the musicians you just enjoy it it's an incredibly pure feeling and also I think there's more of a career in writing than in music it's really difficult music so I'm actually glad see I hate going to gigs because I hate having to stand you're very tall you imagine you can see everything I am tall yes I am and I can see things I just don like, I don't like to have to pay to then stand on some sticky floor that's got Red Bull spilled on it from decades previously. Really?

I find gigs are the most, aren't they the most enjoyable form of art? Like a live gig. What's more enjoyable than that? Don't say the theatre. No, I would never say the theatre. I think going to the cinema and seeing an incredible film

in the middle of the day on your own is possibly revealing too much about yourself. Yeah, missing out on daylight. No, I have been to some great gigs in my time, but I feel that they're few and far between. Oh, no, I feel very differently. What's the greatest gig you've ever been to? That's like the George Michael question.

Yeah. Probably Frank Ocean. Yeah. And Brixton Academy. I love Brixton Academy because it's just something about that venue. It's slightly sloped and so it feels very intimate. And something about Brixton too. I love it there.

Do you think, because you do do an enormous amount of interviews, do you think... Not as many as you. I actually don't do very many at all. Well, the ones you do make more impact. I don't do celebrities anymore, partly because I... You did Sadiq Khan. He's a politician. I don't do many celebrities anymore because I'm so rude.

And the PRs get the sense that you're going to be rude. And as we know, they pick people who are going to be nice, which is why they pick you. Well, that makes me sound like a shit journalist. No, but also, people don't want to read. People don is why they pick you. Well, that makes me sound like a shit journalist. No, but also people don't want to read. People don't want to read beef. Feel free to contradict me, though, by the way.

Look, I'm not going to indulge you in this weird lack of self-esteem you have, but people also don't want to read beef about celebrities necessarily. Like your Kylie interview. I don't want to read dirt about Kylie. I want to read about how great she is. That's interesting. I quite like reading about beef, but that's not the kind of interviewer I am. I'm always more interested in who someone actually is.

Yeah. But my question to you was whether you think having done interviews has made you better at analysing yourself. No, I think I did interviews all wrong in my 20s. I don't know if you did this. The way to accelerate your career as a feature writer in your 20s is to be introduced to your heroes and very successful people

and be incredibly rude. Yes. You did that? I did. I was so rude about so many people. I don't actually regret much of them, but there's been three or four people I've apologised to. Me too.

There was one big person I apologised to. It's obviously what we're trying to do. It's trying to impress our bosses. And also because you assume you're never going to see them again, but then life is long. And suddenly not only are they at a party, you then sometimes have to have professional relationships with these people.

And life is complicated. And also then, and you've had this experience, then you get interviewed badly, and you realise that actually if you're being a bit arsey that day, maybe something's going wrong in your life, and actually give them a bit of slack. Are you someone who has regrets or not? You know what, I don't think I do.

Not many. There's a couple of people I've apologised to professionally, but I stand by a lot of my stuff. No, I don't really have many regrets. There's probably one or two relationships I wish I hadn't had. But that's it. One relationship. I hope she's listening. What's her name and surname and address? She'll know. Is that because you feel that you learn a lot from mistakes that you don't have regrets I mean is that it's partly coming from nowhere because whatever happens I know I've done better than

anyone else I grew up with actually you know what it's partly my best friend died when I was about 22 he died of cancer and it's like his story has put a mental block in how low I can ever go. So if something's going really bad for me, I always think, actually, you know what? I'm alive. And James never got to see this. So there's that as well. Is that a pretty morbid answer? No, it's a beautiful answer.

Yeah. And also, actually, it's being sick. You know, I got really sick in my 20s with a very exotic brain parasite and ended up in three hospitals. And I think a near-death experience in your 20s can really focus your mind. You know, it made me take a lot of risks. So I've left, twice, left two brilliant jobs to write books. And that's because I always think James and also me, I just think, could not be here.

Might as well do it. Did you get a chance to say goodbye to James? I did, but I was so young and he was the first person I'd lost. So obviously as you get older, you realise, I realised I would have done it in a different way. But I'm glad I did. I remember writing, I was a news reporter in the FT,

and he was in a band. And I remember just concocting this completely stupid news story just to get his picture in the FT with his unsigned band. He came and stayed with me. I remember him saying to me, he stayed a weekend, and he kept on saying wow god your life wow and all I was was like a graduate trainee in the newspaper but from where we were from it was wow it was incredible just like leaving Wolverhampton was amazing and so I always

think of that and like everything that's happened to me since it's like I wonder what he would have made it also I wonder what he would have done so yes sorry morbid no really um really moving actually there is no seamless link from that to the other failure you've given me are we back to our uber ratings we've done the uber ratings have we done fear of death are you scared of dying yourself no i'm don't think i am that's good well i'm sure i'll i'll crap myself when it's about to happen but no people always say i'm obviously morose but i see myself as a constructive pessimist you know suppose expect the worst for the best for the worst expect the worst plan for the worst prepare for the best something something like that yes so expect the worst plan for no it's

something anyway the point is it makes you realistic and so I'm just very realistic everything's a bonus yeah I've never expected anything I have no ambitions I've never expected anything in my life my only ambition in life was to be a journalist and so that happened when I was about 22 I sometimes really pity people like David Cameron and Boris Johnson who want to be a journalist. And so that happened when I was about 22. I sometimes really pity people like David Cameron and Boris Johnson who want to be prime minister, and obviously David achieved that. But it's a curse because nothing's ever going to be fun for them, is it, until they've achieved that ambition. Do you think you're good at being in the present?

Weirdly, in a miserable way, I am. It's a really negative form of mindfulness. But, yeah, way, I am. It's a really negative form of mindfulness. But yeah, I think I am. I regularly do stuff just because I think it's important to make memories, as it were. But you're good at not overplanning your diary. This is the conversation we've had many times because I overplan. So you're quite good at not... Yeah, your diary is like a form of mental disorder.

Yeah. And actually just listening to your diary makes me stressed out. Okay. Yeah. I'm sorry. But it diary makes me stressed out. Okay. Yeah. I'm sorry. But it makes you happy. Does it make you happy?

I don't know if it does make me happy. I suppose my fear is that someday I'll stop being asked to do things or meet people. That's not going to happen. Really? No. Okay. Would you still ask me to do stuff? Can we have that deal? You might actually enjoy not doing so much stuff.

So I do a lot. I mean, a lot of my friends and you take the mickey out of my Instagram, which is a private account, where every picture's the same. So I will often go and walk for two, three hours a day on the same route in Hampstead and across Hampstead Heath. But it makes me happy, so I do it. You used to run across Hampstead Heath. Yes.

This is my seamless link now. Here it is. Yeah, on gradients. This is a long-running joke about how I don't like to run up hills, but I can run on the flat. And I can run up hills, it's just that I choose not to, in much of the same way as I choose not to go to gigs that will make me depressed. But if push came to shove, I could run up a hill.

And I do. Anyway, you used to be like a serious runner. Well, not serious. Serious compared to the fact that I was never a runner. You used to run for like four hours. Yeah, like Forrest Gump. My Forrest Gump years, I would run everywhere. It was bizarre. I would like run probably five, six miles a day in the heath. Wherever I went, and as you know, when you're an author you go to places i'd run so i'd go to bath and i'd run i'd go on a story you'd run to bath no i'd arrive to in bath and then i'd run for five six miles it was a great way to see everywhere it's a good way to see i would run along the beach and go and be chased by dogs and children and cows i ran in rio it was an incredible thing it was incredible nothing in my life has made me as happy as running.

Wow, that's a huge thing to say. I know, especially given I can't do it anymore. But yeah, it was an incredible feeling. So what age were you when this kicked in? It was my 30s. It was a really odd thing. Unexpected development. Everyone around me couldn't quite make sense of it.

And now I don't run anymore because I tore my hamstring. It's like it never happened. So what made you run in the first place? Can you remember the first run in that period of time that you took? Yeah, it was agonising. I always thought I'd never be a runner, you know. When you start running, it's really painful, isn't it? And you feel like you're going to die.

But then, like Forrest, I just kept running. But what was the impetus to take that first run? Do you remember? Was there something in your life? Because my impetus to take up running was when I was going through a divorce. And I wanted to remind myself that I could propel myself just through my own sheer bloody-mindedness and physical force of will. And that was really important for me to be able to move

when another part of my life was in a state of stasis. You know what? This is such a bloody cliche and there's so many memoirs about this. But yeah, it was the same. It was a heartbreak. It's like literally trying to run away from your pain. It's like when you're running, you know, the physical pain overtakes the emotional pain. That's my theory. I think we should have no more books on this subject though. I agree with you. But I was very quickly over the pain, and then I just carried on running.

I carried on running in Wolverhampton, which is odd because no one runs in Wolverhampton. You could tell people were thinking about calling the police. Also, you just get chased by dogs a lot if you're a brown person in Wolverhampton. And this led to my theory about some dogs being racist, which my family ridiculed me for years. But now there's been a paper written on it. Apparently dogs can be racist. A certain breed of dogs or just how they're raised? Yes, they reflect the prejudices of their owners. So in London, very rarely get chased by dogs. Wolverhampton always get chased by dogs. Almost always. What's that about? It's why you like cats. I like cats too, yeah, like you. Although you did have a pet cat who

hated you. Yes, Harry. Some cats are bad. Anyway, so as you mentioned there, you tore your hamstring. Did that happen while you were running? Yeah, I was preparing for a marathon in a mad way. It was during the 2012 Olympics. I remember it really well because I suddenly couldn't run and I found it so painful. I missed it so much I couldn't watch half the Olympics. I just couldn't stand watching people run because I found it so painful. I missed it so much, I couldn't watch half the Olympics.

I just couldn't stand watching people run because I missed it so much. Even now, when I can't sleep, I imagine doing my old route. Because one of your failures is failure at sport. During my running period, one of the things that really struck me is that throughout my childhood, no one ever encouraged me to do sport. And if anything, it became a running joke, as it were, that I was crap at sport. And it was like, as soon as I did it, I was like, I'm not crap.

I'm completely okay. And I think it's that thing is if you're the class nerd or you're good at a lot of academic subjects, people expect you to be crap at sport. It was those kind of 1970s and 1980s PE teachers who just kind of encouraged everyone. And so I was always last to be picked. I bet you were too.

No. Maybe you were good at netball or something. I was actually quite good at netball, but rubbish at everything else. Your height. Well, I wasn't always so freakishly tall. And I never... I did play hockey.

These are all things I play, but I just was... I wouldn't even say distinctly average. I think I was distinctly below average. Hockey is like one of those sports that people who are crap at sport, like me, were quite good at. Hockey was the one thing I would play. But the thing that annoyed me about hockey is that you could only use one side of the stick. That just seems so stupid to me.

Yes. You know, I think India have won almost no Olympic medals ever. And yet they've won Olympic medals for hockey. Oh. So this affects my theory yeah that people are bad at sport are actually good at hockey it's like a non-sport but how did you cope with your with your with your when it sounds like you don't actually think you failed at sport it's other people failed you yeah yeah yeah yeah i don't think i would have been good at it but equally i mean jesus as teacher, surely your duty is to encourage people

to do things, you know? And if you don't, I just gave up. So I never did it. I wish I had. So it's more about their failure, I guess. What's the lesson of that story? I don't know. You're going to tell me, aren't you? I should have thought about this, shouldn't I? I guess just because other people think you're going to be a failure, it doesn't mean you will be. Do you think of yourself as a success? Yeah. Is that a weird thing to say, yes?

No. No, just because everyone, all my family worked in factories and all that was expected of me was I would maybe get an admin job in a local bank because the most successful person I knew was one of my cousins who was an assistant bank manager in Birmingham, Midshires. And that was all that was expected of me. So yeah, I guess I'm a success compared to that. What did you do in the sewing factory? Thing is the sewing factory, I realised, I've realised as a result of therapy,

throughout my life, I've kind of joked about it and said, you know, I remember when I applied to Cambridge, you had to, in the UCAS form, you had to list any jobs you had and i wrote child slave labor seven years and i remember the tutor having a good old guffaw at that and this is what i wanted as a reaction but it wasn't a joke actually i think it slightly scarred me and um you know i was working in a factory for up to 90 hours a week at the age of 10. I was using heavy machinery. It'd be illegal to do that now. And not only that, I was doing more work than any of the adults because my mum worked in the factory and I wanted her to be proud.

They still never gave me a pay rise. It was 50p an hour. And when I think about that, and I think about it in relation to learning an instrument, the thousands of hours I did in the factory, I could have learnt an instrument. I could have learnt a language so it was wasted time and that's the only aspect of my childhood that slightly embitters me because I think it's wasted time and I remember at school the first year of this posh school we had to do a summer project and all the kids came back with

these incredible projects their parents had obviously helped them with being printed out and with amazing pictures and I did a project on the factory and how they made a blouse and I tried to type it on my sister's typewriter with full of spelling mistakes I've still got it and I look at it and I just think why didn't anyone realize I was being exploited you know it wasn't a joke know, I was spending every weekend of my first year at school and all the summer holidays at this bloody factory being illegally employed. But I think it was beyond their experience. That probably never happened in the history of Wolverhampton Grammar School. But I wish someone would help me. Do you think you use humour as deflection?

I think we all do. It's an English thing, isn't it? And I've just watched Patrick Melrose. I mean, often people in Britain use humour to deflect from serious abuse. But I think we journalists sometimes have a tendency to turn everything into a charming anecdote. And actually, there can be a lot of pain there, you know. Yeah, I think the whole factory thing is much more complicated than I've ever really talked about or admitted to myself

you said this really beautiful thing in an interview that you gave which I'm going to embarrassingly quote back to you you said that if you're not embarrassed by the person you were 10 years ago then you're probably not trying to live life deeply enough how embarrassed are you by the person you were 10 years ago you know what I'm not that embarrassed obviously I'm slightly embarrassed by some of my choices but I'm very different and it's good that you're growing right when I would think of my younger self I don't know if you have this feeling I just envy my younger self it's full of confidence I don't know if you have this feeling. I just envy my younger self. It's full of confidence. I don't know where it came from. With all my nephews and nieces now,

I think there's a whole new generation of kids who are growing up in a much more anxious world. I think it's because of social networking. And I didn't have any of that. I don't know how I had the confidence to go from Wolverhampton to Fleet Street. It's an incredible amount of... I mean, I got rejected three, four hundred times. You know, I couldn't get any work experience. I think I got one or two work experience slots.

And it was just complete fluke I ended up on Fleet Street. How did you end up on Fleet Street? The Financial Times. And basically the way it worked is there was a guy in a year ahead of me at college, Indian guy, Gautam Malkani. He'd gotten to the FT scheme. And I applied, I rang him and said, what did they ask you? He told me every question they asked him.

And they asked every single question. And a lot of the questions I never would have been able to answer. So stuff like, how do you feel about the Indian budget? And I'd learned the answer off by heart by learning The Economist. What are the arguments for and against monetary unions? I wouldn't be able to answer that question now, but I gave a fluent five-minute answer. So it just shows you, actually, connections, right?

But he was like a working-class kid from Hounslow who's become a novelist too. And so I got a lucky break with that, you know? And the second part of that quote was about living life deeply enough. Do you think you are living life deeply enough today? I think I've lived it too deeply. I think you can take it too far. In that I feel like if I have a midlife crisis,

it would be a reverse midlife crisis, in that I haven't done the normal things. It's like we've travelled the world, right? And we've met all our heroes and written books and done the things people always want to do, right? But I've not had a family and babies. And even more basic, I've never owned a car and I haven't got a garden. So I find myself...

You've got a roof terrace. It's not quite enough. I always wanted a garden. And so I find myself... You've got a roof terrace. It's not quite enough. I always wanted a garden. And so I find myself longing to do the basic things. It's because when there's a choice, I always take the challenging choice. But now I'm thinking, maybe I should save for my pension

and buy a house with a garden and a secondhand Mercedes. I call my uncles. I feel like you should aspire to a new Mercedes. You think so? Oh, they're a waste of money though. See, I ultimately am my uncles. I feel like you should aspire to a new Mercedes. You think so? Oh, that'll waste some money, though. See, I ultimately am my uncles. So, yeah, it's a weird way to live your life, really, isn't it?

Yeah. So do you think, you don't think you're living deeply enough? No, I think I've lived... You've lived too deeply and now you want to be more shallow. I want to be more shallow and more basic. Okay. Am I getting there? Yeah.

I think you're succeeding at being more basic yeah no I don't think you'll ever escape your own depth but that's a good thing yeah I I think there's sometimes a lot to be said for just doing things out of routine sometimes yeah there's a great book called um what matters most it's a great book called What Matters Most. It's a therapy book, but it's very acclaimed. And his theory in it is the secret of life is to fail at ever greater things. The idea being, I think one of the examples he uses is children, is that when people have children and you ask them, are you happy? They'll say, no, I'm knackered. I hate every minute of it.

I'm tired. I can't do the things I want to do. But if you ask them, do you regret your decision? They'll say, no, because it adds meaning to my life. But I think it's not just children you can do that with. Actually, that applies to many things. So writing books is really hard. It often makes authors really embittered and unhappy.

But they're failing at an ever greater thing. You're trying your best. You're making the best of life. So I think that's what it's about, basically. I love that. And it's an excellent note to end on. Fail at ever greater things. Of course, it links to the theme.

It does. I thought you'd done that on purpose. No, I completely forgot your theme. It was serendipity. Satnav Sangira, thank you so much.